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Encounters (2023)
Thought-provoking conversations about UFOs
Judging by some of the comments here, this series seems to be making some people quite angry. It's as if they expected the filmakers to produce actual aliens and interview them on camera. For the less literal-minded, Encounters is an interesting and occasionally moving set of four programmes looking at reports of strange phenomena from mainly rural communities in the UK, US, Zimbabwe, and Japan. The approach is sensitive, agnostic and non-judgmental, allowing people who think they saw extraterrestrial or paranormal events to speak for themselves, together with some more academic input from scientists and researchers. The episodes from Texas and Zimbabwe were the best in my view because the interviewees were so varied in terms of background, beliefs (or lack of) and personality, which made the cumulative effect of the testimony more compelling. I was less impressed by the Japanese episode, which included a yoga teacher who seemed to be living on another planet to begin with, but that's a minor point. In general this is well worth a watch.
Into the Forest (2015)
Ludicrously bad - in a boring way
This film should have been titled 'Hanging About in a House for Months With No Electricity'. Only in the final couple of minutes does the story start to do what the title promises, when the girls actually go Into the Forest. Following them in there, tracking their story of survival, might have been interesting.
As it is, very little happens in the big modern house in the wood. One of the girls dances a lot, but misses her music. The other thinks about going off with her character-free boyfriend, but changes her mind. There is one nasty, very violent rape, dislocated from the rest of the story. The reason for the apocalyptic power cut is never convincingly explained and while the months tick by (we know this via helpful captions) the women are unchanged - even their hair stays the same, with one of them sporting the same razor-sharp cut after eight months that she had at the beginning. The season does not change either - three months, six months, whatever, it is still May.
As for the ending, why would they set fire to the place? What possible reason was there to do that? (I wondered if it was an attempt to imitate the ending in Housekeeping, a brilliant and totally different film). Only two good things in this: the beautiful forest, what little we saw of it; and Evan Rachel Wood's beautiful face.
The Roads to Freedom (1970)
Update - the series exists, lets make it available for everyone
Just to clarify for anyone reading these reviews.
The whole of the Roads to Freedom series exists and was screened as a one-off at the BFI in May, 2012. The tapes were never wiped, contrary to rumours.
Since 2012 then there has been nothing from the BBC about making the series available on DVD, and they are not responding to enquiries.
I have written an article about the whole story on my blog here:
http://emeraldlamp.blogspot.co.uk
It includes links to the petition, and to Georgia Brown singing the theme.
My particular concern is that, as well as those of us who desperately want to see it again, there is a whole generation of younger people who have been prevented from seeing a significant work of dramatic art. They won't have even heard of the series.
We need to keep up the pressure on the BBC.