Those that keep their head in the middle of all this madness are now so rare as to have become an inspiration to the rest of us, writes ANN MARIE HOURIHANE.
I DO NOT wish to become the Pollyanna of this recession, whistling Dixie as my friends lose their jobs. However, there are limits to how often the human brain can be bombarded with the same tune. There is a danger that we'll slip even further into that peculiarly Irish sin, fatalism. And we're not the only ones at risk. Last week Jeremy Paxman signed off from the Newsnight telly programme on BBC 2 thus: "That's all for tonight. Gavin will be here tomorrow with the usual contemporary doom and gloom".
Thanks a lot, Jeremy.
It’s good to know that a star journalist who earns almost £1 million per annum is feeling so overwhelmed that he has lost interest in other stories, like wars, famine, inequality, the exploitation of children and how humans are destroying the planet.
However, there are people in this world who are keeping their heads in the middle of all this madness, and these people are now so rare as to have become an inspiration to the rest of us. Jeremy could do worse than watch the film, Anvil. It is a story for our times. If you are going to see Anvil in the cinema then look away now.
Anvil, as my colleague, Donald Clarke, explained in Friday's edition of the The Ticket, is about a failed heavy metal band. On one level Anvilis a tragedy. Anvilwere no worse than a lot of heavy metal bands and a lot better than many. They had their brief moment in the sun back in the 1980s before sinking without trace, badly managed, badly produced and as unlucky as any adults who wear bondage harnesses in public probably deserve to be.
Anvilfelt this deeply: when I say AnvilI mean the lead singer, Lips, and the drummer, Robb Reiner. They never stopped producing albums, but they returned to the Canadian suburbia from whence they had come. One of the strengths of the film is that it shows that the commercial failure of the group kept Lips and Robb from developing serious drug and plastic surgery habits, as exhibited by their more successful contemporaries who appear at the beginning of the film.
Lips and Robb acquired remarkably tolerant wives as well as children, stepchildren and menial jobs. Robb started dyeing his hair and Lips started losing his. They have known each other since they were 14 years old, and in some ways are adolescents still. They refused to let go of their dream of stardom. They refused to stop playing. They refused to give up.
In all of this they were supported not just by their tolerant wives (Robb’s wife works as a waitress) but by a hard core of now middle-aged fans who are way weirder than they are. And also by the Japanese, but that’s another story of cultural loyalty.
We don't meet many Anvilfans during the film, but those we do meet are conventional men who love Anvilwith an extraordinary passion. In Prague we see a respectable office worker rocking out to Anvilat a dingy venue. Later, when the manager of the venue refuses to pay Anvil, it transpires that this enthusiastic and clean cut office worker is a lawyer.
Truly heavy metal is a fantasy land, peopled by all the monsters and violence of a children's fairytale. To work within it you must be profoundly cynical, drug addicted or completely innocent. Lips has maintained his innocence and enthusiasm to the last. He still wants to sing his song about the Spanish Inquisition, Thumb Hang. His wife testifies that he is an excellent family man.
Lips, with all the shamelessness of a complete monomaniac, also takes his sister’s money to record Anvil’s 13th album. In this and in many things, apart perhaps from his musical repertoire, James Joyce would have been very proud of Lips. Harriet Weaver bankrolled Joyce for a long time, although I do not believe she ever went so far as to get him a job. One of Lips’s fans runs a call centre, and got him work there. The sight of this unfailingly polite man cold-calling unsuspecting members of the Canadian public in order to sell them sunglasses is one of the saddest of the film.
Robb's sister is called Droid, and Droid does not have a very positive outlook on Anvil's endeavours. Their mother is not so keen either. But Droid and Robb's father, now deceased, was unfailingly supportive. Reiner snr worked as a jeweller and even made Robb two tiny drumsticks to wear around his neck. They have remained there ever since except, as Robb explains, on the occasions when Lips has torn them off his neck during rows. "He lives to hurt me," explains Robb during an on-screen altercation. Anvilis a love story. The point about Robb Reiner's father, and his encouragement of his son's strange career, is that before he arrived in Canada he had spent time in a concentration camp as a child. Anvil is a tribute to optimism and to the wisdom of building your own world. It gives us another definition of success. At the time of writing, Anvilare due to play the Academy in Dublin in June.