Hannah Rothschild/UK 2010/75 min
Showing @ NFT 1 Sun 24 & Mon 27 Oct
No doubt the creepiest of the New Labour technocrats, Peter Mandelson is credited as the man behind Labour’s shift from representing the unions and working people to becoming little more than a tool of big business. As such, it’s no surprise that the person given access to filming the controversial figure is Hannah Rothschild, sister of Mandelson’s financier friend Nat Rothschild. So you know from the off that Mandelson hasn’t put himself into too harsh a firing line, but that doesn’t mean his guard is down; one wonders whether the man who mired himself in political spin even knows the real him from the one he’s trying to project, but seeing the man go about his business day-to-day does help reveal his character.
Rothschild spends the first half of election year with him, taking us behind the scenes as he tries to mount a last attempt at a Labour victory. We see hhis business side as he works out ways to soften Gordon Brown’s image with his team, as well as comforting the weary PM after the TV debates; we witness his giddier side as he taunts George Osborne; and we see something approaching tenderness as he describes his “love” for Tony Blair. It winds up with Labour’s loss, with Mandelson visibly deflated by the end of his major political career. Anyone hoping for tough questions about Mandelson’s past sleaze will be disappointed; this is an easygoing fly-on-the-wall approach, but it does help reveal the ‘Prince of Darkness’ as what he really is; not an evil genius, simply a savvy politician who enjoys muesli for breakfast and early nights, and who wasn’t afraid to adapt to Tory values in an effort to win back power for his party.