Bridgend

Bridgend is a fictional drama inspired by real-life events in Bridgend, a rural county in South Wales where the mines have closed and unemployment has cast a pall over the community. At least 79 suicides were reported in this small county, most of them teenagers (usually by hanging) with no notes or explanation. Danish documentary filmmaker Jeppe Rønde spent years getting to know the kids in the area but instead of making a documentary, he crafted this impressionistic, empathetic response to their experiences. Hannah Murray stars as Sarah, the young daughter of a cop (Steven Waddington) sent to help investigate the suicides. Sara is the new girl in town and she soon falls in with a pack of kids who gather in the woods and party in the pubs. While the sense of community draws her, Sara is also weighed down by the hopelessness among the teens and the oppressive emotional toll of the suicides on the survivors. Rønde shot the film on location in the Welsh valleys and the atmosphere of the landscape pervades the film: gloomy, isolated, and swallowed up in fog, the area is beautiful but also cut off from the rest of the world. Rønde offers no answers or explanations in this thoughtful and sensitive film, which is unsettling but also true to the historical reality. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)