HIGH HOPES

UK, 1988,COLOR, DCP, 108’,  ENGLISH

In the extremely interesting and crowded list of British films depicting Margaret Thatcher's premiership in the 1980s, Mike Leigh's film holds a scepter: It's the one that thoroughly dissects class issues, with the filmmaker's trademark humour|bitterness blend, in a way that is thoughtful, authoritative and relatable. The working class front and center, and next to them the bourgeois and the nouveau riche, simmer in the same ominous cauldron. Historical consciousness, tolerance and «quiet desperation», make up a "bipolar" drama of comic undertones that rightly placed Leigh on the map, a man with the authority of a scholar and the gravitas of a humanist artist.

DIRECTOR: Mike Leigh
SCREENWRITER: Mike Leigh
DoP: Roger Pratt
MUSIC: Andrew Dickson
EDITOR: Jon Gregory
PRINCIPAL CAST: Phil Davis, Ruth Sheen, Edna Doré, Philip Jackson, Heather Tobias, Lesley Manville, David Bamber

MIKE LEIGH
English filmmaker, born in 1943. He studied acting on a scholarship at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. He started in theatre and television before moving into film, first in 1971 and then in the 1980s, when he embarked on a career that has left its mark on world cinema. Seven-time Oscar nominee, winner of the Palme d'Or in Cannes and the Golden Lion in Venice.

FILMOGRAPHY (SELECTED)
2008 Happy-Go-Lucky 
2004 Vera Drake 
2002 All or Nothing 
1999 Topsy-Turvy 
1997 Career Girls 
1996 Secrets and Lies 
1993 Naked 
1991 Life is Sweet 
1988 High Hopes 
1971 Bleak Moments