I watched the movie, Locke, last weekend and I would rate it as the best film I have seen this year so far. This is saying a lot considering that I have seen 60 movies in 2014 already.
Locke takes place in a car and the audience only sees the driver, a man called Ivan Locke, the entire film. The film involves a trip from Birmingham to London in Locke’s BMW and the hands-free phone conversations which he has with different people. This includes his wife, two sons, work colleagues, the woman he impregnated, a few hospital staff members and his dead father. We see the decisions Locke makes and the consequences of these decisions on his life. You are probably wondering how this would make an interesting movie. Steven Knight, the writer and director of Locke, manages to pull it off. Locke is storytelling at its finest.
The world is looking for good storytellers; people who help us see the world in a different way. Good stories help us empathise with people who are unlike us by revealing the universal in the specific. Good storytellers have always been in demand but in the 21st century; the era where digital technologies and social media has empowered everyone with Internet access to become a content creator and a noise maker. Good storytellers are in greater demand than ever. A good story stands out in the midst of the chatter that dominates cyberspace. People who tell original and interesting stories will be the new creative elite, their stories will find audiences who are hungry for good stories to consume.
We are all storytellers but some are better at it than others. If you want to be a better storyteller then you have to study good storytellers to see what you can learn to use in your own storytelling repertoire.
