Dance of Reality, Alejandro Jodorowsky (2013) at the ICA
A sort of fictional, magical realist biography of his father, set in a mining town in Chile. Greek theatre – style masks on extras, his mother – huge breasts, low -cut dress – sings all her dialogue, opera style. The film has a Technicolor feel; there are clowns, dwarves, rioting amputees (casualties from the mines); scenes of:
- bullying and violence against a child (the Jodorowsky character);
- forced sex between his parents;
- mother urinating on father, to cure him of disease;
- suicides by shooting and hanging;
- mother and son, both naked, blacking each other up with shoe polish (don’t ask);
- a live burial;
- police attacking and beating amputee miners;
- graphic torture scenes – hanging by the arms, electrical prongs attached to genitals.
All this and more, but the film was light, funny and – embarrassing term – uplifting at the end. Obvious Fellini influence and similarities to Angelopoulos (departure on raft at the end). The light is so different from the Greek films though; denser, thicker somehow.
The story is basically the trials of Jodo’s bullying, ultra-macho, Stalinist father; his “journey” from this authoritarianism to the acquisition of humanity and gentleness. Brilliant film.
Little Pictures at Tate Britain
I thought I’d highlight some of the smaller paintings in the current display; the ones that glow at you across the galleries, overshadowed in many cases by huge narrative Victorian efforts. No further comment required, I think.
Ludgate Circus, Jacques – Emile Blanche
Cornfield at Ewell, Holman Hunt
The Hayfield, Ford Madox Brown
Battersea Reach, Walter Greaves
Top – Vollendam Holland, Elizabeth Forbes
Bottom – Mounts Bay, Norman Garstin
Captain Lee’s feet, Tate Britain
This very strange portrait – it always looks to me as if Lee is in one of those dreams where you’ve forgotten to put your trousers on – is actually a portrait of the whole man, not just his legs and feet. But I happened to notice that the feet, or rather the toes, are rendered as if copied from a photograph. They’re very long. The feet, however. are small – too small, I think.
Captain Lee, Geerhaerts
Imperial War Museum
Some “new” paintings at the museum; Ceri Richards, the great Leonard Rosoman, Ravilious; there’s a roomful of Peter Kennard’s collaged anti- missile missile posters and paintings. The most striking work, however, is Bruce McLean’s “Broadside”. It’s the sinking of the Sheffield, I think – but I just like the colours, unreformed abstractionist that I am.
Clothes Clothes Clothes, Music Music Music, Boys Boys Boys, by Viv Albertine
Last week, I was writing about “Hard to be A God”, the Russian film which is mostly shot in extreme close-up, making it difficult to get context. Albertine’s book is similar in this respect; it’s episodic and written in present tense throughout, which must be hard to do, because you have to be thinking as you though then. So it often comes across as naive, portentous, and volatile- but it’s also really gripping. I stormed through it and enjoyed it greatly. She’s very candid, spends pages saying how shy and self-conscious and lacking in confidence she is – and then reveals things that you can’t imagine yourself doing. Very brave and not ghosted, like lots of other music bios. Halfway through a brutal attack by a lover, in which he has her on he knees, with her face pressed to the floor, she tells us she is wearing “a stripy blue-and -white sailor-style Sonia Rykiel cardigan with an appliqued red silk heart on it, knee-length red linen skirt cut on the bias…”; that’s devotion to fashion.
Two other reasons I liked it – Albertine featured in the brilliant Joanna Hogg’s last film “The Exhibition” and was great (as was Liam Gillick, who gets a bit of a rough ride in the book) – and she re-bought the Island sampler “Nice Enough to Eat” second hand – as did I, and very good it is too.
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