The Arbor
Directed By: Clio Barnard
Featuring: Andrea Dunbar, Manjinder Virk, Christine Bottomley
Director of Photography: Ole Bratt Birkeland, Editors: Nick Fenton and Daniel Goddard, Production Designer: Matthew Button, Original Music: Harry Escott and Molly Nyman
Rated: Not Rated, but violent language and a lot of talk of life at its most horrifying.
The old adage about writing is “write what you know.” Many people take this too much to heart, and thus the number of novels, plays, and films about 20-somethings trying to write have becomes more than a cliché but instead a nuisance. But Andrea Dunbar never had that problem, and her play, The Arbor, is instead a perilously disturbing drama about growing up in a slum in Yorkshire.
But director Clio Barnard’s film The Arbor is not an adaptation of Ms. Dunbar’s groundbreaking play, but a documentary of some sorts, and an exploration of the life around that area. Part documentary, part feature film, and all fascinating, The Arbor explores the life of Ms. Dunbar and her children, in particular one whose path recreated the mistakes of her mother.
