Reck­on­ing with the ghoul­ish visu­al spec­ta­cle of the Queen’s funeral

The State Funer­al of Her Majesty Queen Eliz­a­beth II screened at 130 Vue and Cur­zon cin­e­mas across the UK, cat­e­gorised as a 300-minute doc­u­men­tary. The posthu­mous inter­sec­tion of QE2 with my most beloved art­form felt like an oppor­tu­ni­ty to parse mean­ing out of an insti­tu­tion, The Roy­al Fam­i­ly, that makes me feel like an out­sider in my own country.

In a turn of events that jour­ney­men doc­u­men­tar­i­ans can only dream of, by the time I tried to book a seat, they were all sold out, bar two dis­abled spots at Cur­zon Knutsford. So I streamed the doc­u­men­tary from home in what would rank among the spook­i­est view­ing expe­ri­ences of my life. More fright­en­ing than The Blair Witch Project.

The major ques­tions I had going in were: Will we learn any­thing about Eliz­a­beth Wind­sor? Are pub­lic eulo­gies ever hon­est? Who will wear the best hat?

Strange and loaded images set the scene as young sol­diers hoofed the cof­fin bear­ing the mor­tal remains of Her Majesty onto their shoul­ders. One gri­maced – with emo­tion? Or with effort? In Ken­neth Lonergan’s Man­ches­ter by the Sea, a scene of a body being tak­en into an ambu­lance is turned into a trag­ic farce as para­medics strug­gle to push the stretch­er inside the ambu­lance. Were these name­less extras haunt­ed by the life­long noto­ri­ety that would fol­low if they dropped Her Maj?

The mood was eerie as the parade bear­ers joined a crisply chore­o­graphed unit of nat­ty-look­ing Naval offi­cers, while the rem­nants of the Roy­al fam­i­ly kept up the rear. Cen­tral Lon­don was emp­ty save for this grave pro­ces­sion. Sure­ly this was a his­tor­i­cal re-enact­ment, but no, this was a real-time event in a city oth­er­wise shut down. A reboot of 28 Days Lat­er where zom­bies wear mil­i­tary uni­forms and march in formation.

Soar­ing visu­al highs were achieved as the funer­al parade moved to West­min­ster Abbey where rov­ing cam­eras cap­tured every nook and cran­ny of this 1062-year-old Goth­ic church. An aer­i­al cam­era shot the con­gre­ga­tion from above, before slow­ly push­ing down into the scene. Hat-tip to the play­ful edi­tor who trad­ed on fade tran­si­tions to cre­ate mon­tages of the space. No light­ing tricks were need­ed as sun­light streamed in through the stained glass win­dows, ele­vat­ing the spec­tre of mor­tal­i­ty, as beau­ty always does.

The speech­es began with Patri­cia Scot­land QC offer­ing an ear­ly entry into the ​‘impres­sive hats’ col­umn with a sen­sa­tion­al­ly large bow and a brim that almost cov­ered her eyes. She was fol­lowed by our new Prime Min­is­ter, Liz Truss, wear­ing a sort of fas­ci­na­tor that my col­league, Han­nah Strong, described as ​“Sad. Draped like a bit of ham on melon.”

Jesus Christ was quick­ly estab­lished as the guest of hon­our – receiv­ing more name checks than the dear depart­ed –and only became more dom­i­nant as an inter­change­able med­ley of Bish­ops, Deans and Rev­erends, used the occa­sion to mount a Chris­tian­i­ty broad­side. Fre­quent cut-aways to the cof­fin plant­ed the ques­tion of what she would have made of this, while fre­quent cut-aways to her mute fam­i­ly under­lined the fact that they are sim­ply the most impor­tant room meat, even in grief, duti­ful­ly car­ry­ing off roles in place since Hen­ry VIII decid­ed that the monarch would also be the Supreme Gov­er­nor of the Church of England.

There was a brief spike in inter­est as the cam­era moved out­side the Abbey where mourn­ers from the gen­er­al pub­lic griev­ed behind met­al fences lined by police offi­cers. This image evoked the para­dox of being a mem­ber of the pub­lic obsessed with the roy­als. You are encour­aged to feel with them, just don’t come too close.

The MVPs, the young sol­diers, once again heft­ed the cof­fin up onto their shoul­ders, before slid­ing it onto a 123-year-old gun car­riage to be the rolling cen­tre­piece of a som­bre match from West­min­ster Abbey to Hyde Park’s Welling­ton Arch. The cof­fin was dressed to the nines, draped in a Sov­er­eign flag, and topped off with a crown, orb and scep­tre. One must won­der, was there some kind of adhe­sive in place to stop them slid­ing off?

Oh the march, how it last­ed. There were flash­es of spec­ta­cle val­ue to the colour­ful mosa­ic cre­at­ed by naval offi­cers in blue, beefeaters in red, and the most aus­tere brass band in the world, all led by the Cana­di­an mount­ed police, with rep­re­sen­ta­tives present from all Com­mon­wealth coun­tries (we still have those!). While the rep­e­ti­tion of the same grand wide shots were used to dimin­ish­ing returns, there was a hyp­not­ic qual­i­ty to the com­bi­na­tion of monot­o­ny and grandeur, like watch­ing some­one shuf­fle a deck of gold-leaf cards for all eternity.

A nose­dive into man­ic fawn­ing began as the BBC com­men­tary min­gled with stu­dio inter­views and street vox pops. The com­men­tari­at swooned in tooth­less, spine­less analy­sis. ​“She vis­it­ed the peo­ple who need­ed vis­it­ing and she thanked the peo­ple who need­ed thank­ing,” was one sin­cere obser­va­tion. ​“Roy­al frot­tage” Richard Sey­mour called it.

Verite focus on events of the day ensured that notable con­tro­ver­sies from her reign – the colo­nial­ism and impe­r­i­al pil­lag­ing – were absent from the purview of the cov­er­age. This was, per­haps, inevitable, yet more pal­pa­bly unpleas­ant was the empti­ness to almost all the trib­utes from pun­dits who tore apart every cos­met­ic detail while avoid­ing say­ing any­thing of sub­stance. Mad­ness was descend­ing, like the fog in The Fog.

A tee­ny glimpse of per­son­al­i­ty arose thanks to a few mav­er­icks intent on speak­ing about our ex-Queen in non-bland terms. An old mil­i­tary friend spoke vivid­ly about her life­long love of hors­es and ponies, while Mau­reen Lip­man recalled ​“a mod­est and shy per­son in the skin of some­one in charge of every­thing”. Even the unsur­pris­ing fact of King Charles look­ing dev­as­tat­ed felt thrilling­ly sub­ver­sive, with his nat­ur­al emo­tion act­ing as a flare above a sea of ric­tus faces. 

After Hyde Park, the cof­fin was trans­ferred to a hearse dri­ven in a motor­cade to Wind­sor, where­upon there was anoth­er round of somber march­ing. By now, I was fever­ish. The com­men­ta­tor revealed that the march down the apt­ly-named Long Walk would last anoth­er hour before they reached Wind­sor Cas­tle. I told myself I could duck out for a cleans­ing bath, mut­ter­ing ​“they will still be march­ing on my return”. And they were.

Things took a turn for the creepy at the cer­e­mo­ny at St George’s Chapel, as men passed around the orb and spec­tre and a voice spoke of ​“the orb… the globe of the world…” and ​“the most noble order of the garter”. This archa­ic cer­e­mo­ni­al atmos­phere was call­ing to mind the dev­il­ry of The Omen and Sus­piria. I became afear’d that in watch­ing this I had been brain­washed and would march into the night to offer myself as a human sac­ri­fice to a local fief.

The film­mak­ers were com­plic­it in the ill effects I was expe­ri­enc­ing from this doc­u­men­tary beamed out to bil­lions. Why was there no rigour to the fram­ing? QE2 ruled our coun­try for 70 years and here is an a‑historical, a‑social void where jour­nal­ists didn’t pro­vide con­text, but instead flo­ral offer­ings with their words. I began to have the queasy feel­ing that I was watch­ing state pro­pa­gan­da of the most insid­i­ous kind. By 5pm I did not feel like I had watched cin­e­ma, more like what Alex is forced to endure as a form of men­tal reha­bil­i­ta­tion at the end of A Clock­work Orange.

It took a day of Roy­al detox­ing but I man­aged to parse some mean­ing out of the insti­tu­tion that makes me feel like an out­sider in my own coun­try. Even now, writ­ing this, my mind is at war with itself. I feel like a trea­so­nous, insen­si­tive mon­ster. Nev­er mind that she lived com­fort­ably until the grand old age of 96 and we all have to go some­times. Nev­er mind that a state funer­al is not a nor­mal funeral.

There is some­thing in the water here that makes peo­ple feel like say­ing the wrong thing at the wrong time is such a grave offence that free­dom of expres­sion is sim­ply not worth the risk. It is an ambi­ent form of oppres­sion. No one has to explic­it­ly threat­en us with hang­ing, like in days of yore, because we will police our­selves and each oth­er, sti­fling ratio­nal obser­va­tion by mak­ing peo­ple deeply ashamed of impropriety.

This thing in the water has caused untold harm. I feel noth­ing less than dread when I expe­ri­ence it in a look, or a tone, or a 300-minute funer­al doc­u­men­tary where the deceased is over­shad­owed by all the agen­cies pros­trat­ing them­selves on her grave.