Well just for my own personal pleasure (probably) I have now written something about every Mike Leigh film. Or I will have done in a minute, when I've finished 'Another Year' - that brings us up to date, with Oscar speculation rife.
I doubt Mike will get the Oscar he so richly deserves - one day it will come. Another year maybe - ho ho. Or maybe this year - why not? It should be a lifetime achievement award or something. Another Year doesn't deserve an Oscar more than Secrets and Lies or Happy Go Lucky - but maybe the tide is turning his way at last.
Although - I seem to remember I found it easy enough to see 'All or Nothing' at my local multiplex... 'Another Year' was very difficult to find. So while Mike Leigh's critical reputation grows, his cinematic presence seems to dwindle. Unsurprisingly, the Brits have little taste for a more continental type of film-making raised, as they have been, on Hollywood pap.
Anyway, 'Another Year' is another wonderful film with huge, glorious performances, laugh out loud moments and the alchemic process by which Leigh turns every day reality into something heightened, something epic. Or maybe these are epics which take on the appearance of the everyday.
This is just the tale of a happily married couple and the strange people who orbit them like elliptically like moons. Lesley Manville hits it just right in a performance which is a masterclass not just in acting - but in Mike Leigh acting.
Real - with just a little piquancy, a little of the spice of unreality.
I would urge you to see it - but I think I've done too much urging here. Either you will or you won't. I just know what these films do for me, and to me.
I can't explain it to you - it's like whistling about sex. I'll just leave it up to Keats to encapsulate my feelings about Mike Leigh :
| Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all | |
| Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. |
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