CHRISTIE MALRY'S OWN DOUBLE ENTRY

UK, 2002, 89 minutes, Colour.
Nick Moran, Neil Stuke, Kate Ashfield, Shirley Anne Field.
Directed by Paul Tickell.

This low-budget British drama received minimal release while winning critical acclaim. For the general audience it is tough going.

It is based on a 1970s novel whose author, B.S.Johnson, killed himself after its publication. Johnson was a critic of capitalist society and the film, adapted to the 1990s, shows an ordinary London citizen, put down at every turn, using the means of the banking system and the capitalist society to overthrow it. He becomes an urban terrorist which, in the context of recent world events, makes it even more alarming.

B.S.Johnson was intrigued by the work of a 14th century Franciscan who invented double entry accounting. The screenplay intercuts many Italian sequences into its modern story, showing the work of the friar as well as scenes at the court of Milan with Leonardo Da Vinci.

Audiences have to work hard to put the two worlds together. On its own, the modern story shows the progress of Christie Malry, the timid clerk, bucking the system and becoming a deadly nihilist, even poisoning the west London water supply. While he does die by his own weapon (a bomb), the film charts his spiral with a certain anarchic glee.