A Reckoning

Starring: Leslie Simpson, Axelle Carolyn, Daniel Tee

Synopsis:

A lone man, trapped and imprisoned in a barren, desolate landscape. His only companions are a village of straw people with which he converses with as neighbours and friends; he even teaches straw children at the local school. Yet, this anchor, this way of habitual living, is about to become unravelled in frightening and disturbing ways. Leading the way to A RECKONING.

Ever since my childhood, I've been interested in movie genres that deal with loneliness and isolation - either within or without. Typically, the type of movie that I gravitated to was the post-apocalyptic movie; be it A Boy and his Dog, Last Man on Earth or Mad Max 2. I eschewed the literary worth of movies like Andrey Tarkovskiy's Solaris to favour the more melodramatic hero movies like the examples mentioned. I like the idea of the loner dealing with what he thinks is a simple situation, one that he may have encountered before, only to have it turned upside down and the truths held dear, compromised. This introduction serves only to establish one of the reasons why A Reckoning (previously Straw Man) resonates with me so much...

Because, A Reckoning is difficult to sum up in a simple synopsis (although A.D. Barker did a good job). It is about a man that may or may not be the lone survivor of an undescribed apocalypse that has avoided the insanity of seclusion and loneliness by creating a town of straw people to interact with. Over the course of the movie, his grip on sanity is relinquished and we see him spiral into himself s his behaviour becomes more erratic and his sense of reality is put to the test.

A Reckoning is like Richard Matheson's I Am Legend without vampires, and cut scenes from John Hillicoat's adaptation of The Road. To some that might sound tedious but Leslie Simpson's performance and the cinematography are enough to draw the audience in to the character's predicament,and live it for the 100 minutes duration. Simpson puts his all into scenes of stability followed by paranoia in a class room, to leaping around naked in the snow bound location. This is not the clean cut soldier that we've seen Simpson portray, in Dog Soldiers and Doomsday, this is a grungy, stark, Simpson that manages to carry the weight of being pretty much the sole performer in the entire movie. His performance is punctuated occasionally by the appearance of a spectral Axelle Carolyn (Doomsday, Centurion).

As A Reckoning opens, we find the man at a turning point from being seemingly comfortable with his way of dealing with isolation, to "what the hell am I doing?". A Reckoning is as cerebral as any Tarkovskiy movie. It is a movie that relishes in the input a viewer can give to it. Barker, Simpson and Krajczynski provide the canvass on to which the viewers can paint their own ideas and bring forward their own interpretations as to what is going on. Is the world the man inhabits limbo? Is he just a mad vagrant stuck in a deserted military town? Has there been an apocalyptic event and he just hasn't found any other survivors yet?

Krajczynski's cinematography is striking and much care appears to have been taken in providing imagery that puts forward the bleak environment that is somehow tinged with great beauty, at times.

Purely and simply, this is an astonishing debut from a Director. This makes the fact that it hasn't been released all the more frustrating. Here we have a low budget movie that looks and feels (most of the time) like a bigger budgeted movie. We get a "Masterclass" performance from an actor that more people should have heard of. The movie deserves to be used in filmschools as an example of how to make your first movie (at the very least. I'm thinking of loftier subjects that the movie could represent, too). I do not say that lightly. Sure, it isn't a film for everyone. I don't think Barker and co were under any illusions of this fact in production, but it's rewarding for those that stick with it and appreciate it for what it is.

I can see A Reckoning working quite well on the stage, too. If I ever saw a production in London's Theatreland, i would not be at all surprised; the material is that strong and the role of The Man is a gift to any actor who feels ambitious enough to attempt to carry it off. For the screen, Leslie Simpson is that man.

Summary

I hope to see Andrew Barker get the opportunity to make more movies, because we have a talent on UK soil that should have a definitive career ahead. At the very least I wish the movie would get a release, so many more can watch and enjoy it and then talk about it afterwards. That's what makes the best movies; movies that precipitate debate with friends, after the final credit has rolled.

8 out of 10 (Wayfarer)

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