Dir.
Mike Hodges, 2003, USA/UK, 102 mins
Cast:
Clive Owen, Malcolm McDowell, Charlotte Rampling, Sylvia Syms
A hard man in exile returns to avenge his brother; the local mob oppose him. The new film by Mike Hodges and Trevor Preston, is often a recapitulation of Get Carter, although the mood is even more sombre. What is new is a suicide after male rape, and it is perhaps appropriate for this serious theme that there are no superfluous plot twists, flashy cuts or camera work. This film took 13 years from conception to premiere, and each time the creators went back to the script they stripped it down further. The finished product will repay many viewings. It is abundantly clear that Trevor Preston researched male rape because he wanted to raise awareness, rather than just find a story which is rarely told.
The main action takes place in the seedier, darker corners of South London (Loughborough Junction to be precise), an area so uninviting that the protagonist's decision to bury himself
deep in a forest in Wales becomes almost understandable. As in Get Carter, Mike Hodges does not glamorise violence; his thugs are bleak rather than beautiful. Clive Owen's performance as the exiled gang boss is even deeper and richer than his fine work on Croupier. Both Malcolm McDowell and Jonathon Rhys Meyers, as the innocent, likeable drug dealer, are finely drawn supporting roles. Jamie Foreman and Sylvia Sims are also entirely convincing low life characters. Charlotte Rampling is a haunting presence, conveying deep wounds with very little surface motion. It adds depth to Clive Owen's character that he is in love with an older woman and the work itself is a tribute to the wisdom that age can bestow, and a rebuke to the puerile Kill Bill approach to violence. This is very much an actor's movie as Mike Hodges' long takes allow room to breathe and time to create a natural performance. It is sometimes bathetic when a television face suddenly pops up in a movie. It is entirely appropriate then to see fine actors like Ken Stott who are familiar from darker more realistic television crime - also some faces familiar from Trevor Preston's innovative seventies work like Fox and Out.
Older people's sexual jealousy of the young and rape as revenge isn't likely to knock the latest blockbuster off the top of the charts, but then this is a film by and for grown-ups. There is deadpan humour occasionally but no gloating macho celebration of what little violence is shown. This won't be one for the lads and their lager, many of whom missed the point of Get Carter. That particular hard man causes a lot of misery and gets killed in the end. Here the ending is ambiguous and all the more resonant for that. Mike Hodges commented that he is increasingly striving for greater simplicity, there are no fast cuts which suits the elegiac mood. Jazz is a presence throughout, the music which male loners often use to insulate themselves from the concerns of the masses. Despite the film being shot in 28 days ('going it a bit', as the director said) there is certainly enough action and visual interest to satisfy anyone.
I'll Sleep When I'm Dead reprises a beautiful image of a man driving golf balls into the incoming tide. This is accompanied by a voiceover suggesting that few people leave a ripple on the face of eternity. Perhaps so, but Mike Hodges and Trevor Preston have both created many stories, characters and images that linger in the memory. Against the odds, in an increasingly trivial society, they have created work which will last.
Mark Ramsden
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