Sunday 25 May 2014

Richard Hamilton at Tate Modern

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2014
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

25 May

This exhibition at Tate Modern (@Tate) is about to finish (on Monday 26 May).

Its curation is almost as curious sometimes as some of the objects (or their juxtaposition) in the recreated exhibition, which Hamilton organized for The Festival of Britain in 1951, Growth and Form (in Room 1) :

Perhaps, somewhere, there is a room-guide equivalent to the text that appears, in the free exhibition booklet, to describe Room 1 and 2, but, if so, it is well hidden* - the appearance is of walking into Growth and Form with nothing to explain what it or its relevance are. It is good to show these things (as was also done with other exhibitions, a few months back, at the ICA (@ICA)), but there needs to be an introduction. A small ante-room with a video-loop, perhaps (if such footage exists) of Hamilton talking about the show, might have helped place it for visitors.

In any case, though Hamilton may have been (since he was nothing if not someone who observed carefully) ahead of his time in intuiting forms of patterns of growth in - to name but a few - plant, crystalline and shell development, structure and growth that have since been linked to fractals or The Fibonacci Series, this may not be the best place to start with him, nor may it be Variations on the theme of Reaper (1949) (in Room 2) (please see below).

For, in the choice of exhibits, display and interpretational material, one simple question seems not to have been asked (or, if so, the answer not carefully enough considered) :

Who is this Hamilton retrospective for ?


Is it something that, as with the big Damien Hirst show, people could wander into and around, such as they did past and even through his severed cow and calf, and make of it what the immediacy of the canvases, objects and videos conveyed*** ? Or, if people are to be able to value Hamilton's contributions to the British art scene and beyond, do they need a little more guidance (which the Hamiltonian enthusiast - keen to see some works live, but with a greater initial idea of these things - could ignore, if he or she wished (as could any level of visitor in between)) ?


In relation to Reaper, it is not as if we are being chronological, since it pre-dates Growth and Form by two years, but then, as with many recent Tate shows, we do generally adopt that approach by period : in the meantime, after the 1951, we have confronted the visitor with fifteen etchings of a reaping-machine, from all sorts of angles, and with varying techniques and levels of detail.

In this connection, the following point, which is made in the Introduction, would be more aptly drawn to the visitor's attention here :

He often produced several versions of a particular work rather than a single 'finished' piece [this suggests, however, that the versions have the status of sketches or maquettes, rather than being complete in themselves], and throughout his career explored new printmaking methods and digital techniques.


However, as the Introduction has been placed on the wall, the assumption is that the visitor has read and digested it, or seen it the booklet presented at the door, by the time that Room 2 is being viewed... Hate it also as a kiddies' version as one might, what is often said about Cubism is arguably as relevant here, e.g. that there is a response to Einstein on relativity and / or Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle*** in giving us multiple views of a face - or a reaper.

As to this choice of exhibit, maybe there is merit in something produced whilst Hamilton was still at the Slade, maybe not (would one normally go as far back as art college ?), but there seem to be no obvious answers to the following questions in choosing or presenting the piece :

Where does Reaper fit into an account of Hamilton's entire work ?

How does the visitor know that it has that relevance ?


One may hate the description of Hamilton as 'the father of Pop Art' (not least as, in connection with the Bridget Riley exhibition in 2003, Tate was keen to put her in a different relation to art history than that of a pioneering exponent of Op Art), but one is in danger with coming out of this show not knowing (though Room 5 says quite a bit about Pop Art - at this stage) :

* What Hamilton did as an artist

* What his importance was to other artists or the art world

* His significance to appreciating Marcel Duchamp - though some explanation seems to be here, in (the booklet for) Room 8 - and, more importantly, who Duchamp was and what it was that Hamilton valued

* Likewise Kurt Schwitters and the Merzbarn ?

* Why one has seen five or six times the image mainly known as Swingeing London 67 [this one is (and owned by Tate Modern) - what do the four or five others add to seeing it ?


The Tate has not only long owned Hamilton’s reconstruction of what is often, in brief, referred to as Duchamp’s Large Glass (properly called La Mariée mise à nu par ses célibataires, même (1915–1923), but has for many years had it on display at Tate Modern without (or without adequately – except here) explaining that this is not Duchamp’s original work***, which is too fragile to move (and in Philadelphia). Here, at last, matters are a little less unclear, but does one get much notion of the significance of what Duchamp had been working on between 1915 and 1923 through what is written in the room-note and shown in display-cabinets ?

In other words, who would know what Hamilton was doing in reconstructing this work – and why – who did not know already ? And what does the exhibition do to explain Hamilton’s involvement with the publication The Almost Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp (Arts Council of Great Britain, 1966), what it is and why it was published ? Yes, there are two copies, one displaying the green cover, the other the title-page, but nothing other than the sketchiness of the room-note to convey the answers to these questions to the visitor (the Tate web-site, linked to here, is a different matter altogether) :

1915 – 1923 / Reconstructed 1965 – 1966 / Lower panel re-made 1985


The glaringly unstated sub-text of all this is that not only did Hamilton curate a Duchamp show for Tate, but went about reconstructing the work for it : maybe all this is there, if one buys the book of the exhibition, but what, then, is the point of the exhibition itself, if not to explain the exhibits and what significance they have qua exhibits… ?


Work in progress - more to come...


End-notes

* The last of these, too, were well hidden - which may be shorthand for saying that they had been put somewhere unideal, too. In this show, the Introduction did, as one checked, appear on the far side of Room 1 (Growth and Form), actually on one wall of Room 2 - with the room-guide for both Rooms on the wall where one went into Room 3...

** The spirit of Heisenberg is tacitly evoked later on (Room 7), with exposures of figures on a beach that have been enlarged over and over, and achieving greater proximity only at the cost of precisely the detail sought.


*** However, Duchamp did inscribe Hamilton’s reconstruction, as if it is the equivalent of the original. Here is what the Tate's web-page for the work much more usefully tells us :

The reconstruction took exactly a year to make. When Marcel Duchamp came to London for the opening of his exhibition, he agreed to sign it and inscribed it on the back 'Richard Hamilton | pour copie conforme | Marcel Duchamp | 1965'.




Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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Saturday 24 May 2014

The touchstone of Paul Valéry's 'Le Cimetière Marin’ ?

This is a review of The Wind Rises (Kaze tachinu) (2013)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2014
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24 May (updated 30 May)

This is a review of The Wind Rises (Kaze tachinu) (2013)

Knowing nothing about the film, except glimpses of a trailer, one was intrigued by a Tweet from director and film writer Mark Cousins :



Billed as Hayao Miyazaki’s last film (but ‘Never say Never’), and running to a lengthy seven minutes more than two hours*, it takes as its obvious theme the modernization of Japan between The Great War and what became The Second World War, with the repeated linguistic tic of how many years behind the country is than, say, the technology and aeronautical design of Germany. (There was also an ominous mention, not least because of Pearl Harbor, of whether a bomber would have the range to strike the States.)



For various reasons (on which @CamPicturehouse’s Hitomi has provided guidance), Miyazaki took this as his broad subject : one is that, although his earlier animations have not necessarily embodied the stuff and models of this technology, he has always enjoyed them; another that, presumably drawn by the interest, he is partly adapting a Japanese short story (‘The Wind Has Risen’ by Tatsuo Hori) from 1937, partly his own manga, which had some basis in Hori's work, so some matters can be laid at their door of those sources. Except, of course, that Miyazaki, whether directly or via his graphic interpretation of it, chose to adapt this writing at all…

Less specific in the film is the important matter of flying and of dream, though, of course, animation itself can be well-nigh dream itself : so one can, say, portray the vegetative excesses of Akira (1988) (or, even, of Miyazaki’s own Princess Mononoke (1997)) without a fraction of the costs that, when using a camera to capture live action, would be involved in post-production. (And blood need not look much like blood, so one can be gory, but without the body’s fuel-carrier being a shockingly brilliant scarlet, whereas most non-animation films, whether or not brains are blown out, want to be as convincing as possible.)

Flight, too, can be portrayed without the danger and cost of real period aeroplanes in flight – and so, Jirô Horikoshi’s aeronautical idol Caproni, with his 'beautiful dreams, can witness his multi-winged creation crumple, on its maiden trip, with relatively little effort (and, with it, his first hopes for mass passenger transport). Yet, at the same time, the film is not, of course, even going to mention how such efforts in aircraft design would lead to the bombing of Barcelona, by the Italian Air Force, in the Spanish Civil War (on which Eyes on the Sky (Mirant al Cel) (2008) tellingly meditates).


Here, because Jirô is, from the first and obviously**, a dreamer and consorts with his idols when asleep (although, as in the case of Junkers, with others in waking life (whose fellow engineers proudly say Das ist unser Stolz***), some depth is added, if not to his character, then to his obsession with ever improving on powered flight. (Yet one should not for a moment imagine that he faces dark nights of the soul, such as John Adams’ opera Doctor Atomic ascribes to Oppenheimer as author of [the technologies behind] those bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki…).



Cousins’ observation about the adults is too right. Not only is the behaviour often that of children, but, as the film unfolds, they even physically resemble ageing in reverse****. With time / changes in policy, but for reasons never explained (as with that non-apparent round-the-world trip***), Jirô becomes quasi-officially persona non grata, but it takes his boss to realize and rescue him under his own roof : so, in the well-worn groove of the eccentric boffin (stylish in a lilac suit) who does not deal with the small things (e.g. Alan Turing, or John Nash in A Beautiful Mind (2001)), he is too busy mentally in likening fish-bones from his habitual lunch to designing aircraft struts (and he eats the same lunch, because he likes it, and sees no reason to introduce variation).




A moment of tenderness is telling, because, although committed to his work into the night, he is also committed to the promise to keep hold of Nahoko’s hand : he accepts it less as a limitation, than as a challenge to be the best single-handed slide-rule***** user. As he delivers the line to her, one feels that he is undercutting any possible gallantry in the gesture (though it is both still given and received) – how can love exist in such matter-of-factness, even passed off as humour ?

Which is the film’s dilemma, that, with a main character both emotionally and teleologically distant, what real rapport can there be, and does it have to fall back on other big gestures, moments of poppies on the screen that feel as though they have been scanned from a Monet (plus - from a different Nash family from that mentioned above - a moment evocative of Paul Nash's canvas as a war artist, Totes Meer (c. 1941)), and a painterly palette of peachy skies behind aerofoils cutting through, and being supported by, the air ?

The Wind Rises, from its printed source, takes this line Le vent se lève ! … Il faunt tenter de vivre ! from the start of the last stanza of a fairly long poem by Paul Valéry (of twenty-four six-line stanzas) : Jirô and others keep repeating the words, as if they are a touchstone. To us, out of context, what do they mean, and what are they short for ? In the poem, called ‘Le Cimetière Marin’ (and set in a coastal cemetery), it is not certain that they stand being carved out in this way to stand for the whole. Which is maybe what, all along, this film is trying to do …


End-notes

* The film’s duration is mentioned, because, by contemporary standards, that is getting long for an acted feature – and, if one’s, as it were, 'animation stamina' is not all that it might be, it could be tiring to watch at that length when there is relatively little to stimulate the eye – even blackouts do not have the same effect when they are used, at the end of an animated sequence, to introduce a rest for the eye before the next.

** There is little doubting that the opening sequence will end with him waking.

*** Narratively, Miyazaki then makes the film hopelessly unclear where Jirô is next (or when), with what seems an Alpine location against whose rising backdrop he meets Nahoko, because we have been told in Germany that he is to separate from the rest of the party, because the organization wants him to see the rest of the world.

**** With a multi-player production such as this, as in the great Renaissance studios, this touch may be by Raphael himself, whereas these others, although in his style, are by his assistants.

***** A device whose purpose will not be lost on every generation, one trusts.




Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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Nicholas Collon conducts at Cambridge Corn Exchange

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23 May

Apologies that, at the time of the Vaughan-Williams-focused preview of this concert at Cambridge’s Corn Exchange (@CambridgeCornEx), it was overlooked that The Royal Philarmonic Orchestra (@rpoonline) is the Orchestra in Residence.


Under the baton of rising conductor Nicholas Collon (increasingly guesting with big orchestras, as well continuing The Aurora Orchestra), we had a programme of Britten, Elgar, and Vaughan Williams. (And the RPO return next season with highlights such as Stravinsky’s Suite* from The Firebird, and Brahms’ Symphony No. 2…)


Four Sea Interludes – Benjamin Britten

The programme note tells us that Britten resembled Stravinsky*, in conducting the Interludes as a separate entity days after Peter Grimes’ premiere.

Titled ‘Dawn’, ‘Sunday Morning’, ‘Moonlight’, and ‘Storm’, they evoke not only moods, which crucially punctuate the opera, but also a location in time and space : Collon was wisely unhurried with ‘Dawn’, not led on by its beautiful surface appeal, and getting an unfussy, clean, but sweet, sound from the RPO – allowing the resonant brass and rumble, as of swell, both to contrast with the rest of the ensemble, and come together.

In the next portrait, the cross-beats and near-dissonances were a delight, with the chromatic slide excitingly brought off, and filling the moment both with energy, and that trio of bell-notes, doom, and dread. ‘Moonlight’ was again controlled, daringly awaiting those fresh piercings of light from space : yet the xylophone that – with the harp – captures them ends with tortured motifs against the strings.

Finally, Collon built not the noisiest ‘Storm’, but with the strong natural suggestion of possibly going higher. He brought out the laughter in the brass, and ended crisply and exactly. A refreshing first course !



Cello Concerto in E Minor, Op. 85 – Edward Elgar

Another work (as the symphony is) in four movements, but a good contrast with the Britten, because of the different emotive qualities of the solo cello part, not least under Guy Johnston (who was playing because of Julian Lloyd Webber’s unlucky forced retirement), who, amongst other things, expressively brought to this well-known work :


* Pacing, and an inward interpretation, of the first main theme, but reaching out for brighter things, and bring it back with electricity

* Unforced string-tone, and a plaintive, guitaristic feel to plucking strings

* A teasing tremolo, as if of a young animal playing

* A lightness of touch in sustained passage-work

* Singing, not shouting, the famous melody-line, with Johnston leaning into the instrument, as if hearing the music within it

* Moments of quiet, leading to a different mode of projection, where some single notes just spoke volumes

* The physicality, and swaying, of playing after a theme that felt full of weariness and preoccupation

* A sense of rumination, and ending with a voice resolved to follow its own counsel before reprising the main theme and a momentary tutti at the close



Symphony No. 3 [no stated key, and first entitled A Pastoral Symphony] – Ralph Vaughan Williams

At the outset, a light, floral feel is weighted by the bass, then joined by Vaughan Williams’ beloved obbligato violin. Nicely balanced playing and phrasing suggested the magical, yet tinged with something indefinably other. Collon ran the first two movements together, which, when the Molto moderato ends (after sensations of a gently drifting swell) with the moving, plangent reediness of the oboe, makes sense for introducing the horn sonority.

In the strings, Collon brought out hesitancy, uncertainty, which developed into an uneasy sense of anxiety. Whatever exactly the trumpet calls may mean, the pianissimo was pregnant, and reminded of the composer’s words (describing Boult’s conducting**) : it was a positive, sensitive pianissimo, full of meaning and tension.

Next, the Moderato pesante seems to break through the tension, rising to its lovely main theme, but Collon held course, allowing no slackness in the brass theme (accompanied by cymbals). Gloriously sonorous brass intervals then heralded the carol-like coda.

For the Lento finale, Collon had soprano Sally Harrison placed off stage, singing wordlessly in an unshowy but haunting way. After the well-located harp melody came feelings of richness, an excitement that gave way to tenderness, revisiting previous themes, and a soaring sense of pride. The song recurred, and the strings faded away.

However many knew this work, people seemed both quietly attentive to it and appreciative of the RPO and Collon’s skill.


End-notes

* Though unclear whether it is that from 1911, 1919, or 1945 (as Stravinsky, as an ambitious composer, was forever making arrangements).

** The final movement of Symphony No. 6.




Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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Wednesday 21 May 2014

By way of an introduction to Vaughan Williams' Symphony No. 3 (originally A Pastoral Symphony)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2014
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22 May

Cambridge Corn Exchange is to be praised for giving us, in Ralph Vaughan Williams' Symphony No. 3 to-night, something out of the ordinary. For, despite Sir Adrian Boult’s still impressive recordings*, and championing by Andrew Manze (such as Boult did : he premiered this work) with Symphonies 4 to 6 at The Proms two years ago (and previously with The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra), the knowledge of Vaughan Williams is not, where it should be, in people’s minds, and the music in their hearts.

The works speak for themselves, if given the opportunity, and it is the composers whose reputation needs championing, in fact. But we must beware of switching one orthodoxy about what was originally called A Pastoral Symphony (and, as with A London Symphony, only numbered later, as well as not seeming to be expressed to be in any key), which is now that it is a form of relection on war :

Perhaps we did not know, as Martin Furber’s brief sleeve-notes for the CD release of the Boult recording* tell us, that Vaughan Williams had served in France, and that it was there, in 1916, that he first made sketches for the symphony (A London Symphony had been first performed in 1914). The question is : does it add to, or detract from, the symphony to try to connect it to the war, since Vaughan Williams had stated that its predecessor was absolute music, and in 1920 suggested, in a prgramme note, that it might better be called Symphony by a Londoner.

By all means, we want to listen to what broadcaster Stephen Johnson says that he has researched about Vaughan Williams and his time, but, most of all, we want to listen to the music…


So here is a suggestion for those new to this symphony. If one had to pick out an instrument that is redolent of each of the symphony’s four movements (although Vaughan Williams always loves trombones and writes stunningly well for solo violin) they would be, respectively, oboe, trumpet, flute and harp (as well as human voice). See the contributions being made by each instrumentalist (vocalist) at the time, and hear where they fit into the whole, both the whole of the movement, and of the accruing piece, and what Vaughan Williams is expressing by them.


Listen hard, though, for Wikipedia informs us that ‘It is scored for a large orchestra including:

* Woodwinds: 3 flutes (3rd doubling on piccolo), 2 oboes, cor anglais, 3 clarinets (in B♭ and A; 3rd doubling on bass clarinet), 2 bassoons

* Brass: 4 horns (in F), 3 trumpets (in C, 1 doubling on natural Trumpet in E♭), 3 trombones, tuba

* Percussion: timpani, triangle, cymbals, bass drum, celesta,

* Strings: harp, and strings.'


There is now an outline review of the concert, too, here


End-notes


* The one of this symphony, from 1952, with soprano Margaret Ritchie providing the wordless solo in the last movement and The London Philharmonic Orchestra takes some beating. Boult had given the premiere thirty years earlier (on 16 January 1922).



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Can you just put the tops back on these jars, please ?

This is a review of The Trip to Italy (2014)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2014
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22 May

This is a review of The Trip to Italy (2014)

* NB A very crude headline, from The Trip (2010), is quoted *

There were things riding on The Trip to Italy (2014), where they had not been earlier at Cambridge Film Festival for The Trip (2010), and it easily won the double.



Afterwards, in the Q&A broadcast by satellite from one of the London Picturehouses, Steve Coogan gave credit to director Michael Winterbottom for the whole being greater than the sum of the parts (though Coogan twice succeeded in avoiding that classic formulation), which Rob Brydon (@RobBrydon) humorously undercut by saying that he disagreed, and that it was just a matter of pressing play and record. (Winterbottom was in the audience, but was not taking part, which Coogan impishly attributed to wishing to appear profound, and so not saying anything that might give a contrary impression.)

What Winterbottom has done with both films is to craft something in cinematic terms whose essential premise has also given rise to six-part series of thirty minutes : for the films feel like films, not cut down in any way from something else, and it appears that there is material in the film that is not in the series and vice versa, alongside what is in both (at any rate, that was what seemed to have been said when The Trip screened at Cambridge).



This film reverses the roles a little from the earlier one, with Coogan not so much the know-all who has learnt facts and quotations to throw into the conversation and impress, but a man with ‘a hiatus’ that conveniently leaves him free to accompany Brydon (one which, it turns out, he hopes will not extend into winter), whereas we see the latter succeed with wooing and work. [We should, however, be calling these semi-fictionalized sides to Coogan and Brydon by the names Steve and Rob, so that when we can tell at a glance whether actor or role is meant…]

For the Steve who pontificates triumphantly in the abbey ruins in The Trip, or who wondrously meets someone with a newspaper bearing the startling headline STEVE COOGAN IS A CUNT, bears a resemblance to Coogan, but only as a starting-point for bringing friends Rob and Steve together for a week of driving, joking, eating and thinking in an invented newspaper commission to cover some culinary hot-spots. The Steve of that film definitely wants to impress more, but, when Coogan said in the Q&A that he tried to learn a couple of quotations from Byron each night to throw into the next day’s improvisation, there is little knowing which is Winterbottom’s creating a persona for Steve, or Coogan embellishing it.

What, though, is clear is that Steve is perfectly de Niro at the lunch on Thursday, and that, in reverse role, Rob truly cracks him up with his inventiveness as Parky : in the Q&A, Brydom let us into the knowledge that he had done it so well, because he had been fired up by some antagonism with Coogan, and, when he felt it just working out, went with it. Who says that it is just oysters that can be irritated to produce pearls ?

When asked about how making the two films compared, Brydon said that this one had been more convivial, and Coogan readily agreed with him, repeating the word. Brydon also said that he had been surprised, in the first one, that Coogan would just suddenly declare We’re not using this !, and so seek to gain control over the material – from which we gathered that there was none (or less) of that this time.

In giving the pair Alanis Morissette’s debut album Jagged Little Pill from 1995 to have with them in the car (though skipping the already much-ridiculed track ‘Ironic’), Winterbottom* seemed, they thought, to be off key. However, they then realized that it worked, and that, in 2014, men of their age would be revisiting it** – simply the resource of that album gave them scope, over several car journeys, for :

* Speculations about how to say ‘Alanis’ (because Steve, with his flat in LA, says that names are pronounced in the States as one chooses) – and then Rob points out that she AM is Canadian

* Then wondering whether, if the name Alan made it there, it would be stressed on the second syllable, and making it long vowel-sound – ‘My name is Alahn’

* Singing along to a track, or interjecting comments between the words, or wondering where Avril Lavigne stands in relation to AM

* Steve’s comment about the sort of interesting woman whom Morisette once represented, but to whom one would now say Can you just put the tops back on these jars, please ?…


The delightful thing is that, when Steve overlooks that Morisette is not from the same part of North America, it is so seamless that we do not know whether Steve has been led astray by Coogan or by Winterbottom. Likewise, when they are boarding the ferry in the direction of Capri, Steve makes a comment about what an instrument-case is made of – as if, from his reply, Rob could care. It may be Steve / Coogan showing off his knowledge, but he is calling what is obviously too small to be anything other than a case containing a cello a double-bass.

With beautiful scenery and cinematography, Steve grumping at having to take photos of Rob with various Byronic or Shelleyean inscriptions (until, that is, the photographer from last time turns up again), and the sheer good-humoured balance of reflecting on mortality*** and enjoying the present, there is plenty enough to enjoy – with all the references to films and stars, with even a Mafia vignette woven in as Rob’s guilty, vengeful dream towards Steve****, The Trip to Italy is a delightful way of enjoying two men being together against the backdrop of history, their usual lives, and their desires, summed up in the shimmering waters off Capri into which Steve and his son dive.




End-notes

* Who had made the car a Mini so that they could make reference to The Italian Job – and, of course, to Michael Caine, on imitating whom Steve delights in giving Rob a masterclass in The Trip…

** Coogan insisted on correcting Brydon that they are not both 49, because he has not yet reached his birthday (Happy birthday for 14 October, Steve !).

*** With Brydon even, to Steve’s feigned / Coogan’s real disgust, giving his Small Man Trapped in a Box voice to a supine figure in a plastic box at Pompeii, and then having the Small Man agree with him about Steve being square (This is a real person, Steve says) : as the scene goes on, the humour wins through, at Steve’s expense. (Steve had the last laugh, because, in the Q&A, Brydon realized that his vocal chords would not let the Small Man out just then…)

**** A question by Tweet, via host Boyd Hilton, asked what each man thought most of the other. Brydon said that he had grudging respect for Coogan, who, hesitating to reciprocate, said (and seemed genuine) being at ease with what he has / who he is, amplifying that this is something that he has improved on, but Brydon is still better at doing.




Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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Tuesday 20 May 2014

Money well spent ?

Passport to Poland

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2014
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20 May







Passport to Poland

To @UKIP with [g]love - with a silent 'g', more of a gauntlet really...

UK border control. A man stands in front of an official, who is behind a desk.


MAN

(Indignantly.) What do you mean, I’m Polish ? (With pride.) I was born in Braintree !



BORDER OFFICIAL


Do you have proof of that, sir ? (Man goes to interrupt, silenced by a finger.) By which I mean, are you carrying your birth-certificate with you… ?



MAN


No, but if you let me through, I could go home and get it. (The official just looks at him, almost pityingly.) But I suppose everyone says that… (Pause. Suddenly.) I know – what if I called my boss !



BORDER OFFICIAL


Sorry, sir – your passport states that you’re Polish (Man goes to interrupt, silenced by a finger.) – and so, I suspect, are the people I take to be your wife and daughters behind you. (A look silences a further attempt.)



Next in the queue, a woman in a cardigan and sandals, with a five-year-old pulling on her arm, and an eleven-year-old standing bored beside her, idly playing with her pigtails (as her iPad had to be switched off).


BORDER OFFICIAL


(Sing-song voice.) How is 'your boss' going to change that ?


(Abruptly, and without compassion.) Do you think that ‘your boss’ would prefer to deny knowing you to facing any 'difficult' questions ?



MAN


(Thinks, hesitates.) But…



BORDER OFFICIAL

Please ask your family – in your own language, if you like (The man looks surprised, but says nothing.) – to come over here with me. (He gestures to a waiting-area to one side, set out with a desk and chairs, and goes over to it with the passport.)


MAN

(Turns and speaks to them. Under his voice. Failing to interject any feeling of calm.) Don’t worry, dear – or you, or you. As you’ve heard, just some new procedure – picked out at random for some stringent checks – (As they approach.) just need to humour this chap, who’s pretending to think we’re Polish.


BORDER OFFICIAL

I’m not (The woman hands the other passports to him. He glances at them.) – pretending – to think that – you’re all Polish. You are all Polish !


WOMAN

(Indignantly.) But I’m a vicar’s daughter – from Brentwood ! (As the official looks at her.) And, no, I don’t have my birth-certificate, either…


BORDER OFFICIAL

Doesn’t matter, ma’am – you’re Polish now, and, to be frank, you need to accept going back to your homeland, rather than trying to sneak into England to set up a car-wash ! (Woman goes to say something, but cannot think what to say.)

Unless, although you’ve all got Polish passports, there is something that you can tell me to change my mind…

(Looks directly at the man.) And, no, I don’t mean that little question about what my wife likes to drink – or have I ever been to Norfolk, where you’ve got a lovely second home… !


MAN

(Getting up courage.) Now, look here – I’m going to complain to my MP !



BORDER OFFICIAL

Well, sir… (Flicks through the passport.) You can, of course, do that, but it seems that your MP is in Gdansk, where you now live.


WOMAN

But I’ve never even been to Gdansk ! (On the edge of tears.) Who would have thought that our holiday in Venice would end like this !



YOUNGER DAUGHTER

(Cackling.) Venethia, Venethia ! (Woman hushes her. Nonetheless.) Grand–ay, Grand–ay ! Venethia !



WOMAN


(To elder daughter.) Please take Ruth for a little walk – to explore that corner. (In angry response to elder daughter’s malevolent stare.) Or something ! Go ! ! (Over the top, the younger daughter babbles a convincing case for obeying.) Can’t you see how serious this is ! (Elder daughter trails her off, shoulders hunched.)



MAN, WOMAN


(Together.) But what has happened ? (She alone.) How did we leave with British passports… (He alone.) but they’re Polish ones when we come back. (Suddenly. Together.) Someone at the hotel !



BORDER OFFICIAL


(Shakes his head.) Let me explain it to you. (They nod. Baldly.) Do you remember that you decided – as you only had four months left to run on them – to renew your passports for this trip ?



MAN


Yes, but--- (The official puts his finger to his lips.)



BORDER OFFICIAL


Your wife had noticed that they were actually cheaper than a year ago (She nods.), and you thought it as well to renew them now, just in case (He nods.) – you both thought that it ‘made sense’.


(They both nod.)


WOMAN

But what’s this got… ? (Loudly.) I just want to go home to our house in Brent Pelham – and unpack our cases !



ELDER DAUGHTER

(Decides to join in. Calls out.) I’ve got to be back at six – Naomi’s calling for me. (Unfortunately for her, her sister has swept some things off a desk onto the floor, and is in more need of her attention.)


BORDER OFFICIAL

(Sternly.) Just listen to me. Who filled in the passport renewals ? (Man raises his hand.) And you read the guidance booklet ?


MAN

Yes, yes I did. (Hesitates.) Maybe not all of it, but I did. (Explains.) I had to.


BORDER OFFICIAL

What about the footnote to the footnote on page 38 ? (Man looks blank.) It says, in layman’s terms, that you need to tick the box underneath where you sign, in section 11, if you do not wish to retain British nationality. (Man looks sheepish, woman reproachful.)

People who tick that box get allocated to countries with ‘spare capacity’, and, again under the policies that you voted for, you then have to prove an extremely good reason to be allowed back into the UK.

(To the woman.) Did neither of you (To the man.) look at these passports, (Back to her.) along with your itinerary and other travel documents (Back to him.) before you made ready to go ?


MAN

(Shakes his head.)

Didn’t you even wonder why the colour of your passports was different, or they had a different crest on the front ? Too embarrassed by the photo… ?


MAN

(Pause. Disbelieving.) So you mean that our own country has kicked us out – given us a different nationality – in a country where we have no (Judders with each thought.) friends – job – family – school – home !


WOMAN

(Grief-stricken.) Oh, George – what have you done ! Was this because you skimped, and didn’t get the form checked at the post office ?!


MAN

(Ignores the accusation.) No… – wait a moment, she was a bit knowing at when I asked for the forms over the counter – said was I sure that… in case… I didn’t want more than one for each of us…


BORDER OFFICIAL

If you’d paid to have the forms checked, they would have been bound to ask you whether you no longer wanted to be British…

(Folds his arms. Sighs.) As it is…


WOMAN

(Not really believing all this.) But this is ridiculous ! When we voted not to have so many East Europeans here, we didn’t mean us !


BORDER OFFICIAL

Well, ma’am… (Momentary pause. Slightly condescendingly.) It’s not for me to say that no one learns lessons from history, but…


MAN

(With venom.) Oh, spare us your analysis of the origins of Kristallnacht ! (Official shrinks, for the first time thinking anything of his prey. Very loudly.) God, there must be some way through this Nonsense !! (To the woman.) Have you ever heard anything so crazy : they deem us no longer British because, on a form to renew a British passport, I tick some bloody stupid box that apparently says I’d rather be Croatian – or Czech !


BORDER OFFICIAL

Now that you put it like that, sir---


WOMAN

(With fury.) Yes, we do put it like that !


(Gesturing wildly, and overacting just a little bit.) We’re not about to let everything that we have be stolen – just because some dimwit government thought it a clever wheeze to let us leave the country, travelling on some gimcrack set of bogus papers !


BORDER OFFICIAL

Well---


MAN, WOMAN

(Together.) Aha ! (Man.) There’s nothing that you can say now, man – (Woman.) we know that your heart’s not in it !


BORDER OFFICIAL

(Sobs.) It’s true – I thought that I was better than this – tough as old boots. (Heaves his heart out.)


MAN

(Bracingly.) This is all very well, man, but pull yourself together –

(Gestures to the border.) or none of us will get out of here with honour.


BORDER OFFICIAL

(Self-pityingly.) You’re right, you’re right – it’s just that I thought that it would be a cinch to enforce these new rules…


WOMAN

Look, never mind that – we don’t want an apology, we---


ELDER DAUGHTER

(Calls out. To woman.) Look, I’m not even a registered child-minder, you know, and how much longer do I have to---


MAN

We’ll be with you in a minute – just stop Ruth playing with whatever she’s got in---


WOMAN

Wait a moment ! That’s the passports – we don’t want her eating those !


BORDER OFFICIAL

Don’t worry, ma’am. The passports are quite safe here (Gestures.), for what they’re worth, but… – do you mind if I see what she’s got ?


MAN, WOMAN

(Together.) Be my guest !


WOMAN

(Calls out. To elder daughter.) Go back and join your sister a moment. (To man.) He’s won over… but where do we go from here ?


BORDER OFFICIAL

(Returning.) Sir, what did you do with the old British passports when they were returned to you ? (Woman looks quizzical.) Put them somewhere safe ?


MAN

No, I don’t honestly remember seeing them – they didn’t come at the same time as (Gesturing at the Polish ones.) these.


WOMAN

(Uncertainly.) But didn’t Ruth ask if she could have them… ? And you said Yes, they were no use to us… ?


MAN

Yes, that’s possible…


BORDER OFFICIAL

I think that you’re right, ma’am, and that you did say so, sir. (Pause.) At any rate, your daughter must have put them in her bag before you went to Venice – and has just taken the opportunity to play with them (He waves them in the air.) now !


MAN, WOMAN

(Hesitantly.) Do you mean… ?


BORDER OFFICIAL

Yes, although they’ve been cancelled, I have a discretion to consider the unexpired portion of ‘your Britishness’ still valid, and, of course, I shall !


WOMAN

(Approaching the daughters with the man. To elder daughter.) Come, Abigail – we need to get back for that lift---


MAN

(To younger daughter. Catching her up in his arms.) And you, Ruth, can have that pony thing you’ve been wanting !


They re-join the official, and shake hands and exchange hugs all around.


BORDER OFFICIAL

Take care of these, now, and book an appointment with your MP as soon as you can – if you’ve got a good one, they’ll want to know all about it, sir, ma’am ! (He leads them back to the border, and lets them through.)

(As they walk away. Shakes head.) I’m just too soft-hearted, me – they were Polish, bang to rights !



ENDS

© Copyright Belston Night Works 2013







Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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