Richard Phillips's Blog, page 3

46) Freaking Out – Almost Literally – And Without The Use of Any Drugs – Other Than the Prescription Kind – at the Film Festival.

A funny thing happened on my way to see ‘Suffragette’ on the last day of the London Film Festival Press Previews. Or, if you’re anywhere near my age of thirty three and three-quarters  – I only celebrate birthdays biannually – a very scary one.

Walking from Piccadilly Tube station to the Odeon Leicester Square at  the absurdly uncivilised time to see a film of 9am, I stopped in at Starbucks, Coventry Street to buy my usual poison, a Decaff Skinny Mocha (size: Grandé, which, inexplicably, means medium in Starbuckese) to take with me into the cinema.  I duly ordered and paid for it (about two hundred quid I think)  and moved to the end of the counter to wait for the barista to work his magic.

As I settled down to wait, he called out, “Fanny!”(or some such), and a  girl stepped forward to pick up her Vanilla Gingerbread Flat White Frappé. Then a few seconds later, the barista shouted, “Fred” (possibly) and a chap collected his Triple Shot Soya Macchiato (Wet). As this was going on I was pondering the thorny problem of how my order would be recognised since the girl who served me hadn’t bothered to ask for my name.

And then came the funny, freaky, scary part.

“Richard” called the barista and put the cup into my instantly shaking hand. How on earth…? I looked at the side of the cup and sure enough there was my name. I wandered from the store dazed, confused and feeling more than a soupçon uneasy. There had to be an explanation, but what could it possibly be?

And as I walked into Leicester Square and from there into the cinema to take my seat for ‘Suffragette’, all the possibilities ran through my head. Although it wasn’t a branch of Starbucks I go to a lot  I have been before, so could the girl who served me have recognised me?  I thought back to what she looked like and I couldn’t really remember anything about her, apart from the fact that she was black - and  I wasn’t even sure about that. It had been such a perfunctory transaction. “Skinny Decaff Mocha Grande please.”‘That’ll be two thousand pounds.” And that was it. None of  the  cheery customer-to-counter-tottie badinage in which I am wont to indulge  when I have more time.

Or was that it? Could she have asked my name, and I had somehow forgotten? This was the most logical explanation but how could that be when  I had instantly registered the fact that other people were being called for by name when I hadn’t been asked for mine. Unless I had been asked. In which case……EEEEEEKKK!!!! I frequently forget things – keys, glasses, names, the usual – but this seemed right off the scale.

I tried to put it out of my mind as the film began. I put the cup into the space in the armrest they considerately provide at the Odeon Leicester Square (average ticket price for paying customers: life savings and change) and I turned my phone to silent, not just relying on the feel of the switch, but double checking to see  the  diagonal line  had crossed through the volume graphic on the screen. Then I put the phone in my jacket pocket, zipped it up, and settled down to watch the film.

Then came freaky moment number two. About half way through the film a phone went off. For fucks sake, I thought, how careless, how selfish. Can’t people remember to turn their sodding phones off ? It was playing an odd sing songy tune that I had never heard come from any phone and it just went on and on. People started to mutter. Heads began to turn. Didn’t blame them. It was bloody annoying.

And then the heads began to turn in my direction. “Nothing to do with  me” I mouthed and began to smugly cast around to see which of my neighbours was the guilty party. But on went the strange ringtone. On and on. And on. And then I noticed people from all sides were looking  at me and pointing.

“Not mine, definitely…not…mine…” I whispered again, but slightly less confidently. The horrible hot prickly sensation of shame and acute embarrassment began to creep up my neck and cheeks began to burn. But no…,. surely not….after all, hadn’t I?…… And then someone was pointing at my jacket folded up on the floor, a Uniqlo jacket, one of those fiendishly clever super-lite quilted ones that folds up into the size of a boiled sweet but are incredibly warm and made of some ingenious space-age material, and through the ingenious space-age material I could see a bright pulsing light.  Oh  shit! Shit, shit, shit!!!

I picked up the jacket, tore at the zip on my pocket which needless to say snagged on the ingenious space age material and seemed to take about a month to wrench free. At last I pulled  the phone out, the vile sing-songy ringtone now seeming louder to me than  if I’d been stuck in a phone box with Metallica doing an encore.

Desperately fumbling in the dark I finally managed to turn the infernal thing off completely, hanging my head in shame for about five minutes afterwards - completely pointlessly since no-one could see -  thereby very possibly missing a crucial plot point in the film. When the lights went up at the end I feebly held up my i-phone  to show those around me that the volume had been switched off all along, but the look in their eyes told me that I had been judged and found wanting. ‘A likely story’ was their silent, damning verdict.

I left the cinema reeling. First, the name thing, then the phone thing. After a lifetime of saying pah and phooey to any notion of the paranormal, I was now beginning to wonder if I had been wrong all along.  Perhaps there really were poltergeists and dybbuks and things that go bump in the night. My hitherto unshakeable, Dawkinsian belief in cold, earthly logic was being severely tested.

I had to resolve this. So I turned back  into the now empty cinema to search for my seat and retrieve my empty cup. Eventually I found it – actually not empty and the remains, after two hours, still surprisingly warm, so I got a bit of added value by taking another glug  - before  marching back into Starbucks. I found the girl who I thought might have served me, and asked her if she remembered me to which she answered firmly in the negative.  Then I showed her  my name on the side of the cup, and asked if that was her writing.

“Yes, definitely” she said.

“But you didn’t ask me my name.” I said.

Puzzled look  with overtones of pity for the confused elderly gentleman.

“How else would I have known it?”

How indeed?  I wandered out again,  and this time made for the Apple store. Angrily I told them the story of my humiliation in the cinema. I didn’t actually threaten to sue but that was probably only because I was too desperate for some kind of  explanation.  But they didn’t have one.

“Have you ever known such a thing to happen before?” I asked the Brazilian/Finnish/East Timorian super cool young Apple person who was attending to me. Sad shake of the head.

“What am I to do?”I wailed.

Sadder shake of the head.

“See if happens again” was the totally inadequate best he could offer.

Later that night, I told the whole sorry story to my daughter, Hannah,  who was unsuitably amused. She clearly had grave doubts as to whether I had really switched the phone off but she did have a possible explanation for the Starbucks conundrum.

“Perhaps she read it”, she said, pointing at the Film Festival Press Accreditation name tag still hanging around my neck.

I looked down at it. I was doubtful. Hadn’t it been covered up by my  super-lite Uniqlo quilted jacket? And wouldn’t the girl have mentioned that when I went back to ask?  On the other hand the first question I had asked was whether she recognised me, and she said she didn’t so maybe…..

I now had thee choices. 1.Believe in the possibility of this hole-filled explanation. 2. Go back into Starbucks the next day, when I would be in the vicinity again  to see more movies, and find the girl to ask her specifically if she remembered seeing my name on the tag. 3. Accept that either invisible gremlins in the ether, or frightening memory drop-out  could be the cause.

Being the obsessive worrier that I am, I actually chose no.2, but a part of me – most of me to be truthful – was relieved to find she wasn’t on duty. Because, in the absence of sworn testimony to the contrary, I could  cling on to the possibility, however small, that no.1, Hannah’s name tag explanation, was indeed the answer.

And that’s where I am right now. I’m just not ready to entertain the idea that it might be no.3 in any form whatsoever. Because if I were, I would have to accept that either all my past certainties were built on sand or that my future looks like it might be distinctly unpromising.

So, finally, back to ‘Suffragette’. Rather like  ’12 Years A Slave’, the festival favourite of a couple of years ago,  ‘Suffragette’ is an historical film. but one which deals with the hot topic of the day. In the case of ’12 years..’ it was white on black racism, for ‘Suffragette’ it is feminism. (Funny how the ‘isms’ in these words mean totally opposite things – negative in racism, positive in feminism. I wish somebody could explain that.)

Because of its subject matter and the position it took, I always thought that ’12 Years A Slave’ was allowed a lot more  ‘critical slack’ than most films and, though good, I thought it had flaws. (A year later ‘Selma’, another historical film about racism  which, for me,  was superior in every way, received far fewer plaudits and baubles. But that train had left the station. There was no  way a film about racism was going to win the Oscar for a second year running.)

Feminism is all the rage right now so this is the perfect time for ‘Suffragette’, and  all the ‘name’ critics seem to be falling over backwards to like it. However  I, as you will have guessed, semi-demur.

My gripes aren’t with the script which I think is pretty well done, but a) with the rather stagey, ‘Downton‘-like direction – although perhaps that’s slightly unfair in that British films set in that period are inevitably going to feel rather too familiar – and b) with my real bugbear, the casting.

Firstly, I just don’t buy Carey Mulligan, such an obviously middle class English girl, in the part of a working class laundry hand. The Cockney accent seemed completely forced to me. Then again, I never quite believe Carey Mulligan in anything. As my friend Jammie perspicaciously pointed out, it’s the Kiera Knightley thing. Just as you always know it’s Kiera playing the part so you always know it’s Carey. At least I do.   (Do you remember Lacey Turner, the Eastenders actress, playing the army paramedic in Afghanistan in the BBC series ‘Our Girl’ last year? Wouldn’t she have been perfect for this? Except of course that nobody in America has ever heard of her. I wonder if she, or somebody like her, was ever even vaguely, considered?)

My  second problem is the miscasting of Meryl Streep as Emmeline Pankhurst. Not only is her accent bizarre – I doubt even Professor Higgins would have the faintest idea where  she’s supposed to come from – but she is only on-screen for about five minutes. I’d love to know how much she cost.

I wouldn’t suggest that Carey Mulligan was chosen for the sole reason that she’s known in the States but it’s blindingly obvious  that Meryl Streep was. As brilliant as she usually is, she brings nothing particular to this film other than her box office appeal, and considerably more directorial sleight of hand is required to disguise the fact. It’s really  much too crude.

So three stars for ‘Suffragette’ from me. Good story, enjoyable and occasionally revealing, but the wrong casting. And I suspect that , though it is bound to pick up a mantelpiece of Baftas, ‘Suffragette’ will be quite quickly forgotten.

It certainly will be me, but, I frevently hope, not for the wrong reasons.

Picture of a movie star.

Picture of a movie star.

45) Musings on Malala

Odd coincidence – but then that’s the thing about coincidences, they’re always odd -  that having written my last post but one about the refugee/immigrant issue (no 43) and the last about the London Film Festival (44), the very next film I see at the festival should force my attention back to the refimmigrants.  

The gist of  my two penn’orth on their situation was that, though I’m reluctant to admit it, I do have misgivings, for a host of reasons, about the increasing Muslim population here. If you think that sounds disgustingly Faragist, which, I am embarrassed to say, it rather does, please take the trouble to read the piece I wrote before you condemn me out of hand.   I also said that once I started to put faces to the stats I could not help but wonder if my fears were justified.

After that , as I’ve said, I was on to the film festival and the largely uninspiring dross – with a couple of honourable excepttions - they were serving up during the first days of the press previews.

And then, no sooner had I posted that piece, than along came the odd coincidence – the screening of a documentary feature called ‘He Named me Malala’.

I  yield to no-one when it comes to stony hearted cynicism but even my tear ducts,  in dusty disuse for decades, showed definite signs of moistening. Malala Yousafzai is a marvel – staggeringly courageous, extraordinarily self possessed, hope for a better world personified. And as she is portrayed here, charming, personable, and, despite the worst efforts  of the maniacs of the Swat valley, seemingly invincible.

To  see her addressing the UN with such staggering composure, travelling the world to spread  the word that education  of girls is an Allah given right, and  even collecting the Nobel peace prize - as the youngest ever winner - for 2014 (having incredibly lost out in 2013 to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, whoever they are)  whilst at the same time trying to pass her GCSE’s, recover from her horrendous injuries and simply be a teenage girl, was truly awe inspiring.

There are some interesting sub-texts to this film, notably the part her father played in moulding her, and the unfathomable hostility  to her by some in Pakistan but, in the end, it is the simple fact that Malala is that overwhelms everything else. If this sounds like gushing hero(ine) worship, I make  no apologies. She is an absolute inspiration.

And she is also, of course, a Muslim.  I shall very definitely  have to put that in my pipe of prejudice and smoke it. 4 stars for the movie from me, and an incalculable number of stars for her.

‘He Named Me Malala’ is on at Thursday, Oct 8th at 6.15pm  at the NFT 1, on Friday 9th, at 2.30pm at the Odeon Leicester Square and at 6.30pm  on Sat 10th at the Rich Mix.  Strongly recommended - it’s the ultimate feel good movie.

Not much else that I’ve seen at the Festival has made me feel anything other than bored or tired.  One notable exception was a wonderful Danish film called ‘Land  of Mine’. This, in fictionalised form, tells the true story of how young German prisoners of war were used, at the end of World War II,  to clear the Danish beaches of the two million plus landmines that German soldiers had laid in the first place.  It is a meticulously made and utterly convincing film with a subtly nuanced script that cleverly shifts your sympathies around.

After watching the brilliant Danish TV series ‘1864′ on BBC4 a few weeks ago, about the Schleswig Holstein war, and having now seen this, I rather have the impression that there is a pint or two of historical bad blood between the Danes and the Germans and perhaps it’s not altogether impossible to understand. ‘Land of Mine’ however, is a film which though it starts off underlining the old enmities ends up by blurring the lines. On at the Mayfair at 6.30pm on Thursday 8th and the Vue 5 at 3.15pm on the 9th.

The first week  of the press screenings concluded with a French film called  ’21 Nights with Pattie’, about which I can only say  that, for me,  2 hours in the afternoon with Pattie was way too long, and a German film called ‘Die Nachtmahr.’ (I don’t speak German but even I managed to translate that.) This was about a teenage girl who apparently starts to imagine that a gruesome foetus like creature is tormenting her.  From where I sat, the gruesome foetus like creature was far and away the most appealing thing about this film.

Week two opened with  ‘Mountains May Depart’ a Chinese film which, someone told me afterwards was full of symbolism about the transition from communism to consumerism.  The only points of interest for me were that the female lead wore the same stripy sweater for several years - I kept wondering when she had time to wash it -  and that, at the end, we were taken into the future, supposedly to 2025. I’m always fascinated by visions of the future but this one didn’t quite measure up to ‘Metropolis’ or ‘Blade Runner’. The only thing that seemed to have changed was that people had see-through i-pads, which is not a lot to get excited about. At least the stripy sweater had been mothballed.

Then came ‘Blood of My Blood’ an Italian film that starts off being an historic piece about a girl who may have bewitched the hero’s twin brother into committing suicide and then morphs into a bizarre modern day attempted comedy. (At least, I think that was what happened, but I nodded off a few times.)

Finally, yesterday afternoon, having been so dispirited by most of the films I’d seen that I took a day off to go to Brighton to cavort in the Indian summer sun – much more fun -  I returned to the NFT to see a Czech film called ‘Lost in Munich’. This was a comedy about the betrayal of Czechoslovakia by France in 1938 and led to the invasion by the Nazis. A challenging subject for a comedy you might think but actually this turned out to be the pretext for something much more complex and really rather clever. Possibly. I have to add this qualification, because, once again, fatigue got the better of me and I only saw it intermittently. Whilst this suggests a failing in ‘Lost in Munich’ in that it wasn’t gripping enough to keep me awake, I do slightly regret that I didn’t see more. I might even swap my usual decaff  flat white for the real thing and try to see it again.

The best not-quite-a-freebie in town.

The best not-quite-a-freebie in town.

44) Mark Kermode, I’m not.

As you may know -  those of you, that is,  who were once glued to my radio show before I was summarily silenced by the station I had so faithfully served -  bitter? moi? - I claim to be the film critic who won’t give the game away. No plot spoilers from me. I am a firm believer that the best way to see a film is to see it cold, knowing as little about the story as possible, so that it is revealed to you exactly as the director and the writer intended.

I also make a point of not reading other reviews before I see a film, and of sticking my fingers in my ears and ululating should I stumble across one on the radio or television. My own reviews, on the other hand, can be safely read, without any risk of having the film ruined.  What a pity they are not available for me to read before I have written them.

My  reviewing method, in so far as I have one, is to try to give a feel and  a flavour of what a film might be like,  sometimes by comparing it others to which it bears a similarity. If all the fundamental plot points are given away in the first scene, then I might mention them, but otherwise I try to paint with the broadest brush I  can find.  And  although I offer an opinion of the movie’s merits,  sometimes a very strong opinion, I stress it is only an opinion. My  views are, as are those of all reviewers,  entirely subjective.  In  the end,  the only opinion that matters, dear cinema goer, or Netflix subscriber, is yours.

Which brings me to the first few days of the  London Film Festival. Or rather the press previews, since the Festival  does not officially open until  October 8th.

So far, I have attended nine screenings out of a possible twelve. I had to pay £40 for my press pass and I always aim to end up paying less than a quid a film, so that means I will have to see at least 41 this year. So far I’ve managed nine in four days, meaning the current average price is £4.44p. (Recurring.)

The first half- dozen films  – in the order I saw them were these.

‘Bang Gang’ (A Modern Love Story) is a directorial debut by Eva Husson, about the extra mural activities of  middle class French high school teens (from Biarritz according to the Film Festival notes.) ‘Bang Gang’ is strongly reminiscent of a vaguely notorious American film by Larry Clarke, called ‘Kids’. If you’ve seen that movie, you will know that these activities do not generally involve the wearing of clothes but do frequently feature the imbibing of various kinds of stimulants, not all of them legal.

Quite what the point of this film is I am not entirely sure in that it told us, forcefully and repeatedly, that, given the opportunity, young people are not averse to a cheap thrill of one kind or another. I don’t know about you, but I think I knew that already. What I didn’t know was that today’s young things are all so sexually self assured. Not for them, ’Bang Gang’ seems to suggest, any of the adolescent fumblings and  insecurities of  my generation. I have to say I found this just a little hard to believe.

At the end, there was a bit of heavy handed moralising  which didn’t improve things one bit.  If  you like a bit of eye candy ’Bang Gang’ certainly does have that saving grace but that’s about the only one. Two stars out of five at most. ’Bang Gang’ is the First Feature Competition. Don’t fancy its chances.

But I would take ‘Bang Gang’ over ‘The Club’ any day. ‘The Club’ is  a Chilean film  about the lives of a group of elderly men and one woman and one greyhound who live together in a bleak seaside town. Actually, I think I would take going to the dentist and having my teeth extracted without an anaesthetic over seeing  ‘The Club’. Not being a Catholic I didn’t identify  with its religious or anti-religious themes – I wasn’t sure which axe it was grinding - and I wasn’t overly enamoured  with the blow by blow descriptions of sexual depravity which feature heavily.   It was as depressing an experience as I think I have ever had in a cinema.

No stars at all, and unless you are feeling vaguely suicidal and looking for something to push you into taking the final plunge, I can think of no possible reason for going to see it.

‘Cronies’ is an American supposed comedy about three young men, two black and one white - a buddy movie of sorts I suppose -  who cruise the streets of an American city (if we are told which one, I’ve forgotten) in search of much the same things as the middle class kids in ’Bang Gang’ enjoy. There is prolific use of the N word and that is about all that has stuck in my mind.  It wasn’t unwatchable, but at £4.44 recurring I am not at all sure it  was  worth the entrance money. And even if I succeed in getting that down to  below a quid, I may not feel any different.

A grudging two stars.

Just when I was beginning to think that my forty quid had been money not at all well spent, along came ‘Virgin Mountain’, an Icelandic film built around the empty life of a morbidly obese middle aged  airport baggage handler whose greatest joy is to play wargames with toy tanks.  Doesn’t sound that promising when put like that, but it turns out that there is hope even for one whose six pack is so well concealed.

I thought  ‘Virgin Mountain’ was terrific, with a wonderfully moving performance by    Gunnar Jonsson  as the central character, Fusi,  and beautifully paced  story telling by the director  Dagur Kuri whose own  script   assiduously avoids the predictable and the sentimental. Definitely worth going to see when it is on at the Festival  which is at 8.45 on October 8th at the Richmix   and at the same time on the 10th at the ICA.  Don’t panic if you miss it, because  it might yet get picked up by a distributor and end up at your local art house cinema. Four stars.  

‘Madam Courage’ is an Algerian offering about a young drug-fuelled petty criminal who gets the hots for  a young girl  he has mugged and then starts to stalk her. Possibly had the ingredients to  be interesting but wasn’t.  I wouldn’t break your neck to see this. Two stars. (Seems to be my default score.)

‘The Here After’, which I think is Swedish – it’s not entirely clear from the programme notes - begins with John, a boy in his late teens, packing a suitcase and then hugging a  woman who turns out not to be his Mum but some sort of housemother in a secure institution from which he is about to be released.

Nothing else can be revealed about the story without ruining your appreciation of ‘The Here After’ because the genius of this film – and I thought it exceptional – is in the way it subtly explains what the reason for the boy’s incarceration was, how the continuing impact of that affects him after his release, and how it will continue to mark him for the rest of his life. It reminds us that some things, once done, can never be undone.

Lots of very convincing performances particularly by the brilliant  Ulrik Munther  - who I am amazed to have just discovered on Google is a Swedish pop-star - as John.

‘The Here After’, written and directed by Magnus Von Horn,  is also in the First Feature competition and if I were a judge – fat chance –  it would, I am sure, be in the frame for the prize. Four stars from me. On at 9pm , Friday 9th,at the Soho and at 1pm at the Ritzy. Go.

All connected yet disconnected

All connected yet disconnected

43) Muslims, Jews, Off-breaks and Cake.

What do you know about Mehdi Hasan? If you don’t know anything this is what Wikipedia says: Mehdi Hasan (born 1979) is a British political journalist, broadcaster and author. Hasan is the co-author of a biography of Ed Miliband and the political editor of the UK version of The Huffington Post. From a British Indian background, he is the presenter of Al Jazeera English shows, The Café and Head to Head. In 2015, Hasan will move to Washington DC to work full time for Al Jazeera.

You may have seen Mehdi Hassan on Question Time. Educated at Merchant Taylors Independent School and Cambridge and a frequent contributor to The Guardian, he is a Shia Muslim,  fairly left wing, and, I think it fair to say,  not conspicuously pro-Israeli. In 2009 he wrote an article supporting a one-state solution for the Israeli/Palestinian problem which to me, and most other  Jews I would guess, is anathema since it would mean that Jews  would be, or would rapidly become, a minority in this new country.

I am a non-practising, atheistic, at least a sixth or seventh - possibly tenth or twelfth - generation, British Jew, but  I have a deeply rooted fear of anti-Semitism that was, you might say, imbibed with my mother’s milk. I was born a few months before the state of Israel; in other words, not long after the full truth of the holocaust came to light. That shocking news made an ineradicable impression on my parents’ generation and they made sure I felt the same.  For me, Israel’s fundamental raison d’etre is to be an inviolable safe haven for anyone who other people call a Jew. (You may know that for Hitler, having one Jewish grandparent was enough for you to qualify.)

As racist as it might seem, and I have to concede, it might actually be – and I hate the idea that I am a racist – it is, for me, a prerequisite that Jews should remain a majority in Israel since I do not believe that, for the foreseeable future, it would remain a safe haven for Jews in any other circumstances. A few other prominent celebrity Jews  might disagree  - Miriam Margolyes, Stephen Fry perhaps - but you can take it from me, if they do, they are in a tiny minority.

All this being the case you might think that I am not a big Mehdi Hassan fan, and you would have been right until a little while ago, when I recently came across an article of his which I think must have taken some considerable bravery to write. I still disagree with almost everything I have heard him say but for having the courage to write this, published in 2013 in the New Statesman,  he deserves great respect. The  title of the article was:

The sorry truth is that the virus of anti-Semitism has infected the British Muslim community.

I strongly recommend that you read it. You can find it at this e-dress.

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/03/sorry-truth-virus-anti-semitism-has-infected-british-muslim-community

There’s no point in rehearsing all his arguments as you can read them for yourself, but the sad truth is that I was not in the least shocked by what he had to say. I was only surprised that he said it.  I believe his ‘sorry truth’ is true. And I believe it is equally true that there is a strong fear of Muslims amongst Jews. Perhaps, amongst some, even many, a reciprocal anti-Islamicism. 

Though I hate to say it, I share  that fear and I do so precisely because of the anti-Semitism. Does that make me anti-Islamic? I certainly hope not.  

I don’t want to resort to  the old ‘some of my best friends are Muslims but’ line because, apart from anything else, I don’t know if it is true. I do know one Muslim who I would regard as a good friend and have one or two others  who, now that I think about it,  may be Muslims although I am not sure because we have never discussed it. But that is about  the extent of my social interaction with the Muslim community. I have worked with a few and come across many in my daily life, 99.9% of whom I have never found to be less than perfectly amicable. In all honesty, in this regard, I do not suppose I am very different  from the vast majority of Jews, practising or otherwise,  or indeed, most other ‘white British’ people - as Brent council insist on classifying me. 

All of which is a preamble to my broaching the subject of the Syrian refugee crisis, and asking myself a series of  blunt questions. I won’t bother to supply the answers as I think you can probably guess them. 

1. Do I believe that people coming from Syria – a country with an historic enmity to Israel – are less likely to be anti-Semitic than other  Muslims?

2. Would I welcome more anti-Semites to this country?

3. Do I think it impossible for Isis to have infiltrated the groups of refugees and be planting potential terrorists amongst them?

4. Do I think it is perhaps even probable?

5. Do I think it possible that a terrorist attack could take place in London, where I live?

6. Do I think it possible that Jews could be a particular target for such attacks?

7. Am I entitled to be concerned for my own safety?

8. Does posing these questions and answering them as you might expect, make me inhumane? 

And yet. 

The other day I was on the tube. A young man  with a long beard and no moustache got on. He wore a long white robe and sandals. I took him to be a Muslim. My immediate, unthinking response was to ask myself why he considered it necessary to dress in a way that obviously differentiated himself from non-Muslims. Did it not imply a public desire not to share the customs of the country to which  he had chosen to emigrate or been born in? Does that not signify a certain disregard for those customs? When in Rome why not do as the Romans do? Is that not always the most sensible rule?  

All of these questions, which of course did not go through my head quite so systematically at the time, would, and often have, applied equally to ultra-Orthodox Jews with their 18th century clothes and  black hats. Why do you have to flaunt your separateness so obviously? Yes, you have an absolute right to dress however you wish, but is it sensible to wave your obvious rejection of the modern ‘Western way’ so unmissably in my face? If it’s so bad, why did you come? Why do you stay? 

Then, as I sat there on the Bakerloo line musing upon all this, I suddenly thought that this chap  with the long beard reminded me of someone I knew. And then I realised it wasn’t someone I knew, but someone I knew of – Moheen Ali, the England cricketer. Similar beard, similar lack of moustache, similar ‘I am a Muslim’ signals –  and white clothes too. Except one was wearing a white Middle eastern robe and the other traditional cricket whites. And I remembered that I had no difficulty at all in identifying with this particular Muslim – Moheen - when he hit a four or took a wicket. In  fact, I cheered him to the rafters. 

It’s much the same with Nadiya in The Great British Bake Off. She wears a hijab, so I assume she is Muslim. Usually, when I see Muslim women wearing clothing which differentiates themselves from the host community, particularly when it it is clothing which is worn for ‘modesty’ and thus surely implies that women in Western clothes are being immodest, I feel alienated and even slightly insulted.  

But Nadiya disarms me of my intolerance. She comes across as being absolutely charming - amusing, expressive, a total delight. 

And that’s the thing: the moment you start to personalise, as soon as you start to see beyond the label and begin to locate the human being behind, all your prejudices can  quickly become undone. No, that’s probably too much to hope for. But at least, the power of your prejudices starts to weaken. 

So here is where I am left on the Syrian refugee crisis: Like a lot of the them, somewhere  in no-man’s  land. Except, thank the Lord in whom I do not believe, my no-man’s land is just a figure of speech and not their ghastly reality. Not, I agree, a very satisfactory conclusion, after all this to-ing and fro-ing, but sometimes there is no satisfactory conclusion to be reached.

Posy Simmond’s graphic novel reaches the big screen - but not...

Posy Simmond’s graphic novel reaches the big screen - but not like this.

42) A bit of a grouse. Followed by three movies.

For some inexplicable reason we keep being told  that autumn begins – or rather, began  - on September 1st.

No, I take that back, this is easy to explain. It’s an idea we have imported from America. Unlike Jeremy Corbyn I am very pro-America but here I draw the line. If Jez wants to get on his soapbox about this, I will be the guy standing beside him holding his coat and clapping furiously. 

Traditionally – and logically - autumn begins on September 21st,  the date, more or less, of the autumn equinox which is the mid-way point between the height of summer, June 21st, the longest day of the year, aka the summer solstice,  and December 21st, the shortest day of the year, aka the winter solstice. 

Why does this matter? I really have no idea but it does. It grates. And I refuse to accept it. As far as I am concerned it is still summer. And the fact that I already have the heating on has absolutely no bearing on this.

What has definitely begun is the movie season.  It doesn’t start on a specific date like the grouse season, although the glorious twelfth seems to be about the time when the would-be award winners start to emerge and the ghastly summer blockbusters and the school-holiday specials begin to fade into the obscurity they so richly deserve. It runs until Oscar night, and then that is more or less it for another year.

‘Forty Five Years’ is one of those films with pretensions to nomination. It has the right sort of actors, Tom Courtenay and Charlotte Rampling, grizzled veterans in their dotage, to get the members of the various academies – who are usually about  the same age – all of a lather. It’s got lots of  slow moving pastoral shots which is never a bad thing if you want to say your film is ‘artistic’ and it claims to deal with profound issues about the nature of relationships, so it should certainly tick all the boxes.  And lots of critics say that it does – the tube posters can hardly fit all the four and five star reviews in. But I wasn’t so sure.

I am the critic who claims never to give the game away, so you won’t find any plot spoilers here or in any other of my reviews, but in this case the core of the plot, such as it is, is revealed in the first five minutes so I am giving nothing away by saying that Tom and Charlotte play a childless couple about to celebrate their forty fifth wedding anniversary when a letter arrives out of the blue with the news that the body of Tom’s previous has been found at the bottom of the icy  ravine  she fell into in Switzerland long before Charlotte had ever come into his life.

This might make it sound like we have a kind of midsomer murder on our hands, but it’s nothing of the sort. This is a study of how this sudden reacquaintance with his past affects Tom and how, in turn, Tom’s reaction, and what it reveals, affects Charlotte.

I had a couple of problems with Forty Five Years. Since we didn’t see any part of this pivotal event depicted on screen, it had to be explained through the dialogue and it all felt rather stodgy and expositional to me. And somehow, I was never quite convinced enough to  wholly believe in the story or their characters.

A bit slow and a bit studied, Forty Five Years will get no more than about two and a half of my hard-to-earn stars whatever Pete Bradshaw says,  so I think you  can safely assume you won’t see a quote from me being added to those tube posters. (As if.)

The Diary of A Teenage Girl’ is another relationship film although at the opposite end of the age spectrum. As with ‘Forty Five Years’, the guts of the story are spilt very early on. And  again, it is the effect of these events on the main characters, rather than the events themselves, particularly on the fifteen year old heroine Minnie played by an authentically young looking Bel Powley, that are the focus of the film’s interest. As Minnie announces to us in her very first line that she has, that day, had sex for the first time, it is revealing nothing to say that it is her exploits in bed that shape this story. And I use the word ‘exploit’ deliberately because, despite her appearance of innocence, Minnie is not, on the surface, always the one who is being used.

This slightly unorthodox take gives the film its thought provoking edge although it did make me feel slightly queasy at times. It has some very convincing performances particularly by Bel Pewley and Kristen Wiig as Minnie’s free thinking San Francisco mother, and  Alxander Skarsgard is totally credible as Monroe,  the mother’s weak,  can’t help himself younger boyfriend. I wasn’t sure about the little bits of animation which I didn’t think added very much, so a big three stars or a small four is the best I can do. I don’t think it will bother the scorers on awards night, but a decent attempt.

‘Gemma Bovery’ which I saw at the best cinema in London – the Lumiere in South Ken, if you didn’t know – is a French film with a lot of English interest. (And based of a Posy Simmonds graphic novel.)

The curvy Gemma Arturton plays the eponymous heroine, a young Englishwoman who goes to live in rural Normandy with her new older husband, where she can’t fail to attract the notice of her neighbours, particularly the lecturer turned baker who lives opposite and happens to be an expert on Flaubert, and the vigorous student son of the local chatelaine.

Needless to say there are all sorts of parallels with Madame Bovary - why the spelling is different I have no idea - but if you’re like me and haven’t read it, there’s no need to worry, since the baker explains all as the story bounces along.

This is one of those lovely French soufflé comedies, light and airy and cleverly written, slightly reminiscent of a Francois Ozon film (In The House, The New Girlfriend)  but directed by Anne Fontaine, of whom, I have to admit, I had never heard. Fabrice Luchini is très amusant as the intellectual baker and Gemma Arturton shines as the apple of everyone’s eye. There are a few holes in the plot but I forgave it all in the end. Because, at the end, there is one of the most brilliant sight-gags I have ever seen. It comes out of the blue and works to perfection - a genuine LOL moment. If for no other reason, see Gemma Bovary for this. Four stars.

But who will buy?

But who will buy?