20,000 Days on Earth

‘20,000 days on Earth’ and Nick Cave has ceased to be human. He’s just one of those guys with his head in the clouds, swimming along nicely with his lyrical tide. But this film, shows another side to Nick Cave. A side of values and of honesty and of being human, despite his best efforts.

nickcave.com

smh.com.au

 The film masterfully merges reality and some inventive staged reality in a collage of performance archive, some very cinematic re-constructions, some extraordinarily sinister discussions in a car and a rather open interview with Cave. It seems that this in itself, is a statement about the kind of person Nick Cave is, he is his past, he is his music career, he is, who is he is – and that’s it.

 

sweetarchiveblog.com

The most beautiful moment for me is when Cave admits his deepest fears.

‘What do you fear?’

‘Losing my memory’

And when asked why, his simple answer is ‘memory is what we are’…and he’s right. I don’t think anyone’s ever got it so right.

theguardian.com

Throughout the film we are treated to a world of Cave’s memory. We hear about his relationship with his father, the kind of illusive yet doting parent you seem to find in any dance film or x-factor back-story only this time it is genuinely heart-wrenching to hear. We visit what seems like our film-makers archive, filled with Nick’s past, where he takes us through performances of the Bad Seeds and points out a particularly vivid memory of a German man urinating on the guitarist. If Nick’s greatest fear is losing his memory, he need only visit here to catch the tide back to his life in Brighton.

nypost.com

He is not a man of particular emotion, at least not visually but there's clearly a hell of a lot going on upstairs. He never seems fully present in any conversation. It’s almost like he is formulating lyrics in his head at the very same time that the moments before him become the memories he so adores. We see his persona spring to life at seeing and sharing the stories of his past, vividly recreated for us through archived images and film and yet simultaneously, Cave lives every one of his days in existential crisis, but manages by getting his head down, shutting out the world and writing something beautiful with it. 

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He is, on reflection, more human than we thought. He’s made mistakes, he’s grown up, he’s fallen in and out of love and ultimately he quite happily loses himself in a world where memories of all of this cease to be memories at all, they are turned into lyrics, put to music and actually begin to feel real again. The great thing about a seemingly candid interview with a star is that you see things you never knew, you find out that actually, beneath all of those well-known anthems, is a person and ’20,000 Days on Earth’ succeeds in saying something quite profound about the art of songwriting, as well as celebrating Cave for the oddball genius of a great that he is. 

collider.com

Ida (2013)

downpourbg.com

'Ida' was a wonderfully understated coming of age, discovery story. From acclaimed Polish-British director Pawel Pawlikowski we were thrown back to 1962 with black and white footage and a recovering post-war Poland. Ida is about to take her vows as a nun having been raised in a convent before meeting her only surviving relative and discovering that she is in fact Jewish and that all of her family are dead. Ida narrowly escaped the same fate, being only an infant and unidentifiable as Jewish and so, Ida and her aunt, set off on a journey to find out what happened to their relatives and what it means for them.

www.elantepenultimomohicano.com

There are a few stylistic choices within the film that I'm not sure I understood. For example, the many shots framed so that the action took place right at the bottom of the screen with five times the head room above it. I'm not sure what it was symbolising, was it the masses of information they still had to find out about their family, was it to make our characters seem small in a much bigger world, was it the weight of what lay ahead of them pushing down on them, or was it just an artistic choice? Who knows, but it was an interesting new perspective.

film.interior.pl

The power of 'Ida' was more in the silences than in what is said. The script is subtle, the emotion hidden, it is left for us the audience, to determine. It does not over indulge in moments. We never see the reaction from the elderly man that hid their family after he has been accused of killing them. We never revisit his son whom killed the family once he has shown Ida and her aunt where they were buried. We don't dwell too long on missed moments which is remarkably innovative in a film where these moments of discovery are the motives of our two main characters.

filmweb.pl

Similarly though, I'm still not sure if I liked this or if I hated it, but we don't dwell on the fact that we never really know anything about the family. Only that they were Jewish, they were hidden in a barn and then killed in the woods. We instead dreamt up the personalities of our victims for ourselves. But perhaps Pawel Pawlikowski was making a post-war statement, that no-one remembered who our victims were before they became victims. The generation and identity of so many, was lost. We can draw whatever meaning we wish from the films stylistic choices and subtlety, and I think that is perhaps why I like it so much. You could watch it in a cinema and everyone could take away something different. It's nice to have a bit of ambiguity on screen for a change.

 The only part of the film I was frustrated by, is not knowing. We don't know what goes on inside Ida's head. We don't ever hear her vocalise her reactions, even as she mourns and belatedly takes on her aunts advice and experiences life before she vows to sacrifice it. But the final scene doe not give anything away. She walks towards the convent, we think, and will now take her vows...but will she? What will become of Ida? I wanted to know!

We may never know, but the subtlety and haunting nature of 'Ida' will stay with me for some time. I will definitely watch it again soon, to see what more I can decipher from the silence.

Why 'Sports Personality of the Year 2014' is One of the Worst Live Shows I've Seen...

One of the BBC broadcast highlights of the annual calendar, 'Sports Personality of the Year' - and it had no personality at all.

bbc.co.uk

Sports personality is about the sportsmen and women, the PEOPLE who have achieved great things within their relevant sport. The live show was more about the glitz, the showbiz, than it was about the athletes. The vision mixing was poor, particularly throughout the sequence paying tribute to those we've lost. We could see great archive footage of these greats in action on the screen behind, but the audience at home instead got footage of the violinist. This show is about sport, about those who have made names for themselves through sport and showed us greatness in the process. I wanted to share their moments of greatness, not watch wide-shot pans of the auditorium and the violinist on stage.

freeview.co.uk

Then there were the badly scripted (I almost hope it was unscripted) words of a half-hearted Gary Lineker and Gabby Logan. It is the presenters job to lead those who come onstage and make them feel at ease with where they need to be... Not call after them telling them to stay on stage for the final shot... where was the preparation, the rehearsal... where was the presenters professionalism? Thank god for Clare Balding, who offered us some genuineness and energy. Ok, so Gary couldn't help being ill, but it all seemed like a push to fill an unnecessary lengthy piece of television, only to overrun. HOW DID YOU EVEN DO THAT - IT WAS TWO AND A HALF HOURS LONG.

The show needs to be shorter, it needs to cut the crap. It needs to show us the sportsmen and women who have earned our respect above whatever the hell is happening onstage. It is after all SPORTS personality of the year. When the contenders are left standing onstage feeling stupid, the wait on stage is too long. We should already be on the next award, on the next VT (all of which were brilliant by the way) or on the next link. I hope all of this can be blamed on a budget cut... but it would have to be a pretty big one to make it as an excuse in my eyes.

I'm happy for all of the winners tonight, particularly Lewis being an avid fan but in my opinion, the standard of live broadcasting was appalling and definitely needs a rethink. Maybe next year eh?!