Ken Burns Civil War Documentary.....

I was initially rather sceptical about a free month's Netflix trial, yet when it arrived on my computer courtesy of my family - I was delighted to see Ken Burns famous (American) Civil War series there in its entirety! I first saw this ground breaking series in Canada in the early 1990s, when staying with a pal from university in some remote corner of Nova Scotia. The American PBS channel were showing it every night at some absurdly late hour, and it became a nightly ritual that we'd get back to his parents house every evening in time for the next instalment. I knew almost nothing about the American Civil War then, it was all new - and utterly compelling. Years later I saw a set of DVD discs on Ebay of it, and bought them expectantly, but when they arrived they were scratched ad unplayable! I sent the discs back, and have waited to see the series again, until now!

Burns and his team did an amazing of telling the story of the American Civil War militarily, biographically, politically, socially, racially and culturally through an carefully edited series of contemporary diaries, articles, letters and papers, voiced by great actors; to the accompaniment of archive photos of people and places; set to the most perfectly executed sound-track, and interspersed with 'talking heads' commentary segments.

The series is basically a straightforward chronology of the conflict, charting the origins of the conflict, it developments, key movements, battles and strategies, until the final Union victory, and the assassination of Lincoln. It examines the main strategies, such as Lee's invasion of the North, all the main battles (famous names such as Antietam, Wilderness, Gettysburg, Bull Run), key incidents within those battles such as "Pickett's Charge" at Gettysburg; it looks at all the main characters, Grant, Lee, Sherman, Longstreet, Forrest, MacLennan, Hill, Lincoln and Davis etc, and of course the emerging importance of the legal status of slavery as a war aim for both sides. All of this is hugely informative, and provides the uninitiated with a crash-course in the every aspect of the era from social customs to military technology.

As the series returns to the same diarists over-and-over again, its possible to chart the course of the war from individual perspectives too. Southern and Northern voices are both represented in this, as are the views of both back and white people affected by the conflict. Mary Chestnut, in the Southern aristocracy was an avid diarist in the war, and her 'voice' is a remarkable historical document, as the Sam Watkins, a Union soldier and writer who recorded 'his' war too. By the end of the series these voices become familiar, and almost as close to the viewer as if they had been interviewed. Morgan Freeman's voicing of Fredrick Douglass' words is brilliant too - amazingly powerful in fact. 

The talking-heads are interesting too. They feature a retired Congressman, the historian Barbara Fields, and Shelby Foote the Southern Writer. They each pull in different directions in their comments too, the politician wants to see the conflict as part of the great American narrative, Fields is a sharply incisive academic historian who wants to emphasise the centrality of racial injustice as a central theme in American history, and while Foote is no apologist for the Confederacy itself, he certainly wishes to rescue the historical voice of the average Confederate soldier. Foote's contributions are in fact highly memorable, as he drawls from a vast array of anecdotes, told in the first person as if he had been a participant!

Obviously the causes of the conflict are a huge source of division even today. The Confederacy claimed to be fighting to protect states rights, not primarily to defend slavery (although of course these two things merged in practise), while the North began by fighting to save the Union, but ended up tangled-up in a fight to end the evil of slave-holding. Fields and Douglass are persuasive in their analysis of the centrality of racial questions, but Foote adds an important side note when he intones, "The average southern soldier wasn't a slave-holder" - he was fighting for his state's independence. In many of these questions Burns allows a variety of perspectives to be heard, and one wonders if that would be the case today; or whether if he was making it today he would have to be far more one-sided. For instance, Mary Chestnut's diaries of the ruin of the Old South, left decimated by the Northern Armies of Sherman and Sheridan, are well-written and moving. Sherman's terse commentary of his battering of the Confederacy in his 'March to the Sea' campaign, adds weight to

the sympathy that one cannot help but feel when a first-hand account of war, and decimation of towns, cities, homes, farms and families, is read. This especially the case when the reading is accompanied by mournful music, and photos of the ruins. Then however we are immediately reminded that Richmond was devastated because it was the capital of a slave-empire, the symbolic embodiment of a system of grotesque evil. The we are diverted again by Abraham Lincoln's assessment that the while horror of the war was a divine judgement on whole the USA for the sin of slave-holding.

The haunting music isn't in fact a piece from the 1860s, but a far more recent tune called Ashokan Farewell. It so wonderfully frames the awful scenes of the dead, the injured and the fallen that it became highly sought after, following the release of the series, apparently.

After having amazed by this series back in 1992, I was interested to see how it would stand up after all these years (and my acquisition of a degree in American history!) All I can say is that I thought it was wonderful to see it again. Powerful, instructive, and very moving - and highly relevant today.  The horror and sadness of war are powerfully and profoundly displayed here. 

Huge, (really huge!) amounts of ink have been spilled commenting on this series, some lauding it, other criticising it. One or two of those criticisms are probably valid; but they do not detract from the overall brilliance of this tremendous series, which certainly is worth watching at least twice.

Film Notes: Kolya

I stumbled across this DVD really by chance. I was noodling about ebay, and saw a quirky picture of a middle-aged bearded fellow, with a small boy on his shoulders, who was rather impishly putting his hands over the man's eyes. Jumping over to the Rotten Tomatoes site, I saw that this film had great reviews, and so grabbed it for not very much.

It turned out to be a charming, if sentimental, coming-of-age movie from Eastern Europe, set during the dying days of the Soviet system. The twist in the story is that person coming of age, is a middle-aged man! Louka, played delightfully by Zdenek Sverák, is a brilliant cellist, who has played with the Prague Philharmonic. Clashes between him and the Communist Party have resulted in him being reduced to playing at the local crematorium, for funerals. What seems to matter most to Louka however, is not ,subversive anti-communism, but his numerous affairs with fellow performers and cello students. His unattached, bachelor lifestyle, more typical of a twenty-year old, seems to have filled his days into his middle-years.

All this seems to unwind in a most unexpected way. Louka agrees to a marriage of convenience with a gorgeous Russian woman whose motivation is to get to the West. Her marriage document enables here to travel there from Czechoslovakia, which wouldn't be possible from Russia. Louka's motivation seems to be both financial and sexual, but to his consternation she dissappears almost immediately, leaving Louka with her young son; Kolya.

Those of us who are parents are aware of how much life changed when children arrived. In fact, our lives divide into the 'before' and 'after' their presence. Life without the busyness, exhaustion, joys and sorrows of children now seems barely imaginable. Young Kolya is the last thing that the selfish Louka is expecting, and much to his surprise it changes him in ways he can barely comprehend.

The film is really well-observed, which adds to its charm, and authenticity. This happens both at the level of adult-child interactions, of little Kolya's view of the world; and is loaded with wonderful period details from the latter years of the Soviet bloc. The film ends with twists in the story, both for Louka and Kolya, but also for the country as a whole. 

Anyone whose life has been turned upside down by children, or who was forced to suddenly grow-up when they became a parent; will smile knowingly at this film. Louka is certainly a more likeable character by the end of the film than he was at the start, but rather pleasingly he doesn't undergo a ludicrous character change like romcom writers seem to indulge in (The Proposal: fergoodnissakes!), but the love he develops for a child starts to shape him in new ways.

I thought it was a delightful film, amusing, wry, dated, well-observed, and with a charm that was quite lovely; and a nice twist in the tale.

Film Notes: Blind Chance

Before there was Sliding Doors (1998), there was Blind Chance (1981), a more complex, yet strikingly less subtle story of a person whose fate is decided by whether they catch or miss a train. Like Sliding Doors, in which Gwyneth Paltrow's character both misses and catches the train - and the story bifurcates into two possible realities; in Blind Chance the story splits into three as different possible outcomes are explored for Boguslaw Linda's character, Witek.

There are a number of significant differences between the two films however. The first is that while Sliding Doors is a domestic story of love or loss, of success or failure, of happiness or disappointment, Blind Chance's outcomes are all to do with politics. What's more, they are to do with the politics of the emerging resistance to Poland's communist regime; culminating the film being banned when General Jaruzelski declared martial law there in response to the Solidarity movement.

While Paltrow's character ends up with a good guy or a bad guy; Witek either (1) catches the train and falls in with communists who get him to join the party; for whom he works with some commitment; or (2) fails to catch the train and has a fight with a station guard leading to arrest and falling into the company of the freedom movement, or (3) misses the train and returns quietly to medical school, avoids politics, marries a fellow student and had a child.

Its an intriguing film, and a fabulous period-piece about Poland in the Solidarity era; not a documentary by any means, but nevertheless a wonderful historical document. As usual for a Krzysztof Kieślowski film the cinematography is delicate, and perceptive; and the intrigues of human nature poignantly observed. I was (I must admit), a little shocked by the amount of sex and nudity in this film. I am not especially prudish; but by Krzysztof Kieślowski's standards this was very unusual. Several of his films contain sex references and enough violence to gain a (15) certificate; but I was surprised by how explicit he chose to go in this film. Sex, marriage and babies are of course, part of human life, and there was nothing here that was extraneous to the plot(s), but I'm not sure that so many naked shots were required.

The key question which hangs over the film is far more serious than what a handful of Poles looked like in 1981 with their kit off. Witek, the main protagonist, is portrayed as being incredibly malleable, and seems to receive all his life direction from his circumstances. He doesn't seem to have many thoughts or values of his own, to bring into the different scenarios into which he is plunged as his biography splits into three possible realities. His political and religious views are entirely shaped by fate in the unfolding scenes in his life; and the company he finds as a result of the caught/missed train scenario. While no one would be foolish enough to suggest that circumstances play no role in our formation, it is perhaps an exaggeration to suggest that we have no capacity for thought, analysis or moral judgement whatsoever, but are only and exclusively the product of our immediate stimuli. Krzysztof Kieślowski's severest critics have rounded on him for the apparent suggestion that a student would either end up working as a Communist Party apparatchik or an underground samizdat publisher on the flimsy grounds of a conversation on a missed train. But this is unfair on the filmmaker - who is clearly not meaning that we take the meaning of the plot that literalistically, but rather see it as a device for exploring the extent of individual agency. In that it is highly thought provoking and intelligent filmaking.  

I'm still not sure what to make of the surprise ending though. Without spoiling the film for those who haven't seen it, it has the benefit of uniting the three story strands; and uniting the three versions of the character in a jarring equality!

Film Notes: Camera Buff

Like many people I first came across Krzysztof Kieślowski through his later work such as The Three Colours Trilogy, made after his move to France from his native Poland. Only later did I stumble across his earlier, rougher films such as the Decalogue series, made in the drabber environment of Soviet-era Polish communism. This film, Camera Buff, comes from amongst these earlier pieces, made in 1979.

The first striking think about the film is that it is a period-piece for its time. The Soviet-era architecture, cars, clothes, and factories are obvious. What then hits the viewer is the social-economic setting of the film. The obvious heavy-industrial context, with wheezing factories belting fumes from their modernist chimneys, is the backdrop for a series of relationships which too are located in time and space. The deadening bureaucracy which controls the factory is typical of the era, as are the depictions of an adequate but basic life in the stagnant command-economy. Over all these relationships lurks the chubby party-boss, whose role is to oversee all the people and operations in the plant and the town for the party-state, and to protect the sacred Marxist-Leninist ideology. All this dates the film in the Cold-War era of the East generally, but what is even more interesting is that in 1979, it was obviously acceptable to portray the party boss interfering and censoring the film in a way which would not have made it to the screen in 1970, let alone before 1951.

The film itself concerns Filip Mosz, a factory worker deftly played by Jerzy Stuhr, who gets a film camera with which to record the life of his first child, who is born near the start of the film. The camera is obviously a scarce resource, and the party demand that he use it to film the jubilee of the factory in which he works. This is successful, and leads to the establishment of a small film unit at the plant, making party-approved pieces - but Mosz's slightly artistic takes on everyday life gain wider plaudits, much to the anxiety of the party.

The tension between art and political control forms only a sub-plot however. The main theme is the obsession of the artist, and the way in which it takes over his life, causing great strain within his marriage. The lens through which Mosz increasingly lives his life becomes that of an observer, and recorder of life; not a full participant in it. This process is seen as even when not filming, he views scenes in his life and marriage - as if through a lens; forming a square with his hands to imagine how the scene would appear on film; to the increasing distress to his wife (Malgorzata Zabkowska as Irka Mosz). His cinemtographical exploits also unintentionally damage colleagues on the way too, a price he seems willing to accept for his art.

In one sense the film points to the way in which art and creativity provides a meaning for a man in an empty, drab, and highly controlled world. If the bleak nature of the vast monoform flats in which he lives, and the dispiriting nature of his work as a buyer for a factory in a command-economy which was unresponsive to his needs; was the problem, then Mosz found his outlet in capturing things as beautiful, natural and innocent as pigeons on the wing, or road-menders toil. However, Camera Buff now looks strangely prophetic in the sense that in the mobile phone/social media era there seems to be a strong pull (dare I say it, especially amongst the young!) (I know, I'm an old fart), to film and observe life and the world - rather than fully participate in it. I love my camera, and for a long time took it everywhere, but I was away that sometimes capturing an image was at odds with enjoying experiencing the reality of it. Banksy, in his own inimitable style views it like this:

In 1979, Krzysztof Kieślowski imagined it like this:

Film Notes: For The Love of God

I have to confess to being a bit of a history nerd. Having spent several years studying it, accumulated countless books and an insatiable reading habit, I find the past utterly absorbing. It's common to hear politics, ethics, education, nationalism or multiculturalism being described as 'a battleground of ideas', but every historian is equally aware that our view of the past is every bit as contentious. We are all aware of "Black History Month", which has grown steadily in significance, as the once accepted racism which erased Black people from our historical consciousness has been increasingly rejected. Historians once looked for great themes and great men (yes, it was usually just men!); many these days look for "usable pasts"; which are often little more than selective trawls for evidence with which to weaponise history for contemporary polemics.

Religious history, has of course been subject to both these trends. Biographies of saints and martyrs have been produced to stir the devotions of the faithful; while the memory of atrocities committed in the name of "belief a", are kept alive by the adherents of "belief b".

What we make of the history of the church, is then something of great importance, and not just for history geeks like me. How the history of Christianity is handled is a significant marker in the current battle of ideas. Of course some Christians want to paint a picture of unbridled progress and blessing; while some atheists, such as the late Christopher Hitchens, wish to portray every aspect of the church's record as being fundamentally malign.

Perhaps only the foolish, unwary or brave would step into this vast field of two millenia of contention! Certainly the aim of presenting a fair and balanced picture of the church's moral and ethical record, which is neither a Hitchensesque hatchet-job or a series of 'lives of the saints' hagiographies is a bold one. However, this is exactly what CPX (The Centre for Public Christianity in Australia) have done in a 90 minute film entitled "For The Love of God: How The Church is Both Better And Worse Than You Ever Imagined". Fearing the worst, I watched this film with some trepidation, but they have really pulled it off, it is a great piece of work.

 

Filmed with high quality production values, CPX presenters John Dickson, Justine Toh and Simon Smart, are filmed in locations around the world, where Christians have made an impact for good or ill; and assessed the history. They tell stories such as massacres in the Crusades perpetrated on innocent Muslims in the name of Christianity, to Martin Luther King Jr's noble quest for Civil Rights; from Christian failures to oppose Nazism, to roots of Western charity and philanthropy in the early church as it was persecuted by Roman Emperors. The story telling is enhanced by dramatic readings of historical texts, and segments of academics discussing and assessing the meaning of the stories.

Wonderfully put together, well-researched, and presented in a lively style, the film itself is compelling viewing. The analysis is fascinating too; as they seek to assess where the church has gone wrong and where it has made a contribution. John Lennox, the noted Christian professor of Mathematics at Oxford describes the 'shame' of some of the things done in Northern Ireland in the name of Christianity. On the other hand Rowan Williams explores the way in which many disputes driven by other factors such as land, power, or resources have gained a religious veneer or justification; but were not inherently caused by clashes of belief.

The treatment of Colonialism is quite remarkable. Coming from Australia the film begins with the damage done to Aboriginal people by the white settlers, who brought everything from land-seizures to new diseases to Australia; sometimes justified in the name of Christianity. Yet, they also show that it was Christians who almost uniquely rejected a racist hierarchy of races, because they couldn't accept social-Darwinism, as their faith told them that all people were made in the image of God. Likewise the role of William Carey in India is examined, and not just in term of his exemplary work in education, and development. His long campaign against 'Sati' (widow-burning) can be seen as either imposing western values on India; or as a bold step towards the equality of the sexes, and thoroughly in line with the idea that basic human rights are universal, not allocated by the powerful; or awarded in response to capacity or contribution. This, likewise is an idea which only became embedded in western culture when Christian ethics replaced Greco-Roman morality in which things such an infanticide were almost de rigueur.

Robert Woodberry's thesis that Protestant missionaries have left a massively positive contribution towards social and economic flourishing in virtually every context in which they operated, is also given a well-deserved hearing.

Equally fascinating was the (perhaps not immediately obvious) subject of character. The weight of evidence that the ancients, despite all their philosophical sophistication, saw humility as despicable; was very well explained. The Christian view of the cross of Christ. the humiliated God, was radically counter cultural; and leads directly to so many of the values which we in the west assume are universal, but actually are rooted in Christianity.

Finally the filmakers ask us to examine the record of the church, as it stands up against the teachings of Jesus Christ himself. The obvious point that Jesus' ethical teaching commands great respect isn't laboured, but rather what is observed is that where the church has stuck to his words and example, it has been beautiful; but where it has veered off into contemporary cultures, it has looked ugly. Central to this discussion is Jesus' charge to his people to "love their enemies". This main thesis is explored through a charming musical metaphor, which I won't explain, but will leave you to enjoy on the film.

The film can be viewed as a single 90 minute "Cinema Cut" or in several shorter episodes; 1) War and Peace, 2) Rights and Wrongs, 3) Rich and Poor, 4) Power and Humility. It can be rented or purchased online, for streaming or by buying the DVD from https://www.publicchristianity.org/fortheloveofgod/ from where free clips, and study guides for groups or schools can also be downloaded.

This honest film leaves little room either for Christian triumphalism on one hand, or mud-slinging anti-Christian polemics on the other. In that sense, CPX have done a remarkable job in opening up a sensible discussion in which the very real contributions of Christian ethics, and Jesus' teaching can be  seen alongside many of the sins of the church. As such the film will perhaps contain surprises for people on both sides of that debate. There is some uneasy viewing for Christians, especially on the Crusades and the Nazis; while some secularists will be alarmed at the extent to which so many of the values we celebrate in the western liberal tradition have distinctly Christian roots, and were pioneered in history by Christians. Furthermore, many of them are grounded in Christian beliefs, and sustained by them, and indeed inseparable from them.

CPX are to be congratulated on the way in which they have stepped so nimbly across this historical minefield, and produced such a stimulating, thought-provoking film, which is both visually stunning and academically rigorous.

Film Notes: Son of Saul

Son of Saul, is without any doubt, the most horrific film I have ever seen. It left me numb,and in shock, while my wife felt physically sick. Watching it is something of an endurance test for the viewer - and yet despite this, it has won countless accolades including the Cannes Grand Prix, and the 2015 Academy Award for best foreign language film. What is it that made the film juries, and the countless critics who's scores accumulate to 95% approval on the Rotten Tomatoes meta-critic site, so endorse this appalling spectacle? There are several reasons:

The first is that this is a film about truth. The action takes place over two-days in the heart of the Nazi's death-camp at Auschwitz. Using the best first-hand account of how the industrial scale murder-factories looked, were run, staffed and organised, the details of the story-line might be fictitious; but they are rooted in truth. Life in the camps has been depicted before, in films like Schindler's List,  where the viewer thought for a moment that they were going to be asked to watch a mass murder by gas; but are spared at the last second. Likewise, I've seen disturbing depictions of the labour-camps before; but Son of Saul, is set right in the heart of the killing. László Nemes might just spare us the sight of the asphyxiations themselves, but he does not spare us the victims screams - and hopeless banging on the gas-chamber doors.

The central character, Saul Ausländer (Géza Röhrig), is a Hungarian Jew. imprisoned in the death-camp. Primo Levi, in "The Drowned and The Saved", his Auschwitz memoir, describes the various roles prisoners were given. The useful like him, were put to hard labour, others were selected for medical experiments, while others were condemned to what he called "The Gray Zone", that is joining the Sonderkommando. These most wretched of souls gained a few months of life, by running the death-machine. Saul, was a Sondercommando, and we first meet him herding fellow Hungarian Jews to their death, taking their possessions for the Nazi's, hauling out the naked bodies from the gas-chambers, and scrubbing them clean for the next train-load. This is so intense, so incomprehensible, that it is hard to watch. However, the fact that this happened, as recently as in my parents' lifetime, means that it has to be faced.

The second reason that the film has been so lauded is the extraordinary cinematography. In interviews, László Nemes has described shooting the film in a messy way, all from human-eye-level. The fact that the narrow depth of field means that the main characters faces are in focus, but the background is constantly out, is also remarkable. It creates initially a sense that Saul has his head-down, trying to avoid seeing, what is all around him; the eye-level filming drawing the viewer right into the hell. The strangely muffled sound-track adds to this curious sense of the recoiling-self seeking to protect itself through a form of cognitive dissonance. This technique also allows the filmmaker to allow the horror of the gas chambers to appear on screen - while seeking to avoid the gratuitous, or prurient details the focus of the shot. Saul, has to help remove the naked corpses of the newly-slain from the gas-chambers. Yet, while the bodies are dragged, with no ceremony or dignity whatsoever; László Nemes places them just beyond the focal length of his cameras. The result is visually striking, absorbing and deeply, deeply disturbing.

The third, and most important reason that Son of Saul resonates so powerfully with audiences and critics, is that it is ultimately a film about humanity. The underlying narrative is that the Nazis denied that the Jews were human; and treated them in accordance with this twisted view - and as a result lived in complete denial of their own humanity. I was sickened by the way the Nazis called the dead "pieces", unable to face up to, or even comprehend what they had just done. I believe it was Auschwitz survivor Rabbi Hugo Gryn (1930-1996), who says that he never once asked "Where God was in Auschwitz"; but was constantly asking, "Where is humanity?". Despite the loss of his liberty, dignity, morality, hope and the abject denial of his humanity, Saul, of the Sonderkommando, holds onto one tiny shred of his personhood. Without spoiling the plot, Saul is determined to find a Rabbi, amongst the prisoners, and give a proper burial to one small dead Hungarian-Jewish boy from the holocaust. This one body, like that of the 'unknown soldier' of WWI, comes to mean much more than just itself; but a representative of wounded humanity. Saul's bewildering desire to commend his 'son' to the earth and to God, is a powerful portrait of a man clinging to some shred of humanity, while living in a hell-on-earth. The one thing with which he will not be parted, is his desire to give one little human the right departure, and to commend him to God with some dignity. 

That beautiful, yet minute thread of light, is the only hope found in this horrendous depiction of evil. I'm sure that watching it was the right thing to do. I don't think I could watch it again though.

Film Notes: Rome, Open City

Sometimes when films are billed as "classics", or "unmissable" they fail to live up to the hype. My Mum is likewise always suspicious when the reviews of a book use the word "achievement"in the publisher's blurb. Roberto Rossellini's "Rome, Open City", is somewhat weighed down with heady reviews, which both elevate expectations and make objective appreciation of the film difficult. 

The film, made in 1945, concerns the Nazi occupation of the city during the latter stages of The Second World War - after the decline of the Italian Fascist State; and during the Allied Invasion of

Italian territory. The ruthless rule of the Nazi occupiers is depicted, along with the exploits and sufferings of the Italian Catholic and Communist resistance movements; as they joined forces against a common foe. Marcello Pagliero and Aldo Fabrizi lead the cast as the communist resistance leader, Georgio Manfredi and Catholic Priest (and document forger, and resistance messenger) Dom Pietro, respectively.

Without giving away to many spoilers, Rossellini uses these characters (their lives, loves, families, etc) to write a a fictional account of life under occupation - which is based on real events. It is a tale of live, loss, betrayal, cruelty, death, defiance, painted against the backdrop of the inevitable destruction of the Third Reich.

Old films, especially those which date back this far, can seem desperately slow and contrived to contemporary audiences. Rome, Open City shows its age, but isn't slow or clunky; but is absorbing and moving - mostly due to the compelling acting of characters like Anna Magnani (as Sora Pina - embroiled in the struggle, as she is marrying into the Resistance), and Maria Michi (as Marina Mari), struggling with drug addiction, compromised loyalties, and treachery. The acid test for me in so any films is whether the plot and characters and good enough to make me care about the outcome. Rome, Open City passes this test absolutely.

Two aspects of the film will trouble contemporary audiences. The first is the bizarre staging of the

Nazi head office, with offices, torture chambers and drinking clubs being three adjacent interconnected rooms. Perhaps such a strange place existed (almost anything is possible); but it did look rather odd - even if it facilitated easy scene changes. The second is that the two most sadistic Nazi villains, Harry Feist as Major Hartmann and Giovana Galletti, as Ingrid; are to varying degrees portrayed as homosexuals. This is obviously going to be interpreted today as the stereotyping of a minority community in overtly evil terms, and summarily rejected. Perhaps though it can be interpreted within an Italian context in 1945 in slightly more sympathetic terms, (while we would want to avoid endorsing such stereotyping obviously). I think the filmmaker is referencing the decline of the Roman Empire which is characterised as being decadent in its power - with the final throes of the Nazi Empire in Rome, - using cultural mores from the 1940s as a device. Many viewers today, are still going to find that aspect troublesome however.

Rossellini brings his film to a climax, which is something akin to the New Testament gospels. As Manfredi is tortured in front of Dom Pietro; his sufferings and wounds (which he chooses to bear, rather than betray his fellow resistance fighters), save lives, and are deliberately filmed in a way which evokes the passion of Christ. (Spoiler alert!) Prior to the torture scene (which earns the film a (12) certificate - but which might disturb many an adult), the Nazi commander expressed his total confidence that a Nazi torturer could beat an Italian resister - on the basis of racial superiority. The fact that he then betrays no-one is not referenced, but the unspoken implication of the fallacy of racial theories thunders though the end of the film. Evil is once again trounced, not by superior fire-power but through redemptive suffering. This aspect of the film is powerful and profound.

The film, it is often claimed, was written in order to re-brand Italians in the wake of their calamitous experiences in the war, under Mussolini, Nazism, and Allied occupation. Rossellini wanted to make a film in which Italians were 'good', and who suffered for their goodness, alongside the other victims of Nazism. Tales of the French Resistance were well-known at this point, and the sufferings of the Jews and others in the camps was soon to come to light too. Rossellini wanted to make sure that the world knew that there were Italians too, who were suffering in order to redeem Europe from evil. Historians have made much of the fact that in order to achieve this he downplayed the role of the Italian fascists, and over-estimates that of the Nazi occupiers. Perhaps so, but nevertheless he achieves his goal of producing a gripping, sympathetic reading of Italian resistance to Nazism and Fascism.

On a personal side-note, my Grandfather fought in the Second World War, and spent the final part of it, guarding POW's in various camps in the UK, including one in Scotland. He told me that while some of the POW camps were high security, the job guarding the Italians was easy. In general, he said, the Italian POWs were relatively content to be there, had no desire to escape, let alone fight any more; and shared the universal opinion that Mussolini was a fool, best avoided until peace came. I suspect my grandfather would have understood Rossellini's remarkable film, better than me.

Film Notes: Of Gods And Men

I picked up this DVD for a quid, in a sale of old LoveFilm stock. In the days before Netflix and downloading was a thing, postal DVD services were popular; but their demise led to some amazing deals. I'd heard that this was a 'film worth watching' and without knowing much about it at all, picked it up on the off chance. It turned out to be a deeply sad, very moving, and rather profound film.

The setting is Algeria in 1996, as the government start to lose control of the state, and Islamist militants cause misery and chaos in their quest for an Islamic revolution. In a remote corner of the country a small Roman Catholic monastery had functioned for years. Alongside their own rituals, and devotions, they served the community and provided healthcare and support. The film depicts them as being very much part of the community, in which they served; sharing life, hospitality and friendships across the religious divide.

The central plot of the film is whether the monks should abandon the monastery and flee, either to a safer monastery in Africa, or indeed back to France; as Islamist atrocities take place with ever increasing frequency - and in ever closer proximity to them. They face, essentially, a decision to run away from their calling, or to face death for it. The Muslim villagers certainly do not want the monks to leave - but to face up to the threat of the extremists alongside them. The discussions around the small monastery table in which they debate this decision are amongst the best moments in the film. One monk, determined to stay, says to a younger colleague (who wants to leave), "we already gave up our lives, when we decided to follow Christ". Strong stuff indeed.

As the film draws to a climax, the monks with sorrow and resolve, face up to the inevitability that as non-Muslims in an Islamist take-over, they are doomed. With their songs, liturgies, and around the eucharist; they re-affirm their faith even as the dark clouds gather around them.

This is actually a true story. Which possibly explains why there is more detail about the two monks who survived the ordeal; than the mystery about the deaths of the rest of those who did not. We see, finally, the sad group being led away to their deaths; and a caption reading that nothing is know about who murdered them. 

Lambert Wilson gives a really strong performance as the head monk, alongside Michael Edward Lonsdale as Luc - the medical brother, It's a slow film; in that the rhythms of life in the monastery which have survived generations are depicted. It's not an action film, in that the plot develops as much in the brooding tension and the monks' response to it; as in the actual civil war. That kind of cinema is far harder to write and produce than action; but it is done very well indeed here.

The film is a stunning protest against religious extremism, religion violence and intolerance. This message, along with the context of the last monks in an ancient monastery in Muslim lands, is somewhat reminiscent of William Dalrymple's stunning book, From the Holy Mountain. Although set further east, amongst the Orthodox and Coptic churches, not the French Catholics of Algeria, the extinction of these people and orders is a parallel story; and very worth reading.

The monks in this film share a 'Last Supper' together, waiting to face death, as Christ did before them. One wavering monk faces up to this with the biblical quotation, ''no servant is greater than his master'- in other words, if martyrdom was good enough for Christ himself, who am I to demand anything more? With their faith and integrity intact, they are then led away.

FORB (freedom of religion and belief), as enshrined in Article 18 of the UN Convention on Human Rights; is under more strain then in 1996 when these awful events occurred. Tragically, CSW (the Christian charity that works for freedom of religion for all people, of all faiths or none) reports that this is increasingly the case in Algeria. Click here to read more.

Film Notes: White Material

This film, although beautifully made, is rather disturbing. Isabelle Huppert plays a coffee planter in an anonymous African Republic, which had been a French Colony; and then a protectorate of some kind. Early in the film we learn that the French military are withdrawing, and urging all remaining white people to withdraw, as the country disintegrates into a bloody civil war. Huppert's character, remains defiant in the face of danger however, and persists with her determination to bring in the harvest, even as her workers leave and her family disintegrates.

Huppert is brilliant as Mm Vial, the feisty-yet-fragile planter, who never seems to surrender - always seeking to fight back against the ever overwhelming odds surrounding her. Her acting, accompanied by a hauntingly beautiful, lamenting soundtrack, and plenty of character's-eye-view filming, make the film arresting to the senses.

Without including plot-spoilers, what makes this film at times unbearable to watch is the cruelty and suffering which accompanies civil war. Child soldiers feature heavily in the plot; and it is gut-wrenching to see the reality of children (some the age of my own kids), heavily armed, roaming the countryside, with no hand to restrain their 'Lord of the Flies' like descent into barbarism. That evil men commit evil acts is of little shock value, I suppose, compared to such horror being unleashed from those we would normally see portrayed as innocents, is actually chilling.

The family plantation becomes the centre of the action, as it becomes known that a rebel fighter known as 'the Boxer' is hiding out there; and the war between government and rebels grows more fierce. The already divided family, divide further over whether to stay and fight, or cut and run, with the adult son, descending into mental illness after a brutal (probably sexual) assault by teenage soldiers. The film ends on a grim note of betrayal and revenge, even as the war itself seems to be running its course.

There are a few moments when the plot is not easy to follow, although these do become clearer as the memory-sequences are made more obvious. Part of this is quite deliberate, in that the confusion of a nation in civil war, with panic, information and miss-information, abounding being conveyed to the viewer. Characters are often in fact, seem listening to the demagogic rebel radio broadcaster, urging his troops on to trash the remaining vestiges of colonialism. But, what will remain with me far longer than the plot, are the incredibly vivid scenes, the sense of foreboding, and the fear and confusion of a country amidst violent revolt. This was very, very disturbing indeed.

Film Notes: Ida

I've seen a few films recently, most of which were okay, some of which were overrated, none of which I thought were worthy of a review. Then yesterday I saw 'Ida'. I had bought the disk a long time ago, but somehow with time being short, it never made it to the top of the pile; until now. If I had known how good it was, I would have watched it an age ago.

The story (without too many plot-spoilers), concerns a young Polish girl who is about to take her vows and become a nun. Convent life has been all she has known, as she was an orphan, brought up by the sisters. The opening scenes see young Ida, at work in the practical and ceremonial rigours of the convent. The plot centres around Ida's farewell visit to her family - in this case her sole known relative, an aunt. The aunt is deeply opposed to Ida's religion, and in fact has been a member of the Stalinist hierarchy running postwar Poland. Her aunt's scepticism does not trouble Ida, so much as the discovery that she was orphaned because her parents were murdered during the Nazi occupation of Poland; and that she had a historic Jewish identity, to compete with her experienced Roman Catholic one. The story involves Ida's discovery of her past and navigating, (in the company of her disturbing aunt) the pleasures available outside the confines of the cloistered life; however it centres on her personal struggle to work out her identity. Central to this, is the decision she faces about whether to take her vows and "marry" Jesus, as a nun - or to become joined to the outside world.

The setting in the early Soviet-era in Poland are amazingly created, the gritty black and white filming adds a retro-feel which when combined leaves the viewer wondering if this is actually a recent film- or is in fact decades old. It is visually stunning. The other thing about the direction which is so striking is that it is never hurried, the characters are allowed to breathe, and the studies of the faces of the central protagonists are unnervingly powerful. In one scene for instance, the viewer is being asked to understand that while every other nun and novice is totally compliant; Ida is beginning to ask questions. This is conveyed not through an obvious-but-cheesy dialogue, but through a study of faces. Every head remains fixed in concentration in their prayer book; except Ida, who risks a brief glimpse up: a picture worth a thousand or more words. 

Agata Trzebuchowska is quite remarkable in her performance as the young Polish-Jewish-Catholic girl, for which she quite rightly garnered a host of awards. Amazingly it seems as if Ida has been her only film credit. Agata Kulesza plays the aunt, "Red Wanda", and is also first-rate too; as she plays a woman haunted by the past, lost in the present, and spiralling downwards into her future.

Together, the filming, directing and acting create a film which is gripping, moving, dark, and thoughtful.

Of course, the tension between what makes us who we are: nature or nurture, is in full view in this film. The protagonist here seems to have the final vote, and will have to chose between chapel and synagogue, priest and rabbi, nurture or nature. As neither a Catholic nor a Jew, I felt like a neutral, outside observer to this inner struggle. There is also though the added dynamic of secular hedonism adding a third option which adds a nice complexity to the story, which I could relate to in terms of its power to lure one away from identity and values 

The media seems to be fascinated today with the question of identity, found in programmes like Who Do You Think You Are? in which celebrities unearth their ancestry. Genealogy hunting and family-tree recording has never been more popular either. All the while geneticists and psychologists debate whose field most fully explains human behaviour. Some people find discovering their ancestry profoundly revealing, and they find a sense of place, and belonging. To others, it is an utter irrelevance, what matters to them is the present alone. The comedian Mark Steel has a wonderful stand-up show entitled "Who Do I Think I Am?", in which he speaks (with his customary wit and irreverence), about tracing his biological parents; and seeing if there are any traces of his genes in his personality; or whether who he had turned out to be is modelled more closely on his adoptive parents. The results are fascinating, and well worth a listen. The BBC iPlayer sometimes has this show on it, it is not up presently, but maybe again at some point. In short though, he seems very much the child of his adopted parents except for a few alarming traits which seems to have been, in part at least, genetic. He seems happy to acknowledge these, but on the question of identity, doesn't seem to rest on his genetic history at all - bizarre and surprising as it turned out to be (another spoiler I shall spare you).

In Ida, the film comes to a series of conclusions, ultimately Ida decides which of the paths before her is the right one. The ruins of the past are laid to rest, her sampling of the different options available to her is made, and she walks into her future.

Ida is an exceptionally thought-provoking film; and it is a thing of great beauty to watch too. The real test of a film, though, is whether the characterisation is strong enough that the viewer is drawn in enough to actually care what happens to them. Agata Trzebuchowska's Ida, is so well drawn that I for one, felt stirred by her plight, sorrow at the discoveries she makes, and the losses she endures - and fascinated by her choices. What lingers in my mind, are the striking black and white images of postwar Poland, of the Convent, the grave-side, the disintegrating Aunt, and the minimal but powerful expressions on Ida's face. 

Book Notes: Living With the Living Dead - The Wisdom of the Zombie Apocalypse by Greg Garrett

When Oxford University Press sent me a review copy of Greg Garrett's book, Living With The Living Dead, which claims amongst other things to demonstrate the cultural and theological importance of the Zombie Movie genre; I was sceptical. In the course of over two-hundred pages of analysis, Garrett removed some - but not all of my initial prejudice against his project! 

Garrett writes from a broadly Christian perspective, and yet is an enormous fan of Zombie movies, which he seems to remember in dreadful detail. This will be a struggle for many Christians from the outset. I once knew a man who literally had the words of Philippians 4:8 stuck across the top of his television. Anything which failed to pass 'St' Paul's injunction to restrict ones' thought-life to "whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy"; would be summarily switched off. The Zombies would be stopped in their tracks.. While few Christians would be that overt in their self-censorship, millions would quietly avoid (18) certificate films in general, and horror in particular. When we read that one film in Garrett's analysis is "like taking a bath in every monstrous thing humans could do if they could" (p196); it's not hard to see why that would be the case. While the opposite error might be to simply glory in the naive, the trite, the banal and the kitsch; what are we to do with a book that asks us to take seriously, and learn from the foul, gross, menacing and repulsive? Perhaps we should initially be concerned that in order to watch as many of these films as this author has done; a degree of desensitisation must have occurred, simply to cope with the repulsion, and distance himself from it. That alone might be cause enough problems to offset the positives which Garrett is keen to examine in these movies.

Garrett argues that the Zombie Apocalypse movie isn't simply gratuitous in its horror, but clever in that it is an extrapolation from  genuine fears and worries in an insecure world. As such, it might be over the top in comparison with real life - but yet resonates with its audience in a deeper way than simply scaring them like a celluloid roller-coaster. As such, he seems to speak in terms of the almost cathartic nature of watching films which expose our deepest fears and process them; the best of which  (he says), do so with nobility, hope, goodness, community and triumph. In an enormous number of case-studies (and frankly the book was too long!), Garrett shows the way in which the surviving characters have to make moral choices in the face of impending doom at the hands of Zombies, Night-Walkers or Rampaging Viruses - all of which are physical embodiments of evil. Many are faced with dilemmas which play the need for personal survival against caring for and preserving others - and are therefore explorations of the basic moral dilemma; against the most extreme of backdrops. Likewise, bands of non-Zombies, whose humanity remains intact, in many movies struggle to work together, but yet find identity and meaning in their community - themes which have obvious resonance with Christian anthropology. Indeed Garrett spends a good amount of time in a major diversion into discussing the Christian understanding of community stretching back to the monastic tradition. Some Zombie movies go even further, he argues, and demonstrate the essence of love, to give 'ones life for ones friends', and that even in the face of monstrous evil and complete breakdown of society. This is all reasonable enough, well argued, and painstakingly illustrated from Zombie (and other apocalyptic) films, books, TV series and comics.

What is less persuasive is his tentative efforts to draw parallels between the apocalyptic nature of these contemporary cultural phenomena and the biblical apocalyptic texts. Some of the alarming apocalyptic writings in the prophets, the gospels and of course in The Revelation, make us see the world as we know it as rather fragile, transient even. That this has a secular parallel in the zombie apocalypse, is a point well made. Likewise his point that a contemporary youth on Netflicks, imagining a dehumanising viral plague sweeping across Europe; is not a world away from a youngster of a previous era quaking while trying to imagine what the 'abomination that causes desolation', or the 'great beast' might mean; is well put. So too, are there parallels between the post-apocalyptic re-birth of the world in some of the more hopeful Zombie stories, and some forms of end-times tribulation theories. However the links drawn here are only suggested, not fully explored; and troublingly, I suspect for Garrett, would work better if he subscribed to the more extreme 'end-timer' dispensationalist theology. 'Left Behind' might be theologically suspect, but it might suggest some further cultural links to explore around his subject.

What I found most interesting about the book through, and most persuasive, was the opening section. Here, Garrett examines the explosion of Zombie Apocalyptic products, and their consumption in contemporary Western Society. He states, for example, that the 'Zombie Apocalypse has become the dominant nightmare image of our day', (p16), with unimaginable numbers of film purchases every day, and tens of thousands of separate Zombie related product lines on Amazon alone. He presents a battery of evidence to support his claim too. What's interesting is why he thinks there is such a widespread, and deep fascination with something as horrible as the everyday story of your friends, neighbours and loved ones becoming deranged monsters intent upon the consumption of human flesh! 

His answers are many, and nuanced, but well worth a read. He notes, for example, that after 9/11 there was a huge surge in the consumption of Zombie related stories and products. Zombie narratives then feed, on insecurity, social upheaval and threats to the social order. In fact, they are a good barometer of insecurity, and fear. Consumption of Zombie narratives also - and this is rather troubling - seem to spike when a population receives significant numbers of incoming migrants. The incessant march of the Zombie, the wave after wave of the living dead, wrecking all in their path, must reveal (albeit in exaggerated form) a deep level of fear about the cultural threat of 'foreigners', Foreigners, or 'aliens' are of course, human  - but not like us. They don't speak like 'us', dress like 'us', or share our cultural norms. To some, they apparently arrive in waves of faceless invaders; and a loss of power, control and security to the native population.

Likewise, the Zombie narrative asks us to question what it means to truly be human. Can the essence of humanity be lost, or is it inherent to anyone carrying human DNA? Can a robot ever be considered to be part human, if it is programmed to look, feel and sound like a human - or might it march Zombie like through our culture? The dilemma of whether the surviving human can legitimately kill the Zombified loved-one, who is recognisable but not what they were, opens up all kinds of fascinating ethical debates from the history of slavery in the USA where slaves at one time counted as 'three-fifths of a person' in population census's; to the status of a person with advanced dementia who looks the same, but yet is not what they were. It doesn't give answers to these questions, and doesn't actually offer much of a framework for getting to an answer - but the questions raised are important nevertheless.

Most profoundly of all however, there is the lurking fear that in the middle of mindless Western consumption, it is not the other who is being Zombified, and having its humanity diminished, but oneself. While the consumer of a Zombie film will instinctively identify with the survivor character, perhaps, suggests Garrett, we have a greater fear that in our consumption-at-all-costs lifestyle, our trampling on each other in the market economy, and radical individualism, we have actively depleted our own humanity; or at least failed to embrace its fullness. Several movies explore this by having Zombies in all their blank, empty, hollowness, shopping in shiny American Malls, unable to think, only to consume. Again it begs deep-seated questions about the purpose of life. If the ancient answer that the chief end of man was to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, gave way to 'I think therefore I am', if what we have now is just 'I consume therefore I am'; then we are just as well to be scared at the sight of the hollow, empty stare of the Zombie, which looks uncomfortably mirror-like. Likewise the Marxist concept of Alienation has some resonances here, with the way in which technology has made so many jobs de-skilled and repetitive; we fear the Zombie, because he is un-creative and mindlessly programmed to act. Again, contemporary life uncomfortably mirrors horror.

Garrett finally sees the good moral message of the Zombie Apocalypse as being one in which, despite the real and often unspeakable horrors of the world-gone-wrong in which we live, where cultural, environmental, nuclear, political or viral catastrophes threaten; we still have agency, still have humanity, and can still chose to fight for the good. (212). That's fine, but I couldn't help wondering if what was needed next was an explanation of how the Christian message offers hope, meaning, vitality and life-affirming wholeness to the alienated, the insecure, the bleak and the worried. That would have been a more robust and compelling conclusion - especially for the millions of consumers of these stories he identified.

Did Garrett succeed in turning me into an appreciator of gory, horror apocalyptic movies, TV-series, and the like? Absolutely not. I still think they are ghastly, and if I never see another one, I won't be one bit sorry!

Film Notes: A Very Long Engagement

A Very Long Engagement is a breathtaking film. Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet, has quite remarkably brought together a heady mix of childhood innocence, the horror of war, sexual awakening, romance, mystery, intrigue, and drama; using some brilliant acting, a gripping 'searching for the truth' plot, and absolutely gorgeous filming. The results are highly unusual, emotionally gripping and truly memorable.

The main storyline centres on the fate of one of five French soldiers condemned to death on the Western Front for alleged self-mutilation, in the attempt to gain medical discharge from the carnage of The Somme. This soldier, a boy from Brittany called Manech (Gaspard Ulliel), lies in a military cemetery, according to military files, but his fiancee, Mathilde (Audrey Tautou) refuses to believe it. She takes on years of investigative work in order to establish exactly what happened on one fateful day in one particular trench called "Bingo Crepuscule".

The plot unfolds (with the help of a narrator), from the perspective of Mathilde, as she pieces together the story - and reminisces about her happy life before the war. As her knowledge grows, and she tracks down various witnesses, the audience is allowed to see more of the wartime action. As such, the film moves back and forth between the sun-drenched dreamy Brittany countryside (almost sepia-like in reminiscence); and the muddy, ghastly Somme. The intersection of the saturated colours of Brittany, and the colourless water-saturated battlefield is chilling. The battlefield scenes are absolutely heart-wrenching, and amongst the most vivid portrayals of The Western Front I have ever seen. The recreations of mid-20th Century Paris are incredible too. Tautou caries the part of Mathilde superbly, combining her physical and emotional frailty with a steely determination around which the whole story revolves. The appalling conditions, and dreadful suffering of the trenches is also offset against some very funny moments involving Ticky Holgardo as a larger than life private detective and Jean-Paul Rouve as a hilarious postman. An array of excellent supporting cast members, add to the brilliance of this film.

The film carries a (15) rating in the UK, primarily because of the horror of some of the battlefield scenes, and some post-war reprisals against bad officers. The rating is also earned by a sexual sub-plot, involving Jodie Foster (acting in French!) as the wife of a soldier desperately trying to get pregnant in his absence, to add a sixth child to the family to qualify him for discharge from the forces.

A Very Long Engagement also adds something of a French perspective to the Centenary Memorials of the battles of the First World War. Obviously we are more used to the British perspective here, and Hollywood has looked a American and Canadian experiences; but this is a reminder that men from all over France were called up for the conflict too.

I wonder if the power of this film is because it crosses so many boundaries of genre? Perhaps too many films stick in one groove and work that theme to it's conclusion. A Very Long Engagement, is in places a romance, at others an action film, it has moments of great delicacy and passion, others of great sorrow, yet shot though with flashes of humour too. Real life doesn't exist in single genres, so why do so many films? Delightfully, it does all these different things so well, that the result is not half-baked, and incoherent; but totally absorbing and very moving. The things which stick most vividly in my mind are the subtle inflections in Tautou's face as she takes her character through this shocking journey; and the disturbing battlefield images, which continue to haunt and disturb long after the credits have rolled. That, and the ending of course.... but I'll not spoil that for you.

Film Notes: The Lobster

Yorgos Lanthimos' film The Lobster is a most unusual offering. In fact it is weird; gloriously weird. The Lobster is a curious tale of the individual battling against social conformity on every side; set in a surreal, absurd and dystopian version of our own society. Despite that unifying theme, the rest of the film is a patchwork of different moods and settings; the two halves of the film are hugely different, and there are moments of horror, desperate bleakness, hopeless pity, and brilliant black comedy. If that sounds a bit Black Mirror, then that's probably not far from the mark.

Colin Farrell plays the lead character, David. In the opening scene of the film he is dumped by his wife, and promptly arrested, as the tightly controlled society in which he lives does not permit singleness. The exclusion so often felt by single people in our world, is extrapolated to being a matter of law in this film. Such a social satire is only the beginning of the weirdness however. Singles are taken to a 'hotel' in which they have 45 days to find a mate (with whom they must share a 'defining characteristic'), failure to achieve which results in them being turned into an animal of their choice. The Lobster of the title, refers to David's choice of transformation in the event of his failure at the hotel. The hotel, with its overbearing social rules (overseen by a brilliantly hilarious Olivia Coleman) is a surreal house of nightmares; complete with dating rituals, appalling punishments, and weird sexual codes. To add to the escalating madness, hotel residents can 'buy' extra days before their time is up, by killing single people in hunting expeditions into the surrounding woods. All the characters in the film seem to speak in a detached monotone too - as their genuine self-expression has long since expired beneath the all pervasive conformity. It is as bleak and soulless as their required sexual expression.

The first half of the film is set in this hotel, and is gripping, appalling, deeply weird - and brilliantly executed. Another twist is that David is the only character with a name - everyone else is only known by their defining characteristic, another symbol of their de-individualisation by the system.

The film then abruptly changes mood, as David escapes from the hotel and joins a renegade group in the woods. While the viewer might think that he will find some kind of freedom - here he discovers that singleness is enforced with the same degree of brutality as coupledom is in the hotel. Just as in the hotel, we never learn a character's name - here too they are just known as "shortsighted woman", even Lea Seydoux's chilling character is only known as the "Leader". In the woods, amongst the Loner's. David begins to fall for "Shortsighted Woman", played by Rachel Weisz - who also turns out to be the whole film's narrator. When the Leader discovers their affair, she blinds 'Shortsighted Woman', to prevent them running away to the city to live as a couple; unless of course David blinds himself too in order to share the all-important defining characteristic......

The second half of the film is less convincing than the first, probably because it doesn't maintain the surreal, bleak, absurdist humour to the same level. While this film is alarmingly wonderful, most of the brilliance (and the offence, actually), comes in the first half. There is little in the latter half to take the film above a (12) certificate, most of the language, violence and sexual references occur in the hotel; earning it a (15).

The Lobster is a warped, highly imaginative comic-horror-absurdist farce about social conformity. It is like no other film in its nonsensical premise, its relentless following of its own internal logic, and comic darkness and social commentary. It is greatly helped by brilliant performances from a superb cast, with Farrell, Weisz, Coleman and Seydoux at the fore. The soundtrack, with its flourishes of classical music, bursting in and out - add a further note of eccentric and outlandish creativity to proceedings. 

Highly entertaining, haunting, offensive, thought-provoking, profoundly idiosyncratic, and inconsistent; what's not to like about The Lobster. Definitely not one for under-15s though...