When Tambay originally posted on this film back in May, relatively little was known about the production or the woman on which it is based. We recently came across still photos from the production, courtesy of production designer Chris Richmond.
As a refresher, the film is an investigation into the life of Joyce Vincent, a woman who died in her London apartment in 2003, but whose remains weren’t discovered until more than two years later.
See the photos after the jump.
The film’s star, Zawe Ashton (Case Histories, Misfits), who plays Joyce Vincent.
“[Director Carol Morley] chose to show the decompostion (that would have naturally occured in Joyce’s body), in the fabric of the building itself, and the minimal amount of possessions that lay about the bedsit.”
From what we’ve learned, it seems this film could easily be constructed around a social message.
Two main reasons why Vincent went undiscovered for so long were apparently because her utilities remained on and no one seemed to notice the odor of decay in her apartment; both of these details are linked to the fact that she lived in general needs housing for victims of domestic violence.
With subsidized housing, part of her rent continued to be paid. Her complex was also reportedly a noisy building frequented by drug addicts, and often overpowered by the smell of waste – which obscured the sound of Vincent’s running TV and the odor of decay.
Given the bleak circumstances of the story, I wonder whether the film will be used to make any sort of case for improvements to general needs housing or resources for battered women, or whether the focus will be a larger social statement on the isolation of us all in modern times.
In any case, we’ll be watching.
