Mike Leigh - Naked (1993)

Mike Leigh’s brilliant and controversial Naked stars David Thewlis as Johnny, a charming, eloquent, and relentlessly vicious drifter on the lam in London. Rejecting all those who would care for him, the volcanic Johnny hurls himself into a nocturnal odyssey through the city, colliding with a succession of the desperate and the dispossessed, and scorching everyone in his path. With a virtuoso script and raw performances from Thewlis and costars Katrin Cartlidge and Lesley Sharpe, Leigh’s panorama of England’s crumbling underbelly is a showcase of black comedy and doomsday prophecy, and was the winner of the best director and actor prizes at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival.







Naked is a harrowing portrait of self-destruction and victimization. It is the story of a drifter named Johnny (David Thewlis) who, fleeing from certain retaliation over a violent tryst, runs away from Manchester to find his ex-girlfriend, Louise (Lynda Steadman). Instead, he meets her roommate, Sophie (Katrin Cartlidge), an attractive, spaced-out, and unemployed woman, and impresses her with his abrasive wit and sardonic humor. By the time Louise comes home, Sophie has developed an immediate attachment to him. But Johnny is more interested in the conquest than a commitment. The more Sophie tries to love him, the more distant, abusive, and violent he becomes. Feeling smothered by Sophie's constant attention, he storms out of the apartment and wanders the London streets, finding other lost souls. Mike Leigh's improvisational approach to filmmaking (a technique used by John Cassavetes to create equally compelling characters) has elicited powerful performances from Thewlis and Cartlidge, who create characters as equally likable as they are pathetic - Johnny: lost, misguided, disillusioned; and Sophie: gullible, perennial victim, starved for affection (the acting is equally inspired in Leigh's Secrets and Lies). There is an uncomfortable and exceptionally heartbreaking scene where Sophie, after a forced sexual encounter with an unwanted guest, lies in fetal position, visibly convulsing on the floor. Naked is Mike Leigh's devastating, caustic vision of life without roots, hope... or heart.

The grainy look of the the characters in the film provides a subtle visual manifestation of the theme. Seeing the characters through this perspective, they appear raw and unmasked. Symbolically, they are exposed - emotionally naked - vulnerable. They have, in different respects, fallen out of society, and are in desperate need of validation. Johnny and Sophie are unemployed. The night security guard has a meaningless job. The woman across the building fears the loss of her youth and beauty. As self-assured and confident as they project themselves to be, their brief encounters are all attempts to feel something - anything - to prove that they are still alive. Naked is an unrelenting, deeply disturbing film about the pain of alienation and lost direction. (Acquarello)







Indefenso
Los variados problemas que experimenta la clase trabajadora inglesa a principios de los años '90, su malestar general y una cierta sensación de desencanto se personifican en el protagonista de 'Indefenso': Johnny es un joven procedente de Manchester que una noche, después de violar a una mujer en la oscuridad de un callejón, roba un automóvil y decide conducir hasta Londres en busca de su antigua novia. Todos los personajes que se cruzan en su camino acaban aumentando el número de víctimas de su encolerizada violencia, un odio casi irracional por todo lo que le rodea que cobra vida gestual, física y verbalmente. Sin trabajo y sin un lugar fijo donde quedarse, la película acompaña al protagonista en su viaje a la deriva por las calles de la capital británica. 'Indefenso' es un relato oscuro, por momentos desolador, sobre unos individuos y el paisaje urbano en el que habitan. El director Mike Leigh ('El secreto de Vera Drake', 'Secretos y mentiras') sabe sacar partido a la improvisación de sus actores; es, precisamente, en la magistral construcción de los personajes donde recae el mayor peso de la propuesta.





A la suite d'un vol de voiture, Johnny s'enfuit de Manchester et arrive à Londres où il s'installe chez son ex-petite amie: Louise. Désabusé et sans attache, il erre dans les bas quartiers de la capitale. Il y fait des rencontres sans lendemain et cherche vainement une raison de vivre. A la fois violent, philosophe et incapable d'aimer, Johnny est un ''clochard'' complexé...







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