Monthly culture, December 2023
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tamaranth06DEC23: Women's Words (Natalie Dessay and Philippe Cassard) -- Barbican (Milton Court)
Dessay was a renowned opera singer before retiring from the stage. She still performs in smaller venues: this was a splendid recital and her voice is still astonishing, very expressive and finely controlled. Most of the music was new to me -- the first half consisted of pieces by female composers (Fanny Mendelssohn, Clara Schumann, Alma Mahler) and the second half featured arias from opera. I especially loved the way she held the last high note of Poulenc's 'La Dame de Monte Carlo' -- I hope she's recorded that at some point.
A good review in the Guardian, here. Ignore the three stars!
07DEC23: Passport to Pimlico (Cornelius, 1949) -- BBC iPlayer
I vaguely recall seeing this as a child, probably one Sunday afternoon. I didn't then appreciate that this was the post-war London in which my parents lived, loved, met ... Anyway, this rewatch for film club was quite informative: I learnt a lot about Lbuses, trains and the Underground in the post-war period (and that what we now think of as 'Pimlico' is rather further south than Pimlico in the film). Speculation as to whether the discovery of the hoard was intended as a visual reference to Tutankhamun's tomb. We were greatly entertained by some of the newspaper headlines: 'Beauty Queen is Tory' (ugh), 'Man in Priest's Clothes Arrested'. I also applaud shots of women drinking pints at the pub, and the identification of Foreign Parts with freedom: Pimlico's brief independence from the UK (it's part of Burgundy) felt very apposite in Brexit Britain.
09DEC23: Relax, I'm From the Future (Higginson, 2023)
I should probably watch this without the boozy lunch beforehand. Rhys Darby, purple jumpsuit, time travel, mushy blob of reality, Gabrielle Graham as the female lead Holly -- I shall watch out for future appearances. So nice to see a movie focussed on a friendship, rather than a romance, between the male and female protagonists. Fun, though the plot seemed shaky: or maybe that was me.
14DEC23: Lavender Hill Mob (Chrichton, 1951) -- Internet Archive
I did not know that Audrey Hepburn had a brief cameo in this. As did Valerie Singleton! Alec Guinness delightful as always; more post-war London; some excellent cinematography. I still find the ending rather abrupt, though.
21DEC23: Scrooged (Donner, 1988) -- Netflix
Back when Bill Murray was edgy. Semi-watched for film club while I was doing festive stuff.
22DEC23: Godzilla Minus One (Yamakazi, 2023) -- Greenwich Picturehouse
Effectively a reboot of the Godzilla story, this begins in the final days of WW2 when a kamikaze pilot fakes technical issues to get out of his mission: he witnesses Godzilla destroying the military base. Back in post-war Tokyo, he signs up to work on a minesweeper, and finds himself supporting a woman and child who've been left with nothing by allied bombing. Godzilla, mutated, attacks more ships. Something must be done: so it is, despite horrendous destruction. (Godzilla has catlike tendencies: throwing stuff around, playing with its prey ...)
I liked this very much. It might even have been one of my best films of 2023 -- hard to say with it being so recent. The scenes of devastated Tokyo (before and after Godzilla) are spectacular and tragic: the relationships between Shikishima (pilot), Noriko and Akiko are delicately sketched, and the CGI is almost entirely convincing (though I'm not sure Godzilla's proportions make sense). Excellent soundtrack, too, blending elements of the original 'monster movie' themes with more modern, weirder music. And it's very much a film about PTSD, about Shikishima's war 'not over yet', about how cheaply human life has been treated.
27DEC23: The Boy and the Heron (Miyazaki, 2023) -- Greenwich Picturehouse
Very long, very beautiful, very weird. Mahito, the young protagonist, is dealing with the death of his mother and his new stepmother, her sister -- 'I'll be your mother now'. (I found this replacement unsettling but it wasn't really examined.) Mahito enters a fantastical world with a grey heron with human teeth... ewwww that seems to have a small person, or demon, living inside it. There are huge pastel-coloured, carnivorous parakeets and balloon-creatures that are actually souls and ... and many other things, including some excellent female characters. Beautiful. Long.
28DEC23: Maestro (Cooper, 2023) -- Netflix
This is a biopic of the composer and conductor, but it feels like a story about what it's like to live with that figure. Carey Mulligan steals the film as his wife, actress Felicia Montealegre: Cooper's good, but she's incandescent. Given the subject, the soundtrack is actually quite dull (heavy on the Mahler) and the dialogue is sometimes muffled: this version of Bernstein is fond of the sound of his own voice, never mind who else is speaking.
31DEC23: Poor Things (Lanthimos, 2023) -- Greenwich Picturehouse
I'm still thinking about this film and may need to see it again. Beautifully filmed; Emma Stone is awesome and thoroughly believable as Bella; Mark Ruffalo makes an excellent cad as Wedderburn, and Willem Dafoe is suitably unsettling as 'God'.
But it's also unsettling because Bella is, in effect, a child in an adult's body: her innocent sexuality (which Stone makes wholesome and sometimes comic) is overwhelming, and not everybody respects the innocence.
It's a long long time since I read Alasdair Gray's novel and I might try a reread before seeing the film (set in London rather than Glasgow) again.
Dessay was a renowned opera singer before retiring from the stage. She still performs in smaller venues: this was a splendid recital and her voice is still astonishing, very expressive and finely controlled. Most of the music was new to me -- the first half consisted of pieces by female composers (Fanny Mendelssohn, Clara Schumann, Alma Mahler) and the second half featured arias from opera. I especially loved the way she held the last high note of Poulenc's 'La Dame de Monte Carlo' -- I hope she's recorded that at some point.
A good review in the Guardian, here. Ignore the three stars!
07DEC23: Passport to Pimlico (Cornelius, 1949) -- BBC iPlayer
I vaguely recall seeing this as a child, probably one Sunday afternoon. I didn't then appreciate that this was the post-war London in which my parents lived, loved, met ... Anyway, this rewatch for film club was quite informative: I learnt a lot about Lbuses, trains and the Underground in the post-war period (and that what we now think of as 'Pimlico' is rather further south than Pimlico in the film). Speculation as to whether the discovery of the hoard was intended as a visual reference to Tutankhamun's tomb. We were greatly entertained by some of the newspaper headlines: 'Beauty Queen is Tory' (ugh), 'Man in Priest's Clothes Arrested'. I also applaud shots of women drinking pints at the pub, and the identification of Foreign Parts with freedom: Pimlico's brief independence from the UK (it's part of Burgundy) felt very apposite in Brexit Britain.
09DEC23: Relax, I'm From the Future (Higginson, 2023)
I should probably watch this without the boozy lunch beforehand. Rhys Darby, purple jumpsuit, time travel, mushy blob of reality, Gabrielle Graham as the female lead Holly -- I shall watch out for future appearances. So nice to see a movie focussed on a friendship, rather than a romance, between the male and female protagonists. Fun, though the plot seemed shaky: or maybe that was me.
14DEC23: Lavender Hill Mob (Chrichton, 1951) -- Internet Archive
I did not know that Audrey Hepburn had a brief cameo in this. As did Valerie Singleton! Alec Guinness delightful as always; more post-war London; some excellent cinematography. I still find the ending rather abrupt, though.
21DEC23: Scrooged (Donner, 1988) -- Netflix
Back when Bill Murray was edgy. Semi-watched for film club while I was doing festive stuff.
22DEC23: Godzilla Minus One (Yamakazi, 2023) -- Greenwich Picturehouse
Effectively a reboot of the Godzilla story, this begins in the final days of WW2 when a kamikaze pilot fakes technical issues to get out of his mission: he witnesses Godzilla destroying the military base. Back in post-war Tokyo, he signs up to work on a minesweeper, and finds himself supporting a woman and child who've been left with nothing by allied bombing. Godzilla, mutated, attacks more ships. Something must be done: so it is, despite horrendous destruction. (Godzilla has catlike tendencies: throwing stuff around, playing with its prey ...)
I liked this very much. It might even have been one of my best films of 2023 -- hard to say with it being so recent. The scenes of devastated Tokyo (before and after Godzilla) are spectacular and tragic: the relationships between Shikishima (pilot), Noriko and Akiko are delicately sketched, and the CGI is almost entirely convincing (though I'm not sure Godzilla's proportions make sense). Excellent soundtrack, too, blending elements of the original 'monster movie' themes with more modern, weirder music. And it's very much a film about PTSD, about Shikishima's war 'not over yet', about how cheaply human life has been treated.
27DEC23: The Boy and the Heron (Miyazaki, 2023) -- Greenwich Picturehouse
Very long, very beautiful, very weird. Mahito, the young protagonist, is dealing with the death of his mother and his new stepmother, her sister -- 'I'll be your mother now'. (I found this replacement unsettling but it wasn't really examined.) Mahito enters a fantastical world with a grey heron with human teeth... ewwww that seems to have a small person, or demon, living inside it. There are huge pastel-coloured, carnivorous parakeets and balloon-creatures that are actually souls and ... and many other things, including some excellent female characters. Beautiful. Long.
28DEC23: Maestro (Cooper, 2023) -- Netflix
This is a biopic of the composer and conductor, but it feels like a story about what it's like to live with that figure. Carey Mulligan steals the film as his wife, actress Felicia Montealegre: Cooper's good, but she's incandescent. Given the subject, the soundtrack is actually quite dull (heavy on the Mahler) and the dialogue is sometimes muffled: this version of Bernstein is fond of the sound of his own voice, never mind who else is speaking.
31DEC23: Poor Things (Lanthimos, 2023) -- Greenwich Picturehouse
I'm still thinking about this film and may need to see it again. Beautifully filmed; Emma Stone is awesome and thoroughly believable as Bella; Mark Ruffalo makes an excellent cad as Wedderburn, and Willem Dafoe is suitably unsettling as 'God'.
But it's also unsettling because Bella is, in effect, a child in an adult's body: her innocent sexuality (which Stone makes wholesome and sometimes comic) is overwhelming, and not everybody respects the innocence.
It's a long long time since I read Alasdair Gray's novel and I might try a reread before seeing the film (set in London rather than Glasgow) again.
