The love triangle is a familiar trope in the movie industry, yet Summer in February (2013), a true love-triangle story, retains a significant amount of substance thanks to its authenticity. Jonathan Smith, a teacher of lead actor Dan Stevens, wrote the book and subsequent screenplay, providing a fascinating route from page to screen. The film centres on Read More
In her documentary Stories We Tell director Sarah Polley offers a revealing insight into her own life as she presents the story of her mother’s extra-marital affair and her own uncertainties as to the true identity of her biological father. I must admit, I was unsure what to expect when I took my seat for this film. Read More
Martha Lea’s The Specimen is set around the mid 1800’s, a time when there was increasing tension between religion and science. This friction and unease plays a significant role in the narrative, having a notable effect on the characters, in particular, Gwen Carrick and her relationship with her sister, Euphemia. Gwen is inspired by the works of Read More
My mother, in my youth, always advised against going to the cinema on days where the weather was hot and fine. I do feel, however, that she would surely view an outing to enjoy Gilles Bourdos’ Renoir as the kind of film for which exceptions must be made. Visually beautiful, wonderfully paced, and acted with the kind Read More
Paradise: Love is the first instalment of Austrian director Ulrich Seidl’s Love, Faith, Hope trilogy which features a mother, her daughter and sister, each in search of happiness. In this opening film, the mother, 50 year-old Austrian divorcee Teresa (Margarete Tiesel) leaves adolescent daughter Meli (Melanie Lenz) with her sister (Maria Hofstatter) to holiday at a Kenyan beach Read More
The first poem in Frederick Seidel’s latest collection,Nice Weather, is “Night”. The objective yet disconnected tone of this poem prepares the reader for what follows. Blunt, stoical and in some cases cynical, Seidel rarely embellishes his imagery; instead he simply tells it as it is, as straightforwardly as if he were reading from a list: The Read More
“Schizoid” might be the right word for Douglas Thompson’s novel Mechagnosis; it is brim-full of metaphysical leaps, time travel, esoteric references and apocalyptic imagery, and while these elements certainly test the reader, they produce an extremely enjoyable whole. Scott Malthrop is the character at the centre of the storm. Part engineering prodigy, part lost child, part Read More
Reviewing Roger Scruton’s recent book Our Church, the historian Diarmaid MacCulloch found against it, and in interesting terms: ‘A similar historical farrago of half-truths and wishful thinking,’ he said, ‘helped convert TS Eliot to high church Anglicanism in the 1920s’ (Guardian, 22.06.2013). The present volume of Eliot’s letters covers precisely the moment of this conversion. But Read More
In the Mirror, a Monster, Marten Weber’s fifth novel, is primarily concerned with sexual identity and labels. It aims to show how society’s obsession with labels has a limiting power. Tim and his partner run a gay B & B in Edinburgh. Their clients are a colourful group of people who could be described as Read More