Secrets & Lies

Roxanne's 21th birthday party. Elizabeth Berrington (Jane), Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Hortense), Brenda Blethyn (Cynthia), Timothy Spall (Maurice), Phyllis Logan (Monica), Claire Rushbrook (Roxanne), and Lee Ross (Paul). Please do click to enlarge the photo.

Secrets and Lies / Salaisuuksia ja valheita / Hemligheter & lögner.
    GB / FR 1996. © 1995. PC: CiBy 2000 / Thin Man Films / Channel 4 Films. P: Simon Channing-Williams. D+SC: Mike Leigh. DP (Metrocolor): Dick Pope. PD: Alison Chitty (PD). AD: Eve Stewart. Cost: Maria Price. M: Andrew Dickson. S: George Richards. ED: Jon Gregory.
    C: Timothy Spall (Maurice, brother of Cynthia), Phyllis Logan (Monica, wife of Maurice), Brenda Blethyn (Cynthia, mother of Hortense and Roxanne), Claire Rushbrook (Roxanne), Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Hortense), Lee Ross (Paul, Roxanne's boyfriend), Elizabeth Berrington (Jane, Maurice's assistant). 140 min
    Song during the main title sequence: "How Great Thou Art" ("O store Gud" – comp. Swedish trad. – lyr. Carl Boberg [Mönsterås, Sweden], 1885) – English lyr. E. Gustav Johnson (1925), Stuart K. Hine (1949).
    GB premiere: 24 May 1996.
    Helsinki premiere: 11 Oct 1996, released by Warner Bros. Finland with Finnish / Swedish subtitles by Matti Rosvall / Anna-Lisa Holmqvist.
    A special screening for guests invited by Mr. Pekka Rehumäki (johtaja / toiminnallinen osasto / jumalanpalvelus ja yhteiskunta / Kirkkohallitus).
    Vintage 35 mm print presented by The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 29 Aug 2019.

I had the honour to introduce a special screening for guests invited by Mr. Pekka Rehumäki on the occasion of his retirement. For years Pekka Rehumäki has belonged to the core audience of the Finnish Film Archive, and although we moved to a new cinema, Kino Regina, in January, he insisted on having the party at Cinema Orion.

I have loved Secrets & Lies since I first saw it during its first run in the autumn 1996. I reviewed its November 2009 Finnish dvd release by Atlantic Film, and I included it into my 110th anniversary of the cinema MMM Film Guide of 2005 in my selection of 1100 key films of film history.

Today's viewing confirmed for me that Secrets & Lies is Mike Leigh's masterpiece. It keeps growing and resonating. This screening was special of course because it took place among the board of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland. Certainly the film has profound religious relevance from the first sequence, the funeral of Hortense's mother, guests joining in "How Great Thou Art".

The film is about the hazards of genealogy and the miraculous paths of search. The closest family is the worst and the dearest, but the mission is always to find the path to love.

As always with Leigh, the film is character-driven, and the performances are powerful in this ensemble piece. The secrets and the lies are revealed in the birthday party thrown by Cynthia's brother Maurice to celebrate the 21th birthday of Cynthia's daughter Roxanne. Revelations are detonated like time bombs, in a way that could destroy family ties forever. Instead they grow stronger.

Mike Leigh's mastery of ensemble playing in the long birthday party segment equals Jean Renoir in La Règle du jeu.

Leigh is also a master of the long take for instance in the 7 minute shot in which Cynthia realizes that she is Hortense's mother. For Leigh, the long take is not a philosophical exercise in duration but a way to record the authenticity of the revelation in full detail.

This time I enjoyed even more than before the wonderful sequences of Maurice (Timothy Spall) at his work as a photographer. There are dozens of observations showing the full scale of life from the viewpoint of a photographer. In our mobile age everyone pretends to be a photographer, but taking snapshots and having a professional photographer take a portrait are two different things.

It's about the difference between "to look" and "to see". Maurice is a seer. Secrets & Lies is one of the best movies about photography, worthy of an essay from that angle. It is also about the presentation of self in everyday life, to quote Erving Goffman.

There was less of Hortense's work as an optometrist than I remembered, but the connection between Maurice and Hortense is meaningful, and there is a moment of insight when Hortense states that the eye is the window to the soul, and you can learn to know a person via the eye.

The good juicy photochemical print has seen some service but it still conveys nobly Dick Pope's art of cinematography, especially relevant in a tale about seeing beyond the exterior.