Brassed Off

Brassed Off, by director and screenwriter Mark Herman, previously unknown to me, strikes a fine balance between comedy and social realism. The seriousness makes the film more than a laughable trifle, while the humour prevents the "surely it can't get much worse" mood of, for example, Ken Loach's films.

Brassed Off is set in Grimley, a small coal-mining town in the Midlands, in the early 90s, when pit closures were wreaking havoc. The miners are given an ultimatum by management: they can either take a large bag of redundancy money and go, or they can have the pit's potential reassessed, but then the compensation will be cut. If the jobs go, the town's brass band goes too, according to the band members. That does not suit the music-loving and ambitious conductor Danny, who is certain that the brass band can qualify for the brass band final at the Royal Albert Hall shortly. At first his salvation is Gloria, a fortunate specimen of a local girl who has recently returned to her home town. There is even a hint of romance between her and the miner Andy, who is the same age.

Everything comes crashing down when the pit closes, not least because a majority took the money without fighting for the pit's survival. Danny's son Andy is one of the traitors, whose financial problems are so severe that his wife leaves him with their many children when the loan sharks strip his house of valuables. At the same time Danny is admitted to hospital because of coal dust in his lungs. On top of that, Gloria falls into disgrace, because it turns out that she works for the pit's management, writing an assessment of the pit's profitability. She feels seriously screwed over when it turns out that management never intended to use her report. To make amends, she finances the brass band's performance in London, where of course they carry off the victory. Music is not everything in life, but it is an uplifting part of it.