Face (1997)Antonia Bird is one of the great unsung British directors of the 1990s and 2000s. Beginning her career in the mid 1980s directing television, she brought a refreshing edge to crime stories in particular, including episodes of Inspector Morse and Cracker. Making the jump to feature films, Bird’s profile quickly rose, with films such as her 1994 drama of the cloth Priest and the 1999 historical western horror Ravenous. But it’s her hard-as-nails 1997 working-class thriller Face that saw her reach her creative peak.
Face seems at first a straightforward heist film. Dave (Ray Winstone) and Ray (Robert Carlyle) are putting together a job to rob a depot. Along with Julian (Phil Davis), Stevie (Steven Waddington) and Jason (Damon Albarn), they plan the robbery and carry it out spectacularly. However, aside from the take being much smaller than expected, strange things begin to happen. Dave is attacked and his money is stolen. Soon the five begin to suspect one another of betraying the group for a bigger take of the cash, especially when all of their own cuts are individually robbed.
When the bodies start piling up, the gang think they’ve been had by other villains. But, with the law getting closer – and their friends and relatives, including Ray’s girlfriend Connie (Lena Headey), caught in the crossfire – will any of them survive to spend what remains of the money?
Face is typical of 1990s British cinema in that it was unafraid to get out into the streets of London and film. Virtually every shot and scene was filmed on location, clocking a vast and diverse range of settings across the capital, from upmarket suburbia to its downtrodden backstreets and council estates.
Here are five locations from Face as they look today.
- Spoiler warning: This article gives away plot details.
Dave’s house
Considering Dave’s general life of villainy, he’s certainly done well for himself. During the sequence in which each of the men is picked up before the job, we see Dave’s house in Highgate. Bird sets the scene with a shot of the car driving up Southwood Avenue.
The car parks up outside Dave’s house. The house is 32 Southwood Lawn Road. This being Highgate, it’s little changed.
Bird then films a shot of Dave coming out of his rather quaint front garden, again unchanged.
After bumping into Dave’s daughter Sarah (Christine Tremarco) and her slimy boyfriend Chris (Andrew Tiernan), they chuck their gear in the boot and head off. Bird concludes the scene by showing a longer shot of Southwood Lawn Road.
The safe house
Before the robbery, the men meet at a safe house where they store all of their equipment and weapons. We first see this location when the men meet there. They walk up Temple Street in Bethnal Green, marked by the café on the corner where it meets Emma Street. The café is still there today.
The men turn onto Coate Street which looks distinctly east London-ish thanks to its evocative industrial brick walls. However, the wall with the ‘Porn Stinks’ graffiti has since been knocked down and a new modern block has replaced it.
The men finally make their way into the safe house, an abandoned warehouse where they have the whole floor to organise and plan. The building is Coate House and is now a block of office rental spaces.
Julian’s flat
Bird chooses a variety of buildings for each of her main characters to live in, adding an interesting layer of detail that represents the differing characteristics and circumstances of each man. Julian, in particular, lives in a very distinctive location: Dagmar Court on the Isle of Dogs.
We see the location throughout the film, especially when the men pay a visit to Julian believing he has stolen their money. We see the main road running through the estate when Dave and Stevie follow Ray and Julian up the steps further into the location.
The pair can’t be followed by car, so the two back-up men follow on foot. Today, the steps are actually clearer than they were at the time of filming, with half the row closed at the time.
Later on when they realise that it isn’t Julian who’s taken their money, the men come back out of the block. In the original shot, the first buildings of the southern end of Canary Wharf can be seen being built alongside the cranes that are building them. Of course, the cranes have been busy in the intervening years and the skyline now looks more akin to one seen in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982).
As they leave in search of their stolen money, they walk through the slight underpass of the building heading back towards Dave’s car. The location is exactly as it was.
The shootout
The gang’s suspicions soon move to Jason, and the four other men pay a visit to his house in search of the loot. Jason’s house is in Muswell Hill. We first see the area as Dave pulls up in the car. The road they’re initially on is Hillfield Park.
Ray and Julian make their way to the back of the house in the upmarket area. This is Hillfield Park Mews, which is the backstreet of the main road through Muswell Hill.
Finding Jason dead and the police on their tails, the men scarper from the house in Muswell Hill. However, in terms of geography, they make a fantastically swift jump to Harringay, specifically the narrow alley of Harringay Passage. The film’s incredible shootout takes place in the surrounding streets, coming out on Mattison Road when they escape the alley.
Betrayal
Meeting at night on a footbridge, the men finally find out who betrayed them. The bridge is off Cheshire Street, not far from Brick Lane. The scene begins with this shot of Ray walking up the steps from Cheshire Street itself.
He sees the other three arguing further along the bridge. Today the crossing has changed and is now awash with multicoloured graffiti.
After finally being caught out, Dave pulls a shooter and makes a dash for it down the steps on the other side of the bridge. The steps are again almost unrecognisable with their new makeshift paint job.
The men finally catch up with Dave under the bridge on Fleet Street Hill. The shot is marked by the recognisable stained glass window of St Anne’s Roman Catholic Church lit up in the background.
References
Face screens as part of the Acting Hard season at BFI Southbank in September.
