Crumey, Andrew: Mobius Dick

A multi-layered novel which uses quantum physics as its basis with the 'now' story interspersed with
a chronicle from the mid 19th century and another from the early 1920s, both referring to real life people though the history of the latter seems distorted.   The current activity is set in a parallel world where Scotland is a separate country under totalitarian rule.   The main character is a physicist who has been invited to aresearch facility in the Highlands to continue his work while helping to build a
new device.   He is convinced this could spell the literal end of the world by multiplying the number
of possible worlds that might appear, all this based on quantum theory.   Despite the esoteric nature of the plot's basis, the work moved along briskly and held my interest.

Barclay, Linwood: No Time For Goodbye

This is the first book I have read by this author though I have two others (such is the pull of 3 for 2
and other offers).   A teacher with a young family has been orphaned for some 25 years; she woke up after getting drunk and rowing with her parents to find the house empty with no trace of either parent or her brother and has been raised by her aunt.   Receiving a mysterious message takes her back in time with a resolve to find out just what did happen.   Although far from straightforward, the plot does hang together with a slow unravelling and a number of red herrings along the way during which she discovers that trusted friends are not trustworthy and that this leads to murder.   Set in Connecticut and New York State, the book is reasonably well written and comes to asatisfactory
conclusion, part of which I for one worked out ahead of time.

Killen,Chris: The Bird Room

Rather an odd first novel which tells of a typically uncharismatic young man with a lovely girl friend who is surprisingly in love with him.   He has a friend who is on the way to becoming the new artistic sensation.   Not surprisingly, the girl friend takes up with the artist leaving the everyday chappie in a mess of mixed emotions.   Crossing the men's paths is an aspiring actress who makes her way in life by appearing in porn films.   Lightly written with some wit, it left me cold.

The Big Gundown: Sergio Sollima

The final viewing of the Festival for us was, for once, enhanced by the introduction by the aficionada of Spaghetti Westerns, Sir Christopher Frayling.   Considered the director's best film, it started the
Italian career of Tomas Milian as a Mexican wanted for rape and murder.   Chased by Lee Van Cleef at his steely-eyed laconic best, he avoids capture until late in the film by which time Van Cleef has been convinced of his innocence.   The final shoot out sees them kill the real perpetrator while managing to survive.   The scenery providing the stage for the film is spectacular and deserves a
credit of its own while the plot with evil land barons, a Prussian killer and the good guys is s little
hackneyed now but the overall result is one which provides a lot of pleasure.

The Boys From Syracuse: A Edward Sutherland

The film version of the Rogers and Hart musical based on 'A Comedy of Errors' with Allan Jones of
'Donkey Serenade' fame playing the identical twins.   One has come to expect more of musicals after
the major leap forward of 'Oklahoma' and 'Carousel' both on stage and on film so this black and white
effort, though highly thought of at the time and considered important enough for the Library of Congress to restore it, is a bit of a let-down.   The music is pleasant but not the duos best and not enough to overcome the wooden performances, somewhat unfunny comedic episodes and cardboard scenery but it is over 70 years old.

Blancanieves: Pablo Berger

Returning to the London Film Festival's offerings after an unnecessarily long pause, this film was a
definite high point.   Silent, virtually, and in black and white, the story is a retelling of the Snow White fairy tale set in a recent Spain where a celebrated bullfighter is gored when distracted by a camera flash, the incident triggering his wife's giving birth to the heroine but dying as she does so.   The now crippled father wants nothing to do with the child while allowing the nurse who looks after him to marry him (a scarily icy performance by Maribel Verdu).   When the child is in her late teens
she is attacked by her stepmother's lover but escapes though she loses her memory.   Saved by a troupe of dwarfs who have supporting roles at bullfights, she one day saves the life of one of them by
jumping into the ring and distracting a rampaging bull with some classic moves.   This leads to her
becoming the star of the troupe and finally she appears to great acclaim in the ring where her father
ended his career.   A successful performance ends with her sparing the bull (a tradition after a truly
great showing) but her stepmother, in disguise, gives her a poisioned apple which kills her (or perhaps leaves her catatonic) to become a freak sideshow attraction.   Excellent camera work which
enhances the Gothic nature of the story; a very good musical score and well considered performance
make this a film worth seeing again.

Museum Hours: Jem Cohen

Something of an oddity, the film tells of an attendant at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna who befriends a Canadian woman who has come to Vienna  because she is the only relative of a cousin who is in a coma.   A leisurely piece which shows a number of the paintings in the Museum without comment as well as a series of disconnected shots of various parts of Vienna (very few of these of tourist sights) coupled with a measured commentary by the attendant about the visitors to the Museum, the film is, to quote the director, a sort of conversation with reference to the philosophy of Chris Marker and John Berger in particular.   The attendant is especially fond of the works of Brueghel and there is a quite extended sequence with a youngish art historian talking about some of the paintings in the room dedicated to his work.   A quiet, unassuming work with well rounded performances from the two leads though some sequences left me puzzled - after a boat trip though some underground caves, they learn that the cousin has died but the scene then moves to a party for immigrants in the attendant's local cafe which is followed by a brief discourse on a short of an old woman walking up a slope with a tall office or apartment building off to the left.   I went to this as I had hoped there would be more on the paintings than there was but, overall, an acceptable film.

Gipsy Anne: Rasmus Breistien

A complete change of pace a few days later in this silent restoration of what is considered the first
authentic Norwegian feature.   Starring Aasta Nielsen in the title role of a foundling tomboy who has
always thought she would marry her childhood friend, the early scenes show her getting into mischief with a local farmeralways being there to protect her.   As an adult, she sets fire to the house her erstwhile boyfriend has built but  her farmer friend takes responsibility for it even though Anne has turneddown his proposal of marriage.   When he leaves prison, Annewho has moved to the town to start afresh, is there to greet him and the film ends with them both leaving for the USA with his mother.   A relatively static camera setting with but a few moving shots though one of the farmer being taken to jail ( a shot of passing scenery with the camera behind the driver) is effective; the film stock switched from sepia to black and white without reason though this may be a function of the material available for restoration.   The main drawback for me was the apparent age of the main characters, all of whom looked to be in their thirties or more though Nielsen was only 23 when the film was made.   A curiosity but no more.

Helter Skelter: Mika Nagakawa

The fourth film from the Far East we have seen, this Japanese feature stars Erika Sawajira, apparently
the Japanese Kate Moss, in an excellently played role as the current darling of the teens of Japan.   She is almost completely artificially beautiful and requires regular treatment from a clinic whose procedures are being investigated by the police.   Sawajira's beauty hides a spoilt and vicious person who corrupts her assistant sexually as well as persuading the latter's boyfriend to disfigure a girl who has become engaged to her current lover.   She is gradually supplanted in the public affection by a younger, fresher beauty and, finally, breaks down completely in front of TV cameras.  A short end sequence shows the new beauty going to a risque nightclub where she sees and follows the assistant to see the earlier teen queen still beautiful but no longer famous.   A very energetic and flashy film with comparatively explicit (for Japan) sex scenes and fine support from the other main actors though the lasting memory will be of Sawajira's central performance in this attack on celebrity and the corruption behind it.

For Love's Sake: Takashi Miike

What a versatile director Miike is. Having made his name with Yakuza style films, he has tried other genres to greater or lesser success. This is a part musical reworking of what is called Romeo and Juliet but this is misleading. The central story is of a rich senior schoolgirl's love for a punk. She sees him in the middle of a street brawl which she unsuccessfully tries to stop but recognises him as the boy who saved her years earlier from a skiing accident which left him with a scarred forehead. This incident opens the film in anime style and also features at the end. She persuades her father to get him into her very exclusive school and to pay for his being there but this does not work and he ends up in a downbeat vocational school in which she enrols even though she was head girl of her former school. Out of her depth she is followed by one of the senior boys who ineffectually tries to protect her. The action is interspersed with songs, the one featuring her parents being delightfully funny and the other blending in with the action for the most part. The girls in the second school seem to be led by a rather large bully, this being the comedic relief role, though the real leader is another girl who takes up with the hero. She has a number of the boys under her thumb including one who is bigger and stronger than the rest. The finale sees this boy fight the hero for the second time with the female gang leader intervening by throwing knives. Although good prevails, the heroine is badly hurt and taken to hospital. In the closing scene, our hero is knifed in the back by a teacher he had humiliated but continues to the hospital to die in her arms. Miike has an excellent eye for scene composition and, although I thought the middle section would have benefitted from either being tighter or possible had more music in it, my overall reaction is that this is a very welcome return to top form.

The Samurai That Night: Masaki Akahori

Seen later the same day as the first film, the title and description led me to expect a somewhat bloody revenge film with the protagonist seeking retribution on the lout who had killed his wife in a car crash. The lout has served a five year jail sentence but has no regrets and has certainly not reformed in any way. The husband is a quiet man who has a small foundry with employees who treat him very off-handedly and friends who are trying to match him up with someone to help him forget his dead wife. This is a slowish psychological study with a few touching scenes and a denouement in really heavy rain which seems to give the husband closure even though the lout is still alive. I might have thought more of it had I not had the wrong initial impression of what I was going to see though without that impression I wouldnot have seen it!

Doomsday Book: Kim Jee-woon & Yim Pil-Sung

The first of this year's London Film Festival viewings, this is a three part Korean film, the first two parts having been completed some time ago while the third is a more recent collaboration. The first segment is a zombie episode which starts with frankly nauseating scenes of food being eaten and the waste then processed into animal feed which then returns to the table as raw beef. This causes an unstoppable epidemic of walking dead. A satirical comment on the food industry filmed in bright colour with some style. The second segment is set in a Buddhist temple with a robot discussing Nirvana with the monks when a mechanic fails to repair it or close it down. A little on the long side but interesting. The final segment has the two directors co-operating in a tale in which a young girl loses her father's eightball and orders another without knowing that she has ordered it from somewhere in the universe. The problem is that the delivery comes in a giant size which destroys muuch of the earth. The family survive in an underground shelter and emerge after many years to find the oversized ball on their doorstep with the alian messenger still waiting for a signature accepting delivery. Amusing but probably the weakest of the three.

Schlink, Bernhard & Popp, Walter: Self's Punishment

Self is a former Nazi prosecutor who became disillusioned with his work, resigned and, after the end of World War II, chose not to return to this profession but became a private investigator instead. He is asked by his brother-in-law, who is now the head of a major chemical firm, to find out who has been tampering with the company's computer system. So far this has been an annoyance rather than causing any real problems. He does this, finds the culprit who is romantically involved with one of the secretaries who has caught Self's eye as well, and makes his report. A few weeks later the culprit is killed in what seems a straight-forward road accident but his girlfriend is not convinced and the bulk of the novel deals with Self's efforts to find out what happened and why. Self is no longer young but seems to have a way with women and his character is well-drawn. The actual story is anything but contrived though there are the almost inevitable co-incidences, the main one being a link to one of his wartime cases at the same chemical plant; this does allow him to work out who was responsible and why by the end of the book. Set in and around Mannheim with excursions to San Francisco and the Italian Lakes, the book portrays a likeable and eccentric detective who enjoys the company of women. The book was published in Germany in 1987 with theEnglish translation dating from 2004. If there are more, it is worth seeking them out.

Carrisi, Donato: The Whisperer

A very interesting Italian thriller starts with the discovery of six severed arms which have been buried in a forest clearing. All belong to young girls but there is no sign of any bodies. The team investigating this is headed by a criminologist and it is joined by a young female officer who is an expert at finding missing girls. She is the focus of the book with the developments told mainly from her viewpoint. She is psychologically damaged being unable to relate to others and being prone to self- mutilation though the reason for this is not clear until the final chapters. The team discover not one but a number of killers who are somehow linked. What makes the book appealing is the gradual discovery of the different strands and the way they come together. Two additional strands are the reason why the killer seems to know what the investigators are doing, the most starling example of this being the discovery of one of the dead girls in the incident room they use and the gradual unveiling of the secret life of the criminologist. The members of the team are deftly characterised and made individual, something not always seen in policiers which this novel is in a way. It is, however, much more than this. It is a well-written psychological study both of the criminals involved but also of those seeking them. A fair amount of technical detail is included but this helps maintain the reader's interest rather than being tedious. Quite a change from the better known Italian policiers by writers like Andrea Camilleri and, overall, more satisfying.

Frightfest 2012 Day 5: 27.8.2012

The Soska sisters earlier film, 'Dead Hooker in a Trunk', was such that we had not intended to see their new one, 'American Mary'but decided to do so as we had seen one of the other two and the third did not appeal. A medical student is broke and not too happy with her studies. Played deadpan almost by Katharine Isabelle, she becomes involved in the world of illegal body modification which pays well. After a party at which her medical tutor rapes her (as seemingly do others there, she takes revenge on him by removing limbs while keeping him alive while making money illegally. All, of course, eventually goes wrong. Could have been better but not bad. After directed by Ryan Smith is creepy. A man and a woman survive a bus crash to find themselves trapped in their home town and completely alone while a dark fog moves closer and closer. In their efforts to escape they fall in love and finally succeed though it may not have been the terrifying reality it seemed to be at the end. Well done tosh. Chained directed by Jennifer Chambers Lynch has Vincent D'Onofrio as a mad taxi driver who kidnaps a mother and her son then kills the mother and enslaves the boy who is made to clean up after further killings. He is taught from books about anatomy and other things and, in his late teens, offered freedom if he, too, becomes a killer. He is unable to complete this but does killy his captor and returns to the family home after finding lettersand cancelled cheques from his father who has remarried. The end is a bloody one. Probably well done but distasteful. The Possession directed by Ole Bornedal tells of the possession of a young girl by a dybbuk which is in an antique box purchased at a yard sale. Eventually a young rabbi does perform the relevant ceremony and the film ends with the cliche of a cliffhanger. Solid and unmemorable. Tower Block directed by James Nunn and Ronnie Thompson was the closing film having its world premiere here. Now on general release it tells of the remaining occupants of a tower block due for demolition who find the lifts booby-trapped and exits and entrances blocked while they are sitting ducks for some shooting at them from a nearby block. Their numbers are gradually whittled down to the redoubtable heroine and two others who are able to overpower the shooter who has entered the building to complete the slaughter. Quite good.