A familiar narrative device is used that renders the Northern Irish as alien; 'the other' in a film set in Northern Ireland: the opening sequence has a room of English civil rights campaigners looking out their window at an Orange Order march and decrying the worng-headed oddness of this. This is a film by an English film-maker which rather sidelines the Northern Irish. If you read on you'll also find reference to Hennebelle's 'Z theory' which argues that seemingly counter-hegemonic films can be conservative or normative by presenting the 'one rotten apple' line; it is not the institution that is bad, there are just some 'roten apples' within that barrel.
Hardly surprising that Loach's stern lecture on Northern Ireland kicked up a storm of controversy. The Cannes jury prize-winner tells the story of Brian Cox's Stalker-esque CID man investigating the murder in Belfast of American civil rights campaigner Brad Dourif, which reveals skeletons in CIA and British Intelligence cupboards - plots to undermine the Wilson and Heath governments, that sort of thing. Cox is at his pugnacious best and is assisted by Frances McDormand as the dead man's fiancée. But the real punch is supplied by Jim Allen's uncompromising script, based on, he claimed, documented truths.(Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2004/jan/09/tvandradio.television)
We'll view this in full, looking particularly at aspects which suggest that even within radical, counter-hegemonic films such as this 'Britishness' is represented through a very anglocentric prism, but also at the issue of glamour (or lack of it) compared to typical Hollywood output.
Use the following links to read up on this film, which struggled to get a release at the time. You could also consider looking into The Wind That Shook the Barley (see also detailed suite101 feature), a more recent Loach movie (which is in the Library), which again proved highly controversial and provided a seemingly critical representation of Britishness, as a useful comparison. Several of the links provided suggest further useful films to consider. With some of these, if you only want to read the content on Hidden Agenda, use the search function to look for use of the word 'hidden' (Ctrl + F on a PC).
Trailer + link to review - http://film-movie-trailers.blogspot.com/2008/05/hidden-agenda-movie-trailer-ken-loach.html Brief wiki on Loach - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Loach
Brief wiki on the film - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_Agenda_%281990_film%29
FilmReference.com on Loach, including points on HA - http://www.filmreference.com/Directors-Ku-Lu/Loach-Ken.html
Museum.tv brief outline of Loach - http://www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=loachken
Detailed review by Bob Carroll - http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/cteq/03/28/hidden_agenda.html
Part of BFI's guide to Loach - http://www.bfi.org.uk/features/kenloach/agenda.html
WorldFilms.com overview of Loach - http://www.1worldfilms.com/kenloach.htm
IMDB entry - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099768/
Detailed review of HA as a 'conspiracy thriller' [Jump Cut] - http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC38folder/HiddenAgenda-JFK.html
Answers.com brief overview and comparable films - http://www.answers.com/topic/hidden-agenda-game-1
Interview about Loach's problems with censorship in the 80s - http://www.timeout.com/film/features/show-feature/3416/ken-loach-interview.html
Irish Film & TV Research Online overview (v detailed plot summary + further readings) - http://www.tcd.ie/irishfilm/showfilm.php?fid=57630
NY Times review - http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9C0CE0DB143FF932A15752C1A966958260
RottenTomatoes list of reviews - http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1032750-hidden_agenda/
AllMovie.com brief review - http://www.allmovie.com/work/hidden-agenda-22318/review
TimeOut Ny brief review - http://www.timeout.com/film/newyork/reviews/71997/Hidden_Agenda.html
Suite 101's '10 Best Films About the Troubles in NI' feature - http://classic-film-dramas.suite101.com/article.cfm/10_best_films_with_the_troubles_as_a_theme
As Britain emerged from the spell that Thatcher had put on it, I and perhaps some other film makers, felt very dissatisfied with ourselves. We felt we hadn't really put on the screen the appalling cost in human misery that aggressive Thatcherite politics had brought on everybody. We should have made films in the early 80s that really showed what was happening, but I know that I didn't. I think the last few years have been an attempt to remedy that.
Source: "Scenes from the class war: Ken Loach and socialist cinema" at http://www.isj1text.ble.org.uk/pubs/isj83/newsinger.htm
There are of course many useful articles over at The Guardian... The following mainly highlight The Wind That Shakes the Barley, comparing the generally hostile reception (remember Noam Chomsky's flak theory ... one of his 'five filters'?):Malachi O'Doherty hears how the IRA men and the loyalists rate the films they have inspired - http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2006/aug/25/1
'A nation of amnesiacs' Paul Donovan - http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006/jun/26/doalltheflagwaverssuffer
Mark Kermode: 'Ken Loach's latest film is altogether more subtle than his predictably bilious critics would like you to know' - http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2006/jun/25/kenloach.drama
It won the Palme d'Or at Cannes - but was savaged here. Ken Loach tells Stuart Jeffries what he thinks of critics of his film about Irish republicanism - http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2006/jun/16/1
Peter Bradshaw's review - http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2006/jun/23/3
A counter-view: Ken Loach is being predictable and morally lazy in making yet another sympathetic portrayal of Irish republicanism - http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006/jun/06/whataboutmakingblackandta
BrightLightsFilm Journal's Loach interview - http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/56/kenloachiv.php
The link to WT... - http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2001/apr/08/features
Ditto the Daily Ireland feature - http://www.indymedia.ie/article/76396 (an extract follows)
Mr Loach also drew parallels between what was depicted in the film and the current occupation of Iraq.
A series of vitriolic attacks on the director by several right-wing tabloids followed. The Sun said the film had a plot “designed to drag the reputation of our nation through the mud”.
“It portrays British soldiers as trigger-happy mercenaries hooked on torture, burning cottages for kicks and using pliers to rip out the toenails of innocent Irish victims.
“At the same time, cold-blooded republican butchers star as figures of heroic bravery,” wrote columnist Harry MacAdam.
The Independent said the film’s graphic depiction of the Black and Tans had “come across like a recruiting campaign for the IRA”.
Ruth Dudley Edwards, writing in the Daily Mail, accused the director of contriving to portray the “British as sadists and the Irish as romantic, idealistic resistance fighters” to suit a political agenda.
Mr Loach said the criticism had not once challenged the veracity of the film.
And if you really want more, there's a chapter from the book (due to be added to the Library shortly) Fires Were Started: British Cinema and Thatcherism at http://www.centreforcinemastudies.com/articles/article_mcilroy_repression.pdf
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UPDATE: 8.3.2010
Loach's HA proved highly contentious, attempting to present a detailed conspiracy theory which many felt lacked credibility (and Hennebelle's ''Z' Movie' label can be applied to, in that it personalised the flaws in a political system, and sought to encourage the exchanging of one elite group for another rather than altering the system supposedly under scrutiny). More recent docudramas (Loach's film is more of a thriller than a docudrama) have also scooped up awards ... and flak. The following trailers of Paul Greengrass-directed films are two prime examples:
Bloody Sunday
Omagh
(BS was an ITV-backed production, Omagh a C4-backed production)
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