Peterloo

Coming just after the Napoleonic wars, Peterloo looks at a place and time in history that is not often looked at. I suppose you could compare it to Poldark (2015), though without any swashbuckling or sassy characters, or even the boyhood world of D.

I found the ending of this film a bit unsatisfactory it fell a bit flat emotionally. Peterloo didn't lead directly to big dramatic change, in fact it lead to further repression by the government.

Superb cinematography (Dick Pope) and production design/art direction (Suzie Davies, Jane Brodie, Dan Taylor). However, the flags and banners were too sophisticated and rich for the time and place of the film.

What a great film. Visually sumptuous, linguistically rich, carefully and expertly wrought.

I watched this with my history class a while back and I wish I had skipped this one. It's boring, and I'm not one that's against slower paced films, but this one felt repetitive.

Organized labor, those wonderful folks that gave us weekends.

Scenes from two other films/series come to mind: the "Remember My Forgotten Man" number at the end of Gold Diggers of 1933 and the "Jallianwala Bagh" mention in The Jewel in the Crown. In the former, we see the plight of World War I soldiers who return from their victory to unemployment and hunger.

The Peterloo Massacre is an overlooked important moment in social and political history, this film is a frustrating/boring let down. There is no narrative thread, the film lurches from one set piece over blown interminable speech to another and the acting of some characters is nigh on comedic.

PETERLOO is Mike Leigh's history text transformed into an overlong movie. It's an exploration of just what happened during the infamous Peterloo Massacre in Manchester, looking at the main players involved on both sides and the situation that allowed for the violence to arise.