Against the background of the bomb sites, warehouses, riversides and street markets of late 1950's East End London, Together offers a compelling exploration of the isolated lives of two deaf-mute dockworkers. Despite its emotive fictional structure, the film is not a typical romanticizing of working-class life, but offers a complex, open-ended presentation that refuses to condemn or celebrate. The film is also notable for its extraordinary cast, with great performances from local people and the curious, but very successful casting of the artist Michael Andrews and the internationally known sculptor Eduardo Paolozzi.
3 Reviews
Children of a lesser God.
dbdumonteil17 July 2017
Mrs Mazzetti was certainly influenced by the grand tradition of Italian Neo realism ,particularly Vittorio De Sica (the atmosphere recalls "Umberto D".)Her movie was experimental ,but it's accessible to all these who have eyes and ears even to these who do not understand English .
Two dockers,both deaf and dumb ,live in London 's East end in the fifties .Together, they stand by each other and their camaraderie helps them to carry on their sad life on a wharf where cranes are more important than human beings and in a boarding-house where their landlady feeds them without any compassion ;the film ,and it's its main originality ,puts us in their shoes :when other people talk ,we do not hear what they say .Both our unfortunate heroes use the sign language ;and in a world of steel and stone, a smile often lights their faces ,cause they retain their Joie De Vivre and their optimism ,in spite of a thankless work in an indifferent ,nay hostile world .Besides ,all the brats on the block laugh at them,call them names .One of the first sequence shows a boy on the watch ,waiting for their punching bags ,and calling his pals to persecute them .Children's cruelty has seldom been harder than in "together" ;but they actually copy their parents' attitude.
The grown-ups live in their cocoon where the two buddies are outcasts ;the policeman does not intervene when he sees the brats laugh at them;the landlady feeds them,as though they were animals ,and even a dog is given strokes .Every dog has his day ,they say ...
But not these ones,the underdogs .They try to make the best of it,having a drink in a pub,or going to the fair.One of the boy sees a girl's erotic dance on the fairground ,then meets this semi-whore again in the pub.But love is forbidden when you can't communicate with your fellow men (and women) ...except in your bed at night when the dream makes every thing possible :the fact that even the holier- than-thou Office Catholique Du Cinema did not condemn this imaginary love- making speaks volumes about the strength of the scene.
The title " together " ,considering the tragic denouement , is the best possible one ;if they were not together,life would be unbearable for these God-forsaken men.The final tragedy,told with a stunning economy of means ,is all the more awesome : the deaf and dumb man will have cried for help in a selfish crowd ...till his last breath .But the crane brings only mud.And his pal still does know that ,from now on, he is alone in the terrifying world of sounds.
Two dockers,both deaf and dumb ,live in London 's East end in the fifties .Together, they stand by each other and their camaraderie helps them to carry on their sad life on a wharf where cranes are more important than human beings and in a boarding-house where their landlady feeds them without any compassion ;the film ,and it's its main originality ,puts us in their shoes :when other people talk ,we do not hear what they say .Both our unfortunate heroes use the sign language ;and in a world of steel and stone, a smile often lights their faces ,cause they retain their Joie De Vivre and their optimism ,in spite of a thankless work in an indifferent ,nay hostile world .Besides ,all the brats on the block laugh at them,call them names .One of the first sequence shows a boy on the watch ,waiting for their punching bags ,and calling his pals to persecute them .Children's cruelty has seldom been harder than in "together" ;but they actually copy their parents' attitude.
The grown-ups live in their cocoon where the two buddies are outcasts ;the policeman does not intervene when he sees the brats laugh at them;the landlady feeds them,as though they were animals ,and even a dog is given strokes .Every dog has his day ,they say ...
But not these ones,the underdogs .They try to make the best of it,having a drink in a pub,or going to the fair.One of the boy sees a girl's erotic dance on the fairground ,then meets this semi-whore again in the pub.But love is forbidden when you can't communicate with your fellow men (and women) ...except in your bed at night when the dream makes every thing possible :the fact that even the holier- than-thou Office Catholique Du Cinema did not condemn this imaginary love- making speaks volumes about the strength of the scene.
The title " together " ,considering the tragic denouement , is the best possible one ;if they were not together,life would be unbearable for these God-forsaken men.The final tragedy,told with a stunning economy of means ,is all the more awesome : the deaf and dumb man will have cried for help in a selfish crowd ...till his last breath .But the crane brings only mud.And his pal still does know that ,from now on, he is alone in the terrifying world of sounds.
A disappointment
allenrogerj20 December 2008
Warning: Spoilers
I saw this years ago and admired it then but a re-watching shows it to be a very bad film indeed. It has some virtues: it depicts the 1950s East End persuasively, it has some beautiful camera work and the basic idea- contrasting the world as perceived by the two deaf men and the hearing, with the hearing world a rush of incomprehensible sound is a good idea. The trouble is that the two central characters and their relations with the people around them and the rest of the world is schematic, based on ideas of what deafness is like, the behaviour of deaf people, how deaf people perceive the world and the film gets them all wrong because it obviously didn't ask deaf people. For example, they are not shown using Sign; they are shown sitting side-by-side rather than facing each other- the usual way deaf people position themselves to be able to use Sign; they are shown looking intently at one another as they walk along rather than looking around all the time- indeed, at one point they are shown walking along a roadway not noticing a hooting lorry right behind them. Deaf people won't hear the hooting, perhaps, but they will feel the vibrations on the road and here the lorry is so close they would feel the heat of the engine. There are also inaccuracies in the way the community itself is portrayed. If the writer and director had talked to deaf people or even cast deaf people in the lead roles it would be a different matter, but what we have here is a patronising mockery marred by an absurdly melodramatic conclusion.
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