02.03.2000

review

Solidarity and compassion Shane Meadows A room for Romeo Brass 1999

Shane Meadows is a film director who is unfashionably proud of his working class origins, and is considered to be a worthy exponent of Ken Loach's cinematic realism. Certainly Meadows' two main films have shared Loach's interest in portraying humorous and sensitive working class characters in adverse circumstances. Furthermore, Meadows uses Loach's famous fly-on-the-wall technique to good effect.

However, what is more striking are the differences between Loach and Meadows. Loach's characters tend to be one-dimensional, being either good or bad, and the male or female hero generally has a practical or moral triumph by the end of the film. Thus his films tend to represent a type of absolute and romantic realism. (Possibly the sole exception to this perspective is his best film, Joe, which portrays a complex and tragic character, and the outcome of the story is open-ended and ambiguous.)

In contrast, Meadows' films are more dialectical, because the central characters are contradictory and contain many sides to their personality. Hence, the two 'heroic' characters of Romeo Brass are young lads who are capable of being spiteful and disloyal, and are rude or diffident in their relations with their parents, and yet they still retain the viewers' sympathy and support.

I do not think that Loach has displayed this level of complex characterisation: in the last analysis he still imposes a (very) leftwing middle class perspective onto the working class characters of his films. This results in a sentimental approach that romanticises the working class and so does not establish a cinematic appraisal that ultimately challenges the viewer in the manner of Meadows' films. For example in his first feature film Meadows brilliantly uses Bob Hoskins (who acts as a voluntary youth worker) in order to show that, however committed we may be to our work or project, it is still possible to undermine what we have created through acts of self-destruction. The youth worker dies an embittered and lonely man. This type of emotional and disturbing intensity is generally absent from Loach's films.

In Romeo Brass, the two young lads, Romeo and 'Knock Knock', become friends to Morell (brilliantly acted by Paddy Considine), who could perhaps be described in crude and prejudicial terms as someone who is 'not quite there'. Morell has saved the boys from being beaten up by bullies, and he fascinates them with the unconventional logic and poetic quality of his stories about life. Unfortunately, Morell shows that he is a bully himself and starts to intimidate Knock Knock.

Morell persuades Romeo's sister to go on a date, but he is inevitably rejected, and he then becomes increasingly violent towards the families of the two lads. In one scene Knock Knock's terrified father insists despite his fear that Morell cannot come into the house, standing firm until help arrives. This scene is one of the most moving examples of parental love that I have seen in the cinema. Indeed, Meadows seems to be making the point that, whether we are part of a one-parent or two-parent family, what is most important is the generation of love and mutual consideration. This call to rebuild the working class family and community in terms of equality and trust is both welcome and necessary.

Meadows also shows that despite Knock Knock's and Romeo's indifference towards school it is still possible to overcome the problems this causes. For if they are given sufficient encouragement, and if they are prepared to be disciplined, it is possible to develop talents, such as Knock Knock's short story writing, that could open up the possibility of a creative future.

So what happens to Morell? We do not know. He has no family, and he has no friends. Apparently his father used to beat and bully him, and his resentment about this has created this potentiality for violence within his personality. Consequently, he lives in a self-justifying fantasy world that has led him to do harm to others, and will create the possibility for violence in the future. Meadows is showing the awful possible effects of loneliness, and the connected lack of love, and the necessity to develop society on the basis of valuing communication, compassion, trust and solidarity.

There is no mention of class struggle in this film, but I have never seen a better cinematic advocacy of socialism.