NEVER LET ME GO

'Never let me go' was released in 2010, and is a film directed by Mark Romanek. It is based on a novel written by Kasuo Ishiguru in 2005.

The film focuses on the protagonist; Kathy H and is set over a 16 years. It is split into three time periods, the school (1978), the cottages (1985) and her time as a carer (1994). However without these given dates, the film is more difficult to place. The protagonists look more at home had the film been set in the 1950s, sheltered from and oblivious to the time they are truly living in. This is one of the first indications that there is a darker side to the plot. That there are more things they are ignorant about.



One of the more interesting things about this film was, although it's plot line would naturally lend itself to the sci-fi genre, it's dreamy cinematography and the characters final melancholic acceptance of the 'system', make it very different from others in the sci-fi category.

Unlike other science-fiction stories, the 'twist' in the tale isn't a major part of the plot, it is an inevitable fact of the characters lives - "If information does trickle gradually it's because the children themselves do not realise who they are. The reader is on a sort of parallel journey, but it is not a mystery story. My focus is elsewhere". Peter Bradshaw (The Guardian) on 'Never let me go' - "The secret purpose which the government have assigned to them is not revealed with the flash of drama, horror, or vertigo that it might have in conventional sci-fi treatments. In storytelling terms, this is a bit disconcerting. But the very point is perhaps that it is humdrum, workaday, embedded in the tatty fabric of everyday life, and just something else to be depressed about. The secret – hidden in plain sight – is mysterious, horrifying and yet accepted: it is like death itself, that drab fact in all our lives which is just as mysterious and horrifying, and yet treated by all of us, every day, with a fatalistic, unthinking shrug. Despite the heavy weather, Never Let Me Go never delivers a cloudburst of emotion or revelation, and yet it has ideas; it resists categorisation, and it lingers in the mind".

The author (about the sci-fi classification), says he is more interested in "How are they trying to find their place in the world and make sense of their lives? To what extent can they transcend their fate? As time starts to run out, what are the things that really matter? Most of the things that concern them concern us all, but with them it is concertinaed into this relatively short period of time. These are things that really interest me and, having come to the realisation that I probably have limited opportunities to explore these things, that's what I want to concentrate on."

I believe the themes of isolation mirror the authors life in some ways, his families heritage and the way his parents continued to consider themselves temporary British citizens, must have given Ishiguru mixed feelings about his own affinity to the UK. Ishiguru's sometimes isolated upbringing often materializes in his writing. Although living in England for most of his life, he was born in Nagasaki, "Nagasaki is not just a few hazy images. I remember it as a real chunk of my life". His parents never intended to stay indefinitely, and 'didn't have the mentality of immigrants because they always thought they would go home at some stage'. At 15 it was decided that the family would stay in the UK. Continuing to consider themselves Japanese, his parents still find it interesting to discuss 'the English'. Being the only "non-white kid" in his school, Ishiguru was often given nicknames - 'Tony Beagley, a friend then and now, says although it sounds shocking "I really don't think those names were meant nastily. He was just the unusual bloke in the school and I can't recall any bullying or him getting a hard time because he was Japanese"'.

Ishiguru took his citizenship very seriously, he wasn't a British citizen well into his writing career, "I couldn't speak Japanese very well, passport regulations were changing, I felt British and my future was in Britain. And it would also make me eligible for literary awards. But I still think I'm regarded as one of their own in Japan."

I particularly liked some of the more photographic scenes in the film. There were shots which were framed in a way which might lend them to photographs but had something simple moving in them, such as the scene with the ball in the grass, or the map in the classroom gently blowing in the wind. After further research I found an artist who creates a similar effect - here.

I also liked the idea of democratic art; that there is no high or low value art. All art is important and, although can be judged against and compared to other art, it doesn't fundamentally make it worth any less. I think the film and story can be considered a microcosm for the 1st / 3rd world divide. More developed societies are aware of the awful conditions going on in poorer parts of the world, through media and education, however people choose to ignore or breeze over the uncomfortable facts. In this way, the dystopian society in the story have become so accustomed to improved health through organ donation of human clones, to the extent that although it is clear, these clones are no different from 'normal' humans, they would refuse to return to an age of regression, so choose to ignore the immoral nature of the system. It also echos other justified immoral acts which have taken place throughout history; various groups have been dehumanised by the majority by means of establishing rules. The clones in the story were made to give their lives for other equal beings, because they were scientifically classified as something else.