Almost a masterpiece

Rating: 9/10 (20 January 2012)

We sit watching the adverts and the trailers for the latest awful Hollywood rubbish - the ghastly War Horse and the UK's over-hyped Iron Lady (great impressionist is Ms Streep but that's it). Then, the curtains pull in - that's unusual - we go to 4x3. We go from Glorious colour (on the very day Kodak go into liquidation - I really cannot believe this). And, we small group of film lovers in a club for film lovers - The wonderful Harbour Lights in Southampton - become silent. And, for the next hour and forty minutes we do not watch so much as live in a world of no- colour and no dialogue. Left therefor to concentrate on the visuals and occasional subtitles. We enjoyed the endless subtleties and not so subtleties, the actors expressions and movements. We titter and some sob. And, some of us wondered why we needed colour (let alone 3D) or the constant noise and distraction of dialogue. So, why almost a masterpiece? Well, it was a little self-indulgent and there were some over-laboured scenes (presumably to help of US cousins to understand it). The conversation in the bar afterwards was so so positive - a rare thing. Tonight, I watched Ken Russel's Elgar - also B/W though some BBC fool had stretched it to 16x9 - though it was well graded. It was 43 years old and it was beautiful if clumsily operated. It too reminded me of Kodak and the end of an era.