percyporcelain

This film leaves no cliche unturned and resembles a 2-hour pop video, endlessly emotionally repetitive so if you like going round in circles and watching the same scene of people floating about in a sepia tank full of floating bank notes a thousand times over, or the lead actress gazing beatifically upon a cast of moribund steam punks with zombified eyes while a relentlessly monotonous soundtrack pounds you into submission, this is the one for you! To the extent therefore that this ostensibly deep and meaningful but actually vapid and turgid work resembles a vision of hell, it is therefore a remarkable success!

So good for the first 90 mins, fascinating and atmospheric with terrific performances all round, great attention to detail and plausible twists in the 'conclave' for the selection of the new Pope. But then the holes appear: how can Fr Lawrence (Fiennes) be both supervisor of the election and a candidate without being in an invidious position? Yet nobody seems to challenge his authority. One minute he's probing pruriently into the past of the candidates, then he gets mad at being asked to be a 'witchfinder'. Smears and conspiracies are exposed, yet the candidates disqualified as a result are not restored to the race. And finally (without wishing to spoil the surprise for folks), a 'wild card' candidate emerges and, after a few piously woke words to the electorate, is suddenly in the lead. Didn't work for me, but then I was on the side of the nuns in 'The Magdalen Sisters', LOL!

Relentlessly emotional study of a man whose son is framed for a murder he didn't commit and is facing the gallows. Great performances but the febrile atmosphere never lets up so the whole thing becomes faintly ridiculous. Joan Plowright is indeed great in this early appearance, as is Michael Redgrave who was at the peak of his powers, having played a similarly tormented character in The Browning Version. Whether it was meant as an indictment of capital punishment is open to conjecture but yes, probably. Losey was the kind of director whose politics and social conscience tended to make themselves known.