Gravity was everywhere back then

UK premiere of Brent Green's homespun debut, based on the true story of a man who built a barn for his dying wife.

Brent Green makes short films using puppet animation and chalkboard intertitles scored with crackly folk and his own quavering, urgent narration. These elements have all been retained for his debut feature, but this time the puppets are live actors, animated frame by frame in a process that must have been insanely laborious. It’s the story, based on fact, of a couple called Leonard and Mary Wood who met in a car-crash. (The moment the film really catches light; Leonard flying out of his windshield and in through Mary’s.) After she is diagnosed with cancer he throws his energies into building a barn for her as a conduit for God, a Fitzcarraldo-type endeavour which Green equates with his own filmmaking mission. In a tender and genuine way, Gravity probes at our need to believe.