Carla's Song

Ken Loach's films are decidedly observational, and "Carla's Song" is no different: We're watching George (Robert Carlyle) work his day job as a bus driver, in Glasgow circa 1987, with no indication of where the narrative is headed. He beefs with his bosses, bends the rules for his favorite riders, and generally exerts himself as a force of minor mischief. When Carla -- a Nicaraguan immigrant whom George falls for at first sight -- walks onto his bus, Loach uses the same distanced camera angles and unexcited editing patterns that he employed during the earlier scenes. It's as if she was any other woman. We have no idea or indication that the infatuation he develops will end up capsizing his life, and the structure of the movie along with it.

George follows Carla, asking her out, begging for her phone number, and slowly seducing her with his boyish charms and confidence. He's so attracted to Carla that he thinks he knows this woman, despite having only met her. He's projected a whole relationship onto her before one has even started. When she lets on that she needs to get back to war-torn Nicaragua, where the US-backed Contras are brutalizing the populace, he buys their plane tickets and flies there alongside her. He's blind to the tragic truth of her inner life... and then he ends up experiencing it himself.

Twilight Time's Blu-ray release of "Carla's Song" provides a beautiful high-definition transfer of the sharply-lensed film. The palette of the picture is wide-ranging, with the Glasgow-set scenes shot in cold tones and the Nicaraguan sequences beset by sweltering hot colors. The disc also comes with a booklet featuring an essay by Julie Kirgo, and a number of other special features: There's a commentary with Loach and his writer Paul Laverty, an additional audio track that isolates George Fenton's score, trailers, and deleted scenes (as Loach explains in his commentary, the version included on the disc is a "director's cut" in which he's deleted roughly 10 minutes of footage from the original release; those minutes comprise these deleted scenes.)

What eventually emerges from the shift in setting is a parable about the developed world's ignorance. Carla is but a projection to George, and his psyche is thrown entirely off balance once he's faced with the truth of her backstory. Loach's detached aesthetic builds that into the very images of the film. We're left outside the character's inner lives, left to try and interrogate or interpret their many vague movements and reactions. Backstories get fully revealed at the end, but by then Loach's approach has already taken effect: We realize the narrowness of our own perspective, whether it be toward international politics or the people who sit next to us on the bus.

"Carla's Song"
Blu-ray
$29.95
Screenarchives.com