Britannia Hospital (1982)

I really wanted to like this movie, but in the end couldn't even bear to watch it to the end. The one redeeming feature was Leonard Rossiter and I found myself wondering whether even he would have doubted his sanity in signing up to this when he saw the final rushes. Malcolm McDowell, whom I considered to be a good actor, was reduced to little more than a 'Carry-On' performance. The juxtaposition of farce and horror to me seemed miscalculated. Just dreadful and one I'm trying to forget... Tip: don't watch this whilst consuming food.

Not for the first time and almost certainly not the last I find that I have apparently been watching a different film to the majority of people who have posted comments here, all seemingly fully paid-up members of the Lindsay Anderson For President club. It's strange - to me at least - how the BFI seemingly is unable to function without a deity to worship and with Ken Loach on his last legs they'll be burning the midnight oil on Southbank and laying in a supply of white smoke. Anderson of course preceded Loach and that poseur who came up with a trilogy about Liverpool and then had the temerity to think he was up to rewriting Terence Rattigan's The Deep Blue Sea. So be it. This effort can't seem to decide if it's a poor man's I'm All Right, Jack or an up-market Hammer horror either way it's well worth missing.

Lindsay Anderson was several years ago one of my favourite directors and then, 5 years ago, I thought that this film is possible his best. Since then I saw again Britannia Hospital at least five times - and it didn't worked always - in contrast Anderson's If..., which is better and better with every watching. However, Britannia Hospital is still a very good film, but its content maybe too disturbing for a lot of viewers. I mean, not only its details (for example, eating pieces of brain, by the way, didn't Hannibal - the movie - discover it), but the consequences of the whole film. This film's dark and painful thoughts about mankind and our future are very frightening, because they - if we can face it - almost (or entirely?) the reality. Although Lindsay Anderson's satire is focused on Britannia Hospital, where the most of the plot plays, this parabolic form is about the whole world: from the poor people to the rich, from the caretaker to the mad scientist. Britannia Hospital is full of moments of horror and black comedy (namely its subplot is parody/paraphraze of Frankenstein-story), but its strongest parts are when its laughing (or crying) on the figures of government and other leaders (the master of BH, the main strikers, even the Queen). The solution is Britannia Hospital - in a paradox way - there is no solution for mankind. Maybe the speech of the professor at the end is a little didactic, but at same time quite honest; but not he has the last world in the film. For those who have already seen this film, it is known, what I'm talking about; for those who are going to see BH, let it be a surprise. It's unforgettable, but extremely sad moment: a shocking last shot to Britannia Hospital.

This film completes the Mick Travis trilogy, of which the first two installments are if… (1968) and O Lucky Man (1973). You could say either that Britannia Hospital has little to do with the other two films or a lot. It depends on how you look at it. The political viewpoints are similar, but the style is much different. The three movies remind me much of Tati's first three Hulot films in the way they differ between each other while having interconnected themes. This would be Anderson's Playtime, in that, much like Hulot in Playtime, Mick Travis (Malcolm McDowell) becomes just one of a million different characters. Calling Britannia Hospital Anderson's Playtime oversells the film, unfortunately. The film does not work quite as well as if… and O Lucky Man, both of which are masterpieces, in my estimation. Britannia Hospital feels like it ought to be a masterpiece. There are just so many flashes of genius. You see images and scenes that Federico Fellini or Luis Buñuel would have killed to come up with, and the film's liberal politics, while definitely somewhat confusing, are far more potent than anything Godard ever put forward. It also contains one moment of gorgeous eroticism, when Malcolm McDowell is changing clothes and a nurse gently cups both of his buttocks from behind. By the end, though, instead of being moved I was rather scratching my head. The film would probably benefit if I were to watch all three installments in a row, because there are apparently a lot of characters that are shared between them (I only recognized Mick Travis and Professor Millar; it's been over two years since I've seen the other films). But, then again, seeing how this film has been completely tossed aside by so many people, I'm hardly the only one who is confused. On the other hand, a film with so much ambition and power ought never to be shoved aside. Its dismissal is more than a little unjustified.