The new film from Silverprince Pictures, I AM NORMAN, is so hauntingly beautiful you will struggle to look away. Filmed in August over three days during the UK’s first national lockdown, Darius Shu and Arron Blake have proved themselves as an unstoppable force of creativity. Using just a two-man crew, with Shu as cinematographer and Blake starring as the enigmatic Norman, the pair have created a masterpiece from the ashes Coronavirus threatened to leave the arts dying in this year. I AM NORMAN is a film that needed to be made and must be watched. You will find yourself reflected in its most shadowy corners.
The mockumentary style of the film begins by lending a sort of quaintness to Norman, who has been living in his car for the past 4 years. Blake, in a remarkable change of direction from his performance as the silent, broody young man in His Hands, captures the protagonist as an incredibly three-dimensional character from the very beginning. Norman’s delivery to camera paints him as a likeable, quite humorous character; a loveable odd-ball. Just as you begin to settle in to Norman’s calm narration and the beauty of the natural surroundings, you are immediately pulled back into his reality. The film highlights the comfortable position documentaries afford us – we are able to engage and consume, even enjoy, difficult situations without having to live them. This is undoubtedly a contributing factor to their popularity. However I AM NORMAN resists this by carefully constructing the order and rate at which information is conveyed to us. This prevents the audience from resting in a comfortable position of knowing, of expecting. It’s interesting that the title of the film is a personal affirmation of existence; I am Norman. If you change the last letter it becomes I am normal – another affirmation central the film’s core message.
‘They get you to wear this backpack of rocks to feel the physical burden of being gay.’
I AM NORMAN, 2020
The realisation hit me like a truck. From this one sentence, and what we have already learnt about Norman, it is scarily easy to construct his narrative. Abandonment, conversion therapy, shame, pain and isolation remain all too attached to the LGBT community. But there’s another chapter of Norman’s story that no one could predict.
The motif of the camera draws specific attention to the idea of watching and being watched. In a sense, it appears that we are holding the camera and Norman is talking to the audience directly. Only when Norman turns his beloved cameras back on us do we begin to realise that our actions and inactions matter. Seeing is not a one way street; its reciprocal. We are constantly in a state of seeing and being seen, but should we have to wait until there is a camera on us to jolt us into action? In light of this, Norman’s ‘job’ becomes a striking, multivalent metaphor. He films suicides; the result of watching desperation without action. He provides the swan song for their suffering. The character of Norman is therefore split dichotomously like the tree branch forking out, reaching into both light and dark. And so spills forth a man turned spectre who haunts the margins between life and death.
Arron Blake’s portrayal of Norman is truly magnificent and it cuts to the core. Combined with Darius Shu’s aesthetically involved cinematography, the final act of the film is emotionally charged with an original song – ‘A Peaceful Killing.’ The song, written by Shu and Matthew Barton, is a beautiful denouement that immediately provokes chills. Rich piano melodies are woven through the choral echoes of the lyrics creating a perfect reflection of the man resigned to carry the souls of those who couldn’t bear the weight alone.
I AM NORMAN is an astonishing accomplishment.