the death of the french intellectual [shlomo sand]

In spite of the recherché title, there’s something pressing and universal about Sand’s disjointed text. There’s a reason it’s disjointed, that in the end it feels like two texts knitted into one. However, it’s a compelling reason, which only goes to show that scholarship need not always be about conformist lines and arguments. 

The book’s first part is an analysis of the role of the intellectual in French society. Working his way through the usual culprits, including Voltaire and Rousseau, as well as a host of others who are lesser known in the Anglo-Saxon world, Sand looks at the dialectic between the intellectual functioning as an apparatchik of the state or, in contrast, as a kind of spiritual guide, someone capable of surveying society from a lofty distance, removed from the petty debates of politics. Sand analyses both positions, questioning their integrity and the degree to which they truly promoted the idea of independent thought. Examining the role via the complexities of French socio-politics leads him, via Gramsci, to state at one point: “the ‘independent’ intellectual appears as bearer of the universal interest, and by this fact alone manages to better conceal both the specific interests of the rulers and their own. This is one of the ways in which cultural hegemony so essential for the maintenance of social order is created.”

Which is not to sat that Sand seeks to reject the importance of the intellectual. The book is spotted with small details from his own life, which help to explain how and why he himself has become an intellectual, and the role that the intellectual plays within a socially conscious world. If anything, there’s sometimes a tone of nostalgia for the days of serious thought, which, it would seem from the final chapters, he feels is being displaced by soundbite-savvy, media-literate figures who have learnt to package a semblance of complex thought into digestible doses. This is most apparent in the final chapter, where he specifically takes on two ‘philosophers’ whose work has risen to prominence as they embrace a critical stance towards Islam. (He also look at Houllebecq’s novels in this context.) Sand is an Israeli by birth, who has a strong residual understanding of the way in which cultural stigmatism functions. The closing chapter of the first part of his book has looked at the way that some French intellectuals embraced fascism. Part of the book’s argument is an investigation into how the idea of the intellectual, constructed in the enlightenment, could have lead to representatives of that term embracing the impoverished ‘philosophy’ of fascism, with its specifically ethnic prejudices. He then sees this being repeated in the twenty first century, as intellectuals turn on Islam, in the same way many from the wartime generation turned on judaism. 

All of which makes for a book which is brave and urgent. Sand has the courage to make clear his mixed feelings regarding Charlie Hebdo, calling out the magazine as having been openly racist (whilst never suggesting that this meant it deserved its fate). His closing chapters trace what he sees as a dangerous trend towards Islamaphobism, noting the way in which the arguments in favour of this trend are backed up and given agency by “intellectuals”. Clearly, Sand is identifying a trend that goes beyond the borders of France. At a time when the spectre of fascism appears to have re-emerged to threaten civil society as well as moral absolutes which in another age are envisaged as unimpeachable, Sand’s book is a vital tool to an understanding how we’ve got to where we’ve got to, and possibly signals ways we can start to get out of this mess, before it gets any worse. 

el rey tuerto (w&d marc crehuet)

This Spanish film, featured as part of the human rights festival, is a curiosity. It’s a drama, rather than a doc, which is constructed around the premise of David, a policeman, meeting the man whose eye he shot out at a demonstration (Nacho). They meet because their respective partners used to know one another, and have arranged to have supper together. If this feels somewhat stagey, it’s because that’s the way the film, unashamedly is. Heavy on the dialogue and meticulously acted, the film always has the feel of an adapted stage play. It’s well shot and well lit, which lends it a more cinematic air, but the project clearly has its roots in the theatre. The story unfolds through a sequence of acts, as David is forced to confront his prejudices and, perhaps predictably, strikes up a complex relationship with the one-eyed Nacho.

The process of watching a well-rendered stage adaptation is interesting. Theatre offers far more scope for discussion and polemic, something the audience appeared to enjoy. They were in no way put off by the wordiness, if anything they relished it. The dramatic product, most of which takes place in the same location, isn’t dependent on a sophisticated manipulation of image, something that film schools and funding bodies seem obsessed by. Instead, the argument and the dynamic between the characters carry the film towards its end. The fact that the narrative ends up feeling somewhat obvious is neither here nor there; what’s fascinating is how the cinematic form and the stage play format work in tandem. It makes one wonder to what extent cinema might have backed away from the joys of the spoken word, allowing it to become the stuff of television. When film does allow itself to indulge in ample dialogue (the Boyle/ Sorkin venture Steve Jobs comes to mind; or even Andrew Haigh’s Weekend), it too often tends towards a slightly verbose pudding. Marc Crehuet’s text shows how the use of a solid scene structure helps, as in theatre, to give shape to the words, to keep them in check, and in the process reminds us of how entertaining a cinema of language and ideas is capable of being, something that tends to get forgotten.

los olvidados (d. agustín flores)

What is the function of cinema? What is it there for? On the one hand, it ties into a longing for escapism, for the dream, the notion that beyond the confines of this cruel world there’s another one, in which we are funnier or stronger or at least different. Chaplin and Fast and Furious and ET all fit into this category. On the other hand, it’s a mirror to the world. It shows us things that we know are there but cannot otherwise see. Apocalypse Now, Ken Loach, Sanjines, to name a few references. Any film postulates itself somewhere on this binary chart. Sometimes a film slots into both categories, sometimes it’s resolutely aimed at solely one. Documentary, almost inevitably tends towards the latter. Documentary cannot help but be trapped in realism. 

Los Olvidados fits firmly into this category. It depicts life in a Montevidean barrio, Marconi, which is by and large considered too dangerous for people to visit. It’s talked about as a no-go area, one even the police will only approach armed to the nines. Los Olvidados, its title a nod to Buñuel, takes the viewer there in the company of ‘Don Koni’, a rapper who is trying to convey with his music the realties of living in the barrio, for better or for worse. The film gives its characters cameras so that they can film inside the barrio. What emerges is a fractured portrait, of a place seeking to defend its dignity in the face of neglect from the authorities and media stigmatisation. It’s an honest, important, low key film. I may never go to Marconi, even though it’s just down the road from where I live. So long as the class dividing lines remain rigid, they are nigh-on impossible to cross. People become attached to their perceptions, narratives remain intractable. One of the only ways we can visit is via the medium of film. Flores’ film doesn’t seek to dress its characters up, there’s no hint of escapism or ghetto porn. It’s a window onto a world which is our world, those of us who live in this city, and beyond.

under the net [iris murdoch]

Murdoch’s first novel recounts a few days in the life of Jake, a sometime translator and drifter, who lives on the margins of an early fifties London intellectual world. Kicked out of his digs in the first chapter, he spends most of the novel looking for his next place to stay, something that doesn’t appear to generate all that much anxiety. The novel has a lot on common with Wain’s Hurry on Down, published the year before. Like Wain, Murdoch centres her novel on a protagonist who resists any societal pressure to settle down and get a proper job. (The only fixed job Jake takes on is as a hospital orderly, following the in footsteps of Wain’s Lumley.) Instead, he embarks on a picaresque journey which involves rabid left wingers, actresses and his nemesis, Hugo, a man who can’t help making money but dreams of becoming a watchmaker. Jake has had a book published which is a disguised transcription of the philosophical conversations he used to have with Hugo. Likewise, one can perhaps sense the author’s own instincts to use the literary form as a way of grappling with philosophy, although it never feels all that clear which philosophical issues the book is seeking to address. It seems invidious to comment on the literary merits or not of the first novel of such a respected author, all the more so as I don’t know her later work. However, more than anything, Under the Net feels like a companion piece to the fifties aspiration to discover a path towards the unconventional, which had to be out there somewhere, if only you knew where to look. (As it turns out, Liverpool, the soon-to-be former colonies and the Deep South of the USA, to name a few.)

the poetess (d. stefanie brockhaus, andreas wolff)

Saudi Arabia is one of the most closed societies on earth. To see pictures of Riyadh and Mecca reminds us how little we know about a country that exercises so much influence. It’s almost as though the niqab, the garment that covers women’s bodies from top to toe, allowing only their eyes to be seen, is a metaphor for a society which can never be known or seen or understood. 

As the title suggests, The Poetess is about a female Saudi poet, Hissa Hilal, who uses her fame as a platform to criticise the clergy. It’s a film about women’s rights in the world, and the muslim world in particular, but it’s also a film which demystifies a culture about which we, in the ‘West’ are so ignorant. This extends to the regional love of poetry, with the poetess acquiring her fame by appearing on a kind of X-Factor for poets in the Arab world. We also see her out shopping with her daughters, doing interviews for the BBC and other media outlets. Behind the veil, there’s a fierce and humourous intelligence, revealed through her interviews, but also through the poems she reads in the competition. How much courage does it take to criticise the clergy if you’re from Saudi Arabia? And to use your role on a massive regional TV show to do so? However, Hissa Hilal seems to do it without breaking sweat, suggesting that she might live in a society which marginalises women, but she personally doesn’t feel in any way intimidated. 

Stefanie Brockhaus and Andreas Wolff’s film uses the structure of the TV competition to knit their compelling story together. It’s a great tale of an unassuming heroine, which expands our understanding of a closed world, and reaffirms the foolishness of any society which tries to make women into second class citizens.