May 2019 film review

HOW I LIVE NOW (2103) D- Kevin McDonald

A rather testy adolescent girl comes over from the States to spend the summer with a middle class English family on their farm. After a shaky start she begins to settle into the routines of life which are so different from what she is used to. Then, just as it is becoming almost idyllic, everything goes wrong. There is some sort of terrorist attack in London, some distance away, but they have used a dirty bomb and the fallout is heading in their direction...

          What follows is a new take on the post-apocalyptic story, as the parents disappear and the children are forced to live hand to mouth in a nightmare world. Director McDonald handles all this with considerable skill, given his limited budget, and he is very ably assisted by an excellent Saoirse Ronan as the American girl determined to survive whatever the hazards...

EXTREMELY WICKED, SHOCKINGLY EVIL AND VILE (2018) D- Joe Belinger

Being the story of Ted Buddy, America’s most notorious serial killer, who roamed the Pacific north-west in the 1970s, murdering one woman after another, all of them young, all of them with long dark hair usually parted in the middle. Was he trying to kill one particular woman who once let him down, and killing her again and again? We’ll never know, because Buddy always denied his crimes, until the very last moments of his life, days before his appointment with Florida’s electric chair, when he did at last hint at the possibility he might be guilty.

This story is pretty well known, the subject of numerous books and at least 3 films that I know of. 

Has this one, featuring a Zac Ephron who, if nothing else, is fashioned into an extraordinary likeness of Bundy, added anything to our body of knowledge? Not really. The film is coy about depicting the actual abductions and murders (which is a bit like making a film about Henry VIII and not mentioning his wives), concentrating instead on his court appearances, in many of which Bundy chose to represent himself. The result is ultimately unsatisfactory, even if we must praise Ephron’s skilful performance. Shame, because somewhere in here there is great movie waiting to be made...

BLACKkKLANSMAN (2018) D- Spike Lee

In Trump’s world, a world where after the Charlottesville incident he said there were good and bad people on both sides, ie between the despicable racists and the people who protested against them, Spike Lee has returned to a previous era, that of the 1970s, when a black police officer volunteers to take down a local KKK group by, improbably, pretending to be a white supremacist himself. He does this by contacting them over the phone and then sending in a white ‘avatar’ to act as him. Complicated? You betcha.

What emerges is a very clever and thoughtful movie typical of Spike Lee, who navigates his way through this labyrinth with great skill and verve. Highly watchable, but you’ll have to pay attention to every frame, or you’ll quickly get lost...

THE SOUND OF FURY (1950) D- Cy Endfield

In post war rural America, a family man is struggling to make ends meet when a friend suggests a little robbery would solve all his problems. These go off without too much trouble, but then his friend (a very good Lloyd Bridges) dreams up a plan to kidnap the scion of a wealthy local family. Something goes wrong (of course) and the young man ends up dead. They are rapidly tracked down and held in the local jail, awaiting their trial for murder. But that isn’t good enough for the the townspeople, who would prefer to drag them out of there and string ‘em up from the nearest tree.

I have long admired the work of Cy Endfield, whose work is best known to us through his directing of the iconic movie Zulu. And here, in a film he made 13 years earlier, he shows that he was already a class act. All the players are strong, and the tension builds brilliantly to its climax, still horrifying nearly 70 years on. Excellent.

May 2019 book review

YOUR FACE TOMORROW, by Javier Marias:
Vol I- FEVER AND SPEAR
Vol II- DANCE AND DREAM
Vol III- POISON, SHADOW AND FAREWELL
Jacques Deza, a Spaniard living in London, is recruited by a shadowy offshoot of the intelligence services for an unusual job. He must use his peculiarly acute observational skills and insight of the human psyche to decide what any given person might do tomorrow, based on little more than listening in to that person being interviewed, and reviewing their past behaviour. Gradually he realises there is a lot riding on his opinions - people could lose their jobs, be hurt, or even killed if he gives a negative prediction. But the job does give him the opportunity to encounter some the cleverest people in England, and in turn to find out how they themselves operate. And it isn’t always a pretty sight...

This is really one novel in three parts; indeed the books literally take up where the previous one ended. And as we immerse ourselves in his sublime, limpid prose, we learn that Marias, like Proust, like Sebald, like Nabokov before him, is fascinated by the concepts of time and memory as they relate to Homo Sapiens. How we age, and what this does to the memory, is something the great writers seem perennially obsessed with, though we should not be surprised at that. We are our memories, which is why Alzheimer’s is such a terrible disease.

To give one short quote from a book of nearly 300,000 words is scarcely sufficient to do it justice. Nonetheless, I offer this, from the second volume:

“...I am like the earth beneath the grass or even deeper down, like the invisible earth beneath the still more sunken earth, a dead man for whom there was no mourning because he left no corpse, a ghost whose flesh is falling away and who is only a name for those who come afterwards and who will never know if  that name was invented... I am snow on someone’s shoulders, slippery and docile, and the snow always stops falling. Nothing more. Or rather this: ‘Let it be changed into nothing, and let it be as if what was had never been.’ That is what I will be, what was and has never been. That is, I will be time, which has never been seen, and which no one can ever see...”

Marias is 68 now, the same age as me, and many people feel he is overdue for the Nobel prize. Some say he should have been given it rather than Bob Dylan, though I for one applauded that audacious decision. OK, so give it to him now. He deserves it.

A REED SHAKEN BY THE WIND, by Gavin Maxwell
In the early 1950s, a young Gavin Maxwell’s big hero is Wilfred Thessiger, the eminent writer and traveller. He hears Thessiger is off on his travels again soon, this time to southern Iraq to spend time among the Marsh Arabs. On a shot to nothing he arranges a meeting in London and asks if he can tag along. To his amazement Thessiger agrees, while trying to put him off by listing the various risks, disease, injury and murder among them. Maxwell isn’t listening. Thessiger has agreed!

A few short days later and Maxwell finds himself in an alien world. A world of waterways, vast skies, endless expanses of marsh and reeds and the mixed bag of tribes who inhabit it, living in ways that have not varied for a thousand years. Now Maxwell finds the principle dangers are not only members of other tribes, but also wild boar, who lie concealed in the reeds minding their own business, but liable to go nuts if disturbed. Thessiger has warned him about this, though he can’t really see the problem until one day one incensed boar decides to go for him. There are other dangers too, such as the fear of humiliation if he fails to come back with a sufficient number of kills from a hunting expedition. Arabs have a very big thing about loss of face, and this of course extends to their guests...

This book has been described as being “almost the perfect travel book” and it is hard to argue with that assessment. The writing is as beautiful as the strange lands he describes, and is laced with intriguing insights into Maxwell’s own psyche. And that is what good travel writing is all about...

Growth is good, allegedly

For as long as I remember, the nation’s level of growth has been announced, with some satisfaction if it is ‘good’, ie high, or with dismay if it is ‘low’. Growth is good, we have been led to believe, and we now take that ‘fact’ as read. But how much ‘growth’ can the planet take?

All over the world, virgin rainforests with their marvelous array of life forms are being replaced with grazing land for the cattle which will find their way into burgers, or palm oil plantations to satisfy the enormous demand for that product coming from all over the world, but particularly in east Asia. Meanwhile, the industrial expansion in India, China and elsewhere fills the atmosphere with greenhouse gases and other even nastier pollutants.

The IMF, in its infinite capitalist wisdom, has deemed 3% as the golden mean of growth to which the world should aspire. But as George Monbiot has pointed out, in ten years that means the world’s economy will have grown by 30%.  And with the Earth’s natural resources already under pressure as never before in human history, it isn’t hard to imagine how much worse that will be in ten years. Spaceship Earth, our only home, simply cannot take much more expansion. We need to re-think the whole concept of growth in the West, and realise that the brakes have to be put on before it is too late for all of us. There are a few countries, say, the 20 or 30 poorest, where an exception can be made, and they should be helped by the rich nations to expand without destroying their natural environments. The rest of us can easily afford to retrench and suspend the pernicious monster that is called ‘growth’. We can easily afford it. The Earth can’t afford for us not to.

OK, so what can we as individuals do to save the world? “I’m just one man, what difference can I make?” Is the oft-heard cry. God, do I hate it when I hear that. If we all took that line, nothing would ever change. But as it happens, there is something each of us can do, and once again it was George Monbiot who spelled it out:
1. Eat less meat and fish
2. Fly less.
Simples.

How will you vote in the Euro elections?

Tricky one. Traditional supporters of the 2 main parties are, quite understandably, furious about the way their parties have behaved over the Brexit issue, and are set to abandon them in their droves. Nigel Farage’s Brexit party seems set to be the outright winner, as Brexiteers across the nation rally to it rather than Labour or Tory. And remainers, such as myself, are left with a tranche of parties who feel the same way: the LibDem, Green, etc etc. With their vote split, Farage is set to be the big winner.

Nigel is a perfect example of the populist politician, appealing to the less noble aspects of the human personality, the racists, the bigots, the laissez faire, free enterprise, devil-take-the-hindmost, screw-you-Jack-I’m-alright type of mindset. These people come from all classes, even poor people who will lose out if their policies are adopted (as in the US under Trump). The rich know they will benefit; the poor have been conned with great skill into believing they will too.

Hence in the UK, highly intelligent politicians, such as Penny Mordant, tap into Brexit politics because it plays well with their base, not, I would assert, because they actually believe what they are saying about “taking control back” or whatever bullshit argot they adopt. They’re about personal ambition and the acquisition of power. So look out. If we’re not careful they’ll be in charge soon...

April 2019 film review

FILM STARS DON’T DIE IN LIVERPOOL (2017) D- Paul McGuigan
An A list, if aging Hollywood film star arrives in Britain and finds herself falling for a nobody, 30 years her junior. Then she falls ill...
          Gloria Grahame, for lo that was her name, was no stranger to controversy. She nearly destroyed her career when she had an affair with her far younger stepson and later, further scandalizing a prurient American public, by marrying him. But no one disputed her claim to sit at the top table, having secured the Oscar for best supporting actress in The Bad and the Beautiful in 1954.
          With a brilliant Annette Bening in the lead, a fine supporting cast including Vanessa Redgrave and Julie Walters, and the whole treated with a disarming, unsentimental honesty, we have one of the finest ‘true-life’ movies to emerge in the last ten years. Moving and beautiful.

MUSTANG (2015) D- Deniz Gamze Erguven
In a remote village in northern Turkey, Lale and her four sisters fool about, perfectly innocently, with the local boys. This does not escape the attention of the other villagers, who decide they must be whores. Their parents are duly informed, and the girls from that point are placed under the closest scrutiny and surveillance. But girls will be girls...
          The agonies of adolescence are hard enough to endure in even the freest and open societies. Imagine then, the problems of a young girl growing up in an Islamic country where girls and women are second class citizens from the outset...
          In this film these problems are depicted with superb authenticity and sensitivity, though I doubt it went down well with a Turkish leadership who are anxious to proceed down the Islamic route and thereby eschewing the vision of its modern founder, Kamul Attaturk, who longed to see a secular state in his beloved homeland.

AFTER THE STORM (2016) D- Hirokazu Koreeda
In contemporary Tokyo, a struggling private dic wastes any fees he might garner on gambling, a character defect that has already cost him his marriage. He tries to turn over a new leaf and get back together with his ex, but she’s not buying it. Meanwhile his daughter is caught in the middle...
            I have said before in this blog how difficult it is to understand how Japanese culture works for us in the West, and how it is only in a few movies and books we gain an insight which really means something to us. In After the Storm we have such an example, which really shows that the problems of men, women and their families are not that different everywhere. Koreeda has created a lovely little movie, understated yet full of insight into the complexities of family life. Strongly recommended...

HELL OR HIGH WATER (2016) D- David McKenzie
In rural Texas, two brothers (excellently played by Chris Pine and Taylor Sheridan, who also wrote the script) embark on a series of bank robberies to forestall one bank’s intention to foreclose on their mother’s home. They take care to avoid capture by taking only small (and therefore unrecorded) denominations, plus carefully masking up and wearing thick rubber gloves. A Texas Ranger (Jeff Bridges) is intrigued by their modus operandi, and deduces what they are about. He feels sure they will continue, and holes himself up in a small town whose bank hasn’t been hit yet, having convinced himself, on fairly slim evidence, that this is where they’ll strike next. Days, weeks pass, but nothing happens. Is he wasting his time? His Native American partner certainly thinks so, and tries to talk him out of his waiting game. Will they ever come?
          Well written, acted and directed, I thoroughly enjoyed this tense, yet somehow lyrical piece. There’s something of Bonny and Clyde about these two brothers, who are only acting in their mother’s interests, but getting their kicks as well, or at least one of them is. For older brother (Taylor Sheridan) passionately relishes his role as old-time Bad Man, while kid bro (Pine) has his doubts.
           Definitely worth watching.
     



       

April 2019 book review

AGAINST NATURE (A REBOURS), by Joris-Karl Huysmans
In late 19th century Paris, a nobleman finds himself jaded by bourgeois life and retires to his country estate, where he can indulge his passions uninterrupted. These include, amongst other things, decorating his tortoise with gold and precious stones. Unfortunately this results in the death of the hapless creature, but never mind. It was worth a try.
          There is a story about Oscar Wilde where, unsatisfied with the colour of a carnation, he dipped it in green ink. One feels M des Esseintes would have approved. In this extraordinary book, which concentrates solely on this one character, there are many such excursions ‘against nature’ indulged in by our ‘hero’. Having originally approved of the naturalist movement in literature, he now rejects it, and its most illustrious protagonist, Emil Zola, and seeks solace in the poetry of Baudelaire. (This apparently happened in real life, with Huysmans breaking with his old friend Zola). It is said Huysmans based his character in part on the real-life count Robert de Montesquieu, which is interesting, because it is also believed that Proust used the same man as a model for his infamous character baron de Charlus in A La Recherche.
          What emerges is one of the strangest books ever written. It divided opinion violently at the time, but today it is accepted as a classic. Highly recommended, but be prepared for a wild and deeply disturbing ride...

ADA OR ARDOR, by Vladimir Nabokov
A young boy and girl become kissing cousins, and indeed rather more than that. And even when it later emerges they are in fact brother and sister, it does little to dampen their ardor (geddit?) for each other. And there you have it. This book, the longest Nabokov wrote, is in fact a chronicle of this love affair which extends over many decades, surviving a series of separations.
          In Lolita, Nabokov’s most famous book by far, the subject was paedophilia. Here as I have indicated, the subject is incest. Yet the moral problems with that, as in Lolita, turns out to be less important than the narrative and literary structure of what is a truly magnificent novel. Nabokov, writing in a language which was not his own, has used it more skillfully than almost anyone else of his generation, peppering his writing with puns, in-jokes and sometimes obscure literary references than can be enough to make the head spin. Read, but read carefully. You don’t want to miss a trick...

SEAN CONNERY, by Kenneth Passingham
Being the life (up till 1983, anyway, which is when this book came out) of one of Britain’s best loved actors. It’s all there, from his beginnings in a Glasgow tenement slum, through his early days as a body-builder, to his luckiest of lucky breaks when the Bond film producers took a big risk by choosing a relatively inexperienced Scot to play Ian Fleming’s suave and sophisticated English spy. Fleming himself was apparently horrified when he heard who they had chosen, until that is he saw the rushes from Dr No. From that point he underwent a conversion, in keeping with the rest of the world, who collectively decided Connery was James Bond.
           Becoming one of the world’s most famous people had its problems, however, as the book recounts. For Connery was an intensely private man, and deeply resented the press intrusions into his personal life, while conceding it was pretty much inevitable. He also gradually realised the films producers, “Cubby’ Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, were making far more money out of the movies than he was, and the book describes how, as each successive film was made, he was able to secure a better deal for himself, though not without a struggle on each occasion.
           This book is written by a tabloid journalist, though that is not necessarily a problem. When journos write books they often lose the frills and cut to the chase without delay, making, as in this case, a thoroughly absorbing read.

THE CROSSWAY, by Guy Stagg
A troubled young man with a drink problem decides, even though he is no believer, to undertake a pilgrimage from Canterbury to Jerusalem, following routes established in the Middle Ages. Perhaps he will find  himself on the way, and lose his demons.
           What follows is a fascinating account of a five thousand kilometer journey across Europe to the cradle of Christianity. His writing has been compared to some of the great travel writers, including Patrick Leigh-Fermor, but I’m here to tell you that is hyperbole. Yes, the writing is interesting and highly informative at times, but it is sometimes guilty of the  cardinal sin of over-writing, and, I’m sorry Guy, you are no Paddy Leigh-Fermor, with the best will in the world. You are no Gavin Maxwell either, as we shall see in his wonderful book A Reed Shaken by the Wind, which I shall review next month. Now that’s what I call travel writing...