LOCAL ARTS CENTRE IS ALWAYS “INTENSE”!

It is a joy and a privilege to live within walking distance of the kind of cinema which shows Britannia Hospital and Repo Man on consecutive days.

I think those two films have a surprising amount in common actually – both are prime works from under-rated genius British directors. Both channelled (relatively) big money into ambitious and uncompromising subversive weirdness, resulting in “you’ll never work in this town again!” reactions from studios and inevitable cult classic status. Both have utterly improbable utopian sci-fi endings. Both are really fucking funny. Both were released in the same year too I think – the year of my birth, funnily enough.

Repo Man was better than ever on the big screen – so many background details and brief snatches of dialogue that I’ve repeatedly missed on my old video copy – and, if anything, I’d forgotten what a just plain amazing film it is on every level. One of the finest examples of what I’d term Punk Cinema ever made (and not just cos it’s got punk rock in it), and a benchmark of awesomeness for other directors to measure their debut films against. Every single scene has something crazy and cool and amazing going on in it, and the whole thing is just overflowing with lightning-paced cinematic and narrative ideas, and it’s just so much fun to watch! Historical context is important too I think; post-Tarantino and post-Nirvana we’re nicely set up to appreciate Repo Man as just a really, really great film, but back in 1982 it must have seemed like some broadcast from another world entirely… one of the all time classics of weird-Hollywood. On the off-chance that somehow you’re reading this weblog without having seen it, I think you can probably pick it up in HMV for £5.99 or something: you have your orders.

Unfortunately, you’re unlikely to find Britannia Hospital in HMV, or anywhere else for that matter, at any price. The final part of the trilogy Lindsay Anderson began with If.. and O Lucky Man, it was met with outrage and contempt upon its release and has subsequently been written out of the history of British cinema more or less entirely. And it’s not difficult to see why. Anderson’s use of venomously black satire and heavy-handed bad taste tactics to express his disgust at the emergence of Thatcherite Britain initially seem designed to offend absolutely everybody, as his wrecking ball descends not only on queen & country but also on the trade union movement, the common working man and petit bourgeois middle-management alike. Needless to say, in the era of the Miners Strike, this shit must have been VERY near the knuckle – it’s pretty uncomfortable viewing even today. Anderson even sets out to alienate the kind of hipster cognoscenti you’d expect to form his natural audience, rebelling against the notion of making a “cool” film by deliberately dredging up all the most cringe-worthy aspects of ‘70s/’80s British popular culture and throwing them back in our faces. Admittedly, the casting of Leonard Rossiter as the indomitable hospital administrator is an inspired move, but this is also a film which features not-terribly-hilarious Carry On style cross-dressing, a comedy dwarf, Vivian Pickles as ‘Matron’, Fulton Mackay, usage of the word “wog” and Robin Askquith banging a saucepan singing “we shall not be moved”. And if you’re still sitting comfortably, well then there’s the gore – a blood-spewing, naked headless corpse comes back to life and strangles Jill Bennett! In terms of sheer ickiness, the film’s Frankenstein sub-plot is a match for any of the video nasties of the day.

Beyond all that though, I don’t want to spoil the film’s various shocks and surprises, so you’ll just have to take my word for it when I assure you Britannia Hospital is as uniquely daring, challenging, weird, beautiful, funny, genuinely subversive, utterly mind-shredding and nigh-on apocalyptic as any film ever made, and that I have as much respect for Lindsay Anderson and David Sherwin for bringing it about as I have for any human beings who have ever lived.

Rarely has a forgotten and misunderstood film been so desperately in need of a Peeping Tom style renaissance. With Anderson being increasingly recognised as a true folk-hero of British counter-culture, let’s hope somebody puts a new print together (the one the Phoenix showed is shredded) and gets it down to the bloody BFI or whoever deals with these things as soon as possible!