Monday, 22 September 2014

Accented to good effect

This is a review of Pride (2014)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2014 (28 August to 7 September)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

21 September (updated 19 October)

This is a review of Pride (2014) (which screened at Cambridge Film Festival 2014 (#CamFF), but was seen later)




At a greater remove (or distance) than when we first saw The Full Monty (1997) or Brassed Off ! (1996) (with, respectively, Tom Wilkinson (steel) and Pete Postlethwaite (coal) – and both films, perhaps, made in anticipation of New Labour coming to power in May 1997 ?), various film-makers have returned to the political struggle that was fought out, on the ground and in people’s lives and homes, between British Coal (in full (according to Wikipedia®) the British Coal Corporation) and the NUM (National Union of Mineworkers) :


In addition to Pride (2014), we have had – at Cambridge Film Festival 2014 (@Camfilmfest / #CamFF) – Still the Enemy Within (2014) (write-up to come of a Q&A soon...), about the struggle to save pits / collieries, and references in Tony Benn : Will and Testament (2014), quite apart from the equally political We Are Many (2014) (dealing with the Stop the [Iraq] War campaign).

Yet the major influence on the content, look and characterization of Pride, and which had four screenings at the Festival, is Dancing in Dulais (1986) (NB, possibly through format issues / successive copying, the image-quality is not always good), where, in their own film, we see, for example, now identifiable members of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners, we hear how and why Lesbians Against Pit Closures broke away, and we can listen to the real Mark Ashton explain the affinity with and solidarity for the miners’ position that led to LGSM (words / sentiments that are used in the film).


What Pride has done, however, is to seek to be maybe too entertaining / too comedic, whilst at the same time wanting to educate us about what happened (although, of course, that leaves us free to seek out material such as that contained in Dancing in Dulais for ourselves, if we want to look beyond the film) – to be too independent of the facts, when needed to drive the plot, but otherwise being close to them, so that there feels to be a compromise :


* Paddy Considine (Dai) has a free stage, and not so much as a heckle, in which to allow his words to reach out – yet it is supposed to be (so we have just been told) a potentially difficult crowd, but he does nothing special to begin with that would have made them accept him

* A mirrored Tom-Jones-like display of exuberance* has the standoffish miners won over in five minutes – both this one, and that with Dai, seem unnecessarily easy victories, if one really wants to build tension that is later released

* The opposition to LGSM’s involvement (is this just an invention to give the plot a turn ?) being focused on a trio of evil-minded people (members of one family) – as if, at one stage anyway, dazzling dance movements had converted everyone else to miners, lesbians and gays working together (as long as no one knew about it ?)

* Bromley / Joe (George Mackay) and Mark Ashton (Ben Schnetzer) having a conveniently similar impulse, which gives the latter the occasion to tell the former what he needs to do with his life to make a real difference (on this day, we are made to focus on following a personal story, ignoring the relevance of what is happening to the battle that both men had been helping to fight – please see below)

* When the Gay Pride march in 1985 at the end turns out to have a greater significance, the film again serves its purposes by having us believe in surprise (as against planning and knowledge, which could have explicated the national NUM repercussions of events typified, for us, by our visits to The Dulais Valley)


Of course, we can accept these things for the sake of the fact that this is not a documentary, but is trying (albeit in an often comic way) to show LGSM’s story (and, within it, Joe’s, Mark's and Gethin's steps for maturity and independence), and how the miners and they influenced and affected each other for the better – and because, unlike Tom Hardy’s wandering attempt in Locke (2014), the Welsh accents, and performances, seem pretty good from the likes of Considine, Bill Nighy (Cliff), and Imelda Staunton (Hefina).

Snow, The Severn Bridge from unusual angles, and the local scenery complete the establishment of Wales as one locus, with London as a second, and make for the necessity to demonstrate that physical separation*** has effects – the aspect that is most clearly drawn out in the film. When those from the locii do combine, we see them receiving welcome, hospitality, and invitations to participate in social activity, and so engaging with life in the other locus.



Pride occupies a very different space on the continuum from Made in Dagenham, which, although also a film of positivity, feels closer to what Ken Loach is doing both in The Spirit of ‘45 (2013) and, arguably with even more political effectiveness, in Jimmy’s Hall** (2014). Dagenham also dares conflate several real people in the one figure of Sally Hawkins’ character of Rita O’Grady, whereas Pride, almost with veneration, chooses instead to give us mostly real individuals amongst the miners, their families and the supporters from LGSM :

Pride’s approach roots the story in actuality, so (in Dancing in Dulais) we hear marchers for Lesbians Against Pit Closures singing the chant ‘Every woman is a lesbian at heart’ (which the film locates on a minibus trip), and Dulais shows us the actual vehicle donated to the miners (and the caption / heading ‘Dulais wears our badge on its van’)).

However, it then means that the artificial ploys cited above by which Pride’s script gives rise to dramatic movement rely on non-historic developments : so, although LGSM’s film acknowledges that there was trepidation from the community before the first visit, it then asserts that, as Ashton had hoped, barriers were broken down between people who had both been oppressed by government and the police (probably not because one gay man amazed them with his prowess…)

That is a key message, and the fact that The Labour Party Conference (although it had debated them before) then officially embodied support for gay and lesbian rights shows that the links made between the striking miners and LGSM proved a commonality in their causes.



That said, at maybe too many times, it feels as if the film both has its cake and eats it, for it does not even outline in its written closing statements about Ashton and some of the others what the outcome was, in South Wales and other mining areas, for the NUM and its members – maybe Pride’s makers wrongly assume that everyone knows that part of the story (for it concentrates, in its ending, with the encouraging side, that of miners, gays and lesbians getting to know and value each other beyond The Dulais Valley) ?


End-notes

* Which one could object to both as an early deus ex machina that invokes Billy Elliot (2000) (another film that combines the miners’ strike and personal development), and as stereotyping the talents and interests of gay men (which ABBA capitalized on in ‘Dancing Queen’ ?).

Yet, according to what we hear in Still the Enemy Within, the apparent delay to LGSM's being welcomed, at the Onllwyn Welfare Hall, was actually only a momentary, hesitant quietening on their arrival - followed by a round of applause...

** Reviewed here.

*** The film cannot even resist having Gethin (Andrew Scott), again prompted to do so as Joe is by Mark, being shown visiting his mother, then rushing us on, only to return to the fruit of that contact at a testing time… That may have happened, but the film generally both wants to give the message that things can change, but rarely to show that happening in a credible way (with Gethin, we are not even shown that).




Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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