Ali & Ava

Writer/director Clio Barnard

director on the set

ALI & AVA               B+                                                                                                          Great Britain  (95 mi)  2021  ‘Scope  d: Clio Barnard

What would happen if you took melodrama as a genre and applied it to a social-realist version of Bradford that’s based on real people?  It’s an opportunity to think about what it means to be part of a community.  There’s a lot of kindness, generosity and support in Bradford and I wanted to see that writ large on the big screen.                                                                            —Writer/director Clio Barnard

An exquisitely made film that comes at you from unexpected places, becoming a film for our times, an update on the Rainer Werner Fassbinder film ALI:  FEAR EATS THE SOUL (1974), which was itself a reworking of the Douglas Sirk melodrama, All That Heaven Allows (1955), filmed only ten miles from where the writer/director grew up in Bradford, which has been the setting in three of her four feature films to date, like 2011 Top Ten Films of the Year #4 The Arbor (2011) and Barnard’s equally great 2014 Top Ten List #6 The Selfish Giant, while all four of her films have been set in Yorkshire County.  In those films, what Barnard does extremely well is showcase marginalization in the town of Bradford, people living on the fringes of society, poetically expressing how ordinary lives can be extraordinary.  This may be her most accessible work, featuring an unconventional working class interracial romance from two character actors who rarely get the chance to perform in lead roles, British-Pakistani-Kenyan actor Adeel Akhtar, who has mostly been seen on television, and Claire Rushbrook, who got her start working with Mike Leigh in Secrets and Lies (1996,) also playing opposite Samantha Morton in Carine Adler’s vastly underseen UNDER THE SKIN (1997), her one and only feature, where it’s important to say these two actors perfectly embody the unique characters they inhabit.  This is a surprisingly offbeat film that dares to explore cultural differences through an unlikely middle-age romance, yet what really stands out is the abstract, impressionistic style of the director, taking pages from the Lynne Ramsay and Andrea Arnold social realist playbook, yet making it unique to her own aesthetic, creating an emotionally deep portrait of life in Bradford, West Yorkshire, inspired by two people that Barnard met while she was making earlier films, Moey Hassan, a Bradford actor (who appears briefly in the film), landlord, and DJ who worked with her on THE ARBOR, while a few years later she met Rio, a teacher’s assistant at a school in Bradford who walked out of an abusive relationship during the making of THE SELFISH GIANT, with additional support from script consultant and Bradford-based writer Kamal Kaan.

Music is the beating heart of the film, like an unseen character, described by the director as a “social realist musical,” as profoundly memorable as the personalities who embrace it, as it’s something that links these two people together, beautifully integrating their distinctly different internalized worlds.  Ali (Adeel Akhtar) is a likeable Pakistani landlord, a former DJ who is into punk and rap, exuberant music you can dance to, like the Buzzcocks, Sylan Esso, and Lunar C, while Ava (Claire Rushbrook) is a caring and exceedingly sensitive teacher’s assistant, a widowed Irish mother and grandmother who, much to his dismay, is more into country music and traditional folk ballads, like American outlaw country singer Sammi Smith and Irish singer Karan Casey.  Both Ireland and Pakistan are two countries that were part of the former British Empire, each carrying a legacy of violence and racism, yet part of the melting pot of post-industrial Bradford, which once drew migrant workers from around the world, playing an important part in the early history of the Labour Party, but now facing serious economic and social challenges.  Bradford is a culturally diverse city that has an uncomfortable history of racism, especially in the 70’s, which were marked by hateful demonstrations and attacks, also known for the Brontë sisters who were born on the outskirts.  Both coming from troubled situations and different worlds, yet living in the same town, Ali lives with his recently separated wife Runa (Ellora Torchia) in a working class immigrant neighborhood of rowhouses, while Ava lives in the predominately white housing estate of Holme Wood, leaving her door open to an extended family that frequently come to visit.  What brings them together is their mutual affection for an extremely shy 6-year old girl, Sofia (Ariana Bodorová), a child from Slovak tenants living in a building that Ali manages, who also has language difficulties at school, so hangs out on her own at the playground for the most part. 

In contrast to the rampant crime in the North of England depicted in THE RED RIDING TRILOGY (2009), or the working class dramas of Ken Loach, Barnard offers a compassionate perspective on Northern life, its people and their daily lives, as Ali is introduced in a dense fog standing on the roof of his car and violently headbanging to a high-energy rap track to let off steam, I Know (MAROT Remix) YouTube (4:28), while Ava is seen on a bus lost in thought to the quieter lyrics of Sammi Smith, Saunders Ferry Lane~Sammi Smith YouTube (3:16), each from their own different worlds.  As fate would have it, Ali and Ava are brought together outside the school in a driving rainstorm, with Ali offering Ava a ride home after dropping off Sofia, sharing a moment with the Buzzcocks on the car radio, Boredom YouTube (2:54), only to be pelted by rocks from belligerent neighborhood kids at Holme Wood, who simply have nothing better to do, Ali & Ava - Car Stoning YouTube (1:57), with Ali winning them over by upping the volume on his radio to music of local neighborhood rapper MC Innes, like the lure of the Pied Piper, turning into an instantaneous little dance party in his car.  The next time they meet, they jump around on a set of sofas in Ava’s living room and create their own little party, Ali & Ava - Official Clip #1 YouTube (1:51), yet they’re each listening to distinctly different musical tracks on headphones, creating a kind of kaleidoscopic mix of jubilation and confusion.  If you sense this is not your standard kitchen sink British miserablism that we’re used to, you’d be correct, as this is more celebratory and life affirming.  While there are certainly downbeat subjects woven into the storyline, with moments of profound sadness, loss, and grief, they are countered by more jubilant moments that simply recognize a joy in living, and what a comfort it is to be sharing it with someone you love. 

Premiering at Director’s Fortnight at Cannes in 2021, not much was known about this overlooked film, which seems to have fallen through the cracks and been forgotten, but this is a world class director who makes emotional powerhouse films, and this is no exception, reportedly exuding a quiet presence on the set, often deferring to the actors, realizing the importance of not knowing everything and having an openness to not knowing.  The two lead performances are remarkably nuanced, very well paired together, though they are nothing alike, other than the fact both are intrinsically linked to their respective communities, knowing their neighbors while actively helping them out, like the familiarity of Ali rolling down the car window in his neighborhood to ask who died at a passing funeral, where everyone knows everyone else, both showing signs of extreme generosity, where it’s not told in a conventional manner, as moments appear out of time, giving experimental touches that simply expand the depth and complexity of the film.  What’s particularly impressive are the Ozu-like transitional cityscape shots, like fireworks against a darkened sky, a glowing moon hovering overhead, a moody atmospheric glimpse of early morning twilight, or slowed down pauses that feel like still shots, as they accentuate moments of reflection.  Undercliffe Cemetery overlooks Bradford and is a special place for Ali and Ava to meet.  Occasionally, Sofia has a tendency to climb up the monkey bars, but gets stuck, unable to climb back down without assistance, with Ava offering her reassurance and support, but reminds her that if you’re brave enough to climb up, you must be brave enough to climb back down, which may as well be a theme for the film, which continually keeps viewers off balance even through the end credits, as there is a constant stream of surprises that greatly enhances the overall viewing experience.   

One of the most distinctive voices in British cinema, Barnard’s interest in film started at the age of 14 when she watched Mick Jagger in Nicolas Roeg’s Performance (1970), an acid trip of a movie.  It was on TV late at night, and she viewed it on a black-and-white portable in her bedroom with the volume turned down.  What amazed her was its ability to mess with her head.  “Here’s this real rock star pretending to be one, whose sort-of girlfriend is also in the film in this crazy threesome.  There was something about the real and the fictional that was really fascinating.  It blew my tiny mind.”  What’s most astonishing is how this film subverts expectations in a modern interracial romance that counters the fearmongering of toxic politicians, where there's a tenderness within, finding beauty in the most volatile moments through a beautifully shot character study about two lonely misfits who find emotional comfort and support in each other despite their past traumas and having to deal with community expectations, as they are a catalyst for change in each other’s lives.  There are shocking turns of darkness that come out of nowhere, taking us through intensely personalized avenues of racial abuse and domestic violence, as each respective family quickly disassociates themselves from this new love interest, finding fault in their character when it’s really about race, growing perilously ugly and even dangerous when Ava’s grown son Callum (Shaun Thomas, one of the local kids in THE SELFISH GIANT) pulls a samurai sword on Ali, believing his recently deceased father would roll over in his grave, as he was a member of the National Front (UK).  Ava’s Irish Republican father, who was fiercely proud of his heritage, deeply despised the British and disowned her for marrying an Englishman, a man Callum still idolizes, despite his history of abuse, causing plenty of friction.  Similarly, Ali’s sister calls Ava a “gori chav,” which basically means white trash, coming from a more traditional-minded family that has been kept in the dark about his imminent separation that he’s too ashamed to acknowledge, still living together with Runa but in different bedrooms, having shared an unspeakable trauma that they simply never recovered from. 

It’s an unlikely culture-clash romance in a blue collar city, where the social realist style is beautifully mixed with a steady stream of lyrical musical passages that express what they’re feeling underneath, with Barnard adding her own experimental stylistic flourishes that elevate what we’re seeing onscreen, yet what’s apparent is that the joy of music is an act of resistance, exquisitely shot on ‘Scope by Ole Bratt Birkeland, who also shot her first film.  It’s all about the power of healing, where there’s no right or wrong way, but you know it when you feel it, where there’s actually a laying-on-the-hands sequence, ALI & AVA Clip | TIFF 2021 YouTube (37 seconds), as a shared love of music allows them to heal and transform one another through ordinary acts of kindness.  Familiar Bradford locations include the massive Waterstones bookstore, Undercliffe Cemetery, Bradford Cathedral grounds, Cow and Calf rocks on the Ilkley Moor, and the Keighley and Worth Railway, yet it’s the inner journey that stands out, expressed through British rap, Skwolla | Lunar C YouTube (4:41), American electro-pop, Sylvan Esso - Radio (Music Video) YouTube (3:34), a raw and earthy bootleg Bob Dylan recording, Mama, You Been On My Mind (Studio Outtake - 1964) YouTube (2:55), which curiously has a crossover effect on both characters, and British pub music by Ewan MacColl expressed through a drunken mother and son duo, Ali & Ava - Official Clip #2 YouTube (53 seconds).  Yet what’s most remarkable, and may be the most impactive part of the film, is the final credits sequence, a gift that keeps giving, moving from the thumping EDM music, Daniel Avery - Drone Logic (Official Video) YouTube (5:15), to a heart-rending traditional Irish ballad from Karan Casey, Grace (From Ali & Ava) YouTube (5:29), a searing version of a social justice love song that has a similar effect as the cathartic final scene from John Huston’s The Dead (1987), finding that emotional core that leaves audiences utterly transfixed, having been thoroughly transformed by the experience. 

Nuts in May - made for TV

 

Director Mike Leigh

Leigh with Alison Steadman and Roger Sloman

NUTS IN MAY – made for TV                    B+                                                                           Great Britain  (81 mi)  1976  d: Mike Leigh        episode of BBC “Play for Today”

You’re breaking the laws of the campsite and the laws of the country code.                                —Keith Pratt (Roger Sloman)

Basically the template for Ben Wheatley’s hilariously dark road trip spiraling out of control in Sightseers (2012), as after making his film debut with Bleak Moments (1971), Leigh took a 17-year hiatus from feature filmmaking and instead worked exclusively for British television filming his own plays, mostly for the BBC English Regions Drama department (ERD) when it was led by the renowned producer, David Rose, during what is often described as the ‘golden age’ of British television.  Having studied acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London during the early 1960’s, his interest in writing and directing led him to switch schools several times, ultimately graduating from the London School of Film Technique (now the London Film School) in 1965.  About that time he began developing a method for creating narratives that relied upon extensive rehearsals and actors’ improvisations to manufacture characters and conflict in an organic manner, where instead of focusing on a traditional storyline, his films rely intensely on characters, explored with as much detail as possible, which would become a signature feature of Leigh’s working method for the rest of his career, Mike Leigh Arena Making Plays The Life And Work Of Mike ... YouTube (1:20:44).  This is almost certainly the best known of the low-budget, BBC Pebble Mill’s Plays for Today, along with Abigail’s Party (1977), a taped version of the pre-existing stage production, where the subtlety and uniqueness of these films have long been overlooked, seemingly made on a shoestring budget, small in scale, dealing with daily domestic life and relationships, yet never given the same critical attention as his features, though some of Britain’s best directors made a significant portion of their films for television, most shot very quickly on 16mm, which would include Stephen Frears, Ken Loach, Peter Greenaway, Alan Clarke, and Richard Eyre.  Mike Leigh’s first television drama for ERD was a half-hour studio piece called Permissive Society in 1975, which led to this film, both notable for having no musical score.  At first, a lot of BBC staff were rather dubious of Mike Leigh’s improvisatory way of working, with the crew suggesting there’s a guy down there in the studio and they’re making it up as they go along, but what they were missing is Leigh’s careful observation of the actors interacting as the characters and developing storylines from those interactions.  David Rose originated from Dorset and wanted to depict the region, offering a sense of place, reflecting the life and culture outside of London. There seemed to be few writers from the South West and therefore Leigh was invited to make a film set around the Isle of Purbeck.  Focusing on the suburban south, Leigh’s ability to create chillingly convincing middle-class monsters emerges here, and while this is the lighter side of Mike Leigh, it has darker implications, filled with wicked humor, funny and painful at the same time, featuring characters who are hilariously unlikeable, offering observations on class and society in a more humorously imaginative yet still coherent and meaningful way, perhaps the only straightforward comedy Leigh has ever made, arguably the definitive work about the British camping holiday, where a pleasant journey into the countryside seeking a quiet refuge from the noise and industrial pollution in London produces catastrophic results.  As he has often insisted, there is no “them” in Leigh’s work, where we are always meant to see ourselves in every calamity, as Hell is never reserved for other people, yet tolerating them may feel like it.

With the great outdoors beckoning, this film captures the Back-to-the-land movement of the 1970’s as a backdrop, with substantial numbers of people migrating from cities to rural areas, associated with hippie communes and the Summer of Love, The Whole Earth Catalog, and Mother Earth News in the USA, while in the UK it was rooted in a desire for self-sufficiency and reconnecting with nature with an increased ecological awareness, encompassing various aspects, including organic farming, homesteading, and a search for a simpler life, where it was viewed as a countercultural response to the perceived ills of modern urban life and industrial society.  This film reminds us that 1970’s television was much more progressive and thought provoking, more welcoming to unorthodox ideas, freed from objectionable restrictions, allowing greater experimentation, and was actually a breeding ground for budding artists.  Ordinary lives are given dimension and complexity here because Leigh has a gift for using the close-up, speech patterns, and the silence of his characters to explore under the surface in order to capture the essence of who they are.  Like Ken Loach, an avowed socialist, both are independent filmmakers known for portraying the working class experience, yet Leigh’s films often have a comic and satiric edge, not as overtly political as Loach, accentuating the personal, creating a world too ambiguous and rife with contradictions to offer political alternatives or easy answers, focusing instead on a depiction of dramatic interactions and behavior, more intent on raising questions and possibilities rather than offering any political or social solutions.  While extending his deepest sympathies for his working class characters, many behave badly, victimize themselves, and live pathetic, constricted lives.  In a Mike Leigh film nothing comes easy, as his characters’ flaws never disappear, continuing to grate on the nerves of the audience, where this film follows the path of liberal do-gooders who narrow-mindedly flaunt their moral superiority, immersed in a fantasized Walden utopia that turns their social consciousness on its ear in this blistering satire of British middle class attitudes and manners, becoming a study of class antagonism and the insecurities of masculinity.  The young married couple at the center of this drama are Alison Steadman (married at the time to the director, also in Abigail’s Party) and Roger Sloman as Candice Marie and Keith Pratt, a maddeningly self-righteous and opinionated couple from Croydon going car-camping in the English countryside, where one thing that’s undeniably clear is that the characters are etched so vividly that they lived on in the memories of the audience for many years afterwards, so they really stand out.   Candice Marie, who works in a toy store, is that shy and submissive, artsy type who spends her time drawing, painting, or collecting shells from the shoreline of the Jurassic Coast, while also composing inane songs that sound more like goofy jingles, always playing second fiddle to her obsessional, anal retentive husband Keith, a patronizing, pompous, and domineering control freak who always treats her like a child and is what we commonly call a know-it-all, having organized their 10-day journey with great precision, refusing to budge from the itinerary, where his reasoning is “What’s the point of having a schedule if you don’t stick to it?”  Inexplicably, his reading material at bedtime is The Guinness Book of Records.   

Listed at #63 from Time Out’s list of Best British Movies | 100 Best British Films of All Time, the drama is generated simply by being who they are as opposed to arising out of actions, where Keith is a doofus, yet the interest lies not in anything he does in any given moment, but who he remains throughout, a mirror image of the snobbish and deeply repressed John Cleese in Fawlty Towers or Monty Python skits with its devastatingly awkward humor.  The first thing that stands out is their car, which they have packed to the gills, a 1961 Morris Minor 1000 convertible, known for its iconic design and “Englishness.”  Right from the outset there is drama in how they interact with each other, as we see them traipsing around Corfe Castle with its numbered landmark spots along the way, where we see them absurdly arguing over who should hold the castle’s guidebook, with Keith refusing to relinquish control, always rushing ahead, leaving Candice Marie behind as she struggles to keep up, totally dependent upon whatever information he’s willing to share, usually shouted from a distance, so immediately we’re aware of the imbalance of power.  While they’re folk-singing vegetarian types, the kind who lecture other people on the evils of eating meat, also non-smokers, but the kind who enjoy describing tar-caked lungs to anyone they see smoking, with Keith swearing that food needs to be chewed 72 times before swallowing, as if that’s a proven scientific fact, while also jotting down every expenditure in his ledger, their vacation idyll is interrupted by another vacationer, Ray (Anthony O’Donnell), who has set up his tent right next to theirs, blaring the transistor radio, even though he’s not really listening to it.  When they ask him to turn it off, he simply refuses, leaving Keith fuming, as if betrayed by the commoners, so they move their tent farther away.  On an excursion to Stair Hole and Durdle Door, a famous natural limestone arch that can be seen standing erect along the coastline, they end up getting drenched by the rain, stopping their car for a pedestrian who turns out to be Ray, with Candice Marie taking a friendly interest while Keith simply refuses to speak to him.  Her attempts to be social infuriate Keith, whose dogmatic obstinance is nothing less than jealous outrage, so when she invites him over afterwards for a cup of tea, Keith bullies him into joining them for a singalong, which couldn’t be more absurdly irritating, where that tortured expression on Ray’s hapless face is priceless, Zoo Song - Nuts in May[Mike Leigh] YouTube (3:30).  Disinterest is something that Keith clearly doesn’t notice or care about.  When an even noisier couple from the Midlands arrives on their motorbike, Finger (Stephen Bill) and Honky (Sheila Kelley), chaotically sharing the same space, refusing to go to bed quietly, with alcohol flowing freely leading to loud, boisterous sexual activity, Keith simply loses it.  Flouting the “country code,” he attempts to make a citizen’s arrest the next day when they have the unmitigated gall to build a fire, which is forbidden, of course, as tempers flare, where his embarrassing frustration boils over into Monty Pythonesque hysteria, quickly becoming the butt of their jokes, which only pisses him off even more, causing them to leave altogether, completely fed up with all these horrible people, yet in reality they cannot escape the horror of other people, which may as well be a prescient metaphor for Brexit.  Nothing earthshaking happens here, where Americans are often perplexed by a cinema in which nothing seems to happen, though Leigh’s drama of transformation is rooted in the layered rehearsal of interpersonal dynamics observed with the patience of Japanese director Yasujirō Ozu, but it’s impossible to forget just how easily the characters continually get under our skin, making this a small gem of a movie that continues to impress even after all these years.  Rare and hard to find, but well worth the effort.    

Nuts In May (1976) : Mike Leigh  YouTube (1:20:58)

Nuts In May (1976) with commentary by Mike Leigh  YouTube (1:20:58)