We live in an age when people love to rate a film, whether by giving it marks out of ten, or one to five stars, and so on. In this blog, I will not fall into that trap. To rate a film in this way is a reductive way of looking at them, and can lead to massive inconsistencies. Example: Halliwell’s Film Guide gives Stalker one star out of five. Yes, ONE STAR! It also gives Carry On Camping one star. So, what is this implying? That Stalker and Carry On Camping are of the same level of artistic merit. Sheer ludicrousness. I mean, can you imagine Kenneth Williams appearing in one of the great works of philosophical cinema that tackles issues of faith and doubt? I can hear him now: “Oh Matron, I’m having an existential crisis”. (By the way, I’ve got nothing against Carry On films, I think Carry On Up The Khyber is hilarious.)
Picture the scene: Sid James as the Professor and Bernard Bresslaw as the Writer outside “The Room” which is said to grant ones deepest wish to anybody who enters it.
Sid James closes his eyes. Tarkovsky takes the viewer inside Sid’s imagination and he is walking down the aisle with Babs Windsor. They give their vows before the vicar (Charles Hawtrey). Bernard Bresslaw takes the wedding ring from his pocket. He is about to hand it over when Babs Windsor’s bra pings off and hits the vicar in the face.
We hear a noise, there is a commotion going on, Sid James opens his eyes but we are not at the the wedding, we are back in the zone, outside “The Room.” Stalker bursts in, it’s Kenneth Williams and he wails,”Infamy, Infamy! They’ve all got it in for me.”
Brilliant!
The 3 star review given to Carry on Camping by The Radio Times is still harsh, it’s a 4 star film by even the harshest of critical assessments: http://www.radiotimes.com/film/ytj4/carry-on-camping