Just want to throw in a quick plug for Vera Drake, easily amongst the best films of the year and a movie that has solidified my on-again, off-again critical relationship with Mike Leigh (I still find it hard to forgive him for the two hours of my life I spent watching Naked, but whatever ...) An exquisitely detailed period movie, Vera Drake is in part about the relationship between the working class and the law. The police and court officials who prosecute her case are not bogeymen; some are rather sympathetic, in fact. But it's clear that to Vera, as to many poorly educated and inarticulate people, the law is at once terrifying and bewildering; and certainly no forum for dealing with the moral complexities of abortion in a civilized society.
Posted by Alan Allport at October 31, 2004 02:09 PMI rather enjoyed 'Naked', though I felt he was overdoing his auteurial signature. I liked its un-BBC-ness, where the character, being northern, would have had his unpleasantness buffed off for positivity and inclusiveness.
Posted by: ROBBIE at November 1, 2004 04:59 AMAnd 'Topsy Turvy' was very good.
Posted by: ROBBIE at November 1, 2004 05:00 AMYes, both of those were excellent.
Posted by: Alan Hogue at November 1, 2004 09:15 AM