Scenes of a Sexual Nature (2006)

Reportedly the most successful self-distributed film in British history, Scenes of a Sexual Nature was produced for $400,000 USD by director Ed Blum’s own company, Tin Pan Films, and was shot in only 18 days. Despite these apparently limited resources, the film manages to deliver a thoughtful exploration of the complicated tendency of humans towards romantic love.

Filmed entirely on location on London’s Hampstead Heath, Blum takes maximum advantage of one of the city’s most important and impressive public spaces. From the notorious gay cruising grounds on the West Heath to the magnificent raised Edwardian walkway the Pergola, Blum uses the length and breadth of the Heath’s 791 acres to craft seven romantic urban vignettes.

The unique setting combines with subtle writing and convincing performances to make the film disconcertingly touching. Writer Aschlin Dita strikes a fine balance of skepticism, humour and compassion in his portrayal of seven disparate couples, ranging from an eldery widow and widower reunited after 50 years after, to a gay couple negotiating the future of their relationship, to two fortysomethings on a cringingly awkward and ill-fated blind date. The actors keep up their end of the bargain, delivering a series of evocative performances with an unexpectedly moving result. The scene where Iris (Eileen Atkins) and Eddy (Benjamin Whitrow) discover that their paths have just missed crossing every week for 50 years is one of the more romantic film moments in recent memory – quite an achievement for an industry and culture that generally dismiss the sexuality of older people entirely.

It is this ability to take for granted, without apparent judgment, the capacity we all have for deep, sincere and complicated love that sets the film apart. Where Hollywood typically mashes the theme of romantic love into one-dimensional, soulless mythologies of perfect mates and happy endings, Scenes of a Sexual Nature takes a different approach, choosing instead to focus on what is profoundly complex about the ways that humans love one another. It is this complexity that Blum captures most eloquently, and the result is both delightful and dismaying. I came away feeling simultaneously sad and hopeful about the absurdity of romantic love, and it was this combination that proved the film’s effectiveness.