Word: cyrill
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This peculiarity of the British sense of humour is important to keep in mind when viewing "High Hopes." Otherwise Mike Leigh's sketch of the state of class warfare in London might become unbearably bleak. The film centers on Cyril and Shirley, a couple who live in a high-rise block, work as motorcycle couriers and are haunted by Cyril's dogged refusal to start a family. Although Leigh is sympathetic to Shirley's need for a child, the family portraits he draws would be enough to put anyone...
...hand there's the exaggeratedly yuppified couple who've moved in next door to Cyril's aged mother. These are Thatcher's children, who display their politics and appalling snobbery when they tell their neighbors that "mercifully you people do have the opportunity to purchase your council properties these days." The other side of the social coin is represented by Cyril's sister Vivien and her nouveau-riche husband. While Vivien personifies the British obsession with upward social mobility, her husband's chat-up line, "Hurry up, I've only got ten minutes" was for me a nostalgic reminder...
Throughout the film Leigh's vision of London is stark. His tendency to hold the camera completely still lends the narrative an almost documentary quality--Leigh rests on Cyril's mum's lined and bitter face or on a view of her gloomy kitchen. Pauses like these counterbalance the near-hysteria of Leigh's social caricatures. And the breathing space they provide force one to contemplate how close to reality those caricatures are. Because you can take it from me that British society does still revolve around antiquated, almost tribal social rituals. And Mike Leigh does dissect them with...
...watchdog council will give 30 million black South Africans a measure of power and legitimacy within the country's political system; its installation, perhaps as soon as the middle of October, will definitively mark the end of 45 years of white rule. "It is a historic moment," said Cyril Ramaphosa, secretary-general of the African National Congress. "This is one of the final steps in bringing down the edifice of apartheid...
...filled day in the fitful talks among 26 parties that began in December 1991. While dissenters will be able to raise the issue again, a majority nonetheless provisionally set the poll date to bolster the hopes of blacks impatient for more rapid change. Afterward, African National Congress Secretary-General Cyril Ramaphosa rushed to a previously scheduled gala dinner to receive a Man of the Year award jointly with government negotiator Roelf Meyer. To the cheers of 400 guests, who represented all the country's races, Ramaphosa declared, "We now stand at the gateway of the democracy that so many...