GREAT MOMENTS IN AVIATION
A film review by Allan Toombs
Copyright 1995 Allan Toombs
As the spearhead of the 'Screen Two' season GREAT MOMENTS IN AVIATION was premiered on television last night in the UK, although it should receive a full cinema release throughout the rest of the world. As the work of Jeanette Winterson, writer of ORANGES ARE NOT THE ONLY FRUIT--a semi-autobiographical account of a teenage lesbian affair in a parochial, god-fearing middle-England, I expected a certain magical-realism and feared an excess of pretension. However I was impressed by Winterson's restraint and clarity in producing a gorgeous pseudo-period piece.
It is the late forties/early fifties and Gabrielle Angel (Rakie Ayola) a young Grenadan girl boards a cruise liner bound for Britain. Through an administrative error she finds her cabin-mate is a man, Duncan Stewart (Jonathan Pryce). Next door are two jolly Englishwomen, missionaries returning home to blighty and it looks like they'll all have super fun en voyage. However when Professor Goodyear (Jonathan Hurt) recognises Pryce as Alistair Birch, a long-dead friend, it is clear that not everyone is who they claim to be.
Okay, so far it all sounds very Goldcrest, very British, very OUT OF AFRICA meets MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS. Certainly period detail is all-important, the liner has all the trimmings, ballroom dance bands and deck-chess. None of the emergent modern world with it's politics is allowed to intrude. However this is used by the director to create a stunning visual stylisation. The whole film is drenched in sepia tones achieved through adherence to the brown decor and clothing of the period. Sequences of Gabrielle's folks in the Caribbean are given a dreamlike quality by use of bleached sepia filters. It is here the the films deeper point is made. As the action plays out over a succession of brown veneered cabins a deeply sensuous effect is created so that we become very aware of skin-colour. Rakie Ayola has a gawky kind of beauty and a strange sexual tension springs up between her and Pryce. When they do make love there is an amazing contrast between his palid flesh and her dark curves. Their union is very non-phallic and akin to coffee and cream mixing. Thus the viewer is seduced into appreciating Gabrielle as a black woman free from any racial framework. Indeed I feel Jeannette Winterson is asking us to appreciate her as another woman might. The camera enjoys her, there is none of the objectivity of say THE COLOUR PURPLE, we become Gabrielle and share her innocence, hope and triumph.
There is a second story to the film and that is our two spinsters, played by Vanessa Redgrave and Dorothy Tutin. Certainly they add an eccentric spin to the film and you almost feel Winterson is parodying her critics when they honestly dismiss the idea that they are lesbians. Later Tutin confesses her love of thirty-five years and they both laugh at just being good friends for such a long time-span. This is a very powerfully written scene and works very well given that we must imagine two old friends beginning a physical phase in their relationship. Consider here that the true mood of the time tacitly approves sexless marriage let alone homosexual love. Winterson is exploring her own sexual-politics, where the lack of historical figures can make a strong case for Lesbianism being a late twentieth century phenomena. Obviously Jeanette Winterson feels the mutual longing between the ladies would have been enough to overcome social taboo, and who am I to argue.
Another strong theme of the film and the source of the title is Gabrielle's fascination with flying. Apparently her grandfather was a mail pilot whenever the weather was so bad white pilots wouldn't fly. He is lost on a run and becomes her dream-icon. At one surreal juncture Gabrielle wears a pair of theatrical wings and this reminded me strongly of a similar image of beauty in the late Derek Jarman's CARAVAGGIO, another film seeking to create a mode of seeing rather than tell an absolute story.
This is not a film to watch for the plot which is uninspiring. However it's rich warmth has a feminine quality. You will savour the colours, the deep burnt umbers, the amber of tea and whiskey, the nutmeg, the saffrons, the chocolates. This is a film about transcending mundane racial and sexual thinking. It is about the pigments revealed when you stop labelling people and start really looking at the world. As such it is thoroughly uplifting and fresh enough to suggest new avenues for the future.
-- Allan Toombs http://www.cityscape.co.uk/users/bt18/atoombs.html mailto:toombs@cityscape.co.uk
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