August book and film review

BOOKS

THE LAUGHING POLICEMAN, by Maj Stowell and Per Waloo. A bus veers off the road in central Stockholm. There are 8 people on board- and they've all been shot dead with a sub-machine gun. This is the 4th in the famous "Martin Beck" series, which set a new standard in gritty, but understated realism in police matters. There are more famous Swedish writers out there now, Nenning Mankel for instance, but I'm sure he would acknowledge a huge debt to his predecessors. Mankel's most notable writing trick, that of injecting a little domestic dimension into the narrative, has been lifted straight from these 10 books, where we are allowed brief, tantalising insights into the home life of the detectives tasked with solving hideous crimes against the person. If you like a crime thriller, you can't afford to ignore these classics of the genre.
THE DUKE'S CHILDREN, by Anthony Trollope. The last of the 6 "Palliser" novels, where the Duke of Omnium, having just lost his devoted wife, is given little time to grieve by his errant children. The youngest loses a fortune at the card table, while the elder son and his sister both want to marry commoners. Unthinkable! Trollope's books were, like Dickens, the soaps of their day, and they read as such, every chapter has a fresh crisis to be negotiated, every page is a marvel of prose writing. I read the first in the series ("Phineas Finn") last year, and I have negligently skipped to the last one this year. Maybe I'll find myself needing to fill in the gaps before too long.

FILMS

APOLLO 18 (2011) D- Gonzalo Lopez Gallego. NASA sends up another craft to the Moon, but in secret- why? The crew soon find out, to their horror... Shot in a grainy, jerky style reminiscent of "The Blair Witch Project", it has some powerful moments, but ultimately fails to engage us fully. But some of the shots of the astronauts on the lunar surface look remarkably authentic.
PUSS IN BOOTS (2011) D- Chris Miller. The further adventures of the character we grew to love in the Shrek movies. Shame then, that it lacks the skill of writing and direction that made those films great fun. This, I'm afraid, is just annoying. Don't bother.
AJAMI (2009) W-D-Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani. Ajami is an Arab town in Israel, and within its city limits, Arabs, Jews and Christians live out their complicated lives as best they can under those strange circumstances. A man is shot during a dispute over money and honour, and thereafter, in "Rashomon" style, the story is retold from several different perspectives. Splendid attempt at showing the in-built conflicts inherent in a place where 3 cultures collide.
HOWARD'S END (1992) D-Merchant/Ivory. A middle class family on its uppers become entangled with rich, upper class neighbours. By chance a working class couple also become involved in the skein of events. E.M. Forster was fascinated by the inner workings of class in early 20th century Britain, and the Merchant/ Ivory team does more than justice to the great man's book. The film is beautifully photographed: several shots look like paintings from Renoir or Pisarro, and the calibre of acting involved is extremely high. Recommended.
KILLERS (2011) D- Robert Lutekik. A very good-looking young assassin (hired by the CIA) is on mission in Nice when he falls for an even younger American beauty. Things get confused, you know... Oh dear, how many more assassin movies do we have to sit through before Hollywood is done with this wholly improbable genre? Ketherine Heigl (you may remember her as the ditsy doc in "Grey's Anatomy". You don't? Neither do I) is certainly decorative enough, and Ashton Kutcher puts on display much of what Demi must have found so attractive about him, but really. Enough with the hit man movies already! We're bored!
A SEPARATION (2011) D- Asgar Farhadi. An Iranian mum obtains, after great difficulty, a visa to enter the US and wants to go, but her husband's dad has Alzheimer's, and he doesn't feel he can leave him in the lurch. Hence the title of the film, which chronicles the tricky process of separation in an Islamic state controlled through Sharia law. A deeply moving and honestly made movie of life in Iran in the 21st century, which draws us in to its strange, faceless world and poses the question: is our system really any better? Film of the month, and possibly of the whole year. Terrific.