'Peterloo': its relevance could not be more obvious

At 75, Mike Leigh is as passionate as ever. In the singular film Peterloo, he reconstructs the run-up to an unjustly forgotten bloodbath in 1819. Its contemporary relevance could not be more obvious.

Peterloo starts in Waterloo. A traumatized foot soldier wanders between the corpses on the battlefield that brought a halt to Napoleon. He stumbles home, to a Manchester beset by famine and unemployment where judges who are ignorant of the real world condemn men who steal the spare jackets of their employers to death by hanging.

The people are grumbling. The bravest of them venture into politics. The central demand is the right to vote and parliamentary representation, and they reinforce the message in a demonstration and a speech by the passionate reforming politician Henry Hunt. More than sixty thousand assemble at St. Peter’s Field. As planned, the authorities instruct the cavalry soldiers to quash the peaceful protest violently.

An ardent manifesto

The bloodbath is the unbearable climax, but Leigh devotes the majority of the 153-minute run-time to a detailed exposition of the motives and reasoning of a wide array of those involved. The award-winning director of masterpieces like Naked and Secrets & Lies does not hide his contempt for the twisted and repressive elites, but his thoroughness and the numerous political discussions safeguard this film from any hint of oversimplification, false slogans, or inappropriate heroism.

There are too many memorable figures to count and the number of actors who immortalize their emblematic characters is likewise high. The story is set two hundred years ago, but it is as though you are there in the midst of it.

Waterloo is still celebrated in England, but you can search for statues commemorating Peterloo in vain. This is not a history of which one can be proud and the immediate effects were limited, but Leigh’s unconventional historical drama does make you realize how necessary the class struggle is and how a democracy cannot exist without the right to resistance. This is not an easy film, but it is an ardent manifesto that tells it like it is.