Pride

I saw this yesterday at a preview and was particularly impressed by the amazing production values shown in this film, as well as the powerful warmth of the ensemble cast within this. Many stand out, to the point where everyone stands out. My personal favourite performances are probably Dominic West's because of his wonderful energy, fantastic delivery and that the fact that he was playing a gay men (and was significantly less creepy than his Fred West performance) and Jessica Gunning's who played her play with such warmth and fire. That said, Staunton, Nighty and Schnetzer et all had some determination as well, it really is that not to want to give individual props to all.

British humour tends to be our best selling point and this film lays bare just how raw and witty we can be in our dialogue when handling such powerful drama. That said, the film is a very difficult viewing experience, in my eyes. The Miners Strike alone is a very raw and sad event for all to see, especially when there will be absolutely no surprises as to the outcome. On top of this there is a plethora of tragic LGBT issues that further hit the viewer like a fist throughout, be it a family not accepting their gay son, the Miners' refusal to fully support the LBGT community when the going gets tougher (the bleakness of those scenes are particularly devastating), the start of AIDS and the knowledge that these men's lives will never be the same, the occasional violence shown to the gay men… the list really does go on. The fact that there is a strong undercurrent of humour throughout is particularly needed and welcomed, although towards the end it proves hard to laugh at. Many look back to the 80s with total joy, but for many people, they were uncertain, intensely painful years to survive in. This movie is a tribute to them, and the cast and crew provide their joie de vivre with an open, pulsating heart.

Watch this preparing to feel a wide variety of emotions. Not all settling.

Just been to the avant-premiere in Paris: The movie is absolutely magical. Not to oversell it, but it's a must-see. It's funny but very moving, with a perfect blend of "comedy" and seriousness (because these were dark times, both for the miners and the gay community). The dialogues are really good, well though-out, and delivered convincingly by a stellar cast, who are always believable in their roles.

It's not just "good for an indie gay movie" - it's an incredibly powerful movie that ranks right up with the best of them this year (and with stars such as Bill Nighy and Imelda Satunton, and a probably fair budget, it doesn't have an "amateur" / "indie" feel at all either).

Anyway, worth the price of admission (unlike, unfortunately, so many movies these days...)

British stage director Matthew Warchus' first venture in filmmaking Pride--based on a true story that had slipped through the cracks of history--won the Queer Palm at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival. And rightly so! The film opened quietly in New York at the 23 Street Chelsea Cinema.

Say the word pride, for many it brings to mind "Gay Pride." For others, it recalls Proverbs 16: "pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall."

But Pride is a film about virtuous pride—class pride, gay pride and gender pride. Overall, it is a feel-good picture of solidarity and union of interests that seemingly don't speak to our condition when money and the free market have the upper hand, as well as a sharp rebuke to "identity politics." For Americans with an interest in labor history, it should call to mind between attacks against trade unions by an aggressive government, a hostile press and very forceful police. Actually, today the attacks continue against public unions, minorities and sexual and gender minorities. What make Pride of interest now is its politically charged message that sharply contrasts with the attempt to increase the state of suffering and want of the poor and the declining middle classes, in the same way Ken Burns seven-part documentary The Roosevelts: An Intimate History finds the relationship Americans have with their government seriously wanting. When Margaret Thatcher became prime minister in 1979, she turned a prayer to her own advantage: "where there is discord, may we bring peace, where there is error, may we bring truth and where there is despair, may we bring hope." She brought discord and despair when she threatened to close coal pits, which would rob thousands of their livelihood and leaves even thousands more in want and poverty. The National Union of Miners launch a yearlong strike in 1983 that they lost, thereby initiating the decline of the once powerful trade unions. You know your not going to watch a "gay" film when the opening scenes are of miners on a picket line, with Pete Seeger singing "Solidarity Forever," rarely sung in America today. Thus the theme of solidarity and union is struck from the very start of Pride—"there can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun, yet what force on earth is weaker that the feeble strength of one, but the union makes us strong." And what union surprises us than straight miners and gay activists? And that is at the heart of this unearthed fragment of history. A natural-born activist Mark Ashton (Ben Schnetzer) rallies a small group of gays to raise funds for the striking miners as Lesbians and Gays Support Miners. Not only is he homosexual he also comes from Ulster and knows something about sectarian and sexual oppression. He immediately grasps, from a class and gender standpoint, Thatcher's hard-nosed policies to close the mines as a way to support the miners subsisting on handouts to oppose government repression. And thus begins LGSM's fund raising to help the miners. The money and the food they collect, they bring to a small Welsh town, not sure how they will be received when the first meet the miners. Since they are from anti-union London, there is an immediate sense of mistrust, compounded by homophobia. Yet they find at first support in miners' wives—especially Hefina (Imelda Staunton), Siân (Jessica Gunning); they are loyal to their husbands, just as much as they are determined to support the strike and just as important, they are of strong will and mind. In a way, these vigorous housewives walk in the way of the Daughters of Mother Jones who participated in labor actions, or the wives of striking New Mexico zinc workers in the suppressed film Salt of the Earth. There is a point in the film when the press got word of support of striking miners. The printed media had at first a field day with headlines saying Perverts and Miners, undoubtedly publicity the parent union NUM wanted to avoid. But Ashton took ownership of this headline by organizing an energetic fund raising campaign under the banner of Perverts and the Pit that brought in even more money and support. Although the strike failed, the support LGSM did not go unrewarded. In 1985 a large contingent of straight miners led the Gay Pride Parade in London with band and unfurled banners of one hand grasping another in solidarity and union of purpose. Furthermore, as a sign of this identity of common endeavor, were it not for the NUM the timorous Labour Party wouldn't have come out for Gay Rights in the party platform The Welsh are known for singing, so it is not surprising at the community hall to hear a swelling chorus of voices intoning Bread and Roses, a song associated with the 1912 Massachusetts textile strike. Nor is it astonishing to hear the voice of Paul Robeson, who became a working class hero of the NUM's through his singing and 1940 film Proud Valley. Characters in Pride are neither, soapy, sappy or maudlin; they are finely drawn and played by first-rate actors, including Bill Nighy, Dominic West and Andrew Scott. Pride is an intelligent picture. It carries the forceful message that gays don't necessarily stand up for gay people, straights for straights, workers for workers, but acting in concert they can act towards political change for the better. As the trade union saying goes: a single finger has the force of one, but four fingers joined by the thumb makes a fist and there is power and determination, strength and power. Pride is highly recommended and not to be missed..

In the summer of 2014, my wife and I went to a north London dinner party where one of the other guests was Mike Jackson, a leading member of Lesbians and Guys Support the Miners ((LGSM), a support group during the bitter industrial dispute of 1984-85 which provided money and assistance to a mining community in South Wales. He told us how he had been acting as a principal adviser to writer Stephen Beresford and director Matthew Warchus who had crafted the forthcoming film "Pride" which explored this unlikely pairing of groups fighting the iniquities of Thatcher's Britain and he made clear his delight at how the subject had been treated for the big screen.

So, the first weekend that the movie was on show, four of us from that dinner party were in the cinema to view it and we were all thrilled with how brilliantly this story has been told. Some of us even cried.

The film is unashamedly political, both in its representation of the prejudice against homosexuals at a time was AIDS was devastating the gay community and the hostility of ministers, media and police to the miners' fight to keep pits open, but the treatment ensures that this is an immensely entertaining and often very funny work. Although the movie wears its political heart on its sleeve, it avoids an over-simplistic portrayal of the gay cause by showing entrenched opposition to their involvement in the miners dispute from sections of the Welsh community and challenge from gays themselves as to why they should be involved in a workers' strike, although the controversy of the lack of a ballot authorising the strike itself is avoided.

The script is a triumph with every line making an impact and telling us something and there are some wonderful jokes. A disco dancing scene and a solo-to-group singing session are destined to become favourite recollections of a memorable movie. The cast is magical: a combination of distinguished character actors like Imelda Staunton, Dominic West and Bill Nighy (although his South Wales accent is wobbly) and young newcomers like Ben Schnetzer, Joseph Gilgun and George MacKay. And there is remarkable attention to period detail (we had the same design of coffee cup as in an early scene), enhanced by music from the time.

Although GLSM was eventually shunned by the official strike committee and the miners lost the strike and almost all of Britain's pits have subsequently closed, the concluding scenes of the film and the final bits of informative text turn this historic interaction into a success that should inspire the present day gay community and labour movement alike. As Mike Jackson put it in an article about the film: "The one thing the ruling class don't want is solidarity; they don't want us to join the dots up."

A fabulously rich movie with a superb mix of talent relating the victories of human relationships over and above the overwhelming power of political ideology in partnership with business.

Bill Nighy plays a beautifully understated, quiet and thoughtful role in contrast to the ebullient Imelda Staunton, matriarchal doyenne of the small Welsh mining town that is the focus for solidarity expressed by LGSM. Paddy Considine as Dai is the somewhat unwitting emissary who meets with the group in London and speaks powerfully and clearly to the community there and to the rather more conservative community in his home town as to the nature of solidarity. Much humour is placed in the two cultures coming together and throughout there are themes of coming out, for both communities; the subtle and insidious nature of discrimination, the hegemonic control it exerts when backed by powerful media presentation, the opportunism of the bitter and resentful, and the damage that is wrought upon families and communities when work is alienated from the individuals identity. Jessie Cave, Ben Schnetzer, Sophie Evans, George Mackay and Freddie Fox all perform keenly and will have done their rising stars no harm here. Not sure how this film will travel internationally, a bit parochial, but then I thought the same about Billy Elliott and that seems to have done OK.

Culturally the film is a trip down memory lane, the music, the politics, the clothing and decor all take me back to 1984, the year of my eighteenth birthday, when my father was one of those striking miners, my mother and the other mothers ran the kitchen in the local church hall. Hence my bias, there is much in this film that is intensely personal.but even if this were not the case, I would still recommend the artistry of this movie and it's passion to anyone.