Tag: massacre

Peterloo

Posted on by victorfraga

Mike Leigh has chosen the form of chronological historical narrative for his latest film. As I write this, I am wracking my brains to name a historical drama with it’s primary subject rooted in working class history. Representation of workers on film in any century prior to the twentieth are usually given in cozy form as good honest (or feckless) folk who know their place in the social order. Adaptions of Dickens or Hardy novels on film are perhaps the closest we get to portrayals of the ordinary citizen, but even these have a tendency to stray into either bathos or comedy relief. That’s why a major British film about a hugely significant event in workers history is both welcome and necessary.

Leigh has taken pains to tell this story in great detail and this makes for a long film at nearly two hours. The time taken to place the events of 16th August 1819 in a political and historical context pays off. We understand the hierarchy of 19th century Britain: the painstaking lengths that politicians and law enforcers go to maintain the stats quo has hardly changed. These efforts are fuelled by the twin paranoias of the French and American revolutions where the people did indeed overthrow their governors. Despite the sacrifice made by the common soldier in the recent Napoleonic Wars, here personified by Jospeh (David Moorst) returning home to his family, it is the leaders who are rewarded financially by parliament. The common people are left starving after the passing of the corn laws led to a ban on cheap imported grain.

Unfairness is meted out at every turn to a community of mill workers that is warmly represented by Leigh. Wages are reduced, work is lost due to mechanisation, beautifully realised in song by the Singing Weaver (Dorothy Atkinson), cramped living conditions, harsh statutes and punishment for minor misdemeanours. Top of this list, (as it affects all the others), is lack of representation. Large urban areas grouped together with one distant MP and no vote for the working people to determine who governs them.

We witness the lead up to the massacre and the massacre itself through the eyes of Nellie (Maxine Peake) Joshua (Pearce Quigley) and their family, the agitators and reformers and the area’s magistrates and constable.

The preparations for the march by reformers Joseph Johnson (Tim Gill), Samuel Bamford (Neil Bell), Mary Files (Rachel Finnegan), John Knight (Philip Jackson), John Thacker Saxton (John-Paul Hurley) and Richard Carlile (Joseph Kloska) are shown in a mixture of public and private meetings. Arguments for reform are place carefully in passionate dialogue and speeches, leaving the viewer a clear picture of what was at stake.

This period saw the establishment of the Manchester Female Reform Society and Leigh places this group of women front and centre of the action.

Excitement mixed with discord characterises Nellie’s family’s approach to the upcoming rally. The men excitedly report information gleaned at meetings and Nellie questions how this event will change anything. At times, this dialogue is a little clunky even in the mouth of an actress as skilled as Peake, but this can be forgiven in light of the directors mission to have his audience understand their history. Magistrates, MP’s Royalty and the military collude with spies in order to build a coalition in order to combat the “enemy”, of a section of the populace planning a riot. A superbly revolting Prince Regent (Tim McInnery) proclaims to his government ministers “I know what the people want better than they know themselves”. The common people are infantilised and oppressed by a system that sees them merely as cannon or factory fodder.

The anticipation for an opportunity to affect change is mournfully and elegantly shot by Dick Pope as workers march on Saddleworth Moor, practise instruments and prepare to bring their whole families on this ‘day out’. What began in their minds as a peaceful protest and demand for equality of opportunity turns into a nightmare skilfully edited by Jon Gregory to reveal Leigh’s intention of personalising an impersonal sabre charge at an innocent group of unarmed people. There are a number of shots of sabres begin wielded from horseback towards a single figure. This is resonant of the famous 1984/85 miners strike photograph of Lesley Bolton about to be struck by a police baton. We are reminded in the simplicity of focus, capturing punching, swiping and beating bystanders to the ground, of other confrontations where the government has used the army or law enforcement officers as an instrument of the state.

Indeed, these events are inescapably pertinent to the current state of the nation, disenfranchisement of large parts of the north of the UK, a disaffection with governance and the seeming march backwards to the divisions and inequalities of the 19th century. This is history firmly reminding us of what went before to illuminate where we are now. A call to arms, a disenfranchisement rousing roar of a film that deserves our full attention.

Peterloo is out in cinema across the UK on Friday, November 2nd. Available on VoD in March,

22 July

Posted on by Jeremy Clarke

The date is July 22nd, 2011. After detonating a bomb in Oslo, a far-right terrorist traveled to the island of Utøya to massacre teenagers attending a youth leadership Summer camp. Once he was apprehended by police, the country had to come to terms with his actions while the survivors had to rebuild their lives and, if they chose, confront the terrorist in court.

Not to be confused with the bravura single take, Norwegian language film U: July 22 (Erik Poppe, 2018) about the massacre on the island itself, due for UK release two weeks after this one, 22 July is the English language film by UK director Paul Greengrass using a Norwegian cast and crew which covers not only the massacre but events leading up to it and its aftermath. It’s based on the book One of Us: The Story of a Massacre and its Aftermath by Åsne Seierstad, a renowned Norwegian war correspondent whose expertise Greengrass says he found invaluable in making the film.

Greengrass’s background in journalism and documentary led to feature films like Bloody Sunday (2002) and United 93 (2006), about the 1972 Derry, Northern Ireland ‘Bloody Sunday’ shootings and one of the commercial flights involved in the 9/11 US terrorist attacks respectively, which dramatise actual historical events with documentarian accuracy. He uses this approach again in 22 July, which shares a great deal with United 93, another film about a terrorist attack perpetrated against a Western democracy.

Whereas 9/11’s terrorists were immigrant Islamists from a culture beyond the target country, the lone operator behind the Oslo and Utøya attacks was a far-right extremist and a Norwegian national, the enemy within. Both United 93 and 22 July start with the terrorist preparations and follow them as they put their plans into action, but where United 93 followed both what went on in the aircraft and events on the ground e.g. in air traffic control up to the point the aircraft was destroyed in mid-flight, 22 July covers not only the Oslo bombing and the Utøya shootings in its first third but also the survivors – both teenagers and terrorist – up to and including the point where the former group confronted the latter individual in court.

Thus, in addition to one plot line following far right terrorist Anders Behring Breivik (Anders Danielsen Lie), another follows two teenage brothers at the camp Viljar and Torje Hanssen (Jonas Strand Gravli and Isak Bakli Aglen) in their attempts to survive. Viljar, who helps his younger brother flee to safety, receives a gunshot wound to the head and shoulders and for months after the incident must undergo hospital treatment and therapy. As he does so, he must face his own demons: will Viljar be able to confront the terrorist in court and show the world that there is a better way? A third plot strand involves the Norwegian PM Stoltenberg (Ola G. Furuseth) as he struggles to deal with the unfolding terrorist incidents.

It’s gripping and terrifying material, impressive not least for the huge amount of research that Greengrass, Seierstad and team have clearly put in. On a really big screen it’s visceral and harrowing – apart from Viljar’s sustaining his injuries there isn’t a great deal of graphic detail shown, but the fact that these are carefully crafted recreations of actual events that took place in recent history lends the representation considerable gravitas.

Controversially, Greengrass has chosen to make this film with online movie streaming service Netflix and while we would encourage you to see it in a cinema with a decent sized screen if you possibly can, those with Netflix accounts may, understandably, choose to watch it on that platform instead. (Hey – go and see it in the cinema first!) The teenage survivors are the next generation, so Greengrass’ stated intention of reaching that audience via a familiar streaming platform makes complete sense, much as I hate to have to write that this is the case.

In short, this is a well researched, realised and performed and to boot a highly effective docudrama about devastating events that remind us to be vigilant in combating and confronting terrorism, whether perpetrated by right wing extremists or anyone else. It would make a terrific double bill if preceded by United 93 for those that have both stomach and stamina to cope with both at once, however it’s undeniably an effective piece of cinema in its own right. You might wonder why Greengrass would need to make a 22 July after having already made a United 93: the answer is, the Islamist terrorist atrocity and the right wing extremist terrorist atrocity are two sides of the same coin, so the pair of films presents us with some sort of wider, balanced view. The new film is absolutely essential viewing in much the same way that the earlier one was. Don’t miss.

22 July is out in cinemas in the UK on Wednesday, October 10th as well as on Netflix. Watch the film trailer below: