Close My Eyes

Writer and director Poliakoff has had a variable but often remarkable career in television mostly, with landmarks 'Bloody Kids' (directed admirably by Stephen Frears) and 'Caught On A Train'. His work as a director as well as a writer has been arguably less successful with the recent 'The Tribe' being laughed off the screen despite the sell of a naked Anna Friel, and the critically mixed reviews of his serial set in a photographic museum. His plots tend to have hard to swallow fancies to them, and this is no exception. Life tough and fractured in the modern financial jungle? Roll about on the floor with your sister, after all you haven't seen her for years. Then blow this up in some way to include aids and pretentiously tie the outcome to the fate of humanity, not to mention your actual middle classes. There are many puzzling aspects to this film, not least the overbearing photography and wallowing in architectural richness. There's got to be a reason, it just escapes me.

Poliakoff's script is efficient and always interesting, despite the cringe factor, but it's the performances that make this film so strange and memorable. Clive Owen has cut a curious path in British telly, sharing with Paul McGann a sort of 'new man' image, especially in 'Chancer' where he was seen snuggling up cooeing to his baby son stark naked in bed. "Aaaaaah," went several thousand female hearts. Owen is an interesting, even brilliant actor. He doesn't act with his voice, which is often kept low key and naturalistic, but through his face. He's one of those gifted actors who can portray deep emotion and anguish with a mere inflection. He is partnered with the equally able Saskia Reeves, and together they burn up the screen, especially in the blistering climax. It's at moments like these you really admire actors and the way they make the magic happen.

This film is an expanded and improved rewrite of Poliakoff's early play Hitting Town. I have always found Poliakoff's plays filmic; this reworking on film is more interesting than the play, although the starkness of the incest in Hitting Town was probably more shocking, and the 1970's UK audience was probably more susceptible to shock.

Three great performances in this film - Saskia Reeves, Clive Owens and Alan Rickman.

Poliakoff has a great knack of mixing the profound, the profane and the mundane. One telling scene in Richard's flat has Richard and Natalie agonising over their tryst, then making love, while in the background a rain-affected test match (cricket) fails to happen and then starts to happen again. Unforgettable symbolism - Bergman would have used it if only the Swedes played cricket.

This film is well worth seeing.

Close My Eyes (Stephen Poliakoff, 1991) is a troubling, intriguing, but sometimes superficial state-of-the-nation drama that attempts to have the last word on the 1980s. Saskia Reeves plays an aimless, unhappy young woman who marries a millionaire (Alan Rickman), then embarks on a passionate affair with her fiery, arrogant younger brother (Clive Owen). Though she can apparently turn the attraction on and off - an element that's insufficiently developed until the close - he is besotted, taking the AIDS crisis as further proof that he is doing The Right Thing. While this is primarily a portrait of sibling love, Poliakoff does have loftier ambitions as his screenplay encompasses compromised dreams (seen in the careers of its protagonists, and the broken idealism of city architecture) and the hollowness of contemporary priorities.

There's a moment in Lynne Ramsey's Morvern Callar, where Samantha Morton seems to capture just how peculiar and uncomfortable someone sounds in their own head when they're expressing a sensitive sentiment - in this case: "Shut up, he's dead." It's so unlike conventional acting that I've never been able to work out if she's doing it on purpose or has just mangled the dialogue with an atypical display of woodenness. Owen has a similar moment here, with a line that straddles the divide between glibness and profundity. "My boss is ill - he's got AIDS", he says simply. It's a particularly odd moment in a film that's littered with peculiarities and has a lot to say - not all of it entirely coherently.

With its striking, grim cinematography and bleak subject matter - punctuated with moments of wry humour - Close My Eyes plays like an embryonic version of Mike Leigh's dizzyingly brilliant Naked, which it predates by two years. In common with Poliakoff's 2009 film Glorious 39, it's a story of well-spoken people falling apart, lit by ever-present music, stately tracking shots and a curious interest in construction work as metaphor. Indeed, Poliakoff's fine visual sense is much in evidence, particularly in a breathtaking surrealistic opening. Acting-wise, it's a mixed bag, with a weak supporting cast but three strong leads. Reeves is the standout - absolutely excellent in a tricky part - with Owen as good as I've seen him and Rickman doing his considerable best in a role that tends towards caricature. Interesting stuff, and definitely one to revisit.

Richard (Clive Owen) and his older sister Natalie (Saskia Reeves) are friend-like with some sexual tension. They grew up separately when their parents divorced. While Natalie flounders over the next few years, Richard becomes a success and a womanizer. Then she marries the wealthy business consultant Sinclair Bryant (Alan Rickman). Richard finds her changed under the domineering Sinclair. The siblings start a passionate affair together.

It's a taboo subject done with sexuality and three great actors. The brother sister relationship is compelling and weirdly mesmerizing. It's a bit disturbing with the romantic tones. It's a twisted romantic melodrama. Clive and Saskia really sell this relationship.

The opening scenes of Stephen Poliakoff's film, 'Close My Eyes', are truly mesmerising. We see a floodlit bowling green, incongruously (but, given that one of the subplots of the movie turns out to concern urban planning law, not irrelevantly) positioned amongst tower blocks; meanwhile a young woman (Natalie, played by Saskia Reeves) is smoking a cigarette on a balcony, possibly in one of those same blocks. As the credits fade, the camera homes in on a young man in a hurry (Richard, played by Clive Owen), passing by the bowlers; it turns out that the woman is his estranged sister, and he's late. She, on the other hand, is upset, and looks to him for comfort; and in the middle of the night, they share a moment of affection that goes a little bit beyond what siblings ought to do. The unfolding of their lives over the next few years is then summarised through a depiction of their subsequent (non-) interactions: he is every bit the strident, ambitious, fornicating yuppie; while she feels lost and uncertain, with a brother-shaped hole in her life. But after years abroad, Richard comes home, rather surprisingly to take a lowly paid public sector job. And then Natalie, whom he has almost forgotten, gets in touch and invites him to meet her new husband, Sinclair (played wonderfully by Alan Rickman, in probably his finest role). Sinclair is a millionaire futurologist, a man both kindly, but also child-like in his fundamental inability to empathise. And Natalie, who has gained a new confidence, starts to come on to Richard with a very definite intent. The skill with which the film effectively tells half its story in just a handful of minutes, with brilliantly selected visuals replacing the need for expository dialogue, is breathtaking; one can hardly take one's eyes off the screen.

But for all Poliakoff's brilliantly striking imagery, the film manifests some serious defects. To start with, the subsequent plotting doesn't quite work. The central idea appears to be that ambitious Richard falls in love with his sister, but she is only game-playing; he then falls apart. But the film keeps its distance from its characters, sometimes their motivation (beyond raw sexual passion) is unclear, and some of their behaviour seems forced to fit the dictates of plot. One could also argue that, in dealing with incest, the film is slightly dishonest. It wants to be seen to explore a taboo, but creates a scenario in which two consenting, independent adults find themselves in a very unusual situation: to put it another way, the reason incest is taboo is because it is almost invariably exploitative, whereas this relationship is not (at least, not in the way that generally characterises the phenomenon).

Another aspect of this movie is Poliakoff's decision to set his movie in a landscape more symbolic than real. We witness the progression of an almost supernaturally idyllic affair, made even more perfect by being set in contrast to the spectre of A.I.D.S. Sexual intercourse takes place between beautiful bodies disrobing from beautiful clothing in beautiful places. Alan Rickman plays the sort of eccentric genius whom we instinctively feel is exactly what a millionaire should be like, though in reality, one suspects, most are none of the sort. Even the supposedly wretched council offices where Richard takes up his new job have more the feel of a trendy design consultancy than of grim municipal poverty. More generally, Poliakoff's films invariably set up contrasts between worlds defined by qualities such as power, sex, or tradition; but never seem to recognise that all these qualities, far from being opposites, are just different attributes that identify some as the "haves" of our society, as opposed to the "have-nots". There are a few images of the homeless, of the truly dispossessed, in this film, but they only exist as images; while the real drama plays out within a gilded circle. In some respects, it's this romantic other-worldliness that makes the film so physically striking. But social realism it ain't.

Does this make it a bad film? On the contrary, one could say it's a great film. But the roots of Poliakoff's later disaster, 'The Tribe', are clearly on show here, alongside evidence of his rare gift for combining intelligence and beauty, in this fascinatingly flawed film.