WATCHED - Chernobyl

On the 26th April 1986 the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine experienced a catastrophic explosion in one of its four reactors.  It was the world's worst nuclear accident, and over 31 people died from the immediate explosion. Yet modern estimates of those who died subsequently as a result of being exposed to the radiation from it, vary from 4,000 to over 60,000+ across Europe. These figures may be serious underestimations.

This five part mini series by HBO, painstakingly recreates the disaster and its calamitous aftermath. It is done with great realism, that you almost feel the radiated dust coming towards you as you watch. The out of control nuclear reactor burns with an intense glow as firefighters battle it.. You see the process by which someone who has been exposed to such huge levels of radiation, what horrific and painful things that does to the human body.   

What makes this tragedy still more horrific is how the people in charge of running Chernobyl try to downplay the severity of what's happened. They have radiation scanners many of which are faulty, though they can't read beyond a certain level anyway, but they blithely promulgate a lower manageable figure that they know to be incorrect. The true radiation level at Chernobyl was hundred's and hundred's of times more. The male Soviet hierarchy seemed to be all about pretending to be competent in order to gain further career advancement. People below a certain level of responsibility who had crticisms, were either ignored, ridiculed or told they didn't know what they were talking about. All of which meant the initial response to the disaster, was to deny that it was an explosion in the core at all, to treat it as a fire on a roof that could easily be controlled.

As an expert in atomic energy Valery Legasov (Jared Harris) is brought in by the government to advise them what to do. Initially he too has to fight against a level of leaden bureaucracy that really doesn't want to hear what he has to say. They don't want the world to know the Soviet Union has nuclear facilities that are incompetently managed and dangerous. He is sent to Chernobyl with Boris Cherbina ( Stellan Skarsgard ) to assess and make recommendations. Ulana Khomyuk ( Emily Watson ) a nuclear physicist from the Minsk, tells Valery that the reactor is at a critical stage and could well generate a thermo-nuclear explosion of massive proportions and millions of deaths across Europe. 

Just one of many crises they have to overcome, but each time they are overcome at the sacrificial cost of human lives. Men who heroically take the risk of going into the plant to open water gates or miners who spend days and days digging a critical tunnel under the reactor. The weight of this moral burden weighs heavy on all those responsible who are taking those decisions. Once the reactor is stablised, then they have to create an exclusion zone, including lots of critical clinical care and mopping up operations. The horror never seems to stop.

As it reaches the penultimate and final episodes, still more human lives are ruined. In preparing the reactor to be housed in a secure facility,  robotic removal of radioactive matter from the roofs around the reactor fails, so in the end humans have to do it. Women exposed to radiation through their fireman husbands, give birth to babies that cannot survive more than a few hours of life. Legasov is sent to tell the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna what happened, and is compelled by the government to lie by omission, to not tell them about the role structural flaws played in disaster. But later at the trial of the three engineers in charge on the night of the explosion, Legasov does expose the real truth. He loses his job and two years later kills himself, an act which itself ensured the world would now know what really happened on the 26th April 1986. His words 'Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth' resonating strongly with the shallow zeitgeist of our present time.

This series was compelling to watch, but I found it deeply deeply disturbing. My sleep was affected considerably as I tossed and turned restlessly through out the nights afterwards. There are a number of things which make it dangerous to see this as a completely verbatim account of what happened. Some of it draws on a collection of accounts Voices From Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievich, which she has been accused of inserting her own views and analysis into. The script created the fictional character of Ulana Kmoyuk as a conduit for the work of numerous scientists who worked to support Lagasov. most of whom were male and are unsung by this production. However, the effect of the drama upon the empathy of one's soul remains undiluted. The graphic truth with which they have tried to portray what happened, makes this worthy of being lauded with the highest praise indeed.

CARROT REVIEW - 7/8

SCREEN SHOT - The Amateur

Charles Heller ( Rami Malek) is a brilliant cryptographer, who spends far too many hours in dark soundproofed rooms scrolling through code looking for significant discrepancies. His wife Sarah ( Rachel Brosnahan ) is away at a conference in London. So he stays at work delving deep into a complex piece of data. He discovers that an operation previously slated as the work of a suicide bomber, was in fact a CIA black operation, and a deliberately focused unsanctioned drone attack. Instantly he realises he's stumbled upon something that is dangerous for him to know. The next day, when he arrives at work, he's called into the CIA Director's office. Suspecting his previous nights discovery may have already been exposed. But in fact she informs him that his wife has been killed in a terrorist attack on her hotel in London. 

Devastated, Charles starts to use all his own skills to investigate what happened, identifying three individuals responsible. In a discussion with Agent Moore (Holt McCallaney) he realises that they intend to do nothing to capture the folk responsible, saying they want to get the whole operation. Charles decides to tell them he knows about the Black Ops, and blackmails them into training him up to go in pursuit of his wife's murderers. It turns out in his training with Hendo ( Laurence Fishburne) that he's a hopeless shot with a gun. So he will need to use all his personal resourcefulness to develop an innovative approach to his mission. A mission no one seems to wants him to succeed in.

Though the essential premise of the movies set up is a tad unrealistic, the film does stick to its guns and does not pull any unbelievable punches in order to make it more dramatic. Malek is very good as the man that finds he's more than a little bit out of his depth, but remains driven by his own psychological compulsion to see this through. His facial expression shifts effortlessly from despair, desperation and deliberation, that feed into lightening responses in the moment. You are never allowed to forget this man is grieving and is seeking his wife's murders in order to have closure. When he does eventually find the gangs leader he asks him why his wife had to die. It was necessary in order for them to escape,he says, it was decided spontaneously, whereas Charles's revenge killings, well they are deliberate and remorselessly executed. Which is worse? Pointing out what his wife's death has driven him to do.The Amateur is a well paced thriller, that is never tempted to stray from the conceit within which it is set to operate. They carry it all off cleanly and with all the ruthless efficiency necessary.

CARROT REVIEW - 5/8

WATCHED - Andor Seasons 1 + 2

Boy was this couple of series a truly outstanding pleasure. Brilliantly written and staged Andor is set in the Star Wars world of authoritarian Empire and a still nascent rebellion, just prior to the incidents in the film Rogue One. Many characters from that film featuring here. If you thought the three Star Wars prequels and the original trilogy were poorly written at the level of a pre-pubescent Boy's Own Annual cartoons, then be prepared to be surprised by just how adult and cleverly nuanced the script for Andor is. There is lot of waiting around, a lot of hiding, a lot of backstabbing scheming, a lot of political intrigue and betrayal, yet also a lot of action, and scenarios with real heart and humane wit on show here. The makers compare it to the carefully modulated and sophisticated narrative of a John Le Carre post war spy thriller, and one can see why. If you think you don't like Science Fiction then I encourage you to watch this. It very subtly and quietly revolutionises what a Sci-fi epic can be capable of.

There are a vast spectrum of interesting complex characters, too many to mention here, who over the two series you come to understand in more detail, there backgrounds and motivations. Though the story ostensibly centres around the miscreant anti-authority personality of Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) a petty thief and chancer. Who is recruited as a reluctant mercenary by the evasive director of rebel activity Luthen  (Stelan Starsgaard )  but ends up being its primary motivating force. No matter how much he tries to get away from it, he keeps being drawn back in for yet one more mission. Another person to save.

Trailing him throughout is Syril ( Kyle Soller ) who imagines himself to be a tough minded resourceful officer, but ends up being demoted for his self-evident incompetence, and has to move back to living with his terrifying confidence crushing Mother (Kathryn Hunter). He envies and admires the hard ass ruthless brutality of Dedra (Denise Gough) who was brought up Empire through and through and who perpetrates the sort of unspeakable cruelties Syril would be totally incapable of doing. A strange odd couple romance does however emerge, that comes crashing down when Syril finds out Dedra lied to him about the real purpose of his mission in Ghorman.

Then there is the seemingly beautifully apportioned realm of Mon Mothma (Genevieve O'Reilly) a wealthy Senator in the ruling Senate. Who is secretly the vehicle for laundering the money the rebels steal or raise through more respectable channels. Her under the radar financial maneuverings are perpetually in danger of being discovered. Her close childhood school friend and former lover Tay Kolma ( Ben Miles) who is now a high class banker, helps her out disguising funds as donations to a variety of charitable foundations. 

Mothma is probably the most fascinatingly morally compromised character in the whole drama. Icily cool, with an unruffled composure on the exterior, yet internally deeply disturbed by the personal cost to her family of her under cover activities. The standout episode of the entire Andor series takes place during the dance evening after her daughters wedding. Before it starts we see her being told by Luthen he has arranged for someone to resolve the situation with Tay Kolma, because he's been attempting to blackmail Mothma to give him a percentage on rebel money.  Luthen means to bump him off. And uncharacteristically she drops her ultra controlled external demeanour and dances like a person possessed, trying to lose her emotions, to drown out the overwhelming complex of sadness she is being totally consumed by. It is quite the most unexpectedly emotionally knockout scene.

And these are just a few characters from a wonderfully broad range on show in Andor.  Most of the sets are built physical sets or existing buildings cleverly montaged into a green screened city scape. They bring a distinct architectural style to these very different worlds, between the capital planet Coruscant and that of self consciously fashionable Ghorman say. Similarly the costumes are equally diverse, from the immaculately cut tailoring of the capital and the more rough rusticated fabrics of Ghorman. All round applause to everyone involved in this series, this is quite a magnificent achievement. It raises the bar so much for Disney + that even they are unsure quite how you could follow it. 

CARROT REVIEW - 8/8

ART ''N' AB ART - Stains & Traces - A Salthouse Church Exhibition

 

When there is a exhibition that is shared between a number of artists, their artistic styles can be complementary or not. Sometimes there is too much variance in their differing approaches, its hard to discern any commonality in aesthetic or motivational approach. This exhibition Stains and Traces at Salthouse Church was rare, in that there was both individuality and a shared sense for a particular form of aesthetic exploration. There was a love for the qualities of textures, fabric, to overlay, to let them absorb paints and waxes, to roughen and fray, the quality of line and materials used was as important as the most conventional of landscape painters. Also how these can be used expressively to associate and conjure up a sense for the North Norfolk marshlands in particular

Mary Morris's works explore the textures of decay, how text and paper stains and distorts. there is something apocalyptic about her assemblages as if these strange artworks have been put together from found remnants of a lost culture. But almost as if lacking the knowledge to interpret them they are collected and displayed like artefacts in an archaeological museum often are. 

Annabel Faraday approaches her making of ceramic objects, as a form of reciprocity and produces in stoneware a version of the found objects texture. In the process exaggerating and heightening its surfaces and staining. So in this exhibition there are small pieces of ceramic made to resemble corrugated iron or boxes. The verisimilitude is only a part of the story here, for it is also about the artists closely observed eye for the significant detail to focus their skill, and your eye, upon.

  Denise Jones textile artworks utilise the fraying of fabrics, that almost unravel themselves across a piece. There is also the use of lines sewn across fabrics like drawn creases in the picture planes. The overlaying of textures and the autobiographical use of written text. 

 Carly Ralph's pieces explore repeated forms in blocks assembled like tiling. The fabrics often quite coarse and weather worn from found sources. To echo the movement of waves or the delamination of materials once they become damp. That process of change captured and hung on a wall.

 

Debbie Lyddon is probably the more locally well know of the artists exhibiting here. The hangings she produce show us very North Norfolk marshland landscapes but formed from stained and rusted canvases, pierced with rings or cut back to hanging threads. Evocatively poised in an exploration of how watery landscape can be expressed through the medium of ships canvas and boat chandlery. Her work has a strong sense of place and history.

As you can see just from these few pictures,there is a thematic overlap between them all. This gave the exhibition a coherence a lot of shared gallery shows lack. This was quite the best exhibition I've seen in Salthouse Church. I hope they all come back to do more in future years.

CARROT REVIEW 6/8

LISTENING TO - Mad! by Sparks

Those regular readers of my blog will know I'm a lifelong fan of Sparks. Sparks over the last two decades have been on a pretty consistent run of excellent and innovative albums since Lil' Beethoven in 2002. One would expect that at least there'd be the occasional duffer. So I approached this their 28th album with a certain amount of trepidation. Well, some of Mad! feels a bit substandard, but not all of it,. For me it comes down to the variable quality of the song writing. With not enough of the ironic wit and pizzazz from Ron on show. The worst tracks on this album are strangely when they conform too closely to their own cliches. 

Their album before this The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte from 2023, was such a consistently good album, with hardly a bad track on it. So one wonders what creative shift they were aiming for here and slightly missed.

Some of Mad! demonstrates how one songwriters strengths can easily slip into being their most glaring faults. Ron Mael has always had the ability to turn the simplest line of lyric into an urgent musical exploration of a songs theme, by the often manic use of repetition. This goes back, at least as far as My Baby's Taking Me Home  off Lil Beethoven. He uses this minimalist technique to great effect on what turns out to be Mad!'s best and opening track - Do Things My Own Way - and later on on the delightful  A Long Red Light.. But then it is used to some degree on almost every track here. So you get Drowned In A Sea Of Tears, or Jan Sport Backpack which just end up being really irritating. A person wearing a Jan Sport Backpack keeps walking away, is lyrically and musically dull as ditch water. Bereft of any sense of irony or the tongue in cheek witticisms that might elevate this into something truly special. On previous albums, just listen to Lawnmower or Escalator to see at their best what they can do with an equally simple scenario. Jan Sport Backpack, is severely lacking in that sort of quality.

They appear to have, temporarily we hope, lost their usual firm grasp and astute ear for social and cultural phenomena to wittily lampoon. Its also the slim beer of its musical innovation too. This album feels, in comparison to their recent oeuvre, a tad complacent. So much of the art pop arena that they've single-handedly carved out for themselves, has thrived on the interplay between the gently acerbic nature of their lyrics and the musical risks that they've been prepared to take. They appear to have chosen to pare back the degree of adventurousness. At times it just ends up producing a blandly anodine song like - Lord Have Mercy. This has all the annoying 'wave your hands in the air' quality's of a Cliff Richard Christmas No 1. And no, this is not written ironically!

Running Up A Tab At The Hotel For The Fab is a great song title. I suspect Ron came up with that title first and then had to write around it. It ought to be a wonderful satirical send up of celebrity culture. Though undoubtedly a catchy song, it relies yet again on a lot of repetition of that title over a Dwayne Eddy style guitar riff.  Once upon a time this would have been a tighter, much more sharply written song lyrically. It gets by purely on the mood it conjures up, which is still great with a capital G. 

Having said all that, Mad! has a lot about it that is enjoyable. The song My Devotion does literally start off sounding like the most twee sentimental song possible, full of the fresh naivety of first love that you can imagine, its all -

My devotion to you is about all that I do
Got your name written on my shoe
And I'm thinkin' of gettin' a tattoo

But then halfway through Russell sings counter point over the main song with a vocal line that tells you how they feel now -

Through all the years  Rent in arrears
You never cared  Can't help but stare
You've never changed  Hair rearranged
That, though, is all  Time seemed to stall

Now that is the sort of unexpected twist in the tail you do expect of Sparks.

A Little Bit Of Light Banter is one great romp of a song. Given a musical style that Ron Mael is very fond of returning to- the vaudeville song. This is one of those routines with a long established relationship he easily settles into. Sparks have been coming up with this type of song since Reinforcements on the album Propaganda. Idiosyncratic certainly, but these days its hardly breaking new boundaries. Nonetheless this an infectious simple hearted show tune that I'm sure will be very popular live.

Just a little bit of light banter and then we say goodnight

Just a little bit of light banter and the we turn off the light

Each days a day of sorrow, we each bemoan our plight

But night is a different story and oh it feels oh so right

Its a really really deep connection, we do it every night

With a little bit of light banter, and then we turn off the light.

I find it significant that the songs they chose not to pre-release before the whole album was available, are in fact the more interesting tracks musically. 

In Daylight - is one beautifully sparse song, a highlight of the album

A Long Red Light - spookily discordant strings and all, l'm completely in love with this track.

Hit Me Baby - sung over a strongly propulsive opening stick rhythm, this is a terrifically well constructed track, that catches you off guard every time with yet another new development. 

I -405 Rules - all semi-operatic theatrically dramatic strings about to go completely off kilter any moment. Yeah, its fun. But its essentially Dick Around revisited. As if you needed to hear it twice, with less effect.. 

Don't Dog It - It's a crazy ride of a tune, couldn't tell you what its about really. 

So Mad! feels a tad disappointing, often infuriatingly inconsistent, some truly great stuff, alongside the really substandard. Let down occasionally by not just minimalist lyric writing, but poor song craft from Ron Mael. Its almost as though he exhumed these rejected songs from his bottom draw, accepting the challenge to make something of them despite their poor quality.

CARROT REVIEW - 4/8

PS. On further reflection I feel I am being quite unfair here, in overstating the problems with this album. I think I'm holding them to a standard that its actually quite hard for any band, let alone one on its 28th album, to meet. But, that is also a consequence of the cross they've made for themselves to bare.  So maybe I ought to be more forgiving.

LISTENING To - Taxi Guy by A Certain Ratio

 

I came across this track on You tube recently. Recorded live it was originally a broadcast performance made during lockdown, that was then released as an album. The tracks on the live recording are all taken from their 2020 Loco album. Taxi Guy represents in many ways a galloping run through of all the various musical influences and tropes that have entered into the A Certain Ratio discography over the decades. Dedicated to Denise Johnson, an ACR stalwart vocalist who died at 56 in that year. Opening with the lollop of a thumping drum, it develops into a thrilling musical fizz of smooth sax, the snappy stick rhythm of a snare drum, with flavella flourishes, whistles and cow bells. Part joyous carnival celebration and part a gently lyrical ride, as though you are being driven in the back of a cab, momentarily dropping in and out of a latin inflected soundscape, on a beautifully clear dawn morning in Brazil.  I find it utterly entrancing.

SCREEN SHOT - 2 Guns ( 2013)

 

Robert 'Bobby' Trench ( Denzel Washington ) and Micheal 'Stig' Stigman ( Mark Wahlberg) are two criminals about to make a bank robbery. Unbeknownst to either of them they are both working undercover, Bobby for the DEA and Stig for the US Navy Seal. They believe the bank they are about to rob is where a local Mexican drug lord Manny Papa Greco ( Edward James Almos) deposits his money. When they blast open the bank deposit boxes they find they are all stuffed with millions of dollars. Its evident this cannot be just one persons drug money. Whose money it is becomes all too apparent as they turn up looking for them. And the race to unpick what's happened whilst evading capture begins.

This is a classic American Cop Buddy movie, based loosely on a comic book series in a script by Blake Masters. Its very evident from the repartee and snappiness of the dialogue, that a lot of this has been improvised by the two leads. They spar off each other brilliantly, and the pairing is a very effective and amusing one. The script is tightly disciplined, and keeps you guessing as to what is really going on here, and still has a few twists up its sleeves even at the end. Baltazar Kormakur's direction is impressively fast and slick., the pace never slackening. All the leads are at the top of their form, what's not to like?  I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of this. It doesn't completely reinvent the genre, but gives it a very effective high polish.

CARROT REVIEW - 5/8

SCREEN SHOT - Manhunter (1986)

Will Graham (William Peterson) is a retired FBI profiler, he's trying to rebuild his life after a traumatic case catching the intelligent, but manipulative Hannibal Lector.(Brian Cox) Graham knows he is damaged goods, but is drawn back into profiling a new serial murder case, out of interest and loyalty, to Jack Crawford (Dennis Farina) his FBI superior. The perpetrator nicknamed 'The Tooth Fairy' is a tricky serial murderer, currently without a motive. The killer declares himself an avid fan of Lector. So Graham goes to consult with his former adversary to ask for clues to his new adversary's psychology. He knows this is a risky strategy, because you never know whether his offers of help also serve Lector's own purposes. Drawing Graham back into an interactive mindset that nearly broke his own sanity.

Manhunter is an early film directed and written by Micheal Mann and predates his biggest success Heat (1995), and other later adaptions of Thomas Harris's 1981 novel Red Dragon. Harris's novels, are known to be very detailed portrayals of the psychological underpinnings and thought processes involved in being a profiler or detective. They are thoughtful, densely and carefully written books, which a film cannot really capture effectively. Mann's film deliberately utilises a heavily stylised use of colour v monochrome, making great use of doomy synth to create odd and taut atmospheres. Mann never prettys the dialogue up, its self consciously acted flat with a low emotional tone, where internal thought processes are externally expressed, which can be a strategy that risks accusations of heightened theatricality. It does, however, exaggerate the sense of melodrama and the isolated unreality of the world that both the profiler and the killer exist within. This is great at creating the cat and mouse game between Graham and his serial killer prey.

Though it has an 80's aesthetic and style written all over it, this is quite a successful adaption of Thomas Harris. One gets the feeling that Mann made his films on a low budget, and at this stage could not call on top flight actors. Though Peterson does OK as Graham, one has the sense his limitations as an actor meant he couldn't psychologically draw enough out of the character to make it a compelling portrayal of a tormented man. He is often a bit too much of a blank canvas. This was Brian Cox's first Hollywood film, so was probably a relatively cheap buy, but a strong actor who could convey the devious playful character of Lector. Anthony Hopkins was perhaps closer to the Lector of the novels, in making his geniality slippery so that it gave you the creeps. 

At the time Manhunter was released, it did badly at the box office and with critics, they didn't like its tone at all. But over the years it has been reappraised and is something of a cult film now. I think its age and period have provided its stylistic eccentricities with an extra gloss that it now benefits from greatly. Not quite a classic in my book, but an early indication of what Micheal Mann could and would soon deliver.

CARROT REVIEW - 6/8 

LISTENING TO - Catch These Fists by Wet Leg

I, like many, listened with great glee to the addictive ironic mischief of Wet Leg's big hit Chaise Longue. It went internationally viral, though it bore all the hallmarks of the novelty one hit wonder. Follow that if you can. And the album which did follow was a fine offering, but little could match the magic trick of that one hit song.

Lyrically Chaise Longue was quietly subversive and pokey, and that appears to be one of Wet Leg's enduring and distinctive features. They have moved on considerably and are much more knowing about what their strengths and band identity are. A second album Moisturiser is due shortly. On the first track released Catch These Fists, they appear to be channeling the urban New York swagger of the Yeah Yeah Yeah's through the rustic vibes of the Isle of Wight. To great effect I must add. This hits hard and has got real ball breaking potential.

Once they ran along roads dressed in Laura Ashley dresses and straw hats. Now they run along roads dressed in flannel underwear embroidered with words like Holy Spirit on the crotch. And the tongue in cheek insouciance has got a whole deal more stroppy. Though they continue to have an idiosyncratic way with a catchy guitar lick. Catch These Fists has a beautifully off kilter riff that tumbles around behind the song propelling it unstably onward. Whilst Rhian Teasdale deadpan half talks the lyrics.

Can you catch a medicine ball?
Can you catch yourself when you fall?
You should be careful, do you catch my drift?
'Cause what I really want to know is can you catch these fists?

Man down
Level up!
I know all too well just what you're like
I don't want your love, I just wanna fight

We're on our way to the club
Stupid is, stupid does
Limousine, racking up
Ketamine, giddy up

Man down
Level up!
I know all too well just what you're like
I don't want your love, I just wanna fight

He don't get puss, he get the boot
I saw him sipping on dark fruit
This always happens late at night
Some guy comes up, says I'm his type
I just threw up in my mouth
When he just tried to ask me out
Yeah, don't approach me
I just wanna dance with my friends

Man down
Level up!
I know all too well just what you're like
I don't want your love, I just wanna fight
I know all too well just what you're like

I don't want your love, I just wanna fight

Fight, fight, fight, fight
Fight, fight
Man down

Written by Wet Leg

SCREEN SHOT - Queer

Queer the novella was William S.Burroughs second book, carrying the same frank realism that his debut Junkie had featured, but this time focusing on the expat American gay scene in New Mexico. Though written in 1952 his publisher at the time refused to publish it, because of the explicit homosexuality. It was finally published in 1985 when Burroughs had now reached literary legend status. Junkie and Queer are impossible to not see as semi-autobiographical in most of their scenarios. Written before Burrough's began his famous experimental cut up technique, Queer, the book, lays out the territory of his future trademark the laconic self lacerating mode of writing, sending up how lost an American exiled abroad can be. 

William Lee (Daniel Craig) is living in Mexico City, frequenting the many gay bars, and having casual unsatisfactory sex when he can get it. The city is full of draft dodgers, ex GI's and gay men escaping persecution or prosecution. For this one brief moment this district has established its own vibrant queer culture, that many men bath in and relax, .Lee is a gauchely awkward individual and lacks confidence in how to operate in this milieu. He views Eugene (Drew Starkey) from afar and fantasises about a relationship with him. Eugene himself is confusing to read, giving off mixed signals.. But slowly a relationship of sorts does evolve. Lee becomes totally besotted with Eugene, even though he remains unsure what Eugene's true feelings for him actually are.

The film is a desperately sad story of a man who wants a depth of human understanding and sharing of experience that he will never ever find. He hopes to discover it through a relationship with Eugene, and later through taking the hallucinogenic 'yage' brewed by Dr Cotter (a totally unrecognisable scene stealing Lesley Manville)  The first half of the film is bathed in the soft tones of yellow night lights. Becoming a fecund green as we enter the darkened jungle, the surreal nature of its drug induced dream scenes brilliantly realised. By Lee's return to Mexico City much later, the gay district has changed into cooler fresher blues, its literally cleaned up its act. 

This is Daniel Craig's film from start to finish, its the best performance I've ever seen him give, garnering award nominations along the way. Starkey is suitably enigmatic eye candy. There are cameo appearances by Jason Swartzman as Joe Guidry, an Alan Ginsberg type, and Drew Droege plays John Dume the classic arch eyebrowed aging gay man who you'll find in a gay bar anywhere, in any time period.

Luca Guadagnino's film of Queer, with a script by Justin Kuritzkes melds its rough edged narrative source with Guadagnino's altogether more polished and smoothly mannered film stylisation. Some reviewers have not liked this, and found its two and a quarter hour length an indulgence in which the characters lost all direction. I did not find that to be at all a true representation in my experience. The use of music often three decades later than its period setting, was actually utilised to beautifully counterpoint themes and moods. All adding to the overwhelming sense of loveless ennui inhabiting an unrequited life.   

CARROT REVIEW - 6/8

SCREEN SHOT - Heretic

Two young Mormon girls, Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Sister Paxton (Chloe East) are doing street missionary work. They call on a reclusive man, Mr Reed (Hugh Grant) who has requested to know more about their faith. Mr Reed comes across as friendly and affable. As they enter nothing appears to be awry. They tell him they need his wife to be there or they cannot stay. Reed says she's out the back cooking Blueberry Pie, she's a little shy, but will be out later. 

Once they sit down and start conversing with Reed it becomes clear he is well versed in many faiths, and knows more than enough about The Church of Latter Day Saints. His questions start to get more pointed and there's a developing undertow of suppressed aggression. Whilst he is supposedly out the back talking to his wife to convince her to come and meet the girls, Chloe notices the perfume of the candle that is burning is called Blueberry Pie. Realising that they are in danger they attempt to leave, but the door they came in by is centrally locked. From here on it can only get worse.

Both the two female leads are ex-Mormons, and the directors Scott Becks and Bryan Woods consulted Mormon friends to get the detailed feel of the movie right. Hugh Grant is totally indispensable for the script to work. It needs someone who can be avuncular and seemingly unthreatening, but who can pivot into someone altogether darker. It was written with him specifically in mind, and it gives Grant a whole movie in which to display his acting ability. Something he's obviously relished after playing so many scene stealing cameo roles in recent years. He is utterly brilliant in this film. He is playing with, not against, his own screen persona and this makes even the off hand witticisms become unsettling 

The script itself is erudite and cleverly written, deftly exploring the issue of religious institutions versus faith, archetypes across world religions, all through Mr Reed's perverted agenda. The script and Grant's performance turn this movie into something well above ordinary. Even though it is quite contained and a three hander, it holds your attention for its entire length.  Lets see where this performance now takes Huge Grant in the sort of parts he gets offered.

CARROT REVIEW - 6/8

SCREEN SHOT - God's Creatures

This 2022 film was only Paul Mescal's second film after his TV success in Normal People. Its a small scale independent movie. The story centering around a small Irish fishing community, that survives on oyster farming and processing. Aileen ( Emily Watson) works as the floor manager in the villages only employer a seafood and fish processing plant. One day her son Brian (Paul Mescal) returns unexpectedly to the village after disappearing many years before. No one talks of why, and he evades answering questions how he survived in Australia. There had been a major falling out between Brian and his Father Con, which lingers on still on his return. What he did to deserve this is never really spoken of, but its an unresolved wound none the less. Aileen tries to help set him up as an oyster farmer, by stealing nets of oysters for him. But he also starts stealing other fisherman's catches and selling them, which if found out would bring down the law upon him, and ruin the families reputation in the village. He appears also to want to rekindle his relationship with his teenage love Sarah. She accuses him of rape, and Aileen lies that he was at home in order to protect him. But the burden of guilt at doing this begins to eat away at her.

This is entirely Emily Watson's film, she emotionally dominates every frame of it. Mescal's ability to exude charm, is effectively backlit by the growing sense through out the film, that he has a bad reputation and is a lot nastier a person than he presents himself to be. Both performances greatly elevate this film way above what it might otherwise have achieved. God's Creatures is a powerfully taught and gritty drama, depicting lives lived hovering along the edge of poverty, in a wildly hostile and unforgiving landscape. 

CARROT REVIEW - 5/8

SCREEN SHOT - Conclave

The Pope dies suddenly and Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) has been appointed to oversee the whole conclave process for finding a new pontiff. Lawrence had wished to leave Rome to retire to monastic seclusion, to deal with doubts that have assuaged him of late, but prior to his death the Pope had convinced him to stay. He is aware who the likely candidates will be, and is a close friend with one of them Cardinal Bellini (Stanley Tucci). Bellini is the leading figure on the progressive wing of the Curia. The other possible candidates Adeyema (Lucian Msamati) Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto) Tremblay (John Lithgow) are all traditionalists. 

Trembley in particular is a reactionary hard liner, and is the person Lawrence least wishes to see win. Just as they are going into seclusion for the conclave, two unusual things happen. Lawrence is disturbed to hear rumours that the Pope had told Tremblay to resign over his involvement in a scandal.  And a totally unknown Cardinal Benitez, secretly appointed by the Pope as Cardinal for Kabul turns up at the last minute. As the sequence of votes to narrow down the candidates take place, Lawrence reluctantly finds himself also emerging as a candidate, which begins to compromise his position managing the conclave. Particularly when circumstances start to suggest corrupt practices may have been used to tilt the vote in Tremblay's favour.

Based on the Robert Harris novel, Peter Straughan 's screenplay produces a tense and beautifully turned plot of intregue. In the centre of which Raplh Fiennes gives what can only be described as a star turn. He's in almost every frame of this film, with a worried or perplexed face trying to work out what's best to do. Needing to get to the bottom of the situation whilst not appearing to be prejudicially taking sides. Its a masterpiece of finely judged understated expression, whilst speaking volumes, that has rightly received awards nominations. Edward Berger's direction winds up the plot like finely tuned clock work, sharply and cleanly. With set piece bits of claustrophobic theatre in the Sistine Chapel that are expertly managed. This is a small unassuming gem of a movie.

 
CARROT REVIEW - 5/8  

FAVE RAVE - Virdee

I love a good police procedural thriller, but these days its quite a crowded competitive market and not many of them are quite as brilliantly conceived as Virdee. 

Harry Virdee (Staz Nair) is a police detective in Bradford, he's married to Selma (Aysha Kala), who is a Muslim. As a consequence Harry's Sikh father refuses to see of acknowledge him anymore. His brother in law Riaz Hyatt (Vikas Bahi) is one of two local drug lords who are near to being at war with each other. Riaz is an old friend from Harry's teenage years. He uses Riaz to sound out what is really happening in the gangs on the streets. No one in his police force appears to know of this connection. There are then a series of murders, which appear to follow a gruesome set pattern. On the surface it's made to look like as though the two drug gangs are the cause. But something about it doesn't quite add up to Harry, he suspects there is a third person independently involved. Slowly, he gets closer to finding out who that is. As members of his extended family start getting drawn in, Harry's past actions come back to haunt him. 

Written and adapted by AA Dhand from his original series of novels, Virdee is thematically and visually punchy, set within the South Asian community of Bradford. Plenty of unexpected twists and cliffhangers at the end of an episode. In many ways Virdee is your classic unconventional cop with a dodgy past and family conflicts. But it is the placing of him within second generation immigrant communities, with the secondary theme of a clash going on between those still clinging to old country mores, and those who have been born in Bradford. Its not afraid to deal with race riots, gangsters, interfaith marriages and the nature of drug gang cultures in modern British cities. This gives it all the vivacious colour and fizz you could wish for in a contemporary thriller. 

The three central actors of Staz Nair, Aysha Kala and Vikas Bahi, give this show a very fresh star quality. Brilliantly filmed and paced, with a theme tune to match it in drama and colour . I loved every minute of this series I didn't want to rush through it, so much so, I refused to binge watch. Instead I savoured it episode by episode, spacing them out across a few weeks. Virdee was fabulous, more please.

CARROT REVIEW  8/8 

SCREEN SHOT - No Other Land

Imagine that you live in a village. One where the country next to where you live, suddenly decides it wants to turn the area you are living in into an army training ground. Regularly the army then starts to arrive unannounced with bulldozers to knock down a house or two, barely leaving the inhabitants sufficient time to gather and save their belongings or livestock. You protest, but even the protesters are then attacked by the army, people are shot, some seriously injured or killed, relatives are frequently arrested. And this happens repeatedly, over and over again, like a form of prolonged unending torture. Imagine what effect this would have upon you. Do you resist, stay, rebuild and fight on, or do you give up and leave the land, the place your family has farmed for generations, and move into the city?

No Other Land is an extremely personal film, painful to watch. It shows quite graphically just what ordinary Palestinians have been having to deal with for many decades. The film was shot by Basel a Palestinian and his close Israeli friend Yuval. Though an ally, Yuval also has to deal with distrust and hostility from the people he's trying to help. Even Basel chastises him about how easy it is for Yuval, to walk away, to just drive over the border to the relative safety of his own home. He doesn't have to continue to live here. Documentary footage incorporates 'in time' recordings of these attacks, the villagers reactions, the heartrending pleas for mercy and understanding, their distress and depression afterwards. As Basel and Yuval ponder together quite what needs to happen in order for their films of the situation to get the public attention they need.

There is no way these ordinary people can effectively fight back against the US funded Israeli military. They do what they can but their homeland Masafer Yatta is being robbed from them piece by piece regardless. What is also clear is that the army training ground excuse is just a ruse. What they really want to do is push the Palestinian presence away from near-bye illegal Israeli West Bank settlements, with the longer term intention of expanding them further.  

Basel's family have a history of activism and fighting off the encroachment of settlers and demolitions. His Father was arrested a number of times in his hothead youth, until he settled down to man the village's petrol pump. The film mixes film shot in Basel's childhood and contemporary footage. It shows you the time Tony Blair came to see the village school which was under threat of demolition. A week later it was reprieved. However, towards the end of the documentary you see it being bulldozed as the school children watch on. The vindictive cruelty of it was all too apparent.  All of the modern footage was filmed between 2018 to 2024, and stops just prior to Hamas's murderous atrocity. And you realise when they say the only place for them to move will be into Gaza, they do not know that Netanyahu's government are about to lay waste to it in a genocidal level of revenge. 

No Other Land quite rightly won the 2025 Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. It speaks volumes that the Director of The Brutalist, Brady Corbet had to make a plea at the ceremony for someone to distribute it in the US. Because so far no one will touch it. In the light of The Tangerine Emperor's fickle nature, no one is willing to incur the unforeseeable consequences of his vengeful wrath. That's shocking, but telling, like this important documentary.

CARROT REVIEW - 8/8

SCREEN SHOT - Vesper

 A teenage girl Vesper (Raffiella Chapman ) is rooting around in the scrub and rough earth to find roots to eat. She refuses to live under the control of Jonas ( Eddie Marsan) in the village near bye. The people are all subsisting and are as poor as the earth they fail to grow crops in. The seeds are genetically corrupted and sterile. Further away from here is the Citadel where only rich oligarchs live in luxury served by their synthetic servants . Vesper lives with her terminally ill Father, and is protected by a robotic sphere that carries the speaking soul of her Father in it, 

She is conducting experiments with seeds trying to find a way that they might be made fertile. One day she discovers an injured young woman Camellia (Rosy McEwan )from the Citadel in the forest. Vesper strikes up a friendship with her. Knowing full well that she spells danger, as eventually the Citadel will eventually try to find her. But not before she discovers Camilla is someone that could liberate the lives of everyone living outside of the Citadel.

This film offers you the bleakest of bleak dystopian worlds. With a very limited budget it makes the most of its Lithuanian landscape and mist, to conjure an entirely believable sub culture. It is slow moving and the story line is a simple one. This film is very much a mood piece, and spends its hour fifty letting you feel and comprehend the daily details of these characters existence. Whilst it may look like its a movie for young adults in the vein of Hunger Games, it isn't, and is not afraid to stick to its aesthetic guns and hold to its pace. Just so long as you are prepared to go with that, I think you'll find this ultimately a much more satisfying film than you might first think.

CARROT REVIEW - 5/8 

      

SCREEN SHOT - Medusa Deluxe

This is a 2022 British film written and directed by Thomas Hardiman, is set during a regional hairdressing competition, run annually by Rene (Darryl de Silva ). Unfortunately this year one of its stylist contestants has apparently been murdered and scalped, it isn't known by who. The police have closed everything down, no one is allowed to leave, Much of the opening shots of the movie are of hairdressers and models bitching about not being able to get out. The dialogue contains often scabrous humour, gallows funny, mixed with anger and bitchiness between the rival stylists who can barely conceal their disparaging views of each other. Long held resentments bubble up, plus concealed drug trading, and a stylist whose found God.

There are a number of impressive techniques used in this movie. The use of heightened colours, the almost lurid lighting, all sick greens and bloody curdling pinks. There is also that it appears to have been shot in one continuous take, with only a couple of points where it has been edited. So there is a lot of in time shots of characters walking down corridors, through doors, up stairs. Your attention slipping from one character arc to another in a turn of the camera. The fluidity of this belies its logistical complexity. This form brings to the film its own sense of energy and pace, as the whodunnit gradually settles onto one character as the culprit.

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, it was a bit of an unexpected gem.

CARROT REVIEW - 6/8

 

SCREEN SHOT - Night On Earth (1991)

Night On Earth is from 1991, and a portmanteau of short dramas written and directed by Jim Jarmusch. Each is set in a particular city around the world, each taking place in a taxi cab journey. So we have roughly twenty minutes spent travelling across Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Rome and Helsinki respectively. With a jazz inflected bordello music soundtrack that is inimitably Tom Waits. It has cameo performances from the likes of Gena Rowlands, Winona Ryder, Roberto Benigni, Beatrice Dalle, Rosie Perez and Giancarlo Esposito, to name but a few.

These short vignettes, are all glimpses into ordinary people's lives, whether cabbies or customers. All of the stories oscillating between being touching and hilarious. The evenings in all these cities have a particular urban atmosphere,in America its often active yet hostile, neon lit and garish. Whilst in Europe a city can be half romantic slum, half sublime architecture. A taxi driver knows it all. Night time is the part of the day when the poor and the less salubrious come out into the streets. People are drunker, louder and more argumentative. And often these worlds step over the gutter and into the life of the cab driver. Cab drivers are particular folk, between jobs, in the meantime making a living off driving a taxi. Often learning to be adept at managing and talking to people from all walks of life.

In Night on Earth - a female cabbie really wants to be a mechanic, not a film star - an ex-clown from Germany loves his job yet cannot even drive the cab properly - a french speaking cabbie from Cote de Ivory strikes up a conversation with a blind young woman who possesses second sense - an Italian cabbie instigates a long and embarrassing confession to a priest he picks up - a Finish cabbie listens to a tale of hard times from three drunken men, then tells them his own tragic tale of misfortune. The subject matter of the film may sometimes feel slight or incidental. But this film is really all about people spending a short journey together exchanging their shared humanity with each other. Its quite the most heart warming and delightful film and one of Jarmusch's best.

CARROT REVIEW - 6/8

SCREEN SHOT - Past Lives

When I was at Primary School, I escaped being bullied by the boys in the boys playground by taking refuge in the girls playground. I had 'girlfriends' and some of those girls professed their six year old love for me in letter form. Somewhere in my papers I still have two of their clumsily written notes. I don't remember them now as individuals that I once was in a naive 'love' relationship with. We all have memories from our childhood of deep friendships, that for whatever reason do not survive the test of time. My family moved away from the town of my birth when I was eleven. This effectively meant any sense of continuity between my childhood friends and my adulthood was cut off. There was no shared experience of growing up and maturing together.

Celine Song's wonderfully tender film takes the idea of soul mates from our childhood and says what if they came back to meet you in adult life? What mixture of emotions would this conjure up in you? The philosophical centre of this movie revolves around the Korean notion of 'in yun' that individuals you encounter do not come into your lives by chance, but by a type of karmic fate. That you have some previous past life connection with this individual manifesting in the moment here and now of your present life. But that is not always meant to be a love connection.

Nora (Greta Lee) and Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) were childhoods sweethearts, whose love and appreciation for each other was abruptly terminated when Nora's parents emigrated from South Korea to the United States. Twelve years later via the internet and Skype, they reconnect. Nora is at the beginning of her burgeoning career as a writer, Hae Sung still working his way through college towards a future career. Though they talk of meeting up, neither feels able to do so. Their conversations churn up Nora's emotions, they start to impede and confuse her career ambitions. Making her decide to cease communicating with Hae Sung. Many years later Nora, now married to Arthur (John Magaro) she hears from Hae Sung. That he is coming on a visit to New York. And its clear he has come to see her. 

This film is full to the brim with real heart, that doesn't avoid the complicated emotional territory these three individuals find themselves in. How does Nora feel about Hae Sung, and vice a versa? What on earth is Arthur to make of Hae Sung and his reasons for wanting to meet Nora? All the tender insecurities of Arthur's relationship with Nora's become exposed. Meanwhile Hae Sung stands there as one protracted ache of longing for a past life, he so much wants to reclaim, but finds he really cannot. Life has moved on, the depth of their childhood connection is lost in a past that only Hae Sung continues to live in.. At the end of the movie he asks Nora - do you think that our connection in this life comes not from the past but from a relationship in a future life? An unanswerable question which is holding out one last hope into the future, which is just a heartrendingly tough watch. This debut film of Celine Song's, which she both wrote and directed, is worthy of all the awards and praise that has been heaped upon it.

CARROT REVIEW - 8/8

SCREEN SHOT - Perfect Days

After Covid, Wim Wenders was invited to document The Tokyo Toilet project where seventeen new lavatories were to be redesgned by sixteen creators from around the world. What started as a documentary idea eventually became this film. Shot in the Shibuya district of Tokyo where these stylishly upgraded lavatory facilities are. The film features many of them, each one very distinct in its style and strikingly original. He co-wrote the screenplay with Takuma Takasati, and it was filmed over seventeen days. So it has a semi documentary feel, that won it Best International Feature at the 2024 Academy Awards. It is one of Wenders best films, simple in its execution and humanity.

The central character Hirayama, (Koji Yakusho ) works as a toilet cleaner in the Shibuya district. His life is organised and filled with regular routines. He organises the things he needs daily on a shelf by the apartment exit, regularly waters his Acer cuttings, sleeps, reads paperbacks, has a large collection of cassettes, doesn't have a computer, is not on social media and takes black a white photos on an old film camera. He appears to be a cultured man, who prefers to live life entirely as though he exists in another era, whilst he works cleaning these ultra swish paragons of 21st century modernism. He lives a life of quiet simplicity. Extolling to his niece his - now is now, next time is next time - philosophy. But gradually as the film progresses modern life begins to poke its head into his life, to disrupt this carefully maintained equilibrium, Though he has chosen a separate self contained life, a series of encounters awakens a need in him for human company.

This film has often been mistakenly presented as a peon to living a simple zen style life within an urban setting. It is only this in part. It also demonstrates how such a lifestyle can only be maintained as long as you have complete control over your conditions. That nothing ever intrudes to remind you that you could live your life another way if you wanted. By the end of the movie Hirayama is a man who allows himself to feel his own regrets that his life has turned out the way it did. That his chosen lifestyle has protected him from experiencing some of the consequences and pain of his past.

Koji  Yakusho is utterly brilliant in this film, well deserving of his Best Actor award from the Cannes Film Festival. His actual spoken dialogue is sparse. For much of the film he says very little, often just gestures or grunts in response. Yet his open face and expressiveness, tell you volumes about the interior life of the man, his real love of popular music, his silent appreciation for people and favourite places. Every night when Hirayama sleeps his dreams are full of beautiful black and white shadows cast across textural surfaces, with echoing scratching sounds in the background. At the end of the movie Wenders posts a definition of the Japanese term  Komorebi - which means taking delight in light and shadows filtered through the leaves in the present moment. Which reminds you that Hirayama regularly takes photos of light shining through the tree canopy

CARROT REVIEW - 7/8