It's now a little over 24 hours before another batch of little golden statues are handed out to a tearful few in Tinsle Town. Somehow the Oscars have lost the unique sense of excitement over the years - not surprising, perhaps, when winners of the best picture from this century have included 'Crash' and 'Chicago'. Sure, the tradition was always to recognise the mainstream and the safe, the movieland equivalent of the largest common denominator. But wouldn't it be truly exceptional to have a best picture Oscar winner - the one big prize that everyone really wants, of course, the Golden Globes and BAFTAs being mere warm-ups - with a cast entirely devoid of established American/European names, and a story set in a landscape/cityscape neither within the national borders of the United States, nor in the world of hobbits?
In the year that Barak Obama is voted into White House, we've got it: I had been a little weary of the tagline 'The feel-good film of the year' claimed on every poster of Slumdog Millionaire (I suppose I firmly belong to the minority of the population for whom feeling good isn't the only purpose of going into a cinema), but thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. It's subsequently caused much controversy, and the headlining slogan for the anti-SM camp seems to have been 'Povery Porn', which I find hardly justifiable. What, to these critics' mind, should be the textbook method of depicting poverty instead? Or is it the very fact of ubiquitous poverty among the underclass in Mumbai is represented on screen at all, let alone in such dazzling cinematography, that angers them?
Apparently there have been protests in India against the film for such reasons, and this reminds me of what the vast majority of ordinary Chinese (who, at the time, had seen very little foreign cinema apart from the State-approved imports, this being the days before piracy and internet arrived) said about the early works of Zhang Yimou (Red Sorghum, Raise the Red Lantern, The Story of Qiuju, To Live) and Chen Kaige (Yellow Earth, King of the Children, Farewell My Concubine). Why did they always have to tell stories about the endless struggles of the farmers against nature and their fellow men, the corrupted feudal lords and their persecuted underlings, the pervasive poverty and hopelessness of the common people that defined China throughout much of the 20th century? Couldn't they see that it wasn't right to portray this side of China to an international audience - especially since, as it happened, it was only these selected names whose works were always chosen to be screened at the important festivals in the West?!
I've rewatched these Chinese films since moving abroad and have come to appreciate their cinematic achievement without the nationalistic preconception anymore. I should like to think that it's not about me being Westernised - if anything, I've been watching far more Chinese films than I used to - but simply a change in perspective. I have not been to India, but I've seen most of Danny Boyle's previous works, and Slumdog Millionaire certainly carries a lot of his trademarks from the opening frame. It is also easily the most spectacularly shot and impressively acted (the three youngest children probably drew laughters, tears and swoons from many audience at every screening), with an entirely ridiculous but totally uplifting ending. (Takeshi Kitano, take a bow, for that brilliant dance sequence that Danny Boyle has stolen from Zatoichi.) It's not flawless, but then very few Oscar winners have been. The last time a film portraying a similar landscape and society was given the little golden statue was Gandhi in 1983, also with a cast full of faces largely unfamiliar to the Western cinema-goers (Ben Kingsley was hardly a household name then). Slumdog Millionaire deserves to win, and it will.
Saturday 21 February 2009
Friday 20 February 2009
Golden Time for visiting some Golden Ages
Six thirty, Friday evening. I'm staring at a row of Jingdezhen porcetain (the prized variety produced in age-old workships in Jiang Xi Province, central China) in all sizes and shapes, all featuring the trademark blue patterns. These are all from the Ming Dynasty, and the designs seem to tend towards broad brushes and bold iconism rather than the more exquisite lines and figures from more recent centuries. I'm no porcelain expert but I can appreciate the striking craftsmanship.
This is not an exhibition on Jingdezhen, or China, or anything to do with China specifically. This is 'Shah Abbas - the Remaking of Iran' at British Museum, where the golden era of an endlessly fascinating culture, a remarkable chapter in the religious history of humankind is illustrated by calligraphy, paintings, etchings, carpets of all sizes, lamp holders from shrines, and - in the centre of it all and visible from any corner of the beautiful old reading room, images of the great mosques that were built under the patronage of the Shah in Isfahan and Mashahad. The collection of Chinese porcelain was but a fraction of the Shah's treasure trove - many a vase, bowl, and plate travelled up the Silk Road to be housed in the richer homes of the Shiite kingdom.
I should be urging all our like-minded friends to make Friday late-night museum/gallery visits a habit except then the places might well be packed as a result, and the peace and quietude that makes it so appealing to us shall be no more. OK, this is pathetic paranoia. Do go. A one-hour walk through a superbly-curated, gem-packed exhibition like this (and this city happens to excel on such things) on your way home is a splendid way to cleanse your mind of the working week and start the weekend on a gratifyingly high note. When we went to the Rothko exhibition at Tate Modern on a Friday evening it was actually possible to sit in the middle of the vast room of all the Seagram Murals and contemplate at them for 10 minutes without a busload of people blocking your view in every direction. Exactly how the Seagrams are meant to be experienced. Friday evenings soaking up Babylon at British Museum and Byzantium at Royal Academy followed, each mind-enriching and heart-elating. And if you feel smug enough about achieving such an intellectual feat after a non-stop, exhausting week, there's always the option to treat yourself to a nice dinner afterwards which shall be enjoyed all the more with your new-gained knowledge. Even if it's a simple matter of knowing that the best-known Shah had a predilection for top-quality Jingdezhen (and a lesser-known one for beautiful, beardless page boys... find out for yourself). Bon apetit.
This is not an exhibition on Jingdezhen, or China, or anything to do with China specifically. This is 'Shah Abbas - the Remaking of Iran' at British Museum, where the golden era of an endlessly fascinating culture, a remarkable chapter in the religious history of humankind is illustrated by calligraphy, paintings, etchings, carpets of all sizes, lamp holders from shrines, and - in the centre of it all and visible from any corner of the beautiful old reading room, images of the great mosques that were built under the patronage of the Shah in Isfahan and Mashahad. The collection of Chinese porcelain was but a fraction of the Shah's treasure trove - many a vase, bowl, and plate travelled up the Silk Road to be housed in the richer homes of the Shiite kingdom.
I should be urging all our like-minded friends to make Friday late-night museum/gallery visits a habit except then the places might well be packed as a result, and the peace and quietude that makes it so appealing to us shall be no more. OK, this is pathetic paranoia. Do go. A one-hour walk through a superbly-curated, gem-packed exhibition like this (and this city happens to excel on such things) on your way home is a splendid way to cleanse your mind of the working week and start the weekend on a gratifyingly high note. When we went to the Rothko exhibition at Tate Modern on a Friday evening it was actually possible to sit in the middle of the vast room of all the Seagram Murals and contemplate at them for 10 minutes without a busload of people blocking your view in every direction. Exactly how the Seagrams are meant to be experienced. Friday evenings soaking up Babylon at British Museum and Byzantium at Royal Academy followed, each mind-enriching and heart-elating. And if you feel smug enough about achieving such an intellectual feat after a non-stop, exhausting week, there's always the option to treat yourself to a nice dinner afterwards which shall be enjoyed all the more with your new-gained knowledge. Even if it's a simple matter of knowing that the best-known Shah had a predilection for top-quality Jingdezhen (and a lesser-known one for beautiful, beardless page boys... find out for yourself). Bon apetit.
Sunday 15 February 2009
The function of day jobs
I've been meaning to write a bit more about two of the three films we saw last weekend but, again, am only managing some proper blogging time on Sunday evening. In case you're wondering what the third one was, it was Woody Allen's latest, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, which was deeply disappointing. Note to self: always pay attention to the second half of those key sentences in reviews. Similar views abound: 'Allen's most impressive work - from the last decade', 'A true return to form - compared with his other recent films' (or something to that effect). I should have known, as I should have thought more carefully about what these comparisons were made with: Match Point, Scoop, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, Hollywood Ending, Anything Else - against this list, The 40-Year-Old Virgin could seem positively profound.
Okay, back to the topic. Tokyo Sonata (by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, hitherto chiefly known for a string of horror films) and Revolutionary Road (by Sam Mendes, which I already wrote a little about last week) couldn't have been more different in style, plot and tone, but for me, both conveyed an important and timely message: looking around us (or, perhaps, in the mirror), the modern metropolitans and suburbia are full of people whose identity are largely - or in the case of Tokyo Sonata's protagonist, entirely - formed through their jobs. Once that's taken away, either by accident or by design, they'll be at a loss as to what to do with their lives at all. Their so-called hobbies have either been eroded by, or subsumed to, the job itself; their social connections are built within the work context (unemployment can be an infectious disease that your friends want to avoid catching); they get up and, not knowing what to do, sometimes resort to the solution of 'mock-living' their previously cocooned, repetitive work-life (there are some really funny moments in Tokyo Sonata depicting this. Funny, that is, until the illusion is tragically cut short).
I often marvel at the fact that, working in the arts, I have the good fortune to be surrounded by people who are genuinely passionate about what they do for a living, in contrast with millions of others in the city whose chief drive in the context of work would include things like security and material gain. At a time when so many jobs are being lost daily - in arts as well as elsewhere - the need to take a moment to ask ourselves some of those fundamental questions seems more pressing than ever. The Noughties version of 'Who am I? Where do I come from? What am I doing here?' could well be 'Who am I? Why am I doing what I do? Is it mostly what I do, known as my job, that defines me as a person to people whom I call my friends and family? If that's the case, isn't it rather worrying, no matter if there's a recession on or not?'
I suppose a lot of people go through their lives without having figured out - or perhaps even thought about - what they really want from life or who they really want to be. A job is easily the most visible kind of identity, and naturally becomes the most expedient kind too. But perhaps we could all use a little bit of reckoning, of recognising that the function of a day job is precisely what we hate to think it is: something to pay the bills with. If you happen to really love what you do, so much the better; but it really doesn't equal who you are - the answer to that surely consists of experiences, qualities and skills that may well not get an airing during a lifetime's working hours. No matter how grand your job title, how impressive your professional achievements or how over-sized your pay package might be, strip these all away and are you - you the person - still there? If not, what's the point of keeping the bills paid anyway?
Okay, back to the topic. Tokyo Sonata (by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, hitherto chiefly known for a string of horror films) and Revolutionary Road (by Sam Mendes, which I already wrote a little about last week) couldn't have been more different in style, plot and tone, but for me, both conveyed an important and timely message: looking around us (or, perhaps, in the mirror), the modern metropolitans and suburbia are full of people whose identity are largely - or in the case of Tokyo Sonata's protagonist, entirely - formed through their jobs. Once that's taken away, either by accident or by design, they'll be at a loss as to what to do with their lives at all. Their so-called hobbies have either been eroded by, or subsumed to, the job itself; their social connections are built within the work context (unemployment can be an infectious disease that your friends want to avoid catching); they get up and, not knowing what to do, sometimes resort to the solution of 'mock-living' their previously cocooned, repetitive work-life (there are some really funny moments in Tokyo Sonata depicting this. Funny, that is, until the illusion is tragically cut short).
I often marvel at the fact that, working in the arts, I have the good fortune to be surrounded by people who are genuinely passionate about what they do for a living, in contrast with millions of others in the city whose chief drive in the context of work would include things like security and material gain. At a time when so many jobs are being lost daily - in arts as well as elsewhere - the need to take a moment to ask ourselves some of those fundamental questions seems more pressing than ever. The Noughties version of 'Who am I? Where do I come from? What am I doing here?' could well be 'Who am I? Why am I doing what I do? Is it mostly what I do, known as my job, that defines me as a person to people whom I call my friends and family? If that's the case, isn't it rather worrying, no matter if there's a recession on or not?'
I suppose a lot of people go through their lives without having figured out - or perhaps even thought about - what they really want from life or who they really want to be. A job is easily the most visible kind of identity, and naturally becomes the most expedient kind too. But perhaps we could all use a little bit of reckoning, of recognising that the function of a day job is precisely what we hate to think it is: something to pay the bills with. If you happen to really love what you do, so much the better; but it really doesn't equal who you are - the answer to that surely consists of experiences, qualities and skills that may well not get an airing during a lifetime's working hours. No matter how grand your job title, how impressive your professional achievements or how over-sized your pay package might be, strip these all away and are you - you the person - still there? If not, what's the point of keeping the bills paid anyway?
Tuesday 10 February 2009
A Life Less Ordinary - with a hefty price to pay
An alarming lesson from two films by Sam Mendes a decade apart and which, for me, remain his two finest pieces of cinematic work: American Beauty and Revolutionary Road.
In both films, the protagonists, the anti-hero(ine)s are depicted immaculately by two actors at the height of their power: Kevin Spacey and Kate Winslet (Q: why on earth are all the accolades bestowed on her this year for the mediocre The Reader instead? A: Welcome to Hollywood.). The two characters who reject the prescribed pattern of life and make an ultimately futile attempt at seeking out an alternative, in their vastly different manners and eras, both end in death. Those left behind to cling on to the banalities-disguised-as-securities (or, as the mentally disturbed John in Revolution Road so brilliantly summarised, the 'hopeless emptiness') they had considered so important know that the rest of their days will be lived out in inescapable misery, that there will be no redemption in the form of material gains by any earthly measure. Dicaprio's Frank Wheeler was given a chance at becoming something different, at achieving something closer to emotional and intellectual fulfillment. There was no guarantee that this alternative route would lead to great enlightenment or any more familiar form of eternal happiness. What there was was the complete unknown, whereas the known would only map out the rest of his life in one paralysingly tangible direction.
Frank chose the latter with no hesitation. All the dithering that he displayed in front of April was pure show for her sake. She refused to go on living the perfectly ordinary (it really is deeply imprinted in so many of us that ordinariness is a virtue by default, isn't it) life with him and, under the circumstances, her only option of being extra-ordinary was to abandon this life altogether. Which she did. Kevin Spacey's Lester Burnham was of course murdered by his raging neighbour in the end, but that unforgettable smirk on his dead face led us to think that he was somehow complicit in his own death, that this was his only way out of his version of the hopeless emptiness, the endless banalities that seemed to define his life.
Some have suggested that Mendes ought to make one more film to complete his trilogy of American suburbia parables. I do hope he's not dispirited by the fact that Revolutionary Road (which offers more depth and nuance than all other American films I saw last year put together) was almost completely overlooked by the Academy. I, for one, shall look forward to the final instalment of the trilogy eagerly, as I am to his Bridge Project on the Old Vic stage later this year.
Sunday 8 February 2009
Pitmen's chorus
I had all the facts about 'The Pitmen Painters', Lee Hall's universally praised play about the Ashington Group, the group of miners from Ashington (north of Newcastle, our second hometown) who defied circumstances (1930s Britian was steeped in recession as well as its age-old class barriers) to become a celebrated school of painters. I knew the run at Cottsloe last year had been a huge success, and the current transfer to the much bigger Lyttleton had also been completely sold out. I had expected lots of near-impenetrable Geordie accents (thank goodness for our 3 years of living there) and lots of quick-witted dialogues (Hall has a real gift for colloquial rhythms). What I hadn't expected was the impressive amplitude and astounding quality of the miners' works (my ignorance) - nearly accenturating and complementing the plot on the three large slides - and how moving the play was.
The closing scene of Act I featured the five miner/painters upstage, in the centre, in turn delivering each line of the following prose (which, by nature of being prompted by each of the characters in print, automatically becomes beautiful verse) with increasingly focused lighting. This was their collective gut response to what they've seen on a pilgrimage to the great galleries in London, and the spontaneous announcement of their own arrival as a Group. Works of Cezannes, Blake, Turner and Van Gogh appeared on the slides, 'thick and fast' (Hall's stage direction), followed by early drawings of the miners themselves. Their reactions to the masterworks resonated with ours, and their emotions overwhelmed us by their sheer simplicity. A truly powerful moment.
You can take one set of things
some board, some paint, whatever
You can take this one set of things
and you can make them something else.
Whatever your circumstances
rich or poor
And you make them something else.
This is what art shows you.
No matter how hard or how easy
you can take things
and transform them.
You don't have to put up with what you're given
and not just into anything.
You can transform things and make something beautiful
something profound.
You can make something
That's the work of art
that you can change things.
And you can overcome whateber you need to overcome.
No matter who you are, where you come from
You need a brush
or whatever
canvas or bit of old card
and change things.
And that is what is important about art.
You take one thing
and you make one thing into another
and you transform
who you are.
The closing scene of Act I featured the five miner/painters upstage, in the centre, in turn delivering each line of the following prose (which, by nature of being prompted by each of the characters in print, automatically becomes beautiful verse) with increasingly focused lighting. This was their collective gut response to what they've seen on a pilgrimage to the great galleries in London, and the spontaneous announcement of their own arrival as a Group. Works of Cezannes, Blake, Turner and Van Gogh appeared on the slides, 'thick and fast' (Hall's stage direction), followed by early drawings of the miners themselves. Their reactions to the masterworks resonated with ours, and their emotions overwhelmed us by their sheer simplicity. A truly powerful moment.
You can take one set of things
some board, some paint, whatever
You can take this one set of things
and you can make them something else.
Whatever your circumstances
rich or poor
And you make them something else.
This is what art shows you.
No matter how hard or how easy
you can take things
and transform them.
You don't have to put up with what you're given
and not just into anything.
You can transform things and make something beautiful
something profound.
You can make something
That's the work of art
that you can change things.
And you can overcome whateber you need to overcome.
No matter who you are, where you come from
You need a brush
or whatever
canvas or bit of old card
and change things.
And that is what is important about art.
You take one thing
and you make one thing into another
and you transform
who you are.
Thursday 5 February 2009
East Asian cinema
I've got several films on my 'to watch' list for the coming weekend (goodness knows how much more the undone pile of laundry will grow): Revolutionary Road, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Milk, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (I'm really convinced that Brad Pitt is totally capable of great acting, especially when he's directed by David Fincher). But for those of you who're London-based at least, may I urge you to see something that's opening for (so-called) general release tomorrow in the capital - I think it's actually only on at 3 cinemas, but one of them is Cineworld Shaftesbury Avenue, which is handy enough.
I saw 'The Good, The Bad and the Wierd' (no prize for guessing which older film inspired this one) at the London Film Festival last year. For me this was the official arrival of the Korean blockbuster on the map. A lot of people already fell in love with the Park Chan Woo revenge trilogy, or the stylish horrors such as Two Sisters, or the historical epic-with-a-twist that was The King and the Clown. Nothing would prepare you for this. Its swashbuckling, breathtaking two hours will pass by quickly.
I guess I'm naturally drawn to good films coming out of East Asia, but for someone who does get to see a lot of European arthouse films as well I can confidently say that the best of Chinese, Japanese and Korean auteurs are churning out more good work now than ever. Distributors over here need to be more intelligent about reaching out to the right audience for them (which are sizeable, in my experience) rather than the odd special features at the NFT. I'm very much looking forward to 'Tokyo Sonata' at the ICA on Saturday (see what I meant about the laundry?), and anything by Hirokazu 'Nobody Knows' Kore-Eda is essential viewing for me. Barbican's Korean Film Festival - which looks like an annual event now, thank heavens - is always eye-opening, and all 4 films we saw there last year were first-rate (let me know if you'd like more details). On the Chinese front, I've got a feeling there are more younger directors encouraged by the runaway success of Crazy Stone (a low-budget, Tarantino-comes-to-Sichuan heist movie), and hopefully we'll get to see more works that dig deep into the contemporary national psyche while touching upon some universal humanity.
I saw 'The Good, The Bad and the Wierd' (no prize for guessing which older film inspired this one) at the London Film Festival last year. For me this was the official arrival of the Korean blockbuster on the map. A lot of people already fell in love with the Park Chan Woo revenge trilogy, or the stylish horrors such as Two Sisters, or the historical epic-with-a-twist that was The King and the Clown. Nothing would prepare you for this. Its swashbuckling, breathtaking two hours will pass by quickly.
I guess I'm naturally drawn to good films coming out of East Asia, but for someone who does get to see a lot of European arthouse films as well I can confidently say that the best of Chinese, Japanese and Korean auteurs are churning out more good work now than ever. Distributors over here need to be more intelligent about reaching out to the right audience for them (which are sizeable, in my experience) rather than the odd special features at the NFT. I'm very much looking forward to 'Tokyo Sonata' at the ICA on Saturday (see what I meant about the laundry?), and anything by Hirokazu 'Nobody Knows' Kore-Eda is essential viewing for me. Barbican's Korean Film Festival - which looks like an annual event now, thank heavens - is always eye-opening, and all 4 films we saw there last year were first-rate (let me know if you'd like more details). On the Chinese front, I've got a feeling there are more younger directors encouraged by the runaway success of Crazy Stone (a low-budget, Tarantino-comes-to-Sichuan heist movie), and hopefully we'll get to see more works that dig deep into the contemporary national psyche while touching upon some universal humanity.
In praise of... Menier Chocolate Factory
Where else can you get such incredible value for money? In the West End, top-price seats regularly go for £45 to £55 (I think the 'hottest tickets' such as Oliver! at Drury Lane are even pricier). Menier Chocolate Factory offers a 'meal deal' at £37 per person. You get a two-course pre-theatre dinner at its lovely restaurant (I had crayfish salad followed by meatballs with rice, and also stple a few bites from M's chocolate-and-pistaschio tart - DELICIOUS), then walk across the room to see the show. Yes, £37 for dinner plus a two-hour-forty-minute show - if you happen to come from any of the territories of the non-sterling major currencies, this is even more startling at the moment.
And what a show! I don't claim to be a Sondheim expert but I could immediately see why people say this piece is best realised/experienced in a chamber setting. MCF is one of those venues where they could justly claim 'every seat is a good seat', and we had the best of the lot, right in the front row. Only after we were 10 minutes into action did I suddenly realise 'A Little Night Music' was actually based on one of my favourite Bergman films, Smiles on a Summer Night. Everything about the production was commendable - the Scandinavian design poetic, the comical timings spot-on, the melancholic moments heart-breaking. The only exception to the otherwise uniformally excellent cast, for me, was Jessie Buckley who played Anne Egerman. Again, this wasn't a biased judgement: I had thought, after her first number, that both her acting and the singing voice were a trifle amateurish compared with the others. Only when I browsed through the programme book during the interval did I discover that she was the runner-up of one of those Lloyd-Webber talent shows making her professional debut (the bliss of not having a TV in our household!). It was a good effort, nonetheless, and she had a tough challenge for a debut facing off Hannah Waddingham as Desiree Armfeldt, whose rendition of 'Send in the Clown' was nothing less than a classic. Interval whispers we caught upon implied that the show was destined for a West End transfer, and I can't wait for the details to transpire so I can recommend it to all my theatre-loving friends. Even though they'll probably have to pay a bit more, and it won't come with the meatballs.
And what a show! I don't claim to be a Sondheim expert but I could immediately see why people say this piece is best realised/experienced in a chamber setting. MCF is one of those venues where they could justly claim 'every seat is a good seat', and we had the best of the lot, right in the front row. Only after we were 10 minutes into action did I suddenly realise 'A Little Night Music' was actually based on one of my favourite Bergman films, Smiles on a Summer Night. Everything about the production was commendable - the Scandinavian design poetic, the comical timings spot-on, the melancholic moments heart-breaking. The only exception to the otherwise uniformally excellent cast, for me, was Jessie Buckley who played Anne Egerman. Again, this wasn't a biased judgement: I had thought, after her first number, that both her acting and the singing voice were a trifle amateurish compared with the others. Only when I browsed through the programme book during the interval did I discover that she was the runner-up of one of those Lloyd-Webber talent shows making her professional debut (the bliss of not having a TV in our household!). It was a good effort, nonetheless, and she had a tough challenge for a debut facing off Hannah Waddingham as Desiree Armfeldt, whose rendition of 'Send in the Clown' was nothing less than a classic. Interval whispers we caught upon implied that the show was destined for a West End transfer, and I can't wait for the details to transpire so I can recommend it to all my theatre-loving friends. Even though they'll probably have to pay a bit more, and it won't come with the meatballs.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
