Heaven, Traverse

 Mairead (Janet Moran) and Mal (Andrew Bennett) have been married for a couple of decades now. They're best pals, they say, but are they still husband and wife? Were they ever really?

They're back in Mairead's home town for her sister's wedding. From the city to an insular place where life has stood still and she finds many familiar faces. Not least her old lover, the one who she never forgot. While Mal is left to his own devices, falls off the wagon and lets himself indulge his long repressed fantasies. Both takes paths they had not expected, but are they really going to diverge?

The play takes the form of alternating monologues, her then him then her then him, as each talks about the self they've kept inside, and the person they have lived with. The technique emphasises their separateness, but their words also show their affection and understanding for one another, each explaining things that the other can't even admit to themselves. It's a perfect illustration of how lives can be so interconnected and so far apart, and of how long term relationships will often keep afloat long after the thrill of the launch has departed. That affection and dependence can take many forms.

It's a smart script, with plenty of Irish humour, and a few surprises. Two strong performances, but I sometimes felt I was losing my hearing during Moran's sections. But could hear every word Bennett uttered. It's a shame, as I'm sure I missed some good lines from the lack of projection.

Overall a very satisfying performance, and one that ends before you were expecting it, which is always a good sign. Well worth seeing.  

Hard Truths

 Pansy (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) is angry.  And anxious.  She’s angry with her plumber husband Curtley (David Webber).  With 22 year old layabout son Moses (Tuwaine Barrett).  With her younger sister Chantelle (Michelle Austin).  With pretty much everyone she meets - in car parks, supermarkets, her doctor and dentist, the list of targets for her anger never ends.  And her anxiety makes her fearful of the world, where there is no safety.

Chantelle is a hairdresser, charming and confidence inspiring with her clients, fun and happy with her two daughters.  She wants Pansy to come with her to their mother’s grave, for the anniversary of her death.  Pansy even gets angry with that.

But she will eventually go, and the two families get together.  But even there the contrast between the two trios is stark.  While the shadow of Pansy’s anger hangs over everyone.  

So what will she do with faced with a situation that requires her to act with love?

Jean-Baptiste is superb, a tightly strung band always on the verge of unwinding dramatically.  Her rants are epic, her disdain apocalyptic.  But the vulnerability is never far away.  The reasons behind her behaviour leak out gradually.

.If this all sounds a bit grim you’d be wrong.  Pansy’s ire is hilarious viewing (although you wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end) because it has no rationale.  We’ve all known someone like her, someone whose grumpiness and resentment is unending.  

The filming is up close and personal, filled with delightfully awkward silences and mumbled excuses, while the Chantelle aspect gives off vibes of real joy.  This is ordinary life in spades, the inconsequential gossip, the families that barely co-exist, the people who tolerate and those who don’t.

Another Mike Leigh masterclass in the everyday.

September 5

Anyone my age or older will probably remember the event, and how horrific it was at the time.  One of those world events you never completely forget.  It's all well documented now, so it's easy to read up on what happened to the terrorists and their victims.

But this film takes a new slant on what happened.  This was the first time that a terrorist event was able to be covered live on satellite TV, meaning the events in Munich found their way around the world immediately.  A team of sports broadcasters, from the American ABC network, suddenly found themselves in groundbreaking broadcast territory, and a sudden deluge of unfamiliar moral decisions to make.  If a hostage was murdered live on camera, should that be broadcast or not?

While the politics of the situation are touched on, it's largely in the context of how it determines the team's decisions.  This is about the human beings behind the cameras, and the strains it put on them.  The filming is claustrophobic, largely confined to the control studio, and using contemporary (grainy!) footage to show the unfolding drama being covered.  The tech is very much from the pre-digital era, and there's a lot of improvisation required.  Younger viewers will be shocked at how primitive it will all seem, but this was the cutting edge of TV sports broadcasting in 1972.

The focus is on the moral and emotional issues.  The mistakes made in a situation where the world is watcvhing through their lens.  The instincts of journalists wanting to pursue the story (and having to fight off the views of their own management who wanted a news team to take over - but the sports guys were the only ones actually there, on the scene).  Versus the moral responsibilities of playing their part in trying to achieve a safe ensding for all involved.  They even find themselves being invaded by German police at one pojnt, for hampering the efforts fo the authorities.  Are they reporters or voyeurs or accomplices.  The lines are sometimes blurred.

The style is often cinema verite, following characters rushing from one moment to another.  The messiness and confusion and need to make decisions comes across well.  There are some excellent performances, notably from John Magara as Geoff, the studio dierctor trying to hold it all together, and Leonie Benesch as Marianne, a (fictional) young German assistant, reflecting the mortification of her generation at the sins of their elders.

It's a strong drama, worth watching for the tension alone.  But the film also provides useful insights into the moral demands on journalists in life or death situations, and a the sesne of global trauma that came with those terrible events.

Triptic, Traverse

Take 3 members of the much lamented Moishe's Bagel quintet, and give them a good cause to support.  This was a benefit gig in support of Medical Aid for Palestine (MAP), one of the most important and essential charities currently operating.

The trio are Greg Lawson (fiddle), Phil Alexander (piano and piano accordion) and Mario Caribe (upright bass and guitar).  Togerther they play an eclectic mix of tunes from around the world, a few composition so their own, and the audience is taken, musically, to Brazil, Argentina, Cuba, Ukraine, Russia and beyond.  The arrangements are often complex, and at times it feels like all 3 unstruments are paying their own melodies, albit ones that jigsaw so well together.  They's a joy to watch too.  Caribe and Alexander exchanging smiles, grins, glances, while Lawson brings drama in his body language as well as his playing.  He has an incredibly pure tone to his sound, no doubt a product of his classical background.  

They're good storytellers too, by way of introducing their numbers.  Notably Lawson's tale of approaching a policemen for directions, whilst too stoned to realise that the spliff in his hand might attract the worng sort of attention!  (He was lucky to find a very relaxed constable...)

Fun, depth, top class musicianship and some wonderful tunes.  An exceelent way to spend the evening.

A Complete Unknown

This is the young early 60s Dylan (Timothee Chalamet), from his arrival in New York until the storm of controversy that erupted in Americn Folk Music after his famous/infamous electrified set at Newport Festival.  A formative period not just for the man who would become one of the greats, but for the future direction of US music and beyond.  

Seeking out the legendary Woody Guthrie, now in hospital, he also meets Pete Seeger, who takes the young Bobby under his wing, and into his family.  With that lift, and lyrical quality of his songs, Dylan will take the folk world by storm, but wants to be more, wants to explore different directions and fusions.  Along the way relationships will be made and broken, fans won and lost, and our=trage generated.

The movie has a wonderful period feel, conveying the state of the US folk world of the time.  Plenty great music too, noit just Dylan songs, but Guthrie, Seeger, Baez, Cash...  The quality is impressive, the more so when you learn that the actors performed the voals themselves.  If you get Dylan's voice and phrasing right he's not too hard to impersonate, as his strengths do not lie in the techincal quality of his vocals.  But all credit to Monica Barbaro for doing such a great job in capturing the purity of Joan Baez.

Chalamet's also hit Dylan's mumbled speaking voice, which can be an issue, and there were times when subtitles would have helped!

It would be easy to pick up the few flaws in the movie, and the only one that irked was a lack of editing.  The movie felt overlong, and the final scene with Guthrie unnecessarily loaded with symbolism.  But the overall impression is triumphant.  A celebration of the times, a warts and all portrait (Dylan isn't always the best of human beings in his realtions with others), and a striking impression of just how big an impact his decsion to go electic was at the time.  

Well worth seeing.

Conclave

The Pope dies and the College of Cardinals must go into conclave to choose his successor.  The task of heading up the process falls to Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes), who is on the more liberal wing of the church, and favours Cardinal Bellini (Stanley Tucci) to get the job, however reluctant he may appear to be to put his name forward.  There are other contenders of course, either slightly less liber, or far further to the right, and Lawrence and Bellini are joined in opposing the possibility of that backward-looking arch conservative Cardinal Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto) becoming their boss.

Preventing that, and navigating all the other challenges involved, requires a lot of backroom negotiating, skullduggery, and a few dirty tricks.  Added into the mix is a mystery cardinal who none of the others were aware of, Cardinal Benitez (Carlos Diehz) from Afghanistan.  Why had the Pope kept him hidden away, and what views does he adhere to?  Who will win through in the end, and how many will be disgraced along the way.

An excellent cast, a reasonably gripping plot and some excellent cinematography.  Fiennes is at his best, despite one hammy moment of 'looking shady' as he investigates the secrets of the dead man's bedroom.  There are even a few laughs along the way, and it certainly has a surprise twist to the ending.  So it's not as dull as the subject matter might suggest.

But.  I found myself lacking any empathy for, or emotional engagelemnt with, any of the characters.  A bunch of old men choosing another old man to issue diktats to millions of people?  It's hard to sympathise with any of them, even those who are protrayed as more 'liberal'.  Maybe it was because the last film I went to see was Small Things Like These , but have any positive feelings for officials of the Catholic church were impossible to dredge up!

One element did make me laugh though, and I am still wondering if the image was coincidental or deliberate.  There were several visual references to The Handmaid's Tale, with the mass of Cardinals often looking like so many Offreds.  It certainly helped to poke fun at some of the more sinister aspects of the closeted plotters.

Dean Owens and the Sinners, Traverse

The annual pre-Xmas Dean Ownes gig is not to be missed.  Tis year, to allow a (much) bigger audience in, it moved from the usual cafe-bar location down into Traverse 1.  Dean confessed he was nervous about the switch, worrying that not enough tickets would sell to justify it.  It was a sell-out!

With good reason.  This is always a December treat for Dean's big local following.  On this aoccaison with full band.  Dean on guitar and vocals (and whistling), long term sidekick Craig Ross on lead guitar, Adam McMillan on bass, Andy Duncan at the drum kit, and Philip Cardwell blowing trumpet.  The latter indicating that Owens is still very much in his TexMex phase.  The first half was mostly newer material, much of it from the album to be released next year, including several songs no live audience had yet heard.  The second set dived more into the back catalogue, with some very familiar singlaong numbers included (such as Raining in Glasgow).    

Dean was as good as ever, Craig Ross in fine form, and the crowd loved it.  I'm already looking forward to next December...