“夢がある 誇りがある 音楽がある”
1992年のイングランド北部ヨークシャー地方、炭坑の町グリムリーは炭坑閉鎖問題で揺れていた。結成百年の伝統を誇る名門ブラスバンド、グリムリー・コリアリー・バンドでも、メンバーそれぞれが苦境に陥っていた。バンドに全情熱を傾けるリーダー兼指揮者、ダニーは、全英選手権に出場し、ロイヤル・アルバート・ホールで演奏して優勝することを夢見てメンバーに激を飛ばすが、炭坑夫である彼らは炭鉱閉鎖の不安ゆえに気もそぞろだ。 そんな折り、グロリアが生まれ故郷のグリムリーに戻って来る。彼女はかつてのダニーの親友の孫娘で、フリューゲル・ホーン持参で練習場に現れ、いきなり難曲の「アランフェス協奏曲」をバンドと巧みに奏で一同を感心させてしまったのだが…。
AIが作品の魅力を深く読み解いています
興行収入: $2,576,197 (4億円)
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監督: Mark Herman
脚本: Mark Herman
音楽: トレヴァー・ジョーンズ
制作: Steve Abbott / Olivia Stewart
撮影監督: Andy Collins
制作会社: Miramax / Prominent Features / Film4 Productions
Land of bloody hope and glory eh! Grimley Colliery Brass Band has been going for nigh on a century, but as the town's colliery itself comes under threat of closure due to the drawn out miners strikes, so does the bands very own survival. Giving much relief to a very depressed area, the band are hoping to make the grand finals day at the Royal Albert Hall, could the arrival of Flugelhorn player, Gloria, be just what the band needs? Or is she merely the catalyst to something far more critical? Brassed Off is the first of what I personally call the Magical British Trio, three films that perfectly portray the British sense of humour during dark depressing times of unemployment. The other two of course are The Full Monty (1997) and Billy Elliot (2000), of which Brassed Off is essentially an appetiser of sorts, the warm up act for the big hitters so to speak. Not to say that Brassed Off is not worthy to sit alongside those well received pictures (home and abroad as they say), it most certainly is, it's just that its blend of humour and strife doesn't find any easy ground, thus making it hard for the undiscerning viewer to be at ease at the right moments. It is in short, unsure of what it primarily wants to be. The humour does work well tho, but it's in the dramatic core of the miners strikes, and the affects they have on the denizens of this quaint colliery town, that Brassed Off truly works, with some scenes literally tugging away at the old heart strings. Then there be the music itself, The Grimethorpe Colliery Band {on whose real life story this film is based} provide the music for the soundtrack, and its most enjoyable, often stirring, and definitely poignant at crucial moments. The cast are tremendous, Ewan McGregor and Tara Fitzgerald offer up splendid youthful heart, but they are playing second fiddle (or should that be third brass section?) to Pete Postlethwaite and Stephen Tompkinson. As father and son, Postlethwaite and Tompkinson give the film its deep emotional being, each driven by differing needs, Brassed Off's success rests with both men being able to hold the viewers attention from the get go. Tompkinson has made a very profitable and thriving career in British Television, and rightly so, but it remains criminal that he didn't go on and make more well known and profitable full length feature films after his fabulous turn here. Filmed in the ideal Northern English town of Barnsley, South Yorkshire, Brassed Off is a film that has evident problems, but to someone like me, a Brit who lived thru those depressing days under Margaret Thatcher's government, it's a film that I love for a myriad of reasons, one can only hope that one of those reasons strikes a chord with yourselves. A completely biased 9/10 from me!
A touching drama of a declining mining community in Margaret Thatcher's Britain. Pete Postlethwaite is subtle but forceful in his portrayal of "Danny"; the leader of the Grimley Colliery Band - one of the traditional brass bands that usually accompanied each mine in the North of England, much a there is a choir usually associated with a Welsh one. The story marries the inevitability of the mine closure with the impact on family and relationships throughout this close knit community and uses their band rehearsals as the axis for the plot. Tara Fitzgerald, Ewan McGregor, Philip Jackson and Jim Carter all contribute genuinely to this frequently dryly-humoured ensemble effort and by the end we are all too familiar with Rodrigo's "Concerto de Orange Juice".
