The best films of 2011

At the end of the year, we as humans are inclined to reflect, look back and create lists of the things that were the best something. Doing a much better job than last year, I saw thirty-one new releases at the cinema in 2011. I was sad to miss Blue Valentine, Le quattro volte, Take Shelter and plenty of others. But here are my top twelve.

1. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Unusually, this was a film that gave me what its trailer (possibly the most exciting of the year) had promised. The paranoid Cold War atmosphere glows from the screen, bathed in the tawdry oranges and browns of the 1970s. The acting is subtle and powerful, the merest glance from Gary Oldman giving us Smiley's weariness and compassion together. The complex plot is tightly handled and tense throughout. And most importantly, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is more enjoyable than any other new film I saw this year. I loved it.

2. True Grit
Everything comes together perfectly in the Coen Brothers' offering this year. But most special of all is the acting. Jeff Bridges' hilarious, slurring marshal and Matt Damon's preening Texas Ranger are pitch perfect and naturally funny. But the film is carried by young Hailee Steinfeld; strong, confident and magnetic. Also, there seemed at one point to be a bear riding a horse. This is Coen territory par excellence.

3. A Separation
This Iranian film was a revelation. It is a deft portrait of life in modern Tehran, with divisions across religious and class barriers serving as the backdrop to an escalating drama. We eavesdrop, the camera often observing from another room through a window or door, and the tension is at times nearly unbearable.

4. The Tree of Life
Terrence Malick returns. This is an intimate family story played out on the cosmic stage. The Big Bang, dinosaurs, the afterlife(?): they all make an impact, but the real focus is on the boys growing up in 1950s Texas. Whispered narration, dream-like memories and incredibly beautiful photography are spell-binding. It is unique.

5. The Deep Blue Sea (my review here)
Terence Davies returns. This strong, rich adaptation is released from staginess by elegant direction, surging music and impeccable acting. Absorbing.

6. Senna
A Formula One documentary astonishing enough for those of us who have no time whatsoever for the sport. The presentation of the archive footage could hardly be done better and the story is fascinating. This is exciting, incredible and tragic.

7. Drive
The Year of the Gosling reached its peak here. An ultra-violent and super-slick story in which the relationships shine strongest. Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan are wonderful, always.

8. Black Swan
Not as crazy as I had expected, or perhaps hoped. And then the last thirty minutes happened. An enjoyable feast of loud Tchaikovsky and body horror. Its greatest success might be its seam of dark humour.

9. The King's Speech
I maintain that The Social Network was the better film, and that Colin Firth and Jeff Bridges won their Oscars the wrong way round. But The King's Speech is still a British prestige picture of the best kind. The scenes with Firth and Geoffrey Rush are funny and impressive. As a friend pointed out, a classic sports film (without sport).

10. Weekend (my review here)
Andrew Haigh's breakthrough is well written and well acted, brought into focus by attention to tiny details. A film about a gay romance that is completely, unselfconsciously universal.

11. Win Win
One of the most purely enjoyable films I saw this year (see also Albatross). It is a rare thing: unassuming, funny, heart-warming, intelligent. It cannot fail to be liked.

12. Hanna
Saoirse Ronan and director Joe Wright together give us beauty, humour and violence: a warped fairy tale with delicious visuals. In all, a blast with a Chemical Brothers soundtrack.

There they are. Honourable mentions go to 127 Hours, Never Let Me Go, Albatross, Beginners, The Skin I Live In, We Need to Talk About Kevin, and Tabloid.

Finally, of the other films I saw this year, my favourites include The Social Network, Days of Heaven, Rocco and His Brothers and F. W. Murnau's Faust. If there are any of those you have not seen, I can highly recommend you toss your internet to one side and seek them out as soon as possible. They are all wonderful.

Have a great 2012, everybody. Be happy.

The Deep Blue Sea

The opening of The Deep Blue Sea is amazing. Hester (Rachel Weisz) is attempting suicide, gassing herself in a dingy post-war London flat. From here, we jump around her past, seeing her with her staid and solid husband (Simon Russell Beale), seeing her with her lover Freddie (Tom Hiddleston). She meets Freddie, she makes love to him, she attempts suicide. And this whole non-linear narrative display is accompanied by Barber's Violin Concerto. It is loud, sometimes drowning out dialogue. The fragments of the story are bound together by romanticism and regret in the music.

The cinematic magic here belies the stage origins of Terence Davies' latest film. Based on Terence Rattigan's play, the story follows the three main characters in a patchwork of scenes. Hester is trapped in a suffocating marriage to Sir William Collyer, a judge in thrall to convention and to his disapproving mother. In Freddie, she finds excitement, but it is driven by lust and the need for an escape. As Freddie proves to be cruelly unreliable, so Hester finds herself on the brink of emotional collapse and isolation.

That we are watching a play on film is sometimes clear. However, we can rely on the remarkable actors to carry us through. The plot itself is also absorbing, with barbed twists spiking scenes which seem otherwise static on screen (when Sir William confronts Hester outside her flat from his car, for example). But often Davies employs elegant devices to transform the play into cinema which enthrals, while staginess is banished. As characters argue, the camera deliberately intrudes by jumping between them, so we see them face on in turn. It glides over sheltering Londoners in a Tube station, as Hester recalls the war. And there is the opening montage, with music surging across the images.

Music plays an important role in The Deep Blue Sea. This is apparently the case in much of Davies' work, although sadly I have yet to see more. Here the music makes a great impression, but its use is startlingly restrained. Barber looms large (would Walton have been more appropriate?), and a pub singalong of You Belong to Me melts into Jo Stafford's recording at a pivotal romantic moment. But much of the film is silent. Charged as the subject matter is, long pauses dominate and repress the emotion. The characters are struggling in this silence, and so the music has even more impact.

The three lead actors are captivating. Powerful passions ignite the silence and the outbursts. Simon Russell Beale simmers with suppressed rage; Tom Hiddleston can ably slide from caddish to hopeless in a single scene. But Rachel Weisz impresses most. She appears consumed by Hester's fragile and desperate desire to grasp something human through lust. It is a desire that lies at the film's core, and it is not always easy to watch. This is a steady, classical film and it hits deep emotions with small, masterful gestures.

8.5

Weekend

Poignant, detailed romance

Two people are standing together in a small kitchen, making coffee. After a drunken first night together, they have met up again the next day. The chemistry is crackling between them, but neither knows whether they are about to kiss. "Just waiting for the kettle to boil," Russell says to Glen, pointlessly. It is an almost embarrassingly recognizable detail, one of several in Andrew Haigh's poignant Weekend. These small moments enrich the film, where the interaction between the characters is so important.

Tom Cullen and Chris New

I was pleased to finally see Weekend, following its success on the festival circuit and recent wins at the British Independent Film Awards, including Most Promising Newcomer for actor Tom Cullen. Cullen plays Russell, a gay man who goes to a club after an evening with his straight friends. There he meets Glen (Chris New), and we witness their relationship over the following weekend as they take drugs, have sex and tentatively get to know each other. It is clear they are falling in love, but Glen is moving to America permanently at the end of the weekend.

Both actors are impressive in what is essentially a two-hander. They are exposed by long takes and semi-improvised dialogue, and both deliver well-realized, believable characters. Russell is not fully comfortable with his sexuality, but Cullen shows us warmth and humour rather than a one-note tortured soul. Glen is more confrontational and politicized; he interviews Russell about their first encounter for an art project, and claims not to want a boyfriend. His insecurities surface gradually and New's sometimes comical performance is cleverly balanced.

So Russell and Glen do not become consigned to stereotypes, closeted versus out-and-proud. Haigh's handheld, minimally edited shots help us embrace the characters as they develop. We are with them from their first bad dance onwards, all the while in an admirably bland Nottingham setting. It feels sometimes intrusive. There is also little additional music to distract, although the two John Grant tracks came as a pleasant surprise.



An art project

But, along with the acting, it is the writing which propels the film. Occasionally the improvisatory feel is broken slightly, but more often the notes are hit perfectly. Russell compares his unease with being gay to the feeling of indigestion, which almost tells us everything we need to understand him. Most successful are the small moments, like that with the kettle, or the indecision about punctuation in a text message ("I feel like shit!" or "I feel like shit x" or "I feel like shit...").

Through these details, we identify with the relationship. Andrew Haigh has made a film about a gay romance, but its appeal is in no way exclusive. The romance is human, and Glen's bitter conviction the straight people won't come to see his art project "because it's got nothing to do with their world" does not apply here. This is an insightful film which reaches far beyond its intimate sphere.

8

The Market, 17 December

Christmas joy in Edinburgh

If you are lucky enough to be enjoying the light breezy air of Edinburgh this Christmas, be sure to visit The Market on 17 December. It will be found merrily ensconced in St Columba's-by-the-Castle (Johnston Terrace) and promises a generous abundance of treats.

Brought together by Amelia of Little Red (whose gorgeous one-off jewellery pieces will be available), the focus of The Market is on great local design. The list of stalls is inviting, ranging from illustration to ceramics. There is plenty to whet the appetite at the Facebook page.

Check it out on Saturday. I'll be there, and I cannot wait.

Lau

Discovering dazzling folk music

Something of a folkie-newbie, I was not previously familiar with Lau. A trio of accordion, guitar and fiddle, they play music blistering and fresh. I saw them last night at the beautiful Queen’s Hall, supported by MacMaster/Hay, whose combination of electric harp and percussion delivered some interesting sounds.

With Lau onstage, the atmosphere was inviting. There is little precious or staid about this folk group. Amid the music, banter and asides on whisky and East Anglia engaged the crowd, with nods to concerts and collaborations past and future. The band is generous with wit and chemistry, with accordionist Martin Green the willing and splendidly outfitted target of jibes from Aidan O’Rourke (fiddle) and Kris Drever (guitar and vocals).

Splendidly outfitted folk (photo credit: The Queen's Hall)

Their playing dazzles. The musicianship is of a type I find simply mind-boggling: intuitive, telepathic, ferociously skilled. Rooting the music solidly, hallmarks of folk are present and correct. There are strong unison melodies, knotty battles between complex and simple times (between the note-torrent and the bang-bang-bang), and devious changes and tacets.

All of this is tackled effortlessly by the band, frequently at breakneck speed. But the music is never showy; it is organic and has space to breathe. There are gorgeous moments, notably the soaring new island-inspired track Torsa and vocal pieces Evergreen and Ghosts. When it comes, the rush of complexity grows naturally from simple motifs. At one magical point, all three play a rocking, quiet arpeggiated figure together; then, from its elegance springs a virtuosic whirl.

The end of the night brought a glowing display of Lau’s skill. A fine rendition of Lal Waterson’s Midnight Feast faded to quietness, with a chance for each member of the band to shine in turn. Before long, the intensity built up once more and we were carried into a rollicking finale, the band yet again embracing inspired, unexpected turns in the music with power and joy. The crowd were rapturous and I left excited by discovery.

The Kick Inside

The Kate Bush fanatic who doesn’t own Wuthering Heights keeps it quiet. In anticipation of 50 Words for Snow, I recently rectified the problem and bought her debut album, The Kick Inside (along with The Red Shoes, reviewed here).

The Kick Inside (1978)

Now I have Wuthering Heights. This is a song which could barely be more familiar, after so much exposure and dancing along (we’ve all done it). What strikes me now is that it still sounds so strange. Even in the context of this album, that weird voice seems to come from a totally different place. Coupled with an undeniably wonderful and inspired lyric, the song continues to entrance and leap. Mainstream the rock arrangement may be, with a banal guitar solo tacked on the end, but without this grounding it perhaps would never have been a number one smash. It couldn’t help but knock everyone sideways on Top of the Pops.

Let me in

That rock presentation characterizes the album and is handled perfectly well, with piano leading alongside occasional strings, synthesizers and so on. This is the mid-70s, with Elton John and Roxy Music each coming to mind at times. But even the most straightforward tracks have their quirks and one should never be complacent about Kate’s singing. Listen to her playful backing vocals in the otherwise unsurprising James and the Cold Gun, or imagine how much power would be lost if L’Amour Looks Something Like You were stripped of her voice.

And sometimes there is liberation from the safety of four-square guitar-and-drums nestled in the mix. Featuring primarily Kate and her piano, these are the quieter and more exposed songs, such as Feel It and The Kick Inside. These tracks show better what later albums would hold. We are drawn more to the songwriting and remember with awe that Kate Bush was nineteen years old when this was released. In fact, the most famous of these calmer tracks, The Man with the Child in His Eyes, was recorded when she was only sixteen. It is a fascinating song, and the only one I previously knew besides Wuthering Heights.

Most of the rest of the album was completely new to me. The Saxophone Song and Strange Phenomena are exciting; Them Heavy People and Oh to Be in Love are fun. My favourite discovery is Moving, the opening song. Swooning and wheeling, Kate woos with a sensual lyric. The arrangement works well too, built around sparkling piano. Moving gives us the best of Kate Bush’s early work, before she grabbed hold of the production reins and went batshit with a Fairlight. Also, this is great:

There was much to come, but The Kick Inside still endures as a remarkable debut. The teenaged Kate had talent ready to explode.

8

50 Words for Snow

An intimate winter gift

This is Kate Bush’s first album of new songs since Aerial came out in 2005. That album is one I cherish and I lose myself again and again in the complex, beguiling washes of sound. Aerial is the perfect English summertime album. Subdued and whispering, 50 Words for Snow is a handsome winter counterpart.

Blown from polar fur

It is a calmer, more intimate album than we have come to expect. Of course, intimate moments abound on Kate Bush’s earlier records, but here the dominant sound is piano with fewer embellishments than usual. The layered, spacious soundscapes are absent. This is to be listened to holed up indoors away from winter storms, chilling and warming by turns. The songs are all built around the concept of snow and the music softly echoes its magical fragility. We are never trapped Under Ice.

New material from Kate Bush, so rare, is always exciting as she offers so much. Her voice is captivating, the production lush and meticulous, but I relish most the elements of play and surprise. The ideas are fully formed, the characters speaking as clearly as her Cathy in Wuthering Heights, but we are never sure what will happen next. Aerial gave us blackbird song, Renaissance viols and Rolf Harris. 50 Words for Snow is not so dazzling or puckish, but subtle twists still bring smiles and no less so for their quietude.

There are the small, teasing details. In Lake Tahoe, the music pauses and Kate gasps; at the beginning of Snowed in at Wheeler Street, speech melts into song; the wonderful chorus voices in Wild Man are startling. The lyrical themes are astonishingly varied, as usual. Although conceptually linked, they range from a night of passion with a snowman to yeti persecution.

The first track, Snowflake, may be straighter, but the part of a falling snowflake is played by Kate’s thirteen-year-old son Bertie, whose performance is half-spoken, half-sung. His crystal treble voice perfectly evokes the season and, together with Kate’s warm singing and gentle piano, brings winter light to a yearning, tingling mother-and-son track. It is beautiful. Strings unobtrusively fill out the sound, adding an occasional decorative flurry.

Indeed throughout the album, the orchestration never intrudes on the intimacy. Among Angels, the final track, is oblique and touching in the same way as Aerial’s A Coral Room. Strings enter midway, but the focus is always on Kate and the piano. In Misty, the core sound is piano, bass and drums, coolly recalling a classic Blue Note rhythm section.

Misty is over thirteen minutes long. Kate Bush makes a snowman, with whom she then spends the night (“I kiss his ice cream lips”). In the morning he has gone, melted away. The music sustains the song, shifting to reflect the long narrative and featuring tremulous guitar and a noticeable huskiness in Kate’s voice. Lake Tahoe is similarly lengthy, but remains more static musically and doesn’t carry us in the same way, despite the inventive, ghostly words.

Robber's veil, creaky-creaky

The duet with Elton John, Snowed in at Wheeler Street, contains the strongest emotional breakout, telling a tale of lovers forever divided. The cathartic ending is forced perhaps, but till then it builds well on a menacing pulse and the star cameo from Kate’s own hero is interesting. Then, on the title track, Stephen Fry proposes a list of nonsense synonyms for snow, while Kate counts them off and in the chorus cheers him on (“Just 22 to go, let me hear your 50 words for snow!”). How strange and amazing. I was worried that Fry would break the spell with his familiar QI–Twinings purr, but he intones the words solemnly with just a hint of humour. Currently, my favourites are swans-a-melting, deamondi-pavlova and icyskidski.

In 50 Words for Snow, Kate Bush has produced hushed music which gleams in an icy hinterland. Like snow, it invites and unnerves, giving its gift quietly. I am enthralled by a musical vision which has yet to waver or disappoint. How lucky we are.

8.5

For more Kate Bush, read my review of The Red Shoes here... and The Kick Inside here!

The Awakening/Tabloid

Off to the Filmhouse again and, filled with nachos and gin, I had a blast with two entertaining new films.

The Awakening

This is a mystery haunted house film, happily old-fashioned. Rebecca Hall is one of my favourite actresses around and she is wonderful in her lead role as Florence Cathcart, a sceptic of the supernatural. It is 1921 and she is an educated woman (trouser-wearing and so on), exposing fraudsters and solving ghostly goings-on. She is summoned by Robert Mallory (Dominic West) to a boarding school, where a ghost has been seen and a boy has died.

Spooky stuff.

Several reviews of The Awakening have highlighted its kinship with films such as The Devil’s Backbone and The Innocents. The latter is one of my favourite films, and some of the key moments here were those which recalled it most strongly. For instance, there are night-time wanderings in the corridors, with just a candle (electric this time) and spooky sound design to keep the heroine company. The setting is also similar, with the lake of the country house playing a key role. And, most interestingly, we witness an inexorable bond with a young boy, given strange, fleeting fire with a kiss.

This relationship between Florence and the young boy, connecting through shared loneliness, is interesting. Mallory I found less exciting; his exchanges with Florence about survivors’ guilt after World War I are a little too explicative, although Dominic West does not disappoint. The ending also does not satisfy entirely, the tension having been built up nicely with plenty of beautiful shots. The best of these include a stunned Florence standing in a street by some incongruous empty chairs, and a sequence on the jetty of the lake. The scares are generally effective too. In all, The Awakening can promise a great time in the dark.

7.5

Tabloid

This is the first Errol Morris documentary I have seen. The Thin Blue Line and The Fog of War have so far evaded me, despite my interest. Tabloid tells the story of Joyce McKinney who, to our delight, has much of the running time to herself. She is a former beauty queen from North Carolina, who became mired in tabloid scandal in the UK in 1977 when she was accused of abducting her former lover (a Mormon missionary), taking him to Devon, chaining him to a bed and raping him.

McKinney is a perfect documentary subject. The story (along with several bizarre diversions) is wild, and she is a hoot. Impassioned and hilarious, she keenly tells her side of the story with gusto. Whether she tells it truthfully or not, we cannot know, and although she is clearly obsessive, it is difficult to tell whether she is benign or dangerous. Her story treads the various fine lines between the terrifying, the sad and the completely ridiculous. An entirely unexpected epilogue involving her dog had me in stitches; the phrase “You couldn’t make this shit up” was invented for it.

A few others add their perspective. Most important are two tabloid reporters of the time, from The Express and The Mirror; it is a shame there are not more. The impact of the media on McKinney’s life has clearly been profound, despicably treated as she was, as fair game for a sensational story. The documentary should have more on this, examining and questioning the methods of the tabloid press (something which could not be more topical, after all). But in the end, it doesn’t matter too much. Joyce herself is so entertaining and the story itself makes a tremendous impact. Barking mad, one might say.

8

The Red Shoes

The Kate Bush bonanza starts here

There are only four days to go before the release of Kate Bush's new album, 50 Words for Snow. The excitement is tangible. I completely devoured Director’s Cut earlier this year. It features reworkings of songs from The Sensual World and The Red Shoes, in generally warmer, more intimate settings. I love The Sensual World and the new versions fascinated me, but I barely knew the seven selections from The Red Shoes. A shameful secret of mine had been cruelly exposed: I did not own all her albums. No Red Shoes, and no Kick Inside. In the spirit of generating anticipation, I recently rectified this.

The Red Shoes (1993)

This album does not have a particularly strong reputation. There are fewer classic tracks than expected and the digital production is famously of its time. Maybe this is why I had been hesitant, instead choosing yet again to whip out The Dreaming and hee-haw along. In fact, much of it is great, even if things fall apart towards the end. My approach was unusual. I had only a passing knowledge of the singles (Rubberband Girl, Eat the Music), but several album tracks I seemed to know intimately after their appearance on Director’s Cut.

A rubber band hold me trousers up.

Of these, most are not too different here. And So Is Love is still beautiful and The Red Shoes still skitters about. There are sometimes extra details I enjoy, sometimes bits I miss: I pine for the mad-Kate ferocity at the end of Lily. A little disappointing is Moments of Pleasure (heresy!). I fell in love with the mellower version on Director’s Cut and I am glad I heard that version first. Here, the pace is faster and lain over the top of Kate and her piano is a showy Michael Kamen string arrangement. It is needless and too busy, distracting from the beautiful words.

I am now crazy over Rubberband Girl. A dotty lyric is matched with classic Kate Bush production (in a 1990s guise). Layers are built, with chorused voices and crooked synths. Vocals are sped up and Kate makes noises as if indeed she were a rubber band (“Here I go...!”). Whilst it doesn’t hit the emotional highs of some of her exquisite earlier singles, it is still great fun. The sound is light and brittle, but it makes me dance. Eat the Music is less engaging, seeming more cluttered and less immediate, although the lyrics are rather glorious. I wonder what fruit they might have borne if used differently, in one of her sultry, passionate pieces (think of Running Up That Hill or The Sensual World).

The weakness of The Red Shoes lies in the final few tracks. Big Stripey Lie is a pleasing racket, but Constellation of the Heart misfires (despite Bush’s usually dependable shouting crowd). Why Should I Love You? is a collaboration with Prince (Prince!). The result sounds like a throwaway pure-pop track from his early NPG era, and I regret the missed opportunity. If only they had come together five, ten years earlier. Finally, You’re the One does a little better and features the Trio Bulgarka, who had previously illuminated The Sensual World. They are criminally underused on this album.

Overall, The Red Shoes is a pleasant surprise. It contains some vintage Kate Bush and reaches joyous peaks. My love for her is long-standing and remains undimmed. Four days to go...

7.5

PS My review of The Kick Inside will follow very soon. Ta x

Wild Beasts

Hooting and howling

"Good Northern voice," my Northern companion noted, as Hayden Thorpe explained how the romanticism of Edinburgh blew his mind. Voices are key to the Wild Beasts sound. The two frontmen are wondrous singers; Thorpe's falsetto and Tom Fleming's baritone are perfectly matched and bring each song to life. At the Liquid Room last night, they were both on fine form.


Mind-blowing romanticism

Clean, echoing guitar sounds and snapping drums add a from-across-the-chasm atmosphere. It has real impact live and there is no need for deviation or trickery here. The performances are straight, faithful to the recorded originals, and almost always spot on. This Is Our Lot, His Grinning Skull and Reach a Bit Further were all centrepieces and captured the band at their best: hitting an irresistible groove and then taking flight with vocals laced with surprise.

Earlier, Bed of Nails and We Still Got the Taste Dancin' on Our Tongues made a sizeable one-two opening punch. The latter, referencing The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, is a personal favourite and was taken at a spirited gallop. The euphoric mood increased with The Devil's Crayon, as the room was filled with dancing energy. This was a little punctured by The Fun Powder Plot, which was taken at a slower pace than expected and came across a little sluggish. No matter, as the best was to come.

"We fookin' love you guys!" yelled a correct man. He was rewarded, alongside the rest of us, with a chiming Hooting & Howling. As an encore, Lion's Share and an excitable All the King's Men got the crowd singing along. Both Thorpe and Fleming were enjoying themselves, immersed. One only feels they need shirts which are rather less shit, especially next to supercool guitarist Ben Little. End Come Too Soon calmed us down. A wash of sound slowly consumed the song and the band hid from view, re-emerging for the finale. Wonderful stuff.

We Need to Talk About Kevin

Perhaps not one to watch with Mother

Having awaited this film since first seeing its unnerving trailer, I sped to the Filmhouse earlier this week. We Need to Talk About Kevin marks the return of director Lynne Ramsay after nine years away (I am now encouraged to seek her other films). Tilda Swinton plays Eva, a woman whose son Kevin has committed a high school massacre. It is an intense and sometimes harrowing film, but much of it I greatly enjoyed.

Eva is the lead character, but the pervasive presence is Kevin. Through flashback, the film moves through his early life and we are offered clues as to why the later horror transpired. But these clues, or perhaps Eva’s suppositions, are hinted at rather than confronted; the focus is on Eva’s maternal disconnect. From the beginning, she cannot bond with Kevin, who seems to have a personal dislike of his mother. He is malicious and openly hateful.

In fact, whilst Ezra Miller is disturbingly persuasive as the teenaged Kevin (the final moments are chilling), I found the scenes involving his younger self a little forced. His vindictiveness, even as a toddler, is too black-and-white. It can be darkly comical – he is almost demonic when (not) playing ball – but it slightly undermines the naturalism of the film. What I enjoyed more were Ramsay’s stylistic choices. And Tilda Swinton, obviously.

She once touched my hand.

Visually, the film is impeccable and contains many potent shots. At the start, we see a writhing throng, a mass of bodies smothered in red. They fill the screen. We are at a tomato squashing festival and Eva is crowd-surfing, smiling blissfully. This is her past, but although this scene depicts revelry and joy, the vibrant colour presages what will come.

In fact, bright red invades the entire film. In the film’s present, Eva’s home and car have been vandalized with red paint. She attempts to scrape and wash it away, becoming flecked and marked herself. The colour bleeds out of practically every shot, puncturing the otherwise muted, tender palette. Strawberry jam, a bedside clock, and so on. It is a bold decision, possibly heavy-handed, but it works to unify the scattered pieces of the narrative. It also draws a river of dread through the story as it builds to the horrific climax.

And tomato soup.

Also effective is the use of the soundtrack. Disorientating and fractured, it taunts with over-amplified details and memories. This is especially true of the opening scenes, in which past and present overlap and we are immersed in Eva’s distress. We see one memory, but hear another; songs continue beyond their original context; and Jonny Greenwood’s subtle score adds humming dissonance.

The film is well constructed then, but Tilda Swinton’s performance provides the greatest power. Eva speaks little, but the closed posture and hollow eyes convey a real and broken character. Swinton expertly judges Eva’s varying states of mind between time periods. Frustration turns to desolation, and forced smiles become blank grief. Kevin is a monster, but it is Eva who is most unsettling. She is uncomfortably real.

8

Lykke Li

Drums and mist in Glasgow, from Sweden

Lykke Li performed at the O₂ ABC at the weekend. I went along, eager to see the Swedish chanteuse move her hips. I have lately much enjoyed her second album, Wounded Rhymes, which is clattering and tender.

The show was originally scheduled for April, but she injured her back in Marks and Spencer beforehand (dropping raspberries everywhere) and it was postponed. So anticipation was high and I had a great evening. Her set was disappointingly short, lasting just over an hour, but the music was at times tremendous.

Lykke Li proves her back is now fine.

Support beforehand was provided by First Aid Kit, two Swedish sisters backed by a long-haired dude with a cool jumper and a beard. Their powerful (loud) singing drives folky, campfire music that is reasonably good but in all rather too earnest. The cumulative impression I had was that their matching dresses were probably homemade.

When Lykke Li arrived, the onstage presence changed completely. Wearing black and continuously shrouded by dry ice, Lykke and her band were predominantly backlit by stark white lights. They were Nordic spectres, emerging from the mist to thundering music at the start; Lykke snaked her way to the front, smashing a cymbal with her hand along the way. As she sang opener Love Out of Lust, her fragile voice floated amid the band’s large, throbbing sound. It was bewitching.

The sound was big indeed, frequently percussive and pounding. Two drummers gave terrific force to the climactic moments, which were many (I'm Good, I'm Gone came second, but would have made a cracking finale), and their beats dominated the evening’s music. Lykke herself often got in on the action with her own sticks. She moves well too, swaying in a gossamer dress and punching her arms outwards. I Follow Rivers got us dancing with her, and it was fun.

My phone's approximation of the stage that night.

The mood was calmed by the stripped-down I Know Places. Her voice is not particularly strong, but with the band’s muscle returning for power ballad Sadness Is a Blessing (one of my favourites from the album), she gave a soulful performance. The delivery was straight, and it was a great moment.

However, after this slower section of the show, the momentum did not pick up again as it should have with the next song, Little Bit. Lykke encouraged us to sing along, but she was vague, dropping out unexpectedly of what is already a light track. She began to get impatient with us and looked uncomfortable. I worried.

Fears were banished by the final few songs. The stage was bathed in red light, the crowd got louder, and Lykke put on a cape. Rave-like beats took us into a rocking Rich Kids Blues. Then, Youth Knows No Pain provided the highlight of the night. The drums were back and it was loud and exciting. And it came with a miraculous twist: suddenly, the backing switched to Kanye West’s Power. Its repeated chant demanded participation, whilst Lykke continued to sing Youth Knows No Pain above. It was clever, unexpected and worked incredibly well.

With final song Get Some, Lykke’s dancing hit a peak. She may have earlier worried about the crowd, but we were sent out into the street elated, still hearing the drums and seeing her sway.

Making Marks

Beautiful new art in Edinburgh

I had the pleasure of seeing the exhibition Making Marks yesterday evening, at Art’s Complex on London Road. It features six artists, and I was there to support my friends Antonia Gallacher and Jemma Derbyshire. Their work is beautiful, as always, and both are exhibiting pieces which depart from what I have seen of theirs before. For both, it is a successful move.

Continuum.continuous, Antonia Gallacher

Toni has added colour, and now yellow and dark pink draw us in and lift her meticulous ink drawings. I was happy to see flocking birds and interlocking circles returning from her previous work. I genuinely love it; the geometrical abstraction is teeming with life. There is more this time, including Hang #1 and Equilibrium.Pink, two evocative pieces featuring silhouetted cranes.

Meanwhile, Jemma includes no colour this time. It makes a striking difference to the work, usually bursting with blues and purples. The two City Studies are haunting and the collages, which I have admired before, have been given the prominent position they deserve.

City Study #2, Jemma Derbyshire

Monochrome features heavily throughout the exhibition, but interest does not wane as different artists’ work is often hung closely together. The styles are complementary, and it is impressive how coherent the space is as a whole. So the City Studies find their partner in Vivienne Russell’s Undiscovered Landscape.

But Toni’s is not the only colour. Katy Anderson’s fashion-inspired works are fun and exciting. In Dazed and Confused, a tessellating figure made from varying patterned papers fills a large sheet. And the title alone of Hoody on the Run adds mischief.

A lovely exhibition. See it if you can.

Midnight in Paris

Woody Allen revisits magic and nostalgia

On Wednesday, I saw Woody Allen’s latest film at the Filmhouse. I love the familiarity that comes with each of his films, and Midnight in Paris offers plenty that is familiar. Motifs recurrent throughout Woody’s career resurface here, to my delight. We have a love affair with a city (à la Manhattan), a magical plot device (The Purple Rose of Cairo, Alice) and Americans abroad (Vicky Cristina Barcelona). Thematic similarities emerge too, romantic and nostalgic.

Owen Wilson plays Gil, a struggling writer visiting Paris with his materialistic fiancée (Rachel McAdams) and her parents. They meet Paul (Michael Sheen), an insufferable intellectual know-all. He shepherds them around museums, instructing them on why they should like things and arguing with Carla Bruni. Altogether, these supporting characters are a well-played, amusing gallery of snobs. But Gil is a denizen of nostalgia shops (as is his novel’s main character), embracing the flotsam of the Jazz Age – he wants to escape. And then, when he goes on midnight strolls away from his gross companions, he magically finds himself transported to 1920s Paris...

Over the past ten years, Woody’s films have been variable in quality, to say the least. Midnight in Paris is a pleasing peak, but unfortunately some problems recur, eroding a little the on-screen veneer illuminating the City of Light. In particular, the dialogue in certain sections is clumsy or under-developed; we are aware when Woody is not engaged. The earlier scenes suffer particularly, pesky story set-up resulting in speech which obviously serves only as exposition  (“Let’s have a toast to your new business venture here”).

It means the film takes a little while to generate real warmth, despite all those cosy shots of Paris plunging us into the world Gil idolizes before we even reach the 1920s. In fact, once we are transported, there is still plenty of exposition to get through, and it is occasionally a bit of a drag. After meeting several idols (the Fitzgeralds, Hemingway, Gertrude Stein), Gil is still so surprised.

I guess one would be.

But I willed him to relax and enjoy it – the idea had been hatched and now itched to fly. Happily, he did relax; with him, so did I. The film improved, the flow eased, as Gil became involved with these famous characters. The requisite love story began to blossom, and the comic asides seemed fresher (for instance Adrien Brody’s Dalí – broad, but zingy).

And so, with this enjoyable (and beautifully photographed) world opened up, some familiar Woody Allen themes make themselves welcome. How love, beauty and art are always worth struggling for, and how the terrifying abyss of the Universe can be banished when one embraces wonderful things. Owen Wilson (whose performance is very enjoyable) makes such a speech at one of the film’s best moments, echoing Woody’s epiphanies in Hannah and Her Sisters, Manhattan, even Love and Death.

And then there’s nostalgia. Woody Allen freely admits in interviews that the Manhattan of his New York films is a fantasy. It is as he likes to imagine it, or as he remembers it from old movies. His own childhood is romanticized in this way in Radio Days (more on that film another time). The same goes for Paris. What adds interest here is that the main character is actively engaging in the nostalgia, entering into the past from the outside. He wants to inhabit 1920s Paris, but ultimately he can only be a tourist – his ‘nostalgia shop’ perspective keeping him at bay (“I know someone who collects these in Beverley Hills”). Clever twists on the time travel theme reiterate this.

The past might be a magical place, but even Woody Allen knows the magic is only obtained when it’s become just that: past.

7.5

Tindersticks, Janelle Monáe and the intercostal clavicle

A new blog, an inaugural post. Return here loyally, regularly, but infrequently for a variety of words.

Welcome. I begin with the news that I happily won a competition to review shows at the Usher Hall for STV Local (Edinburgh West). My first assignment was on Tindersticks on Sunday (free tickets, good seats, much enjoyed); I hope to do more. Tindersticks performed Claire Denis film scores, of which they have composed six. My review is now on the STV Local website, and has been well received by my aunt.

Having not written anything substantial since c. 2005, I felt rather out of practice in putting finger to key. The review, now birthed, niggles already with bits to be improved, but I am pleased to have got this far.

My entry for the competition (copied below) was carefully composed over several lunchtimes and submitted last week. It was a review of Janelle Monáe's February concert at the O₂ ABC in Glasgow.

The android is malfunctioning. Her once-pristine pompadour has exploded and points raggedly in every direction. Embracing the New York punk of tonight’s final song, Come Alive, Janelle Monáe leaps and jerks, letting off steam after an impeccable set comprising sharply choreographed, futuristic soul and funk. 

Her first full-length album, The ArchAndroid, was critically lauded last year, but Monáe’s live performances have generated the greater buzz. Capped by her recent Glastonbury appearance, audiences have been entranced by her dancing, stage presence and phenomenal voice. Unleashing this thrashing encore on an exultant Glasgow crowd, she casts that same spell.

The experience is intoxicating. Before we start, Monáe’s image gazes down from a large video screen. She declares herself the arch-android and, introducing the opening song, reminds us there is “only one commandment: Dance or Die”. It’s an instruction impossible not to follow as we are treated to energetic numbers such as Faster and Cold War and showered with ticker tape.

Perhaps Monáe could engage more directly with the crowd, and the show seems rather short, but it is easy to forgive as you dance. The band is remarkable – tight, fun, never flagging for a second. Guitarist Kellindo Parker draws particular attention (he looks like Snoop Dogg, but plays like Prince).

But Janelle is centre stage, and her talent beguiles. Careering through Tightrope’s stuttering lyrics, she emulates her idol James Brown, magically skimming along the stage on one foot as the Godfather of Soul’s image lights the screen behind. During the slow-building Mushrooms & Roses, she paints as she sings. And from a powerful, virtuosic rendition of Charlie Chaplin’s Smile (accompanied by Parker alone) to the full-throttle finale, her voice is perfect.

The robotic theatrics excite, but we leave exhilarated by the intense human gift behind it all. She is poised for stardom.