Synopsis:
Themes of transition, death and birth, at once painful and
liberating are explored in Killing Time, a feature-length film of
Simon Armitage's 1000-line millenium poem of the same name,
broadcast on New Year's Day, 2000. Mixing documentary, drama and
poetry, we follow a 'millenium man' as he roams the country,
meeting real people and collecting millenial offerings, things that
people have jettisoned to begin a new life, including a former IRA
man who has renounced violence, a terminal cancer patient who is
throwing away a pair of running shoes, a bankrupt farmer throwing
away beef on the bone, and a man about to become a woman.
Meanwhile, Armitage's epic poem narrates the many grim events of
recent years, the Columbine high school shootings, the Paddington
rail crash, the London nail bombings. Familiar stories and images
are recast as surreal events reflecting an age of cynicism,
materiality and media overload.
Synopsis:
Themes of transition, death and birth, at once painful and
liberating are explored in Killing Time, a feature-length film of
Simon Armitage's 1000-line millenium poem of the same name,
broadcast on New Year's Day, 2000. Mixing documentary, drama and
poetry, we follow a 'millenium man' as he roams the country,
meeting real people and collecting millenial offerings, things that
people have jettisoned to begin a new life, including a former IRA
man who has renounced violence, a terminal cancer patient who is
throwing away a pair of running shoes, a bankrupt farmer throwing
away beef on the bone, and a man about to become a woman.
Meanwhile, Armitage's epic poem narrates the many grim events of
recent years, the Columbine high school shootings, the Paddington
rail crash, the London nail bombings. Familiar stories and images
are recast as surreal events reflecting an age of cynicism,
materiality and media overload.