Arbor, The

Aroview: A grimly compelling portrait of hard-living British playwright Andrea Dunbar, most celebrated for writing seminal kitchen sink comedy RITA, SUE, AND BOB TOO.

Named after the Bradford housing estate Dunbar grew up in before entering into a cycle of domestic violence and alcoholism, this brilliantly perceptive film combines passages from Dunbar's first autobiographical play with emotive testimony from family and neighbours. Fairly conventional stuff on the face of it, however its most striking innovation is to re-stage these interviews with actors lip-syncing their responses - a fascinating device which conflates several layers of performance and reenactment, in turn mirroring the ambiguity between truth and fiction present in both Dunbar's life story and life on stage.

NZ International Film Festival 2010