Renoir

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

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

Nice Weather

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

Mechagnosis

“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

The Letters of T. S. Eliot Volume 4: 1928-1929

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

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

Frightening New Furniture

When Kevin Higgins takes great delight in informing us that he “moved like Kevin Keegan” in his new football boots, instantly, the reader expects that the poetry to follow will be a realist description of the life, love and tribulations of the aforementioned author and his experience of growing up. And all of this is Read More

A Field in England

Ben Wheatley’s latest film, A Field in England,  is a bold psychedelic adventure filmed entirely in monochrome which follows a group of deserters during the civil war era who lose themselves to mushrooms, madness, alchemy and greed.  During the special Q&A session which followed  the screening of the film, Wheatley  exclaimed that he hoped nobody had Read More

Before Midnight

Before Midnight is the long awaited third instalment in Richard Linklater’s series of films which began withBefore Sunrise and Before Sunset. These films together follow the twists and turns of a romance that first bloomed between two strangers conversing on a train. Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, reprising the roles of Jesse and Céline, aid Linklater’s believable story Read More