November 2014 book and film review

BOOKS


FRAMLEY PARSONAGE, by Anthony Trollope. A young vicar is favoured by the local dowager baroness, but he is tempted to join the fast set surrounding the Duke of Omnium (whom the baroness hates). While staying at the Duke's ancestral home he is prevailed upon by an unscrupulous M.P. to lend money- more than he can afford to say good-bye to- which naturally, as always seems to happen in Trollope novels, he does. Faced with public disgrace when he cannot honour the loan (which has been sold on) he is forced to rely on the good graces of the baroness's eldest son- but then falls out with him. What a to do!


Cited by John Major as his favourite book, this is a characteristic romp through the mores and sensibilities of the middle and upper classes of rural England in the middle of the 19th century. All human life is here as usual: the fast-living M.P. who has to sell his ancient seat to pay mounting debts, a battle of wills between opposing members of the aristocracy, charming, unsophisticated girls coming up from the country and wood by the scion of the manner (who may or may not be a bad egg) and a censorious priest who would rather he and his children starve than accept charity from anyone, because people of means must be evil by definition. My wife has read Trollope's entire canon of over 20 books and pronounced this one of her favourites, hence my decision to go for number 4 in the series of 6 "Barchester chronicles". Truth to tell, I had so much fun with it I'm wishing I had started at number 1. Never mind, there's still time to put that right...


  


TEN DAYS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD, by John Reed. In Russia during the momentous days of early November 1917 and the birth of the Russian Revolution, an American writer and committed socialist is there to record the events for posterity. What emerges is one of the greatest pieces of journalism ever written; equal in stature say, to William Russell's dispatches to the Times on the Crimean War or Bernstein and Woodward's famous coverage of the Watergate scandal.


The detail is meticulously recorded, the personalities of the big players dissected minutely. Two giant figures emerge: Lenin, not a figure of great personal charisma but with an incredible ability to explain complex political theory in a way that even the most illiterate peasant could relate to, and Trotsky, a man with truly huge personal character who with a few words could galvanise an exhausted, demoralised mob to grab their weapons and run to man the barricades. Interestingly, Uncle Joe Stalin is mentioned just twice and then only briefly. It wasn't until 1924 and the death of Lenin that he began to come to the fore.


The rest is history, and not very pleasant history at that. But John Reed would not live to see all that. He was dead from typhus within a year of the great revolution. But his book remains as his sublime legacy, a book full of tiny but telling detail, like the day when the first snow of Winter begins to fall, lightening everyone's mood considerably. Reed doesn't understand at first, but soon realises: ice and snow are a lot better than mud and rain...  Then there is the time during a crowded meeting in a literally smoke-filled room when one delegate stands up and declares:
"Comrades! No one can breathe in here because of the smoke!".  A quick vote is taken, and a motion to ban smoking during meetings is passed unanimously. But within minutes everyone is smoking again, and just as frantically as ever...


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN, by Sir Walter Scott. In mid-18th century Edinburgh, a young girl is sentenced to death for child murder- this despite the fact no child's body has been found. No matter, the law of the time did not require one. Her older sister decides to travel to London to petition the King for clemency- an extremely hazardous journey in those days. But she has two pieces of paper in her pocket which may assist her. The first is written by no lesser figure than the late Duke of Argyle, who wrote a testimonial for the girl's grandfather after he had saved the duke's life during a pitched battle some fifty years before. The other is a safe conduct pass penned by one of Scotland's most notorious felons. Even so, it seems an almost impossible mission. However in Jeannie we have a heroine of unsurpassed determination. If anyone can do it, she can...


We are off to spend four days in Edinburgh shortly, so it seemed only fitting to explore for the first time Scotland's most famous writer, and to read one that is actually set in that great city. Scott was fabulously successful in his day, not just in the United Kingdom but in Europe and America too. A kind of forerunner to Dickens, his character studies are full of wit and insight, and his plots race along like a horse and carriage at full speed. Much of the dialogue in Heart of Midlothian is in what is called "lowland Scots" a dialect which is difficult to understand at first, though one soon gets to grips with it. Fascinating stuff.


THE WASTE LAND, by T.S. Eliot. First published in 1922, this poem of just 434 lines (it covers just seventeen pages of text in my edition of Eliot's poems) was almost immediately accepted as one of the greatest poems ever written in the English language. The poem draws on sacred Hindu and Buddhist texts, as well as the writings of figures like St Augustine of Hippo, and, critically, as Eliot himself acknowledges in the first of his explanatory notes, Sir  Charles Frazer's seminal book  The Golden Bough, which attempts, apparently for the first time, to take an anthropological view of religion and spirituality. Frazer's view is that cultures proceed from magic, to religion, and finally to science as they attempt to understand the world around them, and Eliot's poem likewise might be understood as a majestic attempt to shake some sense out of an infinitely confusing and mysterious world


The poem has spawned countless PhDs as people have picked over its bones to find its hidden meanings, but perhaps the most important question is: what's it like to read? The answer for me is: quite extraordinary. Other words I could use might include: strange, mystical, obscure, magical, and deeply confusing. Above all though, is a sense of mysterious grandeur which is unique in my reading experience. My first resolution on completing was: I need to read this again, and again. And so I shall...


FILMS


INTERSTELLAR (2014) D- Christopher Nolan. In a world dying from environmental neglect, a freelance group resurrects a Saturn V launcher to send an astronaut (Matthew McConnaughey) to look into a worm hole in space which has been discovered in the vicinity of Saturn. Maybe on the other side of the worm hole there will be a world fit for humanity to live on...


Since I first saw 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968 in Cinerama I've been waiting for a science fiction movie to match up to it. I'm still waiting. Apparently feeling the same way, Christopher Nolan decided to do the job himself. Unfortunately, despite some great production values and some very interesting ideas, he hasn't done it either. But he has managed to pay tribute to a number of other notable science fiction movies along the way. For instance:
a) an astronaut encounters predictable problems when he attempts to transfer from one space craft to another without functioning airlocks (2001)
b) another astronaut becomes emotionally attached to a robot (Silent Running)
c) a female astronaut gets in a bit of a tizz while experiencing problems in orbit (Gravity)
d) Benevolent super-intelligent aliens take a man on an unimaginable journey beyond the infinite (2001 again)


There are a number of plot devices which don't work for me in this film, best summed up by the American cosmologist Neil deGrasse Tyson, who asked why they didn't just try to fix the problems on Earth rather than going an improbable journey to find worlds which didn't seem too appetising either once they finally got there. However, as a modern piece of cinema I suppose this does work. Perhaps what I'm really saying is they don't make sci-fi movies like they used to. Maybe they never will...


GONE GIRL (2014) D- David Fincher. A middle class couple appear to be enjoying the perfect life when the wife (Rosamund Pyke) goes missing. Naturally the husband (Ben Affleck) is suspected of murdering her, but in the absence of a body or any evidence of an abduction, the police let him go. However they continue to harbour their suspicions; meanwhile the press has a field day...


With a highly articulate screenplay adapted from her own novel by Gillian Flynn and some highly skilled directing this is a pretty good film. The plot is almost byzantine in its complexity however, and I do not recommend going out to the loo or even so much as ceasing your concentration for a second. The players are just fine and the analysis of the press handling of the story is masterful. I do have some minor issues with the plotting, though when I voiced them to my brother he pointed out that you see the same sort of thing in every other Agatha Christie novel, so perhaps I shouldn't complain...


MANDELA: LONG WALK TO FREEDOM (2014) D- Justin Chadwick. A man grows up in the injustice that is Apartheid South Africa and decides to dedicate his life to bringing the evil regime down. Soon he is imprisoned for 27 years for violent rebellion, but even that fails to dampen his ardour. In fact if anything it strengthens it...


Idris Elba's finest hour you might say. What an honour it must be to play the greatest man of his generation, and perhaps the greatest black man who ever lived. And he certainly does a fine job of playing the father of a nation. I do have some problems with this film despite that: in trying to portray his whole life in 2 1/2 hours, we are forced to watch an almost madcap romp through his exploits leaving little time for reflection and real insight into the mind of a man who doubtless had his contradictions and existential struggles, just like the rest of us. On the whole though, I did enjoy it and found it intensely moving at times. Remember, I was there, in spirit at least, through much of his struggle, going on many anti- apartheid demos (on one of which I was beaten by the police, the British police) and following the story as it developed from Reagan and Thatcher saying they were happy to do business with an apartheid government to Mandela's assumption of power as the nation's first black president. Amazing days...


THE PATIENCE STONE (2012) D- Atiq Rahimi. In a desert village in an unspecified middle Eastern country, a woman's husband is shot in the neck leaving him in a vegetative state. He is completely unresponsive, so she begins to use him as a "patience stone", a kind of receptacle into which she can pour out her innermost thoughts, hopes and fears. In Arab tradition the stone is then buried, though she can't do that 'cause he's still alive. Still, he'll do...


There are other problems too. Her husband was the bread winner, and now she has no way to make a living. Except one...


A deeply moving and beautiful film of great sensitivity and insight, demonstrating that the world of Arab film making has most definitely come of age. Brilliant.


THE ROAD TO CORINTH (1967) D- Claude Chabrol. An international arms dealer is killed, and his beautiful wife is followed in the hope she will lead his enemies to his haul of weapons. A really rather silly offering in the style of a post-Bond spoof which was quite popular in the late sixties, especially in France. The film is most notable for the performance of its female lead, Jean Seberg, who shines in every scene. Poor Jean Seberg! Hounded out of America for her left wing views by J Edgar Hoover and his FBI, they continued their harassment even after she moved to France, making up stories that her baby was not fathered by her husband. Finally she ended her life in 1981- a great career blighted by intimidation, prejudice and senseless hatred.


STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE (2008) D- Errol Morris. Speaking of intimidation and senselss hatred, here it is updated to the Millennium. This is the story of Abu Graib prison in Iraq, where the CIA interrogated its detainees in any way they thought fit in their bid to keep the homeland safe. What happened there is now a matter of record, with prisoners being humiliated in all sorts of ways (you will recall the photographs of prisoners posed naked in bizarre human heaps). The title of the film refers to what was allowed (degradation, water boarding, "stress poses" and so on) and what was not (murder, breaking bones and, critically, photographing their activities) Hence the resulting prison terms handed down to a few of the guards, who in a living version of the famous Milgram experiments, simply did what their bosses told them to do without ever thinking to challenge the morality of their orders. Sobering stuff.


LA CEREMONIE (1995) D- Claude Chabrol. A young woman is taken on as housekeeper to a wealthy family; she makes a good first impression even though she harbours a dark secret. Well, it's not that dark: she can't read. She knows enough, however, to realise she must hide her illiteracy if she is to keep her job. Then she finds a kindred spirit in the shape of a local post office employee (a terrific Isobel Huppert) who has one or two secrets of her own. As their bond strengthens they begin to feed on each other's resentment of how society has treated them. And they plot their revenge...


Chabrol sank into something of a low during the sixties (see above) but here we see him back at his best with a riveting story loosely based on real events in Paris of the 1930s, where a pair of twins taken into service exacted lethal retribution against their employers. The case became a cause celebre for left wing intellectuals at the time including Jean Genet and Jean-Paul Sartre, who cited the case as an example of the evils of the capitalist system. Here Chabrol has adapted and altered the story for his own ends and come up with a minor masterpiece. Excellent.


THE GLASS KEY (1942) D- Stuart Heisler. A big-wheel political fixer (Brian Donlevy) claims he has the governor's ear to the point where he can twist him around his little finger. But his minder (Alan Ladd) warns him that his "key" to the governor's mansion could be made of glass- and snap off one day leaving him in the shit. Then the governor's son is found murdered and the police suspect the fixer of doing the deed. The kid was a loser, and interfering with the governor's chance of being re-elected. But is it as simple as that?


Of course it isn't. Nothing is as it first appears in this intriguing piece of film noir,  based on the Dashiel Hammett book of the same name. The plot twists come thick and fast, but what shines is the strength of the characters, particularly Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake, who had already shown how strong their on-screen chemistry was in This Gun for Hire, which had come out the previous year.
Definitive noir.


PANTANI:THE ACCIDENTAL DEATH OF A CYCLIST. (2014) D- James Erskine. Marco Pantani started winning road races when still a child, and by the age of 24 was the world's best. In 1998 he won both the Tour de France and the Giro D'Italia in the same year, an almost unprecedented feat. Then Lance Armstrong came on the scene. From then on it wasn't just a case of being a better cyclist, it was a case of who does the most drugs without being caught. And no one was better at that than Armstrong. Desperate to keep up with the American, Pantani resorted to pharmaceuticals too, but unlike his American nemesis was soon caught, and this marked a tragic downhill spiral which could only end one way...
Powerful piece of documentary film making.


MISTER TURNER (2014) D- Mike Leigh. Being the life and times of Britain's greatest painter, shown in all his artisan perfection. Here is the man in full, a man with little time for his fellow human beings, obsessed with light and colour as he was to the exclusion of almost everything else. Accepted by the establishment even though he was never really part of it, in this film Turner grunts and prumps his way through the early part of 19th century England with one burning desire: to be known as her greatest ever artist. That this ambition was achieved, and so magnificently, scarcely seems real . Yet everything in this film is real. I have taken an interest in Turner since my teens and confirm all the details depicted in Leigh's film are completely authentic.
As we were leaving the cinema I heard an elderly lady in front of me say:
"It was a good film, but I didn't enjoy it"
Perhaps she found Timothy Spall's enthralling performance a bit hard to swallow, with all his grunts and monosyllables. All I can say is that it was a good film and I did enjoy it. In fact this could be my film of the year. If you only see one film this year, see this one. Hrrumph.


LONE SURVIVOR (2014) D- Peter Berg. In Afghan a squad of American soldiers are tasked with taking out a Taliban commander and are assured he will only have a few men with him. But their intel is faulty- he has a whole company of heavily armed men at his side. They decide on a tactical withdrawal but are soon spotted and pursued. One by one the men are shot or blown to pieces with grenade launchers. Soon only Mark Wahlberg is left. His only hope is rescue, but helicopters are extremely vulnerable to attack with RPGs. With shrapnel wounds in his leg he can barely walk- but his survival instinct is still strong. But how can he get out of this alive?


Based apparently on a real incident in 2009, Peter Berg's film is one of the more gritty and realistic war movies I have seen in quite a while. The viewer thoroughly identifies with our hero's grim plight- we so want him to get out alive but how is it possible? (we suspend for the moment any question as to why he is there in the first place- that's not for now)
This movie was one of the weekly series of "Sky Premier" movies, which show movies seen for the first time on British television. Usually they are absolute dogs, straight to DVD fodder, but this (and to be fair, Mandela: long Walk to Freedom, which was also part of this series) is actually superior movie making. Recommended.