The Spinning Hannier opens with complete blackness. After an uncomfortable length of darkness, the camera begins to pull out first showing us a zip, then a pencil case, then the pen- cil case on a desk, then a person sitting at the desk with the pencil case on it, then the roof of the building, then the street, then the city, then the earth, then the galaxy until all we are left with is a point of light in the middle of the vast, empty universe. We cut immediately to a woman falling out a window screaming “Aaaar- rrrghhh! The Spinning Hannier got me!” and the opening credits roll.
This sequence takes twenty minutes and indeed the length of the film could deter someone not familiar with Hoops’s work. At 482 minutes, above the aver- age length of the working day in the United Kingdom, it could not be said that it was a short film. However, this is relatively sprite- ly compared to Hoops’s last work Mr Malcolm’s Small Problem in a Big Well which lasted six days and consisted only of various photographs of wells accompa- nied by the drone of a lone tuba. The length is not a problem in The Spinning Hannier as Hoops manages the narrative effortlessly using a mixture of retrochronol- igcal flashbacks, wacky dream sequences and segments where Hoops directly addresses the au- dience and explains what is actu- ally going on.
It is rumoured that after twelve years of pre-production the studio decided to slash the budget. Meryl Streep, despite being initially publicised as the main star of the film, has her role demoted such that all we see of her are short vignettes of her ap- pearing at award shows, or on chat shows or occasionally being filmed from behind going shop- ping. There is little doubt that the speedboat chase lost energy and excitement due to the fact that the actors were actually on body boards in a swimming pool and just hardly moving at all.
Nevertheless, the film fea- tures some spirited performanc- es. Hilary Pickles’ tear-jerking turn as a geologist who forgets how to count is already attract- ing attention from the Academy and the ever reliable Kurt Moose ably plays several corpses. Disap- pointingly, Uggie’s podgy brother Cruggly is woefully miscast as a golden eagle.
It is clear that The Spinning Hannier is Hoops at his finest. Everyone left in the Curzon I was in emerged beaming on their way to the nearest wine tasting. As the Spinning Hannier would say, “Kiss my arse right this minute.”