May Morning (1970) User Reviews

Filming 'May Morning'

[deane-tony · 5/10 · 25 September 2008]

I was a student at Oxford when the film was made and, like a good many others, worked on it as an extra. The 'Carnaby Street' comment above is apt: most of us rather dressed up for the occasion- I wore a blue chiffon scarf I wouldn't have been seen dead in usually. The 'dons' were actually recruited from the Oxford dole queue but the students are real enough, and the college servant in the 'sconce' scene was the legendary Bill Pill, a real college servant from, I think, Balliol.

As usual, those familiar with Oxford will be surprised by the routes people seem to take. Valerio, for instance, is seen driving up the High Street towards Carfax, in the next shot going the other way past Magdalen College, apparently en route to the Trout Inn, which was on a completely different road out of the city.

The image of Oxford as a place of Upper Class Bullies and harassed working class youths, derived I suppose from the collected works of Evelyn Waugh, was already out of date when the film was made. (It was actually shot in the summer of 1969, definitely not on or before May morning.) I was myself a grammar school boy on a scholarship and never experienced anything of the sort.

Unexpectedly wide scope

[philosopherjack · 31 December 2021]

For much of its length, Ugo Liberatore's May Morning seems largely anthropological in intent, closely observing the architecture, social texture and embalmed oddities of Oxford University, apparently boundlessly fascinated with the rowing and the punting and the dining halls, with the contrasts between the very proper dons (that's what they call the teachers) and fashion-channeling students, with such rituals as the "sconce," in which a social wrongdoer is punished by being made to drink a large amount of ale. The film's outsider perspective, embodied in an Italian protagonist, Valerio, who struggles to fit in, is illuminating up to a point, although the fact of many of the actors being dubbed into English introduces a counter-productive sense of distancing. It's not just the central presence of Jane Birkin (playing Flora Finlake, a student who happens also to be the daughter of Valerio's tutor) that suggests Antonioni's lurking influence (although given that Zabriskie Point was released a little later, the occasional similarities in that regard must be coincidental); the "swinging" elements become more prominent as the film goes on, with actions dictated by alcohol and anger and horniness, ultimately feeling like a rather disembodied, twisted reverie. Liberatore certainly takes pains to emphasize the institution's repressed aspects, having a character observe that dons were traditionally prevented from marrying, and throwing plenty of baggage into the Finlake household; Valerio is presented as being rather supercilious and academically lazy, but his main transgression is simply his exotic otherness and its threat to cozy continuity, attributes which ultimately mark him as a suitable "sacrificial victim" (as the film's poster put it). In that respect, May Morning's unexpectedly wide scope also encompasses links to the later Wicker Man and other localized, ceremonial horrors (interesting that the University's term for expulsion is "rustication"); other aspects though, such as the prominence of the Tremeloes on the soundtrack, seem now to maroon it back in time.

Pointless sadism

[vyto34 · 2/10 · 17 August 2003]

Jane Birkin is attractive and the set decorator created a very colorful Carnaby-Street-in-Oxford. But the only theme of this flick is sadism and this is not exactly uplifting. The characters are 2-dimensional cardboard cutouts and no subtlety is to be found.

A truly brilliant piece of work.

[Cranstonman · 10/10 · 25 April 2002]

An amazing film, not so much forgotten,as never noticed in the first place. It captures the time perfectly, Oxford has never looked as good on film. Orano is very good as the out of place Italian student, Birkin is simply lovely, and John Steiner is magnificent as the smug Roderick, the establishment face of university life. See it now.

Very memorable

[lazarillo · 21 July 2008]

You may or may not like this movie, but you definitely won't forget it. It's an Italian film, but shot on location at Oxford University with the dialogue synced British-style rather than dubbed like with most Italian films. It focuses on the the brutal class relations and the storied May Day rituals at the world's most prestigious university. The protagonist (Alessandro Oranio) is a working-class Italian student attending Oxford on a rowing scholarship and trying to fit in among his aristocratic British peers in an absolutely unforgiving environment of rarefied class privilege. He meets and gets severely teased by the daughter (Jane Birkin)of one of the Oxford "dons" who tutors him. The end, which takes place at the drunken May Day celebration, is absolutely brutal (albeit also pretty unmotivated). It'll definitely stay with you for a long time afterwords.

The best part of this movie is the two leads. I always had Alessandro Oranio pegged as a talentless pretty-boy (he was once married to Ornella Muti--I always figured, because she was one on the few women in Italy actually prettier than he was). But after seeing this and his very first movie with Muti,"The Most Beautiful Wife", I've really had to reevaluate my initial judgment. He is especially impressive here, acting in what is obviously his second language. As for Jane Birkin--well, what can you say about Jane Birkin? She is one of my all time favorite British actresses. She was a singer and actress who was genuinely talented at both. She had an incredible body which she displayed in practically every role (she supposedly has the first ever full-frontal nude scene in a mainstream movie in Michelangelo Antonioni's "Blow-up"). And as icing on the cake, she later gave birth to Charlotte Gainsboug, another stunning beauty and one of my favorite FRENCH actresses.

Both actors are very good here and their convincing performances really flesh out what are some pretty opaque characters. I have to wonder though what people at Oxford thought of this movie. (Its portrayal of Oxford undergrads makes the pagans in "The Wicker Man" seem positively genteel and civilized). Definitely recommended though.

soon gets under the skin

[christopher-underwood · 8/10 · 28 February 2014]

Most impressive film from Ugo Liberatore. Made two years after, The Sex of Angels, this is particularly interesting because it is a film made in 1970, in Oxford by an Italian. Alessio Orano is the male lead and Jane Birkin the female and even money on who is the prettiest. Looks aside Orano is excellent as the politically aware Italian student enrolled at Oxford and disillusioned from the start. he cannot see why whilst the rest of Europe is in turmoil, questioning everything, why the mighty college seems intent to carry on with its weird and bullying ways. The film begins leisurely but soon gets under the skin. The director has a fine eye for visuals and a keen interest in human behaviour helping to make this a most powerful movie, relevant, even now, 45 years on. Oh and, yes, Birkin does look wonderful throughout, even if we are not entirely sympathetic towards her as this descends from hippy tunes and green fields to corruption, violence and worse.