Special Discretion Required:
The Controversial Channel 4 Film Season
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As teenager growing-up in the 80s, access to controversial films was limited. In the UK the BBFC with the powers of the Video Recordings Act had put many of the most controversial films onto their Video Nasties list. At the beginning of the 80s, there were only 3 TV channels, and 2 of those were from the BBC. Sometimes late of a night BBC2 would show some off-beat and edgy pieces of European cinema, but they were thin on the ground. In 1982 we got another channel, appropriately named Channel 4. From the out-set Channel 4 went against convention, producing left-field, avant-garde and edgy programming that spoke to Gen X-ers. Channel 4's attempt to push artistic boundaries reached a peak in 1986, when they ran their "red triangle" season of films. The films in the season were provocative pieces of arthouse wonderment to teenagers like myself, not previously exposed to much of the kind of the films they chose to screen.
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These films were rated as what at the time was referred to as "X" certificate. They pushed boundaries, and nothing like them had ever been shown on mainstream terrestrial TV in the UK at the time. Or since, I would argue. Due to the transgressive nature of the films, they were given a late night slot, often starting after midnight. Before the films started the infamous "red triangle" warning would appear, informing unsuspecting viewers of what was about to come, and us that we were in for a treat. The red triangle would remain in the top left corner of the screen throughout the screening. The season whipped up a media storm, as the tabloids labelled them along with "video nasties" and campaigned to have the season stopped. The self-appointed arbiter of Britain's moral well-being Mary Whitehouse declared, "It's not good enough to slap on a warning symbol and then indulge in sadistic madness of this kind". We disagreed, slapping a warning on these films, told us we were in for a good late night's viewing. After only a few months, Channel 4 pulled the season, but the "red triangle films" went down in the cultural history. In total Channel 4 showed 10 films in the season, between September 1986 and January 1987.
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Themroc (1973): A French cult classic directed by Claude Faraldo. A really pull-all-the-stops-out piece of surreal weirdness, for Channel 4 to start with. Part farce, part gonzo slap-stick, part surreal examination of the spiral into madness of an everyday Joe. It's a political scream of the average working-man, while containing no recognisable dialogue. The main protagonist Themroc (played by Michel Piccoli) grunts his way through the film, caveman style. Themroc is a working-class man, who rails against authority and modern society, becoming a modern-day urban caveman. Literally living in his cave, an apartment with the external wall blown out. He throws all his modern conveniences down into the courtyard of the apartment buildings he lives in, indulges in a bit on incest and cannibalism, and unsurprisingly comes to the attention of the authorities. Especially when some of his neighbours begin to join him, in his urban caveman style of living. Themroc is a wonderful low-budget sledgehammer of a film. That creams its message of resistance against the drudgery of everyday rat-race 9-to-5 existence.
Themroc was first screened on the 19th of September 1986. |
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Pastoral: To Die in the Country (田園に死す) (1974): Also known as Pastoral Hide and Seek, a Japanese film directed by Shūji Terayama, considered at the time to be one of the most provocative multi-talented creative artists in Japan. The gorgeous opening, sets the tone for the first third of the film. Full of beautifully shot scenes, cleverly filtered, and done with artistic eye rarely matched in cinematographic style. Poetic (literally, in that the initial voice-over is a poem being read out), and breath-taking, the film tells the story of Shūji Terayama as a child. With themes of memories of child-hood and reconciling them with the present, it's a surreal and heavily symbolic and thematically layered piece. That is until a third of the way in when... ***Spoiler Alert*** The whole film you have seen so far turns out to be a film within a film, that the adult director is making. Before the film turns in on itself, and the adult director goes into the world of the film he is making. Here the philosophical questions that the film are attempting to posit become all the more interesting and complex. The ideas of what memories are, how we "live in them", how we create a story of our past from what are really only fragments.
Pastoral: To Die in the Country was first screened on the 3rd of October 1986. |
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Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets (書を捨てよ町へ出よう) (1971): An earlier film by Shūji Terayama, which is an experimental collage of images, words, music. It was his first feature-length film, and takes Japan's new relationship with materialism as its central theme, as a young man wanders through the world disillusioned with his life and the apparent contentment of his family to settle for the life they lead. This is a film in many ways you have to let wash over you, and as with Pastoral, it shows Shūji Terayama's aesthetic eye for capturing a shot brilliantly. The film floats effortlessly from one strange scene to the next, with no linear narrative, no structure, it follows no rules. With the opening Terayama uses a technique he would later use in Pastoral, of having an uncomfortably long black screen, with just sound. Setting the emotional tone for the viewer, before throwing them into the melee of visual montage that the film is. The film examines the perverse sexuality and the misogynistic culture of Japan, and much of it done with a sense of sarcastic fun. There are dark scenes, but equally there are joyous scenes of fun and frolics. A beautiful film that will leave you both bemused and amused.
Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets was first screened on the 10th of October 1986. |
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Identification of a Woman (Identificazione di una donna) (1982): An Italian film by director Michelangelo Antonioni, also known for his earlier cult films Blow-up (1966) and Zabriskie Point (1970). The film tells the turbulent story of a recently divorced film-maker Niccolò (prolific American-Cuban actor Tomás Milián), looking for a woman to be his muse and inspire his next movie. He meets the mysterious Mavi, and is immediately warned off her by a man. The film follows Niccolò and Mavi's disjointed relationship, and the effects the "stooge" who warned him off maybe having on his life Which seems to continue through his relationahip with Ida, later in the film. It examines the difficulties of relationships, sex, obsession and the search for happiness. In many ways the visual beauty of the film, belies something missing in it, a void of some kind that's hard to put your finger on. And maybe that's the point the film is trying to make, in its examination of modern relationships. It's emotionally raw, erotic, and unforgiving in its portrayal of its central characters. Many of who you find it hard to like or identify with, there's a distance, a loneliness in each of them. Again, done as part of the artistry of Antonioni's directorship, in telling his story. All this makes for a difficult film, it's not a comfortable watch, with an moody atmosphere of uneasy.
Identification of a Woman was the second to last film of Antonioni's career, he only made one film after it, Beyond The Clouds with Wim Wenders in 1995. Identification of a Woman was first screened on the 17th of October 1986. |
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Pixote: a Lei do Mais Fraco (1981): Literal translation, Pixote (small child): The Law of the Weakest, is a Brazilian film directed by Hector Babenco, who would go on to make Kiss of the Spider Woman in 1985. Long before 2002's City Of God, Pixote examined the poverty and the delinquent youth of Brazil, in a quasi-documentary style. How they are exploited, by everyone, from the corrupt police to the organised crime gangs whose path they cross. The film focuses on one of these children, the young criminal Pixote of the title. Pixote was played by a young unknown actor Fernando Ramos da Silva, who in an ironic twist of fate was killed at the age of 19 by Brazilian police in São Paulo. In many ways, da Silva's life mirrored that of the character he played, and briefly became famous for.
The film is a stark portrayal of the life of Brazilian street kids, and their involvement in crime. Featuring torture, violence, drug deals, prostitution and murder. A haunting coming-of-age movie, that is as raw and hard as the life of its characters. It's powerful, shocking, brutally realistic, an unremitting roller-coaster ride of emotions that will leave viewers drained and exhausted. Giving them only the briefest taste of what life is like for runaway street kids in Brazil. Pixote was first screened on the 24th of October 1986. |
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The Clinic (1982): After all that, The Clinic is a lighter film. A comedy/drama from Australia by director David Stevens. Stevens better known for his screen-writing, co-wrote the award winning Breaker Morant (1980) and the miniseries A Town Like Alice. The film tells the story of the doctors and patients at a VD Clinic in Melbourne, Australia over the period of one day. The film is a series on vinaigrettes, featuring a cast of odd characters, concerned about their STDs and the stories of how they got them. It's a film done in the tradition of bawdy farce, that goes apace, as patients file in to the clinic one after the other. You'd think the whole of Australia had the "clap", by the time you've finished watching it. Despite being a comedy, it's also a cautionary tale of promiscuity and a disregard for using protection. As the clients that appear at the clinic range from jaded regulars to the nervous newbies, embarrassingly stuttering their way into this crazy medical world of venereal diseases.
For me The Clinic is no more than a piece of Ozploitation cinema, and not a good example at that, despite the credentials of Stevens. If Channel 4, were looking for an example of Ozaploitation cinema, there were much better films around at the time they could have shown. As an example of Ozploitation / sexploitation, they could have gone with Felicity (1979) or the lesser known Coming Of Age (1984) and Leonora (1985). I remember watching The Clinic when it was shown, more than I recall some of the others on the list. But I don't remember it for good reasons, the whole thing just seemed a bit messy and amateurish, in the worst possible way. And that's from someone who loves trashy films. The Clinic was first screened on the 31st of October 1986 |
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Montenegro (1981): Also known as, Montenegro - Or Pigs and Pearls (Montenegro eller Pärlor och Svin). Montenegro is a "erotic" black comedy, directed by Serbian film-maker Dušan Makavejev, who made the infamous arthouse classic from 1974, Sweet Movie. Marilyn is an American housewife, married to a Swedish businessman. She lives a life of rich drudgery, bored and depressed with her lot, in frustration she she appears to lose-the-plot, as she does things to bring excitement to her life. At first she does strange out of character things in her home, like setting the bedclothes on fire, and poisoning the family dog. But this is not enough, and her actions have her husband refer her to a shrink. Then while at the airport, about to go with her husband on a business trip, she is held up by security and he has to go ahead without her. She takes this moment of freedom, and finds herself delving into a whole new world of erotic excitement. While at a bar she meetings a young man called Montenegro. She has a night of passion with Montenegro, but soon realises she isn't part of this mad and crazy world she is having such a care-free time in. Then suddenly and quite unexpectedly the film takes a darker twist. The film takes us the viewer along on the journey with Marilyn, and in that way is engaging. It's a social commentary on being the other, out of place, in both worlds familiar and unfamiliar.
Montenegro was first screened on the 14th of November 1986. |
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No Mercy, No Future (Die Berührte) (1981): A German film, directed by the only woman on the list Helma Sanders-Brahms. A bleakly nihilistic film about mental illness, as the main character Veronika a schizophrenic prowls the dark streets of Berlin in search of God. She comes from a wealthy family, who don't know how to deal with her episodes, and have her regularly institutionalised. The story of no Mercy, no Future was based on letters and recollections of an actual woman with schizophrenia. Much of her words were translated verbatim into the script of the film. Sanders-Brahms gives us an unmediated view of her madness, her hallucinations, and that juxtaposed against the harshness of how the world treats her. It's a dark, depressing and difficult watch at times. Which considering the subject matter, it's hardly surprising. The main actress, spends much of the film in various states of undress or naked. As in the scene when she lies naked in the snow, cruciform shaped, in-front of the Berlin Wall. She drifts through the world, and meets others that are drifting, lost or forgotten by the "real" world that surrounds them. The film contains a deeply uneasy sex scene, as she and her sexual partner end up covered in her menstrual blood. Over-all a well handled film about what it's like for some living with mental illness.
No Mercy, No Future was first screened on the 28th of November 1986. |
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Out Of The Blue (1980): Released in Canada, from where it hails, as No Looking Back. Starring and directed by Dennis Hopper, his first since he made The Last Movie in 1971. Hopper plays an ex-con and father to Cebe, a teen rebel, played by Linda Manz. Manz had a year earlier appeared in the cult film The Wanderers (1979), and would go on to appear in the wonderfully bizarre Harmony Korine film Gummo (1997). In Out Of The Blue, Manz's 15 year old character seeks solace from her ex-con father and junkie mother in a love of Elvis and punk music. Her central performance is brilliantly real and emotionally charged throughout. Her performance is surrounded by a film that is like a punk song. Stripped down, in your face, and comes out screaming! Out Of The Blue which is named after the Neil Young song My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue), is for me a forgotten gem of a film. One of those moments when all the right elements just seem to come together, to capture a cultural point in history, as well as telling a damn good story with seemingly the minimum of effort. Dennis Hopper didn't make many great films as a director. Easy Rider, The Last Movie and Out Of The Blue are for me the three. Unfortunately Out Of The Blue has disappeared into relative obscurity, and should have a wider audience even today.
Out Of The Blue was first screened on the 10th of January 1987. |
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The Wall (Duvar) (1983): And finally, a film from Turkey, by directed by the controversial film-maker Yılmaz Güney, who was of Zara and Kurdish origin. Many of his films went against the strict rules of the regime in Turkey, as far as subject matter for films. He made and starred in films about the hardships of poor Turkish people, and minority ethnic groups in the country. He championed the marginalised, and even spent time in prison for his political beliefs in the 1960s and throughout the 70s. He was arrested in 1972 for harboring anarchist students, and in 1974 was sentenced to 19 years in prison for shooting and killing a public prosecutor. He escaped from prison in 1981, and found exile in France. It was there, with the help of the French government that he made Duvar (The Wall), a brutal story of prison life for children in Turkey, a bleak film of torture, pain, humiliation and the depths of inhumanity some people will go under such conditions. The Turkish government were outraged, they instantly banned the film, and in his absence sentenced him to 22 further years in prison. Güney was already dying when he made Duvar, he never returned to Turkey and died of cancer in 1984.
The Wall was first screened on the 17th of January 1987, and was the lest of the "red triangle" films to be shown on Channel 4. |
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