Tartan Shorts

Overall, I am not highly impressed with these shorts. I assume that Scottish Screen can only fund so many films a year and have to choose projects carefully. So why three shorts that once again portray Scotland as a dank, miserable, ugly country full of scumbags? Honestly, I am sick and tired of this crap. When can we finally show this wide and varied place in a new light and from all exciting angles?

The first is called Run and it simply focuses on a miserable woman working at a newspaper stall who goes out on a jog on her break while some bitchy wifey with a horrid, implacable accent covers for her. As she runs she passes through bleak scenery and slummy neighbourhoods before stepping on a cat. Then she goes back to work. What the hell is the point in this????

Second is At The End Of The Sentence, the best of the three, in which Stephen McCole (an actor I've had a soft spot for since seeing him as Boab in The Granton Star Cause) plays a man strict on correct grammar and timing, who is raising his younger brother while his dad is in jail. Much to his surprise, dad is released early on Christmas Eve, but he's still a worthless bum. Nonetheless the boys set out to make him happy with a present.

Third is Sweetie, in which a scummy under-class family, fresh from a shopping spree at the Gyle, barely catch the bus home to Broomhouse (Edinburgh's Compton), only for the driver to give them hassle for not having the correct change. Waiting for the next bus, Dad argues with the morbidly obese Mum as their pointless children run around out of Mum's way. As soon as the bus comes they are denied a ride again because it's full. Dad acts like the twat he is. Mum shouts and screws up her fat face into a blancmange of 86 chins and they get chucked off. Despite a wave from a kindly old lady you know these kids are headed for a life just not worth existing for.

Hey Mr Tartan? How about some short films that don't show off the rotten side of society for a change? Is all of Scotland Trainspotting and Job Seekers Allowance? No, it's not!!!