“I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning”, interview with director Clio Barnard

Winner of the People’s Choice Audience Award at the Quinzaine des Cinéastes at the 79th Cannes Film Festival, “I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning” is the fifth feature by British filmmaker Clio Barnard, adapted by Enda Walsh from the novel of the same name by Birmingham writer Keiran Goddard. The film follows five childhood friends, Patrick, Shiv, Rian, Oli and Conor, now in their thirties, as the lives they dreamed of begin to feel out of reach. Set in Birmingham and anchored in a working-class community navigating precarious jobs, a housing crisis and the weight of growing up, the film stars Anthony Boyle, Joe Cole, Jay Lycurgo, Daryl McCormack and Lola Petticrew.

From five monologues to one film

The project began when screenwriter Enda Walsh sent Clio Barnard the novel. She loved it immediately, particularly the way author Keiran Goddard had woven political questions into five brilliantly drawn characters, and she didn’t want it to end. But adapting a book made of five internal monologues was far from simple. “I was intrigued to see how Enda would adapt it because it’s not an easy book to adapt. How do you externalize what’s going on for five people internally and how do you weave five stories together into a film?”. Walsh wrote the script quickly and made key inventions, the character of Marcus, a dog that didn’t exist in the novel , that cracked the structure open. Barnard knew right away he had done it.

The Crown

To build the world of the film with the authenticity it demanded, Clio Barnard went to the community where Keiran Goddard had grown up. Through the writer and his brother Tom, she found the Crown, a pub that became the nerve centre of the entire production. “It’s a really fantastic community hub because the people who run it are wonderful and they embraced us with open arms”. The Crown served as casting base, rehearsal space, workshop venue for local residents and, eventually, the set itself: all the pub scenes were shot there. The network of people they met through it provided the extras, the locations and the fabric of the film.

A familiarity you can’t fake

Creating the bond between five characters who are supposed to have known each other since childhood was essential. Clio Barnard had one advantage: Lola Petticrew and Anthony Boyle had actually known each other since they were teenagers and even dated briefly. The rest of the cast understood from the start what was needed. “They were just such a fantastic lovely group of people who were very collaborative and understood that what we needed to do was create a bond and a familiarity and for us to completely believe that they had grown up together”.

Turning thirty

The film centres on a specific and quietly devastating moment in life: the passage into your thirties, when the open horizon of youth starts to close in. Clio Barnard sees it as something both personal and political: “In your twenties it feels like anything is possible and in your thirties reality bites. There’s a false promise that is made to people, especially young people, about getting a job, getting a place to live. It’s almost impossible to find a secure roof over your head or a secure job. Things are very out of balance and we need to do something about it”.

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