Things are looking well on the belated watching of Game of Thrones front. I got through seasons four and five at quite a pace, compared to season three which was really hard to get through. Though season four was more satisfying than season five, they both proved ideal TV entertainment for ordinary workdays when you don't crave anything too emotionally engaging. At this rate, I have a fair chance of catching up on the whole series before season eight starts airing (and it will probably be some time before it's accessible to Swedes, anyway).
Not emotionally engaging, I hear you say? But what about those dramatic set pieces from both seasons, where characters we have reason to root for are betrayed, raped, killed or put through the wringer in other ways? I know, but though the characterisation has improved a lot since season one - where I was almost gleeful about how clumsy it was - and there are now several characters I would describe as likeable, interesting and/or funny, I'm still wary of getting too attached. I wonder if this is just me, keeping my distance because of the character-murdering nature of the show, or if there actually is an estrangement effect built into it. Either way, watching Game of Thrones makes me feel like a spectator at the gladiator games so abhorred by Daenerys Targaryen: I'm absorbed by the drama played out in front of me and mostly pick a side, but if the combattant I favour loses I shrug and move on to the next fight.
And like a gladiator game spectator, I sometimes feel a little dirty for watching the thing. The show's creators could, I suppose, explain the reason behind most of the individual gasp-inducing scenes we see by way of the dramatic payoffs they lead to. The accumulative impression you get, however, is that the show has a tendency to go for shock value just because it can, because it's the gritty Game of Thrones, isn't it? This impression is strengthened by the number of times a meal is made of some particular character's plight. I felt queasy twice while watching season five and was close to pushing the forward button (which hitherto I've only done once - during the castration scene and the prelude to it in season three). One time was when we see a nasty bit character hitting under-age girls in particularly questionable circumstances (he then gets his eyes gouged out and his throat cut, and no, that wasn't nice to watch either), the other when Cersei, admittedly a bitch of the first order, goes through a humiliation scene which goes on forever, and just so happens to be in the buff the whole time. We didn't have to witness either of these happenings in quite such excruciating detail. The tragic death in the penultimate episode was pretty drawn-out as well, but I sat through it, in my desensitised Game of Thrones state, mainly wondering whether the show's writers were referencing Greek mythology or were just complete bastards.
And yes, I know that the TV series is based on a series of novels by George RR Martin, and that the reason bad things happen in the series may well be because they happen in the books. Nevertheless, I suspect the TV series has a flavour of its own which isn't always pleasant. And it's not as if the payoffs we get really need all that build-up. It's a powerful image to see Sansa Stark and Theon Greyjoy prepared to leap off a steep wall because they realise that yes, there is such a thing as a fate worse than death. But did we really have to follow them every painful step of the way there?
I should stop whingeing now, because I really enjoyed these seasons of Game of Thrones, and there was nothing in them that disgusted me as much as the Theon plot in season three. The wallowing-in-violence factor probably wouldn't bother me so much if I didn't feel that the show has been hyped for its flaws rather than its strengths. It's a good show despite all the slicing and dicing, not because of it, and it's largely due to the superlative acting throughout. In season five, we got such delights as Jonathan Pryce as the most charming and avuncular implacable fanatic you are ever likely to meet. I'm also pleased to see Anton Lesser as a disgraced scientist and friend of Cersei's, who as soon as he has the opportunity covers her up after her ordeal. It's moments like that which make me think that somewhere buried beneath all its self-imposed edginess this series has a heart after all.
torsdag 29 november 2018
torsdag 15 november 2018
The Little Stranger and the poor, daft doctor
I'll probably re-visit the in-flight film subject later, but I feel I should try to write about something book-related as it's been a while. I didn't read as much as I expected during my trip, but I did get through The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters (among some decidedly lighter fare). And it was... fine. However, like (if I remember correctly) some reviewers when it first came out, my reaction to it is a little muted. I enjoyed it more than Affinity, certainly, but Fingersmith, The Night Watch and The Paying Guests all rank above it in my personal opinion.
So what could be my problem with it, and possibly the problem of the reviewers I mentioned? It's characteristically well-written, and the setting - a run-down, once majestic country house in post-war Britain - is atmospheric. But maybe we Waters readers have become a little spoilt, and expect a different kind of story than the one we're getting. In the novel, the already struggling family - consisting of a mother and her two grown-up children, a son and a daughter - who holds on to the country house Hundreds Hall starts to unravel as what seems to be a malignant spirit haunts them, one after the other. The narrator is Dr Faraday, who has loved Hundreds Hall since he was a child and who is by turns star-struck by and vaguely resentful of the family. Although he isn't originally their GP, a series of events leads him to take over that role and come closer to the family, which gives him a ring seat to witness events when weird things start to happen.
Remembering some mind-boggling twists in other Waters novels, I for one rather expected some brilliant explanation to the hauntings, which would put everything in a new and startling light. But this isn't quite what we get. I suppose we are given an explanation of sorts, but it's tentative and not as surprising as I would have liked. So, it's not really a mystery story with a clever, Agatha Christie-like revelation. Is it a straightforward ghost story, then? Sometimes it reads that way, but the right kind of tales-before-the-fire atmosphere only materialises fitfully. This is largely due to what is perhaps the book's biggest problem for me: the narrator, Dr Faraday.
Don't get me wrong - I like him, and feel for him. Of the novel's protagonists, he is the only one I truly warmed to; the Ayres, the owners of Hundreds Hall, didn't quite manage to charm me the way they charm the good Doctor. At the same time, Faraday is irritatingly obtuse, and you cringe for him as he blunders his way through the narrative and repeatedly misinterprets people and events. Whatever is behind the strange things that befall the Ayres family, it is perfectly plain that Faraday's explanation - that they're all going loopy - does not cover the facts, yet he insists on it. The son, Rod, feels himself persecuted by a poltergeist, so he must be mad. Mrs Ayres is plagued by what she believes is the ghost of her dead child, so she must be mad. Even if the Doctor himself witnesses a bruise appearing on Mrs Ayres seemingly from nowhere, he still won't admit that there might be more things between heaven and earth than is dreamed of in his philosophy. He may be a man of science, yet an actual ghost would make for a more rational explanation than what he comes up with for everything that's going on. The only things that don't fit the ghost narrative are the malevolence of the "little stranger" - why would Mrs Ayres's beloved dead daughter Susan treat her so cruelly? - and the fact that the hauntings don't start until years after Susan's death. Yet Faraday is so stuck in his "there's no such thing as ghosts" thinking he never sees fit to argue the thing through.
It isn't just the mystery that leaves the Doctor looking a bit of a chump. It's clear to the reader that he misjudges how intimate his friendship with the Ayres really is. The women do give him reason to think that he is more than just their GP, but Rod makes it perfectly plain he doesn't see the Doc as a friend, yet Faraday insists on viewing himself as such. Quite simply, he presumes too much on his acquaintance with the Ayres, and when he's told to back off, he doesn't get it. I was reminded in a way of Gillespie and I by Jane Harris, which also featured an outsider pushing her (in this case) way into a family circle with which she'd become obsessed. Perhaps I've become a little tired of the "outsider who wants to belong" plot, unless it actually leads to the outsider belonging. There's something inherently depressing about it.
I also thought the beginning of the book - before the ghostly stuff gets going - was slow, but there again, there's the question of what you expect. If you view the book not as a mystery, nor as a ghost story, but as a melancholy country house drama, then you're probably in the right frame of mind to enjoy it.
So what could be my problem with it, and possibly the problem of the reviewers I mentioned? It's characteristically well-written, and the setting - a run-down, once majestic country house in post-war Britain - is atmospheric. But maybe we Waters readers have become a little spoilt, and expect a different kind of story than the one we're getting. In the novel, the already struggling family - consisting of a mother and her two grown-up children, a son and a daughter - who holds on to the country house Hundreds Hall starts to unravel as what seems to be a malignant spirit haunts them, one after the other. The narrator is Dr Faraday, who has loved Hundreds Hall since he was a child and who is by turns star-struck by and vaguely resentful of the family. Although he isn't originally their GP, a series of events leads him to take over that role and come closer to the family, which gives him a ring seat to witness events when weird things start to happen.
Remembering some mind-boggling twists in other Waters novels, I for one rather expected some brilliant explanation to the hauntings, which would put everything in a new and startling light. But this isn't quite what we get. I suppose we are given an explanation of sorts, but it's tentative and not as surprising as I would have liked. So, it's not really a mystery story with a clever, Agatha Christie-like revelation. Is it a straightforward ghost story, then? Sometimes it reads that way, but the right kind of tales-before-the-fire atmosphere only materialises fitfully. This is largely due to what is perhaps the book's biggest problem for me: the narrator, Dr Faraday.
Don't get me wrong - I like him, and feel for him. Of the novel's protagonists, he is the only one I truly warmed to; the Ayres, the owners of Hundreds Hall, didn't quite manage to charm me the way they charm the good Doctor. At the same time, Faraday is irritatingly obtuse, and you cringe for him as he blunders his way through the narrative and repeatedly misinterprets people and events. Whatever is behind the strange things that befall the Ayres family, it is perfectly plain that Faraday's explanation - that they're all going loopy - does not cover the facts, yet he insists on it. The son, Rod, feels himself persecuted by a poltergeist, so he must be mad. Mrs Ayres is plagued by what she believes is the ghost of her dead child, so she must be mad. Even if the Doctor himself witnesses a bruise appearing on Mrs Ayres seemingly from nowhere, he still won't admit that there might be more things between heaven and earth than is dreamed of in his philosophy. He may be a man of science, yet an actual ghost would make for a more rational explanation than what he comes up with for everything that's going on. The only things that don't fit the ghost narrative are the malevolence of the "little stranger" - why would Mrs Ayres's beloved dead daughter Susan treat her so cruelly? - and the fact that the hauntings don't start until years after Susan's death. Yet Faraday is so stuck in his "there's no such thing as ghosts" thinking he never sees fit to argue the thing through.
It isn't just the mystery that leaves the Doctor looking a bit of a chump. It's clear to the reader that he misjudges how intimate his friendship with the Ayres really is. The women do give him reason to think that he is more than just their GP, but Rod makes it perfectly plain he doesn't see the Doc as a friend, yet Faraday insists on viewing himself as such. Quite simply, he presumes too much on his acquaintance with the Ayres, and when he's told to back off, he doesn't get it. I was reminded in a way of Gillespie and I by Jane Harris, which also featured an outsider pushing her (in this case) way into a family circle with which she'd become obsessed. Perhaps I've become a little tired of the "outsider who wants to belong" plot, unless it actually leads to the outsider belonging. There's something inherently depressing about it.
I also thought the beginning of the book - before the ghostly stuff gets going - was slow, but there again, there's the question of what you expect. If you view the book not as a mystery, nor as a ghost story, but as a melancholy country house drama, then you're probably in the right frame of mind to enjoy it.
måndag 5 november 2018
Films I'm glad I saw in-flight
Yes, I know - it's been ages since I blogged. In my defence, I just spent two weeks on the other side of the world, in sunny Sydney, Australia, no less, and the week before that I had to prepare for my journey. Anyway, as I'm still jet-lagged - always a good excuse - an ambitious book-related post which I know is overdue will have to wait a little longer. Instead, a lighter subject (which I might spin out to more than one post): films with which I whiled aways the time during the long flights from Copenhagen to Singapore and from Singapore to Sydney and back. Well, some of them. All in all, I'm pretty pleased with the selection I made. These are films I'm glad I've seen, but which would probably have disappointed me had I gone to the trouble of going to the cinema to watch them.
The Incredibles (rewatch) and Incredibles 2 As I've mentioned before, The Incredibles is one of my least favourite Pixar film. I rewatched it on the way back to Scandinavia after having watched the sequel on the Copenhagen-Singapore flight, and I still have problems with it. Mind you, the "supers are incredible, and you have to be born one to be one" message - which is both irritating, as it devalues merit and hard work, and confusing, as there aren't any supers - isn't hammered home as much as I remember. Nevertheless, if you're not a superhero fan, there's not a lot you can take away from this film. The Parrs are a nice family, with just the right amount of squabbling going on to make them believable, but I don't really feel that spending time with them is enough for me to want to see the first Incredibles film again. Fanboy-gone-bad Syndrome is a great villain, though - a well-realised mix of intelligence and basic immaturity.
Incredibles 2 has smoother animation than the first film (as you'd expect - it has been fourteen years), and the supers-as-aristos message is thankfully absent. The Parrs are still charming, and even more likeable than in the first film (Violet is a bit of a pain, but she has a just grievance). I was doubtful when so much of the pre-marketing centered around Jack-Jack, the baby in the family, as I usually don't enjoy baby antics in films, but his scenes worked well and were funny and sweet. All in all, I would probably have enjoyed the sequel more than the original film if the villain hadn't been so weak. In the film, Helen Parr aka Elastigirl becomes the poster girl for superheroes in a bid to make them legal again, and quickly comes up against the threat of a villain called Screenslaver, who has a grudge against modern technology. Specifically, the villain monologues, people spend more time before their screens seeking vicarious thrills rather than doing things for themselves. Yes, it's that old chestnut, and there lies the first problem. The Incredibles films are supposed to be set in the late Fifties and early Sixties, when the only screen-enslavement going on was a bit of telly-watching. Even if we allow the Screenslaver an uncanny ability to guess the future, when screens become more of a thing, the very alias the villain uses is an anachronism - it's a play on "screen saver", a phenomenon which wasn't around in the Fifties-Sixties because hey, no home computers.
I wouldn't have minded the clichéd motivation of the villain, though, if the Screenslaver's identity hadn't been so insultingly easy to guess. The villain reveal is set up as a twist, which is now standard in Pixar and Disney films, but it really isn't - it's obvious from the start who the Screenslaver will turn out to be, and the as-per-usual red herring is introduced very half-heartedly. This, I hope, will be the end of the twist-villain trope, which has become increasingly tiresome and predictable of late. We need a Scar/Jafar-style villain-in-front-and-centre-of-the-plot again (and no, the solution is not to bring these fine specimens back in lame, live-action copies of the original films).
Solo All right, I'm going to have to be spoilery, as one of the things that really bugged me about this film - apart from it being completely superfluous - is a reveal that comes at the end of it. Solo and his mates have been up against a gang of pirates led by the promisingly named Enfys Nest. In a late showdown, Enfys takes off his helmet, and it turns out that he is... a she, specifically a freckled girl who looks like Anne of Green Gables. And the "pirates" aren't merciless fortune hunters at all, oh no, they're conducting a righteous fight against evil crime corporations like Crimson Dawn, for whom Solo has been working in order to pay off a debt and get a bit of cash, and would Solo like to join the good fight and...
... whoa, stop right there. First, how many freedom fight fantasies can you fit into a franchise? It's bad enough that we have a resistance movement so generic it's simply called the Resistance (or was it the Rebellion in the first films?), which fights the Empire/First Order because... they're bad. Now we have even more shining freedom fighters, whose virtue is apparent as they have a girl leader - not just a woman, but a girl. With the original Resistance, we didn't get a lot of analysing of what it actually entails to fight in a rebellion - it means killing people and getting your hands dirty (and bloody). They did start to address these themes in Rogue One, though. But here, we are back to the old black-and-white crusading spirit - plucky girl vs scarred Paul Bettany on shady luxury space yacht.
Second, we get one of my least favourite scenarios - when a hero/anti-hero decides not to pay back a debt to a villain, because doing so would give the villain too much power or some such guff, and consequently the protagonist ends up being a wanted man. Honestly, hero away if you must, but could you please pay off your debts first? It's only gentlemanly. And third, the Han Solo we encountered in A New Hope was a hard-bitten cynic. Even if he doesn't join the girl guide pirates at the end of this film, he is far closer to being a classic hero here than the original Han was in the original films. We are in a way cheated of the romp with a non-squeaky-clean protagonist we had reason to expect from a film about Han Solo's early career.
Solo is an OK action flick full of action flick clichés, which doesn't tell you anything new about Han's character. As in-flight entertainment, though, it's ideal.
The Incredibles (rewatch) and Incredibles 2 As I've mentioned before, The Incredibles is one of my least favourite Pixar film. I rewatched it on the way back to Scandinavia after having watched the sequel on the Copenhagen-Singapore flight, and I still have problems with it. Mind you, the "supers are incredible, and you have to be born one to be one" message - which is both irritating, as it devalues merit and hard work, and confusing, as there aren't any supers - isn't hammered home as much as I remember. Nevertheless, if you're not a superhero fan, there's not a lot you can take away from this film. The Parrs are a nice family, with just the right amount of squabbling going on to make them believable, but I don't really feel that spending time with them is enough for me to want to see the first Incredibles film again. Fanboy-gone-bad Syndrome is a great villain, though - a well-realised mix of intelligence and basic immaturity.
Incredibles 2 has smoother animation than the first film (as you'd expect - it has been fourteen years), and the supers-as-aristos message is thankfully absent. The Parrs are still charming, and even more likeable than in the first film (Violet is a bit of a pain, but she has a just grievance). I was doubtful when so much of the pre-marketing centered around Jack-Jack, the baby in the family, as I usually don't enjoy baby antics in films, but his scenes worked well and were funny and sweet. All in all, I would probably have enjoyed the sequel more than the original film if the villain hadn't been so weak. In the film, Helen Parr aka Elastigirl becomes the poster girl for superheroes in a bid to make them legal again, and quickly comes up against the threat of a villain called Screenslaver, who has a grudge against modern technology. Specifically, the villain monologues, people spend more time before their screens seeking vicarious thrills rather than doing things for themselves. Yes, it's that old chestnut, and there lies the first problem. The Incredibles films are supposed to be set in the late Fifties and early Sixties, when the only screen-enslavement going on was a bit of telly-watching. Even if we allow the Screenslaver an uncanny ability to guess the future, when screens become more of a thing, the very alias the villain uses is an anachronism - it's a play on "screen saver", a phenomenon which wasn't around in the Fifties-Sixties because hey, no home computers.
I wouldn't have minded the clichéd motivation of the villain, though, if the Screenslaver's identity hadn't been so insultingly easy to guess. The villain reveal is set up as a twist, which is now standard in Pixar and Disney films, but it really isn't - it's obvious from the start who the Screenslaver will turn out to be, and the as-per-usual red herring is introduced very half-heartedly. This, I hope, will be the end of the twist-villain trope, which has become increasingly tiresome and predictable of late. We need a Scar/Jafar-style villain-in-front-and-centre-of-the-plot again (and no, the solution is not to bring these fine specimens back in lame, live-action copies of the original films).
Solo All right, I'm going to have to be spoilery, as one of the things that really bugged me about this film - apart from it being completely superfluous - is a reveal that comes at the end of it. Solo and his mates have been up against a gang of pirates led by the promisingly named Enfys Nest. In a late showdown, Enfys takes off his helmet, and it turns out that he is... a she, specifically a freckled girl who looks like Anne of Green Gables. And the "pirates" aren't merciless fortune hunters at all, oh no, they're conducting a righteous fight against evil crime corporations like Crimson Dawn, for whom Solo has been working in order to pay off a debt and get a bit of cash, and would Solo like to join the good fight and...
... whoa, stop right there. First, how many freedom fight fantasies can you fit into a franchise? It's bad enough that we have a resistance movement so generic it's simply called the Resistance (or was it the Rebellion in the first films?), which fights the Empire/First Order because... they're bad. Now we have even more shining freedom fighters, whose virtue is apparent as they have a girl leader - not just a woman, but a girl. With the original Resistance, we didn't get a lot of analysing of what it actually entails to fight in a rebellion - it means killing people and getting your hands dirty (and bloody). They did start to address these themes in Rogue One, though. But here, we are back to the old black-and-white crusading spirit - plucky girl vs scarred Paul Bettany on shady luxury space yacht.
Second, we get one of my least favourite scenarios - when a hero/anti-hero decides not to pay back a debt to a villain, because doing so would give the villain too much power or some such guff, and consequently the protagonist ends up being a wanted man. Honestly, hero away if you must, but could you please pay off your debts first? It's only gentlemanly. And third, the Han Solo we encountered in A New Hope was a hard-bitten cynic. Even if he doesn't join the girl guide pirates at the end of this film, he is far closer to being a classic hero here than the original Han was in the original films. We are in a way cheated of the romp with a non-squeaky-clean protagonist we had reason to expect from a film about Han Solo's early career.
Solo is an OK action flick full of action flick clichés, which doesn't tell you anything new about Han's character. As in-flight entertainment, though, it's ideal.
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