After seeing that it got an 85/100 Metascore on IMDB, I had to give Half Nelson a go, it had always caught my eye but the Sky blurb dubbed it something that didn't particularly appeal to me, and by the way it has gone under the radar for 8 years seemed unjust to me.
Then again, those 'un-popular' films that no one really talks about are always the best, they're so different to the huge mainstream blockbusters that allow you to leave the cinema or turn the telly off thinking - that was cool - when really a film should leave you thinking about the inner personal impact that the film has affected you with.
Half Nelson concerns a teacher, Ryan Gosling, at an inner-city school. This film has immediate reflections of Ryan's other surprisingly very Indie film Drive - as well as having spectacular soundtracks, both films almost glorify certain lifestyles, holding a mirror up to society and saying 'this is us, this is what we're doing'. Whether they're illustrating mature themes of drug abuse or simply just volatile relationships, Indie films present our lives in ways that big budget blockbusters can't.
This film is a prime example of a piece of beautifully crafted cinematography that shows an audience the transformative power of cinema, how a film can awaken us and imprint itself on our conciousness simply through it's images and words.
I believe that films should cause us to lose ourselves and find ourselves and create cartography for the mind, and this film does just that.
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