Mike Leigh retrospective - HIGH HOPES

After being involved in the successful "Play for Today" series of TV plays, Mike Leigh moved on to a feature film called HIGH HOPES. Leigh maintained his practice of gathering together a group of talented British character actors and improvising around themes of class conflict and real (as opposed to Hollywood-perfect) life. Leigh and his DP Roger Pratt depict late 1980s Britain as it really is - down at heel council flats, shambolic Victorian houses in the North of London and the occasion "fixer-upper" that has been transformed by people with a bit of money and some social aspirations. Against this suitably grimy backdrop, Leigh teases out the heart-break and drama in everyday situations.

In HIGH HOPES we have a loving but frustrated couple called Cyril and Shirley, played by the highly talented Philip Daviws and Ruth Shean. Cyril's a Marxist and, as such, in theory at least, a utopian. But in practice, Cyril is depressed by Thatcher's Britain and refuses to let his wife have a baby - the ultimate courageous and hopeful act. Shirley, by contrast, is a deeply warm and and loving persion, and is a socialist in a real sense - she cares about people and society. This manifests itself in this film by the fact that she actually listens to and cares for her ageing mother-in-law (Edna Dore) in sharp contrast to Cyril's sister and her brother in law.

The marital drama at the centre of this film, and the political question of translating abstract idealism into practical positive action are deeply compelling. I am less convinced by Leigh's handling of the class divide. His depiction of Cyril's sister Valerie (Heather Tobias) falls into the same trap as Beverly in ABIGAIL'S PARTY. Her costume, hair, accent and vocal inflections all cross the line of satire into crude caricature. The same goes for the characterisations of Cyril's mother's upper class neighbours. Despite the fact that Leigh has cast two superb character actors - Lesley Manville and David Bamber - he chooses to portray the rich neighbours as self-involved, superficial and cruel. There's no attempt to make three-dimensional characters. It's as if Leigh doesn't think the rich are worth the effort.

All in all, HIGH HOPES is a mixed bag. Cyril and Shirley's story is moving, thought-provoking, subtle and well-acted. Sadly it's surrounded by a wrapper of crude social caricature that once again feels like it's patronising the socially aspirant working-class and indifferent toward the upper= class.

HIGH HOPES was released in 1988 and won the FIPRESCI prize at Venice.

NIL BY MOUTH - Fucking amazing, bloody petrifying

The East End of London is an impoverished district with above-average levels of crime and unemployment. There are many films and even a long-running BBC TV serial that aim to show us life on the bread-line but they all end up humourising or glamourising the criminal element. Nearly forty years passed between Dick van Dyke's piss-poor screever and Vinnie Jones' 2-D Bullet Tooth Tony, but Hollywood's understanding had advanced not one iota.

NIL BY MOUTH stands alone as an uncompromising vision of life in smoke-filled pubs, grim Soho strip clubs, and dingy council flats. It's a world of "old-fashioned" family values. Where mouthy criminal patriarchs abuse women, and young pretenders are inducted into drug abuse, petty crime and jail time.

The movie opens in a smoky, dark, crowded pub. Men are sitting around drinking, telling darkly funny tales about fucking women, taking drugs and doing time. The gang is dominated by Ray (Ray Winstone) and Mark (Jamie Forman). Ray's wife Val (Kathy Burke) sits in another part of the pub with Ray's sister Janet (Laila Morse) and his mother and their friends. As the film progresses we learn that Janet suffers from domestic abuse and the dramatic tension rests not just in waiting for Ray to lose it, but in watching Janet's reaction to it. Will she carry on covering up for him or will she finally say something.

I admire actor-director Gary Oldman for refusing to dress up the East End and for refusing to dilute the thick East End accents and filthy language. I admire his evocation of mood with the dingy colour palette and claustrophobic settings. I also admire his skill in making the audience think it's seen more brutal violence than it really has. In two pivotal scenes we follow Ray's body into an act of violence but the camera then subtly shifts away. Our memory tricks us into remembering because of the graphic injuries his victims' sustain. Most of all, we see the psychological impact of the abuse in an outstanding dialogue between Ray and Janet near the end of the film. It's an excepionally credible and moving piece of writing, not to mention the career-best performances by Ray Winstone and Kathy Burke, who was duly rewarded at Cannes. But be warned, if you found the expletive in the title of this review offensive, NIL BY MOUTH is not for you.

NIL BY MOUTH played Cannes and Toronto 1997 and is now available on DVD.