Keswick Film Festival

Friday 11th February 7:00 PM - Alhambra

Comrades

Director: Bill Douglas Country: UK
Cert: 15 Year: 1986 Length: 183 mins
2011 Festival
Comrades

Audience Reaction

Score: 57.58% Attendance: 135

Links

  • More details on this film at the Internet Movie Database

This is the only full-length feature film the great Bill Douglas made: the story of the Tolpuddle martyrs, exiled to Australia in 1834 when they dared to fight for a trade union. Keith Allen, Imelda Staunton and Philip Davis are better-known now than they were then and other stars like Vanessa Redgrave have upper-class cameos on the margins of the story. Douglas' committed but imaginative vision doesn't just tell us the moving and powerful story of the comrades; his fascination with the predecessors of the medium of film is expressed through the figure of the lanternist, who wanders through the action with a host of optical devices from camera obscura to diorama.

Critics

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An unsung masterpiece, both eminently watchable and hugely demanding. Reissued at last, it remains an extraordinary work.
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Andrew Pulver, The Guardian





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