Pets Win Prizes

Naturally, my first posting published from Hollywood concerns… Scotland.

The BAFTA Scotland awards are doled out in November — so this is a shameless “For Your Consideration” type notice plugging my friends Morag and Colin’s DONKEYS, the best Scottish feature film I’ve seen in recent years. Of course I’m biassed, and I haven’t seen NEDS or PERFECT SENSE, so my word isn’t of much value here — I just wanted to remind anybody who has seen the films and who’s planning in voting — DONKEYS is REALLY GOOD, remember?

Remember how you laughed, were moved, laughed and were moved at the same time, resulting in a strange holographic emotion that doesn’t have a name? Remember how Morag drew sensitive, convincing and funny performances from her actors, including James Cosmo and Brian Pettifer, both of whom are BAFTA nominated? Remember how Morag’s acute eye for humorous detail made a surreal wonderland of Glasgow? She’s nominated as best director. And remember how Colin’s BAFTA-nominated script interwove tangentially related characters into a tight, compact tragi-comedy?

James Cosmo is a Scottish legend, an incredible figure for whom the word “rugged” was invented and then discarded as pitifully inadequate. His long career encompasses the cult horror DOOMWATCH, plus HIGHLANDER, BRAVEHEART and TRAINSPOTTING. In other words, he’s the man they call on when they want a Scottish film or a pseudo-Scottish film to have a bit of integrity. And in DONKEYS he gives a career-best performance of previously unseen vulnerability and comic skill.

Brian Pettifer’s been a fixture in British cinema for even longer. He’s in all three of Lindsay Anderson’s Mick Travis films, IF…, O LUCY MAN! and BRITANNIA HOSPITAL, as well as AMADEUS and THE HOUSE OF MIRTH. Often cast for his distinctive features, here he has the meaty role of a lifetime as the Laurel to Cosmo’s Hardy, one-half of a co-dependent double act of tragic no-hopers.

A conclusive set of wins for the film and filmmakers would send a nice message, I feel, about the kind of Scottish cinema we want to see.

Speaking of which, saw WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN just before leaving, but notes on that’ll have to wait until I come back.