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.