Last time that a two-minute song hit me as hard as this was back in 2019 when Fontaines DC released their single "Big". "She's a Fighter" is simple and charismatic, visceral and subdued. As is the video where everything is just perfect - and that includes a shopping trolley used as a musical instrument.
Robert Forster's new album is out in early February. Fingers crossed for Karin.
This year, The Warsaw Film Festival was more than its name would suggest. Alongside the main programme (which is in itself quite extensive) it incorporated what would have been The Odesa International Film Festival. The latter did not take place for obvious reasons and so this gesture from Poland was, again, timely and gracious. Interestingly, though, the first thing I noticed as I stepped into the cinema to attend my first screening, was that in comparison with Odesa's festival, the one in Warsaw just did not have the oomph. In Warsaw, this was yet another event, one of many.
Obviously, there were dozens upon dozens of movies in Warsaw this October and going through all of them would be a task both tedious and impossible. Which is why I would like to focus on just three of them. The ones that have won nothing and yet the ones that seemed most enduring to me. I sincerely hope they will not be forgotten, as so many things are once a film festival is over.
The first work that really caught my attention was What Remains by the Chinese filmmaker Ran Huang. It is an unnerving Scandinavian film set in the 90s about a man, formerly a patient of a psychiatric hospital, who confesses to a number of shocking murders committed years ago. We then embark on a journey that unravels something deeply disturbing about all of its main characters (policeman, psychiatrist, the self-confessed criminal). There is not much humour in the film and even the little warmth that it has gets compromised in the end, but the lead performances are all amazing (Stellan Skarsgård is perfect here) and the questions the film poses are the kinds that matter. Like, do we really want to know? Because we probably don't.
Then there was a Danish period drama called The Kiss that looked lavish and sumptuous but which made me leave the cinema with my mind and my mental state completely unsettled. The Kiss is about the days just prior to the start of the First World War and a young recruit (excellent but awkward) whose good deed towards a stranger ties him to a rich household with a beautiful but crippled girl. What ensues is a Mermaid-like story that is also a complete opposite to what a fairy tale should stand for. The film has wonderful Danish restraint and a lot to say about white lies and how important it is to listen to your heart. And, equally, about how important it is to not listen to it too much.
Finally, there was an evocative Latvian film called January about a young wannabe filmmaker / photographer who finds himself in the midst of a difficult relationship and his country fighting for its independence from the swiftly disintegrating Soviet Union. It is a great story, and the historical backdrop makes it all the more powerful (especially if you consider how cruelly history keeps repeating itself). Oddly, parts of the film are a little reminiscent of Jarmusch's Stranger Than Paradise (a comparison the film is fully aware of). The acting from the young cast is emotional and bruising, the symbolism is inescapable, and the ending straddled the fine line between devastation, beauty and hope.
It is hard to shake off the feeling that The Warsaw Film Festival just does not have as much significance as the famed Gdynia event in September. The one that truly is the Polish Film Festival that matters. Still, you do not really go to all these screenings to be swept away by the dresses and the buzz and the statuettes. Predictably, you only come here for the movies, and there is no question that there were some shattering cinema experiences in Warsaw this October. Those hopeful, depressing scenes from the streets of Riga in particular will stay with me forever.
The problem is much the same: too many podcasts, one life.
Making Sense with Sam Harris
It seems that I have been listening to Sam Harris's podcast my whole life. And yet it has barely been a decade. I listen to Making Sense (Waking Up, originally) in wild, addictive bursts. It slips out of my life and then it comes up in memory and in conversations and I get back to being a subscriber. I hear Sam Harris's voice, and for an hour or two, the world no longer feels like a bunch of non-sequiturs thrown together by a child's hand. I value Sam Harris for being a calming presence in my life, for being a great thinker and a scientist (the "Four Horsemen" video is still the best thing on YouTube). In his weekly podcast, Sam talks to people ranging from world's leading economists to comedians to Muslim dissidents to specialists in meditation.
Sam Harris is a devastatingly reasonable human being who keeps getting into trouble in the age of unreason. These days, his views often get labelled as provocative and dangerous, and yet you could not even pigeonhole him as being anti-woke. He calls out idiots and exposes Islam for what it is. He defends Joan Rowling against the most ardent proponents of cancel culture. He talks to people who have been ostracised for their views and who have gotten into serious mess for trying to stay reasonable (the podcast with Bret Weinstein is essential listening). And then there are occasional stories about Christopher Hitchens (who was Sam Harris's friend), and I cannot really miss those.
The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast
Bret Easton Ellis is an interesting case in my life. I do not exactly love any of his novels (notable exceptions being The Rules of Attraction and American Psycho) but when I first heard his podcast on my way from Minsk to Madrid in the summer of 2015, back when it first appeared, I could not stop listening. His taste seemed impeccable (I believe that first podcast was to do with the brilliant little film called It Follows), and his verbose speaking style worked like a powerful incantation. I remember lying in my hotel room in Toledo during that hot, hot summer, writing stories, eating melons with ham, drinking Mateus and listening to Bret Easton Ellis talking to people like Mark Danielewski and John Carpenter.
But then it stopped. Suddenly, the podcast ceased to exist and there were no more discussions about Trump, TV vs. movies and Bret Easton Ellis's own forays into filmmaking (of which we should not speak). This was in 2017, and it felt like a loss. Because the podcast was fascinating, and regardless of your opinion of the man's writing, you had to admire his insights into the world of art and politics and everything in between. But, as it turns out, all is not lost - and the Bret Easton Ellis's podcast has never really stopped. These days, you should come here, become a Patreon subscriber and start listening. Believe me, it is worth it. Bret Easton Ellis's mind is a minefield that does not kill.
Discord & Rhyme: An Album Podcast
Back in 2002 or thereabouts, I stumbled upon something called Web Reviewing Community and the wonderful and frightening world of independent reviewers and music commentators who have introduced me to a lot of great music I might never have discovered on my own. Later, I got out of loop and when I returned - WRC had virtually been decimated. Some died, some vanished, some gave up. And then, a short while ago, something called Discord & Rhyme came to my attention. A podcast launched by several of those music enthusiasts from the past; a podcast devoted to their favourite albums which they review song by song and with the sort of genuine obsession I have come to appreciate in people. The tastes of these people are diverse enough to cover artists as disparate as Bruce Springsteen and The Fall.
These days, I find myself listening to this podcast on a train or else while walking the dog and I always find something new and worthwhile in their dissections of albums I have heard a million times before. They have reignited my love for 69 Love Songs, made me less afraid of Phish, helped me rediscover the demented brilliance of Mr Bungle's California and proved that there is something fundamentally wrong with me as I still do not care for the music of Stevie Wonder. My two minor complaints: first, I would like to see a little more discord; second, how in God's name have they released 106 shows and three (!) of those have been about The Moody Blues?!.
Disclaimer: This is a review of a concert I did not go to.
Having toyed for a few months with the idea of going to The Libertines concert in Warsaw (November 4), I decided not to do that in the end. The concert was affordable, and there were tickets. But you see, there are certain things in life which should not just be viewed as part of history - but should remain that. Listening to The Libertines and Peter Doherty twenty years ago was a revelation. Up the Bracket and Down in Albion in particular. It would be hard to explain today, in 2022, what exactly it meant to be completely wiped out by the chorus of "The Good Old Days" or the fucked-up emotional intensity of "Albion", but that was like being dragged across the cobblestone and actually enjoying that. It was different. And it was special.
And now, in 2022, when I saw a poster advertising The Libertines playing at a club in Warsaw, my first impulse was of course to go for it. But oddly, the idea made me feel uncomfortable. After all, I had just listened to the new album of Peter Doherty and loved it. In fact, if you asked me now that we are coming towards the end of the year, I would say The Fantasy Life Of Poetry And Crime is one of the most underrated records of 2022. It is broken, tuneful, romantic, and it plays to Doherty's strengths. There is that unmistakable brittle beauty in something like "The Epidemiologist" and "Abe Wassenstein", and there are charming vestiges of past anthemic glories in "You Can't Keep It From Me Forever". Seeing this man play "Time For Heroes" and "Boys In The Band" would not make any sense to me. It would probably not make any sense to him either.
I am not talking about Carl Barât not releasing anything of note in years. I am not talking about Peter Doherty living with his new partner in some French house and indulging in his obsession with cheese. It is not about any of that. It is my imagination drawing vivid (and, let's be honest, we all have access to YouTube) pictures of Peter Doherty and Carl Barât huddled by the single boom stand and screaming "Don't Look Back Into The Sun" in that impossibly sad and tuneless barroom manner. Also, my imagination is drawing something else... them huddled by the single boom stand in the good old days and meaning every word which they sing.
And also, there is reality. The reality is that I still love Peter Doherty. And yes, his album in 2022 was excellent. And today I would rather be in a lonely French mansion, listening to him doing this (see video below). To me, this is not sad. This is beautiful.