Press coverage
Bradford Telegraph & Argus, 4 September 2009
Winner, Best Screenplay, Evening Standard Film Awards, 9 February 2011:
"It owes a considerable debt to Alan Clarke's Rita, Sue and Bob Too, which was written by Dunbar about the sort of Eighties young people she knew. But it is absolutely its own thing, showing that Barnard, whose short films have been shown on television, in art galleries and festivals, is as talented as Dunbar herself." (Derek Malcolm - read full article)
Winner, Guardian First Film Award, 27 January 2011:
"One of our judges, Peter Bradshaw described it as an 'experimentalist docudrama close to genius', while another, actor Saffron Burrows, said it was 'utterly unique and devastating'. A third judge, last year's winner Gideon Koppel, of Sleep Furiously renown, called The Arbor 'a remarkable and moving portrait that – unusually – describes the internal landscape of a character.' That last accolade must be particularly satisfying for Barnard, as she admits to being a big fan of Koppel's film – 'It's wonderful to be in the same company as [previous winners] Unrelated and Sleep Furiously,' she says. [...]
"The Arbor, apart from anything else, displays the continuing strength of the 'artist film' in British cinema; despite the acclaim for her film, Barnard is unlikely to be heading for Hollywood any time soon ('I'm thinking about going back to Buttershaw, there were so many things that I thought were interesting but couldn't fit in'). But she laughs off any suggestion that she is following in the footsteps of the likes of Steve McQueen, the director of Hunger. 'You know, I'm not an established artist like him. In some ways I was overwhelmed by the reaction to this, it's on a completely different scale to anything I've done before.'" (Andrew Pulver - read full article)
The Guardian, 22 October 2010:
"Verbatim theatre is a new form of contemporary political drama, in which the proceedings of some hearing or trial are reconstituted word-for-word on stage, acted out by performers. Now artist and film-maker Clio Barnard has experimentally and rather brilliantly applied this technique to the big screen, ventriloquising the past with a new kind of "verbatim cinema"... Barnard has created a modernist, compassionate biopic: a tribute to her memory and her embattled community." (Peter Bradshaw - read full article)
Daily Express, 25 October 2010:
"The Arbor is one of the most imaginative and compelling documentaries seen in recent years. It vividly illuminates the life of Andrea Dunbar, the writer of Rita, Sue And Bob Too! through archive footage, a bold staging of her play The Arbor in the middle of a housing estate and the bittersweet memories of friends and family." (Allan Hunter - read full article)
The Evening Standard, 22 October 2010:
"The least you can say for the film is that it looks and sounds as authentic as anything Dunbar wrote. The result is a slow-burning portrait of working-class life, with performances from Manjinder Virk as the sad, drug-fuelled daughter, Neil Dudgeon, Monica Dolan, Danny Webb and others that are beyond praise, considering the audio screenplay. The emotional core of the film holds fast, which is the only thing that matters, however fictional or factual the film appears to be." (Derek Malcolm - read full article)
The Daily Telegraph, 21 October 2010:
"The Arbor, by Clio Barnard, is a remarkable film: conceptually acute, brilliantly realised, impossibly sad. It explores the life and legacy of Andrea Dunbar, a hard-drinking working-class Bradfordian who died in 1990 at the age of 29, by which time she had written three plays which, in their bareknuckle social settings, caustic intelligence, and grimy vitality, were the link between Shelagh Delaney’s A Taste of Honey (1958) and Paul Abbott’s TV series Shameless." (Sukdhev Sandhu - read full article)
Time Out, 21 October 2010:
"The actors are puppets of sorts, reminders of the hands behind the film, and the impossibility of miming perfectly reminds us that they’re reporting, not reconstructing.
"It’s all very crafty, suggestive and enthralling. Best of all, Barnard’s strange method manages to be both questioning and coherent: the very fabric of the film admits that Barnard can only offer us versions of ‘the truth’, but those versions are still convincing and often staggeringly moving." (Dave Calhoun - read full article)
Little White Lies, October 2010:
"Fact and fiction merge once more with re-enactments of Dunbar’s play The Arbor on the estate that inspired it, alongside archive footage of the artist. This is a deeply resonant piece of filmmaking that leaves you sure of one thing – there’s always more than one truth." (Laura Bushell - read full article)
Empire Magazine, October 2010:
"Artist/filmmaker Barnard is daring: actors lip-synch to recordings of Dunbar’s loved ones, while archive footage shows the real playwright. Inbetween, The Arbor is staged on her estate. It shouldn’t work, but it does: an artsy yet accessible insight into working-class life. Moving, bold, unconventional and impeccably staged, The Arbor is a worthy tribute to a powerfully artistic voice." (Anna Smith - read full article)
The Guardian, 30 September 2010:
"The effect is compelling, because it draws attention to what is "real" (the audio) and what is "fake" (the acting). It makes the two forms talk to each other, as it were, to the point where we start to question the veracity of everything we are seeing and hearing.
"This, it transpires, is what Barnard intended. "If you examine any documentary, you see how shaped it is, and how similar the narrative structure is to that of a fiction film," she says. "The lip-synching allows the actor to look directly down the lens at the audience: to acknowledge the illusion and break the fourth wall."" (Xan Brooks - read full article)
Time Out London, 29 September 2010:
"Part documentary, part drama, this exceptional experimental film by artist and lecturer Clio Barnard explores the life and legacy of Andrea Dunbar while also revealing the difficulties of such a project. Dunbar was the troubled playwright from a rundown Bradford estate whose first play, 'The Arbor', was staged in 1980 when she was 18 and who went on to write ‘Rita, Sue and Bob Too’ and died at 29. Barnard’s highly original techniques stress the fluid nature of reconstruction and recollection." (Dave Calhoun - read full article)
Eye for Film, August 2010:
"It is surely no mistake either that Dunbar's sister Pamela is played by Kathryn Pogson, whose connection to Dunbar stretches back to The Arbor's original production, when she played "The Girl" or that George Costigan (Bob in Rita, Sue And Bo Too!) takes on the role of one of Dunbar's partners, Jimmy "the Wig". This constant mix of fiction and fact has multiple benefits. It makes you ever-aware of the nature of Dunbar's work as a hybrid animal, shows that even documentary can be slippery when it comes to representing the 'truth', affords those relating some, often very disturbing, memories a high degree of privacy and allows Barnard masses of artistic freedom when it comes to recreating scenes from the children's past.
"The end result is not so much a celebration of a life as a dissection of a legacy - both on a personal level and from a much wider society perspective, where even prison can seem like a welcome escape. This is a fiercely intellectual piece of cinema that still manages to grab your heart and punch you in the gut." (Amber Wilkinson - read full article)
The Telegraph, 21 May 2010:
"The overall effect is devastating, as multi-layered and dissonant as a Schoenberg symphony, and a nightmarish impression of how the writer experienced both reality and performance. Barnard's original vision was justly rewarded with the best new documentary filmmaker prize." (Sebastian Doggart - read full article)
Slant Magazine, 28 April 2010:
"Beginning with the image of two emaciated dogs rummaging through a small field for loose rubbish, the film introduces us to the suburban housing estate known as Brafferton Arbor. The camera soon reveals a young Pakistani woman, Lorraine, in the upstairs window as she speaks of a tumultuous event from her childhood in great detail, followed by a pregnant young white woman, Lisa, who continues on with the story as she walks up to the stairs of the same house to meet Lorraine, her sister, in the bedroom." (Adam Keleman - read full article)
Village Voice, 21 - 27 April 2010:
"Barnard seamlessly blends archival material and a live staging of Dunbar's play of the title on the writer's home turf. But her boldest intervention in the bio-doc is having actors lip-synch the words of the actual interviewees - a deliberate distancing device that nonetheless draws viewers in closer." (Melissa Anderson)
Bradford Telegraph & Argus, 4 September 2009:
"The family and neighbours of Andrea Dunbar are among the cast of a new film about the Bradford playwright’s life. Filming begins this month on the Buttershaw estate, where Andrea lived. The film combines excerpts from Andrea’s first play, The Arbor, with interviews and documentary footage." (Emma Clayton - read full article)
The Yorkshire Post, 28 September 2009:
"The film is a tapestry created from hours of contemporary interviews about Dunbar and her work that forms an audio screenplay which is then performed by actors who mouth the words. This soundtrack testimonial is punctuated by footage of the live performance of The Arbor to provide an added layer of narrative structure." (Tony Eamshaw - read full article)
The Guardian, 12 April 2010:
"A few months later, the residents assemble at Bradford's National Media Museum to view an edit of the film. It is an extraordinary construct: a mixture of verbatim transcript and autobiographical drama that creates an echo chamber of conflicting voices from Dunbar's life and art. A hush descends whenever we hear the voice of Lorraine, whose resentment towards her mother remains palpable. At the end, there is applause, and not a few tears." (Alfred Hickling - read full article)