Wilding

 Don't be alarmed. It's not a reflection on the hideous tabloid freakery from the 1980s. No, this is a documentary based on a book by Isabella Tree about revisioning a family farm.

The doc is narrated by an unnamed woman, who I assume is Tree. Odd she is never named, and she repeatedly refers to Charlie, who turns out to be her husband. Some little pointers for the viewer going in cold would not go amiss. The first three minutes are also marred by a poor sound mix as Unnamed Woman fights to be heard above the strains of T-Rex. 

Tree and Charlie had inherited the farm, Knepp, in Sussex and realised they needed to do things differently if they wanted to bring the soil back to life. After hundreds of years of ploughing, fertilising and pesticides, the soil was almost dead. So, they did some research and instituted a version of rewilding, allowing the land to regain its more ancient state.

Interestingly, at least to me, this involved bringing in animals, among them ponies and cattle and letting them roam. This would allow the animals to interact with the landscape, shaping it and revitalising it. At one point Tree refers to the animals being managed but does not elaborate. So, I wondered, how wild were these animals? Were they vaccinated, have their hoofs and teeth checked? Was there any intervention if they became sick or injured? No information was given, although the couple do refer to questions by their neighbours who are not keen, which suggests they thought these questions were beyond the pale. Not really.

Instead there is a lot of footage of pigs rootling, stags wandering, birds nesting and water flowing. Beavers are brought in but this is also not explored. I had to go online to discover the two beavers who were brought in initially did not last long at the farm. I would love to see if the beaver experiment succeeds. 

Charlie concludes he could see the animals making their way to the sea, but how would this happen, what with motorways and other human creation in the way? The film ends on this note, which is rather unsatisfactory. But the ideas are intriguing, even if most of us do not have a spare 3500 acres lying around to pursue them. 

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Things Will Be Different

 This indie drama/sci fi/horror from writer/director Michael Felker is intriguing and well made if a bit confusing. Siblings Joseph and Sid (Adam David Thompson and Riley Dandy) meet in what we assume is the present before he takes her to a remote location to hide out after some kind of robbery that has earned them $7m. Entering a certain closet allows them to go somewhere else in time until they can return safely. Except they can't. 

The time travel plot device plays out rather awkwardly in places as the two kill time in a big house and offer minimal exposition. Why are they estranged? Why did they commit a robbery? Eventually a strange force called The Vise enters their lives in the form of a mysterious safe with tape recorder. (Quite lo fi for a time travel film!) They need to follow instructions to get back safely. 

One oddity is how the two siblings are so well armed. Did they serve in the military? They stalk the property with their guns and then retreat to the kitchen to make use of the automatically restocking fridge. Once I noticed the contents resemble film set craft, I couldn't shake the notion the whole film is a metaphor for DIY film-making: being stuck in a location with a limited supply of food while the world proceeds unbothered. 

Anyway, Sid and Joseph await an unwelcome visitor and the whole thing goes full fight-to-the-death for a bit. And then gets weirder. By the end I had no idea what had happened or why. It seemed improbable certain characters would or would not recognise each other. So, it proved a frustrating watch, albeit with fully committed performances from the actors and some clever film-making to work within what was clearly a limited budget. 

I want an automatically restocking fridge!

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Paddington in Peru

 This third entry in the Paddington series finds our ursine hero and his human family the Browns en route to Peru to visit Aunt Lucy at the Home for Retired Bears. The title suggests an opportunity for the tables to turn as Paddington revisits his birthplace and the Browns are along for the ride as the outsiders. 

And to a point that is true. There are bears galore at the retirement home which is run by nuns led by Olivia Colman in shimmering grinny form. She even sings! 

And much later when the family is lost in the jungles and encounters some wild creatures it does appear as if Paddington is equipped to lead the way. But this is not really how things play out which is a disappointment.

So much time is spent on the hunt for Aunt Lucy and giving screentime to Antonio Banderas's hammy riverboat captain (clearly hoping to repeat the Hugh Grant in overdrive trick of the second film), that very little thought is given to the bears at all. Think about it: this would be the first time Paddington would be in the majority. Surely he would want to revisit his old home, perhaps pay tribute to his Uncle Pastuzo, use his own language? 

Not a bit of it. The climax which finds the family face to face with some unexpected inhabitants affords zero time to Paddington even considering his birth roots. Everything is quickly wrapped up and then it's back to London for a quick cameo from an old face. 

Never thought I would say it but Paddington really needs more bears and fewer human beings. 

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Members Club

 If someone, somewhere has been searching for a horror comedy about middle-aged male strippers encountering an ancient witch, this one's for you. The ahem members of the troupe, Wet Dreams, are booked in for a gig in Essex at a strangely deserted working men's club. Then something stirs.....

The set-up is fine, a sub-plot about stripper Alan's attempts to reconnect with his estranged daughter Daisy emerging as all hell breaks loose. There are some laughs and a bit of gore. It's all good fun. Oh, and Peter Andre turns up in a ludicrous wig for no discernible reason. 

The gender politics are harder to determine. Is this meant to be a reversal of the age-old premise of hot young strippers being imperiled? Most of Wet Dreams have seen better days and the lads spend most of the film clad only in tiny glittery shorts. Then there are the witches, in multiple. Is witchcraft inherently bad? Not clear. There is quite an ugly scene toward the end that rather ruined the viewing experience, as Alan suddenly steps up to take action, urged on by his mate Deano. 

Ah, yes, Deano. So, Deano has an interesting anatomical feature only revealed right toward the end. Is this meant to be a joke? Is the whole film a health film in disguise? Not clear. A bit of a dampener, one might say. 

"It's cock-a-clock!" one character announces. If that appeals, this is your film. 

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Studio One Forever

 This documentary almost feels like it should have an exclamation mark at the end of the title. As West Hollywood councillor John Duran stands on stage, he bellows the words to his audience of former revellers and the attendant unseen angels. More on that later. 

There is no exclamation mark but the entertaining film revisits a lost gay club popular in the 1980s with plenty of archive footage and remembrances from staff and visitors. There is quite a large quotient of name-dropping, as well as everyone from Elton to Cary to Sylvester was there. Chita Rivera (RIP) is interviewed about launching her cabaret at the club's back room and admitting how daunting it was crossing the dance floor to get to her show. 

All of this great but so what? Lots of clubs existed in the 1980s. What made this one special? The hook is that the now-shuttered club is about to be demolished in 2018 as a big bad developer has taken over the property. Duran and his pals are keen to stop the demolition, and they put on a reunion to raise the club's profile. It takes until the 70th minute for anyone to mention AIDS and then it turns into a memorial as Duran speaks of all the lost angels looking down on them. This is moving but many people who were mentioned earlier are never given their due. What happened to them?

The editing is bizarre, skipping from a declaration that the club owner ran a racist admission policy to talking about Can't Stop the Music and then on to the DJ playlist. Visits to a local archive are interesting and there is a brief glimpse of some lost and now found photo negatives. But it's a bit of a mishmash. 

If this gives a new generation an idea of how club life functioned in WeHo pre-AIDS, then all to the good. I do wish there had been a bit more reflection on Studio One's cultural context. Spoiler: the party ended very, very badly. 

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Portraits of Dangerous Women

 This British indie film is a real burst of fresh air, quirky, inventive and surprisingly moving. Pascal Bergamin is not a name with whom I am familiar, but the writer-director has crafted a delightful film, peopled by a brilliant cast, among them the luminous Tara Fitzgerald, Yasmin Monet Prince, Mark Lewis Jones and Jeany Spark, abetted by small cameos from Sheila Reid and Joseph Marcell. 

These characters navigate around each other in an unnamed small British town with outstanding scenery. Everyone seems to live in a period cottage while Lewis Jones' character operates a small art gallery. Who are these people? How do they fit together? The film takes its time establishing links but I found it refreshing it was neither broad comedy, trite romance, nor heavy drama. 

The titular portraits are small found photographs of women in unusual poses, from shooting to climbing. They are gathered by Ashley (Monet Prince) who is trying to establish herself in the art world and strikes up an alliance with John (Lewis Jones). Meanwhile Tina (Fitzgerald) and Steph (Spark) work in the same school, but in very different contexts. Steph is a teacher while husky-voiced Tina spends her days in a boiler suit skulking around toilets and testing chairs, as she is the school caretaker. 

Watching Fitzgerald at work is fascinating, her way of inhabiting this moody, flinty character suggesting hidden depths. It's a marvellous performance and anchors the film, even if Spark and Lewis Jones have more showy parts. 

Broken relationships, a dead dog, many unexplained financial issues. These all figure in this film but really it's a clever ensemble piece featuring flawed human beings attempting to find their ways through. A triumph. 

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Inherit the Witch

 Well, Hellooooo, camp as tits folk horror film! We have missed you! Inherit the Witch is a batshit crazy lower than lo fi UK film featuring an OTT witch running amok in the New Forest, plus a toxic gay couple and family drama galore. 

Cory returns to his hometown for his dad's funeral, alongside Scandi f-buddy Lars but never makes it as he is visited by estranged sister Fiona who wants him to remember weird shit that happened in their childhoods. Plus, an older couple are enacting some ritual with a metronome. Then Fiona stumbles into a basement..... 

Bizarre set pieces, terrible acting, a nonsensical plot and some questionable accents mean that this one is a very, very guilty pleasure but I enjoyed it mostly. I really wanted to see a proper Final Girl but Fiona is so, so passive, spending her time in peril mostly gasping for breathing and shrieking. FFS, girl. Run!

At least Fiona gets some nice lighting, especially when she is bumbling through the forest with her lit torch, hunted by robotic Lars and possibly satanic Cory. Hide, girl!

One part Hammer Horror mixed with The Owl Service, Inherit the Witch is not a great film. But it is entertaining. 

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Fitting In

 For the first ten minutes of this new film by writer/director Molly McGlynn I thought: "Wow! This film is amazing. So clever and well written!" Fitting In tailed off after that but is still a thought-provoking watch. 

Lindy is a teenager who has never had her period. Her mother Rita is concerned and anxious. Lindy has friends, runs track and is seeing a hunky guy. Her mother has her own issues that are so quickly established, you might miss the fact she has had cancer treatment. Later this will come up again. 

But then Lindy discovers she has a medical condition which explains her lack of periods. She actually has no uterus and what the gyno calls "a vaginal dimple". The medical terminology is quite eye-opening and the film is very good at putting you right in the middle of Lindy's consultations with an array of male medical consultants who do nothing to put her at ease or make her feel good about her body. She feels obligated to try stretching her vagina with a dilator so that she might experience sex as she sees it, i.e. penis in vagina. Nobody seems to want to suggest there are other ways of having sex although there is an entanglement with a non-binary character that promises more than it delivers. 

So, the film zooms from a breezy family comedy drama right into an intense healthcare journey which means jarring tonal shifts. 

I wish we had seen a lot more of Lindy's interactions with her best friend Viv, rather than her repetitive meetings with her boyfriend Adam and her arguments with Rita. A lot of scenes end with Lindy running out of rooms and it gets a bit tiresome. She has an array of suitors she treats badly and she also ignores Viv for most of the film. As a result, Lindy becomes more and more isolated and unhappy. 

But lessons are learned and toward the end there is a rather on the nose scene in which Rita shows her daughter her own surgical scar that leaves the viewer thinking Eh? Surely, more time could have been spent understanding the mother's POV rather than shoehorning it in at the end. I also did not like the way the film seemed to let Lindy off the hook for her own obnoxious behaviour, particularly toward a guy she used for sex. 

Kids, eh?

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Days Out: Chelsea Physic Garden

 Having lived in London for more than 29 years,  I am attempting to hit some places I have never visited. Having read a book recently in which the main character has a day out at Chelsea Physic Garden and decides to change her career, I thought I might do the same. 

I chose a Sunday morning and arrived just before opening time to discover the doors were open so in I went and spent a few hours wandering the grounds of this lovely spot tucked away in Chelsea on the banks of the Thames.

First I strolled through the green houses and discovered a hidden channel that ran along the back. I do love a green house, ever since my first visit to one in the New York Botanical Garden in the 1970s. The balance between humidity and heat is always a challenge. But I emerged into the fresh air and made my way round the perimeter, checking out the various gardens, such as Edible Plants and Useful Plants. I think there were beehives in one corner but they are away from the path. 

I stumbled across the Tank Pond and wondered how many unsuspecting visitors attempt to take a short cut through it and fall in. I stopped to look at the male and female ginkgo trees entangled across a path. I took a breather in the Garden of Medicinal Plants, then cut back across the lawn for a look at the Cool Fernery, disturbing a robin which flew out an open window. I finished up with a peep at the carnivorous plants, always fun. 

It really is a dreamy spot, only spoiled by a quite outrageously priced cafe, but that is the way of things nowadays. 

I have not yet changed career, but I don't discount the possibility. 

While I have pictures I want to upload for this post, Google will not allow me to do so. 

GRACIE AND PEDRO: Mission Impossible

An animated feature about a dog and a cat teaming up to find a way home after getting lost by an airline, this film is a mixed bag. The animation is very much of the moment--the animals look pretty cool but the human beings have a weird rubbery texture that is oddly in vogue. The humour is dorky and the film plays out as a series of set pieces putting the titular pets in danger time after time: will they make it out of the airport, the desert, the abandoned theme park? 

What is interesting is the notion of home the film presents. Mom and Dad venture out to bring the missing pets home, while Grandpa stays to look after the kids. The teenagers, Sophie and Gavin, squabble but team up to put out a video on social media slamming the airline for losing their pets, which is one of the high points. Gracie and Pedro also argue but are united in their determination to make it back home, a home they have never seen as their family was moving. 

The impediments are structural as well as physical: airline bureaucracy, human foolhardiness, greed. Interestingly, all the other animal species understand them, including a rabbit voiced by Susan Sarandon. Human beings, on the other hand, seem rather inept in their communication. 

The voice work is disappointing. The main characters have no chemistry but the A listers are all given cameo roles, including Brooke Shields as a horse and Bill Nighy as some kind of predatory bird that lives on a train. Many plot points like this are bizarre and seem random. A plot point putting them on a bus to Las Vegas with a magic troupe promises much but delivers nothing. 

In the end, lessons are learned and peace is restored. Mission accomplished. 

Gracie and Pedro will be coming to UK cinemas from 9th August. 

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Cyndi at 71

 Hard to believe the great Cyndi Lauper is 71. I grew up on her music and adored her New York thrift style. The first two albums are all time classics and I even have a soft spot for her early New Wave band, Blue Angel. 

Cyndi has stopped off in the UK for a performance at Glastonbury this week and despite Twitter being aflame with suggestions the sound was terrible, I am pleased she has had this opportunity to play a festival ahead of her (sob) farewell tour next year. I only saw her once, back in around 1992 in San Francisco at a small club. She deserves a big stage to go out on. Here is a clip of her appearance on BBC Breakfast. 

Heart of an Oak

 This enchanting documentary, courtesy of Laurent Charbonnier and Michel Seydoux, charts one year in the life of an oak somewhere in France. There is no narration and no subtitles, making it a viewing experience that depends on attention to detail and enjoyment of the soundtrack. There is occasional music,  some of it jarringly intrusive. 

But mostly Heart of an Oak is about the creatures that call this mighty ancient tree their home, the red squirrel that has made a nest on an extended branch, the boar and dree that come to graze, the insects that are hatched, grow up and die under its gaze, and the birds that come and go as they please. 

The four seasons are the structure for the film, with summer explosions of colour leading into the more withdrawn seasons of autumn and winter and ending with the return of flowers and leaves in spring. It is gorgeously shot and one does wonder at the technical wizardry that allows viewers to watch mice traversing their tunnels underground, as well as an acorn growing and sending up shoots. CGI may well play a part. 

The drama comes from encounters between frogs and weevils, predatory birds stalking their prey and the ingenious squirrel evading both snake and birds. Human beings are notably absent. Hurrah. 

This is nature taking centre stage and showing off its gifts, among them the humble acorn growing into a sapling next to its progenitor. 

Heart of an Oak is released on Icon Film Channel on 10 June. 

Swede Caroline

 

This indie comedy promises much, positioning itself firmly within the micro genre of British whimsy. Jo Hartley stars as the titular Caroline, who has been disqualified from a giant veg growing contest in Shepton Mallet.  She attracts the attention of a documentary maker who vows to follow her as she works toward the next year's contest. 

So, we are in mockumentary territory and that is where the film falls flat, with lots of hand-held shots, long mumbled conversations that go nowhere and utterly unfathomable plot twists involving exes, rival growers and a swinging couple who are detectives. 

Somehow the writer-director team of Brook Driver and Finn Bruce manage to make this almost entirely laugh-free. Hartley does her best but the writing is flat, the characters lacking heft and the story nonsensical. Alice Lowe turns up for a needless cameo with an alleged Swedish accent and then runs away, possibly to batter her agent. 

One of the issues is that we never learn much about Caroline or the two men in her life, Paul and Willie, with whom she spends much of her time. Paul is her housemate and Willie their neighbour, but it is hinted there is history among them which is never clarified and their relationships remain underwritten.  

Possibly if this had been scripted more tightly, it might have worked. As it is, the film drags on and on toward an absurd climax involving corrupt politicians and murky deals. Okey doke. 

The overgrown veg look intriguing and the diversion in a country house offers some amusement. But Swede Caroline suffers from stunted growth. 

Swede Caroline opens in UK on 19 April. 

BFI Flare: Life's a Beach...

 Possibly my last reviews from this year's Flare, although there are many films left unseen. 

Lesvia, a personal documentary from Tzeli Hadjidimitriou offers an insider's perspective on the fabled isle of Lesvia aka Lesbos. The filmmaker grew up there and is also a lesbian, so she has a life's worth of material to work with, starting from her earliest memories of visiting Eressos in 1980 and seeing naked women. There is great archive footage of the various eras of Eressos, from camping on the beach, to the development of lesbian-owned businesses, to downturns in tourism.

There is also a rather juicy conflict between the locals and the visitors which the filmmaker also outlines with a series of interviews, no doubt getting unvarnished views owing to her local status. If one might want a little more on just why Lesvia attracts so many lesbians owing to its status as the birthplace of the poet Sappho, well one must look elsewhere. 

Heavy Snow

As for Heavy Snow, well, I was just baffled. A Korean melodrama about the relationship of two school girls, Su-An and Seol, it veers off into bizarre diversions involving surfing and hiking through snow. By the end I was not even sure it was meant to be a real romance between two women but rather a metaphor for self-deception or a fever dream or even a death hallucination. Possibly one of the worst films I have ever seen. Or a work of obscure genius. No idea. 

BFI Flare: Double Lives

 Well, my Flare viewing has slowed to a crawl but I shall soldier on. Loads more films to see. 

I started Riley last week but only finished it today as I left it to watch other things. I was not engrossed by the first few minutes but it picked up and has a lot of things to say about family pressures and breaking free of expectations. High school football star Dakota Riley is expected to do great things, especially by his coach who is also his father. For some reason the team's quarterback Jayden is staying with Riley and their sexual tension is palpable. Except Jayden presents himself as a ladies man.... There is a needlessly complicated time structure involving an older man Riley tries to hook up with. Plus loads of bare sweaty chests and throbbing homoeroticism. An out gay character proves not to be such a great ally. And the ending is open. So, hmm. Pretty decent.

What a Feeling

What a Feeling is more of a farce but also features characters trapped by familial expectation, in this case two middle-aged women in Vienna, Fa and Resi, whose paths cross at a lesbian bar before they attempt to hook up. But Fa is not out to her family, while Resi has just been dumped by her husband of 20 years. It is laugh out loud funny in places, even if the coincidences and improbabilities mount up. But how great is it to hear an Irene Cara song soundtrack a lesbian romance?

BFI Flare: Queens of Their Dreams

 Continuing with my Flare viewing I present two films in which women find themselves at odds with the women in their families.....

Queen of My Dreams

Fawzia Mirza's The Queen of My Dreams is a stunning work and I am disappointed it was not the opening or closing night film. A sweeping work jumping back and forth in time between late 20th century Canada and Karachi in the 1960s, it finds Azra fretting at her complete disconnection from the life of her overbearing mother Mariam. They have nothing in common, she thinks, until her father collapses on a trip back to Karachi and Azra and her brother travel back to their parents' home country to deal with family matters. 

Azra then flashes back to her mother's coming of age in the 1960s, when it was expected she would marry a man with the approval of her parents and she chafed at restrictions placed on her. Sound familiar? 

Amrit Kaur plays both adult Azra and younger Mariam and the film has great fun with exploring the sounds and sights of times gone by, with film star Sharmila Tagore proving to be a touchstone for both women. When the film moves to 1990s Nova Scotia it is less compelling, but there is enjoyment in young Azra beginning to realise her queer identity while being pressed into service at her mum's Tupperware parties. 

I have seen two of Mirza's previous films but this is a massive leap forward for the writer-director, handling a huge cast on two continents and such a complex storyline. Brava.

You Don't Have....

The short You Don't Have to Like Me also features a protagonist at odds with her surroundings, in this case a masc presenting woman wandering the streets of New York feeling misunderstood and judged by all and sundry. Even her mother is on her case to find a man. The story is told in a voiceover which gives it a poetic quality, though there is one very amusing scene set on a subway when she seems to find a sense of community. A promising work from director Safiyah Chiniere. 

BFI Flare: Dudes Duding

Well, I have finally finished my first two titles from Flare. 

The Greek drama The Summer of Carmen plays out like a very meta version of Queer as Folk with some unrequited longing, various shades of masculinity and a very cute dog complicating things. Spoiler: nothing bad happens to the dog, the Carmen of the title. 

Hairy, hunky Demosthenis is unable to let go of his ex Panos, who acquires said dog and then foists it on him. Drama queen Nikitas watches from afar, increasingly frustrated by Demosthenis focusing so much attention on his shags and less on their friendship and attempts to write a script. The time frame jumps back and forth between their present visit to a rocky beach and back to the summer of Carmen's arrival, when Demosthenis was in a family crisis, as well. 

The only way I could tell what time it was was by Nikitas' hair colour. The chemistry between the two is quite good and the lovers and ex-lovers are much more in the background. Admirers of the male body are in for a treat, as much of the screentime allows the teddy bear-like Demosthenis to strut around nude or half nude. I expected the film to expand a bit more on the friends' underlying dynamics but this was only hinted at. Very clever if overlong. 

Jason Patel in Unicorns

Unicorns is an odd couple pairing of a white Essex lad, Luke, and his attraction to Ayesha, a glamourous south Asian drag queen he meets.... well I am not quite sure where because the film was quite vague about locations. Early on she asks him, "You're not from round here," which suggested it was up north but may actually have been London. 

Anyway, Luke is straight and a single dad (and a West Ham fan!) who presses his father into service as a babysitter while he drives Ayesha from gig to gig. The two leads,  Ben Hardy and Jason Patel, have great chemistry but the plotting is a bit choppy, with their relationship taking great leaps in no time at all, such as a visit to a fun fair with Luke's son that seems improbable. 

The families are not well drawn and a subplot involving the boy's mother arriving seems to dissipate abruptly. But it's an intriguing reunion of the My Brother the Devil crew of Sally El Hosaini and James Krishna Floyd, here serving as directors and writer, respectively. The theme of toxic masculinity is well observed through Luke's transformation and ability to act on his feelings. 

BFI Flare: Five Films for Freedom

 This year's crop of Five Films for Freedom, which heralds the start of BFI Flare, is especially strong. 

Along with the dramas of Halfway and Cursive is the unusual animated docudrama of Little One, in which an unseen narrator asks her two dads how they knew they were ready to be parents. The interview takes place on camera but with the very stylised rubbery animation, an unusual combo. While it is acted, it does feel as if it could be a documentary. Quite clever. 

Compton's '22 is a documentary with arty leanings, as young queer gender  non-conforming artists watch footage of interviews with survivors of the 1966 Compton's Cafeteria riot. They then perform responses to it in song and dance on a set resembling said cafeteria as a way of enacting a bond with this earlier generation. 

The longest film is a coming of age drama, The First Kiss, in which a teenager goes on a first date with a guy hoping to get a kiss but confronts entrenched homophobia. It is sweet and sad and shows how needed the security of queer culture is. 

GUT

 

photo: Mara von Kummer

Just caught up with GUT, the 3-part series which aired in Germany last year. Made by and about music legend Gudrun Gut, it is a fascinating portrait of the artist as country Frau. Once I stopped thinking of it as a documentary and more as experimental film I quite enjoyed it. 

Gut's rural home in Uckermark is the setting for the programmes, with her resplendent in overalls and sometimes wellies, striding around her property collecting apples, followed by cats (not clear how many there were) in what looks like high summer. It is a gorgeous setting, perfect for reflecting on a life in music and much more. 

Each of the three episodes has a theme, seemingly plucked from the aether: the blank page, Mmmmm and everyday life. Why these when so many others could have worked? No idea. Perhaps that was Gut's whimsy. 

But these do give the viewer a chance to hear some choice anecdotes and witness visits by musical collaborators Manon Pepita and Bettina Köster (online) from previous bands, as well as Monika Werkstatt artists Pilocka Krach and Midori Harano, who rock up and twiddle some knobs in the outdoors  in the final episode before everyone sits down for a fish supper, courtesy of Gut's visit to a fish farm earlier on. Yes, really.

It's quite eccentric in tone, with a lot of visual flourishes, such as turning the green leaves pink or setting Gut and her partner Thomas adrift on a lake with an abnormally large moon shining down on them. I liked that it was not just a talking heads profile. 

She mentions a possible second series set in Berlin, so it will be fun to see what outfit she chooses as she speeds around the metropolis on her bicycle. 

Grief and Art

 I had a loss in 2023, a rupture in my life. I have cried and reflected and it still hurts. I find it interesting how grief manifests in creative works and who is given permission to grieve and for whom or what.

When I viewed Maestro recently, I was struck by how emotionally unintelligent Leonard Bernstein is portrayed. He seems dumbstruck by his wife's upset at him having a lover and missing his children's events. After she dies, he carries on with his work and takes other lovers. One review described his joie de vivre and sense of freedom in this time. I wondered if it was denial or lack of empathy. Who can say? Perhaps his ability to compartmentalise his life allowed him to fulfil his artistic desires, even if it made him a crap husband. 

By contrast The Electrical Life of Louis Wain, which I have just found on Netflix, shows a man devastated by grief and unable to carry on happily in his life. Louis is a talented artist but after his wife Emily dies, he finds life very difficult. More so when his mother, sister and his beloved cat Peter also die. As the narration tells us, Louis cried every day for two years after  Peter died. Many may find this amusing. Not so me. Maybe Louis had more of a connection with his cat than with his mother or sister. The cat arrived early in his marriage, so may also have been his last bond with his dead wife. Why shouldn't we grieve animals as fully as human beings? 

Was Wain mad? Delusional? Neurodiverse? His contemporaries found him to be the former. But I wonder if he wasn't just more tuned in to other life forms than society found acceptable. I hope he and Peter and Emily found each other.