Topsy-Turvy

viewed March , 2000 at the AMC Van Ness

For full information about this film, click here

The half-hour drive home with my brother and his roommate, who were both home for spring break, allowed plenty of time to unpackage our collective viewing experience, and by the time I pulled up to my house I had decided that this was the best British period piece I have seen in a long time.  My reason is that this film stands other period dramas on their heads, by topping them in terms of richness of historical detail and nuance of daily interaction.  At the same time -- and this is what truly separates it from the rest of the pack -- it deftly calls attention to its attempts at authenticity, almost to the point of foiling itself, but certainly creating a lot of depth in its meaning by doing so.  It celebrates the present as much as it does the past, 

My brother's roommate Tim started the discussion by commenting on how some of the scenes of the film seemed conspicuously attuned for a modern audience's sensibilities.  The most obvious example is a humorous bit involving two men shouting into their early versions of the telephone, struggling to work a conversation, not sure how to begin or conclude.  The modern audience thus reacts with bemusement and slight condescension at our primitive predecessors.  Our ancestors are not only shorthanded technologically, but also culturally -- British musical giants Gilbert and Sullivan embark on their next project, The Mikado, a tale set in medieval Japan that aspires to be as authentic in its production design as the real thing.  

What results are at least a couple of brilliant scenes where authenticity becomes a point of contention between Gilbert and his cast.  In one scene he even brings in a trio of Japanese girls to demonstrate how his actresses should walk, and though he and the Japanese can't understand a word the other is saying, he still manages to get what he wants.  In another scene a costume designer argues with an actor that he should sacrifice his sense of British decorum for the sake of wearing authentic Japanese garments (without knickers).  The designer refers to his sketches, taken from an "authoritative" text on Japanese culture, written by an Englishman.   What we realize is that director Mike Leigh & Co. are doing the same thing: doing their best to make as credible a production as they can, but with no greater claim to authenticity than their less-informed forebears.  From this point on the movie is not only about Gilbert & Sullivan and The Mikado, but about itself, and its insufficiencies as well as successes in attempting to bring the past to life.  More than any period film I've seen, it fuels that effort with a sense of purpose, its cast and crew seemingly buried deeply in the roles of their historical counterparts.

By the end of the film, as our revels with this timeless group of artists draws to a bittersweet close, a sense of sadness emerges: that, 100 years from now, the cinema will have regressed in its importance as did the theater over the course of the last century.  While the present age is more obsessed with technology than ever, Leigh takes us back 100 years to show that technology brings us new wonders only to become obsolete, whereas the dreams and disappointments of the human condition are what remain eternal.

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