Jack King’s black-and-white debut about Bradford’s carwash underworld is bleakly beautiful and superbly acted – even if its second half drifts after a gripping startThe ceremony is a bleak one. In the bitter cold of a winter’s night on the Yorkshire Dales, two men dig a hole in the frozen earth to bury a body. The pair are illegal migrants; so too is the dead man. His funeral comes at the end of a long night of the soul in this confident debut from Jack King, handsomely shot in black and white. It’s set in the world of dodgy carwashes, exploited workers dressed in hoodies and joggers, hands chilled to the bone. But the message is not overtly political, not straightforwardly social realist.It begins strongly, tense and edgy, in a Bradford carwash. Tudor Cucu-Dumitrescu is brilliant as Cristi, a young Romanian man who manages the place, answering only to the nasty-looking boss Zully. The dead man (Mo’min Swaitat) has taken his own life after being accused of stealing a Rolex by a customer; Cristi doesn’t want to get the police involved so he tells the new Kurdish guy, Yusef (Erdal Yildiz), to help dispose of the body. This is all sharply observed – though a couple of details niggled me, like who leaves a super-valuable watch in their car while getting it hand-washed? Continue reading…