In the Loop

Cecil says: We saw this film a week ago at the Ritzy in Brixton and I've already forgotten nearly everything about it. Yes, it really was forgettable, and I have to say I agree with what Michael Portillo is reported as having said about it: boring! But I went into the Ritzy so full of enthusiasm because I enjoyed "The Thick of It" so much, so where on earth did it all go wrong?

Well, first up, it was too long. 'The Thick of It' easily sustained an idea for length of a TV episode with its clever humour and sharp observations, cringingly familiar to anyone working in a civil service press office. In the Loop just felt like a long, very long, TV programme. Sure, I laughed at some of the one-liners, but as the film dragged on, it just became a cliche.

The characters are all caricatures of those spineless, unprincipled politicians we all love to hate. The swearing, funny at first, just gets boring and plain aggressive to the point where I stopped laughing and began to yawn. And of course, the plot is a re-run of the the old 'Weapons of Mass Destruction' story before the Iraq war, fantastic for the audience in the Ritzy, but it just felt tired and more-of-the-same to me.

And that brings me to the audience at the Ritzy: what is it about Brixton, where the majority of faces on the High Street are black, but 90% of the faces in the Ritzy are white, and it's that good leftie right-on 'white' that maybe I used to be too 25 years ago...

After the film, we were honoured to have a Q&A with the Director, Armando Iannucci. Oh dear, oh dear. The more I heard him, the more I hated the film; and the more I heard the audience questions, the more I despised both the film and the people around me. Yes, this was fast becoming a real ordeal for a Saturday night out!

But, why??? Well Ianucci seemed so smug. So sure of his future in films. And so glibly dismissive of those unethical politicians. And the audience lapped it up.

At one point Iannucci mockingly describes how they filmed at Number 10, and how everyone there was in awe of the film-stars; in another answer, he mocks the politicians who are so unsure of themselves that they actually ask people around them how their speech went down. So, hear this Iannucci: politicians are human beings with the same emotions and needs for self-confirmation that we all have. The problem in this crazy world we live in is that people look up to celebrities rather than political leaders; you might say that is because of the poor quality of the politicians; I would say it is something shallow and false in our society and it breeds cynicism rather than passion.

All I could think about by the end of the evening was: this is a caricature of both people and events; this is precisely the kind of film which just adds to the current prejudice and fashion for believing that all politicians are the same, so in that respect I despise it for playing to the tabloid media agenda and basically in the long run undermining democracy through their cynicism (even though, I'm sure. Iannucci himself - and the audience - would say that they are the ones trying to make democracy better...)

No, this was awful. And so disappointing. Will I ever be able to watch 'In the Thick of It' again?

*

Bea says: In fact, we nearly didn't see this film at all - we arrived at the Ritzy just in time to buy tickets and rush in, to find it sold out. The only other film on at that time was The Damned United, which I was prepared to see instead, but Cecil gallantly felt would to foisting too much football upon me. With only a little arm-twisting however, he acquiesced, and we went to the ticket counter to buy our tickets. "Of course, we were planning to see In the Loop" said ever-chatty Cecil to the ticket girl. "Really?" she replied, "as it happens I have two spaces left". After the film, we both agreed The Damned United would have been a better choice...

Oh, it was diverting enough - like a very long TV programme. I chuckled here and there. The young man next to me laughed uproariously - at completely different moments. It's always weird when that happens. But - and there are a lot of buts - it was overlong (like a lot of films these days - whatever happened to the cutting room floor??), it wasn't funny enough, not cleverly funny I mean, there was much too much reliance on cheap swearing humour - which can be funny sometimes, but is basically a cop out. Some of the humour, particularly that directed towards Gina McKee's character - was just crass, like some of the worst stand up I've seen. Like Cecil, I'm a little bored by plots based on the whole Weapons of Mass Destruction thing, if they fail to examine the issue in depth. The whole thing was forgettable, and actually left a bad taste in my mouth - so depressingly cynical.

The Q&A session got on my nerves too, partly because I hadn't been expecting it, the film had been overlong anyway, and I wanted to leave to go out to dinner as it was past 9 and I was hungry; partly because I could see steam coming out of Cecil's ears, but mostly because the director, who had made this film about, as Cecil says, spineless and unprincipled politicans, was asked about the former star character of In the Thick of It, who had a very public fall from grace. In reply he said, "well, in this risk-averse climate at the BBC I couldn't possibly have him on the show again. But I love his work, I'd love to work with him again..." All I can do is echo Cecil - oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
*

The Class - "Entre les Murs"

Bea says: We have been caught up in busy lives and have been remiss about seeing films and blogging, but we took advantage of the long Easter weekend and took ourselves off to the Renoir in Bloomsbury to see this much commended French film. A teacher/pupil film, it refreshingly defies the standard formula (inspirational teacher wins students over with catchphrase such as carpe diem, or Bob Dylan lyrics etc etc) and simply shows the ups and downs in the school lives of a teacher and his students - the students are mostly challenging, although occasionally a chink of something else shines through, and the teacher is usually quite good although he gets tired and worn out, and makes mistakes. It's a very real film - it reminded me both of my own school days in a very average comprehensive in a working class neighbourhood with lots of students (myself included) who were the children of migrants, and it struck a lot of chords with my current teaching role, although that is also different in many ways. At the end, everyone has survived the school year bar one pupil. Life goes on. I liked the message.
***

Cecil says: Language is a big part of this film. And let's begin with the title: for me, the French title ('Between the walls') captures the essence of the film far more than the English. The furthest we get from the classroom walls is the playground; we get no sense of any of the characters' lives outside the school - the teacher manages to glean a little information from his pupils through a 'self-portrait' exercise, but for the rest the focus is totally on the intensity and relentlessness of the classroom relationship. The camera work adds to that constant 'in-yer-face' feel, with lots of close-ups and that active, fly-on-the-wall style we associate with so much reality TV these days.

Language is also important because the main character is the French teacher, who uses wonderful methods to try to throw light on some of the words his students don't understand, especially with half his class being non-native speakers. But that's also why I had a problem with the cause of the main conflict between the teacher and his class: he loosely uses an insulting word 'petasse' to describe two of the girls, but for someone with such a feel for language, it is hard to believe he would have opted for this expression in the circumstances (and by the way, where did the subtitler get that word 'skank' from ? Presumably American, it is not even in my Oxford English dictionary...).

For me personally, the film took me back to my days as a language assistant in France 30 years ago (oh my God!!) in a high school; and 26 years ago in a Paris university. My school in the industrial north of France was basically white, working class so had little in common with the class in the film. The flickers of recognition came for me in the staff room morning handshake (yes, you really do have to go round every teacher in the morning and shake their hand) and in the whole structure of head-teacher and admin committee, though I think the concept of student participation in such things may have developed in the last 30 years.

My Paris university teaching experience gave more of a hint of the reality we see in this film. Far more multi-ethnic classes, but the difference being that my students had made it to higher education. It was amusing to see the teacher's problems over the use of names like 'Bill' - the students asked him to use more common names like 'Khoumba' or 'Souleymane', and I can well remember my innocence and ignorance when half my class in 1983 had similar names reflecting their ethnic origins - all quite usual now, but catching me by surprise at the time.

All in all, this as a gripping film - two hours flies by. It is very intense, however, and never lets you relax for more than five minutes. So don't go and see it for light entertainment. Having said that, I thoroughly recommend it...

***1/2