A Way of life

Amma Asante’s A Way of Life is rather like a Welsh version of a Ken Loach film ; it’s a film that explores escalating street resentment in the same way that Spike Lee did in Do the Right Thing.

Leigh-Anne (James) is a loudmouthed teenage mother living on a rundown council estate in urban Wales. She’s not been that well educated, she has no job, depends on handouts from the State and from others (such as mother-in-law Brenda Blethyn) to bring up her child, and because she’s not that good a mother, she is very close to having her child taken into care. She enjoys the company of a teenage gang involved in petty crime and she hates a muslim Turkish family across the street merely because they’re different but of course goes about suggesting they’re stuck-up when she’s inwardly envious of the better lifestyle they’ve worked hard to enjoy.

Debutante Asante takes you from an incident at the beginning and shows what leads up to it. She intelligently wants to show how a number of factors – thieving, drunkenness, loutish behaviour, petty rivalry and racism can lead down a spiral into serious trouble – how one bad incident will lead inevitably to a much larger one. All the characters are believable and for those unemployed in Wales, the situation is portrayed as bleak in the extreme.

This is one of those ‘slice of life’ films that portrays how seemingly random acts of wrongness can lead to unfortunate violence in a powder-keg situation. It’s no comedy but as a raw, human drama it offers a great deal in a style unfortunately not far off from a documentary. I say unfortunately, because you tend to feel this kind of racism and deep-seated resentment needs to be stamped out but probably is all too uncomfortably prevalent in certain areas of British society. At least Asante’s film explores both the causes and the consequences in an intelligent manner well worthy of exposure.

A Way of Life recently wong the inaugural UK film talent award at the 2004 London Film Festival. Launched by Dunhill and the UK Film Council, the award gave Asante a valuable £15,000 to help give the film wider distribution. English Patient director and BFI chairman Anthony Minghella said “Amma Asante is exactly the kind of filmmaker we need to encourage, we’re thrilled to give her this award.” High praise for a former TV actress (she appeared in Grange Hill) making her directorial debut, but deservedly won.

Matt Arnoldi