May 2016 book and film review

BOOKS

THE SON, by Joe Nesbo. A young man has languished in jail for years, maintaining his drug habit via a porous security regime, until the opportunity for escape arises. Once free, he dedicates his life to bringing down those responsible for his father's death. But his targets include some of off the baddest badasses in Scandinavia...

This is my first experience with the most popular Scandinavian writer after a guy called Mankel, and I didn't regret it one bit. Like Albert Camus, Nesbo nearly made his career in professional football before injuring himself and deciding to become a rock star before settilng down to write a series of immensely successful crime novels. The Son is intricately designed; strong on character and a plot that has an almost dizzying intensity. Highly recommended airport reading.

LITTLE DORRIT, by Charles Dickens. A man falls on hard times and finds himself in debtors prison, where he spends decade after decade without hope of release. His daughter Amy is even born there and, though technically free, lives there also in order to care for her Dad. But outside the walls of the prison there are people working on his case, and not all of them well intentioned...

I will confess to being a tad disappointed by this book. It is long, there is (as usual) a profusion of characters, both saints and villains, but it fails to convince. Little Dorrit is one of those characters known to Dickens students who is so good, so unblemished that by comparison Mother Theresa would be a whorehouse madame who deals crack as a sideline. There may be people that good out there, but in my 65 years I've never met one. It is always the plot that makes you keep reading a Dickens novel, so that like an addictive soap you have to keep watching because of the compulsion to find out what happens next, I had to plough on to the end despite periods of boredom and frustration.
Strictly for Dickens fanatics.

TO THE LIGHTHOUSE, by Virginia Woolf. A wealthy upper-middle class family spends the summer in its retreat on a Hebridean island, with a number of more or less talented hangers-on in tow. Will they take their much vaunted boat trip to the nearby lighthouse or will the weather prevent them?    The matriarch Mrs Ramsay, a beautiful woman of a certain age, is determined to be optimistic, but her grumpy academic husband is one of those glass-half-empty types who is equally determined to pour cold water on the idea. Meanwhile her guests pursue their hobbies, writing poetry or painting, desperately hoping for approval from their adored elders.

After reading the first twenty or so pages of this book, I began to develop the feeling that it wasn't for me. Then I stopped and re-assessed. I'd been reading it too quickly, and that is one thing you must not do with writing of this subtlety. I slowed down and gave it the wholehearted concentration it demands. After all, you don't gulp down a vintage champagne, you take it in small sips, savouring every exultant drop. That's what reading this book is like. Before long I realised I was in the presence of a masterpiece. In this book, where at one level hardly anything seems to happen, Woolf creates a world so acutely observed, so beautifully depicted that you almost feel you have wandered into a painting by Monet or Cezanne. The colours of the sea, the wind moving over the waves are described with the most sublime beauty, while on shore the thoughts, dreams and fears of the players interweave in a tableau that is quite stunning in its insight and wisdom.
Astounding.

FILMS

INSIDE OUT (2015) D- Pete Docter. Inside a young girl's head, a number of archetypes run things: Joy (who seems to be in charge), Anger, Fear, Disgust and Sadness. When her parents decide to relocate to a place far from home, which element of her pre-adolescent personality will come to the fore? Can Joy integrate them into a coherent whole or will the negative components hold sway and turn her into a "bad girl"?
A lot of people liked this Pixar animation and it duly won the Oscar for best animated feature this year. Deservedly so in my view. The visual ideas are excellent and the execution, as usual with Pixar, is superlative, but it is the psychological insight which raises it above the "normal" cartoon film, because it demonstrates the importance of all our character traits: Joy and Sadness, Anger and Fear. And don't forget Disgust. They're all part of who we are.

HOT PURSUIT (2015) D- Anne Fletcher. A straight-laced cop has to escort a couple across country to testify against the leader of a Mexican drugs cartel. On the way the husband is murdered and the two women barely escape with their lives. More "hilarity" ensues as they make their extremely hazardous way to their appointment in a Dallas courtroom.
This movie ought to be hot. I mean, it stars Reece Witherspoon and Sofia Vergara, two of the most sexy women currently working in Hollywood. Trouble is, it isn't. The hoped-for chemistry between the two stars never really takes off and the humour jars badly with the sometimes quite excessive violence. I don't quite know what went wrong, though I think we can blame the most usual suspect: the writing.

THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN (2010) D- Andre Tachine. A young Jewish girl comes home from a day in Paris and announces she has been raped by a gang of neo-nazis. The news gets out and there is a national outrage. But then, as the investigation proceeds, doubts begin to form as to whether the attack happened at all.
Based on real events, this film competently explores how this bizarre situation may have come about. Emily Dequenne is remarkable as the girl in question, though apart from her performance I found the whole a little sterile.

X MEN; APOCALYPSE. (2015) D- Bryan Singer. The original and genuine X Man takes the stage, with his plans to ethnically cleanse the entire human race. He's had a lot of time to plan it, as he was born in the time of the Pharaohs and entombed alive back then, only to be re-vivified, or whatever). Looks like the only ones who can foil him are today's X men and women, who band together in a last-ditch attempt to save the world.
And there you have it. If you're an X Men person you'll probably get a lot out of it, though I began to lose interest in the franchise when they lost Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen. And based on this effort I fear it will be the last time I pay good money to see one.

TRAINWRECK (2015) D- Judd Appatow. Career girl whose heart isn't really in it Amy Schumer (who also wrote the script) fears she will never find Mr Right, and even when she does can't see what she's got. Will she see sense in the end and snag him, and do we care?
This film won a lot of praise when it came out, but it didn't work for me by a big margin. The main problem lies in Bill Hader who plays her boyfriend. He's supposed to be the orthopaedic surgeon to the New York Knicks, while working with "Medicine Without Borders" in his spare time. First, he looks about eighteen, with none of the gravitas one would expect of an eminent surgeon. Second, with a job like that how would you have any spare time to be changing the world in some far-off, war torn land? Like I said, lots of people didn't seem to mind this glitch, but I couldn't get past it.

THE DAY REAGAN WAS SHOT (2001) D- Cyrus Nowrasteh. In the spring of 1981, only weeks after Ronald Reagan was installed as president, a nut job called John Hinkley thought it might impress Jodie Foster if he pumped several bullets into his chest, so he did. Reagan is rushed to hospital, close to death. While doctors try to figure out how to remove a bullet lying against his heart (he was that close to dying) the administration struggles to come to terms with an unprecedented crisis: who's in charge? With the veep out of town, secretary of state Alexander Haig says he is, overlooking that part of the constitution which states that in a situation of this kind, power devolves, not to him, but to Tip O'Neil, Speaker of the House. Haig quickly admits his error, but the damage is done. As Reagan begins to improve, so Haig's fortunes decline, and he rapidly recedes into obscurity.
Moral: Be careful what you say in the heat of the moment, especially when the whole world's listening.
Produced by old hand Oliver Stone, I greatly enjoyed this TV movie, which features a thoroughly convincing performance by Richard Dreyfuss as Haig, and as for Richard Crenna as Reagan, his resemblance in both looks and voice to the real guy is really quite extraordinary.

OUR CHILDREN (2012) D- Joachim Lafosse. A Parisan doctor travels to Morocco and adopts a young Moroccan boy and takes his pretty sister for his wife. Years later the boy finds love with a French girl. They all live in the doctor's house, with the doctor continuing to exert his passive-aggressive control over the whole family. Children, one, two, three, four arrive, and the young family wants to move to a new home, or even back to Morocco. But doctor will have none of it, instead binding the adopted son into a lease agreement he cannot wriggle out of. Bit by bit, the young mother begins to fall apart under the strain, leading to a climax so shocking that, even though nothing is seen or even heard, it disturbed me to the point where I felt physically sick.
That a movie could have such a profound effect on me has a great deal to do with the performance of Emily Dequenne as the young mother worn down by her father-in-law's mind games. Even her physical transformation through the course of the film, from a pretty, carefree creature to the expressionless husk she is by the end of the movie is astonishing.
I haven't seen a better film this year.

Oh Jeez, now something else to worry about

Heard of amyloid protein beta? You soon will. It's the new hot topic in Alzheimer's research. We all make the stuff in small amounts, but in Alzheimers the stuff accumulates around neurons in the brain, eventually destroying the connections which are crucial to retain memories. And now it has emerged that it is during sleep that much of this clogging stuff is dispersed, and new research suggests that people who are chronically sleep deprived are more at risk of developing the world's fastest growing plague.

Despite the fact that we spend a third of our lives sleeping and an enormous amount of research into the subject, remarkably little is known about it. Everyone knows if you miss a night's sleep you feel terrible, and that prolonged sleep deprivation leads to madness and death. It is intuitively self evident that we sleep to rest, both body and mind, but beyond that it remains one of the last great enigmas in physiology. But now the world's attention has focused on dementia to a degree unprecedented in science, the spotlight has now been directed to the importance of sleep in dispersing the aggregations of amyloid beta protein from the brain, and perhaps delaying or even preventing the onset of dementia.

So now, every time I wake in the middle of the night (as I do two or three times every night, is that normal? I bloody hope so) I find myself thinking: "Christ! What about me amyloid beta protein dispersal? Am I bound to get it now?"

Moral: get enough sleep, or watch your brain rot as you lie there checking the clock.

Portugal lights the way to green power

Portugal has just completed a 107 hour run of supplying ALL its energy needs by renewable sources: wind, solar and hydroelectric. On only one day, May 15th, Germany did the same. Way to go!
What Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth have been telling us for years has now been shown to be the real deal. The less-than-green energy suppliers must be spitting feathers at the news. The oil producers, coal owners and nuclear power supporters must be shitting themselves at the prospect of going out of business, if not now, then soon..

Meanwhile, here  at home in this enlightened country of ours, manufacturers of wind farms are experiencing ever more draconian obstacles to their plans, while solar power languishes as some fringe activity carried out only by addled hippies. And just today there are plans afoot to re-start the ailing fracking industry, doubtless with healthy government subsidies.

The vested interests here will, I believe, some day be seen as ecological criminals. Our descendants will scratch their heads in wonder at our earth-wrecking, air-poisoning activities and say to themselves: What were our grandparents thinking? Why did they ignore the evidence and continue to encourage everyone to engage in energy production that depleted the Earth of its precious resources and accelerate global warming?

Let's not leave it to our grandchildren to sort this out. Let's do it ourselves. Right now. Portugal has shown us the way. Now it's time for the world to follow suit.

Well done Andy! Now keep it up

Watching the Italian Open  in Rome last week, I observed Djokovic's faltering progress towards the final. The Serb is so good that, like Bjorn Borg, he can win tournaments without ever producing his best tennis. But I also noticed Andy Murray forging through the field with a confidence he hasn't displayed since he won Wimbledon in 2013. And this on some of the slowest clay in Europe. British players cannot play on clay, the tradition goes. True, Virginia Wade won in Italy in 1971, and Sue Barker went one better, winning in Paris in 1977. But no British man since the thirties has been able to break through on the red stuff.

Yet on Sunday, just before the final began, I turned to my wife and said: "I'm thinking, I wouldn't rule out Andy pulling this off." Seasoned tennis watcher that she is, she refrained from comment. From the outset we saw the Djokovic we had been seeing all week; "crabby" (I use Annabel Croft's word), blowing hot and cold, while Andy maintained a focus so fierce an atom bomb could have gone off over the Tiber and he wouldn't even have noticed. 6-2 went the first set, and on to the next, which he closed out at 6-4 with a championship point so amazing (after a prolonged rally he put away one of Djoki's drop shots from such a wide position he virtually swept it out of the lap of an astonished spectator in the front row) I cite it as the greatest championship point ever played.

Keep it up Andy. You're number two in the world again, and I know that isn't good enough for you. You want to be Numero Uno and you know what? I think you can do it. No need to be afraid of the Serbian top gun any more. You can take him, and not just once, but again and again.

Corruption, like charity, begins at home

DC made a bit of an ass of himself the other day (or was it all a carefully calculated ploy? Based on his track record, cock-up looks more likely than organised thinking). Of course he was not in error in naming Nigeria and Afghanistan as two of the most corrupt countries in the world, though he should perhaps have added that right here in Britain we have enabled many of the corrupt officials  in those countries to launder their money and buy property in Mayfair with our blessing, or at least tacit approval. Just as we have enabled many wealthy and unscrupulous people to use our off-shore possessions to hide their ill-gotten gains.

The government has said it intends to tighten controls on these areas of trillion dollar fraud, and we can only hope they stick to their word. Personally, I have my doubts whether they will do anything more than make a few symbolic gestures. Meanwhile money will slosh in and out of the despot's favourite haunt, inflating the prices of London homes and leaving the rest of us to wonder what's really going on.

One final word about Afghanistan. I watched a fascinating documentary about the place the other day called Bitter Lake, made by British film maker Adam Curtis. Available only on player because of its political content, it contained lots of amazing and disturbing information on how the unholy mess in that country came to be so. But for me the most extraordinary moment came in 2006, when British forces were embedding in Helmand province. The senior army officers called a meeting with the local tribal chieftains asking for help in destroying their enemies, the Taliban. In a beautiful "whoa! I didn't see that coming" moment, the tribal elders told them it wasn't the Taliban they were worried about, it was the government officials appointed by Hamid Karzai who were their real enemies, they who were sucking the prosperity out of the pockets of the locals and tucking it into their own. But as Britain and the US supported Karzai, what could they do? Turns out, absolutely nothing.

Happy birthday Saint David

If David Attenborough isn't the GLE (Greatest Living Englishman) I'd like to know who is. In a career that goes back as long as I have been alive, he has done more than anyone else to showcase the astounding variety and beauty of the Earth's stock of living creatures, and in the last few years to demonstrate how many of them are now under threat from Earth's dominant life form: us.

Some personal stories. In 1974 it was he who presented me with my medical degree, he being awarded an honorary DSc for his efforts in popularising science- and that before Life on Earth and all those other unforgettable wildlife programmes were made. In the 1970s I didn't watch much TV (don't faint) though I did have a small monochrome set. I saw the first few Life on Earth episodes on it before seeing one on a colour set at a friend's house. The following day I went out and bought a colour set myself.

Decades later I was watching Frozen Planet when I thought David might have made a mistake naming the longest (non Antarctic) glacier as the Biafo in Pakistan. I checked my Guinness Book of Records and found they cited the Siachen in north-west India. I wrote to him c/o the BBC and pointed this out. About two weeks later I got a handwritten letter from him admitting his error, saying that he had mistakenly relied on data supplied by the Pakistani Airforce and expressing his apologies. How about that?

"When the legend becomes fact, print the legend"

These are the words of a newspaper editor at the close of John Ford's classic western, the Man who shot Liberty Valance, when he learns the truth of what really happened the night Liberty was gunned down. I first saw the film when I was an impressionable fourteen-year-old, and I was stunned. A newspaper not revealing the truth of a story? I couldn't believe it. Gradually as I grew up I learned a little more about how the world works, and now I am not the least surprised when the media "prints the legend".

Last week Ken Livingstone, in a choice of subject even he now heartily regrets, reminded the world that at one point in his life Adolph Hitler supported the idea of a homeland for the Jewish people, making him at one level a "Zionist", because that is what anyone espousing that view is entitled to be called. In his case he saw it as an easy way of removing the Jews from Germany. This remark was then seized upon by everyone who disapproves of Ken's left wing credentials and indeed the left in general as the most disgraceful piece of anti-Semitism ever seen. Anti-Semitism is rife in the left wing of the Labour party apparently, and must be rooted out. Poor Jeremy Corbyn, still struggling to come to terms with taking the reins of leadership, buckled under the intense pressure from all around him and launched an inquiry into the whole affair. I still don't quite understand why he didn't say "Being against the Apartheid policies of the Zionist government of Israel is not the same as anti-Semitism, whatever they and their supporters around the world would have you believe". Some are now saying that this whole thing has been carefully orchestrated in order to oust Jeremy from the leadership, and so venomous has the campaign become I wouldn't be surprised if it works.

Getting thoroughly sick of the blanket media coverage on the "anti-Semitism scandal" on the British media, especially the BBC, I turned to Euronews, normally less obsessed with British "news" than our domestic outlets, but there it was, right at the top of the agenda! It's enough to make you start watching Keeping up with the Kardashians. At least you'd get a bit of truth there.

My good friend Patrick Graham, through the blog on his website smileofthedecade recently addressed the whole issue of trusting the media before the Livingstone fiasco broke, and his stark conclusion was: you can't. I haven't spoken to him for a couple of days, but I doubt if his opinion has changed since...