No future for England’s dreaming

THE LAST OF ENGLAND directed by Derek Jarman (UK, 1988

“It’s a love story with England. It’s not an attack. It’s an attack on those things that I believe personally are things without value.” Derek Jarman in an interview with Chris Lippard

Derek Jarman was a war child; conceived during the period of the London blitz and born on January 31^st 1942. It is perhaps no surprise to find that the spectre of WWII dominates his imagination and helped inspire his surreal poetic documentary ‘The Last of England’ made in the Spring of 1987.  

Jarman was in his mid-40s when he completed the film which graphically depicts a post-war and post-apocalyptic urban wasteland.  While making it he was diagnosed as HIV positive. This illness was for him another battle which he waged publicly. He announced his diagnosis to the world rather than be shamed into silence. The full-blown AIDS virus would end his life prematurely six years later.

The contagion may have partly accounted for his rage but it was in him anyway. “Where’s hope? Have they killed it” are rhetorical questions asked in a movie. “Yes” comes the blunt reply. “And tomorrow?” the unseen speaker asks. The answer comes in the form of a quote from graffiti Jarman had seen scrawled on a wall in London’s Euston Road: “Tomorrow is cancelled due to lack of interest”.

This brief exchange is practically the only dialogue in a movie that evolved through improvisation; there was no screenplay. Aside from Jarman’s freeform poems (read by Nigel Terry) , most of the movie plays out without words. The director’s obscure diatribes offer few clues about his intentions.  They are more full of attitude than meaning. The critic David L.Hirst called the end result  “an apocalyptic roar of a movie.”

Olive Kitteridge, again and again

‘Olive Kitteridge’ (2008) and ‘Olive, Again’ (2019) by Elizabeth Strout

‘Olive Kitteridge’ directed by Lisa Cholodenko (HBO mini-series ,2014)

How many books really stick in the mind? Frequently, I struggle to recollect plots and characters of novels I know I have read, even those I have enjoyed. 

I first read ‘Olive Kitteridge’ soon after it earned Elizabeth Strout the Pulitzer Prize in 2009 and casually decided to re-read it after watching the excellent HBO TV series based on the novel.

I immediately continued to the follow up, ‘Olive, Again’ and feel now slightly bereft that this is the end of her story (unless Strout decides to write about the first 60 years of her life!)

I was struck by just how much I had forgotten or completely overlooked in the original novel. In revisiting it, the theme of ageing now resonated more fully with my own life.  There’s quite a difference between reading this book in middle-age and now I am at an age (approaching 65) regarded by institutions and individuals as officially old. You can soften this with terms like ‘silver surfers’ or speak in terms of the ‘third age’ but the hard truth is that I am (if I’m lucky) entering the last couple of decades of my life.

As I get older, mortality is no longer an abstract concept  but a harsh reality. This is the first full year without my mother who died on Christmas Day 2021 aged 93 (my father passed away in 1986 aged 60).

The magical mystery of Memoria

MEMORIA directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Colombia/Thailand, 2021)

You don’t watch this movie for the story but for the experience. There is very little action and the slimmest of plots. Tilda Swinton describes her character, Jessica, as a ghost presence and the film as “a portrait of a woman in a predicament”.

A sound she hears causes insomnia and she strives to identify its cause and significance. She visits a sound engineer and tells him “It’s like a rumble from the core of the earth and then it shrinks.”

Ironically, despite being centred on the elusive quality of  this mysterious noise, the movie is more concerned with the nature of stillness and silence. Other themes are excavation, preservation and inspiration. These all serve to provide constant reminders of time passing and the fading shadows of life.

Swinton brings a dignity and humanity to what might otherwise have become a pretentious exercise in existential navel gazing.  She is on the same wavelength as Weerasethakul in being unconcerned with creating drama or giving answers to big questions. 

The grandiose focus is on the mystery of being and finding connections, past or present, that give life a purpose. For over two hours, viewers are required to enter an audio-visual dream state conjured up by this immersive and magical movie.

Time Management for Mortals

FOUR THOUSAND WEEKS by Oliver Burkeman

Do we really need another book about time management? Probably not, but this one stands out as it faces up to a starker reality by stating that, for we mere mortals, it is only by “consciously confronting the certainty of death [….] that we finally become truly present in our lives.”

Four thousand weeks refers to our allotted time on earth if we are fortunate enough to live to the age of 80. For many, the lifespan will be less, for some it will be more but for all of us it will be brief.  

Oliver Burkeman doesn’t attempt to sweeten the pill and sums up existence with uncompromising bluntness: “Life is nothing but a succession of present moments, culminating in death.”  Furthermore, he argues that, when push comes to shove, “what you do with your life doesn’t matter all that much.”

No tears for Mark Lanegan

SING BACKWARDS AND WEEP by Mark Lanegan (White Rabbit, 2020)

‘Men Should Weep’ was the title of a 1947 play by Ena Lamont Stewart I saw performed in London in 1982 by Glasgow’s 7:84 theatre company (named from the statistical information that 7% of the people own 84% of the wealth).

I liked the title of this play because it conjured up the image of men weeping en masse . I imagined this as a universal shedding of tears for the patriarchal pain men have inflicted on humankind. Some hope!

Sadly, the macho stereotype is still alive, kicking and oppressing as Mark Lanegan’s relentlessly bleak memoir confirms. Despite the title (a line from his song ‘Fix’ from the solo album ‘Field Songs’) , Lanegan is not much given to weeping or displaying his feelings. It’s therefore a surreal moment when he relates how one huge tear formed after hearing of the death of his friend and mentor Jeffrey Lee Pierce of Gun Club. He writes about this with amazement as if it’s going to be submerged in a pool of tears like Alice In Wonderland.