SCRUBBERS

UK, 1982, 88 minutes, Colour.
Amanda York, Chrissie Cotterill, Kathy Burke, Robbie Coltrane.
Directed by Mai Zetterling.

Scrubbers is a rather grim unattractive film. It shows the life in a women's borstal. Co-written by the author of Scum, a picture of life in a men's prison, the film highlights several characters and their crises as well as the repressive way of life in the prison. The emphasis is on the melodramatic. While there is some humour, the film is generally unrelievedly black. Performances are effective - but there have been many television series highlighting such characters and problems and so the film loses something of its impact. Direction is by Mai Zetterling, the Swedish actress of so many British films of the '40s and '50s and director of Night Games in the mid-'60s.

1. The impact of films about prisons? Grim pictures? The English prison? A women's prison? The conventions of the prison film -characters, guards, conflicts, repression, brutality? How well were the conventions used in this film?

2. Colour photography, night and dark, light and shadow? The focus on individual characters? Prison cells, corridors, workrooms, dining room? The recurring facade of the prison with the voices? Musical score?

3. The structure of the film: the focus on Annetta and Carol? Their encounter with Rex? The arrests? Going into prison, illustration of their characters, introduction to the variety of characters in the prison? The conflict between Annetta and Carol and its violent conclusion? The significance of the title?

4. The screenplay's emphasis on the variety of types in the prison? The danger of stereotyping the characters for brief running time? How stereotyped were the characters?

5. The emphasis on behaviour: the set-up of the cells, partnerships in the cells, fights? The clashes within the group? The sparks that set them off? The work situation - and rebellion? The importance of the concert sequence and its tone, the punk aspects of the music and the costumes? The climax with the brutality of the excrement?

6. The opening with the pick-up by Rex? Annetta and her sexual encounter with Rex? The background of the lorry-drivers, the flats? The scribbling of the telephone number? Carol and her isolation? The quick sketch of Rex as a type from his room?

7. Annetta and the nuns? Their severity? The encounter with Alice, her love for her? The arrest, her being put in solitary, her tantrums? Her attitude of vengeance towards Carol? Cruelty? Her dreams and hallucinations about Alice? The religious symbolism with her suffering? The build-up to the attack on Carol? Carol trying to find the address - and the address gone? Annetta further in isolation? How realistic a portrait of Annetta?

8. Carol and her silence, her seeking her lover, the arrest, her rejection, the attitude of Doreen and her friend? The clash with Sharon? Eddy and her protection? Life in the prison? The victimisation by Annetta and the fight? The excrement and the humiliation? The friendship with Kathleen and her trying to help her?

9. Eddy and her toughness, leather clothes, protection, sexual liaison, getting out?

10. Doreen and Sharon and their relationship? Clash with Carol? Sharon and the antagonism? The black girls and their background of prostitution? The bald suicide - and the pigeo free in the cell?

11. The portrait of the staff? The men and women? The warders? The attempts at friendship, mothering? The superintendent and his harsh decisions?

12. How well handled were the riot scenes, the concert etc.?

13. The atmosphere of futility in the prison, the lives of the girls, the work, the possibilities of rehabilitation?

14. The emphasis on violence, sexuality? The crudeness of the language, of the songs?

15. How much insight into characters did the film offer? Prisons, the need for prisons, prison treatment, rehabilitation?