The Seventh Seal (1957)

What a fantastic, evocative film. While I had certain issues with the narrative, this was visually breathtaking. And it provided a very stimulating meditation on death, the meaning of life and the political uses of religion.

The modernist sentiment is summarized well by the Knight (who has returned home from the Crusades) as he plays chess with Death:

My life has been a futile pursuit, a wandering, a great deal of talk without meaning. I feel no bitterness or self-reproach because the lives of most people are very much like this. But I will use my reprieve for one meaningful deed. 

The context is medieval Europe and the Black Plague -as well as the Inquisition. All very appropriate subject matter for this modern expression of alienation, existential philosophizing. It's cynical when it comes to religion - but shouldn't it? And it draws on appropriate, apocalyptic imagery from the Book of Revelations. It's appropriate because that book is fucking scary!! But the scary revelation here derives not from angels blowing the trumpets of the Last Judgment nor is it from (say) the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse (although obviously Death does play a major role here); rather the scary revelation the film represents is Nietzschean: the idea that god is dead. That god exists is a fiction we use to avoid reality. 

Max von Sydow is stunning here. He adds charisma and magnetism to the role. There is a nobility and dignity to his performance of the Knight. His melancholy demure, eloquence and Scandinavian looks makes him reminiscent of Shakespeare's Hamlet, somehow; this resonance is cemented even further by the memento mori which are everywhere here.  I can barely believe that from this rather high brow film von Sydow would go on to star in other, very much low brow films: most notably Ming the Merciless from Mike Hodges' Flash Gordon (1980) film. The latter, however, is alot of fun, even if it is uber-camp. Either way, he is stunning. **** stars from me. 

Mysterious Skin (2004)

OMG what a disturbing film about child abuse and its after-effects.  This was a terrific film in that sense; it made me laugh in a couple of place (it has a fairly good sense of humour) - only to make me feel incredibly uncomfortable as the full significance of what was going on became unfolded. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is fantastic here and shows real skill in conveying the character - a rent boy on a path of self-destruction.  That character may be a cliche but the film carries it off quite well.  Strangely the acting skills of Joseph Gordon-Levitt, which are wildly apparent here, did not translate so well in Christopher Nolan's recent offerring Inception (2010), a much hailed but I think deeply flawed film (but I digress)...

The film got you to feel for the characters.  I found myself wanting to shout at Neil (Gordon-Levitt) as he got himself in risky situations - such as going home with people who were very clearly undesirables.  How could he be so stupid!?!  I rarely shout out in the middle of a film, so that is really something.  And the UFO abduction narrative relayed by Neil's co-abused Brian (Brady Cobert) created a real sense of pathos; the aliens, as in Louis Nowra's play Summer of the Aliens - are in fact the abusers, the adults that corrupt the lives of the innocents.  The ew factor is high.  And that ew factor is exacerbated by the fact that child abuse is apparently alot more common than we think....

While I think this is a terrific film, I did wonder about certain aspects of the narrative and how 'realistic' they were.  I can't speak with authority here, but I wonder (for example) about the representation of the activities of the hustler Neil.  In his home hicktown (whose name escapes me), an indeed in NYC, it was as if he would spend alot of his time getting sucked off by others (usually ugly fat middle-aged old men) - and get paid.  I would have thought that it'd be more likely to be the other way around - he would have to be servicing them.

The abuser, the coach, was not the typical looking pedo that we see in the press.  Instead of a dirty old man type, he was actually quite, well, handsome, sporting a vaguely Magnum PI-cum-Village People mustache.  Indeed, Neil has a crush on him as soon as he sees him.  Ok, I can accept that perhaps not all pedos are ugly just as not all are ex-catholic priests etc.  But then the details of the abuse emerged: coach would suck them off (despite the fact that they did not look old enough to be 'capable') and then, err, he get them to fist him....! Ewww.  Is that typical pedo abuse?  Somehow, I thought the abuse would more likely be rape: the kids would get penetrated.  My point is that I found this rather odd - but maybe this is an expression of my ignorance of pedofilia more than anything else.  Alternatively it might have something to do with production decisions in the light of film censorship.  It would be interesting to read Scott Heim's novel, on which the film was based, to see if that may have been the case.

Anyway, the bottom line is that Mysterious Skin is a powerful, disturbing experience.  **** stars from me.

A nice commentary appears here: http://fourfour.typepad.com/fourfour/2006/03/skin_flick_1.html
The novelists blog: http://heim.etherweave.com/weblog/index.html

Google Buzz Bust

An interesting article from Ars Technica re another privacy problem for Google.  For the original source, see: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/09/google-coughs-up-85-million-to-settle-buzz-privacy-suit.ars

Google coughs up $8.5 million to settle Buzz privacy suit

By Chris Foresman | Last updated 3 days ago

The fallout from Google's Buzz social networking aggregator continues: the company has agreed to settle aclass action lawsuit over concerns that the service's original configuration violated users' privacy. While Google has made numerous changes to the service since its February launch and maintains that it did no wrong, the company has agreed to pay out $8.5 million to end the litigation.

Buzz launched in early February to a lukewarm reception, which was quickly followed by an enormous controversy over concerns that the default settings revealed private information. At the heart of the problem was an auto-follow feature meant to facilitate quick adoption. Users quickly found, however, that it could reveal their Google accounts to people they'd like to avoid. Journalists were concerned that confidential sources could be revealed to the public, while one woman noted that her private Google account was auto-followed by her abusive ex-husband.

Google worked quickly to make changes, turning the auto-follow feature off in favor of recommendations, and making some features easier to opt out of. Still, it wasn't long before a federal class-action suit was filed on behalf of all Gmail users who were automatically opted-in to the Buzz service.

Google has also faced criticism from advocacy groups like EPIC and the EFF, US lawmakers, and foreign governments.

In the proposed settlement submitted to the court this week, Google agreed to make efforts to better educate Buzz users on issues of privacy and the particular privacy features that Buzz offers. Additionally, Google also agreed to pay out $8.5 million to a fund which will be disbursed as cy pres awards for organizations that focus on Internet privacy policy or education.

Blair's Rhetoric: The Guardian

War and politics; war as politics; the rhetoric of war. The wisdom of the decision to go to Iraq remains questioned by many. Many innocent Iraqis have been destroyed in the effort to overthrow Saddam's regime - as well as many American and coalition troops. And while the dictator is now gone, we are left with the aftermath... which again begs questions regarding the wisdom of sticking our noses in.

Blair however attempts to justify his decision to support the Bush administration in a recentGuardian interview. The interview reveals that he was in a difficult position when asked point blank to admit whether or not going to Iraq was a mistake:

He writes of his anger when Sir John Chilcot concluded the session by asking: "Do you have any regrets?"

Blair writes: "It was a headline question. It had to have a headline answer. Answer 'yes' and I knew the outcome: 'Blair apologises for war', 'at last he says sorry'. Choose a variant. The impact would be the same.

"Those who had opposed the war would rejoice; those who had supported it would be dismayed, imagining their support and in some cases their sacrifice had been in vain. Answer 'no' and you seem like some callous brute, indifferent to the suffering or perhaps worse, stubbornly resistant, not because of strength but because you know nothing else to do."

The interview ends by stating:

Blair admits that the intelligence that Saddam possessed a WMD programme "turned out to be incorrect".

 Despite admitting this error, he says the invasion was still the correct course of action by citing a 2004 report by the weapons inspector Charles Duelfer. This included interviews with senior figures in Saddam's regime and an interview with the ex-Iraqi president conducted by an FBI agent, George Piro. The report uncovered tapes of meetings between Saddam and senior staff at which the WMD programme was discussed. Blair writes that Saddam made a "tactical decision to put such a programme into abeyance, not a strategic decision to abandon it". (See:http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/aug/31/tony-blair-iraq-nightmare#send-share-box.)

"... and the next day they start the bombing"

Just read a fab article on Paul Weller from The Guardian website.  The URL is here: <http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/aug/26/paul-weller-interview>. Here's my favourite bit:

"Our guitarist Steve Cradock was 41 yesterday, and someone bought him a 1969 DVD which went through the year. Man landing on the moon and all that. And it had the investiture of the Prince of Wales. How fuckin' ridiculous that whole scene and system is. How fuckin' anachronistic and absurd. Especially as he's not even fuckin' Welsh! It's such an insult to the Welsh people. I can't believe it's the modern age and it's still here." Moments later, he's erupting about X Factor-induced apathy ("Millions of people watching a third-rate vocalist seem great amongst a sea of mediocrity. You enlarge that to society and it's quite worrying, really") and the state of British democracy ("You've got a million people marching against the Iraq war and the next day they start the bombing"). With Weller in this mood, even the recession becomes little more than a deception: "It's a way of diverting people's attention from what's really going on. Not that people aren't being hit by it – but how much are they spending in the Gulf war? Fuckin' millions! And they're asking the poor people to tighten their belts. We were watching the newsreels from 1969 and nothing's changed." No wonder Weller turned down a CBE in the Queen's birthday honours list in 2006.

 It's great to hear such verve.

Pygmalion (1938)

I have to confess I am ignorant of the famous film My Fair Lady, starring Audrey Hepburn.  I have been told that adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's 1913 play Pygmalion is far superior to this version, which is apparently joint directed by Anthony Asquith and and Leslie Howard (who also played the starring role of Professor Henry Higgins).  While Shaw also had a hand on the script, it is clear that this 1938 adaptation operated on a far lower budget - and without the uber-magnetism and beauty of the likes of Audrey Hepburn.  Indeed, the Eliza Doolittle here, played by Wendy Hiller, is decidedly plain in comparison - even after her 'transformation' into a Lady.  The film has its charm and its moments, but ultimately I found this film unsatisfying.  


Cinderella-like, the story follows the protagonists journey from rags to riches, from a common flower-girl to someone miraculously transformed by the knowledge, and ultimately the love, of a well-to-do professor of linguistics.  I say 'miraculous' because I thought it was unbelievable and basically incredibly romantic - a wish fulfillment of class transcendence.  The message is: love can conquer all.  Oh dear.  The opportunity for a real discussion of the horrid class system of early twentieth century England is sidestepped by this gross, sentimental romanticism.  I am interested now to read Shaw's original play to see his original take on it - and I understand that it is less than happy or at least much more ambiguous.   I don't mind a fairy tale but how about we make it compelling?


The real killer here is the ending: Eliza apparently elopes with Freddy Eynsford-Hill - only to suddenly return to her true love and (dare I say it) creator, the professor.  It seems clumsy, forced and rushed - it's not clear where her planned elopement went wrong.  IMHO it would have been better for her to leave - for this narrative to have an unhappy ending.  At least it would seem more realistic and less saccharine.  In fairness, though, this would fly in the face of what audiences wanted during the first productions of Shaw's play as well as what they obviously want in mainstream cinema.  It may not be Hollywood, but British cinema here relents to Hollywood values.  Bleurgh.  


But this is also, perhaps, the residue of the Romanticism that has been built up around the Victorian reception of the ancient Greek narrative of Pygmalion.  Exquisite here is the pre-Raphaelite painter Burne-Jones and his gorgeous painting: who cares about class politics when there is beauty and love, right? Ahh, the dream of a perfect woman...

Structurally speaking, the narrative of the Prodigal Son here becomes the Prodigal Daughter - who transforms into the prodigal wife.  The transformation from "daughter" to "wife" occurs at the moment of Eliza's self-realization, her individuation, her refusal to take on the role of merely being the professor's creation.  And in this strangely psychological narrative there are hints of Frankenstein: it raises moral questions about how "scientific" knowledge is used (here it is linguistics/phonetics).  But there is also a whiff of Victorian misogyny: the narrative of a man creating a woman recalls the Genesis narrative of Eve, which surely constitutes one of the Ur-narratives of misogyny in our culture?  It would be interesting to see if there are examples of a literary creation narrative that worked the other way around! 


To its credit, there are some incredibly funny one-liners from the professor, particularly when he is being scathing towards Eliza.  They are outrageous and hilarious.  The most famous one:

Yes, you squashed cabbage leaf, you disgrace to the noble architecture of these columns, you incarnate insult to the English language, I could pass you off as the Queen of Sheba! 

And there are lines that invite interpretation: for example when the professor says that as far as he is concerned even the best looking women "may as well be blocks of wood".  Perhaps the professor in the end also transforms: from gay, acid-tongued, flippant upper-crust bachelor to dedicated heterosexual, romantic husband.  Hmmm.  Cinderfella?

Recommended for historical reasons, **1/2 stars.

The African Queen (1952)

100 min, dir John Huston, Produced by S.P. Eagle

I enjoyed this film and it obviously alluded rather heavily to Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, which was interesting.  I did wonder, however, about its believability.  The missionary life of Rose Sayer (Katherine Hepburn) and her brother Samuel Sayer (Robert Morley) seemed unbelievable somehow.  Would a brother and sister team really stay in an isolated place, by themselves, for ten years?  And did they not have family or even a mother Church to refer back to?  The futility of their mission of conversion in this film was so apparent and obvious that it was two dimensional.  Who orchestrated and inaugurated their authority?  This was a glaring omission in this film and, as a result of this omission, it had a sense of unreality about it from the start.

I also found a couple of things about the ending to be rather odd.  For example, the couple insisted on raising the British Flag while the German target was looking for them.  Isn’t this rather stupid given that they are intending on sneaking up on the Germans to bomb them with a home-made torpedo?  I also wasn’t sure if the hanging punishment that the Germans were to inflict on them for spying was historically accurate – surely it would have been easier to just shoot them?  If the film ascribed to the stereotype of German efficiency (and Humphrey Bogart’s character Charlie Aunt refers explicitly to this) then the German’s would no doubt prefer this method of execution.

The request for marriage in the end fitted, I suppose, a Hollywood ending.  This provided the fatal mistake for the Germans, as it allowed the couple a little extra time and as providence would have it, the Louisa (the German boat) accidentally ran into their now overturned old ship (the namesake of the film, The African Queen) and blew up (the torpedoes now went off).  And there comes the happy ending!  The message is “god works in mysterious ways”!

What was good, however, was the setting and the acting of Bogart.  He played the gin-swilling almost-alcoholic quite well.  Katherine Hepburn was good at playing the prude – she looks the part!  But she looked painfully thin, even anorexic here.  Possibly this was because she was ill at the time of shooting (hence the title of her book – The Making of The African Queen: Or, How I Went to Africa With Bogart, Bacall and Huston and Almost Lost My Mind).  The scenery of the Congo was the star of this film, though – it was great to see it, after imagining it via Conrad’s novella for so long.  It wasn’t clear which parts were shot in England and which parts in Africa, which is perhaps interesting in itself but in any case the scenery was impressive.

***1/2 stars

A New Beginning?

Well, here is the start of it all.... who knows what I will write about.  I have no preconceptions other than that I will write on things of interest to me.  I won't dedicate it to music or film or politics or technology but anything that interests me at the time. We'll see if a certain focus develops.  More likely it will be dropped altogether, but I may be a pessimist.  It seems weird "diarising" to an unknown audience (even assuming that there is one) and I've always thought it weird of others.

I am, for example, interested in online technology as a social medium and mechanism.  Obviously commerce is changing and will continue to change as technology changes.  And writing this blog also comes with such issues attached: Blogger, it seems, is encouraging bloggers that use its system to "monetize".  A summary is provided here: http://buzz.blogger.com/2009/12/blogger-integrates-with-amazon.html   

The thing is - it seems to be the default option.  And I find this rather sleazy - and I have said no to it, even though I will be discussing some things that no doubt you can buy off Amazon etc (and I will no doubt refer to Amazon etc in my posts).  But it's as if bloggers SHOULD be the advertisers for such big corporations.  Grrr.   And I'm very skeptical at how much the powers that be would be willing to pay in any case....

Anyways, here is to the beginning of Kalistos 2000!