Transformers

I should have known.

I am not the demographic this film is aimed at.

I hated it. It sucked. In fact, it was pants.

But I’m really glad I saw it because it taught me a thing or two about the state of the nation.

First things first, why did I bother? Good question. Essentially, I was fooled by the trailer – it actually looked quite exciting and then I came over all nostalgic for Nephew’s company and I sent him a text suggesting we see it together because he is my comic-hero/sci-fi/genre viewing buddy and because I miss him.

In the end he couldn’t come but the dirty, seed had been planted like e.coli, waiting to have me doubled over in regretful agony only a few days later. So I called Phallatia; we both have pay-per-month cinema passes which means we’re more liable to take risks with our viewing. She being a lot younger than me, was brought up on the Transformers TV cartoon and was a big fan. Like that’s an excuse. But it was better than mine.

Well, it was full of robots fighting. I should have known.

I like a bit of fighting – two of my favourite films are House of Flying Daggers and Kill Bill but…but…this was shite fighting. I couldn’t tell the Deceptamoron (baddy) robots from the Automoron (goody) ones and once I’d ‘enjoyed’ the first transformation moment (in the first two seconds of the movie), er…that was it. All the transformations were the same. The robots (to my un-teenage eyes at least) looked the same. I did notice some were smaller. Or ‘cute’. Two robots (goodies) did so much jiving they would have made Huggy Bear blush,

“Racial stereotypes much?” I snarked at Phallatia in the seat next to me.

And because I’m on regime, I couldn’t even comfort eat.




Meanwhile, the rest of the audience made up of teenage boys, young boys and their dads and one or two family groups were having a terrific time. I passed the long hours studying them carefully. I wanted to know what kind of people went to these films. At least my excuse was fairly elaborate. I wish I’d heard Xan Brooks of the Guardian’s answer to the exact same question before I’d wasted my time. He said, “Morons. And there’s a lot of them.” I am a moron.

So what was wrong with this film other than the boring robots, their boring fights, the incessant NOISE and EXPLOSIONS and SPARKS? Everything else.

I think director Michael Bay had better have his excuses carefully rehearsed when he’s reached the front of the line at the pearly gates.

GOD: How can you excuse this pile of sexist, boring shite, Mr Bay?
MICHAEL BAY: I fucked the frame, sir.

Very loud sound of eject chute swooshing Bay to Hell.

If only.

By the way, that is exactly how Mr Bay(tor?) describes his ‘work’.

If I was the frame, I would have smothered him with a pillow and snuck out the bathroom window.

When I’m prime minister, making films like this will be illegal.

The ‘performances’ are worth a mention. Mr Le Boeuf looking bewildered and dorky, which demeanour apparently (in teenage boy fantasies) pulls the hawt chicks and helps him save the planet, has absolutely zero charisma. The floosie playing the lead woman, Megan Pouty, is straight out of an FHM wank centrefold.

“Her mother must be very proud of her.” I told Phallatia. Then, “Does she have to pout every ten seconds?”

Fortunately no one in the audience leant over and told me to shh because they couldn’t hear me due to the burst eardrums from all the EXPLOSIONS.

Megan Chesty gives an extraordinary display of her range, pouting, running really well in slow motion, and straddling a motorbike like a pro.

And wtf was John Turturro doing in this movie? He must have a heavy gambling habit to pay back, or paying bollock busting alimony. Or something. He, like everyone else over the age of teen involved in this sorry excuse for celluloid, was required to do the staring eyes, the table punching, SHOUTING and spitting. And no one should sweat that much even if they are in the desert.

I didn’t realise that watching a pair of toy dogs have sex could be quite this hilarious.

So why did I enjoy it?

Because I learned something. This explains things to me. It gave me a snapshot (admittedly skewed) of the very young male psyche. What they like to see; what they get to see whether they want to or not; the level of violence that’s acceptable in their lives; the portrayal of women they’re given. When I see some girl draped across a motorbike I find it as offensive as the worst Jewish stereotype. And shouldn’t everyone? Somewhere in my brain newsreel footage of a suffragette throwing herself under a horse plays out. I wonder whether she’d have thought twice if she knew that women would be wondering round and round in little circles still and in the 21st century?

The other thing I learned is something hard to define; it’s about the level of ‘concentration’ required when watching anything aimed at children these days. I’ll digress for a moment…a while ago, in my professional capacity, I was searching for information on how to broach the prickly issue of internet-stranger-danger-security for very young kids.

The BBC had a fabulous series of videos aimed at children covering all sorts of things including not giving out your details online etc. But. They were unwatchable. At lest by this old lady. For a moment, and I promise you I don’t mean this disrespectfully, I wondered if this must be what it’s like to have epilepsy. While the ‘characters’ spoke, in the background there was incessant noise. And the mix of sound was such that the talking, which was actually mumbling could hardly be made out over the background. And, for good measure, there where occasional, random, infuriating chirrups and twitters and crashes drowning out the words.

The overall feeling was that none of this was worth listening to, nothing was worth paying attention to fully and it’s entirely ok for people to talk over each other. And this was the BBC. It made me understand certain hyper individuals that I’ve taught over the years, generally male, at least a handful in each class, who are just twitchy and impossible to engage for more than ‘goldfish time’.

So, no surprise that the same thing was in evidence when cock-bearing Michael Bay, had exactly the same thing going throughout this piece of crap film: throbbing music in every moment; people falling over, being humiliated, bullied and loads of fast talking; gibberish exposition giving you no time to say, “Now wait a minute! That doesn’t make sense!”

I can’t believe that parents will bring their kids to a 12A when they are only five or six. In one case, a toddler sat on his mum lap. I asked myself, what did he make of the incessant NOISE, the constant violence, the misogyny (for we must hate women to not entrust them with personality). Ok, the decapitation and eviscerations were of robots and frankly, they deserved it, but they still are what they are. I’m proud of the fact that this bothers me. My own children have a healthy love of zombie films, the more gruesome the better, but they didn’t watch anything like that until they were in their late teens and had a chance to form a context. We mustn’t make the mistake of looking at the world through our eyes when making decisions for children about what they should and shouldn’t watch.

Don’t give this guy your money. Just don’t. Every little counts.

I leave you with this story. Apparently Megan Booby’s audition went like this. Michael Bay asked her to come over to his place and wash his Ferrari for him. And she got the part.

Like I said, her mother must be proud.

Star Trek

It took a second viewing and a lot of deep breaths before I was half able to articulate why Star Trek was such a good movie; there is much to praise but, it won’t surprise you, that which delivers for the sternest, old school fan and yet also engages the husbands, wives and girlfriends who came along for the ride with their Trekkie dates, was the casting.

For loyal fans of the original series, much was familiar to give that feeling of security; and director JJ Abrahams took everything very seriously, consulting advisors along the way on important minutia such as which sides to holster up phasers; just like back in the day, Kirk was beaten up on a regular basis and slammed face down onto dusty surfaces and table tops; there was the same multicultural, multi species crew; and an undercurrent of racism - while Bones only made one ‘dodgy’ comment sotto voce when he refers to Spock as a goblin, most of the unsavoury remarks come from the Vulcans and were directed at the humans and, specifically at Spock who as, half human , half Vulcan (is there anyone who actually needed me to tell them that?) was seen as tarnished and weak by his dual heritage; and the ship made the same sounds: the swish of the bridge doors, the transporter whine and the hailing whistle. And, the guy in the red shirt who beams down to the planet and we know is going to die, he’s there too!

There are some upgrades. The bridge of the Enterprise was a modern take on the 24th century, all white and shiny with, so I read somewhere, more safety barriers than in 1966. The uniforms are the same but different with updated lines still shorty but not as skimpy ; the transporter beam is swirly not speckly and the phasers look less like they fell out of a cracker.

And gone are the dodgy sets.

This is the story of Kirk, McCoy and Spock before the Enterprise. We meet them while they are children and then as twenty-somethings on their first missions for Starfleet. The casting is spot on with the leads bearing enough resemblance to their predecessors and enough flair and personality of their own that they become entirely believable within minutes. All roles are filled with respect and no sense of irony with all parties finding a hook to link them to their predecessors’ performances yet managing to remain themselves. You could sense instantly that the actors believed in this universe and so, by default, did we.

Kirk, the “genius level repeat offender” from the mid west, is played by the gloriously handsome Chris Pine, who brings a touch of James Dean and young Steve McQueen to the role with a slouchy, cocky physical performance which is more of an homage to William Shatner rather than an impersonation. When he takes his place in The Chair, it’s as if Shat in his hey day had been reincarnated.

Spock, played by Zachary Quinto, is a tortured, more emotional Vulcan than we have come to know and who, we are shown, has to learn to get a grip on his impulses; it all makes sense if we understand his origins and how defensive he is under the surface.

McCoy played by the dashing Karl Urban is a perfect Clark Gable impersonation; I had forgotten the sexy Southern drawl from the original series.

We also have Scotty, Sulu and Chekov who bears a striking resemblance to Justin Timberlake and provides a tongue in cheek comic turn where his pronunciation is hammed up to 11 - “wick-tor” rather than Victor.

The baddies are the Romulans; I hadn’t realised on first viewing that it was Eric Bana playing Nero, the rogue Romulan leader in louche, mildly stoner-like performance; a cross between a snake and a Tahitian native in his tattoos. He and his henchmen, dressed in Issey Miyake style coats stride runway style down unnecessarily dangerous walkways with no barriers keeping you form the sheer drops.

JJ Abrahams does a fine job: with slick, even editing and deft pacing he manages to pull off a sense of scale which is vital in ‘space’ with sweeping camerawork and a deft use of swelling music and silences; this is particularly effective in the scene with Kirk senior, where Abrahams creates a beautiful, emotional change of mood caused entirely by the shift in sound from the chaos and buzz on the bridge and the silence of space. The movie, like the cast, is easy on the eye, painted with a pale blues and gold palette which gives a timeless solidity to the scene rather than it being a washed out view of the future, here we could connect.
It’s the perfect fusion of mind and body, ideas and sex.


We never forget that Starfleet is a military organisation and it particularly resonates in these times of the Iraq and Afghanistan situations. One reviewer spoke of how one way Star Trek has been brought up to the minute is that it no longer represents the forward looking, hopeful sixties. Instead this is a movie for the inward looking noughties.

The journey now, isn’t to seek out new lives and new civilisations but to boldly go inwards and find out who you are.

In Star Trek, the characters are on a journey – to find out what their destinies are and without wishing to spoil you, this knowledge is the real climax for the film.



I loved this film; for me it’s everything SCI-FI should be, the perfect fusion of mind and body, sex and ideas. I only wish we’d had a few more domestic details to fulfil my inner geek.

The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work by Alain de Botton

There are few cultural ‘occasions’ that make me tingly: sometimes I’ll buy a new album the week it’s released; once or twice a year there will be a film I have to see as soon as it comes out; a new series of an old favourite on TV might give me a buzz but books, much as I love them and need them, don’t tend to send me agog at the thought; yet, a few weeks ago, when I saw that Alain de Botton, tonsorially challenged philosopher and geek, had a new book out, I actually got an adrenaline rush. Is this love or should I should get out more?

The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work is his whimsical study of people at work and you have to trust me that, despite what appears to be ‘dull’ chapter headings and ‘plain’ photos, this is a charming, funny, illuminating and un-putdownable book.

As ever, de Botton is interested in what most of us might at the very least overlook or at the most choose not to articulate:

I was inspired by the men at the pier to attempt a hymn to the intelligence, peculiarity, beauty and horror of the modern workplace and, not least, its extraordinary claim to be able to provide us, alongside love, with the principle source of life’s meaning.

In a radio interview he explained his desire to answer the question, ‘what are people doing at 3pm?’ Children, he says, are familiar with the roles of postmen, shopkeepers, etc – but what about all those other jobs? Inspired by Richard Scarry’s children books, What People Do? and the details in a Canaletto, de Botton says he wants to show the “human hive”.

Alongside this de Botton untangles his fascination with wanting to know where everything comes from at a time when we’ve inevitably lost touch with producers and suppliers,

We are now as imaginatively disconnected from the manufacture and distribution of our goods as we are practically in reach of them, a process of alienation which has stripped us of a myriad opportunities for wonder, gratitude and guilt.

Each chapter is an exploration of a different arena among them: biscuit manufacture; logistics; aviation; transmission engineering; accountancy and career counselling – areas which hardly rouse the loins and to which we probably wouldn’t have given much thought unless we’d had direct dealings with individuals in the field, yet through his lyrical, intelligent prose finds de Botton celebrates the beauty and humanity in the most mundane and obscure of activities and he shuffles like Louis Theroux’s awkward understudy, interviewing an eclectic range of committed, specialist, interdependent human beings who occupy themselves daily in ways we thought we didn’t care about, allowing us to walk in their shoes for a few pages and bringing us all infinitesimally closer.

One section of the book is a photo-journal where he traces the journey of a tuna from the moment it’s killed on a fishing boat, (he comments with horror that it’s about the same size as his four year old child), to when, as if by magic, it’s consumed by a child in England.

With the picture of the fisherman clubbing tuna to death burnt into my memory, I recognise that I am now a veteran of the blood-soaked processes lurking behind the labels’ serene photograph of a fishing jetty and an azure sea.

He describes the cargo of a car transporter,

These near identical Hyundai Amicas, smelling of newly minted plastic and synthetic carpet, will bear witness to sandwich lunches and arguments, love making and motorway songs. They will be driven to beauty spots and left to gather leaves in school car parks. A few will kill their owners. To peer inside these untouched vehicles, their seats wrapped in brown paper printed with elegant and cryptic Korean entreaties, is to have a feeling of intruding on an innocence more normally associated with the slumber of newborns.

God, Alain, I sigh shifting uneasily in my pyjamas, my coffee untouched, you are such a master of length! And while he weaves those subordinate clauses the way I like it, he keeps the interest up by breaking chapters into numbered sections so that the unfolding of his ideas become like scenes in a play.

Unlike most tomes of this nature, the reader is also spoiled with the visual; the photos and occasional diagrams, play a huge part in the tone and mood. The photographer, Richard Baker , a silent but powerful collaborator, achieves his best work a section on transmission engineering, which might have been entitled ‘A Celebration of the Geek; against your better judgement, you find you are wooed by the elegance of electricity pylons juxtaposed against nature; joining the pylon appreciation society is just a Google-click away.

De Botton can’t help himself; he has to think about everything and make connections with other human beings; this is great on paper but when he articulates his thoughts to their faces, he provides some gentle, unexpected comic moments. One time he watches a woman on a computer; he confides to the reader she reminds him of a Vermeer. Unfortunately he finds himself telling her this. It was a thought best kept to himself for she backs away.

Indeed, this weekend, Mr Sangue and I shared a de Botton moment. We walked down Sangue Avenue with Twiggy the school caretaker and his beard strode towards us, he dressed in Hawaiian shirt, large floral calf length shorts, socks and sandals while she wore a dress straight out of the Hamish mail order catalogue. We exchanged the time of day but, once they were safely out of earshot, one of us said,

“All that was missing was a pitchfork!”

We agreed that we should have told them they reminded us of a painting.

“They’d have liked that.” We grinned, imagining how they would recoiled from us.

American Gothic by Grant Wood

De Botton’s awkwardness in social situations underscores his belief that no matter how much jargon has evolved in the world of work such as in engineering and in rocket science - we still don’t have as clear cut, nor specialist vocabulary for feelings; in the workplace communications are rife with subtleties but when it comes to sharing our hopes and fears, we remain disconnected from others.

In an interview he was asked if he’d ever done a proper day’s work, but as he rightly points out, the job of a writer is to help us walk in another’s shoes – this he succeeds in doing.

I nodded and sighed with middle aged angst when he spoke of the middle classes belief that jobs should somehow be fulfilling whereas the working classes feel work is something to be endured. It reminded me of a compelling scene in a recent series where a half dozen privileged teenagers experienced life in the front life of Indian clothes production. One Indian father slept on the floor under his machine at night and the English youth, shook his head,

“How can you be happy?” he demanded of the bewildered sweat shop worker, “How can this make you happy?”

“I am happy because I am providing food for my family.” He explained defensively through a translator.

De Botton outlines how we often hold the best version of ourselves at work, conducting ourselves with a skill and efficiency often missing from our personal relationships.

His loping sentences, filled with charm and a love of humanity, give me as much pleasure as anything I could read. In his section on biscuit manufacture, he writes,

…in the hands of an experienced branding expert, decisions about width, shape, coating, packaging and name can furnish a biscuit with a personality as subtly appropriately nuanced as that of a protagonist in a great novel.

As he guides us through the agony and the ecstasy of the work place and the mysteries of logistics, I savoured each turn of phrase and connection but managed to resist the impulse to share sections of the book with friends and family lest they brand me a poseur.

Thank you for allowing me this indulgence.

The Boat that Sucked

The Boat that Sucked
Avoid this film at all costs; thanks to my timely warning, mark it down as the biggest pile of pants you’ll never see.

I know there are mixed feelings about Richard Curtis films but I generally fall into the ‘for’ group. I loved Four Weddings, loved Blackadder and, as for the rest of his stuff, while I wouldn’t call it art I’d say it’s mildly entertaining, instantly forgettable, harmless cheese. The Boat that Sucked was, on the other hand, an insult to everyone: women, music, anyone who can remember the seventies and especially freedom fighters everywhere.

Having read a couple of negative reviews, I expected little. The opening scene was a great montage, great music and, I confess, I immediately settled in to enjoy people smoking in a period way but, as soon as the first track faded out and the luvvies began to espouse their inane dialogue, my tiny bubble went ping. The snark-circuitry in my brain got a sniff of freedom and from then on I was all nah-nah-nah-nah: did people really clamour around their trannies in their nightwear of an evening? When did Kenneth Brannagh forget how to act? Where was Hugh? What about people who didn’t smoke – did they listen to the radio too? And if so, what did they do with their hands? Had the ‘dolly birds’ taken a wrong turn from the set of Confessions of a Window Cleaner? What was the point of the floppy-haired youth? How many times is it legal to crack the same, unfunny joke in a movie – I refer, of course, to the frightfully amusing idea of naming one character ‘Twat’. Nearly as funny as having the only girl on the ship be a… and you might want to put your cup down at this point… a lesbian! I know it’s hilarious! (NB, American friends, ‘trannies’ means ‘transistor radios’ here.)

I found I was looking over the luvvies and dolly birds’ shoulders at the décor, the spot-on product packaging and the lesbian’s crocheted waistcoat which looked alarmingly like one of my favourite pieces I often wore in the late sixties over a white polo-neck jumper and above a purple velvet mini-skirt, white tights and some ‘patchwork’ platforms. I thought that memory of a former me had been buried under my new romantic outfits, smothered by my nineties aerobics wear and was never going to make it through into my conscious mind. It seems my belief that I was the coolest was on a par with Mr Curtis’ belief that his film rocked.

I loved the bridesmaids’ dresses complete with pearly nails and short beehives but it didn’t make up for watching this has-been karaoke. What has become of Richard Curtis? I suspect this is what happens when your advisors turn into brown-nosers. Surely someone somewhere in his gang must have known that cinema goers don’t want to suffer a bunch of middle aged men singing into a beer bottle? The performances were hammy and drawn out in scenes that went on as long in perceived time as internal examinations do.

The characterization was clumsy and slip-shod; it was as if a tick-list of ‘types’ had been used as guidance: “Hey!” Curtis might have said, “We could have a character who always gets the girls,” pausing for a round of applause, “And how about one who is stupid but, wait for it, the twist is that occasionally he’ll say something clever!” Gasps from the sycophants.

And what was all this about Freedom? Ok, I was too busy plaiting my dolls hair to read the papers but even I know it wasn’t pirate radio station that represented freedom at this time in history? What about writers in the eastern bloc, women’s lib, strikes, new equality laws etc, etc? I wanted to stand up and shout, “Long live iPods and fuck vinyl!” just because it would have annoyed the hell out of the luvvies. In the year that England won the World Cup, the closest we got to dry land was a piece of Ennio Morricone music and a mild reference to the Vietnam war. Er, that’s it. I would have liked to have seen real people – what was going on while they were listening to the radio? This was beautifully conveyed in Withnail and I – such as in the scene with the demolition ball – and the volume was still on maximum.

Curtis would have us believe that what really counted was that this bunch of miscreants got to shag lots of dolly birds. The film was misogynist - this bollocks about this teenager trying to get sex being post-modernist blah blah doesn’t cut it with me. The scene where they do a real life mock up of the bare breasted women on the banned Electric Lady Land album cover was plain gratuitous and left me feeling embarrassed.

I almost laughed once but it might have been because I was getting low blood sugar. The cinema was two thirds full on the Friday night early show and any laughter just sounded polite and supportive - the woman sitting in front of me who found the film hilarious stood out as much as that one funny moment I alluded to. I suggest she was mashed.

Even the music couldn’t save this empty, meaningless film; I knew the Stones were fantastic anyway and I don’t need that twat Curtis to tell me. Not one track was played all the way through – I’d have more fun dancing in my pants in the kitchen while gazing upon just the one wrinkly face. My own.

Philip Seymour Hoffman was the only actor who came out of this debacle with dignity. The only heavy weight ‘star’, he delivered and understated, believable performance. What a contrast with Emma Thompson who looked so pleased with herself it made me want to hurl in the popcorn bag. Rys Ifans was underused and looked a little embarrassed

One who-cares scene after another, this was a self-indulgent plundering of the dressing up box with the few good ideas nicked from Beatles movies.

Curtis would probably argue that this film was escapist – the only thing I wanted was to escape my seat – quite simply the worst film I’ve seen since Blues Brothers 2000.

Usually I include a film still but I felt this photo I took the other day to be more suitable.

Bearlesque

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!

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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…?

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?

postcard from Italy - 8

Family love
My Italian vocabulary often seizes up under pressure; I needed the Italian term for ‘hay-fever’ (l'allergia al polline = allergy to pollen) to explain why I was sneezing and coughing so violently as my system rebelled against alien varieties of tree pollen; my adorable Brother-Cousin (son of Big Fish and my favourite relative ever) managed to work it out for me. He suffers f too but is irritated by a whole different group of allergens: while I snuffled over ornamental cherries and choked from beech trees, he was affected by olive tree flowers and the like. He informed me that hay-fever was a family trait and that Papa Sangue suffered too. No wonder he was constantly clearing his throat.

I’m always thrilled by any information, no matter how trivial, which reaffirms links with Papa Sangue’s side of my family. Having got over the ‘shame’ of being Italian in my early twenties when I realized that my family didn’t just comprise a bunch of Italian chavs on Mamma Sangue’s side i.e., the ones brought up in Market Town, uncles and aunts who forbad my conformist, uncreative, dullard bunch of cousins from playing with me because I led them ‘astray’; no, in Italy there was another family, a group of educated, funny, independent uncles, aunts and cousins on Papa Sangue’s side whose children, effectively my second cousins, were closer in age to me and were witty, interesting and actually owned books! Mamma Sangue’s family, on the other hand, wasn’t renowned for valuing education. My cousins ranged from those who simply had no clue what I was talking about to those who mocked me for being ‘well-spoken’ and hence a ‘snob’. This is why I like sports; I could play tennis with my female cousins and I was spared the need for conversation; company without the ‘colour’. One uncle chided Mama Sangue for sending me to private school. He opened his tirade with demanding to know who she’d bribed to get me a place (I passed an exam) and then reminded her that to educate your children was a waste of time since they needed to join the work force and bring some money in for the family. You’d think we lived in the third world.

In Italy, my second cousins have degrees or are in further education working towards them; most have moved up North but Brother-Cousin, like his dad, Big Fish, will never move away. He has cornered the market in the village for internet delivery. The Italian, national telecommunications company has refused to get involved in this despite the fact that 80% of the population, hungry for iTunes, YouTube and Facebook, lives in the mountains and can’t get broadband. Brother-Cousin has set up the point-to-point transmitters and receivers in the local area, is working very hard and is doing rather well out of it. He has exactly the same sense of humour as me, the same fascination with local history and loves the traditional dialect and origin of words. Our conversations are vibrant and alive and full of piss taking. I adore him. Unfortunately he has a very grumpy wife who coddles their six year old son in a way that I find bewildering. For example, we went for a long lunch altogether and met at 1pm. I asked if her son was eating and she said,

“No, Little Fish eats at 12.30.”

Oh.

It was one of many memorable and delicious meals. The main meal of the day in Italy is at lunchtime; usually around one o’clock and the world and business grinds to a halt. People have two and three hour lunch breaks to accommodate the trip home, a long meal, a nap and the trip back to work. The rhythm of life is entirely different there. Women rise early, clean the house on just an espresso and set off to get the day’s food and queue in various shops. It always amuses me that if you pick up a child’s vocabulary book in any language, you’ll find the word for grocer, butcher, baker; in England, they ought to replace these with ‘cash-point’ machine, ‘twenty-four hour petrol station’ and ‘Tesco’. In Italy, it’s as if time has stood still; yes there are supermarkets but these are supplemented by roadside vegetable stalls much as you’ll get in multi-cultural central London but not many other places, certainly not in English villages where shops seem to have died a death. In Accadia, for the next few years at least, you can buy fresh-made mozzarella and cheeses, local grown fruit and vegetables and bread straight out of the oven.

Mr Sangue and I stuck to eating our main meal in the evening unless we were out. Nothing can be better than a bitter salad of endive, plum tomatoes and rocket, a thick slice of fresh-made tomato pizza bought by weight at the bakers and washed down with ice cold Peroni followed by a sleep. The baker’s is a sweltering location and it’s impossible to ‘nip’ in and grab a loaf. So people fan themselves and catch up while they’re in line. Weakened by the smell of freshly made biscuits, giant loaves some waxy, some smooth, bread rolls desperate to be filled with provolone and salami, and large round dishes of no-frills pizza that kept coming from the back: onion, anchovy, aubergine…my mouth ached. I looked at the old, blown up photos of the men in the family heaving loaves out of the oven in black and white. The sons still wear the traditional white hat. They’re big on uniforms here; it’s not considered demeaning to wear work clothes which, in many blue-collar quarters in England, have been replaced by plaint-splattered casual wear and the ubiquitous reflective vests worn by everyone from architects to road sweepers.

“You’re Mamma Sangue’s daughter, aren’t you?” Signora Baker said.

“Yes, how did you know?” I had met her before but it had been a few years.

“You talk exactly like her; the same voice.”

It’s an observation that no one has ever made and it made me feel connected and a bit proud in a way I couldn’t quite figure out. I liked that people knew who I was here. It gave me a buzz knowing that just by saying my surname, they’d know I was Big Fish’s cousin. It didn’t earn me any privileges, and I wouldn’t have wanted that, but it made me feel part of something. Of course, this is me romanticising again; in Market Town, when I was a kid, at least in the road we lived, just about everyone knew me and it felt like living under the Stasi with uncles and aunts reporting back to Mamma Sangue if I ‘got up to’ anything. But, for the few days I was there, I got a buzz.

loosen those waistbands
Big Fish asked us over for lunch one day. He owns a three-story building with a basement, his apartment on the first floor and Brother Cousin and his family on the floor above. The basement comes into its own when he has guests; meals are taken downstairs because its cooler and we ate round a large table, on plastic plates with plastic cutlery and the smell of ripening tomatoes all around us. One room is filled with the booty from Big Fish’s allotment, furniture salvaged from grandparents’ homes lines the walls alongside massive gas burners which can be hauled into service if there are more than twenty dining and the giant pasta pan, large enough to bath a baby in, is needed.



I ‘helped’ Signora Big Fish make orrechietelli, fresh pasta, rolled with your thumb and the edge of a teaspoon, (I made three); she was patience personified but I wondered what the point of having opposable thumbs is if you can’t make fancy food with them. I left her to it went across the road to the dairy to collect mozzarella and ricotta for later. In a tiny sweltering outhouse, over an ancient wood burning stove, while milk heated and curdled, Rossaria, with just a fan pointing at her face, immersed her hands in another hot tub of liquid and twisted and plaited the newborn mozzarella. She lowered her eyes when Mr Sangue took photos, the most flirtatious and coy this very masculine woman, could manage with her calloused hands and sports shirt. I tried one warm, straight out of the vat and it was a bit too much like baby food for me to cope with.



Brother-Cousin watched me intently while I ate mozzarella as my meat substitute at lunch;

“You like those, Sanguelina?”

“Ummm…” I grunted.

“I like them too but I try not to remember where and how they’re made. Once I took a client there; he’d asked me for some typical, local food. His first one he ate with a knife and fork, then you should have seen him pulling them out of the bag with his hands and stuffing them in whole!”



Our meal consisted of many courses; we began with ciambotta, a local ‘mess of vegetables’, courgettes, potatoes, tomatoes, onions, all fried in olive oil and mushy and fragrant. With bread, that’s a meal for me, but here you have to keep going no matter how much it hurts. There was fresh made pasta, then sausages and fried potatoes, bell peppers fried whole – all very simple but intense in flavour, suffused with olive oil, sunshine and garlic. I wanted to say “Lord take me now for I am happy!” but I worried that a straight translation into Italian may not have had the same light-hearted, reverential tone as in English so I just grunted.

Mr Sangue had made the salad and they ribbed him, ‘complaining’ that some of the pieces of cucumber weren’t cut quite the same size as others in the bowl. I love watching the affection they have for him, how they’re a little bit in awe of this tall, modest and polite Englishman and how everyone talks to him all the time in Italian or English remembered from school or used in work online.

Half way through the meal, more relatives turned up, not to eat, just to hang out with their kids. A neighbour appeared with a tall skinny bottle of leather brown liquid. It was a liqueur made from rocket. I loved it! This had to be good for you and contain some magical, anti-carcinogenic properties.

“Here, Sanguelina,” Brother-Cousin beamed his usual mix of proud and self-awareness that these are uniquely Italian quirks, “We make everything into alcohol.”

We tried some limoncella, a liqueur made from another cousin’s crop of lemons in Sicily. It was sweet and sour in a way that short circuited your mind. Brother-Cousin brought out a bottle of the crucial mixer which I don’t think you can buy back home.



This is all you need to make a palatable drink; mush veg or fruit of choice, a tad of water and a few shots of alcohol. Oh, and it needs to be legal. I don’t think it is, at least I think that’s why Papa Sangue used to retire to the bathroom to make Grappa on that weird machine he borrowed off an uncle.

Of course, there was no room for dessert, so we squeezed in a few gorgeous biscuits we’d brought along as a token gift. They were light pastry and filled with dried fruit and made to wash down with heaps of espresso.

After, Brother-Cousin showed us his office; I loved the collection of antique phones as well as computer innards such as 10” floppy discs and data cards.

“Where the hell do you get this stuff from?” I asked.

“Eee-bay. Shall we go and have ourselves a beer?”





It was futile to argue and ten minutes later we were in an air-conditioned bar surrounded by marble and fancy drapes.

Back to the apartment, three hours after we began the meal, Mr Sangue collapsed on the bed and we slept like seal pups.


More on food to follow…

postcard from Italy - 7

The sleepy village of Accadia comes to life once a year for a week with events and entertainment every night.

birra
Our first night in Accadia they had a beer festival; all in honour of the Madonna, of course. She likes a drink.

We had to smirk. I thought a beer festival were a celebration of beers, meant to sample the delights of a variety of beers with kooky names, lovingly brewed by people who treat the production as some kind of art. Accadia’s idea of a beer festival involved barrels of Heineken served from an L shaped bar by volunteers in Heineken t-shirts. That was it; remember, over 2000 people there who generally don’t have anything to do the rest of the year and whose culture does not revolve around public drinking. For one night they could booze al fresco – even the women who generally pretend they don’t touch the stuff, could partake in public without fingers wagging. And how did the organisers respond to the thirsty challenge? Three pumps. And, I know we were up a mountain, but it was odd that gravity seemed to be working against the bar staff for I have never seen anything come out so slowly as that frothy, luke-warm slop; well, nothing that didn’t gasp for air and then cry when it was slapped on the arse.

People waited stoically, as if they were queuing for bread in the Brezhnev years; it took half an hour to get your drink. Before we even went to the bar, we had to do what they always do in Italy, go through the infuriating routine of you queue up a first time, tell the cashier what you want, pay for it, then queue up again give your receipt to the person behind the counter and they take your receipt, tear a corner and serve you; effectively, you have to queue up twice.

The poor bar staff had to wait in line too. First they had queue for their turn at the pump, then wait for the trickle to fill the plastic cup, then scrape the top off the foam with a knife, then top it up some more, oh so slowly then apologise for taking so long all the while shutting out the downcast expressions crowding their peripheral vision. If it hadn’t been such a beautiful evening in a glorious location and if there hadn’t been barbecued sausages to queue up twice for, as well as an abundance of relatives for me to make jump out of their skin by my mere presence, it would all have been a bit of a damp squid.

Mr Sangue, my hunter-gatherer, spotted someone eating cheese form a take-away plate; it was Caciocavallo , what we call ‘horse cheese’ thus named because a pair of the massive, breast shaped cheeses are tied together and draped like saddlebags, over a pole to mature, ‘mounted’ horse-back style. I’d bloody kill for the stuff and raced to buy multiple slices, guaranteed to strip the lining of your mouth like acid laced sandpaper. With a sore mouth, and some luke warm beer under the lunar shadow of the village clock, I suddenly felt pretty good. I needed cheering up, already I was feeling the strain of having to translate incessantly from Italian to English and back again. It’s like listening to heavy metal and classical at the same time while humming a nursery rhyme.

famiglia
My cousin, Big Fish, had organised the beer festival. I adore my cousin; now in his early sixties, I haven’t forgotten that once he looked like Rock Hudson and I used to have a bit of a little girl crush on him. He’s been involved in everything that’s going on in the village all his life: he’s deputy head at the middle school; once managed the village football team; I think may have been mayor and has one of the greatest lifestyles of anyone I’ve ever met. He’s a big cheese, a big fish in a small pond, entirely honest and respectable, funny and hospital and rarely leaves the village because, well, why would he? In the four month summer break he tends his allotment, has long siestas and passes the evenings with his friends shooting the breeze, playing cards, watching football, enjoying the odd beer. I hadn’t called to tell him we were coming so as I crept further and further up the queue, grinning at the top of his bald head while he took the money and wrote out the receipts, it was lovely to see the unbridled delight when he saw me. It’s not often a human looks so pleased to see another and the feeling is mutual.

We spent a lot of time with Big Fish over the next few days, but it’s never enough. I also have this nagging feeling that I’m pushing my luck accepting such one sided hospitality so many’s the time that I’ll want to go round but I worry his heart will sink at the prospect of having to feed us again so I don’t; I want him to remain pleased to see me. We’ve give up trying to persuade him to visit us in England. I doubt he’ll even leave his local area again unless he has to for things are too good at home. How I envy him. How wonderful to be so popular, to fit in, to be involved in things and feel like a valuable member of society. As a woman, I could never have lived like this in Accadia and while I romanticise his life, there’s always that tinge, that underlying current in Italy, or at least as I experience it, that women, well, they just aren’t ‘allowed’ to do things that men are and that people will gossip about you. Here there’s none of that, leastways if I keep away form my Italian relatives (and there are many) who have colonised Market Town.

processione
The following evening, the people of Accadia did what they did best, form long lines and parade through the town. This time, as part of the festivities, they dressed in costumes reminiscent of the 1400s. They looked wonderful, classic Italian faces with great noses and real swagger, framed against the old village ruins. I couldn’t help enjoying the juxtaposition between their footwear, mobile phones, jewellery and the velvet, stage clothing they’d somehow knocked together.



The most satisfying of these images was this one.



One woman, taken aback by this historical moment, as Accadia celebrated being really brave in some siege or other, wanted to have her photo taken on horseback with her baby on her lap. The horse was the picture of calm until some firecrackers went off in the hills and its ears flipped back. I’m amazed the horse didn’t quite rear up on its back legs. I couldn’t believe the stupidity of the woman.



We were surrounded by village youth dressed in azzuro, getting off on their body guard image. I saw that this was what every presidential body guard was based on, the Italian male in a position of authority in sunglasses. You can’t really look cooler than that. They gestured for us to make way as the horses turned and trotted off down the main street, looking utterly incredible as they disappeared in the gloaming like ghosts from an ancient battle.


mamma and Mecca
The festival rambled over a week or so. In the evenings, we promenaded up and down past the out-of-towner stalls. Among these were families of Africans selling garish bags, ethnic bowls, woven baskets, leather belts and other generic ‘African’ goods. For hours, a mother, striking in her sunshine coloured batik, would guard her stall in the heat with her uncomplaining baby strapped to her back. One night, Mr Sangue and I sat outside a café, drinking a beer from the bottle, and watched one mum gently untie her sleeping baby and lay him under the stall on a cloth, safe and warm under the ‘tent’ while she continued to work into the night. We also saw the stallholders say their prayers among the bustle of the crowds. One couple took it in turns to mind the stall while the other rolled out their prayer mat and bent down, touching their foreheads to the ground, oblivious to their surroundings. I said to Mr Sangue, “Next time I say I can’t fit something in, can’t follow a routine that I normally follow because I’m not at home, remind me of this.” It was humbling.