Faith in Film

Is it just me or have all the best films recently been set in closed religious communities? There was Of Gods and Men, a wonderful film. Then there was Beyond the Hills, equally wonderful. And now we have Ida, which I've written about here.

Perhaps it is the contrast between the way we live currently and the aspirations of those who choose a religious life that makes monasteries and nunneries such interesting settings. Unspoken questions rise up from stories concerning people who have made choices so radically different from those we are encouraged to think of as normal, people who have such different goals from those we are taught we ought to have.

Anyway, I went to see Ida and I enjoyed it far more than I enjoyed Gone Girl. I thought that, if Thomas Hardy had made films instead of writing novels, Ida is the kind of film he might have made.


I'm sure Gone Girl will make far more money than Ida but that, sadly, is life.

Never Like Too Much

I wondered yesterday if I was a hard-hearted soul for pitying a mother's loss rather than the loss of life of her child, (if a baby penguin can be classed as a child - is 'child' purely applicable to humans? Discuss). I've since rationalised myself into believing that I was just taking the Ben Jonson view - ie that it's misery for a parent to lose a child, but for the child itself, death means they have 'so soon 'scap'd world's and flesh's rage':

Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;
My sin was too much hope of thee, lov'd boy.
Seven years tho' wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.
O, could I lose all father now! For why
Will man lament the state he should envy?
To have so soon 'scap'd world's and flesh's rage,
And if no other misery, yet age?
Rest in soft peace, and, ask'd, say, "Here doth lie
Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry."
For whose sake henceforth all his vows be such,
As what he loves may never like too much.

Within what is a truly beautiful and very moving poem, the phrase 'Rest in soft peace' has always particularly touched me.

The Object of Pity

Last night we turned on the telly and watched a documentary about penguins, until it became too dreadful to watch. On the way to switch-off, the programme induced a few doubts in my mind about the notion of 'survival of the fitness', which, as I understand it, says that animals able to adapt, via the fact that they are born with genetic mutations that help them stay alive in tricky environments, go on to evolve their own species into newer stronger variations, while those born from lines that don't have those genetic mutations die off eventually.

What I found myself wondering was this: if that's worked for giraffes with long necks, why hasn't it worked for penguins with extra powerful, aerodynamic kinds of wings? Or, to turn it round the other way, how come, if penguins have to run the gauntlet of sea lions to get food for their chicks, none of them have developed their wings beyond desperately sad little flapping appendages into useful things that might actually lift them off the ground, beyond the reach of the snapping teeth of their horrible blubbery foes.

Of course, this probably merely demonstrates that I don't understand the theory behind the idea of 'survival of the fitness'.

I certainly don't like witnessing it in action, especially when reassuring David Attenborough's voice is replaced by the Scottish actor who played Dr Who for a while. I don't mind him, but he's not comforting.

What eventually made us turn off was a scene that appeared to be heartbreaking - although I am aware this could simply have been a trick played on us by the film's editor. On a stretch of ice lay a very stiff, very dead penguin chick. In the distance a burly figure could be seen shuffling about, apparently looking for something. Of course, the burly figure was the chick's mother and eventually she found her dead child. When she did, she showed all the outward signs of real grief and it was this that was too much for us.

But what I realised afterwards was that it was not the fact of the chick's death that had aroused my sympathy. Seeing the little frozen corpse lying on the tundra - if tundra's what it was, (geography's never been my strong point, and that is probably the biggest understatement I have ever made), - was only as sad as seeing road kill, (which is sad, but I'm sorry to say that I have got used to it.) What was unbearably poignant was the mother's reaction. It was the mother I felt sympathy for. Is this because I am a mother, or is it normal? Looking back, I feel a bit hardhearted that I didn't really mind much about the death of the chick itself.

Incidentally, should you be looking for a more rounded, thoughtful discussion about sympathy and empathy, there's a fascinating debate on the subject raging at the Boston Review

New Cliches

I remember ages ago watching Steve McQueen in something or other and realising that I'd seen similar scenes in many movies over the years. He was in a carpark at a supermarket and he was carrying a brown paperbag in the crook of his arm.

For a longish period, films regularly featured characters elbowing their way out of stores and into front doors, full brown paperbags clutched to their chest. There were scenes where they dumped their paperbags on benchtops, there were scenes where they gratefully unloaded them onto backseats. There were scenes when they accidentally dropped them and consequently met other characters.

And then the brown paperbags disappeared.

I assumed that in America plastic bags with handles had replaced them and somehow there wasn't quite the panache to be had from the look of a polythene sack dangling at knee level from a hero's fist.

Anyway, watching Gone Girl yesterday (follow this link for more about that), I realised that a new visual cliche has taken the brown paper bag's place. It's the take-away coffee cup. I can't think why I haven't noticed it earlier. It pops up several times in the film - and it's ubiquitous I suddenly realised in telly programmes from the US, especially cop shows.

It's funny though, because it only works visually. Whereas a cigarette long ago used to be a good prop on screen and also in writing - "she took a drag on her cigarette before speaking. 'I don't know', she murmured, knocking the ash onto the carpet as she spoke ..." - surely a takeaway coffee cup could never be used to pad out a written scene.

(Incidentally, since we mentioned - oh, all right, I mentioned - car parks, should you want to read a really beautiful poem set in a car park, there is one here.)

Not Just the Pink Stuff

Apart from peculiar menswear, Singapore seems a peculiarly bland - not to mention oppressively humid - place these days. We used to go up on a train from Kuala Lumpur when I was tiny, and I have memories of a more vivid place. 

Most of the areas that have been left low-rise are now, like tourist areas the world over, infested with eating establishments that advertise their wares with badly coloured photographs.

Mind you, there have been some lovely restorations - notably the huge Fullerton Hotel. The whole precinct it sits nearby is also beautiful, with many solid old colonial buildings, although most, including the Fullerton, have been stripped of much character inside - and anyway the space this little enclave takes up is minimal.

All in all, I found it hard not to think of the joke about the banker and the fisherman when reading this:

But I only know the place slightly, having never been there except in transit. Like everywhere, I'm sure it reveals more riches to those who care to look more closely. Even in the space of this last brief visit, I spotted one or two little signs of strangeness. Here is an example:

Here's another (it's a women's clothes shop, not a stockist of incontinence goods):

Worn Out

In our house there is a tendency to only absorb the medical news stories that suit our already calcified bad habits - notable among these is the idea that red wine is good for you, (and forget the detail about moderation). Similarly, we have a habit of clasping to our hearts phrases that we pick up from PR or fashion or somewhere and twist to our own foul ends.

Among these, 'shabby chic' has been embraced for so long chez nous that, when casting a glance over our decor, the second word in the phrase ought to be struck out completely, were we being honest.

But we aren't - not about our rugs, at any rate. About our clothes we are slightly more circumspect. Which is why my husband found himself in search of new suits recently. He ended up buying some very nice ones from a man called Henry in Jermyn Street. He and Henry got very matey. Which was a pity as I'd spotted some lovely alternatives for him, in Collins Street, Melbourne, (and yes, I promise, these are clothes meant for men):

and in Singapore, where towelling rules and pink, apparently, is the new black:

I'm so disappointed to have missed the opportunity to redefine my beloved's image. But it's too late now - the suits he got off Henry should see him through another decade. And what likelihood is there that those nice shorts and matching donkey's ears or the pink towelling ensemble will still be available then?

Actually, probably quite a high likelihood come to think of it - who else is going to buy them, (although there was a man I used to work for who wore such extraordinary get-ups that I thought he must be the tailors' of Canberra's delight - "Quick, quick, Barry, there's that man again: go out the back and fetch those green and yellow striped three pieces I bought when I was drunk at the Trade Fair in Brisbane in 1964; I'm sure he'll take them")?

Apart from him though, what is the market for these things? Can the makers really be serious or are these just the latest in the centuries old game of Emperor's New Clothes?

St George's, Ypres

Winston Churchill proposed, after the First World War, to leave Ypres in its wrecked state, as a monument to what had happened. I do recognise that this might not have been a very convenient approach for the residents of Ypres, but I can also see its attractions, provided you are not from Ypres.

As things turned out, the decision was made to rebuild the town instead - and to construct the Menin Gate as a memorial. I'd argue that the Menin Gate is almost dangerously inspiring, whereas the devastation left by the war was anything but. On the other hand, the general view is that it was devastation rather than pomp and glorification that led to the Second World War, so the argument is hardly relevant. 

Nevertheless, it is perhaps because it is not a rebuilding but a new structure, reacting to what had happened and trying to supply some solace to those left behind, that I like St George's more than anywhere else in Ypres. It is a tiny church, designed by the same architect who came up with the Menin Gate. It was built between 1927 and 1929 and was meant to provide a memorial to the dead and a meeting place for their relatives.

Everything in the church - the furniture, the windows, the plaques et cetera - has been given in memory of those who lost their lives in the Great War. A school was attached to the church and paid for by donations from Old Etonians, but the Second World War led to its closure in 1940.  

Thus, only the church remains, often overlooked by visitors. It is wonderfully calm and one of those places from which you feel that your prayers may really be heard, if that makes sense. The hassocks, sewn by countless unknown worthy ladies, (I'm assuming they were mainly ladies), seem particularly touching to me, not to mention the various regimental colours, which an army officer explained to me the other day are meant to be left hanging until they become mere tatters - which is when I think they begin to possess their greatest beauty

If you are intrigued to know who the Artists Rifles were, this link will explain all, I discovered.

For more on the Chinese Labour Corps, go to this link, although I'm left wondering what exactly 'recruitment' entailed, and whether there was anything voluntary about it:

This plaque touched me particularly of course - put up by the precursor to the RSL:

It struck me as a bit of a nerve on the part of the British to create the 'victory title' of 'Earl of Ypres' but at least it led to finding out about the colourful John French:

Such a wonderful poem, it goes without saying (so why am I saying it?):

Should the Queen ever turn up, her hassock awaits her:

It's something about the distance they'd come that makes me especially moved by this memorial:

In the light of everything, as I asked yesterday, is it a good thing that the majority would probably now grudge giving their lives, if the cause were as hard to justify as that of the First World War now appears:

Each time I go to St George's, I'm reminded of Rudyard Kipling's story, 'The Gardener'. I feel sure Helen Turrell stopped by the church on her way to visit Michael's grave.