A review of my new book “Rennie & River: Tales From Two Courts”
June 13th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
“What fascinating stories emerge from 2 small 1970s blocks of flats on the South Bank! Roger Darlington has selected colourful threads from the life tapestries of 40 of those living or working in the buildings. With great technical skill, he shares these memories from the extraordinarily wide-ranging group of individuals, with life stories spanning the globe and many decades.
These people greet each other in the lifts and halls, make small talk at occasional socials; but often they know little about the extraordinary lives that the others have led or the unexpected activities they are doing now. Are all blocks of flats hiding similar treasures? This fascinating exploration of a small community leads one to question our usual lack of questions about each other.”
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A review of the fascinating new film “The Beast”
June 11th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
It is 1910, we are in Paris, and Gabrielle is a celebrated pianist and society beauty. It is 2014, we are in Los Angeles, and Gabrielle is an aspiring model and actress. It is 2044 and Gabrielle is considering a process called ‘purification’ which, in a world now dominated by AI, will enable her to eliminate all her troubled emotions. In each of these three scenarios, she comes across Louis with whom respectively she is charmed, threatened and attracted.
In this highly original film, both written and directed by French-Canadian Bertrand Bonello, we jump back and forth between the three periods and alternate regularly between French and English. There are repeated visions of certain objects: pigeons, dolls, knives.
This genre-fluid production is part romance, part melodrama, part science fiction. It is a disorientating and opaque narrative, but the whole work is a series of arresting images that, from the very first scene to the very last, constantly enthral, intrigue and disturb the viewer. Gabrielle is played by French actress Léa Seydoux (Bond movie “Spectre”), while Louis is portrayed by British actor George MacKay (war movie “1917”), and both give fine, nuanced performances.
It is quite a long film at almost two and a half hours but, on the this occasion, it does not feel too long. And what is the beast of the title? Well, nothing seen or heard. Perhaps it is a sense of anxiety that can seize you. Perhaps it is the threat of all-consuming AI that threatens to make humankind less human.
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A review of the 1945 classic film “Rome, Open City”
June 4th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
Italian Neorealism ran from 1943 to 1952 and this film is one of the earliest and most memorable expressions of that movement. Key features of the movement were a focus on ordinary working people and the use of non-professional actors, vernacular dialogue and real locations.
For Italians in 1945, nothing could be more realistic than memories of the war and this film centres on the resistance activities of Manfredi (Marcello Pagliero), the communist leader of the National Liberation Committee, during the 1944 German occupation of Rome. While so many earlier films tended to have ‘a happy ending’, this work is harsh in how it treats its heroes.
The production had limited financial and technical resources and it was shot in documentary style on location in the streets of Rome and in a makeshift studio, only six months after the liberation of the city while Germany still occupied Northern Italy. The resulting powerful drama was a success both in Italy and the United States and it launched the careers of director Roberto Rossellini, co-writer Federico Fellini and actress Anna Magnani.
Rossellini followed “Rome, Open City” (1945) with “Paisan” (1946) and “Germany, Year Zero” (1948) to create what is known as his War Trilogy.
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I feel for the people of Pakistan
June 4th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
In April. I was in Pakistan for a two week holiday. We suffered the cancellation of an internal flight because of the weather and landslides on the road route that we had to take instead.
This year, Pakistan recorded its wettest April Ince 1961 with more than double the usual rainfall for the month. Daytime temperatures in May soared to 8C (14F) above average temperatures recorded for the month over the past 20 years,
Currently Pakistan is experiencing a blistering heatwave that has overstretched an already poor healthcare system. Last week, temperatures in various parts of the country reached highs of 49C (120F), causing a huge demand for power.
The climate crisis is now and everywhere.
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Word of the day: nyctohylophobia
June 2nd, 2024 by Roger Darlington
The word means: a fear of dark forests or wooded areas. It occurs in the English translation of the Chinese science fiction novel “Death’s End” by Cixin Liu.
In the context of this novel, the ‘forest’ refers to the theory that, in the vastness of the universe, there are countless other civilisations. The ‘dark’ rests on the notion that no advanced civilisation would want to reveal itself for fear of invasion and annihilation.
It is one way of responding to the Fermi Paradox: that is, why – after long and hard searching – have we not found any evidence for any other life in the infinite space that we call the universe?
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A review of the action-packed movie “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga”
June 1st, 2024 by Roger Darlington
In the beginning, there was “Mad Max” (1979), “Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior” (1981), and “Mad Max Beyond The Thunderdome” (1985) – none of which I’ve seen – and then, an amazing thirty years later, we had “Mad Max: Fury Road” which was simply stunning. In “Fury Road”, Max was aided by the one-armed, feminist freedom fighter Imperator Furiosa, played wonderfully by a shaved-headed Charlize Theron. Now, a lengthy nine years later, we have a fifth film in the franchise which overlooks Max totally and tells the origin story of Furiosa.
As a young adult, this character is portrayed by Anya Taylor-Joy. The role is a real challenge for her: she only appears after a a younger actress plays the warrior as a child, a lot of the time her face is covered or painted, and she only has about 30 lines of dialogue, but she is terrific. Another piece of clever casting is Chris Hemsworth as the cruel, yet comical, Warlord Dementus, leader of the Biker Horde a million miles from his “Thor” persona.
The location shooting – back in Australia, after “Fury Road” in Namibia – is glorious, the zany characters and inventive vehicles are gloriously colourful, and the action is furious and brutal. “Furiosa” does not quite have the drive and drama of “Fury Road”, but it is marvellously entertaining. “Fury Road” was not a massive success at the box office, so director George Miller has done well to win the funding for this prequel. In turn, “Furiosa” has not performed as well as expected, so sadly the franchise may be finished.
Director of all the “Mad Max” movies, Miller is now 79 and, if this is his last work (as well as his longest at two and a half hours), he can retire with dignity.
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The first review of my latest book
May 31st, 2024 by Roger Darlington
My new book – “Rennie & River: Tales From Two Courts” – has just had its first review. The reviewer concludes:
“The real strength of this book – and it is an excellent, stimulating read, into which the reader can dip at their leisure – lies in the concept itself which is quite brilliant; its very simplicity (why not just interview 40 of my neighbours, mused Roger Darlington?) is what I feel makes it so. I can, without hesitation, recommend it to all who are interested in the variations of human experience and the complexity of the human condition.”
To read the full review and/or order the book and/or post your own review, just search on Amazon:
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A review of a wonderful new Italian film “There’s Still Tomorrow”
May 29th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
I was drawn to this film, partly because the central character is a working-class woman in a post-war Italian city (my mother was living in poverty in Naples at the time), partly because I love the work of the post-war Italian neo-realism movement (this movie is a kind of homage to that style of filmmaking), Part comedy, part drama, part a feminist critique of gender roles and violence against women, it is a triumph that has become one of the highest-grossing films of all time in its home country of Italy.
It borrows from the neo-realistic tradition by being set in Rome in the summer of 1946, by focusing on working-class characters struggling with poverty, and by being shot in black and white and partly on location in the Testaccio district of the capital. But it is a modern take of the neo-realistic movement with elements of fantasy and the alignment of images with the words of songs (not all contemporary).
The outstanding success of the film owes so much to Paola Cortellisi who is known in Italy as a singer and as an actor and comedian, mainly on television. Here she is the director (first time), co-writer and leading actor, playing Delia who earns bits of money from a variety of menial jobs, does all the cooking and cleaning at home, and contrives to look after an abusive husband, three children and an aging father-in-law. By the end of the film, you’ll be in love with Delia, achingly wanting her happiness, but very unsure how she is likely to find it.
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My latest book is a set of revealing portraits of 40 fascinating individuals who all live in the same little corner of central London
May 28th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
- You will meet, as well as magnificent staff, actors, artists, musicians, teachers, lecturers, writers, lawyers, judges, an architect, a television producer, a bioethicist, a political strategist, a BAFTA winner, an Emmy winner, a DJ, a KC, an MBE.
- You will come across people from all over Britain plus Ireland, Austria, the Czech Republic, Turkey, Iraq, Uzbekistan, Singapore, The Gambia, Ghana, Cameroon, Angola, Uganda, South Africa, Australia, the United States, Canada, Colombia. Their ages ranges from early 30s to mid 90s.
- You will find, among an eclectic collection of experiences, stories about being a refugee from the Nazis, growing up during a civil war, living through a coup d’etat, being the subject of an attempted child abduction, going on an umrah in Saudi Arabia, and recollections of apartheid South Africa, 9/11 and Covid.
- Some famous names appear in these narratives such as Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Attenborough, Zaha Hadid, Queen Elizabeth II, Nelson Mandela, Osama bin Laden, Jimi Hendrix, Anthony Horowitz.
I hope that you will buy the book (just £4.99), read it, and review it. Many thanks.
It’s available now on Amazon:
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A review of the 1954 classic film “Journey To Italy”
May 24th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
Director Roberto Rossellini is best known as a noted creator of the post-war Italian Neorealism movement with works like “Rome, Open City” (1945), but “Journey To Italy” is not a neorealist film (he had moved on by then) and, although it was shot in Italy with an Italian crew, almost all the dialogue is in English and the lead actors are English (George Sanders) and Swedish (Ingrid Bergman who was married to Rossellini at the time). Yet this work is regarded by many critics as Rossellini’s masterpiece, as well as a seminal piece of modernist cinema due to its loose storytelling.
I really enjoyed the location shooting in and around Naples, because my Italian mother came from Naples and took me there twice as a child. However, I found the narrative depressing because it shows a married couple insulting and hurting each other, before eventually deciding on divorce. The final sequence, during a procession in honour of Saint Gennaro, is unconvincing, but I suppose there are a lot of miracles going on at this point.
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