Blog 600! February 2013 book and film review

Welcome to my 600th blog- a sort of milestone if you will . When I get to 1000, let's have a party! By my calculations it should be after the Rio Olympics have come and gone, so don't hold your breath... In the meantime, please find below my 39th cultural overview of the previous month. Remember the entries are for books and films I have encountered for the first time.

BOOKS

THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. An aristocratic gentleman is found guilty of unspecified political crimes and sent to a prison in deepest Siberia. There he comes across some interesting characters... Dostoyevsky was himself imprisoned for printing "seditious" pamphlets, so the book conveys a vivid and sometimes horrific authenticity. The characters he is forced to rub shoulders with are described with such subtlety and insight this is rightly regarded as one the great man's finest works. For me though, his descriptions of the way dumb animals are treated in the gulag are the most beautiful: the prison horse, a goat, cats and an occasional dog, even an injured eagle who is cared for with infinite sensitivity by the inmates before it finally flies away without a backward glance at his protectors... An absolutely wonderful book.

A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME, by Anthony Powell.: VOLUME 1- A QUESTION OF UPBRINGING. A young man's passage through the slings and arrows of life in English society. I first came across this epic study (it is in 12volumes) of life and manners in upper-crust Britain between 1919 and 1970 as a radio adaptation in the late 1970s. That was so good I felt it obviated any need to read the book for myself, but nearly 40 years later I found I wanted to explore first-hand Powell's Proust-like semi-fictional account of his own life. To be fair, it isn't quite Proust (what is?) but his meticulous, almost dreamy style is addictive, at least for this reader.

ADTTMOT, by Anthony Powell- VOLUME 2: A BUYER'S MARKET. Having left school, our hero goes to the "University" (for some reason he doesn't reveal which one, though presumably it's either Oxon or Cantab) and then enters the world of work in a small publishing house. But he still can't shake off his schoolboy acquaintance, the inescapable Widmerpool.. Widmerpool, gauche and sometimes even bizarre, is rapidly turning into one of the great comic characters of British fiction, perhaps comparable to Apthorpe, that strange creation of Evelyn Waugh's who lights up his Sword of Honour trilogy. I'm reaching the point where, like being addicted to a TV soap, I can't wait to see what happens next ...

FILMS

ZEMLYA (Earth) (1930) D- Alexander Dovschenko. An everyday story of countryfolk on the Russian Steppe in the time of the great Soviet collectivisation of farms. Most are committed to the plan, but a few bad eggs are implacably opposed to change... One of the great triumphs of the socialist realist school of film making, and regarded by many as one of the greatest silent films ever made. Despite its intensely human touch, it was admired by Stalin, which explains why the film survives to the this day.The whole thing comes over like a Shlolokov novel come to life, and some of the scenes, for instance when the hero is stalked by an evil revisionist, are unforgettable.

THE MISSOURI BREAKS (1976) D- Arthur Penn. A cattle rancher is being targeted by rustlers (led by Jack Nicholson) and hires Marlon Brando (perhaps the last film in which he actually looked good) to track them down and kill them. You'd expect a superior product from a team as good as this, and despite (or even because of?) Brando's highly idiosyncratic performance, we are not disappointed.

AVENGERS ASSEMBLE (2012) D- Joss Whedon. A band of superheros band together to defeat the forces of darkness. Or something like that. Really I stopped caring after
 about ten minutes when I realised that what this film is about is getting all the fantasy characters we have seen in movies over the past few years and squeezing them together in a vehicle the producers must have believed to be irresistible to the movie-going public. You can imagine the focus-group people posing the question: "OK, if we put all the superheros together in one movie, how would that be?" and finding a surprising number of responders going "Yeah! That sounds good" The rest is nonsense. The first of these "Avengers" movies (forget Steed and Mrs Peel; they won't help you here|) was apparently a wow at the box office, so a sequel was inevitable. But even with the estimable Joss Whedon at the helm, and special effects to beat the band, this remains a load of inconsequential crap. Give me a break!

BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD (2012) D- Benh Zeitlin. A six year old girl living in the impoverished Mississippi Bayous learns about the threat to her home posed by global warming. Then Hurricane Katrina arrives, and all her primeval fears are confirmed... Five year old Quenzhani Wallis had to lie about her age to get an audition for her part, but she still managed to beat off 4000 other candidates. The decision to cast her was inspired however: it is one of the greatest acting performances by a child I have ever seen, although the film itself lacks coherence and suffers from poor editing.

THE HAIRDRESSER'S HUSBAND (France) (1990) D- Patrice Leconte. A somewhat eccentric young man falls hopelessly in love with a hairdresser. Luckily for him she does likewise... Much heralded at the time (it won the Oscar for best foreign language movie), but I'm afraid I found it contained much of the kind of self indulgent French style which I find so annoying. I just wanted to slap the main protagonist (Jean Rochefort) and tell him to get a life.

LIGHTS IN THE DUST (Finland) (2006) D- Aki Kaurismaki. An unassuming security guard is befriended by a glamorous female, but it's a sham. Really she is part of a gang planning a jewel heist. A thoughtful and extremely skillful portrayal of life at ground level in a bleak and unforgiving Helsinki. Highly watchable.

A CAT IN PARIS (France) (20010) D- Jean-Loup Felicioli and Alain Gagnol. A young girl's cat likes to go out at night. She determines to find out where he goes, and discovers he is in league with a cat- burglar. But there are much worse characters to be found on the dark alleys of Paris than him...With art direction making the characters seem as if they were drawn by Modigliani or Matisse, and a knowing feel that is unusual for a children's film, I found this absorbing and even gripping at times. Your kid will like this, and you too, I suspect.

OFFICE SPACE (1999) D- Mike Judge. A young man stuck in a boring office job works out a way to add a few zeros to his pay check. Meanwhile he falls for a waitress (Jennifer Aniston- who wouldn't?). Mike Judge had already established himself with animations like Beavis and Butthead  and King of the Hill and his first foray into proper features is quite worthy, without being exceptional in any way.

LA VIE EN ROSE (Fr) (2007) D- Olivier Dehan. On the streets of fin de siecle Paris, a young girl comes to realise that her voice may be her fortune... This now justifiably famous and much celebrated biopic of Edith Piaf is indeed a stunningly good piece of movie making. Marion Cotillard made history when she secured the Oscar for best performance by a woman- the first time it had ever been awarded to an actress speaking a language other than English. It is a decision hard to challenge, in view of the depth and power of her portrayal of the little Sparrow.

TEETH (2007) W-D- Mitchell Lichtenstein. A pretty young girl pledges her virginity to the "cause of purity", but there are many young lads willing to help her break her pledge. They'd better look out though: those teeth are sharp... An unconsidered masterpiece, with an excellent performance from the dentate one (Jess Weixler). I have Mark Kermode to thank for alerting me to this little shocker which almost got under the radar. Now you can catch it too. Do so, if you like an unusaul and well made horror flick.