Picture the scene: Charlotte, Colin, Soyful and I are driving up to the Merry Maid, up through Five Ways, up the Belgrave Middleway, then up the back of Dunelm. We parked opposite the restaurant, which is situated between Priestley Road and Athole Street. During the short five minute journey, both Soyful and Colin are making various and escalating pre-emptive apologies about what we are about to experience. Their apologies are in the aesthetic vein. The food, we were assured, would be top quality. The locale, building, clientele, atmosphere and even the way into the restaurant proper were to be forgiven. So far so good.
We entered via the main entrance, past a gaggle of revellers, via an airless corridor with no windows, but two bathrooms. Between the two bathrooms there was a sign stating that management had the right to search anyone on the premises at random. Presumably not for stolen poppadoms. But then, at last, Xanadu. When we least expected it, we found a room filled with what sounded like about 100 people, but was perhaps about 60, all eating the most divine looking curries, naans, pakoras, grilled meat and poppadoms. The smell was admittedly beautiful. We were directed to our table at the very back of the back room. There were a number of gentlemen playing pool directly behind us with their phones perilously close to a monstrous speaker. It was only a matter of time.
We sat down, and ordered the mixed grill, chicken biryani curry, poppadoms, a chili paneer and a cheese naan. It all arrived within about ten minutes. The below photograph does not capture the full magnificence of the meal. The lighting was quite poor.
The food arrived steaming and smelling very inviting. The large grill comprised grilled chicken wings, kebab meat, drumsticks and lamb chops. Every little morsel was suffused with flavour. The curry itself was fresh, hearty and well balanced. There were large and numerous chunks of chicken, which is always welcome. The popadoms were paper thin and crunchy. They went very well with both the mint and yoghurt sauce (thought this was served in a squeeze tube, disturbingly). The paneer was also excellent, smoky, chewy and a generous portion, even though it was a starter. We feasted all the way through and barely left anything. Every tenth bite, one of the more muscled pool players directly behind us would crack the pool cue against the ball with such force that the entire ground would shake. Car alarms could be heard in the distance. This was swiftly covered up by the second more muscled pool player switching on the monstrous speaker aforementioned and releasing into the restaurant such torrents of dreadful rap music that both of my ears fully fell off.
Colin, ever the pragmatist, brought his own Tupperware and packed the rest in. We left, filled to the brim, with a renewed and more pronounced tinnitus, but ultimately very pleased. Please do go, it is worth it!
During the July heatwave, I yielded to the badgering recommendation of a good friend and invited Cedric and Nick to join me in watching A Hidden Life. Sitting in the stifling heat in stunned silence after the film, we all agreed that it was a devastatingly beautiful work of art that would stay with us for the rest of our lives.
A Hidden Life takes its title from George Eliot’s Middlemarch: …for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs. Eliot in turn derived the phrase from St Paul’s Letter to the Colossians: Set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:2). Both Eliot and St Paul are saying that being a disciple of Christ is not merely about “being nice”; it ushers in a new life and transforms us, calling us to live not for fame or recognition, but for God. Encountering Christ and living in his light means that while we have a duty to share that light with others, we also live a ‘hidden life’ with him that is often contrary to the life that the world tells us we ought to live.
Without resorting to dialogue, Diehl conveys untapped reservoirs of doubt and torment over what his principles mean for his family. When, in the second half, Malick leans into the Christ parallels in the story, Diehl always keeps Franz human and grounded. Empire
The film follows the extraordinary choice made by Blessed Franz Jägerstätter as a result of this ‘hidden life’ with Christ. Franz was an Austrian farmer who worked the land in the small village of St Radegund to support his wife Franziska (or Fani) and their three daughters. When war broke out, Franz refused to swear allegiance to Hitler or fight for him, and as a result was arrested, imprisoned, and eventually executed. His family faced hardship without him, both because they had lost a husband and a father and because the villagers saw Franz as a traitor and refused to help his family. Scenes are cut between Franz’ imprisonment and Fani’s constant struggle on the farm, narrated by their letters to each other. Their love for God and each other is the burning link between Franz’ bleak, solitary cell and the sublimity of the mountainside farm in St Radegund. A question asked repeatedly throughout the film is, ‘what is the point of Franz’ refusal to fight?’ Brought up before various officials, Franz is repeatedly asked what he thinks he will achieve by objecting to the Nazi regime.
Every shot of the film is made of magic
Fani’s sister, who lives with them, asks how he can desert his duty to his family, who are left helpless without him, for the sake of his principles. One memorable exchange occurs near the end of the film, when Franz is talking to a judge who, like Pontius Pilate, seems to have the inkling that the man in his charge is in fact just and should be set free. The judge asks, ‘do you judge me?’, a question Christians are often asked. Franz replies that he does not, and explains humbly, ‘I don’t know everything. A man may do wrong, and he can’t get out of it to make his life clear. Maybe he’d like to go back, but he can’t. But I have this feeling inside me, that I can’t do what I believe is wrong. The judge asks, ‘Do you have a right to do this?’, to which Franz replies, ‘Do I have a right not to?’ The “results” in an earthly sense of Franz’ refusal to co-operate with evil are beside the point.
“Do you judge me?”
The right thing is the right thing; it is not necessarily helpful to think of what we will “achieve” by following our consciences, but simply to follow them. This radical choice is presented to us not always on the scale of the decision that Franz faces, but in the everyday fight within ourselves. As Eliot writes, faithfulness in things that seem, and often are, insignificant in a worldly sense, really does count for the flourishing of goodness in the world. Naturally, we were all in awe of this film, which was beautiful in every way possible. Every scene merited a closer look and immersed us in the Jägerstätter’s inner scenery.
But this is the filmmaker on sublime form, putting his artistry and obsessions at the service of something frighteningly relevant. Empire
The questions posed by this story are not comfortable ones, but they are necessary. Cedric and I were particularly moved by the love of husband and wife for each other, and their knowledge that their love for each other is a reflection of and a means to love God. Real love often looks more like crucifixion than a walk in a meadow, and A Hidden Life offers a stark reminder of the call to love, even unto death.
Goodness me, where to begin? It is not often that I notice a masterpiece while I am watching it, but Nanook was just that. This was a documentary film made in the early 1920s, after two failed attempts in the 1910s. It follows Nanook, a master hunter in the Ungava region of Hudson’s Bay in Canada, and his family through their life in the Arctic wilderness.
Inuits from the Ungava region of Hudson’s Bay, Nanook, his wife Nyla and their infant son survive the Arctic wilderness by adhering to traditional methods of ice fishing, igloo building, and walrus, fox and seal hunting.
This is a black and white, silent 100 year old film. This is a hard sell for many but I tend to throw myself into films without much research. This movie, directed by Robert J. Flaherty, was the first commercially successful feature length documentary film. Flaherty followed Nanook and his family for one year and portrayed the most surprising and harsh episodes from the life of the family. We see their eating habits, hunting, sleeping habits and even their building of an igloo. The film is silent but for some music, though I have seen some showings available with live music. This must be quite an experience!
Flaherty consciously selected his cast and suggested episodes to convey the harshness of Nanook’s struggle with his forbidding environment. But rather than breaking the rules of the still-undefined documentary tradition, Flaherty worked according to the principles of Inuit art, by which the spirit of an artefact emerges during its creation and not as the result of some preconceived design. Consequently, this remains a remarkable piece of film-making and humanist anthropology… Empire
Why do I like this film? I have read and can dismiss some of the critics’ concerns about the family’s clothing being old, the igloo being too large (to accommodate for the cameras) and the selected episodes chosen to convey some drama. However, in spite of this, I believe this to be a relatively faithful portrayal of a family’s life. Indeed, some of the members of Nanook’s family ended up helping the camera crew, manning cameras and fixing some of the tripod legs as filming went on. I was moved by the lengths to which Nanook would go to protect his family and provide for them in the almost un-livable wasteland they inhabited. The ingenuity of the Inuit methods of survival are such that at points I could not quite believe what I was watching. Overall this was a very impressive and moving portrayal of a family living in impossible conditions, and, as the director notes in the opening slides, being among the happiest people in the world in so doing.
Please do watch this film. It is on Youtube for free.
Operation Mincemeat itself was a successful 1943 deception operation, designed to convince the Nazis that Britain would invade Greece rather than Sicily. The result of this deception would be that the Nazis would move their resources to Greece, enabling the Allies to invade Sicily with little to no resistance. The deception method used was quite unique. Two British spies Ewen Montagu (Colin Firth) and Charles Cholmondeley (Matthew Macfadyen), working alongside Jean Leslie (Kelly Macdonald), obtain the body of a homeless man, stash faked secret documents on it, invent a personality and background for him and have him wash up on a Spanish beach.
Though occasionally undone by its Sunday-teatime tendencies, this is a spirited and gently entertaining slice of wartime espionage, with sharp, wry performances from the ensemble cast.
This was a good film overall, the performances were solid and the two former Mr Darcy’s were a formidable team. The tension of the operation was well presented. I was not fond of the unnecessary and fruitless love triangle which distracted us from the main plot. Also there were two instances of gratuitous suggestive action on the part of a British double agent in Spain. These were totally unnecessary and rather put me off.
This is another of the “home front wartime” Britfilms, such as Munich: The Edge of War, Their Finest, The Imitation Game and Darkest Hour, all probably inspired by the Oscar-winning success of The King’s Speech, which have their emphasis on domestic morale, strategic ingenuity and political shenanigans, rather than battlefield action. Operation Mincemeat is watchable enough, but perhaps can’t find a fictional way into the stranger-than-fiction outrageousness of the scheme itself. Guardian
Overall however, this is a comfortable film, with excellent costuming, solid performances and wonderful set design. See the trailer below:
I almost feel that I cannot write this review. What I saw at the cinema was beyond my powers of description. Michelle Yeoh, James Hong, Stephanie Hsu and Jamie Lee Curtis are a powerhouse team. Evelyn (Yeoh) is juggling so many aspects of 21st Century living, while losing touch with her daughter (Hsu) and becoming estranged from her husband (Hong).
Evelyn (Michelle Yeoh) is trying to complete her tax audit, throw a Chinese New Year party to impress her father (James Hong), navigate a possible divorce and avoid alienating daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu). She’s also the last hope of the multiverse — tasked with fighting an evil entity threatening to destroy, well, everything. Empire
The first scenes of the film set out the difficulty of Evelyn’s situation. She ignores her husband who is filing for divorce, she has estranged her lesbian daughter, she is terrified of disappointing her father and worse, she must face Jamie Lee Curtis who plays a phenomenal role as a very physical tax auditor called Deirdre Beaubeirdra. Incidentally, Deidre has won multiple awards for her steadfastness. The shape of the award itself will not be described on this blog. From there, a version of her husband from a parallel universe (the Alphaverse, don’t you know), explains to her that a great evil is coming (Jobu Tupaki “an agent of pure chaos”)and that she was the only one who could save the world. He opens her mind to a multitude of alternative universes where she can be whatever she wants to be: a chef, a martial art star, and a famous actress. From the point where her Alphaverse husband passes her a note ending in “don’t forget to breathe”, the film takes off.
Evelyn must Verse jump to learn and use skills from her alternative selves and take on the forces of Jobu Tupaki. What follows are some of the wildest, most inventive, mind blowing fight scenes I have ever seen. There are so many things I have never seen in film before, and some things I hope never to see again (an alternative universe where Evelyn and Deirdre are lovers, with hotdogs for hands, for one).
It is thunderously cinematic, revelling in the simplicity of filmmaking’s most basic tools, while deploying them to their maximum potential. And it is brilliantly performed — Stephanie Hsu is revelatory as the multifaceted Joy; Quan is astonishing in his cinematic comeback, an action master who’ll make your heart explode too; Jamie Lee Curtis has a blast exaggerating the monstrous physicality of a no-bullshit tax officer; and Yeoh is perfection, drawing on every skill from every role she’s ever played to bring Evelyn’s many lives to life. Empire
The backbone of this extraordinary and sensory overloading film is that this is a family story. At its heart is a mother trying to re-connect with her daughter and husband, having allowed the noise of modern life to get in the way of what matters. There is a very touching scene where one of the universes visited saw Evelyn and Joy as two rocks, perched above a beautiful canyon. They are discussing the meaning of life and wondering whether they will discover some greater truth which will make them feel like “even smaller pieces of sh*t”. This film is about acceptance and it is wild in its portrayal of filial and parental duty. I shall leave Empire to have the final word, as their eloquence is something to which I can only aspire:
A pure firework display of technical bravado, wild invention, emotional storytelling, comedic genius, action mastery and outstanding performances, Everything Everywhere All At Once is everything cinema was invented for. Empire
Now, by the below description, one would not think about this movie primarily as a Catholic film, but perhaps it is worth talking about it a bit further. Referred to as Bruñuel’s most accessible film, we see the story of Severine (Deneuve) exploring herself through a serious of increasingly disturbing sexual experiences, much to the eventual chagrin of her husband (Sorel). There are spoilers ahead, of course.
While contentedly married to a doctor, Severine cannot bring herself to commit sexually. Instead, she indulges in wild erotic fantasies, leading her, unbeknownst to her husband, to become a prostitute in the afternoons.
In my research, it has been said that Bruñuel, born a Catholic, was highly critical of the Church while being unable to shake his ingrained convictions much in the same way that Ingmar Bergman was unable to shake his Protestant ones. Indeed in Bruñuel’s early films (Un Chien Andalou, and especially in L’Age D’Or) the church is criticised particularly as being an aged institution which gets in the way of one having perfectly natural and fun pre-marital sex. Belle De Jour seems, on first viewing, to be confirming the view he has espoused previously but ends up, in my view, supporting the Church’s position without perhaps the director being aware of it.
The principles and advantages of chastity are perhaps beyond the scope of this post (I try to keep them to 300 words but often fail!), however, it is clear that the director understands them. From the first, we see Severine distracted by dream sequences in which she explores her fantasies. There is an extraordinary opening scene where she is riding in a horse and carriage with haunting bells attached to the horses followed by a scene where Severine is tied to a tree and whipped by the carriage drivers. She then wakes up from this dream when her husband asks her what she was thinking about, she replies “I was thinking about us”. This is the first in a series of increasingly shocking dream sequences. Severine is aware that her thoughts are not helping her marriage and increasing the distance between her and her husband, but continues to have them throughout the film.
Severine being shown how to be a good employee
The main thrust of my argument was germinated in my mind when Severine is about to start working at the brothel. I say brothel but it more of a maison than an underground seedy club that one might more typically associate with the word. She looks down the stairs and has a flash back to being in church as a child, presumably during her first communion. She refuses the body of Christ to a much puzzled priest. Then she enters the brothel and things deteriorate from there for her. As she increases in proficiency at her work in the afternoons at the brothel, her dream sequences become increasingly more degrading. On one stage she is tied to a post and has mud flung at her by her husband and friend Piccoli (Henri Husson) while murmuring she loves her husband. This points to her deteriorating mental state, in my view on account of her employ. The multitudes of men, some in and one outside of the brothel, the degrading acts, colourful in their variety but never explicit, and the increasing distance that indulging in these fantasies puts between her and her husband puts Severine in a state of mental anguish.
The last half an hour of the film sees Severine meet her final lover, Marcel (Pierre Clémenti), whose casual encounter develops into an obsession on both sides. Severine’s husband confronts her while they are on a beach holiday. She keeps asking to go back to Paris and her husband begins to suspect that something is keeping her there. Though he does not make the obvious leap in logic until it is too late for him. The film culminates in the conclusion of Marcel’s obsession. Severine is confronted by Piccoli in the brothel and decides to quit forever, without telling Marcel. Marcel, an intuitive cocaine merchant and career criminal, has her followed home. He makes it into her apartment and threatens to wait for Severine’s husband and tell all. When Severine finally convinces him to leave, he picks up a picture of Severine’s husband and pronounces “voila l’obstacle”. He then goes down the stairs, shoots the husband, crippling him for life, and is subsequently killed himself by a Police officer who gives chase.
Severine looking after her husband
Why is this a Catholic tale? For me, on my second viewing of the film, Belle de Jour seems to warn against indulging one’s fantasies. It seems to showcase, at times dramatically, the possible outcomes of living an illicit life or by not investing the energy of sexual fantasies into one’s marriage. Indeed it seems to make the case for chastity, both in terms of self indulgence and taking multiple partners. Belle de Jour is stating in the clearest reading that indulging your fantasies will lead to the death of your marriage. While this is a comedic film, I don’t think even viewers without their red Catholic hat on can conclude that Belle did not come out better for her indulgences in the end. While Bruñuel seems to be criticising the Catholic church, he ends up quite supporting one of its core tenets, the call to be chaste, both inside and outside the marriage. The call to put the core of one’s sexual life in the other, in the proper context, not based in the self, as Severine’s is. The perilous outcomes are self evident from this film.
