FILMS, Contd
WHERE TO INVADE NEXT (Docu) D- Michael Moore. (2014) In which noted rare avis American leftie Michael Moore suggests a couple of other countries the U.S might invade and carry off some of their ideas to adopt as their own. Finland, for example, where the pupils do no, that's right, no homework but still manage to achieve higher educational standards than the U.S., or France, where no convenience food at all is served in their schools, but rather a varied and delicious menu where several types of fine cheese are on offer (the pupil's favourite is Camembert, apparently) and many other dishes that would do justice to your average Michelin starred restaurant, or Italy, which has more public holidays than any other European country, and far more than the U.S., as well as a far more generous maternity leave provision, yet still manages to provide a high standard of living for its citizens.
Then there's Tunisia, where women hold more positions of authority than in most European countries, and far more than America, despite it being an Islamic country. And that shows that it isn't Islam that's to blame for the gross abuses against women found in KSA and other Gulf states, but the way its precepts are applied by its imams. Meanwhile, the most advanced country in the world, allegedly, falls far behind so many other countries in many of the markers for civilisation. Any comment Mr Trump?
JACKPOT (2011) D- Magnus Martens. A pool of Norwegians wins the lottery jackpot but that's only the start of their problems. They claim the money, then fall out over how the money should be carved up, so proceed to carving each other up instead. The body count gradually rises in this hilarious but blood soaked black comedy. Highly entertaining, though not for their faint hearted.
THE SEA INSIDE (2004) D- Alejandro Amenabar. A highly intelligent man does a very stupid thing: dives into a rock pool just as a wave causes the water level to drop. He breaks his neck and becomes a tetra-plegic. He copes for a while; he is still able to communicate normally, though all his basic needs must be provided by helpers. Slowly he forms the idea that death would be preferable to the life he is forced to live, and goes through the court system to fight for the right to end his life. But this is Spain, a catholic country, and no way are the courts going to allow him to do away with himself. It's not your life to take, the church says, it's God's, and only he can take it back. But our hero (very well played by Javier Bardem) is not the kind to give up easily...
A really excellent film, beautifully put together and strong acting all round. Not easy to watch, but tremendously rewarding.
MIDNIGHT SPECIAL (2016) D- Geoff Nicholls. A young lad has extraordinary powers which have been noticed by a religious cult who have abducted him. His parents would have him home again, and mount a mission to get him out of their clutches. But there is an agenda here's far higher than all this. Our boy can see into another dimension, where aliens live. And he wants to explore that world...
A strange and fascinating movie, with elements of The Sixth Sense, as well as a bit of Firestarter, this I thought was one of the more thoughtful sci-fi movies I've seen this year. Recommended
Saturday, 31 December 2016
December 2016 book and film review part 2
FILMS, Contd
THE EAGLE HUNTRESS (2016) D- Otto Bell. (Docu) In Kazakhstan, a thirteen-year-old girl wants to hunt eagles like her father. Trouble is, this is usually men's work, and she faces problems from the outset in establishing herself in her chosen field of expertise. Fortunately for her, and surprisingly on the face of it, Kazakhstan has actually encouraged the equality of women since antiquity, and she is eventually allowed to, first, find her fledgling eagle (which requires something of an epic trek into to the snow giants of the Altai mountains) and then to train it to hunt.
This documentary is a little deceptive in that it depicts her struggle for equality with men as more of a struggle than it really is, but its strength lies in its stunning depiction of the journey of its youthful hero "Aisholpan". Several moments are so powerful they had me in tears. There is nothing new in documentaries bending the truth to tell a good story: from Nanook of the North in 1922, right through to Saint David Attenborough today, documentary film makers have fucked about with the truth, and to my mind, if the story is good enough it doesn't matter that much. Or does it? Discuss.
THE JUNGLE BOOK (2016) D- John Favreau. Mancub Mowgli is living an idyllic life as the adopted child of a pack of wolves, but a local tiger doesn't like human beings and would have him for supper if he could. Time for Mowgli to re-integrate with human society? You'd think so, but it isn't as easy as that, obviously. Kipling' famous tale is remade nearly fifty years after Disney scored a big hit with it in 1967, and this new version owes a lot to the original animation. But here Mowgli is played by a real boy (a very good Neel Sethi) working around some of the best CGI animals I've ever seen. I said in an earlier blog that The Revenant marked a breakthrough in computer graphics, and here we see how the art has truly come of age. Great fun.
LIKE FATHER LIKE SON (2013) D- Hirokazu Koreeda. In Tokyo, a family with a six-year-old son learns to its horror that their baby was switched at birth with another boy-child, and that another family is bringing up their son, while they are bringing up theirs. The families get together and agree to a swap. But is really the right thing to do?
Director Koreeda pulls this agonising story together with marvellous skill, depicting the pain of the protagonists in his own, unique, understated way, perhaps characteristic of typical Japanese families. The story really circulates about one of the fathers (splendidly played by Masaharu Fukuyama) and his heart-rending struggle with himself.
Every so often, a truly great film emerges from Japan which helps us Occidentals gain a fresh insight into the workings of that usually impenetrable culture. This is one. Truly, this is a film of the stature of Tokyo Story or Tampopo. Wonderful.
JEW SUSS (1940) D- Veit Harlan. In 17th century Wurtemburg, a new Duke takes his coronet, but he is a vain, greedy and lecherous beast. He wants to set up a ballet company in Stuttgart, mainly so he can lust over the ballerinas, but the mingy town council, who hold the purse-strings of the city, won't grant him the funds. Enter Jew Suss, an evil moneylender, who offers to finance the Duke's schemes, on the promise the Duke will allow the Jews to re-enter the city of Stuttgart. And we know where that will lead...
Soon the evil Jews are all over the city, levying taxes (with the Duke's blessing) and lusting after the gorgeous, innocent blond aryan women. Mein Gott! Where will it all end? Badly, thank goodness, for the Jews, who, at the last, are thrown out of Stuttgart, which can once again re-establish its racial purity.
This film was commissioned by Josef Goebbels as a propaganda tool to spread the nazi's message and with its skilful direction, fine acting and lavish production values, it influenced a whole generation of Germans, over 20 million of them seeing the film in a two year period. Himmler decreed that every soldier in the Wehrmacht should see it, and his orders were always obeyed without question. Jew Suss is a very good film, and all the more terrifying for that fact. Like Birth of a Nation 25 years earlier, its highly dubious message (in the latter' state case, it was that the emancipation of the slaves had been a very bad idea) was swallowed by an audience anxious to justify their persecution of a minority group.
After the war, all the main players were prosecuted at the Nuremberg war-crimes tribunals, though all were acquitted on the basis that they were working under duress. But their careers were destroyed. Perhaps the saddest case was Kristina Soderbaum, a highly talented stage and screen actress who really didn't want to be involved, but Goebbels insisted. She tried to work on the stage after the war, but was booed off the stage and had rotten vegetables thrown at her every time she appeared...
THE EAGLE HUNTRESS (2016) D- Otto Bell. (Docu) In Kazakhstan, a thirteen-year-old girl wants to hunt eagles like her father. Trouble is, this is usually men's work, and she faces problems from the outset in establishing herself in her chosen field of expertise. Fortunately for her, and surprisingly on the face of it, Kazakhstan has actually encouraged the equality of women since antiquity, and she is eventually allowed to, first, find her fledgling eagle (which requires something of an epic trek into to the snow giants of the Altai mountains) and then to train it to hunt.
This documentary is a little deceptive in that it depicts her struggle for equality with men as more of a struggle than it really is, but its strength lies in its stunning depiction of the journey of its youthful hero "Aisholpan". Several moments are so powerful they had me in tears. There is nothing new in documentaries bending the truth to tell a good story: from Nanook of the North in 1922, right through to Saint David Attenborough today, documentary film makers have fucked about with the truth, and to my mind, if the story is good enough it doesn't matter that much. Or does it? Discuss.
THE JUNGLE BOOK (2016) D- John Favreau. Mancub Mowgli is living an idyllic life as the adopted child of a pack of wolves, but a local tiger doesn't like human beings and would have him for supper if he could. Time for Mowgli to re-integrate with human society? You'd think so, but it isn't as easy as that, obviously. Kipling' famous tale is remade nearly fifty years after Disney scored a big hit with it in 1967, and this new version owes a lot to the original animation. But here Mowgli is played by a real boy (a very good Neel Sethi) working around some of the best CGI animals I've ever seen. I said in an earlier blog that The Revenant marked a breakthrough in computer graphics, and here we see how the art has truly come of age. Great fun.
LIKE FATHER LIKE SON (2013) D- Hirokazu Koreeda. In Tokyo, a family with a six-year-old son learns to its horror that their baby was switched at birth with another boy-child, and that another family is bringing up their son, while they are bringing up theirs. The families get together and agree to a swap. But is really the right thing to do?
Director Koreeda pulls this agonising story together with marvellous skill, depicting the pain of the protagonists in his own, unique, understated way, perhaps characteristic of typical Japanese families. The story really circulates about one of the fathers (splendidly played by Masaharu Fukuyama) and his heart-rending struggle with himself.
Every so often, a truly great film emerges from Japan which helps us Occidentals gain a fresh insight into the workings of that usually impenetrable culture. This is one. Truly, this is a film of the stature of Tokyo Story or Tampopo. Wonderful.
JEW SUSS (1940) D- Veit Harlan. In 17th century Wurtemburg, a new Duke takes his coronet, but he is a vain, greedy and lecherous beast. He wants to set up a ballet company in Stuttgart, mainly so he can lust over the ballerinas, but the mingy town council, who hold the purse-strings of the city, won't grant him the funds. Enter Jew Suss, an evil moneylender, who offers to finance the Duke's schemes, on the promise the Duke will allow the Jews to re-enter the city of Stuttgart. And we know where that will lead...
Soon the evil Jews are all over the city, levying taxes (with the Duke's blessing) and lusting after the gorgeous, innocent blond aryan women. Mein Gott! Where will it all end? Badly, thank goodness, for the Jews, who, at the last, are thrown out of Stuttgart, which can once again re-establish its racial purity.
This film was commissioned by Josef Goebbels as a propaganda tool to spread the nazi's message and with its skilful direction, fine acting and lavish production values, it influenced a whole generation of Germans, over 20 million of them seeing the film in a two year period. Himmler decreed that every soldier in the Wehrmacht should see it, and his orders were always obeyed without question. Jew Suss is a very good film, and all the more terrifying for that fact. Like Birth of a Nation 25 years earlier, its highly dubious message (in the latter' state case, it was that the emancipation of the slaves had been a very bad idea) was swallowed by an audience anxious to justify their persecution of a minority group.
After the war, all the main players were prosecuted at the Nuremberg war-crimes tribunals, though all were acquitted on the basis that they were working under duress. But their careers were destroyed. Perhaps the saddest case was Kristina Soderbaum, a highly talented stage and screen actress who really didn't want to be involved, but Goebbels insisted. She tried to work on the stage after the war, but was booed off the stage and had rotten vegetables thrown at her every time she appeared...
December 2016 book and film review part 1
BOOKS
AN ATTEMPT AT EXHAUSTING A PLACE IN PARIS, by Georges Perec.
Over a three day period in October 1974, French writer Georges Perec sat in the window of 3 different cafes around the Place Saint-Sulpice and recorded everything of any interest that passed through his field of ken. In just 47 pages he gives us an absorbing, and ultimately almost hypnotic list of things and people he sees. I offer a brief extract:
"A baby in a baby carriage lets out a brief squawking. It looks like a bird: blue eyes, fixed, profoundly interested in what they take in.
A meter man with a bad cough puts a parking ticket on a green Morris.
A man wearing a Russian astrakhan fur hat. Then another."
This is the forerunner of his magnum opus: Life A Users manual, which he went on to write four years later. I'm reading that right now. Watch this space. But if you want a highly diverting hour or so, you could do a lot worse than be immersed in the fascinating mental world of Monsieur Perec.
99 WAYS TO TELL A STORY: EXERCISES IN STYLE, by Matt Madden.
A guy is working late one night when he goes downstairs to fetch something from the fridge. On the way down his girlfriend asks what the time is. "1.15" he replies, but then when he reaches the fridge he's forgotten why he came downstairs. "What the hell was I looking for, anyway?"
End of story. But then, taking his cue from the French writer Raymond Queneau (a close friend of Georges Perec, as it happens, and co-member of the famous "Oumalou" school of surrealist writers) he then finds 99 different ways of telling this little vignette, in graphic form, each in 8 boxes.
Past tense, present tense, passive form, active form, like a Superman comic, like a Garfield strip, in anagram form, in the style of a noir detective story, the list goes on. And what emerges is a deeply fascinating book, full of laughs and puzzles, and illustrating vividly the same thing Qeuneau did back in 1937, namely the fact that there indeed many ways to tell a story.
ALL FOR NOTHING, by Walter Kempowski.
It is January 1945 in east Prussia. A wealthy family lives in a large country house lying directly in the path of the invading Russian army, which as the book opens is less than a hundred miles from their little village. The patriarch is away in northern Italy, he has a cushy administrative job in the Wehrmacht. The lady of the house, beautiful, fey, seemingly uncaring of what lies ahead, prefers to smoke foreign cigarettes, sip sherry and cut silhouettes from coloured paper. The housekeeper, "Auntie", really runs the house with a team of servants under her. The son, twelve-year-ole Peter, has been given a small microscope for Christmas and spends most of his time staring down it. Luckily for him he is just to be young to be pressed into service with the Volksturm, the local home guard.
The family are dimly aware that something bad may be going to happen soon, and tentative plans are laid for an escape to the West, especially when the front line draws near enough for them to hear the heavy guns in the far distance. So why don't they do anything?
Walter Kempowski wrote an eight volume non-fiction account of the end of WW2 in Germany which he called "Swansong", and this is his fictional account in one quite short book, a book which brings home the horror of war as it affects one tiny community and one family in particular. With consummate skill and infinite compassion, Kempowski has created one of the finest books about war I have ever read. A work of genius.
FILMS
ETHEL AND ERNEST (2016) D- Roger Mainwood. Growing up in Edwardian Britain, Ernest Briggs meets Ethel, they fall in love, get married and buy a small home to live in. In 1936 they have a son, who they name Raymond. They live through the Blitz (narrowly avoiding being blown to Kingdom Come) but then have to come to terms with the fact that their only child doesn't want to work in an office, but wants to go to art college of all things!
Brilliantly voiced by Brenda Blethyn and Jim Broadbent, andsuperbly animated (by hand, apparently) here is another sublime offering from one of our most talented writers. And I say writer, because although Raymond Brigs is best known for his delightful graphic books (The Snowman, Father Christmas etc) it is his story telling that always shines through. Many people voted this the best thing on television over the holiday period, which with the possible exception of Carry on Up the Jungle it was most definitely was.
AN ATTEMPT AT EXHAUSTING A PLACE IN PARIS, by Georges Perec.
Over a three day period in October 1974, French writer Georges Perec sat in the window of 3 different cafes around the Place Saint-Sulpice and recorded everything of any interest that passed through his field of ken. In just 47 pages he gives us an absorbing, and ultimately almost hypnotic list of things and people he sees. I offer a brief extract:
"A baby in a baby carriage lets out a brief squawking. It looks like a bird: blue eyes, fixed, profoundly interested in what they take in.
A meter man with a bad cough puts a parking ticket on a green Morris.
A man wearing a Russian astrakhan fur hat. Then another."
This is the forerunner of his magnum opus: Life A Users manual, which he went on to write four years later. I'm reading that right now. Watch this space. But if you want a highly diverting hour or so, you could do a lot worse than be immersed in the fascinating mental world of Monsieur Perec.
99 WAYS TO TELL A STORY: EXERCISES IN STYLE, by Matt Madden.
A guy is working late one night when he goes downstairs to fetch something from the fridge. On the way down his girlfriend asks what the time is. "1.15" he replies, but then when he reaches the fridge he's forgotten why he came downstairs. "What the hell was I looking for, anyway?"
End of story. But then, taking his cue from the French writer Raymond Queneau (a close friend of Georges Perec, as it happens, and co-member of the famous "Oumalou" school of surrealist writers) he then finds 99 different ways of telling this little vignette, in graphic form, each in 8 boxes.
Past tense, present tense, passive form, active form, like a Superman comic, like a Garfield strip, in anagram form, in the style of a noir detective story, the list goes on. And what emerges is a deeply fascinating book, full of laughs and puzzles, and illustrating vividly the same thing Qeuneau did back in 1937, namely the fact that there indeed many ways to tell a story.
ALL FOR NOTHING, by Walter Kempowski.
It is January 1945 in east Prussia. A wealthy family lives in a large country house lying directly in the path of the invading Russian army, which as the book opens is less than a hundred miles from their little village. The patriarch is away in northern Italy, he has a cushy administrative job in the Wehrmacht. The lady of the house, beautiful, fey, seemingly uncaring of what lies ahead, prefers to smoke foreign cigarettes, sip sherry and cut silhouettes from coloured paper. The housekeeper, "Auntie", really runs the house with a team of servants under her. The son, twelve-year-ole Peter, has been given a small microscope for Christmas and spends most of his time staring down it. Luckily for him he is just to be young to be pressed into service with the Volksturm, the local home guard.
The family are dimly aware that something bad may be going to happen soon, and tentative plans are laid for an escape to the West, especially when the front line draws near enough for them to hear the heavy guns in the far distance. So why don't they do anything?
Walter Kempowski wrote an eight volume non-fiction account of the end of WW2 in Germany which he called "Swansong", and this is his fictional account in one quite short book, a book which brings home the horror of war as it affects one tiny community and one family in particular. With consummate skill and infinite compassion, Kempowski has created one of the finest books about war I have ever read. A work of genius.
FILMS
ETHEL AND ERNEST (2016) D- Roger Mainwood. Growing up in Edwardian Britain, Ernest Briggs meets Ethel, they fall in love, get married and buy a small home to live in. In 1936 they have a son, who they name Raymond. They live through the Blitz (narrowly avoiding being blown to Kingdom Come) but then have to come to terms with the fact that their only child doesn't want to work in an office, but wants to go to art college of all things!
Brilliantly voiced by Brenda Blethyn and Jim Broadbent, andsuperbly animated (by hand, apparently) here is another sublime offering from one of our most talented writers. And I say writer, because although Raymond Brigs is best known for his delightful graphic books (The Snowman, Father Christmas etc) it is his story telling that always shines through. Many people voted this the best thing on television over the holiday period, which with the possible exception of Carry on Up the Jungle it was most definitely was.
Tuesday, 27 December 2016
Christmas decorations: bad for dementia
Trust you had a nice Xmas. We did, surprisingly, considering the problem hanging over our heads, and the fact that my Mum has drifted further into dementia over the past year, though continues to live at home alone, albeit supported by a team of carers and my brother and me.
He was down at Christmas, and like me found it difficult to understand my Mum's objections to the fairly modest decorations hung in her front room by her principle carer. One piece of tinsel was hung over one of her pictures, in her eye line from where she customarily sits, and repeatedly told us she didn't like it. "What's wrong with it?" I asked, only to be told that it was "silver" and that it was "depressing".
Yesterday we googled the issue and found that people with dementia are often unsettled by Christmas decorations, because they are unfamiliar sights and therefore fall outside their comfort zone. "Of course!" I said as I realised the simple truth of this. The poor dabs can't really retain the fact that it even is Christmas, much less understand the significance and meaning of unfamiliar decorations. We won't make the same mistake again, should she live long enough to see the next ones.
For years now I have been predicting she will either be dead by next Christmas or at least in an old people's home, and for years she has been proving me wrong. She is 92 and a half , and I am making no such prediction for next year. Physically she seems in good shape; can walk a mile, even when it includes a modest ascent. Her short term memory has reduced to barely a minute in length, and reduces to almost nothing when under stress of any kind (such as when something happens which is out of her normal routine, like a visit to the doctor or the dentist). Two years ago she would ask me, during the course of a twenty minute drive to say, her doctor's surgery, about six times where we were going and why. The last time I took her, two weeks ago she asked me almost continuously, amounting to nearly forty requests for the reasons for her outing.
What I will say is that my tolerance of this, at first glance maddening behaviour, has improved tremendously. She puts her cracked record on: I put on my own. Normally someone with strictly limited patience, I have really quite impressed myself.
Have a great New Year folks, and please wish me one. I need it, like I've never needed it before.
He was down at Christmas, and like me found it difficult to understand my Mum's objections to the fairly modest decorations hung in her front room by her principle carer. One piece of tinsel was hung over one of her pictures, in her eye line from where she customarily sits, and repeatedly told us she didn't like it. "What's wrong with it?" I asked, only to be told that it was "silver" and that it was "depressing".
Yesterday we googled the issue and found that people with dementia are often unsettled by Christmas decorations, because they are unfamiliar sights and therefore fall outside their comfort zone. "Of course!" I said as I realised the simple truth of this. The poor dabs can't really retain the fact that it even is Christmas, much less understand the significance and meaning of unfamiliar decorations. We won't make the same mistake again, should she live long enough to see the next ones.
For years now I have been predicting she will either be dead by next Christmas or at least in an old people's home, and for years she has been proving me wrong. She is 92 and a half , and I am making no such prediction for next year. Physically she seems in good shape; can walk a mile, even when it includes a modest ascent. Her short term memory has reduced to barely a minute in length, and reduces to almost nothing when under stress of any kind (such as when something happens which is out of her normal routine, like a visit to the doctor or the dentist). Two years ago she would ask me, during the course of a twenty minute drive to say, her doctor's surgery, about six times where we were going and why. The last time I took her, two weeks ago she asked me almost continuously, amounting to nearly forty requests for the reasons for her outing.
What I will say is that my tolerance of this, at first glance maddening behaviour, has improved tremendously. She puts her cracked record on: I put on my own. Normally someone with strictly limited patience, I have really quite impressed myself.
Have a great New Year folks, and please wish me one. I need it, like I've never needed it before.
Friday, 23 December 2016
I'm an anti-Semite, me.
So is the U.N. It has just had the outright temerity to brand the Israeli settlements on the West Bank illegal. This despite the fact that Donald Trump yesterday had a quiet word with the Egyptian ambassador to the U.N and suggested they withdraw their motion, promising he would have a look at the situation once he was installed. Fat chance. Donnie is a big pal of Israel and thinks the Palestinians are a bunch of Terrorists just waiting to push all the Jews into the sea first chance they get. But such is his clout even before his installation, the Egyptians did indeed decide to withdraw their motion. Fortunately, other countries, including Malaysia, New Zealand and Venezuela had the guts to see it through.
You see, as soon as you criticise the Israeli state you're an anti-Semite, like Ken Livingstone and various other people on the left who would like the world to remember the forgotten people of Palestine. Israel is doing everything it can short of genocide to squeeze them into smaller and smaller enclaves, because it wants the whole place to itself. Hey, it's the promised land, right? Just like it says in the Bible. Judea and Samaria is what they call it. And King David called it for the Jews back in 1000 BC.
But don't say anything against that view out loud if you want to avoid the ire of the Zionists and their cadre of very powerful supporters. They'll say you're against the Jews. Probably deny the holocaust. Or even think it was a good idea. You liked Hitler, didn't you? Don't try to deny it. You want the Arabs to win, don't you. Those terrible terrorists.
Thing is, they're not terrorists. I've been there, I've stayed in their houses and you know what? They're ordinary folks like you and me; they just want to make a living and raise their families without the Israelis breathing down their necks the whole time. They want to enjoy the same human rights as their Israeli neighbours: to travel freely, go abroad when they want to, build factories, work their land. At the moment all these things are consistently denied them because of their race, and that, in case you hadn't noticed, is called Apartheid.
Well done U.N. Keep it up. The world needs reminding of the injustices done to the Palestinian people, even if the Zionists and Donnie would prefer you forget.
You see, as soon as you criticise the Israeli state you're an anti-Semite, like Ken Livingstone and various other people on the left who would like the world to remember the forgotten people of Palestine. Israel is doing everything it can short of genocide to squeeze them into smaller and smaller enclaves, because it wants the whole place to itself. Hey, it's the promised land, right? Just like it says in the Bible. Judea and Samaria is what they call it. And King David called it for the Jews back in 1000 BC.
But don't say anything against that view out loud if you want to avoid the ire of the Zionists and their cadre of very powerful supporters. They'll say you're against the Jews. Probably deny the holocaust. Or even think it was a good idea. You liked Hitler, didn't you? Don't try to deny it. You want the Arabs to win, don't you. Those terrible terrorists.
Thing is, they're not terrorists. I've been there, I've stayed in their houses and you know what? They're ordinary folks like you and me; they just want to make a living and raise their families without the Israelis breathing down their necks the whole time. They want to enjoy the same human rights as their Israeli neighbours: to travel freely, go abroad when they want to, build factories, work their land. At the moment all these things are consistently denied them because of their race, and that, in case you hadn't noticed, is called Apartheid.
Well done U.N. Keep it up. The world needs reminding of the injustices done to the Palestinian people, even if the Zionists and Donnie would prefer you forget.
Monday, 19 December 2016
Make striking illegal!
Screams The Daily Mail and other organs of the ultra right. We conned the public into voting for brexit, they say, what's next on our laissez faire agenda? Oh, I know: outlaw strikes. Kick those lefties where it really hurts, right in their most fundamental workers rights. They say: the right to withdraw his or her labour is the most basic right any worker should have: we say: fuck that!
Ah, the good old days, when workers did what they were told or they'd be out of a job. If they tried picketing, beat 'em to a bloody pulp or even kill them. Why not? It was our capital that created their jobs in the first place, without us they'd be grubbing around for sea coal and eating maggots. So out of the kindness of our hearts we build factories to keep them off the streets, pay them just enough to keep starvation at bay, 'cause a dead worker isn't much use to anyone. Why can't they just be grateful they've got a job at all and shut the hell up? Hey! We've got our shareholders to keep happy, not the ones who create those profits.
Did you see Channel 4's report on JD Sport last week? Now that's the way to run a factory. Treat them like the Apartheid bosses did with their black workers in the diamond mines: minimum, or sub-mimimum wage, work 'em to the edge of exhaustion, then X ray them to make sure they haven't swallowed any gems- the little bastards! You wouldn't believe what they'd get up to if we gave 'em even half a chance.
While we're about it, let's do away with foreign aid. I mean 0.7% of our GDP to a load of loser countries- and for what? Look after number one The Daily Mail says. Who cares that these countries are the ones we ripped off for all they were worth for nearly 200 years, the ones who contributed thousands of soldiers to come and fight and die in our wars, the ones where we still like to holiday in at bargain basement prices because despite the apparent wealth of their big cities, most of their citizens still live in the direst poverty. The Daily Mail says: screw 'em!
Ah, the good old days, when workers did what they were told or they'd be out of a job. If they tried picketing, beat 'em to a bloody pulp or even kill them. Why not? It was our capital that created their jobs in the first place, without us they'd be grubbing around for sea coal and eating maggots. So out of the kindness of our hearts we build factories to keep them off the streets, pay them just enough to keep starvation at bay, 'cause a dead worker isn't much use to anyone. Why can't they just be grateful they've got a job at all and shut the hell up? Hey! We've got our shareholders to keep happy, not the ones who create those profits.
Did you see Channel 4's report on JD Sport last week? Now that's the way to run a factory. Treat them like the Apartheid bosses did with their black workers in the diamond mines: minimum, or sub-mimimum wage, work 'em to the edge of exhaustion, then X ray them to make sure they haven't swallowed any gems- the little bastards! You wouldn't believe what they'd get up to if we gave 'em even half a chance.
While we're about it, let's do away with foreign aid. I mean 0.7% of our GDP to a load of loser countries- and for what? Look after number one The Daily Mail says. Who cares that these countries are the ones we ripped off for all they were worth for nearly 200 years, the ones who contributed thousands of soldiers to come and fight and die in our wars, the ones where we still like to holiday in at bargain basement prices because despite the apparent wealth of their big cities, most of their citizens still live in the direst poverty. The Daily Mail says: screw 'em!
Thursday, 8 December 2016
The trouble with truth
Is we don't like it very much. These days we prefer lies, half truths, opinions and crackpot ideas. Trump won in America because people didn't want to hear truths, they wanted to buy into his very well crafted distortions of reality that suited their own prejudices. I think you'll find that a very good way of winning elections or referenda. Like when they said if we left the EU there'd be 350 million quid a week left over to re-boot an ailing NHS. Sounded great, problem was it wasn't true. Who cares? The public bought it and look what happened.
Last weekend I spent a very pleasant weekend at an old country house in north Wales which is said to be haunted. At breakfast one of my fellow students announced she was witness to a haunting event: at 3 AM she watched while her door handle was turned. I was probably a bit rude. An American, I first pointed out to her that her country folk have not been the most rigid adherents of truth lately. Then I followed that up with reminding her that deploying Occam's razor, a principle which states that the simplest explanation for any given phenomenon is probably the correct one, it was rather more likely that a drunk student tried her door handle, mistaking it for his or her own. Did she like that? No she did not.
The haunting idea is much more romantic, more interesting and better material for a short story (we were creative writing students after all).
Poor old Boris Johnson. He tried a little truth, and he got slapped down by TM for his trouble. How dare he upset a corrupt bunch of cowards who live in fear of the Wahabi Imans who really hold the power in KSA and enact laws that make women second class citizens and fight proxy wars because that's what the Imans want? Next reshuffle and he's out of here, I promise you. In a post Brexit world we can't afford to upset one of our best weapons customers, now can we?
The truth is, we don't like truth. We'd rather believe in ET (though we're probably alone in the Universe), ghosts (they don't exist, or at least there is no real evidence for their existence), believe in God (see ghosts), that the world is going to be a better place once we get all these ultra right wingers in power and get rid of those soppy liberals and global warming due to human activity is a cruel hoax disseminated by the loonie left (look out, Armageddon is just around the corner).
Truth. That's so last year, man.
Last weekend I spent a very pleasant weekend at an old country house in north Wales which is said to be haunted. At breakfast one of my fellow students announced she was witness to a haunting event: at 3 AM she watched while her door handle was turned. I was probably a bit rude. An American, I first pointed out to her that her country folk have not been the most rigid adherents of truth lately. Then I followed that up with reminding her that deploying Occam's razor, a principle which states that the simplest explanation for any given phenomenon is probably the correct one, it was rather more likely that a drunk student tried her door handle, mistaking it for his or her own. Did she like that? No she did not.
The haunting idea is much more romantic, more interesting and better material for a short story (we were creative writing students after all).
Poor old Boris Johnson. He tried a little truth, and he got slapped down by TM for his trouble. How dare he upset a corrupt bunch of cowards who live in fear of the Wahabi Imans who really hold the power in KSA and enact laws that make women second class citizens and fight proxy wars because that's what the Imans want? Next reshuffle and he's out of here, I promise you. In a post Brexit world we can't afford to upset one of our best weapons customers, now can we?
The truth is, we don't like truth. We'd rather believe in ET (though we're probably alone in the Universe), ghosts (they don't exist, or at least there is no real evidence for their existence), believe in God (see ghosts), that the world is going to be a better place once we get all these ultra right wingers in power and get rid of those soppy liberals and global warming due to human activity is a cruel hoax disseminated by the loonie left (look out, Armageddon is just around the corner).
Truth. That's so last year, man.
Thursday, 1 December 2016
November 2016 book and film review, continued
FILMS, continued.
GLENGARRY, GLEN ROSS (1992) D- James Foley. A group of realtors in New York are struggling to make ends meet in the recession, and things aren't improved when they're told if they don't start delivering soon, they'll be fired. One of them (played brilliantly by Jack Lemmon) can't even pay his Mum's medical bills, so his whole family is depending on him coming up with something. Then he has an audacious idea...
Scripted by David Mamet from his award winning stage play, this is a brilliant little piece, with strong performances from all the major players, from Jack Lemmon through Al Pacino, to Alec Baldwin, whose part didn't exist in the stage play but was created by Mamet especially for the film version. He is only on screen for eight minutes, but his impact is electrifying. Intelligent American movie making at its best.
DAD'S ARMY (2016) D- Oliver Parker. In wartime Britain, a hapless group of Home Guard try to outwit the feminine wiles of a glamorous German spy.
I'm old enough to remember the original and genuine version of Dad's Army, with Arthur Lowe, Ian LeMeasurier et al, all of whom are now dead, with the exception of Ian Lavender who played Private Pike ("stupid boy!") and who in tribute to the original cast has in this version been given a cameo role, promoted this time to a general.
It has proved impossible to update the wonderful flavour of the original, especially with a script not penned by Croft and Perry, but the film is saved by Toby Jones as captain Mainwearing, who makes the role his own. But other players, such as Bill Nighy, prove disappointing. Others have slated catherine Zeta Jones as the Mata Hari, though I won't hear a word said against Wales's most celebrated and glamorous export...
THE REVENANT (2015) D- Alejandro G. Inarritu. A group of fir-trappers in the vast, empty wastes of the American north-west are attacked by Indians and then Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) is attacked by a bear and very nearly killed. But this guy ain't ready to die yet... Left to die by a fellow trapper, he musters resources deep within himself to get back to civilisation and report the crimes of the man who abandoned him to his fate...
This film is astonishing. Director Innaritu and star DiCaprio work together to create an utterly compelling and completely authentic-looking product which plunges the viewer into the cold, forbidding world of a North Dakota winter, with all the dangers that implies. The fight with the bear is one of the most life-like CGI creations I have yet seen, and I still don't quite understand how it was done. But what really captures the attention is the Revenant himself, a man who like Matt Damon in The Martian, simply refuses to lie down and die in the face of the most extreme adversity.
DiCaprio rightly won his first Oscar for his role after no less than five nominations, with Innaritu picking up Best Director, and Emanuel Lubezki winning the award for cinematography.
Tremendous.
PRISONERS (2013) D- Denis Villeneuve. In small-town, USA, two young girls go missing. The sheriff (Jake Gylenhaal) is a good man, but has nothing to go on. One minute they were playing in the street outside their homes, next minute they are gone. The father of one of the girls (Hugh Jackman) is convinced a learning-disabled man living nearby is responsible, partly because he hears him saying "they only started crying when I left", though no one else hears him saying it. The sheriff arrests him but releases him after questioning, so Jackman decides to take the law into his own hands. He abducts the young man and tortures him until he confesses. Only problem: whatever terrible things he does to the poor chap, he doesn't confess. Despite the mitigating factors, he realises he has now committed a serious crime himself, and one the authorities cannot ignore. But first they have to uncover it...
These days I have two special criteria to determine how good a movie is: 1) whether it is capable of taking my mind off my writing, and 2) if it makes me forget, just for a few minutes, the other massive problem I face in my personal life. To do that it has to be excellent, which this was. Top marks.
GLENGARRY, GLEN ROSS (1992) D- James Foley. A group of realtors in New York are struggling to make ends meet in the recession, and things aren't improved when they're told if they don't start delivering soon, they'll be fired. One of them (played brilliantly by Jack Lemmon) can't even pay his Mum's medical bills, so his whole family is depending on him coming up with something. Then he has an audacious idea...
Scripted by David Mamet from his award winning stage play, this is a brilliant little piece, with strong performances from all the major players, from Jack Lemmon through Al Pacino, to Alec Baldwin, whose part didn't exist in the stage play but was created by Mamet especially for the film version. He is only on screen for eight minutes, but his impact is electrifying. Intelligent American movie making at its best.
DAD'S ARMY (2016) D- Oliver Parker. In wartime Britain, a hapless group of Home Guard try to outwit the feminine wiles of a glamorous German spy.
I'm old enough to remember the original and genuine version of Dad's Army, with Arthur Lowe, Ian LeMeasurier et al, all of whom are now dead, with the exception of Ian Lavender who played Private Pike ("stupid boy!") and who in tribute to the original cast has in this version been given a cameo role, promoted this time to a general.
It has proved impossible to update the wonderful flavour of the original, especially with a script not penned by Croft and Perry, but the film is saved by Toby Jones as captain Mainwearing, who makes the role his own. But other players, such as Bill Nighy, prove disappointing. Others have slated catherine Zeta Jones as the Mata Hari, though I won't hear a word said against Wales's most celebrated and glamorous export...
THE REVENANT (2015) D- Alejandro G. Inarritu. A group of fir-trappers in the vast, empty wastes of the American north-west are attacked by Indians and then Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) is attacked by a bear and very nearly killed. But this guy ain't ready to die yet... Left to die by a fellow trapper, he musters resources deep within himself to get back to civilisation and report the crimes of the man who abandoned him to his fate...
This film is astonishing. Director Innaritu and star DiCaprio work together to create an utterly compelling and completely authentic-looking product which plunges the viewer into the cold, forbidding world of a North Dakota winter, with all the dangers that implies. The fight with the bear is one of the most life-like CGI creations I have yet seen, and I still don't quite understand how it was done. But what really captures the attention is the Revenant himself, a man who like Matt Damon in The Martian, simply refuses to lie down and die in the face of the most extreme adversity.
DiCaprio rightly won his first Oscar for his role after no less than five nominations, with Innaritu picking up Best Director, and Emanuel Lubezki winning the award for cinematography.
Tremendous.
PRISONERS (2013) D- Denis Villeneuve. In small-town, USA, two young girls go missing. The sheriff (Jake Gylenhaal) is a good man, but has nothing to go on. One minute they were playing in the street outside their homes, next minute they are gone. The father of one of the girls (Hugh Jackman) is convinced a learning-disabled man living nearby is responsible, partly because he hears him saying "they only started crying when I left", though no one else hears him saying it. The sheriff arrests him but releases him after questioning, so Jackman decides to take the law into his own hands. He abducts the young man and tortures him until he confesses. Only problem: whatever terrible things he does to the poor chap, he doesn't confess. Despite the mitigating factors, he realises he has now committed a serious crime himself, and one the authorities cannot ignore. But first they have to uncover it...
These days I have two special criteria to determine how good a movie is: 1) whether it is capable of taking my mind off my writing, and 2) if it makes me forget, just for a few minutes, the other massive problem I face in my personal life. To do that it has to be excellent, which this was. Top marks.
November 2016 book and film review
BOOKS
SPEAK, MEMORY, by Vladimir Nabokov
A Russian emigre mines his memory once he has set up home in the USA. Born into great wealth and privilege as part of a noble family, he has to flee with his family after the Bolshevik revolution. They troll around Europe for a while before settling in the States. We learn of his synaethesia (a cross-over of the senses, where numbers or words have a distinct "colour") and how he became a writer in the first place.
Nabokov is one of my favourite writers. His sublime, limpid prose seduces the brain in a unique way, and this book is a delight from first page to last.
THE BUTCHER BOY, by Patrick McCabe.
A young lad in rural Ireland gets in a few scrapes with the authorities, which gradually escalate into dreadful crimes. It is perhaps hard to blame him: his Mum is mentally unstable, perhaps in turn affected by his father's alcoholism, but then she commits suicide and a terrible downward spiral begins.
The Butcher Boy was hailed as revolution in literature when it appeared in 1992, and won a slew of awards. And it's true: McCabe establishes a new way of writing: there are few commas, no quotation-marks and paragraph breaks are a rarity. Yet he conjures a completely authentic inner world for his "hero" Francie Brady, to inhabit. We can follow his fall from playful innocent to hardened criminal in a way that makes it seem inevitable, perhaps because stories like his are not uncommon in real life. Extraordinary.
EYE LAKE, by Tristan Hughes.
In the wastes of the Canadian outback, a young man with learning difficulties attempts to unravel the disappearances of, first his grandfather, then a close friend, and then another. But in the small town where he grew up and still lives, mysteries are the order of the day...
Tristan Hughes is a lecturer on my Master's course in creative writing, and his credentials are excellent. He won the Rhys Davies short story prize in 2002, and his four novels have received high critical acclaim. It's easy to see why. Eye Lake is a beautifully written book, with its slow, languorous style, not unlike the river that meanders through the township where the novel is set. And the characters are drawn with great skill. Highly recommended.
FILMS
EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT (2015) D- Ciro Guerra. In 1909, in the deepest parts of the Colombian rainforest, a German explorer seeks a magical healing herb. He enlists the help of a reluctant local guide, who worries the simplicity and perfection of their life in the jungle will be lost once the plant is discovered. He's not wrong...
The explorer never returns to his native Germany, and thirty years on another explorer goes in search of him. But he has a hidden agenda: while there he hopes to find a new source of rubber for the Reich. Incredibly, he finds the very guide who Assisted the first one. Once again he suspects the white man's intentions are not totally honourable, and once agin he is correct.
A really amazing film, this creates a wonderful atmosphere of the corruption of Eden and the locals' desperate response to it. Unforgettable.
I, DANIEL BLAKE (2016) D- Ken Loach. A 60-something bloke loses his job after a heart attack, but struggles to persuade the benefits people he is entitled to sick pay. Meanwhile he takes pity on a single mum and her little boy who are having at least as much trouble as he is. But at least he's had some practice...
I have only ever drawn unemployment benefit once, back in 1978, and as a doctor I was treated with respect and courtesy. I was even given "earnings related benefit", meaning I got more than my working-class cohort. I only needed to claim it for a month before finding a job. This experience, I fancy, will seem a little alien to most people today. When I worked as a GP I used to tell people you needed to be half dead to get DLA (Disability Living Allowance), then I changed it to "three quarters dead". If I was still working today I'd have to say "99% dead". A friend of mine with cerebral palsy was recently asked at her assessment when she was going to "get better". Seriously. That's like asking someone with an amputated leg when it's going to grow back. But it's what people these days are being subjected to by the benefits system. Thanks IDS. Thanks a whole fucking lot.
In brief, this is brilliant, despite IDS condemning while admitting he hadn't actually seen it. Don't make his mistake: see it. It's brilliant.
SPEAK, MEMORY, by Vladimir Nabokov
A Russian emigre mines his memory once he has set up home in the USA. Born into great wealth and privilege as part of a noble family, he has to flee with his family after the Bolshevik revolution. They troll around Europe for a while before settling in the States. We learn of his synaethesia (a cross-over of the senses, where numbers or words have a distinct "colour") and how he became a writer in the first place.
Nabokov is one of my favourite writers. His sublime, limpid prose seduces the brain in a unique way, and this book is a delight from first page to last.
THE BUTCHER BOY, by Patrick McCabe.
A young lad in rural Ireland gets in a few scrapes with the authorities, which gradually escalate into dreadful crimes. It is perhaps hard to blame him: his Mum is mentally unstable, perhaps in turn affected by his father's alcoholism, but then she commits suicide and a terrible downward spiral begins.
The Butcher Boy was hailed as revolution in literature when it appeared in 1992, and won a slew of awards. And it's true: McCabe establishes a new way of writing: there are few commas, no quotation-marks and paragraph breaks are a rarity. Yet he conjures a completely authentic inner world for his "hero" Francie Brady, to inhabit. We can follow his fall from playful innocent to hardened criminal in a way that makes it seem inevitable, perhaps because stories like his are not uncommon in real life. Extraordinary.
EYE LAKE, by Tristan Hughes.
In the wastes of the Canadian outback, a young man with learning difficulties attempts to unravel the disappearances of, first his grandfather, then a close friend, and then another. But in the small town where he grew up and still lives, mysteries are the order of the day...
Tristan Hughes is a lecturer on my Master's course in creative writing, and his credentials are excellent. He won the Rhys Davies short story prize in 2002, and his four novels have received high critical acclaim. It's easy to see why. Eye Lake is a beautifully written book, with its slow, languorous style, not unlike the river that meanders through the township where the novel is set. And the characters are drawn with great skill. Highly recommended.
FILMS
EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT (2015) D- Ciro Guerra. In 1909, in the deepest parts of the Colombian rainforest, a German explorer seeks a magical healing herb. He enlists the help of a reluctant local guide, who worries the simplicity and perfection of their life in the jungle will be lost once the plant is discovered. He's not wrong...
The explorer never returns to his native Germany, and thirty years on another explorer goes in search of him. But he has a hidden agenda: while there he hopes to find a new source of rubber for the Reich. Incredibly, he finds the very guide who Assisted the first one. Once again he suspects the white man's intentions are not totally honourable, and once agin he is correct.
A really amazing film, this creates a wonderful atmosphere of the corruption of Eden and the locals' desperate response to it. Unforgettable.
I, DANIEL BLAKE (2016) D- Ken Loach. A 60-something bloke loses his job after a heart attack, but struggles to persuade the benefits people he is entitled to sick pay. Meanwhile he takes pity on a single mum and her little boy who are having at least as much trouble as he is. But at least he's had some practice...
I have only ever drawn unemployment benefit once, back in 1978, and as a doctor I was treated with respect and courtesy. I was even given "earnings related benefit", meaning I got more than my working-class cohort. I only needed to claim it for a month before finding a job. This experience, I fancy, will seem a little alien to most people today. When I worked as a GP I used to tell people you needed to be half dead to get DLA (Disability Living Allowance), then I changed it to "three quarters dead". If I was still working today I'd have to say "99% dead". A friend of mine with cerebral palsy was recently asked at her assessment when she was going to "get better". Seriously. That's like asking someone with an amputated leg when it's going to grow back. But it's what people these days are being subjected to by the benefits system. Thanks IDS. Thanks a whole fucking lot.
In brief, this is brilliant, despite IDS condemning while admitting he hadn't actually seen it. Don't make his mistake: see it. It's brilliant.
Thursday, 24 November 2016
Sun dog over the Channel
I saw a rare and wonderful atmospheric display yesterday: a sun dog. If you are unfamiliar with the term, allow me to explain. Sun dogs are caused by the refraction of light through ice crystals in the high atmosphere. These crystals have to be hexagonal in shape in order to work their magic. But if they form, and when they do it is generally in high, thin sheets of cirrus cloud, a bright, rainbow like spot appears 22 degrees out from the sun- about a stretched hand away. Unlike rainbows, which experience a double internal reflection before the light from the raindrops reaches our eyes, in sun dogs they are refracted only once, hence they are much brighter and the red is on the inside, the opposite to a rainbow. Because they are sun-ward, unlike rainbows which of course are opposite the sun, they can be difficult to see, but if you shade your eyes from the direct glare of the sun you will sometimes find them if there is wispy cirrus about. As it was yesterday.
And it was more than just a blob. It was a broad strip, stretching up towards the zenith, where an entire halo was beginning to form. And directly above the sun an even more unusual phenomenon had formed: a "Parry's arc" which requires the ice crystals be aligned at a very specific angle to our eyes. A little wedge of brilliant light sat there, forming part of the whole wonderful display.
I was visiting my Mum at the time, and pointed it out to her. Her eyes are, even at the age of 92, are at least as good as mine, and she could see it clearly. She loved it, though with her dementia, it is unlikely she retained the memory for more than a minute.
Sun dogs are a sign of change. They often indicate a weather front is on its way, usually a cold one. Approaching cool air pushes under warmer air, forcing it upwards where the water droplets freeze, sometimes into the magic hexagonal shape. But I have noticed that when I see them it signals some sort of change in my life, and sometimes a good one. It can't signal a good change for my Mum: her life is on an inevitable downward spiral, but it might just indicate a favourable turn for me- God knows I need one.
And it was more than just a blob. It was a broad strip, stretching up towards the zenith, where an entire halo was beginning to form. And directly above the sun an even more unusual phenomenon had formed: a "Parry's arc" which requires the ice crystals be aligned at a very specific angle to our eyes. A little wedge of brilliant light sat there, forming part of the whole wonderful display.
I was visiting my Mum at the time, and pointed it out to her. Her eyes are, even at the age of 92, are at least as good as mine, and she could see it clearly. She loved it, though with her dementia, it is unlikely she retained the memory for more than a minute.
Sun dogs are a sign of change. They often indicate a weather front is on its way, usually a cold one. Approaching cool air pushes under warmer air, forcing it upwards where the water droplets freeze, sometimes into the magic hexagonal shape. But I have noticed that when I see them it signals some sort of change in my life, and sometimes a good one. It can't signal a good change for my Mum: her life is on an inevitable downward spiral, but it might just indicate a favourable turn for me- God knows I need one.
Saturday, 19 November 2016
Dead means dead: get used to it
Last week it was revealed a dying 14 year old girl was granted her dying wish to be cryogenically preserved until such time as 1. A cure could be found for her fatal brain tumour and 2. A way could be found to bring the dead back to life. Good luck with that girlie. And good luck to the thousands of others, mainly Americans, who have gone down the same road.
The technology for this technique is pretty simple. After death the body is essentially freeze-dried, reducing its bulk by 90%, as 90% of us is water. The remainder is then kept as -196 degrees Celsius, the temperature of liquid nitrogen. Then we wait.
Of course this isn't cheap, in a variety of ways. It cost the girl's parents a one-off fee of $37,000. But then, the costs of keeping something in a very deep freeze should be accounted for. It's an energy-expensive process to do this, especially as they will have to keep doing it for hundreds, thousands of years, or even, if my suspicions are correct, forever.
At the moment we can freeze cells, embryos, say, or sperm. But that's it. It would be tremendously valuable if we could freeze whole organs, like kidneys or hearts, but we can't. In fact we are a long way off achieving it. As for whole human bodies (or heads: I understand some people in the US are freezing only their heads, waiting for a time when they can be a) be re-vivified and b) be attached to some sort of android body), that lies a long way into the future.
Next, bring the dead back to life. Tricky. Impossible at present, ands to be honest, I believe it always will be. A proponent of the freezing industry recently said that we are constantly re-defining what death actually means. CPR, defibrillation and so on has changed the game for everyone, and that's a recent invention. People who have died of hypothermia can be brought back as long as an hour after their heart has stopped. True. But all that means is that they didn't actually die. Death has a very clear definition attached to it, and once a line is crossed, the human body can't go back. And I think we'd all be a lot better off getting our heads round that and concentrating on the important bits, i.e. Living, instead of hoping against hope we can find some sort of escape clause. Dead means dead, folks, and there's no way round it. No matter how rich we are.
The technology for this technique is pretty simple. After death the body is essentially freeze-dried, reducing its bulk by 90%, as 90% of us is water. The remainder is then kept as -196 degrees Celsius, the temperature of liquid nitrogen. Then we wait.
Of course this isn't cheap, in a variety of ways. It cost the girl's parents a one-off fee of $37,000. But then, the costs of keeping something in a very deep freeze should be accounted for. It's an energy-expensive process to do this, especially as they will have to keep doing it for hundreds, thousands of years, or even, if my suspicions are correct, forever.
At the moment we can freeze cells, embryos, say, or sperm. But that's it. It would be tremendously valuable if we could freeze whole organs, like kidneys or hearts, but we can't. In fact we are a long way off achieving it. As for whole human bodies (or heads: I understand some people in the US are freezing only their heads, waiting for a time when they can be a) be re-vivified and b) be attached to some sort of android body), that lies a long way into the future.
Next, bring the dead back to life. Tricky. Impossible at present, ands to be honest, I believe it always will be. A proponent of the freezing industry recently said that we are constantly re-defining what death actually means. CPR, defibrillation and so on has changed the game for everyone, and that's a recent invention. People who have died of hypothermia can be brought back as long as an hour after their heart has stopped. True. But all that means is that they didn't actually die. Death has a very clear definition attached to it, and once a line is crossed, the human body can't go back. And I think we'd all be a lot better off getting our heads round that and concentrating on the important bits, i.e. Living, instead of hoping against hope we can find some sort of escape clause. Dead means dead, folks, and there's no way round it. No matter how rich we are.
Sunday, 13 November 2016
Brexit stole my Toblerone, or Hilary trumped
Have you seen the new Toblerone? Now, and it's down to Brexit, apparently, it resembles not so much the Alps as the South Downs. I imagine there'll soon be a thriving black market trade in the "classic" design ("Oi, mate, wanna old-style Toblerone? I'll need paying in euros, mind")
Poor old Hilary, huh? Who'd have thought one of the most unpopular women in America could ever lose an election? That one of the least inspiring orators with a husband whose past is every bit as shady as Donald's, who offered nothing more exciting for the future than more of the same old same old, could fail to inspire an American electorate already feeling abandoned by an elite who cares more for globalisation than the problems in Ohio or Michigan? Well, there you go.
I hesitate to come over all I told you so, but on Tuesday morning last I said to the guy in the corner shop I wouldn't be at all surprised to see Donald win, even that I was expecting it, what with the lurch to the right the entire world has been experiencing for at least the past year. Us lefties are rapidly becoming an endangered species; here, in the U.S., where I understand Donald is even thinking of bringing that formidable political analyst Sarah Palin into his administration, in France, where I'm told Marine LePen stands a very good chance of becoming their next president next year. I tell you people, we're screwed!
Or are we? I cannot bring myself to believe Donald will do all those terrible things he was elected on the strength of promising. He'll soon see how life works in the Washington machine, with his advisors whispering in his ear ("I'm sorry Mr President, you can't do that") and in the event very little changing at a fundamental level. I fucking hope so, anyway.
Poor old Hilary, huh? Who'd have thought one of the most unpopular women in America could ever lose an election? That one of the least inspiring orators with a husband whose past is every bit as shady as Donald's, who offered nothing more exciting for the future than more of the same old same old, could fail to inspire an American electorate already feeling abandoned by an elite who cares more for globalisation than the problems in Ohio or Michigan? Well, there you go.
I hesitate to come over all I told you so, but on Tuesday morning last I said to the guy in the corner shop I wouldn't be at all surprised to see Donald win, even that I was expecting it, what with the lurch to the right the entire world has been experiencing for at least the past year. Us lefties are rapidly becoming an endangered species; here, in the U.S., where I understand Donald is even thinking of bringing that formidable political analyst Sarah Palin into his administration, in France, where I'm told Marine LePen stands a very good chance of becoming their next president next year. I tell you people, we're screwed!
Or are we? I cannot bring myself to believe Donald will do all those terrible things he was elected on the strength of promising. He'll soon see how life works in the Washington machine, with his advisors whispering in his ear ("I'm sorry Mr President, you can't do that") and in the event very little changing at a fundamental level. I fucking hope so, anyway.
Friday, 4 November 2016
Enemies of the people?
That's how the Daily Mail described (minus the question mark) the high court judges who said the government has to take the Brexit deal to Parliament before it is ratified. Enemies of the editor and owner of the Daily Mail more like. They of course want the hard Brexit so they can practice unfettered capitalism without any annoying restraints laid on it by the EU. Yet these hard Brexiteers were the ones saying it was all about preserving our great British Constitution when they appealed to us to vote leave. Now it's actually worked they don't like it. How dare they? How dare they insult these judges, people who aren't interested in Brexit one way or the other but were simply carrying out the task they're paid for?
Now parliament will (hopefully) get a say in how these negotiations are handled and make sure Britain doesn't deteriorate into some Eastern European, third rate economy where only the already wealthy will flourish.
Well done British judiciary! I for one trust you to do a good job. Even if the Daily Mail doesn't.
Now parliament will (hopefully) get a say in how these negotiations are handled and make sure Britain doesn't deteriorate into some Eastern European, third rate economy where only the already wealthy will flourish.
Well done British judiciary! I for one trust you to do a good job. Even if the Daily Mail doesn't.
Monday, 31 October 2016
October 2016 film review, continued
FILMS, CONTINUED.
SECOND CHANCE (1953) D- Rudolph Mate. Robert Mitchum kills a guy in the ring and travels to deepest Mexico to reboot his life. He comes across gorgeous Linda Darnell, on the run from her gangland boss who will do anything to avoid her testifying at his upcoming trial, up to and including sending evil Jack Palance to find her and silence her for good.
What follows is nicely made noir, even though it's made in glowing technicolor. Unusual in its time for being shot almost entirely on location south of the border, it features an unforgettable climax on a cable car, precariously suspended over a yawning chasm. All the players are excellent, especially Mitchum as the tough guy made all gooey by love, and Jack Palance demonstrating some of the most brooding menace ever seen on film.
BRIDGE OF SPIES (2015) D- Steven Spielberg. In 1957, at the height of the Cold War, pilot Gary Powers is shot down in his spy plane while overflying the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, in the U.S., a Rusky spy is caught passing notes to his handler. Both sides are embarrassed by the revelations, and would seek out a way of exchanging the two with a minimum of fuss. Enter civil lawyer Tom Hanks, brought in because is independent of government, and therefore maybe capable of brokering some sort of deal.
The Spielberg/Hanks machine has been rolling for quite some time now, and seem to be able to put together a highly professional product with seemingly little effort. Especially when they've got a script by John Le Carre to work with. The result here is highly watchable, human and, with the added skills of Mark Rylance to call upon, a sure-fire hit.
THE SALT OF THE EARTH (2014) D- Wim Wenders.
Being the life and times of Sebastiao Salgado, possibly the greatest photographer alive today. For decade after decade, Salgado has been travelling to the world's trouble spots, wars, famines, sweat shops, open-cast mines, and come back with images of stunning clarity and vision. Even the pictures which depict horror are somehow beautiful, like the scenes from the first Gulf War when Saddam set the oil wells on fire, while some are so powerful they will etch themselves into your memory for ever. There's one he took in Rwanda, after the men with the machetes had visited a school. We see a classroom, the floor literally covered in the corpses of children to the point where not a single inch of floor can be seen. Wenders's presence is scarcely noticed (which illustrates just what a great pro he is) as he lets Salgado and his photos tell the story.
Sometimes Salgado, perhaps sickened by what he has seen and recorded, turns his camera on nature, photographing landscapes and wildlife, and again capturing images of breath-taking beauty. There is one I remember, of the fore-claw of a marine iguana in the Galapagos, covered in scales and bearing an uncanny resemblance to the the hand of a medieval knight encased in chain-mail.
And Salvado doesn't confine his activities to photography. He has bought 5000 acres of land in Brazil which was cleared of its rainforest to grow trees to extract palm-oil. He has removed those trees and is in the process of planting indigenous tress and other plants which will one day see the rainforest return. What a guy!
SECOND CHANCE (1953) D- Rudolph Mate. Robert Mitchum kills a guy in the ring and travels to deepest Mexico to reboot his life. He comes across gorgeous Linda Darnell, on the run from her gangland boss who will do anything to avoid her testifying at his upcoming trial, up to and including sending evil Jack Palance to find her and silence her for good.
What follows is nicely made noir, even though it's made in glowing technicolor. Unusual in its time for being shot almost entirely on location south of the border, it features an unforgettable climax on a cable car, precariously suspended over a yawning chasm. All the players are excellent, especially Mitchum as the tough guy made all gooey by love, and Jack Palance demonstrating some of the most brooding menace ever seen on film.
BRIDGE OF SPIES (2015) D- Steven Spielberg. In 1957, at the height of the Cold War, pilot Gary Powers is shot down in his spy plane while overflying the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, in the U.S., a Rusky spy is caught passing notes to his handler. Both sides are embarrassed by the revelations, and would seek out a way of exchanging the two with a minimum of fuss. Enter civil lawyer Tom Hanks, brought in because is independent of government, and therefore maybe capable of brokering some sort of deal.
The Spielberg/Hanks machine has been rolling for quite some time now, and seem to be able to put together a highly professional product with seemingly little effort. Especially when they've got a script by John Le Carre to work with. The result here is highly watchable, human and, with the added skills of Mark Rylance to call upon, a sure-fire hit.
THE SALT OF THE EARTH (2014) D- Wim Wenders.
Being the life and times of Sebastiao Salgado, possibly the greatest photographer alive today. For decade after decade, Salgado has been travelling to the world's trouble spots, wars, famines, sweat shops, open-cast mines, and come back with images of stunning clarity and vision. Even the pictures which depict horror are somehow beautiful, like the scenes from the first Gulf War when Saddam set the oil wells on fire, while some are so powerful they will etch themselves into your memory for ever. There's one he took in Rwanda, after the men with the machetes had visited a school. We see a classroom, the floor literally covered in the corpses of children to the point where not a single inch of floor can be seen. Wenders's presence is scarcely noticed (which illustrates just what a great pro he is) as he lets Salgado and his photos tell the story.
Sometimes Salgado, perhaps sickened by what he has seen and recorded, turns his camera on nature, photographing landscapes and wildlife, and again capturing images of breath-taking beauty. There is one I remember, of the fore-claw of a marine iguana in the Galapagos, covered in scales and bearing an uncanny resemblance to the the hand of a medieval knight encased in chain-mail.
And Salvado doesn't confine his activities to photography. He has bought 5000 acres of land in Brazil which was cleared of its rainforest to grow trees to extract palm-oil. He has removed those trees and is in the process of planting indigenous tress and other plants which will one day see the rainforest return. What a guy!
October 2016 book and film review
BOOKS
FIRST WE READ, THEN WE WRITE, by Robert Patterson
Being a brief biography of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 19th century American writer and philosopher. They don't have many, so they're particularly proud of him. Most famous for his sayings "HItch your wagon to a star" and "Make a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door", Emerson wrote a number of highly influential essays which are full of useful advice to aspiring writers. Take your inspiration form nature, he urged, and put pen to paper. If you want to be a writer, then write, Goddamit. If not get out into nature and observe, take notes then go home and allow your pen to move across the page. I shall use extracts from this book in my essay on the creative processs which we must complete by next January. But first I have to learn how to write an academic essay...
WHY I WRITE, by George Orwell.
I've admired Orwell since I read Animal Farm in the 60s, and his essays are every bit as good as his fiction. Indeed, he is one of those people whose style I would most like to emulate. This book of essays includes the brilliant A Hanging, an account of an execution Orwell witnessed during his colonial days in Burma in the 1930s. But I read this because of the title essay, which addresses the issue which comes before the issue of how to write.
Orwell admits that he wants to inject some politics, some socio-political insight, into everything he writes, because, essentially, he wants to change the world. But he reminds us that all writing, including political pamphleting, must be clear, concise and easy to read. His message is, never use a long word when a short one will do, and never use complex sentence design just to show how erudite you are. Put another way, he's saying: cut the bullshit.
FILMS
THE YELLOW SEA (2010) (S. Korea) W/D- Na Hong-jin.
About 800,000 Koreans live in China. Technically they are illegal immigrants, though the Chinese authorities tolerate them because they are good for the economy. They can, however, deport them any time they like. A man has run up gambling debts and his bookie tells him he'll get him deported unless he travels back into South Korea and murders a rival. Sounds like a plan, but our man soon runs into difficulties. What follows is a skillfully made blood-fest which demonstrates that the "hero" of the tale is resourceful, determined, and so tough he makes the Bruce Willis of the Diehard movies look like a bit of a cissy.
If you like your movies rugged and uncompromising in their portrayal of violence, you'll love this. Also, in Korea there aren't that many guns, but plenty of knives. Big, sharp, terrible knives...
LO AND BEHOLD (2016) D- Werner Herzog.
In California in 1971 the internet was born. The first message was supposed to read: LOG ON NOW, but the network (which at the time comprised only 500 people, most of whom knew each other) crashed after the first two letters were tapped in. Therefore, the first message ever sent on the internet read: "LO".
Rather appropriate, concludes our Werner, perhaps the world's most interesting film maker. What has happened since, he believes, is the biggest revolution in human culture since we changed from being hunter- gatherers to settling down in towns and villages and started growing crops. A third of the world is online, three million emails are sent every second, and society has reached the point where, if it ever broke down for any reason, it would fall apart. We'd have no food, no water, no safety, none of the essentials we take for granted in the modern world. Then there are the casualties, the twitter hate campaigns, revenge porn and so on. Herzog interviewed one family, where a daughter was decapitated in a car crash and was photographed by an attending paramedic who I then posted the pictures online. Their agony was so acute it was almost impossible to bear.
I love Werner Herzog. He can't stop making films that make you think, make you wonder and make you shiver. You go, mein Herr.
FIRST WE READ, THEN WE WRITE, by Robert Patterson
Being a brief biography of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 19th century American writer and philosopher. They don't have many, so they're particularly proud of him. Most famous for his sayings "HItch your wagon to a star" and "Make a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door", Emerson wrote a number of highly influential essays which are full of useful advice to aspiring writers. Take your inspiration form nature, he urged, and put pen to paper. If you want to be a writer, then write, Goddamit. If not get out into nature and observe, take notes then go home and allow your pen to move across the page. I shall use extracts from this book in my essay on the creative processs which we must complete by next January. But first I have to learn how to write an academic essay...
WHY I WRITE, by George Orwell.
I've admired Orwell since I read Animal Farm in the 60s, and his essays are every bit as good as his fiction. Indeed, he is one of those people whose style I would most like to emulate. This book of essays includes the brilliant A Hanging, an account of an execution Orwell witnessed during his colonial days in Burma in the 1930s. But I read this because of the title essay, which addresses the issue which comes before the issue of how to write.
Orwell admits that he wants to inject some politics, some socio-political insight, into everything he writes, because, essentially, he wants to change the world. But he reminds us that all writing, including political pamphleting, must be clear, concise and easy to read. His message is, never use a long word when a short one will do, and never use complex sentence design just to show how erudite you are. Put another way, he's saying: cut the bullshit.
FILMS
THE YELLOW SEA (2010) (S. Korea) W/D- Na Hong-jin.
About 800,000 Koreans live in China. Technically they are illegal immigrants, though the Chinese authorities tolerate them because they are good for the economy. They can, however, deport them any time they like. A man has run up gambling debts and his bookie tells him he'll get him deported unless he travels back into South Korea and murders a rival. Sounds like a plan, but our man soon runs into difficulties. What follows is a skillfully made blood-fest which demonstrates that the "hero" of the tale is resourceful, determined, and so tough he makes the Bruce Willis of the Diehard movies look like a bit of a cissy.
If you like your movies rugged and uncompromising in their portrayal of violence, you'll love this. Also, in Korea there aren't that many guns, but plenty of knives. Big, sharp, terrible knives...
LO AND BEHOLD (2016) D- Werner Herzog.
In California in 1971 the internet was born. The first message was supposed to read: LOG ON NOW, but the network (which at the time comprised only 500 people, most of whom knew each other) crashed after the first two letters were tapped in. Therefore, the first message ever sent on the internet read: "LO".
Rather appropriate, concludes our Werner, perhaps the world's most interesting film maker. What has happened since, he believes, is the biggest revolution in human culture since we changed from being hunter- gatherers to settling down in towns and villages and started growing crops. A third of the world is online, three million emails are sent every second, and society has reached the point where, if it ever broke down for any reason, it would fall apart. We'd have no food, no water, no safety, none of the essentials we take for granted in the modern world. Then there are the casualties, the twitter hate campaigns, revenge porn and so on. Herzog interviewed one family, where a daughter was decapitated in a car crash and was photographed by an attending paramedic who I then posted the pictures online. Their agony was so acute it was almost impossible to bear.
I love Werner Herzog. He can't stop making films that make you think, make you wonder and make you shiver. You go, mein Herr.
Friday, 28 October 2016
I'm an insurgent, me
You too, maybe, if you voted remain. That's what Tony Blair, peace be upon him, has said. We should be allowed a second vote if we don't like the look of the negotiated deal they come up with, and I couldn't agree more. Naturally Downing Street has poured scorn on his comments, "The British Public has had its say" type of thing. So, are we never allowed to repeal a law that in retrospect doesn't suit our purposes in the cold light of day? Looks like a pretty big change in the British constitution from where I'm standing.
For once I agree with the Wealthy One, and that has happened only marginally more often than it did with Margaret Thatcher. We shouldn't forget, of course, that he was actually responsible for part of the mess we're in right now. In the economic booms of the mid noughties he was falling over backwards to invite over every foreign worker he could lay his hands on. The embassy in Bucharest was told to accept every application for a work visa to Britain, that's right, every application (I'm referring to the time before Romania joined the EU of course). Which opened the door to hundreds if not thousands of ATM fraudsters and various other crims to get over here and do their thing, because the embassy staff were told not to vet anyone at all. We're reaping that little whirlwind right now.
Little by little I'm beginning to realise why the far right was so keen on Brexit. They wanted all the constraints on capitalism lifted, every environmental check, every piece of human rights legislation, every brake on surging, laissez faire capitalism. That's what they always wanted, and pretty soon they're going to get it. They want to smash any vestige of union power Thatch didn't get rid of, so we can get back to the 1880s, when the workers did what they were told or they'd be out of a job. No wonder they don't want a second vote...
For once I agree with the Wealthy One, and that has happened only marginally more often than it did with Margaret Thatcher. We shouldn't forget, of course, that he was actually responsible for part of the mess we're in right now. In the economic booms of the mid noughties he was falling over backwards to invite over every foreign worker he could lay his hands on. The embassy in Bucharest was told to accept every application for a work visa to Britain, that's right, every application (I'm referring to the time before Romania joined the EU of course). Which opened the door to hundreds if not thousands of ATM fraudsters and various other crims to get over here and do their thing, because the embassy staff were told not to vet anyone at all. We're reaping that little whirlwind right now.
Little by little I'm beginning to realise why the far right was so keen on Brexit. They wanted all the constraints on capitalism lifted, every environmental check, every piece of human rights legislation, every brake on surging, laissez faire capitalism. That's what they always wanted, and pretty soon they're going to get it. They want to smash any vestige of union power Thatch didn't get rid of, so we can get back to the 1880s, when the workers did what they were told or they'd be out of a job. No wonder they don't want a second vote...
Friday, 14 October 2016
Why isn't Palegius blogging so much?
Cause he's busy, is why. I'm in week four of my masters in creative writing course, and they keep you well occupied. You have to produce 1500 words of (preferably) new writing every week, which is then copied so that all twelve participants can look at your work and comment on it, praising or criticising it as they see fit. I've had some pretty good feedback so far, though it has also been a little humbling when people notice blatant boo-boos (I have already acknowledged I am the world's worst proof reader).
But the act of reviewing eleven other people's work is time consuming: it takes me nearly five hours. Then there are the essays and short stories we are given to read each week to discuss the following one. Then there's the reading list, comprising of no less than 69 titles. I don't think we are expected to read them all (I bloody hope not), but we need to read quite a few, so we can quote them in our 3000 word essays (one this term, one next) on "the creative writing process".
I can report it's enormous fun, however. I am getting to know eleven other aspiring writers, some with a lot to learn, but several already accomplished performers. I am learning as much from them as from the highly talented lecturing team. Thing is, I'm the oldest person there (lecturers included) by a fair number of years. I'm five years older than the professor, even, and 25 years older than the next oldest student. But that's a good thing.
As you can see, I'm still posting the odd blog, but it's hard to keep up my old frequency. Please be patient. I shall continue to post my media review at around the end, or at the beginning, of each month, so don't abandon me. I need yous!
Thursday, 13 October 2016
Aleppo: Apocalypse Now
Bashar Al Assad and Vladimir Putin are currently destroying any resistance to them house by house, brick by brick and child by child. Meanwhile, as the mayor of Aleppo has said, the world simply watches. But what can we do?
The fact is that America and we too are terrified of what might happen if we shot a Russian plane out of the skies in the act of dropping bombs. The consequences are too terrible to contemplate. Or are they?
In the Cuba missiles crisis of 1962 President Kennedy warned of dire consequences if they didn't remove those Russian ICBMs pronto. Kruschev blinked first, and the missiles were removed. Would Putin blink first? I don't know. The USA isn't as powerful as it was then, but neither is Russia come to that.
The stakes are as high as they've been since the Cuba crisis. Maybe it's time to see who blinks first, before a new holocaust is perpetrated on the embattled people of Aleppo.
The fact is that America and we too are terrified of what might happen if we shot a Russian plane out of the skies in the act of dropping bombs. The consequences are too terrible to contemplate. Or are they?
In the Cuba missiles crisis of 1962 President Kennedy warned of dire consequences if they didn't remove those Russian ICBMs pronto. Kruschev blinked first, and the missiles were removed. Would Putin blink first? I don't know. The USA isn't as powerful as it was then, but neither is Russia come to that.
The stakes are as high as they've been since the Cuba crisis. Maybe it's time to see who blinks first, before a new holocaust is perpetrated on the embattled people of Aleppo.
Thursday, 29 September 2016
September 2016 book and film review
BOOKS
SEBASTIAN BERGMAN, by Hjorth Rosenfeldt.
A teenage boy is found horribly murdered and there are no clues as to the perp. An eminent, but of late discredited forensic psychologist insinuates himself into the investigation, but he has a hidden agenda: he has learned he might have a daughter he has never met, and perhaps the IT resources available to the police might help him find her...
The character of Sebastian Bergman has been incorporated into a TV series, highly successful in the Nordic states though it hasn't made it over here yet (it's only a matter of time; our appetite for Nordic noir seems to know no bounds), and some of the later books come over like novelisations of the TV programmes. But this is the original and genuine article, and does read like a proper novel. It is well written, certainly, though some of the twists and turns seem slightly improbable, to say the least. We know our Sebastian has a past, but would a seasoned pro like him really seduce not one, but two women closely linked to the investigation? I thinknottle. Still, if you like your Scandi crime thrillers, this one will do nicely.
DR MUKTI, AND OTHER TALES OF WOE, by Will Self.
Dr Mukti is an Asian shrink working in a provincial London hospital, and a rivalry develops between him and another shrink who works in a more prestigious institution. To begin with, this takes the form of one referring a particularly troublesome or otherwise difficult patient to the other, who returns the favour with an even bigger clinical conundrum. But then it gets darker, much darker...
There is a grain of authenticity to this story. I myself have deliberately referred nightmare patients to clinicians I didn't like, thinking "Hah! This'll fuck 'em up a treat". Usually, of course, that's where it ends.
I chose to read this after being thoroughly blown away by the genius of The Book of Dave, and I
wasn't disappointed. Will Self is a frighteningly intelligent writer who has developed his own unique style. He doesn't insult the reader's intelligence; indeed in this book I had to look up more than 30 words I didn't know. I just love the way he writes. Try this, for example, which appears in the story 161:
...against the left-hand wall was a row of armchairs, as grim and overstuffed as unwelcome elderly relatives watching the dancing at a wedding. One was covered in green plush velveteen, the next in greasy brown leatherette, while the third along had foam rubber bursting from its wounded shoulders. A fourth canted painfully, one short leg broken beneath its sagging arse...
See?
A HEART SO WHITE, by Javier Marias
A newly married man should be enjoying his honeymoon in Havana, but is continually distracted by thoughts of father and his two wives, or is it three? He knows one died young, possibly by her own hand, but this is a family that knows how to keep its secrets... While staring out of the window he overhears a conversation coming from next door. A woman is trying to persuade her boyfriend to leave his wife for her, if necessary by murdering her. He tries not to listen in, but can't help it. Will these characters come back to haunt him later?
I discovered this book entirely by chance. My wife came across it in a charity shop and recommended it to me (I owe her an enormous debt of gratitude for all the wonderful books she has endorsed over the years). And despite the fact that the writing is dense and meticulous I soon realised I was in the presence of greatness. Yes, this is a great novel, putting even the likes of Will Self into the shade. I hear the smart money is on him to win the Nobel Prize in the not too distant future; I can't think of any other living writer who deserves it more.
FILMS
SOMEWHERE (2010) D- Sophia Coppola. An extremely famous movie star (think Brad Pitt, say) seems to be possessed by an unusually severe case of ennui, to the point where even hiring a gorgeous pair of identical strippers to perform for him barely piques his interest. Is it his failed marriage, perhaps? It certainly isn't his daughter, who he occasionally has custody of, a delightful teenager (Elle Fanning), the only player in the film who isn't completely fucked up. Or is it some deeper, existential angst? To be honest, we never really find out, and I'm not sure we care either. As with her recent film The Bling Ring, Sophia Coppola seems to specialist in empty, vapid types which perhaps reflect her own experience of the Hollywood scene, growing up as she did as the daughter of a famous director. Whatever, the result is disappointing, except as I say for the delightful performance of Elle Fanning.
CAFE SOCIETY (2016) D- Woody Allen. A young man in the 1930s wants to break into Hollywood and is lucky enough to have a distant relative in a powerful role. Unfortunately he only gets extra parts and like stuff, though he does fall for the mogul's secretary. She likes him, but belongs to another. He becomes disillusioned and returns to New York, where he falls on his feet and manages a successful night club. But then, who should he run into... Woody Allen is over 80 now, which doesn't seem to stop him churning out film after film, year after year. How does he do it? Christ knows. All I know is, his poorer efforts (which this is) are better than most people's best.
FRANK (2014) D- Lennie Abrahamson. A talented but unemployed musician hears an avant grade group one day and decides he could be part of their ensemble. Small point: the leader wears a large, papier-mâché head and never, ever, takes it off. OK, never mind, that's all part of the experimental nature of the band, right? Our boy puts his life savings into renting a cabin in the country for a year, which the band inhabit and make their beautiful, obscure music. Maybe some day they'll take their show on the road. Won't they? This strange, and rather wonderful tale is based on the character of "Frank Sidebottom" a persona created by the British DJ and notable eccentric Chris Sievey back in the 90s. He really did go round for prolonged periods of time with his strange head, and was apparently deeply loved by a select coterie of admirers in the Manchester area. It all passed me by, but I'm glad this film didn't. Weird, but excellent.
HITCHCOCK/TRUFFAUT (2015) D- Kent Jones. In 1962, rookie auteur Francois Truffaut, entranced by his hero Alfred Hitchcock, wrote to him requesting he film a series of in depth interviews on the rotund one's canon of extraordinary films. Understandably flattered, Hitch graciously agreed. From these interviews came the book "Hitchcock/Truffaut" published later that year, which remains one of the most intimate and detailed analyses of any film maker. Now director Abrahamson has unearthed the source material, namely all those filmed interviews and edited them down into one fascinating little piece. What we see is a totally unaffected Hitchcock expounding on his favorite subject, his own work, while a star-struck Truffaut interjects only an occasional brief question to keep him going. We learn a lot, but above all we find that what Hitchcock wants to do is to affect the audience, make them feel what he wants them to: lust, longing, fear, joy, the whole gamut in fact if he can, and my goodness he can, if movies like Stangers on a Train, Psycho or Vertigo anything to go by. A must for anyone who'd like to think they were a film buff.
SEBASTIAN BERGMAN, by Hjorth Rosenfeldt.
A teenage boy is found horribly murdered and there are no clues as to the perp. An eminent, but of late discredited forensic psychologist insinuates himself into the investigation, but he has a hidden agenda: he has learned he might have a daughter he has never met, and perhaps the IT resources available to the police might help him find her...
The character of Sebastian Bergman has been incorporated into a TV series, highly successful in the Nordic states though it hasn't made it over here yet (it's only a matter of time; our appetite for Nordic noir seems to know no bounds), and some of the later books come over like novelisations of the TV programmes. But this is the original and genuine article, and does read like a proper novel. It is well written, certainly, though some of the twists and turns seem slightly improbable, to say the least. We know our Sebastian has a past, but would a seasoned pro like him really seduce not one, but two women closely linked to the investigation? I thinknottle. Still, if you like your Scandi crime thrillers, this one will do nicely.
DR MUKTI, AND OTHER TALES OF WOE, by Will Self.
Dr Mukti is an Asian shrink working in a provincial London hospital, and a rivalry develops between him and another shrink who works in a more prestigious institution. To begin with, this takes the form of one referring a particularly troublesome or otherwise difficult patient to the other, who returns the favour with an even bigger clinical conundrum. But then it gets darker, much darker...
There is a grain of authenticity to this story. I myself have deliberately referred nightmare patients to clinicians I didn't like, thinking "Hah! This'll fuck 'em up a treat". Usually, of course, that's where it ends.
I chose to read this after being thoroughly blown away by the genius of The Book of Dave, and I
wasn't disappointed. Will Self is a frighteningly intelligent writer who has developed his own unique style. He doesn't insult the reader's intelligence; indeed in this book I had to look up more than 30 words I didn't know. I just love the way he writes. Try this, for example, which appears in the story 161:
...against the left-hand wall was a row of armchairs, as grim and overstuffed as unwelcome elderly relatives watching the dancing at a wedding. One was covered in green plush velveteen, the next in greasy brown leatherette, while the third along had foam rubber bursting from its wounded shoulders. A fourth canted painfully, one short leg broken beneath its sagging arse...
See?
A HEART SO WHITE, by Javier Marias
A newly married man should be enjoying his honeymoon in Havana, but is continually distracted by thoughts of father and his two wives, or is it three? He knows one died young, possibly by her own hand, but this is a family that knows how to keep its secrets... While staring out of the window he overhears a conversation coming from next door. A woman is trying to persuade her boyfriend to leave his wife for her, if necessary by murdering her. He tries not to listen in, but can't help it. Will these characters come back to haunt him later?
I discovered this book entirely by chance. My wife came across it in a charity shop and recommended it to me (I owe her an enormous debt of gratitude for all the wonderful books she has endorsed over the years). And despite the fact that the writing is dense and meticulous I soon realised I was in the presence of greatness. Yes, this is a great novel, putting even the likes of Will Self into the shade. I hear the smart money is on him to win the Nobel Prize in the not too distant future; I can't think of any other living writer who deserves it more.
FILMS
SOMEWHERE (2010) D- Sophia Coppola. An extremely famous movie star (think Brad Pitt, say) seems to be possessed by an unusually severe case of ennui, to the point where even hiring a gorgeous pair of identical strippers to perform for him barely piques his interest. Is it his failed marriage, perhaps? It certainly isn't his daughter, who he occasionally has custody of, a delightful teenager (Elle Fanning), the only player in the film who isn't completely fucked up. Or is it some deeper, existential angst? To be honest, we never really find out, and I'm not sure we care either. As with her recent film The Bling Ring, Sophia Coppola seems to specialist in empty, vapid types which perhaps reflect her own experience of the Hollywood scene, growing up as she did as the daughter of a famous director. Whatever, the result is disappointing, except as I say for the delightful performance of Elle Fanning.
CAFE SOCIETY (2016) D- Woody Allen. A young man in the 1930s wants to break into Hollywood and is lucky enough to have a distant relative in a powerful role. Unfortunately he only gets extra parts and like stuff, though he does fall for the mogul's secretary. She likes him, but belongs to another. He becomes disillusioned and returns to New York, where he falls on his feet and manages a successful night club. But then, who should he run into... Woody Allen is over 80 now, which doesn't seem to stop him churning out film after film, year after year. How does he do it? Christ knows. All I know is, his poorer efforts (which this is) are better than most people's best.
FRANK (2014) D- Lennie Abrahamson. A talented but unemployed musician hears an avant grade group one day and decides he could be part of their ensemble. Small point: the leader wears a large, papier-mâché head and never, ever, takes it off. OK, never mind, that's all part of the experimental nature of the band, right? Our boy puts his life savings into renting a cabin in the country for a year, which the band inhabit and make their beautiful, obscure music. Maybe some day they'll take their show on the road. Won't they? This strange, and rather wonderful tale is based on the character of "Frank Sidebottom" a persona created by the British DJ and notable eccentric Chris Sievey back in the 90s. He really did go round for prolonged periods of time with his strange head, and was apparently deeply loved by a select coterie of admirers in the Manchester area. It all passed me by, but I'm glad this film didn't. Weird, but excellent.
HITCHCOCK/TRUFFAUT (2015) D- Kent Jones. In 1962, rookie auteur Francois Truffaut, entranced by his hero Alfred Hitchcock, wrote to him requesting he film a series of in depth interviews on the rotund one's canon of extraordinary films. Understandably flattered, Hitch graciously agreed. From these interviews came the book "Hitchcock/Truffaut" published later that year, which remains one of the most intimate and detailed analyses of any film maker. Now director Abrahamson has unearthed the source material, namely all those filmed interviews and edited them down into one fascinating little piece. What we see is a totally unaffected Hitchcock expounding on his favorite subject, his own work, while a star-struck Truffaut interjects only an occasional brief question to keep him going. We learn a lot, but above all we find that what Hitchcock wants to do is to affect the audience, make them feel what he wants them to: lust, longing, fear, joy, the whole gamut in fact if he can, and my goodness he can, if movies like Stangers on a Train, Psycho or Vertigo anything to go by. A must for anyone who'd like to think they were a film buff.
Tuesday, 27 September 2016
Is Keith Richards our GLE? Part 2
Last night I finished watching my recordings of BBC 4's remarkable exploration of the life of Keith Richards, explored mainly by the man himself over three days of broadcasts. I feel slightly disloyal to him because I have not watched all of it live, that is to be with him at night and into the small hours approaching dawn. For this is Keith's time. A man who has spent his whole life awake and plying his trade when the rest of us are sleeping, and vice versa. They say this kind of inversion is bad for us; that it shortens life: Keith appears to be the living example of why that theory may be wrong. At 73 he is not only still here, but as feisty, charming and charismatic as he has ever been, despite his nocturnal habits and a host of other pursuits that might have seen lesser men succumb decades ago. "At night we're more free", he says, and more relaxed, open and honest too.
It was also notable for what wasn't said. Although he salutes his fellow band members as true friends and even comrades in arms in the war to make great music and foil the establishment, he hardly mentions Mick Jagger at all. This despite the fact that almost every song in the huge canon of the Rolling Stones has the credit: "written by Jagger/Richards". Brian gets the briefest of tributes; Ronny Wood is cited as one who loves fame and knows how to handle it. Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman, however, don't even make it onto the radar.
Not that the whole 27 hours of programming were Keith talking about himself and his life with Rolling Stones, though it has to be said that it was when he was the television was at its most riveting. But Keith was allowed to show us a range of his favourite films and other features, revealing a taste that aligns in many cases precisely with my own. Films like The Thirty-Nine Steps, The Man who would be King, Build my Gallows High and Bicycle Thieves, shorts like a selection of wonderful Tex Avery cartoons and experimental films from the 60s, even the odd Hancock's Half-Hour.
I congratulate the Beeb for their courage in devoting so much time to this project, and also to Julien Temple for putting the whole thing together. One wonders who else currently alive could warrant such an accolade: David Attenborough perhaps, or Paul McCartney? But neither, I suspect, nor perhaps anyone else could provide the sustained fascination for such an extended period as did our Keith. Nice one, mate. You did good. Real good. In your own parlance, you are one cool cat.
It was also notable for what wasn't said. Although he salutes his fellow band members as true friends and even comrades in arms in the war to make great music and foil the establishment, he hardly mentions Mick Jagger at all. This despite the fact that almost every song in the huge canon of the Rolling Stones has the credit: "written by Jagger/Richards". Brian gets the briefest of tributes; Ronny Wood is cited as one who loves fame and knows how to handle it. Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman, however, don't even make it onto the radar.
Not that the whole 27 hours of programming were Keith talking about himself and his life with Rolling Stones, though it has to be said that it was when he was the television was at its most riveting. But Keith was allowed to show us a range of his favourite films and other features, revealing a taste that aligns in many cases precisely with my own. Films like The Thirty-Nine Steps, The Man who would be King, Build my Gallows High and Bicycle Thieves, shorts like a selection of wonderful Tex Avery cartoons and experimental films from the 60s, even the odd Hancock's Half-Hour.
I congratulate the Beeb for their courage in devoting so much time to this project, and also to Julien Temple for putting the whole thing together. One wonders who else currently alive could warrant such an accolade: David Attenborough perhaps, or Paul McCartney? But neither, I suspect, nor perhaps anyone else could provide the sustained fascination for such an extended period as did our Keith. Nice one, mate. You did good. Real good. In your own parlance, you are one cool cat.
Saturday, 24 September 2016
Is Keith Richards our GLE?
You might not think of the Wrinkled One first on your shortlist of Greatest Living Englishmen. What about David Attenborough, you might say, or Tim Berners-Lee? I might have said the same thing, until last night when I began to watch BBC 4's bold and highly courageous donation of a huge tract of their airtime to El Ricardo to talk about his life and work. Keith was born in 1943, making him eight years older than me. He was born in hospital, which was fortunate because when the family returned home they found it had been flattened by a German bomb.
His childhood was spent playing in bomb-sites (so was mine; many were still there by the mid 50s) and waiting for the ration on sweets to be lifted (it was the last commodity to be rationed, and when it was lifted, in 1955, it constituted one of my first memories) Being smaller than his contemporaries, he was bullied at school until one day the red mist descended and he lashed out at one. From that day on he became the defender of other bullied children. All this I can to some extent identify with. What I can't is his early infatuation with the guitar and playing the blues on it. But as we know, the rest is history, and the most extraordinary history at that. When we finally gave up and went to bed last night, he was talking about making friends with Mick Jagger and Brian Jones, their initial success and resultant fame and how poor Brian couldn't cope with that.
I am looking forward to watching the next instalment of The Keith's Progress with enormous anticipation. You could do worse than join me...
His childhood was spent playing in bomb-sites (so was mine; many were still there by the mid 50s) and waiting for the ration on sweets to be lifted (it was the last commodity to be rationed, and when it was lifted, in 1955, it constituted one of my first memories) Being smaller than his contemporaries, he was bullied at school until one day the red mist descended and he lashed out at one. From that day on he became the defender of other bullied children. All this I can to some extent identify with. What I can't is his early infatuation with the guitar and playing the blues on it. But as we know, the rest is history, and the most extraordinary history at that. When we finally gave up and went to bed last night, he was talking about making friends with Mick Jagger and Brian Jones, their initial success and resultant fame and how poor Brian couldn't cope with that.
I am looking forward to watching the next instalment of The Keith's Progress with enormous anticipation. You could do worse than join me...
Wednesday, 21 September 2016
The Big Day has arrived!
I've had some big, bad days recently, but hopefully this will be a good one, one to mark a new and positive direction in my life: It is the first day of my Masters in creative writing course at Cardiff university. My first task will be to find room 126 in the School of English, Philosophy and Communication, no less, housed in the "John Percival Building". Google maps has helped me find it; let's hope that works.
I know how to write, write quickly sometimes when called upon to do so. I know some of the regle de Jeux of creative writing, you know, show not tell, kill your darlings, your final draft minus 10%, that sort of thing. I have even put one or two half-way decent short stories and travel writing pieces together. But can I learn to write really well, produce something of real depth? It remains to be seen.
I'll admit to feeling a bit scared. After all, it's been a cool 42 years since I was last a student, and I fancy things may have changed a little in the interim. When I went to collect my student card, essential shibboleth to enable anything to happen on campus, I was given a number and told to wait until it came up on a big board. I was given the number 032. The number on the board was 705. Nearly three hours passed before my number came up. I felt most sorry for the processors, just six of them to deal with a massive student body, at least 75% of whol did not hail originally from the UK as far as I could make out. But I was impressed by the general atmosphere of calm that prevailed among the students. Nobody lost their cool and started shouting, although clearly many had complex visa or other administrative issues to grapple with. Most occupied their time by staring at their mobile phones, though some did engage in actual conversation with their peers. That's a good sign, right?
I know how to write, write quickly sometimes when called upon to do so. I know some of the regle de Jeux of creative writing, you know, show not tell, kill your darlings, your final draft minus 10%, that sort of thing. I have even put one or two half-way decent short stories and travel writing pieces together. But can I learn to write really well, produce something of real depth? It remains to be seen.
I'll admit to feeling a bit scared. After all, it's been a cool 42 years since I was last a student, and I fancy things may have changed a little in the interim. When I went to collect my student card, essential shibboleth to enable anything to happen on campus, I was given a number and told to wait until it came up on a big board. I was given the number 032. The number on the board was 705. Nearly three hours passed before my number came up. I felt most sorry for the processors, just six of them to deal with a massive student body, at least 75% of whol did not hail originally from the UK as far as I could make out. But I was impressed by the general atmosphere of calm that prevailed among the students. Nobody lost their cool and started shouting, although clearly many had complex visa or other administrative issues to grapple with. Most occupied their time by staring at their mobile phones, though some did engage in actual conversation with their peers. That's a good sign, right?
Saturday, 17 September 2016
So it's yes to Hinkley C after all
When in the summer Theresa May called whoa to the signing of the deal to have the French and Chinese to build a nuke at Hinkley Point I thought, good for her, this bodes well for her leadership.
But then the Chinese had a word in her shell-like at the recent G8 summit and now we're going for it. What did they say? It isn't hard to imagine. Something like: "You frustrate us now at your peril. I don't think you want the ire of the world's second biggest economy falling on you. There's too much at stake, not for us very much, but for you a whole lot..." And she buckled.
Now we're going for Brexit, she has doubtless argued behind the scenes, we can't afford to alienate one of our biggest trading partners. We'd be fucked. But would we? They talk about "energy security" all the time these days, but tell me, what is more secure than the knowledge that the wind will blow and the tide will go in and out twice a day? That's where we should be concentrating our efforts, not in an extremely expensive, potentially catastrophic method of creating electricity.
Not long ago the Japanese premier visited Wales, where we are considering replacing the ageing Wylfa nuclear power plant with a new one. He reminded us what happened at Fukushima, where, despite sophisticated defence barriers, a massive tsunami overtopped it with ease and flooded the place. OK, you might say, tsunamis aren't very common in Wales, although some people say there was one in 1607 (though others say it was a massive, storm driven tidal surge) which flooded huge areas of Wales and the West Country. What I'm saying is that it's actually impossible to predict what might happen next (as I discovered for myself this summer), especially in the brave new world of climate change, when all over the world, weather events not seen for hundreds of years seem to be becoming almost commonplace. We live in an uncertain world. Why don't we play safe?
But then the Chinese had a word in her shell-like at the recent G8 summit and now we're going for it. What did they say? It isn't hard to imagine. Something like: "You frustrate us now at your peril. I don't think you want the ire of the world's second biggest economy falling on you. There's too much at stake, not for us very much, but for you a whole lot..." And she buckled.
Now we're going for Brexit, she has doubtless argued behind the scenes, we can't afford to alienate one of our biggest trading partners. We'd be fucked. But would we? They talk about "energy security" all the time these days, but tell me, what is more secure than the knowledge that the wind will blow and the tide will go in and out twice a day? That's where we should be concentrating our efforts, not in an extremely expensive, potentially catastrophic method of creating electricity.
Not long ago the Japanese premier visited Wales, where we are considering replacing the ageing Wylfa nuclear power plant with a new one. He reminded us what happened at Fukushima, where, despite sophisticated defence barriers, a massive tsunami overtopped it with ease and flooded the place. OK, you might say, tsunamis aren't very common in Wales, although some people say there was one in 1607 (though others say it was a massive, storm driven tidal surge) which flooded huge areas of Wales and the West Country. What I'm saying is that it's actually impossible to predict what might happen next (as I discovered for myself this summer), especially in the brave new world of climate change, when all over the world, weather events not seen for hundreds of years seem to be becoming almost commonplace. We live in an uncertain world. Why don't we play safe?
Wednesday, 14 September 2016
DC: a lot to answer for
A report today says the whole terrible mess in Libya is basically David Cameron's fault. It started out OK, when the world had to act to prevent a possible holocaust in Benghazi, stronghold of resistance to Gadafi's rule. He made dire threats about what he was going to do when he marched in there, and even I, usually very wary of interfering with the internal affairs of another country, felt we had to do something. But then the whole thing morphed into a regime change thing, apparently at DC's behest, and from there the situation in Libya spiraled downhill rapidly. Now from its shores, people traffickers dispatch thousands of hopefuls towards Italy on a daily basis, only putting enough fuel in their craft to get half-way, where with any luck they will be rescued, or drown if not. That they are able to do this on such a massive scale is down to the essentially lawless state that has prevailed in Libya since Moamar was taken down.
Saying all that is Cameron's fault may be a slight overstatement, but only a slight one. Now let's look at Brexit. To say he's responsible for the frightful mess this country now finds itself in today may again be a slight overstatement, but again only a slight one. It was his decision to have a referendum, rather than facing down the "bastards" in his cabinet and on his back benches, and he signed off on the decision to have the result decided on a 50% plus one basis. Nice one Dave. Some legacy you're going to have...
Saying all that is Cameron's fault may be a slight overstatement, but only a slight one. Now let's look at Brexit. To say he's responsible for the frightful mess this country now finds itself in today may again be a slight overstatement, but again only a slight one. It was his decision to have a referendum, rather than facing down the "bastards" in his cabinet and on his back benches, and he signed off on the decision to have the result decided on a 50% plus one basis. Nice one Dave. Some legacy you're going to have...
Sunday, 11 September 2016
A look back at the summer
For me this summer has been different from any other. It has been characterized by feelings of shock and fear, lately transformed into anger as I have processed the enormity of what took place on the 1st July. I don't think it would be wise to describe in detail what has happened to me, although in time I hope to be able to reveal all. For now I want to list a few of the things that were able to penetrate through the fog of terror under which I have been just about surviving.
Brexit. My God, did we really do that? I think we must have. Boris was on the news this morning,
talking about a "hard brexit"- which I take it to mean, get out, and get out now. Sod the single market, sod my protestations about this having nothing to do with immigration, as I said during the campaign. Of course it bloody is, so the sooner we up and leave, the sooner we stem the tide from Romania, the Baltic states and all those other loser countries and get our country back for our people.
Good for Vanessa May (sorry) for saying she won't be offering a running commentary on the negotiations. She's going to have to rein in the more rabid brexiteers in the cabinet; maybe fire a few if necessary. I suspect it will. She could start with that idiot Liam Fox, who wants our business managers to concentrate on maximizing their profits 24/7 and not playing golf on a Friday afternoon, apparently.
Sport. Where do I begin? At the beginning I guess, with Andy Murray's stunning victory at Wimbledon. Only problem for me, I kept looking at the crowd and thinking, you're not in as much trouble as me, you're not in as much trouble as me; good grief, nobody's in as much trouble as me right now!The same thing when I watched Henrik Stenson triumph over Phil Mickelson at the Open.
As for the Olympic Games, a lot of that was spoiled by the timing, which had less to do with the four hour time lag and more to do with Brazil's own programming issues. I mean, some of the biggest events took place at 11.30 pm their time! Consequently I missed Usain Bolt's finest hours (all three of them) as well as Mo Farrah's golden moments. I did see our hockey women show our men's football team how to take penalties though; I did see Jason Kenny and Laura Trott show the world that the couple that wins together stays together, and I did see Neymar take revenge for Brazil's ignominious defeat at the hands of their nemesis two years ago.
Slowly I am returning to some degree of normality. I am beginning my Master's in creative writing next week, and this will be vital for me as something to distract myself from my other "problem". Otherwise I could crumble, and I don't intend to do that. My life has been a succession of recoveries from major blows (like a lot of people) and I guess that process is not yet over. I'll get there, and I'm going to be OK.
Brexit. My God, did we really do that? I think we must have. Boris was on the news this morning,
talking about a "hard brexit"- which I take it to mean, get out, and get out now. Sod the single market, sod my protestations about this having nothing to do with immigration, as I said during the campaign. Of course it bloody is, so the sooner we up and leave, the sooner we stem the tide from Romania, the Baltic states and all those other loser countries and get our country back for our people.
Good for Vanessa May (sorry) for saying she won't be offering a running commentary on the negotiations. She's going to have to rein in the more rabid brexiteers in the cabinet; maybe fire a few if necessary. I suspect it will. She could start with that idiot Liam Fox, who wants our business managers to concentrate on maximizing their profits 24/7 and not playing golf on a Friday afternoon, apparently.
Sport. Where do I begin? At the beginning I guess, with Andy Murray's stunning victory at Wimbledon. Only problem for me, I kept looking at the crowd and thinking, you're not in as much trouble as me, you're not in as much trouble as me; good grief, nobody's in as much trouble as me right now!The same thing when I watched Henrik Stenson triumph over Phil Mickelson at the Open.
As for the Olympic Games, a lot of that was spoiled by the timing, which had less to do with the four hour time lag and more to do with Brazil's own programming issues. I mean, some of the biggest events took place at 11.30 pm their time! Consequently I missed Usain Bolt's finest hours (all three of them) as well as Mo Farrah's golden moments. I did see our hockey women show our men's football team how to take penalties though; I did see Jason Kenny and Laura Trott show the world that the couple that wins together stays together, and I did see Neymar take revenge for Brazil's ignominious defeat at the hands of their nemesis two years ago.
Slowly I am returning to some degree of normality. I am beginning my Master's in creative writing next week, and this will be vital for me as something to distract myself from my other "problem". Otherwise I could crumble, and I don't intend to do that. My life has been a succession of recoveries from major blows (like a lot of people) and I guess that process is not yet over. I'll get there, and I'm going to be OK.
Tuesday, 30 August 2016
August 2016 book and film review
Finally, and just in time, I have caught up with my media reviews. It has been an enormous effort do achieve it in view of my current predicament (more on this later; watch this space), but I owe it to my vast readership (hah!) and indeed to myself to keep up my blog. So welcome to the books and films I encountered this month.
BOOKS
MAUS, by Art Spiegelman.
A graphic novelist reckons he can make a book out of his father's recollections of Auschwitz. But his father's memories have faded over the decades; he has burnt his diaries and there is another slight problem: he finds his dad's quirky ways extremely irritating. However, by exercising reserves of patience he never knew he had, he gradually coaxes the reminiscences out of a man who has spent half his life trying to put the past behind him...
His father turns out to have been a highly intelligent and infinitely resourceful man, who used his wits and numerous acquired skills to keep him out of the gas chambers for year after year. Which is more than could be said of his many friends and relatives, who weren't so lucky. Slowly the son begins to understand his father's miserliness and motivation to do everything for himself despite his frailty. In Auschwitz you had to- or die.
Normally I am not much of a graphic novel guy, though I have tried a few. This, however, is one of the very best. Beautifully drawn (the Jews are portrayed as as mice, the Nazis as cats while the Poles are pigs), funny, deeply moving, it won America's Pulitzer Prize for its astonishing originality and humanity.
Highly recommended.
THE BLOOD STRAND, by Chris Ould.
A British detective returns to the Faroes of his childhood to visit a father he hasn't seen since they fell out over twenty years before. But now it's a different situation. The abrasive, hostile man he knew is now lying in a coma following a stroke, and there's something else: there's a discharged shotgun in the car he was found in, and nearly half a million in cash in a brief case in the boot. What happened?
On a strictly unofficial basis, he makes friends with the local police investigating the "crime", though it isn't yet clear if there was crime at all. But piece by piece, a strange train of events begins to unfold...
Chris Ould's "Faroes" series has gone down very well with the European thriller-buyng public, and he has been commissioned to write at least two more. I can see why. His style is calm, fluid, and full of fascinating procedural detail. There are some problems though. I find it hard to believe a foreign police force would so readily bring a foreigner into their investigations, even if he is a police officer himself and related by blood to some of the main players. That aside, I found the story gripping and skilfully constructed.
Nice one, Chris.
BERLIN, by Anthony Beevor.
It is January 1945. The war is as good as over, and everyone except Hitler and his coterie of sycophants knows it. The Allies are closing in from the west, while on the borders of Poland the biggest army ever amassed together in one place is preparing to storm the citadel. Will the Germans accept the inevitable and give up to avoid further suffering? Will they hell. What follows in the next four months is one of the most terrible tales in the annals of war.
Many of the facts are now common knowledge: the Red Army engage in a programme of mass rape which is sanctioned, albeit tacitly, at the highest level, roil through Poland, not as a liberating force but as a heartless army of invasion; the Allies coming over the Rhine, ready and able to get to Berlin before them, but prevented from doing so by a gullible American leadership who believe all Stalin's lies. And the terrible struggle for Berlin which cost so much suffering and so many lives.
With my own life in turmoil, I think I chose this book to read about people in an even worse mess than I am, which I have to say takes some doing. But this book achieves it. Anthony Beevor is a brilliant writer of non-fiction, bringing to life the horrors of Hitler's Gotterdamerung in vivid and graphic tones. I thought I knew this story pretty well, but I know a hell of lot more now...
FILMS
THE MARTIAN (2016) D- Ridley Scott. In the 2060s a team of astronauts on the Red Planet have to leave in a hurry when a huge storm (they do have them there) threatens to destroy their spacecraft. They think one of their number has been killed by flying debris, but no, he's still alive. He's got food and oxygen enough for a month, then he will die. Unless of course, he can apply his knowledge of engineering and combine that with an incredibly fierce survival instinct to figure out a way to stay alive.
From the various landers and an extremely comprehensive overview of the surface from satellite imaging, we know a lot about how Mars looks, and Ridley Scott has done a bang-up job of making it look remarkably authentic. And for once, we have a film about science which with a very few minor exceptions is completely believable. Matt Damon is ace as the stranded Martian; in fact the only problem I had with the film is his almost overwhelming will to survive the months and years before any kind of rescue mission can be mounted. Perhaps I'm saying I wouldn't have the strength and ingenuity to do such a thing, but I guess if you are possessed of sufficient quantities of the right stuff, then maybe you can.
Pretty good stuff.
LES COMBATTANTS (2014) W/D- Thomas Cailley. Over the long hot summer of central France while waiting to go to college (maybe), boy meets girl. She's convinced of the forthcoming apocalypse and is developing her survival skills accordingly. He, on the other hand, just wants to have some fun. They join the local French equivalent of the TA; she to loan her survival skills, he for want of anything better to do, and of course, to be near her. She soon finds the training isn't hardcore enough for her, so they do a bunk and run off to live on their wits in the forest. But living off the land is not as easy as the survival guides suggest...
Also known as Love at First Fight, I really liked this little offering, with its unusual twist on young romance. The directing is highly professional, and the two stars, Adele Haenel and Kevin Azais turn in very neat performances.
Bittersweet and engaging.
DAVID BRENT: LIFE ON THE ROAD (2016) W/D- Ricky Gervaise. David Brent is back after ten years, now a junior sales exec, but still trying to convince himself he can become a rock star if he only pours enough (borrowed) money into the enterprise. It doesn't matter that his band is made up of session musicians he barely knows, or the fact that no one comes to the gigs. Everything will work out, surely some agent will discover his talent and make him a star.
The Office was one of the most remarkable comedy phenomena of the Millennium. Spawning a slew of other "mocumentary" style comedies, including the massively successful Modern Family and making stars out of actors like Martin Freeman, to say nothing of catapulting Ricky into megastardom on both sides of the Atlantic (not an easy trick), David Brent can now be seen alongside Basil Fawlty and Alan Partridge as one of the quintessential comedic characters of the last fifty years. And here we see the man in full, a man who cannot grasp the fact that in order for people like him he only needs to be himself and not what he thinks they want him to be. The squirm-inducing laughs are still there as before, but this movie also has a heart- which it had to have; otherwise the psychological self-destruct David indulges in might engulf us in a pit of depression we might find it impossible to escape from.
The thinking person's comedy film of the summer.
SUFFRAGETTE (2014) D- Sarah Gavron. Not so long ago, in a world where ladies' brains were considered to be incapable of taking on big themes like who should run the country, and should concern themselves rather with things like fluffy little kittens, a group of women struggle to change the law. Sometimes at a terrible cost to themselves...
A very tidy little movie which should educate today's young people of what is now an almost forgotten struggle, of a time when these women were seen as threats to the establishment in a way we might think of IS today. All the players are excellent, especially Carey Mulligan and HBC (though re Meryl Streep, blink and you'll miss her) and I thought the re-creation of the Houses of Parliament were brilliantly realised, until I learnt that Parliament actually allowed filming to take place there,
apparently for the first time. That should say something about how seriously this film, and the issues it explores, should be taken.
JULIETA (2016) D- Pedro Almodovar. A Spanish woman hasn't seen her only child for years. We don't know why yet. Then she bumps into one of her schoolfriends who tells her she ran into her quite recently when visiting Lake Como on a photoshoot. This starts her thinking. She's tried repeatedly to get in touch over the years without any success. Maybe she should have one last try...
It has occurred to me Almodovar is sort of the European equivalent of Woody Allen: a guy who can't stop making funny, thoughtful movies, most of which are pretty good and some of which are exceptional. This is in the latter category. Apparently based on three separate short stories, Almodovar puts together an intricately wrought storyline and peoples it with some beautifully drawn characters. Some aspects will deeply disturb anyone who is a parent, because it is all about parenthood, and the agonies that can bring about.
Movie making of the highest quality.
BOOKS
MAUS, by Art Spiegelman.
A graphic novelist reckons he can make a book out of his father's recollections of Auschwitz. But his father's memories have faded over the decades; he has burnt his diaries and there is another slight problem: he finds his dad's quirky ways extremely irritating. However, by exercising reserves of patience he never knew he had, he gradually coaxes the reminiscences out of a man who has spent half his life trying to put the past behind him...
His father turns out to have been a highly intelligent and infinitely resourceful man, who used his wits and numerous acquired skills to keep him out of the gas chambers for year after year. Which is more than could be said of his many friends and relatives, who weren't so lucky. Slowly the son begins to understand his father's miserliness and motivation to do everything for himself despite his frailty. In Auschwitz you had to- or die.
Normally I am not much of a graphic novel guy, though I have tried a few. This, however, is one of the very best. Beautifully drawn (the Jews are portrayed as as mice, the Nazis as cats while the Poles are pigs), funny, deeply moving, it won America's Pulitzer Prize for its astonishing originality and humanity.
Highly recommended.
THE BLOOD STRAND, by Chris Ould.
A British detective returns to the Faroes of his childhood to visit a father he hasn't seen since they fell out over twenty years before. But now it's a different situation. The abrasive, hostile man he knew is now lying in a coma following a stroke, and there's something else: there's a discharged shotgun in the car he was found in, and nearly half a million in cash in a brief case in the boot. What happened?
On a strictly unofficial basis, he makes friends with the local police investigating the "crime", though it isn't yet clear if there was crime at all. But piece by piece, a strange train of events begins to unfold...
Chris Ould's "Faroes" series has gone down very well with the European thriller-buyng public, and he has been commissioned to write at least two more. I can see why. His style is calm, fluid, and full of fascinating procedural detail. There are some problems though. I find it hard to believe a foreign police force would so readily bring a foreigner into their investigations, even if he is a police officer himself and related by blood to some of the main players. That aside, I found the story gripping and skilfully constructed.
Nice one, Chris.
BERLIN, by Anthony Beevor.
It is January 1945. The war is as good as over, and everyone except Hitler and his coterie of sycophants knows it. The Allies are closing in from the west, while on the borders of Poland the biggest army ever amassed together in one place is preparing to storm the citadel. Will the Germans accept the inevitable and give up to avoid further suffering? Will they hell. What follows in the next four months is one of the most terrible tales in the annals of war.
Many of the facts are now common knowledge: the Red Army engage in a programme of mass rape which is sanctioned, albeit tacitly, at the highest level, roil through Poland, not as a liberating force but as a heartless army of invasion; the Allies coming over the Rhine, ready and able to get to Berlin before them, but prevented from doing so by a gullible American leadership who believe all Stalin's lies. And the terrible struggle for Berlin which cost so much suffering and so many lives.
With my own life in turmoil, I think I chose this book to read about people in an even worse mess than I am, which I have to say takes some doing. But this book achieves it. Anthony Beevor is a brilliant writer of non-fiction, bringing to life the horrors of Hitler's Gotterdamerung in vivid and graphic tones. I thought I knew this story pretty well, but I know a hell of lot more now...
FILMS
THE MARTIAN (2016) D- Ridley Scott. In the 2060s a team of astronauts on the Red Planet have to leave in a hurry when a huge storm (they do have them there) threatens to destroy their spacecraft. They think one of their number has been killed by flying debris, but no, he's still alive. He's got food and oxygen enough for a month, then he will die. Unless of course, he can apply his knowledge of engineering and combine that with an incredibly fierce survival instinct to figure out a way to stay alive.
From the various landers and an extremely comprehensive overview of the surface from satellite imaging, we know a lot about how Mars looks, and Ridley Scott has done a bang-up job of making it look remarkably authentic. And for once, we have a film about science which with a very few minor exceptions is completely believable. Matt Damon is ace as the stranded Martian; in fact the only problem I had with the film is his almost overwhelming will to survive the months and years before any kind of rescue mission can be mounted. Perhaps I'm saying I wouldn't have the strength and ingenuity to do such a thing, but I guess if you are possessed of sufficient quantities of the right stuff, then maybe you can.
Pretty good stuff.
LES COMBATTANTS (2014) W/D- Thomas Cailley. Over the long hot summer of central France while waiting to go to college (maybe), boy meets girl. She's convinced of the forthcoming apocalypse and is developing her survival skills accordingly. He, on the other hand, just wants to have some fun. They join the local French equivalent of the TA; she to loan her survival skills, he for want of anything better to do, and of course, to be near her. She soon finds the training isn't hardcore enough for her, so they do a bunk and run off to live on their wits in the forest. But living off the land is not as easy as the survival guides suggest...
Also known as Love at First Fight, I really liked this little offering, with its unusual twist on young romance. The directing is highly professional, and the two stars, Adele Haenel and Kevin Azais turn in very neat performances.
Bittersweet and engaging.
DAVID BRENT: LIFE ON THE ROAD (2016) W/D- Ricky Gervaise. David Brent is back after ten years, now a junior sales exec, but still trying to convince himself he can become a rock star if he only pours enough (borrowed) money into the enterprise. It doesn't matter that his band is made up of session musicians he barely knows, or the fact that no one comes to the gigs. Everything will work out, surely some agent will discover his talent and make him a star.
The Office was one of the most remarkable comedy phenomena of the Millennium. Spawning a slew of other "mocumentary" style comedies, including the massively successful Modern Family and making stars out of actors like Martin Freeman, to say nothing of catapulting Ricky into megastardom on both sides of the Atlantic (not an easy trick), David Brent can now be seen alongside Basil Fawlty and Alan Partridge as one of the quintessential comedic characters of the last fifty years. And here we see the man in full, a man who cannot grasp the fact that in order for people like him he only needs to be himself and not what he thinks they want him to be. The squirm-inducing laughs are still there as before, but this movie also has a heart- which it had to have; otherwise the psychological self-destruct David indulges in might engulf us in a pit of depression we might find it impossible to escape from.
The thinking person's comedy film of the summer.
SUFFRAGETTE (2014) D- Sarah Gavron. Not so long ago, in a world where ladies' brains were considered to be incapable of taking on big themes like who should run the country, and should concern themselves rather with things like fluffy little kittens, a group of women struggle to change the law. Sometimes at a terrible cost to themselves...
A very tidy little movie which should educate today's young people of what is now an almost forgotten struggle, of a time when these women were seen as threats to the establishment in a way we might think of IS today. All the players are excellent, especially Carey Mulligan and HBC (though re Meryl Streep, blink and you'll miss her) and I thought the re-creation of the Houses of Parliament were brilliantly realised, until I learnt that Parliament actually allowed filming to take place there,
apparently for the first time. That should say something about how seriously this film, and the issues it explores, should be taken.
JULIETA (2016) D- Pedro Almodovar. A Spanish woman hasn't seen her only child for years. We don't know why yet. Then she bumps into one of her schoolfriends who tells her she ran into her quite recently when visiting Lake Como on a photoshoot. This starts her thinking. She's tried repeatedly to get in touch over the years without any success. Maybe she should have one last try...
It has occurred to me Almodovar is sort of the European equivalent of Woody Allen: a guy who can't stop making funny, thoughtful movies, most of which are pretty good and some of which are exceptional. This is in the latter category. Apparently based on three separate short stories, Almodovar puts together an intricately wrought storyline and peoples it with some beautifully drawn characters. Some aspects will deeply disturb anyone who is a parent, because it is all about parenthood, and the agonies that can bring about.
Movie making of the highest quality.
Sunday, 28 August 2016
Seth Glascoe, born 27th January 1987, died 27th August 2006
Yesterday marked the tenth anniversary of my son's untimely and as yet unexplained death. And yesterday, as has become our custom, my wife and I travelled up into the western Brecon Beacons to a special place and plunged.
Just down from its source, the river Tawe courses down a steep mountainside in a series of delightful little waterfalls and plunge pools. The one we have selected lies just out of sight of the footpath, allowing us to declothe in some privacy and take a brief dip in its cool but infinitely refreshing waters. I think he would approve. Then, in an act which he would surely also approve, we toss in a few sweets, a little chocolate and his favourite snack, some mature cheddar cheese.
You may think it's an odd way to mark a young lad's life, but it just seems right somehow. And I intend to go on doing it, rain or shine (yesterday a shower threatened to drench us before we ever entered the water, but then it eased off) until ill health or infirmity prevents us.
Seth, man, we love you.
Just down from its source, the river Tawe courses down a steep mountainside in a series of delightful little waterfalls and plunge pools. The one we have selected lies just out of sight of the footpath, allowing us to declothe in some privacy and take a brief dip in its cool but infinitely refreshing waters. I think he would approve. Then, in an act which he would surely also approve, we toss in a few sweets, a little chocolate and his favourite snack, some mature cheddar cheese.
You may think it's an odd way to mark a young lad's life, but it just seems right somehow. And I intend to go on doing it, rain or shine (yesterday a shower threatened to drench us before we ever entered the water, but then it eased off) until ill health or infirmity prevents us.
Seth, man, we love you.
Saturday, 27 August 2016
July 2016 book and film review
I didn't get much reading done in July. I sent most of the time quivering with fear and staring at the carpet. But from time to time I pulled myself together and read for a while. Sometimes I even managed to settle enough to watch a movie. But most of the time we found ourselves watching re-runs of ITV's Poirot, starring David Suchet. I guess they are the televisual equivalent of comfort food; at the time it seemed the natural thing to do. I am pleased to report we have come out the other side of our "Poirot phase" and are beginning to restore some sense of normality to our lives. For now...
Anyhoo, please enjoy July's books and movies.
BOOKS
WAGING HEAVY PEACE, by Neil Young
Being the life and times of one of rock's greatest alumni, in his own very quirky words. It isn't to everyone's taste. Several of my friends couldn't get with his highly individualistic writing style, which might be described as the literary equivalent of outsider art, but I loved it. The book begins at the end, as is the fashion these days, with Neil describing his two pet passions: developing battery powered cars and, rather more surprisingly, model railways. (did you know the only place to obtain high quality parts for model railways these days is, wait for it, China?) Not so long ago his doctor demanded he give up booze and cannabis on pain of an early death, and he's doing OK- except for one thing: he hasn't written a song since. And as songwriting is pretty much his raison d'être, this is kind of a big deal.
It isn't long though before Neil speaks of his beginnings in Canada where he put his first band, Crazy Horse, together. This band was destined to break up and reform many times, the personnel changing as one after another band member succumbed to drug abuse, inspiring Neil to pen one of his most famous and haunting songs The Needle and the Damage Done. Like so many of his countrymen, Neil soon realised his future might be brighter south of the 49th Parallel, and it wasn't long before he hooked up with David Crosby, Steven Stills and Graham Nash to form one of the greatest "supergroups" of all time: Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young (I remember at the time one wag defining a supergroup as a group composed of out of work members of other groups). Like all supergroups, it didn't last, but out of it Neil went on to make two of the finest albums of the entire rock and roll era: Harvest and After the Goldrush.
Another of Neil's current preoccupations is the quality of sound reproduction. He argues that it has deteriorated alarmingly in recent years. In the vinyl days, you could always be sure of a good dynamic range and if you used the right amplification system you were assured of true, old fashioned high fidelity. These days, with sound being compressed into digital downloads, sound becomes almost unrecognisable from what the artists originally intended. I proved this for myself just the other day. I went into our local Bose shop and asked for a demonstration of their latest state-of-the-art machine. To check the dynamic range I selected a piece of orchestral music. The sales guy picked the opening of Beethoven Six from his downloads and stood back to admire his favourite piece of kit blast it out. It was crap. The dynamic range was barely any better than I used to get out of my transistor radio back in the sixties, and as for quality, it was fuzzy, flat and tinny. Neil baby, I'm with you all the way on this one. And I hope you can find a way to write another song soon. The world is waiting...
A GIFT OF SUNLIGHT, by Trevor Fishlock
In the late nineteenth century sisters Gwendoline and Margaret Davies inherited a fortune from their coal-owning father, the equivalent of over £60 million in todays money. Over the next thirty years they husbanded their gift of sunlight (sunlight helps plants grow; million of years later they become coal) carefully, but occasionally indulged their passion for art by going round the Paris art dealers and picking out works they really liked. The result is the Davies Collection, now the pride of the National Museum of Wales here in Cardiff. Here you can find works by Monet, Cezanne, Renoir and even a sumptuous van Gogh adorning the walls of two magnificent rooms on the first floor of that fine museum. And each one is a superb example of its genre. There are sculptures too, including Rodin's famous The Kiss, a rather strange addition in view of their rigidly calvinist background.
In this beautifully produced and lavishly illustrated book, Wales's most approachable man of letters takes us on a tour of their lives, form the wilds of mid Wales where they grew up, to the battlefields of the Great War where they set up a soup kitchen, and on to the heart of the British establishment where Gwendoline was eventually recognised for her patronage of the arts by being awarded the Companion of Honour. But Margaret was an equal partner in all their enterprises (Trev doesn't really explain why she wasn't given the CH as well, or maybe I missed it); certainly she was a big part of setting up the cultural centre of Gregynog in mid-Wales, which for more than forty years was a Mecca to some of the biggest musical names of the day and spread the beauty and appreciation of music to audiences who otherwise would never have had the chance to experience it.
The Davies sisters never married. They were afraid any possible suitors might simply be after their money, and they probably had a point. So they sort of married their money instead, using it wisely to enrich the lives of others, and ultimately the entire nation with their wonderful bequest to the museum in Cardiff. I have lived in Wales for over forty years, and must have visited the "Davies Rooms" at least forty times over those years. To me they are like old friends: always there when you need them, and they never let you down...
FILMS
SPECTRE (2015) D- Sam Mendes. The Special Executive for Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion (I didn't get that from the film, but from reading the book Thunderball in 1965- funny how the memory retains utterly useless facts, huh) is attempting to take over the world and it's up to 007 to stop them. Trouble is, the government is in the midst of privatising MI6 and SPECTRE is behind the company that's going to take over. OMG! we're all doomed! No we're not. With the well muscled, though slightly grizzled Daniel Craig on the case (isn't it time they gave the job to Idris Elba? A black Bond. Now that's an idea I like, even if Ian Fleming would have fainted), everything's gonna be OK.
Recent Bond movies have attempted to explore their characters in a little more depth, but the emphasis is still on massive, highly professionally shot set-pieces and excellent fight sequences. The money they spent is all up there on the screen, but one wonders how much longer they can go on with the format. Unless they bring in Idris Elba that is...
JASON BOURNE (2016) D- Paul Greengrass. Jason Bourne ("You Know His Name"- tagline) is back, still on the run from CIA hitmen and still trying to uncover the secrets of their latest black op- this time it's called "Ironhand" His latest nemesis is new CIA director Tommy Lee Jones but he's still assisted by ex CIA operative Julia Stiles. Will he discover the secret of what happened to his father, or will sinister asset Vince Cassel get to him first?
This film is the direct sequel to the excellent 2007 The Bourne Ultimatum (let's try to forget The Bourne Legacy, a sort of Bourne-without-Bourne vehicle that Damon refused to have anything to do with because it wasn't directed by Greengrass). And you can understand Damon's point of view. Greengrass is a top-notch director whose editing skills put him in the very highest bracket. They are shown here in full, but there remains a problem. This film is much too similar to Ultimatum for comfort, and despite the consummate skill with which it is put together, the result is unsatisfactory because of that. Perhaps here, like the Bond franchise, the whole thing is getting a bit tired. Having said that, the fight at the end between Bourne and the Vince Cassel character is stunning.
A good effort, but...
THE WONDERS (2014) D- Alice Rohwacher. On a remote farm in Tuscany, an apiarist and his family produce the purest honey in the region. He's a bit frustrated that God gave him four daughters and no sons, but what are you gonna do? Put 'em all to work on the farm I guess; girls work just as well as boys, it seems, even when they're only six...
Then one day one of his daughters hears about a TV show where farmers compete to show their produce is the best. At stake are big cash prizes, and the farm is in dire financial straits. Now to persuade Dad to agree to take part...
Alice Rohwacher was herself raised on a farm where they produced honey, so she knows whereof she directs. And her daughter Alba plays one of the lead roles as Gelsomina, a teenager who should be having fun or at least working for her exams, but instead has already sold her soul to the bees. I loved this movie. I have watched a bit of Italian TV, and the idea of a lavishly produced talent show featuring farmers is not at all divorced from reality. But its strength lies in the portrayal of the patriarch and his troubled relationships with his regiment of women.
Beautiful little movie.
GO WITH ME (2015) D- Daniel Alfredson. Bartender Julia Stiles is hit on then nearly raped by local badass Blackway (Ray Liotta) She complains to the local sheriff, but he's more scared of Blackway than she is, and won't do Jack. So she turns to gnarly old backwoodsman Anthony Hopkins and his slightly challenged, but physically robust sidekick. Hopkins is fed up of Blackway's bullying too, and figures he's so old it won't matter that much if he gets killed in the process. Which he might well be. Blackway is perfectly happy to annihilate anyone who even slightly upsets him, so when he finds out someone out there is planning to bring him down, he is not best pleased...
Apparently a lot of people thought Hopkins was totally miscast in this role. Sly Stallone would have been better, they said, or Bob deNiro. I disagree. Hopkins is such a consummate pro he can easily handle being anything from Hannibal Lecter to the guy who rides the world's fastest Indian, so this role was by no means a stretch for him. One thing: No one thought Ray Liotta was miscast as Blackway. Few people do a better brooding menace than the leather-faced one.
TANGERINES (2013) D- Zaza Urushadze. Ivo is an ethnic Estonian nurturing his tangerine orchard in Abkhazia. He isn't much interested in the vicious little civil war going on around him, as long as he can get his crop to market. Then a firefight breaks out right outside his front door leaving two combatants seriously wounded in his front yard. He drags them into the house and tends to their wounds. It soon emerges that they're on the opposite sides of the conflict, and tension builds in the house as first one, then the other, vows to kill the other as soon as he is fit enough to do so. "I'll have no killing in my house!" Ivo insists, and surprisingly they agree. "But when we step outside, that's another story!" they vow.
Ivo just shrugs.
A couple of weeks later one of them wanders outside to take in the morning sunshine and goads the other: "I'm outside now. You wanna try and kill me or what?" But as the convalescence has progressed, so it seems has their tolerance. Nobody kills anybody. They have realised, with Ivo's help, that what unites them is bigger than what divides them. But beyond the tangerine orchard, the war still rages...
This intensely human, deeply compassionate film is in my opinion one of the most brilliant anti-war testaments ever made. Delicately observed, beautifully acted, it is definitely one of my films of the year.
Anyhoo, please enjoy July's books and movies.
BOOKS
WAGING HEAVY PEACE, by Neil Young
Being the life and times of one of rock's greatest alumni, in his own very quirky words. It isn't to everyone's taste. Several of my friends couldn't get with his highly individualistic writing style, which might be described as the literary equivalent of outsider art, but I loved it. The book begins at the end, as is the fashion these days, with Neil describing his two pet passions: developing battery powered cars and, rather more surprisingly, model railways. (did you know the only place to obtain high quality parts for model railways these days is, wait for it, China?) Not so long ago his doctor demanded he give up booze and cannabis on pain of an early death, and he's doing OK- except for one thing: he hasn't written a song since. And as songwriting is pretty much his raison d'être, this is kind of a big deal.
It isn't long though before Neil speaks of his beginnings in Canada where he put his first band, Crazy Horse, together. This band was destined to break up and reform many times, the personnel changing as one after another band member succumbed to drug abuse, inspiring Neil to pen one of his most famous and haunting songs The Needle and the Damage Done. Like so many of his countrymen, Neil soon realised his future might be brighter south of the 49th Parallel, and it wasn't long before he hooked up with David Crosby, Steven Stills and Graham Nash to form one of the greatest "supergroups" of all time: Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young (I remember at the time one wag defining a supergroup as a group composed of out of work members of other groups). Like all supergroups, it didn't last, but out of it Neil went on to make two of the finest albums of the entire rock and roll era: Harvest and After the Goldrush.
Another of Neil's current preoccupations is the quality of sound reproduction. He argues that it has deteriorated alarmingly in recent years. In the vinyl days, you could always be sure of a good dynamic range and if you used the right amplification system you were assured of true, old fashioned high fidelity. These days, with sound being compressed into digital downloads, sound becomes almost unrecognisable from what the artists originally intended. I proved this for myself just the other day. I went into our local Bose shop and asked for a demonstration of their latest state-of-the-art machine. To check the dynamic range I selected a piece of orchestral music. The sales guy picked the opening of Beethoven Six from his downloads and stood back to admire his favourite piece of kit blast it out. It was crap. The dynamic range was barely any better than I used to get out of my transistor radio back in the sixties, and as for quality, it was fuzzy, flat and tinny. Neil baby, I'm with you all the way on this one. And I hope you can find a way to write another song soon. The world is waiting...
A GIFT OF SUNLIGHT, by Trevor Fishlock
In the late nineteenth century sisters Gwendoline and Margaret Davies inherited a fortune from their coal-owning father, the equivalent of over £60 million in todays money. Over the next thirty years they husbanded their gift of sunlight (sunlight helps plants grow; million of years later they become coal) carefully, but occasionally indulged their passion for art by going round the Paris art dealers and picking out works they really liked. The result is the Davies Collection, now the pride of the National Museum of Wales here in Cardiff. Here you can find works by Monet, Cezanne, Renoir and even a sumptuous van Gogh adorning the walls of two magnificent rooms on the first floor of that fine museum. And each one is a superb example of its genre. There are sculptures too, including Rodin's famous The Kiss, a rather strange addition in view of their rigidly calvinist background.
In this beautifully produced and lavishly illustrated book, Wales's most approachable man of letters takes us on a tour of their lives, form the wilds of mid Wales where they grew up, to the battlefields of the Great War where they set up a soup kitchen, and on to the heart of the British establishment where Gwendoline was eventually recognised for her patronage of the arts by being awarded the Companion of Honour. But Margaret was an equal partner in all their enterprises (Trev doesn't really explain why she wasn't given the CH as well, or maybe I missed it); certainly she was a big part of setting up the cultural centre of Gregynog in mid-Wales, which for more than forty years was a Mecca to some of the biggest musical names of the day and spread the beauty and appreciation of music to audiences who otherwise would never have had the chance to experience it.
The Davies sisters never married. They were afraid any possible suitors might simply be after their money, and they probably had a point. So they sort of married their money instead, using it wisely to enrich the lives of others, and ultimately the entire nation with their wonderful bequest to the museum in Cardiff. I have lived in Wales for over forty years, and must have visited the "Davies Rooms" at least forty times over those years. To me they are like old friends: always there when you need them, and they never let you down...
FILMS
SPECTRE (2015) D- Sam Mendes. The Special Executive for Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion (I didn't get that from the film, but from reading the book Thunderball in 1965- funny how the memory retains utterly useless facts, huh) is attempting to take over the world and it's up to 007 to stop them. Trouble is, the government is in the midst of privatising MI6 and SPECTRE is behind the company that's going to take over. OMG! we're all doomed! No we're not. With the well muscled, though slightly grizzled Daniel Craig on the case (isn't it time they gave the job to Idris Elba? A black Bond. Now that's an idea I like, even if Ian Fleming would have fainted), everything's gonna be OK.
Recent Bond movies have attempted to explore their characters in a little more depth, but the emphasis is still on massive, highly professionally shot set-pieces and excellent fight sequences. The money they spent is all up there on the screen, but one wonders how much longer they can go on with the format. Unless they bring in Idris Elba that is...
JASON BOURNE (2016) D- Paul Greengrass. Jason Bourne ("You Know His Name"- tagline) is back, still on the run from CIA hitmen and still trying to uncover the secrets of their latest black op- this time it's called "Ironhand" His latest nemesis is new CIA director Tommy Lee Jones but he's still assisted by ex CIA operative Julia Stiles. Will he discover the secret of what happened to his father, or will sinister asset Vince Cassel get to him first?
This film is the direct sequel to the excellent 2007 The Bourne Ultimatum (let's try to forget The Bourne Legacy, a sort of Bourne-without-Bourne vehicle that Damon refused to have anything to do with because it wasn't directed by Greengrass). And you can understand Damon's point of view. Greengrass is a top-notch director whose editing skills put him in the very highest bracket. They are shown here in full, but there remains a problem. This film is much too similar to Ultimatum for comfort, and despite the consummate skill with which it is put together, the result is unsatisfactory because of that. Perhaps here, like the Bond franchise, the whole thing is getting a bit tired. Having said that, the fight at the end between Bourne and the Vince Cassel character is stunning.
A good effort, but...
THE WONDERS (2014) D- Alice Rohwacher. On a remote farm in Tuscany, an apiarist and his family produce the purest honey in the region. He's a bit frustrated that God gave him four daughters and no sons, but what are you gonna do? Put 'em all to work on the farm I guess; girls work just as well as boys, it seems, even when they're only six...
Then one day one of his daughters hears about a TV show where farmers compete to show their produce is the best. At stake are big cash prizes, and the farm is in dire financial straits. Now to persuade Dad to agree to take part...
Alice Rohwacher was herself raised on a farm where they produced honey, so she knows whereof she directs. And her daughter Alba plays one of the lead roles as Gelsomina, a teenager who should be having fun or at least working for her exams, but instead has already sold her soul to the bees. I loved this movie. I have watched a bit of Italian TV, and the idea of a lavishly produced talent show featuring farmers is not at all divorced from reality. But its strength lies in the portrayal of the patriarch and his troubled relationships with his regiment of women.
Beautiful little movie.
GO WITH ME (2015) D- Daniel Alfredson. Bartender Julia Stiles is hit on then nearly raped by local badass Blackway (Ray Liotta) She complains to the local sheriff, but he's more scared of Blackway than she is, and won't do Jack. So she turns to gnarly old backwoodsman Anthony Hopkins and his slightly challenged, but physically robust sidekick. Hopkins is fed up of Blackway's bullying too, and figures he's so old it won't matter that much if he gets killed in the process. Which he might well be. Blackway is perfectly happy to annihilate anyone who even slightly upsets him, so when he finds out someone out there is planning to bring him down, he is not best pleased...
Apparently a lot of people thought Hopkins was totally miscast in this role. Sly Stallone would have been better, they said, or Bob deNiro. I disagree. Hopkins is such a consummate pro he can easily handle being anything from Hannibal Lecter to the guy who rides the world's fastest Indian, so this role was by no means a stretch for him. One thing: No one thought Ray Liotta was miscast as Blackway. Few people do a better brooding menace than the leather-faced one.
TANGERINES (2013) D- Zaza Urushadze. Ivo is an ethnic Estonian nurturing his tangerine orchard in Abkhazia. He isn't much interested in the vicious little civil war going on around him, as long as he can get his crop to market. Then a firefight breaks out right outside his front door leaving two combatants seriously wounded in his front yard. He drags them into the house and tends to their wounds. It soon emerges that they're on the opposite sides of the conflict, and tension builds in the house as first one, then the other, vows to kill the other as soon as he is fit enough to do so. "I'll have no killing in my house!" Ivo insists, and surprisingly they agree. "But when we step outside, that's another story!" they vow.
Ivo just shrugs.
A couple of weeks later one of them wanders outside to take in the morning sunshine and goads the other: "I'm outside now. You wanna try and kill me or what?" But as the convalescence has progressed, so it seems has their tolerance. Nobody kills anybody. They have realised, with Ivo's help, that what unites them is bigger than what divides them. But beyond the tangerine orchard, the war still rages...
This intensely human, deeply compassionate film is in my opinion one of the most brilliant anti-war testaments ever made. Delicately observed, beautifully acted, it is definitely one of my films of the year.
Tuesday, 23 August 2016
June 2016 book and film review
Thank you, dear readers, if there are any left, for bearing with me through my unintended hiatus. I can only assure you it was due to circumstances well beyond my control. I am sorry I cannot reveal more details right now, though the time may come when I can. Meanwhile, nearly two months late, please read on to hear about books and films I encountered for the first time in June of this year.
BOOKS
ELEPHANT, by Raymond Carver.
Being a collection of short stories by one of the greatest post war American writers. In his languid, easy-going style, Carver takes us into ordinary people's lives where ordinary things happen. Or do they? In the title story, Elephant, a man is persuaded, much against his better judgement, to lend money to his ne'er-do-well brother. He's sure he won't see his money again, and guess what? He doesn't. But then his brother comes back with an even more convincing sob story and the narrator shells out again. Meanwhile he too is slowly becoming destitute. In Blackbird Pie, a man is sitting at his writing desk one evening when a note is pushed under his door. The note is from his wife and announces she is leaving him for another man. But it isn't her handwriting. And in the final story, Errand, Carver imagines the final days in the life of his favourite writer, the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov.
Some say Carver would have been nothing without his editor, who knocked into shape Carver's often confused, alcohol soaked drafts. But I say even the best editor has to have something outstanding to work with if he he's going to make something really great out of it. As an aspiring writer myself I can only say if alcohol abuse could get me within a million miles of Carver's genius I'd start drinking right now. Oh wait, I am.
LE GRAND MEAULNES, by Alain-Fournier
A young man enrols at a rural school in northern France at the close of the 19th century. He is tall, good-looking and charismatic. One day he bunks off and wanders off into the countryside, where he finds himself in the middle of a wedding party on a distant estate. He is entranced by one of the young ladies there, but has to leave. The rest of the book is about his search for this lady, a search that threatens his whole future...
Problems begin in this book right from the title. Le Grand Meaulnes is actually untranslatable into English. It could mean "the great Meulnes" or it could mean "Good old Meaulnes", the more commonly accepted meaning. An alternative title for the book is "The Lost Domain" though this too is hard to convey in English. The book was an enormous hit in France, with its intensely powerful evocation of longing and nostalgia, combined with the doomed hero-worship the narrator has for Meaulnes. And it does create a unique atmosphere which plunges the reader into the fields and streams of the French countryside, and the overwhelming emotions of the players who inhabit it.
This is the latest in a series of books I tried and gave up on in a much earlier era of my life. And once again, I am so glad I hung in with it this time.
THE LADIES' PARADISE, by Emil Zola.
In mid nineteenth century France, an ambitious man runs one of Paris's great department stores. It is already huge and turns over millions of francs a year, but he wants it to be even bigger, to cover a whole city block and become the greatest store in the world. A few things stand in his way: some tiny nearby shops, blighted by the lower prices he can offer for the goods they sell, but who will not sell up so he can expand. Then there is his latest employee, a slip of a girl, far beneath the society ladies he normally associates with, but who nonetheless manages to steal his heart, without making any visible attempt to do so...
Emil Zola is absolutely my favourite French writer. His famous twenty-novel "Rougon Macarte" series provides an endless source of reading pleasure. I have only read about half of them, and not in the correct order, though that doesn't matter. They all stand alone, and I haven't read one yet which isn't utterly absorbing, moving, funny and beautiful.
FILMS
IRRATIONAL MAN (2015) D- Woody Allen. A hard drinking philosophy professor (a very good Joaquin Phoenix) senses his life is spiralling downwards but then feels himself to some extent redeemed when he strikes up a relationship with one his attractive students (Emma Stone). Then one day, perhaps working on the Nietschian idea of exceptional people being beyond normal moral values, overhears a conversation in a cafe where a woman complains that a judge is destroying her life in a custody battle with her ex. He decides on an "existential act"; namely, he takes it upon himself to murder the judge in question. Now feeling existentially enriched, he embarks on other equally radical behaviours...
Woody Allen is one of the busiest film directors in the world, and although some of his films are outstanding, and some even works of true cinematic genius, they don't all work. This one does, however, and I found it gripping and memorable.
FANTASTIC FOUR (2015) D- Josh Trank. A collection of good looking and well funded scientists find they are unaccountably possessed of superpowers. Heard that one before? You should have. The two Fantastic Four movies featuring Jessica Alba have not exactly faded into the mists of time being made very recently. Yet someone at Fox still thought the public would lap up this re-boot. They didn't. The film slumped at the box office and won a slew of Golden Raspberries including worst picture of the year (an accolade jointly awarded to Fifty Shades of Grey). I have in the past banged on about the tendency of Hollywood to produce totally unnecessary re-makes, presumably with the idea of making a fast and easy buck, but really, this beats all. This film has nothing new to offer, has not a shred of humour or any other kind of flair. Absolute crap.
CHRONICLE OF A SUMMER (1961) (documentary) D- Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin, photographed by Michel Brault. A number of ordinary French people are interviewed on camera and asked to speak about their preoccupations: work, love, liberty and loss. The film opens with the co-directors discussing whether it is possible for people to speak with genuine sincerity on camera; what follows invites us to assess this for ourselves. The result by general consensus is yes, if the directors are sufficiently skilful, as these two definitely were.
Filmed on a 16mm cine camera and recorded with a portable Nagra tape machine, we chose to see this as part of a plan to track down the world's great documentary films. The BFI voted this number six on its list of best documentaries, and it's easy to see why. Perhaps the quintessential example of cinema verite, as the film begins we can see the participants are nervous and hesitant, but as it progresses they relax, forget the camera is there and reveal themselves in the most extraordinarily candid way. Marvellous.
JUSTE AVANT LA NUIT (1961) D- Claude Chabrol. A man is having an affair with his best friend's wife. They like like their sex rough, and during one of their sessions he accidentally strangles her to death. He stumbles out of the apartment in a confused state, leaving the cleaner to find her body the following day. He soon bumps into his best friend, and feigns as much surprise and shock as him when the news breaks. Bit by bit, the grieving husband begins to wonder if his friend might be responsible, but even as the evidence mounts he is unsure what to do about it. After all, what's done is done...
This film is so French it almost smells of garlic and fresh croissant. And it demonstrates as well as any of his films what a true auteur Chabrol is. Dubbed by some as the "French Hitchcock", this film shows his intimate dissection of human character and weakness is superior even to that of the rotund one. Terrific.
THEEB (2014) D- Naji-Abu Nawar. The Jordanian desert, 1916, at the height of the British-sponsored Arab uprising against the Ottoman empire. A British soldier arrives in a remote village asking to be guided to a well in the middle of the desert, from where he plans to blow up a railway line. A young lad insists on accompanying the small party into the desert, but the group is soon waylaid by bandits who kill his brother and the British soldier. Theeb, the boy, now finds himself lost in the middle of a harsh and unforgiving environment. He doesn't know where the well is, and he doesn't know how to find his way home either. Then he notices that one of the bandits has survived the firefight, though he has been shot. Can they join forces and somehow make their way to safety?
This excellent little Jordanian movie was nominated for the Oscar for best foreign language film of 2014 and with good reason. Shot around the Wadi Rhum area, made famous by T.E. Lawrence in Seven Pillars of Wisdom, it is intensely atmospheric and provides a rare insight into the usually impenetrable minds of Arab people.
THE WALK (2015) D- Robert Zemekis. In 1973, a Parisian circus performer seeking to make a name for himself sees a photo of the twin towers of the World Trade Centre and hatches an idea to string a wire between them and walk across. Strictly illegal of course, but once the deed is done he'll be famous. Or dead. He tightropes between the two towers of Notre Dame cathedral by way of practice, and then sets off for New York with a length of wire and a coterie of like-minded anarchists, not all of whom are convinced it will work...
Philippe Petit's extraordinary feat has already been chronicled in the very good documentary feature Man on Wire (that was how the arresting police officer classified the incident), but Zemekis (Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit etc) thought there was mileage in a dramatisation, and I would agree. Joseph Gordon Levitt makes a very impressive Petit; indeed the great man himself trained Levitt in how to make his wire-walking look authentic. It did. We are drawn into the struggle to transform this audacious plan into reality, and the tension builds magnificently as the day for the fateful walk approaches.
This isn't a remake, it's a radical re-think, and there's nothing wrong with that. Think on, Hollywood.
BOOKS
ELEPHANT, by Raymond Carver.
Being a collection of short stories by one of the greatest post war American writers. In his languid, easy-going style, Carver takes us into ordinary people's lives where ordinary things happen. Or do they? In the title story, Elephant, a man is persuaded, much against his better judgement, to lend money to his ne'er-do-well brother. He's sure he won't see his money again, and guess what? He doesn't. But then his brother comes back with an even more convincing sob story and the narrator shells out again. Meanwhile he too is slowly becoming destitute. In Blackbird Pie, a man is sitting at his writing desk one evening when a note is pushed under his door. The note is from his wife and announces she is leaving him for another man. But it isn't her handwriting. And in the final story, Errand, Carver imagines the final days in the life of his favourite writer, the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov.
Some say Carver would have been nothing without his editor, who knocked into shape Carver's often confused, alcohol soaked drafts. But I say even the best editor has to have something outstanding to work with if he he's going to make something really great out of it. As an aspiring writer myself I can only say if alcohol abuse could get me within a million miles of Carver's genius I'd start drinking right now. Oh wait, I am.
LE GRAND MEAULNES, by Alain-Fournier
A young man enrols at a rural school in northern France at the close of the 19th century. He is tall, good-looking and charismatic. One day he bunks off and wanders off into the countryside, where he finds himself in the middle of a wedding party on a distant estate. He is entranced by one of the young ladies there, but has to leave. The rest of the book is about his search for this lady, a search that threatens his whole future...
Problems begin in this book right from the title. Le Grand Meaulnes is actually untranslatable into English. It could mean "the great Meulnes" or it could mean "Good old Meaulnes", the more commonly accepted meaning. An alternative title for the book is "The Lost Domain" though this too is hard to convey in English. The book was an enormous hit in France, with its intensely powerful evocation of longing and nostalgia, combined with the doomed hero-worship the narrator has for Meaulnes. And it does create a unique atmosphere which plunges the reader into the fields and streams of the French countryside, and the overwhelming emotions of the players who inhabit it.
This is the latest in a series of books I tried and gave up on in a much earlier era of my life. And once again, I am so glad I hung in with it this time.
THE LADIES' PARADISE, by Emil Zola.
In mid nineteenth century France, an ambitious man runs one of Paris's great department stores. It is already huge and turns over millions of francs a year, but he wants it to be even bigger, to cover a whole city block and become the greatest store in the world. A few things stand in his way: some tiny nearby shops, blighted by the lower prices he can offer for the goods they sell, but who will not sell up so he can expand. Then there is his latest employee, a slip of a girl, far beneath the society ladies he normally associates with, but who nonetheless manages to steal his heart, without making any visible attempt to do so...
Emil Zola is absolutely my favourite French writer. His famous twenty-novel "Rougon Macarte" series provides an endless source of reading pleasure. I have only read about half of them, and not in the correct order, though that doesn't matter. They all stand alone, and I haven't read one yet which isn't utterly absorbing, moving, funny and beautiful.
FILMS
IRRATIONAL MAN (2015) D- Woody Allen. A hard drinking philosophy professor (a very good Joaquin Phoenix) senses his life is spiralling downwards but then feels himself to some extent redeemed when he strikes up a relationship with one his attractive students (Emma Stone). Then one day, perhaps working on the Nietschian idea of exceptional people being beyond normal moral values, overhears a conversation in a cafe where a woman complains that a judge is destroying her life in a custody battle with her ex. He decides on an "existential act"; namely, he takes it upon himself to murder the judge in question. Now feeling existentially enriched, he embarks on other equally radical behaviours...
Woody Allen is one of the busiest film directors in the world, and although some of his films are outstanding, and some even works of true cinematic genius, they don't all work. This one does, however, and I found it gripping and memorable.
FANTASTIC FOUR (2015) D- Josh Trank. A collection of good looking and well funded scientists find they are unaccountably possessed of superpowers. Heard that one before? You should have. The two Fantastic Four movies featuring Jessica Alba have not exactly faded into the mists of time being made very recently. Yet someone at Fox still thought the public would lap up this re-boot. They didn't. The film slumped at the box office and won a slew of Golden Raspberries including worst picture of the year (an accolade jointly awarded to Fifty Shades of Grey). I have in the past banged on about the tendency of Hollywood to produce totally unnecessary re-makes, presumably with the idea of making a fast and easy buck, but really, this beats all. This film has nothing new to offer, has not a shred of humour or any other kind of flair. Absolute crap.
CHRONICLE OF A SUMMER (1961) (documentary) D- Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin, photographed by Michel Brault. A number of ordinary French people are interviewed on camera and asked to speak about their preoccupations: work, love, liberty and loss. The film opens with the co-directors discussing whether it is possible for people to speak with genuine sincerity on camera; what follows invites us to assess this for ourselves. The result by general consensus is yes, if the directors are sufficiently skilful, as these two definitely were.
Filmed on a 16mm cine camera and recorded with a portable Nagra tape machine, we chose to see this as part of a plan to track down the world's great documentary films. The BFI voted this number six on its list of best documentaries, and it's easy to see why. Perhaps the quintessential example of cinema verite, as the film begins we can see the participants are nervous and hesitant, but as it progresses they relax, forget the camera is there and reveal themselves in the most extraordinarily candid way. Marvellous.
JUSTE AVANT LA NUIT (1961) D- Claude Chabrol. A man is having an affair with his best friend's wife. They like like their sex rough, and during one of their sessions he accidentally strangles her to death. He stumbles out of the apartment in a confused state, leaving the cleaner to find her body the following day. He soon bumps into his best friend, and feigns as much surprise and shock as him when the news breaks. Bit by bit, the grieving husband begins to wonder if his friend might be responsible, but even as the evidence mounts he is unsure what to do about it. After all, what's done is done...
This film is so French it almost smells of garlic and fresh croissant. And it demonstrates as well as any of his films what a true auteur Chabrol is. Dubbed by some as the "French Hitchcock", this film shows his intimate dissection of human character and weakness is superior even to that of the rotund one. Terrific.
THEEB (2014) D- Naji-Abu Nawar. The Jordanian desert, 1916, at the height of the British-sponsored Arab uprising against the Ottoman empire. A British soldier arrives in a remote village asking to be guided to a well in the middle of the desert, from where he plans to blow up a railway line. A young lad insists on accompanying the small party into the desert, but the group is soon waylaid by bandits who kill his brother and the British soldier. Theeb, the boy, now finds himself lost in the middle of a harsh and unforgiving environment. He doesn't know where the well is, and he doesn't know how to find his way home either. Then he notices that one of the bandits has survived the firefight, though he has been shot. Can they join forces and somehow make their way to safety?
This excellent little Jordanian movie was nominated for the Oscar for best foreign language film of 2014 and with good reason. Shot around the Wadi Rhum area, made famous by T.E. Lawrence in Seven Pillars of Wisdom, it is intensely atmospheric and provides a rare insight into the usually impenetrable minds of Arab people.
THE WALK (2015) D- Robert Zemekis. In 1973, a Parisian circus performer seeking to make a name for himself sees a photo of the twin towers of the World Trade Centre and hatches an idea to string a wire between them and walk across. Strictly illegal of course, but once the deed is done he'll be famous. Or dead. He tightropes between the two towers of Notre Dame cathedral by way of practice, and then sets off for New York with a length of wire and a coterie of like-minded anarchists, not all of whom are convinced it will work...
Philippe Petit's extraordinary feat has already been chronicled in the very good documentary feature Man on Wire (that was how the arresting police officer classified the incident), but Zemekis (Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit etc) thought there was mileage in a dramatisation, and I would agree. Joseph Gordon Levitt makes a very impressive Petit; indeed the great man himself trained Levitt in how to make his wire-walking look authentic. It did. We are drawn into the struggle to transform this audacious plan into reality, and the tension builds magnificently as the day for the fateful walk approaches.
This isn't a remake, it's a radical re-think, and there's nothing wrong with that. Think on, Hollywood.
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