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Hello campers! I've finally decided to put some thoughts down on (virtual) paper about the films I love.
Here we go....
Naked (Mike Leigh, 1993)
Naked is one of those films that leaves a mark, a scar even, on everyone who watches it. Set in early '90s London it stars David Thewlis (7 Years in Tebet, The Big Lebowski) as Johnny, Lesley Sharp (The Full Monty, From Hell) as his long-suffering ex Louise and the late Katrin Cartlidge (Breaking The Waves, Topsy-Turvy) as Sophie.
The opening scene sets the tone for the movie, with Johnny seen having rough sex (probably non-consentual) with a much older woman, leaving her in a Manchester allyway and fleeing in a stolen car to London. Johnny's escape and subsequent search for his ex-girlfriend leads him (and us) on a nightmarish journey into the decaying half-life of Thatcher's Britain.
Thewlis gives a career making (and possibly breaking, when you look at the scraps this talented actor has had to feed off in the subsequent decade) performance as a confused, highly intelligent drifter whose acid wit is only matched by his desire to self-destruct. Everyone who encounters Johnny is subject to stinging barbs and Revelationary proclamations in equal measure, in fact the Book of Revelation plays a crucial role in his challenging world-view.
Johnny's meeting with Louise (excellently underplayed by Lesley Sharp) is punctuated by a series of vignettes - He meets, and has a brief sado-masochistic fling with, Louise's flatmate Sophie (Katrin Cartlidge was never better as the fragile victim and her death in 2002 at the age of 40 was a great loss), an equally disturbed Glaswegian teenager (Trainspotting's Ewan Bremner) and his girlfriend, and Brian a security guard in charge of an empty building - "You're guarding space? That's stupid, isn't it? Because someone could break in there and steal all the ****in' space and you wouldn't know it's gone, would you?".
These characters are well-drawn and acted but really only exist for Johnny to undertake an increasingly frustrated tirade against the state of the world, indeed in a less skilled director's hands, Naked could have easly turned into a reactionary, humourless 90 minutes reminiscent of the worst in 1960s Kitchen Sink drama. Thankfully Leigh (who also wrote the screenplay) gives the characters enough depth for the audience to care for even the unsympathetic - apart from Greg Crutwell's one-dimentional 'villianous landlord' Jeremy, though on repeated viewings I've found the character's abject nastiness to be needed in relation to making Thewlis' nihilistic Johnny a more sympathetic figure.
After the final, bleak showdown Johnny and Louise prepare to leave London and return to Manchester. This isn't meant to happen, Naked can't have a happy ending?
Naked is in equal measures bleak and touching, nasty and funny, Damnable and redemptive. It's wonderfully shot (by longtime Leigh cinematographer, Dick Pope) and tightly directed. It's David Thewlis' film though, he gives Johnny the raw energy and belligerence this flawed Prophet deserves. A spellbinding performance in a wonderful film - you might not like the subject matter, and at times the situations veer dangerously close to pantomime, but this portrait of the urban hopelessness left by Thatcher's rule is compelling viewing...
A memorable
EDIT and postscript -
This film was a weird choice for a first review but I had a bit of a 'long night of the soul' on Saturday (mainly brought on by Gin, Ireland losing at the Rugby and too much faux sympathy directed at me in the club afterwards) so I fed Naked into my player and life didn't seem quite as grim...
I guess we all know our own version of Johnny, I did. Sadly Colin's not with us anymore (he succumbed to an AIDS related illness two years after Naked's release). Colin was very much one of Thatcher's children: hyper-intellignet, scathingly funny, determindly working-class and abandoned by his family, childhood friends and The State. Colin drifted from low-paid job to low-paid job but his demons always seemed to pull him back from any kind of commitment.
He spent 3 months sleeping on our sofa then disappeared into the night in early '94. We didn't see him again.
Maybe this is why Naked has such a pull on me. I don't know.
Here we go....
Naked (Mike Leigh, 1993)
Naked is one of those films that leaves a mark, a scar even, on everyone who watches it. Set in early '90s London it stars David Thewlis (7 Years in Tebet, The Big Lebowski) as Johnny, Lesley Sharp (The Full Monty, From Hell) as his long-suffering ex Louise and the late Katrin Cartlidge (Breaking The Waves, Topsy-Turvy) as Sophie.
The opening scene sets the tone for the movie, with Johnny seen having rough sex (probably non-consentual) with a much older woman, leaving her in a Manchester allyway and fleeing in a stolen car to London. Johnny's escape and subsequent search for his ex-girlfriend leads him (and us) on a nightmarish journey into the decaying half-life of Thatcher's Britain.
Thewlis gives a career making (and possibly breaking, when you look at the scraps this talented actor has had to feed off in the subsequent decade) performance as a confused, highly intelligent drifter whose acid wit is only matched by his desire to self-destruct. Everyone who encounters Johnny is subject to stinging barbs and Revelationary proclamations in equal measure, in fact the Book of Revelation plays a crucial role in his challenging world-view.
Johnny's meeting with Louise (excellently underplayed by Lesley Sharp) is punctuated by a series of vignettes - He meets, and has a brief sado-masochistic fling with, Louise's flatmate Sophie (Katrin Cartlidge was never better as the fragile victim and her death in 2002 at the age of 40 was a great loss), an equally disturbed Glaswegian teenager (Trainspotting's Ewan Bremner) and his girlfriend, and Brian a security guard in charge of an empty building - "You're guarding space? That's stupid, isn't it? Because someone could break in there and steal all the ****in' space and you wouldn't know it's gone, would you?".
These characters are well-drawn and acted but really only exist for Johnny to undertake an increasingly frustrated tirade against the state of the world, indeed in a less skilled director's hands, Naked could have easly turned into a reactionary, humourless 90 minutes reminiscent of the worst in 1960s Kitchen Sink drama. Thankfully Leigh (who also wrote the screenplay) gives the characters enough depth for the audience to care for even the unsympathetic - apart from Greg Crutwell's one-dimentional 'villianous landlord' Jeremy, though on repeated viewings I've found the character's abject nastiness to be needed in relation to making Thewlis' nihilistic Johnny a more sympathetic figure.
After the final, bleak showdown Johnny and Louise prepare to leave London and return to Manchester. This isn't meant to happen, Naked can't have a happy ending?
WARNING: "you eejit, fancy not noticing until now?" spoilers below
The cranking up of Andrew Dickenson's haunting score prove otherwise as Johnny makes his (final?) bid for salvation by leaving while Louise's back is turned, battered, bruised and limping on the outside, still railing against the world on the inside.
The film's final scene shows Thewlis limping down the street, towards the camera, in the early morning light while the pounding music swirls around him. Who knows where he's going? I doubt if Johnny does, though I suspect that this journey has a one-way ticket.
The film's final scene shows Thewlis limping down the street, towards the camera, in the early morning light while the pounding music swirls around him. Who knows where he's going? I doubt if Johnny does, though I suspect that this journey has a one-way ticket.
Naked is in equal measures bleak and touching, nasty and funny, Damnable and redemptive. It's wonderfully shot (by longtime Leigh cinematographer, Dick Pope) and tightly directed. It's David Thewlis' film though, he gives Johnny the raw energy and belligerence this flawed Prophet deserves. A spellbinding performance in a wonderful film - you might not like the subject matter, and at times the situations veer dangerously close to pantomime, but this portrait of the urban hopelessness left by Thatcher's rule is compelling viewing...
A memorable
EDIT and postscript -
This film was a weird choice for a first review but I had a bit of a 'long night of the soul' on Saturday (mainly brought on by Gin, Ireland losing at the Rugby and too much faux sympathy directed at me in the club afterwards) so I fed Naked into my player and life didn't seem quite as grim...
I guess we all know our own version of Johnny, I did. Sadly Colin's not with us anymore (he succumbed to an AIDS related illness two years after Naked's release). Colin was very much one of Thatcher's children: hyper-intellignet, scathingly funny, determindly working-class and abandoned by his family, childhood friends and The State. Colin drifted from low-paid job to low-paid job but his demons always seemed to pull him back from any kind of commitment.
He spent 3 months sleeping on our sofa then disappeared into the night in early '94. We didn't see him again.
Maybe this is why Naked has such a pull on me. I don't know.
__________________
"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan
"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan
Last edited by Tacitus; 10-11-07 at 07:51 AM.
