Dogville (2003)

Dir. Lars Von Trier / 178 minutes / Cert 15

I expect three things whenever I sit down to watch a Lars Von Trier film. I expect extremity, I anticipate something a bit (okay, a lot) different and I don’t reckon upon coming away with a smile on my face. I’m happy to say that Dogville delivered on all three counts.

Running for almost three hours and divided up into nine chapters (plus a prologue) the 1930s set film is ‘the sad tale of the township of Dogville’, an isolated fifteen-person community located in the Rocky Mountains populated by seemingly good-natured folk who want for nothing and appear to make the most of what little life has handed to them. Their simple existence is shattered by the arrival of Grace (Nicole Kidman), a fragile (and if the DVD blurb is to be believed) beautiful fugitive pursued by gangsters and in need of a place to seek refuge. Championed by Tom Edison Jr. (a wide-eyed Paul Bettany), the townspeople unanimously agree to shelter Grace, who, by way of payment, agrees to work for them. She quickly establishes herself as a valued member of their close-knit society, but with the search for her intensifying, her acceptance is short-lived and the residents of Dogville soon reveal their true colours.

I am almost invariably drawn to characters who are seen as outsiders, so therefore I was onside with Grace from the off. In a bit of an anomaly, Kidman gives an astonishing leading performance and the rejection, exploitation and manipulation she endures is horrific and crushing. I am wary of divulging specific plot details, but one character’s betrayal in particular left me distraught. This is a film that will seriously challenge your faith in the goodness of humanity (I’m just glad I watched with a plentiful supply of chocolate to cushion the pain) as its powerful portrayal of human nature is vicious, visceral and violent. The fact that evil manifests itself in such an ordinary, mundane setting (we have gooseberry bushes and squirrels darting between children’s legs for Heaven’s sake) serves to make the film all the more disturbing. John Hurt’s characteristic smooth-as-silk narration, which reassuringly pervades throughout, lulls the viewer into a state of false security. The use of an omniscient storyteller creates the impression that the film is a kind of perverse fairy-tale, a slice of whispered folklore passed down through the generations, the legend of Dogville with its grotesque monsters and its damsel in distress.

I would have rated the film highly regardless, but the icing on the already delicious cake comes in the form of how Von Trier chooses to present his narrative visually. The action takes place almost on a soundstage, a blackboard on which the actors can perform. The story-space is heavily implied and realised largely through crude chalked outlines, perhaps a metaphor for the primitive and rudimentary nature of both the town and its inhabitants. For example, the gooseberry bush is a basic-level helpfully labelled black-and-white abstract squiggle. It is originally quite an odd concept to adjust to, but once you get used to seeing and hearing character’s knock on invisible doors, the minimalistic Brechtian-inspired theatre staging feels completely unique. With the boat already pushed out so far (the fact that Tom is constantly engaged in self-reflection parallels the desired effect that Brecht strove to provoke in his audiences), part of me wishes Von Trier had gone all the way and completely embraced his key influence and had character’s break down the fourth wall and directly engage with us (as the audience).

In short, this is a long, demanding film about the arrogance of forgiveness. But it’s well worth it. Nine-and-a-half kernels of popcorn out of ten.

Doctor Who Series 6 Episode 1 - "The Impossible Astronaut"

So Doctor Who is back! And so is my blog.

Doctor Who 6.1 "The Impossible Astronaut"
Written by Steven Moffat
Directed by Toby Haynes
Originally broadcast 23 April 2011, 6pm, BBC1

The following review contains spoilers (to quote River Song)

I've come to the conclusion that I'll always be a Doctor Who fan at heart. No matter how bad times get, I will always go out and buy the T-shirts and the figures and the underpants and I will never miss an episode. I'd cancel my own funeral if Doctor Who was on. It's in my blood, in my genes, in my DNA, it's a part of me and always will be. All that said, I wasn't particularly excited about the opening episode of Series 6 (or Series 32), because the last series left me colder than a snowman's heart. I've said it time and time again, I've shouted about it to confused strangers in the street: I hate the Pond-life that currently occupies the role of the Doc's faithful companion. Honestly, shave my legs, give me an orange wig and a very short skirt (actually, no, because I already own both of these) and tell me to shout a lot and I could do a better job than Karen Gillan. In fact, my 96-year-old Nan could. She's ace at running down corridors. Sorry, I'm doing it again. But, I was somewhat heartened by the Christmas Special, which,with it's whimsical, winning and wacky marriage of a Welsh opera singer warbling into a screwdriver and a sleigh-pulling flying shark soaring through the sky reawakened my interest in my favourite show.

So, I sat down at 6pm to see what current Who supremo Steven Moffat, a man I want to passionately ravish and savagely dismember in almost equal measure, had in store for us. We began with a tribute to the legend that is, and forever will be, Elisabeth Sladen, also known as Sarah Jane Smith, the most wonderful, beautiful and heroic companion of all-time. And then we're slap bang into the action, and we're treated to an opening ten minutes that is both thoroughly enjoyable and thoroughly audacious. Yes, I was surprised too! We see the Doctor in the middle of the Utah desert shot stone dead by a masked spaceman. Ooh. So now I'm sitting bolt upright. I've stopped imagining Rory naked and I'm paying attention. The Doctor... dead... no... he can't be!? As it turns out, no... he can't be... or at least, not yet. We're lead to believe that the tragic death we've just witnessed is the Doctor unquestionably our beloved Time Lord, but a future version... timey-wimey, wibbly-wobbly, bumpy-wumpy. And that's where things started to get messy...

The rest of the episode (which was, quite frankly, a bit slow) didn't manage to capitalise on the intrigue or momentum created in the opening 10 minutes or so, but it did manage to ask an awful lot of questions. I don't have a clue what the hell is going on and I doubt next week's conclusion will fill in many of the chasm-wide gaps, but that's okay. I got the impression that the Moffster is playing a bit of a long game with us, dangling enormous, gleaming carrots of temptation in front of our noses and then jeering nastily and pulling them away. As series openers go therefore, "The Impossible Astronaut" is a bit of a tough one, a real mixed bag: a bit like a delicious cake covered in snot and earwax. It's absolutely nothing like the funny, frothy, fast series openers that have begun the previous five series and instead seems to be taking us into a darker, mistier territory with it's mysteries and story-arcs. I felt like I'd wandered into a Joss Whedon show: with it's sharp, snappy dialogue and stylish locations. The episode can't really be properly judged or graded without seeing the conclusion ("Day of the Moon"), but what it lacked in pace and character (Moffat can't writing decent supporting characters to save his life, despite having Mark "Battlestar Galactica" Sheppard and Stuart "Jonathan Creek" Milligan at his disposal), it made up for in WTF-ness. Despite myself, I *do* want to know what everything means. Who is the little girl in the spacesuit that Amy shoots? How can Amy be pregnant (well, she could have had sex without protection, I guess). Just who the Dickens is River Song (My guess is that she's the Doctor's Uncle Brian). Who sent out the five TARDIS-blue envelopes? And did the FBI bring the Doctor his fez...?

I'm in two minds about the episode then, I suppose. I certainly didn't hate it but it's also hard to love an episode that just feels like a very small cog in a much bigger engine or one jigsaw piece in a whole puzzle. It's wetted my appetite, but I thought it was too talky, not enough action, not enough by way of characterisation and the episode title itself sucks. On the plus side, The Silence (first alluded to in 5.12 "The Pandorica Opens") are excellent. Even though they only appeared sporadically here, the idea behind them is creepy and just so very Doctor Who. The concept of a monster that exists but can make you forget it existed in mere seconds is pretty terrifying and I'm looking forward to seeing them at the forefront of the action next week.

That'll do for now, I think. Russell T Davies standard it was not, but I liked it well enough.

And one more thing, that nobody in the universe other than me will care about - 6pm, baking hot sunny day... it's going to die a death in the ratings. I know we have iPlayer, BBC3 repeats and consolodated final figures now, but tomorrow morning's raw overnight is going to be miniscule. Doctor Who should be on later in the evening; 6pm is barely even primetime. Who watches television at 6pm in the summer? Most people are outside in their pants drinking iced tea. Curse you BBC schedulers!

BEST LINE (it's the best 'cos it's true)
The Doctor: I wear a Stetson now. Stetsons are cool.

The Divine Comedy - Live in Manchester

No, your eyes aren't deceiving you. Yes, I've updated my blog. Of course, nobody will read, or care about what I've written, but hey-ho.

On Tuesday evening I had the privilege of seeing The Divine Comedy live at Manchester Academy in Manchester... well, obviously. I'd seen them previously back in August at The Hard Rock Cafe when I entered a competition in Q and won a pair of free tickets. The first time I saw them was good, but quite short, and I wasn't fond of the venue, even if they do make nice cheeseburgers. Neil Hannon with a piano and a guitar, in the corner of a bar (hey, that rhymes!) with lots of people chattering away, buying drinks and generally being rather rude. In fact, Hannon reflected on the Hard Rock Cafe gig during Tuesday's performance, informing the audience that he'd already played in Manchester this year but hadn't enjoyed it due to people on the balconies being so rude and presuming that they'd only been there for "the free canapes".

I'd gone to a lot of trouble to be in Manchester on Tuesday. I'd caughts train from Grimsby to Doncaster, Doncaster to Leeds and Leeds to Hebden Bridge, which is where my mother currently dwells. It's always lovely to see Mum. We get on swimmingly, probably because I only see her once every two months or so. She's changed her hair colour again. It's brown now. Last time I saw her it was red, or was it pink, or orange? It's so hard to keep track. Mum took me for tea and cake - the most expensive cake I've ever eaten - which was spiffing. Caught another train to Manchester later in the day and got lost. Yes, lost. Really properly lost. Manchester looks different in the dark. I needed to be on Oxford Road but ended up somewhere in Chinatown - there were noodle bars everywhere, so I'm assuming it was Chinatown. I had to ask a scary bouncer outside a casino for directions and eventually found my way on to Oxford Road and made my way to the University.

Manchester University... oh dear God, the memories! It feels like so long ago now, a different lifetime almost. When I was at University, both times, I was properly miserable and depressed, so being back around these familiar buildings and student bars - mausoleums looming up at me in the dark - was a bit strange. All sorts of stuff comes flooding back into my memory, stuff I thought I'd forgotten, stuff I thought I'd permanently banished and erased from my memory. Horrible, seedy, sordid stuff, stuff I'm not proud of, stuff I regret, that I really won't go into now. Maybe I'll write a heavily disguised short story about it all one day.

I found the venue and politely declined to sell my ticket to a group of people stood outside. Hmm, I wonder how much they'd have been willing to pay me...? I wonder what lengths they'd have gone to...? I joined the back of a fairly long queue, which surprised me. I always forget their are other people out there that like The Divine Comedy. Usually it feels like just me. And the people queuing aren't old and ancient and grizzled either - there's a variety of age-groups and I can spot at least two different genders. Wow. We shuffle inside, one by one, and I forego the oppertunity to buy a T-shirt, which I really regret now. I've since ordered one online and I shall tell people that I bought it at the concert. The venue itself is okay. It's a room, with a stage... that's about all I can say. We have to stand. Bah. My poor feet. It's half-seven. I'm near the front. Hooray. The room gradually fills to capacity. It's crowded and hot and I'm feeling a bit claustrophobic. I've nothing else to do so I stare at the crowd. Lots of very good-looking, well-dressed people. I swear people are more good-looking in Manchester. The person stood in front of me was gorgeous; a perfect distillation of human evolution. I spent half an hour fantasising...

Anyways, ahem, where was I? At eight o'clock we get half an hour of warm-up - a woman with a guitar and I believe Neil Hannon's current love interest. She's okay. She plays for half an hour and then we have to wait a further half an hour for Neil himself to appear. And he appears alone, like the last time I saw him, a one-man show, with just a piano, a guitar and a microphone. It would appear that the days of a full orchestra backing him up are dead and gone. But I like the new set up. It feels intimate, and thank God, Neil is on fine form and treats me to, honestly, one of the best nights of my life. Amazing. If I had a TARDIS I would go back in time and relive it.

And he's so funny too - he frequently rendered the audience in hysterics throughout the evening with his droll, deadpan Irish wit. I think it's something about the voice, and I don't just mean when he's singing. He began the evening by accidentally elbowing himself, and then pondering if "to elbow" is a verb or not. His voice has never sounded better, mangaging, somehow, to sound even stronger than it does on CD. He's on his own, just him, nothing to hide behind - no gimmicks or lightshow or trickery - and he's glorious. Nobody sings like Neil Hannon. His voice just... soars. Rant alert, but it really depresses me that he's so underappreciated and underrated in today's current "musical" climate. which, to quote Bill Bailey, "features more evil than an Al-Queda suggestion box". It would seem that today people would rather hear rappers bragging about how they like to beat their girlfriend or whingy mopey insipid manufactured boybands complaining about nonsense than proper meaningful, witty, heartfelt, erudite lyrics. It truly depresses me. Most people dismiss The Divine Comedy as that cheesy band who did 'National Express' and 'Something for the Weekend' (nothing wrong with either, but they're far from my favourites) back in the 90s and were moderately successful for a short time... they have no idea. Incidentally, he didn't play either track.

Neil played lots of songs from his most recent album - the wonderful Bang Goes the Knighthood - and that's certainly no bad thing. We get his satirical take on the current economy with 'The Complete Banker' (a song about "greedy fuckers", his words), 'At the Indie Disco', a fluffy silly song that I didn't really like upon first listen back in May but now I love it, and loved it even more live. Its cheesy but also very catchy. We had to clap our hands and click our fingers in time - which, as a general rule, is something I wouldn't ordinarily do, having to uphold my reputation as a melancholic curmudgeon - but all my inhibitions went out of the window and I joined in like a normal fun-loving human being, like your average lunatic. He performed 'I Like', which I like, 'Assume the Perpendicular' ('Ben's impressed by the Buttresses thrust up the Chapel nave' - never has architecture sounded so smutty), 'The Lost Art of Conversation' (good lyrics) and the very silly 'Can You Stand Upon One Leg?', which saw him hold onto that final note for dear life, managing to draw it out for well over thirty seconds and also required a member of the audience to contribute a joke. 'How many mice does it take to change a lightbulb? Two. But the real question is - how did they get there in the first place?' Yeah, hilarious.

He performed plenty of material from his older albums too, which was awesome. Promenade is, and forever will be, my favourite album of all time, my desert island CD and a record I'm not ashamed to admit I paid over £30 for over 3 years ago (I wanted to own a physical copy), so I was very happy that we got a few tracks from that. We got 'Going Downhill Fast' (which is beautiful and joyous) and his magnum-opus 'Tonight We Fly', aka the single best song ever written, the song I want to be buried to. Hearing it live was... words cannot express, all the hairs stood up on the back of my neck. He also played, among many other fantastic songs, 'Absent Friends', 'Our Mutual Friend' (the best song of the last decade, heartachingly beautiful), 'A Lady of a Certain Age' (the second best song of the decade), 'Sweden' (bonkers and Broadway-ey), 'The Pop Singer's Fear of the Pollen Count' (very catchy and summery) and the divine 'Songs of Love' (a variation on the Father Ted theme tune). It would have been nice to hear 'Don't Look Down', 'Bad Ambassador', 'Count Grassi's Passage Over Piemount', 'To Die a Virgin', 'Sunrise', 'Down in the Street Below', 'Europop', 'The Dogs and the Horses' and of course 'My Lovely Horse', but you can't have everything.

He also did a duet with his current love interest - 'I Only Have Eyes for You', which was lovely, treated us to a song from his new Swallows and Amazons musical and did a cover version of The Human League's 'Do You Want Me?', which was inspired and hilarious. He went all high-pitched and falsetto and desperate. You had to be there. The one downer on an otherwise flawless evening was having to leave during the encore to catch the last train home. I felt so rude pushing my way through the crowd as Neil belted out 'The Frog Princess', which called for the audience to imitate silly French accents.

On the train back to Grimsby in the wee small hours of Wednesday morning, I randomly listened to Divine Comedy songs on my iPad and realised that Neil Hannon is, pure and simple, a GENIUS. I had 9 albums, 1 Best Of, his Duckworth Lewis Method concept album about cricket (and I don't even like cricket), his two songs from the 2006 Doctor Who soundtrack 'Song for Ten' and 'Love Don't Roam', his 'So Long and Thanks for All the Fish' contribution to the 2005 Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy film (the best thing about the whole movie), his cover of No-One Knows, which, I think, controversially, is better than the original and a whole load of B-sides. That's well over 100 songs, and you know what, I pretty much love each and every one of them.

Boredom

I have not started this blog for creative purposes. I have no wish to express myself. I don't want to use this space as a forum for debate or to advocate some political point of view that I feel I can no longer suppress. I don't even like blogs. I have, my dear reader, set up this account out of sheer boredom. Nothing more nothing less.

Summer is upon us, which surely means that good times are upon us too. Summer is about strutting around the garden shirtless drinking ice-cold beer, right? It's about laying naked in hammocks reading chunky bestsellers whilst your entire body braises like some delicious steak and a lowly peasant massages suntan lotion into your back and fans you dutifully. It's about beaches and sunglasses and blue skies and ice cream. It's about It's about swimming pools and barbeques and iced tea and revealing outfits. Nope. Summer, for me, is the worst of the four seasons. The loser. The runt of the litter. Give me the rain and sleet and snowmen of winter anyday, or the rebirth of spring or the flurrying leaves of autumn... Summer, by contrast, is one three-month long sweaty haze. Going outside is a chore. The heat makes me nauseous and sick. It makes me want to insult random people in the street. It allows people to wear baseball caps and get away with it. My lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer are spent indoors, in the dark, with the curtains closed, aggressively muttering obscenities.

So, I've been thinking long and hard. How can I make these boiling days of torture more bearable? I was going to say pleasurable there, but hey, let's not run before we can walk. Bearable is a good place to start. I have no summer holiday to look forward to - well, not as such. I was offered the oppertunity to accompany my Mother's side of the family to France for 2 weeks. I know what you're thinking - why didn't you want to go to France you lunatic? Well, banish all images of crusty baguettes, snails and The Eiffel Tower... the French "holiday" upon which I was invited was to be spent in a Buddhist retreat. Now, I have nothing against any of that, but to me, the notion of being awoken at 6am by a loud ringing bell and spending the day doing chores, meditating or attending lectures in Vietnamese didn't sound like fun. Why not just invite me to go and hang out in the slums of some third world country and call that a holiday too? I politely declined.

But all things considered, I do want a holiday. Just not that holiday. A holiday that sounds, well, um, you know, like a holiday. All the people I know, which to be fair you could probably count on the fingers of one hand, would rather go abroad on holiday to a place that is even more hideously hot than it is here. No thank you. They want to go to places like Ibiza, where they'd sunbathe and dance and drink cocktails with sexually suggestive names and sleep with strangers. Not for me. So, I span my globe and decided that my holiday destination of choice would be - *drum roll please* - Cardiff. Yep, that's right. Cardiff. C - A - R - D - I - F - F. The capital of Wales. I know what you're thinking - Cardiff??? Why would you want to go to Cardiff? That Buddhist retreat sounds preferable to a few days in Cardiff! But I've always wanted to go. I like the Welsh accent (a lot) and the place is renowned for its perpetually torrential rain. It'd be perfect. Of course, nobody in their right mind would agree to go with me. I can't think of anyone I could ask who might say yes. I can't even think of anyone I could pay to come with me. So, unless you're reading this and thinking 'Wow, Cardiff, what a great idea! I'd LOVE to go!", I think I am destined to go alone. Still, I could stay in a cheap B&B, take some books... soul search, clear my head, use a false name. Who knows what might happen?

The other route to cautiously tip-toeing down is the world of work. Except I've submitted CVs until I'm blue as a Smurf's face. I had an interview for the local library, except I didn't put enough emphasis on the fact that you can now buy coffee at libraries, so apparently I wasn't what they were looking for. And I'm not yet well-qualified enough to get a job in a supermarket... still, gives me something to aspire towards. So my Mother suggests on a twice-weekly basis that I should do some voluntary work; give something back to the community, not that I feel I owe them anything, mind. I was thinking the Samaritans, maybe? Problem there is that I'll get somebody desperately suicidal ring up, I'm bound to say the wrong thing and then I'll end up with a dead body on my conscience. Mum says it'll make me feel good about myself, but if I end up feeling responsible for a death then I'm not convinced I would feel good about myself at all.

Idea Number Three - Read. Read lots. Read books, lots of books, long books, short books, old books, new books, books with pictures, books without, hardbacks, paperbacks, bestsellers, classics... can anybody recommend any of the following? I've got a teetering pile of books on my bedroom cabinet: The Plot Against America (Philip Roth), 1984 and Animal Farm (George Orwell), Fremder (Russell Hoban), The Corrections (Jonathan Franzen), Bonfire of the Vanities (Tom Woolf), The Catcher in the Rye (J D Salinger), Brick Lane (Monica Ali), Life of Pi (Yann Martel), The Time Traveller's Wife (Audrey Niffenegger), A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens), Rebecca (Daphne Du Maurier), Tess of the D'Ubervilles (Thomas Hardy), Lunar Park (Bret Easton Ellis), The Wasp Factory (Iain Banks), The Line of Beauty (Alan Hollinghirst), Solar (Ian McEwan), The Accidental (Ali Smith), The Dark Tower (Stephen King), The Sea (John Banville), The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde) and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (Haruki Murakami). And breathe! Plenty to get on with there, books of all varieties there. And books alleviate boredom, right? Right?

Other potential ideas include drink more - you can't be bored if you're drunk. You can get headaches, you can vomit and you can become overly sentimental, but I defy anybody to equate drunkenness to boredom. I could kill myself of course... problem solved in the blink of an eye. I could sleep more. You can't be bored if you're asleep. Unless of course you dream about being bored. I could devote these long, sticky days to exercise; time well spent. Turn my keg into a six-pack, or at least a four-pack. And I've got my dog's 4th birthday party approaching at the end of the month; that'll take planning. Scary how quickly they grow up.

Right, off now to stare blankly into space for a bit.

Byyyeeeee!!!