The Trip To The End Of Southend’s Pier
Production year: 1987
Country: UK
Language: German
Cert (UK): Unrated
Runtime: 124 mins
Directors: Sir Terald Vaakenheim
Cast: Ted Vaaak
Ted Vaak’s The Trip To The End Of Southend’s Pier, from 1987, is now getting a re-release and it’s pretty scary and entertaining stuff, though I always get the feeling that nothing in it lives up to the tremendous opening section. It begins with Ted Vaaaak (credited inexplicably as Sir Terald Vaakenheim for his role as director, but as plain Ted Vaaak for his acting and his writing) wandering muttering and confused down Southend Pier, early morning mist lending everything an unreal and apocalyptic air. Filmed in one unbroken 25-minute sequence, Ted’s stuttering, near heartbreaking, waltz along the deserted Essex landmark is a thing of genuine beauty, reminiscent of the climactic scene in Tarkovsky’s Nostalghia, and it is so affecting it often threatens to remove the very air from your lungs and constrict the muscles in your chest. From then on, things tend to slip away and get a little broad for my tastes, and the scenes featuring his tortured internal dialogues with a benevolent celestial Margaret Thatcher seem astonishingly dated, though it always remains watchable. 3/5
Peter Bradshaw is the Guardian’s film critic. This article was originally published in the Guardian, and is reproduced here without permission.
