Peter Viney's Blog

2020

Directed by John-Paul Davidson & Stephen Warbeck
Written by John-Paul Davidson & Stephen Warbeck
Music by Stephen Warbeck
Amazon Prime

CAST
Ciaran Hinds- The Man In The Hat
Stephen Dillane- The Damp Man
Sasha Hails – The Woman ()on a bike)
Maiween – The Biker
Muna Otaru- The Chef
Brigitte Rouan – The Hotel Manager
Xavier Laurent- The Official
Amit Shah- The Measurer
Zoe Bruneau – The Measurer
Sylvain Thirolle- 1st Bald Man
Conor Lovett- 2nd bald man
James Lailey- 3rd bald man
Richard Henry- 4th bald man
Mike Pickering- 5th bald man

Didier Bourguignon- 2nd Farmer
Sam Cox – 1st farmer
Jeremy Herrin – Priest
Sheila Reid – older woman
Joseph Marcell- older man
Nadine Lee- Nadine Lee (soul singer)

Usually I have an idea in advance about whether I’m going to review a film, and we watch at least four or five films a week in lockdown, so only a minority ever get reviewed. I had no intention of reviewing this and knew nothing about this … well, masterpiece.

We just selected it on Amazon Prime and plunged into what appeared to be a classic French film set in the 60s with a touch of Tati. It’s mainly wordless, though not silent. One early piece of dialogue in a cafe, where our man in a hat eavesdrops two women, is in retrospect almost a musical piece. It has English subtitles but they rarely need to appear because so few people speak. The lead, the man in the hat, has a face so Gallic that if he walked into any café in the world, they’d said, ‘Who’s the French guy.’ He has just two lines of dialogue in the entire film. One is Madame. The other is Mesdames.

It is set in rural Southern France, and co-stars a Fiat 500, a Citroen Dyane and a bicycle. And a photograph. The very size of the Fiat 500 confines everyone who travels in it, except the priest who stands through the sun roof. While it seems 60s with the main cars, more modern ones also appear.

So then the credits came … an English director, Stephen Warbeck, who is best known as a composer (Shakespeare In Love, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, National Theatre, Shakespeare’s Globe). An Irish lead actor, Ciaran Hinds, with the Gallic visage. Several English actors. An Italian car. A group of five men (The Bald Men), who appear at the start to be Mafiosi, slipping a body in the Marseilles dock, and then follow the Man In The Hat. (Ciaron Hinds). Yet they look like a rascally English Two-Tone group with the hats and ties and suits (Madness, The Selector). Their vehicle, the Citroen Dyane is rusty blue and rusty red, so also two-tone.

Then it circles. If I were more pretentious (No comments!), I’d say it’s McLuhanesque in that images, ideas, feelings, come and go and the narrative is not linear. The people reappear and reappear, the bearded man (“The Damp Man”), the male and female surveyors in hi-vis jackets, forever measuring; the woman on a bicycle; the official inspecting the photograph of a woman.

Others appear just once, the two old farmers who help with his car, then put him up for the night in a cot next to their shared bed, and eat raw onions (my English view of rural France too!); the couple who keep him awake all night bonking in the room above, who turn out to be an elderly black man and white woman; the official who rubber stamps things. A soul band sing Otis Redding’s Try A Little Tenderness in English. There’s a hen race. Lots of cafes. Locations circle, we keep coming back to a very high, narrow, ancient bridge. The warm lighting of small town streets at night took me right back to touring France on lecture tours … we’d sometimes speak in a city, but stay overnight in a pleasant small town nearby.

I only started to realise the cast were partly British when Sheila Reid appeared (Benidorm and Royal Shakespeare Company). Then I thought back, the farmer looked like Sam Cox. That’s because it was.

Then the music throughout is vital, ever-changing across a wide stylistic range. I immediately bought the soundtrack on iTunes, Sadly it misses a couple of major items, most notably the song which I’d guess is Memories from the credits (its lyric On the shoreline of the sea … and all the little things, the smallest things) which recurs. Also the female mechanics song The Song of Forgotten Cars.

It’s steeped in symbolism, it would take a massive essay to try to untangle it, and I’d have to watch it many times (but I will), and it doesn’t matter. It’s a journey, a life. The central character drips compassion. The story is a spiral within a spiral. The spiral is a classic symbol for the evolution and growth of spirit and soul (or Hegel’s view of history). The recurring narrow bridge is a classical connection of heaven and Earth. He enters a Midsummer Night’s Dream. Losing a shoe means a lost connection and is threatening. (And losing it because of stepping in dog shit reminded me that French streets had vastly more dog shit than English streets). He is interrupted by the man and woman measuring reality all the time. The mute farmers eat raw onion, they insist he eats raw onion and a spiral sausage. The onion is a protection against evil and disease. He fears the five bald men, but they turn out very differently indeed. He writes ‘I miss them all’ on a tree (in English). He ends up on a ferry (The Ferryman? River Styx?)

BUT YOU DO NOT NEED TO KNOW ANY OF THAT to simply enjoy it. It’s funny. It sounds great – almost like music videos to look at too. I was going to write a review twice this length. I may well add to it as I’m going to watch it again in the next couple of days, but on balance I don’t want to give away any surprises or situations.

I used to rate films as TV / Record TV / DVD / Bluray / 24K UHD Bluray

Let’s just say 5 star: *****

LINKS TO REVIEWS ON THIS BLOG

The theatrical connections are strong!

STEPHEN WARBECK (Theatre composer)
The Winter’s Tale, Globe 2018
The Tempest, Wanamaker Playhouse 2016
Richard II, The Globe, 2015

CIARAN HINDS
Girl From The North Country, Old Vic Theatre
Hamlet, The Barbican 2015 (Claudius)
FILM:
The Debt, 2011 (David)

SAM COX
A Woman of No Importance, Classic Spring, 2017
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Young Vic, 2017
Macbeth, Globe 2016 – Duncan
The Winter’s Tale, Wanamaker 2016
Pericles, Wanamaker, 2015
Julius Caesar, Globe 2014

SHEILA REID
Troilus & Cressida, RSC 2018
Pericles, Wanamaker Playhouse, 2015