I'll begin with what I didn't understand.
Firstly: whether or not people should be payed to dig coal out of the ground, depends on whether society needs coal dug out of the ground. If it turns out that - for whatever reason - we are actually better off WITHOUT the coal being removed from the ground, then we clearly should leave it where it is. (It might be different if coal mining were a pleasant activity. It isn't.) What happens to the people who were previously paid money to mine coal is a separate question: let them starve, subsidise their brass bands, create some other industry, or simply pay them to do nothing, depending on what you think is right. WHY, exactly, are we meant to think that coal mining is inherently worthwhile?
Well, for the sake of argument, let's suppose it is. I've swallowed sillier propositions in order to enjoy a good story. Coal mining ought to be preserved for its own sake regardless of whether anyone requires coal. Okay. So there's this woman named Gloria who wants to stand up for what is noble and save the fabulous coal mines from the evil board of directors; and she mistakenly thinks that writing a report which demonstrates that the mines are economically viable will do this. As a matter of fact she's wrong. AT WORST she misdirects her energies on a project that will have no effect on either the mine or the miners. Why, then, do all of the miners hate her so much? What, even from their point of view, has she done that's wrong? I don't get this, either.
Does this matter? I think it does. When I say that I don't understand the miner's point of view, or what is going on in the debate about whether or not to close the mines, I mean it literally: I don't understand. The film could have explained some of this to me but it didn't. And - this is aesthetically irrelevant but I mention it anyway - clearly the makers of the film were sinking the boot into doctrinaire right-wing politicians. I heartily approve. But with so many comprehensible bones of contention out there, why pick this one?
It's all the more surprising, then, that "Brassed Off" is good after all. Romantic comedy, it's not: in fact it's unremitting gloom, a journey into the heart of depression, offering only two or three moments of joy and no grounds whatever for any kind of hope. We soon learn that brass bands do NOT have a jolly sound. Nor do they sound melancholy: rather they are clean, almost acerbic, a medium for people who want to really HEAR the music, unadorned with schmaltz.
Firstly: whether or not people should be payed to dig coal out of the ground, depends on whether society needs coal dug out of the ground. If it turns out that - for whatever reason - we are actually better off WITHOUT the coal being removed from the ground, then we clearly should leave it where it is. (It might be different if coal mining were a pleasant activity. It isn't.) What happens to the people who were previously paid money to mine coal is a separate question: let them starve, subsidise their brass bands, create some other industry, or simply pay them to do nothing, depending on what you think is right. WHY, exactly, are we meant to think that coal mining is inherently worthwhile?
Well, for the sake of argument, let's suppose it is. I've swallowed sillier propositions in order to enjoy a good story. Coal mining ought to be preserved for its own sake regardless of whether anyone requires coal. Okay. So there's this woman named Gloria who wants to stand up for what is noble and save the fabulous coal mines from the evil board of directors; and she mistakenly thinks that writing a report which demonstrates that the mines are economically viable will do this. As a matter of fact she's wrong. AT WORST she misdirects her energies on a project that will have no effect on either the mine or the miners. Why, then, do all of the miners hate her so much? What, even from their point of view, has she done that's wrong? I don't get this, either.
Does this matter? I think it does. When I say that I don't understand the miner's point of view, or what is going on in the debate about whether or not to close the mines, I mean it literally: I don't understand. The film could have explained some of this to me but it didn't. And - this is aesthetically irrelevant but I mention it anyway - clearly the makers of the film were sinking the boot into doctrinaire right-wing politicians. I heartily approve. But with so many comprehensible bones of contention out there, why pick this one?
It's all the more surprising, then, that "Brassed Off" is good after all. Romantic comedy, it's not: in fact it's unremitting gloom, a journey into the heart of depression, offering only two or three moments of joy and no grounds whatever for any kind of hope. We soon learn that brass bands do NOT have a jolly sound. Nor do they sound melancholy: rather they are clean, almost acerbic, a medium for people who want to really HEAR the music, unadorned with schmaltz.