SPOILERS FOR ‘THIS IS ENGLAND’ AND ‘BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE’ AHEAD.
Films are all about evoking emotion. Whether it makes you cry, laugh, scream: the chances are that’s what the filmmakers want. Whatever way it goes any even half decent film will have you leaving your seat having experienced some kind of emotion, hopefully even a range (unless you’re the girl I know who thought the newest Exorcist was funny, you’re in a league of your own hun...)
Now, I’m not the type to let films get me angry. Happy? Yes. Scared? Absolutely. Sad? Without a doubt. But angry isn’t usually in my cards. This was until I watched This is England (Meadows, 2006) and Bowling for Columbine (Moore, 2002).
Anybody with any prior knowledge of these films would not be surprised by this at all. They showcase tragedies, not hiding any ugly details, in fact they obtrude into the ugly details. The ending scene of This is England shows a man, beaten to death for his race when he was once considered a friend while his murderer weeps and forces a child not to. Bowling for Columbine, no easier a watch, showing clips of similar incidents but this time it was real archive footage from a saddening range of sources. In both films you watch grown men cry at the state of their society as you grow in frustration, viewing people’s pure ignorance. Why wouldn’t you be angry?
A lesser thought of moment that got me in This Is England is when Woody leaves Shaun with Combo, even when warned against it. Woody had responsibility for that child and he neglected it, leading to Shaun witnessing a hateful killing of his friend. It’s the selfish nature of his act that reflects this country, even to this day. He doesn’t, at any point, consider trying to help Shaun and whats worse is that he does have the opportunity to. He could have at his party, he could have when he heard about the National Front meetings but out of cowardice he leaves the trajectory of a person’s life change. Truly disgusting and annoyingly reflective.
As for Bowling for Columbine, just wow. I have never felt so angry yet failed and sad, accompanied with a lineup of goosebumps on my arms. From watching a man talk about his dead son, real footage of 9/11 to listening to Charlton Heston’s down right disrespect, all interjected with a dark sort of intrusive comedy from Moore. This was certainly a hard watch.
Even besides all of this, I think the most infuriating part wasn’t even in the content of the films. It was the devastating reality that these films both came out almost twenty years ago and we’re still having these inconclusive conversations. There’s still daily debates on race, most recently in the UK, we saw the EDL race riots over a ‘Muslim murderer’…who wasn’t even Muslim. We watched people debate and cause absolute murder over something that wasn’t even true. They said it was for honour and respect of the girls who died and to kick them out of ‘our beautiful country’, drawing any similarities?
On top of this, we still see constant arguments about knife crime, gun control, young violence yet it seems nobody is doing a thing about it. It feels like we hear of these horrific events and nothing happens. At all.
Films about racist skinheads and school shooters should absolutely not be relevant almost twenty years after their releases yet here we are. Hopelessly seeing our society still be accurately depicted in these dark documentaries and cynical social realist films. Films this old should not hold as much relevance as these do.
P.S. I currently have no social media affiliated with this blog, when this changes I’ll add it to the bottom of the blogs :).
The vocabulary and the way the words are written on this post is a 10/10, the way you show the resemblance of the movies towards real life tragedies and also raising awareness of the fact that these devastating things still occur 20 years later is amazing, this was a fantastic read, can't wait to hear more of your thoughts on this topic and more