Sea Wall Review - One Man's Soul

Sea Wall (2012)

One Man. One camera.

In a time when we're spit-balled with CGI and aggressive jump cuts designed to make us feel excited at the most pointless events, Sea Wall is at the other end of the film making spectrum. One character. One camera. That never moves. No music. We're in brave territory here, or we're about to be bored rigid.

I watched this on a laptop with headphones in a packed coffee shop and for half an hour the entire world disappeared. My coffee went cold. I think, I think I'd been laughing out loud. I think I'd been sat in the middle of all these people going about their day with very wet eyes.

Sea Wall starts off with a man, Alex, rambling about a holiday he took with his wife, daughter and father-in law. Meandering and looping back on itself, the words touch on family, life and faith in God or something more than the little lives that we have. As Alex trundles off down the tangents and side alleys of his story the feeling begins to grow that all this is going somewhere. You don't know where it's going as you watch Alex, who seems so bright and alive and open, but for some reason you can't pin down a knot of anxiety starts to tighten in your stomach. 


There was a part of me that wanted to turn the film off after fifteen minutes because I was scared of what this man was going to expose about himself. Alex is ordinary, lovely and has this wonder of life in him and I didn't want to know the reason why he was telling me this story. I didn't want to think of him having to face whatever it was on the horizon I was heading towards. I wanted to turn the film off...but I kept watching Alex.

Andrew Scott is extraordinary as Alex with playwright Simon Stephens' [collected plays] words in his mouth. As he talks quietly to you he gives the words power and significance. His movements, contained in one camera shot, give you clues about the dilemma contained within him. You think he's going to break down at any moment. You think he might burst out laughing at what the world and the universe (and God?) have thrown at him. The complexity, wonder and awfulness of life seems to be bubbling away underneath his skin and behind his eyes. Scott makes you do something  you weren't expecting - he makes you worry about this man. You worry about Alex - what will become of him. Can he cope? Can he continue to exist? Scott does this by showing you, no, by being Alex in an intense state of vulnerability. He pulls you into the place that all great stories take you - "what if this was me?" If you let yourself go you become Alex through Scott. If I had to face this would I still be able to carry on? I was afraid and enlightened at the same time. Enlightened because the film captures how a life can have its course changed in a moment at any moment. I already knew this in an abstract kind of way, but the film somehow makes that very, very real. When it finished I wanted to find those that I love and not let go.

Right now we seem to be surrounded in film by Avengers, Wolverines and various people in unusual clothing who can fly, throw cars down the street and stick to the side of buildings. As much as I love a good superhero movie the quiet, softly spoken man in this film is the real superhuman. Someone who has the strength to stay on their feet and tell you their story despite everything.

Sea Wall seems to me to be a film that is about the triumph of life for all it's temporal nature. Maybe "You and I, we live and die, the world's still spinning round, and we don't know why", but we still matter to each other and that's why this one man matters.

You can download the Sea Wall film here.

The (original) stage version of Sea Wall is playing at The Shed at the National Theatre, 25 July to 2 August 2013.

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