Together

Made with the support of the BFI’s Experimental Film Fund and set against the backdrop of the still bomb-damaged East End of London, Together follows the existence of two deaf-mute dock workers, played by Eduardo Paolozzi and Michael Andrews. Threatened by the children who play in the ruins, alienated from their fellow city-dwellers, and unable to communicate with their landlord’s family, they are a co-dependent duo, living a repetitive routine: work, market, pub, home…, until one day one of them ventures out alone for the first time and at a funfair sees a mysterious dancer played by Vali Myers. Her presence changes the relationship between the two men, and the bond between them is terminally severed at the film’s end.
Lorenza Mazzetti used the ruined parts of London to reflect a fractured mental landscape, crafting a poetic depiction of a post-war London populated by unruly children, sparse bedsits and harsh realities. Together debuted in the first Free Cinema programme, at the National Film Theatre in London in 1956, alongside the documentary films O Dreamland by Lindsay Anderson (who helped to edit Together), and Momma Don’t Allow by Karel Reisz and Tony Richardson.