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Diary of a Film
An auteur, together with his lead actors, is at a prestigious European festival to premier his latest film.
Alone one morning at a backstreet café, he strikes up a conversation with a local woman who takes him on a walk to uncover the city's secrets, historic and personal. As the walk unwinds, a story of love and tragedy emerges, and he begins to see the chance meeting as fate. He is entranced, wholly clear in his mind: her story must surely form the basis for his next film.
This is a novel about cinema, flâneurs, and queer love - it is about the sometimes troubled, sometimes ecstatic creative process, and the toll it takes on its makers.
But it is also a novel about stories, and the ongoing question of who has the right to tell them.
Alone one morning at a backstreet café, he strikes up a conversation with a local woman who takes him on a walk to uncover the city's secrets, historic and personal. As the walk unwinds, a story of love and tragedy emerges, and he begins to see the chance meeting as fate. He is entranced, wholly clear in his mind: her story must surely form the basis for his next film.
This is a novel about cinema, flâneurs, and queer love - it is about the sometimes troubled, sometimes ecstatic creative process, and the toll it takes on its makers.
But it is also a novel about stories, and the ongoing question of who has the right to tell them.
224 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 18, 2021
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September 17, 2021
If you are a flâneur, maestro, then I’m a flâneuse, she replied. Walking is what gives me life, and what stimulates my ideas.
Diary of a Film is narrated by an acclaimed film director, his origins from a country built on collectivism and potatoes, whom leaving his husband, an author, and their young son behind in their home city, travels to a film festival, one where he has twice previously won the jury prize:
I flew to the Italian city of B. to attend the film festival in late March. Our entry into the competition, a liberal adaptation of William Maxwell’s novel The Folded Leaf, had been officially confirmed, and I was expected to participate in three days of interviews and panels to promote the release, with a jury screening on the second evening.
On arrival in B. he ducks out of immediately arriving at the hotel, and getting dragged into the rounds of publicity, and instead walks around the city (in walking I felt a purpose regained), setting the tone for the rest of the novel.
On his first walk, in a bar, he meets Cosima, a writer, and admirer of his films. She is now writes art history and criticism, but, many years earlier, in her twenties, was a novelist. The two talk and walk, exchanging stories and views on art, and she shows him a spectacular mural by her ex-lover, one that makes a deep impression on him as does, when he later reads it, her autobiographical novel based on the suicide of the same artist.
Later he takes his two young lead actors on a similar wander, although one that ends up heading in the direction of the same mural:
Does anyone know where we’re going? asked Lorien, saying what he thought needed to be said, but with enough nonchalance in his tone to suggest his readiness to wander. We have the GPS on our phones and a collective memory, I said. That’s more than enough to cobble a route together. But no route was planned. We walked and carried on walking. I took comfort in the trio of shadows falling behind us, a unit whose allegiance was unquestioned. During the making of the film I had taken them on similar walks, a habit fostered in the preproduction weeks before shooting began, and then sporadically when the photography allowed. I wanted them to feel the fabric of their location through their footsteps; how in walking through a town at night, you learned of its true nature, its rhythms and idiosyncrasies. It was more than the passing voyeurism as people dressed or undressed through windows yet to be drawn, or in the silence of the main thoroughfares, with its occasional disturbance of passing cars. The warmth of the silence enveloping you as you walked, aware of your breath and those of your companions; how your steps would fall into line at times, each of us consciously making it so, both jokingly and to physically demonstrate that we were attuned.
The novel is told over those 2-3 days at the festival, and the narrator muses on, and discusses with his walking companions, his own life, creativity in general. And, as the novel progresses, others question him on the right of someone to tell someone else’s story or, as he has done with the Maxwell novel and hopes to do with Cosmima’s, to adapt their work for one’s one artistic ends.
The style of the novel has a very European sensibility - it’s an odd comparison in many respects but I was reminded in this sense of the novels of Tim Parks.
For me, as a fan of literature but not particularly of cinema, the director’s musings came across as a little pretentious, which I suspect was not the authorial intention (and I couldn’t help agree when one character comments “you become a different person when you talk about books”):
There was a moment in a theatre as the lights went down that you truly understood the depth of your vulnerability: that for all the good wishes and the boosting presence of family around you, the truth that you were about to be judged was inescapable. Your visual imagination and use of language, your depth and humour, as well as compassion and emotional intelligence: these were to be dissected, held aloft and appraised. I knew of no other art form that took apart a human being to the same degree of complexity.
Although the contrast drawn between the life of a director and that of an author was an interesting one:
I’d been a visiting professor at a film school in Madrid for a number of years, and this is one of the first things I’d say to the students there. Find your people! Open yourself up until you find those you can trust, who believe in your talents and will both complement and challenge them. Be generous enough to do the same with others. Work on the films of those you love as well as projects of your own. Use everything you’ve internalised but don’t let that limit you. You cannot make films if you’re unable to speak or to accept the presence of other human beings. Without those things you’re simply creating art installations, important in themselves, but they are not cinema, and that is what I’m here to teach you.
I was jealous of the lives novelists lived but I knew that I was not a solitary creature. Novels were a different kind of cage, one where you willingly locked yourself in. Cosima had something of the captive in her, I thought; that same mixture of passion and restraint I’d seen in other novelists I’d worked with.
Overall, a quietly impressive novel. 4 stars.
Thanks to the publisher via Netgalley for the ARC.
Diary of a Film is narrated by an acclaimed film director, his origins from a country built on collectivism and potatoes, whom leaving his husband, an author, and their young son behind in their home city, travels to a film festival, one where he has twice previously won the jury prize:
I flew to the Italian city of B. to attend the film festival in late March. Our entry into the competition, a liberal adaptation of William Maxwell’s novel The Folded Leaf, had been officially confirmed, and I was expected to participate in three days of interviews and panels to promote the release, with a jury screening on the second evening.
On arrival in B. he ducks out of immediately arriving at the hotel, and getting dragged into the rounds of publicity, and instead walks around the city (in walking I felt a purpose regained), setting the tone for the rest of the novel.
On his first walk, in a bar, he meets Cosima, a writer, and admirer of his films. She is now writes art history and criticism, but, many years earlier, in her twenties, was a novelist. The two talk and walk, exchanging stories and views on art, and she shows him a spectacular mural by her ex-lover, one that makes a deep impression on him as does, when he later reads it, her autobiographical novel based on the suicide of the same artist.
Later he takes his two young lead actors on a similar wander, although one that ends up heading in the direction of the same mural:
Does anyone know where we’re going? asked Lorien, saying what he thought needed to be said, but with enough nonchalance in his tone to suggest his readiness to wander. We have the GPS on our phones and a collective memory, I said. That’s more than enough to cobble a route together. But no route was planned. We walked and carried on walking. I took comfort in the trio of shadows falling behind us, a unit whose allegiance was unquestioned. During the making of the film I had taken them on similar walks, a habit fostered in the preproduction weeks before shooting began, and then sporadically when the photography allowed. I wanted them to feel the fabric of their location through their footsteps; how in walking through a town at night, you learned of its true nature, its rhythms and idiosyncrasies. It was more than the passing voyeurism as people dressed or undressed through windows yet to be drawn, or in the silence of the main thoroughfares, with its occasional disturbance of passing cars. The warmth of the silence enveloping you as you walked, aware of your breath and those of your companions; how your steps would fall into line at times, each of us consciously making it so, both jokingly and to physically demonstrate that we were attuned.
The novel is told over those 2-3 days at the festival, and the narrator muses on, and discusses with his walking companions, his own life, creativity in general. And, as the novel progresses, others question him on the right of someone to tell someone else’s story or, as he has done with the Maxwell novel and hopes to do with Cosmima’s, to adapt their work for one’s one artistic ends.
The style of the novel has a very European sensibility - it’s an odd comparison in many respects but I was reminded in this sense of the novels of Tim Parks.
For me, as a fan of literature but not particularly of cinema, the director’s musings came across as a little pretentious, which I suspect was not the authorial intention (and I couldn’t help agree when one character comments “you become a different person when you talk about books”):
There was a moment in a theatre as the lights went down that you truly understood the depth of your vulnerability: that for all the good wishes and the boosting presence of family around you, the truth that you were about to be judged was inescapable. Your visual imagination and use of language, your depth and humour, as well as compassion and emotional intelligence: these were to be dissected, held aloft and appraised. I knew of no other art form that took apart a human being to the same degree of complexity.
Although the contrast drawn between the life of a director and that of an author was an interesting one:
I’d been a visiting professor at a film school in Madrid for a number of years, and this is one of the first things I’d say to the students there. Find your people! Open yourself up until you find those you can trust, who believe in your talents and will both complement and challenge them. Be generous enough to do the same with others. Work on the films of those you love as well as projects of your own. Use everything you’ve internalised but don’t let that limit you. You cannot make films if you’re unable to speak or to accept the presence of other human beings. Without those things you’re simply creating art installations, important in themselves, but they are not cinema, and that is what I’m here to teach you.
I was jealous of the lives novelists lived but I knew that I was not a solitary creature. Novels were a different kind of cage, one where you willingly locked yourself in. Cosima had something of the captive in her, I thought; that same mixture of passion and restraint I’d seen in other novelists I’d worked with.
Overall, a quietly impressive novel. 4 stars.
Thanks to the publisher via Netgalley for the ARC.
December 24, 2021
4.5, rounded up.
In an odd way, this reminded me of the Linklater 'Before' trilogy of films, in that most of it entails people walking around a foreign city having artful discussions about ... love, life, film ... and art. I'm surprised no one else (to my knowledge - correct me if I'm wrong) has seen fit to place an entire novel at a prestigious international film festival, but Govinden really makes his setting and characters come alive. For some reason, this just hit a lot of sweet spots for me, and I found the whole thing riveting. On a sentence by sentence basis, the author's prose is also both beautifully lyrical and meaningful.
The ONE thing I DIDN'T like is that each of the twelve chapters is rendered in one single paragraph, even though the subject changes frequently ... and dialogue passages are done sans any quotation marks, so that often it was difficult to immediately figure out who was speaking - had that affectation not been used, this would have garnered a full 5 stars. Be that as it may, I will be reading the author's back catalogue ASAP.
In an odd way, this reminded me of the Linklater 'Before' trilogy of films, in that most of it entails people walking around a foreign city having artful discussions about ... love, life, film ... and art. I'm surprised no one else (to my knowledge - correct me if I'm wrong) has seen fit to place an entire novel at a prestigious international film festival, but Govinden really makes his setting and characters come alive. For some reason, this just hit a lot of sweet spots for me, and I found the whole thing riveting. On a sentence by sentence basis, the author's prose is also both beautifully lyrical and meaningful.
The ONE thing I DIDN'T like is that each of the twelve chapters is rendered in one single paragraph, even though the subject changes frequently ... and dialogue passages are done sans any quotation marks, so that often it was difficult to immediately figure out who was speaking - had that affectation not been used, this would have garnered a full 5 stars. Be that as it may, I will be reading the author's back catalogue ASAP.
July 9, 2022
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: First, read this:
The words, musings really, of a cinema auteur of the pretentiously arty sort; all the inducement, or warning, you need about the read to come. I'm pretty sure you know right now which it is for you. I was left eager for more as I read the first sentence:
...because that novel contains one of my commonplace book's fattest sections. Maxwell's story, simple on the surface, of unrequited and unrequested love, is a tour-de-force of understatement that would be damned close to impossible to film. How does one get this:
...onto film? How in the hell can Lymie, the speaker, ever be really captured outside a reader's head? So we know what kind of filmmaker we're with in B., and it ain't Quentin Tarantino. Did Wallace Shawn ever direct a film? It would've been a lot like the narrator's films, I'll wager.
As he is in B. for the second time with a film almost certainly receiving an award, I was a touch surprised that Maestro (the tag that everyone uses to refer to and address the narrator, ugh) didn't have his husband and son with him. They are there in spirit, I suppose; the Maestro does refer to them. But the principal story here is about Cosima, a novelist who meets the Maestro quite by accident (or is it an accident?). Her long, intimate ramble and rambling chat with him becomes the center of the Maestro's world. He is captivated, both by Cosima and her story of a dead and gone artist lover of hers. He does what I think all truly driven artists do: He absorbs Cosima's story, Cosima's love; he appropriates them, in more modern terms. After all, he's decided with the arrogance of his sex and class that he's Going To Make This Film, the life and art of these lovers. So what that Cosima doesn't want him to? Who owns the facts?
The Maestro, then, is accustomed to taking what he wants. It's also obvious in his creepily Hitchcockesque insertion of himself into his lead actors' (from The Folded Leaf, the novel he's filmed, remember?) new off-screen romance. He's very benign about it, but it's there, and it reads badly in the twenty-first century. As it's intended to do....
The unbearably lush sensory world of Italy, its food and its lavish sensual feast of a landscape, is all I can picture after this read. The parties and events surrounding the Maestro's film release aren't very interesting to me, and luckily receded into the background as I read, but I'm attuned to the food and wine descriptions. (If I were a dog, I'd be reward-oriented in training.)
The stylistic choice to make each chapter a paragraph makes sense when one twigs to the fact this is a récit. All speech not the Maestro's is reported by him, is heard through his ears. We're always inside his head, always with his eyes doing our seeing...it's actually like we're the audience at the movie of his life. In fact, based on what he says, I'm willing to bet the Maestro's a narcissist on the ragged edge of pre-disorder-level presentation. It wouldn't take much to shove him into a full-blown clinical case.
The simple saving grace for the Maestro is, I suspect, that he's a storyteller by profession and passion.
You're not in control of how things end...but the author, the auteur, is. And there's no better place to be than that. The truth is the Maestro will always assume control of wherever he is, whenever he is there.
The main response I predict most people will have to the story is formal: Many are the folk who do not like absent dialogue tags and paragraphs that go on for pages. These are not the readers for Govinden's strange and lovely artwork. If you enjoyed Milkman with its men called things like Maybe-boyfriend and the neverending sentence with "the fact that" as a kind of punctuation in Lucy Elliman's Ducks, Newburyport, you'll be fine with this read. In fact it's downright simple in comparison to those two, or their French ancestors Pinget or Proust.
If those aren't happy memories for you, this isn't likely to be either. If you're willing to put in some concentration I predict this story in its very 21st century preoccupations with story, ownership, misogyny, and the Cult of the Creator, you'll like this read a lot.
My Review: First, read this:
There was a moment in a theatre as the lights went down that you truly understood the depth of your vulnerability: that for all the good wishes and the boosting presence of family around you, the truth that you were about to be judged was inescapable. Your visual imagination and use of language, your depth and humour, as well as compassion and emotional intelligence: these were to be dissected, held aloft and appraised. I knew of no other art form that took apart a human being to the same degree of complexity.
–and–
I was jealous of the lives novelists lived but I knew that I was not a solitary creature. Novels were a different kind of cage, one where you willingly locked yourself in. {His newly discovered muse} had something of the captive in her, I thought; that same mixture of passion and restraint I’d seen in other novelists I’d worked with.
The words, musings really, of a cinema auteur of the pretentiously arty sort; all the inducement, or warning, you need about the read to come. I'm pretty sure you know right now which it is for you. I was left eager for more as I read the first sentence:
I flew to the Italian city of B. to attend the film festival in late March. Our entry into the competition, a liberal adaptation of William Maxwell’s novel The Folded Leaf, had been officially confirmed, and I was expected to participate in three days of interviews and panels to promote the release, with a jury screening on the second evening.
...because that novel contains one of my commonplace book's fattest sections. Maxwell's story, simple on the surface, of unrequited and unrequested love, is a tour-de-force of understatement that would be damned close to impossible to film. How does one get this:
But to live in the world at all is to be committed to some kind of a journey... On a turning earth, in a mechanically revolving universe, there is no place to stand still. Neither the destination nor the point of departure are important. People often find themselves midway on a journey they had no intention of taking and that began they are not exactly sure where.
...onto film? How in the hell can Lymie, the speaker, ever be really captured outside a reader's head? So we know what kind of filmmaker we're with in B., and it ain't Quentin Tarantino. Did Wallace Shawn ever direct a film? It would've been a lot like the narrator's films, I'll wager.
As he is in B. for the second time with a film almost certainly receiving an award, I was a touch surprised that Maestro (the tag that everyone uses to refer to and address the narrator, ugh) didn't have his husband and son with him. They are there in spirit, I suppose; the Maestro does refer to them. But the principal story here is about Cosima, a novelist who meets the Maestro quite by accident (or is it an accident?). Her long, intimate ramble and rambling chat with him becomes the center of the Maestro's world. He is captivated, both by Cosima and her story of a dead and gone artist lover of hers. He does what I think all truly driven artists do: He absorbs Cosima's story, Cosima's love; he appropriates them, in more modern terms. After all, he's decided with the arrogance of his sex and class that he's Going To Make This Film, the life and art of these lovers. So what that Cosima doesn't want him to? Who owns the facts?
The Maestro, then, is accustomed to taking what he wants. It's also obvious in his creepily Hitchcockesque insertion of himself into his lead actors' (from The Folded Leaf, the novel he's filmed, remember?) new off-screen romance. He's very benign about it, but it's there, and it reads badly in the twenty-first century. As it's intended to do....
The unbearably lush sensory world of Italy, its food and its lavish sensual feast of a landscape, is all I can picture after this read. The parties and events surrounding the Maestro's film release aren't very interesting to me, and luckily receded into the background as I read, but I'm attuned to the food and wine descriptions. (If I were a dog, I'd be reward-oriented in training.)
The stylistic choice to make each chapter a paragraph makes sense when one twigs to the fact this is a récit. All speech not the Maestro's is reported by him, is heard through his ears. We're always inside his head, always with his eyes doing our seeing...it's actually like we're the audience at the movie of his life. In fact, based on what he says, I'm willing to bet the Maestro's a narcissist on the ragged edge of pre-disorder-level presentation. It wouldn't take much to shove him into a full-blown clinical case.
The simple saving grace for the Maestro is, I suspect, that he's a storyteller by profession and passion.
Too much of life is given to analysis. I agree with that, I said, more than you realise. That's not to say I want to live blindly, maestro, more that you have to give yourself up to the day in order to live it. I learned a lesson from reading that novel. You're not always in control of when and how things end. What you can control is whether you embrace the moment.
You're not in control of how things end...but the author, the auteur, is. And there's no better place to be than that. The truth is the Maestro will always assume control of wherever he is, whenever he is there.
The main response I predict most people will have to the story is formal: Many are the folk who do not like absent dialogue tags and paragraphs that go on for pages. These are not the readers for Govinden's strange and lovely artwork. If you enjoyed Milkman with its men called things like Maybe-boyfriend and the neverending sentence with "the fact that" as a kind of punctuation in Lucy Elliman's Ducks, Newburyport, you'll be fine with this read. In fact it's downright simple in comparison to those two, or their French ancestors Pinget or Proust.
If those aren't happy memories for you, this isn't likely to be either. If you're willing to put in some concentration I predict this story in its very 21st century preoccupations with story, ownership, misogyny, and the Cult of the Creator, you'll like this read a lot.
February 20, 2021
Niven Govinden writes beautiful and extremely thoughtful novels often centred around intimate relationships, artistic communities and the creative process. His novel “All the Days and Nights” focused on the life of an ailing female visual artist and his novel “This Brutal House” dynamically depicted the politics of NYC's embattled drag scene. His stories raise compelling and complex questions while capturing the emotional uncertainty flooding through these richly-imagined characters' lives. This is equally true in is new novel “Diary of a Film” which follows a number of days in the life of an unnamed auteur at an Italian film festival as he presents his new movie based on sensitive novel “The Folded Leaf” by William Maxwell. Scenes of chaotic ribaldry and champagne sipping amidst interviews and photo sessions with the press are very much in the background of this surprisingly intimate story of artistic collaboration and friendship.
The auteur (who the other characters refer to as maestro) wanders from the bright lights of the festival and meets an intriguing woman named Cosima in a cafe. He's enthralled by tales of her past and her tragic relationship with a graffiti artist who committed suicide. Not only is the maestro keen to view one of this artist's still-existing murals but he also tracks down a novel she wrote which inspires him to plan out a new film. His conversations with her are interspersed with time spent with his lead actors Lorien and Tom. They play lovers in the film but are also now lovers in real life. Given the men's age difference and the novel's Italian setting it's easy to think of parallels with the film 'Call Me By Your Name'. The comparison with Aciman's work also seems apt because Govinden's narrative similarly revolves around individuals who strike up strong bonds through chance encounters and have extended high-minded conversations about the intricacies of human relationships. However, I find Govinden's style of writing much more engaging.
Read my full review of Diary of a Film by Niven Govinden on LonesomeReader
The auteur (who the other characters refer to as maestro) wanders from the bright lights of the festival and meets an intriguing woman named Cosima in a cafe. He's enthralled by tales of her past and her tragic relationship with a graffiti artist who committed suicide. Not only is the maestro keen to view one of this artist's still-existing murals but he also tracks down a novel she wrote which inspires him to plan out a new film. His conversations with her are interspersed with time spent with his lead actors Lorien and Tom. They play lovers in the film but are also now lovers in real life. Given the men's age difference and the novel's Italian setting it's easy to think of parallels with the film 'Call Me By Your Name'. The comparison with Aciman's work also seems apt because Govinden's narrative similarly revolves around individuals who strike up strong bonds through chance encounters and have extended high-minded conversations about the intricacies of human relationships. However, I find Govinden's style of writing much more engaging.
Read my full review of Diary of a Film by Niven Govinden on LonesomeReader
December 24, 2021
When I say I am perfectly content to read a book where nothing happens if the characters are intriguing, the writing is beautiful and the setting is atmospheric, this is what I mean. Govinden's account of a filmmaker bringing his two young actors with a burgeoning real-life romance and the film they made together to an Italian film festival is understated but profound. He uses film and the creative process as a quietly powerful metaphor for seasons of our lives and our reckoning with the choices we make; how they have affected our relationships and what they ultimately say about us, ourselves. The novel almost reads like a behind-the-scenes documentary of what may have happened when Luca Guadagnino brought Call Me By Your Name to festivals if Timothee Chalamet and Armie Hammer had developed a real life relationship during filming. That premise alone would have kept me hooked for however many pages Givendon wanted to write about it but he clearly had a lot more to say than that and I took great pleasure in the philosophical turns the story took me down. All the lead characters are deeply nuanced and complicated in a way that makes you feel like you're only scratching the surface of them. I loved the tortured auteur and his two blossoming male stars but the fourth main character, Cosima, both mystified and frustrated me. She is clearly a fascinating and complex woman but her unknowability was simultaneously beguiling and befuddling. There are no paragraph indentations or quotation marks here but I actually felt that gave a breezy, conversational attitude to the novel that made you feel as if Maestro was telling you the story over a casual cup of coffee at an Italian café. Plot is definitely not the focus of this one but all the other elements of the book are so tenderly rendered that it doesn't really matter. Govinden delivers plenty to enjoy without it.
February 18, 2023
This book is a superb exploration of the agonies of the creative process and it raises all the important questions related to it.
The main character is a flâneur who comes up with the most astute observations about life and art.
The writing is stellar and it reminded me of both James Salter and James Baldwin's style, but it has its own personality, strength and rhythm.
(Highly recommended for anyone who is a writer, a movie director, or a creator of any kind.)
The main character is a flâneur who comes up with the most astute observations about life and art.
The writing is stellar and it reminded me of both James Salter and James Baldwin's style, but it has its own personality, strength and rhythm.
(Highly recommended for anyone who is a writer, a movie director, or a creator of any kind.)
March 2, 2022
I don’t mind a book that takes itself seriously, but it’s a bit exhausting when all the characters do too. I found most of the characters quite inauthentic and lacking meaningful development. The book’s discussion about who gets to tell stories etc was fine, but also not very meaningfully developed. I am looking forward to reading my next book, which I hope will have paragraph breaks and quotation marks (is that too much to ask for?)
January 13, 2023
there’s some really good lines in this, it’s just so pretentious it’s a little hard to read sometimes (and I say that as a film student). the formatting didn’t help it either. I understand it’s supposed to be a diary, but no paragraphs or quotations? a 10-30 page wall of text with no breaks is hard to read.
September 8, 2021
meh. it wasn’t terrible, great queer rep (which is the first star) and i felt a bond with all of the characters BUT the narrator. The food was also amazingly described (cue second star). It was okay, but kinda pretentious and the lack of speech marks and line breaks made it a chore to read at points.
September 6, 2021
To be read greedily, preferably on holiday, with as much sunshine as you can find
did-not-finish
January 6, 2021Skimmed. I really liked the main plot, in which a film director meets a charismatic woman in a café, is entranced by her story about a part of her past, and becomes convinced he needs to turn it into a film (regardless of her wishes). I was less interested in the subplots. I had trouble with the way the book is formatted: the chapters have no paragraphs and dialogue is not in quotes; one of these would be fine with me, but both together made it extremely hard to read. Also, the fact that absolutely everyone addresses the director as 'maestro' - does this really happen? (I honestly don't know, maybe it does.) That aside, it's beautifully, expertly written and the voice works – I fully believed in this character as a seasoned director. Lot of interesting meditations on creativity and art. May appeal to those who enjoyed Hari Kunzru's Red Pill. Great cover too.
May 20, 2024
vaguely pretentious and felt like a fanfic of the cmbyn press tour
August 2, 2022
At the core of Niven Govinden’ s “Diary of a Film”, is another book. William Maxwell’s “The Folded Leaf”, influences, embellishes and informs the plot that revolves around the main protagonist, a homosexual film auteur and the narrator, whom everyone addresses as ‘Maestro’, two promising actors, Tom and Lorien who have essayed prominent roles in the Maestro’s latest film, and are trying to get to grips with their own carnal attraction towards each other, and Cosima, a long forgotten novelist and a tour guide whose remarkable, yet tragic life holds the Maestro in absolute thrall.
The Maestro, Tom, Lorien, Gabi (the Maestro’s long time co-producer) and Stjepan (The Maestro’s editor), find themselves in Italy on the eve of a prestigious film festival. Maestro’s adaptation of Maxwell’s “The Folded Leaf”, is due to be premiered at the festival. A chance meeting in a bar leads to the Maestro getting enchanted with a woman named Cosima. A tour guide, she leads Maestro to a breathtaking mural lying hidden in a wall behind a dilapidated apartment block. Painted and spray painted by a now dead graffiti artist and former lover of Cosima, Bruno, the mural and the tragic details of Cosima’ s ill-fated love, spurs Maestro into an artistic fervour. This zeal is further exacerbated when Maestro realises that Cosima has also been a former author. Arming himself with copies of every one of the few books written by Cosima, Maestro begins mulling over a potential adaptation of Cosima’ s part autobiography part tragic novel into a movie.
Govinden’ s tense and taut work deals with reconciliation, remonstration, recrimination and remorse. Written in the first person narrative, “Diary of a Film” is a transparent yet profound voyage or even voyeurism into the fragility that is human emotion. Tom and Lorien’s existential inner struggle to understand and stamp their spontaneous attraction towards one another is tempered by Cosima’ s apprehension of her precious and intensely personal novel being adapted for screenplay by the Maestro in a disdainfully libertarian manner. The Maestro’s own vulnerabilities that cleave a degree of sentimentality from a stone cold verve to view life from a cinematic lens, lends credence and candour to Govinden’ s writing.
If at all there is a deficit in the book, it is a very minor one dealing with the relationship between Tom and Lorien. The romance between the two up and coming stars, at times, comes across as more than just a wee bit contrived and patronizing. Whether it be Tom wearing Lorien’s clothing or Lorien ruffling Tom’s hair, subtlety is sacrificed for transparency. Maybe this is the way of the duo seeking the reaction, if not a downright acceptance from the world to their intentions by displaying a form of bravura that has the potential to dangerously backfire.
The strongest character in the book and the most engaging and unpredictable one is Cosima. Strong, yet feeble, talented yet tenuous, Cosima is buffeted by the gale of a devious dilemma that has her in a bind. Forced to make a choice between throwing open her intimate story to the punishing public glare and preferring to attain deep solace and comfort in locked up memories, Cosima is forced to take head on a veritable Faustian bargain.
Slow, steady and queerly sensual, “Diary of a Film” is not a ubiquitous choice when it comes to a selection of books. In fact it is similar to the Maestro’s entry in the prestigious film festival. A critic’s delight, a connoisseur’s calling, but not a common man’s friendly and piping hot cup of tea. While personally I cannot proclaim to have been enraptured by the book, it would be remiss to claim that I have not delighted in parts of it.
“Diary of a Film” – a cinematic exposition and exploration of subjects less ventured into with egregious abandon.
The Maestro, Tom, Lorien, Gabi (the Maestro’s long time co-producer) and Stjepan (The Maestro’s editor), find themselves in Italy on the eve of a prestigious film festival. Maestro’s adaptation of Maxwell’s “The Folded Leaf”, is due to be premiered at the festival. A chance meeting in a bar leads to the Maestro getting enchanted with a woman named Cosima. A tour guide, she leads Maestro to a breathtaking mural lying hidden in a wall behind a dilapidated apartment block. Painted and spray painted by a now dead graffiti artist and former lover of Cosima, Bruno, the mural and the tragic details of Cosima’ s ill-fated love, spurs Maestro into an artistic fervour. This zeal is further exacerbated when Maestro realises that Cosima has also been a former author. Arming himself with copies of every one of the few books written by Cosima, Maestro begins mulling over a potential adaptation of Cosima’ s part autobiography part tragic novel into a movie.
Govinden’ s tense and taut work deals with reconciliation, remonstration, recrimination and remorse. Written in the first person narrative, “Diary of a Film” is a transparent yet profound voyage or even voyeurism into the fragility that is human emotion. Tom and Lorien’s existential inner struggle to understand and stamp their spontaneous attraction towards one another is tempered by Cosima’ s apprehension of her precious and intensely personal novel being adapted for screenplay by the Maestro in a disdainfully libertarian manner. The Maestro’s own vulnerabilities that cleave a degree of sentimentality from a stone cold verve to view life from a cinematic lens, lends credence and candour to Govinden’ s writing.
If at all there is a deficit in the book, it is a very minor one dealing with the relationship between Tom and Lorien. The romance between the two up and coming stars, at times, comes across as more than just a wee bit contrived and patronizing. Whether it be Tom wearing Lorien’s clothing or Lorien ruffling Tom’s hair, subtlety is sacrificed for transparency. Maybe this is the way of the duo seeking the reaction, if not a downright acceptance from the world to their intentions by displaying a form of bravura that has the potential to dangerously backfire.
The strongest character in the book and the most engaging and unpredictable one is Cosima. Strong, yet feeble, talented yet tenuous, Cosima is buffeted by the gale of a devious dilemma that has her in a bind. Forced to make a choice between throwing open her intimate story to the punishing public glare and preferring to attain deep solace and comfort in locked up memories, Cosima is forced to take head on a veritable Faustian bargain.
Slow, steady and queerly sensual, “Diary of a Film” is not a ubiquitous choice when it comes to a selection of books. In fact it is similar to the Maestro’s entry in the prestigious film festival. A critic’s delight, a connoisseur’s calling, but not a common man’s friendly and piping hot cup of tea. While personally I cannot proclaim to have been enraptured by the book, it would be remiss to claim that I have not delighted in parts of it.
“Diary of a Film” – a cinematic exposition and exploration of subjects less ventured into with egregious abandon.
July 25, 2022
I only needed to read the first paragraph of David Leavitt’s review in the New York Times to know I wanted to read this book. The reference to William Maxwell’s The Folded Leaf was the talisman. As much as I appreciate Leavitt’s writing, I skipped the rest of his review because I didn’t want to learn anything else before reading the book.
The novel is indeed a “diary” about the filming of The Folded Leaf, transposing its characters from the bleak American Midwest to the Italian countryside, the characters in the film echoed and altered by the actors playing those roles. More gracefully, less predictably, the novel is also a meditation on art. When the “Maestro” meets Cosima, a novelist, the meditation probes the difference between directing a film and writing a novel. Their relationship mirrors this difference, confusing and illuminating the whole. Are we watching a film or reading a novel? Sometimes we’re watching a film by reading a novel, sometimes the novel itself reads like a film. I was aware of this effect as I read; even so I was startled by the climactic conversation between Cosima and the Maestro, as if I were seeing something happen as it happened, picking up nonverbal cues (it seemed) just as one does before a dangerous moment irrupts into consciousness.
Govinden set a high bar for himself by evoking Maxwell, a maestro of prose himself, and the risk pays off. Probably because of the Italian setting I was reminded of the fine scene in Rome at the end of Aciman’s Call Me By Your Name. Also, more distantly, of the spell worked by Peter Cameron in The Weekend. Maybe it’s no coincidence that each of those novels were made into a film. In Govinden’s case, the effort would be redundant.
The novel is indeed a “diary” about the filming of The Folded Leaf, transposing its characters from the bleak American Midwest to the Italian countryside, the characters in the film echoed and altered by the actors playing those roles. More gracefully, less predictably, the novel is also a meditation on art. When the “Maestro” meets Cosima, a novelist, the meditation probes the difference between directing a film and writing a novel. Their relationship mirrors this difference, confusing and illuminating the whole. Are we watching a film or reading a novel? Sometimes we’re watching a film by reading a novel, sometimes the novel itself reads like a film. I was aware of this effect as I read; even so I was startled by the climactic conversation between Cosima and the Maestro, as if I were seeing something happen as it happened, picking up nonverbal cues (it seemed) just as one does before a dangerous moment irrupts into consciousness.
Govinden set a high bar for himself by evoking Maxwell, a maestro of prose himself, and the risk pays off. Probably because of the Italian setting I was reminded of the fine scene in Rome at the end of Aciman’s Call Me By Your Name. Also, more distantly, of the spell worked by Peter Cameron in The Weekend. Maybe it’s no coincidence that each of those novels were made into a film. In Govinden’s case, the effort would be redundant.
August 3, 2022
Admittedly, I had never heard of Govinden before, or of this book, but it called out to me from a shelf in the bookshop I was exploring. If I have one rule, it's to always answer such a call because it usually always pays off. This time, it really truly did.
Diary of a Film is both cosy and cerebral, the perfect novel for a slow summer weekend spent lounging in parks or cafés.
The book follows a filmmaker, referred to by everyone as "maestro", who is in an unnamed Italian city for the premiere of his latest film at a prestigious festival. While there, his paths cross with Cosima, a local, who shows him around, taking him to a public mural that has personal significance to her. Maestro becomes enthralled with her story and the story of the mural. All the while, he prepares for the premiere, pondering over his career and his art, the price people pay to make art, the entangled lives of the two budding actors he cast in his latest film, and questions about who ultimately has the right to tell other people's stories.
Diary of a Film is both cosy and cerebral, the perfect novel for a slow summer weekend spent lounging in parks or cafés.
The book follows a filmmaker, referred to by everyone as "maestro", who is in an unnamed Italian city for the premiere of his latest film at a prestigious festival. While there, his paths cross with Cosima, a local, who shows him around, taking him to a public mural that has personal significance to her. Maestro becomes enthralled with her story and the story of the mural. All the while, he prepares for the premiere, pondering over his career and his art, the price people pay to make art, the entangled lives of the two budding actors he cast in his latest film, and questions about who ultimately has the right to tell other people's stories.
April 22, 2022
3,5
A poignant story about what it means to create, to make something and then gift it to the world to see, love, hate, tear apart.
An aging director find himself wandering the streets of a northern Italian city with a woman who has a story to tell and a painful past. While going through the ups and downs of a film festival, where his last movie will be shown, he follows closely the relationship between his main stars, pondering upon his life, marriage and creativity.
Niven Govinded knows film very well. He knows the industry and the creative process, and it shows.
The main character's inner movements are depicted with unusual grace and coherence, and there's plenty of food for thoughts for the ones who are involved in creative endeavours.
Less effective is the central part of the novel - which is the main reason why I haven't given it a higher score - the writing gets too self referential, and the protagonist's lurking into his actors' relationship, although depicted as affectionate and inspiring, is quite creepy and take the focus away from the most interesting part of the novel, which is Cosima and her journey.
The ending appears rushed and not as effective as it could be if the narration wasn't too involved with the actors' story. It could have been interesting, if explored properly, but it was mainly treated as a mere device instead of appropriately told.
A poignant story about what it means to create, to make something and then gift it to the world to see, love, hate, tear apart.
An aging director find himself wandering the streets of a northern Italian city with a woman who has a story to tell and a painful past. While going through the ups and downs of a film festival, where his last movie will be shown, he follows closely the relationship between his main stars, pondering upon his life, marriage and creativity.
Niven Govinded knows film very well. He knows the industry and the creative process, and it shows.
The main character's inner movements are depicted with unusual grace and coherence, and there's plenty of food for thoughts for the ones who are involved in creative endeavours.
Less effective is the central part of the novel - which is the main reason why I haven't given it a higher score - the writing gets too self referential, and the protagonist's lurking into his actors' relationship, although depicted as affectionate and inspiring, is quite creepy and take the focus away from the most interesting part of the novel, which is Cosima and her journey.
The ending appears rushed and not as effective as it could be if the narration wasn't too involved with the actors' story. It could have been interesting, if explored properly, but it was mainly treated as a mere device instead of appropriately told.
April 15, 2023
4.25.
Really gorgeous work. Very visual in it's presentation and speaks with a knowledge of writing and filmmaking that is more true than any other book on film I've read. The characters are beautifully realized and feel like they've loved their own lives and developed their own flaws.
It's just short enough to not overstay it's welcome or drift too far into pretention but just long enough to deliver it's worth in emotional weight.
My main problem with the book is textual presentation. There are no paragraph breaks, quotation marks, or changes in tone or style, lending itself very well to the title of Diary but not to the reader's experience. Often scenes and dialog blend together and clarity is not a focal point of the text leaving it to the reader to parse their way through each text -dense page. Again, mercifully, it's short, but had this been presented in a more traditional novel format it would be the easiest 5 star rating in the world for me.
Really gorgeous work. Very visual in it's presentation and speaks with a knowledge of writing and filmmaking that is more true than any other book on film I've read. The characters are beautifully realized and feel like they've loved their own lives and developed their own flaws.
It's just short enough to not overstay it's welcome or drift too far into pretention but just long enough to deliver it's worth in emotional weight.
My main problem with the book is textual presentation. There are no paragraph breaks, quotation marks, or changes in tone or style, lending itself very well to the title of Diary but not to the reader's experience. Often scenes and dialog blend together and clarity is not a focal point of the text leaving it to the reader to parse their way through each text -dense page. Again, mercifully, it's short, but had this been presented in a more traditional novel format it would be the easiest 5 star rating in the world for me.
September 19, 2024
Alarmingly *serious* and very intense, but I enjoyed this very much - despite not myself being an avant-garde filmmaker, which is one imagines the ideal readership. How complex it must be to work in film!
As a narrative of creative rapacity/appropriation this felt rich and acutely observed. I have deducted a star for its total lack of self-consciousness, which it may get back when I am more psychologically stable.
As a narrative of creative rapacity/appropriation this felt rich and acutely observed. I have deducted a star for its total lack of self-consciousness, which it may get back when I am more psychologically stable.
July 8, 2022
The style is fantastic! Govinden writes in such a sensitive, even sensorial, way.
And of course as the plot and characters unfold, you start imagining who of your favourite actors will play them…
And above all, I just wish that one day My husband will be like the husband of the Maestro!
And of course as the plot and characters unfold, you start imagining who of your favourite actors will play them…
And above all, I just wish that one day My husband will be like the husband of the Maestro!
October 9, 2022
Full of charm for me although I imagine it won’t be for everyone. “Diary” is the leading word here, forget it if you need plot. Kindle edition riddled with typos, really jarring given the unbroken paragraph structure.
January 22, 2023
A lot of heart, made me cry….there is so much love and happiness and tenderness in this book but also the form was just too much sometimes and I couldn’t care less about Gabi or how incredible the Maestro is or how hot Tom and Lorien are (even though I love them!!)…truly have never read anything like it. Beautiful and intense and also difficult to get through for no reason. I want everyone to read it.
Hard agree that it is like the Linklater Before trilogy (a connection I made myself) but just not as good haha
Hard agree that it is like the Linklater Before trilogy (a connection I made myself) but just not as good haha
September 12, 2025
i think when started the book i described it to t in some pithy and referential way that did the book a disservice. i’m interested in the lives of artists and this grappled with the creative process in a thoughtful and complex way. it did feel particularly cinematic in its constrained time frame, also, perhaps controversially, i like the lack of speech marks!! it’s modernist!!
March 20, 2021
Really enjoyed this. Nice narrative and questions. Was definitely extremely self indulgent and a bit pretentious but I didn’t mind
April 29, 2021
‘i make films because as much as i obsess over the final moment, it’s composition and tone, what it must deliver structurally and emotional, i wish to run from it.’
just extremely my shit!!
just extremely my shit!!
January 29, 2022
good book not for me (very nice writing)
January 29, 2023
the sally rooney lack of quotation marks haters are going to have an absolute field day with this one
January 30, 2024
4.5 rounded up!!
July 29, 2024
1. this book is boring.
2. the narrator is too well polished that it doesn’t come off as authentic
2. the narrator is too well polished that it doesn’t come off as authentic
November 8, 2022
This is a real three-and-a-halfer. The narrator's voice and other characters are beautifully created, with great insight and skill. But I swayed between admiring Govinden's ability to perceive and give voice to the interior life of a capital A artist, and losing patience at the somewhat self-gratifying nature of his whole enterprise.
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