164 Secret Friends

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MichaelB
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164 Secret Friends

#1 Post by MichaelB » Thu Dec 05, 2019 6:30 am

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SECRET FRIENDS
(Dennis Potter, 1991)
Release date: 17 February 2020
Limited Edition Blu-ray (World Blu-ray premiere)


Preorder here

Unfairly neglected since its original low-key cinema run, Secret Friends is the only feature to be written and directed by Dennis Potter (Pennies from Heaven, The Singing Detective).

Made shortly after his hugely controversial mini-series Blackeyes, the film centres on a writer, played by Alan Bates (A Day in the Death of Joe Egg), who descends into a kind of madness during a train journey as memories, fantasies and psychotic visions collide.


INDICATOR LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY SPECIAL FEATURES:

• High Definition remaster
• Original stereo audio
Keeping Secrets (2020), an analysis by Graham Fuller, editor of Potter on Potter
Bon Vivant (2020): actor Ian McNeice recalls working with Dennis Potter
• Theatrical trailer
• Image gallery: publicity and promotional material
• New and improved English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
• Limited edition exclusive 36-page booklet with a new essay by Jeff Billington, Dennis Potter on the making of Secret Friends, an extract from Potter on Potter, an overview of critical responses, and film credits
• World premiere on Blu-ray
• Limited edition of 3,000 copies
• All extras subject to change

#PHILTD164
BBFC cert: 15
REGION FREE
EAN: 5060697920062

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colinr0380
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Re: 164 Secret Friends

#2 Post by colinr0380 » Thu Dec 05, 2019 6:51 am

Wonderful news. I think this has only ever received one showing on UK television back in 1994 and never again since: for context this was the year in which the "Film on Four" season also premiered The Crying Game, Peter's Friends, Waterland, London Kills Me, Wild West (the Indian country music film!), Bad Behaviour and Into The West (The year after it was Four Weddings and a Funeral, Howard's End, Raining Stones, Damage and Naked). So this was a kind of halcyon age for Channel 4 films producing an eclectic range of films about a wide range of subject matter, and to be fair I think it was only The Crying Game that ever got a repeat television screening from that 1994 line up, but Secret Friends feels like it has been by far the most obscure and difficult of them all to try to find any information about in the years since. To add to the description above Gina Bellman was also one of the main actors in that Blackeyes TV mini-series that was made just before this, which is the other work that was actually directed as well as written by Dennis Potter.

I have been wanting to revisit it again for a while now, as I remember just being completely bewildered by it on that first viewing, especially as I think that (unwisely looking back now) it may have been the first Dennis Potter I had seen! This potentially might be the most 'unfiltered' Dennis Potter of them all, for better or worse. Looking back on my half-remembered memories of it, I think it seemed a bit Lynchian at times with fluid identities using a kind of mystery narrative to explore character relationships above all. It also felt a bit too melodramatic too, but that is really a Dennis Potter trait and I would guess now that it is probably operating in the same heightened stress register of Track 29, so it will be interesting to compare it to the Roeg film that was made a couple of years before this. It even cold opens with a line that seemingly exists outside the film to explain the character's motivations extremely clearly, similar to Gary Oldman's scream of "Mummy!" in Track 29.

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zedz
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Re: 164 Secret Friends

#3 Post by zedz » Thu Dec 05, 2019 5:51 pm

I never saw Secret Friends, but if it’s more “unfiltered” than Blackeyes, it’ll be something!

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Randall Maysin
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Re: 164 Secret Friends

#4 Post by Randall Maysin » Thu Dec 05, 2019 6:02 pm

Perhaps this release somehow augurs well for a release of Dreamchild!

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John Cope
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Location: where the simulacrum is true

Re: 164 Secret Friends

#5 Post by John Cope » Fri Dec 06, 2019 12:45 am

Great and very surprising news. I didn't even know this one was forthcoming at all and it's especially gratifying that it's Indicator (who did such a fine job with Track 29) releasing it. I actually have a copy of this already that was transferred from a UK VHS decades ago but, to put it lightly, it could be improved upon.This is a tremendously obscure film and the only feature Potter directed himself. What may be even less well known is that this is adapted from Potter's novel Ticket to Ride which I've read and which is significantly different (will be interesting if Graham Fuller addresses that much in his commentary); that's also a book that apparently Robert Pattinson recommended, though I think he may have just been trying to have one over on his fans. It may even be the most difficult of all Potter's work as there is no firmly established level of reality to which everything else is grounded. Certainly it is right up there with Potter's now similarly obscure (though reviled at the time) Blackeyes which also desperately needs an official release somewhere from somebody.

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MichaelB
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Re: 164 Secret Friends

#6 Post by MichaelB » Fri Jan 03, 2020 12:03 pm

Full specs announced:

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MichaelB
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Re: 164 Secret Friends

#7 Post by MichaelB » Tue Jan 28, 2020 2:13 pm


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therewillbeblus
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Re: 164 Secret Friends

#8 Post by therewillbeblus » Thu Apr 02, 2020 7:15 pm

I’m not sure this film entirely works but the surreal bleeding both visually through fantasy and/or memory, and verbally through internal monologue in the present regarding observations and fleeting ideas, all mesh together to make a stew that disrupts our sense of logic. This seems to be the point in drawing a character who is in a mental health crisis, and is a very apt presentation of intrusive thoughts; so even if there isn’t a compelling narrative or other necessary factors to prompt me to buy in, I have a lot of admiration for its stylized elicitation of psychological melting.

There is paranoia, wish fulfillment scenarios, and enough jump cuts to remind us constantly of the unreliability of this narrative which is all an extension of Bates’ character. Usually we are granted some kind of consistency to the methodology of delivery, but because there are so many change-ups, there are no opportunities to become grounded to even expected bizarre beats. This mirrors insanity quite well and the sharp disruptions to one milieu, pulling us away from any particular avenue, signify an artifice that mimics the illusory nature of fantasy, or even if events occurred, skewed weighed down perspective. This is a film that even refuses to build itself around an internal logic, which may be frustrating to some- and inherently carries flaws to engagement- but is at least an interesting exercise in psychic deterioration.

The presentation of distortions is more dreamy than nightmarish for the first two acts, which places the spotlight on Bates’ schizophrenic personality - confidently menacing and innocently frightened depending on the space we find him in - he’s a mystery to us and himself. I get the Lynch comparisons especially how it can be cryptic without fully descending into a stable mood of nightmare, lingering more in a hazy state of confusion, at least to a point (the end certainly gets closer to dark Lynchian territory). The fiercest problem here is Bates' relentless performance coupled with a dense character, which is challenging to use as a vessel for engagement. The other aspect that I discovered as an unexpected flaw is in its complete resignation of audience holds. I've always been rather lenient on giving films rope on tackling abstract ideas, but I prefer at least some semblance of linearity- of tone, or increase of kinetic mood juggling, or even movement towards an expression of nonlinearity (if we’re going to be abstract at least a progression of increased abstraction!) but this film floats along in a perplexed state at a moderate temperature for the duration of its runtime, and in turn becomes static in a demonstration of wild ideas, a paradox it would seem but there it is. I can’t say I cared much for the symbolism or content in the dreams/memories, but the ride was never boring if only for the spontaneity of imagery, even if it did stall in place.

The third act does up the ante at least projecting some reasons for his angst on the screen, whether they’re real or not, by altering his wife’s personality, and the sexual component in identity shifts adds some amount of validation for his anxiety. Other characters going off the rails in general support some alignment with Bates, and helps the looseness of his scattered thoughts rest easy as the strengths that they are - I mean, who has completely linear thoughts/memory recall, especially in a state of dysregulation?

Ultimately this was a mixed bag for me, but one I can see myself coming back to purely for its visual manifestation of the madness of our subconscious (and really strong meditation on intrusive thoughts for those that have experienced them and all their dysphoria). I guess I respected this more than I enjoyed it, but that psychological acknowledgement was affirming and there are some great visual gags. The best is the two deadpan businessmen who not only reflect Bates’ insanity with their apathy to humorous contrasts, but they follow Bates wherever he goes so we aren’t sure if they are a figment of his imagination or just odd people always in the right place at the wrong time! Their presence also just mimes the paranoid’s perceptions so well that it’s hysterical in a layered way. I think this may have functioned better as a short film, or a series of shorts, for there was no cumulative impact constructed by the meandering impulsive shifts and acute behavioral peaks, but it's still a unique effort and one that maybe the supplements will increase my appreciation for when I get to them.

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