A Swansea Love Story

On Thursday evening we attended the London Premier of A Swansea Love Story at the Richmix Theatre and Arts Space in Shoreditch. The project is rather exciting as it is the first feature length by company VBS.

VBS are an online broadcasting network who pride themselves on producing free original content on their site 24 hours a day. The company are part of Vice, and A Swansea Love Story was produced as part of the Rule Britannia series.

The film documents the lives of various heroin users in the South Wales town, we see their families, living conditions and begin to understand why their lives have taken the route towards hard drug use.

I, myself live in a small town in South Wales. I don't even begin to pretend that there are no drug problems here at all. Like all small places where there is little for young people to do drug use exists but it is so far away from this Swansea underworld that the documentary shows us.

I can't really say that I could relate to the content of this docu-film. My knowledge of the drug scene is minimal to say the least, but that's not to say that it didn't have an impact on me.

It's easy to forget at times that these are real people involved and not fictional characters made up for our own viewing entertainment. There were times when members of the audience laughed at events, and at first I did feel a little uneasy about this as the subject matter is rather serious but has been dealt with suitably so as to create an entertaining yet informative piece of film.

At one point I couldn't help but be surprised and I found myself with a strange kind of feeling as one of the characters explains that he tries to look and dress 'decent' and describes himself as a 'user' not a 'junkie'. His interest in his own appearance and how people perceive him is still important.

In total contrast to this we see a young couple who wander the streets drinking after using. They explain how they've turned to drink since the loss of their baby. The young girls story is particularly tragic and is a tale of abuse and neglect which she tries to talk about during the film.

It's a great leap from watching somebody on screen stumbling around drunk to hearing them, in the next moment, trying to talk coherently about something so painful. I was reduced to tears as this was a tough reminder of the realness of these peoples situations.

The film was definitely made more powerful by the moving sounds of the Swansea Male voice choir and interviews with the older generation of the town. Former miners talked about how dramatically things have changed. This definitely added to the tragedy of what once was a town with a thriving industry, as well as the characters own sad stories.

Subtitles are used consistently throughout the film. This could be so as to avoid any confusion as the Welsh accents are particularly strong. However, I came to the conclusion that it was to communicate the speech of the characters when they were not speaking coherently whilst under the effects of heroin. If this was their purpose they wouldn't be needed continuously, but the decision was a clever one as it demonstrated the presence of the drugs at all times.

You can read more about the film and it's production here.

http://www.viceland.com/blogs/en/2010/02/12/a-swansea-scrapbook/

You can also find links to the film and more information about Vice and VBS on the Vice website.

http://www.viceland.com/uk/

To donate to the lovely, hardworking people at SANDS, who work tirelessly to keep drug users safe in Swansea, and help with providing counselling, support, clean equipment and help users to go clean, by providing methadone and other heroin replacement drugs, please click the click.

http://swanseadrugsproject.org.uk/

Hannah xx