Review 478: Peterloo

Peterloo is a emotionally powerful and overwhelming at times harrowing but ultimately emotionally rewarding historical drama and a suitably ambitious effort from Mike Leigh.

The film chronicles the days leading up to August 16, 1819, when a crowd of about 60,000 people from Manchester and surrounding towns gathered in St Peter's Fields to demand Parliamentary reform an extension of the voting rights. The meeting had been peaceful but in the attempt to arrest a leader of the meeting, the armed government militias panicked and charged upon the crowd. The toll of casualties has always been disputed, but as many as 15 people were killed and up to 700 wounded.

Mike Leigh's direction is simply splendid, perfectly impressing upon us as an audience just what a horrible, the cinematography is beautiful and captures of the beauty of Manchester in the early 1800s, the locations are fabulous, the production design is brilliant with loads of attention to detail, the costumes are lavish, the score by Gary Yershon is striking, the scenery is breathtaking, the props are superbly crafted, the make up is rich.
The climactic massacre is as intense as it is unsettling, Leigh pulls absolutely no punches at all in showing how absolutely horrific and brutal it was 

5/5

The Anonymous Critic.