March 2016 book and film review

BOOKS

A BRIEF HISTORY OF SEVEN KILLINGS, by Marlon James
It is Jamaica, 1978. A certain singer is emerging as the most popular musician in the world, but certain factions within Jamaica's gangland would have him dead. His house is raided, dozens of shots fired. He is shot, but survives by some miracle. Will the attackers try again, or have they made their point? And why is the CIA interested?

Some of my friends say I spend too much time reading books from the library of the Dead Novelists Society, but here is a book which won the Man Booker Prize only last year. And my goodness, is it a cracker. With each chapter narrated from a different point of view, all of them heavily deploying Jamaican patois, a web of tremendous complexity and subtlety is created, taking us deep into the dark and dangerous world of West Kingston, where the police rarely venture and local dons rule the roost- until they're murdered, either by their colleagues or a police force shot through with corruption.

This is a terrific book, showing Marlon James to be a major new talent in the world of writing. This lad will go far...

THE TENANT OF WILDFELL HALL, by Anne Bronte
An attractive and intelligent woman falls for a gorgeous rake, believing she will be able to iron out his faults once they are married. Oh boy! Was she ever wrong. Sounds like women of the 1840s were no different from those of today. "He's broke but I can fix him" is a plaintive cry you'll hear even today, forgetting the fact that people aren't very good at changing, even when everything tells them they should. Usually people change only when they have to. 

The subtitle of this book might be "Marry in haste, repent at leisure", because that is the essence of this finely wrought little piece from the lesser known Bronte sister. Some have criticised the book's naivete when it comes to describing the goings on of sexually active folk, perhaps with some justification, though her description of a man descending into alcohol (and ?opium) abuse is more authentic, perhaps because her brother Branwell provided an ideal model in her own home.

AGNES GREY, by Anne Bronte. A young woman  finds employment as a governess to two boisterous children who have little interest in learning. Indeed, the little boy is never happier than when pulling the wings off  songbirds. And when she points out this loathsome practice to his mum, she observes that God put dumb animals on this earth for our use. Agnes counters that the Bible says nothing about it being OK to torture them, and she is let go pretty quickly. She finds a new position, this time to two adolescent girls, one a hoyden (that's a tomboy to you and me), the other a pretty, dizzy thing who is determined to snag the local knight, regardless of what kind of a man he is. Does this remind you of anything?
The writer George Moore describes the narrative of Agnes Grey as being "as simple and beautiful as a muslin dress", which is hard to argue with. Only half the length of The Tenant, it is a more complete tale, perhaps because Anne stayed within the bounds of her own experience. They are both, however, fine novels, and well worth exploring.

WIDE SARGASSO SEA, by Jean Rhys. Antoinette, a beautiful young white Jamaican girl with an inherited fortune, is married off to an Englishman, who fails to appreciate her vulnerability, even starts to refer to her as Bertha, because he prefers that name. Thing is, she likes her own name just fine. She enlists the help of her cousin who is a practitioner of voodoo, to make him love as he should, but when he finds out he is furious, and another wedge is forced between them. The poor, self absorbed idiot is both beguiled and repulsed by her in equal measure.
A little further explanation is necessary. The Englishman's name is Rochester, and Antoinette/Bertha is destined to become the mad wife locked in the attic made famous, or infamous, by Jane Eyre.

Confession time. I started to read this book in my early twenties, and didn't get past page six. I guess I found its idiosyncratic, totally original style wasn't for me at that tender age. Put 40 years of reading experience in between, and now I find it to be one the most extraordinary, brilliant pieces of writing I have ever come across. The descriptions of first Jamaica, and then Martinique, are so vivid you can feel the heat, taste the rum and smell the exotic flowers that inhabit every page. And the exploration of the minds of the protagonists is no less remarkable. Astounding.

FILMS

HAIL CAESAR! (2015) P/D- The Coen Brothers. In the early 1950s, a top Hollywood actor (George Clooney) is midway through filming the latest Biblical epic when he is kidnapped by a communist cell. It falls to Eddie Mannix (an excellent Josh Brolin) to sort out the whole damn mess. This real-life figure was Tinseltown's most skilled "fixer", smoothing over the peccadilloes of their stars and keeping them out of the press. Which means he's a busy guy. A leading actress, a sort of Esther Williams-type character (Scarlett Johannsen), gets pregnant just when she needs her stomach to be flat for the camera, and Eddie has to sort that too.
The Coen brothers have established a rep as two of the most talented film makers in America, and occasionally their films (Fargo, The Big Lebowsky) aspire to true greatness, though other offerings have not been so well received. This film has not gone down well in all quarters, though I found it most enjoyable, with solid acting performances all round, great costumes and a good script. Perhaps the only thing that doesn't work is Tilda Swinton playing identical twin Hollywood reporters. Why did they do it? It wasn't necessary.

EYES WITHOUT A FACE (1960) D- Georges Franju. A renowned surgeon's daughter loses her face in a car wreck. He pioneers a technique of facial transplant, though rejection problems have frustrated his efforts thus far. He needs more faces, and obtains them through the simple recourse of murdering young women and putting their faces on his daughter's. Perhaps one day it will work, but how many innocent women have to die before it does?

This film caused a storm when it was released in France, with many objecting to the extremely unpleasant subject matter. It died something of a death, but was then rediscovered after such luminaries as Jean Cocteau pronounced it a miracle of poetic expressionism.
Today, with our sensibilities blunted by a plethora of far more violent movies, its horrors might seem tame, but it remains one of the most atmospheric and  disturbing films I've seen in along time.
Go for it, but be prepared.

VICTOR VICTORIA (1982) D-Blake Edwards. In 1930s Paris a pretty singer (Julie Andrews) is struggling to get work until a new found gay friend (Robert Preston) comes up with a novel idea: pretend to be a man being a female impersonator. Overnight her fortunes are reversed. It's such a clever idea I'm surprised nobody came up with it before. I mean, how hard can it be for a woman to pretend to be a woman? Meanwhile a visiting American tycoon (James Garner) is entranced by him/her and indeed worries he might be turning gay himself.
Blake Edwards clearly had a lot of fun directing his wife in this complicated comedy of manners, and it does work pretty well, though for a comedy there aren't many laughs. Blake Edwards has in my opinion made two really outstanding films: A Shot in the Dark, one of the funniest films ever made, and the terrific Days of Wine and Roses, which charts the descent into alcoholism of a husband and wife. This film doesn't go into that exalted category, but it is watchable,especially if you, like me, have a bit of a thing for La Andrews.

PRIDE (2014) D- Matthew Warchus. At the height of the miner's strike in 1984, a group of gays in London want to help out an embattled mining community in the South Wales valleys. Despite initial reservations, the village decides to accept their help.
And there you have it. One of those feel-good, life-affirming movies Britain is so good at making. You can trace its provenance right back to The Full Monty, via Calendar Girls, Billy Elliott and Made in Dagenham. And that's no bad thing. All those films were good and went down a storm not only here but around the world. This too has received a lot of praise, though I was not wholly convinced, despite sound acting from all the usual suspects, Bill Nighy, Paddy Considine, Dominic West and Imelda Staunton.

AMY (2015) D- Asif Kapadia. Being a chronicle of the short life and turbulent times of Amy Winehouse, by general consensus one of the most talented female jazz singers to emerge since Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald. The talent just oozed out of her pores since childhood, and when she was discovered in her teens it seemed a glittering career was ahead of her. But her problems, like her genius emerged early on. Wanting to be fashionably thin, she found that vomiting after meals proved a highly effective method of weight control, but as so often the problem began to overtake her as she entered adult life. That, and some unfortunate choices in men, who introduced her to drugs, first E and ganja, then coke and smack. Add to that the most pernicious addictive drug of all, alcohol, and you have a disaster in the making. The rest, as we all know, is history.

This is a highly professional and deeply affecting documentary, graphically showcasing her prodigious talent but also pulling no punches in depicting the villains of the piece: Blake Fielder, her husband, who grafted his own serious drug problems directly onto her, her mum, who knew about her bulimia almost as soon as it started but did nothing about it, and her father, who did his best but couldn't resist using the media for his own ends, much to Amy's frustration.
A fine piece of documentary film making

LA PISCINE (1969) D- Jacques Deray. The idyll of two lovers (Alain Delon and Romy Schneider) in a villa on the Cote d'Azur is interrupted by the arrival of her ex, with his incredibly sultry 18 year-old daughter (Jane Birkin) in tow. They hang around for a while, as the sexual tension within the group begins to escalate. Something, as they say, has gotta give, but what?
The movie is erotically charged in a way only the French seem to achieve, but the drama, always understated, is also powerful. The film has been recently remade as A Bigger Splash, with Dakota Johnson in the Birkin role while Tilda Swinton plays the Schneider part. I haven't seen it yet, but it'll have to go something to match this effort. Formidable.

Eddie Izzard: superhuman or what?

In speaking of IDS yesterday and Eddie Izzard today we go quite literally from the ridiculous to the sublime.

Yesterday in Johannesburg he completed a tally of 707 miles in 27 days, which included a double marathon on the final day because he was lazy enough to have a rest day early on in his "Mother of all Marathons". In so doing he raised £1.3 million for Sports Relief and demonstrated he is one of the most extraordinary sportsmen of all time.

But I do I fear for him. Human beings are simply not built for this kind of punishment.Remember the first guy to run a marathon in 490BC: he died. Since then we have learned how to train for this most extreme of human achievements and survive the experience, We have seen athletes perform the "Iron Man, where competitors must swim 2.4 miles, cycle 120 miles and finish off with a 26 mile run. We have even seen competitors run the Marathon des Sables, which involves running 251 km in the Moroccan desert over 6 days, with the last stage run over 57 miles. But even this jaw-dropping achievement pales into insignificance in the face of what Eddie has accomplished. But what of his knees, his ankles, his feet? Can they ever recover from such a pounding?

This surely is the ultimate example of what what a man can do with sheer will and determination. The other day I played table tennis for half an hour, then later walked for 8 miles involving a 400 metre ascent, and felt pretty good about myself. Now I feel like the laziest wimp alive. Damn you Izzard!

Hypocrisy: thy name is the Tory party

"I have always endeavoured to put compassion at the heart of the government's social policies"
These were, more or less, the words of IDS on Sky News this lunchtime. Really, Ian? You must think we are either stupid or have very poor memories. You presided over the bedroom tax; you even signed off on the latest initiatives in George Osborne's budget. Yet you waited for the moment you calculated would cause maximum damage to those among the Tories who would have us remain in the EU to resign.

We have seen some fascinating twists and turns in the debate over the EU: first BoJo's "carefully" (hah!) remarks to the effect that he was lining up with the Tory Euro-wreckers, and now this. A man who has evinced little sympathy with those less well off than himself (which is most of us) who is now bleating all over the media how is the champion of the poor. Party politics can be nauseating at times, but this really takes the digestive.

Some say he was already losing status within the Tory hierarchy, that he was going to lose his job in June, and therefore he jumped before he was pushed. Others say he is hoping to find an important cabinet position when we vote to leave the EU, DC resigns and Boris takes over as PM. And I cry:
"It stinks! It stinks!

Tough break, Arsenal, but whadya gonna do?

This morning Arsenal's manager Arsene Wenger admitted it's hard beating a side who have turned their profession into art. He's right. In Messie, Neymar and Suarez,or Al Dente as I like to call him, Barcelona  have arguably the greatest attacking profile ever seen on a football field, with the possible exception of the 1970 Brazil national side.

Unfortunately the defeat and exit from European football may mark an exit from the Emirates Stadium of their most fiercely loyal servant. Wenger has served Arsenal admirably for over 20 years, but as we have seen with Jose Mourinho, that don't mean a thing. It's what you did today and at best last week that matters in football management, and it may finally be time for him to bid us Au Revoir.

I for one will be sad to see him go. I loved his unswerving loyalty to his players, the way he would develop sudden blindness to offences they may have committed while being at the same time eagle-eyed to the infringements of players on the opposing side. This isn't cheating- its   what a good manager does.

Will he retire now, on the doubtless golden deal he will secure  for his pension, or seek pastures new?
I feel we haven't seen the last of him yet.

Obama: keep your mucky paws out of our business

When I was but a lad I believed that myth created by Winston Churchill that Britain and the U.S.A enjoyed a "special relationship". But as I matured I began to realize the less palatable truth, perhaps better expressed by George Bernard Shaw, namely that Britain and the US are two countries separated by a common language.

In President Obama's case it first came to light in 2010, following the lamentable oilspill in the Gulf of Mexico. It rapidly became apparent that Obama used every opportunity to label the culprits British Petroleum, reminding the Americans and the world that we were responsible for despoiling their beloved country. This despite the fact that much of the work on that oil rig had been contracted out to American companies, and that therefore we all, as it were, had oil on our hands.

Then last week he took it upon himself to upbraid us, and the French under Sarkozy, for being more than partly responsible for the murderous chaos that resulted following the fall of Gaddafi. In making that assertion he was doubtless correct in large part, though I couldn't help thinking of America's terrible responsibility in a whole range of countries where they have perceived an interest: in Chile, where they actively supported fascist Pinochet in his pogroms against anyone who disagreed with him, in Nicaragua, where they supported fascist Somoza against the will of the people ("Sure, he's a sonofabitch" said their Secretary of State Dean Rusk at the time, "But he's our sonofabitch") through Vietnam, Indonesia and so on and so on. What of Iraq after the first Gulf War in 1991, when George Bush Snr encouraged the Kurds and Marsh Arabs to rise up against Saddam, then stood idly by while those peoples were oppressed and murdered, without even lifting a finger to help them. Or the second Gulf War, when American troops brushed aside the Republican guard, but left Baghdad to the mercy of the looters and kidnappers. Or when the mercenaries of the Blackwater group ran riot in the city of Fallujah in 2007, killing anyone they pleased more or less at random, with the full support of the highest levels of command in America. Even today America under Obama offers its succour to the fascist Israeli government to deal with the Palestinian peoples as it pleases- and it pleases them to bully, oppress and murder whoever they don't like the look of- literally.

So, prez, be careful before you start dissing your allies- it may come back to bite you some day. I hear you are coming here soon to try to persuade us to stay in the EU- a mission which is likely to have the opposite effect from the noble one you intended. British people don't take kindly to foreigners telling us how to run our affairs, just as you wouldn't have much truck with some Brit going over there and telling you your gun laws are insanity. Perhaps I should remind you of the words of Khalil Gibran:
Do not walk ahead of me; I may not wish to follow
Do not walk behind me; I may not wish to lead
Walk beside me, and be my friend

The EU debate: bored yet?

I know I am. It's the level of debate that is so depressing: no one seems to speak with any real conviction, not the Remain campaign, led by Cameron and Osborne (and with a team like that in charge I really do fear they're up for a hiding), and certainly not the Leave crew, whose spiritual leader, BoJo, clearly cares little one way or another as was evident from his little "I've come to a decision" speech delivered a couple of Sundays ago. It must have done his burgeoning ego a lot of good when a few well chosen words from him caused an already beleaguered pound to drop even further.

We have Cameron firing people who have come out against him, and Boris gagging anyone in his administration who would dare to demur from his view. The two campaigns are powered, on the one side by fear, and on the other by a kind of veiled racism- and both are powerful motivators. And I am afraid of the consequences of leaving, of the damage to the pound, to the economy as a whole and our reputation around the world. Yet it now seems a real possibility we will vote to leave, delighting the far right of the Tory Party who may now be seen as Britain's wrecking crew, but dismaying those of us who see our future as part of Europe, those who think the European Court of Human Rights is actually a good thing and who believe that the best way to reform the EU is from within.

It's a no-brainer, people.