Review
Bodkin Ras (2016)
reviewed by Zsofia Szemeredy
Bodkin Ras is the debut feature film of
Kaweh Modiri (My Burglar and I, short).
Modiri’s bouncy, handheld indi-camera eye
follows around Bodkin Ras with hostility, a
Dutch fugitive, a stranger, who arrives to
Forres. Bodkin attempts to start a new life in
this remote Scottish town, where rumours
fly quick and beauty lies in isolation and
loneliness.
Modiri’s unconventional style of story-telling
at the same time distances and pulls you in,
into this insuperable vortex, the mystery
itself. Who is Bodkin Ras? There are only a
few films, where an unsympathetic lead can
intensely keep up your interest. This is one of
them. You can’t really put your finger around
anything. Is it real? Is it fictional? Is he good?
Is he bad? Ultimately, it doesn’t matter..
The film starts off with a narrative poem,
ominous and brooding about the deepest
and scariest corners of human nature and it
will get explored further via a docu-fiction
style throughout the film. The docu-ishness
derives from the handheld camera and the
use of real-life people from Forres.
Meanwhile the tension is developed through
the only fictional character, Bodkin himself,
to the point that throughout the film you
are left puzzled in the maze of human
psyche, figuring out what element is fictional
and what is really happening.