On Falling: Film Review Dir/scr. Laura Carreira. UK/Portugal. 2024. 104mins Intense, Enveloping Experience "The film is about migrant alienation,
On Falling: Film Review
Dir/scr. Laura Carreira. UK/Portugal. 2024. 104mins
Intense, Enveloping Experience
"The film is about migrant alienation, specifically those set on the cold automated factory floor, can be grimly authentic to the point where the audience itself is also cut adrift." Carreira’s feature debut, working with Ken Loach’s Sixteen Films, is an empathetic inheritance of his mantle with an enveloping portrait of loneliness. Empire Pickers’ Aurora (Joana Santos) is a young ‘picker’ in a giant fulfillment warehouse in Scotland, coming from Portugal, but she could be any lonely soul who has tried to break past small talk into a deeper human connection.
Film’s Setting and Context
"The film is set in a giant fulfillment center, where goods are packed randomly to keep pickers alert (the production claims authenticity, and there’s no reason to suspect otherwise). It’s as if Nomadland had no friendly van at the end of the day. We start with Aurora and her little automatic reader machine, which impatiently beeps if she takes too long to find an item, yet could be the most responsive thing in her life."
Aurora’s Struggle
"Ambient sound only, some street casting) On Falling is more daring in its juggling of emotions over a restrained run-time, always clinging to a quiet determination to put the viewer inside one lonely, little life, and all the high risks and hopes that brings. There is every reason for excitement about Laura Carreira’s future."
International Sales and Production Details
- International sales: Goodfellas, Flavien Eripret feripret@goodfellas.fr
- Producers: Jack Thomas-O’Brien, Mario Patrocinio
- Cinematography: Karl Kürten
- Production design: Andy Drummond
- Editor: Helle le Fevre
- Main cast: Joana Santos, Inês Vaz, Piotr Sikora, Jake McGarry, Neil Leiper
Conclusion
Thanks to the tight team-work between Carreira and her intuitive lead actor, On Falling will grow to become an intense, enveloping experience. Few won’t remember some time in their lives where they were as locked out as Aurora, although not so many will have experienced the risks of being a strange person in such a strange land. It’s good to remember, because the situation Carreira paints so vividly certainly doesn’t belong to the past.
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104 minutes
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