Tommy is British Seventies enough to have captivated me for a while. Halfway through though—more or less as Tina Turner’s therapy preposterously materialises into a rather naff Tin Man prop lubricated with acid and the camera starts pulsing, again, to Ken Russell’s habit—I started to wonder if I was really liking it. Blurring creative genius with random kitsch to an arguable degree of success, Russell’s nuts and garish vision for The Who’s rock opera is quite a strange beast, at least for me. While its religious allusions might be a little on the nose, the parallel between the message of the film and the commercial attitude of its production does provide an unexpected and intriguing sense of irony. As in Roger Ebert’s words, ‘How the makers of the film feel about this commercialization can be gauged by the prominence with which the end titles inform us that the soundtrack album is available on Polydor Records. To make money on a rock opera attacking those who would make money on a rock opera: that was the brave moral stand taken by Tommy.’
Somehow attractive for being so undefinable, for its music—and for Oliver Reed’s utter beauty even as a sweaty nasty fella—it’s certainly one to watch, but not necessarily to love.
I watched it many years ago on the telly, I think as I wait for my drink at bar of the BFI. I can’t say I loved it, which makes me even more eager to experience it on a screen of its size. Less than a minute in I wonder, where the hell was I looking the first time. Simply put, The passenger is a wonder. My friend, the wise architect of this night out on the South Bank compares it to Camus’s L’Ètranger. Maybe he’s right. Maybe that’s way it immediately resonated with me.
Antonioni’s favourite work—as he said once in an interview—is an enigmatic cinematic piece which tension is slowly cooked under a torrid sun. All is dusty and sticky and sweaty. So is the human threat as it ominously closes in.
‘I've seen so many of them grow up. Other people look at the children and they all imagine a new world. But me, when I watch them, I just see the same old tragedy begin all over again. They can't get away from us. Is boring.’
