The Mike Leigh blog... 2

Bleak Moments (1971)


Mike Leigh's first film.  It's haunting, certain images stay with you :  the lead character's inscrutable, moon-like face, a tree-lined street on a cold, crisp morning....


It's all about failure of communication and suffers from just the problem you'd expect - how do you make a film about lack of communication which isn't boring?  
If you can, this isn't it.  The film is unbelievably tedious and stubbornly, well, bleak to the point at which it just makes you mad.


As a fan, I was interested to see it - as I have been all Leigh's films - but you shouldn't start investigating Mike Leigh's oeuvre here.  See the picture above - that's the whole film in a nutshell. 

Hard Labour (1973)


This is the first of Leigh's TV plays - which vary in quality from the wonderful to the, well, not quite so good.  Hard Labour is pretty good - not a bad place to start.  It's like two weeks in the Bahamas compared to 'Bleak Moments'.  Liz Smith is very good in it - a studied portrait of long suffering, stoic womanhood.

The Permissive Society (1975)


Little picture was all I could find - this was a 30 minute play rather than a whole film, from the days when the beeb would produce short one-off dramas that didn't necessarily have to be about all that much.  A good way to introduce new talent.


It's just a sweet little vignette about a bloke and a bird really.  Not going to change the world, just a little slice of normal life.  The more I think about it, the more I like it.


Anyway I had to include it so I could include 'The Short and Curlies' later on...

Nuts in May (1976)


Another TV play - and possibly Leigh's downright funniest film.  I love this so much, I think I could watch it every day and still wet myself.


You often find yourself wanting to impersonate characters in Leigh films - after watching 'Nuts in May' I will go around for several days talking in a 'Keith' voice or a 'Candice-Marie' voice. I suppose you just have to see it.


It's about this couple who are into the environment and being vegetarian and into hiking about healthily in a way which is fairly standard for the middle classes now but was perhaps still slightly wacky back then.


They are unbelievably self-righteous and silly - glorious comedy creations who create awkward moments everywhere they go.  The cringe-making comedy of 'The Office' ?   It started right here.


Just wonderful.  Now THIS is a good place to start with Mike Leigh - although you might have to hire or buy the entire 'BBC' era box set to see it.


I think if I were to try to explain a funny bit it just wouldn't work - Leigh's humour doesn't work that way.  It's gentle and rippling, but somehow devastating and genuinely sad.  Sublime.


Now, you sing along, Ray :  'She wanted to go to the zoo she said, she wanted to go to the zoo...'