I went out for my lunchtime walk today. I was walking over the Forton Lake Millenium Bridge, when I had one of those moments. It wasn’t quite like de ja vue, but it was a strange feeling. I’ll explain.
In my life there have been four films that have had what I would class as a profound effect on me, they are;
- 2001 A Space Odyssey
- A Ring of Bright Water
- Aliens
- Great Expectations (I think – I’ll explain that, it’s the important one for this post)
I’m going to ignore 2001 because it’s effect was positive – Perhaps I’ll write about it in a future post.
A Ring of Bright Water was just basically traumatic. I think it was one of the first films that I would have seen on my own. I was enjoying the film so much and then when Mij was killed, I was so upset I had to leave the cinema. That I haven’t watched it since and that to even think of the film over fifty years later still causes me distress I think is sufficient for me to qualify as a traumatic experience.
Aliens – the second film in the series. I thoroughly enjoyed the first film and the second film very much. I haven’t watched the second film (or come to that any of the Alien films – in fact it’s one of the few Science Fiction film sets that I don’t own) from beginning to end since that first time I saw it at the cinema. I can’t recall any other film having given me such a graphic nightmare. I recall very clearly waking up to see one of the Aliens leaping at me from the window in the bedroom. I just don’t want to watch any of them again.
On then to the fourth film, you might think that I have to be honest and say that I am not sure that it’s the right film. I think it was though. It involves a young boy who meets a convict and helps him, so the plot fits the film I remember. The thing was though wasn’t the story as much as the location. There was something just so utterly bleak about the scenery, what I couldn’t match though was the industrial landscape, which looks as though it was Chatham Docks and Romney Marsh and Durness. It was the foreboding structures of the dockyard, and the bleakness of Romney that both frightened and drew me. To this day, I have always wanted to visit this area.
Ironically, I have been to Hythe, nearby. But it was as part of a RAYNET Team a few years ago, where we were on an event with the Long Distance Walking Association. Sadly, I was a passenger so I couldn’t take the next day to explore the area, which I would have loved to have done so. Perhaps one day, we will get there.
So, this all came from my lunchtime walk, as I crossed The Milenium Bridge, there was quite a brisk, cold breeze blowing, the tide was well out, there was a quite oppressive grey cloud overhead, and there was just this feeling of utter bleakness. Interesting.
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