An incomplete review of Hilma (2022)

An incomplete review of Hilma (2022)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

1 November

An incomplete review of Hilma (2022)

Paying too little attention, #UCFF expected Hilma (2022), at @Saffronscreen, to be a doc - it was resolute that it wasn't one.https://t.co/o0pAbJUdDyhttps://t.co/k0vQ9VFo4e

Averaging the Guardian pair splits the difference at 2.5🌟- assuming that The World needs 🌟ratings...

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 1, 2022

It could well be that Hilma af Klint had a crush on Rudolf Steiner, met him twice only briefly, but took female lovers (seemingly under the nose of her family and of society at large) : whatever Steiner's actual status in her life, he only appears to be in the film, along with numerous deaths, to give it its rhythms.

However, if what just a quick look at Wiki* suggests happened is correct, matters were not as simple as Hilma chooses to tell her story :

In 1908 she met Rudolf Steiner, the founder of the Anthroposophical Society, who was visiting Stockholm. Steiner introduced her to his own theories regarding the Arts, and would have some influence on her paintings later in life.

Several years later, in 1920, she met him again at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland, the headquarters of the Anthroposophical Society. Between 1921 and 1930 she spent long periods at the Goetheanum.


By contrast, Edvard Munch, whose hug seems to be presented as puzzlingly shocking - although there is Strindbergian-style sex in the next room to the laying-out of af Klint's father (yet, given the circumstance and the film's generally Freudian tenor, it may betoken yet another unannounced dream ?) – could clearly have acted as a supporter, if his being so demonstrative had not been found insupportable.

* The review-notes, following the screening, didn't make it beyond a contemporaneous Tweet and a para. or two (or into a posting on #UCFF).https://t.co/HOQDS6jnkM

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) April 20, 2023

ENDS



End-notes :

* From the item on Hilma af Klint at : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilma_af_Klint.


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

Easter Sunday at Snape – A further enquiry into the nature of things with Solomon's Knot (work in progress)

Easter at Snape – A further enquiry into the nature of things with Solomon's Knot (work in progress)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

9 April

Easter Sunday at Snape Maltings – A further enquiry into the nature of things :

Solomon's Knot in Bach's St Matthew Passion, BWV 244 (work in progress)

No more so than would The Full Monty, given by I Fagiolini at Emmanuel United Reformed Church, Cambridge, during Cambridge Summer Music Festival (in 2005 ?), have been as when those performers sang that selection of Monteverdi's Madrigale under the same title, but in another venue, than Solomon's Knot, with J. S. Bach's St Matthew Passion, in the chapel of Trinity College, Cambridge, will assuredly be as they and it were at Snape Maltings (on Easter Sunday) – or, for that matter, in Weimar's Herderkirche (on Good Friday).

Partly, there is site-specificity at play / stake and involved, and, if there are not, as at Britten Pears Arts, side-aisles and a central block of seats, one simply cannot have one's four-part choirs face each other across the stalls and flood the hall with sound in both directions. This was a moment that, probably as one had not envisaged - as one saw it approach - that it could be, was both moving and effective – just, in fact, as so much else was in what we saw and heard, which we had perhaps understood before, but not, in and at the same time, deeply felt in this way before. Or, then again, which we had sensed, but not so fully grasped and found tangible in its questioning force.

Yes, we did feel that what Bach gave us had both just been written and yet always existed.

One of last decade's panel discussions for the regular @AAMorchestra performances of this (and the St John) Passion during Easter at King's highlighted the work's sense of inevitability :

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) April 10, 2023

However many times arias and chorales take us out of chronicity into devotion, empathy, contemplation, praise, the pacing and purity of the succeeding words of recitative from Thomas Herford, as The Evangelist, bring us right back into the shock and immediacy of what faces Jesus.

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) April 11, 2023

There is such power in solo or lead musicians (whether instrumentalists or vocalists) not being tied to following a printed score, and, when York Early Music Festival ran three or four recitals of Bach's solo compositions for, probably, violin, keyboard and cello, it was Alison McGillivray who, for this reason, communicated most directly – likewise the great Alisa Weilerstein, during Aldeburgh Festival, in a recital in Blythburgh Church.


More to come...

The first St Matthew Passion I ever attended was also in Trinity Chapel, in Feb 2004 Nick Collon conducting, I was quite blown away by it, and not since has it left as big an impression as then. Until last night, which was truly alive and unforgettable @solomonsknot @derMusikant pic.twitter.com/GzDHycJSOy

— Peter Conlon (@phc27x) April 13, 2023

Well-deserved standing ovation for a superb St. Matthew Passion from @solomonsknot. Loved the solo instrumentalists coming out front and interacting with the singers during arias. Brilliant stand-in Evangelist from Ruairi Bowen. Just miffed they left before we finished clapping! https://t.co/xECixBLwl6

— Eleri W. (@Lelsiboots) April 12, 2023

Eternally grateful to this bunch of absolute legends for the Matthew Passion of a lifetime. Feeling so lucky to be able to co-shape the music as I ideally imagine it, and then see it fly in the hands of these incredible musicians and souls. ❤️💔❤️@solomonsknot pic.twitter.com/Pfv4NMexDT

— Jonny Sells 🇬🇧🇪🇺🇨🇭🇯🇴 (@derMusikant) June 20, 2023

😊 There's nothing more important than how our work impacts each audience member.

It's so special when people feel willing to share their experiences with us. We are profoundly grateful to everyone who has joined us on the journey of St Matthew Passion.

More to come in June! pic.twitter.com/lBlYVrC9Xm

— 𝗦𝗢𝗟𝗢𝗠𝗢𝗡’𝗦 𝗞𝗡𝗢𝗧 🎻🤘 (@solomonsknot) April 13, 2023

Huge shout out to @solomonsknot for the most stunning, dramatic, powerful, searingly moving, poetic St Matthew passion tonight. #definitive #bravo

— Useful&Kind (@UsefulandKind) April 12, 2023

End-notes :

* Probably familiar to so many, who have not necessarily had a chance to set foot within the chapel, from the service of Nine Lessons and Carols at King's, with its processions and solemnity of ceremony (as televised and broadcast by radio) ?





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

An enquiry into the nature of things : Chamber music with Anna Dennis, Nicholas Daniel and Mahan Esfahani in The Britten Studio

Chamber music with Anna Dennis, Nicholas Daniel and Mahan Esfahani in The Britten Studio on Holy Saturday

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

8 April

Holy Saturday at Snape – An enquiry into the nature of things :

Chamber music with Anna Dennis, Nicholas Daniel and Mahan Esfahani in The Britten Studio

Such a lovely time to be back at Snape, for the first time after a few nights in Suffolk for Aldeburgh Festival in 2019 !

To some, things from former times may more aptly feel to be part of New Year (or Hogmanay), but Easter is – without needing to invoke the opening lines of T. S. Eliot's 'grumble with life' in which he said that he gave us 'The Waste Land' – just as good a time to remember the old and be inspired by it to undertake new things :

In Love & Endings (2022), at an early moment in to-night's programme, we heard Elena Langer's three settings (for soprano, oboe and harpsichord) of two anonymous texts and a poem by Mayakovsky, juxtaposing writing from the sixteenth century and in Middle English* with a head-on confrontation with love that has turned to enquiry, recrimination, but perhaps also resolution.


We had begun with what Handel gave us by way of a Sonata for Oboe, with harpsichord accompaniment – a diamond of a miniature in C Minor that makes us both think and smile – and were to come to a close with arias in which he had set texts by Brockes.

In these, and in arias from two Cantatas by [Johann Sebastian] Bach at something like a midpoint in the eighty-minute recital, the sensitivity of Anna Dennis and the clarity of her expressiveness and diction, were all that one expected from having heard her before (on one of those occasions, in another work by Langer).

Apart from Anna Dennis' excellent German diction, both Arias were highpoints of each Part (as well as those of @Yorksbass (William Gaunt) and David Allsopp (counter-tenor) in Part II), so raiding YouTube :https://t.co/MwEfs3tinlhttps://t.co/XfXJUiUCgDhttps://t.co/5thifyqQIj https://t.co/DqLHehobkh

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) March 28, 2018

[From Tweets from Easter at King's 2018]

Before returning for the Bach, Dennis left Nicholas Daniel and Mahan Esfahani, both of whom had stories to tell about their involvement or engagement with Sven-Ingo Koch, to perform his Die Frage nach der Dinglichkeit (2018), a Ding an sich in relation to which Daniel had attempted a characterization, but whose power and resistance to classification were apparent. As when performing the Langer, Bach and Handel with Dennis, there was also no doubting the respect for and artistic accommodation of each other's role, or the very high quality of interpretation for which one comes and looks to Britten Pears Arts.


Perhaps, by contrast, wrongly responding to the six solo harpsichord pieces by Michael Berkeley that he collectively described as a haiku as if they were witticisms**, and which made one remember that Debussy saved his 'titles' and intended them to appear after each piece in his Préludes. (There is no way that Berkeley's Snake, for solo cor anglais and which he heard next, is programmatic as such, even if he has responded to the tenor of what Lawrence's probably deliberately petit-bourgeois narrator reports thinking about what he sees.)


Of the two concluding Brockes settings, their order reversed - to fit better - from the printed programme, one praised the sweet and tender nature of eternal quietude, and one, to end, unmistakingly found God's handiwork in a rose.

We, with the quietness of thoughts of another at sea, words that asked what were fitting tones for a joyful marriage or the highly conflicted thoughts of the person to whom Berkeley gave voice in reading Lawrence's poem, had truly engaged with the question what makes something what it is.

Happy Easter !

Since posting the above, #UCFF has seen that The Guardian also carried this contemporaneous review by Andrew Clements : 'Anna Dennis / Nicholas Daniel / Mahan Esfahani review – poetry and animal magic'


End-notes :

* The first, without being by John Donne, strangely and pithily full of explicit desire ; the second, thinking of the seasons and of life in relation to their patterns, and of how there is both a consistency and continuity of experience, and a time in life for each thing that it brings us (echoic of Ecclesiastes).

** From a row or two back, a comment reinforced the literalism with which the audience seemed to have responded to 'The Fly', suggesting that it had been swatted in the final gesture.


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

The Real meaning of Live : Kathryn Tickell, Martin Carthy, Eliza Carthy and Norma Waterson broadcast live from Robin Hood's Bay on Radio 3's Music Planet

The Real meaning of Live : Kathryn Tickell, Martin Carthy, Eliza Carthy and Norma Waterson broadcast live from Robin Hood's Bay on Radio3's Music Planet (Tweets in progress)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

New Year's Eve 2022

The Real meaning of Live : Kathryn Tickell, Martin Carthy, Eliza Carthy and Norma Waterson broadcast live from Robin Hood's Bay on BBCRadio3's Music Planet (Tweets in progress)

The felicities, candour and happenstances of live - ably and courageously, @kathryntickell broadcasts live from Robin Hood's Bay on @BBCRadio3 Music Planet :

All love, strength and wonder to @elizacarthy and Martin Carthy, beautifully remembering and celebrating Norma Waterson !

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 31, 2022

Lovely - partly as so unfamiliar* - to hear Martin Carthy, accompanying himself, in a different version of the tune to 'Scarborough Fair' ! :)

* And so, most importantly, we need not be distracted from *the words*, these puzzlingly parabolic words... :)

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 31, 2022

More to come...




































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

It's amazing how many film fans hate films : A little Twitter-dance around that comment

It's amazing how many film fans hate films : A little Twitter-dance around that comment

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

28 December

It's amazing how many film fans hate films : A little Twitter-dance around that comment

To Roland and Ruthie

It's amazing how many film fans hate films.

— Movies In Focus (@moviesinfocus) December 28, 2022

3) Since Cronenberg made Crash (1996), but also made Crimes of The Future (2022) one *might* want or expect 'a better film' than the latter ?

4) Do others, who don't go to the cinema (or even watch films - or just distractedly / on a mobile), get their info as in St Tibulus* ?

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 28, 2022

* I.e. https://t.co/3n7aH2ij4b.

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 28, 2022

Maybe that's it... ?





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

Werner Herzog, by Zoom from L.A., at Bristol's Watershed : Sunday 18 December at 3.00 p.m. (report in progress)

Werner Herzog, by Zoom from L.A., at Bristol's Watershed : Sunday 18 December at 3.00 p.m.

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

18 December

Werner Herzog, by Zoom from L.A., at Bristol's Watershed : Sunday 18 December at 3.00 p.m. (report in progress)

It was a close thing……… https://t.co/P2pgvY1j1F

— Mark Cosgrove (@msc45) December 20, 2022

He's such a gent, our Werner*, that it was a pleasure to hear how patient he was, earnestly engaging with what he was asked, and 'short-changing' no one in a desire to be full and frank.

* As well as Mark, graciously extending the Q&A time, so that more Qs could be asked. :)

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 20, 2022

If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here

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

Tweets about Radio 3's Night Tracks, n years on...

Tweets about Radio 3's Night Tracks, n years on...

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

St Cecilia's Day (22 November)

Tweets about Radio 3's Night Tracks, n years on...

The Meaning of Live : Stephen Cleobury, RIP

Today my thoughts are of my darling, wonderful, kind and brilliant husband Stephen, who died three years ago this St Cecilia’s Day. pic.twitter.com/iOJfzyKk9f

— Emma Cleobury 🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🇺🇦 (@EmmaCleobury) November 22, 2022

The Essay's just as obviously a recorded programme - @billybragg's Ode to Essex was no more in the studio, live, than A. L. Kennedy with to-night's - as when Night Tracks is next [@BBCRadio3 most weekdays from 11.00 p.m.] :https://t.co/TjpZJ4SJPMhttps://t.co/R6vWD8ABcp

1 / 3

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 22, 2022

A qualitative difference, or only in relation to a quantitative one ? :

With intro and closing credits, The Essay's 13-14 mins, and, likewise, the In-Tune Mix-Tape (introduced by Sean or Katie, as the usual @BBCInTune presenters), it's probably circa 29 mins, whereas...

2 / 3

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 22, 2022

Mondays to Wednesdays¹, Night Tracks is till 1.00 a.m. - at 2h, a scale that's somehow unlike, say, pre-recorded [or re-broadcast] evening concerts (with an interval, etc.) ?

For some, the trade-off's of curated sequences [not, to start, of this quality] over company... ?

3 / 3

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 22, 2022

However, as the voice of @SaraMohrPietsch³ corrected me (at midnight), the programme's on till 12.30 a.m., so 90 mins or 1½ hrs - must've been thinking of Late Junction on a Friday... :)

³ At c. 11.20 p.m., a piece of Mendelssohn was also played for those awake with worries. https://t.co/wFDBepf0HU

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 23, 2022

Those born on that day (in that year), etc., might have other views...https://t.co/UBmFFUICzO https://t.co/5Mh2IN49wq

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 22, 2022

If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here

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

Some Tweets on Oil, Sunflowers, etc. : An accreting series

Some Tweets on Oil, Sunflowers, etc. : An accreting series

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

11 November

Some Tweets on Oil, Sunflowers, etc. : An accreting series

For some, The Great War seemed to end on 11 November 1918

'Oil paint is a type of slow-drying paint that consists of particles of pigment suspended in a drying oil, commonly linseed oil' [https://t.co/l7SNkEv6UI]

Some Tweets on Oil, Sunflowers, etc. #1

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 11, 2022

Wiki : 'The oldest known oil paintings are Buddhist murals created circa 650 AD. The works are located in cave-like rooms carved from the cliffs of Afghanistan's Bamiyan Valley, "using walnut and poppy seed oils"' [https://t.co/d65VCxBG3Y]

Some Tweets on Oil, Sunflowers, etc. #2

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 11, 2022

'The future's bright', etc. - from 1994 onwards, some of Orange's advertised predictions, prophecies, foresights or guesses about the world and what e-mail, cinema, video-conferencing, text messages would bring...https://t.co/otlfYqNnfA

Some Tweets on Oil, Sunflowers, etc. #3

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 11, 2022

Obviously fearful of any one of them becoming a Tango victim*, they congregate at speed and en masse - as I counted, there are eight or nine of them !

* Or intending, perhaps, this 'tour de force' to frighten others off ? ;)

Some Tweets on Oil, Sunflowers, etc. #4

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) July 5, 2023

Some Tweets on Oil, Sunflowers, etc. #5 https://t.co/FhI70VMa5u

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) July 5, 2023

'"We are facing new pandemics, economic inflation and increasingly authoritarian governments, who will attempt to crush civil unrest.

2 / 3

Some Tweets on Oil, Sunflowers, etc. #6

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) July 5, 2023

'"This is a crisis, and it needs a crisis response.

'"I want a safe future, not just for my grandchildren but for all children around the world and the generations to come."'https://t.co/BfZKcN8g3z

3 / 3

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) July 5, 2023

World registers hottest day ever recorded on July 3 :

'Antarctica, currently in its winter, registered anomalously high temperatures.

'Ukraine's Vernadsky Research Base in the continent's Argentine Islands recently broke its July temperature record with 8.7°C (47.6°F).

1 / 3 pic.twitter.com/iII5RKZwqU

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) July 5, 2023

https://t.co/TT2W4MIY2y

Some Tweets on Oil, Sunflowers, etc. #7

3 / 3

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) July 5, 2023

Neither of these reports says what picture(s) the jigsaws show, but previous protests, in galleries, have involved one of van Gogh's canvases (Sunflowers) and Constable's The Hay Wain...

Some Tweets on Oil, Sunflowers, etc. #8 https://t.co/hClD0Mj0r1 pic.twitter.com/QXywPoTsmJ

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) July 5, 2023

The links of Patel and numerous others honoured by #BadHeadJohnson to petrochemical companies and / or climate-change denial have been pointed out on Twither in recent weeks.

Some Tweets on Oil, Sunflowers, etc. #9

* Sic.https://t.co/Efhb0ilB0g

2 / 2

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) July 10, 2023

Some Tweets on Oil, Sunflowers, etc. #10 https://t.co/4mxTZbfWfT pic.twitter.com/6fxTS9HLPl

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) July 20, 2023

'On Friday, the Wildlife presenter gave the UK’s major political parties an ultimatum to stop sanctioning future licensing of oil and gas or risk losing votes.https://t.co/OVUtIhzRxF

Some Tweets on Oil, Sunflowers, etc. #11

1 / 3 pic.twitter.com/0wdT2Le670

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) August 5, 2023

'"The government appears to be on the brink of junking a lot of green policies as they use the environment as a political football while they jostle for votes.

'"But it’s not about votes, it’s about life on earth," he said.'

3 / 3

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) August 5, 2023

Some Tweets on Oil, Sunflowers, etc. #12

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) August 18, 2023

French police have arrested two people as part of an investigation after protestors were filmed throwing soup over the Mona Lisa portrait in the Louvre.https://t.co/EAUh4K2tCW

Some Tweets on Oil, Sunflowers, etc. #13

2 / 2

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) January 29, 2024

If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here

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

Report from Cambridge Film Festival 2022 [#CFF41] : A first couple of Festival Tweets about Alcarràs (2022)

Report from Cambridge Film Festival 2022 : A first couple of Festival Tweets about Alcarràs (2022)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

24 October

Report from Cambridge Film Festival 2022 : A first couple of Festival Tweets about Alcarràs (2022)

Estic tant feliç!!!! Serà difícil pero no impossible!!! Gràcies🍑🍑🍑🍑 @ElasticaFilms @Avaloncine @VilautF
Estoy tan feliz!! Será dificil pero imposible!!! Gracias 🍑🍑🍑🍑 pic.twitter.com/jC5RAzZ1oT

— AnnaOtin5 (@AnnaOtin5) December 3, 2022

->

The den / space-ship / attack-vessel may - who knows ? - really have been fly-tipped [it's also https://t.co/FKP5XrM8Ww's brochure's front cover], but, through its removal, the spot's not only established as a location for us, but also lets us see them run home, for example. pic.twitter.com/ZUVOpnkaKd

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) October 25, 2022

* Ja, 'twas Th'Agent - irritatingly in search of the best of cinema - who occupied seat H1 that afternoon...

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) October 25, 2022

Report from Cambridge Film Festival 2022 [#CFF41] : A first couple of Festival Tweets about Alcarràs (2022)



































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

#UCFF Tweets on Opening Night at Cambridge Film Festival : The new [Martin] McDonagh (work in progress ?)

#UCFF Tweets on Opening Night at Cambridge Film Festival : The new [Martin] McDonagh

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

20 October

#UCFF Tweets on Opening Night at Cambridge Film Festival :

The new [Martin] McDonagh (work in progress ?)

Dedicated, in gratitude for his BDI, to JLB

Laying your table :

Fighting sleep-deprivation, and simultaneously indicted and thus not wanting or able to concentrate, watching the new McDonagh* at #CFF41 definitely gave the promised existential crisis.

* Martin - it was John Michael McDonagh who directed Calvary (2014) (and The Guard (2011)).

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) October 22, 2022

Menu / ingredients-list / allergens :

Whether The Banshees** might finally blend them (or intended to ?), the dish's ingredients or spices may resemble :

* Craggy Island / Ripping Yarns

* The Truman Show / Seven Psychopaths

* Flann O'Brien / J. M. Synge

* In Bruges' eerie score

* The Guard ?

* Macbeth...

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) October 22, 2022

On top of tiredness, it fed unhelpful introspection / identification with Farrell's character*.

Hurriedly apologizing to my guest, I just had to 'bunk out' - as I usually say - of Screen 1 when and as I could* :

Getting back to my usual b&b and then 9hrs' sleep was far better !

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) October 22, 2022

* I dropped, but couldn't find, maybe just my extra-strong mints, and I'd already moved a bag and tipped over a double @Laphroaig through weariness - useful, though it felt tiresome at the time, as it would *not* have helped an involuntary raking through old indiscretions. :)

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) October 22, 2022

Spoilery stuff from the sous-chef or kitchen ? :

I'm with Mrs W, on this one, @everyfilmneil :

'Mrs W wasn't impressed - she thought it was too contrived and laboured'

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 24, 2022

NB * Spoilers * (mebbe ?) :

** Also not to be mistaken for Siouxsie*** ?

[It may help to know what banshees are (in folk-songs, probably little better than a visit from a nightingale ?)]

*** Then again, there might be referents here (and there)... :https://t.co/E1GC5DeK7v

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) October 22, 2022

Re-uniting the 'In Bruges' team would have needed Clémence Poésy, as well as Ralph Fiennes ?https://t.co/V1weEPyC6W https://t.co/S3Jtm1GgwI

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) October 26, 2022

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

Streichquartett Nerida auf Radio 3 zu BBC : Einige Bemerkungen

Streichquartett Nerida auf Radio 3 zu BBC : Einige Bemerkungen

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

den 6. Oktober

Streichquartett Nerida auf Radio 3 zu BBC : Einige Bemerkungen

Not taking anything for granted, as to performance-practice, and maybe returning to original scores, they bring a vibrancy to two works that are written out as or lend themselves to playing as one long undivided movement, and leave nothing untried as to making them sound afresh.

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) October 7, 2022

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

The Medusa Frequency, thirty-five years on : Some musings for Autumn 2022

The Medusa Frequency, thirty-five years on : Some musings for Autumn 2022

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

4 October

The Medusa Frequency, thirty-five years on : Some musings for Autumn 2022

Not that novels such as Pilgermann (1983) or Fremder (1996) aren't also great - the dance of those themes is as much in or around them (or Riddley), too, with waves that are particles or fragments or remnants, and particles that are also waves and seas and all varieties of water.

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) October 4, 2022

More to come...




































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

Finally - in a similar spirit to VW's cinema-ads [See film differently] ? - #UCFF's Brief Encounter Tweets (in draft ?)

Finally - a similar spirit to VW's cinema-ads [See film differently] ? - #UCFF's Brief Encounter Tweets

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

Michaelmas Day (29 September)

Finally - a similar spirit to VW's cinema-ads [See film differently] ? - #UCFF's Brief Encounter Tweets

Dedicated to Svetlana, as Shetland, on her birthday

Query :

In Lean's film, is Howard's character also sympathetic (as Johnson's telling means us to see her*), or actually to be seen in a noirish light, and his 'cover story' one that 'bigs him up' as worthy, so rather better than he is ?

* Fallible, but frightened and faithful. https://t.co/ZhXP9kKghE

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 29, 2022

On one clear level, we can read Howard as proxy¹, in a screenplay for which Coward's credited² (adapting his play).

¹ Then, or knowing of those times, one can see 'the encounter' through a lens of 'Careless Words Cost Lives', etc.

² E.g. https://t.co/4I1u30iBuT names others. pic.twitter.com/GpBB6xfZtV

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 29, 2022

Instead, or as an adjunct, maybe Howard's character does what we see in the prime part of this 1h 29 serially ?

Independently of what he says, what *do* we know of a man called Dr. Alex Harvey (Howard) ?

When he seeks Laura Jesson (Johnson), it's one thing ; does she find him ?

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 29, 2022

#UCFF came to Brief Encounter (1945) via a stage-adaptation*, before that became the norm of what theatres offer... : These are the spoilers !

Spoilers :

1) Alex's deniable medical status relies on being 'nifty with a hankie' when soot enters Laura's eye³ - hardly unlikely, in days of steam, at a railway-station !

2) A timely intrusion on the room that he's 'borrowed' for... ?

³ Word-play on immaculate / macula ?

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 29, 2022

Spoliers :

One might re-watch to ask :

* Who is Dr. Harvey ?

* Have we good reason to believe anything that he says about himself ?

At any rate, these tropes, clues, symbols are there...

Laura 'survives to tell the tale' to a husband to whom she imagines confessing.

ENDS

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 29, 2022

End-notes :

* At The Arts Theatre, Cambridge - some time, many more than 260 moons ago !


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

The Gold Machine (2022) at The Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge, plus Q&A

The Gold Machine (2022) at The Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge, plus Q&A (work in progress)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

13 September

The Gold Machine (2022) at The Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge, plus Q&A (work in progress)

Dr James Riley, of Girton, very ably hosted a Q&A for this film, whose release is a collaboration between Picturehouse Arts, Hot Property Films, and Dartmouth Film ['Pioneers in Britain of independent documentaries', another of whose films is Eric Ravilious : Drawn to War 2022)].

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 14, 2022

More to come...

Alive, and then very much not, they appeared in Grant Gee's directorial collaboration with writer Iain Sinclair in The Gold Machine (2022) last night...

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 14, 2022

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

Four Theses after dutifully watching the whole of Crimes of The Future (2022) : Crimes against remotely being cinematic (work in progress ?)

Four Theses after watching the whole of Crimes of The Future (2022) : Crimes against cinema ?

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

9 September

Four Theses after dutifully watching the whole of Crimes of The Future (2022) : Crimes against remotely being cinematic (work in progress ?)

Preamble :

This is about as cinematic as the whole film gets - and as much daylight

(From the opening shot, with Sotiris Sozos (as Brecken))

In preparing what follows for publication (e.g. checking such things as release-dates), it has become apparent that IMDb has been told to call Crimes of The Future (2022) Drama / Horror / Sci-Fi. (It obediently calls The Killing of A Sacred Deer (2017) Drama / Horror / Mystery.)

In fact, it is an indigestible, plasticized stew of (in chronological order*) such elements as :

* Doctor Who (1963 – 1989) [Especially The Troughton / Pertwee / Baker I years]

* Delicatessen (1991)

* Shadows and Fog (1991)

* Crash (1996) [Cronenberg's own, far superior film]

* Kinetta (2005)

* Raw (2016)

* The Killing of A Sacred Deer (2017)

* Pain and Glory (Dolor y gloria) (2019)

* The French Dispatch (2021)

As Wm. Blake might well have claim'd, so might he then - of his latest Crimes - Kronenbourg :

[...] My genius,
Labouring long, over my task, with me,
Gave wing to this Epicke. [...] pic.twitter.com/wbEzf4E5Xf

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 15, 2022

Four Theses (Review points proper)

(1) Only restrained by someone's recent Tweet** that one cannot justifiably comment on a film, if one walked out, it can now be said that, at 15-20 mins of 107, the impulse to leave Crimes of the Future then should have been taken.

(2) Without the names Viggo Mortensen, Léa Seydoux, Kristen Stewart, etc., Crimes would be indistinguishable from an undistinguished film-festival submission, whose 'screener' one would keep pausing to shout incredulous injunctions or obscenity (as if one's dutifully tortured watch were the real drama ?).

(3) A film that is over-reliant on speech - rather than juxtaposition of scenes or narrative-jumps - as exposition, and (inter alia) shabby interiors*** in low light-levels against which to set Lanthimos-like conversations.

(4) It helpfully used up a free ticket at The Arts Picturehouse.


Courtesy of Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart (as The Eurythmics), there is, now, a synopsis [Eurythmics, Annie Lennox, Dave Stewart - Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) (Official Video)], to which #UCFF links here !

Heady cinema days, 2 yrs ago...

A somewhat nonsensical screenplay, prioritizing sentiment* over science, but has nothing on Cronenberg's plot- and dialogue-driven latest or [other reasons] Official Competition (2021) !

* Differently, First Man (2018) jars, when in quarantine ? https://t.co/jfM4paNOCD pic.twitter.com/O57ZHqDaSh

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 11, 2022

More to come... ?






Afterword :

* Crimes even ended indeterminately, as if DC thought a sequel - though perhaps no more than one's imagined ending - profitable / sellable, or desirable ?

* Not least in the light of the film itself, must one question this English-language version's wording of 'A film by...' ? https://t.co/jpR2SPyPNo pic.twitter.com/iCYnuBbf9p

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 12, 2022

End-notes :

* Titles with underscoring will, in due course, have links to #UCFF reviews - the film-references are not necessarily to films rated well.

** Obviously, as it was in the last week, not this Tweet, but it will do... :

Okay, sorry I thought you meant one in particular. I have the 'Barry Norman Rule', after the old film reviewer, that unless I have seen a film right through to the end, I cannot comment on it. I will get back to you on 'Tenet' around 2023.

— Alexander Rooksmoor (@ARCRooksmoor) September 14, 2020

*** As of, if not in, the derelict buildings in Athens that we see in establishing shots. (Occasionally, we are en plain air)


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