Empire of Light
This latest offering from Sam Mendes is being billed as a romance. (And marketed as some kind of Merchant and Ivory offering). Er not really. Think Lars von Trier mashed up with 1980s British cinema and middle section of Cinema Paradiso — then you have more the flavour of the movie.
Kudos to Olivia Coleman for making the role of Hilary shine (and believable): goodness she suffers along the way. From the beginning it’s hard to tell what era we’re in — is it the 1950s? Where even? Somewhere in the forgotten coastal towns of 1980's Britain, a battered local cinema staggers on. Hilary is one of the staff at the cinema. Her manager is Colin Firth! Only he is horrible and manipulative and exploiting Hilary. Goodness is it going to go full Breaking the Waves? (Yes, and no, is the answer)….
Stephen (Micheal Ward) joins the team — he and Hilary connect over rehabilitating an injured pigeon; she also shows him the closed parts of the cinema. It’s a former picture palace which has shrunk from 4 screens and a ballroom/cafe to two screens. Hilary challenges Stephen about his customer service — about not laughing at people. Which he takes on board and there is romance here — they kiss as fireworks explode over the roof of the cinema.
And yet Hilary knows that there is more to Stephen’s life than he lets on — the obstinacy of angry older men and the violent arrogance of young skin heads, as well as a broken heart and an exhausted hard working lone parent. It looks like Stephen will end up dating Janine, a ska and tu-tone loving Goth/punk. (A nice Specials tribute here). Only being a compassionate, empathetic, sensitive woman, Hilary seeks to bring Stephen into the community of the team, and Stephen seeks to bring Hilary fun — illicit enjoyable sex in the former ballroom/cafe and trips to the beach.
Like Stephen, Hilary is hiding secrets — the torment of an abusive mother and her father’s adultery turning her parents against each other (and her mother weaponising her against her father), as well as ongoing battles with serious mental health challenges, heavy medication and not a lot else in terms of support and care, and loneliness. We’re in a time where mental health diagnoses are medicated and although the doctor is compassionate, he’s really treating symptoms, not the person. No-one (apart from Stephen and her kind colleagues) will actually listen to Hilary — and she’s learnt to parrot what people want to hear, rather than the truth. In beginning to feel loved, Hilary seeks to take control of her life again — by stopping taking her medication. This leads to an episode where Hilary reveals the truth of her abusive childhood, and gives an impromptu speech before the screening of Chariots of Fire before the great and the good, ending in poetry celebrating ethic unity and anti-racism. She also speaks truth to power (literally before it was even a thing) to horrible Colin Firth’s character aka Donald Ellis and his wife. Hooray! I wish we’d seen more of his wife’s reaction here — she’s a bit of a cypher caught in their battle.
The other failing of mental health care at this time is sectioning if needed. Rather than the protective care it is today, Hilary seems to ping pong in and out of hospitalised treatment. In a heart breaking scene, Hilary musters all her dignity (and prepares a suitcase) as her door is literally knocked in by the police and she is taken away by someone from Social Services who can’t even look her in the eyes (almost seeming jumpily afraid of her, whilst maintaining a calm voice). Kudos to Stephen who has seen Hilary’s rage first hand (and her desperate attempt to maintain dignity) and seeks to reach out as Hilary shuts down. (She’s being described as a depressed woman in the marketing — how this misses the mark, she is very unwell, and yet seeking to stop feeling numb, over medicated, dismissed in her symptoms and unheard in the truth of what she’s been through — a whole series of horrible exploitative men, as well as the emotional attrition of her mother). The truth and sympathy Olivia Coleman creates in this moment is beautiful, as well as the pain.
Suddenly, with the central character removed, this stops being Hilary’s film and Stephen and a delightful Toby Jones (Norman), who is being allowed to be a regular character for a change, discover the joys of creating cinema together. It’s all gone Cinema Paradiso! (I can’t help shudder though — it’s 1981 and yet to come is Margaret Thatcher, Yuppies and multi-plexes). The cinematography completely changes — up until this point, it has felt like watching a film from the 1980s in faded tones; now it goes full amber hues of technicolour!
Stephen convinces Hilary to return the cinema — horrible Colin Firth is gone to be appalling somewhere else, charming and kindly Neil (Tom Brooke) is in charge now. They have a welcome party. It is a kinder place, until the BNP come to town, like mods on bikes and seek to attack a black man in a locked cinema. I’m not sure where most of the staff go at this point — there’s little fighting back. Stephen is surrounded and mercilessly kicked in the head — Hilary tries to intervene and is sent flying to the ground. Neil, Norman, everyone else where were you? The police are shown as too little, too late too.
Now it’s Hilary’s turn to support Stephen as she goes with him to hospital and waits until she has news on him. In a dramatic turn of events, Stephen’s Mum Delia (Tanya Moodie) is a nurse or perhaps even a matron, caring for her battered son, in her own hospital. Truly a horror movie now. It’s also gone Remains of the Day — the whole film is heavy with things unsaid. No-one will say what they really mean! (Apart from Neil who seeks to support Hilary and speaks to everyone, in word and dramatic facial expression). How is this all going to end? With ska and tu-tone maybe?
Lots of poetry and cultural barriers it turns out. Delia acknowledges that Hilary cheers her son up (euphemism) and yet doesn’t invite her to Stephen’s celebration when he gets his architecture course place at University. It’s Ruby — the former breaker of hearts. Stephen appears to be doing what’s expected of him, and yet it is Hilary he loves. Neither of them seem able to say what they want or need to — so there is poetry. In very Sylvia Plath moves, Hilary frequently quotes poetry (perhaps lacking her own voice) to express what she feels.
Is this a coming of age drama? A awe of the magic of cinema? Or a celebration of one woman’s battle to be heard against the system? Or a highlighting of the casual racism of the 1980s (microaggressions into today’s lesson and much less micro than major — being downright stigmatising). Definitely not a romance, although love is part of it — though this is shown in explicit sex to begin with, although affection does follow — in the ways that they care for each other. Stephen’s vulnerability -even an arm around his girlfriend on a rural bus could be suspect — decreases as he finds a palace of dreams and then follows his.
I wish there was more romance, than Lars von Triers. When there is, it’s beautiful — such as the stone skimming scene when Stephen has been insulted by a vile customer. The BNP are the weakness in the film (tropes rather than flesh and blood people); like stereotype Nazis we don’t get the sense of why they do what they do, only their hate, rampage, blood lust and aggression. For such a film focused on exposing truth, it falls down here — they seem like violent buffoons and no more. More could have been exposed here.
Oliva Coleman’s performance is award winning; Roger Deakins cinematography and Sam Mendes direction is superb; the whole cast are excellent (and all draw you in), but like the faded town, it does drag you down — it’s a heavy watch. How will it end? It’s like My Beautiful Launderette meets Remains of the Day or Howard’s End. Hilary seems to have gone back to being numbed by treatment and medication again (and her hurt and pain — and voice — suppressed). Stephen walks away — and yet, there is hope — and romance. (And learning to enjoy watching a movie).
In all of this though, I do question the ethics of the main relationship. If this was a younger woman (17, 18 tops or maybe 19–20) with a much older man, we’d all be shouting # Me Too. But a younger man with an older woman is somehow ok and liberating? There is also a bit of fetishising of brown and white skins as they come together — or perhaps this is deliberate, to challenge us in our assumptions as an audience, exposing our prejudices? Lots of powerful themes here (including the ongoing neglect and impoverishing of British seaside towns), but maybe not all in one movie? Olivia Coleman soars above it all though — without her, I’m not sure the writing would be as effective; it would just be brutal. She brings a fluttering of emotions, a lightness, a compassion to it all.
