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BRITANNIA HOSPITAL
(Lindsay Anderson, 1982)
Release date: 29 June 2020
Limited Edition Blu-ray (World Blu-ray premiere)

Pre-order here.

The concluding instalment in Lindsay Anderson’s Mick Travis trilogy, following If.... and O Lucky Man!, Britannia Hospital finds the filmmaker casting a sourly satirical eye over Thatcher’s Britain. With a phenomenal cast at his disposal – everyone from Alan Bates (Georgy Girl) and Joan Plowright (Time Without Pity) to Robin Askwith (Confessions of a Window Cleaner) and Mark Hamill (Star Wars) to Malcolm McDowell (A Clockwork Orange) reprising the role of Travis – Anderson trains his sights on royalty, trade unions, the media, and scientific research in typically uncompromising fashion.

INDICATOR LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY SPECIAL FEATURES

• High Definition remaster
• Original mono audio
• The BEHP Interview with Lindsay Anderson (1991): archival audio recording, made as part of the British Entertainment History Project, featuring the celebrated director in conversation with Alan Lawson and Norman Swallow
• Healthy Reputation (2020): actor Robin Askwith recalls working with Anderson on If.... and Britannia Hospital
• Biles Apart (2020): actor Brian Pettifer discusses working with Anderson and reprising the role of Biles
• A Cut Above (2020): editor Michael Ellis reflects on the film’s production
• Image gallery: publicity and promotional material
• Original theatrical trailer
• Original teaser trailer
• New and improved English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
• Limited edition exclusive 40-page booklet with a new essay by Peter Cowie, an archival interview with Anderson, extracts from the diaries of Anderson and screenwriter David Sherwin, an overview of contemporary critical responses, and film credits
• World premiere on Blu-ray
• Limited edition of 3,000 copies

#PHILTD110
BBFC cert: 15
REGION B
EAN: 5037899071663

Is that Sam Viviano’s work on the cover art?

There appears to be his signature right below the man on the far left.

Ha, sure enough! I didn’t realize he followed the path of Jack Davis and Mort Drucker of Mad artists who branched out into theatrical posters (which I imagine this was pulled from?)

I’ve seen the first two installments of Anderson’s trilogy plenty of times, but always heard this was a poor finale next to those two and put it off until I felt I could enter in with cautious optimism. Well I thought this was absolutely terrific, upping the ante on absurdism, and utilizing a strong collaboration of skills. Anderson takes a witty script and concocts scenes to produce surreal behavioral gags in both loud and soft ideas populating each frame, sometimes simply by the expressions on the faces of a group of people arranged in a strict pattern of chairs, the camera steadily looking down on them. Mileage will certainly vary on how funny you'll find this, as it walks a fine line between falling in on itself and sustaining its balance before it nosedives anyways and, well, that's part of the fun. The rigidity of the objective framework is so wildly executed that this strange paradox in formalism sets the bar for tainting the execution of ideas into a vacuum of folly.

This is a sloppy film, without narrative cohesion (Oh Lucky Man! is a very straightforward subjective tale next to this), but the assemblage of varied imaginative concepts works because Anderson takes the approach of creating a simple setting of a hospital as a containment center to project and subsequently explore his broad knowledge of film history and style, from silent-visual to surreal to anti-sentimental jokes, and even some direct homages

Spoiler

the Frankenstein’s monster gag where McDowell's head rips off, blood spraying everywhere to one-up the Warhol

as well as explore (seemingly all of) his opinions on late 20th century man, including the absurdities inherent in social engagement, politics, ideology, materialism, narcissism, and identity; spilling farce into the encompassing satire. “Do not call us men, we are staff!” If nobody is taking life seriously, through the process of taking it too seriously, Anderson figures: why should he?

Now officially announced.

Final specs confirmed:

Beaver.
CineOutsider.

This was a truly brilliant film and a radical shift in style as the other three Anderson features I've seen have also been to each other. I found the most perfect scene of the film which seems to sum up Anderson's philosophy on it the hilarious finale to the kitchen strike where the strike leader basically sells out his team for a pointless yet pride swelling reward. In Don Quixote much ado is constantly made about the deprecation between the self made men, the caballeros, and those of nobility, the hidalgos, and Anderson with this joke does Cervantes one better in showing the utter silliness of both titles let alone the useless distinction.

Though the best consistent thread of the film is the mud thrown at the most sincere left arguing for liberty, equality, and fraternity. The opening scene, apparently pulled from a newspaper article, shows the absurd casualty necessary to free ones self of responsibility without right. Rousseau liberalism has become the immolating cannibalism of the 20th Century. I'm not sure what is a good counter to this selfishness, I'm here reminded of Rousseau's treatment of his children, and neither does Anderson which is probably why he gives us a laugh.

Given this complex and ambiguous lampooning which undermines the hopefulness of the final image of If... I'm very curious about what specific criticisms were launched against the film in Thatcher's England.

knives wrote: Fri Jul 03, 2020 4:49 pm Given this complex and ambiguous lampooning which undermines the hopefulness of the final image of If... I'm very curious about what specific criticisms were launched against the film in Thatcher's England.

5 years later... Apart from British critics' then-antipathy to anything determinedly anti-realist (unless it was, say, French), its fairly easy to see, as a Brit, how this would have ruffled feathers. For critics on the right, un-patriotism and left wing bias would have been the charge, especially in the context of the Falklands war and related jingoism. Anderson's hated Chariots Of Fire would have been more the ticket for the flag-waving crowd. I don't think they would have been too happy with the horror movie aspects either, as Anderson gets away with blood-sprayings and gore that might have put less reputable filmmakers on the notorious video nasties list within a year or two.

For critics on the left, the film's satire aimed at NHS workers and trade unions would have easily been enough to provoke. Having said that, unlike, say, Carry On At Your Convenience, you get the feeling that the unions are critiqued here for insufficient militancy, their leaders too easily bought off and cowed by class.

Despite not being too wild about anything Anderson except The White Bus (maybe my fave Brit film), I quite liked this. Readable as an analytical film (ostensibly on Britain's decline, though widened to satirise "human folly" in general) in the form of "low" Brit comedy (especially, of course, the Carry On series), complete with "madcap" scenarios and stereotypical stock characters. A fine idea, and the sort of thing that could have been done by the more political (and middle class) humour of The Comic Strip et al in 80s Britain (in fact, a couple of faces who would later show up in their productions are here). But the film fails in its attempts to bring an authentic slab of broad comedy to the table - the humour here is too moralising and nowhere near libidinous enough, despite the presence of Robin Askwith amongst a cast stuffed full of familiar faces, cult faves and character actors.

The ludicrously overstuffed nature of the film means that at least some of it will work for someone, and portions of this are genuinely funny, especially when the grand guignol aspects are brought in, referencing Hammer horror and sci-fi Brit cinema strands. Plentiful references to previous Anderson films in here too, which gives it the air of a career-capping statement that it may not have been intended to be.

Frustratingly, after a scattershot hour and a half, the last 30 mins or so of this are full of solid brilliance. And with a terrific, and chillingly prescient ending:

Spoiler

What used to be called "the establishment" (headed by HRH Queen Mum Lookalike) and the revolutionary protesters (maybe the nearest thing to "Team Anderson" here, though they're not fully off-the-hook either) finally get to confront each other. But they meet as mere audience members for the grand unveiling of humanity's real post-human trajectory, "Genesis", the proto-AI device whose much-vaunted "intelligence" only stretches as far as regurgitating Hamlet, getting stuck in a perfect glitch at the sentence equating Man and God. And putting the film's prior focus on very human fallibilities into scary perspective.