A burlesque show starring a troupe of hairy men’s men? I had no idea what to expect yet I wasn’t surprised at anything I saw all night.
The bijou, West End venue, held a snug-fitting 75. The tiny stage, dressed modestly with a hat stand and tinsel backdrop, was to become the scene of much hilarity. In a sell-out show, we perched on the back row, closer than you would want to be given the quantities of sweat and loose bear-hair soon to be flying about and well away from the firing line of compére, Fred Bear. He delivered gentle snipes at the front row, particularly to a guy sporting a ‘Paul Weller’.
The ‘premise’ of the show was to educate us in what it means to be a bear: three bears emerged bleary eyed, chubby and partially clad from a cave at the back of the auditorium. Once they’d trekked to the front, stretched, yawned and scratched their bollocks, Fred Bear indicated a row of handsome young, slim men in the audience which, he suggested with a cheeky glint in his eye, “Could be on a stag night, but you and I know - gay.” To him, he said, they represented stereotypical gay men and bearded Fred Bear, wanted us to experience the kind of gay man he was. Dressed in fun fur shorts with a little tail, brogues, long socks and sock suspenders, a collar and tie with his ample, hairy chest and belly on full display – he promised an evening which celebrated the “Rubenesque male form” in song and dance.
My Nephew was the stooge and ‘volunteered’ to be the student on behalf of the giggling audience. Convincingly ingénue and sporting a rugby shirt and a pair of trousers I’d given him a few years ago known as his ‘slayer trousers’ he agreed to learn. Before long he was taking part in a musical number based on The Titanic with lots of slap-stick and visual jokes around the size of the funnel then, just before the interval, he emerged transformed in waiter’s waistcoat, colourful frou-frou skirt with the rest of the troupe and treated us to a hilarious, slick can-can complete with whooping, buttock slapping and splits.
The rest of a delightful evening went by far too quickly; Fred’s gentle banter joined up all the pieces performed by his fellow bears as well as the guest act , a group of four ‘proper’ dancers who performed an at times moving piece that might have been called ‘Make Love Not War’ for that was the message on their underpants.
Later Nephew grinned, “Yes. We hate them. They’re actually good.” After the interval, ‘original’ Bear; Henry VIII made a special guest appearance, Nephew was transformed into an American Beauty, we enjoyed a re-working of the famous dance scene in Singing in the Rain, found out how kinky bubble wrap really can be and finally and best of all, were treated to the scene with the chairs, bowlers and fishnet tights from Cabaret!
It was teasing, hilarious, camp fun. And educational; I now know the difference between regular Bears, Cubs (young Bears – i.e. Nephew), Otters (slim bears) and Polar Bears (older bears with grey hair). What a difference from the one or two occasions in the distant past when I’ve seen male strippers performing to women at hen parties; here I noticed that despite their nudity and cavorting, they were still the ones in charge advancing on the audience making them squeal with barely contained nerves; here all flesh on display was in a “Hey! I think I’m gorgeous.” mood. And how could you deny their beauty? The Bears eschew the gym and eat their pies with no guilt - it was two fingers up at male oppression!
During the interval, I boasted to some guys outside while they smoked and I made a phone-call:
“Isn’t it great? That’s my Nephew you know? I’m so proud!”
“Really? Which one?”
“The cub.” I beamed.
They exchanged looks, “I’m sorry, but he’s gorgeous!” one said.
No need to apologise!
Monday, 13 April 2009
Monday, 26 January 2009
Twilight
I’d read so much comment about how the phenomenally successful books, on which Twiglight is was based, were works of misogyny that I couldn’t approach this movie with an open mind. Yet, I can’t resist a vampire film.
Teenager Bella, is forced to leave sunny Atlanta where’s she’s lived with her mum to settle with her taciturn, police officer father in the cold north of America.
She accepts this with the same passivity as she accepts everything else that is thrown at her. Bella is quite a little withdrawn but despite having no visible personality of her own, on her first day in her new school she manages to attract the friendly attention of the most charismatic, pleasant and beautiful school kids you can imagine. What great kids – shiny, humorous, affectionate, zit free and really hard working!.
Then one day the cool kids (vampires, of course) stroll into the canteen turning heads and, as one reviewer put it, with the entrance of Edward, the romantic ‘lead’, the camera almost falls over at his good looks.
Hopelessly attracted to each other, the lustful glances and hungry huffing soon transform into lying stiffly (in his case, at least) alongside each other, with one foot on the floor in case he is overcome and slips into his real nature and kills her. They are the most undesirable little dweebs I’ve ever witnessed. Edward wears too much makeup – in these days of CGI you’d think they could afford to go easier on the pan stick. He manages a weak but sustained poor man’s James Dean impersonation Angel wings at beginning. To be honest, he was too young for me to even feel vaguely comfortable finding him attractive. Imagine my relief when the ‘evil’ vampires made their entrance. They were easy to spot because they pouted sexily at the camera and wore great clothes. One of the guys, Jason I think was his name, all Brad Pittish slutty pout and swagger, made me breath one shuddery sigh of girl relief,
“That’s more like it!” I breathed into my friend’s ear.
“I knew you’d like him!” she groaned. She had no computation about fancy the fey, ball-less vampire. I, on the other hand, said I’d feel a bit like a kiddy-fiddler if I even acknowledged that he was dashing.
And what did he see in Bela? It confirms my worst fear about men – they hate women with personality and just want a demure little miss who never says boo. The feminists argue that she behaves like an abused wife, totally subjugating her needs and life to Edward’s ‘ways’. While this may have been true of the books (which I haven’t read), it’s a little more even in the film. Neither of them gets what they want. The Jonas Brothers would be proud.
Dangerous liaisons
As most teenage girls in Britain will already know, Twilight - a tale of love between a young woman and a vampire - has now been made into a movie. It will no doubt be a huge hit. But what a shame it's not more like Buffy, writes Lucy Mangan
Unfortunately, there’s only one remotely Buffy-like line,
“Your moves are giving me whiplash.” Bella says when Edward swooshes past her to save her life. Again.
Another writer argues that the film is a wonderful evocation of female lust and is in fact a study in female sexuality:
Bitten by the female gaze
I wanted to hate Twilight, but it subverted its weak source material and provided a rare vision of female desire
In the end, I didn’t really care about the couple so much. What I did love was the cinematography, the cold, cold landscape and pine forests, the bracing beach scene. There was some fabulous altered reality camera work although the CGI seemed a bit ‘fake’ at times. The very silly baseball game was better than quidditch. And, I found myself becoming a little too interested in home décor at one point.
The concept of the vegetarian vampire was amusing and I loved the little domestic details revealed but, in the end, although
I was pleasantly distracted by Twilight - anything it did well, Buffy did better.
Teenager Bella, is forced to leave sunny Atlanta where’s she’s lived with her mum to settle with her taciturn, police officer father in the cold north of America.
She accepts this with the same passivity as she accepts everything else that is thrown at her. Bella is quite a little withdrawn but despite having no visible personality of her own, on her first day in her new school she manages to attract the friendly attention of the most charismatic, pleasant and beautiful school kids you can imagine. What great kids – shiny, humorous, affectionate, zit free and really hard working!.
Then one day the cool kids (vampires, of course) stroll into the canteen turning heads and, as one reviewer put it, with the entrance of Edward, the romantic ‘lead’, the camera almost falls over at his good looks.
Hopelessly attracted to each other, the lustful glances and hungry huffing soon transform into lying stiffly (in his case, at least) alongside each other, with one foot on the floor in case he is overcome and slips into his real nature and kills her. They are the most undesirable little dweebs I’ve ever witnessed. Edward wears too much makeup – in these days of CGI you’d think they could afford to go easier on the pan stick. He manages a weak but sustained poor man’s James Dean impersonation Angel wings at beginning. To be honest, he was too young for me to even feel vaguely comfortable finding him attractive. Imagine my relief when the ‘evil’ vampires made their entrance. They were easy to spot because they pouted sexily at the camera and wore great clothes. One of the guys, Jason I think was his name, all Brad Pittish slutty pout and swagger, made me breath one shuddery sigh of girl relief,
“That’s more like it!” I breathed into my friend’s ear.
“I knew you’d like him!” she groaned. She had no computation about fancy the fey, ball-less vampire. I, on the other hand, said I’d feel a bit like a kiddy-fiddler if I even acknowledged that he was dashing.
And what did he see in Bela? It confirms my worst fear about men – they hate women with personality and just want a demure little miss who never says boo. The feminists argue that she behaves like an abused wife, totally subjugating her needs and life to Edward’s ‘ways’. While this may have been true of the books (which I haven’t read), it’s a little more even in the film. Neither of them gets what they want. The Jonas Brothers would be proud.
Dangerous liaisons
As most teenage girls in Britain will already know, Twilight - a tale of love between a young woman and a vampire - has now been made into a movie. It will no doubt be a huge hit. But what a shame it's not more like Buffy, writes Lucy Mangan
Unfortunately, there’s only one remotely Buffy-like line,
“Your moves are giving me whiplash.” Bella says when Edward swooshes past her to save her life. Again.
Another writer argues that the film is a wonderful evocation of female lust and is in fact a study in female sexuality:
Bitten by the female gaze
I wanted to hate Twilight, but it subverted its weak source material and provided a rare vision of female desire
In the end, I didn’t really care about the couple so much. What I did love was the cinematography, the cold, cold landscape and pine forests, the bracing beach scene. There was some fabulous altered reality camera work although the CGI seemed a bit ‘fake’ at times. The very silly baseball game was better than quidditch. And, I found myself becoming a little too interested in home décor at one point.
The concept of the vegetarian vampire was amusing and I loved the little domestic details revealed but, in the end, although
I was pleasantly distracted by Twilight - anything it did well, Buffy did better.
Wednesday, 31 December 2008
Australia
Baz Luhrmann is always a draw but the critical response to Australia has been mixed at best. In the end, a few clips enticed me. I have to be honest -it was the beardiness and yumminess of Hugh Jackman that did it for me but, in the end, the film transcended my crude libido and anyone who fancies a bit of escapism with Baz’s trademark quirks won’t be disappointed.
Set just before WW2, Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) leaves England for Australia to her husband’s ranch and drive 1500 cattle across the outback to Darwin. Dressed in lace and pressed lined and carrying a parasol, it’s not long before she clashes with wild’n’dirty Australia.
The first part of the film is beautiful to look at but also uncomfortably camp; Baz is determined to pull you into ‘his’ world, abide by his rules and, as he said in one interview, have you “check your coat at the door.” The music is too loud, each movement has a touch of flamenco and the camera lunges from one scene to another in a way that doesn’t work as well as it did in Moulin Rouge. And people take prat falls while Nicole squeals in indignation every opportunity.
About half an hour in, there’s a very, very welcome shift and the story proper gets going.
Nicole Kidman gives her trademark to some eyes - ‘subtle’ and ‘nuanced’, to others - ‘wooden’ performance as the English toff who’s brought down a peg or two by the environment and transformed into a tough Sheila. Trust Australians to spin the Cinderella story so that she only becomes a princess when she gets rid of her finery and throws away the glass slipper. And what a prince she lands! One review I read had me in stitches with its snarky insistence on referring to Hugh Jackman as “Hugh Russell-Crowe-wasn’t-available Jackman” but this doesn’t do justice to his virile performance. Jackman is wonderful; he has the composure and silence about him of the young Clint Eastwood and…I’m going to stop there or you won’t take another word I say seriously…
Visually, the film is glorious from beginning to end. The breathtaking landscape is painted in super-real colour and everything that can gleam or shine does. We are given plenty of time to enjoy the almost Martian landscape and marvel at the boab trees.
There are many memorable scenes such as when a body falls into the river, the cattle drove, King George, the aborigine grandfather standing on one leg watching from high up which suffuse the movie with its unique and often plain Australian feel which must have the local tourist board rubbing its hands in glee.
At the same time, there’s much to recognise from regular westerns and Baz directs the exciting sequences of the cattle drove with panache giving many stuntmen the classic gig of their lives! The drove is unmistakably the highlight of the movie and I haven’t seen anything like this since Dances with Wolves. It brings the movie and the characters to earth and the story settles into that of little people with massive personalities leading out their intense lives against a brutal landscape and in a dangerous period in history.
The added Australian twist is the dark story of the mixed race Aboriginal children something which, I am ashamed to say, I knew very little about. It was the Australian government’s policy to forcibly remove children from their homes and ‘program the Aborigine out of them’. One of the main threads of the plot is Lady Ashley’s maternal attachment to young Nullah, played by Brandon Walters, whose performance is glowing.
I believe, that despite the self-righteous carping by some critics about the movie, where they say it’s too soft-focus, raising public awareness of these issues is of vital importance. David Gulpili who plays King George is the most famous actor of aboriginal descent; he starred in Walkabout all those years ago and his troubled circumstances to this day serve as a blot on the consciousness of white Europeans whose ancestors have neutered and almost obliterated so many indigenous races worldwide. It’s worth reading Germaine Greer’s article (preferably after you’ve seen the film) for an intellectual, pc, Australian perspective on this issue.
By twisting history, garbling geography and glossing over the appalling exploitation of Aboriginal workers, Baz Luhrmann's film Australia bears more relation to fairytale than fact, argues Germaine Greer
One reviewer said that Baz Luhrman knows very little about real history and more about film history – this is a fair point, the film is sprinkled with endless references to Gone with the Wind, the Wizard of Oz and probably Skippy too! I too know very little indeed about Australian history but I know a thing or two about watching movies; I assume, before the lights go down, that movies are there to entertain and I also expect any movie that has a ‘historical’ element will be twisted to fit the story. It’s not The Truth up there just because it’s bigger than life size and even if the director wants you to believe it is.
Yes, film-makers have enormous power to influence us as do advertising, the media and any political ranting you might be exposed to but we should all know better by now. Question everything – we have that freedom; use it. Baz makes damn clear that you know you’ve entered into the world of the unreal. I heard him talk about how nowadays we’re all too damn cynical and too damn clever for our own goods – there’s a time and a place, hang up your coat, put your feet up and munch on that popcorn and escape from the credit crunch and lack of daylight to chest hair, screen kisses, good guys and bad guys and shiny, shiny landscapes for a few hours. You can pop your cynical coat back on and google the plight of the aborigines once you get home.
Set just before WW2, Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) leaves England for Australia to her husband’s ranch and drive 1500 cattle across the outback to Darwin. Dressed in lace and pressed lined and carrying a parasol, it’s not long before she clashes with wild’n’dirty Australia.
The first part of the film is beautiful to look at but also uncomfortably camp; Baz is determined to pull you into ‘his’ world, abide by his rules and, as he said in one interview, have you “check your coat at the door.” The music is too loud, each movement has a touch of flamenco and the camera lunges from one scene to another in a way that doesn’t work as well as it did in Moulin Rouge. And people take prat falls while Nicole squeals in indignation every opportunity.
About half an hour in, there’s a very, very welcome shift and the story proper gets going.
Nicole Kidman gives her trademark to some eyes - ‘subtle’ and ‘nuanced’, to others - ‘wooden’ performance as the English toff who’s brought down a peg or two by the environment and transformed into a tough Sheila. Trust Australians to spin the Cinderella story so that she only becomes a princess when she gets rid of her finery and throws away the glass slipper. And what a prince she lands! One review I read had me in stitches with its snarky insistence on referring to Hugh Jackman as “Hugh Russell-Crowe-wasn’t-available Jackman” but this doesn’t do justice to his virile performance. Jackman is wonderful; he has the composure and silence about him of the young Clint Eastwood and…I’m going to stop there or you won’t take another word I say seriously…
Visually, the film is glorious from beginning to end. The breathtaking landscape is painted in super-real colour and everything that can gleam or shine does. We are given plenty of time to enjoy the almost Martian landscape and marvel at the boab trees.
There are many memorable scenes such as when a body falls into the river, the cattle drove, King George, the aborigine grandfather standing on one leg watching from high up which suffuse the movie with its unique and often plain Australian feel which must have the local tourist board rubbing its hands in glee.
At the same time, there’s much to recognise from regular westerns and Baz directs the exciting sequences of the cattle drove with panache giving many stuntmen the classic gig of their lives! The drove is unmistakably the highlight of the movie and I haven’t seen anything like this since Dances with Wolves. It brings the movie and the characters to earth and the story settles into that of little people with massive personalities leading out their intense lives against a brutal landscape and in a dangerous period in history.
The added Australian twist is the dark story of the mixed race Aboriginal children something which, I am ashamed to say, I knew very little about. It was the Australian government’s policy to forcibly remove children from their homes and ‘program the Aborigine out of them’. One of the main threads of the plot is Lady Ashley’s maternal attachment to young Nullah, played by Brandon Walters, whose performance is glowing.
I believe, that despite the self-righteous carping by some critics about the movie, where they say it’s too soft-focus, raising public awareness of these issues is of vital importance. David Gulpili who plays King George is the most famous actor of aboriginal descent; he starred in Walkabout all those years ago and his troubled circumstances to this day serve as a blot on the consciousness of white Europeans whose ancestors have neutered and almost obliterated so many indigenous races worldwide. It’s worth reading Germaine Greer’s article (preferably after you’ve seen the film) for an intellectual, pc, Australian perspective on this issue.
By twisting history, garbling geography and glossing over the appalling exploitation of Aboriginal workers, Baz Luhrmann's film Australia bears more relation to fairytale than fact, argues Germaine Greer
One reviewer said that Baz Luhrman knows very little about real history and more about film history – this is a fair point, the film is sprinkled with endless references to Gone with the Wind, the Wizard of Oz and probably Skippy too! I too know very little indeed about Australian history but I know a thing or two about watching movies; I assume, before the lights go down, that movies are there to entertain and I also expect any movie that has a ‘historical’ element will be twisted to fit the story. It’s not The Truth up there just because it’s bigger than life size and even if the director wants you to believe it is.
Yes, film-makers have enormous power to influence us as do advertising, the media and any political ranting you might be exposed to but we should all know better by now. Question everything – we have that freedom; use it. Baz makes damn clear that you know you’ve entered into the world of the unreal. I heard him talk about how nowadays we’re all too damn cynical and too damn clever for our own goods – there’s a time and a place, hang up your coat, put your feet up and munch on that popcorn and escape from the credit crunch and lack of daylight to chest hair, screen kisses, good guys and bad guys and shiny, shiny landscapes for a few hours. You can pop your cynical coat back on and google the plight of the aborigines once you get home.
Saturday, 13 December 2008
blessings and all that
There are eight days until the winter solstice when the days become gradually longer. Thank goodness – I’m giving myself cheek strain and probably mild cirrhosis of the liver in an attempt to remain positive and happy in the drizzle and grey. It could be worse.
I’m reading an extraordinary book at the moment, Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl . I can’t believe I’ve not come across this before but I’m thrilled that I have this opportunity to read it. Frankel was a psychotherapist, and this is the story of his time in Auschwitz and other camps and his subsequent development of logotherapy based on that which he learned about human nature in his three years before liberation by the Americans. He writes from the perspective of a psychiatrist observing human suffering and asking what is it that we do to retain our freedom and hope in order to survive, (or die with dignity) in such appalling circumstances?
This from the preface by GW Allport:
in the concentration camp every circumstance conspires to make the prisoner lose his hold. All the familiar goals in life are snatched away. What alone remains is, “the last of human ‘freedoms’” – the ability to “choose one’s attitude in a given set of circumstances.”
Frankl’s depiction of events centres on the psychological experience, the dreams, the meaning that he developed within and observed in others. It is sobering for me living in a gluttonous society, grumbling about the credit crunch and the difficulty of finding time to exercise when I have nothing but plenty and security from harm. How is it that we manage to lose touch with these inner resources. This passage sums up a typical day for Frankl:
I shall never forget how I was roused one night by a fellow prisoner, who threw himself about in his sleep, obviously having a horrible nightmare…I wanted to wake the poor man. Suddenly I drew back the hand that was ready to shake him, frightened at the thing I was about to do. At that moment I became intensely conscious of the fact that no dream, no matter how horrible, could be as bad as the reality of the camp which surrounded us, and to which I was about to recall him.
This in the week after I watched Louis Theroux’s, Law and Disorder in Johannesburg, an examination into the private security firms hired by individuals in a city where the police can’t keep on top of the brutal crime.
Watching Louis in his flak jacket like a kid with his hand always a moment from the flames, it was hard to feel anything but relief that it was all a million miles away. The townships foul and disgusting as disgusting and dangerous a habit as you can imagine, are filled with people trying to lead a normal life just like I am. The nightmarish reality for them is that life is cheap as chips.
Constant victims of crime and with absolutely no faith in the police’s abilities or willingness to help them, they routinely take the law into their own hands. Louis was there shortly after a mob had captured and executed a suspect by burning him to death. The private security firms here, small affairs run by brutal ‘realists’ who thrashed petty criminals to deter them were in as much danger from retribution from the rage of ‘the community’ as a criminal. Meanwhile, rich whites paid firms that rode around in SUVs – “An African solution to an African problem.” One happy customer declared.
The level of crime and its brutality was terrifying. Whole apartment blocks were hijacked and the poor tenants forced to pay their rent to pirates until the security firms could ‘save’ them. No doubt aware of the marvellous viewer tension he would create, Louis snuck into what seemed like an abandoned building, the place stinking of shit and god knows what, not a light flickering within. It was classic horror; no lights and no idea what might be round the corner waiting to pounce. Inside he found normal people who considered this a ‘good place’ and had lived there with no utilities for four years. Outisde he watched as security guards doled out beatings on one street corner while turning a blind eye on another where a drug dealer plied his wares. Better the devil you know, they reasoned for if they had arrested him, another would have take his place instantly so what would have been the point?
The most haunting image was the grimace of an unspeakable monster who happily mimed what he would do and has done to people when he breaks into their homes to force money out of them. He was brilliant at his job and had found his calling.
The parts of Johannesburg we saw were bedlam, a world full of despair. Everywhere there was blank eyed acceptance - this is what things are like here. no one could save them.
I couldn’t help myself; a few days later one of my baby yoga mums, a white South African living and working here, nodded when I asked if she’d seen this programme.
“I wish I hadn’t.” she said, her baby lying across her outstretched legs. She has plans to visit her parents in Johannesburg after Christmas. “It’s nice where they live but I couldn’t live there. I couldn’t just come out with the baby like you do here and even driving around, what if someone pulled me over and asked me to give up the car, what would I do with her?” She nodded at her sleeping daughter.
Later, I took the dog out. It was a bright, golden afternoon. The park was pretty much deserted. I thought about the space I had. I thought about how far from desperate my life was. For once I didn’t take it for granted that I felt safe in my bed at night, felt safe in the streets. It just doesn’t cross my mind that anything will happen to me.
“You know what, Twiggy?” I said to her, “We live in bloody paradise.”
If she could have spoken, I know she would have said, “But I knew that all along.”
I’m reading an extraordinary book at the moment, Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl . I can’t believe I’ve not come across this before but I’m thrilled that I have this opportunity to read it. Frankel was a psychotherapist, and this is the story of his time in Auschwitz and other camps and his subsequent development of logotherapy based on that which he learned about human nature in his three years before liberation by the Americans. He writes from the perspective of a psychiatrist observing human suffering and asking what is it that we do to retain our freedom and hope in order to survive, (or die with dignity) in such appalling circumstances?
This from the preface by GW Allport:
in the concentration camp every circumstance conspires to make the prisoner lose his hold. All the familiar goals in life are snatched away. What alone remains is, “the last of human ‘freedoms’” – the ability to “choose one’s attitude in a given set of circumstances.”
Frankl’s depiction of events centres on the psychological experience, the dreams, the meaning that he developed within and observed in others. It is sobering for me living in a gluttonous society, grumbling about the credit crunch and the difficulty of finding time to exercise when I have nothing but plenty and security from harm. How is it that we manage to lose touch with these inner resources. This passage sums up a typical day for Frankl:
I shall never forget how I was roused one night by a fellow prisoner, who threw himself about in his sleep, obviously having a horrible nightmare…I wanted to wake the poor man. Suddenly I drew back the hand that was ready to shake him, frightened at the thing I was about to do. At that moment I became intensely conscious of the fact that no dream, no matter how horrible, could be as bad as the reality of the camp which surrounded us, and to which I was about to recall him.
This in the week after I watched Louis Theroux’s, Law and Disorder in Johannesburg, an examination into the private security firms hired by individuals in a city where the police can’t keep on top of the brutal crime.
Watching Louis in his flak jacket like a kid with his hand always a moment from the flames, it was hard to feel anything but relief that it was all a million miles away. The townships foul and disgusting as disgusting and dangerous a habit as you can imagine, are filled with people trying to lead a normal life just like I am. The nightmarish reality for them is that life is cheap as chips.
Constant victims of crime and with absolutely no faith in the police’s abilities or willingness to help them, they routinely take the law into their own hands. Louis was there shortly after a mob had captured and executed a suspect by burning him to death. The private security firms here, small affairs run by brutal ‘realists’ who thrashed petty criminals to deter them were in as much danger from retribution from the rage of ‘the community’ as a criminal. Meanwhile, rich whites paid firms that rode around in SUVs – “An African solution to an African problem.” One happy customer declared.
The level of crime and its brutality was terrifying. Whole apartment blocks were hijacked and the poor tenants forced to pay their rent to pirates until the security firms could ‘save’ them. No doubt aware of the marvellous viewer tension he would create, Louis snuck into what seemed like an abandoned building, the place stinking of shit and god knows what, not a light flickering within. It was classic horror; no lights and no idea what might be round the corner waiting to pounce. Inside he found normal people who considered this a ‘good place’ and had lived there with no utilities for four years. Outisde he watched as security guards doled out beatings on one street corner while turning a blind eye on another where a drug dealer plied his wares. Better the devil you know, they reasoned for if they had arrested him, another would have take his place instantly so what would have been the point?
The most haunting image was the grimace of an unspeakable monster who happily mimed what he would do and has done to people when he breaks into their homes to force money out of them. He was brilliant at his job and had found his calling.
The parts of Johannesburg we saw were bedlam, a world full of despair. Everywhere there was blank eyed acceptance - this is what things are like here. no one could save them.
I couldn’t help myself; a few days later one of my baby yoga mums, a white South African living and working here, nodded when I asked if she’d seen this programme.
“I wish I hadn’t.” she said, her baby lying across her outstretched legs. She has plans to visit her parents in Johannesburg after Christmas. “It’s nice where they live but I couldn’t live there. I couldn’t just come out with the baby like you do here and even driving around, what if someone pulled me over and asked me to give up the car, what would I do with her?” She nodded at her sleeping daughter.
Later, I took the dog out. It was a bright, golden afternoon. The park was pretty much deserted. I thought about the space I had. I thought about how far from desperate my life was. For once I didn’t take it for granted that I felt safe in my bed at night, felt safe in the streets. It just doesn’t cross my mind that anything will happen to me.
“You know what, Twiggy?” I said to her, “We live in bloody paradise.”
If she could have spoken, I know she would have said, “But I knew that all along.”
Wednesday, 3 December 2008
Stephen Fry at the V&A
What a treat! Last Wednesday evening I joined about a hundred other book fans in the V&A’s lecture theatre to hear Stephen Fry talk about his TV series and book, America.
The TV series has recently completed its Sunday night run and while I tuned in for every episode, it didn’t really hit the spot for me; much as I love Stephen Fry and would happily watch him paint a wall as long as he provided a running commentary, I found the seat of your pants tour of the all the states left me hungry for more; with so many snippets and no depth – it was teasing rather than informative. And I couldn’t help remarking Fry was ridiculously even tempered and uncritical of all he saw and everyone he met. There’s no doubt he’s a charming individual but where was the snark and snip he can also deliver? I wanted to know what he really thought.
In the domed room at the V&A, surrounded by portraits of Holbein and Leonardo da Vinci, I was inspired to consider lofty questions. In the TV series, Fry’s stubbornly wore a blazer and slacks pretty much whatever the weather and whatever the activity – in one scene it was a relief to see him in a cowboy hat. Would he still be wearing the same outfit or would he be in a more formal costume given the literary air of the occasion? He didn’t disappoint, blue blazer, tan trousers and Oscar Wilde’s ‘bad-hair-day’ hair.
Much of Fry’s gentle humour centres around observations on language; he was amused at the American pronunciation of ‘docile’ so that it rhymed with ‘fossil’.
He talked with a wry smile of how he’s not considered, “a man of action,” but swam with sharks, flew in a micro light on a day when even the pilot was terrified, he remarked on the “beauty and grace” of the North Carolina mountains and spoke nothing but well of his charming hosts and on a couple of occasions he had to ally fears for they were half excepting a ‘Borat’ treatment. In fact that it reflected badly on the English should they want to mock Americans and that this was nothing but an expression of an inferiority complex.
The one time he was unable to contain sarcasm was when recalling his long, long night listening to matter-of-fact rubbish from the Big Foot spotter where,
“I was so clenched, if I’d stood up I would have taken the chair up with me.”
He summed up the popular world view on Obama and expressed relief at change and how everyone wants to love our “handsome, roguish younger cousin,” again.
He revealed that while he was quite well known among younger people, (V for Vendetta and Bones) he was as anonymous as his black London cab. When asked what they thought of his personality vehicle, he replied his hosts, “had no conception whatsoever!”
“I hope he’s funny.” Someone behind me had said. I’d felt a little crass expecting it; how annoying to earn your living being amusing and have this enormous pressure to perform all the time and lighten everyone else’s moods. Of course, Fry rose to the occasion, effortless in his delivery, instantly at ease and charmingly self-deprecating. He’s a hard guy not to like.
The TV series has recently completed its Sunday night run and while I tuned in for every episode, it didn’t really hit the spot for me; much as I love Stephen Fry and would happily watch him paint a wall as long as he provided a running commentary, I found the seat of your pants tour of the all the states left me hungry for more; with so many snippets and no depth – it was teasing rather than informative. And I couldn’t help remarking Fry was ridiculously even tempered and uncritical of all he saw and everyone he met. There’s no doubt he’s a charming individual but where was the snark and snip he can also deliver? I wanted to know what he really thought.
In the domed room at the V&A, surrounded by portraits of Holbein and Leonardo da Vinci, I was inspired to consider lofty questions. In the TV series, Fry’s stubbornly wore a blazer and slacks pretty much whatever the weather and whatever the activity – in one scene it was a relief to see him in a cowboy hat. Would he still be wearing the same outfit or would he be in a more formal costume given the literary air of the occasion? He didn’t disappoint, blue blazer, tan trousers and Oscar Wilde’s ‘bad-hair-day’ hair.
Much of Fry’s gentle humour centres around observations on language; he was amused at the American pronunciation of ‘docile’ so that it rhymed with ‘fossil’.
He talked with a wry smile of how he’s not considered, “a man of action,” but swam with sharks, flew in a micro light on a day when even the pilot was terrified, he remarked on the “beauty and grace” of the North Carolina mountains and spoke nothing but well of his charming hosts and on a couple of occasions he had to ally fears for they were half excepting a ‘Borat’ treatment. In fact that it reflected badly on the English should they want to mock Americans and that this was nothing but an expression of an inferiority complex.
The one time he was unable to contain sarcasm was when recalling his long, long night listening to matter-of-fact rubbish from the Big Foot spotter where,
“I was so clenched, if I’d stood up I would have taken the chair up with me.”
He summed up the popular world view on Obama and expressed relief at change and how everyone wants to love our “handsome, roguish younger cousin,” again.
He revealed that while he was quite well known among younger people, (V for Vendetta and Bones) he was as anonymous as his black London cab. When asked what they thought of his personality vehicle, he replied his hosts, “had no conception whatsoever!”
“I hope he’s funny.” Someone behind me had said. I’d felt a little crass expecting it; how annoying to earn your living being amusing and have this enormous pressure to perform all the time and lighten everyone else’s moods. Of course, Fry rose to the occasion, effortless in his delivery, instantly at ease and charmingly self-deprecating. He’s a hard guy not to like.
Monday, 12 May 2008
Apocalypto and Adventures in Advertising
golly, gosh, I’m agog
If you’re off on your travels and you hear someone in front saying something like,
“golly, gosh, I’m agog!”
it’s not Bertie Wooster but Dan Cruikshank on location for ‘Adventures in Architecture’. Half man, half Muppet, he causes unintentional hilarity frolicking across yet another foreign vista, alternately making jazz hands and enunciating his glee at a pillar, pyramid or slum. This TV series is un-missable and has made me consider selling Casa Sangue and travelling the world. Maybe not… I don’t mind displacing the rest of the Sangues but I wouldn’t want to upset Twiggy.
Each episode is themed; my favourite so far was the one on death in which Cruikshank led us breathlessly through India, Guatemala, the Czech Republic and Italy and showed how places and building reflect how societies views death.
Go here to enjoy the Cimitero Monumentale di Staglieno, Genoa, in Italy The site is in Italian but this doesn’t matter; hover over one of the labels on the plan then follow the link to the photo pages – you will never have seen anything like the monuments to the dead in this extraordinary temple to the Gothic. The sheer beauty and self-indulgent almost kinky representations of various tableaus of death would feed any pre-pubescent, or indeed middle-aged Goth.
(This place, by the way, can go on the proud to be Italian stack.
More Gothic horror to be found in the Sedlec Ossuary, a Christian chapel in the Czech Republic where some crazy carpenter recycled the contents of overcrowded cemeteries. You couldn’t make this up…
Then Cruikshank took us to the banks of the Ganges where Hindus cremated their loved ones in a chilling, to modern eyes, but beautiful ceremony. It brought home how anaesthetised we are to death in our society. In Mamma Sangue’s time, family members laid out their loved ones and sat with them until the funeral – we’re one small step from Tescos doing even that for us.
Finally, Cruikshank visits Guatemala and the site of an ancient Mayan temple where he mimed with spit-spraying relish the ancient, horrific blood rites. I was so impressed/horrified by his graphic description of human sacrifice that I re-thought whether or no not I should watch Apocalytpo…I’ve always been a bit too scared of it having read some awe-struck reviews with grudging respect paid to Mel Gibson’s fascination with brutality. I really get squicked by decapitation as I’ve mentioned more than once in my film reviews such as in the abysmal Kingdom of Heaven. Why would you need to see such a thing? Fortunately I came to my senses.
Apocalypto
Mel Gibson…what can you say about a man once so beautiful revealed to be seriously ugly on the inside by his grotesque, anti-Semitic comments? He’s no longer a draw to see a movie for me and I haven’t seen anything linked to him since the fabulous and very silly Braveheart.
Apocalypto is one of the most exciting films I have ever seen! It tells the of an ordinary, Mayan villager and his fight to escape the clutches of a kind of tatooed, ruthless press-gang whose sole purpose is to provide an endless supply of bodies for sacrifice to angry Gods in a time of disease and famine. Sent into the jungle to harvest men and women, these characters are so good at what they do and so accomplished in the art of killing that you get the feeling they did their work for love not money. There has been some discussion about how historically accurate this is and how routine the scale of slaughter depicted in Apocalypo actually was but, thanks to Braveheart, we know better than to believe any of this as fact. What we have is an utterly gripping, bloody, violent, funny and beautifully shot story.
And, get this, its in Mayan dialect with sub-titles. I wonder what the popcorn audience made of that? With an uncomprising, meticulous attention to detail, Gibson brings the ancient world horrifically and savagely to life. These people are ‘real’ and the distance provided by the language maintains the illusion that we have somehow actually travelled back to the time of the conquistadors in the 16C. Gibson went to great lengths to cast indigenous actors for the key roles including the delightfully named and rather hot Rudy Youngblood. You’ll see some of the scariest villains ever too. And who knew that, as the subtitles reveal, ancient Mayans at play conversed like guys in a dug out?
If you have a strong constitution, see this film; I can promise you a spectacle.
If you’re off on your travels and you hear someone in front saying something like,
“golly, gosh, I’m agog!”
it’s not Bertie Wooster but Dan Cruikshank on location for ‘Adventures in Architecture’. Half man, half Muppet, he causes unintentional hilarity frolicking across yet another foreign vista, alternately making jazz hands and enunciating his glee at a pillar, pyramid or slum. This TV series is un-missable and has made me consider selling Casa Sangue and travelling the world. Maybe not… I don’t mind displacing the rest of the Sangues but I wouldn’t want to upset Twiggy.
Each episode is themed; my favourite so far was the one on death in which Cruikshank led us breathlessly through India, Guatemala, the Czech Republic and Italy and showed how places and building reflect how societies views death.
Go here to enjoy the Cimitero Monumentale di Staglieno, Genoa, in Italy The site is in Italian but this doesn’t matter; hover over one of the labels on the plan then follow the link to the photo pages – you will never have seen anything like the monuments to the dead in this extraordinary temple to the Gothic. The sheer beauty and self-indulgent almost kinky representations of various tableaus of death would feed any pre-pubescent, or indeed middle-aged Goth.
(This place, by the way, can go on the proud to be Italian stack.
More Gothic horror to be found in the Sedlec Ossuary, a Christian chapel in the Czech Republic where some crazy carpenter recycled the contents of overcrowded cemeteries. You couldn’t make this up…
Then Cruikshank took us to the banks of the Ganges where Hindus cremated their loved ones in a chilling, to modern eyes, but beautiful ceremony. It brought home how anaesthetised we are to death in our society. In Mamma Sangue’s time, family members laid out their loved ones and sat with them until the funeral – we’re one small step from Tescos doing even that for us.
Finally, Cruikshank visits Guatemala and the site of an ancient Mayan temple where he mimed with spit-spraying relish the ancient, horrific blood rites. I was so impressed/horrified by his graphic description of human sacrifice that I re-thought whether or no not I should watch Apocalytpo…I’ve always been a bit too scared of it having read some awe-struck reviews with grudging respect paid to Mel Gibson’s fascination with brutality. I really get squicked by decapitation as I’ve mentioned more than once in my film reviews such as in the abysmal Kingdom of Heaven. Why would you need to see such a thing? Fortunately I came to my senses.
Apocalypto
Mel Gibson…what can you say about a man once so beautiful revealed to be seriously ugly on the inside by his grotesque, anti-Semitic comments? He’s no longer a draw to see a movie for me and I haven’t seen anything linked to him since the fabulous and very silly Braveheart.
Apocalypto is one of the most exciting films I have ever seen! It tells the of an ordinary, Mayan villager and his fight to escape the clutches of a kind of tatooed, ruthless press-gang whose sole purpose is to provide an endless supply of bodies for sacrifice to angry Gods in a time of disease and famine. Sent into the jungle to harvest men and women, these characters are so good at what they do and so accomplished in the art of killing that you get the feeling they did their work for love not money. There has been some discussion about how historically accurate this is and how routine the scale of slaughter depicted in Apocalypo actually was but, thanks to Braveheart, we know better than to believe any of this as fact. What we have is an utterly gripping, bloody, violent, funny and beautifully shot story.
And, get this, its in Mayan dialect with sub-titles. I wonder what the popcorn audience made of that? With an uncomprising, meticulous attention to detail, Gibson brings the ancient world horrifically and savagely to life. These people are ‘real’ and the distance provided by the language maintains the illusion that we have somehow actually travelled back to the time of the conquistadors in the 16C. Gibson went to great lengths to cast indigenous actors for the key roles including the delightfully named and rather hot Rudy Youngblood. You’ll see some of the scariest villains ever too. And who knew that, as the subtitles reveal, ancient Mayans at play conversed like guys in a dug out?
If you have a strong constitution, see this film; I can promise you a spectacle.
Monday, 5 May 2008
No Country for Old men
No Country For Old Men is an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Cormac McCarthy. Set in the bleak borderland of New Mexico, it deals with the fate of almost retired, disillusioned sheriff, Edward Bell played by Tommy Lee Jones, as well as the story of Llewellen Moss, Josh Brolin, a down at heel welder who has an unexpected opportunity to haul himself and his young wife out of near poverty, if he’s willing to risk his life.
It’s won four Oscars, best movie, best adapted screenplay, best director and best supporting actor for Javier Bardem. While I’m not sure if this film is quite as incredible as many critics make out, it is rather wonderful in that it manages to exist successfully on two levels, the popcorn and the philosophical.
On the one hand, sitting squarely in the universe of entertain-me-while-I-scoff we have a super tense, perfectly paced, bleak ‘chase’ movie where our ‘hero’, Llewellen, played by James Brolin, stumbles upon $2 million, part of a drug deal that went wrong, decides to make off with it and is pursued by the menacing, psychopath Anton Chigur, played by Javier Bardem complete with scary, floppy hair and faintly bloodshot eyes.
On the other hand, if you prefer, and I certainly do, you’ll have something else, a very, very deep and essentially dissatisfying experience …in an existential way, which is to say this is exactly what the Coen brothers were hoping you’d feel, because, like, that’s what the human condition is like. Man.
It’s inevitable then, that main protagonists and a plot evolve into anti-climax and a sense of ‘huh?’ Those dastardly Coens know exactly what they’re doing and, while it’s exciting and thought provoking, ultimately I found the ending bloody annoying. Just like life, I guess.
When you leave the cinema, you’ll be asking those questions which, for Parisian waiters at least, are every day ones: are our actions dictated by Fate? Or, you might say as you munch on posh food, peut etre, life is meaningless and we are engaged in haphazard meanderings where each decision we make, every action isn’t pre-ordained and we can be easily, randomly thwarted by chance, by accidents, by…?
So we have a bloody, tense, modern (set in the 1980s) ‘western’; life and death struggles, gritty, visceral themes set in hideously modern buildings; trailers, motels – essentially fragile, ugly shoe boxes perched on the barren, unforgiving landscape of New Mexico, a terrain which will outlive the main characters no matter how muscular and brutal they are. The place names are familiar, El Paso, Rio Grande etc, they are the names of Western legend and movie mythology and while the struggles in this film are for life and death, and the bad guy, Chigur played with terrifying lack of humour by Bardem, is memorable and the perfect amalgam of every hitch-hiking, relentless, psychopath you’ve ever seen on screen, you’re never in any doubt that this all means nothing. A conversation between Tommy Lee Jones, the sheriff and his retired from law-enforcement uncle outlines the philosophical heart of the film. His nephew talks about how things have changed, how the criminal has become almost untouchable and his uncle says simply, in that tobacco chewing way of westerns,
Whatcha got ain't nothin new. This country's hard on people, you can't stop what's coming, it ain't all waiting on you. That's vanity.
We cast ourselves as the heroes, the principal characters, it seems the Coens are saying, yet we’re not.
In this blank view of human existence and purpose, there’s a smattering of humour, plenty of desperate, painful violence and a relentless tour of the interiors of one Texan motel after another. In this film, everyone is on their own and vulnerable to sudden death. There are huge spaces between people physically and long moments of silence, no traffic, no other people – it’s a huge country. There is no perceptible soundtrack in the film yet the use of sound puts you right there in the protagonists’ shoes so you can hear their breath, feel their reactions to an ominous footfall. It’s extraordinarily tense and self-assured work. Special mention has to go to English cinematographer, Roger Deakins, who has found beauty somehow in the angular plains and ugly architecture.
The three main protagonists are played with agonised intensity: Tommy Lee Jones cracking dark jokes and filled with blank wonder at the horror of the crimes he’s witnessed, his face a barely contained wrinkled mask of horror with only the eyes showing how he’s lost the heart and belief in what he’s doing. For this character, the good guys are too small, too weak to fight the modern evil; Josh Brolin is amazing; he looks like Nick Cave without the hair dye and his determination and virile fight against evil is both superhuman and human. He struggles against this Terminator style bad guy and has all our hopes pinned on his success. The actor’s struggles with mediocrity and his own personal demons before this role add poignancy to the experience. Hopefully this will be the beginning of a much deserved rise to the top for him. Javier Bardem won an Oscar for his part which, apparently, wasn’t fleshed out in the novel where all we told is that Chigur has no sense of humour. Unlike the actor who, in his acceptance speech said,
"Thank you to the Coens for being crazy enough to think I could do that, and [for putting] one of the most horrible haircuts in history on my head!"
The exchange between Chigur and a hapless gas station proprietor will go down in cinema history as one of the most agonizing moments you’ll witness – on a par with Joe Pesci’s “In what way do I amuse you?” in Goodfellas. Chigur believes in fate and he has constructed his own fucked up rules and moral code about what has to be and what must happen. The man with all the power believes, ironically, that every action he takes is down to fate.
It is a testament to the casting in this film that everyone, from the main characters to one-line speaking bit parters have such real personalities, so much history, such uniqueness that their deaths, if that’s how they’ll end up, hurt you. These aren’t the faceless victims of a serial killer, no; these are real people with real aspirations, real outlooks on life, coming up against a genuine monster and all we can do is cross our fingers for them.
Whether or not you’ll ‘enjoy’ this film is questionable. It’s shockingly violent, unexpectedly visually beautiful, epic in theme but ultimately rather depressing. And it makes no sense – which is the point. You’ll be unsettled and haunted by it for days.I want to watch it again just to make sure, after all, what was all that stuff about the dreams at the end…?
It’s won four Oscars, best movie, best adapted screenplay, best director and best supporting actor for Javier Bardem. While I’m not sure if this film is quite as incredible as many critics make out, it is rather wonderful in that it manages to exist successfully on two levels, the popcorn and the philosophical.
On the one hand, sitting squarely in the universe of entertain-me-while-I-scoff we have a super tense, perfectly paced, bleak ‘chase’ movie where our ‘hero’, Llewellen, played by James Brolin, stumbles upon $2 million, part of a drug deal that went wrong, decides to make off with it and is pursued by the menacing, psychopath Anton Chigur, played by Javier Bardem complete with scary, floppy hair and faintly bloodshot eyes.
On the other hand, if you prefer, and I certainly do, you’ll have something else, a very, very deep and essentially dissatisfying experience …in an existential way, which is to say this is exactly what the Coen brothers were hoping you’d feel, because, like, that’s what the human condition is like. Man.
It’s inevitable then, that main protagonists and a plot evolve into anti-climax and a sense of ‘huh?’ Those dastardly Coens know exactly what they’re doing and, while it’s exciting and thought provoking, ultimately I found the ending bloody annoying. Just like life, I guess.
When you leave the cinema, you’ll be asking those questions which, for Parisian waiters at least, are every day ones: are our actions dictated by Fate? Or, you might say as you munch on posh food, peut etre, life is meaningless and we are engaged in haphazard meanderings where each decision we make, every action isn’t pre-ordained and we can be easily, randomly thwarted by chance, by accidents, by…?
So we have a bloody, tense, modern (set in the 1980s) ‘western’; life and death struggles, gritty, visceral themes set in hideously modern buildings; trailers, motels – essentially fragile, ugly shoe boxes perched on the barren, unforgiving landscape of New Mexico, a terrain which will outlive the main characters no matter how muscular and brutal they are. The place names are familiar, El Paso, Rio Grande etc, they are the names of Western legend and movie mythology and while the struggles in this film are for life and death, and the bad guy, Chigur played with terrifying lack of humour by Bardem, is memorable and the perfect amalgam of every hitch-hiking, relentless, psychopath you’ve ever seen on screen, you’re never in any doubt that this all means nothing. A conversation between Tommy Lee Jones, the sheriff and his retired from law-enforcement uncle outlines the philosophical heart of the film. His nephew talks about how things have changed, how the criminal has become almost untouchable and his uncle says simply, in that tobacco chewing way of westerns,
Whatcha got ain't nothin new. This country's hard on people, you can't stop what's coming, it ain't all waiting on you. That's vanity.
We cast ourselves as the heroes, the principal characters, it seems the Coens are saying, yet we’re not.
In this blank view of human existence and purpose, there’s a smattering of humour, plenty of desperate, painful violence and a relentless tour of the interiors of one Texan motel after another. In this film, everyone is on their own and vulnerable to sudden death. There are huge spaces between people physically and long moments of silence, no traffic, no other people – it’s a huge country. There is no perceptible soundtrack in the film yet the use of sound puts you right there in the protagonists’ shoes so you can hear their breath, feel their reactions to an ominous footfall. It’s extraordinarily tense and self-assured work. Special mention has to go to English cinematographer, Roger Deakins, who has found beauty somehow in the angular plains and ugly architecture.
The three main protagonists are played with agonised intensity: Tommy Lee Jones cracking dark jokes and filled with blank wonder at the horror of the crimes he’s witnessed, his face a barely contained wrinkled mask of horror with only the eyes showing how he’s lost the heart and belief in what he’s doing. For this character, the good guys are too small, too weak to fight the modern evil; Josh Brolin is amazing; he looks like Nick Cave without the hair dye and his determination and virile fight against evil is both superhuman and human. He struggles against this Terminator style bad guy and has all our hopes pinned on his success. The actor’s struggles with mediocrity and his own personal demons before this role add poignancy to the experience. Hopefully this will be the beginning of a much deserved rise to the top for him. Javier Bardem won an Oscar for his part which, apparently, wasn’t fleshed out in the novel where all we told is that Chigur has no sense of humour. Unlike the actor who, in his acceptance speech said,
"Thank you to the Coens for being crazy enough to think I could do that, and [for putting] one of the most horrible haircuts in history on my head!"
The exchange between Chigur and a hapless gas station proprietor will go down in cinema history as one of the most agonizing moments you’ll witness – on a par with Joe Pesci’s “In what way do I amuse you?” in Goodfellas. Chigur believes in fate and he has constructed his own fucked up rules and moral code about what has to be and what must happen. The man with all the power believes, ironically, that every action he takes is down to fate.
It is a testament to the casting in this film that everyone, from the main characters to one-line speaking bit parters have such real personalities, so much history, such uniqueness that their deaths, if that’s how they’ll end up, hurt you. These aren’t the faceless victims of a serial killer, no; these are real people with real aspirations, real outlooks on life, coming up against a genuine monster and all we can do is cross our fingers for them.
Whether or not you’ll ‘enjoy’ this film is questionable. It’s shockingly violent, unexpectedly visually beautiful, epic in theme but ultimately rather depressing. And it makes no sense – which is the point. You’ll be unsettled and haunted by it for days.I want to watch it again just to make sure, after all, what was all that stuff about the dreams at the end…?
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