el proceso (d. maria augusta ramos)

El Proceso follows, over the course of 140 minutes, the events surrounding Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment and ultimate removal from the presidency of Brazil. Using news footage and fly-on-the-wall footage from Dilma’s legal team, the documentary meticulously charts the process leading to what many have described as a coup. 

How should art deal with the great affairs of state? There have been a variety of approaches in recent years, from the West Wing, a US approach which turns politics into a melodrama (an attitude which US politics has subsequently decided works effectively and has chosen to adopt as a methodology); to Hare’s stageplays about the Labour party; to Santiago Mitre’s parallelism in El Estudiante. There has also been in British theatre, a wave of “verbatim” theatre, which seeks to recreate events surrounding, for example, the Chilcott Enquiry. TV has since gone further, with the likes of Peter Morgan doing the Deal between Blair and Brown, and so on, an approach which has been hijacked by Netflix, which has recently screened a drama about Lula. There will be a host more. Within many societies, drama is a more effective means of communicating events than documentary, because the cameras aren’t often present when the events of history are being thrashed out. Those who make history prefer to do so in the shadows.

Which is where Ramos’ documentary is all the more remarkable, because, having obtained access to Rousseff’s legal team, she offers an insight which normally only drama might afford. The characters around which the narrative is built are never fleshed out: they don’t need to be. We get to know the dogged defence lawyer, Senator Limbergh and Gleisi Hoffmann who front Dilma’s campaign, observing them both behind-the-scenes and as they make their case with dignity, in spite of the fact they know they’re leading a doomed charge. The votes against Dilma were never going to be altered; once the mechanism of impeachment has trundled into gear, there’s no reversing the process. Something the team grasp, but which they never let defeat them; they still have a role to play within the historical terms of events, to defend their President as honourably as possible, and in so doing, show up the dishonour of those who condemn her.

Ramos’ subjects ensure there’s no issue about which side she’s on; there’s no pretence at objectivity, something which political drama tends to aspire to. If your sympathies aren’t with Rousseff, you’re not going to enjoy this film. But if you’re intrigued by the machinations of history, by the mechanics of a neo-democratic coup, then this is an absorbing and terrifying account, brilliantly rendered with a minimum of hyperbole and a maximum of detail. It’s also a cautionary tale for the 21st century: liberal democracies are just as vulnerable today as they were in the sixties and the seventies. Only, scarily, the opponents of these democracies have decided to employ subtler tools to undermine them.  When the mechanisms of state have become overwhelmingly corrupt, how does anyone stop the gravy train? 

the garden of secrets [juan goytisolo, tr. peter bush]

As the title suggests, and the script makes clear, this short novel is a Borgesian endeavour, which uses multiple narrators to construct a picture of the life of Eusebio, a poet who fled Spain in the wake of the Civil War, ending up in Marrakesh. The conceit is that a group of readers/ writers assemble in a garden and each one relates a brief chapter in the poet’s life. Some of these chapters are purely tangential. It’s up to the reader to assemble and construct a viable biography from the fragments on offer. 

The novel reminds us of the barbarity of the Spanish Civil War, as well as reflecting both the closeness and distance of North Africa from Europe, a connection which centuries of distance have kept at illusory bay. Culturally and geographically there’s no reason that the Iberian peninsula, or Southern Italy, should feel themselves to be closer to Sweden or the UK or Hungary, than North Africa, even if, politically, that has been the case for several centuries. This is the kind of false historical narrative that Enard’s Zone also alluded to.

Goytisolo’s playfulness, (up to and including speculating about the author’s own name at the conclusion of the book), almost demands a personal response from the reader. Given the multiple voices and strands employed, it’s easy to drift in and out of the tenuous narrative, but all the same, the book ended up beguiling. It’s indicative of a kind of informal, slightly anarchic, playful approach to literature, whose echoes are found in the work of Vila-Matas and, por supuesto, Bolaño. (Not to mention Cortazar and his ilk). The way in which the Hispanic world creates a self-aware inter-textuality adds a constant fascination to the process of discovering this culture. Goytisolo reaffirms this with a list of little-known writers under the rubric “Appropriations and Borrowings by Co-readers”, a list which includes the name of my friend’s grandfather, the poet, Rafael Duyos. 

october [china miéville]

China Miéville’s book is an account of the events that lead to the Russian revolution of 1917. The writer offers a detailed month by month picture of the year, leading to the Bolshevik seizure of power in October. What’s fascinating about this is that one tends to interpret “the Russian revolution” as a homogenous event, one that appears to have a clear endgame, and therefore, one assumes, should possess a reasonably clear starting point and middle. The facts of the matter as presented by Miéville are very different. Lenin’s Bolshevik party emerged triumphant from a scrum of competing factions and political possibilities. In fact, the author makes it clear that it wasn’t even ‘Lenin’s Bolshevik party’ until very late in the day. Seemingly inevitable dialectical outcomes, are, the author’s scholarship appears to suggest, anything but. History might be written by the victors, but that in itself implies that the process of creating history is one that has multiple sub-authors, whose versions failed to predominate as a result of a myriad of causes and conditions.

All of which makes October a sometimes dense, even bewildering read, as Miéville takes the reader through the political shenanigans, introducing figures onto the political stage whose significance rapidly wanes thereafter. There are moments when the book seems to cry out for a more humanistic account (something offered by Marina Tsvetaeva’s memoirs, for example). Perhaps ironically, the ordinary Russian citizen, red or white, feels relegated to the background in Miéville’s take, and the human cost and scale of events flickers, mainly supplied through first-hand accounts from foreign journalists. The author is very good on the politicians’ intentions, errors and false dawns, less so on what these meant to the people who were living through these tumultuous events.

Nevertheless, this feels like a comprehensive version of a year of living politically dangerously, a year which had, as the book’s epilogue makes clear, consequences which were far from positive, neither for the classical notion of communism, nor for the Soviet Union itself. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the chaos out of which the revolution was born. In that sense, it has felt instructive to read the book at the same time as witnessing a similar period of hyper-political activity in the UK where some kind of a revolution is playing itself out. One hopes (and everyone assumes) that the consequences will be less severe than they were for citizens of the state called Russia, later the USSR. However, it is telling to see from this account how extremism fills a vacuum; how the appeal of political ideologues escalates in times of crisis. Perhaps the most important aspect of Miéville’s book is the way in which he re-vindicates the existence of a more moderate, conciliatory path, one which Lenin and the Bolsheviks and, he seems to argue at the end, even the moderates themselves, turned away from. A kinder vision of the revolution existed, Miéville seems to suggest, one which was snuffed out before it had a chance to govern. Which may be wishful thinking, but might also be a lesson that the contemporary British, not just the Russians of a hundred years ago, might do well to heed. 

averno (w&d marcos loayza)

Obviously you want to like a film made in Bolivia that’s won a prize at BAFICI for best Latin American Film, that’s reached Montevideo, that sounds enticing. A reworking of the Theseus myth, set in the La Paz underworld. With larger-than-life characters, amazing locations, set against the backdrop of the Andes. If Averno does one thing, it affirms the photogenic possibilities of the Bolivian capital. Unfortunately, it doesn’t do much more, and ends up being a slightly tame, sub-Potter offering which isn’t nearly as bizarre as it perhaps likes to think it is. You can see Loayza’s intentions, to make a snappy, commercial film, something which is never easy to pull off. Perhaps it’s aimed at a younger demographic than mine, but Averno never lived up to its beguiling premise and I came out of the cinema feeling none the wiser about Bolivian society. Plenty of colour and an excess of Andino tropes, but a narrative that didn’t go anywhere left me longing for the Minatour to put Theseus out of his misery. 

frost (w&d sharunas bartas, w anna cohen-yanay)

I’d never heard of Bartas. My friend, Flamia, who knows a thing or two, when we met with him in 36 after the screening, said that he’d seen four or five films of the Lithuanian director. It’s curious the way that even prominent European directors with powerful international reputations remain ‘undiscovered’ in the UK. In a week that has seen a homicide, presumably the result of Russian military aggression, on British shores, Bartas’ film ought to be compulsory viewing. That it isn’t is no less surprising than to see the pictures of the House of Commons where a handful of MPs were present to listen to a statement on the murder of Dawn Sturgess. The insularity of the UK has only deepened with the advent of Brexit, and will continue to do so, both politically and culturally. 

The narrative of Frost is straightforward. Two young Lithuanians, Inga and Roka, agree to drive a truck containing humanitarian aid to Ukraine. They have no idea what they’re getting themselves into. It’s a road movie to the furthest edges of Europe, to a bloody, fatal frontier where Putin’s wars are being waged. The set-up is perfunctory, even simplistic, as Roka is persuaded to take on the trip, and he persuades Inga to go with him. We don’t really know what their relationship is; they would appear to be a couple but they might just be friends. There’s a growing realisation that they’re out of their depth. They reach the Ukraine and hang out with some journalists. The war is out there, but for the time being they’re using the trip to work out their own personal psycho-drama. Then, as they approach the Crimean border, things start to become more and more edgy. 

Bartas glories in the road movie. Each step of the journey is a step closer to the characters’ destiny. There’s no need to rush: the pace is stately. They’re not driving a BMW, they’re driving a transit van. The scenery, increasingly wintery, goes by in a succession of blurred images. The viewer is on the journey with the characters, going further and further towards some kind of edge. The tension is gradually ratcheted up until they arrive at the desolate border, where the buildings have been hollowed out and death lurks on the other side of the street. The film maintains an understated tone. At one point a convoy of armoured vehicles drive past, followed by a slightly ragged military column. Nothing terrible happens, there’s no shooting, no fighting, just the unmistakable evidence of the latent threat, which, the film makes clear, is a threat not merely to the protagonists, but to all of Europe. The possible implications are made clear. After Crimea, Lithuania could be next. And then who knows. This could seem like doom-mongering, were it not for the fact that the film so clearly captures the reality of what’s happening right now, at the edges of the European project. 

Not for the first time, the aesthetic power of a film is amplified by the urgency of its political content. Frost takes the viewer far further towards a kind of Euro-Apocalypse Now than any news report.  

bhava [w. u r ananthamurthy, tr. judith kroll]

Every now and again you pick up a book and as you read it you’re aware that a fair amount is going over your head. This was Bhava for me. It’s a deceptively complex read, telling the story of a man who thinks he’s killed his wife in a jealous fit, only to discover (or think he’s discovered) many years later that he hadn’t, and therefore he has been living with a misplaced guilt all along. Albeit a guilt that hasn’t stopped him having numerous affairs. I have to confess, whilst preferring not see relationship stories in black and white, I found it hard to engage with the subject’s back story. Furthermore, I found it hard to follow the twists and turns of the narrative. The afterword, written by the translator, Judith Kroll, threw some light on what I’d been reading, but it’s always disconcerting to find that a novel requires elucidation. As such, I feel that this is more a record of the novel having been read than any kind of critical reaction; rarely have I come across a book quite as baffling Bhava and I couldn’t for the life of me tell you if that’s to do with my failings as a reader, problems with the translation, or something that’s fundamental to the novel itself. 

the face on the cutting room floor [colin mccabe (ernest bornemann)]

The detective novel, written, or so it says on the cover, by Colin McCabe, begins with a film editor called Colin McCabe talking about how a studio head has cut an actress out of a film. She is the face on the cutting room floor. Soon afterwards, this same woman is discovered dead in an editing suite. Thus begins one of the more curious, post-modern of British novels, one that contains elements of the nouvel roman, that at times feels as though it might have been written, in the margin, by a gumshoe Robbe-Grillet. It’s a detective story that goes round in circles, circling itself, becoming so repetitive that it feels as though the mysterious author might suffer from a form of autism. The post-modernism reaches a new peak in the epilogue, written by a supposed second author, who refers to criticism by the likes of Cyril Connolly and Edmund Wilson of the novel, in the process dissecting the trajectory of the British detective novel, from Doyle to Sayers. Meanwhile he seeks to cast light on the dense complexity of the ‘original’ novel, a light that only serves to confuse the reader even more. All of which makes The Face on the Cutting Room Floor both a maddening and brilliant read at the same time. 

The edition I read includes an interview with the actual author, (not McCabe) whose identity has remained a mystery for many years. (Maclaren Ross in his memoirs recalls speculating with Greene as to who he might be, suggesting that it might even be Greene himself.) This interview is of itself slightly mind-blowing, recounting the story of Ernest Bornemann, a German childhood student of Brecht’s who fled to the UK pre-war, when he wrote the book, before being interned in Canada, then becoming part of the Wartime film propaganda team, returning to the UK where he had an eventful and successful career as a screenwriter, (at one point working with Orson Welles), before finally settling in Austria as a revered sexologist. His whole story, a bit like the narrative of The Face on the Cutting Room Floor, reads like a tall tale. In some ways the unlikeliness of Bornemann’s life story helps to explain how it was possible for a young immigrant, barely fluent in his new language, to write a novel that feels like a modernist dagger thrust into the heart of a staid British literary tradition. Albeit one that has, itself, more or less been cut out of the canon, left on the cutting room floor.