It was speculated at one time that SPECTRE had masterminded the theft of the Goya painting, The Duke of Wellington, from the National Gallery, and that James Bond had tracked it down to the lair of Dr No on Crab Key, Jamaica.
The truth is stranger than fiction and the truth is no stranger to fiction as shown in THE DUKE, Roger Michell’s superbly rendered film of a most unlikely heist.
Jim Broadbent is Kempton Bunton, an auto didactic socialist who opposes much of what the Establishment imposes on the proletariat. In 1961, his main hobby horse is the abolition of television licenses, especially for old age pensioners and low income earners. When the Government announces that have paid 140,000 pounds he is outraged, calculating that amount would pay for a great many of the population with free television reception.
Then the Goya goes missing and Bunton is implicated.
Kempton sent ransom notes saying that he would return the painting on condition that the government invested more in care for the elderly. What happened next became the stuff of legend. Only 50 years later did the full story emerge, of an eccentric, good man, determined to change the world and save his marriage.
Broadbent is bloody marvellous as Bunton, the lovable, frustrating agitator and prolific unpublished playwright, as is Helen Mirren his wife, Dorothy. In fact, the entire cast serves the beautifully crafted script by Richard Bean and Clive Coleman excellently.
This is director Roger Michell’s last work and consistent with the excellence of his canon which includes Notting Hill, Venus and Tea With the Dames.
Other Festival highlights include:
THE LAST BUS, a touching adventure across Britain starring Timothy Spall, which follows the journey of a pensioner who travels from Britain’s most Northerly to its most Southerly point, using only local buses.
Olivia Coleman and Colin Firth star in MOTHERING SUNDAY, a romantic period drama set in post-World War I England about a maid who secretly plans to meet with the man she loves before he leaves to marry another woman.
FALLING FOR FIGARO from acclaimed director Ben Lewin, is a romantic comedy starring Danielle Macdonald and Joanna Lumley about a young woman who quits her job and ends things with her long-term boyfriend to chase her lifelong dream of becoming an opera singer in the Scottish Highlands.
A powerful and emotional drama starring Hugh Bonneville and Keeley Hawes, TO Olivia tells the story of the tribulations behind best-selling novelist Roald Dahl’s marriage to Academy Award winning actress Patricia Neal,
From revered filmmaker Terence Davies, Benediction is a sumptuous portrait of 20th-century English poet and soldier Siegfried Sassoon, starring Jack Lowden and Peter Capaldi.
British Film Festival Director Kim Petalassaid ‘It’s been great to witness the rise in popularity of the British Film Festival in recent years. It has grown to become a significant showcase of cinema from the region and we’re looking forward to sharing a stellar 2021 line up with our audience.”
www.britishfilmfestival.com.au
The British Film Festival presented by Palace screens in the following locations:
Sydney: 3 Nov – 1 Dec, Palace Norton Street, Palace Verona, Chauvel Cinemas, Palace Central
feature photo: Sean Connery in Dr. No.
Richard Cotter