Brand: The Second Coming (15.)
Directed by Ondi Timoner.
Featuring Russell Brand. 104 mins
In the 70s sitcom Citizen Smith, the leader of the Tooting Popular Front proclaims that after the revolution nobody will have names, just numbers. “What will your number be?” he is asked. “No 1 of course.” The figure of Wolfie Smith is a cheap stick with which to beat Russell Brand with, but when a self-declaimed egotist and narcissist starts talking about revolution, a wise person is wary. Anyway, I'm poor and oppressed, I don't even have Sky TV – cheap stick are all I can afford.
At the start of the film, when Jeremy Paxman is asked if Brand could lead a revolution in this country, he replies, “that's a really stupid question,” and for a while it looks like this may be a really stupid film. In the time honoured fashion we see Brand taking us back to his childhood home in Grays Essex, barging in on the family that live there now and explaining to them what he used to do in their bathroom. From there though the film takes us through the story of his life, which is basically trading up one addiction for the next: obsessive drinking and drug taking is replaced by frantic womanising which is replaced by enormous fame and now political activism.
Brand is, of course, intensely annoying, mostly because he states the bleeding obvious as if it was some great revelation he's just come up with. Like any kid from a comprehensive who find that he can understand intellectual ideas there is a tendency to be over enchanted by their intelligence and though the mixture of register is an essential part of his comedy, when he employs word like “paradigm” he sounds just like a politician trying to obfuscate their meaning. He is though often very funny (though not as funny as Noel Gallagher who pops up three times in this film and kills each time) and even if his assessments of the political situation are obvious, they are right.
The problem is his solutions. There is nothing behind him except a vague belief in love and higher consciousness. We see him practising yoga and reciting his mantra which appears to be his life story. His move into celebelutionary was prompted by a trip to Africa for Comic Relief which taught him that he needed to reconsider his selfish objectives. But his selfish objective has remained the same: his addictions were fads he passes through, but fame has always been the main craving.
Timonen’s film is basically sympathetic but allows for dissenting voices to be heard such as the man at the Occupy demonstration who shouts ironically, “the famous man is here,” Often though Brand is his own most most effective critic. He seems to realise the absurdity of his situation and the shallowness of his motivations. I came out of the film with a lot more respect for him than when I went in, but I still wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him. In politics fame = power and power is the last thing he should be given. He's a stand-up comic – they're the biggest monsters of all. Elected on Thursday he'd be Pol Pot by Friday.
The film is meant to inspire political engagement but it could equally just add to a sense of frustrated ennui. When the anti-establishment cause is a choice between a Pound Shop Enoch Powell and a Mock the Week Che Guevara, I'd say the establishment is the one laughing longest and loudest.
Brand: The Second Coming (15.)
Directed by Ondi Timoner.
Featuring Russell Brand. 104 mins
In the 70s sitcom Citizen Smith, the leader of the Tooting Popular Front proclaims that after the revolution nobody will have names, just numbers. “What will your number be?” he is asked. “No 1 of course.” The figure of Wolfie Smith is a cheap stick with which to beat Russell Brand with, but when a self-declaimed egotist and narcissist starts talking about revolution, a wise person is wary. Anyway, I'm poor and oppressed, I don't even have Sky TV – cheap stick are all I can afford.
At the start of the film, when Jeremy Paxman is asked if Brand could lead a revolution in this country, he replies, “that's a really stupid question,” and for a while it looks like this may be a really stupid film. In the time honoured fashion we see Brand taking us back to his childhood home in Grays Essex, barging in on the family that live there now and explaining to them what he used to do in their bathroom. From there though the film takes us through the story of his life, which is basically trading up one addiction for the next: obsessive drinking and drug taking is replaced by frantic womanising which is replaced by enormous fame and now political activism.
Brand is, of course, intensely annoying, mostly because he states the bleeding obvious as if it was some great revelation he's just come up with. Like any kid from a comprehensive who find that he can understand intellectual ideas there is a tendency to be over enchanted by their intelligence and though the mixture of register is an essential part of his comedy, when he employs word like “paradigm” he sounds just like a politician trying to obfuscate their meaning. He is though often very funny (though not as funny as Noel Gallagher who pops up three times in this film and kills each time) and even if his assessments of the political situation are obvious, they are right.
The problem is his solutions. There is nothing behind him except a vague belief in love and higher consciousness. We see him practising yoga and reciting his mantra which appears to be his life story. His move into celebelutionary was prompted by a trip to Africa for Comic Relief which taught him that he needed to reconsider his selfish objectives. But his selfish objective has remained the same: his addictions were fads he passes through, but fame has always been the main craving.
Timonen’s film is basically sympathetic but allows for dissenting voices to be heard such as the man at the Occupy demonstration who shouts ironically, “the famous man is here,” Often though Brand is his own most most effective critic. He seems to realise the absurdity of his situation and the shallowness of his motivations. I came out of the film with a lot more respect for him than when I went in, but I still wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him. In politics fame = power and power is the last thing he should be given. He's a stand-up comic – they're the biggest monsters of all. Elected on Thursday he'd be Pol Pot by Friday.
The film is meant to inspire political engagement but it could equally just add to a sense of frustrated ennui. When the anti-establishment cause is a choice between a Pound Shop Enoch Powell and a Mock the Week Che Guevara, I'd say the establishment is the one laughing longest and loudest.
