This early BBC feature film written by Stephen Poliakoff has re-emerged this evening after 34 years of being forgotten, and it is a mind-blower. The film is so brilliantly written, the screenplay is like a combination of Sophocles and Aristophanes, since the unspeakable tragedies portrayed are also mixed with sardonic humour, most of it black and weighted with satire. What an overwhelming mixture! And it works. It was directed by Sir Peter Hall with impeccable flair and the performances are all outstanding. Geraldine James's performance as Harriet Ambrose is so fantastic that it is what I call a ten-Oscars performance. We have all seen Geraldine James is countless things, but I think this role was her absolute triumph. Young Jackson Kyle is amazing as her son, Dominic. James Fox is excellent as her husband. And the central star is the amazing Peggy Ashcroft, whose last film it was. The story is overwhelmingly tragic, as Peggy Ashcroft plays Aunt Lillian who has been locked away in an asylum for 60 years but has to be taken out because the asylum is being knocked down by property developers. Her nephew, James Fox, loaded with fellow-feeling and good intentions, takes her into his home, despite the fact that she barely speaks and does strange and unpredictable things. We get flashbacks of what had happened to her when she was young, where she is played passionately by the wonderful Rebecca Pidgeon. What ensues is so complex that it defies any attempt at summary. Whether anyone will be able to see this film again is unknown. I have a DVD box set of Poliakoff's early films, but it is not included. It has never been released and maybe never will be. The showing of the film on BBC-4 was preceded by Poliakoff speaking for ten minutes about the film's genesis and production. The script was violently hated by everyone at the BBC, who did not want it to be filmed. The BBC seems to have done its best to suppress it afterwards. But the film was shown in 1989 at the Venice Film Festival where it won many awards, and frankly it deserves to be smothered in retrospective awards of every conceivable kind. Of all the outstanding films written by Poliakoff, it is ironical that this early and forgotten work, cast into the outer darkness by the BBC for three and a half decades, may be the best work of a lifetime of magnificent achievements. It would be unfair for any future viewers (if there are any) to tell what happens as the story progresses. But it gets more and more involved and unexpected. And the latter part of the film is where we find the most fantastic performance by Geraldine James, which is historic and a real milestone in the history of acting. I despair to think that this film will possibly never be seen again. Aunt Lillian was locked up for 60 years, and the film was locked up for 34 years. That is nothing less than a crime against humanity.
