Mouth to Mouth- 2005

'Mouth to Mouth'

'Mouth to Mouth' is a British film starring Ellen Page. It was directed by Alison Murray who was from Nova Scotia in Canada where Ellen Page was from also. Murray ran away from Canada to London when she was fifteen to study at the Royal College of Art and received an MA in film. She has directed many short films and documentaries, soon I will post a appreciation post about her as a director.

The film was shot in Portugal, France, England and Germany. Which at times made the film very confusing especially at the beginning of the film when the opening shot is set in Camden Locks but Ellen pages character 'Sherry' has a Canadian accent then meets a man with a strong German accent Tiger played by August Diehl who claims he wants to create something eye opening and important and gives her a leaflet with a time and place. There are characters with many different accents and persona's which by the end of the film you realise how they all came to meet and interact with each other.

She follows the invitation and is warmly welcomed by a group of runaways, orphans, homeless, punks next to two caravans. They explain to her that their street collective S.P.A.R.K holds the key to modern knowledge that drugs are okay but in moderation that you don't have to lead a routines 9-5 job life and that you can live on garbage and that materialistic objects and personal belongings don't have any meaning and that you can live life without them. The leader of the group Harry takes the whole group to techno, drug fuelled festival in Spain and along the way a young member of the group Mason is killed whilst jumping in a garbage can his friend Mad Ax  'Maxwell McGabe Lokos' who also plays along Ellen Page int he film 'The Tracey Fragments'). He actually becomes one of my favourite characters throughout the film as he stands his ground and his a very heart warming sensitive character towards Sherry looking after her.

Whilst at the festival Sherry is highly doped up on drugs and alcohol and calls her mother who is worried about her whereabouts and comes finds her. Her mother then joins S.P.A.R.K.S and not long after that the collective becomes much darker. Sherry loses her virginity to Tiger which she wanted all along and then Harry the leader tries to have sex with her . Harry then scrutinises her amongst the group humiliating her and threatening her. The group that was once a positive environment becomes a dark cult of struck rules and regulations with one rule being no sex and alcohol with several members of the groups having their hair shaved off.

Her mother is soon initiated into the group and Sherry makes Harry aware that she knows he doesn't want her in the group any longer. Harry is mentally and physically abusing towards the other members and becomes more than just a leader now a dictator and is more violent further along the journey especially to Sherry and her friend Nancy a working class English girl who is witty and one of my favourite characters her struggles with extreme asthma.  Nancy dies from a asthma attack after a brutal punishment from Harry and Ax saves Sherry and they both runaway with a few other members.

The film was very beautiful and probably one of my favourites now and one of Pages best performances.