TV was on for three years???
I wish my tv place and electric provider would let me get away with not paying my bills for 3 years without turning me off.
shareWell, I guess you wouldnt mind being turned off from electricity.
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MovieChat Forums > Dreams of a Life (2012) Discussion > TV was on for three years???
If her TV licence was paid by direct debit and she continued to receive an income (like benefits) where the payee did not know she was dead, then TV and other utilities would continue as normal. This just highlights how disconnected people are in society from one another and public services.
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I never thought of that. Thank you for clearing it up for me.
shareThat's an interesting take on the modern industrial welfare state; that your life and affairs can go on and it really doesn't make any difference whether you're there or not. The income comes in automatically, the debits go out automatically, the infrastructure is maintained, and your decaying corpse can laze around watching telly for eternity in climate-controlled comfort. We've advanced to the point where humanity has finally rendered itself entirely superfluous. Historically such a state of grace was accessible only to the pharoahs of ancient Egypt, but today it's within reach of the cleaning lady. Isn't progress grand!
shareI think it's one of the main themes of the film. How the edifice of a person's life can be maintained in the absence of the person leading to complete estrangement. Very sad.
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Well if someone is on benifits they are required to attend meetings with a social worker/Job Seeker rep. If they fail to attend there benifits are cut off.
Also, an old tv left on for 3 years would at some point overheat and break down, the fact that her tv supposedly didnt is very strange.
Cant imagine why the benifits were still coming in, unless they wasnt and the money she had from the flat she sold was what was paying her rent up until it ran out.
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Wouldn't it depends what benefits she was on, if any? It's not clear from the film if she was on benefits as it's said she was working as a cleaner and as you say she may have had savings. It could be she had an adequate amount in her account from which direct debits were paid for utilities although it's clear that her rent wasn't paid for as her body was discovered because the authorities came to evict her for unpaid rent arrears.
Why problem make? When you no problem have, you don't want to make ...share
It also said that they were after £2,500 or there abouts, how long would that have been on rent? As she was living in a bedsit in would green I would think it was too much a month, somewhere around £400-£500 a month, so that would mean they didnt check on her for 6 months or so. I'm not too sure if thats the average time a bailiff would take to attend a home but it sound like a little to long. I may be wrong but from all the info I;ve got from the film it doesnt add up.
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The time line between her death and the council arriving to evict here was 3 years though so if her savings were £2,500 they would have run out long before the council appeared. Mind you it probably takes a long time for the council to evict as it's doubtlessly bureaucratic.
I think that we are not given all the information in the film. The important point about her death and the discovery of her death was that she could die and no one miss her and that but for the council wanting to evict she might have continued lying there dead for more years to come. That's salutary.
Why problem make? When you no problem have, you don't want to make ...share
Actually her sisters hired a private investigator to find her but as the family didnt want to be apart of the film they left that part out.
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As also pointed out by someone else, if the TV had been on all that time, are we to believe there was no power cut during the entire period of 3 years?
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As also pointed out by someone else, if the TV had been on all that time, are we to believe there was no power cut during the entire period of 3 years?
Power cuts? Where do you live? Power cuts are very rare occurrences these days.
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I live in the middle of a large town and we've had 2 power cuts in the last 3 years so they do still happen.
Maybe Joyce's TV comes back on after a power cut. I've had TVs that do that.
Erm if the TV is on and there's a power cut... Guess what happens when the power comes back on?.... Yes, the TV comes back on.
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If I don't change the volume or the channel for more than a couple of hours my TV insists I prove I'm still there lest it shut itself down. There's even a menacing countdown clock on screen whilst I attempt to fish the remote out from under the cat. To be honest it's a pain when watching longer movies but it's heartening to know that if I die in front of the box I won't be running up the bill for my next of kin whilst my cat eats my face off.
What if a squirrel wants a sausage?
my tv does that too with digital cable but this was 2002/3 they probably didnt' have that then
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In the reconstructions, the TV was depicted as a VERY old one, like Sixties or Seventies style, but in the early 2000s I'd imagine it was a modern, but cumbersome one - one that would NOT switch itself back on after a power cut.
I've had maybe two power cuts in the twelve years I've been living here, so a three year period without one wouldn't be unusual.
I don't think overheating is a danger, even over such a long period - let's face it, this HAPPENED, none of these facts are in dispute. Are they?
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Joyce was in dire straights and in need of help from the housing trust. She was receiving benefits to pay for her housing. The TV was probably an old one that didn't have any of the modern sensors or timers. Those old TVs, after a power cut, came right back on, just like a lamp that was left on or a fridge that was left running.
shareit is possible if she got the tv second hand she did not have a licence so therefore it wouldnt have been followed up but god i still find it hard to believe someone can lay dead in a flat for 3 YEARS and no one know !!!!!
My apartment includes electricity in the rent, so it wouldn't be shut off, because I don't have to pay a bill for it.
My last apartment did not include electricity in the rent, but the setup in the building was such that my unit had an individual electric meter, and the landlord sent me a bill for the electricity that had to be added to my rent. If it wasn't paid, the landlord would be coming after me.
However, anyone familiar with government systems can understand that it actually takes a lot for the housing authority to come knock down the door, and the social services system was probably so overwhelmed that several years had gone by before they had the ability and the opportunity to discover Joyce.
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