Red Road

A film set in Glasgow. Jackie watches security cameras. She sits in a room facing a wall of screens, following streets, car parks and tower blocks, and calling the police when she has to. She lives alone. She is distant from her family and there is a loss in her past; the film does not say what for a long time. One night she sees a man on the screens. She knows him. From that moment she stops doing her job and starts watching him: she turns the camera on him, keeps the recordings, and finally goes out into the street after him. From there the film is about closing in. Jackie enters the block where he lives, gets to know the people around him and forms a plan. What the narrative is interested in is not surveillance but decision: the woman knows what she is going to do, and the film keeps why until last. The title comes from a real place: Red Road was the name of a group of high-rise blocks in Glasgow, since demolished. It was made inside a project: three directors were given the same characters and each was to make their own film. This is the first, and the characters come from that shared pool. Kate Dickie plays Jackie. Tony Curran and Martin Compston are in the cast. Andrea Arnold wrote and directed; it is her first feature. The film won a jury prize at Cannes. Who it is for: anyone who likes hard British realism and slow suspense. Who it is not for: anyone troubled by explicit sex and harsh scenes; the film holds them long.