Censor at Berlinale 2021
Written By: Margaux Fortier
Is what we watch affecting how we think and react to the world around us? Censor, directed by Prano Bailey-Bond, weaves a plot that questions the nature of influencing ideas and past trauma into a suspenseful journey. The film was part of the Berlinale 2021 festival programme and audiences experienced the growing fear and anger of the UK’s battle of censorship of the mid 1980s.
Enid, played by Niamh Algar, works as a movie censor when the government starts cracking down on what can be shown on screen. A recent violent crime gets the public scrutinizing the standards that Enid’s department is following and questions arise of the influence that images have on the mind of the viewer. Would watching a violent movie inspire violence in the audience or is the violence in the film a reflection of what is already happening in real life?
Enid lives a solitary life but is haunted by the knowledge that her sister went missing at the age of 7 and was never heard from again. To make matters worse, Enid was with her on the day that she went missing but has no memory of what happened. It all seems to be in the past, with her parents acquiring a death certificate so they can process their grief, until Enid is watching a film at work that seems eerily similar to the situation that she and her sister were in all those years ago. This sends Enid into a spiral to figure out if the new film is simply a coincidence or if the director, Frederick North, knows something about what happened to her sister. The more she looks into the past films of this director, she starts seeing a woman who looks like the adult version of her sister and her mind starts to make assumptions about what really happened. Tension grows with every scene as Enid gets deeper into her own psyche and further convinces herself that she can find out what happened with every step forward.
Director Prano Bailey-Bond researched the film extensively before writing the script. “In the early to mid 1980s when VHS first came about there was a boom in low-budget horror being created, as these films could now go direct to video and direct to the home. There was no form of censorship in place for video as it was a new piece of technology – the films being censored were those screening in cinemas. So, off the back of this there was an outburst of social hysteria and moral panic - people thought that these videos were going to corrupt society and give birth to the next generation of murderers and rapists. At the same time, you have the backdrop of Thatcher, industrial collapse, job losses. I find it really interesting - you have this rise in crime being reported, probably because there was a lot of poverty, and then there’s VHS and violence in film – the easy scapegoat for what was going on politically. It poses this idea that as humans we are so afraid of ourselves, like in some people’s minds we are just one step away from becoming a murderer, as though you could just watch a film and your moral compass is completely thrown out of the window. CENSOR was a way to dive into some of these ideas – the idea of the moral compass, and how that fear of ourselves can be the most dangerous thing of all.”
Censor has a visual and storytelling quality that will keep the audience wondering what will happen next. From the Writer/Director Prano Bailey-Bond to Director of Photography Annika Summerson to Production Designer Paulina Rzeszowska to Producer Helen Jones, the women behind Censor have put together a film that builds dark suspense and will keep viewers on the edge of their seats.
Censor is available to rent online and is playing in select theaters worldwide.
Trailer available here: https://youtu.be/KRrhXjH1M70
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10329614/