adamblake77

Just back from seeing this. Still a bit shell-shocked. First impressions that it's up there with the very best. The last scene in particular was worthy of Bunuel at his most vengeful. Yes, it's in that league. Very tough indeed. Not a trace of sentiment. Entirely plausible performances. Taut and highly original direction, documentary style. Some of the set locations are just jaw dropping - be they natural or man-made. Some brilliant touches - shots panning back to reveal an entirely different context, the camera lingering on facial expressions of those left behind by the action, or on fear, or shock. A devastating commentary on life amongst the poor in modern Italy, this is as far removed from even the best Hollywood gangster movies as it is possible to imagine. The only American comparison might be with Scorsese's "Mean Streets" - but there you are invited to empathise with characters (especially the one played by Harvey Keitel) and it is still possible to romanticise De Niro's depiction of Johnny Boy. There are no such avenues offered here. The traditional gangster movie denouement is contemptuously thrown away in the first five minutes. Not for the fainthearted but if you appreciated Bunuel's "Los Olividados" or "Pixote" or "Salaam Bombay" then this is for you.

This is a subtle and understated film about big subjects: what constitutes betrayal and weakness in the way the living deal with the legacy of the dead. It's also a true story. The noted New Zealand writer Katherine Mansfield died of tuberculosis at the age of 33. Just before she died she wrote to her husband, John Middleton-Murray, and named him her literary executor. In the letter she instructed him in no uncertain terms to destroy as many of her papers as possible and to publish as few as possible. He ignored her instructions, destroyed none, and published virtually all. In doing this he secured himself a comfortable living in royalties from Mansfield's estate until his death some thirty five years later. His excuse and justification was that, in acting as he did, he gained posthumous fame and recognition for his dead wife's writings and that this would have satisfied her desire to be considered a great writer. The fact that she was a great writer anyway is undoubtedly clearer now with the benefit of hindsight than it was then, and it's easy to castigate Murray for being greedy and disingenuous. But he does have a point: He did succeed in focusing attention on her work at a time when it might well have otherwise been forgotten or ignored.

But in creating a "cult of Katherine", and portraying her as a needy, sickly, crushed violet of a woman, he did the true Katherine a grave disservice. As this film points out: "she was tough, and funny." The point of this film is to explore these issues and to dramatise them. In this it succeeds admirably. John Gielgud gives a typically marvellous performance as an ageing weakling troubled by a guilty conscience. Jane Birkin is hardly in his league but she holds her own perfectly adequately. The direction is taut and the script is excellent. It all looks so perfectly chocolate box that the image of a vengeful, tubercular ghost bearing down on Murray is all the more shocking when it occurs. Similarly, the scenes of Mansfield alone in a string of cheap hotels coughing up her lungs are delivered without sensationalism or sentimentality - and are all the more effective for this.

For admirers of Katherine Mansfield, this film is an absolute feast but that doesn't mean that it is irrelevant to anyone else. If you admire fine acting, a good script and an original story about a genuine ethical dilemma, then this film will engage you on all those levels. Too bad it's so unavailable. I taped it off the television in the 1980's. I have made a DVD of my tape but it's not very good quality. It's absurd that such a fine Gielgud performance should languish unseen. Track it down if you can.

Excellent documentary, ostensibly about the friendship and subsequent rivalry between two West Coast retro rock'n'roll bands: The Dandy Warhols and the Brian Jonestown Massacre. What it actually turns out to be is a portrait of a borderline psychopath - Anton Newcomb - and his tortured relationship with the rest of the world. Interestingly, for a music documentary, there is hardly any music. What there is - snatches of songs, more often than not aborted by the performers - is incidental rather than central. Although the protagonists are musicians, the story is not about music but rather about a particularly American version of a British myth of a cartoon lifestyle, ie, one where nobody has to take responsibility for behaving like spoiled adolescents on a full-time basis. Tantrums, drugs, violence, grossly dysfunctional attitudes, egomania on a truly epic scale - all of this is excused or positively encouraged because it conforms to some collectively held idea about what rock'n'roll is about. As a film this is a first-class documentary but it raises more questions than it answers. For example, why is Anton's music so conservative? For someone so wild and outrageous (and he IS wild and outrageous) his music never seems to have progressed beyond the most obvious derivations of his 60s idols (The Stones, Velvets etc.) For someone who claims to be able to play 80 instruments he has never bothered to learn to play any one of them beyond the most rudimentary level. Similarly, the Dandy Warhols burning ambition is based on a vision of rock'n'roll which is astonishingly fossilised in 1969. Nothing wrong with pastiches, of course, but surely there's more to musical life than perpetually acting out a cartoon from the late 60s. Why don't they take some risks with their music - in the way that their role models did? Because, one suspects, this is not about music. Music is just an accessory, a prop, or an excuse, to lead completely dysfunctional and irresponsible lives. But why? In the Dandy Warhols case, the answer is obvious: to make lots of money and be famous. Big deal. Anton Newcomb's case is more interesting. He is obviously very talented, but every time he is given an opportunity to reach a wider audience he sabotages it, usually in the most dramatic way possible. He is terrified of success, and at the same time, deeply resents anyone else who has it - especially his former friends the Dandy Warhols. Fascinating movie. Highly recommended.