Another Country (1984)

A quintessentially English film, with a style close to Brideshead Revisited.

Stunning privilege intertwined with acute suffering.

Haunting, trepid, futile, beautiful.

My favourite quote: Interviewer: Is there anything you miss about England? Guy: I miss the cricket.

Fmovies: Although the closing titles contain the standard "all characters are fictitious" disclaimer, the scriptwriter Julian Mitchell has never denied that his main character Guy Bennett is a thinly-disguised portrait of Guy Burgess, one of the notorious Cambridge spy ring who acted for Soviet Russia. The film is mostly set in an English public school during the 1930s, based on Eton where Burgess was educated. (What shocked British society most about the spy ring was not so much the treachery of its members as the fact that most of them were from well-off Establishment families and educated at the country's most prestigious schools).

At the heart of the film is the friendship between Bennett and another student, Tommy Judd. Although they are very different in personality, they are drawn to one another because both, in their own way, are rebels against the system. Judd, a committed Marxist, is a rebel with a cause who despises the school and all it stands for. Bennett is a rebel without a cause whose attitudes are rather contradictory. He can see the absurdity and hypocrisy of the public school system and of the Establishment in general, but still wants to benefit from that system. His greatest ambition is to become a "god", school slang for a senior prefect, regarded as the school's social elite. Much of the plot revolves around the machinations of various senior pupils to achieve this coveted distinction; Judd is virtually alone in disdaining it. At this stage Bennett is not actually a Communist; when Judd quotes Lenin's attack on Karl Kautsky, spouting a lot of Marxist jargon in the process, Bennett replies "Oh, that's bad!", but in a sarcastic tone of voice which implies that he neither knows nor cares what Judd is talking about.

Bennett is also trying to come to terms with his homosexuality. He is engaged in a sexual relationship with another boy, James Harcourt, and there are indications that he has engaged in similar behaviour with others. The school's attitude to homosexuality, in fact, is fairly schizophrenic. Bennett and Harcourt are by no means the only pupils involved in gay relationships; indeed, another boy in Bennett's house has recently committed suicide after being caught in flagrante with his lover by a teacher. The greatest concern, however, of the staff and most of the prefects is the need to avoid scandal; gay relationships are quietly tolerated provided they are kept discreet. When one prefect, Fowler, attempts to crack down on homosexuality, motivated by Puritanical religious zeal, he makes himself very unpopular with his fellows, who fear that he might uncover things best left hidden. Bennett represents a challenge to this system of organised hypocrisy, not because he is gay but because he is temperamentally incapable of discretion. The greatest sin is to get caught, because that would force the authorities to take action they would prefer to avoid.

If scandal does leak out, the authorities prefer to insist that the boys were merely experimenting or going through a youthful phase. Even the otherwise nonconformist Judd takes this line. (Unlike some of his colleagues, he is firmly heterosexual and regards homosexuality with bemused incomprehension). Bennett, however, realises that being gay is an inescapable part of who he is, not a mere passing fad, and that he will never love women. The film's implication, in fact, is that Bennett/Burgess spied for the Russians not because he was a convinced Communist but as an act of revenge against th

Every actor in the movie is perfectly suited to their character, and you can't day that about every movie you see.

Rupert is in love with a ray of sunshine in the human form of Cary Elwes, and Colin is screaming for the revolution to begin. The movie is about them, what living in England at the time would have been like, and what living in a boys school was like also.

The boys seem to accept Rupert because it is widely assumed that he will grow out of it. When he declares it as a way of life, his unhappiness begins. He is able to be friends with Colin Firth because they are both outcasts in their way ("The Commie and the queer" is how he describes them at one point").

The movie is very enjoyable and it is worth a look. You've spent ninety minutes doing stupider things than watching this.

Another Country fmovies. Forget the prologue which preludes the long flashback which is the core of the movie.First scene:in a room,two boys make love while,in the main courtyard of the posh school (Eton?),a ceremony commemorates the dead soldier of WW1,with pump and circumstance:the two bedrocks of the family, Army and Religion taking in hand the third one:School.Behind these walls,inside these venerable buildings,mortal hatred ,intolerance and repression are looming.Outside,the splendid landscapes are unchanging,particularly this quiet river which comes back as a leitmotiv.And most of the students wants to keep the world as it is,because they know they are part of the privileged few.Their studies are a mere rehearsal of their life-to-be. Becoming a prefect,what a feat! Being called "god" what a honor! Being able to push the others out of your way,that makes you a man!

Two young men refuse the rules of the game:the first one ,Tommy (a good Colin Firth),the most loyal character of a rather obnoxious. gathering.He sticks to his ideals,and he will die for them.He believes in Marx and in Stalin(we're in the thirties ) ;he would never betray anybody,and the audience sides with him most of the time. The second one ,Guy,(Rupert Everett at his best)is a gay,in love with a younger pal.He,too,rebels against this rigid institutions,but he's more complex:actually he tries to become a prefect and then a god,because he has kept his ambitions and he would easily opt for a compromise solution.He could but he will not..Homosexuality,when it's secret is no problem for the bourgeois society.Guy's character will mute and finally he realizes that he cannot live in the shadow.That's his downfall.

No commies,no gays can be part of the crème de la crème.The posh school reputation,once the non-straight ones(in the general sense of the word)are eradicated,can sleep the sleep of the just.

Sometimes compared with Lindsay Anderson's "If"(1970),its atmosphere is drastically different though :there's no dreamlike sequences here,no madness.It rather recalls "der junge Torless" (Schloendorff,1966)and it might have influenced James Ivory's "Maurice" (1986). An overlooked important movie.

Another Country was one of those films that both captured the spirit of an era and helped define it - in the best possible sense. While one can easily lump all 80s pop music and fashion together as over-styled and kitschy, it is not possible to do so with the films of that decade, certainly not the British ones, not with Chariots of Fire, Educating Rita, My Beautiful Launderette and Another Country so vividly remembered. These were works of art, perfectly weaving style and substance together. Another Country presents a complex tale with - what was/is to some - unpalatable subject matter, and indecipherable detail (the life of the British upper class is, and always was, amusing, bizarre, implausible. Gilbert and Sullivan built careers on this fact). Yet, there is no sign of attempts to simplify, or strip out the seemingly unnecessarily intricate, or to moralize - either way - beyond the context of the story, the homosexuality depicted. The result is a film that is detailed, rich, compelling and (in a strange way, despite the historical facts upon which the story is based) apolitical.

I saw this movie again the other day and am impressed at how well it has held up. Though it's a little hard to follow the arcane hierarchies of 1930s British public school life, that is precisely the point-- these people are suffocating in the meaningless rituals of their class. Rupert Everett and Colin Firth give outstanding performances as the openly gay and communist members of their school, and the unfolding of the relationship between Everett and Cary Elwes is some of the most romantic footage I've ever seen. Though very few of us live in such a stratified social climate these days, we would do well to understand the webs of hierarchy and ritual that bind us all in one way or another.