The Uncertain Country. (15.)
Directed by Guy Jenkins, Carol Salter, Hope Dickson Leach and many others.
Featuring Mark Addy, Hugh Dennis, Ruth Madeley, Alice Lowe, Steve Evets, Andy Hamilton, Rosalind Ayers and many more. 237 mins.
This compilation of 20 short British Films For Uncertain Times is a nice, well-meaning project made by nice, well-meaning people that might drive you to furious distraction. It seems to be another expression of the now popular principle that if you are in a hole, the best course of action is to keep digging until the hole realises the error of its way.
Originally planned by producers Isabel Freer, John Jencks and Georgia Goggins as a response to Theresa May's proposed Festival of Britain, these twenty short films for 2020, showcasing a range of short dramas, documentaries, comedies and experimental pieces, will now be available to stream in two feature length blocks of ten. Later in the year, they are also looking for community groups to organise events screening five of the films and then giving the audience the opportunity to speak for a minute about the issue raised. At the screening I attended, back in the old days when this was going to be released in cinemas, we were presented with a random selection of films that were taken from each of the two sets.
The global rise of big top fascism and belligerent thickheadness has probably left you in need of something that would vent your frustration for you but Uncertain Kingdom just makes you feel more frustrated by reminding you of how ineffectively the opposition to it has been. After four years of the left exploring every available dead end and blind alley, this thoughtfully provides twenty more.
And, of course, you hope that there will be things here to inspire and celebrate, to show that the anti-tory voice has removed its blinker and found some fresh ways to engage with people. But then the first film is a day in the life of Blackpool food bank. Carol Salter's Left Coast is a very accomplished piece of observational documentary film making, something that needs to be made, a situation that needs to be recorded, but is exactly the kind of thing that the British public has grown very adept at ignoring.
There are some decent entries: Lanre Malaolu's The Conversation, exploring the awkwardness of mixed-race relationships through a piece of modern dance, at least moves like a piece of real cinema. Motherland gives voice to people caught up in the Windrush scandal and dumped in an alien country that is supposedly their home. The brief animation We Are Not The Problem, in which a Polish migrant explains why decent, hard-working Polish migrants are good for the country, not like all those other bad migrants, is bold enough to offer a shade of questioning dissent to the celebration of multiculturalism.
You cry out for a bit of humour but the attempts at satire don't get anywhere. Guy Jenkins' Death Meets Lisolette - the Grim Reaper becoming trapped in a barn and all the residents of the Isle of Sheppey becoming immortal - is an amusing break but I'm still trying to work out its contemporary relevance. Swan has a great opening gag – Mark Addy announces that he's done the Advanced British Citizen Test and got such a high score that, as a reward, he is to be transformed into a swan. The film then proceeds to kick the life out of that lone moment of joy by visualising the way the house is being adapted to the change until the film reveals its punchline: it's all a Brexit allegory. At that point, I could almost feel Nigel Farage's smug snort of derision over my shoulder at the pipsqueak nature of this satirical assault, and for once I'd have to agree with the uni-bollocked provocateur.
In Strong Is Better Than Angry we drop in on a group of women at their kickboxing class, each of them telling us about what makes them angry and how kickboxing lets them vent their anger and some of them even get to draw blood from a virtual David Cameron punchbag. Ah, that's nice for them. This section encapsulates the structural flaw with the whole project: that over its four hours it presents lots of small interests groups all focused in on their own particular issues and chuntering about their lack of representation and seemingly oblivious to the obvious truth that outside of all the identity politics issues that have so effectively divided us, we all have a common enemy. The Uncertain Kingdom is a very long film that doesn't look at the big picture.
Directed by Guy Jenkins, Carol Salter, Hope Dickson Leach and many others.
Featuring Mark Addy, Hugh Dennis, Ruth Madeley, Alice Lowe, Steve Evets, Andy Hamilton, Rosalind Ayers and many more. 237 mins.
This compilation of 20 short British Films For Uncertain Times is a nice, well-meaning project made by nice, well-meaning people that might drive you to furious distraction. It seems to be another expression of the now popular principle that if you are in a hole, the best course of action is to keep digging until the hole realises the error of its way.
Originally planned by producers Isabel Freer, John Jencks and Georgia Goggins as a response to Theresa May's proposed Festival of Britain, these twenty short films for 2020, showcasing a range of short dramas, documentaries, comedies and experimental pieces, will now be available to stream in two feature length blocks of ten. Later in the year, they are also looking for community groups to organise events screening five of the films and then giving the audience the opportunity to speak for a minute about the issue raised. At the screening I attended, back in the old days when this was going to be released in cinemas, we were presented with a random selection of films that were taken from each of the two sets.
The global rise of big top fascism and belligerent thickheadness has probably left you in need of something that would vent your frustration for you but Uncertain Kingdom just makes you feel more frustrated by reminding you of how ineffectively the opposition to it has been. After four years of the left exploring every available dead end and blind alley, this thoughtfully provides twenty more.
And, of course, you hope that there will be things here to inspire and celebrate, to show that the anti-tory voice has removed its blinker and found some fresh ways to engage with people. But then the first film is a day in the life of Blackpool food bank. Carol Salter's Left Coast is a very accomplished piece of observational documentary film making, something that needs to be made, a situation that needs to be recorded, but is exactly the kind of thing that the British public has grown very adept at ignoring.
There are some decent entries: Lanre Malaolu's The Conversation, exploring the awkwardness of mixed-race relationships through a piece of modern dance, at least moves like a piece of real cinema. Motherland gives voice to people caught up in the Windrush scandal and dumped in an alien country that is supposedly their home. The brief animation We Are Not The Problem, in which a Polish migrant explains why decent, hard-working Polish migrants are good for the country, not like all those other bad migrants, is bold enough to offer a shade of questioning dissent to the celebration of multiculturalism.
You cry out for a bit of humour but the attempts at satire don't get anywhere. Guy Jenkins' Death Meets Lisolette - the Grim Reaper becoming trapped in a barn and all the residents of the Isle of Sheppey becoming immortal - is an amusing break but I'm still trying to work out its contemporary relevance. Swan has a great opening gag – Mark Addy announces that he's done the Advanced British Citizen Test and got such a high score that, as a reward, he is to be transformed into a swan. The film then proceeds to kick the life out of that lone moment of joy by visualising the way the house is being adapted to the change until the film reveals its punchline: it's all a Brexit allegory. At that point, I could almost feel Nigel Farage's smug snort of derision over my shoulder at the pipsqueak nature of this satirical assault, and for once I'd have to agree with the uni-bollocked provocateur.
In Strong Is Better Than Angry we drop in on a group of women at their kickboxing class, each of them telling us about what makes them angry and how kickboxing lets them vent their anger and some of them even get to draw blood from a virtual David Cameron punchbag. Ah, that's nice for them. This section encapsulates the structural flaw with the whole project: that over its four hours it presents lots of small interests groups all focused in on their own particular issues and chuntering about their lack of representation and seemingly oblivious to the obvious truth that outside of all the identity politics issues that have so effectively divided us, we all have a common enemy. The Uncertain Kingdom is a very long film that doesn't look at the big picture.
