August book and film review

BOOKS

THE FIRE ENGINE THAT DISAPPEARED, by Maj Sjowell and Per Waloo. Volume five of the celebrated series of Swedish crime novels featuring the detective Martin Beck. In this offering, said by some to be the best of the ten, Martin Beck takes a back seat while one of his colleagues, Gunnar Larson  takes centre stage. Larson is an old fashioned cop, somewhere between inspector Regan of The Sweeney and DCI Gene Hunt from Life on Mars. He is tasked with solving the murder of a small time crim who works for a bigger organisation involved in stealing cars and exporting them. His methods seem unorthodox and even shocking to us today, though we should remember that the series was written in the 60s.

The strength of these books is their raw authenticity and in particular the emphasis on the private lives of the detectives, a feature which endeared the world to a certain Mr Wallander a generation later. Be in no doubt: crime fiction owes an enormous debt to the husband and wife team from Sweden, who wrote alternate chapters to create a seminal series of powerfully written tales of the dark side of life in Scandinavia.

PEER GYNT, by Henrik Ibsen. A young Norwegian man, somewhat of a fantasist (in the opening scene he spins a tall tale about himself which he has actually lifted from a famous Norse legend- his mother believes him but no one else does) is finally ejected from his village in disgrace and forced to find his way in the wider world. In so doing, he learns that a man must be himself and continue to become himself until his dying day. Along the way he encounters the Trolls, who would make him their king, though he must first have his eyes put out...

Written as an epic poem with a complex structure of rhyme and metre, most of which is unfortunately but inevitably lost in translation, nonetheless we find a marvellous tale of mystery and imagination- think Sinbad meets Baron von Munchausen. The project must have been too much for Ibsen, however. Subsequently he confined himself to prose, going on to produce some of the greatest plays ever to come out of northern Europe.

FILMS

WADJDA (2012) D- Haifa Al Mansour. In the Saudi city of Riyadh, an eleven year old girl dreams of owning a bicycle so she can race with her neighbour's son who already has one. Two problems: a) she hasn't got any cash, b) little girls aren't supposed to ride bicycles (something about if there was an accident a girl could lose her virginity). Then there's a competition at her school to memorise the Koran, with a cash prize for the winner and our heroine realises she could maybe raise the money by winning it. A landmark in cinema in that this is the first film ever to come out of KSA made by a woman. And a very fine film it is: funny, touching, deeply subversive (one wonders how it ever made it to the screen) and ultimately a triumph. Wonderful.

SALMON FISHING IN THE YEMEN (2011) D- Lasse Hallstrom. A western educated Yemeni sheik with a passion for fly fishing wants to build a dam in his country complete with a salmon run. Only problem: there aren't any salmon in the Yemen, and there never has been. Still, throw £50 million at the project plus the enthusiasm of salmon expert Ewan McGregor and it might just work...
A professionally made job in the style of  The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, this somehow fails to work, partly because of the major plot issues: for instance, at one point Emily Blunt's BF of just 3 weeks, (thought to have been killed in action but apparently not) is flown in for a tearful reunion which is in fact a government photo-op- even though he's apparently engaged in top secret work in Afghan) I mean, come on!

CLEANSKIN (2012) D- Hadi Hajaig. A personable young Asian Brit is radicalised and persuaded to take part in a suicide bombing of a visiting American diplomat. The problem for the secret service (headed up by a ruthless Sean Bean and his even tougher boss, Charlotte Rampling) is that he has no criminal record and completely off the security radar, hence the description "cleanskin" Can MI6 catch him in time? A tough, violent and worryingly authentic film (one of the deaths seems to have strong parallels with the strange demise of weapons expert Dr Kelly) which maintains its pace pretty well throughout.

UNTOUCHABLE (2011) D- Olivier Nakache and Eric Tolidano. An immensely wealthy but paraplegic French plutocrat interviews for a personal assistant. Against the odds, he gives the job to a streetwise black youth who manages to inject his boss with some of his own joie de vivre. One of those heart-warming, life affirming movies for which the French have become famous (see The Diving Bell and the Butterfly et al) and made with considerable style and verve. Creditable.

ALAN PARTRIDGE: ALPHA PAPA (2013) D- Declan Downey. A DJ at Radio North Norfolk (Colm Meaney),angry at being fired, takes the staff hostage. In a possibly unwise move, the police offer Alan up as a negotiator. Probably should have thought that one through...  Hilarious romp which maintains the standard we have come to expect from Steve Coogan's creation, which, along with Basil Fawlty has emerged as the greatest comedic character to come out of Britain in the last 60 years. Tremendous fun; also notable for the emergence from the shadows of his normally mouse-like assistant, Lynne.

MARIA FULL OF GRACE (2004) D- Joshua Marston. Maria is working in a flower plantation in Bogota for approximately nothing an hour, and is desperate to find a way out. Then it occurs to her to become a drug mule. She is immediately pulled over by customs at JFK , but they don't X ray her once they find she is pregnant and let her go. But the dealers in New York still want their packages and are quite prepared to slit her open to get them...
A strong movie, disturbing and frighteningly real. Highly watchable.

BUDRUS (documentary, 2009) D- Julia Bacha. Budrus is a Palestinian village unfortunately situated next to the Israeli separation wall. In 2009 the IDF decided they needed to move the wall for "security reasons", thereby placing an impenetrable barrier between them and the olive grove on which the village relies for its livelihood. Faced with no other option, the villagers decide to embark on a programme of non-violent resistance. Even the Israeli soldiers seem to recognise the injustice of what they are engaged in, but orders is orders... In a true-life story that closely parallels the fictional film  The Lemon Tree, somehow the director was permitted extensive access to the Israeli players as well as the Palestinians, and the result is an outstanding piece of documentary film making, demonstrating with devastating clarity the gross injustices perpetrated against the peoples of the West Bank on a daily basis. Stunning.