One response to our stunned impotence in the face of financial meltdown, political chicanery and the creeping surveillance society, is to indulge in fugues of entropy tourism. Badlands dérives. Websites clanking with scrap metal, the refuse of military hardware, sump-oil lakes, pastiche Tarkovsky. The recent invasion of the Lower Lea Valley (the Olympics site) by fork-tongued instruments of global capitalism, hellbent on improving the image of destruction, has been duplicated by raiding parties bearing cameras and notebooks, the tattered footsoldiers of anarchy: retro-geographers, punk Vorticists. Sentimentalists of every stripe are undertaking knotweed rambles as pilgrimages to rescue the last remnants of locality by reciting threatened names made sacred by generations of unacknowledged predecessors: Hackney Wick, Temple Mills, Isle of Dogs. Every trudge around the perimeter fence of the Australian super-mall and its satellite stadium is a recapitulation of William Blake's itinerary, as laid out in his mythopoeic masterpiece, Jerusalem: "thro' Hackney & Holloway towards London / Till he came to old Stratford, & thence to Stepney & the Isle / Of Leutha's Dogs".
Old Stratford, transport hub, retail cathedral, birthplace of the Jesuit poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins, drew me back with its intimations of a new England, a city state outside time and beyond culture. Compulsory diversions have been arranged, systems of barricades and cones, to funnel random pedestrians through chasms of glass and steel towards the shimmering illusion of the Westfield oasis. It took something special to make me reach for my camera, all the evidence had already been logged and relogged. Just as my futile presence, in its turn, was captured on hours of security tape, scans from overhead drones.
Walking away from the revamped container stack looking over the Olympic stadium, I found something worth recording. The poster with the smirking, corkscrew-haired young woman chosen to promote another meaningless development opportunity had been customised with black pennies over the eyes, stickers announcing: "SAVAGE MESSIAH". Was this a band paying their respects to Henri Gaudier-Brzeska? (Savage Messiah is the title of a biography of the sculptor, by HS Ede, published in 1931.) Or was it an art school tribute to the subversive dynamism of Blast and Wyndham Lewis? In a shallow, fast-twitch period we thrive on commodified speed-dating, quoting the quote, Xeroxing energy sources to make them into marketable brands. If Ede's book was not the inspiration, perhaps the neo-Vorticists of Stratford had chanced on Ken Russell's 1972 film with the same title, scripted by the poet Christopher Logue, and featuring Dorothy Tutin and Scott Antony as the fated pair, Gaudier and his Polish lover, the troubled Sophie Brzeska?
The mystery of the defaced poster was solved when I discovered Laura Oldfield Ford's samizdat pamphlets, recording moody expeditions, pub crawls, mooches through the kingdom of the dead that is liminal London. Even the author's name seemed like a serendipitous marriage of Blake's Old Ford and the poet Charles Olson's notion of open-field poetics (the contrary of the current fetish for enclosures). The original Savage Messiah "zines" are serial diaries of ranting and posing among ruins. Ford delivers the prose equivalent of a photo-romance in quest of a savage messiah with attitude, cheekbones and wolverine eyes. A feral, leather-jacketed manifestation of place.
Collided into a great block, the catalogue of urban rambles takes on a new identity as a fractured novel of the city. Slim pamphlets, now curated and glossily repackaged, have an awkward relationship with their guerrilla source. With a formal introduction and a cover price a penny short of £20, it is difficult to sustain the swagger of the throwaway form, strategically manipulated to look like dirty sheets on which you can smell the ink, glue, semen and toxic mud. The structure depends on a steady drip-feed of quotes from JG Ballard, Italo Calvino, Guy Debord, Walter Benjamin. White men all, festering in elective suburbs of hell, where they labour to finesse a paradise park of language.
Moving beyond this relentless Xeroxing of the entire genealogy of protest from Blast to Sniffin' Glue, by way of Situationism and psychogeography, Oldfield Ford displays authentic gifts as a recorder and mapper of terrain. She is a necessary kind of writer, smart enough to bring document and poetry together in a scissors-and-paste, post-authorial form. Like so many before her, psychotic or inspired, she trudges far enough to dissolve ego and to identify with the non-spaces into which she is voyaging. "This unknown territory has become my biography." Her story is eroticised by the prospect of riot, anecdotes teased from smouldering industrial relics. The "euphoric levitation" of brutalist tower blocks. Post-coital reveries from "an ugly night on ketamine in a New Cross squat".
Alongside the standard tropes of entropy tourism, talk of "mystical portals", Heathrow as a "mesh of paranoia", Oldfield Ford experiences sudden illuminating shifts of consciousness. "The air is perfumed, the sky pink. My hair is loose, unkempt, I am in a red dress descending into the chlorine scent of a disused pool." Ballardian riffs anticipate plague, soul sickness, breakdown of the social contract. "There wasn't a fixed point where the malaise started." In the end, it's about walking as a way of writing, recomposing London by experiencing its secret signs and obstacles.
When writers identify with the city that feeds and sustains them, they become plural. They abdicate originality. Sophie Brzeska, after Gaudier had been killed in the first world war, embarked on a London walk as random and driven as anything undertaken by Oldfield Ford. As Ede reports: "She walked all through the night … talking and swearing more loudly than ever … a strange, gaunt woman with short hair, no hat, and shoes cut into the form of sandals. She felt the world was against her."
2011年12月28日星期三
2011年11月11日星期五
Review: Forbidden
She is pretty and talented - sweet sixteen and never been kissed. He is seventeen; gorgeous and on the brink of a bright future. And now they have fallen in love. But... they are brother and sister.
Seventeen-year-old Lochan and sixteen-year-old Maya have always felt more like friends than siblings. Together they have stepped in for their alcoholic, wayward mother to take care of their three younger siblings. As defacto parents to the little ones, Lochan and Maya have had to grow up fast. And the stress of their lives—and the way they understand each other so completely—has also also brought them closer than two siblings would ordinarily be. So close, in fact, that they have fallen in love. Their clandestine romance quickly blooms into deep, desperate love. They know their relationship is wrong and cannot possibly continue. And yet, they cannot stop what feels so incredibly right. As the novel careens toward an explosive and shocking finale, only one thing is certain: a love this devastating has no happy ending.
Seventeen-year-old Lochan and sixteen-year-old Maya have always felt more like friends than siblings. Together they have stepped in for their alcoholic, wayward mother to take care of their three younger siblings. As defacto parents to the little ones, Lochan and Maya have had to grow up fast. And the stress of their lives—and the way they understand each other so completely—has also also brought them closer than two siblings would ordinarily be. So close, in fact, that they have fallen in love. Their clandestine romance quickly blooms into deep, desperate love. They know their relationship is wrong and cannot possibly continue. And yet, they cannot stop what feels so incredibly right. As the novel careens toward an explosive and shocking finale, only one thing is certain: a love this devastating has no happy ending.
2011年10月21日星期五
Review: Spielberg's 'Tintin' is comic book fun
Filmmakers mess with viewers' childhood memories at their peril, so Steven Spielberg is taking a risk tackling Tintin.
In the United States, the teenage adventurer is an acquired taste, known mainly to Europhiles and comic fans. But for millions around the world, the globe-trotting young journalist is a beloved childhood friend — the most famous comic-book reporter since Peter Parker and Clark Kent. Unlike those characters, Tintin has no superhero alter ego, just an unquenchable curiosity and a white terrier named Snowy who more than matches his master in resourcefulness and pluck.
The archetypal American Spielberg may seem an odd choice to bring this European hero to the big screen, but Spielberg has been an admirer since a critic compared the Tintin stories to his "Raiders of the Lost Ark." Belgian cartoonist Herge, who created Tintin in the 1920s, gave Spielberg his blessing before his death in 1983.
And it turns out Spielberg is perfect, his love of vintage Saturday afternoon serials exactly in sync with the spirit of the comic book yarns. "The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn" is a nostalgia-tinged romp, blending thrilling chases, quirky characters and sly humor — a sort of Young Indiana Jones: Brussels Edition. The original comics, particularly the notorious 1931 story "Tintin in the Congo," have been accused of colonialism and ethnic stereotyping, but the film carefully avoids controversial terrain.
The movie, adapted from three of Herge's original stories, follows Tintin (played by Jamie Bell, who starred in the movie "Billy Elliot") as he joins forces with Captain Haddock (Andy Serkis), a whisky-soaked seaman who becomes his friend and ally, in a race against nefarious Ivan Sakharine (Daniel Craig) to pirate treasure and the secret of a lost galleon, the Unicorn.
It's a sign of how big Tintin is around the world that the film debuts internationally on Oct. 26, almost two months before its Dec. 21 U.S. opening — time, producers hope, to build a global buzz and intrigue American audiences.
The movie's most contentious feature, for some viewers, will be Spielberg's decision to use performance capture technology, in which live actors are recorded digitally, then layered with computer animation to create finished characters and sets.
The animation was handled by the WETA visual-effects house of "The Lord of the Rings" director Peter Jackson, who produced "The Adventures of Tintin."
Some viewers may see it as a "plasticky" halfway house between live action and animation, but Spielberg uses it to create some exhilarating action sequences, including a madcap motorcycle chase through a Moroccan souk. The European detail of vintage automobiles, dusty shops and rain-slicked cobblestones is lovingly rendered, and there are moments of wit and visual surrealism to please adults as well as children.
The technology's slick superficiality is not so good at capturing emotion, despite the best efforts of a largely British cast. Bell's Tintin is almost as flat as his pen-and-ink forebear. Bumbling bowler-hatted detectives Thomson and Thompson are played by frequent collaborators Nick Frost and Simon Pegg, but little of the pair's comic rapport comes through.
Only Serkis (the performance-capture Olivier, veteran of the technique from "The Lord of the Rings," ''King Kong" and "Rise of the Planet of the Apes") transcends the limitations of the form. He wrings blood, bile, laughter and tears from the soused Haddock, whose alcoholism is somewhat uneasily played for both laughs and pathos.
The film ends on a note that makes a sequel — which Jackson is lined up to direct — a near certainty, and a third film is planned if all goes well.
Will the movie please all Tintin fans? Probably not. The script by Britons Steven Moffat, Joe Cornish and Edgar Wright has taken enough liberties with Herge's plots and characters to infuriate purists. But it has a light touch, a brisk pace and considerable charm, perfect family fare for casual viewers.
"The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn," a Paramount Pictures/Columbia Pictures release. Rated PG for adventure action violence, some drunkenness and brief smoking. Running time: 107 minutes. Three stars out of four.
In the United States, the teenage adventurer is an acquired taste, known mainly to Europhiles and comic fans. But for millions around the world, the globe-trotting young journalist is a beloved childhood friend — the most famous comic-book reporter since Peter Parker and Clark Kent. Unlike those characters, Tintin has no superhero alter ego, just an unquenchable curiosity and a white terrier named Snowy who more than matches his master in resourcefulness and pluck.
The archetypal American Spielberg may seem an odd choice to bring this European hero to the big screen, but Spielberg has been an admirer since a critic compared the Tintin stories to his "Raiders of the Lost Ark." Belgian cartoonist Herge, who created Tintin in the 1920s, gave Spielberg his blessing before his death in 1983.
And it turns out Spielberg is perfect, his love of vintage Saturday afternoon serials exactly in sync with the spirit of the comic book yarns. "The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn" is a nostalgia-tinged romp, blending thrilling chases, quirky characters and sly humor — a sort of Young Indiana Jones: Brussels Edition. The original comics, particularly the notorious 1931 story "Tintin in the Congo," have been accused of colonialism and ethnic stereotyping, but the film carefully avoids controversial terrain.
The movie, adapted from three of Herge's original stories, follows Tintin (played by Jamie Bell, who starred in the movie "Billy Elliot") as he joins forces with Captain Haddock (Andy Serkis), a whisky-soaked seaman who becomes his friend and ally, in a race against nefarious Ivan Sakharine (Daniel Craig) to pirate treasure and the secret of a lost galleon, the Unicorn.
It's a sign of how big Tintin is around the world that the film debuts internationally on Oct. 26, almost two months before its Dec. 21 U.S. opening — time, producers hope, to build a global buzz and intrigue American audiences.
The movie's most contentious feature, for some viewers, will be Spielberg's decision to use performance capture technology, in which live actors are recorded digitally, then layered with computer animation to create finished characters and sets.
The animation was handled by the WETA visual-effects house of "The Lord of the Rings" director Peter Jackson, who produced "The Adventures of Tintin."
Some viewers may see it as a "plasticky" halfway house between live action and animation, but Spielberg uses it to create some exhilarating action sequences, including a madcap motorcycle chase through a Moroccan souk. The European detail of vintage automobiles, dusty shops and rain-slicked cobblestones is lovingly rendered, and there are moments of wit and visual surrealism to please adults as well as children.
The technology's slick superficiality is not so good at capturing emotion, despite the best efforts of a largely British cast. Bell's Tintin is almost as flat as his pen-and-ink forebear. Bumbling bowler-hatted detectives Thomson and Thompson are played by frequent collaborators Nick Frost and Simon Pegg, but little of the pair's comic rapport comes through.
Only Serkis (the performance-capture Olivier, veteran of the technique from "The Lord of the Rings," ''King Kong" and "Rise of the Planet of the Apes") transcends the limitations of the form. He wrings blood, bile, laughter and tears from the soused Haddock, whose alcoholism is somewhat uneasily played for both laughs and pathos.
The film ends on a note that makes a sequel — which Jackson is lined up to direct — a near certainty, and a third film is planned if all goes well.
Will the movie please all Tintin fans? Probably not. The script by Britons Steven Moffat, Joe Cornish and Edgar Wright has taken enough liberties with Herge's plots and characters to infuriate purists. But it has a light touch, a brisk pace and considerable charm, perfect family fare for casual viewers.
"The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn," a Paramount Pictures/Columbia Pictures release. Rated PG for adventure action violence, some drunkenness and brief smoking. Running time: 107 minutes. Three stars out of four.
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