Rallying Cry

PETERLOO I Mike Leigh shines an unforgiving spotlight on Britain’s bloodiest political clash…

Icould walk to where it happened from where I grew up in Salford, and we didn’t know about it,” says Mike Leigh, sitting in his London office and talking of the terrible massacre that concludes Peterloo, the most overtly political film of his long, distinguished career. “Nobody took us down there and said, ‘This is a big part of this city’s history.’ Nothing. It’s extraordinary.”

A quick history lesson, then: following the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, Britain was blighted by chronic unemployment and famine, with the new Corn Laws (tariffs and restrictions on imported food) hiking domestic prices and enhancing the profits and power of the land owners.

Political radicalism formented, and the Manchester Patriotic Union, agitating for parliamentary reform, invited orator Henry Hunt to address more than 60,000 peaceful demonstrators in St. Peter’s Field, Manchester, on 16 August, 1819. The Salford Yeomanry waded in to arrest Hunt; the 15th Hussars followed with sabres drawn to disperse the crowd.

“I’m film-literate but I don’t think of genre and other films,” says Leigh of his decision to mount the large-scale set-piece to communicate squalor and

sorrow. “I just think: what is the reality of this? The yeomanry were drunken amateurs. The cavalry lost it. This was a complete cock-up of harmless people being attacked. It was chaotic. And you’re looking at the mess of the politics of the magistrates, who were all over the place. With all of that on the

undER aTTack Depicting the little-known but brutal suppression of a pro-democracy rally in 1819; Rory Kinnear as the speaker, Henry Hunt, at the centre of the rally (below).

go, it doesn’t leave me room to worry about whether it’s like Kurosawa.”Leading up to the massacre, Leigh’s ensemble film hops between several parties, taking in the monarchy, a government elected by only two per cent of the people, and various factions of ‘dissenters’. Far from feeling like a dusty lecture, it’s brought to vivid life by a terrific cast (Rory Kinnear, Maxine Peake, Tim McInnerny, Pearce Quigley…) that committed to Leigh’s tried and trusted process of ‘finding’ the film over six months of rehearsal. The result is a period picture that feels immediate, and more so because of its depressing relevance.“Some people have got the power and the wealth, and some haven’t,” says Leigh. “That’s the bottom line. Class is merely the difference between groups of people who have and who haven’t.” He sighs. “We’re one inch away from talking about Brexit…”We are indeed. But let’s not forget that Leigh’s films, which are all sociopolitical, are first and foremost character dramas. Peterloo isn’t any different. “It’s about a political incident but I’ve been able to make a film that’s very much in the mode of what I do,” he nods. “It’s about the quirks and the frailties of people.”