A review of the new Indian film “All We Imagine As Light”
December 14th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
When we think of contemporary Indian cinema, we usually have in mind Bollywood movies with singing, dancing, action, romance. “All We Imagine As Light”, both written and directed by Payal Kapadia, could not be more different: it is an art house film that won the Grand Prix at Cannes in 2024. Much of the film is actually set in the home of Bollywood, Mumbai, but this is not ‘the city of dreams’, rather ‘the city of illusions’ and indeed disillusions.
There are 21 million stories in Mumba, but this is simply those of three characters who all work at the same hospital: the nurse Prabha (Kani Kusruti), her younger colleague Anu (Divya Prabha), and an older cook Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam).
Like any art house work, there is very little plot or action but a slow exposition of character and emotion. It is a film about friendship, more specifically about female friendship, even more particularly about the impact of different forms of patriarchy on these women and their friendship. Again like most art house films, some of it is opaque, even mystifying, particularly in the interaction between the nurse and a man whose life she saves.
It is difficult to make art house films in India and the funding for this one comes from a variety of European sources including France, Luxembourg and The Netherlands. Some in India itself have challenged the work as not so much an Indian film as an European art house film set in India. Whichever way you look at it, this is a rare work that is much to be admired and enjoyed.
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A review of the bestselling novel “Conclave” by Robert Harris
December 13th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
Harris is one of the best-selling authors of British fiction and has made his reputation with a series of works usually set in a particular time and/or place and drawing on much historical research. He is not a great writer and often the journey is more interesting than the destination (his endings can be weak), but he is a consummate storyteller who is consistently entertaining and informative which makes his books real page-turners. “Conclave” is the ninth novel of his that I have read and, while it was published in 2016, I did not read it until encouraged to do so by my admiration for the 2024 film adaptation.
The word conclave comes from the Latin con clavis ‘with a key’ and, in this case refers to the sequestration of the College of Cardinals of the Catholic Church when, as has been the case since the 13th century, they are confined to the Sistine Chapel of the Vatican to vote for a new Pope. It is a concentration of a few powerful people – in this case 118 holy (maybe) men (certainly) – who, in a succession of ballots over a just a few days, select the leader of 1.4 billion souls.
It turns out that the film is a very faithful version of the novel, even down to actual lines of dialogue. The only significant difference in the two formats is that, while in the book the central character is an Italian Cardinal, in the film he is British which enables the casting of the wonderful Ralph Fiennes. Where the novel scores is in its detail of the Vatican buildings and historical references to previous papacies, but I was more impressed by the movie because of the fine acting, splendid cinematography, and evocative sound.
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What was most popular on Wikipedia in 2024?
December 5th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
Seventeen years ago, I wrote a column with the title “Is Wikipedia the best site on the web?”. I thought then – and I think now – that it is an amazing resource and I use it every day. It is totally non-commercial and funded by subscriptions. I’ve long donated annually and fore the last few years I’ve donated monthly.
The metric of its success are astonishing. 986 million unique devices per month in English. 2.4 billion hours of reading in English. 300+ languages and counting. 4.5 billion hours reading in all languages.
As 2024 comes to an end, these have been the most visited pages on Wikipedia in the past year:
- Deaths in 2024, 44,440,344 page views
- Kamala Harris, 28,960,278
- 2024 United States presidential election, 27,910,346
- Lyle and Erik Menendez, 26,126,811
- Donald Trump, 25,293,855
- Indian Premier League, 24,560,689
- JD Vance, 23,303,160
- Deadpool & Wolverine, 22,362,102
- Project 2025, 19,741,623
- 2024 Indian general election, 18,149,666
- Taylor Swift, 17,089,827
- ChatGPT, 16,595,350
- 2020 United States presidential election, 16,351,730
- 2024 Summer Olympics, 16,061,381
- UEFA Euro 2024, 15,680,913
- United States, 15,657,243
- Elon Musk, 15,535,053
- Kalki 2898 AD, 14,588,383
- Joe Biden, 14,536,522
- Cristiano Ronaldo, 13,698,372
- Griselda Blanco, 13,491,792
- Sean Combs, 13,112,437
- Dune: Part Two, 12,788,834
- Robert F. Kennedy Jr., 12,375,410
- Liam Payne, 12,087,141
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A review of the entertaining new film “Conclave”
December 2nd, 2024 by Roger Darlington
Which is best? The book or the film? It’s an endless – and perhaps fruitless – debate.
I’ve read and enjoyed so many books by Robert Harris, but not the 2016 novel on which this film is based. The book has been an international bestseller, but this excellent cinematic version has so many visual and aural elements that cannot be rendered as vividly on the written page: imposing settings in Rome and at the Cinecittà Studios (standing in for the Vatican), vibrant clothing and ornamentation (all that red and all those crosses), superb cinematography (the French Stéphane Fontaine), an arresting soundtrack (the German Volker Bertelman), a magnificent roster of actors (Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, Isabella Rossellini), and lines delivered in Italian, Spanish and Latin as well as sonorous English).
Of course, we have to thank Harris for the narrative: the machinations and power plays of the election of a new pope by the College of Cardinals sequestered in the Sistine Chapel. However, German director Edward Berger, giving us such a different work from his “All Quiet On The Western Front”, and British scriptwriter, Peter Straughan, who adapted “Wolf Hall” for television, have done brilliantly in creating a cinematic version, while Ralph Fiennes – playing the cardinal who must convene the conclave – gives an understated, but career-best and Oscar-worthy, performance.
If the film has some weaknesses, they are essentially those of the novel: a rather fanciful plot with a weak ending and a simplistic representation of the dichotomy in the Catholic Church of the debate between liberalism and conservatism. But now I am going to read the book …
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Need a suggestion for a Christmas present?
December 2nd, 2024 by Roger Darlington
This Christmas, if you’re looking for a modestly-priced and personal gift for family and friends, please consider one of these books which are available on Amazon. You can tell them that you know the author.
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A review of the book “Orbital” by Samantha Harvey
November 26th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
It won the 2024 Booker Prize, it is short (136 pages), and it has a great cover – all reasons why I was attracted to this strikingly unconventional and utterly original novel, the fifth by British writer Samantha Harvey who is a tutor on the MA course in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. It is set on the International Space Station and describes 24 hours in which the craft makes 16 orbits of the Earth – in effect, “a day every ninety minutes” – carrying four astronauts (American, British, Italian and Japanese) and two cosmonauts (both Russian), four of them men and two women.
It is a work with no plot or narrative, simply a record of the passage of time with a series of observations and reflections. Every portion of the globe is referenced and every colour of the palette is deployed. It is beautifully written with glorious language and imagery utilising a vocabulary both eclectic and extensive. One moment we have a three-page sketch of the 14 billion years of our universe and another moment there are three pages examining an enigmatic painting by Velázquez. It’s that type of book.
So, what is it about? Quite simply, it is Harvey’s love letter to our fractured and fragile planet. She writes: Without that planet there’s no life … without that earth we are all finished” and suggests that “The earth is the answer to every question”. She describes it as “a sight of such magnificence it shoots your senses apart”, “this thing of such miraculous and bizarre loveliness” and “an unbounded place, a suspended jewel so shockingly bright”.
Harvey is in love with our planet: “Continents and countries come one after the other and the earth feels – not small, but almost endlessly connected, an epic poem of flowing verses.” She appeals to us all with the existential ecological question: “Can we not stop tyrannising and destroying and ransacking and squandering this one thing on which our lives depend?”
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A review of the new blockbuster movie “Gladiator II”
November 20th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
Ridley Scott is an outstanding director with a terrific canon of work. Many of his films cry our for sequels and he regrets now not having directed the sequels to “Alien” and “Blade Runner”. He’s been working on a sequel to “Gladiator” for decades and now, 24 years later, here it is. The guy is now 86 and I’ll have whatever he’s having.
Of course, “Gladiator” was so good – it was nominated for 12 Academy Awards and won five – that even Ridley Scott could never equal it, but this is a very satisfying sequel that does what good sequels should do: reprises all the main themes but with variations and inversions. So, for instance, we have an enthralling opening battle sequence again, but this time on a different edge of the Roman Empire on a different terrain and with the hero on the losing side.
All the character types in the first movie are reprised but, with only two exceptions (Connie Nielson as Lucius’s mother and 86 year old Derek Jacobi as a senator), all the actual actors are different. Most notably, of course, we have Paul Mescal in the eponymous role, with a voice and body far removed from his breakout role in television’s “Normal People”, and he plays the part ably with more sensitivity than the macho version that we had with Maximus.
The most interesting character is the owner of the gladiator school Macrinus because his motivations are obscure. If one can overlook his American accent, this is one of Denzel Washington’s finest performances.
The greatest strengths of “Gladiator II” are the same as the original: convincing costumes, stunning sets, clever special effects, and exciting battle and fight sequences but, as well as not exhibiting the sheer originality of the 2000 film, the sequel rather plays lose with history in its main colosseum scenes, does not have similarly quotable lines of dialogue, and has a weaker ending. Nevertheless, you will be entertained.
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What is time?
November 17th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
Now there’s a question and a cold and wet Sunday is as good a time as any to attend a course on this topic. It was at London’s City Literary Institute and just one day. It was delivered by Radmilla Topalovic and it was mind-blowing.
We spent a lot of time looking at how time is expressed in terms of years, months and days and where the measurements and terminology came from. The story goes back to the Sumerians, but we can thank the 16th century Pope Gregory for the calendar currently used by most of the world.
Everything became more complicated when we moved on to quantum physics with talk of entanglement, quantum foam, quantum tunnelling and quantum electrodynamics. It maybe that time does not exist at the quantum level.
The main takeaways from the course were: there is no absolute time; for any particular person, time feels absolute, but it is all relative to you and where you are; beyond the sub-atomic level, time emerges from the notion of entropy or disorder; it may be that time is not fundamental to the universe.
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A review of the classic 1975 film “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest”
November 2nd, 2024 by Roger Darlington
This classic film won all five of the top Academy Awards: Best Picture and Best Screenplay plus Best Director (the Czech Milos Forman), Best Actor (Jack Nicholson as rebellious inmate Randle P McMurphy) and Best Actress (Louise Fletcher as the acidic Nurse Ratchet). It is based on the best-selling novel by Ken Kesey, which he wrote after his experiences working in a California Veterans Hospital, and it was filmed in Oregon State Hospital.
It is a powerful work, by turns amusing, moving and tragic. Maybe, for Forman, the hospital was a metaphor for then Communist Czechoslovakia but, for all of us, it is symbolic of a society that struggles to show tolerance and kindness to those who are different and even challenging.
It is a tour de force by the brilliant Nicholson as the central protagonist and victim, but so many minor roles stand out too, notably Will Sampson as the giant chief and newcomers, soon to be stars in their own right, Christopher Lloyd and Danny DeVito.
One of the advantages of being a member of the British Film Institute is that one can often see classics on a big screen again and viewing this film once more, some 50 years after its release, was such a pleasure, concluded with audience applause.
Of course, times change and, like all older moves, this is a work of its time, but I hardly feel that it was necessary for the BFI to provide the warning: “Contains racist and sexist language and outdated depictions of people with mental health issues.”
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Kamala Harris vs Donald Trump: who will win?
October 31st, 2024 by Roger Darlington
This evening, I attended online a 90-minute presentation on the US presidential election given by Mark Malcolmson, the Principal of London’s City Literary Institute and an expert on American politics. Here are my take-aways with some key quotes.
Following Joe Biden’s eventual withdrawal from the race thanks to the decisive intervention of longtime ally and friend Nancy Pelosi (apparently they haven’t spoken since), Harris has proved to be “an incredibly strong candidate” and performed “infinitely better than we expected”.
Some 60 million people have already voted. So few Americans remain to be convinced one way or the other that “I genuinely believe this is a turnout election” and so “It will be the ground game”. Like almost everyone else, Malcolmson believes that “It’s too close to call”.
Of course, the vagaries of the Electoral College mean that the winner of the popular vote and the winner of the EC vote may not be the same person. Malcolmson is fairly sure that Harris will win the popular vote (so am I) and “My heart tells me that she’s going to win” the EC vote (again I agree, but that may just be because I can’t contemplate the notion of Trump back in the White House).
This election will be historic for a number of reasons:
1) If Trump wins, it will be only the second time in history that the same person has won two non-sequential presidential elections. In the final decades of the 19th century, Grover Cleveland was the 22nd and 24th president and, over a century later, Trump would be the 45th and 47th president.
2) If Harris wins, it will be only the second time that a person of colour has occupied the White House and the first time ever that a woman has won the presidency in the near 250 year existence of the United States.
3) This is the first time that every swing state – there are seven in this election – has had the two leading candidates separated by a polling difference that is within the margin of error.
4) Every presidential election, the candidates claim that it is the most consequential such election, but: “It is the most important presidential election ever“.
As well as the presidential election, next Tuesday voters will choose all 435 members of the House of Representatives and 34 members of the Senate. Malcolmson thinks that the House could be won by the Democrats but that the Senate will be won by the Republicans.
If both of those assumptions prove to be correct, this will be the first time in history that both chambers have changed majority but in the opposite direction.
If neither the Democrats nor the Republicans win both chambers, then whoever becomes president will struggle to pass legislation and will resort substantially to the use of Executive Orders.
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