PEAKY BLINDERS : A CRITIQUE
Set against the epic sweeping backdrop of post war industrial
Birmingham, this is really the personal story of a family and the decisions it
makes in determining its fate. It opens on a city in disarray and division, peaky
in the sense of being sickly and wasted, blinder in the sense of having lost vision
or moral direction, a power vacuum left by the war and filled by the “three
headed beast “of Fenians, Communists and criminals. The Shelby family who run the Peaky
Blinders, a criminal gang named after the razor blades carried in their peak
caps giving a whole new meaning to the expression “I doff my cap at you”, is
also divided by sibling rivalry, by the challenge of Tommy to Aunt Polly’s
matriarchal rule, and by the leaks of their sister Ada who is sleeping with the
communist leader. That sense of disorder is also depicted psychologically in
the madness of those returning shell shocked from the war, veterans like Tommy
who are frozen in impotence, drug addiction and emotional disassociation or
Danny who experiences flashbacks in blackouts. Tommy is “out of his mind” while
Danny “needs some sense knocked into him”. “I’ve changed my mind” says Tommy ambiguously.
Rebellion is everywhere and on all levels, a madness of lost souls reflected in
sets that are often dreamlike and distorted by haunting but beautiful side-
lighting effects.
So soldier heroes who fought together patriotically at Flanders
are now fighting against each other, “one day me and Tommy will be on the same
side again”, says the communist, a premonition perhaps. Arthur and Tommy, who
embody the separation of Emotion from Mind, are vying for leadership of the
gangster family,”I think so you dont have to”, says Tommy, hiding information
from his emotional brother.”We dont mix with Chinese”, says Arthur reinforcing clear
divisions.
Into this mayhem of hell
on earth comes a man from outside to restore social order and unity, Chief
inspector Campbell from Belfast, a Presbyterian lawmen, a saviour figure who
looks more like the devil, who is both tender and violent in his torturing, who
comes to put things right even if it means doing wrong by infiltrating and
spying and making deals, played by Sam Neil, an actor who actually holds dual
citizenship in his own life, and whose career oscillates between the duality of
good and evil roles. As Campbell traverses the moral wasteland of Birmingham, look
out for the enacted homage to Brueghel’s painting of “The Blind leading the
Blind” amongst the crowd. It’s a link to medieval morality, a dark sardonic
comment easily missed.
In presenting these divisions the writer shows a world full of tension
and human struggle that is pulling apart, but his dramatic style is one of
synthesis and unity where he juxtaposes for deliberate effect. This creates
another tension for the audience. So the city epic is also a domestic drama where
moments of intimate relationships mix with sudden outbursts of physical
violence, where the door from the quiet living room opens out into a frantic betting room,such a contrast.Echoes of past war time intrude on the present peace time which seems
more at war than peace anyway. Mundane vernacular dialogue is interspersed with
heightened poetic rhythms;”In the bleak midwinter” quotes Tommy as he executes
Danny. His mother says, “You have your mother’s common sense and your father’s
devilment. See them fighting. Let your mother win”. But no one wins because
Tommy has been traumatised by a war that has defeated them all.
That use of synthesis is in the visuals too as slow motion
visionary moments follow social realism or sudden crude violence. The opening
sequence is visionary realism, and later camera angles distort reality through
mirrors or reflected surfaces. The pragmatic gangsters wont move contraband under
a full moon because unlucky. Tommy has opium induced dreams that invade his
detachment, casting magic spells on a race horse. The barmaid called Grace moves
like an apparition in fairy green
through the muted colourless streets, singing ballads angelically as she
empties the “piss pots” at the bar. A canal barge floats mysteriously dreamlike
out of the fog, a boat from hell picking up the body of Danny without even
stopping, haunting, foreboding. This is
the mythical Charon the ferryman transporting souls to the underworld. But it’s
also a staged hoax taking Danny out of danger and down to London. A strange
phenomenon like snow or ash falls inexplicably to remind us of something other,
another world close and interacting with this one, (see similar effect in Red
Riding, channel 4 noir drama). So squalid reality and poetic significance exist
together in this presentation of the human condition.
Both Tommy and Campbell
appear mythical and human as they move through the streets. Campbell sweeps in
cloaked like a vampire or an avenging Ian Paisley preacher. As Tommy moves we
hear the soundtrack of Nick Cave’s haunting “Red Right Hand”, a song about the
Irish Troubles with words that are significant because that symbol of the red
right hand of Ulster is a cross community symbol for Protestants and Catholics,
and the song states “He’s a god/ he’s a man”, both. Throughout the episode
Tommy seems both god and man, good and bad, wise and foolish, dutiful and
seditious son. He moves like a machine but pounces like an animal. Sometimes
Tommy appears magical with his red powdered spell on the horse and his command
over the execution of Danny into the barge, but these are only clever tricks,
however mesmerising, that he plays on people, tricks the writer plays on us as
audience too.
Meanwhile the women all act as sources and conduits of
information for the men. Grace, the barmaid, is a double agent working for
Campbell and passing him information in the city museum. Ada, the sister is
passing information without realising from her criminal brothers to her
communist lover. Aunt Polly is the source of wisdom and knowledge advising the
clever Tommy and restraining the emotional Arthur. She perhaps sees more than
most, but her brief reign is over now that the men are returning from war to
reclaim their place.
This synthesis of style presents criminals who are also decorated
war heroes. It’s mixed genre, a noirish gangster story told as a Western with lots
of allusions to the epic “Once upon a time in the West”, a Leone windmill pump
creaking in the silence, scenes like a symphony of sound and motion similar to
opening of OUTIW, the camera shots from the wheels of a screeching steam train,
the dark coated Campbell like the dark coated Frank, the woman figure who has
power in a man’s world . It’s a period drama that includes modern contemporary
elements making it relevant to our own times, so we hear modern music like Nick
Cave and hear about a Libyan arms connection most relevant to the1970’s. The
dreadlocked West Indian preacher could be from contemporary Birmingham . The
effect of post war shell shock on veterans and their neglect is as relevant
today about Iraq as any war of yesterday. This could be the soul less present
as well as the period past. The language is also a synthesis of vernacular and poetic,
sonorous epic like speeches followed by rough street dialect. Peaky Blinders is
an interesting mix of genres, each informing the other; period drama, crime
story, Western, Morality Play.
So the world appears divided but the writer’s style weaves a
unity over the chaos, trying to bring it altogether, make it whole. With so
much potential for dehumanisation , the machine like, sleep -walking Tommy
represents the place where that struggle is enacted, the battleground inside as
well as outside. It’s his choice and tragic error that precipitates events because
character IS story. That decision wakes everything up. He decides, on monetary
grounds, not idealistic and without moral compass, to keep the guns his gang
has intercepted by mistake while drunk, “If they want something valuable
they’ll have to pay for them. That’s the way of the world” he says, in a moment
that is held unbearably long by the camera. That decision seals his fate, and
the fate of those around him. It’s a decision made for commercial gain and
nothing else, without emotion or responsibility, a decision that links the
period drama to decisions in our own era. Everything turns on that moment, from
that decision.
“Is it another war you’re looking for?” rhymes the communist in
dramatic irony because it is, the war for Tommy’s soul in his struggle to recover the human spirit,
something he already knows , reawakened in moments of reaction when he reaches
out to help someone, “You’re a human being”, he says shaking Danny out of his
mad episode, “You’re alright”. In this modern version of ancient Psychomachy,
we face the same dilemmas. Will things pull together or apart, go right or go
wrong? Will Grace live up to her allegorical name? Will Tommy recover his lost
soul to enable a broken community to regenerate? Will the human spirit triumph?
It’s our story today as much as yesterday, a morality play. Tommy carries on
walking in the final scene to the voice of Nick Cave singing from his album “Let
Love In”.
Let love in might be the remedy. We’ll have to see.
