After a gap of weeks I went to a cinema theatre twice this second week in October 2013 for a showing of the Wicker Man at 21.10 Cineworld Bolden Tuesday the 8th at a cost £4.05 booked on line, followed by the following morning at 12.10 the showing of Blue Jasmine using one of the remaining Cineworld Vouchers obtained via my credit card, reminding that I appear to have lost, hopefully misplaced, the two special vouchers issued by Bolden because of problems previously experienced plus a couple of additional vouchers via the Credit card. This continues to bug me as the concerns is that i may have attached to one of the London visit Albums or a Development album. Have also not found my photo card Driving licence which I am sure I left at home when not taking the car on a London trip during which I saw a film about Renoir present mood is one of frustration. I must replace after one check and also apply for a new passport although the prospect fo a trip not appeal other than perhaps to Gibraltar again and to malta for the first time..
I was disappointed by aspects of the special large screening of the Wicker Man which I have viewed on TV as well as acquiring the DVD and when i saw the original in Theatre 40 years ago. The film is advertised is the Final Cut to mark the 40th anniversary, and of the score of folk at Bolden I reckon I was the only one of an age to have attended the original screening release. I had expected a sharper picture given the boast of a restoration but it was far from HD quality.
The Wicker Man has become classic for two reasons. The traditional reason for why it has become a cult stems from portrayal of a heathen culture in which children are given and involved with the facts of life openly and frankly, participating in May Day ceremonies dancing around the phallic Maypole or skipping naked over a flame to symbolise regeneration. There are flashing images of adult public couplings in the dark, a mother with her child at a breast in the former churchyard and rear view of a naked Britt Ekland’s body double pounding at a door inviting to her bed the film’s, fundamentalist Christian hero police Sergeant played by Edward Woodward.
Christopher Lee plays the Lord of the Summer Isle in charge of the adult debauchery and the education and cultural system which abounds on his Scottish island community famed for his fresh fruit, apple trees, in particular, and fresh vegetables, created from hard strains in this Gulf Stream paradise.
The original film was censored whereas to day and over this week there has been vivid sexual couplings on main stream TV albeit as part fo a scientific tested and observed experiments to understand the physiology of he subject and just as vivid public couplings between drunk 20 to 30 years olds in and around a swimming pool in the middle of the afternoon for which the participants paid under £10 for three hours of free drinking while watched in a mixture of wonder and curiosity by the parents and their children who had booked into the Bulgarian resort Hotel believing it was family centred in town noted for its buildings and culture as declared by its straight faced mayor who suggested the intrepid young female reporter was exaggerating and being insulting despite the documented visual evidence This perhaps explains why this branded as a horror film’s late night showing was so poorly attend by those who clamour for gory horror at weekends in CGI 3D and other forms of explicitness.
The less publicised aspect of the film is that it shows how an entire community of sane closely knit human beings covering all generations can unite to undertake the horrific murder of another human being in order to appease and please their form of deities, in this instance of the sea with barrels of beer before the God of the harvest.
Edward Woodward as the hero is trapped, lured to the island with the accusation of a missing school child because he represents incorruptible officialdom, a devout Christian of the Kirk who while engaged to be married does not agree with sex before marriage and who says his prayers at night before going to bed and sleep. Everything appears to be done to stop him meeting his destiny, refusing to allow him on the Island without permission, insisting there is no such child and then pretending she has died, been skinned with remains somewhere, and then to exist as some prisoner to be sacrifice in the hope of changing the island’s fortune after the crops failed, as the strain failed from growing in an unnatural clime.
The summer Isle lord admits from the outset that the religion of the islands is hocus pocus to get the whole community working for the general good and later that when the sacrifice does now work, he will be expected to volunteer himself as the next victim. He also placates his victim by offering the rare experience at the time of Christian Martyrdom, although history tells us otherwise and the victim understandably terrified at the prospect of being burnt alive with a host of animals finds the strength to accept his fate in the knowledge of his faith.
Blue Jasmine is the latest Woody Allen and with Cate Blanchette in a potentially best actress award winning role as broken woman Streetcar Named Desire echoes character of Blanche DuBois with the storyline when she arrives at the apartment of estranged sister giving the impression of coming to stay for a prolonged period of time, after she has lost the family home and given leave of absence from her job because of nerves.
In this instance through a series of flashbacks we learn that the character played by Cate has lost everything after she has blown the whistle on her husband fraudulent investment business after he announces he is leaving her for another younger woman after she has turned a blind eye to his infidelities throughout their married life, settling for being a New York socialite holding and attending dinner parties, given jewellery and fashion clothing, living in a wealthy house with also an expensive coast holiday home. As a consequence of her actions the husband is arrested in the street and goes to prison where he commits suicide. She loses everything except for the cash from jeweller she managed to hide from the authorities and his soon runs out and her 20 year old son leaves Harvard humiliated and disappears wanting to have nothing to do with her for what she had done as much as anger with his father.
In this instance the sister is not a blood relation with both having been adopted by the same couple and while Cate was the bright one leaving university to marry her husband, the sister has struggled married to self employed removal man. When they win $20000 in the lottery they come to New York for a week expecting to be entertained by the sister who looks down on both while they hope the husband would advise on how to set up in the construction of homes business. Instead they are persuaded to invest all the money with a 20% return which vanished when the fraud is exposed. The couple split up and when Cate arrives her sister is engaged to a normal grease monkey mechanic who would have moved in with the sister and her two boys if Cate has not descended. She had turned to her sister after going to pieces and found wondering the streets talking to herself. There is a sense of years passing between the events in this film
After turning up her nose at the flat and lifestyle of her sister she drives a wedge between her and the boyfriend proclaiming the girl could do better. Cate has the wish to complete her degree but without the finance wants to take a course in home designing on line which necessitates taking a course first on computing with which she struggles. However a classmate invites her to a “high class” party where she meets a career diplomat based in Vienna with political ambitions and who has bought a great house in the area in which to settle with a suitable wife and seeks to employ Cate who has spun a line about her circumstances, no children and a widow, Interior decorator. At first we think he is another similar personality to that of her dead husband but in fact he is horrified and refuses to have anything more to do with her when going to purchase the ring, she meets the former husband of her sister who in anger at his lot spills the beans about her truth. She is back to square, although in fact her predicament has worsened. She had persuaded the sister to attend the same party and the sister had commenced what proved to be an affair with a married man who designed audio systems. The have great sex and she pushes away the boyfriend who is extremely angry and upset about her behaviour blaming on the sister.
After discovering the man is married and his wife has found out the sister quickly manages to re-establish her self with the boyfriend who moves sin. Cate is angered and frustrated by her situation and following exchanges storms out saying she will arrange for her luggage to be collected. She has burned her boats having discovered her son is married, living and working in the area he rejects her approach.
The film ends as she is sitting on a bench talking to herself, something which she had done before leading to implied hospitalization. She had walked out of her job as a dental receptionist after he jumps her and therefore she is now homeless again and without work. But although this looks the end of her road she has choice, to sink further into a psychotic world of the past, or quickly learn how to survive. The decision is yours.
And now to my favourite Police detective of all time Salvo Montalbano, the Young Man edition starting with the episode last Saturday number 5 I believe. Entitled the Third Secret and commences with a famous Puccini Aria which sadly I cannot remember what is it called or what it is from although I know so well, Desperately I die!!!!.
Salvo is having a dream in which he goes with Catarella as his driver on a mission and Caterella is shot, saying it is a performance with the Opera coming to is climax, but he dies and Salvo wakes up in bed with Livia. He tells Mini of his experience who discounts as does Livia and at one point he tells Catarella who is chuffed that his boss is thinking about him.
There are as usual two stories with the first someone is shooting up the bans placed outside the Town Hall requiring the notices to be removed and without gaining permission to replace them it would have been necessary for the couples to repeat the process. The conclusion is that someone is trying to warn off one of the applicants and staff are assigned to investigate the first three and this includes the young Fazio now taking the position previously held by his father. When the the second group of three are checked attention focuses on one a former immigrants about to marry what proves to be of her client when she was controlled by a pimp who appears to have located her and sent the threats.
A special delivery letter has arrived for Salvo which he does not immediately open and when it does it concerns a worker on a building site who is to die unless there is intervention. The man is already dead an accident but he letter had arrived two days late despite the special delivery positing which is checked and found that it was presented by a young man/boy. The incident had also occurred is another district and is being investigated by the Carabinieri.
When visiting his public broadcasting news media man he is shown a tape of a construction company which appears to being bankrolled by the mafia and where the local politicians is presenting the allegation as wrong an a misunderstandings. This firm is now taking over other firms or as it emerges causing deaths of immigrant workers to get them into trouble with the authorities and adding pressure for a buy in.
Because the case is being instigated he tries to satisfy his curiosity by going to the site at night having unknowingly encountered the head of the Carabinieri when angered by a public phone which did not work when he wanted to explain to Livia why he was not able to go on a promised visit.
He is then visited by the Marshal who had observed him at a distance when he broke into the building site and who had also received a similar letter warning of the death, but he is against reporting Salvo for his behaviour and later asks for the detective help because of his limited staffing. Salvo discovers from a meeting with the elder Fazio that the man has a brain tumour with limited time left and would like to solve one big case before his career ends.
Salvo visit the firm behind the building site when the worker died and while the owner is defensive the daughter makes contact and reveals that the father was asked to become involved with the Mafia front company but refused and after that the threats. Investigations about the worker reveals he was reference by the local police and Salvo works out that the man was a policeman working undercover. He devises a scheme with the Marshal of the Carabinieri to raid the site, arrests the watchman and gain the evidence required.
This works well through one man appears to escape although his car remains and the Inspector with Salvo driving because he cannot get a squad car because the fuel allowance has run out, follows the car and the man in a replica of the dream. In this instance the Inspector shoots the villain before he can harm Catarella, However to ensue the credit goes to the Marshal they keep their involvement secret and this is the Third Secret of the episode which he asks Catarella to keep thus increasing the man’s sense of pride and importance at being treated in this way.
When it looks as if they prevented further interference in the attempt to stop the wedding of the first storyline Salvo realise that the pimp who has disappeared could make a last attempt on wedding day and arrives just in time to stop the man disfiguring the face of the bride with acid arresting him and ensuring that the young woman is able to go, albeit late which is anyway the custom in Italy. Meanwhile the relationship with Livia had floundered when he fails to accompany her on the visit and she goes alone and then she is caught by chance helping out Mimi with the interior decorating of his new home which he is buying on a mortgage and has requested time off to sort out. The episode ends with Montalbano and Livia making up on beachside of the famous house overlooking the bay.
Last night I faced what I assumed was the last Montalbano, albeit the young version, for some time but at the end of the programme a new series was announced with on checking 4 episodes so it is evident we are catching up with the TV shows in Italy. For this final programme Seven Mondays Livia is planning a holiday which she desperately needs and with booking time off and arranging fro someone t cover her work she presses Salvo who appears just as enthusiastic to be there. She has also arranges for them to go for Sunday lunch with his father and when they visit he is sitting down with all his workers but as soon as the meal is over and the workers plus Livia enjoy some dancing he clashes with his father over the childhood when he visited the father after the death of his mother and found that he had remarried with a new family and believed he was not wanted especially by the potential step mother. He leaves angry and driving dangerously Livia presses him to slow down and eventually he stops and asks her to drive.
Because of the events of Seven Mondays he revisits the cemetery where his mother is buried and returns on the anniversary of her death only to find his father also there and there is the beginnings of a reconciliation between them.
Because of the same events he forced to pull out of he holiday so Livia refuses to spend the time at his home waiting for him and goes of on holiday, Salvo is concerned, jealous of the what she might be up to and finds that she has gone Skiing in the Alps and puts Caterella onto trying to find out where she is by ring every hotel. It is only towards the end of the programme and as it transpires towards the end of the holiday that she is tracked down, packing up to leave with her companion according to the hotel, a name which can apply to men as well as women(significance here with (Andrea Camilleri I suspect). Salvo goes to her home where she has not arrived and waits all day at a nearby cafe and is asleep when she arrives back with her mother who is pleased to meet him and he is persuaded to stay for a few days.
The first story in the episode is stand alone with the murder of a widower with his body discovered by a neighbour a widow who looked after his home and who were companions together since the deaths of their respective partners, but nothing more. She blames the son with a history of arguments with thefather and who had taken to drink. While the woman is comparatively poor and dependent on the work she does for the neighbour and he is wealthy. Everything points to teh son who is arrested and held in custody but by a piece of good fortune for him he has to be released much to the anger of the female neighbour.
A man is arrested after a break in robbery and instead of the usual denials he admits the offence and is pleased when Salvo agrees to his request not to arrest him for a month during which eh time he needs to dispose of the stolen items in order to purchase urgently needed medication of his seriously ill wife. He then reveals that he saw the man accused of the murder of his father in a drunken sleep when he went to commit the theft and was still there when he returned thus providing an alibi. The murder is solved when the Inspector is able to find that the man had changed a Will leaving everything to the neighbour back to his son. She had murdered the man for the betrayal and it is evident that she was no more than a hired help, rejecting the advances he had made to her.
Thus I come to the main storyline of Seven Mondays which in many ways was drawn out, enjoyably though but in other circumstances one would have said with padding .On the first Monday young Fazio deals with an incident in which a fish is shot with a note left but is indecipherable because of rain and blood. Montalbano tells him to say the fish is required a evidence, take it home and eat it. In the second a chicken is shot and the note says something about continuing to contract. The third is a pet dog, the fourth a Goat . The fifth a donkey and the sixth a Circus Elephant all with similar types of notes. They struggle to work out the meaning of the notes and the shooting except that Mimi works out that he is killing a bigger creature each time.
Through the help of his TV newsman friend he consulates a religious hermit in his church home full of books gathering dust and he draws attention to the opening of the Indian text of The Kabala and which describes the creation of the universe akin to the Big Bang, at least that is the interpretation I was able to place.
As a consequence of the visit and the advice given attention turns to an elderly pupil of the religious man and when the Inspector tries to contact he finds from his sons that the man disappeared seven years before while swimming and while this appears to be significant the truth is somewhat different.
Salvo has worked out that the choice of animal owner was governed not by size or previous contact but by the surname initial which taken together appeared to spell out the creation by God occurring, again, but instead of a second coming the thought is some kind of destruction or massacre on the next Monday. As a precaution they assemble all those in the community with last surname initial of 0, the missing letter from the message and this includes the brothers of the missing grandfather who are entertained in the local theatre with a suitable family film although from the clip shown, Mimi’s notion of suitable family film is questionable.
When they undertake a roll call before the film commences one of the brothers is missing and they learn that he has became disturbed since his wife and child died in a road traffic accident. They learn he has been living at the home of his dead father and disappeared grandfather and when they visit they realise he is the person they have been looking for. They go tot the cemetery where they find that in the tunnels beneath these have been mined with the intention to explode on All Souls Day the Saturday with Sunday the day of rest and not to take place on the Monday which speeds everything up accordingly, The idea is that in trying to recreating what God did, the big bang he hopes to be able to bring his wife and daughter back to life for eternity with him.
When this is foiled they also realise that he has made his way to where they have gathered everyone for protection. I always thought this was a daft idea and indicated the way the story would develop. Salvo has to use all his wits to persuade the man from blowing himself up together with everyone else in the theatre.
One other note is that when the mother of the officers at the station dies after a log illness all the team together with the retired Fazio attend the funeral indicate the development of community between offices which can go so badly wrong or for the good depending on the leadership and integrity at the top.
No comments:
Post a Comment