Showing between Friday 17th until Thursday 30th July 2009 @ Watershed, Bristol

A kiss can be a wonderful whisper between two lovers, a horrible rape of a person’s security or an awkward unrequited gesture. A kiss in all its fantasy has the ability to provide a momentary escape from real life, which is what the film, Kisses, imposes, not only on its audience but on its characters as the two leads exchange their dull lives in an Irish council estate for a colourful runaway adventure. This Irish comedy written and directed by Lance Daly is a wonderful exploration of escape and how to sustain it in a city riddled with traps.

Using the family infatuated season of Christmas as the backdrop, Kisses is a refreshing refusal of the codes and conventions usual Yule time flicks adhere to. The pre-teen protagonists Kylie (Kelly O’Neill) and Dylan (Shane Curry) perform with genuine magic and as neighbourhood sweethearts, they bond through their mutually turbulent family lives. As the film begins to use colour, we watch the love lambs embark on an exciting voyage which mixes scenes of heart-throbbing nostalgia, face-twitching friendship and spine-chilling kidnaps.

The decision to tackle themes such as myth and fairytale authentically spews from the improvisational acting technique Daly used when filming scenes with Kelly and Shane. The spark, which is ignited as a result of this, can be seen in Kelly’s character particularly whose brash but endearing performance renders her an actor to watch out for in the future.

Kisses is an honest portrayal of a person’s yearning for escape, even if it’s only momentarily. By using the family as the troublesome framework, Daly hints more deeply at how oppressive social structures can be upon the individual and as we move back in to the black and white film frames of the housing estate at the end, we see how hopeless it is to escape somewhere where there is no escape, which is perhaps a more dismal way to look at life but is it a more truthful one?

‘A kiss may not be the truth, but it is what we wish were true’ - Steve Martin

www.watershed.co.uk

Kayleigh Cassidy