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Hideous Kinky
***
Cinema
Releases - February 5, 1999
Rated on a 4-star
scale. UK/France. Directed by Gilles MacKinnon. Written by Billy MacKinnon;
from the novel by Esther Freud. Starring Kate Winslet, Saïd Taghmaoui,
Bella Riza, Carrie Mullan.
"Hideous Kinky" takes place in Morocco
in 1972, where Julia (Kate Winslet), a twentysomething from London, is
single-handedly raising her two young daughters Bea (Bella Riza) and Lucy
(Carrie Mullan). She hangs around hippie communes, fights with thieving
prostitute neighbours, has nightmares about losing the girls, waits for a
cheque from their father and carries on a romance with the charming Bilal
(Saïd Taghmaoui). She's in the country because she's determined to see
wonderful sights and to find herself, rather than return to a cold flat in
England, slog it out in a lousy job and leave her offspring at home to become
couch potatoes. It's not an easy task to juggle attempts at breaking her
spirit free with obligations to mind the children's wellbeing, many people
tell Julia, and she's finding out for herself, but she wants to do
it.
It's a cliché now, because almost every
pretentious or insecure student has done it, but it was the hip thing to
do in the late 60s and early 70s -- to head for a place like Morocco and
do a lot of backpacking, along with whatever else seemed carefree and enjoyable.
They made a lot of movies like "Hideous Kinky" in the 70s, too, meandering
journeys of discovery that don't seem to have a particularly effective narrative
arc. I can't for the life of me remember the name of one, but they played
on television all the time when I was growing up, and "Hideous Kinky" evokes
their flavour, as well as containing multitudes of more obvious period detail,
in the costumes and the sets. The film is beautifully photographed by John
de Borman, who has obviously been studying the work of Eduardo Serra -- his
pictures are rich, colourful and clear, but not unrealistic. A few very
interesting camera angles are on offer, from obviously talented director
Gilles MacKinnon, who controls story strands and bustling bazaars with a
steady hand, and dialogue and dream sequences with brilliance.
The performances are impressive. Kate Winslet,
the best actress to hit our screens since Jodie Foster, doesn't come across
as a "hippie", as almost all reviews have described Julia, but still never
seems miscast or out of place, and creates a believable, sympathetic character.
The children, Bella Rizza and Claire Mullan, are convincing too, and can
carry flawlessly flowing conversations with each other, Winslet or Saïd
Taghmaoui. Taghmaoui is unrecognisable in both appearance and demeanour if
we've only seen him as a Parisian scally in "La Haine", and so proves he
has remarkable range.
Just as those wandering 70s flicks that inspired
it, however, "Hideous Kinky" is far from perfect. It's based on a novel by
Esther Freud, and I sense that it may work a lot better on the page, where
we must have a specific point of view, or a sense of what's going on in
somebody's head. Playing out as straight drama, its appeal is as an atmospheric,
anecdotal anthology. Aspects of the plot such as Julia's desire to become
a Sophy don't feel right, because we haven't been informed of the motivations
behind them. We don't even really get a feel of what the family do on days
when there isn't some major development in their lives. Despite what the
pretentious commentators of "Late Review" may feel, a device such as a
voice-over, which "Hideous Kinky" doesn't have, is necessary if the filmmakers
want us to get involved in the characters' thoughts as well as actions. Terrence
Malick's "Days of Heaven" allowed itself one, and it didn't break the spell
of the visuals, but made the whole piece more enchanting.
Even if it doesn't realise its full potential,
though, we do get to care about the people in the film. When the ending comes,
and they're forced to make choices, we have an emotional response. "Hideous
Kinky" may only deserve to be remembered because it's the first film to be
financed with National Lottery arts funding, and the one on which Winslet
met husband Jim Threapleton, but it deserves to be seen because it
works.
COPYRIGHT© 1999 Ian
Waldron-Mantgani
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