Hi Alice.

Having referred to you in Jez’s forum I thought I should validate your comments with a response, particularly as I agree with your perspective.

My intention in this film was to address two issues I’ve encountered in my own life. Firstly that those friends of mine from heavily damaged backgrounds (paedophiliac, domestic, wartorn) are often curiously meticulous about their appearance sometimes to the point of dysfunction. Secondly that when men beat women they are often voicing a frustration at their inability to control that woman. The woman, in her long term defense, ends up exhibiting qualities that we would normally associate with luxury goods. She will make a place inside herself that is cold, distant, unattainable and deeply, if not unilaterally, exclusive. You could easily use these words to describe the new Rolls Royce or a diamond Cartier necklace.

To try and show this dynamic in a quick fix format I wanted to juxtapose the visceral and the luxurious. Each punch would produce not its expected bodily ingredient but a luxury goods replacement. Pearls for teeth, red silk for blood, sapphires for bruising. The man literally builds the walls of his own exclusion with his bare hands.

We didn’t succeed. We had to roll with the equipment available and had not a penny for post-prod (and frankly got seriously out-vomitted by Millie in Jez’s film). So eventually settled for something ultimately, and slightly uncomfortably, ‘poetic’.

Finally, I should add, I’m not drawing from 2nd, 3r or 4th hand experiences. I’ve helped a number of women through child and domestic abuse, not as a physician but as a friend with a knack for solving psychological puzzles.

By Brooke Taylor at 11:25 Wed 16 Apr 2008
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Why did you get Daisy Lowe to be in it?

By Karl Fuler at 11:39 Wed 16 Apr 2008
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Good point. But I would guess our production happened like alot of other people's on this campaign. You have an idea and no budget and are trying to run with that idea; you pick up ingredients as you go. I hadn't confirmed anyone for the part and Trevor (the DP) had met Daisy. She said she was game she's a pleasure to work with and off we went. Same with the bloke; I spent two weeks trying unsuccessfully to cast an aging boxer (panicking we were going to have to use my scrawny bod) and two days before the shoot in walked our friend Momo between airports, a former athlete with a face that's got more character than a 'Goodfellas' extra..hey presto casting over.

By Brooke Taylor at 13:20 Wed 16 Apr 2008
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Dear Brooke. I’m into your indentification of these ideas. They’re challenging and complex and not well or widely understood – all the more reason to take articulation of ‘em on here. If you don’t get it right the first go so what? Trial and error. I wonder if budget was no option or you could do it again what changes would you make to bring it more toward your original intentions?

By Alice Prin at 19:49 Wed 16 Apr 2008
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nice to see you back alice

By harley at 19:58 Wed 16 Apr 2008
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Nice to see you back indeed...I thought I'd scared you into the underbrush with my long-winded outburst. To answer your question I would try and draw a clearer line between the masculine and feminine. As a gay friend of mine pointed out a while back, he said: "You don't know what a joke you (heteros) are to the gay community. As gays we speak the same language, same with lesbians but we are honestly amazed that you lot ever manage to coordinate your coupling because your languages are so different". And I suppose I would have liked to make the violence much more violent and Raging Bull-ish and the feminine response that much more tranquil and indifferent as her body produce these ridiculous luxury items to show how absurd it is to shout at someone in the wrong language. It's similar to the torture dynamic in Lions For Lambs; torturing someone more and more because they are literally incapable of responding to your question.

By Brooke Taylor at 13:02 Thu 17 Apr 2008
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