Thinking again about _Life is Sweet_, which poses a question about
"life" in terms of nourishment, the anorexic daughter's refusal of
food being correlated with a refusal of life. Other positions in
relation to food/life are also considered: the child-like
restauranteur who believes in his own genius but prepares food that
nobody could possibly want to eat, the father's work in the kitchens
as a wage-labourer keeping others fed, his dream of striking out on
his own with a delapidated catering van, and so on.
The difficulty I have with the film is with the binary it sets up
between eating/acceptance of life/striving and not-eating/refusal of
life/"giving up". Leigh's affection for ordinary people trying to make
the best of things is well and good, but in presenting the
alternatives as delusion (Aubrey) and self-negation (Nicola) he seems
to be ruling out any kind of rational opposition to the existing state
of affairs. Plenty of "socialism of the heart", but people have brains
as well - you just don't often see them use them *effectively* in
Leigh's movies (in _Naked_, it's clear that Johnny's furious
autodidact intelligence is being misapplied, that he's on a hiding to
nothing).
David Thewlis berating Nicola for her "fake" feminism is symptomatic -
why can't she, anorexic or no, be a real and serious feminist? Why
must Leigh's lefties in _High Hopes_ be these nice, caring, slightly
dopey people who really ought to be settling down and raising children
instead of getting depressed about the woes of the world? What I find
odd is the combination of a strongly politicised world-view - _High
Hopes_ has plenty to say on the subject of class, money and the
barbarities of the Thatcher era - and a frankly pacifying view of how
life should be lived under such conditions: yes, of course, "we should
be careful of each other, we should be kind", but what about "it is
right to rebel against reactionaries"?
Dominic
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