Keswick Film Club - The Marching Band

Synopsis

We finish our season with "a very amiable fare..or amiable 'en fanfare'" as Mark Kermode jests, which won our audience vote at the 25th Keswick Film Festival in March; so amiable that we felt we should give a larger audience the chance to see it and the members' vote agreed.

"Renowned classical conductor Thibaut collapses in rehearsals and learns that he urgently needs a bone marrow transplant. The search for a compatible donor leads to his discovery of adopted sibling Jimmy, who's a canteen worker in a Northern French mining town and also a jazz-loving trombonist in his local factory marching band" - Tom Dawson, Radio Times.

As it turns out that Jimmy's factory is about to close down, we have an instant comparison to 'Brassed Off'. The story follows the two 'brothers' getting to know each other, as Thibault tries to help Jimmy in return for the transplant, with mixed results. "Thibault sees in Jimmy a vision of what his own life could have been without his adoptive mother's comfortable middle-class background, and sees Jimmy and himself through the lens of class, politics and society, and not the supposed destiny of pure talent" - Peter Bradshaw, Guardian.

As Mark Kermode continues in Kermode and Mayo's Take, "The rational part of me didn't buy into the ending, but the emotional part cried". I encore that; bring your emotions and enjoy yourself.

Happy Christmas all!