Review of Versus: The Life and Films of Ken Loach

Surprisingly gentle film about the life and work of Ken Loach - lots of talking heads from actors and others, scenes of the director at works, a non-chronological account of his oeuvre, some clips. Not quite a catalogue because some films were missing (well, if there was a mention of Carla's Song I missed it) but pretty thorough, including some I'd never heard of - Black Jack, for example.

I'd forgotten, if I'd ever known, that Loach was responsible for The Big Flame, a Liverpool film that inspired the inception of the 'Libertarian Marxist' organisation that I hung around in the early 1980s.

There's quite a long section on the 'Perdition' affair, and no sign that anyone learned anything from it. At the time I rather uncomfortably assumed that people who I otherwise admired were contaminated with anti-semitism. I have a rather more nuanced view now, not least because of a rather good documentary about the Kastner affair on which Perdition, and the earlier right wing Zionist 'Perfidy', were based. But I still feel uncomfortable about the stance and the tone of Jim Allen's diatribe against Zionism.

A few observations: Loach appears to feel no irony at being an engaged Marxist on the side of the really poor and wretched, and being lauded by the luvvies at Cannes; and the film has an odd slip into regular luvvie bio-pic with an account of his early career as an actor, complete with dressing-room shots etc. And didn't everyone smoke a lot!

Watched at the Landsdowne Film Club in Stroud.

The Stroud Red Band set list

 The Red Flag
Kasatchok
Down by the Riverside
Power in a Union
African Market Place  
La Cucaracha 
Solidarity Forever 
Bandiera Rossa
Bella Ciao 
The Homecoming 
The Internationale
Di Shvue

Review of 'La La Land'

Everybody has been so down on this that I was quite surprised by how much it touched me. I think sometimes how a film affects the viewer says more about the latter than the former. Set in Hollywood, this was about staying true to your dreams, and what happens when you do/don't. It plays around with narrative quite a lot - we get to see a fantasy of an alternative ending, which I think is a way of reminding us that the narrative of the film itself is not necessarily to be taken at face value. The too-bright colours in the opening sequence, and the early scenes with the girls in the flat, seem to me to be indicating that this is more or less fantasy. It rather reminded me of 'Mullholland Drive' without the horror, and perhaps 'The Day of the Locust' too.

It's a film about dreams, but maybe the characters don't stay true to their dreams, and maybe it isn't so important to do that. I think that's the thing that chimed with me at this moment - what if I was able to pursue my own dreams? Is it really what I want to do, or just a thought to distract me from what I am doing at the moment?

Seb (Ryan Gosling's character) has a dream of having his own Jazz club that will be really true to the spirit of the music, but he seems to abandon the dream for a steady job playing in a band that gets recording and touring contracts. It isn't his dream...but maybe the dream is just something you need to help you get through the drudgery of everyday life (earlier, he's a jobbing musician playing stuff that he really despises). And Emily Stone's character almost gives up on her dream of being an actor, and it's only his persistence in dragging her back to one more audition that makes it come true.

I note in passing that the music isn't great, but it's not awful either - I can still remember at least some of the tunes.

Watched on a tablet on train.

Review of 'The Brothers Grimm'

I've been watching this on an off for a while, without quite getting round to finishing it. I finally watched the last half on a train, watching it on a tablet. Considering the small size, it was visually quite stunning - Terry Gilliam at his best. The plot is nonsense, of course - a sort of fairy tale about fairy tales - but the acting isn't too bad and it carries you along. Nice to see Lena Headey playing someone other than Cersei Lannister, and she's quite good. And Jonathan Pryce as the French General is also very good.

A bit more horror than I was expecting; perhaps I am too easily upset by depictions of children losing their eyes, though surely everyone thinks that's upsetting...

There's actually a bit of seriousness in the way it represents the origins of German conservative romanticism as a response to the French invasion. I note in passing that the German village, which is beautifully depicted, looks more Slavic than German, as does the depiction of peasant culture - I'd swear they are dancing to Klezmer at the end rather than something that feels German. Still, whatever.

Review of 'Frida'

Rewatched this, partly to get some interior decoration ideas for our new flat, which I'd like to Mexi-theme. I'd quite enjoyed it the first time round; the second time it was watchable enough, and visually interesting - I quite liked the way it managed to cinematically represent some of Frida Kahlo's pictures.

But I was aware of how little attention it actually gave to the politics. We see that Diego Rivera is a bit of a radical, and that he enjoys pissing off the man as well as sleeping with lots of women, but there's no sense that the politics is actually important to him or to Frida. We see a few seconds of demonstration footage, but there isn't any sense that Mexico was a ferment of genuine revolutionary fervour at this time, or that there was a real civil war going on. Trotksy is a lovely old bloke, but not a very convincing revolutionary, and there is similarly no sense that in giving him refuge the Cardenas government was making a very definite political commitment. It wouldn't have hurt to have given some sight of how huge his funeral procession was.

Not a bad film, but not a great one.

Watched in the Middle Floor at Springhill, from a legitimate DVD,