BFI Flare: Tru Love and Conscious Coupling

Tru Love

When I booked my last day at the festival yesterday, little did I realise it would be the first day of equal marriage in the UK, and the trappings of weddings were all around: Sandi Toksvig was renewing her vows next door, the festival delegate centre laid on mimosas and the screen was showing footage of happy same sex couples getting spliced. Even Twitter was running a hashtag called #sayido. Oh, my. A bit much for early on a Saturday. Or any day. I shared a few grumbles with another old hand as we stood by the bar, ignoring the cocktails and chocolate hearts. Assimilation. Grumble, grumble. Homonationalism. Grumble. Privatisation of relationships. Grumble. Good luck to 'em, but my view is: #sayidont.

Grasping my glass of prosecco-free orange juice, I pondered my first viewing of the day. Tru Love. Oh, great. But, this turned out not to be so much a rom-com as a reflection on unfulfilled promise and what people settle for. A Canadian drama written by and starring Shauna McDonald, the film starts off as a bit of a sex farce, with McDonald's character Tru jumping out of bed with someone to rush back to a friend's to let in her mother, Alice. It seems Tru is always running away: from relationships, jobs, any form of commitment. As her relationship with Alice unfolds, Tru reveals some early hurts, such as losing her parents and being thrown out on the street, that may explain some of her behaviours. But, that doesn't make them any less difficult for those around her. Another relationship, between her friend Suzanne and Alice, also needs some attention, while Suzanne and Tru also have some simmering issues. And, so, though the film starts off looking pretty formulaic, it actually turns into quite compelling viewing, as one wonders how all of this will unwind. I was quite touched, even if I thought the ending left one important strand unresolved while wrapping up another unconvincingly.

My last two screenings were both shorts programmes, both of a very different character. You're the One, Aren't You? turned out to be about love (that again!), with a range of relationship dramas, comedies and even an animation in which lesbian astronauts save the world! The Spanish farce Vecinas was a highlight, as two lesbian couples decide to swap partners for the night, with amusing consequences. I especially liked the translation of confusion which spelled it as "confussion", surely a lesbian neologism that fuses fuss and confusion. I have definitely experienced "confussion" in my life.

And then it was on to Past (Im)perfect, the experimental shorts programme which featured the world premiere of Bev Zalcock's and Sara Chambers' The Light Show: A Trilogy. Bev has been telling me about these films as she's been working on them over the last year, and so I was quite keen to see them. And they are lovely, a mix of digital and analogue, with dollops of disco iconography (Helen de Witt's term), melancholia and nostalgia. It can be hard to get into abstract work sometimes, but the audience was rapt and the sound was great. I very much enjoyed it. Some of the other works were hard-going, most notably the last film, a 29-minute piece that seemed to be five or six films strung together. I should have known when the first section was one shot of a man shaving in a shower that went on for several minutes. The one bright spark was a girl singing Nirvana's "Dumb" a cappella in a locker room.

Everyone seemed to be attending parties in the evening, but I had to rush home, meaning I missed the Vagina Wolf screening, attended by none other than Guin Turner. I did see Turner sneaking out for a crafty fag, earlier in the evening as I took another turn in Killjoy's Kastle, as I wanted to listen to the footage of the zombie folk singers, which you can only hear on headphones. The performer featured is none other than Gretchen Phillips, whom I well remember from her days in Two Nice Girls. Here she was sending up the hoary days of lesbian folk singers, in an all-Canadian set. And her choices were Kathy Fire and Ferron! I am still not sure if her white braid, which she had to flick out of the way of her guitar, is real or was part of her costume, but she gave her zombie character her all.

I also ran into Carol Morley, currently in post-production on her schoolgirl drama The Falling, which she is prepping for the spring festival circuit. Grading starts Monday, and Tracey Thorn is doing the music, so that sounds fab.

BFI Flare: Who's Afraid of Vagina Wolf?

Who's Afraid of Vagina Wolf?

So far, this is hands-down the best thing I've viewed at the festival, and there are rumours afoot that director/star Anna Margarita Albelo will be bringing her vagina costume to the screening tonight, so it should be quite the event.

Part farce, part reflection on success and failure and part mid-life crisis drama, Vagina Wolf is a delightful melding of comedy and pathos, with Albelo at its heart. As struggling film director Anna arrives at her 40th birthday party, she realises she is at a crossroads: "I had sacrificed love for my career, and now I had neither." Dressed in the vagina costume in which she earns a crust as a performer in galleries, she is exposed and lonely. And her friends (including Guin Turner in marvellously bitchy form) are no help, either, egging her on to chat up women with whom she has nothing in common. She lives in a garage and dreams of making that breakthrough. Once she embarks on a lesbian reworking of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in order to impress a young lady, she is on a collision course with herself, as her frailties and fears come to the surface.

What I love about this film is that Albelo, a seasoned comic actress, isn't afraid to make herself look ridiculous, as she spends much of the film hiding inside this costume. But, once on set, as Georgie, Anna is exposed emotionally, having to confront her worst fears, and the tone becomes quite serious. It isn't played for laughs. This character is going through hard times and we are not sure how she will emerge. It's very brave film-making. The film-within-a-film trope has been done many times, but here it really works. And the fact it may be autobiographical also has resonance.

Albelo's Hooters was a highlight for me of a previous festival, but here she really comes into her own as an actress and film-maker.

BFI Flare: Sex and Liberation

Between the Waves dir. Tejal Shah

Last night's Flare viewing consisted of a documentary on a pioneer of underground gay film, plus a semi-retrospective on a current artist filmmaker.

James Broughton, celebrated in Big Joy, was a West Coast filmmaker-poet active in the post-war years in San Francisco, though he attracted more attention in Europe, earning a special prize at Cannes. In truth, the film footage shown looked a bit ropy to me: sub-Chaplinesque hetero follies played out in unlikely locales, including London's Crystal Palace. But, there was more to Broughton than his films. A playful wordsmith, he wrote 23 books of poetry, lines of which are cleverly used in the film, whether flashing up on screen or read out by his nearest and dearest, including his estranged wife. Yes, wife, because Broughton swung both ways and wasn't exactly careful in his relationships. Three children came out of his liaisons with film critic Pauline Kael and his later wife, Suzanna Hart, who still seems broken by the betrayal. Broughton left her for the love of his life, a younger man, but I did feel for the abandoned wife. Very telling, too, that two of his children declined to be interviewed for the film. Artists, eh? The most amusing parts of the film (aside from the appearance of Frida Kahlo on two interviewees' walls) are the acerbic comments by George Kuchar, who takes the piss out of Broughton's sunny Radical Faerie world view, and stresses that his film The Bed was detested "on the East Coast". You can take the boy out of the Bronx...

The evening was capped off by The Stinging Kiss, nine films by Tejal Shah, who works in Goa and ususally shows in gallery settings. This festival screening, she said, was new territory for her. And for me, as I found myself by turns discomited, bemused, and a bit fidgety over the next two hours. The films' aesthetic reminds me a bit of the Austrian cyberqueer film, Flaming Ears, that I saw many, many years ago, and Shah did name-check Donna Haraway in her comments. There is a coldness and detachment that makes it difficult to get immersed in the works. To be sure, Shah is exploring power relations and oppositions, as she positions herself in the frame in different roles. In one, she is the "dacoit" (a term new to me) enacting a scene that blurs the lines between torture and S/M with a male protagonist playing a cinematic heroine. In another, she is being force-fed reams of food by a dead-eyed female collaborator. In the longest work, an epic five-part sci-fi meets nature drama (Shah declared herself newly out as an ecosexual), a band of unicorn beings frolics in various incongruous settings, including a desert and underwater grotto. I wasn't clear what was happening, but watching Shah penetrate her partner with her horn while both writhed in pomegranate juice, well, you don't get those experiences in a multi-plex.

Pick of the day:
For a good old-fashioned tragic romance, you can't beat Reaching for the Moon, Bruno Barreto's lush drama on the love affair between poet Elizabeth Bishop and architect Lota de Macedo Soares. Wow! These two women were seriously high-powered and highly strung. Two continents aren't enough for them, as they build parks, write masterpieces, squabble and seemingly ignore the heartbreak and simmering resentment of Soares' cast-aside partner Mary, an old friend of Bishop's. A high IQ clearly doesn't equal a high emotional IQ, and Mary's revenge is a turning point in the film. With gorgeous visuals of Brazilian landscapes, and judicious use of Bishop's poems, the film also features three excellent performances by the leads playing out the triangle over a 16-year period. Take tissues.

BFI Flare: Another Time, Another Place

Continental

To be filed under back in the day, two features focused on gay men offer up competing visions of sexual mores and practices.

Continental, Malcolm Ingram's doc on New York's legendary Continental Baths, casts the mind back to a time between 1968 and 1974, when gay men didn't need to worry about safe sex and could frolic and bareback to their hearts' content. As long as the police and Mafia were paid off, since gay sex was illegal. But, if you didn't mind that intrusion, it was possible to meet hot guys and take in a show by Bette Midler and have a swim in the same venue. (Even Hitch dropped in!) Proprietor Steve Ostrow takes centre-stage, and his story threatens to overwhelm the Baths', as the doc shuffles along, creaking to a stop in present-day Sydney, where Steve has finally achieved his lifelong dream of a career in music.

Moving into 1980s San Francisco, Chris Mason Johnson's Test takes us into the world of modern dance, as young Frankie comes to terms with the realities of being a sexually active gay man unsure of the risks of his behaviour and trying to decide whether to take the new HIV test. I found the frequent dance sequences interrupted the unfolding drama, and waited impatiently to see whether Frankie and his hirsute colleague Todd would get together. The film picks up quite a bit in the last 15 minutes and there is a delightful nightclub scene in which Frankie and Todd shed their professional demeanour to have a good ol' knees up.

BFI Flare: The Punk Singer

The Punk Singer

It's been a long wait to see The Punk Singer in the UK, after it premiered at SXSW in 2013, and I had built up huge expectations in the meantime. Kathleen Hanna's story is hugely intriguing to me, for musical and political reasons. Bikini Kill remain one of my favourite bands and my interviews with her are also some of my favourites.

Sini Anderson's doc, shot between 2010 and 2011, crams a lot in, and, with its plethora of interviewees (too many, I suspect), covers a lot of ground, from Hanna's early spoken word (which opens the film) to her diagnosis of late stage Lyme disease (after being ill for five years). I hadn't realised Hanna had been absent from the music scene since 2005, so the film's prolonged tease about what exactly had kept her off-stage didn't work for me as a mystery, but it's still instructive to know more about this illness and its effects (quite dramatic, as one scene shot by her husband at home shows) on her.

As far as those interviewees go, well, there are so many of them, that several don't even merit captions (including Kaia Wilson--I would have liked to have heard what she had to say), and the plethora of hagiographic praise and snapshots of the singer only serves to create a cult of personality around Hanna, something she persistently resisted in her years with Bikini Kill. That's a shame, because while she is in interesting figure, the message of Riot Grrrl and feminism in general has always been to go out and do it yourself, rather than worshiping someone else for doing so. I wonder if the intervening years have diluted that message to the point that it's been lost.

In the house was Lucy Thane, as well as Shirley and Ana from The Raincoats, all of whom came on-stage for a post-film Q &A, appropriate as Thane's It Changed My Life was the opener for the Hanna doc. It's interesting to see how this record of Bikini Kill's UK tour from 1993 has aged. All the energy and graininess of the time is still there, but the audience seemed to find the naivety of the British bands who emerged, such as Skinned Teen, comical. I don't recall that being so when I first viewed it all those years ago. Perhaps there is less tolerance for non-technical playing these days.

I asked the panel about current feminism's preoccupation with responding to pop culture, rather than creating alternatives. Ana replied she'd like to see both, and doesn't mind pop culture if it has something to say. As these films remind us, sometimes the subculture says it louder and better.

BFI Flare: Contentious

Rosie

Today's overview centres on difficult women, from lesbian rogues to a mother harbouring secrets.

The rogue is the late Dawn O'Donnell, clearly a legend of Sydney's LGBT scene but unknown to me until Fiona Cunningham-Reid's Croc-a-Dyke Dundee. Colourful doesn't begin to cover O'Donnell's life: convent school girl, ice skater, nightclub maven and ruthless businesswomen who also had an eye for the ladies. Was she involved in a murder, too? The doc's voiceover is archly vague about this, but it's quite a tale.

Violette Leduc was clearly a woman in thrall to her passions, but she was French, so that's par for the course. In truth, the writer comes across as a bit of a drag in Esther Hoffenberg's doc, Violette Leduc: In Pursuit of Love, enmeshed in unrequited relationships with Simone de Beauvoir and several gay men, while complaining of never being at home anywhere. It did make me curious about her writing, however, so all is not lost.

Pick of the day:
Marcel Gisler's Rosie is a slow-burning drama about family obligations and secrets. Sibylle Brunner is mesmerising as the matriarch slowly succumbing to age, while her gay son Lorenz can't seem to commit, even when love is right in front of him. The rural Swiss locations are beautifully observed, as Lorenz makes ever more trips from Berlin back to the homestead to tend to Mama, while in denial about her frailty. When secrets emerge about his late father's past, Lorenz has to face up to some home truths.

BFI Flare: First Impressions

Kate Bornstein Is a Queer and Pleasant Danger

I spent a very enjoyable afternoon / evening at the shiny new BFI Flare yesterday. Formerly the LLGFF, it's been rebranded and spruced up with rather viral looking explosive blobs that some mistook for hothouse flowers, but which I quickly recognised as flares. Ahem.

Highlight was most definitely Sam Feder's artful documentary Kate Bornstein Is a Queer and Pleasant Danger, a title as playful as its subject. Gender outlaw Bornstein was a fixture on the queer scene in SF when I lived there in the early '90s, and though we never officially met, she contributed much to discussions of gender expression and identity throughout that time. I'd lost track of her work since then, but the film mentions several of her books, including one on alternatives to suicide. Feder's portrait does not attempt an overview of her life, but merely touches on several aspects, as we meet some of her friends and family, including at least one ex. Bornstein emerges as a spirited, very funny and opinionated (her defence of "tranny" will rankle some) soul, whose battle with cancer and dedication to a life lived without being mean offers a vision of how to get through the worst obstacles.

My prelude to that couldn't be more different. GBF (dir Darren Stein) is the latest in an endless stream of US high school comedies. This one offers the trope that the gay best friend is the latest accessory for the ambitious would-be top girl, and so dorky Tanner finds himself suddenly in demand by the three high-maintenance divas vying to be Prom Queen. While a lot of the comedy is predicated on just how shallow the three girls are, I will give the film credit for clearly differentiating them, as well as offering a plethora of juicy female roles in what is essentially a gay male coming out story. Megan Mullally even turns up as one of the boy's well-intentioned, overly supportive mothers. The film also throws in a couple of ethnic minorities in what is otherwise a white suburban setting, but then spoils its feel-good mood by its casual use of "Wonton" and "rice queen" in reference to the Asian sidekick character. Gnarly, dude.

I capped off my visit with some cake, courtesy of Allyson Mitchell's Kill Joy's Kastle installation which has taken up residence in the very chilly atrium. More on this later, but the artist is giving a talk today at 16:00 GMT.

Today's film picks:
Big Words (dir Neil Drumming) is an ensemble piece set in NYC 2008, in which John attempts to pick up the pieces of his life after being fired from his latest job. It emerges he was once in a rap trio, DLP, in the '90s and the film circles around its three former members as they all come to terms with changes in their lives. The gay content is only peripheral, but the most interesting thing about the film is its resistance to the obvious plot devices. We expect the three to come together at some point, but their confrontation is not the expected happy ending. Kudos also to a film that is set on the day of Obama's election, and doesn't show any characters voting!

Valencia, based on Michelle Tea's novel, has 21 directors, so I won't run through them. But, the film is a fragmentary portrait of Michelle's life in the queer scene in SF in the 1990s, extravagantly depicted through many, many styles, including claymation! The music is awesome, as would be expected.

IWD Mash-up

Happy International Women's Day! I have just been sent a link to AGF's amazing mash-up of women electronic music artists from the 1930s-onward. Get squelchy!

NERDGIRLS Mash by poemproducer AGF 8 March 2014 - for equality, diversity and world peace by Poemproducer Aka Agf on Mixcloud

Off Road

Elisa Amoruso's film Off Road, which is playing in London as part of the Cinema Made in Italy festival, is an intriguing, puzzling documentary which raises questions about identity and constructed lives.

At the centre of it is Beatrice, previously known as Pino, a mechanic with a lovely life shared with Marianna and the latter's son Daniele. Beatrice is quite matter-of-fact about her transition from life as Pino and is a boisterous character, dressing in bright pinks and always in search of a new dress. She is also head over heels in love with Marianna, explaining how she set eyes on her and immediately professed her love and her desire to take her home.

Marianna, for her part, is more reticent, and I noticed after the film ended, that she never declared her love for Beatrice. In fact, she didn't refer to Beatrice as Beatrice or even she, calling her Love and Darling, and in her interviews consistently referring to Beatrice using male pronouns. Oh, dear. Despite Beatrice's emphatic embracing of a female gender, those around her consistently named her as male, including her mother and Daniele, who had claimed her as Dad, despite meeting her after her transition. They seem to regard her more as a man who cross-dresses and Beatrice as the personification of this identity.

How does Beatrice manage this contradiction? Well, she seems not to acknowledge it, preferring to dwell on her skill as a mechanic (the team she works for "never spoke about" her transition), and tend to her ill dog, Kira, as well as her menagerie of farm animals in what seems to be a rural idyll.

As the film develops, it turns out Beatrice has run away from a previous life, including a child who is heard but not seen, and the story takes a bit of a sad turn (even the dog sub-plot turns sour). Beatrice appears as not such a carefree soul, but one burdened by unresolved issues and a bit of anger, if determined to claim her space on the road.

Elisa Amoruso will appear at the screening of Off Road on 8 March for a Q&A.

Derek Jarman: Pandemonium

Fighting with London's sluggish traffic and ever-so-unaccommodating weather, I met up with my friend Bev to take in this exhibit wedged somewhere between King's College's Strand campus and Somerset House.

Descending the elegant spiral staircase, I felt like I'd been invited to one of the ambassador's parties, as we arrived at the exhibit doors. In we swept, depositing our mink stoles---Oh, sorry. No, actually, we picked up some cards and I tried out the MP3 player that is offered to visitors, containing "music from Derek Jarman". Not music to accompany the silent Super 8 films, but music that has some connection to Derek Jarman. I think it was used in some of his other films, but certainly an odd choice.

Perhaps the curator felt contemporary visitors couldn't bear to watch films in silence. It's not as if they are especially long films, and I found that every time I popped on my headphones, Bev had some illuminating comment to make about the films, and so I kept removing my headphones to listen to her. Some of the music was by Simon Fisher Turner, I know, but I didn't hear enough to really form an impression as to whether it added to my experience of the films.

Since Bev is both a Super 8 filmmaker and dedicated modernist, I thought she would be an ideal companion, and we spent quite a bit of time discussing Jarman's preference for "urban ruination", which is also something we feel has vacated London in recent years, as the glass boxes have proliferated and the scruffy elements have been swept under the carpet or pushed out of the gentrifying districts.

This was especially apparent as we watched Jarman's films shot in his loft in Butler's Wharf in the 1970s. Has there been any area more tarted up than the Docklands? A view on to the Thames allowed him a panorama of bridges, buildings, swooping seagulls and the lapping water, as well as the attractions within his own walls, seen in such films as Jubilee.

The works on show, which include some paintings and some influential books (including volumes by Ginsberg and Shakespeare) are mainly from Jarman's early years, pointing the way to his later features and a life cut short by HIV. There is also something of a vanished London in it, making it both celebration and memorial.

Many Happy Returns

Having rung in the new year, it's time to see what's on the horizon for 2014. I already have a very busy January planned, and am wondering how to squeeze in everything I want to see after a recumbent December.

First up this week is the very welcome return of filmmaker Vivienne Dick. I had heard over a year ago she was working on a new film, and she will be in attendance when it screens this Saturday at the ICA in London.

It's also worth popping over to Jude Cowan Montague's Nuclear Winter on Sunday the 12th, as she casts an eye over the situation in Fukushima. I may be screening a new film of mine, shot at a Cold War spy station, if technical facilities allow.

Next week sees some tasty-looking artists' films at the remodelled, swanky Tate Britain, as part of the Assembly series. I especially like the look of Assembly: Regeneration II on 13 January.

And starting tomorrow, Anat Ben-David has a new installation, entitled MeleCH premiering, with a live performance to follow on the 15th.

Loadsa arty doings in London Town!

Pussy Riot Freedom compilation

As the year winds down, spare a thought for the two members of Pussy Riot still detained in Russia. While there are noises that they may be released before year's end, there are still legal fees to be paid, as well as costs for the young children separated from their mothers.

The electronic music music producers female:pressure are releasing a compilation. Here's what they have to say:
 [The] electronic music producers of female:pressure offer their music in solidarity with Pussy Riot  calling for freedom for imprisoned Pussy Riot members Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina. We have heard that they may be set free, and hope that this effort increases exposure for their cause and celebrates their liberation.
 
All money raised from this compilation will be donated directly to the Voice Project who is managing the International Support Fund for Pussy Riot. 

Let's hope the remaining members of Pussy Riot are free soon.

Factory Acts in London

Factory Acts at Surya, London; photo by Val Phoenix

A rare gig outing for me  last night, and even then I had to leave early in order to be up for my IT class this morning. Ah, times have changed since those long-gone days, when I could go out to two or three gigs in one evening, stop off for some donut holes on the way home, go to sleep at 4 and be up again at 9 (or 10 or, more likely, 11).

Anyway, this rare live music venture was to see the London debut of electronic duo Factory Acts from Way Up North (or Salford, as the kids call it) at a venue new to me, Surya. I've heard a few of their songs (they were featured on one of my podcasts last year, along with an interview with keyboardist/vocalist Susan O'Shea), but was keen to check out how they sound in a live arena.

It was a short but satisfying set, running only six numbers, but seemed quite full, actually. With only two people on-stage, multi-tasking Susan and bassist Matt, one might think the sound would be thin or the presentation lacking, but they created quite a racket and were also backed up by some arty visuals flickering on the screen at the back of the stage.

Matt's bass was very reminiscent of early '80s post-punk, and Susan handled the complex keyboard set-up with aplomb (I especially liked her elaborate hand flourishes while triggering some kind of effect) while also delivering a Siouxsie-esque wail that rendered the speakers redundant.

The final song, "Americans With Guns", featured snippets of NRA nutjob Charlton Heston in all his pomp. That gave me a chuckle.

So far, their recorded output is limited to a few singles, but they are hoping to rectify that soon.

Jack Smith: Cologne, 1974

An intriguing little exhibit on now at Space in London is Jack Smith: Cologne, 1974, featuring a film of the artist by Birgit Hein, as well as photos by Gwenn Thomas.

In the corridor outside the images is a photocopy of a typically contrary interview with Smith that also appeared in 1974, in which he rages against "Uncle Fish-hook" (Jonas Mekas) and offers many poetic and somewhat incoherent opinions.

I have always been a bit bemused by Smith, as well as his work. I do wonder if he didn't suffer from some kind of personality disorder, given the way he conducted and expressed himself and seemed possessed by so many grudges that seemed to drive his work. Certainly, he vented his spleen in a most expressive way, but was he a well person? I have my doubts.

The film by Hein, which is shown on a television, depicts a visit Smith made to the Cologne Zoo, in which he holds court by some cages and calls for an end to the selling of artists' work to galleries and museums that exploit them. "Art should be free!" he demands, calling for museums to be open all night or filled with something useful.

On the walls of the bright white room (I could still smell the paint) are black and white photos by Thomas of the same appearance showing Smith in an elaborate head-dress or pith helmet interacting with the cages, as well as with a human figure. Not sure who that is. Did Smith identify somewhat with those caged beasts?

Words Over Walthamstow

It's not every day the Poet Laureate pops into the 'stow for a gig, so I was hasty about getting my ticket, even though I am no poetry aficionado. Her visit came courtesy of the new "words festival", Words Over Waltham Forest.

Carol Ann Duffy's name has reached even my ears, and I was curious as to how I would find an evening of her work in the company of musician John Sampson. What did that even mean?

Well, it worked out surprisingly well. A short stroll to the Assembly Hall, which I have never visited. Quite an impressive space, even though, peeping through the open doors, I thought it was set up for a Christmas pageant. Sampson warmed us up with some comic woodwinding before Duffy read from The World's Wife, her collection of poems taking on the personae of various other halves to famous men. Very witty it was, too, with her dry asides drawing warm laughter from the audience of about 700.

Sampson returned for brief comic sets, while the poet, suffering from a cold, relaxed her pipes in a comfy chair before returning for more readings from her collections, including the most recent, The Bees.

Kudos, too, to the opening act, Warsan Shire, the new Young Poet Laureate of London. At first I found her delivery too understated and quiet, but quickly realised the power of her words as she warmed up, offering deceptively simple comments that added up to mostly unspoken horror stories about living in a war zone and as a refugee. The woman in front of me buried her head in her hands and wiped away tears.

A bit of everything. Not bad for a Saturday night. And I was home in 10 minutes. Bliss.

Words Over Waltham Forest continues through 17 November.

Mendieta / Singh at the Hayward

I've been thinking a lot about the joint exhibit currently running at Hayward. While the Ana Mendieta retrospective, Traces, received all the advance publicity, it was Dayanita Singh's more low-key display that I came away appreciating without reservations.

If I'm honest, I was a bit bemused by the Mendieta exhibit, underwhelmed even. While she had a prolific practice spanning 1972-1985, it's difficult to assess her work without dwelling on the extraordinary circumstances surrounding her death--not even referenced in the exhibit or its catalogue, which I thumbed through. Only brief mention is made of her relationship with sculptor Carl Andre, and one must repair to the Project Space to read some very interesting publications which came out well after her death to speculate on just how she died.

What remains of her work is certainly voluminous, with rooms of photos, videos, and sculptures. But, I found myself lingering at the last room, which showed her personal documentation of her work, as well as some of her effects, such as postcards sent from her on-site locations, amusing descriptions in Spanish and English of her thoughts. Here one pondered: who was this woman and what might have she become, were her life not cut short?

I was intrigued to note, for instance, that she used a whole roll of film to document her early work, but only printed one image when called upon to submit work for an exhibition. And so, we know the image of her in a moustache from her very early piece, Untitled (Facial Hair Transplants). But an image shown in the final room shows much more interesting images from this work, including one of her in a full beard with a clean-shaven man next to her. This, to me, illustrates the notion of a facial hair transplant better than the image she selected. It would have been enlightening to see what Mendieta might have selected for a retrospective, had she lived.

As it was, death was a preocccupation for her in her work, with many references to burial sites, wrapped bodies, and the Mexican Day of the Dead, as well as the Tree of Life. I found some of this cultural scavenging hard to take. Mendieta was Cuban, not Mexican, and the blithe descriptions of her going into sacred indigenous Mexican sites and carving on the walls filled me with indignation. Did she go with permission? Did she use techniques guaranteed not to harm the site? Or did she just follow her artistic bliss and damn the consequences?

At what point does art become vandalism? This goes double for the famed Untitled (Chicken Piece), in which two accomplices chop off a chicken's head on video and throw her the body, which she holds by its legs, while it flaps its death throes. I found myself repelled by the harm caused to the chicken, not entranced at her oneness with nature.

The piece by Mendieta that most intrigued was actually a very small item hidden away in Room 6 or so, dwarfed by the large prints. It was a handprint burned into a book cover. I wondered how she did it and what it signified to her, leaving her mark on a piece of human creation, rather than the earth.

Then it was on to the reflective photo-based pieces in Go Away Closer by Singh, many of which are delightfully arranged into display archives or museums. Practising in India, Singh has visited many archives over the years and snapped collections of papers and books, which she pored over to select images for thematic displays.

There is also a selection of her portraits, most notably of eunuch Mona Ahmed (whom she has photographed for over 20 years and whose autobiography she helped publish), alongside some of the books that have come from Singh's work. Did the books precede the exhibits or vice versa? The juxtaposition of text and image is well-judged and piques interest in Singh's body of work.

I'm not sure why these two exhibits are included in one ticket, for Singh and Mendieta don't have too much to say to one another, artistically, but certainly both are worth seeing and, no doubt, arguing over.

Crystal Palace International Film Festival

Venturing south of the river for an evening's cinematic viewing, I found myself in quite a nifty venue in The Triangle (as the locals deem it), Crystal Palace's entertainment hub.

The evening's offering was student film, with six films and a Q&A on offer. They were, indeed, international, with South Korea, USA, Sweden, New Zealand and the UK represented. Violence was the dominant theme, with five out of the six fixated on acts or threats of violence. Students, eh?

By far the standout film was the Swedish entry, Annalyn (dir Maria Eriksson), the only one more interested in the minutae of human relationships than violent action (and the only one directed by a woman!). Eriksson's bittersweet but highly comic film runs 30 minutes and was by far the longest film on show, but absolutely flew by, as Agnes came to terms with her crumbling relationship and stumblingly tried to get to grips with her feelings for the new woman in her life--her father's new wife. Comedy of embarrassment didn't cover it. My companions were especially impressed with the dialogue, which covered a lot (in three languages) in quite short order.

Of the other films, the two US offerings were pretty good, as well, with excellent cinematography. The Painter (dir Nate Townsend) presented a middle-aged man reflecting on a turning point in his life at a remove of 35 years and offered a poignant twist that stayed with the audience. Awwww was my reaction.

Never Gonna Break (dir Thomas Backer) also had a twist, but the climax went a bit melodramatic for my taste--screaming and guns played a role.

The final film, Ugly Night (dir Won Kang) from South Korea, we all agreed, was well-shot (or even, eh, executed), but proved to be a blood-drenched, pointless exercise. Its director will no doubt go on to be a millionaire.

Crystal Palace International Film Festival continues through 9 November.

Far from Home

Kristin Hersh; photo by Val Phoenix

Got in late last night after an epic day, during which I finally, FINALLY made the acquaintance of one Kristin Hersh after a generation or so of listening and quite a few interview requests. The interview happened, of which more later (should be an Odd Girl Out podcast). And Ms. Hersh couldn't have been more self-effacing and brilliantly poetic in her musings, which included never really being at home anywhere.

Which strikes a chord for me, not just because I am a long-term expat. But, there are some people in creation who just don't seem to fit their surroundings. Like me. I've long pondered the notion that I am some alien being beamed in from goodness-knows-where in order to survey this strange planet and its inhabitants. My report is forthcoming. Beware.

Anyway, after the interview it was on to sunny Wood Green where Kristin was doing a reading/mini-gig in a bookstore. I do love me an independent bookstore, and so it was a pleasure to make the acquaintance of Big Green Books, to scan its shelves and then settle in for an all-too-brief set by Kristin of new Throwing Muses tracks, plus readings from the accompanying book. 'Cause this is the way of the world now, kids. Since the music biz collapsed, it's all about the crowdfunding and bundling of activities.

I quite like the notion of a book-cum-record, and Purgatory/Paradise by Throwing Muses is an intriguing proposition. 32 tracks is a bit much to take in in one sitting for me, so will have to return to it. But, the writing, by Kristin, is brilliant, full of insights into her world and what I call her pancake philosophising. She takes quotidien events and objects and expounds on them in a way that makes profound points.

The set was actually two new Muses songs, plus a traditional spiritual, "The Wayfaring Stranger", which reflects on the journey of life and trying to get, um, home. Kristin remarked it was written by God. Looking it up, I see it appeared in Cold Mountain, which I, by chance, have just seen on DVD. Do like a bit of hillbilly music, when it isn't too God-oriented. There is an aura of melancholia and world-weariness that hangs over such tunes, and, indeed, much of Kristin's work, as well. Soulmates, they are.

After the gig, I joined an erstwhile classmate of mine, plus his mate, for some home-made risotto in a reclaimed old people's home. Now that was weird.

Kristin Hersh will launch Purgatory/Paradise on 28 October at Rough Trade East in London.

Intervals

Visitors to Intervals by Ayse Erkmen; photo: Val Phoenix

Paying a visit to the Barbican yesterday, I swung by The Curve to check out the new exhibition, only to find I was too early, an unusual occurrence for me. But, when I returned after 11 am, I was greeted by an open door leading down to a screen covering the space. Hmm, I thought. This could be a short visit. I hovered uncertainly at the top of the stairs, wondering if I was allowed to venture closer. As I registered the wall text accompanying the exhibit, the invigilator drew my attention to a brochure that he said had the same text. I took the brochure, read the wall text and ventured in, as the screen lifted to reveal another.

This is Ayse Erkmen's intriguing installation, Intervals, making clever use of The Curve's position and shape as part of the backstage area of the most complex complex, The Barbican. A series of painted screens lifts and falls, drawing the visitor in and keeping one there for the duration of the randomly sequenced movements. I joked with the invigilator, "Has anyone gotten stuck?", to which he replied, "Not for long." I found it an entrancing experience, gazing on the elaborately painted screens, imagining the works that had prompted them, everything from Italian opera to modern dramas.

But, when I reached the eighth screen, I was puzzled. The brochure described it as inspired by the work of Turner, but the green leaves on the screen bore no resemblance to the brochure's description. As the screen lifted, I saw the next one over looked more Turner-esque and also depicted stairs, which would make sense if it was inspired by Turner's The Grand Staircase, From the West. Once I could get under that screen, I sought out the nearest invigilator to check, and he was none the wiser. I wondered then about the next few, as to whether they were correctly named, as well. In the end, we concluded that 8 and 9 (Turner and Morris) had been switched in the brochure, if not on the wall caption at the start. Funny nobody had noticed this before!

A bit of backstage mystery never went amiss. Other visitors didn't seem to take such a close interest in the individual screens, striding under them, or in the case of the many kids, approaching at high speed and doing a stop, drop and roll. My knees aren't up to that at present, but it was certainly a high-energy approach to art.

Gloomy Wednesday

Sailor Girl from Entangled2 (Theatre II) by Lindsay Seers

What better way to spend a rainy day than to visit some galleries and take in some art? So, that's what I did yesterday, as the heavens opened in London. Unfortunately for me, my journey required a lot of walking between venues and I was one soggy figure on my arrival at Matt's Gallery for a viewing of Lindsay Seers' Entangled (Theatre II), a version of a piece I viewed last year in Margate.

The viewing requires an advance call to book a slot, and when I arrived early for mine, I had to wait for the previous viewing to finish, even though nobody was actually in the room. Once it was ready, I was handed a pair of headphones and beckoned into a small booth, which resembled nothing so much as a peep show booth which faced a red square viewing area. It was an odd juxtaposition for me: why the booth? The space in Margate was open between audience and the two spheres that formed the screen, so I am not clear on why she has set it up this way. In any event, there's nothing sleazy about the piece, which details testimony from two performers about their lives as male impersonators.

I am not sure if this is any different from the piece in Margate, but the space being discussed (and suggested in the viewing conditions) is the Mile End Genesis, rather than a Kent stage. Seers likes to localise her stagings of pieces, and as the Genesis used to be a live theatre before it was a cinema, she did some filming there and it gets a brief mention in the piece. I don't know if it's better or worse than what I saw in Margate, but I really like the use of the spheres to take on various characters in the stories the performers tell, from eyeballs to wombs. Most imaginative and evocative. Leaving the performance through an anteroom, I saw photos of the performers who inspired the work, Hetty King looking especially dapper as a sailor. Lucky the recipient of her signed photo!

Then it was onto the Whitechapel to see Sarah Lucas's retrospective. I felt I was entering the living room of a very eccentric relative as I opened the door to the first gallery: mobiles, wallpaper, and an array of tables, chairs, and mattresses greeted me. But, what furnishings! The mattresses were stained with food, the wallpaper was lurid newspaper headlines and the settees were made of MDF and breezeblocks. I warmed to the latter, even testing them out, once I was sure it was permitted. Sadly, taking photos is banned, a shame, because the most interesting aspect to my visit was watching the reactions and behaviours of the other visitors. Gleeful laughter, pointed fingers, frowns and grimaces were the order of the day, as everyone got to grips with Lucas's oeuvre. I found myself bemused and charmed, actually.

What is her POV, I wonder. Her use of food to convey markers of sex is well-known, but what point is she making with her giant plaster penises, which, er, popped up in an array of locations on the ground and upper floor? Though the exhibit contains warnings about graphic sexual material, I found it most unsexual, actually, more a presentation of grubby humanity. There is something a bit bleak about her equation of body parts with the detritus of human failure.

Upstairs I quite liked the brass casts, which echo the textile ones downstairs, twisted shapes perhaps recalling legs or even turds, I suppose. And I also really liked the cigarette portraits, which seems an apt form for someone who is often pictured with a fag jutting out of her mouth. An odd character, Lucas, who has abandoned London for Suffolk, but seems no less productive or more optimistic in her post-enfant terrible years.