QUACK!

The other day I saw a duck chasing off an American Coot; it made a hasty retreat to the riverbank. I know it happens all the time but the picture makes me smile.

I Saw This: Biutiful

In Biutiful Alejandro González Iñárritu’s stark, poverty ridden vision of Barcelona paints a heavy veil of misery from the start that continues to haunt to the end.

Javier Bardem is excellent as the world weary, mournful Uxbal, he walks with his head down, shouldering his burdens. He suggests umbrella selling as a way to earn money and the reply is that it never rains in Barcelona. But for Uxbal it does rain, a storm of anguish and misfortune that at times becomes difficult to watch. As we see him try to put his affairs in order everything goes wrong for him. Perhaps if it had just been Uxbal it would have been easier to stomach but Iñárritu throws everything at the audience, person after person struggles – nothing is easy for anyone and there’s never any let up or humour just a bleak, desperate struggle to survive.

Uxbal isn’t a hero, he isn’t even a nice person on the surface of it; he exploits people in desperate situations for his own profit. But there is something incredibly human about him. Iñárritu doesn’t encourage us to question him or look for answers; his actions are never explored or excused. Uxbal can see the dead and there is knowledge of an afterlife but it offers no solace or answers. Uxbal doesn’t find himself in his situation because of a higher deity; his actions and manipulation of those in need is never judged in that way. Buitiful doesn’t ask us to be ‘good’ or ‘bad’ and makes for a brave and unsentimental tale.

JANUARY

This month I mostly watched.

Thanks to I Have No Sense Of Time where I basically robbed this idea from

Epping Forest

In the muddiest conditions imaginable we visited Epping Forest for a walk around Connaught Water. On our way we stopped at the Queen Elizabeth Hunting Lodge. It houses a Tudor food exhibition, taxidermy and excitingly, a Tudor dress-up box. I'm still not sure if it is meant exclusively for children but we spent a good half an hour trying on velvet capes, ruffs and feather hats while posing with the Henry VIII waxwork.

HANDIWORK

Last summer I got my hands on some scraps of leather that have been sitting in my basket ever since. At last I've started putting them to use - these will be heading into the shop really soon.

I Saw This: The Lavender Hill Mob

The world is ours

Just before Christmas I bought myself an Ealing Comedies boxset and last night I finally finished it off with The Lavender Hill Mob. So often overshadowed by The Ladykillers and Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Lavender Hill Mob is my favourite of the lot.

Set in 1950s London, Alec Guinness plays a reliable bank administrator with hopes of stealing the bullion he works with and retiring a millionaire. A chance meeting with Stanley Holloway’s eccentric souvenir maker provides the spark of inspiration needed to get the riches.

A long and complicated plan is forged that involves luring a criminal into their plot, a fake kidnapping and a holiday abroad. What could go wrong?

Everything, naturally. What follows is a riotous, chaotic rampage through London and Paris with the gold. Passport officials, laughing school girls and bungling policemen combine to try to thwart them and there’s an excellent, dizzying scene with the Eiffel Tower.

Timelessly funny.

I Saw This: Black Swan

It’s been a long time since a film has been released that almost everyone has seen and has a strong opinion on; it’s a fairly even spread of applause and annoyance – I’ve heard everything from “loved it” to feeling “cheated and violated” after watching it.

I’m not sure that it really deserves the divide. I found it fun to watch but lacking in any real development and brimming with outrageous clichés. Darren Aronofsky is anything but subtle and from the start we’re treated to the first glimpse of the split personality that dominates the film.

Nina – fragile, tense, thorough and prone to self harm is awarded the role of her life playing the Swan Queen in Swan Lake. She is perfect for the White Swan but there is uncertainty about her ability to embody the edgier Black Swan. Pressure is piled on her from every angle, pressure to succeed and pressure to fail. Her mollycoddling mother, her sleazy director, her jealous fellow dancers and her own unerring ambition crush down on her.

She is under constant scrutiny. Lily, her rebellious, confident understudy seems to be lurking in every shadow waiting to steal the part from under her feet, her mother’s haunting portraits laugh at her, her own reflection betrays her. We enter a rapidly deteriorating world of doppelgangers, mirrors, dreams, slips of consciousness and fantasy until reality is lost and we can no longer define the true from the imaginary.

While in many ways completely silly, Black Swan has flashes of great paranoid horror and classic suspense but it’s undermined by an exaggerated ending and comical villains.