The Drink Tank 022 (2005).pdf

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The Following Article is somewhere between tongue in cheek and deadpan serious. I'm not 100%

sure which. But, no matter what the intent, it does have a memorable title...

Screw Britannia: Modern British Short Films

Britain is one of those smart countries that, unlike America, respects short form film and

filmmakers. Every year, hundreds of films are made by Brits, many of them using public funds

or working for one of the major television stations like Channel Four. In the last few years, a not

terribly obvious theme has approached the surface for those of us who are always digging at the

seemingly simple. Post-Thatcher Britain has brought huge challenges and has shone a bright

spotlight on many of the problems that were left over from those golden years, though much of

that lies hidden under layers that obscure the vision from the eyes of all but we brave film

commentators. Even when a filmmaker is doing a simple little piece about a Traffic Warden,

there's a rich undercurrent that seems to hint at the trouble in Britain.

In the years since Margaret Thatcher left 10 Downing Street, Britain has had to deal with

problems of the homeland, since they no longer had the Cold War to encourage America to win.

Thatcherism led to a great disparity in the classes, increasing racial tension and a strange

relationship to the US. At the same time, Britain has lost its voice, being far less influential than

in the days when Mags ran things. The entry into European Union has been sited by many as a

sign of the UK losing its identity, though they have managed to keep the Euro away. Tony Blair's

devolution and greater autonomy granted to the Scots, Welsh, and Northern Irish as well as the

phasing out of hereditary seats in the House of Lords has made England itself seem far less regal

than it had less than twenty years ago. While the days since Thatcher's 1990 departure have

been dark for the isles, they have been bright for British film. With feature film directors like

Guy Ritchie coming forth, international interest in Brit flicks has never been higher, leading

more English films making their was into festivals and DVD releases around the world. Perhaps

it is the sense of lost significance for the Mother Country that has brought out interesting visions

from the artist caste.

Of the hundreds of British filmmakers, several come to mind as being of serious interest.

The brilliantly twisted, and nominally Scottish, Simon Ellis has been doing mind-bending shorts

since the turn of the century. Much of Simon's body of work has been done for Channel Four,

and several of those pieces have found very receptive audiences on the US and European festival

circuit. Some of his films, such as 2002's 10 Again, are a take on the lives of people and the

ways in which they attempt to obfuscate their true selves. In 10 Again, a young girl tries to dress

herself up to win the heart of an older boy. In Ellis's 2003 film Telling Lies, we are shown the

true text meaning of the tales and half-truths uttered during a string of phone conversations the

night after a series of infidelities. These certainly speak to one of the current strings that are

haunting British Royalty. The armour that had once served so well in hiding the weaknesses of

the tiny island has begun to rust and show the reality that lives underneath. Situations that

would have been covered up in the thousand years prior, such as the dissolution of the Charles-

Diane Incorporation and the expenses of the Monarchy, have come brightly into view due to the

invention of mass media. These chinks in the armour would have been dealt with most harshly

in previous generations, as many of the early reporters saw severe financial penalties or were

simply bumped off. Telling Lies shows the truth behind the words, throwing light on the reality

through to an eager and receptive audience, something that olde Britain did not have to worry

about.

Ellis' short film Bass Invaders, more directly shows the power of mass communication to

destroy and forever alter the English landscape. In this music video, a woofer speaker flies into a

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small British hamlet, destroying cars and blowin' up skulls with the throbbing electronic bass

groove. A pair of bickering agents are sent with ray-guns to stop it, which they manage to do with

the help of several extra guns in the hands of the residents. They have a short-lived victory only

to face a much greater attack. It's very perceivable that this is speaking more to the effect that

non-BBC radio and American-infused music has had in bringing an end to the tradition of small

village British living. While one could argue that this has been commented on since the 1950s,

the rise of more and more non-government controlled outlets for introduction of London, and

increasingly Los Angeles, thought into the small village consciousness should shoulder a certain

amount of blame that can also be placed on modern radio programmers and policy makers.

Director Carol Morley is another of the modern generation of British filmmakers whose work

seems to be about the general world around us but actually comments indirectly on the state of

the British world view. Morley's 2001 film Everyday Something is a look at the events mentioned

in the inner pages of British papers. The events re-enacted include a man who made his wife run

several miles everyday while he rode after and berated her from his car, a woman who is forever

rearranging the family's furniture, and a pair of men who unknowingly exchange owl calls every

night.

Perhaps the segment of the film that most demonstrates the current British situation is the

one where a deranged young man forces his parents to answer questions about Claudia Schiffer.

It is this obsession with celebrity that is becoming more and more plain in the modern Britain. In

previous generations, the most admired people tended to be either prime ministers, with

Churchill appearing on the most admired list for more than a decade after his death, and

sporters. In recent years, the lists have had folks like Robbie Williams reigning higher than the

Prime Minister.

Morley's 2005 film Stalin My Neighbor features even more obvious parallels to Britain's

plight. The story is of a young woman and the film crew that has come to document her troubles

as she walks around White Chapel hanging up posters in the search for her lost cat. She suffers

from depersonalization from having abandoned her sister in a field leading to her death. The

crew seems to have gained interest in her once the bones of her sister were discovered. She ends

up evading their questions by touring them around her part of London and giving them lessons

on local history. The documentarian keeps trying to get her on track, but she goes back to her

tales of Stalin, Ghandi, the Elephant Man and Jack the Ripper. The plight of Britain in recent

years has shown that they are far more

interested in their past success and joys

than they are in going into the realities of

the recent past that are making life almost

unlivable for a sizable portion of their

population. There is a strong

undercurrent in the view of the world that

Britain is still huffing the few lingering

fumes from their years as Empire. The

most powerful Brits seem to support this

view by constantly reminding us of their

past good deeds anytime they arrive on the

World Stage.

Also dealing with the concept of not

moving forward is the Sean Ellis film

Cashback. The film stars Sean Biggerstaff,

best known as Oliver Wood from the Harry

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Potter movies. The short deals with the ways in which the

employees of a British supermarket survive through the eight

hour over-night shift. One character, a young lady who is

constantly hit upon by her manager, conceives to cover every

possible location where she could get an idea of time, allowing her

to pretend that as much or as little time has passed as she

pleases. Many accuse the British people of doing the exact same

thing in an effort to make themselves feel stronger. They can live

in an isolated world where the prosperous reigns are still alive

and things everywhere are still free and easy. Biggerstaff's

character finds another method, by freezing time so that he can

experience it his own way…mostly by undressing woman. The concept of living in a moment and

never moving forward is the greatest complaint made by the inteligencia against the British

Crown. Morrissey's 2004 song "Irish Blood, English Heart" makes the claim against the

Monarchy as well. While The Crown seems an anachronism, the Queen and the Titled mass still

act as if they are the Rulers of the World, though they have had their actual powers nearly

completely wiped from the board.

Duane Hopkins is a gritty filmmaker whose work has chronicled British youth in their most

destructive frames. Hopkins' brilliant short The Field is about a roving pack of teens bored with

the simple life they lead in suburban England. This group of teens wrecks terrible havoc on a

farmers field and an innocent sheep. The story has hints of the belief that many Brits, and even

more ex-pats, hold towards us brutish Americans. They believe that we are stirring up trouble

due to a collective boredom brought about by no longer having Uncle Ivan to kick around.

America, often running in a small pack with Britain and a few other lesser followers, is constantly

throwing up dust and destroying simple things around the world for no good reason. When the

Iraq War concept began to rear its head, the idea was even more pronounced, setting tongues

wagging at pubs both on the Island and across the States.

The 2003 film Love Me or Leave Me Alone shows a

strained relationship between a pair of teenagers. The

main thrust of the story seems to ask the question should

I stay or should I go…and will you let me. The

relationship between these two is highly troubled, as they

go about breaking up or making up before finally agreeing

that neither really know what they want or what to do

next. This is exactly the relationship between Britain and

the US since the departure of Maggie T. in the early

1990s. America has spit in the face of Britain several times, just as the young male in the film

does to his girlfriend in the opening shot. Between house resolutions that have damaged UK

business interests to what some referred to as strong-arming the Brits into joining with us in Iraq

and Afghanistan, there has been no limit to the strains that the US has put on our former owners.

At the same time, the British keep opening themselves up by offering assistance, by agreeing to

strange and sometimes self-defeating terms, and by constantly declaring that we are their closest

allies while at the same time maintaining that they are always looking out for their best interests

and that all the agreement with America is just a grand coincidence. In the short, the young lady

allows her boyfriend(?) to make love to her even though in the end she refuses to confirm whether

or not they are still a couple. This directly reflects the British attitude towards the US, where they

are willing to let themselves be fucked, but will always leave us, and themselves, guessing.

Sean Biggerstaff in Cashback

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Not all short films receive government funding or major TV station monies and those poor sods have to deal with

finding funding the same way that American producers go about it: by selling sperm. The producers of No Deposit,

No Return did just that to pay for their short about a woman robbing a sperm bank in a fit of post-modern humor.

The woman robber in the film is desperate to get her hands on some of the top-notch sperm without the hassles of

interviews and fighting the thought that single women in their 30s are not fit to be mommies. She would be able to

get it if it weren't for the intrepid night watchman. She makes a hostage out of him, though the two of them end

up having a bit of fun. The view held by many English institutions is that older single women aren't fit to be

mothers, and this has caused women to either be turned away or presented with enough hassles to drive them off.

The view towards single mothers in Britain is far lower than the same in the US.

Another film dealing with single motherhood and its difficulties that has received a lot of attention in the

last year or so is Wasp. Andrea Arnold's short is magnificently constructed: a young mother of four happens across

a former bloke she once fancied. He asks her out for a pint and she accepts, denying that the kids she is walking

with are hers. She can't get a babysitter, so she brings them with her to the pub, forcing them to stand outside

while she works her magic on her could-be boyfriend. The kids get into all sorts of trouble, including eating left

over fish and chips from a garbage can. This is easily a tale of what's wrong with the council housing system, but

there's more. The story seems to say a great deal about the way the British look at their problems. Many of the

poor and young see a Britain that does just this to all its weakest subjects. The conditions that the Government is

willing to accept for its subjects are much the same as those the mother in Arnold's short. More and more people,

particularly young mothers, are entering the system and finding some assistance, but little in the way of actual help.

There is a sense of desertion, that once they are given housing and a place on the dole, that there is no uplift or

follow-up. This leads to great increases in crime as these people find that though the bigger need is taken care of,

that they still most fight through the ever-inflating lesser ones on their own.

Perhaps the most telling short to me is a

referential film called Blake's Junction 7. The short deals

with the folks from the television series Blake's Seven

dealing with no longer having Blake around. Driving a car

pulling a trailer, they stop at a service station along the

M1 for dinner and gas before heading off. The short

shows the crew doing little more than buying food,

playing video games and using the restroom. These are

completely mundane activities in our completely

mundane world. The characters are all dressed in their

uniforms and one is the computer in a plexy box from the

show and seem to have an average time. The short strips

much of the science fiction aspect and shows an everyday

set of interactions quite removed from the former magic.

This is precisely the view of how a growing number of

British subjects, and much of the exterior world, look at

the history, ancient through to contemporary, of their

storied isles and where it has taken them. What was once

a grand mystic world, where great warriors like William

the Bastard once reigned, is now completely run by men

with no fire in the souls. Where once noble thinkers and

actors such as Alfred the Great and Edward the Confessor

ruled, there is now but group think and the mass media-

fueled herd mentality. Much blame can go to television

made in the US, though certainly not all. Many

Top: The Wow and Girls of

the Oscar-winning Short Film

Wasp.

Left: Wasp director Andrea

Arnold after her Oscar win.

Wasp so impressed director

Lars Von Trier that he gave a

million bucks to Arnold for

her first feature film. It is also

being shown to many of the

Brits by the Housing

Councils.

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commentators point out that every day Britain becomes more and more like the US; completely

devoid of any of the majesty that once marked the isles. Hell, there have been songs about that

very topic. One by the previously mentioned Morrissey off of his Your Arsenal album comes to

mind first.

The demystification of science as to being a ho-hum part of the everyday world is also

apparent in Blake's Junction 7, as is the attitude of Brits towards technology. In the 1970s,

there were a great many British cautionary tales telling us that the rise of computers would harm

every man and make the UK unrecognisible. Here, we see the science-y future thrown about all

over hte place and no one seems to care. Quite a change.

The power of British filmmaking in the new century comes from its attention to every detail

in the world they are trying to present. This magnifying glass should certainly bring the general

state of Britain towards the surface, though still remaining happily underground where only

those of us with enough time and patience can truly find what was hiding the deep vaults of the

writers and directors of these pieces of cinema.

12 pt Courier New by Jay Crasdan

When Chris first showed me Screw Britannia, I though he was playing a rib on

me. I mean, no one, no sensible person who knew anything about film and

politics could possibly believe any of those things. He had to be joking. As

I read it again, I realized that not only wasn't he joking (and don't think

for a minute we buy that 'tongue-in-cheek' concept!) and that he really

believed that all of British post-Cold War society was contained in the frames

of a few British Short Films.

Honestly, having lived in the UK briefly in the early 1990s, I can say that

there were a lot fo themes in the works you saw all over the place, but none

of them were as imagined as those that Chris has cooked up. A science fiction

show coming to the real world showing the death of English Majesty? I thought

that the coverage of Di and Chuck's Divorce did that fully. OK, I'll give him

WASP, but his take on Love Me or Leave Me Alone might be a bigger stretch than

an Oprah collection of Spandez leotards.

So, in summary, Chris is a Jackass, but I think we all knew that.

A Few Words About Eating

I love Vietnamese Food. There, I've said and I feel better about myself and my dining habits for

it. I can't help myseslf, there is just something in Pho or Bun plates that just drags me towards

it. It might be the Star Anise, which I've been told is not actually anise, or perhaps it's the fried

rolls. It's so hard to say, but I've found myself at a little Pho place in Sunnyvale several times

over the last couple of weeks. The Chicken Rice plates tend to be my favourite, as it's pretty

basic. I've left Pho itself behind a bit, as too much hot soup makes me grumpy late in the day,

but man, I like rice and noodle plates.

The Drink Tank issue 22 was written by Jay Crasdan and Christopher J. Garcia, then Edited by

Christopher J. Garcia with some friendly assistant from the newly-repatriated M Lloyd. All

comments are welcome so you can send them to garcia@computerhistory.org or to 1401 N.

Shoreline Blvd, Mountain View, CA 94043. I want to say thanks to Jan Stinson for some nice

advice on Claims Department and announce that Issue 3 will be out shortly, probably in your

hands (if you are one of the 25 who get it) by Memorial Day. M is also planning on doing a

"Hyperactive Typist" antholgy of my work for the end of the year. Yay!

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