The Book Thief

It pains me when I see magnificent books, works of art like this, being sold for three quid in Tesco. Every so often a book comes out that has a weight about it, a scope that is so huge that you feel you need to put it on a shelf of its own – such a book is The Book Thief, by Marcus Zusak.



The novel tells the story of Liesel, a nine year old girl, living with foster parents after her mother is taken away to a concentration camp. Later the same family hide a young, Jewish man risking terrible punishment should they be caught. Liesel makes sense of her life and escapes through reading. She also reads to other when they are in an air-raid shelter. A non-existent supply of books means that she resorts to stealing them when she can, hence the title of the book.

The novel’s ‘angle’ is that the narrator is Death. It’s divided into bite-sized chunks sometimes witty, chatty and sometimes tragic. Suddenly, in the middle of the text, a section in bold font and with a decorated heading pops up as if on the screen in a silent movie. Through these headings significant moments and situations are emphasised, and we never forget that Death is an omniscient narrator.

The characters are so beautifully drawn that your heart aches for them. Liesel’s adopted father, her boyfriend Rudi who worships the athlete Jesse Owens and the Jewish teenager they later hide in their cellar are so real that a whole other perspective is thrown into this ever-changing tale of the plight of the Jews in the war. Here you hear about the Germans who didn’t condone, the little Schindlers if you will, who had to make their protests small and subtle or lose their lives. The teenager in hiding, Max, white washes over the pages of Mein Kamf so that he has clean pages to write and illustrate a book for Liesel. The symbolism is obvious and very beautiful and I cried reading this part of the book in a way that I don’t recall having done since reading books as a child.

Death describes many deaths and how he carries their souls away that reminds us how precious each life is and how keenly each loss is felt.

This is a beautiful, emotional and surprisingly uplifting book; through it’s ‘small’ stories it achieves something that ‘great’ art often does, it reminds us that humans are capable of much that is evil and much that is great in equal measures. A tangle and conundrum...

Cloverfield

This is my film of the year so far. Cloverfield is not for the faint hearted among you, but if you know how to breathe through fear, make the effort and see this amazing piece of work.

Cloverfield is an old fashioned monster movie in the best sense of the term. It relies on traditional, tried and tested, behind you, behind you methods that have worked ever since we’ve been telling each other stories but it also achieves something that the best genre movies manage, it captures the mood of the time. In the fifties and sixties, The Threat was the red peril from the red planet, communism, now we have The Osamasaurus, a merciless, indiscriminate, unpredictable menace that strikes, maims, kills yet gives no reason.

The movie ‘forgoes’ modern film technology and instead opts for hand-held, shaky, faux video. We begin the film with a message on screen that this is a video film discovered in an area ‘formerly known as Central Park, then the film ‘runs’ with no explanation, apparently and un-edited account of the events code named Cloverfield. The fake video is a very effective technique which brings immediacy and intimacy in a way that traditional special effects and perfect camera work would not have.

At the beginning, we have an overlong section where Jason, played by Mike Vogel, is handed the video camera and reluctantly shoots the mundane events at a party; beautiful, shiny twenty-somethings discuss relationships and flirt. For a while, to remind us that this is ‘real’, a digital clock runs in real time in bottom left screen. Occasionally, cuts to show the underlying tape which documents a romantic day between two of the main characters which proves to be significant back story. Peace is shattered when the proverbial shit hits the fan. An unexplained earth tremor, or bomb or something and the party spills onto the street. What follows is a desperate and fragmented record of four party goers’ fight for survival.

New York is under threat and in scenes consciously reminiscent of 9/11, crowds run from rolling clouds of dust and shelter in shops. No one mentions the similarity but they don’t need to for it’s part of our collective consciousness. What follows is visceral and truly exciting and more than once I caught myself gazing at the screen open-mouthed. The heroes are pitched into a chaotic battle scene with just themselves, their wits and luck behind them, no weapons, no bags, no coats, utterly naked so to speak.



Director, Mike Reeves, tells what a challenge the camera style was; they had to re-shoot much of footage because it was too perfect and after studying hours of YouTube footage, they get it right. We have people passing between the camera and the subject, shaking, jarring, dropped camera and always just misses the action in the way that you would if something made you jump out of your skin. The cameraman is one of the subjects too. This is his experience and when he gasps and runs we do too. Cloverfield feels very contemporary for this is a society where recording our experiences via blogs and digital images is part of all our lives. When the Statue of Liberty’s head clangs into view, the filmed image courtesy of the screen, naturally includes bystanders holding up their camera phones to preserve this surreal and momentous moment. And in one priceless frame, looters stand in an electrical goods shop, bearing armfuls of cassette players, they too staring open mouthed up at the monitors showing the news and the devastation of their city. The movie manages to keep up the pace, and it’s genuinely thrilling and with consummate skill, holds off from showing the monster providing just occasional glimpses.

There has been some expressions of annoyance among reviewers at how young the five main protagonists are and because they’re ‘annoying kids’ they can’t relate; well, I take issue with that. First of all, they aren’t just monster-fodder like the (on purpose) idiot protagonists in movies such as The Evil Dead; we are invited to care about these people and get to know them, albeit in an overlong section (8 minutes) at the beginning of the movie. Yes, I got a little tired of hearing them talk about their feelings and they wouldn’t be my first choice friends but I also don’t know anyone from Afghanistan and this didn’t stop me relating to the characters in The Kite Runner. Maybe because they’re close in age to my children helped me care but I thought the guy playing Rob, Michael Stahl-David, was particularly good and conveyed emotion subtly and with conviction. I would also never criticise a movie for which I am definitely not the target audience for having youngsters as the protagonists.

The Blair Witch style, viral publicity, has proved very successful but Cloverfield lives up to the hype. It’s the best monster movie I’ve seen since Alien. It teems with moments when you want to bellow at the screen, “Put the light ON!” and “Pick up a weapon, Go’dammit!” Cloverfield is a ride and a half and a tribute to imaginative film making.

Sweeney Todd

Tim Burton’s version of Sweeney Todd does not disappoint; it’s a glorious, over the top, dark, broody, operatic assault on the ears and eyes. After two hours of white pan stick, Robert Smith hair styles and gin swilling kids, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven, or should I say – hell.
It’s an unmistakable Burton picture right from the opening credits which haul you straight into the movie’s universe; Sweeny Todd’s titles are to the Gothic what James Bond is to spy films. From the first breath, the rush of a climbing organ lifts you into a dreary, dangerous, studio-London where the sky is always inky and tears inevitably turn to blood. Rivers of blood.



I knew very little about the tale of Sweeney Todd, the demon barber of Fleet Street, who took gratuitous and grisly revenge on the people of London when he was deported for a crime he didn’t commit. He was set up by a pervy and corrupt Judge Turpin, played by the gorgeous Alan Rickman, and separated from his wife and baby daughter. Now back in London, Todd changes his name, takes up with the equally amoral Mrs Lovett, played by Helena Bonham Carter, and sets up a grisly production line,

“How about a shave, sir?”

And before the towel has settled on their chests, he’s slit their throats, and Mrs Lovett’s transformed the plentiful victims into delicious meat pies to be fed back to eager but unsuspecting Londoners.

Johnny Depp, in the title role, is unrestrained but magnificent. I have never been the biggest Jack Sparrow fan. I loved the novelty of the first Pirates film but I’ve refused to watch the last two in the franchise. In Sweeney Todd, while Depp’s mock-ney accent rankles on the English ear, it’s more David Bowie than Keith Richards this time round, the film is so theatrical that somehow it can take it. It’s his fifth collaboration with Tim Burton and, there’s no doubt about it, they’re good for each other. Burton keeps Depp’s feet down on the ground by challenging him and in return, the Depp’s presence, the sheer brilliance of his physical acting, gives the film just enough reality and weight to keep it from looking like animation. I have never seen a man walk through a door like Mr Depp does.

What I didn’t like, of course, was the music. I love a musical but I’m not au fait with the Sondheim phenomenon and I felt mildly uncomfortable at the sheer volume of singing; the songs aren’t catchy or melodious but instead are vehicles for plot and motivation and no sooner are sung than they’ve disappeared down the drain like regular dialogue. There’s nothing to lift the spirits there and certainly no tune to hum in the shower.


Fortunately, I got so much pleasure from the visuals that I didn’t exactly suffer.

The film is dark and beautiful; Monochrome lit faces and midnight blue are a perfect canvas for the relentless bloodletting. Rooftops and skylights, dodgy pie fillings, attics and slums – it’s a London you wouldn’t want to live in but which you can’t tear your eyes away from. My favourite shot is where Sweeney Todd and Mrs Lovett stand in her shop window; he holds a cleaver and she holds a rolling pin – the perfect couple. http://www.movieweb.com/movies/film/50/4450/gal2878/
"> loads of lovely stills here

I understand that Helena Bonham Carter, Mrs Burton, auditioned with the rest of the pack; in one interview she said, a hint of faux bitterness in her voice,

“The fact that I was the mother of his children made no difference.”

And she’s fine. I just wasn’t convinced and I can’t quite put my finger on why. Depp, was Sweeney; in every frame he frowned and brooded and was driven by vengeance. God knows how he slept at night. Helena, on the other hand, looked like she was playing a pantomime villain and I sensed a flicker of irony in her performance which may have been her characteristic, English, dead-pan humour or, it may have been something to do with that slight mad look in her eyes which, while it made it seem believable that Mrs Lovett would adapt to the new pie filling overnight, means that she never looks at the camera and doesn’t engage with you.

There are strong supporting performances from everyone: Rickman is first choice for unsavoury but well-spoken types in a wing collar. Sporting calcified nails he is lascivious and pathetic, inappropriately showing off his leather bound porn collection, he reminded me of Tiberius in I Claudius. The judge is ably assisted by the best turn in the movie – a cross between Joe Pesci and Tweedledum - Timothy Spall, ballectic, Dickensian and riveting. Sacha Baron Cohen plays an Italian barber and it shows what kind of movie this is that he fits right in. Did anyone else notice how ‘packed’ his tights were? A special mention must go to Ed Sanders who plays the gin guzzling boy who falls right out of the workhouse and into the fire.

Treat yourself; go see Sweeney Todd. It’s worth it just to hear the word ‘tonsorial’ uttered on screen. And remember, it’s all fake blood.

The Golden Compass

I haven’t read Philip Pullman; reading children’s books is a bit like a busman’s holiday for me, but I was intrigued by the trailer I’d seen; Pullman’s cool idea of a daemon, a person’s soul made ‘real’ and concrete, in the form of an animal or bird, was convincingly brought to life – birds flew around children’s heads, monkeys leapt ahead of their masters and a snow leopard pud-pudded alongside Daniel Craig.

The Golden Compass is set in an alternate universe similar to Earth. It tells the story of Lyra Belacqua, a young girl who overhears a plot to kill her uncle, Lord Asriel, played by the remarkably un-bookish looking Craig, and is thrown into complicated adventures full of kidnappings, betrayals and silly names which, may have meant something to Pullman fans, but which I found exceptionally hard to follow. Multiple plot threads were launched and faded out with little storytelling skill so that at the end of this first instalment, I felt utterly dissatisfied. One of the three stories reached a resolution and Lyra spoke dreamily of “next time” and the next adventure…which made me respond, “Huh?” They should have got the director from 24 in on the act and show them how it was done.

The daemons didn’t disappoint. In one delightful scene, children chased each other through a meadow with their little CGI souls scampering and flitting around them. It added this incredible dimension where you wouldn’t just read another person face, or tone of voice or their body language but also their daemon. It was fascinating watching the daemons interact with each other too expressing arguments through their own fights and threats. Amazing too observing the interaction of a human with its daemon which in some cases, such as one scene between Mrs Coulter and her ‘monkey’ was tantamount to abuse followed by intense regret on her part which was disturbing to behold. Worse of all was the
dreadful sense of violation if anyone touched or forcibly separated a daemon from its human.

Lyra’s daemon hadn’t ‘fixed’ because she was a child and varied in form - sometimes a cute gerbil creature that peeked out form under her collar, other times a Pantalaimon, a racoon (I think) and occasionally a baby snow-leopard. I wonder what mine would be? Just think, it would be another area in life where we could develop complexes; imagine the internal conflict caused by the discrepancy caused by the daemon you had and the one you wanted? Or the dismay when you thought your child would turn out to be a snow-leopard but instead she ‘stuck’ as a crow?


Pantalaimon

I loved all the philosophical, pseudo-religious mumbo jumbo too about ‘dust’ and free-will although I had no idea what any of it meant. Does ‘dust’ represent God or knowledge or what? There seems to be as many theories as nutters out there; for all its flaws, I loved that a mainstream movie encourages children to navel-gaze and maybe take a peek at a dictionary once in a while with statements such as, “there will always be free-thinkers and heretics”.

The film was a feast for the eyes: it was beautifully lit and everyone’s eyes shone. It had the look of the 1940s with a smattering of Victorian technology: romantic airships; gas lamps; springs; clockwork and documents sealed with wax. The period feel made one think immediately of Orwell’s 1984; this might have been what the sets would have looked like - before it all went to rack and ruin. The splendour before it faded.

With all these Big Ideas and Big Visuals, the characters faded somewhat: I liked Lyra, played by the gloriously named, skinny and boyish, Dakota Blue Richards, although she faltered a little on the highly emotional scenes; Daniel looked a bit strange with a beard, spent a great deal of time gazing into the middle distance and disappeared from the story line for ages; Nicole Kidman tried very hard to be a less camp Cruela de Ville but the part wasn’t intimate enough for her to shine; Sam Elliot was his usual, effortless, charismatic self but I felt mildly resentful of his American Cavalry role.

Did I mention I hated the polar bears? A great concept in the book, perhaps, but I loathed the whole idea on screen. Polar Bears, well, they just aren’t very…nice…see the recent story about a Mamma Polar Bear chowing down on her Baby Polar Bears. The storyline fell into the picture like an unwanted dinner guest. Despite the cool Norwegian style names, I wasn’t convinced. There was a touch of the Watership Down discomforts – they were all earnest voices and motivation when, in fact, they were polar bears in very silly outfits. And polar bears can’t talk.

I hated the annoying Harry Hausen-style climactic fight complete with appalling, corny music; a cacophony of trumpets and strings such as you might find in a b-movie Roman movie; I found myself getting a bit bored. And why did no one not once mention how cold it was?


I doubt I’ll bother with the next instalment so I’ll never have my very own daemon puzzle solved: why does my soul-mate enjoy nothing more than rolling in dead rats by the river?