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BaftaBaby 
"Always entranced by cinema."
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 Posted - 11/07/2010 : 22:51:45
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Mike Leigh's Another Year proves yet again the depth of his understanding of how people behave. He presents the film as a quartet of seasons, each introduced by white on black titles, a la Woody Allen. Which is where the parallel ends.
Woody's forte has always been a unique and largely successful comic wardrobe donned by a medley of characters as though physical and verbal schtick were dress-up garments. His more "cerebral," Bergmanesque works pointedly ask questions about the hypocrisy of relationships. But he cannot seem to unite the two approaches.
What Leigh achieves pretty consistently is something Woody's never truly managed to pull off. Namely scores of films that reflect the way people's choices guide their lives, and without hectoring, invite you to include yourself in the equation. That he can achieve a level of sublime, quiet humour as well as the poignancy of truth, attests to the success of his working methods and the sheer commitment of his cast.
Chief among these are the three given the most screen time -- which is not to denigrate the contribution of any of the lesser roles. It's ensemble work in the real Vakhtangovian sense. The screen almost glows whenever Lesley Manville's deeply troubled Mary appears, and matching her luminance are the couple who more than tolerate her often unbearable cries for help - Ruth Sheen and Jim Broadbent.
The two have evolved the kind of comfortable married relationship that recognizes life is lived in discreet moments, it's neither a competition nor a linear progression.
They accept and respect and love each other - he the geological engineer, digging deep to accommodate a changing landscape; she a hospital cousellor sensitively probing the emotional pain of her patients to cauterize it with gentle truth.
Withal they each have great heart and are generous with it and their time. Without being cloying they embody what's fundamentally good in people. A sort of middle-class English Our Town for our times. In some kind of comic brilliance they're called Tom and Gerri.
Mary muscles into the balance and completeness of their lives as a long-time work colleague of Gerri's. Her form of muscle is a subconscious courting of disaster. She's a magnet for wrong choices and in her solipsistic view of cause and effect, she can hardly acknowledge that anyone's life might actually go on without her. She represents herself as happy when it's nakedly clear she's drowning in tears.
Add to the mix Tom and Gerri's still-unmarried-at-30 son Joe, Tom's very under-developed brother up North, and his long-time pal Ken, who matches Mary in self-imposed misery.
There's really no plot to spoil, merely incidents whose appearances are often surprising but never gratuitous. It's the way the cast models those moments without the need for 3-D glasses that gives the film its particular brand of recognition. It's the familiarity of being human.
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Edited by - BaftaBaby on 12/27/2010 18:53:46 |
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Another Year - please see my Bafta thread
