searching for sugarman (w&d malik bendjelloul)

The latest in this Summer's offering of documentaries. There must be a reason why London cinemas are showing so many quality docs and so little quality dramas. Perhaps it's a failure of nerve on the part of the more adventurous distributors, or perhaps the world has run out of decent dramas. I suspect its the former. On the positive side, a lot of remarkable documentaries are getting extended outings. A friend went to see Nostalgia For The Light this week and said there was a good audience. What does it mean when our indigenous films can barely last a week in the cinemas but subtitled documentaries about subjects the drama commissioners would likely run a mile from have long, healthy outings? I'm not sure but it's indicative of something a little off-key about this British Summer with its excessive festivities and erratic climate.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, there's Malik Bendjelloul's remarkable film. A lot of films get called inspirational, but I'm not sure how many really are. It's a peculiarly moving tale about a dignified man who never got the breaks and then one day his karma turned and they came running. The greatest testimony to Rodriguez' decency comes from the words and attitudes of his daughters and colleagues. I remember back in the Vauxhall days coming across Shuggie Otis, I'm not sure how. A voice that had laid dormant for thirty years then somehow re-emerged, and the tale of Rodriguez is similar, albeit happier. For reasons you need to see the film to find out. The director constructs his tale with skill: if a drama had some of these twists you'd find them hard to credit. Underpinning the narrative is the notion that good will triumph in the end (with the word "good" used in its broadest sense); that there is another value set at work, running parallel with the one anyone inhabits, for better or for worse. I'd defy anyone not to come out of Searching for Sugarman feeling just a teeny bit uplifted and believing that maybe there's some kind of logic to it all after all.

never sorry (d. alison klayman)

Amidst the spate of documentaries I have seen this Summer in London, Klayman's docu-portrait of the dissident artist Ai Weiwei is far from being the most challenging exploration of the genre,  but it may well end up being seen as the most significant. This is because the film offers a relatively unimpeded view of the man who is at the epicentre of China's ongoing revolution, which is in all likelihood the most significant political event of our generation. If by that one means, the thing that will have most influence in shaping the world we live in.

In the midst of China's revolution is a battle for what might termed 'democratic' values: freedom of speech, human rights etc. The bearlike Weiwei is at the centre of this battle and has personally gained and suffered from his actions. Although there is 'behind-the-scenes' footage of the artist with his family, this is by and large a portrait of the artist as agent-provocateur and public figure. Weiwei is someone who sees Twitter as the most important contemporary means of communication. At every given turn he confronts the state, making a nuisance of himself, challenging them to try and take him down. Which they seek to do, towards the end of the film. Something which sets the stage of Never Sorry 2, because in some ways it feels as though the full significance of his stand will only be revealed over the course of time. 

We don't get to know that much about Weiwei as an artist or as a man, but then these are no longer the most important aspects of his persona. There is an anecdotal sequence which talks about Weiwei's time in New York, where he lived for about a decade, including the time of Tiannamen. It's fascinating to speculate to what extent artists such as Koons and Warhol impacted on Weiwei's evolving understanding of the concept of 'the artist'. Like Hirst, Weiwei no longer makes his own work. Other people do it for him, in what might be seen as a parody of the Chinese system or an embrace of Warholian neo-capitalism. However, the glimpses we see of his NY time and his present working practices only serve to highlight all that the film doesn't get round to saying or leaves out. 

What we do get (with much of this footage culled from Weiwei's own films) is a vibrant insight into a society which, no matter how pervasive it's influence, is still one we know little about in 'the West'. Weiwei is revealed to be a lightning conductor, as are perhaps all the great artists, one whose art, life and politics are melded into a single, bearded whole. 

red april (santiago roncagliolo)

In the Andes, passing through on a bus, you'll see, every now and again, gatherings, colourful, particular, taking place in a carpark on a cold dusty plain or a field set back from a twisting road. You'll catch a glimpse of something you know you don't belong to and you would never belong to even if you lived in this place for hundreds of years. Which is pretty much the experience of the descendants of the Spanish as they co-exist with the descendants of the indigenous peoples they colonised, once upon a time. A people which continues to live alongside them, speaking a different language, wearing different clothes and, presumably, thinking different kinds of thoughts. The highlands of the Andes are as segregated as anywhere else in the world and still the retain the feel, perhaps, of an uneasy truce; an accommodation with history as much as an acceptance of it.

This world has been captured effectively in the films of Claudia Llosa: Madeinusa and La Teta Asustada. In Madeinusa, a stranger arrives in town and finds himself caught up in ancient traditions which overwhelm him. Red April’s hero, Felix Chacaltana finds himself similarly consumed in Roncagliolo’s literary take on the same theme. He is a prosecutor in the Andean town of Ayacucho, charged with solving a series of murders in a place where the guerilla campaign of Sendero Luminoso has never quite been extinguished. The book comes into its own when it starts to trace the ways in which the native cultural heritage has continued to thrive, even if this is under the guise of an adopted Catholicism. The indigenous attitudes towards death, explained by the priest, open the door to a completely different way of thinking which runs parallel to the Christianity adopted by the native population, part of the colonization process. This offers a fresh twist on the serial killer trope, as well as providing an insight into a culture which frequently seems closed and mysterious.

There is a debate to be had about whether the author is adopting an approach towards the native characters he employs which Said might have described as Orientalism. To a certain extent the book’s narrative twist confronts this. It is one of the problems literature continues to face in the twenty first century as writers attempt to come to terms with the crimes and misdemeanours committed by colonialism. How to create a space in the narrative for the “unspoken” perspective; and whether in so doing you effectively take advantage of that perspective as much as the colonisers did before you. Roncagliolo’s highly successful book seems conscious of these inherent contradictions, just as Llosa’s films are, but at times it felt as though it might have taken the reader further in its journey into the mindset of the other. 

two years at sea (d ben rivers)

The act of experiencing cinema is an act of watching. It’s a passive action. Receptive. It’s so passive that at times it’s as though there’s no input from the viewer at all. In this it is similar to the action of enjoying art. In this day and age there are ways of experiencing art that involve going down slides or talking to strangers, but the predominant impulse in art is to look, to see, to watch, to receive.

Ben Rivers is well aware of this. Firstly, his film in an observational one. His camera observes a character, Jake, a man with a verdant beard and an energetic if solitary disposition. In some ways the film is like a nature documentary, studying the hermit in his environment. The camera is a spy of which Jake is presumably aware. The beauty and eccentricity of Jake’s surroundings are in themselves intriguing, but perhaps insufficient to warrant a 90 minute film. Instead it is something the director does with this material that makes it magical. What he does is he compels his audience to watch. We observe not just the ‘action’ of the film, but also the ‘process’ of the film, as the filmstock itself flickers and distorts, engrains and degrains. These frames are all unique (as of course every frame there has ever been is unique) but the filmmaker draws our attention to their uniqueness. The fuzz of the footage means each second has its own texture.

There are two sequences in particular that are so striking, from this point of view, (demanding from another), that, a little like the latest twist in a Bond film, the reviewer doesn’t want to speak about them, for fear of spoiling their potency. These are moments when the viewer is drawn into the image, almost as though staring at a Rembrandt. The only other sequence I’ve seen do this as effectively is the opening of Reygadas’ Silent Light. In these moments the passive nature of watching is revealed to be a myth: the film only comes alive because we make the active effort to participate. Without our eyes a film is nothing (except sound). This is as close to 3D as film can get (forget the specs). Blink and it’s gone. Which is always the case, but normally we take it for granted. Here, that indulgence is denied us, but what we gain more than compensates, as the viewer becomes the sentient actor in the face of a passive screen.

There’s nothing remotely commercial about Two Years at Sea and I came to it with a mild sense of dread. There’s no shortage of poorly made “art” films out there which sink under the weight of their own pretension. But Rivers’ film is one of the most disciplined, charming and beautiful pieces of cinema I’ve ever witnessed, taking the viewer to the heart of what it means to be a viewer, whilst maintaining an irreverence and an understated use of mystery. The questions that remain unanswered are as potent as the ones that are answered, ensuring that the unstated “narrative” ticks along beneath the wordless surface. It will barely make a ripple in the cinematic consciousness, but in another world, one of Borges’ parallel universes, it will be revered, a true blockbuster, a game-changer which will make superstars out of the quiet genius’ who created this work.

the red desert (w&d antonioni, w guerra)

A film washed in a desaturated glow of genius. Almost impossible to say with any degree of certainty what this is about. Mental illness/ environmentalism/ marriage. Riddled with moments of brilliance. At its heart a performance which leapfrogs the extraordinary. Monica Vitti, given license  to be peculiar, febrile, feminine. A figure on the verge of a nervous breakdown. A landscape that glows with a meaning which is never revealed. Through a pall of fog. Industrial. Maritime. Psychological. Psychosexual. Make out. The film's longest sequence ... a strange dockside shack which the characters end up literally deconstructing. Ripping its red planks to pieces. Was this the desert? Who knows. Not even the author. Amoral bourgeoisie or outliers for the swinging sixties. The postwar hedonists we have all become. Scope for interpretation vast. Excessive. Text over-ripe with signifiers. Desolate industrial wasteland. The boy that couldn't walk. A woman seeking to determine what shade of paint to put on the walls of a shop with nothing in it. 

No-one created atmosphere in the movies like Antonioni. Walking into his various scenes is like walking into different rooms. Never knowing what to expect. Is it a good party? Is it a bad party? You can never be sure. His movies are balancing acts, constantly on the verge of teetering into the ridiculous, constantly resisting. I have nothing intelligent to say about this movie. It is sublime, but fails to fit into any normal cinematic discourse. It exists in a language of images. If words were still pictograms I might have stood a chance. Of making sense. Of making sense of it.

swandown (w&d andrew kotting)

Swandown is an unlikely triumph. It's a modern day reworking of Three Men in a Boat (a book recently repackaged as a TV show). The dangers of what might be called a 'TV' approach are shown during the only moments when the film seems to flag, as a few minor celebrities are drafted in to participate on the Swan's journey from Hastings to London. We see where the film might have gone as their attempts to be witty fall flat and the journey seems to stall. Thankfully, these moments are few and far between. The usual voyagers are Kotting himself and Iain Sinclair. Here, the tendency of the edit is to subvert and poke fun at the self-styled 'psycho-geographer' and the director, something they presumably agreed to. This is done with a fiercely dry, understated British humour, ensuring their personalities never overwhelm the journey. The chasm between TV docs and a more cinematic style is apparent, and Swandown is all the richer for seeking to retain a cinematic chutzpah.

This is evident in the cinematography but most of all in the sound design. The film documents moments when the sound recordist, Phillipe Ciompi, (who also did the mix) is out on the river, and rightly so. The mellifluous tones of the British waterways are beautifully captured and then mixed with selected readings and Kotting's acerbic asides. Kotting himself, fearless in the face of water, is a boldly absurd figure, never scared of ridicule. He embraces the absurdity of his mission with sang-froid, seeking out the moments when something will be revealed, not by design, but by accident.

The gentle tone of the film matches the pre-industrial rhythm of a waterbound journey. The journey reveals a hidden network, the arteries of the country which have existed since before time forgot. Southern England is a low-lying, verdant land and always has been. The Swan's journey traces a land which runs parallel to the motorways, one which is still inured from roadside burgers and takeaway cappuccinos. There's hints of Pynchon and William Carlos Williams in its celebration of the backways and the neglected corners, where modernity is kept at bay and something more primeval is allowed to persevere. 

As such Swandown offers a beautiful, instantly nostalgic vision. Marrying Anglo-Saxon eccentricity with the ineluctable beauty of the landscape. Its whimsy is worn on its sleeve, the absurdity of the film's mission noted by passing van drivers and the cameraman alike. The use of Herzog's Amazon voiceover (with the critic J Romney bravely stepping into the German master's voice) seems blissfully inappropriate. This is a nature and a landscape that lulls, rather than threatens; that bequeaths a drowsy numbness. 

The omnipresent director might have become a pain in the neck and, if this were a TV doc, would presumably have ended up dominating proceedings. As it is, he somehow takes a back seat; his presence as eccentric as his swan's. Where previous Kotting films seemed in danger of becoming overly arcane, here the gentle humour that holds sway keeps things  afloat, allowing the quotations and observations to resonate without seeming overly affected.

Furthermore it should be noted, on this day of all days, that Swandown contains one of the most engaging scenes of Olympic totalitarianism since the work of Ms Riefenstahl. 

the spectacular (keith ridgway)

This is not a novel. It’s barely a novella. I don’t know how long it is as I read it on a digital screen which only offers the reader the information of what percentage they are through the book. It’s the second book I’ve finished having read it digitally, (the first was Gissing’s New Grub Street), although I’ve dipped in to several (Foster Wallace; Boswell’s Life of Johnson etc) Anyway, I’m sure there’s already billions of essays or blogposts or crypto-diatribes on the difference between reading off a page and reading off a screen and I’m not about to join that conversation.

Nor is the reason I’m writing about The Spectacular its literary merit. It’s a kind of potted variation on The Secret Agent with a Borgesian twist, which for a novella set in contemporary London and written by a contemporary Londoner seems appropriate. It’s a pleasant read, not overly taxing but with sufficient literary dexterity to keep the reader honest. You can read it on the tube, as I did, or in the park, as I also did, and it will keep you company.

However, perhaps the most interesting aspect of The Spectacular is its marketing. This is not as depressing as it sounds. Books get to us, one way or another, via some kind of marketing. Even if that marketing is just the gravitational force of a literary canon. (And one continent/ language’s literary canon will be, hopefully, very different to another’s.) With the explosive possibilities of digital publishing, anyone can now get their work out there. So how does an unknown author get their head above the parapet. The Spectacular is sold by Amazon as a download for £0.99. No-one is going to quibble about spending a quid. Having spent the pound, I wanted to read it. I had invested in the book and that encouraged me to engage with it. I will also wager that many of those who buy Ridgway’s modest tale will be encouraged to go on and buy the subsequent novel, Hawthorn and Child, which is, it would appear, in part based on The Spectacular. (The novel’s eponymous protagonists make an appearance in the novella.)

It may be that loads of small-time publishers are already using this technique and I have only belatedly stumbled upon it. But it feels like the first time I’ve been encouraged to engage with the potential of the ebook phenomenon, not one I’m overly enamoured of, beyond downloading free versions of classics to dip in and out of. So good look to Mr Ridgway and his agent and co. I just hope the novel has slightly more depth than the novella. I guess I will find out. 

nostalgia for the light (w&d patricio guzmán)

I was there on 911. When the Palace was  bombed and the President was killed. Or killed himself. Though no-one believes the official story because none of the official stories are credible. I did not fight in the trenches, because no-one did. I was not rounded up by the young men whose anger masked their confusion. I was not taken to the football stadium so I did not see Jara have his hands chopped off or the students shot or endure that strange time standing on the terraces as though waiting for the football match to start, knowing that when it started it only meant the end. Neither did I succeed in mythologizing my experiences when I fled, first to Mexico, then to Europe, then to the Stratosphere.

But I was there, one way or another. Or, rather, I have been there. I have even walked the Atacama desert, seen the stars like nowhere on earth, hunted for traces of lost civilisations as well as traces of the civilisation we have lost.

Because of this, Guzmán’s film, haunting though it is, did not tell me things I did not know. It is not a beautiful film and neither should it be. Neither is it a meditational film, as some say. It is an angry film, and that is at it should be. It has a quiet, hidden anger, with the energy of an exploding star, because Guzmán was on a star that exploded forty years ago and knows how it feels. Because anger is the offspring of pain which is the offspring of events which are what Guzmán lived through and felt and if you have seen his films then you too have lived through and felt these events and all that they then brought forth. Which is why I know I was there. Even if I wasn’t. Which is why his film tells me nothing new. Even though I am glad to have learnt nothing new.

Guzmán points his own telescope into the past. He points it at the desert floor. The light which hits the screen whilst we watch is light which was busy being born forty years ago, finally reaching our eyes.

killer joe (d. william friedkin, w. tracey letts)

This curious movie feels like something of an anomaly. In part Hollywood star vehicle in part faithful homage to Letts' play; in part another comeback movie from a lost great of the 70s. Where does it sit in the canon?

I didn't know Letts' play, but it feels as though the adaptation is probably not unfaithful, all the more so given that the playwright is also credited as screenwriter. As a play it does what it might have said on the tin: deep South, Southern Trash, Trailer Trash, Southern Gothic, etc etc. Not a million miles away from the work of Martin McDonagh, a world where little people have to make big but hopeless decisions. As such it has a cynical sheen and requires some grandstand acting. 

The latter is supplied in spades by McConaughey, whose performance drives the film. He seems to be having fun and Friedkin gives him license to go as big as he can. In many ways this contributes to the impression that this is an "anti-film". Where we're encouraged by the Michael Caine school of acting to believe less is more, McConaghy et all rip up the rulebook and hope that the camera keeps up. Similarly, this feels like anti-film because, no matter how well done the adaptation, it retains the resolute feel of a stage play, where dialogue is king and the narrative can be as overblown as it wants to be.

The strange thing about all this is that it kind of works. There's a verve and an energy to Killer Joe which means it rides the obstacles in its way and like a limo with a healthy suspension comes bouncing back on the other side. It doesn't feel like a great film or great filmmaking; it doesn't come across as a great play; but as a package it's more interesting than your run-of-the-mill Hollywood fare, perhaps because it's not afraid of being a bit rough around the edges.

the hunter (d. daniel nettheim, w. alice addison, wain fimeri)

This is a tragic movie. It's tragic because the lovely heroine gets fried and no-one seems to care. It's tragic because the last living Tasmanian Tiger is killed off. It's also tragic because a great actor, Willem Dafoe, stomps around the movie in a pale imitation of his role in Antichrist, looking as though he's just about past it. Like sportsmen and ballet dancers, one suspects there must come a moment in the actor's life when he realises he's past the prime of manhood and his dignity would be better served by an appreciation of this. One thinks of Dick Diver cocking up his Cote D'Azur water-skiing stunt in Tender is the Night. A great man humbled is a tragic thing to see, and Dafoe ends up looking faintly ridiculous as he runs around to no great effect, still rugged, but bearing the first hints of the geriatric he will one day become, as must we all. (It's another example of Eastwood's innate sassiness that he recognised the need to pastiche his image, thereby subverting the ridicule which might have come his way as he aged.) 

Does The Hunter warrant Defoe's exertions? No doubt he had fun learning how to skin a possum and clumping around in the wonderful Tasmanian wilderness, but there must have been a nagging doubt in his mind as he saw which way the script was going. There's some neat ideas which are never developed in any detail (His relationship with the children; the missing Tiger itself.) But too much of the film is spent with Dafoe, the hunter, driving back and forth in his four by four, always one step behind just about everyone. The plot, with its loggers and eco-warriors, gets lost in the peat bogs, and there's plenty of cute detail which doesn't seem to serve any real purpose (Speakers in trees, Dafoe's love of opera, the kid's drawings etc). In the end, there are too many ingredients. The script feels as though it's been recycled so many times it doesn't know if it's one green bottle or a pair of pyjamas. 

Having said all this, if you like sweeping nature shots and Tasmanian devils, then this film is for you.