| Return to index | Socialist Worker homepage |
|
Book Inside story on the Met By Unjum Mirza RACIST, SEXIST, homophobic, anti working class and corrupt are just some of the words we associate with the Metropolitan Police. Canteen Culture, a novel by Ike Eze-anyika, confirms all those associations. The author is a former black police officer who served in the Golders Green Division of north London and thus has a very good insight into the realities of the police force. The story follows a north London beat who all want out. Gone are the good days under Thatcher where they were paid a packet to help smash the miners and run riot in Trafalgar Square attacking anti poll tax protesters. Morale is low and their dream is to win the lottery and leave it all behind. They don't quite win the lottery, but having stopped a Mercedes that passed through a red light they come across a whole lot of money and heroin. Stunned by the amount stashed in the car boot they allow the culprit to run off and get away. They decide to keep the money and divide it among themselves. Jazz, the black police officer, is not privy to all this since he was not there and the risk in letting too many in on the scam is high. I will not ruin the book for those who want to read it, and it is a good read. However, as the novel weaves in and out of the main plot we have a number of themes, which give a good insight into the rottenness of the Met. The author does well to include so much in the novel without losing sight of the plot. More importantly, he does not shy away from the disgusting reality of the Metropolitan Police, not just at the rank and file level but at the very top of the force. Jazz remains in the police force despite all the racism he witnesses and experiences. This is essentially an acceptance of the fact that the police cannot be reformed-either you put up and shut up or leave. Thankfully, unlike Jazz, the author did have the sense to leave.
film Hungarian journeys By Matthew Cookson HUNGARIAN director Istvan Szabo's latest film, Sunshine, is an ambitious attempt to explore how political events impact on individual lives. It tells the story of three generations of a Hungarian Jewish family from the mid-19th century through to the late 20th century. It takes us through three different periods of tyranny and repression in Hungary's history. The film succeeds in its analysis of anti-Semitism and its impact in the different periods it studies. It shows how oppressed groups in oppressive regimes are scapegoated in periods of crisis. The film, however, falls down on other points, including those central to the tasks it sets itself. So when it tries to show how history impacts on individual lives it does so in a way that suggests history exists in a vacuum. The great events it describes-such as the First World War, the rise of fascism and the 1956 Hungarian revolution-appear from nowhere with no explanation of their cause or why millions of people supported them. This is an interesting but flawed film. Preview APOLOGIES! The new series about the industrial revolution, The Day the World Took Off, was re-scheduled by Channel 4 after we ran an article about it last week. It is now due to start on Sunday 28 May at 8pm. BRITS (Weds, BBC2, 9.30pm) looks at military personnel in Northern Ireland and is produced by the people who made Loyalists and Provos. ROUND MIDNIGHT (Sat, C5, 12.30am). Good drama about jazz and the life of a saxophone player living in Paris. WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT? (Mon, C4, 10.10pm). Film about the life of singer Tina Turner. film Powerful Roman fightback By Angela Stapleford THE FILM Gladiator, set in the time of the ancient Roman Empire, opens with the dream of a green and peaceful landscape. A Roman general, Maximus, is tired of war and wants to return to family life on his Spanish farmland. The film then sharply returns to his reality-a war-charred, ruined landscape-as the Roman legions fight to conquer Germany. The battle won, Maximus tells his dying emperor, Marcus Aurelius, that there is no one left to fight. The emperor replies that there is always someone to fight. Imperialist Rome relies on constant expansion. Maximus soon becomes entangled in new emperor Commodus's quest for absolute power, and ends up falling from being the hero of the empire to a common slave forced to fight as a gladiator. The film excellently portrays all that was rotten in the Roman Empire. There is endless scheming, rivalry and paranoia within the ruling class. For the majority of people life is brutal and short. Gladiator recreates the grandeur and spectacle of Hollywood epics of the 1950s and 1960s, but is-thankfully-less cliched. And there are also echoes of the story of Spartacus, the gladiator who led one of the greatest slave rebellions against Rome. The film recognises the multicultural nature of the Roman Empire by casting an African actor in a major role. The main female character is neither stereotypically good and pure, nor power-driven and evil. Not a typical action film, it depicts extreme violence and fear in an honest way. Gladiator is a stunningly filmed, powerful movie that confirms the idea that individuals who fight back can make a difference even in the most extreme of circumstances. |