At the
Movies Three alternatives to summer's pseudoepics
By JOSEPH
CUNNEEN
In a season of expensively ridiculous epics such as "Air Force
One" and "Contact," it's pleasant to point out a few alternatives -- movies you
can enjoy without feeling embarrassed or cheated.
Almost anyone but Mrs. Thatcher should like Brassed Off,
for example, a rousing English comedy about a brass band in Grimley, a colliery
town where the mines are about to be shut down. Although director/writer Mark
Herman doesn't try to make the miners heroic, he does capture their wit,
independence and basic decency. It quickly becomes clear that the one touch of
glamour in the drab life of these people is the town's brass band, but it's
also easy to see why some of its members are beginning to wonder, with
everything falling apart, why they should go on playing.
Danny (Pete Postlethwaite), the band's leader, has complete faith
in the importance of music; his comically expressive face reveals both inner
discipline and contagious leadership. His position is under serious attack,
however, until a highly attractive young woman walks in on a reluctant
rehearsal. Gloria (Tara Fitzgerald) turns out to be the granddaughter of a
deceased miner still remembered fondly as a flugelhorn player. As soon as she
begins to blow on her instrument, it is obvious that this all-male group is
ready to become inclusive. Though Gloria is as talented as she is attractive,
what none of the men know is that her return to her Yorkshire birthplace was
not for the sake of music. She's being paid by management to compile a report
on the advisability of continuing mining operations there.
What makes "Brassed Off" work is that Herman helps us see the town
realistically through the eyes of the miners. He moves the action briskly to
provide insights into a wide range of characters and cuts between resistance
activities in the town and discussions among the owners. The story centers on a
band, and there is an increasing sense of exultation in its music, selections
in themselves unremarkable -- tried and true numbers one might find in the
repertoire of the Boston Pops. We are surprisingly moved when the band plays
"The Londonderry Air" outside Danny's room to lend him support after he has a
stroke.
Less successful, because too predictable, is the no-nonsense love
affair between Gloria and Andy (Ewan McGregor), a handsome young band member.
Also a tad conventional is Gloria's denunciation of the bosses after realizing
they had made up their minds to close the mine even before asking for her
report. If the plot isn't completely credible, however, Grimley involves and
convinces us. The movie's sentimental streak is both endearing and amusing.
"Brassed Off" doesn't pretend to solve the economic problems of
the coal industry or the inhabitants of Grimley, but it makes us laugh and
cheer for "our side." Danny's son Phil (Stephen Tompkinson) is forced to put on
a clown costume to earn a few pounds at children's parties. After several
awkward routines, he delivers a stinging attack on the Tory Party with a statue
of Christ in the background. "Brassed Off" is a ringing declaration of how
important art is to a community, but when the band wins a national championship
in London, Danny himself places politics over music with a rousing philippic
against the government.
The pleasures of Shall We Dance? come more gradually and
subtly, providing a more original film experience. Masasuko Suo's film
ridicules the Japanese social code, which makes it unthinkable for a husband to
take his wife out dancing. It's encouraging to report that the movie was a box
office hit in Japan. No one should be reluctant to attend this Japanese movie,
since the expressions on the dancers' faces, not the dialogue, carry the
action. The only ones who will resist its appeal will be those impervious to
both the charm and the comedy of Japanese tact.
The 42-year-old Shohei Sugiyama (Koji Yakusho) works hard at an
accounting job, which has enabled him to support his wife and daughter and to
acquire a car and a good home, but he finds his life desperately unfulfilling.
By chance he catches a glimpse of Mai (Tamiyo Kusakari), a tall, slim,
mysterious young woman looking out of the high window of a dance studio, and he
decides to pursue her. Although Shohei is embarrassed that he might be seen
entering a school for ballroom dancing, he is sufficiently determined to endure
the humiliations of a beginners' class taught by the school's senior teacher.
The group Shohei joins is a wonderful collection of endearing
misfits, including a colleague from his office who wears a wig and adopts an
extravagantly macho approach to dancing. Mai remains aloof and melancholy,
insisting that she never has any social relations with students. Shohei
gradually becomes genuinely taken up with his new hobby, however, and it
affects him in unexpected ways. He is more cheerful at home and unconsciously
practices dance steps while sitting at his office.
Suo lets us enjoy the comical behavioral changes that develop in
the students as they begin to develop greater skill. Meanwhile Shohei's wife,
who has smelled perfume on her husband's shirt, is so troubled that she hires a
private detective. Much of the fun of "Shall We Dance?" comes from the wild
discrepancy between the wistful atmosphere of the dance studio and the lurid
associations attached to ballroom dancing in Japan. Ironically, some
pseudo-sophisticated U.S. reviewers have complained because the movie doesn't
satisfy their overstimulated expectations. Suo is no more interested in
sensationalism than in pleading the cause of neglected Japanese wives. His
delicious comedy is primarily a celebration of dancing, reminding us that we
should feel responsible for our partners.
It is not by chance that "Shall We Dance?" takes its title from
the inspired number in "The King and I." Shohei's discovery of the joy of
dancing knits together all the threads of the plot: It leads ultimately to a
family reconciliation, helps make the beginners' class into a community and
brings Mai out of her depression to dance at last with Shohei before leaving
for the celebrated ballroom competition at Blackpool, England.
Mrs. Brown will introduce moviegoers to a side of Queen
Victoria of which most will be unaware: a woman who provoked widespread gossip
by seeming to fall under the sway of her personal servant John Brown, a
favorite of her late husband Albert as head of the royal stables in Scotland.
Director John Madden deliberately maintains a slow pace and observes the action
with amused detachment. Although there is a historical nugget behind his story,
fortunately he doesn't confuse it with a D.H. Lawrence novel.
Judi Dench does wonders with the inevitably restricted emotional
range of a stern queen in deep mourning. Billy Connolly is attractive in the
manly way he addresses Victoria as a human being who needs fresh air and
comfort in the wake of her husband's death. "Mrs. Brown" skillfully exploits
the glamour of the various royal houses, while revealing the stultifying
absurdity of royal etiquette. Dench's queen is both appealingly vulnerable and
sufficiently intelligent to see that her political advisers are constantly
trying to manipulate her. The queen's private secretary (Geoffrey Palmer) is
inevitably concerned that her growing intimacy with her servant will be
exploited by the opposition to undermine the government.
"Mrs. Brown" is presumably accurate in presenting the dates and
changes of locale of the Queen's movements, but does not try to resolve all the
questions about her relationship with Brown. Connolly makes the latter
attractively self-assured at the outset. As the movie proceeds, however, he
seems almost despotic in the way he exercises control over the queen's whole
entourage, even her fatuous son, Albert. At the end, when the queen has
returned to performing her public duties, Brown seems pathetically unbalanced,
and his understanding of protecting the queen has spun wildly out of control.
"Mrs. Brown" is highly superior Masterpiece Theater entertainment.
Even with all the other fine performances, Anthony Sher as Prime Minister
Benjamin Disraeli steals the show. He rightly sees how amusing the situation is
and how inept the people are with whom he has to deal. Though not without
sympathy for both the queen and Brown -- he's the only one who knows how to
appeal to the latter -- he has all he can do not to burst out laughing.
Joseph Cunneen is coeditor of Cross Currents.
National Catholic Reporter, September 5,
1997
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