Boys from Brazil

The use of torture in Northern Ireland is well known, but this is interesting, if disturbing, further background to Psy-Ops on the BBC website.

At the Brazilian Truth Commission, which investigates human rights abuses under the military dictatorship, former torturer Col Paulo Malhaes revealed the links with the British army and security services:

"Those prisons with closed doors, you can modify the heat, the light, everything inside the prison, that idea came from England," he said.

He admitted, privately, to the prosecutor, that he himself had gone to England to learn interrogation techniques that didn't leave physical marks. The prosecutor, Nadine Borges, revealed her conversation with him.

"The best thing for him was psychological torture. When a person was in a secret place, it was faster to obtain information. He also studied in other places but he said England was the best place to learn."

  I also remember watching a documentary about SAS selection where the men had to undergo the so-called "Five Techniques" as part of the course [administered by serving soldiers of course.] So Psy-Ops' depiction of turning the techniques on your own people isn't so bizarre.

Techniques (1) - walking into shot

Beloved Enemy may be the first appearance of Clarke's trademark opening: people walking (marching?) with the camera following them. Here he uses it to suggest the similarity of the main protagonists - even though they represent different interests, and different sides, of the Cold War.

The opening walking shots show the routine of the men. Each suit has his morning commute to a central London office and a diary secretary to greet him. The Russian are marked out by speaking Russian, but otherwise the quick cutting creates confusion. Someone is going to Parliament, the Russians work in a bank, but nothing is precisely established. In the wide shots we lose them among all the other commuters. Graham Crowden's character - who turns out to be a captain of industry, barks to the door man that there's a fire outside that should be dealt with. Is he the politician? Fairly soon after we learn of their real roles, only to end back where we started by the final scenes. "The viewers outside looked from Briton to Russian, and from capitalist to communist; but already it was impossible to say which was which."

In the playground

My first introduction to the films of Alan Clarke was in the school playground. Clarke had been dead for some years by this point, so his films were not a regular presence on television. And of course I was not introduced to 'the films of Alan Clarke' but a film, a dirty film, "a fucking violent film": Made in Britain. The hippest music within the rock faction as school was hardcore/post-hardcore punk. 'Peter' - one of the ringleaders - had gone rooting around the more extreme end of the subculture. Having got hold of copies of Made in Britain and American History X,  he passed them around the cognoscenti like porn mags. [I don't think any of us knew it, but many of the photographs for Gavin Watson's Skins had been taken in our town]. It was some years before I connected Rita, Sue and Bob Too with the man who brought us Trevor.

For someone who could make difficult or even avant-garde material, many of Clarke's films have found an audience among the people they are actually about. They've developed something of samizdat life, similar to the one Carl described for Danny Dyer DVDs (and of course there's direct connection there via the re-make of The Firm.)

A combination of the subject matter, the immediacy and raw power of the performances, and the lack of obvious moralism or plots ( no redemptions, no learning) creates an aura around them. A distillation on film of many experiences and feelings.

 Former heroin users post under 'Christine' on youtube:

Ex-soldiers discuss 'Contact':

http://www.arrse.co.uk/community/threads/contact-1985-tv-by-a-f-n-clarke.79670/

This can be pushed too far, of course. The packaging for the Alan Clarke collection suggests a very particular audience in mind - marketing him as a retro-subculture director which obviously does him a huge disservice.

This is problematic in some ways, but it does take his work outside of the comfort zones of Loach and Leigh  - and suggests it is strong enough to sustain several interpretations or appeal to several audiences.

Whether Mi5 uses Psy-Ops as a training video who knows?