Review of The Arbor (2010) by Mark D — 11 Jan 2013

I had never heard of Andrea Dunbar, the playwright and subject of The Arbor, before watching this film. Dunbar's own tragic life was one that saw her gain recognition for her art early in her writing career, and then struggle with heavy alcohol use and violence until her eventual death.

She wrote three plays before she died, the first of which the film takes its title from. But director Clio Barnard's interest in Dunbar's story is not in her career, at least, not on the surface, but on her relationships with her children.

And that story is a devastatingly sad account of a cycle of parental neglect. Barnard focuses on the relationship between Dunbar and her eldest daughter, Lorraine, who was only ten when Dunbar died at the age of 29.

The film explores specifically the similarities between the two women's lives, and more generally, the cyclical nature of family violence and addiction. For that alone it is a fascinating and insightful film, if often tough to stomach.

But one can't talk about this psuedo-documentary without commenting on the style. Barnard's interesting experiment involves shooting actors lip-syncing to the narrations of documentary interviews with Dunbar's family and community.

Some may find the exercise distracting, or feel that it takes away from the subject matter, but given that the subject of the film was a playwright, it gives the entire execution a sort of metafilmic quality in that Dunbar's life is effectively turned into a play inside this documentary.