Stephen Poliakoff - Glorious 39

[Guest]

Did anyone watch this film? on BBC2 tonight? I found it gripping if a little surreal at times. It also planted a disturbing thought in my mind - how would I act (without the benefit of hindsight and the knowledge that that gives us!) if my family were committed to appeasement and saw the death of a small number of people to achieve this as being better than the death of many that could result from war? Bill Nighy s the politician father who had served in WW1 was, as always, excellent otherwise this thought would not have even entered my mind!

I'd be interested in others' views on this.

[Ariosto]

Did anyone watch this film? on BBC2 tonight? I found it gripping if a little surreal at times. It also planted a disturbing thought in my mind - how would I act (without the benefit of hindsight and the knowledge that that gives us!) if my family were committed to appeasement and saw the death of a small number of people to achieve this as being better than the death of many that could result from war? Bill Nighy s the politician father who had served in WW1 was, as always, excellent otherwise this thought would not have even entered my mind!

I'd be interested in others' views on this.

I watched it for an hour and then gave up. I really did not think much of the structure of the play/drama and found the acting predictable, and Bill Nighy I thought particularly bad. He's always the same in everything he does.

Sorry, but that's my honest opinion.

[johnb]

I found it the must haunting film I've seen for a long time (that probably says something about my film-watching habits though). It was still circling round in my mind this morning.

[Nick Armstrong]

I intend to watch it later today, and I'm looking forward to seeing if I'm nearer the Ariosto or the johnb opposite poles of appreciation. In terms of period drama (and the performance of the fragrant Romola Garai), has anyone been watching The Hour? I have and have been absolutely loving it - the wonderful look of the production and the performances of all concerned. Glorious 39 will have to go some to match it.

[johnb]

I intend to watch it later today, and I'm looking forward to seeing if I'm nearer the Ariosto or the johnb opposite poles of appreciation. In terms of period drama (and the performance of the fragrant Romola Garai), has anyone been watching The Hour? I have and have been absolutely loving it - the wonderful look of the production and the performances of all concerned. Glorious 39 will have to go some to match it.

Romala Garai is a real beauty, isn't she?

PS Do watch it to the end.

[amateur51]

I intend to watch it later today, and I'm looking forward to seeing if I'm nearer the Ariosto or the johnb opposite poles of appreciation. In terms of period drama (and the performance of the fragrant Romola Garai), has anyone been watching The Hour? I have and have been absolutely loving it - the wonderful look of the production and the performances of all concerned. Glorious 39 will have to go some to match it.

Lordy, even more to watch . I'm trying to finish the film of Larsson's The Girl Who Played With matches and it's taking me ages with all these recommendation - keep 'em coming

[Russ]

This wasn't the worst Poliakoff by a long way, and in some ways it was a return to at least some form, but I was still disappointed, particularly with such a stellar cast (the usually excellent Bill Nighy was dreadfully wooden), and it was only Romola Garai who was allowed to portray nuances of her character - the rest of the parts could have been played by anyone. The visuals were both ponderous and impressive (as usual for Poliakoff), but showed little of the creative spark of his early works, except perhaps for the surreal pet-massacre sequences, but I think we'd all got the allegorical point by then. The plot and the script plodded on, and I found the central relationship of heroine Anne to her father psychologically unconvincing. What a waste of money and acting talent!

[Serial_Apologist]

I deliberately avoided it, pre-sensing some of the criticisms that have emerged on this thread. Poliakoff dosn't seem to have recovered from his fixation with the identity problems of the (for him) creative but (to me) totally self-regarding sub-generation inspired by Thatcherite you-can-do-anything-if-you're-creative-now-we've-freed-up-the-economy in the 80s, and I don't feel he's done anything worthwhile since that extraordinary and emotionally gripping TV play about the Jewish family reunion in a London hotel, whose title I now forget. His best work, for me, was "Caught on a Train" with the fabulous Dame Peggy Ashcroft, and superb score by Mike Westbrook, and "Shooting the Past" about the efforts of a staff faced with the closure of their photographic archive library, trying to persuade the American businessman to keep it open: Timothy Spall and the lovely Lindsay Duncan - both of which I feel extremely fortunate to have on VHS.

S-A

[Curalach]

I switched to this about 30 minutes in and initially thought I was watching a repeat of "The Hour"! Romola Garai seems to be the actress du jour! Pressing the "i" button told me what it was. Subtle it was not, and I tend to the view that no matter how starry the cast, it is difficult to rescue laboured writing and clunky plot lines. I thought the ending was particularly cheesy.
For me, not Poliakoff at his best.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

it was gripping, i thought the terror of the circling sppoks was very well done and the nightmare of one's family being the villains ... but the plot drove the characters out and the device of the start and end was false to my mind ... but a lot better than much, especially recent efforts, of his work


on the other hand i think The Hour could be slow burn brilliant .... it took two episodes before i became engrossed ... but want to see it play out before coming to a view .... [not sure if the supposed villains are any good, seem a wooden and rather plodding set of spooks .... but the brit class scene, the emergence of women and the breaking of the shroud of secrecy are all wonderfully nostalgic ...]

[aeolium]

I agree, Russ. I had no great expectations watching this, but it was definitely Poliakoff treading very familiar ground. A lot of the plot was very predictable, even signposted. There were the usual Poliakoff themes, the obsession with English country landscapes (always in summer), grand decaying houses, grand decaying aristocratic families, old documents and memorabilia hidden away in outbuildings, unpleasant skeletons in family closets, the air of vague menace. I even thought here he was attempting some Hitchcockian references, e.g. with the fat man cycling through the Norfolk landscape. But it all moved terribly slowly, with many visual and verbal clichés.

I can't say it was a great disappointment as I have given up expecting much better from Poliakoff, but why are so many well-known actors and actresses apparently so desperate to get parts in this overblown stuff, and why does the BBC allow Poliakoff carte-blanche on expensively self-indulgent heritage-cum-genealogy period dramas, in which both period and drama are entirely unconvincing? What a waste.

[Serial_Apologist]

I agree, Russ. I had no great expectations watching this, but it was definitely Poliakoff treading very familiar ground. A lot of the plot was very predictable, even signposted. There were the usual Poliakoff themes, the obsession with English country landscapes (always in summer), grand decaying houses, grand decaying aristocratic families, old documents and memorabilia hidden away in outbuildings, unpleasant skeletons in family closets, the air of vague menace. I even thought here he was attempting some Hitchcockian references, e.g. with the fat man cycling through the Norfolk landscape. But it all moved terribly slowly, with many visual and verbal clichés.

I can't say it was a great disappointment as I have given up expecting much better from Poliakoff, but why are so many well-known actors and actresses apparently so desperate to get parts in this overblown stuff, and why does the BBC allow Poliakoff carte-blanche on expensively self-indulgent heritage-cum-genealogy period dramas, in which both period and drama are entirely unconvincing? What a waste.

Thanks for the "post-warning", aeolium!

[Norfolk Born]

I deliberately avoided it, pre-sensing some of the criticisms that have emerged on this thread. Poliakoff dosn't seem to have recovered from his fixation with the identity problems of the (for him) creative but (to me) totally self-regarding sub-generation inspired by Thatcherite you-can-do-anything-if-you're-creative-now-we've-freed-up-the-economy in the 80s, and I don't feel he's done anything worthwhile since that extraordinary and emotionally gripping TV play about the Jewish family reunion in a London hotel, whose title I now forget. His best work, for me, was "Caught on a Train" with the fabulous Dame Peggy Ashcroft, and superb score by Mike Westbrook, and "Shooting the Past" about the efforts of a staff faced with the closure of their photographic archive library, trying to persuade the American businessman to keep it open: Timothy Spall and the lovely Lindsay Duncan - both of which I feel extremely fortunate to have on VHS.

S-A

Would that be 'Perfect Strangers'?

[Serial_Apologist]

Would that be 'Perfect Strangers'?

That's the one; thanks, Ofchap!

[Mandryka]

Poliakoff's reputation baffles me: apart from his early play City Sugar (which was fun and interesting, though hardly profound, and provided a great star part for Tim Curry), everything else I've seen by him has struck me as utterly, utterly EMPTY. Dressed-to-the-nines, expensive empty, for sure, but still empty, for all that....

Quite why the BBC feel the need to fund him so lavishly is beyond me. They could probably make about a dozen decent Play For Today-type dramas for the cost of one Poliakoff whopper.