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.