- Also Known As:
- Year:
- 1980
- Country:
- Predominant Genre:
- Comedy
- Director:
- Outstanding Performances:
- Premiss:
- Eccentric English peer attempts, with the help of his mad family & servants, to exorcise the ghost of his brother.
- Themes:
- Alienation | Atheism | Christianity | Destiny | Emotional repression | Family | God | Identity | Loneliness | Loyalty | Materialism | Narcissism | Nostalgia | Original Sin |
Self-expression | Sexual Repression | Social class | Snobbery | Solipsism | Stereotyping | White culture | White guilt | White supremacy - Similar to:
- Review Format:
- Cinema
ECCENTRICITY AS A COVER FOR LONELINESS
Peculiar film about the peculiarities of White culture and its inevitable decline in the face of a changing world and its continuing desire to live on the successes of the past (especially via an obsession with the Second World War) as well as to actually continue to live in the past (Mummy-fixated as all get out).
White supremacy - originating in the upper classes and trickling down to the rest of White society - produces the grudging loyalty of the middle and lower classes who wish to share in the benefits of Aryanism while yet always realizing they will forever be excluded by the self-styled blue bloods - who, themselves, will always be excluded from the benefits of being human. A mutual exclusion which explains the incessant existential White whining successfully parodied here.
As self-indulgent as it is weirdly-funny, this film reveals Whites’ lack of a cultural identity along with their belief in superficiality as a form of insight and in Politics as a substitute for cultural meaning and purpose.
No surprise here that White English lost their Empire, since gene-based cultures do not reflect reality; hence, their inevitable decline when the genes of leaders are considered more important than their leadership qualities. Like any inbred family, Whites are self-doomed to the failure, insecurity and eccentricity resulting from the belief that birth circumstances are the sole determinant of character.
The archetypal characterization shown here cannot sustain any dramatic development; making this movie thankfully short - despite the performers doing the best they can with their unchanging characters. And beneath all the clever humor lies the sneaking resentment that any of the political changes satirized needed to happen at all, since Whites have found nothing to replace the lost cause of their beloved British Empire.
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