Carolyn Forché’s single-authored 2003 collection, Blue Hour, is reviewed here in advance of her appearance at the StAnza 2015 International Poetry Festival. The eleven poems which make up the collection contemplate remembrance, the transition between life and death, and the effects of war. Above all, it seems to me that Forché is concerned to present Read More
For sedentary types, watching dancers as bodies in motion is to make contact again with the dream of air and speed: the quickness of lives unbounded by the terrestrial. And so it was Friday night when the Scottish Dance Theatre transformed a bare, whitened stage space at the Dundee Rep into a quicksilver blur of Read More
Shetland native and Edinburgh Makar (appointed May 2014) Christine de Luca’s most recent collection poses, and obliquely answers, many questions so well. If a pamphlet might be termed a chapbook (originally cheapbook), then only in terms of the price, it might be that. However, from its elegant dull yellow jacket, its buff endpapers and Gerry Read More
The question, “How do you behave in a time of war?”resonates through the theatre, as a young Serb, Bojan, struggles to sit through his night shift at Radio Television Serbia amid the distant sound of NATO’s bombs plaguing the city of Belgrade. Marinus Groothof’s feature debut The Sky Above Us unfolds around this query. This Read More
The past often appears sun-bleached on the screen: idyllic, nostalgic. Niels Arden Oplev’s portrayal of Denmark in 1976 receives the same treatment in Speed Walking, a coming of age drama that exudes a reflective humour on the period – in its commitment to costume design at the very least. Amidst a sexual revolution – with Read More
With a focus on characterisation and the importance of filial relationships, Bernard Bellefroid presents Melody, only his second feature film since his debut in 2009 with The Boat Race, a film in which a young boy attempts to rediscover human values of love taken from him by an abusive father. In Melody, Bellefroid proves to Read More
It goes without saying that music is a complex subject. The strong feelings invoked, the interpretations and the influences that a particular piece has are almost infinite, especially when dealing with one of the masters of the art such as Johann Sebastian Bach. Erbarme Dich – Matthäus Passion Stories attempts to unpack this subject, making Read More
“Is there a connection between love and the ocean?” asked a viewer of Atlantic’s director, Jan-Willem van Ewijk, during the post-screening interview session at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. “Yes, I believe there is”, was his reply. Atlantic, the director’s second feature since his departure from a career in investment banking, is a love letter Read More
Ahren Warner’s first two collections, Confer and Pretty, may have simple titles but inside the covers you’ll find poems teeming with conceptual and linguistic complexities. Both books demand the reader’s full participation – I found myself conferring not only with Warner’s explanatory endnotes but also with Google to find translations of French and Greek words, Read More
Over the last couple of decades, Scottish crime novels have become immensely popular and increasingly in demand. The genre is going strong thanks to pioneering authors such as Ian Rankin and Val McDermid, and now Denzil Meyrick wishes to join that list. This latest novel in a series by Meyrick, The Last Witness is a Read More