Peterloo review – grit and brilliance in Mike Leigh’s very British massacre
It was to be a grand day out: a peaceful rally to call for political reform. But the authorities were spoiling for a fight. The Peterloo massacre marked a turning point in our democracy. Click here for the complete essay.
The film runs smoothly, historically very accurate, the class clash very neatly pointed out without becoming a pamphlet. The climactic scene of the massacre is cinematographically perfect, a mise en scène of a kind of event we would see many times in the next century, the police and the army as weapons of mass repression. Long live that revolt in our memory!