Premiere: 01.28, 10:00 p.m.
One of film’s sharpest double-edged swords is that of immersment and escapism. Within the promise of respite from our daily troubles, there always lies the fear that we’ll slip too far in and lose focus of the blurry line between fiction and reality.
Censor follows Enid, a quiet, thoughtful woman who serves on the British government’s board of censorship. She’s the first line of defense between gory snuff films and the innocent public (and of the children, especially), a job she approaches with a calculated lack of emotion and precision.
The film’s 1980s setting serves as the basis for its throwback style (color! schlock! nameless paranoia!), but it also provides a potent political backing for Enid’s journey through the complex web of video violence. Set at the the height of Britain’s “video nasty” scare (a nation-wide moral panic about excessive gore in independent movies), Enid’s role stands a signifier for the country’s belief that corruption of entertainment is inextricably linked to the corruption of the public. In America, too, many a fraught discussion around the ethics of pornography and snuff marked both reactionary right wing and left-leaning feminist circles, a sentiment