Scotland’s finest films Culloden ●
does he make the grim oddly beautiful here. In evidence, too, is Forsyth’s subtle, surreal humour. Hector is looking for the basics in life: food, a home, love and a pair of shoes that fit. And finally, where else will you see a pre-superstar Carlyle playing a prehistoric shamen? (MF) Braveheart (see panel left) Breaking the Waves (see panel p9) Brigadoon (Vincente Minnelli, US, 1954) 108min. Gene Kelly, Cyd Charisse. ‘Roamin’ in the gloamin’, as you do, Gene Kelly and his mate (Van Johnson) stumble across the quaint little village of Brigadoon. Little do they know it’s a magic hamlet that appears for only one day every 100 years. Would that this were true of some of Scotland’s wasted and lonely urban holes. But no, in the case of Brigadoon, it’s a pisser as Kelly falls for the bonniest lassie in the place and must decide whether to stay trapped in time with her or return to New York City. Bearing a number of instantly forgettable musical numbers and flawed by the monumental miscasting of urban fox Charisse (she with the legs that allegedly ‘went on forever’) as bonny lassie Fiona Campbell, Brigadoon has nonetheless done much to promote Scotland as an idyllic holiday destination. As nice as it all looks, not a frame of it was shot in Scotland, as producer Arthur Freed couldn’t find a location ‘Scottish enough’. He visited some of Scotland’s most picturesque towns and villages, including Culross, Dunkeld, Comrie, Braemar and Brig o’ Doon itself before heading back to Hollywood to build a stage set. (CB) Complicity (Gavin Millar, UK, 2000) Jonny Lee Miller, Brian Cox, Keeley Hawes, Bill Paterson. Surprisingly, this is only the second of novelist Iain Banks’ books to be filmed (the Clydebank veteran of stage and screen Millar also filmed the other, The Crow Road, for television four years earlier). Cameron Colley (Miller, returning to Scotland after convincing everyone he was Sean Connery with his remarkable impersonation in Trainspotting) is a young Edinburgh newspaper journalist with a thing for exposing wrongs committed by the rich and powerful. Colley’s all very pleased with his good work – and the whiskey and cocaine it pays for – until the miscreants featured in
his articles start turning up dead, murdered in gruesome ways suggested by their misdeeds. As far as Inspector McDunn (Cox at his starch-faced best) is concerned, all the evidence points to Colley. The poor laddie’s in a fix, and he’s getting no help from the sexy, enigmatic Yvonne (Hawes). In many ways this is Banks’ least idiosyncratic story, playing as it does like a noirish murder mystery. Not, you’d think, the obvious choice from the Banks canon for a film adaptation. That said, filming around and about Edinburgh city centre has to be easier than transforming, say, the Forth rail bridge into a fabulous structure from an alternative universe. Millar makes a respectable enough stab at Complicity, and the leads and supporting cast (including Bill Paterson and Valerie Edmond) satisfy, but the relatively conventional nature of the source material hamstrings the film. Nevertheless, it was somewhat unfairly overlooked on its original cinema release and deserves a second chance. (MF)
Complicity
Culloden (Peter Watkins, UK, 1964) 70min.
Hailed as a television breakthrough after its first broadcast by the BBC on 15 December 1964, Peter Watkins’ remarkable reconstruction of the famous battle of Culloden in 1746 encapsulates in its own bloody, ultra realistic way (let’s try and avoid the word docudrama shall we?) the last land battle to be fought on British soil. It was a battle fought for a weak, absentee Scottish heir to the throne and was to tear apart the clan system of the Scottish Highlands. Fashioned like an on-the-spot news report, Culloden stunned the TV audience on that cold Yuletide night. The film’s immediacy and raw power (partly the result of Watkins’ employment of a brutish, untrained mob of extras) hit a chord and it soon became a favourite in arthouses across the country. The film’s popularity grew when Watkins’ entered TV history by having his famous nuclear bomb disaster re-enactment, The War Game, banned by the very institution that had originally headhunted this brilliant young filmmaker. Based on the 1961 book by John Prebble, Culloden had a huge impact on British filmmakers, historians and documentarians and continues to today. On the bloody plains of Culloden Watkins had started a revolution where once one had been crushed. (PD)
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The 50 Best Scottish Films of all Time THE LIST 7