Author: Antenna

Impressive Sitrompol

This is my review of Borgen – Series 2 [DVD].

Although now established undeniably as a soap opera, Series 2 of Borgen is not afraid to tackle such issues as who should represent Denmark as an EU Commissioner, rejected as too dry by the compulsively odious Michael Laugesen, Editor of the tabloid rag "Ekspres". In a fast-moving tightly woven plot which manages to cover many issues, both political and domestic, we see Birgitte Nyborg both steelier, more calculating and ruthless as she gains experience in the exercise of power, but also personally more vulnerable in seeking excuses not to sign her divorce papers, unable to face up to the fact that her husband Philip wants a permanent split. The effect of this on their children is also handled sensitively.

A major parallel thread is the evolving relationship between the ambitious, idealistic journalist Katrine and the talented but emotionally scarred spin doctor Kaspar, who loses his emotional detachment when a right-wing move to reduce the age of criminal responsibility touches a raw nerve from his troubled past.

Although a few plot twists may seem implausible, this is absorbing drama, by turns tense, humorous and moving, with some interesting character development and consistently high standard of acting including at the level of minor characters, such as Birgitte's humourless PA who demonstrates that efficiency may count for less than empathy – serving Birgitte's long-suffering young son Magnus a bitter lemon – or the psychiatrist caught smoking in her private office to relieve tension.

Some of the political scenes are rushed through at a frenetic pace which proves hard to absorb via subtitles, and my opinion that "Borgen" is not a good advertisement for coalition government has not changed, but it has reinforced my respect for a small nation with an understandable pride in its essentially liberal-minded, progressive, democratic and egalitarian values.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars

Borgen – Series 2 [DVD]

Just Observe

This is my review of The Server by Tim Parks.

Drawing on his own experience of transcendental meditation, Tim Parks transports us into the mind of Beth, impulsive, provocative, sensuous twenty-something former singer in a pop band who has spent the past nine months in the incongruous role of server cooking, cleaning and setting a good example for a group of meditators on a ten day Buddhist retreat.

It is a strict regime: segregation of the sexes, no talking or touching, hours of exerting the "strong determination" to sit motionless in painful poses, focusing on breathing with the daily brainwashing from recordings made by the guru Dasgupta, "who preaches against self-regard in a self-regarding way". There is a consistent tone of scepticism, a flippancy, which may upset strong advocates of meditation. Despite this, Parks conveys a clear and strong sense of the process of meditation.

Although she used to have no trouble losing herself in music, and wishes ardently to change herself through meditation, Beth's thoughts keep slipping back to speculating about the other inmates, whom she cannot resist winding up and leading astray on occasion, or brooding on her clearly troubled past life. Some recent trauma has driven her to the retreat, and Parks skilfully drips out the facts to hold our attention.

Sometimes I found this book too contrived, too much of a master class in creative writing by an expert published author, rather than a sincere examination of human dilemmas. The detailed descriptions of the routines at the retreat are sometimes tedious, although this may have been the author's intention. Since he builds up a strong sense of tension, moving towards an anticipated dramatic, perhaps shocking and unpredictable ending, I was a little disappointed by the final chapters which have a kind of banality, making the experience in the retreat seem lightweight.

However, it is an original, well-constructed story and in the midst of the wry, jokey humour, there are some convincing characters and many telling observations on life and relationships.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

The Server

Vote on a knife-edge

This is my review of Lincoln [DVD].

Based on Dorothy Kearns excellent "A Team of Rivals", this film is wisely focused on a specific period to make it more manageable, namely the final few months of the traumatic American Civil War and Lincoln's controversial decision to pass a "Thirteenth Amendment" giving a blanket freedom to all slaves, rather than try to end the bloodshed by negotiating a peace with the South which stopped short of abolition.

Clearly designed to instruct us, the film proves heavy-going at times: some of the political debates and meetings are couched in complex language of the day delivered at speed and so hard to absorb, some complicated points could have been made a little clearer and some sets are perhaps realistic for the period but too dark to engage the viewer. Spielberg may be guilty of making a fascinating situation unduly dull.

I have heard reviewers criticise the lack of significant black anti-slavery campaigners who were active at the time, and this appears to be a serious omission. The opening scene of Lincoln fraternising with soldiers spouting his speeches struck me as contrived, and the decision to report rather than show Lincoln's assassination at the end also seemed a missed dramatic opportunity, and underplayed the irony of his untimely death before he had a chance to manage the peace.

On the plus side, there are strong performances from the lead actors with Daniel Day Lewis unquestionably outstanding, his high-pitched voice apparently a deliberate choice based on research. He conveys Lincoln's charisma: his "common touch", lack of affectation, penchant for telling stories (which drove some people mad), very broad-minded approach with a desire to hear different sides of the argument which laid him open to a charge of indecisiveness, but occasional flashes of steel. We see something of his oratory and obvious integrity, although he was capable of quite cynical wheeler-dealing, in this case employing shady characters to persuade Democrats (we have to keep reminding ourselves that this was the pro-slavery party) to vote for the Thirteenth Amendment in return for government posts.

Although the film is not as moving as it should be, there are some effective scenes such as Lincoln's son concluding that he must fight, Lincoln arguing with his wife over his son's right to fight in the war or Lincoln reviewing the horrors of battle first-hand. There is a little humour in some of the repartee, although I found the scenes with the three fixers trying to get Democrats to vote against slavery bordered on slapstick.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

Lincoln [DVD]

Life and Death under Occupation

This is my review of La bicyclette bleue, Tome 3 : Le Diable en rit encore : 1944-1945 by Régine Deforges.

This third part of "La Bicyclette bleue" saga covering 1944-45 is darker than the earlier novels in its focus on the hardship and uncertainty of war. Lea Delmas is forced to grow up quickly, putting her fun-loving self-indulgence on hold as she becomes so involved in the Resistance that she can no longer live openly at her family estate without fear of being denounced.

This novel seems to be a homage to the Resistance, and the author succeeds in portraying the particular horror and sadness of a country invaded with little prospect of regaining freedom, and the sometimes fatalistic courage of those who continued to risk their lives for this cause. We continue to see Lea's family and employees at Montillac divided in their loyalties. Regine Déforges does not shrink from ramming home the tedium of a lengthy occupation or from killing off a number of key characters close to Lea.

There are some scenes of real tension, including the disruption of the joyful celebration of De Gaulle's march into Paris, as snipers on the roof of Notre Dame send people running for cover. I learned some interesting history from the novel such as how some French collaborators, perhaps fearing their fate if they tried to remain at home, volunteered to fight on in Germany with the SS even after the liberation of Paris, in a desperate last ditch attempt to defeat the Russian communists in a war that was clearly lost.

Although the plot flags a little at times, Déforges manages to keep pulling a new twist out of the bag to hold one's interest, even if it is only another unannounced appearance of hunky lover Francois Tavernier, macho to the point of creating unease (but it's all right because Lea likes it), who somehow manages to accomplish unspecified missions of great importance without risking his life much, and has no qualms about obtaining the best luxuries the black market can supply. There are as ever too many unlikely coincidences: A meets B on the point of perishing in battle, then dies in turn just after meeting C who is able to pass on news about A to D.

Although I might be more critical of this drama if written in English, it is an excellent means of developing one's French, and is quite moving and informative in places.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

La bicyclette bleue, Tome 3 : Le Diable en rit encore : 1944-1945

Greek Tragedy in Mississippi

This is my review of Absalom, Absalom! (Vintage Classics) by William Faulkner.

The self-made Thomas Sutpen achieves his ambition of carving out a plantation for himself in the Mississippi wilderness and acquiring a wife and heir, only to lose it all, partly owing to the calamity of the American Civil War of the 1860s, but also through past events coming back to haunt him. His life is a metaphor for the inward-looking, class divided, prejudiced, proud, stubborn, slave-owning South driven to its knees by defeat in the Civil War, the aftermath still evident when a young neighbour Quentin Compson tries to piece the story together, abetted by his friend Shreve, a Canadian "outsider" who is both fascinated by the South and able to assess it with an objective eye.

Faulkner's stream of consciousness style which must have been groundbreaking in the 1930s carries the reader into the characters' minds, using vivid visual impressions and memories to trigger a chain of fleeting thoughts. I like the way he tells the same story from different at times contradictory viewpoints, often repeating details with a hypnotic persistence, only to advance the tale without warning as another important fact is almost casually thrown in. It is also intriguing to grasp that key characters like Rosa Coldfield may only ever hold some of the pieces of the jigsaw – Faulkner is fascinated with the way people's perceptions vary, memory is distorted and complex motives may remain ambiguous, with actors themselves remaining unsure what they are going to do and why.

Despite some poetic passages of extraordinary brilliance and beauty, some sharp dialogue in the compelling southern idiom and a potentially powerful plot, I feel the work is flawed by a tendency to let experiment tip over into self-indulgent ranting and a descent into melodrama. The unrelenting focus on human degradation, the doom and gloom of the work prove unbearable at times, "the turgid background of a horrible and bloody mischancing of human affairs". Also, the reliance on characters recounting past events tends to defuse the drama of what should be striking events, although I admit that some moments of high tension remain, even when I "knew" what was going to happen.

I can accept the perhaps at times unintentional racism of the piece as being a feature of the period. Faulkner's misogynic tone is hard to excuse.

This book needs to read twice, even several times to be fully appreciated. I wanted to read it the first time without benefit of notes, to get the raw impact, although it probably helps to consult a "study guide" for a second opinion on some of the obscurer passages. I like best the descriptions of the South stripped bare of overblown emotion, "he looked up the slope…where the wet yellow sedge died upward into the rain like melting gold and saw the grove, the clump of cedars on the crest of the hill dissolving into the rain as if the trees had been drawn in ink on a wet blotter." Yet even here is evidence of his verbosity.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

Absalom, Absalom! (Vintage Classics)

So many words obscure the light

This is my review of The Last Pre-Raphaelite: Edward Burne-Jones and the Victorian Imagination by Fiona MacCarthy.

Burne-Jones sought lifelong escapism into the world of mythical romance as a reaction to the ugliness of a childhood in industrial Birmingham. When his deep friendship with William Morris was finally fractured by the latter's involvement with active socialism, Burne Jones wrote of his desire to take refuge in the artistic work which he could control.

He had some strokes of luck: Rossetti found commissions for him to design stained glass – often for the very wealthy industrialists responsible for the world he hated; Ruskin paid for a couple of trips to Italy where he discovered at that time little-known painters such as Botticelli or Piero della Francesca who were to influence his work, and despite his uncertain income Burne-Jones seems to have been welcomed by her parents as a fiancé for Georgie Macdonald. His repayment for her loyalty was a steamy affair with the flamboyant Greek artist Maria Zambaco, the muse for some of his most famous paintings, as were also some of the pale and interesting younger women with whom he liked to flirt. Highly successful and made a baronet in his lifetime, Burne Jones was a prolific artist, despite his disorganised approach.

It is understandable that Fiona MacCarthy's encyclopaedic knowledge, the result of six year's spent researching Byrne-Jones, led her to produce a work of 536 pages, excluding notes, so heavy that it splits at the seams as you read it (although a Kindle version is available) but I found it on balance a laborious slog not only because of the length but also the structure. The decision to base each chapter on a different location linked to the artist's life in chronological order leads to a fragmentation of themes and repetition of some points. I wanted less description and more analysis and insight that was more than vague suggestions of what might have been the case. What exactly was the goal or philosophy of the Pre-Raphaelites and what was their impact, how did Burne-Jones fit into the group, what was his method of painting and so on? I would have liked more focus on a few major works, illustrated in the text, with a full discussion of each one. I gleaned little more about the painter's personality than may be found in the preface.

If some of the peripheral detail e.g. on the painter's cronies had been omitted, there would have been the space to develop some neglected aspects.

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars

The Last Pre-Raphaelite: Edward Burne-Jones and the Victorian Imagination

Les Misérables – What vision does

This is my review of Les Misérables [DVD] [2012].

Coming to it with the “clean slate” of not having seen “Les Misérables” on stage, I find it hard to fault this film version of the musical. It succeeds in creating an epic spectacle which also captures the essence of Hugo’s masterpiece, designed to show the suffering of the masses, and to explore the issue of redemption in a world where social condemnation – of a mother abandoned by her lover, or a man forced to steal bread for his sister, can create “hell on earth”.

I was apprehensive about the reported length of three hours which turned out to be more like two-and-a-half, and passed without my feeling bored. Similarly, although I had feared that the delivery of virtually every line by actors rather than professional singers would be cringe-making, I soon realised that the sincerity with which they sing without losing the note gives a raw life to their performance which technically superior classical performances often lack. I admit I would not choose to listen to the film soundtrack alone.

Even if the music leaves you underwhelmed, there is a feast for the eyes and constant source of interest in the technically brilliant, imaginative sets.

Yes, the film is highly emotional, but that reflects the style of Hugo’s day, when being forced to watch the rapid decline and death of friends and relatives was a common experience, and deep poverty and suffering were widespread. The “love at first sight” romance between Cosette and Marius appears less important than the parallel tales which reflect what Hugo was trying to convey “a progress from evil to good, from injustice to justice, from falsehood to truth, from night to day, from appetite to conscience, from corruption to life … The starting point: matter, destination: the soul. The hydra at the beginning, the angel at the end”.

I was impressed by the number and range of “good songs”. Apart from the well-known “I dreamed a dream” sung very movingly by Fantine (Anne Hathaway) who has been reduced to prostitution to feed her child Cosette, there is a rousing chorus delivered by the idealistic young revolutionaries at the barricades, complex love trios and quartets, and some striking solos such as Eddie Redmayne’s “Empty chairs and empty tables” reflecting the feeling of loss and utility in the aftermath of a battle. The child actors perform well: the young Cosette sings beautifully, and the cheeky Gavroche exudes confidence and energy in an Artful Dodger-style role.

Russell Crowe has been criticised for his weak singing, but I found it more than effective for the role of Javet, the inspector obsessed with tracking down Valjean who, sent to gaol for stealing bread, breaks his parole on being released after twenty years, but goes on to become a successful man, dedicated to living a good life. Crowe conveys well Javet’s growing sense of confusion that upholding the law means pursuing a former thief whose actions suggest he is a man of greater integrity than the inspector himself.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars


Les Misérables [DVD] [2012]

Savage harshness made complete

This is my review of Winter King: The Dawn of Tudor England by Thomas Penn.

A reign which may seem less glamorous and colourful than that of his descendants Henry VIII and Elizabeth proves on closer inspection to be highly intriguing. Penn shows how Henry Senior sowed the seeds for a successful dynasty, and captures the spirit of an age still trapped in medieval superstition, but with the stirrings of humanism, democracy and "enlightenment".

Henry Vll's mistrustful and calculating nature must have been influenced by a youth spent on the run from the Yorkists, often at risk of being traded for funds and military aid from whoever was on the English throne during the final years of the Wars of the Roses. Once king, marriage to a Yorkist princess was not enough to consolidate Henry's tenuous claim nor to deter disgruntled nobles from passing off a string of impostors as say, one of the Princes in the Tower with a better claim.

It is perhaps to Henry's credit that he preferred negotiating to war – setting out early in his reign to fight the French, he allowed himself to be bought off with a pension. He grasped that he needed money, both to impress everyone with great pageantry and ritual but also to purchase influence on the continent, not least with the impecunious Hapsburg emperor.

The problem was the methods used to obtain money. In an increasingly harsh network of tyranny, Henry hired a mixture of shrewd lawyers and thugs to devise means of depriving subjects of their wealth – the lands of widows and orphans, the simple-minded, or those whose loyalty was suspected were taken over and the profits siphoned off; to hold office under Henry, it might be necessary to pay a large sum as security for good behaviour; in an increasingly Kafkesque world , ordinary people could be fined on trumped up charges. All this was done through new committees and courts set up outside the common law, undermining Magna Carta, "concerning the liberties of England".

Ironically, when Henry Vlll succeeded, although two of his father's main enforcers, Dudley and Empson were scapegoated, they were condemned by men who were also guilty and "much of the private system of finance and surveillance" which under Henry Vll's "obsessive gaze" had "assumed primacy over the legally constituted exchequer" was simply made official.

Unlike some reviewers, I did not mind that Penn has tried to leaven his scholarly work with somewhat jarring colloquialisms. I was fascinated by "trivial" anecdotes such as Margaret Beaufort's sudden death after her son's coronation feast, "it was the cygnet that did it", or how when a blue carpet was laid out for a royal procession, the London crowd descended on it afterwards to hack off bits as souvenirs.

Extracting the gold from this book was hard going because of a wordy style, combined with Penn's habit of introducing more minor characters than I for one could absorb: X the step-son of Y who had married the widow of Z's brother, and so on. The background to say, the frustrations of the Calais garrison or the ambitions of the famous scholar Erasmus, bog the reader down in excessive detail.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

Winter King: The Dawn of Tudor England

Seeing the wood for the trees

This is my review of New Treehouses of the World by Pete Nelson.

As "arboreal architect" Pete Nelson states, "we all know that anyone in their right mind likes treehouses" but he has taken up what remains for most children the stuff of fantasy and applied his considerable vision and energy to constructing a variety of treehouses for the enjoyment of real-life adults. Clearly, most of his clients are wealthy or eccentric, and each treehouse is individually designed to reflect their tastes.

In this well-illustrated book, he photographs examples of treehouses from around the world, ranging from a Cambodian tree shrine, through attractive residences or tourist accommodation to rival a Frank Lloyd Wright design, to "Horace's Cathedral" in Tennessee.

Dedicated to the training of a new generation of treehouse builders, Nelson is keen to develop "sustainable" construction that does not damage trees. Although this book only covers building techniques in passing, many photographs show the skilful use of ropes, and discreet use of bolts and brackets. Nelson's camera has focused on designs which may be bold and original but which are careful to harmonise with the shape and colouring of the surrounding and supporting branches. Houses are often built round trunks which curve or strike up through floors, platforms and roofs.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

New Treehouses of the World

Making a gift of cash more acceptable?

This is my review of Amazon.co.uk Gift Card – In a Greeting Card – £30 (Christmas Penguins).

These cards remain a very convenient way of sending gifts which are easy to post, and enable the recipient to treat themselves to something they really want – although I agree that giving this kind of present can seem a bit unimaginative and lazy.

My only criticism is that the choice of pictures is so limited, and I have used up the small number which I like enough to want to put my name to them.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

Amazon.co.uk Gift Card – In a Greeting Card – £30 (Christmas Penguins)