Bird (2024)

 En särskilt sorts energi. Så skulle jag karaktärisera Andrea Arnolds filmer. Och en särskild sorts blick för skönheten i det solkiga, skönheten i det slitna, skönheten i allt som finns att se för den som har blick för det. Fish Tank var en underbar film, med några skavanker. Den tidiga Red Road var ett slags stilprov som övertygade. Wuthering Heights var en originell romanfilmatisering som tog ut svängarna på ett föredömligt sätt. American Honey har jag tänkt se men av någon anledning har det inte blivit av. Cow-dokumentären spelar sen i sin egen klass. En omisskännlig Andrea Arnold-film, men i kornas värld. Kort sagt är Arnold en regissör som etablerat en stil, filmvärldar som växlar men som man ändå känner igen.

Jag såg Bird i en nästan tom biosalong och var långt ifrån övertygad. Men för att börja med det som är bra: Arnolds känsla för miljöer. Den här berättelsen utspelar sig i Kent i södra England och filmen tar oss med till sjaskiga hus, gatuvimmel, ängsmark som skälver av naturens livsformer och kustens bedagade semesteridyll. Ett sätt att tolka filmen är att den handlar just om skönhet, att hoppet om framtiden kan bestå i öppenhet för det vackra i tillvaron. Huvudpersonen heter Bailey och är 12 år. Hon/hen lever i ett slags squat-hus med sin mycket unga farsa och en bror som hänger med sitt gäng (de kallar sig vigilantes). Bailey är förbannad på sin hopplösa pappa som ska gifta sig och hennes bror vill inte låta henne vara en del av den egna kretsen. På egen hand ägnar sig Bailey åt att iaktta sin omgivning. Ser fjärilarna, husen, vinden i träden, skatorna och måsarna. Och genom Baileys mobilkamera blir en helt vanlig mås något att stanna upp för, att förundras över. Livet runt omkring är hektiskt, pappan stojar med sina killkompisar och mamman bor med våldsam partner och befinner sig i rusets avdomnade tillstånd. Att kunna urskilja alltings skönhet verkar för Bailey vara ett sätt att hitta något eget i det här kaoset, i fattigdomen och i en situation som inbegriper ett tungt ansvar som föräldrarna flyr. 

Ja och mobilen, den är central. I den centreras försöken att fånga skönhet, men även att både fånga och hantera det hotfulla; Bailey tar flera gånger fram mobilen för att samla bevis, för att i en skrämmande situation markera att någon ser. Mobilen som vapen, instrument, tröst, sinnlighet. 

Men sen torpederas en fin utgångspunkt genom att Andrea Arnold låter skönhet urvattnas till kitsch. Det är som att filmens egen uppmärksamhet fallerar, omdömet kraschar och vi serveras ett mischmasch av indiefilmens skiraste ögonblick, de där svajiga sångnumren som varenda film ska innehålla, övergångsriterna som förutsägbart markeras och sedan scener som ska vara magiska. Ansatsen att göra oss delaktiga i Bailey värld, hennes fantasier och hopp, kollras bort genom ett klumpigt filmspråk och en grumlig idé om vad filmen ska säga oss. Jag tänkte (förutom på Kes, uppenbart) på likheterna med Sean Bakers Florida Project, men där är visionen tydligare, fantasin ses med en klarare regissörsblick. Och Baker höll sig den gången på avstånd från den misärporr som Arnold ändå lite-lite-lite ramlar in i. 

En sak är ändå klar: Nykiya Adams är briljant som Bailey: nästan-tonåringens värld förmedlas genom skådespeleriet. Också den unga och såsiga, men välmenande, pappan Bug spelas trovärdigt och känsligt av Barry Keoghan. Franz Rogowski är en av mina favoritskådespelare (som i Die grosse Freiheit och In die Gängen) men här är hans roll så tunn att det är svårt att bedöma prestationen. För grejen, och spänningen som hela filmen slits sönder av, är att vi befinner oss inne i Baileys fantasilandskap, i hennes drömmar och rädslor, men utan att filmen ändå kör detta hela vägen ut. Istället bankar den oss i skallen med redan slitna bilder och metaforer. 

Och musiken. Visst: Andrea Arnold är en mästare på att blanda stillsamma scener, nästan tysta, med dundrande Sleaford Mods och andra slagdängor som är både diegetiskt och icke-diegetiskt närvarande. Burials score är rätt ackompanjemang till det skumpande fotoarbetet som inger en känsla av att vad som helst kan hända. Men det blir för mycket och för slappt. Lite roligt är det med pappan och hans införskaffade padda som enligt hörsägen ska utsöndra ett sekret med hallucinogena effekter när den hör rätt sorts musik. Kanske är det evergreen-plågor i stil med Coldplays “Yellow” som den reagerar på? Käbblet om vad som är bra eller dålig musik löper på ett kul sätt genom filmen. Då Bailey hör att Bug ska gå och gifta sig med sin nya fling: okej och så kommer hon hit och vill säkert lyssna på Harry Styles! Filmen både börjar och slutar med en familjefärd uppå elsparkcykeln. Den ena gången hör vi Fontaine DC:s "Too real", den andra Verves "Lucky Man". Där Burials soundtrack har potential att skapa värld och substans, gör de här utflykterna i den brittiska breda fårans lad-musik det mera troligt att vi hamnat in i regissören Andrea Arnolds lite pinsamma nostalgisfärer, snarare än att vi uppehåller oss i Bugs och Baileys struliga verklighet.

Hard Truths (2024)

Why are you so angry?
I don't know!

You all hate me.
I don't hate you, but I don't always understand you.

Det här är ett par ordväxlingar i Mike Leighs film Hard Truths. Som nästan ingen annan har denna regissör en förmåga att beskriva människors inställning till livet och hur de bryts med varandra. Och med inställning till livet menar jag något grundläggande, ett sätt att närma sig världen, förhålla sig till andra och sig själv. Som exempelvis Poppy i Happy-go-lucky, som provocerar andra genom hur hon tar sig an världen med ett snett leende och olika små upptåg. Ibland kan andra ha en klarare blick för denna grundstämning, hur den präglar en människa, var den ställer henne. Som i Naked, med den nästan Raskolnikov-liknande unga mannen. Men att leva är att möta. Hopp, förtvivlan, cynism, osäkerhet, glädje, om de här sakerna handlar Leighs filmer, och ofta tar han hjälp av kontraster och kanske till och med karikatyrer för att få oss att få syn på existentiella grunddrag. 

En av mina egna favoriter bland Leights filmer är High Hopes från 1988. Här lyckas Leigh med sitt kännemärke, att visa hur människor i olika situationer blottar hur de ser på livet och vilka konsekvenser det får för hur de är tillsammans med andra. Det jag älskade med den filmen var också humorn, att genom dråpliga porträtt, ja en viss slags överdrifter, måla upp en existentiell situation. Och genomgående: den situationen är också förankrad i klass. Men Leighs grepp är helt annorlunda än, säg, en Ken Loach (som han ofta jämförs med). Där Loach har en dragning till det didaktiska och uppbyggliga är Leigh mer ute efter att skildra livets skiftningar och den förändring, eller brist på densamma, som människor genomgår. Just det här, förändringen, är ett grundtema. En av titlarna på hans filmer markerar det, Another Year (2010). Ett annat år är osvikligen ett annat, oberoende av i hur upptrampade spår folk rör sig.    

Hard Truths är en otroligt Leighsk titel i en otroligt Leighsk film. Och det är positivt. Tycker jag. Chantelle (Michele Austin) är den som öppnar ordväxlingen jag började med. Varför är du så arg? Systern Pansy (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) som är hemmafru har en ilska i sig som yttrar sig i allt. I hennes ansikte, i hennes gester, i hennes sätt att stå och sitta. Och i de vredgade slängar hon riktar mot allt som rör sig, familj och främlingar, påkallat men mest opåkallat. Damen är ett vandrande åskmoln. Det är frenesi, obegriplighet, bacillskräck och hypokondri. Men, och det är viktigt, utan att psykologisera desto mera ger hon också uttryck för sorg, en uppgivenhet som tar sig uttryck som att sparka bakut och ha taggarna utåt. Men sårbarheten finns där. Mest skit får mannen Curtely (David Webber) ta. Han flyr undan, är tyst, tittar ut i ingenting med menande min. Curtley är rörmokare och när vi ser honom på jobbet är det som att något lättat, han kan andas. Sonen Moses (Tuwaine Barrett) bor hemma och verkar ha flytt in i något slags uppgiven sysslolöshet. 

Pansys raseri skildras med Leighs vanliga blandning av bitande humor och markkänning. Marianne Jean-Baptiste gör ett suveränt jobb med att i sitt sätt att vara uppvisa subtilt olikartade lägen, också hos en människa som ter sig så nattsvart. En del kritiker har klagat på att filmen är för statisk och att det blir oklart om det finns någon lösning. Men där är väl just the hard truth som Leigh ställer oss inför. Poängen är inte att ge modeller för hur en arg människa skulle kunna bli lite nöjd med livet. Istället är det tuffa som tittaren ställs inför att i sig själv rannsaka hur man förhåller sig till människor som är som Pansy, eller om man rent av har något av det i sig själv. The hard truth: livet pågår och fortsätter (tills det inte gör det längre). 

Hard Truth är också kontrasternas film, just så där som vi har vant oss med hos Leigh, i filmer som Career Girls (1997) och Secrets & Lies (1996). Både Jean-Baptiste och Austin spelar i den senare, i helt annorlunda roller. När vi dimper ner i Chantelles familj, i hennes lättsamma umgänge med de vuxna döttrarna (Ani Nelson, Sophia Brown) är det svårt att tränga undan tanken att den lyckliga lever i en annan värld än den olyckliga. Leigh gläntar på dörren till beskrivningar av syskonen Chantelles och Pansys förflutna, men låter bli att förvandla detta till något slags övergripande förklaring om varför de är som de är. Deras bakgrund i den karibiska kulturen är också något vi förstår, men den behandlas inte direkt. För grejen är att Chantelle inte kan begripa sig på sin syster fast hon levt med henne hela livet, varför är hon så förbannad, varför verkar hon vägra se att livet kan vara bra och att det till och med kan finnas stunder för dumma skämt och small-talk. 

Att filmen i långa sjok inte alls kretsar kring Pansy är därför uppfriskande. Vi får se Chantelle jobba i sin frissasalong och också hennes döttrar sliter med motgångar på sina jobb. Men för dem är sådant hanterbart, livet går vidare och det går att fnittra bort en stund med ett glas prosecco och så kan man ta nya tag. 

Hard Truth är räknat till antalet minuter en kort film. Däremot låter den scener ta tid på sig. I en del sekvenser ser vi någon av karaktärerna göra ingenting annat än att sitta på en stol och titta. Men detta ramas in så att det ändå innehåller sånt som är betydelsebärande. Den hypokondriska och allround-nojiga Pansy har filmen igenom skällt på Curtly för att han dräller ute på bakgården bland fågelspillning och otäckheter. Filmen tycks utspela sig i slutet av corona-pandemin och för Pansy är "ute" inte bara farliga virus utan allt möjligt som kryper och lurpassar. 

Efter en omvälvande morsdagsmiddag hos Chantelle ser vi Pansy öppna balkongdörren. Man känner nästan hur luften strömmar, hur den kommer med yttervärld & liv. En sådan liten sak – i Leighs film blir detta ett avgörande ögonblick. Kanske inte för att något egentligen förändrades, men för att något slags möjlighet vädrades.

Det bör nämnas att allt detta också är ett resultat av Dick Popes stillsamma fotoarbete och Gary Yershons musik som ett par gånger hörs, som en inramning. 

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1964)

Tony Richardson made the brilliant A taste of honey, one of the best films about growing up I know of. It’s head-spinning in its bitter-sweet depiction of family tensions and rejection of stupid social mores. The Distance of a Long Distance Runner is almost equally good and in a similar way, it is a splendid film about being young, about not ‘maturing’ in a conventional sense – the main character resists the tiredness and facileness of adult life. Basically, this is about creating one’s own space, a space of freedom.

Colin (chilly acting by Tom Courtenay) ends up in a reform school after having robbed a bakery. He is from a working-class family, and his father has just died. His mother is a cold woman, but also a sad, fumbling creature. The reform school does its utmost to live up to the ideas of the Empire; the boys are to become docile, hard-working, healthy men. Some of the teachers are bullies. The teacher of physical education has decided that Colin is a promising long-distance runner and sets out to make him a star runner who wins the important race with another school. Colin is skeptical, but it turns out that long-distance running is a space of freedom, so he seems to submit to that suggested path. He meets some friends in the school, and also with these friends, he finds a loophole. They go out to town, and meet girls. The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner is for the most part a bleak film about adult alienation from joy and a sense of being alive. But Colin's running bears the promise of another life, close to nature, where he does not need to succumb to the shady ideals of the British Empire. The small circle of friends and its youthful play is filmed with a similar ease; the characters are allowed a small break, and all of them are well aware that it is only a very limited space of freedom. This mini-zone is starkly contrasted by the school's order and joyless routines - in one prominent scene, we see dutiful and not so dutiful boys howling 'Jerusalem'. A problem with the film is that it never settles where it seeks to be in the territory in which realism borders parody. Nonetheless, Richardson does a good job in describing a person who does not want to fit in, or win, for that matter. One could say that this film is about class hatred. The school system it depicts seems to be about creating perfectly obedient citizens and workers. The future looms ahead full of worry and angst. The answer seems to be a little private sphere that one can save for oneself, untouched by a society of dignity and hard work.

Not only does this film have some good acting and lots of good lines (it is based on short story) - the cinematography marks the shift from the drably modernist school to the lonesome runner's contact with nature.

Color me Kubrick (2005)

A film about bad impersonaters of famous directors sounds like a lousy meta-movie. Color me Kubrick is intentionally lousy, a farcical film about a guy who says he is Stanley Kubrik, the director of 2001, A Clockwork Orange and Judgement at Nurenberg. John Malcovich is of course a good choice for this kind of role - Malkovich is good at dry, dead-serious people with blank faces. Color me Kubrick is absolutely no cinematic masterpiece, but it is quite funny to watch how the rather drab story about a guy who tries to fool people gradually turns into a carnival of, well, very, very bad acting. Malkovich's con artist is savvy and outlandish and tries to impress everyone from tough guys to big shots in the entertainment business. It is this savviness that rescues this otherwise quite, quite shaky affair.

London River (2009)

I sat down on my sofa and grumpily expected to sit through a tedious and sentimental TV-drama about terrorism.
I was wrong!
London River, directed by Rachid Bouchareb, is a moving chronicle of a friendship between two people united by grief and worry. The storytelling is low-key, almost without melodrama, and plenty of space is given to exploring different parts of London. The film really excels in presenting a wobbly and extremely precarious relationship between two people.
The film follows the aftermath of the London suicide bombings. A man and a woman are worried about their children with whom they try to reach contact to check whether everything is OK. A widow from Guernsey comes to London to search for her daughter. She meets a man from Mali who is looking for his son and they end up investigating what has happened as a joint quest.
This film could have become a really schmaltzy affair about an encounter between 'cultures'.
But I am a bit ashamed for worrying so much about that. The film explores conceptions about cultures, it explores racism and stereotypes - in a subtle, humane and critical way. There is no preachy Message. London River examines how a tragic event disrupts people's life. That a tragedy may bring people together is here not a cliche, but rather a difficult realization that matures during the film as an insight for the characters.
The suicide bombings is treated as a human catastrophe with consequences for an entire city. But the tone of the film is not political - Bouchared sticks to the inter-personal. I find this less to be some sort of statement than a very fruitful dramatic point of view for exploring not only the evolving relationship between strangers from different backgrounds but also the relationship between parents and children. London River is a sad, but not gloomy, film that puts its hopes on the changes that new encounters present us with.
Superb acting from Brenda Blethyn (famous for her role in several Mike Leigh films) and Sotiguy Kouyaté.

Still life (2013)

John is a civial servants whose job it is to track down the relatives of recently deceased people. In his job, he learns about loneliness. People who have been so lonely that there are nobody who attend their funerals. John - played gracefully by Eddie Marsan - is a lonely guy himself. He has no family, no friends. His bosses thinks that he is doing an unnecessary job, but he is engaged in what he does, in finding family members of the dead. His way of going about his often rather dreary and sad business exudes a sense of vocation. John is made redundant, and is allowed to solve one last case. He goes on a journey which is dangerously close to drowning the film in sugarcoated resolutions. But these clichés are warded off. Uberto Pasolini's Still life may not be a masterpiece, but is is a haunting portrait of loneliness and unexpected encounters between people. The pure, unhurried style of the film serves the material well. It turns out that Pasolini also directed The Full Monty. Rugged realism may connect the two films, but in every other way, they are miles apart.

High hopes (1988)

What does it mean to 'do something'? High hopes is one of the most heart-wrenching takes on political consciousness I have ever seen. Political consciousness? How can that be hear-wrenching at all? Well, in Mike Leigh's hands, this tale about class society and its psychological tensions is rendered into a soul-searching odyssey. What is more: Leigh's film manages to be existentially penetrating and damn funny at the same time. I have a difficulty in putting into words how much this film moved me: something about its perspective on the two leading characters - a rather lazy thirty-something couple - trying to come to terms with their lives and society just hit a chord.

Cyril and Shirley: two people trying to figure things out. Should they have a child? But most acutely: what to do with Cyril's old, apathetic mother? This couple live in a dingy flat. They clearly love each other - the tenderness between them is moving (how unusual such tenderness is in films!). He's a motorcycle messenger. His sister, however, lives in a posh part of town with a bratty husband (he sells cars and has sleazy affairs). The two couples are very different, of course, and High hopes gears into high comedy when their realities clash. Cyril and Shirley are rather dreamy types who enjoy a cozy life at home. But then - the mother. She lives in a council flat and well, there's her neighbors, an outrageous yuppie couple. These neighbors are surely caricatures in the film, but in some way, that really works fine: the serious and reflective tone of some of the scenes nudge against a much loonier, crazier tone that brings out the absurdity of the seemingly ordinary and mundane.

The question being asked is often: how can we live in this society? Cyril and Shirley are people who are feeling a bit bad for not doing enough, not being active enough. Cyril makes fun of their friend's feminist-socialist speeches. She angrily retorts: so what do you do? He quietly blurt out: I sit on my arse [as a matter of fact, even thinking about this scene brings tears to my eyes]. In another scene - a sweet moment - we see Cyril bemoaning the state of the country standing before Karl Marx' grave. Then a group of buoyant Japanese tourists enter the scene and the serene spell is broken. What makes this film so good is that it is not pessimistic. Leigh does not set out to scorn a class of bohemian leftists who are too lazy to really care, nor does he set out to scorn the naivety of the well-to-do people who care more about creating the perfect flat than they care about society. The film focuses on lots and lots of dissonance and despair - but it also deals with people who care about each other and who cannot help caring, even though they perhaps would not like to. It also takes a look at people who like not to care - the posh people living next door to the mother - but who end up confronting these horrible poor people anyway.

This theme - confrontation as encounters - is brought to the fore from the very start. A young and inexperienced country boy arrives in London. He bumps into Cyril and Shirley. They try to help him finding his way, and end up taking him in for the night. They are hesitant about inviting the youngster to stay, but somehow that's the only thing they can do.

High hopes is not only good because of its dialogue and its acting. Let's not forget the way Leigh fills gray London with life: the shabby row houses and the dreary window-views are mediated with a loving eye. Then there's the satirical edge that works magic also with clothing and interior design. Simply: Mike Leigh also gets the details right for the mood of the film.

Theeb (2014)

While watching Theeb, I couldn't help thinking of Lawrence of Arabia: the gleaming and dizzying images of the endlessness of the desert. Visually, Naji Abu Nowar's Theeb is a remarkable film. As for the story - I wasn't entirely convinced by this coming-of-age story about a Bedouin boy during WWI who goes out on a risky adventure in the desert. The central tension of the story is the young kid's enchantment with a British man who visits the camp he and his family live in. But this tension is soon lost: the film lapses into a rather conventional action mode where the viewer's attention is grabbed by an insistent will-he-survive. While the first few scenes of the film worked very well (establishing a form of life) the middle part about a boy growing into manhood crept forward rather predictably. However, one thing it did very well was to convey historical upheavals indirectly. There is the fall of the Ottoman empire, technical revolution and globalization, all of which figures in the film through the child's eyes. Even though Theeb has an interesting undercurrent - a pacifistic one even? - somehow, its presentation of innocence and struggle failed to engage me at depth. "The strong eat the weak" is delivered as a universal truth about what human life essentially is.

Under the Skin (2013)

Elusive. This is the description that best fits Jonathan Glazer's stunningly beautiful, at the same time stunningly ugly, Under the skin. A dry explication of the story would make most people squirm. The magic does certainly not happen in the story (that the film is loosely based on a novel is interesting, but a novel need not glow because of its story, either). This is a film entirely structured according to the associative logic of images. Scarlett Johansen's alien predator patrols the streets of Glasgow (is it Glasgow?); she's hunting for guys to ... well .... drag into a pitch-black romm - an eating-machine! Johansen, using her body as bait, lures them with her with her anonymous, steely gaze. They go with her in her van, sometimes reluctantly. An unknown figure seems to be stalking her on a bicycle.

The strangeness is enhanced by extremely absurd and stylized scenes being interwoven with ultra-gritty shots of rain-soaked streets and brightly lit malls. There is no safe distance between these two styles, the dreamy and otherworldly & the social-realist grit: everything is seamlessly sucked into the film's wandering gaze. (Many have talked about a Hollywood star plopped into the humdrum settings of pedestrian people. I am not too interested in that angle.)

I watched Nicholas Roeg's The Man Who Fell to Earth a few weeks before Under the Skin. The two films share a number of thematic and visual features. Both films' take on alienation works with humor in a way that makes the underlying sadness all the more present. Why sadness? Both Bowie and Johansen are detached from human emotions. They observe, and react according to some mechanical pattern. In a scene that drops all the satire and humor, we see Johansen's alien by the shore. She watches an accident. Or does she watch? What would watching mean for this creature?

An extremely weighty dimension of this film is the sound. The music (by Mica Levi): a throbbing, pulse-like score. Worrying dissonance, threatening tones.

Under the skin: in no other film has sex looked so abstract, a boring-beyond-boring activity to trudge through.

Shame (2011)

In Steve McQueen's films, suffering, human tormenting, is perceived from a clinical point of view - the clinical not preventing the films from working their way through graphical details. - - From this description, it is probably quite clear that I find McQueens cinematic approach deeply problematic, and perhaps even morally shady. One coud perhaps say that his films evoke a neutralized concept of empathy, empathy being reduced to a dissective process of understanding and observing other people's minds - rather than understanding having moral connotations, and being enmeshed in complicated questions about responsibility: what does it mean to see/look/catch sight of something? It is as if such worries are sidestepped by McQueen's clinical camera. The point of the films I have seen seem to be a project of revelation: the dark patches of the human soul are to be penetrated. The ideal appears to be not to flinch, to stare directly at the suffering at hand.

A pair of siblings are the two major characters in Shame. The sister is a nerve-wreck of a person. She crashes in her brother's bachelor's pad - which he hates. He is addicted to sex and trying to hid his addiction. The films tracks his obsessions, along with his quest for normalcy, by focusing on his stormy and sexually tense relation with his sister. And well, then there's his sleazeball boss who is just as bad as he is - just as sociopathic. Along the way, we do indeed see these characters react to each other's difficulties and problems, but all of these reactions are fuelled with shame, humiliation or rancour. As a viewer I, too, react with shame and an uncomfortable feeling that I have seen something I shouldn't have - a feeling that, I assume, is precisely what McQueen is aiming for. To make the viewer complicit in the characters' humiliation. Even though the perspective of this film, what it is trying to do to you, is problematic, it must be admitted that McQueen knows how to compose detached, steely images. Michael Fassbender - who else - is the perfect match for the scary leading role.

The big problem with Shame is that it goes nowhere. It stares - blindly at the misery it has reduced the world to. 

The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)

I recently watched both The Man Who Fell to Earth, a cult movie by the eccentric director Nicolas Roeg (Walkabout, Don't Look Now) and Jonathan Glazer's hyped - and weird - Under the Skin. Without being derivative, the latter film unashamedly draws on Roeg's (infamous?) classic. Roeg is a master of composition: his images often have a painterly quality and there is often something very unnerving about them, even though you may not always be able to put your finger on what is so unsettling.

If you hear a summary of what happens in the film, you might be put off. An alien - David Bowie is the obvious choice! - comes to earth to get water for his desert-like planet and gets kind of stuck in the human form of life, the corporate world - and a relationship with a human. Hmmm, indeed. For all its silliness, and there is truly plenty of it, The Man Who Fell to Earth excesses in cinematically glorious eerie moments; Bowie's icily detached face is the perfect center of the film's strangeness. Bowie IS an alien. Roeg looks at the world, as he often does, from the point of view of alienation. Bowie's alien wanders around, makes business deals, hooks up - but nothing seem to matter much. After a while on planet earth, he slides into depression, drinking GT's and watching TV. The earth, of course, is represented as a spiritual desert. Roeg throws in a few references to ecological desaster and corporate corruption - the earth does not seem a particularly friendly place. The point, basically, seems to be that nobody is truly at home. Perhaps Roeg would not have neeeded extraterrestial excursions to bring home that message, but then again, this film's idiosyncratic use of 'aliens' sets up a peculiar mood. Pretty much everything of what's going on is shrouded in big mystery. This feeling of mystery is enhanced by Roeg's approach to images. These are not 'perspicuous representations', you know, the kind of broad presentations that traditionally takes you by the hand in a movie to make you familiar with the setting of the film. Here, instead, time and space are broken, ruptured by the use of fragments and cross-cutting. There are conspiracies and plotting - but the essential theme is the alien's alienated state, which illustrated through imagery left elusive enough to haunt one's imagination for a long time. 

Pride (2014)

Pride (dir. Matthew Warchus) has sometimes been dismissed as a lighthearted feel-good comedy, a sugar-coated crowdpleaser. To me, it was so much more than this. To be honest, I have seen very few movies that express political hope the way this film does. It is true that the story about solidarity is couched within some genre conventions, but these don't in any way compromise or displace the urgency of this film. In fact, I thought the use of genre, the use of comedy and feel-good formulae, worked in a similar way as in Little Miss Sunshine. In these two cases, the familiarity of certain plot developments stands against the backdrop of a ever-difficult questions about hope and love. When people call a film 'uplifting' I usually respond with unease, but here I have nothing against that label: these two movies are uplifting, but not in a bad way: these film don't make me feel uplifted in a fuzzy way so that it simultaneously sneaks in lots of questionable baggage.

Pride celebrates the alliance between gay activists and coal miners in the eighties. A coal strike was struggling to overthrow the thatcherite policies. A group of gay activists decide that they should take part in the miners' struggle. After all, the characters in the film argue, they have a lot in common: their resisitance has similar features.The gang - in which friction is not completely non-present - heads off to Wales, where they meet their miners' and their families. In one sense the ensuing story chronicles the awkward encounter between urban and rural, but at the same time, the film shows the instability of these categories, and the ways encounters are much too unruly than we would expect in our gloomy preconceived ideas about differences and 'different interests'. What I liked best is perhaps how the film shows that this unruliness is something hopeful. A very limited part of the film's funny moments center around the clash between macho hicks and streetsmart gays. When we see such clashs, the aim is to reveal not the clash itself (haha, hicks and gays!!) but rather, the fragilities, secrets and hostilities at hand. Often, we see situations in which that type of clash never appears, and how people deal with this, to them, surprising openness.

One of the threads is the story about Gethin, who has left his homophobic village a long time ago. The film follows the struggle he goes through upon returning to Wales, and making an effort to talk to his family again. Small things matter. In one scene, the head of the committee in the village supported by the activists makes a phonecall and expects to talk to Gethin's boyfriend. But when she hears that she is talking to Gethin, she gently wishes him merry Christmas in Welsch.

I particularly appreciated the way the gender divisions both within the queer movement and the miners' community was dealt with. Perhaps the really good descriptions are of the wives of the miners, and the way they have formed a crucial part of the political struggle, while still being in a way subjected to a role in the shadows. The scenes in which the ladies from Wales head off to London to celebrate are marvellously moving in bringing out a sense of rebellion and freedom - but not freedom here described as 'the freedom of the city against the freedom of the narrow-minded village' but rather freedom as a celebration of life. Strangely, I come to think of the Ealing comedy Whisky Galore! (1949) and its representation of community, mischief and resistance.

Some reviewers have suggested that Pride is a nostalgic yearning for a time where things were more black and white. I disagree quite strongly with this. For me, the film represents a moral possibility with us now more than ever. A possibility of solidarity beyond identity, of politics beyond identity politics. Pride does not turn a blind eye to the difficulties such solidarity meets: smugness, self-interested indifference or internal rivaries. But it also shows that things C A N be easy, and that holding on to the idea that things MUST be difficult is extremely dangerous.

Butterfly Kiss (1995)

Michael Winterbottom is an uneven director. Butterfly kiss is one of his better, stranger films. It's also his first one. A nihilistic tale about two people running amok. We are taken to some of the rawest landscapes of Britain: harsh winds, grayscales, motorways and filling stations. The people in the film fit the landscapes. It turns out Butterfly kiss is a grimmer, well - a lot grimmer - version of Thelma & Louise. Eunice is a tough 'un. She wanders from filling station to filling station, looking for a woman, a lover of old. She hooks up with Miriam, who runs away from home and basically dedicates her life to being loyal to Eunice, no matter what. The emphasis lies on 'no matter what'. Eunice turns out to be a killer. Miriam shakes off her nice-girl habitus and grows into Eunice's partner, which also means her partner in crime. Butterfly kiss is a troubling and troubled film about crazy love, love gone wrong. Miriam is insecure and clings to Eunice. Eunice is cruel and puts her to the test. Perhaps just for the fun of it.

Stylistically, the film offers a hash palette of colors and a merciless roadmovie among filling stations and diners. The characters speak with a heavy accent and what they say is not nice exactly. I didn't really warm to (ok warming to anything in this movie is maybe a misplaced description) the 'religious' theme: Eunice wants to be punished, but she goes on a killing spree without being punished. Butterfly kiss is a messy film but its rawness is convincing; the locations put you into a particular mood and the story of crazy adoration strikes a chord (even though I am not all too sure which one).

Jane Eyre (2011)

Cary Joji Fukunaga's adaptation of Jane Eyre is sombre, entertaining and sticks close to the material in the book. (I mean, in comparison with Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights this way of making film pales.) It's an adaptation that doesn't take risks: it does what we expect it to. There are the moors, the repressed feelings, the crazy lady in the attic and the strange love btw Jane Eyre and Rochester. What I really appreciated, however, was the casting. Mia Wasikowska, Michael Fassbender and Judi Dench are simply great choices for the roles of the three leading characters.

Mr. Turner (2014)

Making a film about an artist's work is a risky venture. The transformation of one form of art into another is a challenging task that requires distancing from clichés about what the making of art is like. Mr Turner, Mike Leigh's film about William Turner, does not manage to dodge these difficulties altogether. It sometimes falls into the trap of emulating Turner's paintings - and that emulation is bound to fail. Beyond that, Timothy Spall embodies the role of Turner in a nuanced and complex way that makes us look away from the usual representations of the travail of the genius. Yes, there are a couple of scenes that capture Turner as the 'misunderstood artist' but many more sides of his person are explored as well, fortunately. What I will remember from this movie is not so much the scenes of the film - even though Mike Leigh's improvisational techique works as well here as elsewhere - as the bodily presence Timothy Spall conjures up. My own hunch is that it is very uncommon for male actors or male roles to have this kind of presence - and this of course is very revealing of our culture. (My counter-example would be Harvey Keitel who has had many untypical roles.) Spall's Turner grunts, shuffles around the room and gestures to signal his dissatisfaction. This bodily presence characterizes the role of art as well. Instead of art becoming a strange emanation from the genius's head, it is rendered into bodily exertion - daily craft, the embodied gaze, the ageing hand. The transcendent immenseness of Turner's painting is thus placed in a framework of human bodily frailty. This is what I mainly appreciated about Mr. Turner as a film.

One day (2011)

I find it important to watch all kinds of movies, old and contemporary films from various genres. So what about the romantic drama? One day is directed by Lone Sherfig who has made a few hit movies both in Denmark and abroad. The basic idea is to follow the lives of two people who met randomly in the late eighties and who had a fling going on, and later became friends. There is undoubtedly something touching in the set-up and I can't quite resist being drawn into the story about disappointment and evolving relationships. The film's episodic nature - it follows its characters during one day, year after year - is both a problem and a merit. What kept me interested in the story was how it dealt with change, and that different sides of growing older was taken account of. On the other hand, the pattern of the film, to focus on the events of this particular day, a day in July, felt a bit constructed and Sherfig seems to have been too eager to present a linear story. However, regardless of my complaints, I like how the film never really lapsed into a simple will-they-or-won't-they-become-lovers scenario. In a few scenes that turn out to exude a surprising sense of fragility, we see a good example of the relation between parents and their grown-up children. Moments like these save the film from becoming conventional.

The Trip (2010)

Steve Coogan and his pal Rob are commissioned to make a TV-series about fine dining restaurants in the northerns parts of the country. The TV show was a success and movie version, The Trip (dir. M. Winterbottom), is also delightful to watch. Before having watched any of these I feared that the viewer was supposed to accept an endless stream of male sentimentality, a British version of Sideways. My fears proved groundless. This film combines joyous moments of ABBA singing in the car with grumpy outbursts and anguished encounters. And then there are the silly imitations/impressions: touching, more than anything else. Very little is said about the food; it is the interpersonal friction, rather than the culinary judgments that occupy the central role here.

Edward II (1991)

Derek Jarman's Edward II is based on a play by Christopher Marlowe. In an exquisite blend of 14th century stripped-down theatrical sets and contemporary details, Jarman evokes a rather enchanting tale about power, love and royal scheming. (Some have compared Edward II's use of anachronisms with Fassbinder's The Niklashausen Journey.) The film is stagy in a very original sense that somehow never ends up being sterile. Distancing, yes, and many layers of distancing, but there is a sort of frenzy that these methods maintain. In one scene, Jarman even lets two lovers say their goodbyes as Annie Lennox croons a version of Everytime we say goodbye - and it works! Edward is the monarch hated by the court because of his lover Gaveston. Gaveston is beaten, exiled - and killed. Jarman uses operatic tools to get across the cruelty involved in this affair. Even though the film is an indictment of anti-gay resentment, it does not present the king as a cozy lover, nor is the lover a very fine person. Tilda Swinton is excellent as Edward's jealous and angered wife. She's involved with a sadistic military officer, Mortimer. Jarman brings out the darkness of this world of romances and plots. I don't know how this film with all its BIG EMOTIONS doesn't feel overwrought and melodramatic. It is as if Jarman never shies away from even the most dramatic exchange of words, and then he augments these exchanges with a visual expression that renders these moments even more - I don't know what else to call them - heartbreaking. The characters may be power-hungry and self-indulgent, but I still care. It wasn't so much Jarman's illustration of eternal power struggles and sinister hypocrisy that arrested me as I was captivated by the visual spell of the movie: its prisons, cavernous corridors and unnerving fashion.

Hunger (2008)

12 Years a Slave turned out not to be as convincing as the celebratory reviews made it seem. I reacted rather strongly against Steve McQueen's handling of the material and his strange preoccupation with bodily suffering. In that respect, Hunger is more of the same - more of the same problems, that is. Also here, I found what I would call an almost sadistic fascination with gore and suffering. I could understand such a preoccupation if I would get an impression of a real concern, a desire to reveal a specific side of suffering (like in Dreyer's Jeanne D'arc, to take an obvious example). The setting of Hunger is 1982 North Ireland, a prison and a hunger strike started by IRA men. In itself, this is a promising start. It's just that I feel that McQueen, despite a lengthy conversational scene in which a prisoner and a priest talk to each other about the utility of hunger strikes, does not succeed in bringing out the political context. Or: the political context does not seem to be the main preoccupation here. Perhaps my own lack of background knowledge inhibits my understanding of the film, but I think there's more to it. It's more that I really for my life do not see what kind of pespective on the prisoner's physical torment the film offers. We see the gruesome details of it, but the film keeps an icy distance: it lets us see, but I am not at all sure how I should look. The camera follows Bobby Sands' ordeals, and ultimately, his death, and it is a relentless trail - it is almost as if the hard determination of the prisoner and the guards is mirrored by the camera: it looks and looks. But determination for what? The prisoners' protest, they act, they are represented as disgruntled and resentful. There are merits of the film and those mainly have to do with the form. McQueen pares down the medium of film into a very economic language of images, sounds and very sparse dialogue. The question is, again, to what use McQueen's artistic skills are put. One reviewer writes: "Personally, I was even more impressed with McQueen's ability to wield silence like a painter instinctively aware of which portions of the canvas to leave blank." What worries me is whether Hunger in the end lands in a form of aesthetization where the violence is stylized so much that the only thing left is an isolated reaction in the viewer. In one long scene, as economical as anything else in the film, we see a guard swooping urine down a hallway. The only sound we here is the swooshing and scraping and the only thing we see is the guard approaching us from down the hallway. The scene is painterly, austere almost, but what does it tell us? In what position does it place us?

Wuthering heights (2011)

Andrea Arnold caught my attention by her almost-brilliant Fish tank, a vital, yet dark, story about youth and despair. Wuthering heights sticks to the same theme, and the vitality is there. But the films are still very different. When Arnold takes on Emily Bronté she does it sensuously, evoking place more than psychology - well, as a matter of fact, psychology is here reduced to a state of gruesome longing, the impossible love story and - you expected it - the wretchedness of the world. This longing is placed in an equally gruesome surrounding; there's wind, there's merciless earth and there's dirt. Rather than being an excuse for having the characters parade in nice costumes and prattle on about Romance, Arnold takes her Wuthering heights to a much more desolate place, a place that lodges no more that pain and a dizzy sense of attraction. The camera restlessly jumps and twitches, nearly never composing traditional images of faces or landscapes as a backdrop. Nothing is pretty. The characters crawl along Yorkshire moors or they sit glumly in dark corners. It's hard to describe how achingly beautiful these raw images of nature are, you must look for yourself.  Heathcliffe is rendered as a black man and racism appears as one aspect of the hostile world in which the two lovers grow up. Arnold focuses on these relationships, often violent (where the violence tends to have an ambiguous role) and obsessive, without sentimentality. The erotic currents of the story is emphasized but nothing is spelled out; this is a world in which there are BIG emotions but they are never pinned down. This is the strength of the movie - how emotions are rooted in the moor, the wind, the dirt, the crags, the ominous quip of birds, sudden sunlight. Heavy on atmosphere? Yes, but in an exhilarating way, a way that changes one's perception. Not many films do.

The last part of the film, in which the almost-siblings are grown-up, one of them married, turns out to be somewhat disappointing. The story churns and churns and nothing much is added. This is precisely the point, but it is hard to make something out of it as a viewer. In particular, I found the insertion of a song by Mumford and sons in the very end to be extremely ill-chosen. That song was a million miles from everything this movie stands for.