Fellrunning Film

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

Shyla and Lukas Lee (Lukas being the famed Glaconman of these here parts) and their company Clayhouse Productions have been making short films for some time now - RCers may already be familiar with Vitya (still one of my all time favourite short films) and Uncle David, both of which you can view here.

Their latest effort, The Bedlamites, is somewhat closer to the heart of the RC community, being about the insanely special world of fell running - or more specifically, night fell running. As Graham Breeze's review above said, this is hardly a documentary - it's more of an insight to that special type of insanity that many (hopefully I'm not alone) of us are so jealous of - people who do something so madly illogical that you wish Van Gogh could have been around to paint it.

Well in fact the Lees have actually created a pretty fine work of art and I suspect Vincent Van would give a nod of approval.

Almost apologetic in its understatement, this is a film that Hollywood could never make, would never understand and to which it would most likely not even give a glance. And that, dear viewers, makes it rather special indeed.

The Bedlamites, by focussing on one of the slightly odder aspects of the sport explains in the Lee's unique way why we run and how it gets under the skin. As one of the runners explains:

"...there are no big egos really. There's a world of difference between being obesessed by where your club is in the premiership and passively watching, and actually getting out there doing something and having a go. It's not about watching these gods and goddesses on television - that does nothing for peoples' lives - it just makes them worse I think."

But the Lee's candid way of capturing through the lens the sheer intoxication of the sport and their mastery in editing the whole thing down to a fifteen-minute gem makes this a rare and beautiful expose of our sport.

And in fitting with RC culture, there are of course of lot of scenes shot in the pub which made me feel right at home. This hapless Aussie viewer was also grateful for the frankly language-murdering Yorkeshire dialect being subtitled, too!

You can watch the trailer and buy the film (for a modest 5 GBP) here.