Curtains for Mr. Punch

"Curtains" - dir. Julian Barratt and Dan Jemmett - 2009

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Barry Shepard (Bob Goody) is a depressing old man travelling around the British seaside with his Punch and Judy set, avoiding angry children and offended parents, and drinking his Clappers and his pink medicine. The puppet, Mr. Punch, is a traditional character who usually appears with his wife, Judy, and by the end of the scene, the two are up at arms, beating each other up. Other characters introduced into the world of Punch and Judy include Joey the Clown, the Doctor, the Hangman, and the Devil. Joey the Clown usually appears during a dinner scene, the Doctor might attempt to treat Mr. Punch, and the Hangman gets tricked into putting his own head in the noose meant for Mr. Punch. Mr. Punch even wins over the Devil.

“Curtains” follows the structure of a Punch and Judy show loosely. It seems the only things Barry values in his life are his Punch puppet, which loosely resembles him (the scene in which their noses appear in the same frame), his drink, and his medicine. He first encounters the Judy character, Polly (Romy Baskerville), who propositions Barry. He and Mr. Punch happily consent, and they have sex. In the morning, dressed in his skivvies, Barry discovers that Polly is dead. He dresses her and drags her into his car. He hasn’t committed the murder, but he still takes the body, claiming culpability.

The next character, a forestry man (Steve Oram), appears and joins Barry for dinner. Jumping around using Barry’s mouthpiece, the forestry man sees Polly’s body and the empty grave in the dim light and chokes on the mouthpiece, dying. The comedy of this scene comes in the way that the murder, and Barry’s obvious incompetence is played out. The humorous and light-hearted fun the two enjoy in playing with the mouthpiece is broken by the corpse in the background. Everyone else who sees the bodies is affected by how disturbing they are, except for Barry, who re-applies Polly’s makeup and dress.

In a particularly funny scene, Barry, asleep in the back of the car, awakes to find two townspeople staring at the propped up bodies in the front seat. Barry hastens to move Polly’s arm to make her appear alive and wave them off. In this perversion of the sanctity of death, the bodies are used for the sake of comedy. After catching the forestry man’s hand in Polly’s lap, Barry reacts as if they are puppets, just like his Punch and Judy. The third death comes when a doctor, refusing to give Barry his medicine, accidentally slips and hits his head. The three passengers in the back of his car come to replace the puppets, especially when Barry’s tent is flooded on the beach. He escapes with only his Punch and Devil puppets. Naked, illuminated by the light from his car, Barry dances crazily, descending into madness.

In the final scene, the various dead characters are now dressed up as puppets, the main clown (Simon Munnery) presiding over the funeral, Barry finds himself in the coffee, prepared for something. His last line, “What a pity!” is followed by a comical gesture from the clown and the entry of the coffin into an entrance in the curtains, as if Mr. Punch has finally descended into hell, and that the other character have turned into puppets. The violence in this short film reminded me of a much lighter and more comical version of Child of God. I saw a lot of similarities between their amassing of corpses and their treatment of the dead. Barry turns the corpses into puppets, and Lester uses the corpses for his necrophilia, treating them like puppets he can manipulate.

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