David Leigh's Masterpiece: Naked

Mike Leigh's monumental film Naked, was an idea formed while Leigh was a student in Manchester in the 1960's.  Inspired by a professor's of Leigh's obsession with an impeding total eclipse of the sun (due in August of 1999), the idea began to form in the young director's mind that would later become one of the most harrowing studies in nihilistic human behavior.  

The film opens with Johnny, the film's dubious anti-hero, having sex with a woman in a Manchester alleyway.  What at first is consensual quickly turns ugly, when the woman begins to protest Johnny's advances before fighting him off completely and screaming that someone named "Bernard" (presumably a guy not to be trifled with) will hear about it.  

Johnny flees to east London, to the refuge of an ex-girlfriend, Louise, who has sent him her address via postcard.  Johnny does not find Louise there, but instead finds her "hippy dippy" roommate, Sophie, who he immediately seduces.  

 (Sophie, played by Katrin Cartlidge)

Louise is everything Johnny is not: hard working, stoic and accepting in the harsh reality that surrounds, even oblivious to it.  She is focused on the immediate and the present, while Johnny's mind swells with biblical prophecies and visions of mankind's doom.  Sophie clearly loves Johnny, which only makes Johnny more bitter and furious at her lack of concern for what he sees as "the bigger picture."  

And this theme continues on with most of the characters of the film.  Johnny seems to be scouring the earth in search of someone who will assent to his wild beliefs, and to admit to the utter hopelessness of it all and to force them to look past the minutia of their primitive lives, but finds only resistance, doubt, or complete apathy.

The film is often bleak, much in the same vein of  Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting, but as such, also completely hilarious at times, with sharp, eviscerating English wit and dialogue.  Johnny is a necrotic mess, prone to creating tension in even the most banal settings.  

There isn't a character in this film that isn't somewhat tragic: an older security guard, guarding nothing but "space," with the meager dream to someday own a tiny stone cottage on a lonely coast...a Tourette-ridden youth in an enraged search for his lost love...a worker drone, trapped in the Sisyphean task of covering one advertisement with another.  None are safe from Johnny's harassment, prophecy, and outright mockery.

Neither is there much redemption to be had here.  While Johnny may represent the worst of defeatism, Jeremy (his capitalist foil), represents nothing more than the brutality of wealth, privilege, and equal contempt for mankind.  

Perhaps that's the the true meaning of the film, or what Leigh wanted to convey.  That the brutality of life is indifferent.  Good, bad, and Ugly are all equally dragged through the mud in a society that operates on complete self-interest and primitive instinct, oblivious to the currents of the universe that channel them into misery and longing. 

What will undoubtedly become a cornerstone of philosophical debate as we push into our own, fearful era of degradation and struggle, Naked offers a glimpse into that abandonment of hope and its repercussions.  

This film will burrow deep into your soul and stay there.  With a small cast of characters, it's entirely up to the viewer to decide who, if any, represents their own view on the world.  

Highly entertaining and powerful in message, Johnny's world is worth inspection, if only to know ourselves better.  

My Rating: 9.0