THE GREAT ECSTASY OF ROBERT CARMICHAEL

UK, 2005, 107 minutes, Colour.
Dan Spencer, Danny Dyer, Leslie Manville, Ryan Winsley, Charles Mnene, Miranda Wilson, Michael Howe.
Directed by Thomas Clay.


This is a young man’s film, made by young men about young men. Thomas Clay was 25 when he directed the film, three year’s younger when he began to write it. It focuses on life in Newhaven on the English coast at the time of the invasion of Iraq, March 2003. It slowly introduces the audience to a range of characters, often just thumbnail sketches (as with the Muslim family at the beginning of the film and the boy being bullied by two of the central characters), builds up to tensions with three older teenagers and then presents us with a graphic and ugly episode of sexual violence that will remind many of the intrusion into the writer’s house by Alex and his Droogs in A Clockwork Orange.

This is a depressing view of British youth and leaves its audience without any feelings of hope except that something must be done. The three youths at the centre of the film are not all street kids. One is. His friend comes from a migrant family which seems to be supportive. The other, Robert Carmichael, lives with his mother, attends school where teachers are attentive and popular, is involved in a film making and appreciation course, plays the cello at home with his mother and is preparing for a final assessment concert.

Neighbours remark that he is ‘quiet’.

Yet, these three lack a moral sense. They bully. They deal and take drugs. The leader, whose father finds himself redundant in the local fishing industry, is resentful of middle class people. He is a yob but exercises a powerful influence over the other two. And when they break out, they break out without restraint.

The film moves at a leisurely pace most of the time, gradually creating a mood and providing a context for the climax. It looks as if it isn’t going anywhere in particular. The acting of the three boys is effective though some of the adult performers, especially the victims, is rather stilted. But the final impact, which many will want to look away from, is the stuff, unfortunately, of many headlines today. With the television running commentary on the war in Iraq and the stances of the leadership of the US and the UK, the film-makers want to make very critical comment.

1. The response to the film? Praise for its technical excellence? Critique of its visualising of violence? Of rape? Festival screenings, nominations?

2. A British film, small-budget, British cast?

3. The title, the focus, the ambiguity of the feeling of ecstasy in sexual experience, on the drug ecstasy? The focus on Robert Carmichael, his age, relationship with his mother, life in the town, quiet, at school,teachers supportive, music and his playing the cello, preparing for the final concert, film-making, but the friend saying he had rapist eyes? The masturbation, the images of De Sade? His experience with the gang, drugs, violence?

4. The town of Newhaven, the town itself, the coast,, environment, music, school? Drug dealing?

5. Robert’s place in his family, his relationship with the teenagers, becoming friends, drawn in, Joe and Ben, the cocaine, the ecstasy? The introduction to Larry? Robert being dragged down into their experiences?

6. The characters of Joe, Ben, Larry? The bullying and brutality? The Muslim boy? Ben and his Afro- Caribbean background? Larry, out of prison, resuming his drug dealing, older and his influence?

7. The setting at the beginning of the Iraq war? The visuals of the war? The director and writer intending to make symbolic parallels between the violence and the experience of war? How effective? The criticism of the debate about Iraq and the use of these images or the criticism that it was a false depth and was attention-seeking?

8. The girl, drugged, the camera roaming around the room, everybody joining the rape? The effect on Robert?

9. The couple, the television background? The rape of the wife, the graphic brutality, Robert’s role even more violent, the bottle? The death? And the pounding use of bomb sequences – and Churchill’s victory sign?

10. An audience being challenged about British society, British youth, drugs, peer pressure, sexual violence, rape and abuse?