Matthew Wolfe

Pink hair, silver nails, green eyes. Smoke rises from a rolled cigarette and from nearby work in the field. These impressions, whispers of a time and a place, fuel Catch Me Daddy the debut feature of Daniel Wolfe. The film is undeniably beautiful, a minimalist ode to the underside of Yorkshire life. The surfaces of image, sound and performance craft a poetic illusion that is impenetrable thematically and emotionally. The overall experience is intensely frustrating and incredibly empty.

Set in the once pristine West Yorkshire Moors, Catch Me Daddy is a nightmarish thriller about cultural tension, depravation and violence in modern day Britain. It takes as its starting point the Ted Hughes poem ‘Heptonstall Old Church’, in which creation myth gives way to apocalyptic vision. The great bird which brings life to the region dies and afterwards: ‘Its giant bones / Blackened and became a mystery / The crystal in men’s heads / Blackened and fell to pieces / The valleys went out / The moorland broke loose.’ Recited coarsely in a young man’s voice, over bleak, contemporary landscapes, the poem is a discomforting prelude for what is to come.