Mike Leigh’s “Peterloo,” about a notorious episode of political violence, is for most of its running time a riot of verbal eloquence. High-flown phrases pour from the mouths of activists at meetings, judges on the bench and politicians in the halls of Parliament. Every so often, someone will remark that the time for talk is past, that what is needed now is action. But part of the argument of this brilliant and demanding film is that words are deeds, that language matters. But the past, if it is a foreign country where people do things differently, is also a mirror.

Source: New York Times April 04, 2019 15:58 UTC