Existentialism in 1950s Glasgow? Hardly an enticing prospect.
David Mackenzie’s adaptation of Alexander Trocchi’s novel is an
absorbing profile of a drifter who takes what he wants and blows
with the breeze until he finds himself so adrift from morality that
the meanings by which he justifies his pose become too ugly to
endure.
Joe Taylor (Ewan McGregor) is an amoral drifter who reads
assiduously and smokes constantly, checking his image in a mirror
each time he embarks upon another sexual foray, which is often.
He’s a deckhand aboard a canal barge owned by Ella Gault (Tilda
Swinton) and her husband, Les (Peter Mullan), ferrying cargo
between Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Joe shows more than a passing interest in the corpse of a young
woman he and Les fish out of the harbour one morning. Not
surprising, given the dead girl, Cathie Dimly (Emily Mortimer from
Lovely And Amazing), was a former girlfriend, cast aside
when her usefulness had been expended.
More concerned with seducing Ella, Joe presses home his
advantage unconcerned that he might be blighting her unhappy
marriage with false hope. He feels neither guilt nor
responsibility, realising the cruel slap of selfishness only when
Ella’s loose-living sister, Gwen, turns the tables on him sexually.
It’s a game you sometimes lose but there’s no advantage in
recrimination. Not until a man with whom Cathie had an illicit
liaison is sent for trial, charged with her murder.
Knowing the truth, Joe makes a half-hearted effort to intervene
but the only real compassion he exhibits is for himself. Perhaps
this is why he has failed as a novelist.
McGregor is appealing as the self-absorbed loner who must
maintain his insularity to attract women yet employ indifference to
repel them from getting too close. He is locked in a ritual of
superficial and ultimately insatiable self-gratification. Death and
desire may well be one and the same.
We don’t penetrate this character as we got inside, say, Travis
Bickle - Mackenzie resists the voice-over as a means of
illuminating whatever conscience Joe maintains.
The script, by Peter Mullan ( The Magdalene Sisters),
is as tight as a tourniquet and the cinematography (Giles Nuttgens)
suitably bleak and suggestive. David Byrne’s score amplifies the
harshness of life and the fatalism the characters employ as a
survival strategy. Swinton is, as ever, amazing, illuminating
Ella’s wretchedness with unerring force.
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