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Secrets and Lies

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Secrets and Lies
“Is this Life?” Resolutions, Humour and Family in Mike Leigh’s Secrets & Lies

In this essay I would like to argue that in Secrets and Lies Mike Leigh is suggesting that secrets cause tensions in families and destroys relationships between family members. Firstly, I would like to consider that it is actually true according my own experience because there is been some lies and hidden secrets in my family as well and once they are exposed, it causes embarrassments to those whom are affected. Secondly, I believe secrets can form a negative and positive impact once they are exposed because, it can be a turning point where families consider reuniting and leave the past behind which obviously happens in Secrets and Lies. Sometimes it happens the other way around where Secrets and Lies destroy relationships between family members forcing them to abandon each other.
In this paragraph I focus on how Secrets and Lies is compared to other movies based on a humanistic approach meaning that they introduce the nature of human behaviour in societies. Mike Leigh assumes that,” The films that are made in most parts of the world aren't "independent" films; they're just films, really. Here “independent” films mean films made in spite of Hollywood.” (Miller) Leigh considers Secret and Lies as an independent movie in a sense that it contains realistic facts and truthfulness compared to those produced by filmmakers in Hollywood where they mostly focus on style, cinematic etc. Leigh is right in that case because, Secret and Lies looks like some sort of documentary yet it’s a film rather than stylish, cinematic which in my point of view reflects to what is called humanistic approach. It consists of simple elements that we all are related to and not too advanced with special effects or better graphics as movies made in Hollywood for instance. I strongly believe that it touches its viewers with its contents. According to Miller’s article, involving an interview with Mike Leigh, he

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