Another Country [1984] (REGION 1) (NTSC)

Customer Reviews:

Hoo-Rah for Rupert.......2005-11-15

Marek Kanievska's Another Country, penned originally by Julian Mitchell as a play, promised a delicious gay romp with Rupert Everett and Colin Firth doing, arguably, what they do best – upper-class public-school boys, stiff upper lip fully in toe. Aside the lush, sweeping scenes of a school which is a thinly-veiled Eton, filmed in Oxford and Cambridge universities, and the hapless charm of Mr. Everett (and I do find him incredibly sexy in this film; Colin not so much for the huge 80s hair), we follow the rigid feudal society of boarding school life in England in the thirties.

The prologue opens with Guy Bennett (Everett) as an old man in heinous make-up, introducing to us the story of why he becomes a communist spy in Moscow.
Cut to the past.
In his youth in his penultimate year of school, Bennett, gay, expresses his persuasion in keeping with the usual, occasional and mostly tolerated outbursts of homosexuality in a space devoid of girls, hoping to be promoted to the prestigious elite of school society, the 'gods', in his final year, after which he will work his way up the career ladder and become an ambassador par excellence in Paris.
Complications arise when he falls in love with James Harcourt (Cary Elwes) and is forced to give up his 'dream' to protect Harcourt's identity. With Harcourt, he begins to accept his own sexuality proper and ultimately comes to recognise the hypocrisy of a (school) society which tolerates and turns a blind eye to frivolous sexual play between boys, but at the same time punishes love, tenderness and genuine affection between them. It's the 80s, work with it!

If you're a fan, which I most certainly am, Rupert Everett is in full rah mode, playing a cheeky gayer in the rather highly sexually-charged atmosphere of a boarding school. It's a slow and gentle story which is most definitely enjoyable, and also avoids the usual "Who am I?" cheesy crap that accompanies gay coming of age dramas. Bennett's path to self-realisation is decidedly corn-free. Colin Firth's Communist character, Tommy Judd, also adds to the fun as he and Bennett both rebel in different ways, not quite understanding one another at the beginning but starting to recognise each other towards the end. Awww.

Nonetheless, not every homosexual who had it slightly hard (...) at boarding school turned out to be a Communist spy in the end as in Bennett's case, I'm sure, and the rather annoyingly sickly representation of Bennett and Harcourt's love affair grates after a while. Kanievska presents the school in an idyllic, quintessentially English light in order to criticise it, but she presents their relationship in exactly the same way – candlelight, romantic dinners and falling asleep together in punting boats. It is set in the 30s, but I didn't get the impression that there was anything fake about Bennet's feelings for Harcourt, so it left me a bit cold to be honest.

Nonetheless, four stars for the sheer rah of it. Ooh, Rupert!

A little local issue.......2005-05-24

Another Country, a film starring Rupert Everett and Colin Firth (in their very early work), is set in the upper-class British society of the inter-war period. Its central idea is to demonstrate the difficulties of growing up even in the midst of privilege when one is different. Everett plays Guy Bennett, an intelligent and popular student at a public school (in America, read private school) who doesn't seem to be growing out of `schoolboy tendencies' as are the others. The film is done in a flashback sequence; Bennett is in his old age, reflecting back on the origins of the troubles in his life (as it turns out, Bennett is one of the several British intelligence agents who during the Cold War defected to the Soviet Union). Bennett sees the problems starting in prep schools such as his (Eton is not specifically named, but heavily implied, particularly given the history of the real British intelligence defectors). There is an inability for the culture around to face the truth, and the attempt by the school (instructors, alumni, and fellow students alike) to pressure all into a conformity that doesn't always fit. Bennett wants to be openly homosexual; his friend Tommy Judd (Firth) wants to be a nonconformist Communist; their nemesis is not from the adult world, but rather the fellow student Fowler, who is in charge of the school's military brigade, and the one most keen on enforcing rules and mores.

This is an interesting film for British audiences because it exposes an unspoken element to the class struggle by looking inside the upper class and seeing division as opposed to monolith and uniformity. It is interesting for American audiences because it exposes a different world from the ones most Americans understand readily, but one not so far removed in terms of influence both politically and culturally. Most interesting is the interplay of the cultural elements, sometimes explicitly critiqued by the character Tommy (who doesn't quite do the Shakespearean aside to the audience, but whose commentary is obviously tailored more for the viewing audience than for the other characters at times); most of the time, however, the cultural elements are assumed and understood as natural by the characters, causing viewers outside the British upper class (and some of those in it) to ponder just what is going on with all of these.

One of the interesting things of the piece is that it is a questioning film, questioning the way society brings up its young, with the questioning being done by the young. However, for young people the ending is unsettling - Guy Bennett is in a small Moscow flat, having defected to the Soviet Union with intelligence secrets, effectively betraying his culture and nation; we discover that Tommy died in the Spanish Civil War fighting against Franco, and many of the other high-flyers in school end up as lack-luster and disappointing figures (even the one who makes it being a Cabinet minister somehow lacks the image of success - when one is trained from birth to take the highest office, is it really much of an achievement to attain it?).

It is a rather slow-moving film in terms of camera shots, and a rather conservative film in terms of cast and action (there are no car chases, no violence, no adult liasons other than hints and suggestions, etc.). It is one that has never made much of an impact on American audiences, and the British audiences who enjoyed the film were predominantly an older crowd.

The issues of metaphor, iconic imagery and modern society's method of making sense of imagery abound here. In particular, there is Baudrillard's idea of simulation - in a sense, the film Another Country is a simulation of a simulation: the film itself is a simulation of a sort, and the characters and school environment depicted are also a simulation of certain relationships and aspects that the world should, in the eyes of the community at large, take on even if it never really achieves the fullness (and indeed, would be unlikely to like the results if it should). This taps into the concept of hegemony drawn from critical analysis thinkers such as Gramsci and Williams.

The world in the film Another Country no longer exists. Of course, the world in Another Country never really existed, but was a cultural construct for the particular class. God rarely entered into the matter, apart from standard prayers at meal-times, awkward impromptu Bible study when something `immoral' had happened, and at times of personal or national crisis.

Stylish, well-acted, interesting in scope, this is an under-appreciated gem. Comparison has been made, rightly so, to the lavish Merchant-Ivory productions of E.M. Forster novels around the same time.

one of my first gay emotion.......2004-04-21

a wonderful movie as simple and magic as the joy of first love and intense as the discovery of oneself. well balanced, very romantic and very elegant, amusing and moving, tender, never melodramatic.

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