onsdag 30 september 2015

Wild Young Bohemians - and a villain who scores

I see trees of green, red roses too, I see sexy villains on screen and page, and I think to myself: what a wonderful world. Yes, there's been another villain sighting - and in a book, for the first time in ages. I'm greatly cheered by this experience: apparently, the good old craft of villain-creating hasn't been abandoned altogether, and there are still discoveries to be made out there. For this optimistic new outlook, I give thanks to Kate Saunders and her novel Wild Young Bohemians.

This novel is right up my alley in other ways as well - almost ridiculously so, in that way that makes you feel that perhaps you are part of some well-known market segment after all, and that there actually are books catering specifically to your taste. A group of Oxford students form a society of sorts called, you guessed it, Wild Young Bohemians. As life catches up with them they become considerably less wild and bohemian, but there's still a lot of glamour and romance to be had. One of their number, the pathologically self-centred, beautiful Melissa, has an obsession with Quenville, her old (well, 19th-century) family estate now fallen into ruin, and an unsolved mystery connected with it. I'm a sucker for old family estates, but this time around I was less caught up with the Quenville plot than with the lives and loves of the old Oxford group when they enter the real world. And then, there's the villain hottie, Johnny Ferrars - a delinquent vagabond and consequently rougher than what I'm used to. However, he turns out to be as intelligent and charismatic as any middle-class baddie - not to mention stunning - and gains, in due course, the aspirations necessary to rise in the world. I lapped up the pages as he worked his way through the Oxford contingent in quest of his real goal, Melissa. Here, finally, is a villain whose attractions are acknowledged - there is, in other words, villain sex aplenty.

More than one character (mostly people he's slept with) single out Johnny as evil. I thought that  my theme for this blog post would turn out to be the problem of evil - as opposed to mere wickedness in the forms of selfishness, resentment, ruthless ambition, greed and what have you which is completely OK. Evil, as I define it, is doing harm for harm's sake - a seemingly irrational destructiveness. This is where I think I draw the line: a villain-lover like me does her normal run of champions small service if she encourages that sort of thing (I mean, most of my boys just want to get on in the world - is that so wrong?). I've always imagined that I'd be able to detect, and back away from, the smell of sulphur. But there is nothing to say that a truly evil character can't be charming and funny too - and then where are you?

Luckily, it turns out that Johnny isn't as evil as all that - though certainly malevolent enough to make the odd mine-closing or snuffbox-hiding incident appear downright harmless. In fact (as the reader has guessed, but the Oxford group are slow to acknowledge) he's not even the most evil character in the book. He develops a chink in his armour, and might not even be beyond redemption. Relieved as I was not to have fancied a being of unmitigated evil, I confess I was, just in this case, a teensy bit disappointed in a plot development which I'd have loved if it had concerned a less hard-line bad guy. Leader of the pack appeal does not altogether suit a man like Johnny, who's a beagle boy and then some if ever I saw one. All the same, Wild Young Bohemians is a very satisfying read - especially if, like me, you get irritated by the fact that villains tend to get laid far less than is credible, considering their general attractiveness. This is partly their own fault for foolishly falling for the wrong people - but more of that another time (and I suspect that I will have reason to broach the subject sooner than I would like).

onsdag 16 september 2015

The hard sells of Pixar

Ha - at least that's one more New Year's resolution kept. I somehow missed watching Cinderella in the cinema (I caught it later on DVD - sweet, but not essential viewing), but this time around I managed to fit in a cinema visit for Inside Out (and in the original English too), the latest Pixar film. And I think it's their best yet.

I've already confessed my devotion to Disney, or its animation studio at least. My feelings for Pixar, first a partner to and now a part of the Disney empire, are a little less gooey. I admire the Pixar people tremendously: their films are intelligent and masterfully crafted. But I'm seldom so completely taken in by a Pixar film as I am by "pure Disney" products with their extra spoonfuls of sugar. This is because Pixar's films, clever, funny and often moving (the prologue to Up is hyped for a reason) though they are, can sometimes peddle disconcerting messages.

Take the Toy Story trilogy, doing it best to reinforce the needless guilt one feels towards toys one has abandoned. The fears that the films' protagonists show of being replaced, forgotten or thrown away are imaginatively handled - but to what purpose, exactly? Even adults have a hard time coming to terms with the fact that their old beloved toys are not, in fact, alive and do not have feelings to hurt - and films like Toy Story 1-3 aren't helping. I can only hope that kids are more sensible, and not too shaken up by scenarios where a teddy bear lost during an outing and then replaced is so traumatised he turns into a psycho.

Then there's Finding Nemo, where the message is that parents should not be too overprotective towards their children, but should allow them to have adventures. But overprotectiveness isn't such a grievous fault as all that, is it? What's more, it's a sign of love. Is it necessary to guilt-trip loving parents and to hint that they may lose their offsprings' affection if they hold on too hard? And what about The Incredibles? There were critics who raved about this film's "shameless elitism" and found it very refreshing. But it depends on what you mean by elitism, doesn't it? The Incredibles encourages the use of superpowers if you've got them - except in the real world, people don't have superpowers. It doesn't work as a parable to normal talents either: the most talented person in the film is the villain, who attains superpowers through using inventions perfected by hard work and perseverance (and a lot of killing). Yet he and his "fake" superpowers are considered lesser than the "real" superheroes (all right, partly because he puts the teddy bear in the shade when it comes to psychopathic behaviour). This isn't meritocratic elitism - it's aristocratic elitism. If you weren't born a superhero, you shouldn't get ideas above your station.

I remember my amusement when various intellectuals procaimed how much better and more "edgy" the animated film Antz (DreamWorks) was compared to A Bug's Life (Pixar). Well yes, if you think a strong individualistic message is "edgy", then Antz is certainly edgier. But if you're looking for revolutionary fervour, look no further than the oppressed masses of ants in A Bug's Life rising up collectively against the exploitative grasshoppers. I'd have thought this would be right up the street of those commentators who routinely sneer at anything associated with Disney. For myself, though I've seen and enjoyed A Bug's Life often (I've only seen Antz once), I feel a twinge of unease when Flik pronounces with great emphasis that "ants are not meant to serve grasshoppers". Um... what's he implying, exactly?

The message of Inside Out is a characteristically hard sell, but this time I buy it. The film takes place inside the mind of Riley, an eleven-year-old girl, where her feelings see to the day-to-day-running of things under the management of the relentlessly upbeat Joy. The other feelings personalised in Riley's head are Sadness, Disgust, Anger and Fear. Joy can just about see the point of the other feelings, except Sadness. The film sets out to show her - as well as the viewers - that sadness has just as worthwhile a part to play in a person's life as joy.

This is very skilfully done, and the packaging is breathtaking. The different parts of Riley's mind - long-term memory, imagination, abstract thought, dreams, the subconscious "where all the troublemakers end up" etc. - are depicted with all the inventiveness you expect from such a setting. There is much attention to detail, where you see the interplay between what goes on inside Riley's mind and outside in her surroundings. For instance, I liked the scene where Disgust, Fear and Anger frantically try "to be Joy" in her absence, with the effect that Riley's answers to her parents' questioning - which look upbeat enough on paper - come across as sarcastic, wary and defensive respectively.

It's imaginative, brainy, well-scripted, visually stunning entertainment - and it almost convinced me that sadness is as important as joy.     

torsdag 10 september 2015

The derailing of Ross

Oh dear. Spoke to soon, didn't I? Here I was, thinking that Ross Poldark showed healthy signs of self-awareness and that he didn't seem too enamoured of his own hero status. Well, not for long. Before the first series was done, he had committed the lethal double-fault which heroes should avoid at all costs: he loudly and repeatedly declared his own moral superiority, then went on to do something ethically indefensible without showing the slightest trace of remorse.

The notion of being the People's Friend was always going to be at the bottom of most annoying Ross behaviour. This is one area where he makes no bones about thinking himself more admirable than others - Gorgeous George and uncle, naturally, but also other members of the upper-middle class and gentry. As soon as one of Ross's rustic pals is in danger, his judgment seems to go out of the window. The first time he stoops to moral grandstanding is when he tries to get Jim, a childhood friend and picturesquely poor, off the charge of poaching. The only trouble is, Jim's guilty, and what's more, a repeat offender. Ross guilt-trips the court to bring in the sentence of two years' imprisonment - this for a crime that could lead to either hanging or transportation. But Ross is not satisfied: Jim's lungs are weak, he will surely die, the judges are monsters. Afterwards, he realises briefly that his thundering sermonising to the judges may not have been the best way to win hearts and minds, and that he would have served Jim better if he had been civil. However, his anger rises again when Jim does die, though not of his lungs but of a typhoid epidemic, and near the end of his sentence, which rather goes against the argument that he was physically unfit to go to prison in the first place. Nevertheless, Ross squarely blames the judges for Jim's demise, and spends a whole ball glowering at his unfeeling social equals.

Later, he helps another rustic friend to escape justice after he (the friend) has accidentally killed his wife. True, in this case Ross's protegé is at least innocent of the crime for which he would be tried, and it seems realistic that the court would have had difficulty in believing said innocence. Nevertheless, he wants to face up to what he's done himself, and it is surely a little worrying that Ross should feel it completely justified to floor soldiers in order for his mate to escape. One soldier is even shot (though not by Ross), and we never learn whether he made it.

So far, so normal, vaguely irritating hero behaviour. One can live with it. But at the same time, Ross becomes more and more self-righteous about his business plans, which at first were calculated only to make sure of his financial survival. Who knew that creating a cartel was such a fine and upstanding thing? And that anyone opposing this cartel's noble dealings - seeking to destroy it even - was an enemy of the community? That Ross's business interests should clash with George's is fair enough, but there's no need to be prissy about it. This is the mining industry, not a holy crusade.

And then it happens. Noble Ross, at his life's lowest ebb, looks out over the coastline. (Yes, his child's just died. Tragic, but not something even Ross can blame the Warleggans for.) He sees the Warleggans' ship, Queen Charlotte, run aground on her maiden voyage. There's a shipwreck. What does he do? Alert the authorities? No. Try to save the passengers and crew from drowning? Nope. Ignore the whole thing, because what has the Warleggans' precious ship to do with him? No, not even that. Joyously, he drums up all his rustic friends for a proper and thorough looting of the wreck. The loveable rustics cheer. Ross leers triumphantly. No-one lifts a finger to help the ship's crew or passengers. Only when less cuddly miners (because they don't work for Ross) gate-crash the wrecking does the smouldering hero call to mind that maybe he should "protect the survivors" - a phrase that indicates that more lives than that of the Warleggans' card-sharping cousin were lost while the Poldark contingent was having a party.

What is this? A man derailed by grief? Or are we seriously supposed to think that wreck-plundering's OK now? I was planning to use Poldark as a starting-point to another discussion on the well-worn theme of what heroes can afford to do, and why (unfairly, I admit) villains get away with much more. But I see I've used up too much space and energy with Ross-bashing instead, which I'm aware won't appeal to that many. In my defence, had I not had a more than expected favourable impression of the show's hero to start with (though his stand-offishness towards George is, of course, incomprehensible), I would have minded both the preachiness and the shocking looting business a whole lot less. It's what I always say: self-righteousness is a hero's worst enemy. Not only is it infuriating, it can lead to things ill done and done to others' harm.

A classic scene in innumerable dramas and melodramas is when the hero stands with a weapon in his hand in front of the villain, and the villain is baiting him to use it and kill him. Here, someone close to the hero (usually his love interest) intervenes: "Don't do it. You're better than him". It's not quite as simple as that. It's more a case of living up to your own hype. If the hero has claimed to be a better man than his enemy, then he is honour bound to prove it.