Based on the play Blackbird by David Harrower, Una follows a young woman’s journey and inquiry into her identity.
The plot
Fifteen years earlier, Una ran away with an older man, Ray, a crime for which he was arrested and imprisoned. One day, she comes across a photo of him in a trade magazine. Una tracks him down and turns up at his workplace but he has changed his name and has a brand new identity. Her unexpected arrival shakes Ray up and threatens to destroy his new life.
Una is so desperate to understand why her? Why did he pick her? Has he done this to anyone else? Did he ever think about how this would affect her? These were the type of questions she was asking but are ultimately left up to the audience to decide for themselves. It’s gripping and thought provoking, and the two sides of the story brought by both Una and Rey, make you sympathies with both in one way or another.
Meeting the director & writer
We had the pleasure if meeting the plays writer, David Harrower, joined by the director, Benedict Andrews, to find out a little bit more about how they brought the play into the cinema. Both of them agreed that the transition was quite liberating because it opened up a lot of opportunity in terms of how they presented it – the play is in the present and audiences are left up to their imagination to figure out just what had gone on, whereas film has allowed them to experiment with time. Going back and forth, from present to past, showing the audience exactly what happened, even if it’s sometimes uncomfortable to watch.
The film is also set in a factory/storage unit of some sort, giving the idea of a maze and making the story a whole lot more torturous, as if there’s no way out. We see the characters going back and forth, from room to room. What’s more interesting to hear from the director and writer is the way close ups were used in the film, to show the emotion and pain on the face of each character, which is quite difficult while on stage in a theater. Regardless of this, they’ve cleverly managed to keep a theatrical alliance in the play, this hasn’t been lost in translation.
We also liked the idea of introducing Riz Ahmed’s character into the mix. He was a breath of fresh air of what was a very intense and torturous reunion by the leads. We needed and longed for him to keep returning to cut through the tension as it was building and becoming too much to watch.
Una is out in UK cinemas September 1st.