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.
Tuesday, 30 August 2016
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.
Monday, 22 August 2016
Out of the blue
The first of July 2016. That's the day my life changed. Expect the unexpected, Douglas Adams said. But even he wouldn't have expected this. So stunned was I that until now I have been unable to summon the energy to post any blogs. That is now beginning to change. Sincere apologies to all my readers for the hiatus. Tomorrow I shall begin to catch up with my media review. Watch this space...
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