I have to agree with Jeremy. What I find pernicious about a certain kind of
British crowd-pleaser - Brassed Off, Little Voice, B. Elliot el at - is that
these films seek to reinstall an authentic account of British working class
life, yet they revolve around as individualistic an account of the human
condition as any Hollywood film you care to name. I find Loach depressing,
but at least he's honest about locating fulfillment in a more regionally
specific and collective notion of vernacular culture, for all the
vicissitudes of the class struggle. I don't necessarily go along with his Old
left sociopolitical assumptions, but Loach does capture something of the
particularity of British provincial life. Other voices mercifully free of
Hollywood narrative assumptions are such as Carine Adler (Under the Skin),
Lynne Ramsay (Morvern Callar), Shane Meadows (A Room for Romeo Brass), and of
course Mike Leigh. I call such works as B. Elliot, Brassed Off, Full M
triumph-against-adversity narratives because their stories of little people
surmounting implacable conditions to find fulfillment seem such clumsy
metaphors for the industrial narrative about reinventing British cinema.
We'll never forget the 'Dunkirk Spirit', it seems!
As an aside, the terrestrial lineup this Xmas on British TV was
disappointing, testimony to the wholesale adoption of newer delivery systems
for domestic film consumption in this country, presumably.
The best thing I saw at Xmas: Panic Room on DVD. Unabashedly American, and
bloody marvellous!
Richard
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