At a time when the media and politicians are preoccupied with testing the national mood, two films arrive in cinemas that suggest ways in which an atmosphere may permeate a community – one spreading as if by contagion and the other a prevailing tendency, as if written into the DNA. The Falling is a film by British writer/director Carol Morley set in a girls’ school at the end of the 1960s. Its central figure is Lydia (Maisie Williams), a sparky girl with a sharp tongue and a crush on her best friend. When a tragic event occurs, the school is shaken. Soon after, Lydia collapses with a mysterious fainting condition which gradually manifests itself in other girls, disturbing the school’s discipline. What is this “falling” syndrome – hysteria, mischief or s