the ape (w&d jesper ganslandt)

The Ape, or Apan, in its original, was watched by the critic, Mr Curry and Mr Plester at the ICA. The following is a non-verbatim account of the conversation after we had left the ICA bar, on account of the fact that it does not sell coffee (which reveals much about both the British culture and the way in which the ICA is run), fleeing to a pub formerly known as The Marquis of Granby, but now, in more austere times, renamed as simply The Marquis. A pub which sells coffee at 11pm, something which also reveals something of the changing face of British culture.

MrC: Budget -
MrP: Pepper -
DOC: Cost nothing -
MrP: Pepper from behind -
MrC: A million, at least. It's FIlm I Vast.
MrP: Pepper with the lid taken off.

Mr P & DOC perhaps muse on the scene of a man stripped to his waist, throwing a hammer across a circular wooden stage he has constructed himself, swearing, seemingly as close to the end of his tether as he has been on a number of occasions before.

DOC: Half of it's filmed in a car.
MrC: So?
DOC: It's doesn't cost very much to film in a car.
MrP: Nice choir.
DOC: Choir's don't come cheap.
MrC: That was the bit I didn't like.
MrP: You didn't like it?
MrC: It was like, that was the bit he was reaching for. Everything else was completely under control, it was never striving, and then the scene in the church, was like - there's something metaphysical going on.
DOC: I didn't mind it.
MrP: I like the monkey.
DOC} Of course you liked the monkey.
MrC }

(Context from editor: The premise upon which Mr P was lured to the film was that it was a Scandinavian flick about an ape. Otherwise he could have gone to see something called Free Run, (??) in which he features. But the lure of Scandinavia and apes will always win out, even if the film isn't really about apes, it's really about Pepper, which is even better.)

MrC: Was good though.
MrP : Good choice.
MrC: Bit generic European.
DOC: Dardennes brothers -
MrC: But it worked.
DOC: Reminded me of the other Swedish film -
MRP: Burrowing -
MrC: Hardly even a mid-shot, all close -
MrP: On the back of Pepper's neck.
DOC: Couldn't write a script like that here.

Brief discussion about script writing and absence of dialogue in Apan and how that would look on the page.

DOC: Still cheap to make.
Mr C: A million. At least.
Mr P: Could happen to the best of us.
Mr C : What?
Mr P: Sociopathy.
Mr C: I was a bit disappointed by a Prophet.
Mr P: Only takes one ape.
Mr C: Left me a bit cold.
Mr P: To tip you over the edge.

And in another country on another night this would have been but the beginning, and when dawn arrived the coffee would still be flowing, but this is London, with all that that implies, and last trains beckoned and no-one returned home to find their dead wife's blood making a mess of the cream coloured carpet, or their inner ape unveiled. At least I assume not.