The Men Who Stare At Goats

A contender for film title of the year, but not alas movie of the year. Part of the problem is the wandering tone. Everything from that title to the premise via the trailer lead the audience to expect an outright comedy, or at the very least, a sharp satire about the military. George Clooney does indeed effortlessly slip into his Coen mode and has some very funny scenes, but the equivocal introduction telling us that more of the events are true than we'd expect extends to a more general uncertainty. The structure doesn't help matters. The road trip to Iraq tenuously holds together a string of flashbacks in search of a plot. Nor does the film ever manage to locate an ending - and it tries twice. "Free the goats" doesn't quite cut it as a denouement. Overall one is left with the sense of having sat through an occasionally amusing, rather silly and inconsequential film while wishing that the makers had gone for an out and out satire based on the New Earth Army, which one suspects would have been far more effective.

The Sacred Made Real

The polychromed sculptures are the main attraction here. While paintings by the likes of Velazquez and Zurburan form an interesting comparison with their three-dimensional counterparts, it's the astonishing detail of the sculptures that makes an impact. The robes of the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception are beautiful in their colour and presentation of texture, while the skill of the painters involved is obviously in the faces of Saint Francis Borgia and Saint Ignatius Loyola (the latter complete with glass tears) Elsewhere real hair is used for eyelashes, while glass eyes catch the light (if you've ever thought that the eyes of a painting followed you around a room, prepare to be seriously unnerved) What could have been horribly garish in fact becomes deeply fascinating. Walking around the Christ figures, complete with the gory results of flagellation, makes one intensely aware of both the injuries and the suffering. This reaches its height in the lifesize figure of the dead Christ, which manages to be both shocking (open red wounds contrasted with ghastly whitish-blue flesh) and moving (the unbearable poignancy of a dead body) No wonder many of these images are still paraded and venerated to this day. You don't have to be a Catholic - or even religious - to appreciate the artistry and power of these works.

Bright Star

First of all, I have to admit to never liking the poetry of John Keats. I'll take Byron any day of the week. Luckily this minor detail isn't a problem when it comes to appreciating Bright Star. A slow-burning film, it creeps up on the viewer and take a thorough grip on the emotions before you realize it's happened. For such a deeply romantic film, it has a keen sense of ruthless economics. Fanny's extraordinary array of home-made dresses result in bouts of verbal sparring with Charles Brown: he regards them as symptomatic of frivolity, and therefore of Fanny's lack of importance, but she sharply retorts that her needlework can provide her with a livelihood, unlike his writing. It sets up their rivalry but also encapsulates the tragedy at the heart of the film. Fanny's future depends on making a good match, but Keats - as we are repeatedly informed - has no money and is never likely to have any. To continue as a poet means, in effect, that he can't marry her. In order to take a wife he would need a regular income, which would require him to give up his poetry (and all this even before his TB becomes a factor) It's a situation understood by everyone - Mrs Brawne with sadness, Charles Brown with outright aggression.
All of this makes the snatched moments of happiness the more precious and fragile. Great joy alternates with misery as love seems to ebb and flow. The dingy browns and claustrophobia of the city (associated with poverty and death) contrast with the spaciousness of the country, as Hampstead was in those days, where the breeze rustles the grass while people walk and play. Scenes such as Fanny in a meadow of bluebells or Keats lying aloft a tree capture the sensation of their growing love, while the separation of their bedrooms by a dividing wall gives rise to scenes of a palpable aching longing. The attempt to create a butterfly farm in Fanny's room produces both a visual equivalent of an emotional high (brightly coloured butterflies drifting around the room) and a devastating low (their corpses unceremoniously swept away) When Fanny lies on her bed as the wind blows the curtain inwards you can almost feel the air caressing her. The lovers share nothing more than a kiss but the viewer understands everything they feel for each other through the images.
The cruel irony is that only when Keats' death is imminent can the couple be engaged. Keats has nowhere to stay and Fanny's reputation would never survive his continued presence in the house. At the point when they truly have no future, they assume the appearance of contented domesticity, but even this is short-lived. His trip to Italy has been funded by his friends and Fanny cannot accompany him. They cling to the illusion that he will be cured but deep down they know there is no hope. Even so, the end is devastating for Fanny. Kept apart to the last, she hears the news of his death third-hand from a man she has never liked. Neither friend nor lover have been able to avert the inevitable. All that's left is a life cut short and the work that was ignored.

An Education

A woman's lot at the start of the 1960s wasn't a happy one, at least according to the picture painted here. Even the highly educated find their options reduced to teaching or marriage, and it's debatable which is the more soul-destroying. No wonder young Jenny is so easily seduced by a suave older man and his seemingly glamourous lifestyle. The world of flash cars, expensive clothes and glitzy nightclubs prove far more tempting than studying which only seems to lead to a life of housework while listening to the radio (role model: mum) or endless hours marking essays about ponies (role model: Miss Stubbs) Jenny's mother in particular seems to pine for the life she led pre-marriage, while Miss Stubbs' Cambridge education seems to have merely produced a dowdy stereotype with glasses and a bun. Cannily, David isn't presented as sleazy. We might instinctively mistrust his motives, even before his criminal sidelines are revealed, but never to the extent that we decide Jenny is merely stupid. It's a delicate balancing act but David, it turns out, is an expert manipulator (he knows perfectly how to win over her parents, and to get them to agree to whatever wants while being convinced that it was their own idea) The inevitable betrayal is worse than expected, and leaves the viewer almost as angry and disappointed as Jenny (we too have been taken in by David to a certain extent) The straight and narrow path of education beckons once more, but this time, the Swinging 60s and a whole new world are just over the horizon.