The Pianist*****

If you want harrowing, might I suggest that you look no further. That said it is a stunning and in the end life affirming thing. The performances are brilliant and I also like the dignity of the various pianos which seem unfazed by all the bad behaviour going on around them.

My DVD included a "making of" extra. Mr Polanski reminds me of someone I used to do a lot of business with, I have often wondered how come I had not encountered another Terry, so it added a little something to the experience for me to be comparing these two larger than life characters with their powerful energy, still faces and steely, sometimes intimidating demeanour. Cheeky and funny too though (certainly my friend is and I would guess so is Mr Polanski).

Peripatetic

Two or three weeks ago on a Tuesday, I headed off for Scotland. As I left Brighton I slotted my recently purchased Simple Minds Greatest Hits CD into the player and "Don't you forget about me" sprang into the car. I was immediately transported to the Odeon in Leeds. You may know that that song features in the film The Breakfast Club, it always reminds me of going to see it and knowing throughout that I was going to be dumped by my girlfriend of the time, on the way home. I wasn't that depressed about it and could see that there was a certain art in the whole thing; I reckon the film inspired her to ditch me and it helped me to understand why.

By early evening I was sitting in the reception of a BT building in the centre of Leeds. From there Dominic and I drove to Harrogate, passing the previously mentioned cinema on the way, for a rendez-vous with Guy and his 42 inch TV which (until Dominic changed a setting) produced a picture in which everything and everyone had a green hue. The following morning after having enjoyed a very amusing evening in the Hotel du Vin and the Drum and Monkey, I had a poached egg on smoked haddock at the increasingly Stepford Wives Betty's. They have aparently refurbished again, the designer incorporating a mildly discomforting level of perfection. I felt out of place next to a table of two elderly couples; both the men wore matching silver hair and blue v necks and both the old ladies could have been confused for each other except that one was slightly more stooped. My mobile rang and this exacerbated the situation, an employee was immediately dispatched with a "no mobile phone policy" message for me. Their Full English Breakfast is £9.95.

I had some errands to run in Glasgow before I checked into the airport Travelodge. It was not busy but most of the rest of the guests seemed to be teenagers with plastic bags full of bottles of booze; whilst I checked-in the receptionist was telling a girl that she had had her vodka delivered to her room. That evening I had haggis at the bar in Rogano's.

Next morning I thought I'd just drive about a bit and see where I ended up. Entirely without intention, I found my self at the Kelvin Hall and so parked up and wandered about, ultimately reaching the recently refurbished Kelvin Gallery and Museum. I enjoyed a half hour in there, it made me realise that when I miss London sometimes, it is actually cities that I need a fix of, not neccessarily that particular one. Glasgow is quite unusual. The grid pattern streets, the handsom architecture, the optimism and grit and the culture define it quite distinctly. I didn't like the look of the cafe in the Gallery and went across the road for a brew before continuing my tour and then heading through the dark and the rain to Lochgilphead to stay at my mum's for a couple of nights.














A highly dangerous room in the Kelvin Museum & Gallery

All that driving can leave space in your head which is readily filled up by all sorts of notions. I find it a bit surreal that all these roads are occupied by people sliding along, their bottoms just above the surface, at ninety miles an hour. In order for me to get about I have arranged for myself to be accompanied by a tonne and a half of metal, leather, glass, rubber and carpet. This and many other similar devices hurtling about, in the control of variously affected beings seems inefficient at least and probably quite funny to the children of three or four generations from now; if they can forgive our profligacy.

Speeding along the A74, bright sky, occasional fluffy cloud, lines of pylons threading across those ancient hills, I couldn't help feeling that the days of enjoying Scotch Pie, baked beans and Scooby Doo are not just gone from my life due to the passage of time, but I felt like I'd rubbed my eyes and the reality of what it has and will all cost was starting to reveal itself to my imagination. I wondered about the liklihood of us all looking a bit like we were on Guy's TV quite soon.

Then last week I had a good couple of busy days at work and I have aparently drifted quite happily back into worrying about things like whether to go to my usual Indian or to try something different. (They gave us free drinks at the Indian; so feeling good about that one).

Bare faced cheek

For some time I have been in the market for a manual beard trimming type device. On Jermyn Street this week, after a certain amount of traipsing around, I procured one of those old fashioned clipper/scissor hybrid things that used to be evident in barber shops when I was young. I was concerned that they wouldn't work well when the operator was trying to cut his own hairs but that concern proved to be unfounded. This morning, Gemma commented that my facial hair appeared to be much longer than yesterday, (when I had used the machine that looks a bit like a prop from a film about Victorian surgery, for the first time). "Yes,I think it's stubbled in length", I replied. Sharp would seem to be the word of the moment.

Manon des Sources *****

Doctor: So how have you been feeling?

Patient: Well, to be honest I do seem to be under pressure a lot, my job is hard work, I think I am stressed, not sleeping well, I'm bloated all the time, even though I take Yakult.

Doctor: Mm.....I'm going to recommend that you look at this DVD. It is available without prescription but I will warn you, it is nevertheless, very powerful. Don't expect there to be much reaction at first but after a while you will start to feel the effects; you might feel a little unsettled but it should help you to see things in a clearer perspective.

Patient: Are there any side effects?

Doctor: You may feel quite sick and emotional for a while, you would be best to avoid taking any other drugs at the same time.

A week later.

Doctor: So how did you get on with the medication?

Patient: It was quite difficult to swallow, but I can see now that my condition is self inflicted and that the consequences of going along with things that I don't believe in could be be tragic and permanent, what should I do?

Doctor: Good question.

Jean de Florette *****

I had a vague memory of seeing this film in the 80's but sitting down to watch it again this weekend I didn't recall anything about it, which made it all the more enjoyable. Set in a poor part of Provence it describes how people can behave when they want something badly and how they can readily lose sight of what is important; you might call that greed but it could just as well be a metaphor for the world in general.

You want to hug Gerard Depardieu who plays the ex tax collector who inherits a farm with no water supply and brings his young family to the country, committed to enjoying an idyllic pastoral existence. Daniel Auteuil is brilliantly abhorent in this film as the flawed young peasant, Ugolin. With his uncle "Papet", Yves Montand, the brains behind the scheme, he conspires to get hold of the land that Jean de Florette has inherited. He has conceiled the source, the spring which is the one thing that will make the land viable; which for Ugolin, unlike Jean, is not necessary for his survival. Every time that Ugolin thinks that Jean has given up the ghost because of some new obstacle or other, his opportunity to snatch the land is taken away by a new idea or the renewed enthusiasm of Jean.

This film is a work of art, the visual beauty, the build up of tension, the reality created by the the film makers and the performances of the actors, particularly Daniel Auteuil.

The climax sets up the sequel Manon des Source in a compelling way; I can't wait for it to arrive from Love Film.

White knuckle

At odds with the lyric in that Stranglers' song, the clouds are interesting here today (and not just in Sweden). From my study I have been watching various showers and other meteoroligical phenomena chasing each other across the sea. I can also see the Palace Pier and its various "rides". On a day like this I wonder why anyone would want to have themselves hurled about and blood draining levels of "g" inflicted upon themselves. As I contemplated that big arm that spins round in a vertical plane with a pod full of nausea at each end I found myself thinking about my first trip on a big wheel. When I was about 5 or 6 I lived in Glasgow. Around Chirstmas time there would be a fair and circus at the Kelvin Hall, maybe there still is. Only recently did I realize that that absolute temperature scale and the conference venue were linked. Lord Kelvin must have been quite someone, scientist, businessman, benefactor and so on. Anyway, his hall is big enough to fit a fair and a circus in it at the same time. The only problem with this event was that my mother would try to persuade my brother and me to have a sleep in the afternoon so we had enough energy to stay up late; this, in my opinion was not a successful strategy and inevitably lead to angst. The best example of this was in 1974 when we had a holiday in Ibiza; there was to be a firework display in the town which would be visible from our apartment roof. I was ten and my brother seven, as the pyratechnics would be happening later than we would usually go to bed, we were despatched for one of those (albeit rare) afternoon naps which, in this particular intance, I remember escalating into a great deal of waling and gnashing of teeth. Later I met a girl from the next door apartment who had been waterskiing earlier in the day. When I asked her "how was your water-ski"? She replied to my utter embarrassment, "how was your sleep?" Anyway, back in the Kelvin Hall and this particular year the clowns, the undoubted highlight of the whole show, arrived with a car which they drove about the ring and sytematically destroyed. Entertainment that for this young person, could not be improved upon. Consequently, every subsequent visit to a circus anywhere was a disappointment as there was never another vehicle. I am not sure if it was the clown car year, but I agreed on one occasion, to go on the big wheel with my Dad, actually, I must have persuaded him to take me on it as I don't reckon he was that excited about it himself. Up until then, the most daring thing I had attempted had been the all too ephemeral experience of a ride down the helter skelter sitting in a folded-up front door mat; ten seconds wondering if the end was just round the corner, and then a grazed leg. Not brilliant compared with the likes of "Oblivion" at Alton Towers or better still the roller coaster that is entwined around and through the New York New York Hotel in Las Vegas (properly violent). So, once on board the big wheel, despite the fact that is was relatively slow, indoors and not in a force ten gale, I buried my face in my dad's tweedy coat and cried the entire time.

Coffee and Cigarettes***

The third film of this name from Mr Jarmusch is the first one that I have seen. A series of what those film buffs would call vignettes, I found this a bit clunky to say the least, particularly as it would appear that much if what is going on is improvised by the (in some cases) rather self-conscious players. The segments are all in black and white and feature coffee and cigarettes as the main props (get it); some it has to be said, were quite enjoyable, there is one with Steve Coogan and Alfred Molina which I particularly liked.

Should I post this?

Dominic mentioned recently on Critical Mass that Peter Hammill tells us that the older you get the better able you are to make decisions but the fewer choices there are available to you.

What are the things that have the most impact over who we are and how we spend our time and over which we have control? Some would say that you choose your parents and that this life is entirely predestined but if we put that to one side for the moment, the answer is 'decisions'. At any given moment, we can take a decision or not. More so than working hard (although you can decide to do that) or the amount of effort we put into our daily lives generally, the decisions we choose to take have more of an impact on us than anything else we can do.

If I had not decided to move to London when I was 22 I would be living somewhere else, doing a different job, living with a different person and so on, (assuming I hadn't been run over and killed the day after I had been due to move).

Most of the best times I have had have resulted from decisions I have made, and certainly most of the worst times can be attributed to not making a decision at all, more so than making bad decisions. So my ability to make decisions is the single thing (over which I have some control) which has most influence in my life.

But when I was at school, for some reason, they wanted to teach me what year the Prussians invaded Bolivia instead of how to take decisions.

(The Barefoot Doctor suggests that you might as well decide to be happy, which should be a relatively easy decision to take even if you believe that everything is predestined).

The Vanishing****

Last night's dvd was The Vanishing, not the 1993 Jeff Bridges, Keiffer Sutherland remake but the original 1988 one. I have seen it twice before and despite the fact that it is one of those films that you watch in anticipation of finding out what happens at the end, I still enjoyed it. The baddy is perfectly creepy in a "Harry, he's here to help" kind of way and the goody himself becomes slightly unhinged in the persuit of an understanding of the destiny of his vanished girlfriend. At 107 mins it has a perfect pace (and is a shocker the first time you see it).

Not one to watch with someone who is paranoid about being abducted.

Grattis på födelsedagen

All of us at Cloud Hands would like to wish the Yorkshire (and some time Sweden) readership, happy birthday.

Belleville Rendez-vous****

This is a 70 minute French cartoon about an old lady and her dog, on a mission to find the lady's son who has been kidnapped and taken to the States whilst taking part in the Tour de France.

Are you still there? The creator has not allowed himself to be burdened by too much reality and consequentially this is a really fantastic little film. It has a quirky style, full of beautifully realised, funny references to real life. Worth watching just to witness Bruno the dog going about his business.

(If you are thinking about watching it with a youngster, don't worry about the subtitles because there is very little dialogue).

One to watch with all sorts of folk.

Ladri di biciclette****

On Sunday I watched the famous Bicycle Thieves on DVD. The whole 90 or so minutes are taken up with the business of the main character's bike and how its theft affects him and his family. How could something so futile become the premise for what is considered by many to be an all time great film? For me it would have to be the allegorical nature of the thing as much of what goes on can be viewed as a metaphor for some of the rediculous things that go on in life. Although I also enjoyed the look of it, it's not exactly 21st Century stuff. Not one to watch with someone who has Attention Deficit Disorder.