That was England

I've been a huge fan of Shane Meadows's brilliant films since late Summer, 2007. I found myself laid up for a couple of weeks after having a huge lump removed from my right leg. To help me cope with the pain, and to assuage the dissappontment of not being able to take the lump home, I bought myself a big box set of his films - the highly recommended This is Shane Meadows. 

I'd already seen the intense and masterful Dead Man's Shoes when my brother screened it for me and my horrified then-girlfriend after a drunken night out in 2005. As the film ended, I knew I had found a new favourite director. So I was very excited at the prospect of three brand new (to me) films to watch at my leisure. There was no girlfriend in the picture at this time, so I was free to watch whatever I wanted without having to excuse all the violence and nudity with pretend film theory:

'No, really dear, she has to be naked, because of... er... the semiotics of... auteur theory. Yes. Which you don't know about and I do. And I have to watch this bit in slow motion because of the frame... rate... dissonance. Why don't you go and make me some tea?'

Watching Meadows's films was a joy. 24/7, his first full length feature, is funny and bleak, often at the same time - a juxtaposition that was to inform much of his work. A Room for Romeo Brass introduces the incredible Paddy Considine, an actor who Can Do No Wrong, as troubled child-man Morell.

Best of all, though, and still my joint favourite with Dead Man's Shoes, is This is England. Chances are, if you know me, I have spent the last several years ramming the film down your intellectual throat, shouting 'You must watch this' and reacting with fresh incredulity every time I learn you still haven't. Well, that's because it's wonderful, and funny, and sweet, and upsetting, and smart, and unique, and... ooh... everything.

I'm not going to go into the plot here because a) you should have watched it by now and b) I'm going to talk about This is England '86, so if you haven't seen it, you may as well go and do something else. Perhaps you could sort out that pile of books next to your bed. Really - you can't be reading them all. Or, better still, go and watch This is England '86 on 4 on Demand. (I still think they should have called it FourPlay. That would have been better.)

Anyway. I have mixed feelings about TIE'86. It has been and gone, and I have loved it, but I remain... well, mixed.

Let there be no doubt, I thought it was magnificent. Really, really powerful television that dealt with important stuff without generally feeling like it was trying to be 'important.' The characters were well played and developed in believable ways through naturalistic dialogue. The film-making was well crafted without being showy and affected. The tone - which some reviewers have criticised as uneven - wove comedy, tragedy, drama and farce together in the way that drama seldom manages, but real life always does.

It was great. I loved it. If I see images from it, or think of moments, a little shiver goes through me. So why am I mixed?

Partly, I guess, because that is the intention. It is not a programme that leaves one with a definable sense of what it was 'about'. Soetimes TV and film can do this in a very unsatisfying way, where the final credits leave you wondering what on earth the point was. TIE'86 is more like tasting a variety of conflicting flavours and having them wander around in your mouth, bouncing off each other, making no sense together, making new sense together. Like chasing bitter stilton with velvety wine, or having a banana straight after a Twix.

But also, I think, I am mixed up because I don't know what it will be like, now, to revisit the original film. So many of the characters I know and love, and have got to know in the context of the film over the years, now have new dimensions, new back-stories. Hannah Walters, for example, was credited as 'Shoe Shop Lady' in the original film. A brilliant little vignette, funny and believable, feeling like a real character who would continue to exist beyond the confines of her little scene.

Now, having returned for the series, we learn that she was always called Trudy. She had an affair with Meggsy. And a son. Next time I watch that scene, it will have changed. Not for the worse, I think, but it will have become a subtly different scene. And it will be the same for any scenes with Milky and Lol, or Combo, or  Mr. Sandhu, or even Harvey - a bit part bully in the film who now always had an abusive dad and thus might be better understood.

Aesthetically I like all this. It is not like George Lucas's rampage through the pre-history of Star Wars, whereby every mythic reference was rendered depressingly mundane through pedestrian visualisation. The characters of Meadows's world have grown, and become more interesting and complex. This is just a personal thing. This is England, the film I watched in 2007, is gone. Next time I watch it, I will be a different viewer, with a different understanding, and so watching a different film.

This is, I think, a good thing, as well as a sad thing. Thank you again, Shane Meadows, for refusing to let me lie in my assumptions.