Film Reviews by IM

I wish I'd looked at RB's review before ordering this. Thanks RB, you've eloquently expressed everything I wanted to say.We watched half of the first episode and mutually agreed to send it back without further ado.

It is well to be wary of anything "critically acclaimed", as critics can be pretentious and irresponsible like certain architects whose motivation is apparently to impress one another, more than to consider those who must live and work in their creations, or see them every day.

"London Road", I'm glad to say as a self-styled non-critic (pretentious—moi?) is simply lovely. This is England as it is, guaranteed genuine. It's set entirely in one actual road and the script is taken entirely from recorded interviews with residents of that road, or visitors to it, after a series of murders which took place there. We learn what they actually said, some perhaps mindful as to how others might judge them, others completely outspoken as to their sympathies or lack of same. When there is a murderer in your midst, at large, unidentified and for all you know, about to strike again, how do you respond? Some are fearful. Some cannot sleep at night, even after a suspect has been detained. Some younger ones are excited, playing the game of "look at him—could he be the one?"

What brings it to totally unexpected life is putting the recorded words into the mouths of a perfectly-chosen professional cas; and setting those words to music, letting them be repeated back and forth and chorused too, not quite with synchronized dancing but something lyrically perfect, which seduces us into the quiet grace of an undistinguished street, in which everyone is brought together by a shared trauma, as never before—except in the Blitz, but none of them is old enough to remember that.

Then there is a transformation, which lifts us beyond the Blitz and its slow rebuilding and relief as the War ended; beyond the celebratory street party. The residents pull together and beautify their street as never before. They turn shame into pride. This film has embodied that pride and must surely amplify it, being a very fine film indeed.

This brilliant film works on many levels and you don't have to be French to feel it as true to life and poignant. There is the relationship between a father who has worked at a soul-destroying job and made sacrifices, enabling his son to have an education and rise to a different social class. The father behaves like a beast of burden, broken-in to forty years of subservient routine, fearful, unable to change his allegiance to the existing order, even when that order spits him out without pity. But we see that the boss and his management team are equally enslaved to the circumstances of factory life. What choice do they have? We change our views as the film goes on. For example, we initially see the communist union representative as a caricature of petty power politics. Later we see her differently. With enormous skill, Laurent Cantet and his cast have delicately balanced the portrayals of the different characters and the issues they have to face as the plot unfolds. The son, studying business in Paris, has taken on a trainee placement as part of his course in the same factory where his father works. He's assigned to the Director of Human Resources, who as so often happens is responsible for planning redundancies. We see that he is idealistic, but naïve as to how the world works. There is a structure to society as currently organized which exacts a price from all of us.

In accordance with this delicate balance, we may see, if we are open-minded enough, that the film is neither for nor against capitalism, communism or anything in between. It shows us, with humour and pathos again perfectly balanced, a slice of life exposing some of the most significant dilemmas in the human condition.