Filmmaking duo Jane Pollard and Iain Forsyth have a track record of breaking the music doc mould. Their 2014 Nick Cave film 20,000 Days on Earth remains the high watermark for music films. Like that film, Broken English has clearly been made with a deep love of knowledge of a complex and often misunderstood artist. In this case, the one and only Marianne Faithfull.
Pollard and Forsyth describe their films as portraits, and the film is best described as a hybrid or a kind of docudrama, made in close collaboration with its subject. The film’s whimsical conceit feels a little jarring for such a fierce, sweary and funny musician, songwriter and actor, who when recalling a story about Andrew Loog Oldham, quips “I’ll show you, you c***t”. She did show him, and then some.
The intro is a fairly standard bio, with newsreel footage showing the young Marianne Faithfull. Then we take a handbrake turn into the dark-walled labs of The Ministry of Not Forgetting where its manager, a clipped and sharply-suited Tilda Swinton, introduces an investigation into Marianne Faithful.
With its midcentury furnishings and analog equipment – the fictional institution seems to exist in a liminal space between past and present, and perhaps that’s exactly the point. Marianne Faithfull herself appears relaxed, despite her health issues (she used an oxygen tank due to emphysema and covid) while a keen researcher (played by George McKay) asks her questions about her life and work.
The candid moments where Faithfull is talking about herself are when the film works best. Actors playing researchers explaining the misogyny and artistic snobbery she endured feels unnecessary. No one says it better than Faithfull herself as she’s guided through news clippings, performances, and old records over the decades.
After watching footage of a string of sexist, mostly male presenters and journalists fixating on her past relationships and addictions, she says “Despite all these stupid people and their stupid questions, I’ve actually had rather a lovely life, so fuck ’em.”
Faithfull takes it all in, including regret about what addiction cost her. But also pride in knowing just how good she was, despite a hostile and sexist press determined to let early career tabloid fodder follow her around. The film’s title, named after her 1979 comeback record, is the perfect title for her resilience and ability to keep creating.
Musical performances are woven throughout, including a fragile and intimate rendition of As Tears Go By by Beth Orton. There is also a beautiful reunion with former collaborators Nick Cave and Warren Ellis. Sadly, Faithful died before the completion of the film. But it does feature her last ever performance, giving her the last word and rightly so.