This is a film that a lot of people need to go and see, who might be reluctant to label anyone else a force of conservatism after doing so. At first it seems like yet another British State-of-the-nation movie with ostensibly unconnected scenes depicting British people of different classes and ethnicities. Then an unpredictable, slighlty implausible event occurs about half way through which throws all these scenes into a sharper focus. It's noble but forlorn aim is to show the people of Britain how trivial the country's problems are compared to some places in the world, and it does by depicting the plight of Bosnian refugees arriving in a working-class area of North London in 1994. Though the scenes set in Bosnia are reasonably realistic given the movies budget, and thus pretty harrowing, the most shocking thing about this film for me was the condescension demontrated by members of the English aristocracy toward the refugees. It made me want to burn every copy of the in a mass immolation in Kensington Gardens.
Review of Beautiful People
Beautiful People
(I) (1999)
Welcome to the sceptered isle; meet the forces of conservatism
5 November 1999