Cruel Britannia

For the following blog we need to jump in our DeLorean and hit 88 mph. Our destination: the past. Speeding backwards through time we arrive in Britain’s recent murky past. This is the Britain of the 1970s-80s; a country seemingly grinding to a halt, this is a land with an unimaginable future. The economy is in ruins (possibly collapse), religious hatred and antisocial behaviour is the norm and the powers within society (government, police, prison, industry) are so flawed and rotten that only corruption holds them in place.

This grubby, crumbling country is the setting for the all the films under discussion within this blog.

First up is ‘Bronson’, the story of Charles Bronson (aka Michael Peterson) the man deemed “Britain’s most dangerous criminal” by the tabloids and who has spent 30 of the past 34 years in jail through his continued attacks on guards and hostage taking by way of keeping himself locked up.
In director Nicolas Winding Refn’s hands what could have been a rather grim and humdrum social- realist portrait of a decaying prison system is turned into one of the weirdest and intriguing films to come out of this recent ‘Brit-Gangster’ sub-genre. The bizarre methods that the film employs is probably the only way into the mindset of this very peculiar and disturbed man. It’s possible to note the influences throughout the film; Sexy Beast, Chopper, David Lynch and Kubrick.
Tom Hardy is simply terrifying plausible as Bronson, a man whose sees his gift for violence as a fame-seeking route to notoriety, a man incapable of dealing with a normal life outside of prison. Of the other cast, Matt King (better known as Super Hans from Peep Show) is of particular note as Bronson’s gay fighting promoter. King manages to steal every scene he features in despite the little screen time his character is given.
Even before this film was released it was being accused of glamorising violence in the manner of ‘geezer-porn’ (see Danny Dyer’s CV). But I didn’t see that problem in this film. The violence is very stylised and often staged in a surreal dream-like quality, yet it is not played for cheap thrills. Like Kubrick’s ‘A Clockwork Orange [1971]’ the disturbing nature of this film comes from the fact that the main protagonist (whose actions are so repellent) is made rather charismatic and understandable through Hardy’s performance. But this slight humanising of Bronson makes his violence all the more shocking and demented, at no time are we cheering along Bronson.
Through the actors’ performances (particularly Hardy’s powerhouse Bronson) and skill of the film-makers this potentially limited material is turned into an unusual and memorable film. I can see this as a film that needs repeat viewing to fully understand the nuances within.

* * * *

This week also saw the end of Channel 4’s mammoth series ‘The Red Riding Trilogy’. Based on crime novelist David Peace’s quartet of the same name, each film is a separate yet interlocking and convoluted tale of corruption, violence and the lasting damaging effects these actions have on society. These semi-fictional accounts all take place within a specific year (1974, 1980 & 1983)^, blurring the lines between fact and reality, using the crimes and politics of the time as its bleak backdrop. Having been a fan of Peace’s writing (something of an English James Ellroy) for some time I eagerly awaited these highly crafted pieces of Yorkshire-noir.
Proceedings kick off in 1974. A journalist for the Yorkshire Post; Eddie (Andrew Garfield), having returned from a failed career down South, begins to investigate the disappearances of local young girls. These investigations lead him to believe that the man who confessed to the killings couldn’t possibly have committed such acts. Eddie’s snooping brings him into direct contact with the corrupt Yorkshire police force and property magnate John Dawson (a predatory Sean Bean). The cast which included Rebecca Hall, Peter Mullan and Eddie Marsan were uniformly excellent and the film was solidly made. As the film continued it become stranger and darker, at times it felt like Yorkshire had warped through a black hole into the mind of a David Lynch.
Of the three film, the first one is perhaps the weakest (interestingly the novel has been somewhat disowned by Peace), it suffers from being too formulaic, predictable and familiar in the realms of crime fiction. At times 1974 felt like an extended and self-important, albeit occasionally brilliant, routine television crime drama. This being the first film, the story lacks the interlocking complexities, fractured narrative and nuanced multi-layers of the following adaptations.

By 1980, things have improved dramatically. Six years have passed since the previous film and decent cop Peter Hunter [Paddy Considine] from neighbouring Manchester has been called in to investigate the inner workings and possible corruption within the Yorkshire force’s handling of the ongoing Yorkshire Ripper killings. As with the previous effort, the direction (from Man on Wire’s James Marsh) and the cast were excellent. Of particular note were Maxine Peake, Warren Clarke and a terrifying turn from Sean Harris.
The second instalment was more forbidding, bleaker and slower yet ultimately more gripping and complex than the previous film. It says something of the film’s strength that it made you want to re-watch 1974 to pick up on the threads that begin with that story and which became so tangled in this one.

With the final instalment, it’s now 1983 and the child killings of 9 years previously have come back to haunt Yorkshire. Another local girl has gone missing and with the striking similarities to the abductions of 1974, guilt ridden detective chief superintendent Maurice Jobson [David Morrissey] begins to realise that perhaps they arrested the wrong man. Meanwhile the innocent man’s [Daniel Mays] family solicitor John Piggit [Mark Addy] is determined to discover who is responsible.
This concluding film was the weirdest of this already strange series. Whereas in 1974 & 1980 the corrupt powers of Yorkshire were plausibly realistic, this film was rather more gothic in its styling, suggesting that these people may in fact be ‘evil’. This took the film into some unexpected areas, at times it played more like a horror film, included were possible nods to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Psycho, Straw Dogs and more than a few to Orwell’s seminal novel of the year following this films. Proceedings were even given a supernatural air through Jobson’s romancing of a local medium, and her telling of the future. Although an interesting departure from the previous instalments, at times this shift in tone did occasionally strain the credibility of the story. Nevertheless the film remained gripping and devastating. This was also the most visually striking of the films, helped no doubt as this one was shot using Red.

It’s certainly grim up North; with the forever-stretching grey moors, crumbling slums and looming nuclear coolant towers, this series has proved to be one of the bleakest and peculiar pieces of British television in recent years. With the series delving into this country’s grubby past it also says something of the collapsing of modern post- Thatcherite Britain in trying in pinpoint the moment in our country’s history were everything turned to shit. Its basic theme that the repercussions of violence and corruption continue to damage society has proved Red Riding to be very timely. Although flawed and somewhat self-important, these films were very well crafted intriguing television, the likes of which are so rarely made in Britain.

1974 * * * 1980 * * * * * 1983 * * * *

^ Peace’s Nineteen Seventy Seven was not chosen for adaptation.

Watch-Mania

Watchmen’s end credits are rolling, and suddenly the cinema erupts into cheering. I immediately felt that there must be something wrong with me for not wildly enjoying this film. These feelings were cemented upon my meeting a few friends outside the cinema. They told me of how the film was “flawless”, “a masterpiece” and how I must be so ignorantly stupid for my not fully appreciating this film and that my disappointment was evidence of my “not liking of films that require thinking”. How could a fantastic graphic novel produce a lacklustre film?

This is maybe where the confusion for my fan-boy friends lies. Surely if it’s almost exactly the same then great comic= great movie. I’m afraid that this isn’t the case with Watchmen.

Don’t get me wrong, the film is well made, sporadically brilliant, but I was just bored to tears by most of it. Occasionally the film was fantastic, the opening assassination of The Comedian and the opening titles were brilliant. But after this strong opening, the film’s pace slows and becomes rather plodding. The alternate American timeline and great pop culture moments of the 20th century were all splendidly reconstructed, but there was little in the way of the
characterization or deep psychological nuances of the graphic novel. This film suffers from the 20 years in development hell and the impossible anticipation that such a time scale generates. “Watchmen” was so hyped to the point of lunacy that any mumbles of “it’s not that great” would be drowned out by the enthusiasm of the fans.

The basic problem with the film is that it sticks too closely to the storyline of the original material. I was struck by a strange sense of deja vu watching Zack Snyder’s incredibly faithful adaptation. This is possibly due to the fact that the film is copied almost entirely verbatim from the comic. This is an unusual film in that is requires a fair knowledge of the source material, but in having this knowledge it also robs the film of any tension or audience engagement. What works so well in the comic doesn’t necessarily work on the silver screen. It was a mistake not to slightly rework the comic’s structure into a more film-friendly narrative. The film is meandering, flabby and self-important, getting bogged down in endless exposition and shifts in tone. With the exception of Jeffery Dean Morgan’s ‘The Comedian’ and Jackie Earle Haley’s ‘Rorschach' I felt the other characters were incredibly dull and whiny. Moore & Gibbons’ story was so rooted in the fears of nuclear extinction at the hands of Soviet/American warfare that now in the 21st century it the film seems quaint, out of touch and old-fashioned. Nuclear war was so 1980s. A less strict adaptation would have benefited the film greatly; one that deals with the themes and issues of the original but in a more relevant setting.

I might be wrong, committed Watchmen fans shout me down if you feel the need, but at least this is a mainstream comic-book film that can provoke such debate.

Not a bad film, but a missed opportunity. * * *