The Firm/Elephant
The FirmandElephantare two of Clarke's most interesting films and perhaps the best evidence of a surrealist streak often noted by his contemporaries.The Firm(1998) stars Gary Oldman in a dazzling performance as a London realtor, Bex, whose hobby is soccer hooliganism. Surrounded by other middle-class mates with nice cars, homes, and families, Bex is essentially a gang ringleader who exchanges violent hostilities with another gang of even better-dressed, better-spoken London soccer fans. Clarke's images of grown men, with lives of real responsibility, beating each other's brains in is too bizarre to shake off. From the same year is Clarke's short,Elephant, in which a wordless series of vignettes about shootings take on a ritual, almost musical, form.--Tom Keogh