Shooting the Past

This gem from writer-director Stephen Poliakoff aired on the BBC to popular and critical acclaim, and was a surprise hit of a drama-lite year. Using the setting of a photograph library, and the plot that the collection needs to broken up and sold off to satisfy the greed of an American property developer, it says a lot about the associative process of memory, the sequencial nature of small details, and about ourselves as viewers of the drama within a drama.

Of the excellent cast, four stand out - Lindsay Duncan, Timothy Spall, Billie Whitelaw, and Liam Cunningham. The images really provide the crux of the series though, as we see a path through time and follow one character through from one reality to the next. The fabulous music also helps the process, and all things combined make this a really superior piece of small-screen drama.

This movie crept up on me. Timothy Spall is simply riveting and slowly charms you into his viewpoint. He seems at first to be a shabby cynic, but as time goes on you see that he is also a nerdy genius. Though slow at first, it is an example of very good story-telling and ends up making you feel very good about mankind and really aware of how diverse are the circumstances of life and the souls who step up to the challenges they present. The title has two meanings in that we are dealing with photos collected and arranged in categories that only Spall's character can really navigate expertly. Also, we find, in following his character (Oswald Bates) through the archive -- intent on following a thread -- that we are traveling in a viscous medium and find ourselves shooting the rapids of accumulating facts, inferences and dates.

Poliakoff's greatest achievement (so far) works perfectly as a thought-provoking and intensely satisfying meditation on the price of progress. The hard-headed, unscrupulous world of big-business is set in stark contrast to the quintessentially English, eccentric and old-fashioned central characters battling against the odds to preserve the collection. With sublime casting, atmospheric use of lighting and a haunting, beautiful soundtrack the production values are magnificent. However, the real stars of the show are the photos from the collection itself - used to relay fascinating, quirky and heart-rending stories from history that would have otherwise been forgotten. The way these stories unfurl are spell-bindingly atmospheric and paced to perfection.

The atmosphere created in Shooting the Past is so compelling that it draws the viewer into its improbable world, and we accept that it could happen. The music is hypnotic, the photographs are fascinating, but most of all, the performances are wonderful. Lindsay Duncan is passionate and controlled at the same time - her dedication to her job is absolute. The sexual tension between her character and Liam Cunningham's is another factor that made it impossible to stop watching. All the English characters seem eccentric in some way, as you might expect from people who work in a photo library, but they are all 3-dimensional and I felt that I knew them by the end. As usual, Poliakoff has created a fantasy world which seems like the real world, but unexpected things happen and it's difficult to predict what the outcome will be. It gives us hope that we can do unexpected things ourselves. It is a drama of astonishing depth and must be seen - preferably several times.

Shooting the Past is a fine piece of work. It entertains, it makes you think, it deals with issues and you end up discussing it and thinking about it at length afterwards.

The scenario is somewhat far-fetched - it is inconceivable that most of the staff at the archive would be unaware of the plans to chuck them out of a listed building - the place would have been swarming with bureaucrats for months before the bulldozers arrived, if indeed anything that requires bulldozers would have been permitted. Further, it also seems inconceivable that a man with a passion for his new business school and with mission-critical deadlines would visit the place for the first time without having verified that the archivists were moving out.

But we forgive Poliakoff his fanciful scenario because it sets up a terrific and taught drama.

Lindsay Duncan is simply superb, as is Timothy Spall as the "borderline autistic, photo-savant" Oswald.

Some of the cinematography (if you call it that in made for TV films) is superb - in particular the long shots of Liam Cunningham walking through the archive and the film shots of still photos.

This is fine stuff and highly recommended.