Another Country

Starring:Rupert Everett, Colin Firth, Michael Jenn, Robert Addie, Rupert Wainwright, Tristan Oliver, Cary Elwes, Frederick Alexander, Adrian Ross Magenty, Geoffrey Bateman, Philip Dupuy, Guy Henry, Jeffrey Wickham, John Line, Gideon Boulting, Llewellyn Rees, Arthur Howard (III), Ivor Roberts, Crispin Redman, Nicholas Rowe
Director: Marek Kanievska
Studio: BBC Warner
Product Type: DVD

Amazon.com

An indictment of the British class system dressed up like a Ralph Lauren ad, Another Country is the movie that made a very young and very gorgeous Rupert Everett a star. Whatever other ideas it has knocking around its head (and there are quite a lot of them), director Marek Kanievska's adaptation of Julian Mitchell's play is first and foremost a star vehicle for Everett, who played the openly gay main character with a vigor, flair, and smoldering appeal that was rarely seen onscreen in the early '80s. Everett is Guy Bennett, a charming, confident schoolboy in 1930s England who yearns to climb to the top of the social strata at his Eton-like school. His ambitions, however, are waylaid by the young and equally gorgeous James Harcourt (Cary Elwes), with whom he begins a passionate yet secret affair. Soon, however, Guy finds that balancing his love and his ambition is a no-win situation, and that no matter how hard he bucks against it, the ages-old traditional structures of British class and etiquette won't yield in his wake. Added to all this E.M. Forster-style drama and romance is the fact that Guy later on becomes a spy for the Russians against England; it's a weighty theme to drop on the movie, and the fact that it's a true story just shows how less than artfully the film unfolds. Still, holding it all together is the sublime Everett, who took this persona of the classy, beautiful, passionate, British gay man and ran with it throughout the '80s and '90s. With Colin Firth as Everett's Marxist (and heterosexual) compatriot. --Mark Englehart

Customer Reviews:

Don't ask, don't tell.......2007-06-09

This movie is based on a play by Julian Mitchell [who went on to write the screenplays for Vincent & Theo and the wonderful Wilde], loosely based on the life of Guy Burgess, who became a Russian spy, and defected to Russia in 1951. He was a member of the "Cambridge Spy Ring," four former Cambridge students [including Anthony Blunt and Kim Philby] who became spies for the KGB. Three of the four were homosexual.

This entire spy background would be easy to miss entirely if you didn't already know about it, but it adds a great deal to the meaning of the movie. The movie begins in 1983 Moscow with Rupert Everett in old age makeup playing the elder Guy Bennett being interviewed by a British reporter. The majority of the movie is an extended flashback to an unnamed boys' college in the 30s.

It would seem that homosexuality at the college is rampant, and tacitly accepted, so long as it does not become known. Toward the beginning of the movie, a boy is discovered humping another boy--and ends up hanging himself rather than face expulsion, and the disapproval of his parents. This leads to a renewed crack-down on homosexuality at the school, though the students don't want to stop, and it is widely known that pretty much every student engages in it. It is accepted as just `part of what boys do,' but the students are expected to give it up and marry a woman upon graduation. What's more, none of these boys are considered truly homosexual, this is just a phase they're going through.

Rupert's Guy becomes aware of the blond Harcourt [Elwes], and pretty much becomes obsessed with him. He is much more forthright with his attraction than any of the other students dare to be, which he plays off through a disdain of the other students and an extremely high queenly attitude. Soon enough he and Harcourt are laying in each other's arms and [presumably] having sex. At this point Guy begins really pushing the system, for example waving in an extremely obvious fashion to Harcourt across the yard, which Harcourt just ignores. Guy seems to be enraged at having to engage in the hypocrisy of pretending like nothing is going on between the boys, when everyone knows perfectly well that it is. He is furious at being punished for merely acknowledging what everyone knows is a fact. He is also highly steeped in the communist beliefs of his friend Judd [Firth], and both of these will combine to strongly foreshadow his conversion to KGB spy after the close of the film.

SPOILERS>>> Toward the end there is a long struggle for power and position at the school. At first Guy is unaffected, as he threatens to expose the homosexual activities of the other students if they dare act against him. But in the end, concrete evidence of his homosexuality is procured and submitted to the headmasters, thus rendering him unable to be promoted to the next ranking in the school's caste. One is left to surmise that the harsh punishment meted out for being unable to play along with the hypocrisy of the system, as well as his immersion in the communist beliefs of his roommate, crystallized into a contempt for his own country which led directly to his ultimate decision to become a Russian spy. < < <
Rupert Everett is very good. He plays an obnoxious, narcissistic mama's boy, which may lead some viewers [like myself] to not particularly sympathize with him, but this in fact works in favor of the issues the movie is trying to raise. Since I didn't particularly LIKE Guy, I was further forced to examine what the issues of his speaking up or hiding his homosexuality raised, apart from my feelings for him as a person, and what punishment he deserved or did not deserve--ultimately deciding that, obnoxious prat that he was, he didn't deserve what happened to him. This successfully delineates the issue into what degree it is right to expect someone to hide or to expose their homosexuality.

I suspect, however, that the majority of viewers WILL be attracted to Rupert, and will thus have a different experience, much more sympathetic to his side of the story. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with this--if Guy had been played by Sam Elliott, I'm sure I would have been all glassy-eyed sympathy. And by the way, they're not really my type, but if you're into pretty, clean-cut young British men, this film will basically make you cum in your pants.

The most notable film by this director was the hideous adaptation of Less Than Zero, but his direction here is very good. The film begins with a gorgeous and spooky shot traveling under the arch of a bridge over a glassy lake, and throughout one notices interesting geometrical compositions to the shots. Colin Firth is very good, but unfortunately [as became greatly apparent soon after] Cary Elwes can't portray much beyond "dewy."

Anyway, one of the better movies with homosexuality as its theme, as, in addition to being engaging and compelling, it quite successfully draws attention to a central conflict that is expertly dramatized in this situation, and has resonance for gay people everywhere.

OK but dated and slow.......2007-01-12

If your just wanting to enlarge your gay dramas, then by all means purchase this DVD. If you fall asleep easly - you will never get thru this movie.

Societal EVILS.......2006-12-25

ER COUNTRY"

Societal Evils

Amos Lassen and Cinema Pride

A play produced in Britain by Julian Mitchell about a young man named Guy Bennett who embraces his homosexuality at a time when it was criminal to do so became the 1984 movie, "Another Country" (Warner Brothers and British Broadcasting). Here is a film, which like "Maurice" looks at the state of the British society. He eventually abandons his mother country to become a spy for Russia. Starring Rupert Everett and Kenneth Branagh (as a straight man), the movie showed the folly of the British Empire. The movie, when released, was controversial but brought forth a whole new group of young English actors and a storyline from which there was to be no turning back. Gays had finally arrived in mainstream cinema. The movie is one of the most interesting examinations of the British public school system (not to be confused with American public schools) where social class is more important than education, where rank is supreme and views of sexuality that are in any way "deviant" are punished corporally and those guilty are stifled from rising in society. The film shows parallel views of Guy's attempt to become class leader but being held back because of his pursuit of the love of man. We also see the appeal of Marxism and how it is considered to be the only way to correct British policies and social system. Together with all of that, we also have the subplot of bigotry when we see a young student hanging himself because of his sexual preference and the dead-end f the aristocratic British Empire.
This is one of the finest films to deal with the subject of homosexuality, especially considering when it was made. The acting is superb, the characterization believable, the plot is sensational and the photography soars.
The film wastes no time in approaching the homosexual plot around which it is built. In the first scene we see two boys making love while there is a ceremony taking place outside of their window commemorating a dead soldier. This is, as if to say, that behind the ivy covered venerable walls of a public school the boys are more interested in love than war. Moral hatred, intolerance and sexual repression are outside while inside there is love. The education the boys receive is no more than a rehearsal for their life to come. As two boys refuse to play the game by the prescribed rules, we get a picture of what it was to be homosexual in a structured society. As the youth rebel we see a view toward male-male sex to be that as long as it is secret t is no problem. It is when it emerges as a lifestyle that it can cause the downfall of society. No outsiders--no communists, no gay boys could be part of the aristocracy but we see how this changed. Both visually and dramatically impressive, this is a film that we can look to see what the words "quality in cinema" mean. From the first frame to the closing credits we have lavish cinematography which is in stark contrast to the discipline system of the school. The school exists to simply be a microcosm of the larger society.
The personal and the professional mix and the use of both homosexuality and communism made good bedfellows since they have always both been regarded as revolutionary behaviors. The good dramatic writing adds much to the film and even though it is at times shocking in its portrayal of the closeness of boys, it is an ideal work. The music is enough to make the viewer swoon.
"Another Country" is a small film which deals with epic issues and it trusts the viewer to accept its premise. Each actor fills the shoes of the role he creates and the inter relationships are beautiful to watch unfold, I recently watched it again after not having seen it for twenty years and it still holds up as it did when I first saw it. Granted it deals with a world that most of us are totally unfamiliar with, it also deals with an issue that all of us know too well--acceptance. It is the same trials that we share now with the boys in the film and the movie can perhaps help us define where we really fit in the larger scheme of things.

Awesome drama, but terribly vague regarding the whole spy aspect.......2006-03-10

If you remove the bookend scenes from this film (and the same can be said of the play), then you have a very fine, period British film about the intricacies of hiding ones homosexuality within the British public (we would call it private here in the U.S.) school system.

No matter how many times I watch this film, I'm nonplussed as to the necessity for the "adult" character looking back on his romantic youth. It isn't necessary. There's no real communist intrigue in the film except for Colin Firth's character. And even that character's existence and subsequent interaction with Everett's character never really bolster the need to bookend the movie with the communist angle.

This is a film about two young men in the British school system who inadvertantly fall in love with each other when they know darn good and well that they call ill afford to be discovered.

Does it matter that Burgess (played by Everett) went on to become a spy? Sure. Is it something that is brought out in the film's central (or even minor) plot? No. Leave it out! You've still got a dynamite romance.

Everett in what was almost his first film appearance, and Cary Elwes in his first film role strike an unbelievably romantic pose together. Theirs is a believable, if not frightening, relationship. What if they are discovered? What will it mean? What does it mean?

This is certainly a precursor to the Merchant Ivory film: Maurice.

Pick this one up and you'll enjoy it!

Depressing in a pleasant way.......2006-03-09

My favourite scene is when Guy Bennet tried to talk Tommy Judd into being one of those high-rank lads. Colin's Tommy was immersed in soft moonlight, leaning against the wall, looking sadly out of the window, telling Guy his disappointment and anger. The cinematography is fantastic, very touching.

Now I can understand why there were so many youngsters in early 20th century going for communism. Communism fits their ideal for a better, fairer society and the enthusiasm born with youth fires up the desire.

I simply love it.

Charlie Rose with Thomas Friedman; Cassandra Wilson; Maurice Ashley; Mary Pipher (April 7, 1999)

Average customer rating:

Charlie Rose with Thomas Friedman; Cassandra Wilson; Maurice Ashley; Mary Pipher (April 7, 1999)

Manufacturer: Charlie Rose
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

( C ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video

Description

Thomas Friedman talks about the NATO air strikes in Kosovo, the politics of war, and the possibilities for Kosovo Albanians. Next, Cassandra Wilson discusses her new CD, Traveling Miles, her musical influences, and the importance of Miles Davis to the world of jazz. Then, 14-year-old Maurice Ashley talks about what it means to be the first black chess grand master, his background playing the game, and his plans for the future. Finally, Mary Pipher discusses her new book, Another Country, Navigating the Emotional Terrain of our Elders, and offers her opinions on the differing ways in which older people cope with their needs, crises, and challenges.

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