Director

Mike Leigh

United Kingdom | 2018 | 154 min | English

• Producer Georgina Lowe
• Production Company BFI Film Fund, Film 4, Thin Man Films
• Screenplay Mike Leigh
• Cinematography Dick Pope
• Editing Jon Gregory
• Sound Rob Ireland, Tim Fraser
• Cast Rory Kinnear, Maxine Peake, Pearce Quigly, David Moorst, Rachel Finnegan, Tom Meredith
• Contacts

  Italia Film

  hyam.saliby@italiafilm.com.lb

About the Film

Mike Leigh follows Mr. Turner (2014) with another period film, about the killing of protesters in Manchester in 1819, which led to the founding of The Guardian. The film arrives in the run-up to the 200th anniversary of this foundational event in modern British political history.

Leigh clearly expresses the class division that was peaking in England during the 19th century, in a scene where a young man is on trial for stealing a coat. The man reasons with the judge that “he was cold” and “his master had two,” but the poor man's justification notwithstanding, the judge sentences him to death by hanging.

The film is an epic portrayal of such events surrounding the infamous 1819 Peterloo Massacre, where a peaceful pro-democracy rally at St Peter’s Field in Manchester turned into one of the bloodiest and most notorious episodes in British history. The massacre saw British government forces charge into a crowd of over 60,000 that had gathered to demand political reform and protest against rising levels of poverty. Many protestors were killed and hundreds more were injured, sparking a nationwide outcry but also further government suppression. Journalists of the time were quick to dub the event as “Peterloo,” an allusion to Napoléon’s defeat at Waterloo.

In his statement about the film, Leigh remarks that “it portrays the strengths and weaknesses of humanity, its eternal struggle of love, care, integrity and commitment against power, corruption, greed and cynicism. Peterloo is a celebration of the power of hope, and a lamentation on man’s inexhaustible capacity to destroy.”

Raman Chawla