I don’t think that a film title has ever been more apt than this. It’s even slightly underselling the whole drudgery of the characters’ lives. We witness awkward silences, rude waiters, buttoned-down frustration, extreme shyness, and topic-less conversations. Every moment is bleak; everyone seems to be repressing or doubting something in themselves. This is Mike Leigh territory, a key British filmmaker known for his brutally accurate portraits of mundane domestic desperation, with a sharp eye for realistic, honest characterisation and freezing atmospheres brimming with unfulfillment and social claustrophobia. In Bleak Moments, his film debut, his people suffer in silence, the blame squarely on them for their own lack of energy or satisfaction in their lives. Leigh makes this all very involving and riveting to watch, perhaps because we’re praying for someone to say or do something of meaning and emotion, or more likely because the situation and tone is so familiar and universal.
Bleak Moments follows Sylvia, a single, accountant’s typist over the course of a week or so, showing her looking after her mentally ill sister Hilda and trying to engage with Peter, a stuffy teacher who she meets daily on their walks to work. Sylvia, played excellently by Anne Raitt, is a softly spoken, well-mannered woman who seems older than her years. There’s a sense watching her that underneath her still, serene surface is a brooding underbelly of sexual frustration and a strong longing for accompaniment and communication. She seems to linger a lot, sit in silence and simmer, her tired eyes and face tells us that she’s bore witness to a long string of disappointment in her life. When she and Peter eventually go on a date it is unbearable but addictive to watch – It looks like they are both screaming inside – It’s incredibly intense for something as simple as a Chinese meal and a couple of glasses of sherry.
For a film so self-admittedly bleak there’s plenty of humour. Mostly in the form of Pat, Sylvia’s dotty co-worker. Like the films of the Coen Brothers, the humour derives from basic behaviour. In one brilliant scene, Pat and Hilda go to Pat’s mothers (Her mother has a hilarious line before we find out they’re related – “She dun half get on my wick!”). They squabble over her false teeth, Pat insisting on hiding them when guests are over. We rejoin the scene with an establishing shot of the teeth, back out of the box. It’s a lovely little moment – And just as recognisably human as the bleak ones.
The film is shot in a way that reflects the mood, lifeless and stagnant, distanced from the non-action and quietly observing, showing little care or sympathy for the characters – giving the film a kind of kitchen-sink voyeurism. There isn’t a lot given away by the filming style, instead the actors and their fidgety body language and quiet mumbling show us what they’re feeling. In a scene where a hippie (loaning out Sylvia’s garage space), Sylvia, Peter, Hilda and Pat all sit together, there’s no noise whatsoever – the camera darts around in close up, quickly edited and flitting from one pair of eyes to the other – It’s an extremely simple but masterful way of showing us the difficulty of simply living and being around other people – Highlighting the characters’ flaws in an excruciatingly relatable manner. And that’s what it all comes down to in the end. Leigh doesn’t extend a note of pity to the characters, he lets them stew and suffer in the pot they have crafted for themselves. Bleak Moments is so evocative because it’s so true to life, a stark, wonderful debut from a director whose work I cannot wait to explore.
No comments:
Post a Comment