Artemis 81 (Sylvia Coleridge Season)
One of the things I appreciate about doing a series of posts about a particular actor is that it invariably brings things to my attention that I haven't seen before. Artemis 81 isn't in this category, since I have tried to watch it several times before, but this has prompted me actually to watch it all the way through for the first time, just for the few seconds where Sylvia Coleridge appears.
It's a magnificent television film, broadcast in one go after Christmas 1981, when I was definitely too young to be allowed to stay up for the three hour marathon. It's about a supernatural author who abruptly finds himself drawn into a rambling apocalypse involving just about everything you could ever include in a film, culminating in a battle between the forces of good and evil. To quote just a few of the reviews so that we know exactly where we are:
'I don't understand it.' - Everyone who's ever watched it.
'Three hours of codswallop.' - Daily Express.
'Unintelligible.' - Sting (who was actually in it, so presumably got a chance to examine the script).
If I say that it was written by David Rudkin, who wrote Penda's Fen, it will immediately become apparent that we're in some fairly difficult territory. I think a lot of what makes this film hard work is that Rudkin is obviously a very clever and knowledgable bloke, and pretty much everything he's ever done is far more high brow than anything what I would normally read or watch. This is not a disadvantage, as it means the film includes elements of mythology, the occult, religion, ancient languages, frankly you name it, and this gives the film a highly layered feel so that different things can strike you. Reading the reviews, I notice that viewers tend to come out with a list of things which have struck them, and I think it's one of those things which would hit you differently with repeated viewings, and get under your skin over a period of years. Of these things I am particularly delighted that there is a character called Magog, and I waited with baited breath until to my gratification, the film drew on the English mythology of the giants Gog and Magog (sometimes a single giant called Gogmagog, and still not to be confused with the Gog and Magog in the Bible).
I didn't get this feel from it myself - for me the pace felt just right - but I see that a lot of reviews say that it is very slow paced. Even with this pace, it starts fairly abruptly and doesn't bother explaining a great deal of what is going on. The reason for this, of course, is to disorientate the viewer and get us ready to receive the initiation which is coming. If I had to compare it to anything, it kept reminding me of Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising series of children's books, in terms of being very wide-ranging and transformative. If you want a more pop-culture reference, in terms of reach, ambition and potential transformative power, I think the film could be compared to Grant Morrison's The Invisibles graphic novels series.
To my delight Sylvia Coleridge's miniscule role is as a scholar in the library in Oxford who tells the protagonist to fantasise elsewhere, after he has an encounter with a woman, unseen by anyone else, who undoes his flies. She's absolutely perfect in the role, and it's strangely similar to her role in Quiet as a Nun, and being the only sensible one who will actually tell him to stop undressing himself in the library.
I do just have a couple of criticisms. Reviewers really seem to sit up and notice that Sting was cast as the good angel: personally I can't see why, because I think he's perfect in the role. On the other hand I'm less satisfied with the casting of Roland Curram as the evil angel. This is a completely personal opinion, but in my mind Curram is rather type-cast to much lighter entertainment than this, and doesn't come across as having the weight necessary for this serious role. However this may just be me, and I haven't noticed anyone else say this. My other criticism is that I believe the film was originally intended to have funding from Denmark and so be split much more between Britain and Denmark. Despite the Danish funding not appearing, it seems like there are still a lot of mentions of Denmark in the film, which seems strange.
Overall, I'm delighted that doing this series of posts has forced me to get to the end of this film, and it's gone straight into the collection.
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