Four Lions

Colour, 35 mm
United Kingdom, 2010, 101 min
Section: Forum of Independents

Synopsis

A group of would-be terrorists plans an attack that should spill plenty of blood. But they just can’t decide whose blood it should be. The film’s strength, aside from elements of black humor, lies in the ambiguity and subversiveness it creates through the use of stereotypes of Muslims, British politicians, and all manner of fanatics. Suicide bombings are here talked about just as ingenuously as if discussing The Lion King. Laughs are generated through a wide assortment of exotic insults, situations packing an effective punch, and characters delineated with precision. The movie presents the latter as more a threat to themselves than to British society. Although the viewer finds himself chuckling at preparations for a terrorist operation, the laughter is rightfully accompanied with a tingling down the spine. This original, daring movie, replete with humorous situations that are in no way disrespectful, provokes a variety of questions but one stands out above the rest: how fine is the line between a martyr and a dolt?

About the director

Christopher Morris (b. 1965, Bristol, Great Britain), nicknamed the media terrorist, gained fame as a screenwriter, director, and star of television shows whose satire and surreality are in the best tradition of British comedy (e.g. the role of Denholm in the series "The IT Crowd”). The origins of Morris’s humor go back to the years when he worked for BBC Radio Bristol and Greater London Radio. The on-air program "On the Hour” spawned a television news parody entitled "The Day Today” (1994), a series which earned him a BAFTA Award. The series "Brass Eye” (1997) presented seven fictional TV news reports, and after the program ended, Morris published his own obituary in The Guardian. In 2002 he shot a short film for the prominent music label Warp entitled My Wrongs #8245–8249 & 117, winning a BAFTA Award for his efforts. Four Lions is his writer-director feature debut.