Just finished a whirlwind day at the Southbank Centre attending my first day at the LLGFF, which has been underway since Friday. Caught 2.5 screenings, conducted an interview and swung by the Royal Festival Hall to watch Laurie Anderson's Sounds from a Room performance live from the adjacent building.
To recap: Hit So Hard is a really emotive and illuminating doc on the life and near-death of Hole drummer Patty Schemel, chock full of archive footage she shot while on tour in the '90s, supplemented with up-to-date interviews with all of the band members and various observers and associates, among them Phranc, Gina Schock and Patty's mother and brother.
I'd hotfooted it back from Laurie Anderson's "The Future of Language" to speak to Patty before the screening, meaning I had yet to see the film, but we had a good chat about her early inspirations (amazingly similar to my own), as well as her current life in Los Angeles, where she has a dog-walking business.
I capped off the evening with a screening of Girl Or Boy: My Sex Is Not My Gender, Valerie Mitteaux's portmanteau documentary on four individuals born women who now identify as men or none of the above, among them none other than Lynnee Breedlove, ex of Tribe 8, whose bandmate Lesley Mah turns up in wedding footage in Hit So Hard. Truly a small world. Afterward, Mitteaux answered questions, and various testimony was given by audience members as to the limits placed on identity by the state, people's imaginations, and indeed the language we speak. Mitteaux said her film was meant to break out of the box and look beyond binary gender identity and that she hoped in future it would not be given so much consideration.
Tonight the 26th LLGFF opens with the road comedy Cloudburst. Starring venerable Oscar-winners Olympia Dukakis and Brenda Fricker as lezzies on the lam, the film breaks new ground in presenting a long-term lesbian couple as heroines of their own adventure, while presenting their relationship as a given. After 31 years together, Stella and Dot find themselves separated when Dot's grand-daughter has her committed to a home. Stella breaks her out and the two go on the run.
Dukakis is a revelation as Stella, an unreconstructed butch, trading earthy jokes with her partner, while giving anyone who crosses her path an earful of her foul-mouthed opinions. The opening shot establishes the feel of the film brilliantly, with Dukakis, resplendent in flannel shirt and cowgirl hat, at the wheel of a pick-up, humming along to k.d. lang (several of whose early songs feature on the soundtrack). Marvellous.
Fricker has the tricky task of offering understated support as Dot, the blind, fragile partner to Dukakis' exuberant lead, but she also has some great moments, although the comic setpiece that finds her headbutting a naked man in bed is misjudged. The film does occasionally stray into crude slapstick, but there are so many great moments that the mis-steps don't spoil the fun.
One might question the necessity of introducing Ryan Doucette's metrosexual dancer Prentice to join the women on the run, but perhaps writer-director Thom Fitzgerald thought this would provide eye candy for the boys, the number of times Doucette takes off his shirt.
I was looking forward to meeting Ms. Dukakis for an interview today, but she has cancelled her appearance at the festival. A shame that, as I was hoping to get some butch tips from her.
Other highlights to look forward to: docs on Alice Walker, Patty Schemel, Vito Russo and Jobriath; hotly-tipped dramas Circumstance, Gun Hill Road and Stud Life; and chances to see Weekend, Pariah and Potiche.
As a long-time devotee of music, one sees peaks and troughs, and recently I have heard little to inspire me: playlisted radio, awards handed out to mediocrities--it's a bit dulling to the senses.
And then there's Plaided. Watching their progress from a distance, I wondered where this Vienna duo would go, and last night's gig at the Lexington gave the answer. Formed from the ashes of Ilsebill, Plaided take guitar and drums places they didn't know they wanted to go, down dark post-punk alleys, teeming with pissed-off Riot Grrrls who've nicked Kleenex's records.
A delightful study in contrasts, the band features diminutive Veronika on scratchy guitar and plaintive vocals, complemented by the Amazonian Julia on tribal drums, the two making such a racket one would think four or five players were on stage. But for the last number they switched, and Veronika prowled the stage, a single drumstick in hand, while her bandmate knelt down to pick out her guitar part.
Watching from the audience were some of their Vienna posse, including some burlesque performers and erstwhile Ilsebill bandmate Lena, who is now studying in the UK. It all added to the rough-hewn charm of the gig.
Plaided have one single out on Fettkakao, with an album to follow in summer.
Hope you are enjoying International Women's Day, which has been trending at the top of Twitter's topics all day.
The news has been mixed, with a BBC exec stating the corporation no longer worries about gender; Pussy Riot still in jail; and an exhibit of women musicians shot by women snappers opening in London.
Just catching up on my Deutsche Welle news, when I thought my player was malfunctioning. I distinctly heard the newsreader pause and then utter: "Scheisse", before continuing. (03:39)
Wow! What was the producer doing allowing that to go out unedited?
Extra funny points for it being "langsame gesprochene" reports designed to teach non-natives German!
My review of this film, which opens in the UK tomorrow, is up now at The Quietus.
The editors re-wrote the headline and intro. I am biased, but I prefer mine: "War of Words: ideological bed-hopping in Andres Veiel's lumpen drama... "
I mean: "ideological bed-hopping". That's pretty good, right?
Took me 24 hours to work out that "Baader Romance" was a Lady Gaga reference. Not down with the kids.
Last night hopped down to trendy Hoxton to check out She Makes War at the Underbelly, a venue I have never visited. Wow! Art Deco meets punk seems about right for Hoxton Square.
I had arranged to interview Laura (aka SMW) before the gig, so sat through soundcheck taking some sound snippets for the podcast and then we had an insightful chat in the aromatic surrounds of the ladies loo, as she made herself up. I find gig preparation fascinating, and was impressed by her multi-tasking in applying quite large under-eye sequins while discussing her songwriting.
Then it was time for the gig, by which time I found myself under-powered, so sat in one of the plush chairs rather than standing at the front, which is my preferred position. The sound had improved markedly from soundcheck, though the buzz of crowd chatter still cut through, to my annoyance.
She Makes War is the epitome of DIY and came armed with electric guitar, acoustic guitar, ukulele and multiple pedals, all well deployed. Vocally, she was in fine form. I pondered whom her voice recalls, and it finally hit me: Grog, when she was in Flinch, all those years ago (not her present goth pomp incarnation). It has the same forceful, slightly mannered quality of a voice that demands to be heard.
Her looping technique is quite marvellous, building up layers of sound, both vocal and instrumental, and then breaking it down again. I found myself writing down snippets of lyrics, as well. She was joined for new single "In This Boat", by Mish from headliners BirdEatsBaby, the latter's keyboard adding little flourishes to SMW's guitar and vocals. Bodes well for the second album, due in April.
Earlier in the week I ventured out to Tate Modern for the much-heralded Yayoi Kusama retrospective. Kusama was a name I'd heard but not really known much about, other than that she was name-checked in Le Tigre's "Hot Topic". Recently, Amanda Palmer blogged about Kusama's Obliteration Room on a visit to Brisbane, which piqued my curiosity and, lo and behold, the Obliteration Room also makes an appearance at the Tate. But you have to look for it, as it is not part of the main exhibit.
There is much to be found in Kusama's work. An octogenarian, she has worked in numerous genres, locales and time periods, from Op Art and Pop Art, 1960s hippy happenings in New York, art films and of course, the ubiquitous dots. Her early phallic sculptures occupy a couple of the early rooms. Then there is a series of rather flat, dark paintings, and then it gets more interesting, with photos and film of her performances on the streets of New York, including one outside the New York Stock Exchange. Occupy would love that. The last three rooms offer a delightful juxtaposition of dark and light, with room 13 exploding into glorious colour, showing that in the 1990s she was still moving in new directions, even if the captions offer a rather sobering preoccupation with an inability to find love.
As I entered the final room, a disorienting infinity chamber, the guard at the entrance barked, "Move along, please!", denying people the pleasure of lingering in its wonder. We then found ourselves dumped out in a concrete antechamber, unable to get back into the exhibit. So much for retracing my steps and visiting previous rooms, as I'd intended. A sorry end to the visit.
The biography of Kusama is not really apparent throughout the exhibit, but a tiny glimpse is found in the short film on view outside the entrance. In it, the artist, a vibrant woman with a startling cherry-red bob, is seen at work in her studio in Tokyo, across the road from the mental institution where she lives. It is never explained whether she actually has a mental illness, but she has lived there by choice since 1977. This nugget of information rather leaves questions hanging in the air.
One could make a case for spending a care-free hour in the Obliteration Room, tucked away on level one, and skipping the main exhibit altogether. After all, it is fun, immersive, colourful, and interactive, as well as context- and cost-free. It touches obliquely on the artist's themes, embracing dots, colour and repetition. When I visited, it was half term and numerous parents had brought their restless offspring for a day out. The kids loved it, climbing all over the furniture, stickering the adults and themselves, as well as all of the furnishings.
The bright colours of the stickers are irresistible, and I found myself standing on a chair stretching to put a sticker on the ceiling, enjoying the freedom to do what in any other context would be vandalism. This obliteration feels like nothing so much as an obliteration of normalcy, of filling in something that is blank. But it is called the Obliteration Room for a reason, giving voice to Kusama's fears and fascinations. Not really child's play, at all.
There's been precious little Kunst on Kunstblog so far this year, but I am making up for this slow start, with three exhibits so far this week. Will leave Kusama until later, but tonight I was in Hackney for two private views, both of which were in the same complex in Regent Studios.
First up: Needle's Eye at Transition Gallery, also home to Garageland magazine. Four painters were on show, and I was at first confused, as the paintings had no labels. Who was who? This was quickly ameliorated by the accompanying fact sheet, but I also had my own private tour, courtesy of curator Ruth Solomons, who explained the links between the artists. Aside from them all having some connection with Bow Arts Trust, she explained, they have also influenced each other.
Seeing the works unlabelled side by side, I was able to work out some distinguishing features: Ben Walker works from a very dark palette, Kim Baker's work recalls the Impressionists, and Lisa McKendrick has an interest in science. Louisa Chambers's series can be read either individually or together, and I particularly liked her sci-fi lighthouse, Beams. The show opens tomorrow and runs through 11 March.
Then it was upstairs to Five Years for the wordy A Pigeon, a Kitchen and an Annexe: Sites of Alternative Publishing, which was appropriate, because it was all about words turned into art. The Ladies of the Press* collective set out texts for all of the contributing publications (Annexe, Pigeon, and VerySmallKitchen) to respond to, and the result was a multi-faceted installation crammed into a tiny room, the centrepiece of which was a cardboard column, courtesy of VerySmall Kitchen.
While manoeuvring myself around the space, I bumped into several people with very nice cameras, one of whom turned out to be from Pigeon, and after Ana from Ladies of the Press* made introductions, I spoke to the Pigeon crew about their practice. Still in education, they are concerned with making their process transparent and honest. They also work both online and in hard copy, which referenced a question I had: what is the role of print in the digital age? Some of this conversation should turn up in my next Odd Girl Out podcast, but the answer seems to be: print is alive and kicking for awhile yet.The exhibit opens tomorrow and runs through 4 March.
It's been a busy week, with visits to Tate Modern and Occupy LSX, as well as some snowy walks through the 'stow (or #awesomestow, as it's known on Twitter--Cringe).
I have also been on 't social media, uploading films to Vimeo to join my second Odd Girl Out podcast on Soundcloud. Do check them out and comment, if you like.
Am quite enjoying the snow, although I am not too suited to cold climates. I have found, however, that the fingerless gloves I bought for a costume last year come in right handy for typing in this weather.
Some of the best theatre around these days is to be found on the streets, rather than in proscenium theatres, and I have watched the burgeoning Occupy movement with interest. While the tent cities that have sprung up around the world get the headlines, often because of clashes with the police or threats of eviction, lesser attention has gone to the very creative avenues that the protesters have gone down.
In London, for example Tony Blair was on trial this week for war crimes, in proceedings that could be watched online. Today Vivienne Westwood was speaking about the banking industry at the Tent City University (politics makes strange bedfellows) and tomorrow, a teach-out on City finances will be conducted in the Barbican Centre.
The trial venue was the grey monolith of Old Street Magistrates Court, which hasn't seen such proceedings since 1996, which is almost as long as I have lived in London. Many is the time I have walked past its sad frontage, wondering why this behemoth remains unused. Which is part of the point of the movement: to enter these corridors of power and demand they be accountable. And to make salient points about distribution of wealth and privilege, power and profit.
But it is increasingly being done in rather clever ways, with spinoffs into music, design, etc., showing that it isn't just placard-waving that makes a statement. It kind of reminds me of the early days of the queer movement in the '90s, which moved away from mass street protest and into other avenues, with smaller, more focused confrontations with the seats of power. But, of course there was no Twitter then. This is a zeitgeisty movement.
Traipsing around south London on the coldest day of the year, I interrupted the animated conversation of these two, as they admired the clear blue sky and wondered where the warmth went.
It's good to start off the new year with a bounty of music, and Riot Grrrl Is Not Dead! comes courtesy of Riot Grrrl Berlin, who have collected bands from across Europe and North America (with a smattering from South America, the Antipodes and some place called Grrrlmany--look that up on Google Earth!) for a free download comp.
I only found out about it courtesy of Twitter (yes, about four years behind the times), but it's been available for a few weeks now and features a mix of old and new, including the US band Scarce, whom I've never heard described as Riot Grrrl, and several who've been associated with Ladyfest. There is no band info in the zip file. For that, you need to scroll down the website page to get the links. Enjoy!
So, a brief recap of 2011's brighter moments, according to yours truly. This was an unusual year, in that I never left London, and my picks reflect that.
Favourite art exhibit: Pipilotti Rist: Eyeball Massage A legal psychedelic trip, with bubbles, knickers, and all manner of visual delights. Running at Hayward Gallery until 8 January.
Favourite film: Dreams of a Life, dir. Carol Morley Moving and profound imagining of a life lost in London. Running now in UK.
Favourite gig / live event: Sound and Silents Live scoring of four short films from early women directors, which played at Queen Elizabeth Hall in March as part of the Bird's Eye View festival.
Favourite album: W, Planningtorock A late spring release that I continued to play into winter. Quite moody, at times disturbing, but also playful conceptual album from Janine Rostron, whose stage get-up resembles one of Buffy's demons.
So, farewell to Vaclav Havel, one-time dissident-turned president. I was always impressed that the first president of Czechoslovakia, Masaryk, was a philosopher and the first president of the Czech Republic was a playwright, and one influenced by the Velvet Underground, at that. It says a lot.
Today is the 63rd anniversary of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. I don't think Hillary Clinton has made an appearance in this blog, but here is her speech this week declaring that LGBT rights are human rights.
My Quietus story on Dreams of a Life is finally live, although I could have written something twice as long, such was my enthusiasm for the film and the abundance of quotes I had from my chat with director Carol Morley. There is so much to say about this documentary on Joyce Carol Vincent and about how people in cities can become strangers to each other.
I reviewed the film briefly when it premiered at the London Film Festival, but only saw it on a preview DVD, so am curious to see how it plays in a cinema with an attentive audience. It's out in the UK on 16 December and also has a preview at the spanking new Hackney Picture House on 9 December, with Morley and star Zawe Ashton conducting a Q&A.
There is also a very strange interactive companion piece, Dreams of Your Life, which I took for a spin a couple of days ago. It's a bit like sitting down with an inquisitive therapist or taking a phone call from a menacing stranger. Not for the easily disturbed.
This intriguing specimen is a pumpkin, a Chinese pumpkin grown in Maldon, Essex, to be precise. I acquired it yesterday after fruitless weeks of searching for a pumpkin for my yearly excursion into pumpkin pie, which I guess is my reminder to self that I'm American by birth.
Anyway, the market trader assured me its sweetness is unsurpassed and it should keep for two months! The day of reckoning is next Wednesday. I hope what it lacks in aesthetic appeal it will make up for in flavour.
I haven't had time to blog for the last couple of days, so busy was I running around London to intriguing events.
First up, the private view of For the Messengers at Woolfson and Tay, followed by a public event featuring artist Jude Cowan and newsreader Jon Snow, who proved to be a gushing fan of Ms. Cowan, pronouncing her a star and confessing that when he finds himself out on location in, say, Japan during the tsunami, he wonders to himself, "What would Jude think?"
Last night it was a double bill of art and music, with the private viewing of Susie MacMurray's exhibit, The Eyes of the Skin, at Agnew's Gallery. Not familiar with her work, I was highly impressed by her use of household materials such as rubber and shrink wrap, to create evocative pieces with myriad explanations. Here Come the Girls, for example, features numerous lipstick-smeared wine glasses suspended from the ceiling in a rather seedy bouquet.
Lastly, and appropriately, late at night, it was a trek out to my old stomping ground of Archway to see Sydney three-piece gothabilly act The Dark Shadows. Although I have several of their records, I had never seen them live and was rewarded with a brisk and entertaining set in the very cramped conditions of The Hideaway (no stage!) running through much of their oeuvre and peaking with their cover of "Eisbär", which features on their new EP, 11:11. I don't think I've ever sung along to a song in German before. Bliss.
This is a rather startled-looking Miranda July, whom I met recently at a press junket for her film, The Future, which opened today in the UK. Although we only had 12 minutes or so to speak, she was quite chatty about her past in the DIY music and art world, which I duly wrote up for a piece in The Quietus.
Imagine my surprise when I clicked on the link and found this title: "From Queercore to The Future: Miranda July Talks Independent Art". Although queercore is actually only mentioned once (by me) in passing, it gets into the headline! I wondered how often that word had appeared on the site and, using the handy Search facility, discovered it's the second time ever. Pretty cool.
It reminds me of a few times when I decided there were certain words that I had to put in my articles, if only because they were so completely at odds with the typical readership of a particular publication.
To wit: "punk" in the Financial Times and "communist" and "dominatrix" in Pop Matters. I also handed in a piece to The Wire with the title "Naming the Waves", which is the name of a collection of lesbian poetry from the 1980s. This, I thought, would be my crowning achievement as a mischievous queer journalist. Sadly, when the article was published, the editor had re-named it "Wave Theory". Pfft.
Opening today in sunny Bermondsey is Jude Cowan's debut solo exhibit, For the Messengers, which echoes her recent poetry collection of the same name and is similarly inspired by her work at the Reuters archive.
Showing along with Jude's artwork will be two films I recently shot with her, one of which illustrates the poems performed live in various locations and was shot on a gloriously sunny day around Hackney Wick.
The other documents some of her preparation for her performance at the Fifteen theatre festival in September and was shot on a slightly less sunny day in a church on the Isle of Dogs. We also braved the security restrictions of Canary Wharf to record a quick interview outside Reuters HQ.
Turning the films around quickly enough for the exhibit proved something of a challenge for me. Luckily, I am a seasoned journalist and used to deadline pressure! Looking forward to seeing the whole thing come together. DIY, innit?
If you only see one film about elderly Japanese women bent on a bloody revenge mission, make it this one! Yes, Dendera ploughs its own furrow, turning an intriguing concept into a gory struggle.... against a bear.
Let me start again. Somewhere in a Japan where it is always snowing, village protocol dictates that residents who turn 70 are dumped on a mountainside and left to die. One woman, Mei, refuses to die and slowly builds up a women-only community--Dendera--out of those deemed expendable.
But, Mei's survival instinct is stoked by the burning injustice of being so callously discarded and she wants revenge on her former neighbours, especially the men who dictate policy. This may be an extended metaphor for modern society. Or it may be a needlessly explicit gorefest, as the women become distracted from their desire for vengeance by a bear that wanders into the camp and wreaks terror on it. Not out of any malign intent. But, rather because it's a bear and is hungry.
While it was great to see these women kicking ass, I just couldn't get into the bear hunt and was rooting for the poor creature to escape or join forces with the women. But, no. Lots of blood. Lots of chases. One character asks, "And who won?" Indeed.
Three eagerly awaited films playing at this year's London Film Festival are from second-time feature directors.
Marjane Satrapi, having left Iran in her teens, lives in France and her new film Chicken with Plums follows Persepolis, an adaptation of her comic strip. The first surprise is that it is live action, not animation, although it features a similarly starry cast in small roles: Isabella Rossellini, Maria de Medeiros, Chiara Mastroianni and Golshifteh Farahani (another Iranian exile) among them. However, the lead role is the family patriarch, played by Mathieu Amalric, and his is an unsympathetic character, a self-obsessed musician detached from his children and resentful of his wife, whom he married without loving her. Although there are comic moments, I found myself growing restless before the end.
Nadine Labaki's Where Do We Go Now? follows the enormously enjoyable Caramel and doesn't disappoint, expanding the cast of characters from the workers in a Beirut hair salon to a village in a remote area. The main conflict is the interference of the outside world on this small village where Christians and Muslims have lived side by side for generations but where violence is always threatening to break out and news coverage is viewed as a threat to peace. Labaki takes a back seat, allowing her ensemble to shine and shine they do, especially the women who take centre-stage pretty quickly. While the comedy is broad, there were plenty of belly laughs and the subject is oh-so-topical.
If Labaki is broadening her horizons, Miranda July seems to be shrinking hers, retreating from the ensemble that held sway in her debut, Me and You and Everyone We Know, to focus on two people, a floundering couple inhabiting a flat in the Los Angeles suburbs, in The Future. July plays two roles, one half of the couple and a cat that provides a voiceover. Yes, indeed. But, you can do that when you're the writer-director. It's a bold move and I didn't mind the cat's narration. It was more confusing when it all went a bit Donnie Darko three quarters of the way through. Most curious.
A quick word about a lovely short showing at the festival. Any film with Hackney in the title takes my notice, but I was not expecting a film from Germany to choose the LBH as its subject.
And what a lovely film Kiyoko Miyake's Hackney Lullabies is. The subjects are mothers with immigrant backgrounds raising their children in the People's Republic. They want their kids to be integrated, while at the same time maintaining their roots.
And they do this by calling on their own childhoods to sing them lullabies and nursery rhymes. The mothers are delightful, sharing bits and pieces of why they live there and their aspirations for their kids. And then they sing the lullabies, in a range of languages that are not English, with the subtitles dancing across the screen. Never has Hackney looked so beautiful. Diane Abbott would approve.
Another day at the festival and another sighting of Diane Abbott. This time the MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington turned up at a screening of Bernadette: Notes on a Political Journey, Lelia Doolan's precis of the life of Bernadette Devlin McAliskey. I say precis, because as Doolan herself acknowledged, her 88-minute documentary is cut down from three hours.
As it stands, this version covers Devlin's entry into Parliament at 21, her arrest for inciting violence in the Bogside riots and her subsequent involvement in the hunger strikes of 1980-81. It all goes quiet after an attempt on her life in 1981, and her disillusionment with the peace process that led to the Good Friday Agreement was a curiosity to me. I asked Doolan if McAliskey chose not to be involved or if she were excluded and her answer was contradictory. So, let's have that three-hour version to fill in the gaps! Abbott might agree, as she called the doc amazing. One might speculate as to why the MP (who was sitting front and centre, not to the left) might find common ground with an outsider who professed to not want to be part of any club. But, that would be speculation.
Closer to home, I was less impressed with Strawberry Fields, which has its world premiere tonight. Frances Lea's melodrama, a Microwave project, is set on a strawberry farm in Kent and centres on the group of fruit pickers, introduced as being a motley band of immigrants and rogues. That might have been interesting but the focus is actually on a newcomer to the group, the flighty Gillian, who goes incognito as Tammy. The performance by Anna Madeley is twitchy and irritating and when her even more dizzy sister Emily arrives, the irritation levels go through the roof. Emily is meant to be troubled, possibly mentally ill, but as played by Christine Bottomley (excellent in last year's The Arbor), she seems to be channeling Marilyn Monroe, breathy-voiced and flirty. It gets worse, much worse. Nice fruit, though.
Two dramas from South America were among my recent viewing. Hard Labor (dirs Juliana Rojas / Marco Dutra) is a Brazilian dramedy which is part social critique and part horror film, as a bourgeois couple face the dual challenges of starting a business (her) and finding a new job following redundancy (him). Their financial pinch doesn't stop them from hiring a maid, and the three characters orbit each other, illustrating class conflict and thwarted aspirations. The horror aspect is downplayed, serving more as a metaphor for oppressive working conditions than anything else. An intriguing oddity.
Ostende (dir Laura Citarella), from Argentina, is a slow-burning character study of a woman on holiday whose propensity for observation fires her imagination to wild proportions, as she conjures up all manner of explanations for the older man who appears to be squiring two young women. What could he be up to? And has she really thwarted a kidnapping? This is the only film I've yet viewed whose closing credit sequence changes how one views the rest of the film. Still not sure whether I liked it or not, though.
Carol Morley's doc Dreams of a Life receives its world premiere tonight at the LFF. Morley is known for her flights of fancy with the documentary form, but here she reins herself in for a gripping and troubling consideration of the life of Joyce Carol Vincent. Who? Who, exactly, for Ms. Vincent was the unfortunate soul whose dead body lay undetected in her London flat for more than two years.
How did a woman described by acquaintances as beautiful, vibrant, intelligent, ambitious and so forth come to such a grim end, surrounded by unopened Christmas presents? Why did nobody look for her? In search of answers, Morley (unseen and largely unheard behind the camera) placed adverts asking for those who knew (or thought they did) Vincent to come forward, and their on-camera interviews form the narrative of Dreams of a Life, as they offer sometimes contradictory assessments of a woman who seemed to hold herself apart and may have chosen to die alone.
Also mixing the dramatic and the documentary is Shock Head Soul, Simon Pummell's inventive telling of the story of Daniel Paul Schreber, a self-styled mystic who was committed to an asylum in Germany in the early twentieth century. Schreber resisted his diagnosis, explaining that he received messages from God, and he wrote up his ideas in an document that was praised by Jung and Freud, among others.
While Pummell allows the eloquent Schreber his space and displays the brutal treatments he was subject to, the mix of genres doesn't always work. In particular, the use of modern psychoanalysts (in period dress, no less) offering testimony and sometimes addressing characters directly is incredibly awkward. The animation sequences, as well, illustrating Schreber's visions also become intrusive after awhile. Ambitious, but flawed.
Having done my LFF preview for The Quietus via preview DVDs and press screenings, it was a relief to get to the festival proper and lo! Friday turned up not one but two girl-girl dramas in the shape of Pariah and She-Monkeys.
Pariah, a debut feature from Dee Rees, started life as a feature-length screenplay, reached the screen as a short and has now been realised in its original form. 17-year-old African-American Alike, aka Lee, is taking the first steps into baby dykedom, trying out a street butch style and pondering whether strap-ons are her thing. It's all a bit hypothetical, as she's a virgin and looking to her butch pal Laura for advice. But, she's still in the closet around her family, including her strict and religious Mom, and her always-at-work police officer Dad.
Having drawn on her own life, Rees has crafted the film with honesty and artistry in abundance. The early club scenes in which the characters riff and bluff in street speak may be difficult for outsiders, but the emotions felt by Lee, which she can only really express in her writing, are easily relatable. At the screening, one audience member asked how black American audiences had responded to the film, and my head turned, as I thought I recognised the voice of the questioner. Blow me down! It was only Diane Abbott MP, taking a day off from her political duties to take in some cinema. She told me she thought the film was lovely and only wished more people had turned out.
Later that evening, I returned to the VUE to see the hotly tipped She-Monkeys, nominated for the Sutherland Award for most notable debut feature. To my eyes this film was less than the sum of its parts, with an excellent premise--the rivalry and power struggle between two young equestrian acrobats--let down by too much internalising.
I really had no idea at the end of the film whether the central relationship between Emma and Cassandra was one of love, hate, lust, manipulation or other. In fact, the most expressive character in the film was the six-year-old sister of Emma. She had the best lines. The post-film Q&A with director Lisa Aschan also rates as one of the least informative I've seen. I don't know whether she was nervous, tired or tired and emotional, but her answers were largely monosyllabic and punctuated by giggles.
The titular guests are inhabiting a house in Hackney Downs. But, their origin is apparently a house lived in by Rudyard Kipling in Vermont, of all places. Lang's mixed media installation is set in two rooms, one darkened with brown walls, and one brightly lit with white walls.
The darkened room looks like a study and one wall is taken up with her looped video, also called House Guests. It is projected onto what looks like stacks of papers and is an animation of a visit to Kipling's house, populated by moving furniture and unseen ghosts. The soundtrack is understated and sometimes overshadowed by the clock on the wall of the room. I found it intriguing.
The white room is more stark, with photos that seem to come from the video. Why two rooms? For more guests?
House Guests runs through 22 October at WW Gallery.
Long overdue, Pipilotti Rist's retrospective at the Hayward Gallery is a bit of a tonic for the stressed Londoner. Approaching the gallery from Waterloo Bridge, one's first glimpse is of pants rustling in the wind. A bit of typical whimsy from Rist, this piece, Enlighted Hips, introduces the viewer to the artist's preoccupation with the body, as well as her sense of humour.
Once inside, one can feel immediately overwhelmed: to one side, huge, overlapping installations, to the other, a darkened room crammed full of videos, searching spotlights and diaphanous enclosures. What's it all about? Unless one can read the small guide in the dark (I couldn't) or memorise the map on the wall (ditto), one might be a bit clueless as to the titles.
But, in the end it didn't much matter. I wandered, crouched, poked my head through a hole, lay on some cushions shaped like clothing-covered body parts and slowly, slowly relaxed into the vibe. It's the most artistic chill-out space ever.
The three-screen installation, Lobe of the Lung, in particular, found a host of visitors reclining on cushions (not especially comfortable, it must be said), their forms doubled by the mirrors behind them. I leant against the mirror and then found my view blocked by an arriving mother with child and pram in tow. It's the first time I've ever been obstructed at a gallery by a pram. "Ooh, piggies," cooed the child. Not sure how Mummy explained the vaginas.
Ah, yes, the vaginas. Rist is especially attracted to the female form, zooming her mini-cameras around her own body, to depict menstrual blood and close-up views of the pudenda. But, her take on it is less biological than the body-centred art of 1970s feminism. Rist views the body as landscape, and she intersperses her internal visuals with plants, flowers, all spewed out in such bright colours as to appear psychedelic, with equally far out titles: one video is called Pimple Porn.
Interestingly, for all the explicit female bodies on display, the only advisory comes upstairs in the Project Space, where a sign warns of male nudity on show. Hypocrisy in art? Surely not. Cool videos, though, especially her early work, Ever Is Over All. The glee with which she smashes those car windows. It's infectious.
Now into its last month or so, the Glamour of the Gods exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery delves into the John Korbal collection to showcase the so-called golden age of Hollywood, when stars were STARS.
What is most striking, aside from the super-high production values of these portraits, is the extreme and, now, obvious artifice involved. Nothing was left to chance--not the clothes, the lighting, the framing and, of course, the correction.
In the pre-Photoshop age, this must have been quite labour-intensive, but as one example showing Joan Crawford pre- and post-retouched shows, it makes all the difference. Gone are those freckles, worry lines, and, indeed, anything that might show her actual facial features. Wouldn't want those to get in the way of the arched eyebrows that were her trademark. Odd how influential this look was.
Still, it's always welcome to see Marlene, Katharine, Greta and others splendidly turned out, looking down on all us little people.
Congratulations to PJ Harvey for scooping the Mercury Music Prize for Let England Shake. A concept album about war is a hard sell, and those extra album sales "from a low sales base" (so sayeth WENN) will be well appreciated. Amazing she's been around for 20 years already, and yet still seems like a "new" artist.
This is what happens when two worlds collide south of the river on a sunny Thursday afternoon. Jude Cowan supplied the gas mask, bicycle, fan and camera. I busked the shots, in between sniffling. She edited to accompany one of her World News Vision improvised songs. Et voilà !
For those who still think Lady Gaga is the epitome of out-thereness and originality, because she appeared on the MTV VMAs in drag, here is Annie Lennox of Eurythmics weirding out John Denver at the Grammys. In 1984.
To sunny Hackney to see a private view of Mermaid song and lustrous balm, a new show at The Pharmacy of Stories, tucked away behind a non-descript office building abutting London Fields.
A bijou space is transformed into a fantastical grotto, which on the night was populated by singing mermaids, salty tales and audience participation.
As I boarded my bus home, I noticed the paper badge I had been handed at the exhibit had fallen off its safety pin. I wonder what a passerby would make of the message: Consume my flesh and be immortal.
One of the victims of the rioting in London was the Sony DADC warehouse, which went up in flames, destroying stock from the many indie labels distributed by PIAS.
The full implications of this catastrophe in such a difficult economy are as yet unknown, but in the meantime music lovers are encouraged to support the labels by buying their wares online or through local record stores. PIAS has put up a link to their catalogues on Spotify.
Today marks the 25th anniversary of my receiving this piece of kit, which has been my electronic companion through thick and thin. Together we have traversed continents, attended concerts and found ourselves privy to many a fascinating conversation.
Now in semi-retirement, it still manages the odd dubbing session. Though I have searched high and low, I have yet to find anything digital to replace it. All hail the analogue recorder.
A bit late reporting back from Dirty Cop Friday, but I took awhile to download my pix. The one displayed here shows Dangerous Dinky onstage with the Electric Puffs, while Sista Kist from Anarchistwood dances with abandon. Dinky's crop is not in this photo, but was certainly present throughout much of the set, smacking botties aplenty. Ahem.
I also made my debut as a video interviewer, but have yet to see the footage.
This being blackberry time, I trudged up to my favourite patch and collected the first pickings of the season. I only got 1/2 kg, but it was enough for a yummy smoothie and some pancakes, so I checked back three days later and was able to gather 1 kg, with minimal blood lost (a snagged trouser leg).
It wasn't enough to bother with freezing, so I pondered how to put the haul to good use and decided on muffins. Now, my last few batches have been a bit hit-and-miss. I made some pretty awful oily corn muffins some weeks back, but the next batch was tasty.
Fresh blackberry muffins! In the oven they went and I settled down with a paper. And forgot them for a bit. When I took them out, they looked a little browner than optimum. But, they had risen nicely and I could see the blackberries peeping through. I lifted one out, made some tea and took a bite.
It was foul. Wow. Really bad. Maybe excess heat or excess baking soda was to blame. The texture was moist and there was plenty of blackberry, but the thing was barely edible. How could muffins that looked so yummy be that bad? Never mind. I can't bear food being wasted. I made myself eat it, washed down with copious amounts of tea. I shall now apportion one bad muffin a day until they are all done. And enjoy the smoothies.
Just finished watching a new doc on environmental activism and I was struck by a wave of deja-vu observing the planning and training that goes into such actions. "Oh," I thought. "We used to do that", regarding going limp and so forth. Ah, yes, back in the day, in the early '90s, when the streets of San Francisco were alive with shouting.
One tactic that was new to me was "de-arresting": if someone gets grabbed by the police, the person shouts "De-arrest!" and the rest of the affinity group swarms around in an act of collective liberation. Imagine how that would work in the wider world: you're walking down the street and confronted by an assailant. You shout "De-arrest!" and people come out of the woodwork to your aid. Most empowering.
Now showing at the Hayward Gallery through August, this Tracey Emin retrospective is a dizzying mass of wood, neon, cut-up clothing and found objects, all filtered through the lens of La Emin. Which isn't to say Love Is What You Want is bad (Brian Sewell's bilious review notwithstanding). But, given Emin's raddled image and how much the prospective visitor thinks s/he knows about the artist, it is illuminating.
Walking through the warren of rooms on multiple levels, I tried to recall what other Emin artwork I had seen over the years and found myself faltering. Was it White Cube in the noughties? Tate Modern in the '90s? Hadn't I seen that shack before? Or was it on the internet? I really couldn't recall, as Emin has such a high profile, her actual art gets less scrutiny than her life.
But, seeing the works close up (or as close up as one can when so many are under glass--peering through a glass case to fathom tiny printed letters, I was chastised by a guard for "leaning on" the glass; my notebook may have brushed it in passing, but I put no weight on it whatsoever), I found myself warming to some and was left indifferent by others. The drawings, for instance, didn't hold my interest nearly as much as the quilts, cut from the clothing of loved ones and stitched with Emin's texts, many of which seem to be messages to herself. Some are funny, some poignant, but, all demand to be considered.
The neon works are less emotive, but also notable, even if only to punctuate the exhibit. A pity so many were stacked up in one place, giving the black corridor the look of Soho on a Saturday night.
What really startled me as I entered each room was the array of people sketching. Even in rooms showing films, there were earnest people sitting cross-legged in dark corners, sketching away. For once, as I scribbled my observations in my notebook, I didn't feel so out of place. Was it student day or is every day like this?
Themes that emerged were Emin's ambivalence over her abortions; her conflicted relationships with family members; her grappling with the past; and her quest for love, of herself and others. In the video work, "Conversation with My Mum", Emin and her mother sit at a table, munching chocolates and smoking while debating whether the younger Emin should or should not have a baby. I sat there, jaw dropped, as the older Emin proffered words of wisdom to her daughter along the line of: "Every woman who doesn't have one wants to have a baby" and "Having a baby would ruin your life." Contradiction obviously runs in the family.
Wood and spirals leapt out at me. The first she admires for its weathered, natural qualities and the second, I am guessing, because it moves inward as it travels.
I also discovered that 3 July is Tracey Emin's birthday, celebrated in 1993 with the closing of her enterprise with Sarah Lucas, The Shop, which is recalled here with a jumble of objects in a case, including a box with the ashes of the unsold goods. This was juxtaposed with the work recalling her beloved nan, "There's a lot of money in chairs", with text appliqued to the back of an antique chair Emin took on tour in the USA.
The Hayward is incorporating a lot of social media into this exhibit, including an intriguing Tracey Tuesdays feature, in which visitors can ask Tracey Emin questions and get responses on Facebook. Before I visited the exhibit, I checked out the page and was amused to see some of Emin's responses, including advice on where to eat in Margate.
Quite a lot of goodies up on the BBC Glastonbury site, including a live feed from 6Music and videos of gigs, including one from Norwich's Fever Fever, whom I have played a bit on my show. Nice to see them getting some national exposure.
A quick side-step to football now, with the Women's World Cup about to start in Germany. But, what drew my attention was the theme song for the competition, as sung by none other than Melanie C, "Rock Me". One can see the thinking behind this: the one-time Sporty Spice, Girl Power, u.s.w., I mean, and so forth.
The song is a bit of Europop, proclaiming a desire to feel the fever. So far, so "World in Motion".
But the video is what caught my attention. What is going on there? OK. It's suitably urban, with arty graffiti I couldn't read, but apparently reads: Rock Me. There are even women displaying, gasp, footballing skills. But, Mel herself seems to have misread the script and appears to be auditioning for a spot in the Playboy mansion. Stop grabbing yourself, woman! Most odd.
Back to the football. Go, England! And do avoid penalties.
Richards, born Richard Raskind, was undoubtedly the first transsexual person of whom I was aware, and her struggles to play on the women's tennis tour after sex change surgery became tabloid fodder. Her becoming a coach to Martina Navratilova, my favourite player, only added fuel to the fire and increased my admiration for her.
The new Sisters of Mirthy podcast (not actually downloadable) on the subject of DIY is up and features interviews with zine makers and musicians, as well as yours truly ruminating on San Francisco, Berlin and DIY film-making. It's a bit quiet, so best for headphone listening.
Haven't been able to hear it myself yet, but all this week, the reclusive Kate Bush is appearing on 6Music's new Radcliffe and Maconie show, speaking about The Director's Cut, her new album of old songs.
Check out the Listen Again function, which also has a handy list of tracks played, hinting at just where Ms. Bush's interview clips may crop up, facilitating fast-forwarding (I used to enjoy Radcliffe on Radio 1, but Maconie irritates me).
Flipping stations idly trying to find some intelligent conversation or good music, I found myself on Radio 3, mid-opera. As I ran my bath, I found I recognised the language (German) and, slowly, the music. It was Wagner's Ring Cycle, but which opera?
Hmmm. A baritone (probably a bad guy), tenor (probably a good guy) and soprano (could be heroine or love interest) locked in some kind of conflict. The tenor was singing a lot about his Vater, so I guessed Götterdämmerung, but eventually was informed differently. It was Die Walküre, Act I and live from The Met.
Wow.
Having grown up in New York and having first heard opera on WNYC's Live from The Met broadcasts, introduced to Wagner by an impassioned music teacher, this was a real find. As I reclined in my bath, I tried to follow what was going on. Ah, yes, Sieglinde and Siegmund had just run off together, incurring the wrath of the gods. And Brunnhilde was about to get in a LOT of trouble.
Now Brunnhilde and I had some history, as I had played one of her sisters, Waltraute, and also been Brunnhilde's understudy in a children's version of the cycle, though I was much relieved I never had to go on-stage in this role. Too much pressure. But, I loved the costume, and especially my winged headgarb. That was pretty cool for an 11-year-old. But, I still marvel at the utter inappropriateness of kids playing out a drama that involves such a plethora of sexcapades and murders. Oh, well. I am sure it didn't shape my world view in any view. Ahem.
It did inspire me to learn German. And visits to The Met were a ticket to the promised land, extremely rare and to be treasured. Sitting in the nosebleed seats, peering through a black scrim, trying to fathom what was happening. For six hours. Bliss.
At the end, with Wotan bidding farewell to a sleeping Brunnhilde alone on her mountaintop, punished for daring to follow her instincts, I felt a pang for the past.
I haven't been to much at this year's East End Film Festival for its tenth anniversary, but tomorrow is Movie MayDay, with screenings, quizzes and other cinema-related events at 88 venues across the East End. Bank Holiday Monday and free cinema! Hurrah.
First Ari Up, now Poly Styrene. Not so unexpected, as she had been fighting cancer for awhile, but still.... Aargh. Never met her, never saw her play, but am an admirer from afar of her and X-Ray Spex. And "Identity" is one of my favourite songs EVAHHH!
Just stumbled on Hit So Hard, which tells the life story of drummer Patty Schemel and had its premiere at SXSW last month. Schemel is an interesting enough subject and, naturally, the doc features interviews with her and other members of Hole. But, my eye is taken by the other names featuring, including Phranc, Gina Schock and Alice de Buhr. Sounds like it's just as interested in investigating the continuing invisibility of lesbians in the music world as in Schemel's struggles with drug addiction. Sounds ace.
I can't embed this extremely awkward Q &A which followed a recent screening in New York, and is most notable for the delicate pas de deux between estranged Hole members Courtney Love and Eric Erlandson, as they avoid any eye contact whatsoever, while standing on the same stage. But, here's the trailer.
Record Store Day, which is 16 April this year, just gets bigger and bigger. I couldn't have missed it coming, what with all the hoopla on the BBC. Championing independent record stores is a worthwhile endeavour. And, despite the arrival of an untimely spring cold, I will do my best to support it.
While New York gets a special Regina Spektor gig, London hosts all-day events at Rough Trade and a night-time gig at 93 Feet East. And loads of bands and labels are issuing one-day-only releases.
I am intrigued to learn that RSD has an official film, as well, Jeanie Finlay's Sound it Out, which will get multiple screenings.
Tonight sees the start of the film screenings at Fringe!, East London's new queer film festival.
My film War With Love is showing as part of the Sapphic Subversions shorts programme.
We will be upstairs at a pie and mash shop (very cockney!) on the oh-so-hip Broadway Market. It starts at 19:30, with repeat screenings later on.
Last night I attended the launch party at the much vaunted Dalston Superstore. Didn't stay long, just enough time to admire the collection of frocks and haircuts on display. Back when I lived in Dalston, it was pretty much a no-go area for non-residents. My, how it's changed!
With the festival now finished, here are the last few stragglers.
A Marine Story by wife-and-husband team of Dreya Weber and Ned Farr. Expelled lesbian Marine takes a teenaged tearaway under her wing and tries to get her ready for recruitment into... the Marines. Aside from the repugnant gung-ho politics, I found this surprisingly moving and Weber certainly kicks ass as the heroine.
Break My Fall--This DIY Hackney-based dyke drama (in every sense of the phrase) features a top-notch soundtrack and an uneasy balance of comic and dramatic scenes, as a young lesbian couple's relationship slowly disentegrates.
The People I've Slept With--Hit or miss comedy about sexually active woman who has to find out quickly who the father of her baby might be, from several candidates. The fact that the lead character, played by Karin Anna Cheung, is Asian-American is pretty much the only standout, but Wilson Cruz offers able comic support as her gay BFF.
Just finished a whirlwind day at the Southbank Centre attending my first day at the LLGFF, which has been underway since Friday. Caught 2.5 screenings, conducted an interview and swung by the Royal Festival Hall to watch Laurie Anderson's Sounds from a Room performance live from the adjacent building.
