Francis Berger
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Johnny's In London Talking About The Hopelessness: Stray Thoughts About Mike Leigh's "Naked"

8/2/2020

5 Comments

 
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This is not a film recommendation; I am merely sharing some thoughts.

I classify Mike Leigh's 1993 film Naked as one of those I hate liking. When I saw the film for the first time shortly after its release, I distinctly remember harboring a favorable impression of it as I was leaving the movie theater, but this acclamatory assessment was simultaneously tempered by a sense of deep revulsion. Though it was an odd sensation to experience, I was not at all surprised by this contradictory response. Though I enjoyed the brilliant acting, clever screenwriting, and effective cinematography, I was repulsed by the world Mike Leigh depicts in the film.

The nausea I experienced did not stem from any gratuitousness or insincerity on Leigh's part, but rather from an acknowledgement of the film's jolting and accurate depiction of contemporary nihilism, alienation, loneliness, and despair. The spiritual darkness and hopelessness Leigh presents is extremely cutting and relevant, and I suspect this underlying darkness and hopelessness has only grown darker and more hopeless in the twenty-seven years since the film's release.

Whether exposure to darkness can help guide one toward the light is questionable. At the same time, being oblivious to the spiritual murk that masquerades as modern society probably does more harm than good in terms of recognizing and remaining in the light. Of course, Leigh offers the viewer very little in the way of light in this film. Cinematographically, the vast majority of the scenes are draped in inky tones of night and shadow; and the daytimes scenes are burdened by diffused, oppressive grayness utterly unblessed by even the slightest ray of sunshine. The locations feel cramped and closed, creating a sense of physical and metaphysical claustrophobia - tight stairwells, narrow alleyways, decaying stretches of urban wasteland. Whatever slivers of metaphysical light manage to penetrate the shadows are quickly eclipsed by the shadows of hopelessness.

The characters themselves exist in a vicious world of predator and prey. Most appear lost and zombified. Grounded in crushing materialism, they are, nonetheless, completely disconnected from the physical places they refer to as homes; unaware and unattached to any of the objects surrounding them. All are starved for love and authentic human connection, yet their attempts to attain these ultimately makes them either victims or victimizers. Johnny, the Mancunian main character, rips through this depressing ensemble of soul-wounded characters like a hurricane. Intellectual and intense, this loquacious, failed-Romantic anti-hero possesses enough perspicacity to pierce through the lies and listlessness of the modern world, but his overreliance on his intellect ultimately leads him into a metaphysical dead end. 

Convinced humanity is merely a stage in the evolutionary ladder toward the eventual appearance of form of theosis in the guise of pure, God-like consciousness, Johnny finds no meaning or purpose for contemporary human life outside of this evolutionary role. Put another way, humanity's sole purpose is to prepare the way for an eventual higher form of being - a higher form of being in which humanity's only creative role is to passively live out its own determined, physical existence until the coming of the apocalypse, which will usher in the beginning of the next stage of evolution toward pure consciousness. 

The inherent hopelessness of these metaphysical assumptions bleed into the whole film and are reflected by every downcast, deprived, and derelict character Johnny encounters on his pseudo Odyssey around London. Of course, the very notion of metaphysical assumptions are beyond the scope of most of the people Johnny meets, with the only exception being Brian, the middle-aged security guard who grants Johnny a few hours of reprieve from the cold and damp London night. Working in what Johnny describes as 'the most tedious job in England', Brian guards an empty building and spends the majority of each night contemplating the future while the city around him sleeps. Convinced his life has meaning, and that this meaning resides somewhere in the future, Brian ultimately rejects the hopelessness Johnny describes in a memorable metaphysical tirade laced with conspiratorial flourishes.

Over breakfast at a café the following morning, Brian quietly gives Johnny the advice the younger man so sorely needs. Don't waste your life. The words fall on deaf ears, for as far as Johnny is concerned life is already a waste. Thinking a waste cannot be wasted amounts to nothing more than wishful thinking in his mind.   

The scene below contains the metaphysical tirade mentioned above. As far as I'm concerned, it's an excellent scene, even if the message it presents is anything but. 

Warning: The clip below contains a fair bit of swearing.   
5 Comments
bruce charlton
8/2/2020 18:21:28

This is aside - because I don't intend to watch Naked; but after I had given up on Mike Leigh altogether from watching his early work, he came-out with Topsy-Turvy (1999) about Gilbert and Sullivan, which is one of my absolute favourite movies of all time - and a sheer delight. I just can't get my mind around how T-T fits into his oeuvre - but there it is.

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Francis Berger
8/2/2020 19:15:26

@ Bruce - Naked is the only Mike Leigh film I have seen, so I don't know much about his oeuvre. As I mentioned in the post, I hated liking it, and perhaps this feeling put me off exploring his other films. Having said that, I will definitely look into Topsy-Turvy.

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Michelle
8/3/2020 19:35:37

Intellectual hopelessness is a prison and an infliction. There really is no way out without humility and a turn to God. Life is all gray. I know this because I was that person in the movie. Im still on the road back to Him but I see where I need to go. I can't watch movies anymore because so many modern movies are so dark and even worse, snarky.
What struck me as peculiar is how he was debating the Bible and even called it the Holy Book. 27 years later and we would never have such a debate.
On a side note, when I hear someone talk in a British accent, my brain automatically gives that person credence. My ears hear sophistication. I'm not sure why I hear that accent in this way (I'm from the U.S.)! So silly.

Reply
Francis Berger
8/3/2020 21:19:01

@ Michelle - Naked is an ugly, ugly film, but I don't believe Mike Leigh made it to promote the ugliness, but rather to refute it. Johnny is a fascinating character to some degree - a sort of raving anti-hero - yet his ultimate metaphysical assumptions are wrong and, hence, hopeless. There's not much to like about Johnny by the end of the film, and this says something about Leigh's intentions.

Johnny's hyper-intellectualism is akin to the rationalism/intellectualism Dostoevsky depicted in some of his characters. Intellect alone will never lead to God.

Your point about the Holy Book is a good one. I very much doubt we will be seeing much mention of the Bible or religion at all in films in the future. If we do, it will only be to denigrate or ridicule.

Reply
Owen
8/4/2020 13:15:36

Shocked to hear Jesus mentioned in one of the recent Avengers movies, but it was part of punchline. Modern Hollywood has to borrow from old Christian culture in order to create any sense of elegance, high class, or deep meaning - if there's any poem recited or classical music played, that's what's being done. Leftism seems to have left a void in place of the old genuine elite culture, so directors unconsciously reach back to Christendom.

Re. intellectual nihilism, it seems to spring from a primary religious feeling of nothingness and pointlessness. Or maybe it's the other way around - the thinking of nothing results in a powerful feeling, akin to a religious epiphany.

This is never questioned. Is it true or is it false? Do I correctly see the void of creation, or the void of my own blindness? This primary religious feeling of nihilism guides everything - this might be why the materialistic universe seems so "obvious" and "mature" and "adult to modern intellectuals, and why they find alternative worldviews so ridiculous.


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