Film No. 86 (2014) Mr Turner December 16th.

Film No. 86 (2014) December 16th.  6.00 PM THE BACKLOT Cinema West Perth.

Mr Turner

It's fitting that one of the UK's most accomplished film makers in Mike Leigh should create a film capturing the final years of one of England's most brilliant impressionist painters, William Turner. Leigh does his job with such breathtaking style, Mr Turner, is surely one of the most accomplished films of 2013/14.

Leigh has focused on the final 25 years of Turner's life, and what a world we share, as each scene is carefully created to depict the early 19th century with breathtaking precision. Timothy Spall plays Turner, a man who grunts his way through conversations with those who can't comprehend his artistic intentions, namely his discarded common law wife and children and his housekeeper.This contrasts sharply with the highbrow wit and knowledge he shares with his peers of The Royal Academy of the Arts.

The film is long but I can't remember a wasted frame. Leigh captures a man who travels far and wide capturing one famous scene after another, all the while scratching into his tattered notebook. So while our appetite for history is met, it is the social drama of Turner's interaction with people that is most fascinating. We experience the warmth of his relationship with his father who mixes his paints, the coldness he displays to his housekeeper who watches on longing to feel some tenderness from her master and finally, the true love he finds with his landlady (Sophia Booth) in the town of Margate, where he finds much inspiration for his painting.

Mike Leigh uses the cinema to create his own mini masterpiece in Mr Turner. He presents to us a man of passion who tramples his way over landscapes and emotions to create art. Timothy Spall won best actor at Cannes in April for good reason. Spall legitimizes each of Leigh's precise settings as if the era was part of a previous life. These men have worked together for decades, perhaps this is the ultimate culmination of a brilliant partnership. Mr Turner is a film to be enjoyed by cinema purists.  11GUMS.