Corrie Film Club
On Sunday, October 9th, the Corrie Film Club begins its new season with Joanna Hogg’s second film, Archipelago, a shrewd and excruciatingly funny essay about a stoic British holiday in awful weather on the Isle of Tresco. An ex-director of Casualty and EastEnders, episodes, Hogg has no regrets about leaving TV. ’You’d have episodes of things taken out of your hands and re-edited,’ she says.
Archipelago, made on a budget of less than £500,000, is firmly in Hogg’s hands, an unflinching look at the tensions and embarrassments that can happen when a reluctant family is called on to do the right thing, but gets it wrong. The plot is no more than an extended, compulsively watchable situation. Edward (Tom Hiddleston) is leaving to do voluntary work in Africa. His high-handed mother Patricia (Kate Fahy) hires a house on a remote Scilly island and summons the family to celebrate Edward’s departure and give him a good send-off – only it doesn’t quite work that way. Edward’s sister Cynthia (Lydia Leonard) seethes with a personal inner rage that threatens to boil over when Edward takes a shine to Rose, the local girl hired to do the cooking for the week. A painting teacher of near-Buddhist calm has been engaged as well, to provide occupation and a dash of culture, but his Zen-like contentment only serves to highlight the family’s emotional frailty. Worst of all, Edward’s father simply doesn’t turn up. His unexplained absence is an invisible elephant that everyone skirts round as one embarrassing moment piles on another.
The critics loved Archipelago for its subtle insights and wry humour, and the reviews were rapturous. On the other hand, a lot of people posted Internet comments describing it as boring and tedious. Don’t let them put you off – they are probably the kind who watched the second and third Pirates of the Caribbean films without a shudder. (Oh, how catching genteel snobbery is!)
The showing starts at 8.00pm on Sunday 9th October. This is your opportunity to join the Corrie Film Club for a mere £15, which gives you a calendar showing the programme of films for the year and contributes to the fund that buys the DVDs. Non-members are welcome to attend without charge, but contributions to Corrie Hall’s running expenses are appreciated.
