The Ground Beneath Her Feet (Review)

It's only fitting that one of the most playful contemporary authors gets to write a novel about two rock'n'roll stars and a no less rock'n'roll photographer. The Ground Beneath Her Feet, which originally came out in 1999, finds Salman Rushdie in a mirthful, but still pensive mood.

Spanning forty years, the novel focuses on the relationship between rock star Ormus Cama, the surviving half of twins, music phenomenon Vina Aspara, half-Indian, half American and the "invisible" Rai whose real name is Umeed Merchant.

Through these three main characters and a wild array of supporting ones, Rushdie weaves a tale about love, myths, religion and humankind. There's even time and space for paranormal activity, as exemplified by Ormus's communication with his dead twin brother. Both Ormus and Rai fall for Vina on the same day in 1950s Bombay, whilst on a day out with their families. By then, the teenage girl had had her own share of grief, including a bloodbath in her previous house in the US. Of the three leading characters, Vina's is probably the richest and most interesting. Hers is a mix of iconography - rooted in the ancient Abrahamic traditions -, feminism and femininity. The latter two turn her into a symbol of Diana, the late Princess of Wales, magnitude.

In such a long novel (my copy boasts more than five-hundred and seventy pages), Rushdie cleverly brings real people from the world of rock'n'roll to orbit around his characters. Thus, we get cameos from the likes of Elvis, Dylan and U2. In fact, the Irish band went the extra mile and recorded the song that, in the book, serves as the nexus between Ormus and Vina. The clip appears below at the end of this review. In addition, Salman also scatters these three stars (Rai turns out to be one of the better photographers of his generation) all around the globe, rooting them firmly especially in Bombay, London and New York.

There are parallels between the author's life and the story he tells, although he would probably scoff at notions suggesting that The Ground Beneath Her Feet is autobiographical. However, anyone familiar with Rushdie's social interactions might come to the conclusion that Ormus and Vina's shoulder-rubbing with the rich and famous might be a bit too similar to Salman's love of glamour and glitz. And they wouldn't be completely wrong.

Where to me the two strongest poinst of the novel lie is in its exploration of myths and its meditation on belief. The former reeks heavily of Princess Diana's death and the cult it inspired with the thousands of wreaths adorning the gates and fences of Buckingham Palace and the very public outcry it unleashed. This, in a land famed for its stiff upper lip. It's a similar situation with Vina Aspara when she's swallowed up by an earthquake in Mexico (fret not, I'm not giving the plot away; in fact, that's how the novel starts). The outpouring of grief at her death is so much that a whole industry based on her life and work does not take long to spring up and cash in. In regards to beliefs, Rushdie's always been very vocal against organised religion, especially in the wake of the fatwa issued against him by Ayatollah Khomeini. However, in The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Salman is far from a staunch, dyed-in-the-wool, Richard-Dawkins-style atheist. He is more interested in musing over the relationship between gods and humans, including those artists whom some people worship as semigods. Lennon comes to mind. He uses the imagery of ground-cracking or ground-shifting to show progress, evolution and also backwardness and procrastination, not from a biological or historical point of view, but rather from an artistic and human one. Above all, it's the way he plays (and I use the word in the sense of "toying") with reality and a "parallel world". One that we can only access through Ormus's double vision.

Although The Ground Beneath Our Feet came out twelve years ago, its message of love and humanism is as relevant as ever. Another great read by master Salman which I totally recommend.

© 2011

Next Post: “Sunday Mornings: Coffee, Reflections and Music”, to be published on Sunday 6th November at 10am (GMT)

Bamako (Review)

I still remember the first and only time I watched the movie Waiting for Happiness, Abderrahmane Sissako's meditation on migration. It was at an African film festival I had curated and managed and the feature was amongst a number of obscure submissions over whose reception I was fretting somewhat. Yet, I, and the rest of the audience were blown away by the director's subtle images of sand and sea, juxtaposed with a feeling of otherness and a state of limbo.

Whereas in Waiting for Happiness the setting is all whitewashed buildings and almost total tranquillity, Bamako is the opposite. The movie centres on a court case in the Malian capital where the plaintiff seems to be Africa itself and the accused are the World Bank, the IMF and other corporations. Beyond the premises there's the hustle-bustle that characterises an African city. However, to say that the court case is at the centre of the film is somewhat misleading because there are other subplots that are as interesting as, if not more interesting than, the main one. There're the marriage problems between a nightclub singer and her unemployed husband. There's also a photographer, who works part-time for the police, and who records marriages and funerals, choosing the latter over the former because they're 'more real'. There's even an out-of-this-world (and some might think totally unrelated) scene where people are watching a spaghetti western called Death in Timbuktu, starring Danny Glover and the Palestinian film-maker Elia Suleiman.

Sissako's achievement is in presenting an Africa that speaks with its own voice and in its own language. His intention is to celebrate the dignity of those who have very little but without displaying any kind of self-pity. At the same time he avoids the usual pitfalls of laying all the blame at the doors of those who are better off. During the court proceedings we hear stories from both sides. Some of the witnesses are very articulate and others aren't. The magic of the film lies in the combination of an off-the-cuff approach (Sissako has a reputation for hiring non-actors) and a calculated and sophisticated one, especially when it comes to the photography and setting.

The result is a stunning film where the viewer is challenged to come up with his or her own answers and where the protagonist, Africa, gets one of those rare chances to speak its mind. Another one not to miss.

© 2011

Next Post: “Sunday Mornings: Coffee, Reflections, Music and Dance”, to be posted on Sunday 16th October at 10am (GMT)

Lilya 4-Ever (Review)

Whenever immigration is discussed in the UK, the following words and/or phrases are wheeled out: illegal, scroungers, taking our jobs, many, too many, no space, burden on the NHS/education sector. Less attention is paid to what makes some people up sticks and move to another country, sometimes travelling in a boat on dangerous waters, or in the back of a lorry.

That was one of the reasons why I welcomed Lukas Moodysson's film "Lilya 4-Ever". Because he dares to go where few directors will. Moodysson's feature packs a mighty punch. Like a scientist, he dissects the living, breathing (post-socialist) contemporary Russian society and reveals its bleak reality.

Lilya (Oksana Akinshina) is a vivacious sixteen-year-old girl who lives with her mother in a poverty-stricken, derelict Russian town. Her mother meets a man through a dating agency and together they decide to emigrate to the States. At the beginning, Lilya is pretty much part of her mother's long-term plans but soon that changes and she is left behind. The situation takes a turn for the worse when Lilya's auntie asks her to move to another flat which is in a worse condition than the one in which she lives now. Lilya befriends a local eleven-year-old boy, Volodya (Artyom Bogucharsky), who has a crush on her and together they get up to all kinds of pranks. About the same time, she also falls in with the wrong crowd and ends up meeting a smooth-talking young guy in a club, who promises her that he can take her away to Sweden where she will have the opportunities that are denied to her in her native Russia. What Lilya doesn't suspect, nor has she the ability to, is that her "boyfriend" is a pimp who procures prostitutes for a vast network of clients in European countries. He doesn't even travel to Sweden with her.

Once in the Scandinavian nation Lilya is locked up in a flat on her own where she has to perform all kinds of unspeakably sexual acts. And it is here, in civilised, liberal Sweden where she meets her horrible fate.

Lilya 4-Ever is, above all, a film about betrayal. Lilya's mother betrays her daughter. Lilya, then, betrays Volodya when she meets Andrei (the pimp) and leaves her friend behind in an attempt to improve her life in Sweden. Lilya is consequently betrayed by Andrei, too. At the same time all characters in the movie are let down by society, both the Russian and Swedish, for their role in it amounts to no more than a mere cameo.

But the movie is also about the failure of the "big Soviet dream". One should never build a polity on utopias. One of the reasons why the socialist panacea failed - and continues to fail, in the few countries that are left - was that it created an illusion it couldn't deliver. The effect of this mirage was alienation amongst its younger members with the concomitant outcomes: drugs, alcohol and prostitution. For Lilya, read the youngsters jumping over the Berlin Wall in '89, or the Cuban rafters in '94, or the lone man facing the Chinese tanks in Tiananmen Square. The squalor in which Lilya lives is not just the result of deficient post-Soviet economic policies, but also of erstwhile blind, centralised, political bureaucracy.

I admit that I rented the movie from Lovefilm without having an inkling about the director's work. It turns out that his two previous films have been comedies. Talk about career change!

Moodysson forces us to confront certain truths that are not at all comfortable. Who cleans the floors of the schools our children attend, before the little ones even get there? Who prepares the salads that wind up on the shelves of our local supermarkets? Who picks our fruit'n'veg? Who keeps the sex and porn industry afloat? And on top of that they have to put up with yet another sanctimonious Daily Mail headline demonising them.

There's no doubt that Lily-4-Ever is a tough movie to watch. But it is also riveting. It's cinematography at its best. The music is very good, ranging from hardcore metal to soft, harmonious melodies. The scenes where Lilya is repeatedly raped by different men are shot from her perspective, thus rendering her ordeal more palpable. The dreamlike sequence where Volodya's spirit appears to Lilya would have been thought kitsch in any other context. But coming on the back of yet more physical and mental pain for the protagonist, they are beautiful to watch. As well as painful. The photography reminded me a little of Ken Loach with its no-holds-barred documentary-like approach.

This is another must-see movie. And I, for one, will be now looking up Moodysson's comedies on Lovefilm. Just to balance a bit, you know.

© 2011

Next Post: “Sunday Mornings: Coffee, Reflections and Music”, to be published on Sunday 24th July at 10am (GMT)

London River (Review)

It's hard to envisage someone trying to create or make sense of beauty when confronted with an atrocity. More so when the barbaric act to which this person bears witness is the consequence of the worst terrorist attack a city's ever seen perpetrated against it. It, then, shouldn't be hard to understand the initial reluctance by writers, musicians, film-makers and artists in general, to address the events that befell London in the summer of 2005.

7/7 will always be etched in our collective memory, not just because of the eerie, iterative numerical combination, but also because it happened a day after the British capital had been confirmed as the host of the 2012 Olympic Games. Suddenly the mood in the streets went from elation to despair.

However, in the end artists did respond, not only to the bombings, but also to some of the events that took place in the wake of the terrorist attack: the shooting of the Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes two weeks after 7/7, for instance. Nitin Sawhney's eighth studio album, 'London Undersound', aimed to celebrate and comment on London and its cultural diversity. A memorial to the victims of the carnage was unveiled in Hyde Park in 2009. And film made its own contribution, too, in the form of Chris Morris's satire 'Four Lions' and 'London River', directed by the French director Rachid Bouchareb. The latter, in particular, is a movie about tragedy and loss as much as it is about prejudice and ignorance.

Elisabeth (another five-star performance by Brenda Blethyn) is a farmer on the idyllic island of Guernsey. Her daughter has recently moved to London and seems to be doing well, although mum is unaware of what her offspring's daily life entails. Watching the events of 7/7 unfold on TV, Elisabeth calls her daughter to check she is OK. After leaving countless messages on her mobile and getting no response, she finally takes a train London-bound, leaving her brother in charge of her farm. Upon her arrival in the British capital she comes face-to-face with the havoc wreaked by the terrorist attacks. 'Missing' posters are put up on walls outside underground station by relatives who still don't know the whereabouts of their loved ones. Police stations are stretched to the full by the many enquiries from members of the public. Hospitals can barely cope. The only place Elisabeth resists visiting is the morgue. She still has hopes of finding her daughter alive.

Elisabeth is joined in her search rather fortuitously by African immigrant worker Ousmane (a fine turn by Malian actor Sotigui Kouyaté) although she rejects him at first. Ousmane is looking for his son, whom he hasn't seen since he was six. At some point he fears his boy might have been one of the suicide bombers, or at least had something to do with the atrocity. When Ousmane finds a photo of his son with a group of friends, he immediately recognises Elisabeth's daughter whose 'missing' poster he'd seen before. What follows after is a thoughtful and mature meditation on 7/7 and human relations.

The performances are superb, but so are both the direction and script. In just under an hour and a half, Bouchareb constructs a credible story and craftly allows its main characters to take ownership of it. His is a hands-off approach that benefits greatly from the expertise of Kouyaté and Blethyn. The script is rich in nuances (Elisabeth's conversations in French with Ousmane are a joy to behold and put paid to the notion that all Brits are monolingual. They're not). After the initial froideur from Elisabeth towards Ousmane, the barriers come down. At the centre of the story is the tale of two human beings who are not dissimilar to one another: they both work the soil, Elisabeth as a farmer, Ousmane as a forest worker in France; they have both grown apart from their children, in her case she is surprised to find out that her daughter has taken up Arabic (her daughter and Ousmane's son are also a couple). Ousmane, on the other hand, feels guilty for not having been present in his son's life.

In the end, though, even with the tragic dénouement that engulfs both parents, we're left with the idea that when faced with events like 7/7 it's our common humanity which should/will prevail. Precisely the kind of message that the victims of the London bombing would have liked to hear. This is another must-see film.

© 2011

Next Post: ‘Sunday Mornings: Coffee, Reflections and Music’, to be published on Sunday 13th March at 10am (GMT)


LONDON RIVER trailer from Trinity Films on Vimeo

La Lectrice/The Reader (Review)

I'm sure that you will agree with me, my lovely book-worm readers, that going to bed with Atwood or Rushdie is one of those pleasures in life that cannot be measured. Before you jump to the wrong conclusion, that of me advocating licentious literary displays, let me come clear. I'm referring to the simple act of reading in bed. Or being read to, which is better.

That's the premise at the centre of "La Lectrice" (The Reader), a French film from 1988 that I watched again recently. Constance (played superbly by Miou-Miou) is in bed with her boyfriend, to whom she is reading a novel aloud. Inspired by the book's main character, Marie, who hires her services out as a reader, Constance decides to do something similar. From here onwards fiction and reality combine together seamlessly to create a tale where the boundaries of what's
reality combine together seamlessly to create a tale where the boundaries of what's genuine and what’s not very often confuse the viewer.

Constance/Marie’s clients include a disabled young man, a general’s widow with strong communist leanings, a company director who can’t handle social interaction very well and a lascivious judge. Along the way we’re taken on a journey through some of literature’s classical works. Tolstoy, Duras and Sade are just some of the authors who cameo in the film.

“La Lectrice” poses various questions: is reading a solitary activity or can it be shared? If shared, do you have to possess a particular voice to read to another person or an audience, or will your ordinary one do just as well? Can being read to change the way we interact with people?

The film benefits from a strong direction (Michel Deville) and leads, but occasionally it affects a false tone of sophistication. On top of that some of the nude scenes are gratuitous, in my opinion, especially after the playful atmosphere at the beginning. Saying that, Constance/Marie’s decision at the end of the film to refuse to read to the lascivious magistrate and his friends a passage from Sade’s “120 Days of Sodom”, is evidence that Miou Miou’s character is anything but a puppet.

I would recommend that you watch this film with a group of like-minded friends who are as keen on reading as you are, preferably on a Saturday night. Who knows, you might even arrange a reading session after!

© 2010

Next Post: “Let’s Talk About…”, to be published on Thursday 4th November at 11:59pm (GMT)

Jesus of Montreal (Review)

When I was younger I got involved in various drama projects. One of them was led by an independent producer and director who had gained certain notoriety in the alternative cinema scene in Havana. We used to rehearse every Sunday morning and although our work never made it to the screen - to my chagrin - I enjoyed the sessions because they were extremely liberating. A key exercise was to remember a sad episode from our childhood, act on it and come out of it as quick as possible. I was good at the recalling and reliving it but less effective at the letting go of it.

The same happened to Lothaire Bluteau's character in "Jesus of Montreal".

If with "The Decline of the American Empire", Canadian director Denys Arcand gave us a comprehensive view of Montreal's chattering classes, their inhibitions and repressions (especially of a sexual nature), with "Jesus of Montreal" he turned the seaport city into a version of Gethsemane.

A Catholic priest (Fr. Leclerc, played by Gilles Pelletier) asks an actor (Daniel, played by Lothaire Bluteau) to update a Passion play he's been staging for many years. The piece feels somewhat dated and the prelate thinks that a fresher approach will help his church gain new worshippers. Daniel's approach is, for want of a better word, unconventional. At some point he even hints that Jesus's biological father is a Roman soldier who leaves Palestine soon after. The production is very successful but it falls foul of the higher church authorities who order Fr. Leclerc to stop it. With the boundaries of art and reality becoming more and more blurred, Daniel's life starts mirroring that of his character, Jesus of Nazareth. The final scene in a Montreal underground station is harrowing, if also poetic.

'Jesus of Montreal' is the type of film that you have to watch more than once in order to understand the symbolisms in it. Having had very little religious knowledge when I first saw it, I was more impressed with the performances and photography than with the parallels between Christ's tribulations and that of the actors', especially Daniel. This time around I looked closer and the various allegorical themes were easier to read: Daniel wrecking the film equipment at a commercial when he thinks that his fellow thespian Mireille is being taken advantage of is reminiscent of the cleansing of the temple; Daniel's apperance before a judge echoes Jesus' appearance before Pontius Pilate. And then there's the ending, which, depending on your taste, can be uplifting or schmaltzy. After his death, three of Daniel's organs, including a heart and an eye, are transplanted into three other patients. The message is clear: Daniel has become Christ the Redeemer.

But beyond this cinematographic hagiography, Denys Arcand builds a credible tableau vivant where he explores human acts and emotions such as hypocrisy, intolerance and optimism. Far from being a celibate priest, Fr. Leclerc is sleeping with Constance, one of the actresses in the production. The fine, sharp line that runs between left-of-field art and its commercial cousin is straddled more than once; one of the actors that joins the ensemble makes ends meet by providing voice-overs for hardcore pornographic films. After the church authorities demand that the play be abandoned, Daniel and his troupe disobey the orders from above and attempt to perform it regardless of the consequences, which in this case are fatal for Daniel.

With the recent papal visit to the UK, the Catholic Church has come under scrutiny once more and its stand on various issues such as women, marriage, homosexuality and child sexual abuse has been debated more openly. It was a perfect (albeit unplanned, I swear), time to watch again this cinematic gem.

© 2010

Next Post: 'Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre (Review)', to be posted on Thursday 30th September at 11:59pm (GMT)

Los Amantes del Círculo Polar/The Lovers of the Arctic Circle (Review)

Destiny and chance play a big part in our lives, even if those of a more realistic and pragmatic disposition, like me, would claim that most of the time we shape our own fate. Still, there's always space for what-ifs scenarios and that's exactly what Basque director Julio Medem had in mind when he made 'Los Amantes del Círculo Polar' ('The Lovers of the Arctic Circle')

Otto and Ana are two children in the same school who end up sharing more than an educational institution. Their names are palindromes and after Otto's parents separate, his father begins a relationship with Ana's mother. Thus, Otto and Ana's paths are brought together by fate. Fortuity is also present when their childhood friendship becomes adolescence romance. But since they have grown up together like brother and sister, their relationship has to be kept secret. Finally, after cheating on him for a long time with a colleague at work, Ana's mother leaves Otto's father. This causes a rift between the latter and his son. Otto flees home and later becomes a pilot. Ana moves to Lapland, within the Arctic Circle, where she can watch the midnight sun she had often discussed with Otto when they were children. Otto, meanwhile, on finding out Ana's whereabouts, flies to Lapland to meet her.

'Los Amantes del Círculo Polar' deals with themes already explored by other Medem's vehicles. On this blog we've had 'Vacas' and very soon I will be writing about 'Lucía y el Sexo' ('Sex and Lucia'). In 'Los Amantes del Círculo Polar', the chances one encounters in life and how to take full advantage of them, love, death and destiny are recurring themes.

As befits the title, the action is circular. Ana sees the spectre of his dead father when she first lays eyes on Otto. Otto looks for Ana years after he's left home. One of the better moments in the film is when Otto, still unlucky in his search, sits in a public square behind Ana, as she considers breaking up with her current boyfriend. Of such fleeting instants is real life made. It's no coincidence (or maybe it is?) that Ana's life ends under the wheels of a coach. Under a vehicle with four circular frames.

As a director, Medem has always enjoyed good performances from his leads and supporting cast. 'Los Amantes del Círculo Polar' continues in the same tradition with Najwa Nimri and Fele Martínez excelling in their roles as young Ana and Otto respectively. Nancho Novo, who had already worked with Medem before in 'La Ardilla Roja' ('The Red Squirrel'), is excellent playing the father. Maru Valdivielso completes the quartet with a great turn as the mother.

Julio Medem's fourth feature film tells a good story based on the what-ifs life throws at us. It is another visual gem from the Basque director which I recommend to all cinema lovers.

© 2010

Next Post: 'Sunday Mornings: Coffee, Reflections and Music', to be posted on Sunday 12th September at 10am (GMT)

The Squid and the Whale (Review)

Sophie: Yeah. I mean, it's gross when he turns into the bug, but I love how matter of fact everything is.
Walt Berkman: Yeah, it's very Kafkaesque.
Sophie: [She looks at him oddly. She laughs] Cause it's written by Franz Kafka.
Walt Berkman: Right. I mean, clearly.

Disfunctionality usually thrives in the most trivial and inconsequential situations. When teenager Walt Berkman lies to his girlfriend about him having read 'Metamorphosis', his words are the latest porky in a long string of untruths, starting with him appropriating Pink Floyd's 'Hey You', performing it at a festival in his school and trying to pass it off as his own composition. But then, as the saying goes, 'like father, like son'.

'The Squid and the Whale' deals with the disfunctionality created by the estrangement of two parents in modern New York. University professor Bernard Berkman (played superbly by Jeff Daniels) is a successful lecturer but his writing career is in the doldrums. His wife, Joan (Laura Linney excels in her role), on the other hand, is gaining ground with her literary efforts. Their separation brings about a conflict that pits their two sons against each other with unforeseen consequences. Adolescent Walt sides with his father and starts copying him. Meanwhile, younger sibling Frank stays with his mum and his behaviour goes from erratic to abnormal.

Based on director Noah Baumbach's true childhood experiences, 'The Squid...' is a film that touches upon various subjects with subliminal messages galore. The beginning of the movie is soundtracked by young Walt intoning Roger Waters' immortal words: 'Hey you, out there in the cold/Getting lonely, getting old/Can you feel me?'. It's a way of letting us know that angst will be part of the film's emotional landscape. Frank gets into trouble for using semen to smear the books in his school library as well as a locker. That could well be a response to her mother Joan starting an affair with Frank's tennis teacher. Or it could be Frank's way of reacting to his father's snobbish personality.

The movie benefits from an intelligent script, a balanced mix of comedy and drama, sound direction and good performances from both leading and supporting actors. Furthermore, 'The Squid...' is part of a crop of films about the Big Apple, that are filling the gap left behind by director Woody Allen, when he upped sticks and decided to use Europe as his headquarters. We've had 'Synecdoche, New York' and before that 'Being John Malkovich', two vehicles, amongst others, that sought to make sense of existential quandaries. The difference is that in 'The Squid...' Jeff Daniels' Bernard Berkman comes across as a jealous, self-indulgent, chauvinistic has-been, as opposed to a troubled soul like Philip Seymour Hoffman's Caden Cotard or John Cusack's Craig Schwartz.

An acerbic divorce, sexual misbehaviour and plagiarism. It makes one not want to be part of the Berkman clan, yet, how delightful to be given the opportunity by director Noah Baumbach to become a fly on the wall and enjoy the spectacle. I hope you will, too.

© 2010

Next Post: 'Sunday Mornings: Coffee, Reflections and Music', to be published on Sunday 25th July at 10am (GMT)

Insane in the Brain (Review)

There are instances of artistic audacity that would bewilder even the strongest advocate for culture and creativity. For instance, what do you when you are presented with a piece based on a novel written by one of the most famous counter-cultural figures in US literature? Or when said book spawns a successful Broadway adaptation starring Kirk Douglas and Gene Wilder? Or when the play is then turned into a multi-award-winning movie, including best picture, best director and best actor?

And yet this is what the Swedish company 'Bounce' did with 'Insane in the Brain', a choreography based on "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". This is a title that one associates more with Jack Nicholson's free-spirited McMurphy going to war against the strict rule imposed by Louise Fletcher's Nurse Ratched than with streetdance.

Using the same psychiatric hospital setting, the hip-hop company's piece depicts the grim environment in which inmates are kept. As it happens in the novel, play and film, they are all under the rule of the cold and sadistic nurse Mildred Ratched. One day, a new patient, Randall Patrick McMurphy is transferred from a criminal unit to the mental institution since there is uncertainty about his diagnosis. From the beginning, when introductions are made, both guards and hospital residents are aware that the new arrival poses a challenge to Nurse Ratched's omnipotent governance. What follows after is a battle where human rights, society's miopia and misconceptions about mental illness all have leading roles.

Bounce is a rather unusual streetdance company in that their dramatic range works as well as their dance skills. To say that they are amazing performers would be mild to the extreme. The level of creativity, vision and risk-taking are formidable. And although there are references in the piece that are not suitable for a family-orientated matinee (oral sex, the 'f' word gratuitously used, a love-making scene that lasted far too long), the mix of different media and the bold approach to street dance are brilliant.

But there's another knock-on effect brought unwittingly by 'Insane in the Brain' (a title borrowed from the Cypress Hill track that is included in the show): maybe this is hip-hop's 'Philipic' moment. In the same way that Demosthenes raged against Philip of Macedon (hence the name) in the 4th century B.C., streetdance has been steadily and consistently raising its voice against the establishment. 'Insane in the Brain' is just the latest instalment of a trend that has seen the popular urban genre move away from its origins in 70s New York and adopt a more experimental and challenging style. In the last few years we've had Zoo Nation's 'Into the Hoods' (inspired by 'Little Red Riding Hood') showing off its street credo to full houses in the West End. Last December my wife and I took our children, not to a traditional Christmas pantomime of the 'He's behind you!' variety, but to Boy Blue Entertainment's 'Pied Piper' (based on the 'Pied Piper of Hamelin') at the Barbican. Again, the company performed to a sell-out crowd. What the two aforementioned shows have in common is that they have delved into the world of fairy tales, a literary style that one might not see at first as a match for the display of strength, speed and dexterity that hip-hop demands. And if we step away from dance for just a nanosecond and go into music, the fairy tale genre also features in urban music. In MC Solaar's 2001 album 'Cinquième As' the song 'La Belle et le Bad Boy' is a reworking of 'Beauty and the Beast', the only difference is that 'la Bête' is a criminal and the 'beauty' gets killed in the end as a consequence of following him ('Des projectiles partent quand une BM freine/Quand elle tombe, il a les larmes aux yeux/Deux balles de 22. Vingt deux ans adieu/Le contexte est plus fort que le concept/Son mec s'est jette dans les flammes il faut qu'il se lave avec'). More Bonnie and Clyde than Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve but you get the gist: hip-hop has raised its game.

Moreover, the stories from which Zoo Nation, Boy Blue Entertainment and Bounce have drawn their inspiration - whether they be fairy tales or counter-culture masterpieces - mirror streetdance's position in the performing arts world. Like Little Red, hip-hop has had to brave its way through the woods in order to arrive at, share and enjoy the spotlight with all the other dance styles. 'Insane in the Brain' could very well be depicting urban dance in the form of McMurphy rebelling against the narrow-mindedness of officials who tend to look down on streetdance as a lower category of bodily motion.

Bounce has created a truly spectacular show where each routine seems to outsmart the previous one. The beginning of the show depicting the symptoms of split personality condition is highly imaginative. The nightime bed choreography reminded me of the start of Pink Floyd's 'Money' in terms of synchronisation and harmony. The electro-shock sequence, set to System of a Down's 'P.L.U.C.K', conveys the pain and horror of a practice that was considered normal until a few decades ago. And while we're on the music, the tracks selected for the piece show how versatile this company is. They don't restrict themselves to just hip-hop melodies. From Mongo Santamaria's 'Watermelon Man' to Astor Piazzola's 'Libertango', Bounce shows an extraordinary ability to incorporate different rhythms into its routine .

The mad energy of 'Insane in the Brain' is a good example of how streetdance can be edgy and enterprising at the same time. Being deliriously bonkers never felt so good.

© 2010

Note: I've uploaded three clips so that you can experience Bounce's creative power to the max. The first one is a promotional video by Sadler's Wells Theatre prior to the premiere of 'Insane in the Brain' in 2008. The second and third ones are extracts from the piece. I hope you enjoy them.

Next Post: 'Food, Music, Food, Music, Food, Music... Ad Infinitum', to be published on Thursday 15th July at 11:59pm (GMT)

Yella (Review)

What if we try to escape from our past by running away into another dimension? What if that dimension is literally figurative instead of a construct of our minds? And what if that past caught up with us later in the unlikeliest of scenarios?

These are some of the questions that German director Christian Petzold tries to answer with 'Yella', a pessimistic, grim drama, which centres on the life of a woman (Nina Hoss) whose life is turned upside down when she attempts to leave her hometown for a new life and job with better prospects. Tragedy strikes when her violent ex-husband turns up on the day she is leaving, gives her a lift to the station and then tries to kill her by driving his car into a near river. Yella manages to escape and eventually she reaches her destination but discovers the job she was promised was a hoax. It doesn’t exist. It is in these circumstances that she meets Phillip, an unscrupulous investor, whose main agenda is to roam the country looking for smaller companies of which he can take advantage. Yella turns out to be a formidable sidekick and soon the two of them become a lethal duet, cheating their way into and out of deals. Parallel to this, Yella begins to experience small paranormal moments where she can hear voices or sounds from her past. Her former husband, thought dead, also starts to stalk her and when her relationship with Phillip moves from the professional to the amorous, her ex- makes an unwelcome appearance.

'Yella' is a visually striking film, that moves from a desolate East Germany - where the leading character's hometown is located - to the western side of the country. The landscape is a combination of urban modernity and vast fields.The movie also delves into the still unsolvable issue of East vs West. In recent years, German cinema has addressed this topic in flicks such as: ‘Good Bye Lenin!’ and ‘The Lives of Others’. The former is a comedy whilst the latter is a faithful and painful account of the role the Stasi played in hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Germans. 'Yella', by contrast, could be considered a metaphysical thriller, more in the mould of the 'X Files'. However, I couldn't help noticing that it is the East German woman who gets corrupted by the West German ruthless businessman.

Having come out in 2007, 'Yella' is also quite a prescient movie in that it foretells the crisis that venture capitalism unleashed on an unsuspecting world a year later. The world of hedge funds, acquisitions and mergers is well illustrated, mixing moments of witty facetiousness (for instance, when Phillip explains to Yella the theory of the crossed-fingers-hands-behind-the-neck position) with instants of utter desperation which wouldn't look out of place in a David Lynch or Ken Loach film.

And the ending? I usually include spoilers in my film reviews. But not this time. You have to watch the ending. The first time I saw it I was confused. The more I thought about it afterwards, and the more I analyse it now with the benefit of hindsight, the more I've come to the conclusion that the ending is the icing on the cake of a powerful critique of modern society's self-harming tendencies.

© 2010

Next Post: 'Sunday Mornings: Coffee, Reflections and Music', to be published on Sunday 11th July at 10am (GMT)

The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai (Review)

If I could give an alternative name to Kiran Desai's second novel, I would call it 'The Loneliness of the Long Distance Immigrant'. Because it centres on the solitude faced by many of its characters. Not only geographical isolation, mind, but also a mental one. However, 'The Inheritance of Loss' is just an apt a title because it deals with themes like dislocation and dispossession.

Biju is a young, recent émigré to the US where he can barely sustain himself through a mix of meagre, low-paid jobs. Back in India, though, his father delights in telling stories about how well his son is doing. Sai is barely out of her teens when she arrives at her grandfather's house after both her parents are killed in an accident in Russia. Her grandad is a retired judge, who worked in the Indian Civil Service and former student at Cambridge. Gyan, Sai's tutor and later her lover, is a Nepalese young man who gradually reveals a fervent patriotism towards his native land causing frictions between Sai and him. The peripheral roles fall to Biju's father, the cook, Lola and Noni, two elderly ladies who befriend Sai and love all things English, Uncle Potty and Father Booty.

'The Inheritance...' is a novel with a very distinctive trait: the richness of its language. And that's both from a literary and linguistic point of view. The former is represented by frequent page-breaks which convey a sense of intimacy and hearsay. We're often allowed to roam freely in a character's mind and be almost an active participant of his or her inner world. Moreover, this device is redolent of the ancient art of story-telling, where the narrators would usually have the opportunity to take a detour from the initial tale and end up recounting a whole different, though still amusing, story. Not that Kiran deviates from the plot too much. But it's still a pleasure to find a writer who likes telling stories as well as paying attention to mood, setting and period. The linguistic factor is provided by the mix of English, Hindi and Nepali in the novel. Desai's characters are constantly moving between languages, in the same way that they are also moving between countries, even if the latter happens only in the mind occasionally (for instance the judge lying on his bed at night, reminiscing about his time in Britain). The Hindi and Nepali words and phrases are italicised and highlight the sense of belonging and dislocation of Sai, her grandfather, Biju et al.

Another aspect of the book I enjoyed thoroughly was the humour. Satirical, witty and sometimes politically incorrect. The author is very careful when she addresses the ethnic divisions in India and you can't help thinking that she must have eavesdropped on many a conversation during her time there in order to come up with such an accurate portrayal of how the various ethnic and religious groups talk about each other. What could have been contemptuous recklessness in a different context, it's transformed into very well-written passages in the novel.

However, I was not prepared for the impact 'The Inheritance...' had on me personally, beyond its literary merit. There were two scenes that will stick in mind forever. The first one was during Biju's second attempt to go to the US. The description of the queue outside the American embassy and the reigning atmosphere reminded me of my own situation when I applied for a permit to the Cuban Immigration Service to visit the UK, minus the air-con:

'Outside, a crowd of shabby people had been camping, it appeared, for days on end. Whole families that had travelled from distant villages, eating food packed and brought with them; some individuals with no shoes, some with cracked plastic ones; all smelling already of the ancient sweat of a never-ending journey. Once you got inside, it was air-conditioned and you could wait in rows of orange bucket chairs that shook if anyone along the length began to bop their knees up and down.'

The description is so vivid that I could smell the sweat to which Desai refers in the scene. The despair and hopelessness are there, if not overtly shown, at least hinted at.

The second passage brought back memories galore of me sitting in a room at a neighbour's or a friend's, waiting for an incoming call from my then girlfriend, now wife. The same feelings of angst and forlornness that overcome Biju and his father are ones I recognise myself as I spent many an hour expecting the phone to ring any minute:

'The phone sat squat in the drawing room of the guesthouse encircled by a lock and chain so the thieving servants might only receive phone calls and not make them. When it rang again, the watchman leapt at the it, saying, "Phone, la! Phone! La mai!" and his whole family came running from their hut outside. Every time the phone rang, they ran with committed loyalty. Upkeepers of modern novelties, they would not, would not, let it fall to ordinariness.'

'The Inheritance...' is above all a book about the migrant experience. And unlike other novels where there's a happy ending or a predictable one, in Desai's book, the dénouement caught me by surprise, even if she prepares the reader for it several pages before. This might be the reason why some readers have felt cheated - besides alleged inaccuracies in Kiran's descriptions of places, people and some of the idioms she uses, especially the Nepali ones. In my opinion, the ending more than justifies the plot, which is about disorientation, lack of sympathy and empathy and displacement. Combined with running themes such as food, language, nationalism and attitudes to colonialism and supported by a beautiful poetic prose, Kiran Desai's 'The Inheritance of Loss' is a novel I will be re-reading in the near future.

© 2010

Next Post: 'Living in a Bilingual World', to be published on Thursday 1st July at 11:59pm (GMT)

El Violín (The Violin) - Review

Rebellion comes in different guises. There are those who take to the mountains to fight government forces. There are others who carry out terrorist attacks on city centres. Others choose more peaceful methods, like marching down a main thoroughfare bearing placards that proclaim their political allegiance. But then you have the type of rebel who defies stereotypes, mainly by staging his or her protest in more circumspect and inconspicuous ways.

This last category is the one that fits Don Plutarco, the leading character of 'El Violín', a Mexican film directed by Francisco Vargas. Shot entirely in black and white, this elegant film tells the story of a family caught up in the maelstrom of politics and insurgence. In an unnamed Latin American country - although most people seem to agree that the nation depicted in the film is Mexico and the period sketched out is that of the peasants' revolts in the 70s - the government is trying to contain a rural upheaval. The first scene shows a group of soldiers raping a peasant woman. Only later do we realise that she might be the wife of one of the main characters in the movie. The government forces loot, torture and murder as they wish. The rebels fight back but suddenly find themselves severed from their cache of ammunition. Don Plutarco (superb performance by Ángel Tavira, who I believe did not have much thespian experience before), a reputable, elderly patriarch, comes up with an ingenious way to smuggle the ammo under the soldier's noses: his violin case. He is helped, inadvertently, by the captain of a small platoon based at a checkpoint near Don Plutarco's farm. The officer (played excellently by Dagoberto Gama) asks the old man to play the violin to him. In exchange Don Plutarco is allowed to tend to his corn crop. But his intentions are not of the agricultural kind. Buried in the soil is his desired goal: the bullets for the insurgents.

In 'El Violín' Francisco Vargas builds a cogent narrative bereft of cheap sentimentality or tacky, romantic discourses. Although the soldiers are shown at their worst, the captain displays signs of a sensitive, artistic bent, probably masqueraded by his army life. In a poignant scene where the officer confides in Don Plutarco some of the dreams he had when he was younger he declares that he'd rather be somewhere else. He also confesses to the elderly farmer that he would have loved to learn how to play a musical instrument. On the other hand, Don Plutarco is the antithesis of the popular Latin America hero of lore: the bandana-wearing, Che Guevara firebrand. He avoids the conflict at first and concentrates on his music, which he performs with his son and his grandson. It's only when his offspring is dragged into the struggle and joins the rebels that the elderly farmer decides to act.

The photography is magnificent and Vargas uses it to good effect, especially the close-ups that show Don Plutarco's dignified stand. It's ironic that a black-and-white film that lasts roughly an hour and forty minutes tells more about the history of a particular period in Mexico - or Latin America, if we go by the film's tagline - than Mel Gibson's two-and-half-hour gorefest 'Apocalypto'.

Ángel Tavira died in 2008. 'El Violín' was the only movie in which he took part since he was a musician by profession. May this review be a tribute to his memory and a commendation to Francisco Vargas for making such a brilliant film.

© 2010



Next Post: 'Sunday Mornings: Coffee, Reflections and Music', to be published on Sunday 20th June at 10am (GMT)

Waltz with Bashir (Review)

Sometimes I think that our memory is a capricious device inserted in human beings at some point during our evolution to act as a "Je t'accuse" tool. A reminder that no matter what we get up to in our life, there will always be a possibility that our mental capacity to revive facts will unearth an unwelcome one. From our past, for instance.

That is the thesis that runs through 'Waltz with Bashir', a feature-length animated documentary that focuses on a man's recurring nightmare connected to the time he spent in the Israeli army in the first Lebanon War in 1982. In the dream the man is being chased by twenty-six feisty dogs, a number that remains unaltered whenever he has this nightmare. Encouraged by his friend, Ari Folman (who is also the writer and director of the film) the man sets out to meet old friends around the world who were also involved in the military conflict. What he finds is disturbing to say the least. Slowly, images from the war creep up, mixed with other visions that he is not sure of having experienced. Did everything he imagines happen exactly as his dreams appear to dictate? Could his memory be tricking him, or could it be the effect of having fought a war where the civilian death toll was huge, especially in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps?

What director Ari Folman also addresses is how memory can be a selective tool to discriminate against unwanted, intrusive elements that might pollute our reputation at a moment in our lives when stability and domestic bliss are the goals desired. The nameless man in the film acts as a gigantic metaphor for the Israeli forces whose decision to allow Christian Phalangist militia into the Palestinian camps ultimately proved fatal for the civilians based there.

The movie benefits from a combination of dark colours, minimalist music and comic-like animation. The effect is like walking on a wide wooden plank above a precipice, with the board eventually getting narrower and narrower without us realising it. The atmosphere is stifling and almost claustrophobic, not just for the main character, the nameless man, but also for those around him. Even Folman doesn't escape this collective amnesia. When confronted by the man's nightmare and the spectre of the war looming large over it, he baffles his interlocutor by claiming that he cannot remember if he was near the camps at the time. The man's meetings with his ex-comrades yield some of the most beautiful moments in the movie, from an aesthetic point of view. One recalls being ambushed and escaping by swimming out to sea in the moonlit night. Another one remembers having an erotic fantasy of an enormous naked woman towing him away whilst his confreres are getting killed. The nameless man himself has a quasi/faux memory of emerging from the sea completely naked with his fellow soldiers and wading on the beach at Beirut. The macabre dance-effect of the latter scene could well have been drawn from the stable of the late Pina Bausch. And dance is even present in the movie's title, named after a scene in which a machine gun-toting commander executes a waltz in front of one of the posters of Bashir Gemayel, the Lebanese president murdered in East Beirut.

'Waltz with Bashir' is a film about the reality of war from a dream-like perspective. One of the reasons why this approach works is because the director avoids pointing his finger at anyone in particular, except for at the Israeli Defence Forces for their role in the massacre of Sabra and Shatila. In what I can only call a 'snap of the fingers to wake the viewer up' moment, Ari Folman includes real TV news footage of the slaughter at the camps. To me the message is clear: it's OK to feel dreamy, and be intelectual and rational about it, but people did get killed. And no matter where you hide or how many years go by, your memory will hunt you down in the end.

©2010



Next post: 'Sunday Mornings: Coffee, Reflections and Music', to be published on Sunday 13th June at 10am (GMT)

Multilinguals Are...? (Review)

I'm sure that in years to come people all over the world will come to appreciate the efforts made by the likes of Madalena Cruz-Ferreira to raise awareness of multilingualism. And I know that I am not alone in thinking that as the global population becomes savvier in linguistic matters (alas, less so in cultural ones sometimes), this will have been made possible thanks to books such as 'Multilinguals Are...?' (Battlebridge Publications).

I must, however, declare, in the interest of fairness, that this review is impartial and unbiased. The reason for this clarification is that my blog was referenced in the illustration credits on account of one of the images Madalena used in her book. It was a cartoon drawn by my fellow Cuban blogger and long-time collaborator, Garrincha and you can read the original post here.

As readers and followers of this blog know, I have been an advocate of multilingualism for a long time, both from a professional perspective (I studied linguistics in university, in Havana) and from a personal point of view since my two children and my wife are all fluent in Spanish and English. In that respect Madalena's book provided answers to many of the questions I had asked myself many times.

'Multilinguals Are...?' is a fun, practical and unpretentious dissertation on the benefits, myths and misconceptions of multilinguals. The first element that caught my attention was Madalena's writing style: not confrontational, yet adamant and firm. Very early on in the book, she turns the tables on those who criticise multilingualism by asking a series of questions normally posed to people who use more than one lingo: 'Can monolingualism affect language development? Can monolingual development affect the development of a child's single language? Is monolingualism an advantage or disadvantage? What are the reasons to nurture monolingualism? How do people become monolingual?'

I confess that I'd never asked myself these questions because I had always assumed that monolinguals outnumbered multilinguals. This is not the case, as Madalena correctly states, and the truth becomes more obvious when you take into account that a person born in India, Kenya or Norway will be exposed to a myriad languages both in their immediate surroundings and in school from a very early age. When I worked in the travel sector, the company was owned by two brothers born in Kenya and fluent in Gujarati, Urdu, Swahili and, of course, English. They could switch from one language to the other effortlessly. Far from them being the exception to the rule, they were rather the norm. Most Scandinavians I've met can converse in English (learnt at school when they're very young), French, Spanish or German. Or in all of them. However, even in what Madalena considers to be a standard linguistic setting, the effect of acquiring a new language is seen as a miracle and the author is well aware of the danger this laudatory attitude poses. In her own words, 'Multilinguals should be wary of taking these kinds of comments as flattering because the problem here is of course that what is awe-inspiring cannot be normal'.

The book is divided in thirteen chapters with thought-provoking titles such as 'Multilinguals have no mother tongue, because they are not native speakers of any language', 'Multilinguals don't have many languages, they have many half-languages' and 'Multilingualism should be encouraged, but only in languages that matter'. The purpose of these eye-catching captions, in my opinion, is to shift the responsibility from the multilingual person, who has to put up with plenty of misconceptions about his or her 'gift', to the monolingual one.

Take Chapter 10, for instance: 'In order to raise multilingual children, you must speak to them in only one language'. It brought to mind the time when my son was born and my wife began to speak to him in Spanish, despite the fact that she herself had been born in the UK. We were under the - wrong - impression that if the two of us did not talk to him in my mother tongue he would never learn it. This approach, however, did the opposite. My wife is British, she learnt Spanish whilst doing her degree in university (although her dad comes from Gibraltar and his family from southern Spain), so therefore many of the phrases that I used with my son, expressions with which I had grown up, were beyond her reach. A few months after our son was born, my consort decided to switch to English and I agreed with her, and also thanked her for making the effort. Madalena puts this situation in context in the book. Here's an excerpt:

'We may start by asking ourselves why no monolingual family worries about the best way of raising their child monolingually. The issue doesn't arise in monolingual families because their use of language will, expectedly, be natural: the parents will speak to their child the (one) language that comes naturally to them, and the child will naturally learn it. In contrast, families, who decide to raise their children multilingually are bound to start at once seeking information and advice about what exactly should be done to achieve this purpose successfully. We may go on wondering why is it that multilingual should worry about this at all. In other words, what is it that makes multilingual hesitate to resort to what must come naturally to them to, as far as uses of language are concerned?'

Such a short book (my copy is eighty-six pages long) will not be able to cover everything related to linguistics. I would like, then, to add two more factors to the whole monolingual/multilingual entente (or discord, your choice). One is culture. It's not strange that monolingualism usually translates as monoculturalism, although many monolinguals are well-versed in multicultural matters. However, in my opinion, they are in the minority. Based on my personal experience, the more an individual retreats into his/her own - sole - language without attempting to reach out, the more his or her cultural perspective narrows. There's mention of this phenomenon in the book, but it is very brief.

The second factor is the relationship between parents/carers and their offspring. My wife's and mine biggest achievement in the linguistic area has been to raise two children who can speak fluently two of the most popular languages in the world: English and Spanish (number two and three, respectively, behind Mandarin at number one). For me this accomplishment is even more rewarding when one takes into account that in a foreign land the sound of one's children speaking one's native tongue and discussing their personal problems (grammatical and syntactical gaffes notwithstanding, and who cares about them, really?) in a frank and open way beats any academic feat they might carry through in school. It's one of the essential rungs on the ladder of respect, trust and friendship that lies at the heart of any parent/children relationship. Again, there's very little of that in the book.

But such observations are mere droplets in the vast ocean of wisdom and common sense Madalena navigates. I laughed out loud when I read her views on people who compare the human brain with a computer. Yes, Your Honour, I used to be one such culprit. Cruz-Ferreira states that: 'If you assume that the brain works like a hard disk, its contents get stored in more or less neat compartments. There must therefore be physical brain space dedicated to language too. You then assume, with the mainstream, that the "normal" language compartment fills to capacity with just one single language (...) And if you further assume, to complete the analogy, that the disk/brain needs some free space to be able to go about its housekeeping tasks properly, we have the ideal conditions that explain the havoc that multilingualism is said to wreak "normal" brains. Symptoms of "Warning: disk full!" crop up through, say, a child's refusal to use one language, adults' difficulties with learning new languages or language mixes from speakers of any age. Whichever the case may be, the error message is ascribed to glitches in language warehousing, where the little grey cells struggle about and waste precious brain energy to defend the territorial rights of their one brain-one language.'

Thorough thinking as demonstrated in the excerpt above is one of the reasons why 'Multilinguals Are...?' deserves more attention. I will be e-mailing publishers and editors in the UK, who, I gather, might be interested in promoting such an impressive book. For the record, I will be doing this without pursuing any financial interest whatsoever. If you're an editor or a publisher and receive an e-missive from me, please, do contact the author directly. As for you, dear fellow bloggers and followers, it doesn't matter whether you're monolingual or multilingual, go and buy this book. It will give you a powerful insight into a fascinating world, one of which you might already be part, or are thinking of joining: multilingualism.

Note: At the author's request, I have included the following links, a couple of which have already made it into the post.

The Publisher: Battle Bridge

Amazon

Multilingual Living

Multilingual Mania

In addition, all profits from the sale of the book go to Yuti (meaning 'unity'), a trilingual children's magazine in Sinhala, Tamil and English. This publication is distributed, free of charge, to Sri Lankan children, ages eight to fourteen, three times a year. For more information, click here.

©2010

Next Post: 'Waltz with Bashir (Review)', to be published on Thursday 10th June at 11:59pm (GMT)

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Review)

The most outstanding element of 'The Diving Bell and the Butterfly' is, that a movie which primarily takes place inside someone's head (and someone who's just had a stroke to cap it all) can be so dynamic. Movement in this film is not restricted to the doctors and nurses who swarm around Jean-Dominique Bauby's bed, coming into and out of focus, but it also involves the patient's vivid inner world.

Whereas in 'Basquiat' he painted a portrait of a self-destructive but highly talented artist and in 'Before Night Falls' he detailed the harassment to which the Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas was subjected by the Castro government, in 'The Diving Bell and the Butterfly' director Julian Schnabel focuses on the trauma suffered by a man who is used to living 'la dolce vita'. Elle magazine's editor-in-chief Jean-Dominique Bauby is at the height of his physical and mental powers when he falls victim to what is known in the medical profession as 'locked-in syndrome'. His whole body is paralysed except for his left eye. Battling against the odds, he learns how to communicate using both that organ of sight and a special code developed by his therapist and his publisher.

'The Diving...' is a film about human resilience, misgivings and challenges. The resilience is provided by Jean-Do's U-turn after initial disappointment in his condition and despair. The ex-editor eventually changes his mind in regards to the possibilities his therapy offers and becomes more cooperative with his speech specialist. The anxiety is displayed mainly by Dominique's friends and his estranged wife, who don't know how to deal with this delicate situation. In one poignant scene and before his volte-face, Jean-Do gets his speech therapist to write: 'I want to die'. On reading these words she storms out of the room and although she apologises after, she realises that her reaction has more to do with her feelings than his. The challenges are various, not least his physical ones, but to Jean-Do's credit he does manage to face up to them.

The movie is also a good opportunity to see director Julian Schnabel at his artistic best, visually speaking. I always felt when I saw both 'Basquiat' and 'Before the Night Falls' that Schnabel was excluding from his movies the genre that brought him fame in the first place: painting. In the eighties he was known for his neo-expressionist work and several galleries around the world have exhibited his art. In 'The Diving...', luckily he doesn't hold back and gives us scenes that could only have been carved out by a visual artist in touch with his creative self. For instance the title of the film is based on an image of a diving bell symbolising imprisonment, whilst the butterfly is a metaphor for freedom, the freedom Jean-Do had but which is now denied to him by his present condition.

There's a lot of humour in the film from the outset. And it's the type of warped facetiousness that is shaped by a sudden upheaval of a person's circumstances. But it is also the type of gaiety that conveys sadness. From that perspective, 'The Diving...' might be a tough film to watch if the main character's plight is too close to home for the viewer.

My only disappointment is the movie trailer (clip below). For some strange reason the producers decided to arrange all the scenes in what would be the chronological and logical order. But that's not how it happens in the film. We come across Jean-Do's thoughts first as he is lying in bed. He tries to talk to the doctors but they cannot hear him. Slowly we find out why and what's happened. The end of the film is the beginning of the trailer. Whereas Julian Schnabel's movie is all about disorientation, trauma and loss, the trailer tries to give a coherent narrative to what is fundamentally an irrational and disjointed situation - not least for Jean-Do. Healthy today, bed-ridden tomorrow.

Yet, don't let that cautionary note put you off this film. It is superbly acted, the script is very strong and the direction flawless. I hope you enjoy it.

© 2010



Next Post: 'Sunday Mornings: Coffee, Reflections and Music', to be published on Sunday 6th June at 10am (GMT)

Vacas (Cows) by Julio Medem (Review)

Long before he became obsessed with penises and the sizes of them in 'Lucía y el Sexo' (Sex and Lucia), Basque director Julio Medem made three ground-breaking movies: 'Vacas' ('Cows'), 'La Ardilla Roja' ('The Red Squirrel') and 'Tierra' ('Earth'). Of this triumvirate 'Vacas' (Medem's opera prima) is probably the more meticulous one, traipsing as it does through the history and culture of the Basque Country.

The movie centres on the idea of how an act of cowardice can affect three generations of two families and fuel a rivalry that at times becomes bloody. Against the backdrop of the 1870s civil war that engulfed this part of Spain, Sergeant Carmelo Mendiluce tries to help fellow villager and army novice Manuel Irigibel when the latter joins the rebel forces. Manuel is filled with terror of the conflict and the fighting and it is this fear that causes Carmelo's death. To pretend that he, too, has been killed, Manuel covers himself with Carmelo's blood and returns to the village, kicking off a feud between the Irigibel and Mendiluce families. The situation is further complicated when many years after, a Romeo-and-Juliet scenario develops between two members of the warring clans.

'Vacas' is a powerful and in-depth study of Basque traditions. Decades after Manuel's coward act we see both families challenging each other over one of the region's rural sports: Aizkora proba (wood chopping). This is a competition where a wood cutter has to chop his way through a number of logs as quickly as possible whilst standing on the trunk. The eponymous bovines represent the agrarian nature of this fiercely patriotic corner of Spain. Medem uses also the cows as time machines to transport the viewer through the different generations (there are some beautiful moments where the camera remains fixed on a cow's gaze and slowly and, barely noticeable to the viewer, it takes him/her through the cow's eye, bringing them out to a different scene).

Special mention should be made of both sound and photography. The former is heightened by the director's decision to allow nature's very own voice to provide the movie's soundtrack. Thus, we are constantly exposed to the soft, crunching melody of dry leaves, the shrill of the scythe tied to a scarecrow as it swings around (it's meant to keep wild boar away) and the roar of the feral wind. The photography captures magnificently both the vastness of the Basque landscape with its lush valleys and hills and the claustrophobia of the undergrowth (plenty of close-ups and hand-held camera work).

The performances are very good. This was the movie that turned Emma Suárez into Julio Medem's muse (she also acted in 'La Ardilla Roja' and 'Tierra'), placing her into a similar relationship to that between the also Spanish actress Carmen Maura and the award-winning director Pedro Almodóvar.

'Vacas' is above all a surreal tale about two families that are reluctant to lay the ghost of their troublesome past and the heavy price they pay for it. As debut features go, it is a fine one, indeed. It makes me even forgive Medem for his later obsession with male genitalia.

© 2010



Next Post: 'Sunday Mornings: Coffee, Reflections and Music', to be published on Sunday 23rd May at 10am (GMT)

Rayuela (Hopscotch) by Julio Cortázar (Review)

'Quizás vivir absurdamente para acabar con el absurdo, tirarse en si mismo con tal violencia que el salto acabara en los brazos de otro.' ('Maybe the answer is to live absurdly to do away with the absurd, to leap into oneself so violently that the leap will end up in another person's arms')

It would be fair to say that the essence of 'Rayuela' ('Hopscotch') lies in the above sentence. Published in 1963, Julio Cortázar's second novel (he'd already had an earlier stab at the longer narrative with 'Los Premios', ['The Awards'], published in 1960) displays the innovative techniques that swept through the world of Hispanic literature at the end of the 1950s and beginning of the next decade. This is the time of Cabrera Infante's 'Tres Tristes Tigres' ('Three Sad Tigers') - reviewed on this blog more than a year go - and Gabo's 'Cien Años de Soledad' ('One Hundred Years of Solitude'). With its convoluted plot and avantgarde approach 'Rayuela' soon joined the ranks of the aforementioned classics.

And at the centre of its success, both critical and commercial, is the author's intent on building up on the vast Hispanoamerican cultural canon and his idea of using creative fantasy, not as a challenge to realism, but as an alternative. It is the reason why I chose that quote to open my review.

The first element that greets the reader who comes to 'Rayuela' for the first time is that it belongs to that clutch of novels that are much talked about and whose significance much highlighted, yet a full explanation of the plot is hardly ever forthcoming. In this category we find 'Ulysses' by Joyce, 'A la Recherche de Temps Perdu' by Proust and 'Paradiso' by Lezama Lima. To avoid making the same mistake, let me break down the storyline from the outset. 'Rayuela' is a love tale.

Horacio Oliveira is an Argentinian based in Paris. There he meets 'La Maga', an Uruguayan expat who has a young child, Rocamadour. They start an on-off relationship which ends with Rocamadour's death (a masterclass on writing's "show, don't tell" golden rule). 'La Maga' allegedly returns to Uruguay (we only have Gregorovius's word for it) and Horacio goes back to Argentina where an old girlfriend of his, Gekrepten, is still waiting for him. In reality he begins to hang out with his childhood friend Traveler and his wife, Talita. In the latter he sees a reincarnation of 'La Maga' and this vision triggers off an emotional crisis.

That, in a nutshell, is 'Rayuela'. But of course there's a lot more. And this is the second element that surprises the reader.

First off, there's the structure. You can digest 'Rayuela' as a normal book from Chapter 1 to Chapter 56 and then read the 'alternative' chapters - called 'prescindibles' in Spanish - (from 57 to 155). In fact my copy has the order the reader ought to follow if they choose that option. At the end of each part and in brackets there's the chapter number that should come after, for instance after the second chapter comes the one-hundred sixteenth). Or you could ignore the alternative parts and just close the book after finishing Chapter 56. In which case you will be missing out on a huge chunk of metaphysical and surrealist analysis, part of what makes 'Rayuela' a classic.

Secondly, there're the levels at which this novel works. 'Rayuela' is a reflection on the contemporary literature of its time (specifically from the 1940s to the 1960s, although it's still relevant today) and the embodiment of such analysis. To achieve this, Cortázar uses Oliveira's inner voice as well as the investigations of one Dr Morelli, a philosopher with whom Horacio and his friends are obsessed. The author is also far from interested in catering to that archetypical reader whose sole purpose is to find out what's going to happen at the end of the book. To him this type of passiveness is damaging to literature. This is the reason why many people consider 'Rayuela' a strenuous read. I found it seducing, dramatic, deep and cheeky in equal measure. At no time did I feel patronised or mocked. And humour plays a fundamental part in keeping the reader hooked.

The 'alternative' chapters, the philosophical musings (the 'ergo' from the phrase 'cogito ergo sum' has lost its meaning, Chapter 2), the 'gíglico' language (Chapter 68), the intentional misspelling of words with 'h' in Spanish (it's a mute consonant, Chapter 69) and the appearance of the same letter in words where it doesn't belong (Chapter 19) all show a writer displaying a high degree of facetiousness. Cortázar himself said once that without the humour 'this book would probably be unbearable, as it's the case with many Latin American novels that shipwreck in themselves, crushed and destroyed by earnestness. I don't even want to think of the passengers on board.'

Finally, along with the humour in the novel, there's another element that makes 'Rayuela' a compelling read: the music. And specifically jazz. Whilst in Paris, Horacio is part of a gang, broadly speaking, who call themselves The Club. They spend most of their time discussing philosophy, literature and music. Jazz becomes their elixir of life. Records are played and changed, strong opinions are voiced (Dizzy Gillespie, for instance, is rubbish, Bessie Smith is superb). At times the novel's pace feels like a piece by Dave Brubeck: meditative and with a syncopated beat. Some other times, the mood is more Ornette Colman: free, improvised and unshackled. Precisely the combination I look for in a novel that comes preceded by so much fanfare.

Must some books be written? Apparently for Julio Cortázar the answer seemed to be yes. In an old interview he said that 'if I hadn't written "Rayuela", I would have thrown myself in the Seine'. Fortunately for us, instead of jumping into the famous French river he leaped into himself and as a result we got a classic.

© 2010

Next Post: 'Sunday Mornings: Coffee, Reflections and Music', to be published on Sunday 16th May at 10am (GMT)