Cats are people (Kit Downes)

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17 March

This is a review of a gig, given at Cambridge's Hidden Rooms for Cambridge Modern Jazz (@camjazz), by the Kit Downes Quintet


As we must have been told, in various ways, more than half-a-dozen times, this was / had been an acoustic gig – perhaps that truly is a rarity, or for Kit Downes at any rate, but it did feel like pushing a unique selling point (USP) to those who, by virtue of being there, had already bought. (Maybe the USP was being hit home for the benefit of those who might hear, from us, what they had missed… ?)

@THEAGENTAPSLEY thanks for this - i think completely acoustic gigs nowadays (in jazz) are something of a rarity - sorry to go on about it!
— Kit Downes (@KitDownes) March 18, 2014

Personnel :

Kit Downes – upright piano

James Allsopp – B Flat and bass clarinets, tenor sax

Calum Gourlay – bass

James Maddren – drums

Lucy Railton – cello


Unlike some of Kit Downes’ other work, what he had written for the quintet* felt relatively composed – not in the sense of being tranquil (although some pieces definitely were), but less improvisatory (although not necessarily in the texture of his own contribution on piano). What it had was the familiar juxtaposition of moods within a piece that we know from Troyka (@Troykaband), where, as if in a set of Irish or Scottish tunes, there is a sudden, planned transition to the next section.

The first set opened with such a tranquil feel, as a way into the evening, and the ensemble was perfect, the notes of James Allsopp’s bass clarinet fitting perfectly within the scale of the harmony. The next, we were told (Downes gave the introductions, in his confident, avuncular way), had been inspired by Bill Frisell, and was a blues that built, with Allsopp, on B Flat clarinet, wailing, winding up the song**, but ultimately resolving in a quiet way, with plucked notes from Lucy Railton on cello. The third piece had an experimental feel, by now unlike the safety of the opener, with Allsopp giving us occasional blasts on his tenor sax, and with very loud unexpected knocks from James Maddren on drums.

The penultimate piece in the first set was a reflective number, in which Maddren had to keep up a complicated rhythm. Under the apparent calm of the surface, something was happening, and the piece imperceptibly built up, and then as quietly slipped away again. Ivan Hewitt’s description of Downes’ work seems apt : an engagingly slow-burn energy (The Sunday Telegraph). From B Flat, Allsopp returned to bass clarinet in a piece by bassist Gourlay called ‘Smoke’ (which he said, when Downes asked, had nothing to do with smoking), a somewhat sombre, syncopated melody, which was laced with sunnier intervals, and had a complicated theme in the upper voices.

In all of this, less mention than one might imagine of Downes himself, but he was there in all of it, setting the tempo / counting in, giving clear cues (for which Allsopp, in particular, looked expectantly), and keeping the currents under the progression at work, such that there was no doubting who was leading.

This group is an expanded form of the Kit Downes Trio, with Gourlay and Maddren (who, at the time of the release of their CD Quiet Tiger three years ago, had been playing together for six years). They are fellow graduates of the Royal Academy of Music (and Allsopp, another Academician (so is Lucy Railton), guested on the album). In fact, sometimes, what we heard did fall back on those three original players, with Railton and Allsopp patiently silent (but one would not necessarily have thought any more than we had the jazz standard of piano, bass and drums).

After the interval, the second set opened with a pair of pieces, ‘Boreal’ (from Tiger) and ‘Clowns After Dark’, the latter of which Downes explained, humorously at Allsopp’s expense, related to their early acquaintance, when Allsopp had arrived very late to a party (the other guests had gone) as a clown with a smudged appearance, whose efforts at making up might have been better performed at some other time. Another quiet opening, with Allsopp on bass clarinet, and then a jaunty number – as of a clown on the tiles ? – with a raucous solo from Allsopp.

Another pair of tunes followed, ‘Two Ones’ and ‘Bleydays’ (both from Downes’ album Light from Old Stars), the latter said to be a combined tribute to pianist Paul Bley and to t.v.’s Playdays… In the first, Railton’s cello had a keening quality to it, and as a whole the number felt like an air. Changing from Allsopp on clarinet to sax, Downes’ theme had the impression that we know from Thelonius Monk – which led some to the false interpretation that Monk did not know how to play – of music almost falling over itself in its rhythmic diversification. Rare for the gig, Downes had a solo, and then, when the others re-entered, the number ended softly with sax and drums.

The set closed with ‘Skip James’ (also from Tiger), which had the atmospheric mood of a blues, and in which Allsopp’s lower-register notes on bass clarinet fitted in beautifully with the gorgeous ensemble. Altogether, a very fine example of instrumentalists producing a sonorous whole, and some very varied effects.

When called up for an encore, Downes said that they did not often expect one, but decided, after hesitation, on ‘Owls’ – bite sized, he stressed. This is from Stars, and he said that it was in the spirit of David Lynch (the second film reference of the night). It may have been, but, with its nocturnal timbre (complete with owl calls from Maddren !), it also reminded a little of The Addams Family – although Downes predicted, regarding his choice, that it would send everyone off on a low, it was a very suitable end to the session.


End-notes

* Afterwards, Downes said that – which is the only place for him to start with a piece – everything had been with the quintet, and the skills of its players, in mind, e.g. James Allsopp’s great capacity to play in a free style, and Lucy Railton’s classical training : he is doing some gigs as a duo with her, and will be at Cheltenham (#cheltjazzfest).

** To quote the lyrics of a song on a solo album by Procol Harum’s Gary Brooker.


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Do you think I'm pretty ?

This is a review of Under the Skin (2013)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2014
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This is a review of Under the Skin (2013)

Rather unlikely though it may seem in retrospect, Tilda Swinton appeared as four characters in a film where a central tenet is that one or more of three genetically engineered ‘sisters’ needs to engage in sexual activity to collect semen to keep them all alive. Teknolust (2002) really is not much better than described, because it leaves nothing to the viewer’s imagination, and does one much care whether Ruby, Olive and Marine perish (let alone whether semen denatures if, as here, heated in a vessel) ?

In Under the Skin (2013), the danger, if anything, is of obscuring the novelistic source-material in a film that is visually very sharp and concerns quiet contemplation, allowing the eye to acclimatize to what is in the shot : a wide view, with, one realizes, Scarlett Johansson (Laura ?*) walking along the road in the middle ground; an assembly of images, faces, gestures in Glasgow that becomes a golden kaleidoscope; looking into the darkness, and seeing that a figure is coming out from it; the fog and what comes in and out of view in it. At one point, the raging of the sea, and people's impotence in the face of it.


At times, #UndertheSkin is unnervingly stylized, like ritual, at others observational of nature, and human nature, in an unassuming way.
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) March 19, 2014

In an opening sequence, complete with acute musical accompaniment composed by Mica Levi, we are given a sense of the genesis of Laura's character, centring on the iris, but, even then, we cannot be quite sure what we see - nothing to do with the quality, for that uncertainty is quite intentional. The film does not really have a narrative, but a structure, and it deliberately leaves the meaning of quite a bit of what we see unclear. In particular, Laura seems to collaborate with more than one bike-rider, who, as she does in her van**, roam the territory (they almost always seem to be seen at night, as is Laura for much of the film), but what the connection is and what purpose it serves no one could ever say.

It is a fine line to tread between telling too much story (Piercing Brightness (2013)) and ending up crass, and not telling enough (and, inevitably, losing some of the audience), and, although Skin is close to the latter, as the film develops, we are running through the possibilities in our minds, and it gives us quite a mental workout (even if, as said, some of those matters are ultimately going to be a matter of our deciding what was going on, and why : perhaps this is some kind of hive, with Laura as the queen, and the men as drones ?).

#UnderTheSkin #Win Hypervisual predatory identification @StudioCanalUK @picturehouses
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) March 16, 2014

Just when Skin seems to be in danger of having become repetitive, with variations on a theme, it is careful to deviate from what we have seen before - at first, still at its pace and nothing dramatic, although, in such terms and on all sorts of levels, the ending is a shock, not just because we have started to care about Laura when she resembles a black widow spider less. Moving to being less in control, we forget even that the famous face is that of an actress, and think of Johansson as a woman, no longer predating.

All in all, as Edgar Allan Poe would not, nothing to stretch the boundaries too far, an interesting journey, and some devastatingly impressive images.


Postscript

A somewhat spoilery review from Mark Kermode (in The Observer) is quite interesting


End-notes

* Apparently (according to IMDb, she (her name is never heard) is called Laura (which may have been taken from the book, as may the fact that she is English, as Johansson perfectly sounds).

** The same IMDb entry asserts that hidden cameras captured the men who get into the van, who were not actors, and director Jonathan Glazer only told them afterwards about the film. Equally, it describes the film as An alien seductress preys upon hitchhikers in Scotland whereas being asked for directions or walking to the local shop is hardly hitching...


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From the archive : Miró at Tate Modern

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2014
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17 March

I do not know whether those who purchase a ticket on the day are allowed re-entry (and I have heard people in the past talking about ‘doing a show’ in 90 minutes because they have an art-history background), but I tend to find these Tate Modern exhibitions quite demanding, because they are so extensive and there is often almost too much to look at.

(I have seen some comments about the ticket-price: maybe the exhibitions will seem expensive if, apart from the availability of toilets (and they are not very obvious), one understands that the only time to look around is the two or three hours before needing lunch or dinner.)

If not, this is where Tate membership is a real benefit, because I am free to go off to have a coffee or something to eat, if I am getting fatigued and realize that I am no longer taking in what I am trying to look at. I can then go back into the exhibition once or twice more, or even leave the rest of it until another day.

However, in this case, apart from the Barcelona series – which I left to the end and only had time to spend a few seconds in front of each print – there was no one group of exhibits that represented a very significant amount of time needed to look at it properly. (I would say that the display-cases in the Gauguin show represent the other extreme.) Room 1 had been seen on another day, but I managed to look around yesterday in the five hours until 10.00 p.m. that I had available.

That, too, is a benefit of Friday and Saturday evenings, with the gallery thinning out towards closing time. Others have commented on the two rooms with two triptychs each (Rooms 10 and 12, although the fireworks triptych was displayed differently, and well), but it was only later that one could get a clear view of all three canvases, and I deliberately waited until past 9.30 p.m. to view them.

They were stunning, both pairs, and I will hope to see them again when the gallery is quiet, but I wondered whether they really needed a little more space to themselves, and the fact that they were back to back meant that a viewer standing away to take in one triptych as a whole, as I did, would inevitably (if there had been anyone there then) have been in the way of anyone wanting to see the other.

With an artist as prolific as Miró (and I had not been aware that he was working at his death until I saw the video, which was not in its normal place at the exit), the exhibition was inevitably selective, but it was a very good selection, not least for the Constellations series, and, again, the triptychs.

That said, including the burnt pictures but not having footage from the video that I saw displayed on a screen in Room 11, which could have showed the artist burning a canvas (and even stepping on it and leaving red footprints) was, I believe, a mistake: with the video where it is, not everyone would see it, and I consider it as of much more interpretative value to have something relevant to the creation of a series of works in the place where they are being shown.

Above all, I now appreciate that Miró related to series (and, although he is quoted as saying that two and two do not make four, he had some sort of personal mathematics that related one item in a series to the next), and also to sequence, so it was also unfortunate that the captioning in Room 7 did not more clearly draw attention to his request for the Constellations to be displayed in order. They were displayed in order, but the casual viewer would not obviously have known where to start, or (except from the date on the caption to each painting) that they were in any definite order.

Which takes me to my final few observations about the exhibition and how it was curated:

1. Unless I am much mistaken and misunderstood the footage, the curators of the exhibition themselves (shown, on the video, visiting Miró’s studios, both of which he had used since 1959) confused the studios, and seemed to be saying that works created in one were the product of the other.

In any event, it would again have been helpful to understand the artist’s working life to have had the history and views of the studios, and his way of working, set out in the exhibition (not just references to them in the captions).

2. Inevitably, the captions to the paintings (as well as those for each room) tease out meanings, and make suggestions as to how work and life relate: the ones in this exhibition were generally suitably tentative, but, after a while, the proposition introduced by ‘maybe’ kept eliciting my quiet retort Who says so ? (What evidence is there for what the ladder imagery means, I want to ask.)

On this level, not least when the video footage of Miró gave a very different impression of the genesis of the burnt canvases, and set his producing them in a different context, I sometimes felt misled by what was being suggested as to his motivation or meaning (Room 11, for example).

3. Finally, the fact that the chronology of his life was (as it usually is) outside the exhibition, but was essential reading to flesh out one’s understanding of Spain and its history did not help. (I do not even recall a map of Spain for that matter, showing where Mont-roig and other significant places are, and not everyone has yet visited Barcelona.)

This was a particular problem where such help was most needed: I was being asked to understand the paintings from 1931 onwards against the background of what was happening, but I could not tell from what was presented to me when Franco actually gained power, or when the Spanish Civil War began and (how it) ended.

Details of that war as a whole, including German involvement and the anti-fascist movement, seemed to have been assumed to be common knowledge, which I doubt is true: information and images would have informed viewing the paintings greatly. The Phoney War was also referred to, but we were not even told (it was the anniversary on my visit) that Britain (and France) declared war on 3 September, or when Germany invaded France and The Low Countries.

Unfortunately, I end up thinking that I will have to look out texts on the civil war myself to understand better the times in which Miró was painting.


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Paul : The distinction of being not just a bore, but a boor

This is a review of Midnight in Paris (2011)

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This is a review of Midnight in Paris (2011)

People have, apparently, likened this film to Manhattan (1979), which they mean in a back-handed way, as saying that Allen has returned to form, but this view is wrong on two counts: Allen may have made occasional recent films (e.g. Match Point (2005)) that do not work (or only work clunkily), but he has never lost his form; and Midnight has almost nothing, opening montage excepted, in common with Manhattan (or, for that matter, Annie Hall (1977), the other chosen point of comparison – why choose two films made more than thirty years ago ?).

Taking each point in turn, there is nothing to be apologetic about in either Whatever Works (2009), perfectly suiting Larry David, or You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010), although probably less successful for reasons of plot – Midnight is not a welcome recovery, but simply surpasses them both.

The wide situational and character sweep of Midnight is also nothing like that of Annie or Manhattan, which are arguably more like chamber music than this piece, which, if not a symphony, has clear claims on being a concerto.

In addition, it is not as if Paris has not been the backdrop before, unless people have already forgotten Everyone Says I Love You (1996), and it is common knowledge that Allen is truly American in feeling the French capital’s charm and attraction – just as he does London’s very different pull.


Midnight is not perfect, either, but there are some very good elements to it, some of which look back in the canon: for example, the lead character, Gil Pender (Owen Wilson), has definite similarities, not just in mannerisms and pacing, with Kenneth Branagh as fellow writer Lee Simon in Celebrity (1998). Such figures, if not Allen-substitutes per se in the films in which he does not (choose to) cast himself, function in the same pivotal sort of way, and often have the pick of the lines. Taking that further, Lee, as does Gil, finds himself in an exciting new world that he does not know, but it is one of elitism and opportunity – Gil has opportunity, perhaps, but of a different kind..

The film feels very close to Allen’s short stories, and he very casually has Gil enter the world of the 1920s by being offered a lift, when he is lost, by a group of revellers in a vintage Peugeot: nothing overt in this transition, except for the bubbles in the champagne that they insist that Gil join them in drinking, and he is taken he and we know not where.

Thankfully, we can get away from regarding the scenario as magical realism (whatever it may be, though it little matters). For Gil not only gives us the benefit (probably partly because he is tired after an evening of wine-tasting, in which he favoured quantity over quality) of letting us be several steps ahead, but also because, just because of the dramatic irony, we can watch his reactions of disbelief more closely. (As the film goes on, they may, however, do Allen fewer favours : how few even know that Eliot’s initials stand for Thomas Stearns, let alone would blurt out the names ?)

Yes, it is just a given that this travel to the earlier decade happens, and that, although Gil can repeat the experience, he cannot explain it to anyone in his own time. (As is usual, e.g. Lucy first visiting Narnia in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.) Yet it is never just a shared magical assumption about the nature of the world, unless one includes the viewer.

The feel of the era is good, which, when this is not an art-historical recreation, is what matters, but Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates) could still have had a chance to shine more with a less functional role (which may have fallen prey to editing): after all, Stein herself was no mere editor or midwife to other’s creations, and was just as much a character as Hemingway and Dalí, in particular, are shown to be. (As to whether she would have called them ‘crazy Surrealists’, one is less sure.)

With Adriana (Marion Cotillard), one is less sure whether it is that she gives Gil attention (which Inez (Rachel McAdams), though she is also sexy, seems less keen to do), as that she can claim Modigliani and Braque as lovers (in this film, at least), that draw him to her company : let alone the t.v. series, Goodnight, Sweetheart dealing with such a theme, it is at the centre of The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), and Allen’s early story ‘The Kugelmass Episode’ (first collected in Side Effects).

As a parable of what one can and cannot have, Paris of the 1920s may be where Gil would have himself be, but he has not foreseen that it might not be everyone’s choice, and he finds himself making other choices for the future instead.

Where the film really does not work is with facts about the contemporary literary and artistic circles, and, if one were the ‘pseudo-intellectual’ whom Gil dubs the very irritating character of Paul (who is of a type whom Allen likes creating, and does so well*), one would have had them to hand in the screening :

Not that it matters, because it may be that all this is Gil’s imagination, and that he is capable of being confused about facts as even Paul (who apparently confounds the figures of Rodin’s wife and mistress, and then insists that the guide is wrong**): if so, then, as with a dream, or as with psychosis (the explanation offered by Inez for Gil’s behaviour and utterances), what he experiences is the product of his will and mind.

In a dream, it is just as much we who are in the dream, creating the people whom we meet, be they Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, or Papa Hemingway (obviously not then called that, but that is how Gil relates to the man whom he has met). One curiosity is that, except for the party to which Gil is first taken, everyone is dressed much more casually than photographs show was usual at that time. Another is that, when it comes to Buñuel, Allen has made him a rather sullen character, and with no suggestion, around the table, that Dalí and he are – or are to be – film-makers together (in Un Chien Andalou (1929). Largely as a private joke, because few might know the reference, Allen has Gil give Buñuel the essential details of the plot of The Exterminating Angel (1962) (which are also supposed to be dealt with in a scene within L’Age d’Or), but Buñuel rebuff him with very unreceptive questions about why that would or would not happen – as if he has not got a Surrealist bone in his body.

This does not seem to suggest that we believe that Gil is dreaming, even if what he experiences is a deep wish on his part, but rather that too much licence has been taken with showing this period, probably in an attempt not to confront an audience with the truth, that the free and easy Surrealists and other artists of the time were to be found in suit and tie.



End-notes


* E.g. Alan Alda as Lester in Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989). (Alda is also in Everyone Says.)


** However, it seems that Rodin did nothing as bourgeois as intending that either woman – let alone any of the others ! – could contemporaneously claim to be married to him: it was only after knowing Rose Beuret for 53 years that, in 1917, the year in which they both died (she just two weeks afterwards), they married.

By then, Camille Claudel, the other woman, had already been confined to a psychiatric unit for more than twenty years, following a breakdown when Rodin and she split up in 1898, and died there in 1943.


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Don’t play hide and seek with reality !*

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9 March

This is a review of a special screening (from 35mm) at The Arts Picturehouse (@CamPicturehouse), Cambridge, of Ken Loach’s Hidden Agenda (1990), as presented as part of the series ‘Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theories Season’ (http://www.conspiracyanddemocracy.org) by the University of Cambridge’s CRASSH (Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities)

The invited guests of CRASSH’s own Hugo Drochon, historian Tony Craig and film producer David Hickman, introduced the film and usefully put it in its political and cinematic context. That said, the film was made a quarter of a century ago, and what we might know now (assuming that Sinclair is right that there is a consensus) about the truth of claims that there was a Tory smear campaign against Harold Wilson may not have been available at the time of this film (and in 1998 – please see the title cited, below) – or not easily to director Ken Loach (or Jim Allen – please see below). (Hickman stated, both before and following the screening, that he thinks that Loach did believe the story about a smear.)  

Besides which, although Loach has close relationships with his writers, Jim Allen is solely credited with producing the script (i.e. not as a co-writer with Loach) : if, therefore, it were germane that talk in the film of a Wilson plot does not accord with the evidence that we have (for it may not be germane, if this is a fiction - please see below), Allen as well as Loach must presumably have ‘bought into’ that notion at the time, even if only enough to make it a part of the skeleton on which the piece is built.

And, historically verifiable accounts apart, the basic message remains : rubbishing others and their reputations can and has been used throughout history by those seeking power (or seeking it for others, e.g. from the US operations with various regimes in Central America to Julius Caesar and Ralph Fiennes' film Coriolanus (2011) (as based on Shakespeare)), irrespective of what are asserted as laudable reasons for so doing.

In other words, the film need not just revolve in its own world, but can be a paradigm for how power is sought, gained and held. This is probably what Loach means in his description of the film (quoted interviewed by Graham Fuller as part of the favoured Faber & Faber series on this blog, Loach on Loach**) :

I guess it’s best described as a fiction inspired by fact

Earlier, Loach talks to Fuller, the book’s editor, about the film’s critical reception, saying that :

You hope some of these notions [sc. about what British forces or public servants have done] linger with people in the audience, but in terms of public debate it’s very difficult to get anything started. One of the ongoing frustrations of film-making is that you try to put out a set of ideas or a piece of evidence in front of an audience, while being as gripping and as entertaining as you can, but critics never deal with the substance or follow up on the questions you’re asking in a film.

Is this why you regard most film criticism as decadent ?

I think so, yes. The critics will examine the brush strokes, but they won’t stand back and see the content of the painting. I don’t know why that is.

[Ibid., pp. 82–83]

Paradigm or not as the film may be intended to be, it is, as Hickman pointed out, beautifully lit, using available light – not strictly so, as he explained afterwards, but as near to it as could be, and a model that, he observed, has been taken over by Hollywood in the interim. (Regarding watching the print, Hickman observed how different the scene looks when Harris is partly in darkness, and then comes into the light, with which the DVD version does not compare.) In the introduction to the chapter in which he deals with, amongst other films, Hidden Agenda, Fuller explains where the film and Loach’s collaborations fit in with his career to date :

Following the critically acclaimed and appropriately controversial Hidden Agenda (1990), their [sc. Loach and Allen’s] initial film collaboration, they went on to make Raining Stones (1993) and Land and Freedom(1995).

[…] The third factor [in ‘this not unextraordinary renaissance’]*** was the teaming of Loach and Barry Ackroyd, who has photographed all of Loach’s features since Riff-Raff and has brought to them the kind of uncompromising visual rawness that had been lacking from Loach’s films in the Looks and Smiles era. Ackroyd’s cinematography restored to Loach’s and his writers’ world its aesthetic integrity. […]

[Ibid., pp. 78–79]

To contemporary viewers, Brian Cox and Maurice Roëves may be very familiar faces****, from which we can take some comfort in this sinister scenario, and both seem just right for their roles (supported, in the former case, by John Benfield (as Maxwell)) – even physically, Cox has the solidity to be a high-ranking policeman (which we believe will translate into moral and intellectual weightedness), Roëves the wiriness that fits a man on the run. The triangle of principals is completed by Frances McDormand, who shows singular self-determination and sheer spunk as Ingrid Jessner, the woman whose partner, with Harris, is at the (apparent) centre of matters. Unknown to her, and to Kerridge and Maxwell, everything about them has been researched, and they are less the investigators (she with a civil liberties group to which her partner and she belong, he to the police force) than the investigated.

We have high hopes, almost alongside Loach, that Kerridge will do the job with which he has been entrusted, and not worry about putting a few noses out of joint, as we see him happily doing for much of the film. The nub of the film is to lead us to understand how limited his room for manoeuvre is, hence the relevance to a season about conspiracy and the theories that postulate its existence : it is a moot point whether all who infer 'hands at work behind the scenes', and hence a hidden agenda, embrace the terms ‘conspiracy [theorists / theory]’ to describe themselves and what they believe happened or is happening, or whether it is a term of abuse***** from those who dismiss both theories and theorists. Not always from a position of power, such as that from which the film’s Sir Robert Neil (Bernard Archard) and Alec Nevin (Patrick Kavanagh) address Kerridge, but usually with derision.

As the film’s tension builds from that point, one wonders whether it is going to end, for Ingrid, as for a young-seeming Meryl Streep in Silkwood (1983) – or for Harris… In the event, one is reminded of those shocking moments in other depictions when the ground has, stealthily and step by step, been taken out from someone... until the teetering denouement is, because of the physics of gravity, an inevitability – for want of a better analogy, a demise of the kind that David Carradine (as Bill), in Kill Bill Volume 2 (2004), is unaware of facing.

Loach and Allen tell their story with care, and are, for example, content to show us Harris amongst the vividness and noise of the Orange Order parades, but without telling us till later who he is, because they trust that we will recall him and his behaviour. Kerridge and Ingrid are both intended to invoke our sympathies as seeking the truth, although they take different paths and end up diverging (which, of course, only adds to the drama).

This is a film that looks very good cinematically, and still has much to say, Sinclair’s objections as to its historicity apart (it is a document, of a sort, of its own time, however we judge Loach’s politics and where they have him lean) – both emotionally and as to how the world works. As to what Allen and he sought to weave together, perhaps the final word should be left to Loach (continuing the short quotation above) :

It’s very close in the depiction of the murders that were carried out by the RUC and in the corrupting effect of the British presence in Northern Ireland, but the whole issue of fact or fiction gets quite tricky at this point, and I’m not sure we solved it altogether satisfactorily – or the attempt to weave together the Stalker elements with the conspiracy against Wilson.

[Ibid., p. 84]

End-notes

* As Kerridge (Brian Cox) is told, before he is ultimately manipulated into accepting the reality propounded by the film’s conspirators (rather than exposing the reality behind it) : for, as they candidly tell him, they did what they did, it cannot be undone, and they did it – and still think it – ‘for the best’. (The old Machiavellian-style ends over means argument…)

** London, 1998, p. 84.

*** The second being sympathetic producers Rebecca O’Brien and Sally Hibbin.

**** Cox, for example, from Menenius in Fiennes’ Coriolanus (2011) (as well as the voice of disembodied and recreated Alan Watts in Her (2013)), and Roëves from the Chief Inspector in Brighton Rock (2010) (or even Colonel Munro in The Last of the Mohicans (1992)).

***** Radio 3 (@BBCRadio3) has renamed its late-night arts programme Free Thinking, but there were times when to be called a freethinker was meant in a wholly derogatory way.


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

Review by Tweet of events on the evening of 5 March 2014

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2013
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6 March (updated, with some credits, 8 March)

19:30 Radio 3 Live in Concert: The Monteverdi Choir's 50th anniversary concert, featuring Monteverdi's Vespers. http://t.co/w2u8Fn3ESE
— On BBC Radio 3 Now (@onradio3now) March 5, 2014

Martin Handley in Cambridge talks down the line to @BBCInTune with King's College Chapel behind. #R3LiveInConcert pic.twitter.com/yInfDsYgGk
— BBC Radio 3 (@BBCRadio3) March 5, 2014

Heresy, but somehow Sir John E. G. doesn't do it : his @bbcproms Brandenburgssounded fragmented, and Vespers of 1610 disparate, not a whole
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) March 6, 2014

Are Monteverdi's Vespers 1610 meant to sound like raw baroque mixed with English choral tradition, 19th C oratorio, Brahms German Requiem ?
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) March 6, 2014

Conducting an instrumentalist (or two) and singer's completely redundant, Sir John E. G. ! In Bach Passions, do you conduct the recitative ?
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) March 6, 2014

If you parallel-park in Norwich, watch out for directions from Sir John E. G., as he conducts you from a podium in @Kings_College Chapel...
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) March 6, 2014

If, in all seriousness, you know @Kings_College Chapel, can you imagine someone trying to conduct musicians in the choir through the arch ?
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) March 6, 2014

Happy 50th Birthday, Monteverdi Choir! @mco_london @BBCRadio3 #KingsCambridge pic.twitter.com/u2EJVWBF71
— Eleanor Minney(@EllieJMinney) March 5, 2014

All part of the threatricality/ spectacle of a 50th anniversary concert, but, with a singer and string-player either side, it sounded grand
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) March 6, 2014

Just as did, later on, the antiphonal effects, between chapel or side-chapel and antechapel - it felt as though it could be St Mark's, 1610
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) March 6, 2014

And some wonderful soloists, which one imagined could have been heard in Renaissance Venice, also exploiting positions in the split choir...
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) March 6, 2014

Superb performances from Silvia Frigato(soprano), EmanuelaGalli(soprano), Alexander Ashworth (bass), Nicholas Mulroy(tenor) ->
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) March 8, 2014

And, from The English Baroque Soloists, Kati Debretzeni(violin), Anne Schumann (violin), Valerie Botwright(Violone) ->
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) March 8, 2014

EvangelinaMascardi, JakobLindberg & JosiasRodriguez Gandara(chittarone), & Jamie Savan, Bork-FrithjofSmith, Richard Thomas (cornetti)
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) March 8, 2014

All in all, lovely for the staging - reminiscent of Robert Hollingworth(@ifagiolini) with Tallis/ Striggiohere - and in places...
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) March 6, 2014

But, Sir John E. G., just too raggedy in its style to come close to resembling a unity, @THEAGENTAPSLEY regrets having to suggest. :(
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) March 6, 2014

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

Patricia Kopatchinskaja directs

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4 March

A review of a concert given at West Road Concert Hall (@WestRoadCH), Cambridge, by Patricia Kopatchinskaja, directing Britten Sinfonia on Monday 3 March

The musicality, depth of feeling, inventiveness, etc., of Patricia Kopatchinskaya were truly amazing, @BrittenSinfonia ! Again, please...
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) March 4, 2014

From the pre-concert talk, where Patricia Kopatchinskaya (@PatKopViolin) was interviewed by the chief executive of Britten Sinfonia (@BrittenSinfonia), David Butcher, it seemed that she might have curated this concert with the ensemble’s strings. Certainly, she was keen that we should hear the work by Armenian composer Tigran Mansurian (Concerto for Violin and String Orchestra No. 2, Four Serious Songs), and, when asked what he hoped that we would take away, that we should listen with the heart.


Brahms (1833–1897) (arr. Angerer (b. 1927))
In any case, as one would expect from a Sinfonia concert, sensitive programming was by no means the least part of the evening, which opened with a group of pieces (a selection from Brahms’ Choral Preludes, Op. 122 (from 1896), as arranged by Paul Angerer) that spoke with direct, condensed spirituality, but in a variety of moods. The first, O Gott, du frommer Gott, had a very full string sound, and it was only gradually that it became apparent that there was a presence of a voice amongst the texture because a few players, such as leader Thomas Gould, were actually holding their instruments and vocalizing – a very subtle and aetherial effect, which was used in one other of the preludes.

In Herzlich tut mich erfreuen, a prelude that opened with viola and cello, there was an impression of disembodied spirits swaying, whereas, in Herzliebster Jesu, was hast du verbrochen, there was a more weighty feel, as of a force that is in a flow, but resisting it. With Mein Jesu, der du mich, the writing seemed fugal, but lighter in quality, until, that is, the final entry of the basses, which felt to be sounding the depths – a haunting number, which had a relatively sudden end. The final prelude, O Welt, ich muss dich lassen, alternated tutti with a small group of the principals, and had the air, if not the exact theme, of Bach’s St Matthew passion, closing with a heartfelt pianissimo, one of the Sinfonia’s specialities.


Tigran Mansurian (b. 1939)
The link with Brahms was that, in the form of his Four Serious Songs, he gave rise to Tigran Mansurian’s Concerto for Violin and String Orchestra No. 2 – their texts and spirit provided the genesis for a new work, from 2006, which opens with an Andante con moto and the use of harmonics in its introduction, and a slide-effect that resembled keening. In the solo part, where Kopatchinskaja was sometimes dramatically left as an extremely chromatic lone voice and with material that revolved around various types of scale and silence, she played with great expressiveness.

Perhaps significantly, the movement closed following a prominent rising scale, given that texts from Brahms’ original settings ranged from the Book of Ecclesiastes to the celebrated passages in the first letter to the Corinthians, which ends the greatest of these is love. It was followed by another movement marked Andante, but this time qualified by mosso agitato, which was evidenced in some tempestuous currents, which then died away and led to a hesitant solo. When the orchestra re-entered and combined with the lyricism of the solo part, it felt like a prayer. Tension then built dramatically, as a piano passage crescendoed, culminating in an abrupt gesture, after which what seemed like a pianissimo possibile was highly effective : the violin sounded like a pleading voice, and the writing again made use of a scale. Reminiscent of the words in the Book of Isaiah, a smoldering wick he will not quench, the movement closed like a faltering flame.

Next came an Allegro vivace, which had a vivid melody, but with interruptions, and then gave way to another version, this time with harmonics, before resuming. A piece of simple gestures, and again exploiting the quality of being very quiet. To conclude, a movement marked Con moto, molto semplice, which, although coming last, felt like the heart of the work in the form of a culmination, and started with a rocking theme, as of a lullaby, but leading to some very violent writing for the cello section. In the solo part, the material seemed very embellished, and the movement continued with outbursts, before drawing to a close in what seemed an organic way. Though not a work that was necessarily easy on a first hearing, it clearly spoke to the Cambridge audience, as mediated by Kopatchinskaja, and was well received.


Bartók (1881–1945)
In the final work of the first half, the Bartók Romanian Folk Dances from 1915, Kopatchinskaja did not exactly take liberties with what typical recordings do with them*, but she made them feel as a musician in the folk tradition might treat them, fitting the rendition / performance to the occasion, and alive to how it is being received. In the few minutes that the group of dances last, we ran a whole gamut from vigorous playing and slide-notes, performed with feeling, to a sense of restraint, coupled with squeaks and teasing from the soloist. There was also a gypsy strain to the solo violin early on, and, later, a very idiomatic quality to the violin, with the set of dances being brought to a close with immense energy and a strong sensation of joy, evidently conveyed to those present, to judge from the applause.


Janáček (1854–1928) (arr. Tognetti (b. 1965))
Returned from the interval, the audience was in the world of Janáček's String Quartet No. 1 from 1923 (nicknamed or subtitled The Kreutzer Sonata). (There was a fascinating note about the composer's struggle for recognition in the (ever useful) Sinfonia programme.) This time, however, it was the quartet as interpreted for string ensemble by Richard Tognetti. Without in any way disputing the choice of repertoire from a couple of seasons ago, this was, unlike Mahler’s of Schubert’s String Quartet No. 14 in D Minor (alias Death and the Maiden), an arrangement that really added to one’s appreciation of the original, rather than merely having it writ large :

It felt unforced throughout, and not like those orchestrations that try to change the scale of a work. In the opening Adagio, the strings had a luminosity to them, striving, as the movement developed, to achieve serenity from a sense of anxiety. Then, in the first of three movements marked Con moto, a suspenseful atmosphere, where things felt sharp, and, although broken by an edgily sunny interlude, one that intensified. Under Kopatchinskaja, the Sinfonia played with immense delicacy and poise, with a delicious bass and a figure that kept repeating, as if unable not to.

The very familiar third movement, with its vivid change of tempi, communicated one central message amidst its reference to Beethoven’s sonata and sometimes wistful, sometimes agitated beauty, that of a gesture of trying to erase something – as of Lady Macbeth compulsively washing her hands, over and again. In the finale, with phrasing that felt like a bird trying to fly, despite some ensnarement, the musicality of Kopatchinskaja was supremely evident. Heightened tension in the pizzicato passages and a racing movement in the cello section seemed to lead inevitably to the turbulent close of this work, with what came across as a mood of resignation. All in all, a lovely way to hear this music, which has thankfully become better known in the last decade or so.


Mendelssohn (1809–1847)
Finally, a youthful work from Mendelssohn for violin and strings, which Kopatchinskaja had told us that she likes better than his famous concerto. In three movements, it began with an Allegro, and we were soon brought to the tender heart of the theme. From there, the soloist was called upon to execute a series of runs, and then a moment of stasis, with a sustained note, became the springboard for yet more – the writing and playing were both virtuosic, and the latter brought freedom to the former, with Kopatchinskaja giving the impression of improvising cadenzas.

In that part of the concerto, Mendelssohn seemed to be enjoying himself with a recurrent motif, whereas, in the central Andante, he brought us an exquisitely beautiful theme, which Kopatchinskaja made soar and sway with ease – it seemed almost to have the sweetness of birdsong, with the Sinfonia’s ensemble sensitive to the mood, and the movement closed quiescently. With a lively dance tune in the Allegro finale, Kopatchinskaja and Mendelssohn’s sense of playfulness were in their element, and brought the programme to a triumphant finish.


Ligeti (1923–2006)
Not quite, though, for leader Thomas Gould and Kopatchinskaja gave a duo of Ligeti as an encore : the Ballade had the feeling of a Gaelic air, as against the boisterously spirited Danse, and were much appreciated as a closing gesture.

Reading Ivan Hewett's @Telegraph review, @THEAGENTAPSLEY's not clear that he 'got' @PatKopViolin, with his 'ad feminem' talk of protocols...
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) March 6, 2014

Judge for yourself : here is Hewitt's review...


All in all, a very pleasurable chance to hear this artist, and this Tweet may sum up many a reaction :

Thank you, @PatKopViolin, for coming to Cambridge ! Please come back and bring us some more Bartok - all or any of what you said.
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) March 4, 2014

Asked what longer work she would bring if she came back, she had said that, depending on with whom else she was playing, she would choose :

* One of the Sonatas for Violin and Piano

* The Sonata for Solo Violin

* The Violin Concerto No. 2, or one of the Rhapsodies



End-notes

* It had been quite clear from what she said in the pre-concert talk that she had been most reluctantly persuaded of the importance to developing her career of making CDs, which she had rebelled against because their unfree nature, as fixed in and for all time, which goes quite counter to her spirit of intuition and innovation.


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

My lobby boy !

This is a review of The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2013
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3 March

This is a review of The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

One of the few films that not only understands the difference between an immigrant and a refugee, but will make you laugh, about it – and much else :

Seen at @CamPicturehouse, The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) is huge fun: great detail, and killer lines delivered perfectly by Ralph Fiennes !
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) March 3, 2014

Maybe one should not be surprised, but Fiennes (Gustave H.) brings such poise to this role that we happily accept all the absurdity, and embrace this ludicrous confection of an edifice (of the striking pinkness of a battenberg), with all its bygone airs and attitudes, themselves a passing metaphor for life. Set in some fictitious mountainous region with insistent balalaikas, but place-names in German, the film frolics through the confusion arising from the death of a regular guest – I sleep with all my friends, says Gustave H. disarmingly (though to his cost) at the assembly of the relatives hearing her last wishes.

The old saying goes Where there’s a will, there are relatives, and many a Bond villain had less of a henchman than the deceased’s (Tilda Swinton’s, as Madame D.) offspring do in Willem Dafoe (Jopling), who casually throws the executor attorney Deputy Kovacs’ (Jeff Goldblum’s) prized possession out of the window (he, like Llewyn Davis, even likes to travel with it). The name of her son Dmitri (Adrien Brody) keeps up this tenuous Russian connection, but avoiding much imputation that his real wickedness is any more than heightened avarice, since real misdeeds are always best delegated.

The film is a romp, with, amongst other things, a deliberately over-complicated series of frames*, a series of sight-gags (for example, the old one of knocking on a huge door, and a small door opens), and crisply composed shots of alpine-type absurdities** (such as lifts and gantries that allow one access to a statue of a stag rampant). With many big names taking cameos, and a carefully crafted script, the film soars because of how Fiennes embodies Gustave H. and has comic timing that many on the stand-up circuit would die for :

F. Murray Abraham and Jude Law in their capacities* do the job, but the sheer lightness and deftness of touch of Fiennes is matchless. Of course, they are foils for him, as Tony Revolori is as young Zero (though not without his own visual expressiveness, and the running joke of telling Fiennes to stop flirting with his fiancée), but that in no way detracts from his achievement here, for the film would fall flat without the ebullience, charm and flair of Gustave H. The comparison is inexact, but imagine Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967) without the bubbliness of Julie Andrews…


End-notes

* Tom Wilkinson is a revered writer (credited as Author), with a bizarre monument seen visited by a woman with a copy of his Hotel book (no author’s name on it), whose younger self (Jude Law as Young Writer) stays at the hotel and talks to and hears the story of the older Zero Mustafa (F. Murray Abraham), whose younger self (Tony Revolori) is a lobby boy at the hotel, in training under Fiennes.

** Ralph Fiennes, in the Q&A for The Invisible Woman, described himself as ‘obsessive’ – in this world that Wes Anderson has created, the attention to detail is minute.


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

You’ve fucked thousands of men !

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2 March

This is a review of Nymphomaniac Vol. II (2013), and follows on from a review of Vol. I

A guess at Nymphomaniac Vol. II from @THEAGENTAPSLEY : does younger Joe's lack of affect suggest a Freudian father / daughter issue ?
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) March 1, 2014

In the catalogue of sexual possibilities*, Vol. II leaves an obvious one unexplored till late, and, even if it did not end as it does (its blackout over imagined action mirrors the opening), it would be hard to conceive (pun intended !) that a night of confession would lead to a radical resolve on Joe’s part, despite the alleged merits of a problem shared.

There are certainly plays that have us believe in the redemptive possibilities of talking till dawn or the like (and, equally, there is Chekhov and works such as Uncle Vanya), and enough of the dialogue even smacks of the stage (both now, between Joe and Seligman, and between Joe and others in her recollection) : whatever therapy goes on here, with what Joe calls Seligman’s digressions (and, as the review of Vol. I identifies in him, her accusing him of not listening), seems like Long Day’s Journey into Night.

The credits confirm that the films were shot in continental Europe, Nordrhein-Westfalen (in Germany) and in Belgium (Ghent ?), despite the ostentatious show of modern-day fivers, and the one-pound notes that ceased circulation in the early 1980s and their predecessors, whereas all that establishes the possibility of Britain is Stacy Martin’s RP way of being matter of fact as younger Joe, and Charlotte Gainsbourg’s very obviously British – if less class-ridden – tones.

Perhaps Lars von Trier seriously intends by these means to pass off other countries as the UK, but the whimsicality of the currency is matched by having Seligman (Stellan Skarsgård) see a conflagration that he does not know about or which Joe has yet to put in context : it is on the screen, and it is as if he reads it from Joe’s mind, just as he does when he decodes her secular transfiguration with The Whore of Babylon and the promiscuous wife of a Roman Emperor. Finding meanings, interpreting things, he seems to live in his head, whereas Joe, if not in her heart, then in her body and its sensations.

In fact, she seems to go to the opposite extreme from being bookish and knowing what everything is, and in her Martin incarnation especially sounds often not so much ironic, as maybe she is meant to be in a ‘cute’ sort of way, as vacuous. Yet in this film we are meant to believe that she is earning at a level where she can make a payment of £1,000 per month beyond the cost of living – or maybe that just sounded a good sum to von Trier, and he does not realize what her salary would have to be…

The film likes to run the gamut of filmic techniques, perhaps just in case we are getting stale, so stock footage of nature is used, which is just before the scene of levitation when Joe has her revelation, and another chapter is edgily hand-held, whereas the two-person scenes with Seligman and Joe have them occupy the space from all angles. Something that Joe says about the number of permutations of the leads of an eight-cylinder engine suggests that trying everything every way seems to be a drive that she shares with von Trier.

It certainly leads to films whose combined running time is a minute more than four hours, but it felt much longer than a night’s worth of narration** :

If @THEAGENTAPSLEY is not much mistaken, Vols I and II of @NymphomaniacUK need only have run to 3h 15mins, maybe just 3h...
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) March 2, 2014

However long it ran, how was this film going to end, when all the talking was done ? With what might seem a cheap comment about what men really think about promiscuous women, not worthy of a typical man, let alone one of apparent education – and which then justified, after the fact, suspicions that all Seligman’s acceptance of Joe’s past actions had been insincere and for other reasons (and he, not Joe, is the predator with his lair and trap) ? What did that leave other than a shattered framing-device for a story of a woman who would say Fill my holes, but maybe had not much else to say, maybe was not always / ever telling the truth… ?

Cynically, if Seligman did not comprehend the nature of consensual sex and take what she said seriously, he had seemed as good a person as any to do so – or was the catharsis of just telling it all sufficient for this therapy to be of lasting value, despite the outcome ? Though the truth is that von Trier wanted to show us this, and chose the device of Joe telling it to Seligman (not her telling us) for its clear advantages, even at the risk of losing part of the audience (no doubt the less worthy part) for this second film.


Post-script

Lars von Trier thanks Andrei Tarkovsky in the credits : is this an acknowledgement, as seems to be the case, that the Bach work for organ that he uses was employed to such effect in Tarkovsky's The Sacrifice (1986) ?


End-notes

* Seen or mentioned are anal sex, masturbation, sadomasochism, lesbian sex, oral sex, double penetration, inter-racial sex, rape, dice sex, masturbating in public, and even intercourse.

** Apparently, the present films originate in response to an edit down to just 90 minutes.


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

L'Étranger ou L'Inconnu ?

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1 March

This is a review of Stranger by the Lake (L’Inconnu du Lac) (2013)

For some who might wish to know, this film contains no female roles and probably as much graphic sex as Blue is the Warmest Colour (2013)

Amongst other things, The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin showed that nothing quite evokes the quotidian as showing that, day by day, people choose to do the same thing (in this case, parking in a sandy spot with a few trees), and a shot of that place and a car drawing up can also be used to denote the passing of time – and to disrupt that easy sense of denotation*. That rate at which time passes can, in itself, be used to play counter to the audience’s expectation of how quickly events should happen, what should happen, what we should see :

This film leaves us in no doubt that we see what director Alain Guiraudie wants us to see, but that may not feel a positive experience for us, even if reflection suggests that confronting us with a slow pace, much fairly promiscuous sex, and the absence, otherwise, of much other than sometimes tense conversations might be calculated to unsettle. Hitchcock, it seems, would have done it that way, although perhaps his script would have had filmic goals, in particular an ending, that this one does not.

If our sex-life is not of a nature (the film calls it ‘cruising’) where people could be talking with someone new and then head inland to caress each other within minutes and have penetrative sex, such uninhibited actions present a challenge – not in terms of whether one wants to watch gay sex, as in what anything more significant might mean**. Henri (Patrick d’Assumçao), who says that he has done all this before on holiday and does not seem much interested, values Franck (Pierre Deladonchamps) as a person to talk to, maybe over dinner or a few drinks, a feeling that may be shared equally, although Franck’s deepest desire is to find someone whom he fancies who is not already involved (and, for no apparent reason, dashes off after someone when the two first talk).

Someone gay who also watched this screening said that even knowing about a man what Franck knows about Michel (Christophe Paou) would not have stopped him being attractive and a desirable partner (whether or not the actual Michel is, who seems like a more serious type of Tom Selleck). Given what Franck does know, that seems surprising, in the way that Peter Gabriel (on his album Up) characterizes the audience of his fictitious Barry Williams Show, I love my daughter’s rapist, etc.

What matters, though, is that – of brief origin though it is – Franck feels love for Michel, albeit after the event. We will never know why Michel did what Franck knows about, we will never know what happens at the end of the film, we just see Franck relating to him, knowing that he did it. The film does build tension (though not without a running joke at the expense of the man with his shorts half down and, hand on his penis, likes to watch), and a script and a film-maker can withhold things from us*** – as said, it is made abundantly clear that we are shown what Guiraudie chooses, and that this is not a film that, unlike life, ends tidily.

However, does the end justify the means, just gradually – and effectively – stirring us up about something and leaving us hanging… ? OK, so life is not neat, we do not always know what happened and / or why, and Ingrid Bergman may not always escape the clutches of James Mason into the arms of Cary Grant, but can the point of resisting that resolving temptation just be to involve one in something (unreal) that one could not know anything about otherwise, and then suddenly say that whatever happened next is just unstated. If so, Haneke does that better, many, many times, not least with L'Amour (2012).

Haneke, however, does just not refrain from telling us definitely what is happening only at the end, but throughout – we may come to a conclusion, say, about the character or behaviour of Georges, but it deliberately may be one of several. This is where Stranger by the Lake (and it might be worth considering who we consider ‘the stranger’ of the title to be) leads us on, and then slams the brakes on at the end**** – yes, we know that several things may occur on the given facts, but why is it apt just to leave us with them ? Not that it matters much, but the film feels a little as though it may have broken faith with its audience :

I will show you this, which leads to this, which leads to this, and, when matters have become really critical, down come some pseudo-philosophic shutters, closing off what we might not know definitely in life. Yet one can be sure of two things. One, that, because of what has happened, someone will have to decide, beyond the scope of the film, what then took place and why. Two, that, as this is not life, we were allowed to see and hear things (such as Henri and Franck’s conversations), and have a perspective, which is just denied by this ending, which is therefore arbitrary.

Not so much Reader, I married him, as Reader, I’m not telling you any more after all.


Afterthought

Or maybe it does make for a genuinely suspenseful ending after all - in the sense Nous sommes suspendus...


End-notes

* As when there are no cars when Franck arrives, or when we see him walking down the path to the lake without arriving.

** In Nymphomaniac Volume I (2013), for example, two friends between them have sex with a score of men on a train just in a contest over a bag of Smarties.

*** We know nothing outside this place, and even the representative of authority keeps making visits here, at all sorts of hours, rather than taking a fairly ad hoc and low-key approach.

**** The Woman in the Fifth (2011) does so, but for a different reason that relates to the novel that it adapts.


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