Underplayed Gems

Britannia Hospital (1982)

Britannia Hospital poster
Directed by
Lindsay Anderson
Genre
comedy film
Country
United Kingdom
Runtime
1h 56m
Rated
R
Rating
6.3 of 10 from 73 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

More films like thisWatch the trailer

or watch the trailer on YouTube

How it feels

A muckraking reporter investigates strange goings on at a hospital run by a professor with bizarre methods. The film takes aim at the British health service and the state of the country through surreal events.

satiricaldarkly comicabsurdchaoticbleakdisjointedwhimsicalcriticalfarcical

What happens

Britannia Hospital is a 1982 British black comedy film, directed by Lindsay Anderson, which targets the National Health Service and contemporary British society. It was entered into the 1982 Cannes Film Festival and Fantasporto. Britannia Hospital is the final part of Anderson's Mick Travis Trilogy of films, written by David Sherwin, that follow the adventures of Mick Travis (portrayed by Malcolm McDowell) as he travels through a strange and sometimes surreal Britain. From his days at boarding school in if.... (1968) to his journey from coffee salesman to film star in O Lucky Man! (1973), Travis's adventures finally come to an end in Britannia Hospital, which sees him as a muckraking reporter investigating the bizarre activities of Professor Millar, played by Graham Crowden, with whom he had had an encounter in O Lucky Man. All three films have characters in common. Some of the characters from if.... that did not turn up in O Lucky Man! return for Britannia Hospital. The film also features Leonard Rossiter, Joan Plowright, Jill Bennett, Marsha Hunt, Fulton Mackay, Vivian Pickles, Richard Griffiths, Arthur Lowe (in his final film appearance), and Mark Hamill. The absurdities of human behaviour as we move into the twenty-first century are too extreme—and too dangerous—to permit us the luxury of sentimentalism or tears. But by looking at humanity objectively and without indulgence, we may hope to save it. Laughter can help. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

This page is from Underplayed Gems. Not quite it? You can browse by genre, country and year, or take this one into the 3D catalogue and ask the Catbot for something closer.