Best of (New) British
August 16 sees the cinema release of British director
Shane Meadows’ latest film,
This Is England. One of Britain’s bright new hopes, Meadows draws from
his own youth to tell a story of the rise of the skinhead movement and racism
in “Thatcher’s bloody Britain”. It is a great film filled with sadness,
sweetness and danger, cementing his place as one of contemporary Britain’s
signature filmmakers.
As a writer/director
Meadows is known for his low budget style, creating idiosyncratic and
entertaining characters, cinema realism and also for working with the great
English actor
Paddy Considine. Their most recent collaboration was genre thriller
Dead Man’s Shoes (2006), but it was their first film together (Meadows’
second as director) where
Considine revealed awesome talent. A
Room For Romeo Brass (2002) was a shamelessly talk-driven ‘dramedy’
where Considine played a seemingly harmless weirdo who rapidly becomes harmful
after befriending 13 year-old Romeo, the town jokester of a small Midlands
community.
Considine also made his presence felt in an equally ‘weird’ role in
My Summer Of Love (2004). Recalling the ‘coming of age’ films that
characterised 1960s/70s British cinema, Considine plays Phil, the
uncompromising older brother of Mona, a teenager with a bright imagination and
a desire to break free of ordinary life. When she meets glamorous, spoilt
Tamsin, Mona’s world changes. The evangelical Phil rails and preaches at the
girls to save their souls, but it’s Phil who needs saving as Tamsin discovers,
much to Mona’s shock and dismay.
Morvern Callar (2001) is another great British film that recalls the
heyday of the 1970s. Ethereal, dreamy and introspective it also features a
blistering performance by one of the UK’s best:
Samantha Morton. (No surprises both Considine and Morton have
previously paired up on screen, in Jim Sheridan’s glorious tear-jerker In
America).
Morton plays the titular Morvern Callar, a young woman who comes home
one day to find her lover has ended his life. He leaves her a ‘mix tape’ which
becomes the soundtrack to her new life without him. It may sounds as heavy as
they come, but nothing could be further from the truth. Strangely this drama
becomes increasingly sunny, as Morvern discovers a freedom she never knew. She
travels and sees the world with a new lightness. While decidedly art house,
Morvern Callar is a rare, poetic film that reveals the joy in the most
difficult of situations.
Morton also worked on an equally beautiful film, directed by Michael
Winterbottom, one of England’s most prolific and talented directors. The
product of their collaboration was
Code 46 (2003), an atmospheric science fiction thriller set in
near-future Shanghai. While hardcore SF buffs loathe
Code 46 (primarily for its glaring gaps in SF theory), die-hard
romantics love it. Tim Robbins and Morton tear up the screen as star-crossed
lovers thrown together in duplicitous circumstances. For romantics,
Code 46 works - and how.
Which brings us full circle to Winterbottom and Considine (again). While the
former directed the latter in the visionary mock-doc comedy
24 Hour Party People (2002), it was Brit-comedian
Steve Coogan who stole the show, playing eccentric Factory Records
founder Tony Wilson. Coogan played the punk-producer-come-TV-journalist with
all the largesse of a count let loose in a court of royal misfits. And for more
of the same – this time in frock coat costumes and royal courts - check out the
second inspired Winterbottom-Coogan union,
Tristram Shandy: A Cock & Bull Story (2006). That’s no bull.
- Megan
Megan Spencer has spent way too much of her life in the dark, all for a good
cause though - watching movies as a professional film critic. For the last six
and a half years she has been serving the ever-increasing hunger for film and
DVD reviews as radio triple j's resident film critic, and a year ago joined the
new line up of long-running SBS-TV film review program, The Movie Show.
Every now and then she pops up into the light to make her own films,
documentaries (her latest is 'Fantastic Brutality', a documentary about an
obsessed wrestling fan, to be released next year). She has also written about
film for many publications including J-Mag, Limelight, Inside Film Magazine and
the Age Green Guide.
And the impossible question to ask a film critic: what's her favourite film?
"Blue Velvet would be at the top of the list, so would Fight Club... But then
again American In Paris makes me cry every time."
Megan has also been part of the Foxtel's Project Greenlight Australia as an
on-air panelist and judge.
