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Reviews
Up the Junction (1968)
A shamefully underrated expose on working class London in the swinging 60s
I first saw this film on late night TV in Melbourne, Australia, in the late 1980s. I love it then, but wasn't able to view it again until recently, and enjoyed it as much as my first viewing almost 30 years earlier.
One of the first things I remembered thinking after first viewing it is – why isn't this film better known? It's one of the great British films of the 1960s, and a fine example of the 'kitchen sink' genre. Added to that, it has superb widescreen cinematography – every scene is beautifully shot, the outdoor scenes particularly so. Working class London in the 60s was a ramshackle, beautiful if run-down environment. The film captures a lost world – it's a fascinating historical document as well as a serious movie.
The cast is spot on,it's all very believable, and the leads have a genuine chemistry. Suzy Kendall may have had a limited acting range – but she's perfect in this role. And so beautiful!
The story tackles all manner of social problems not just of the 60s, but universal ones applicable today as then. Some scenes are still quite disturbing to watch – this is not some 'swinging London' expose, but an accurate glimpse in to the life of working class Londoners before the gentrification process started.
I was fortunate to study British film at Monash Univeristy (Melbourne) under the great Brian MacFarlane in the 1990s. He's considered the world expert on British cinema, and was commissioned by the British Film Academy to write the authorised history of British cinema. One of the things MacFarlane consistently highlighted was the fact Brit film only began to portray the working class seriously from the late 1950s. Prior to that, working class were portrayed in movies as either servants, idiots, criminals or downtrodden miners etc. Up the Junction is a beautifully realised example of a time when the British finally began to take the working class seriously.
It's also the first film I can think of with a soundtrack written by a well known rock band – Manfred Mann. And though dated – the music is perfect for this film and captures something of the youth vibe then flowering across the western world. Truly – this is a shamefully underrated film and a must-see for anyone interested in London in the 1960s.
Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969)
Brilliant timepiece well worth re-visiting
I watched this film again having first seen it on late night TV in the mid 1980s when I was twenty. I thought it would be unintentionally funny, expecting it to have dated badly. How wrong I was! This film is an important timepiece, a fascinating insight in to hip west coast middle class life at a time when America was still on top of the world, yet to realize it would all be downhill from there. The film has stood up remarkably well, it's subject matter still poignant. The cultural and social concepts of fidelity are forever shifting, often turning full circle making films like B&C&T&A relevant and thought provoking some forty years after release. The film is beautifully directed by Mazursky, and is arguably the finest work ever done by all four leads in the film. I found it fascinating observing each performance closely – noting how the actors juggled their obvious affection for their character, while at the same time being true to Mazursky's raison d'être – a gentle dig at the new social mores of the wealthy west coast hip set. Delicately picking at the counter-culture as if choosing hors d'oeuvres from a waiter at a cocktail party, Bob and Carol experiment with dope, extra marital sex and new age group therapy. The dialogue sparkles, the actors so in tune with Mazursky's vision they breathe life in to what are essentially caricatures. At times the film is laugh out loud funny, though not unintentionally as I had expected. I was surprised to realize the film was released in 1969, thinking it was more an early 70s creation, so ahead of its' time does it seem even today. It was years before other artists dared tackle the difficult subject of middle class vacuity, and rarely with the eloquence and humour of this film. The film is also sumptuous to look at, Bob and Carol's elegant faux Spanish villa positively luxurious even by today's standards. The scene of the foursome cruising to Las Vegas in Ted's convertible Cadillac is an elegiac vision, a scene of America that no longer exists. A time when wealthy Americans still bought Cadillacs, when Las Vegas was seen as a place of glamor and fun and despite the social unrest and Vietnam, America was still big, brash and confident. The greatest civilization in the history of the world, all there to see as the white ragtop barrels down the highway, the foursome laughing and in high spirits – a scene that in some ways summed up the theme of the movie. With so much at their fingertips, the luckiest people to have ever lived, but they don't know what to do with the privilege. They are lost, their search for sexual and emotional fulfillment nothing more than a desperate search for meaning, a sad attempt to fill a nagging void. In the mid 1980s, former Eagle front man Don Henley had his last big hit with 'The Boys Of Summer', in which he sings of his dismay at seeing a new Cadillac pass him on the LA freeway, a Dead-head sticker on the bumper. The former hippies, the baby boomers, had sold out. Mazursky was telling us the same thing fifteen years earlier. Perhaps Pete Townsend of the Who summed it up best in his anthemic Won't Get Fooled Again – 'meet the new boss, same as the old boss' A highly thought-provoking experience seeing this film again, and for those interested in culture, counter or otherwise – this is a must.