Miss Bala

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Gerardo Naranjo, Miss Bala, Stephanie Sigman

Miss Bala

Directed by Gerardo Naranjo

Mexico, 2011

Cornerhouse, 29 October 2011

This is a fine crime film which approaches its subject – gang violence in contemporary Mexico – from quite an unusual angle.

A pretty girl enters a beauty contest along with her friend, but the two are parted in a nightclub when it is raided by the police.  In trying to find her friend, Laura (a debut role for Stephanie Sigman, who is excellent) is drawn into a world of violence, double-crosses and drug deals gone bad, and it seems that in Mexico some gangs battle against the state.  They take the War on Drugs at face value, as a declaration of intent.

What is fascinating about the film is that it doesn’t tell Laura’s story, not really, even though the focus falls on her.  Instead, she is like a thread in a labyrinth: it is where she takes us, what happens around her, which is important.  It is what she reveals about Mexican society.  We are shown corrupt police officers, criminal gangs that are in essence militia, endemic venality, weakness and hypocrisy.  The people she comes across are so much water moving in water, and perhaps Laura could be described in this way also.

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The Book of Symbols

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ARAS, Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism, The Book of Symbols, The Book of Symbols: Reflections on Archetypal Images

The Book of Symbols: Reflections on Archetypal Images

Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism (ARAS)

Taschen, 2010

ISBN: 9783836514484

Some 350 symbols are presented and discussed in this brobdingnagian book, a treasure trove for all with an interest in how human beings have used myth and metaphor as a way of making sense of existence.

Symbols acquire their power because we have never been literal-minded as a species; everything around us, no matter how specific and concrete, has been a stimulus for the imagination to take flight.  And even scientists, despite a much vaunted objectivity, need metaphor, as the philosopher Mary Hesse’s work attests.  The heart is best understood as a pump, the mind is viewed by cognitive scientists as a computer, etc.  We can only truly understand one thing in terms of another, the unknown in terms of the known.

The structure of the book is as follows.  There are 5 main sections: ‘Creation and Cosmos’, ‘Plant World’, ‘Animal World’, ‘Human World’ and ‘Spirit World’.  These sections are then further subdivided, for example ‘Human World’ has 8 sections, including ‘Human Body’, ‘Movement and Expression’, ‘Fundamentals of Work and Society’ and ‘Tools and Other Objects’.  It is within these sections that the individual entries on particular symbols, consisting of an essay and one or a few images, occur.  Take ‘Tools and Other Objects’; there are 32 entries here, among them discussions of ‘Sword’, ‘Compass’, ‘Net/Web’, ‘Veil’, ‘Ring’ and ‘Telephone’.

Most essays take a vivid and telling image as their point of departure, but then range more widely.  On the whole, the essays are provocative and richly suggestive, rather than exhaustive; and it is unlikely anyway, to my way of understanding, that the meanings and resonances inherent in a symbol can ever be fully enumerated.  That is why they remain vital as symbols, able to intrigue, fascinate and transport. 

Let us take the crescent of the moon as an example, if only because The Crescent is a pub that I frequent.  In shape, it suggests a ship or sickle or the horns of a beast or a devil.  As something ephemeral or transient, it is like beauty or talent or street art or even  life itself.  Since it stands at the beginning of a process, it is also very much like a seed – for soon the moon will ripen into fullness.  It’s a kind of chrysalis… and more.  As a pub, it’s in the Good Beer Guide and with good reason.  The meanings multiply unceasingly; and, appropriately enough, the word crescent derives from the Latin verb crescere, meaning to increase.

Bert Kupferman, A Bird, pen and ink drawing on watercolor paper, 2008, United States

When it comes to the 800 or so images that glitteringly adorn the book throughout, the key word is diversity.  The artworks come from virtually every country and culture, every religion and artistic movement, every period and age.  Not 5 years ago, Bert Kupferman drew the bird above, while about 30 thousand years before him an unknown artist drew this image of an owl on the wall of a cave:

The earliest known rendering of an owl from a cave in southern France, discovered in 1994. Ca. 30,000–32,000 years old, Chauvet Cave, France. Courtesy of the French Ministry of Culture and Communication

As the term ‘archetypal’ indicates, the book’s approach has been greatly influenced by Jung; but the writers have not been constrained by his thinking.  It is not clear to me, actually, whether Jung would include man-made objects, and in particular recent ones (say, the telephone) under the ambit of ‘archetypal symbols’, since these relate to the collective unconscious.  But perhaps he would.

In the preface, editor-in-chief Ami Ronnberg says that this book took over 13 years to complete – and it shows.  It is an absolutely gorgeous book, beautifully produced and intelligently designed.  A joy to browse through, the images being stunning, yet also a substantive resource.  The essays will repay diligent study.

The website of the Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism is here.

The publisher’s description of the book can be read here.

Buy Art Fair

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Beth Richardson, Buy Art Fair, Own Art Scheme, The Manchester Contemporary

Buy Art Fair

Quay House, off Spinningfields

28-30 October 2011

The Buy Art Fair opens today and runs until Sunday.

Based at Quay House this year, it takes place alongside The Manchester Contemporary, both events offering the opportunity to acquire original, contemporary works of art at affordable prices.  If your finances are feeling a little stretched at the moment – and let us be frank, whose aren’t? – then Art Council England’s Own Art Scheme may help out.  An interest-free loan of up to £2000 is not to be sniffed at.

 

Of the 300 plus artists whose work is on display, it was Beth Richardson’s paintings which impressed me most.  These were still lifes and domestic interiors done usually in bold colours.  People are wholly absent but sometimes the flowers in a vase will explode in a fantastical manner, seeming to hang suspended in the air.  Altogether, the seven or so of her paintings that I saw presented a coherent, completely convincing world, quiet and disquieting at once.  A selection of Beth Richardson’s work can be seen here.

Elsewhere, Chris Chapman’s witty tribute to Lowry caught the eye.  And Adam Barsby’s two paintings, ‘In the Ladies’ and ‘Shopaholic’, alongside Gwyn Jones’s large canvas ‘On a Pedestal’, reminded me of certain personages I know.  Surely even mermaids must dream of shoes.  And surely there is something to suit every taste and pocket at this year’s Buy Art Fair.

Slava’s Snowshow

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clowns, Daniil Kharms, Pushkin and Gogol, Slava's Snowshow

Slava’s Snowshow

The Lowry, 26 October 2011

Photo by A. Lopez

It is a very funny show, this one, though you’d be at a loss to say what it is about exactly.

There’s a lot of dastardly and decorous clowning, a series of absurdist vignettes and the odd plaintive appeal for understanding and forgiveness.  You could say that the audience create the show as much as the performers; their role is sometimes to get or elicit a response.

One clowns spends a lot of time dying – an arrow through the heart eventually does him in – and it is hilarious (but why?) and another, the archer and murderer, takes to the stage angling for a round of applause for his sniper’s instinct, his fine hand and eye coordination.  And he gets it, naturally.

If this were not a children’s or rather a family show, you catch yourself thinking, it would be a radical absurdist drama and quite a good one at that.  The kind of thing Daniil Kharms might write and get away with – remember his ‘Pushkin and Gogol’.

Anyway, Slava’s Snowshow is a real treat and a timely reminder that sometimes a man falling off a chair can be the funniest thing in the world.

Slava’s Snowshow is at The Lowry until 30 October, and then tours throughout the UK.  Full tour dates are here.

Fascinating Aida

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Fascinating Aida, Flanders and Swann, The Cheap Flights Tour, Tom Lehrer

The Cheap Flights Tour

Fascinating Aida

The Lowry, 25 October 2011

You’ll be kicking yourself big-time if you miss seeing this show.

For sheer entertainment, it rates a 10 out of 10.  The format is simple, comfortable and even well worn – humorous songs sung, in the main, to piano – but the effect is simply stunning, pure bliss.

There are songs about dogging, one night stands, cheap flights, and Germans; or rather German singers in the Marlene Dietrich mould.  They all hit the sweet spot.  And there are also a fair few Bulgarian song cycles, as you might imagine – don’t ask, experience.

Even now, you’d be justified in speaking of Fascinating Aida in the same breath as Tom Lehrer or Flanders and Swann.  Yes, these three ladies are that good.  Indeed, not only are they classy in themselves, they’re a classic comedy outfit. 

Arrange to see this show now, to avoid disappointment, since many dates are already sold out.  Fascinating Aida’s future tour dates can be seen here.

We Need To Talk About Kevin

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Damien, Lynne Ramsay, Rhoda, The Bad Seed, The Omen, Tilda Swinton, We Need To Talk About Kevin

We Need To Talk About Kevin

Directed by Lynne Ramsay

UK & USA, 2010

Cornerhouse, 22 October 2011

There are two aspects to the film, one works well and one doesn’t quite convince.

The one that works well concerns the life of a person who, though innocent, is linked with a crime.  This might be the wife of a serial rapist or the father of a teenage burglar, someone guilty or blameworthy by association and unjustly persecuted.  Tilda Swinton, playing Kevin’s mother, carries this role off with power and aplomb.

What doesn’t work quite as well is the attempt to explain evil or make sense of nihilism.  Ultimately, Kevin comes across as just another version, a middle American version if you like, of Damien in The Omen or Rhoda in The Bad Seed.  He’s overcooked, he doesn’t convince as a character, even his hair is an unremitting black.

But see the film for the performance of Tilda Swinton as a woman struggling to get her life back on track.

The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975

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African-American, Angela Davis, Black Power, Erykah Badu, Goran Hugo Olsson, Martin Luther King, Stokely Carmichael, Talib Kweli, The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975

The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975

Directed by Goran Hugo Olsson

Sweden, 2011

Cornerhouse, 22 October 2011

This film compiles various news/current affairs footage taken by Swedish film makers, charting the emergence of a radical black movement following the death of Martin Luther King in 1968.

Several voices respond to the footage, notably those of Erykah Badu, Talib Kweli and Angela Davis – who is also interviewed on film, at the time of her trial.  Angela Davis’s impassioned response to an interviewer’s naive question about violence in America is terrifying, an extraordinary moment.  She’s the very image of the woman Yeats fell for in ‘No Second Troy’.

Watch also Stokely Carmichael’s in-depth interview with his mother.  He had a formidable forensic intelligence, did Carmichael, and an unswerving analytical gaze.  His commitment to truth bestowed on him the gift of integrity.

Someone (maybe Kweli, I’m unsure) says here of this generation of black thinkers and activists, ‘They made sacrifices so we didn’t have to.’  And so they did, absolutely.  Every African-American, no every American – and not least Barack Obama – owes them a debt.

An invaluable record of a vanished time and place.

Glen Campbell

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Glen Campbell, Jimmy Webb, Rhinestone Cowboy, tour

Glen Campbell

The Lowry, 21 October 2011

The old master is still going strong.

He played his famous hits and some little known songs, paying due credit along the way to Jimmy Webb, songwriter extraordinaire.  We got the chance to sing along to ‘Rhinestone Cowboy’ and clapped along to others.

There was a humility and gratitude to the man, evident above all in the music; in his performance of ‘Amazing Grace’, say.  His vitality and enjoyment of life was there for all to see, and his daughter’s watchful care and occasional gentle reminders were touching.

Every person stood up and applauded him at the end.  This is a literal, wholly factual statement.  Every person, without exception.  Let us rejoice that here is one extraordinary musician whose gifts are fully appreciated in his lifetime.

Glen Campbell is touring the UK at the minute, details here.

Frisky and Mannish’s Pop Centre Plus

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Bangles, Eternal Flame, Frisky and Mannish, Madonna, Melissa shoes, Pop Centre Plus

Pop Centre Plus

Frisky and Mannish

The Lowry, 20 October 2011

Grand pastiche, an exhilarating pillage, satire with style – those are just a few ways in which you might characterise this entertaining foray into pop music’s rich history.

What the duo do is make you aware of the surface depths and hidden shallows of pop music, the way it has insinuated itself into all of our lives – and they make you laugh and smile along the way.  In a sense, pop songs provide a kind of emotional grammar which we all fall back on.  They influence how we behave, and perhaps not always for the best.

The trek through Madonna’s Picasso-like career was one highlight of the show, a trek taken via Propellerheads & Shirley Bassey’s ‘History Repeating’.  Another was the medley of performances based around Rihanna’s ‘Good Girl Gone Bad’ (or ‘Good Gay Gone Bad’ in the case of George Michael).  Stiil another highlight lay in the range of emotions (mainly dysfunctional, it has to be said) that Frisky was able to wring out of The Bangles’ needy and actually quite creepy ‘Eternal Flame’.  It has the same vibe as the film Play Misty for Me, does this song – an anthem for female stalkers everywhere.  Then there was the Grime skit…

Overall, this was a splendid show, endlessly delightful.  However, one question, which I’ve been specifically instructed to ask, remains: was Frisky wearing Melissa shoes?

Frisky and Mannish’s Pop Centre Plus is currently touring throughout the UK, details here.

The Haunted Bride

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Amanda Howard, Dickens, John Goodrum, Neil Bull, Rumpus Theatre Company, The Haunted Bride, To Be Read at Dusk

The Haunted Bride

By John Goodrum

Rumpus Theatre Company

The Lowry, 19 October 2011

This is an engrossing adaptation of ‘To Be Read at Dusk’, Dickens’ classic tale.

Although best described perhaps as a paranormal romance, it also has a sci-fi element – time travel of a kind is present.  There’s a paradox at the heart of it.  How can you go back in time without altering the events that made you who you are?  And doesn’t (or shouldn’t) this impact on whether you do, in fact, go back in time?

Amanda Howard and Neil Bull play all the characters (there are five in total, I think), wholly holding the audience’s attention throughout.  All you need bring to this play is imagination, concentration and a willingness to be transported to an earlier time and place.  They’ll do the rest and you’ll soon be caught captive and rapt, whisked away, no probs.

The Haunted Bride is touring throughout the UK until November 2011, for tour dates click here and scroll down awhiles.