The burbs – it’s a naff term isn’t it. Been thinking about the nature of suburban living lately – prompted by The Slap and by the film My Year Without Sex. “Suburban” – it’s onomatopoeic, I think. I read The Slap a few months ago and then my bookclub discussed it. It was interesting for what it brought up for most of us – there was common view that the characters were awful, they were indicative of the changing times but did not reflect the characteristics of the people that we hang round with. I sat there feeling middle aged – it’s the kind of spin I would have despised when I was younger but have to watch it coming off my tongue so readily. Is The Slap about generational change or class? Or ethnicity? Or gender? I thought it began with great promise but lost some of the gloss about half way through. The women characters seemed like a pastiche of the glossy women you sometimes see in The Age, women in their late 30s with hair extensions and a permanent diet. Not quite real. The men on the other hand seemed entirely believable. And pretty awful with the exception of Ritchie and the indigenous man who seems to be there to fill up the ethnic diversity numbers in the book. An indigenous Muslim. Tick two boxes.
What I connected with was the setting. These characters come from the middle ring of suburbs: Northcote, Hampton. People who’ve done OK materially and are aiming to hang on to every bit of it. The kind of people that my sister hangs out with. They have pools and undisclosed sources of wealth. We joke about these coming from drugs but the sources are more likely to be more banal. It makes my sister envious. These people are competitive and use their children as shining little examples of their upward mobility. They attend private schools and toddler yoga. There’s a brittleness to this kind of existence. And in Tsiolkas’ book, a meanness of spirit. The text is a hugely energetic rampage through the suburbs and through this meanness. I don’t see it in the circle of people I know and maybe that means that I live in a bubble. One of the bookclub members, a woman who has a lot to do with schools, said she was at a meeting of principals a couple of years ago and their main issue was that students are coming to school “under-parented” (to quote her). Their parents are giving them fewer boundaries , spending more time working, and want to be friend rather than adult. Her take was that they were relying on schools to do the tough love. This isn’t necessarily what I see amongst my friends though the extended independent/dependent relationship that kids have into their 20s might be indicative of this.
I could write more about The Slap (the sex they are having doesn’t sound like the sex that a lot of my married friends are having) but I might go to My Year Without Sex, a film which is also set in Melbourne suburbia; albeit a slightly less middle class suburbia. It’s a quirky little film, a lighter take than Watts’ previous film Look Both Ways. Funny. Light. Unsubstantial.
Three things about it. The best scene happens early. The main character Natalie (Sascha Horler) is in hospital hovering in and out of a coma. While she is likely to live, it’s a tense bedside scene, the whole family around her. Her son is transfixed by the television screen. We see him with the earphones on, his face tense; he’s watching the Western Bulldogs at the 30 minute mark of a tight game. He’s holding his breath. I’ve been there – in that moment, forgetting to breathe, everything hinging round a kick at goal. Life or death. For him, like his mother – both in life or death moments. Nicely done. Ordinary but utterly important.
They have so much stuff. In a more heavy handed way, this film is a critique of suburban materialism. They exist in family squalor; made more pronounced by the crappy quality of everything they own. They are swamped by toys, clothes, furniture, accoutrements of modern life. It contrasts with the minimalism of the more wealthy extended family that they hang out with – if you’re richer, your stuff is not as overwhelming.
There’s a fascinating spiritual question embedded in this film. It’s prompted me to ask all my religious mates whether they expect to see me once we are both dead. Clearly some of them haven’t thought of this before which is interesting in itself. Worth seeing for the gentle conversation about the need (or not) for spirituality in the suburbs.
My Year Without Sex is about decent people trying to have a go. Like the latest film I’ve seen, Sunshine Cleaning. Not a lot to say about that film. I liked it. Quirky. Good characters trying to make a go of it. Unlike any of the characters in The Slap apart from the teenagers and the Muslims. Does it matter if you don’t like any of the people in a text? I don’t think so but it clearly matters to some; for most of the people who’ve hated The Slap, I think this has been their primary reason. They feel infected by the meanness. Maybe that means that it is a successful novel?
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Gomorrah and the doings in Ascot Vale
I am a big Sopranos fan but have long thought it belonged with The West Wing as a study of power and family rather than a focus on organised crime. I think this is because we grow into a kind of affection for Tony Soprano which is at odds with what he really does that is brutal and ugly and evil. Seeing the Italian film Gomorrah has confirmed my thoughts about that. Gomorrah focuses on the ordinary people who willingly or not are caught up in the workings of organised crime in contemporary Naples. It’s about evil, entrapment, poverty and corruption, following five stories of people who, unlike Tony, have little power and authority. One film critic describes it like this: “Gomorrah is the mob movie as postapocalyptic warning, shot with dark precision inside dingy and overcrowded apartment complexes whose crumbling concrete and peeling paint make a mockery of the beautiful landscape outside” and in the New York Times: “no dark jokes; no catchy pop songs; no film allusions; no winking fun; no thrilling violence”. The violence is there all the time in the background, like a horrible sort of tinnitus, not in the forefront of the action.
Gomorrah works on a suburban level. The characters we meet are the kids on the street in Sunshine, the guy who runs the sweated workshop in Maidstone, the collector for the organised crime who operates out of a café in Union Rd Ascot Vale. The café where I buy good home-made tagliatelli to cook at home. In the film, we see the “western suburbs” style housing commission area of Naples. It’s grimy and claustrophobic; everyone seems to know everyone’s business. Unlike Melbourne, these areas of Naples are really run down; people are living in considerable squalor.
The film intertwines the stories of about five sets of characters. My favourite character is the master tailor. He is a middle aged man who has great skills within his trade but, for inexplicable circumstances, is running a sweatshop of workers who are running up designer clothes that will be sold on at very high prices. At one stage, we see a TV shot of Scarlett Johansson wearing one of the gowns. In moonlighting for a Chinese businessman, the tailor’s skills are finally appreciated by the workers he is teaching to make couture clothes but we as an audience are rightly filled with a sense of doom as he goes about his work. He is an ordinary man, attracted by the idea of making more money; the beauty of the film is that we meet him mid story with no idea of how he became involved with the sweatshop business. It is normal.
Two teenage characters help carry the film; they are gangster wannabes who carry out a serious of crimes in defiance of the local crime overlords. They are hapless and stupid boys, full of machismo and adolescence. I’ve taught heaps of them. Some of the kids I taught in the west have ended up in organised crime; some were young apprentices of their older brothers, uncles and dads while they were still at school. A natural kind of trajectory for them, like the kids in Naples. But most of the kids I taught had more options.
Here in Victoria, I think we see organised crime as something that happens to other people; it enables us to follow the stories of the Morans with amusement rather than fear. The Underbelly series has increased the theatricality of what is essentially a world of boguns and lowlifes. In Gomorrah, it seems to overlay life for everyone. Roger Ebert describes it like this:
Gomorrah works on a suburban level. The characters we meet are the kids on the street in Sunshine, the guy who runs the sweated workshop in Maidstone, the collector for the organised crime who operates out of a café in Union Rd Ascot Vale. The café where I buy good home-made tagliatelli to cook at home. In the film, we see the “western suburbs” style housing commission area of Naples. It’s grimy and claustrophobic; everyone seems to know everyone’s business. Unlike Melbourne, these areas of Naples are really run down; people are living in considerable squalor.
The film intertwines the stories of about five sets of characters. My favourite character is the master tailor. He is a middle aged man who has great skills within his trade but, for inexplicable circumstances, is running a sweatshop of workers who are running up designer clothes that will be sold on at very high prices. At one stage, we see a TV shot of Scarlett Johansson wearing one of the gowns. In moonlighting for a Chinese businessman, the tailor’s skills are finally appreciated by the workers he is teaching to make couture clothes but we as an audience are rightly filled with a sense of doom as he goes about his work. He is an ordinary man, attracted by the idea of making more money; the beauty of the film is that we meet him mid story with no idea of how he became involved with the sweatshop business. It is normal.
Two teenage characters help carry the film; they are gangster wannabes who carry out a serious of crimes in defiance of the local crime overlords. They are hapless and stupid boys, full of machismo and adolescence. I’ve taught heaps of them. Some of the kids I taught in the west have ended up in organised crime; some were young apprentices of their older brothers, uncles and dads while they were still at school. A natural kind of trajectory for them, like the kids in Naples. But most of the kids I taught had more options.
Here in Victoria, I think we see organised crime as something that happens to other people; it enables us to follow the stories of the Morans with amusement rather than fear. The Underbelly series has increased the theatricality of what is essentially a world of boguns and lowlifes. In Gomorrah, it seems to overlay life for everyone. Roger Ebert describes it like this:
“You watch with growing dread. This is no life to lead. You have the feeling the men at the top got there laterally, not through climbing the ladder of promotion. The Camorra seems like a form of slavery, with the overlords inheriting their workers. The murder code and its enforcement keep them in line: They enforce their own servitude.Did the book and the movie change things? Not much, I gather. The film offers no hope. I like gangster movies. "
The Godfather" is one of the most popular movies ever made -- most beloved, even. I like them as movies, not as history. We can see here they're fantasies. I'm reminded of mob
bosses like Frank Costello walking into Toots Shor's restaurant in that
fascinating documentary "Toots." Everyone was happy to see him: Jackie Gleason, Joe
DiMaggio, everyone. At least they knew who he was. The men running the Camorra
are unknown even to those who die for them."
I was struck by one thing particularly. Three cultures appear in the film: Italians, Columbians and Chinese. In each case its a bunch of guys sitting around, drinking coffee or smoking drugs (the Columbians). Deals are being done but there is a sense of leisure. Time to talk and chew the fat, eat good food. The women are elsewhere. Not running organsied crime. Occasionally the recipients of the proceeds of organsised crime but more often the widows and mothers worried about their kids. Would the world be different if women were running things? Would there be a Gomorrah? I don't know but I'm grateful I'm not a poor woman in Naples.
In its lack of sensationalism and hype, this is a terrific film.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Despair
About a quarter of the way into Synecdoche, I had to make a decision. Whether to go with it or not. It makes demands of the viewer in a similar way to the film You, the living. The scene which triggered this feeling is one of the less successful ones; a woman is being shown around a house by a real estate agent as smoke is billowing from its walls. Silly. Surreal. Kaufman, the writer-director on drugs. A lot of people will describe this film as a pretentious wank. And while I think it’s a head – job, it’s way more interesting than the pretensions on the surface. What it is in fact is a journey into the psyche – the psyche of the main character, Caden Cotard, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Cotard has been abandoned by his wife who wishes he was dead. (”I wish he was dead; it would be cleaner”, she tells their therapist as he sits there, blank-faced, numb.) Shortly after, she takes their young daughter and goes to live in Germany. Cotard is ill, ageing and filled with despair. He is a play director which gives Kaufman the opportunity to set a fiction within the fictions – or a set of fictions. In reality, what he is exploring is the rubbish which fills our heads. We are privy to Cotard’s paranoias, fantasies and self-talk. It’s done really cleverly through the play within the play construct so Cotard has a set of actors playing himself and other key people in his life. Through them, we see his imaginings, his preferred dialogue, possible scenarios written and re-written. At times too, there is a voice in his ear which helps him decide what to do. It is a film about Everyman and about one man, with despair the prevailing motif. Once again I am watching a film about an ageing man.
I think it’s a really brave film because it’s trying to depict what happens in the brain. Anyone’s brain. The reviewer in The Times describes it well:
The title, Synecdoche, is emblematic of the film; hard to say, pretentious, yet trying to say something of real meaning. It means an image in which the part stands for the whole - for example, "head of cattle" meaning cow, or "crown" meaning king. The part is emblematic of the whole. Cotard‘s headspace is symbolic of what is true for all of us, his huge, mad, pasteboard world stands for the real world, is part of it, is superimposed on to it, and finally melts into it.
I also saw Samson and Delilah yesterday. Two films about despair in the one day. They both open in the same way, someone waking up and getting out of bed. In Synecdoche, Hoffman is blearily surrounded by ordinary domesticity, by the demands of the alarm clock and a daughter and telephone. His entry into the day is slow and tired. In the Australian film, we see Samson wake up into the curtain-muted morning light of an outback morning. His bedding is dishevelled and he gropes for a shirt to put on before he gets out of bed. He then gropes for a containner of petrol to sniff. Good morning Samson. Its really hard to watch. Like Hoffman, Samson is slow to start the day. This contrasts with the outdoor waking of Delilah and her nana. Delilah more purposefully and immediately tends to her grandmother’s needs. It’s outback Australia, somewhere on a small remote community surrounded by the beautiful red rock of the area.
Delilah is the one who does the tending in the film which otherwise lacks tenderness. It is bleak in the extreme. After it had finished, my friend Naomi and I talked for a long time about it. The depicted options for indigenous people are few. Down the creek with petrol. On a community with little to do and little (depicted) connection or tenderness. Being exploited by Western art dealers. Getting God. Or getting right away from anyone else. The characters are shown as having little or no agency (with the exception of Delilah, who may get hers from God). I wonder how indigenous people feel about this kind of positioning. The dysfunctionality is the primary motif.
I don’t know what to do with this film. David Stratton gave it 5 stars and described it as “one of the finest films ever made in this country”. It’s definitely about the most important topic that we are likely to see on Australians screens and I think it’s really well made. I especially liked the lack of dialogue though I’ve never known teenagers to say as little as these two. But, and this is not the film’s fault, we are left with the certain knowledge that the film could be a documentary; that it illustrates the reality of life for lots of indigenous kids and that every few people know what to do about this. It’s bleak. Blogger Jane Simpson says:
The thing that happened to me as I watched it was a kind of splitting – which often happens when I watch films about other cultures. I’m more tolerant of values that are at odds with mine; I sit there and think “Well that’s their culture”. I’m prepared to tolerate weirdnesses, bad singing (Tulpan) and other little things. In the instance of this film, it played out in this way. The first part of the film begins with Samson’s courtship of Delilah. She is not interested in him. She makes this clear. She’s not playing games; she repeatedly pushes him away. On only one occasion during the initial part of the film (she buys him food) does she show any positive feeling. She knows that he is trouble. But I think we are positioned to want them to be together (even through their names) even though Samson is going to be nothing but trouble for Delilah. Jane Simpson’s blog entry sums up my misgivings about this aspect of the film in this analysis of the ending:
Having said that, Warwick Thornton is a very talented filmmaker. I loved his short film Nanna. The actors in Samson and Delilah are great. I loved the small surprises in the narrative. It‘s a really important film. I hope it does really well. It‘s more worthy of attention than Synecdoche – one being a cerebral head-job and one almost a documentary. About us. Australians. And both about despair.
Cotard has been abandoned by his wife who wishes he was dead. (”I wish he was dead; it would be cleaner”, she tells their therapist as he sits there, blank-faced, numb.) Shortly after, she takes their young daughter and goes to live in Germany. Cotard is ill, ageing and filled with despair. He is a play director which gives Kaufman the opportunity to set a fiction within the fictions – or a set of fictions. In reality, what he is exploring is the rubbish which fills our heads. We are privy to Cotard’s paranoias, fantasies and self-talk. It’s done really cleverly through the play within the play construct so Cotard has a set of actors playing himself and other key people in his life. Through them, we see his imaginings, his preferred dialogue, possible scenarios written and re-written. At times too, there is a voice in his ear which helps him decide what to do. It is a film about Everyman and about one man, with despair the prevailing motif. Once again I am watching a film about an ageing man.
I think it’s a really brave film because it’s trying to depict what happens in the brain. Anyone’s brain. The reviewer in The Times describes it well:
“There is some bitter, anguished humour here, but the overriding tone is a deep, aching melancholy. There are numerous possible interpretations of the film, but the constant in all possible readings is the film’s immutable sadness. Does it work? Not always.Kaufman’s ambition occasionally overshoots his skill as a director. But this is a curious and bleakly beautiful piece of work that rewards repeated viewings.”
The title, Synecdoche, is emblematic of the film; hard to say, pretentious, yet trying to say something of real meaning. It means an image in which the part stands for the whole - for example, "head of cattle" meaning cow, or "crown" meaning king. The part is emblematic of the whole. Cotard‘s headspace is symbolic of what is true for all of us, his huge, mad, pasteboard world stands for the real world, is part of it, is superimposed on to it, and finally melts into it.
I also saw Samson and Delilah yesterday. Two films about despair in the one day. They both open in the same way, someone waking up and getting out of bed. In Synecdoche, Hoffman is blearily surrounded by ordinary domesticity, by the demands of the alarm clock and a daughter and telephone. His entry into the day is slow and tired. In the Australian film, we see Samson wake up into the curtain-muted morning light of an outback morning. His bedding is dishevelled and he gropes for a shirt to put on before he gets out of bed. He then gropes for a containner of petrol to sniff. Good morning Samson. Its really hard to watch. Like Hoffman, Samson is slow to start the day. This contrasts with the outdoor waking of Delilah and her nana. Delilah more purposefully and immediately tends to her grandmother’s needs. It’s outback Australia, somewhere on a small remote community surrounded by the beautiful red rock of the area.
Delilah is the one who does the tending in the film which otherwise lacks tenderness. It is bleak in the extreme. After it had finished, my friend Naomi and I talked for a long time about it. The depicted options for indigenous people are few. Down the creek with petrol. On a community with little to do and little (depicted) connection or tenderness. Being exploited by Western art dealers. Getting God. Or getting right away from anyone else. The characters are shown as having little or no agency (with the exception of Delilah, who may get hers from God). I wonder how indigenous people feel about this kind of positioning. The dysfunctionality is the primary motif.
I don’t know what to do with this film. David Stratton gave it 5 stars and described it as “one of the finest films ever made in this country”. It’s definitely about the most important topic that we are likely to see on Australians screens and I think it’s really well made. I especially liked the lack of dialogue though I’ve never known teenagers to say as little as these two. But, and this is not the film’s fault, we are left with the certain knowledge that the film could be a documentary; that it illustrates the reality of life for lots of indigenous kids and that every few people know what to do about this. It’s bleak. Blogger Jane Simpson says:
“David Stratton's review is entitled "A world beyond words" and words are what's absent in the film. Everyday chat, everyday laughter, everyday interaction, doing things together, all the things that make life on outstations much less bleak than the portrayal here. And the family connections are missing - are Delilah and Samson two lost children without parents, sisters, brothers, cousins, who no one looks out for? Or indeed without fellow petrol-sniffers?”
The thing that happened to me as I watched it was a kind of splitting – which often happens when I watch films about other cultures. I’m more tolerant of values that are at odds with mine; I sit there and think “Well that’s their culture”. I’m prepared to tolerate weirdnesses, bad singing (Tulpan) and other little things. In the instance of this film, it played out in this way. The first part of the film begins with Samson’s courtship of Delilah. She is not interested in him. She makes this clear. She’s not playing games; she repeatedly pushes him away. On only one occasion during the initial part of the film (she buys him food) does she show any positive feeling. She knows that he is trouble. But I think we are positioned to want them to be together (even through their names) even though Samson is going to be nothing but trouble for Delilah. Jane Simpson’s blog entry sums up my misgivings about this aspect of the film in this analysis of the ending:
“The end is a fairytale ending, perhaps a fantasy of male hope - that a beautiful young woman would leave her own car and gun to go off with a petrol-sniffer, come back and find the car and gun still working, that she would have her own outstation, and would then dedicate herself to looking after the brain-damaged, wheel-chair-bound petrol-sniffer on her own. Julie Rigg takes this as the commitment demanded by love. I take it as obsession. Good outcome for Samson, lousy for Delilah.”
Having said that, Warwick Thornton is a very talented filmmaker. I loved his short film Nanna. The actors in Samson and Delilah are great. I loved the small surprises in the narrative. It‘s a really important film. I hope it does really well. It‘s more worthy of attention than Synecdoche – one being a cerebral head-job and one almost a documentary. About us. Australians. And both about despair.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Homage to Marilyn
Not Monroe but French. The writer of The Womens’ Room. Two books had a profound impact on me in the 70s. The World According to Garp and The Women’s Room. It’s a funny combination but they do have some things in common. Marilyn French died recently. I bet she had a significant impact on a lot of women. When my friend Jane and I went walking the other day, she mentioned her death and the impact that she had on her life as well. Her novel made me aware of aspects of my own life, especially the relationship I was then in (in the 70s) and ultimately I broke up with Geoff as a result of this awareness. Marilyn French helped embed the feminism I had; she had a greater impact than Germaine Greer and Simone de Beauvoir on me. I wonder what The Womens’ Room would be like now?
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Treacherous ground, the relationship
“The penis, in the contemporary novel, has been a mighty matter, looming large.” I wish so much that I had written this sentence but it was that mighty writer Colm Toibin, commenting on Ian McEwan’s novel On Chesil Beach. Toibin goes on to say “Who will forget the narrator of The Bell Jar seeing an adult penis for the first time and being both fascinated and repelled? (‘The only thing I could think of was turkey neck and turkey gizzards and I felt very depressed.’)”, This London Review of Books review is well worth a read just for the extended riff about the penis.
It wasn’t the penis that got my attention in the novel (funnily enough). This is a novel which pivots on the first night of a marriage. Set in 1962, it's about Florence and Edward. “They were young, educated, and both virgins on this, their wedding night, and they lived in a time when a conversation about sexual difficulties was plainly impossible. But it is never easy. “ What interested me was Florence’s lack of interest in sex. Not just lack of interest but a feeling of revulsion; when Edward starts to kiss her, she contemplates throwing up.
I know that it’s possible to go for extended times without sex and without thinking of sex. (Only one of these characteristics applies to me.) Libido is a rare topic of conversation with my friends but sometimes we talk about it. Usually in an embarrassed way; no one really knows what is “normal”. Do you like sex? Is it good with your partner? Are there things you’d like to do? Have done to you? Does the other person want it more or less than you do? How do you manage the imbalance? Who do you lust after? What turns you on? For a theme that is explored at such length in the media, it is really hard to talk about. (And hard often to talk about with your lover or partner too but that's probably a whole other piece of writing.)
Florence finds it hard to talk about. She feels abnormal. I found it strange to read about; its not something I can imagine easily – the extreme distaste she has for sex. I wanted to read more, to find out why, and this provides some of the dramatic tension of the novel. At first I thought the writing was a little coy. Mark Mordue, writing in the SMH, reframes the coyness: “Initially, McEwan's writing is restrained and formal, a quintessentially British tone befitting the time in which it is set. One thinks of old BBC radio plays and "hears" the story being told. It would be easy to mistake this as tame fare indeed but for a sly humour and confidence percolating beneath McEwan's voice: “This was not a good moment in the history of English cuisine, but no one much minded at the time except visitors from abroad. The formal meal began, as so many did then, with a slice of melon decorated by a glazed cherry… It would not have crossed Edward’s mind to have ordered a red.”” The coy tone is deliberate; it reflects the times, the characters and the seriousness with which they are about to embark on sex, and on intimacy.
Because this is what I think the book is really about – not so much sex as marriage and what it means to make this commitment. What might be lost in the process as well as gained. There is a really graphic description of being kissed; “With his lips clamped firmly on hers, he probed the fleshy floor of her mouth, then moved round inside the teeth of her lower jaw to the empty place where three years ago a wisdom tooth had crookedly grown until removed under general anaesthesia. This cavity was where her own tongue usually strayed when she was lost in thought. By association, it was more like an idea than a location, a private, imaginary place rather than a hollow in her gum, and it seemed peculiar to her that another tongue should be able to go there too. It was the hard tapering tip of this alien muscle, quiveringly alive, that repelled her.” (p29) Of course this is about sex but I think it’s also about the process of marrying someone and living with them. Florence is a very controlling, independent personality who has not experienced the joys of intimacy (her family has not provided warmth or contact). The idea of intimacy, and perhaps losing something of herself in the process, scares Florence as much as the physicalities of sex. And the ending bears this out; you have to allow people into the hidden gaps to truly make contact. It’s a risk but the consequence of avoiding risk is borne out in what happens to both Edward and Florence.
What makes me think that McEwen wanted to go beyond sex is the title. He is fond of the single, life-changing incident (almost all his novels pivot round a single incident) but this novel has a very deliberate title which I think takes us further than the single failed sexual encounter of E and F. I googled the beach after I’d finished the book; it’s a really striking piece of coastline. A long narrow spit (18 miles?) with a lagoon on the land side and the sea on the other. Rocky. Treacherous. McEwen said that he kept some rocks from the beach on his desk while he was writing it (and protests after he admitted this meant that he took them back!) Chesil Beach is a storm beach developed by gravel ridges being driven onshore. It was described like this by one poet:
“Twern't a sea - not a bit of it -
twer the great sea hisself rose up level like
and come on right over the ridge and all,
like nothing in this world"
I think McEwen is thinking about the beach as a metaphor for being in a relationship. One reviewer described the spit as being the line between post-war, conservative Britain (the land and lagoon) and the tempestuous changes of the 60’s (the sea) and while its true that this is a strong theme in the book, it’s a bit lumpen as a metaphor. (And if I was being really crude, you could read this bit of verse and look at how McEwen describes Edward’s premature ejaculation – a great piece of writing). However, I think he chose the landscape deliberately to make a point; it could have been set in Torquay or a host of less interesting locations.
A lot of the writing is very fine and that makes the book worth reading, whatever you think it's about: “The garden vegetation rose up, sensuous and tropical in its profusion, an effect heightened by the grey, soft light and a delicate mist drifting in from the sea, whose steady motion of advance and withdrawal made sounds of gentle thunder, then sudden hissing against the pebbles.” And finally, worth a comparison – Philip Larkin’s poem, Annus Mirabilus.
It wasn’t the penis that got my attention in the novel (funnily enough). This is a novel which pivots on the first night of a marriage. Set in 1962, it's about Florence and Edward. “They were young, educated, and both virgins on this, their wedding night, and they lived in a time when a conversation about sexual difficulties was plainly impossible. But it is never easy. “ What interested me was Florence’s lack of interest in sex. Not just lack of interest but a feeling of revulsion; when Edward starts to kiss her, she contemplates throwing up.
I know that it’s possible to go for extended times without sex and without thinking of sex. (Only one of these characteristics applies to me.) Libido is a rare topic of conversation with my friends but sometimes we talk about it. Usually in an embarrassed way; no one really knows what is “normal”. Do you like sex? Is it good with your partner? Are there things you’d like to do? Have done to you? Does the other person want it more or less than you do? How do you manage the imbalance? Who do you lust after? What turns you on? For a theme that is explored at such length in the media, it is really hard to talk about. (And hard often to talk about with your lover or partner too but that's probably a whole other piece of writing.)
Florence finds it hard to talk about. She feels abnormal. I found it strange to read about; its not something I can imagine easily – the extreme distaste she has for sex. I wanted to read more, to find out why, and this provides some of the dramatic tension of the novel. At first I thought the writing was a little coy. Mark Mordue, writing in the SMH, reframes the coyness: “Initially, McEwan's writing is restrained and formal, a quintessentially British tone befitting the time in which it is set. One thinks of old BBC radio plays and "hears" the story being told. It would be easy to mistake this as tame fare indeed but for a sly humour and confidence percolating beneath McEwan's voice: “This was not a good moment in the history of English cuisine, but no one much minded at the time except visitors from abroad. The formal meal began, as so many did then, with a slice of melon decorated by a glazed cherry… It would not have crossed Edward’s mind to have ordered a red.”” The coy tone is deliberate; it reflects the times, the characters and the seriousness with which they are about to embark on sex, and on intimacy.
Because this is what I think the book is really about – not so much sex as marriage and what it means to make this commitment. What might be lost in the process as well as gained. There is a really graphic description of being kissed; “With his lips clamped firmly on hers, he probed the fleshy floor of her mouth, then moved round inside the teeth of her lower jaw to the empty place where three years ago a wisdom tooth had crookedly grown until removed under general anaesthesia. This cavity was where her own tongue usually strayed when she was lost in thought. By association, it was more like an idea than a location, a private, imaginary place rather than a hollow in her gum, and it seemed peculiar to her that another tongue should be able to go there too. It was the hard tapering tip of this alien muscle, quiveringly alive, that repelled her.” (p29) Of course this is about sex but I think it’s also about the process of marrying someone and living with them. Florence is a very controlling, independent personality who has not experienced the joys of intimacy (her family has not provided warmth or contact). The idea of intimacy, and perhaps losing something of herself in the process, scares Florence as much as the physicalities of sex. And the ending bears this out; you have to allow people into the hidden gaps to truly make contact. It’s a risk but the consequence of avoiding risk is borne out in what happens to both Edward and Florence.
What makes me think that McEwen wanted to go beyond sex is the title. He is fond of the single, life-changing incident (almost all his novels pivot round a single incident) but this novel has a very deliberate title which I think takes us further than the single failed sexual encounter of E and F. I googled the beach after I’d finished the book; it’s a really striking piece of coastline. A long narrow spit (18 miles?) with a lagoon on the land side and the sea on the other. Rocky. Treacherous. McEwen said that he kept some rocks from the beach on his desk while he was writing it (and protests after he admitted this meant that he took them back!) Chesil Beach is a storm beach developed by gravel ridges being driven onshore. It was described like this by one poet:
“Twern't a sea - not a bit of it -
twer the great sea hisself rose up level like
and come on right over the ridge and all,
like nothing in this world"
I think McEwen is thinking about the beach as a metaphor for being in a relationship. One reviewer described the spit as being the line between post-war, conservative Britain (the land and lagoon) and the tempestuous changes of the 60’s (the sea) and while its true that this is a strong theme in the book, it’s a bit lumpen as a metaphor. (And if I was being really crude, you could read this bit of verse and look at how McEwen describes Edward’s premature ejaculation – a great piece of writing). However, I think he chose the landscape deliberately to make a point; it could have been set in Torquay or a host of less interesting locations.
A lot of the writing is very fine and that makes the book worth reading, whatever you think it's about: “The garden vegetation rose up, sensuous and tropical in its profusion, an effect heightened by the grey, soft light and a delicate mist drifting in from the sea, whose steady motion of advance and withdrawal made sounds of gentle thunder, then sudden hissing against the pebbles.” And finally, worth a comparison – Philip Larkin’s poem, Annus Mirabilus.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Let the right one in
“The question of what comprises a ‘good childhood’ in current times has generated significant debate and media attention. While there has always been debate about children, today it is especially salient because of the fast pace of change in information and communication technology and because of the perceived pressures of a consumer-based media culture. According to the charity The Children’s Society, which has conducted a major inquiry into childhood, children’s overall well-being is being endangered by excessive individualism in a competitive modern age. It suggests that the increase in the belief that the “prime duty of the individual is to make the most of her own life, rather than contribute to the good of others” has tilted British culture too far “towards the individual pursuit of private interest and success” with several consequences for children:
- high rates of family break-up
- teenage unkindness
- unprincipled advertising
- too much competition in education
- acceptance of income inequality.”
Been reading this today for work. It’s a paper from Futurelab about curriculum and innovation. I’m always a bit suspicious of the good old days argument. Were we or or parents and grandparents more alive to the good of others? I’m not sure. (I think my father’s generation was better at saving, at “doing without”, but that’s another matter). I was thinking about teenage unkindness this week in the context of the Swedish vampire film Let the Right One In. Luke Davies, in The Monthly, correctly calls this a “gloriously strange and haunted poem of a film”. The screenplay is written by John Lindqvist who also wrote the best selling novel and the film is made by Tomas Alfredson.
The vampire riff works fine as a straight narrative but underneath it is a metaphor for the disturbances of adolescence. Blood. Changing bodies. Uncontrollable events and urges. Stuff that you want to do that is forbidden. Desire. Danger. Fitting in or more usually – not fitting in. Loss of innocence – whatever this means in our society. Disconnection and loneliness – the film deals with these threads so well. The violence of adolescence is played out in all sorts of ways in this film including through Oskar who we meet when he is stabbing a tree with a knife (which is handily standing in for one of his classmates).
It’s also beautifully filmed. Luke Davies says it better than I could: “the stillness, - of framing, of pacing – catches us unawares, in the sense that, as in all good ghost stories, we are lulled unsuspecting into that place where the real and the surreal become interchangeable”. The setting is both banal – suburban Sweden, an apartment block, a school, and really beautiful – crisp snow, slender birches, a white dog against the snow. (A white dog against the snow discovering a body hefted upside down from a tree dripping blood – yes it is a vampire film.) That’s the other thing I loved about the film; Eli is by turns kind of fetching street kid and mouth covered in blood, pretty grisly. It looks real and a bit grotesque. And vulnerable. These two, Eli and Oskar, are kind to each other in this world of teenage unkindness and adult neglect. The film has a great ending. It makes you re-think some of the earlier scenes in new ways. The narrative is left open and ambiguous like the character of Eli. Lovely work.
- high rates of family break-up
- teenage unkindness
- unprincipled advertising
- too much competition in education
- acceptance of income inequality.”
Been reading this today for work. It’s a paper from Futurelab about curriculum and innovation. I’m always a bit suspicious of the good old days argument. Were we or or parents and grandparents more alive to the good of others? I’m not sure. (I think my father’s generation was better at saving, at “doing without”, but that’s another matter). I was thinking about teenage unkindness this week in the context of the Swedish vampire film Let the Right One In. Luke Davies, in The Monthly, correctly calls this a “gloriously strange and haunted poem of a film”. The screenplay is written by John Lindqvist who also wrote the best selling novel and the film is made by Tomas Alfredson.
Philip French from the Guardian wrote this apropos of the film: "Three of Scandinavia's greatest artists, the Swedish playwright August Strindberg, his friend the Norwegian painter Edvard Munch and the Danish director Carl Dreyer were fascinated by the subject. Virtually all Strindberg heroines are vampires. Munch's most famous painting after The Scream is his Vampyr, while Dreyer's Vampyr is arguably the greatest of all horror films."
I’ve had several encounters with the vampire genre over the years; the sensationally scary Salem’s Lot (Stephen King), the languid and hip, overhyped Anne Rice novels and more recently The Historian ( Elizabeth Kostova). I remember lying in bed in my parents house reading Stephen King scared out of my wits with the dark glass of the night window only inches away and the possibility of vampires just outside. That was 30 years ago – other things scare me more now. What was scary in Let the Right One In was the depiction of adolescence because that is what the film is fundamentally about. Oskar is 12, a lonely bullied boy who is disconnected from his divorced parents. Like most teenagers, he inhabits a little world of his own. He meets Eli, a dishevelled “12 year old” street girl of a vampire.The vampire riff works fine as a straight narrative but underneath it is a metaphor for the disturbances of adolescence. Blood. Changing bodies. Uncontrollable events and urges. Stuff that you want to do that is forbidden. Desire. Danger. Fitting in or more usually – not fitting in. Loss of innocence – whatever this means in our society. Disconnection and loneliness – the film deals with these threads so well. The violence of adolescence is played out in all sorts of ways in this film including through Oskar who we meet when he is stabbing a tree with a knife (which is handily standing in for one of his classmates).
It’s also beautifully filmed. Luke Davies says it better than I could: “the stillness, - of framing, of pacing – catches us unawares, in the sense that, as in all good ghost stories, we are lulled unsuspecting into that place where the real and the surreal become interchangeable”. The setting is both banal – suburban Sweden, an apartment block, a school, and really beautiful – crisp snow, slender birches, a white dog against the snow. (A white dog against the snow discovering a body hefted upside down from a tree dripping blood – yes it is a vampire film.) That’s the other thing I loved about the film; Eli is by turns kind of fetching street kid and mouth covered in blood, pretty grisly. It looks real and a bit grotesque. And vulnerable. These two, Eli and Oskar, are kind to each other in this world of teenage unkindness and adult neglect. The film has a great ending. It makes you re-think some of the earlier scenes in new ways. The narrative is left open and ambiguous like the character of Eli. Lovely work.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
"How am I blest in thus discovering thee!”
Been thinking about the word Elegy after seeing the film of that name. John Donne was really the Elegy man and this thought sent me googling the connection. The first one I came across was Elegy XX To his mistress going to bed. Like a lot of Donne’s poetry, it’s about making the most of the limited time we have. In his world view, its best spent in bed with a lover (apart from the time taken with wondering what happens after you die). Sex and death weighed heavily on the man. I liked re-discovering him- here's a snippet from that poem.
“Licence my roving hands, and let them go
Before, behind, between, above, below.
O, my America, my Newfoundland,
My kingdom, safest when with one man mann'd,
My mine of precious stones, my empery;
How am I blest in thus discovering thee!”
The word elegy is more usually used to mean a song of mourning and perhaps Donne is thinking of the ephemeralness of this relationship and the frailties of the human bodies, both his and his lovers. As the title of the recent film, it is less harsh than the title of the novel it represents “The Dying Animal”. Roth’s book and this film is about David Kupesh, a man in his 60s who falls in love with a much younger woman played by Penelope Cruz.
The opening of the film shows him in his New York apartment quoting from Tolstoy: "The biggest surprise in a man's life is old age." This quote has the kind of truth about it that made me want to agree out loud in the cinema. Age has been much on my mind lately, not just my own but the people around me. I thought about my father who seems constantly bemused by the treachery of his body. On the weekend he said to me “I used to be an athlete; I could run 100 yards in X (I think he said 11 but this cannot be right) seconds.” He can’t understand where this fitness has gone, what has happened to him. It’s unbearably sad. And perhaps that means that what happens to Kupesh in the film is sad but not tragic (in comparison with my father who is 80 and tragically sad.) After all, Kupesh has the beautiful Cruz fall in love with him.
Kupesh is something of a tosser but the universality of the aging process is the compelling part of this film. It’s the third film I‘ve seen about aging men this year which perhaps tells us something about the demographics of current film producers. And audiences. But ultimately I had to agree partly with Monalah Dargis in the New York Times: “There’s not a hair out of place here or an emotion. It’s as if Ms. Coixet (the director) had tried to quiet the howls of a dying animal.” I thought the film would end about 20 minutes before it did; there is a twist in the plot that shifts our perspective somewhat. What the twist raised for me is the question – do we feel more keenly for the really beautiful? Would the impact be the same if the plot twist was applied to Kupesh’s older lover? (A woman who I identified with quite strongly). Would that have made the story more interesting? Made us forget the twee beach love scenes that populate the early part of the film?
Cruz plays the role as a cipher; unknowable in her beauty. This tease of the audience is set up quite early when Kupesh first sees her – she is carrying a copy of Roland Barthes “The Pleasures of the Text”. And Kupesh’s friend says something along the lines of the unknowability of the truly beautiful woman; it is a complete distraction. I don’t think that Mr Donne would have agreed but he was truly a renaissance man. Head and heart. Go John. He was up for it – the howl of a dying animal in a way that this film isn’t quite. Re-reading Donne's words, there's a robustness and energy that is never felt in the film; the Kupesh character is way too restrained and melancholy. at one stage, Kupesh compares the Cruz character to a painting by Goya and the relationship has that element; a woman reclining to be admired, a woman looking lovely on the beach, a man looking sad in a darkened apartment. Somehow the blood has left this film. I'm going back to Donne for a bit more sex and death... And maybe Philip Roth. And definitely John Updike.
“Licence my roving hands, and let them go
Before, behind, between, above, below.
O, my America, my Newfoundland,
My kingdom, safest when with one man mann'd,
My mine of precious stones, my empery;
How am I blest in thus discovering thee!”
The word elegy is more usually used to mean a song of mourning and perhaps Donne is thinking of the ephemeralness of this relationship and the frailties of the human bodies, both his and his lovers. As the title of the recent film, it is less harsh than the title of the novel it represents “The Dying Animal”. Roth’s book and this film is about David Kupesh, a man in his 60s who falls in love with a much younger woman played by Penelope Cruz.
The opening of the film shows him in his New York apartment quoting from Tolstoy: "The biggest surprise in a man's life is old age." This quote has the kind of truth about it that made me want to agree out loud in the cinema. Age has been much on my mind lately, not just my own but the people around me. I thought about my father who seems constantly bemused by the treachery of his body. On the weekend he said to me “I used to be an athlete; I could run 100 yards in X (I think he said 11 but this cannot be right) seconds.” He can’t understand where this fitness has gone, what has happened to him. It’s unbearably sad. And perhaps that means that what happens to Kupesh in the film is sad but not tragic (in comparison with my father who is 80 and tragically sad.) After all, Kupesh has the beautiful Cruz fall in love with him.
Kupesh is something of a tosser but the universality of the aging process is the compelling part of this film. It’s the third film I‘ve seen about aging men this year which perhaps tells us something about the demographics of current film producers. And audiences. But ultimately I had to agree partly with Monalah Dargis in the New York Times: “There’s not a hair out of place here or an emotion. It’s as if Ms. Coixet (the director) had tried to quiet the howls of a dying animal.” I thought the film would end about 20 minutes before it did; there is a twist in the plot that shifts our perspective somewhat. What the twist raised for me is the question – do we feel more keenly for the really beautiful? Would the impact be the same if the plot twist was applied to Kupesh’s older lover? (A woman who I identified with quite strongly). Would that have made the story more interesting? Made us forget the twee beach love scenes that populate the early part of the film?
Cruz plays the role as a cipher; unknowable in her beauty. This tease of the audience is set up quite early when Kupesh first sees her – she is carrying a copy of Roland Barthes “The Pleasures of the Text”. And Kupesh’s friend says something along the lines of the unknowability of the truly beautiful woman; it is a complete distraction. I don’t think that Mr Donne would have agreed but he was truly a renaissance man. Head and heart. Go John. He was up for it – the howl of a dying animal in a way that this film isn’t quite. Re-reading Donne's words, there's a robustness and energy that is never felt in the film; the Kupesh character is way too restrained and melancholy. at one stage, Kupesh compares the Cruz character to a painting by Goya and the relationship has that element; a woman reclining to be admired, a woman looking lovely on the beach, a man looking sad in a darkened apartment. Somehow the blood has left this film. I'm going back to Donne for a bit more sex and death... And maybe Philip Roth. And definitely John Updike.
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