British film festival features contemporary and comedy

British film festival features contemporary and comedy

By Marselli Sumarno

JAKARTA (JP): The young man's name is Comsack. A young poet
with an exploding nature, a little bit eccentric perhaps. On one
hand he feels awkward in the midst of middle class society, on
the other hand he is unemployed yet loves to dine in expensive
restaurants.

The young woman is Comsack's lover. A very talented
illustrator with an established career. But she has been
suffering for a long time.

The two of them meet in Keep the Aspidistra Flying directed by
Robert Bierman. With the old London town as the setting, their
love affair seems awkward, funny yet touching. "You are a poet, a
free man," sighs Comsack's lover.

Keep the Aspidistra Flying is one of seven films to be
screened at The British Film Festival, held to commemorate the
50th anniversary of The British Council in Indonesia.

The event will take place at H. Usmar Ismail Film Center on
Jl. HR Rasuna Said, South Jakarta, June 19 to June 26.

In addition to feature movies there will be some animated
movies screened.

Tickets may be obtained free of charge from the British
Council or at the screening location, according to Gill Westway,
The British Council's English Language and Arts manager.

Movies to be shown are mostly contemporary and some, similar
to the story of the eccentric poet previously mentioned, carry
the traditional color of English comedy. Fever Pitch directed by
Nick Horby for example, is a story of an English teacher who is
too busy with himself. He falls in love with a fellow teacher.
Their love affair successfully intertwines with the success of
Arsenal soccer team throughout the competition season.

A different touch of comedy appears in The Englishman Who Went
Up a Hill and Come Down a Mountain. The entire population of a
small village near the only mountain on the boarder of Wales has
a peculiar but understandable desire. The mountain they are
supposed to be proud of can not be incorporated into the map, due
to a lack of being 15 feet from the height regulation. Working
side by side, they are determined to place their mountain on the
map.

Hamlet is the obsession of actor/director Kenneth Branagh, the
filmmaker. Branagh directed the most famous of Shakespeare's
dramas in the four-hour film. He plays Hamlet, while Kate Winslet
is Ophelia.

Regardless of its devotion to the script, Hamlet may have a
chance to enter the commercial market. This is very important
since the revival of the British movie industry carries a heavy
predicament from within.

The revival of British movies is marked by the increasing
quantity of films and the escalating number of good quality
movies produced. In 1995 for example, 73 titles were produced. In
the following year, production jumped to 121 titles, the highest
record in the past 40 years. Last year, about 80 titles were
produced.

Recent films worth mentioning are The Crying Game, Four
Weddings and a Funeral, Welcome to Sarajevo, Evita, In Love and
War, and The English Patient. There is a need to realize that
this revival is also assisted by offshore funding, such as with
The English Patient which was funded by the American producer.

However, funding for films is not the real problem, as the
British government donates millions of pound sterling which comes
from the national lottery program. The real problem is the
regulation on British national films' circulation and
distribution.

Similar to the movie industry in Indonesia, the distribution
of movies in England is regulated through a small yet powerful
cartel which maintains a close relationship with Hollywood movie
studios.

As a result, low to medium budget movies have to compete with
independent American films in second-run cinemas. According to
the yearly International Film Guide, 50 percent of new films
never have the chance to appear on the big screen, but go
straight to television or videotape.

The rest have to patiently wait, maybe for months before they
have a chance at the big screen. Without exception is Secret and
Lies which will also be screened in this movie festival.

Secret and Lies is a black comedy about humanities. It begins
with Hurtense, a young optometrist of African descent who is
looking for her biological mother, Cynthia. It turns out that
Cynthia is a white female and the presence of her abandoned child
creates a big commotion within Cynthia's family.

The most moving scene is Hurtense's meeting with Cynthia in a
restaurant. The static camera uninterruptedly recorded their
eight minutes of touching conversation.

Actress Brend Blethyn impressively brings Cynthia's character
to life. Cynthia appears to have a lively humor and can sometimes
be vulgar, but never turns caricatural. Mike Leigh's direction
keeps this 140-minute film from become monotonous dialog.

Secret and Lies was inaugurated as the best British film and
won an award at Cannes Film Festival in 1997. At the end,
watching Secret and Lies makes a person feel as though they have
just swallowed bitter, though healing, medicine.

The writer is a cinematologist and lecturer at the School of
Films and Television, Jakarta Arts Institute.