Two suns fail to dazzle

Is it just me? All over the web people are blogging the praises of the second Bat for Lashes record, Two Suns. I rather like it too, but I feel that reviewers are going a bit overboard with their praise (e.g. Pitchfork).
It's a very pleasant record with some strong songs, and Natasha Khan has a great voice. Everything here is going in the right direction. But overall I find it rather too slight, rather too conventional for all the praise it's getting. It's good, yes. But not great.

A comparison with one of my favourite recent albums, Under Byen's 2007 LP Samme Stof Som Stof, is perhaps instructive. Here we see a band that have truly mastered their medium (through 15 years of hard work), and for whom conventions are not restrictions but toys to be played with or ignored as required. Natasha Khan is on the right track and definitely a talent to watch for the future. And that's the good news: this album might be good, but the next one can only be better.

Bat for Lashes will play at the Kulturkirche in Cologne on 18 May
View event info on last.fm

DID THE CAPS LOCK KEY GET STUCK WHILE WRITINg SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE?

I went into Slumdog Millionaire with high expectations based on friends' ratings, but came out feeling slightly knocked about and empty, as if I too had suffered at the hands of the Mumbai constabulary.

I'd like to emphasise though that my problem with the film was not its fable-like narrative - the sketchy, inconsistent and unexplained nature of events and the refusal to explain was rather a strength for me. Rather, it was the overall style and the compulsion to take the symmetries of plot and circumstance (which are a standard part of almost any narrative) and supercharge these to the extent that they become big signs screaming LOOK AT ME! I'M AN ECHO OF A PREVIOUS/PARALLEL SCENE!!!

Due to this overworked mechanism, the film lost me at its "climax", the point at which one brother wins 20 million rupees and the other brother is simultaneously gunned to death in a bathtub full of banknotes. Up to that point I had been quite happy to coast along on the Lonely Planet aesthetic of penury and picaresque, but after that it was a lost cause. It didn't even matter that the music was by a Singalese girl from West London (M.I.A.), or that Danny Boyle's aggressive jump-cut style turned every conflagration into a wheeze and a romp. But the bathful of money was the point where I pulled out the plug and started to wonder: does this film say anything useful about India? Or even about "Who wants to be a Millionaire"? Has it got anything to say at all other than slums are bad, crooks are bad, and "true love conquers all?"

A good film should reflect its age and say something about its main subject at least. But this one simply throws its boundless energy at a topic that begs for some sinuousness, intelligence and subtlety. For god's sake, it doesn't have to be La Dolce Vita, but a palette that includes something other than VERY BRIGHT and VERY DARK would have been welcome.

Overall not a bad film, but not a particularly good one either.

See my film comments on IMDB

This is England

A great film. Vibrant and beautifully made, This is England is a stark reminder of the ragged England of the early 80's, a time which seemed to combine all the worst aspects of capitalism - laissez-faire, militaristic, socially fractured and often just plain ugly.
This film throws us in at the deep end of this untempting era, tracing the life of Shaun, a young boy in a northern English town who has to come to terms with his father's death in the Falklands war, his own problems at school, and his mother's benignly neglectful attitude (under a scary 80's perm, she prefers to watch Blockbusters rather than deal with her son's emotional problems).
In this grim context, Shaun happens upon and is adopted by a group of skinheads who offer him friendship and self-esteem. While the skins are a slightly rough lot, they are not at this point racists. In fact one of their number, Milky, is black. But as the film progresses, we see how far-right "England first" elements come to dominate the scene. And here we reach what is the film's main theme: the insidious slide into racism that marked the skinhead subculture's path through the eighties.
As such it's an interesting story, but too much of a cultural footnote to support a whole feature film. But director Shane Meadows manages to take this subject matter and imbue it with a significance beyond its historical context. What is the nature of individual and national identity? How do we constitute our self images, and to what extent is the individual consciousness a product of social, economic and political forces, rather than the precious flame of liberty that some liberals would like to believe in? All these questions are raised, displayed and rotated before us in a compelling and ambivalent way. Anyone who moans about today's obsession with labels and brands should take a look at this film as a reminder that this kind of thing was already happening back then.
The film's look is rough and ready, an unsentimental representation in a rawly realistic mode. The one thing the had me a little confused was the geography. The characters all talk in Northern accents, but where we are is somehow indeterminate as West Yorkshire, Scouse and east coast accents mingle. Not a big criticism, but the only one I could find in this otherwise remarkable film.

Emiliana Torrini in Cologne

Emiliana Torrini can speak German, and she does it with a delightful Icelandic accent. Unless you speak German too, you'll not understand the hilarity of a shaggy dog story that she told about a "Gemüseschwanz". Whatever, it caused plenty of amusement for the 20 to 30-something crowd who had assembled to see her play in the "Kulturkirche", a deconsecrated church that puts on concerts, book readings and other cultural events.
As a space, the church enjoys a certain originality and atmosphere, especially for goth bands, I suppose, but this can't make up for two massive failings that are sure to make any passionate gig-goer pause.

The first problem is the sound. At last night's concert it was disastrous: a steely sheet of treble that bounces off the stonework and hits the listeners from every direction. At the other end of the scale, we had to send out a search party for the bass. In fact, the sound engineer may have thought it was some kind of fish for all I know, because he certainly didn't think that it was required to give weight, form and substance to the music. Which was a real pity, because la Torrini is a spirited and delightful performer, and her band also played on bravely against the treble storm. The quieter songs come over well, and the gig was worth it for these alone, as Torini certainly develops a poignancy and power in these ballads which could tumble into inconsequentiality in other hands. Standing watching her in my outdoor coat, I almost shed a tear.

And that's the venue's second problem: no cloakroom. This might be alright in a squat (where you wouldn't want to put your coat down, or trust the "staff"), but in a venue charging over 20 Euros for admission it's inexcusable.

Thumbs up, therefore for Torrini and band, thumbs down for the Kulturkirche.