Three TV series. Irma Vep, Mrs. Maisel, Stranger Things.

I do not like subscriptions. Subscriptions ruin lives. I know a wealthy person who is subscribed to Netflix and tells me he watches TV series every single day because he has a subscription and he has to use it. HBO, Netflix, Amazon Prime... I simply do not care. Not that you should be listening to me. I am someone who never cared for Breaking Bad.  

As a rule, I watch three or four TV shows a year and get out. Last year, it was Mare of Easttown (brilliant), Succession (utterly brilliant) and The Queen's Gambit (okay). This year, it is the following three:

Irma Vep (miniseries)

Irma Vep is such a glorious mess. How do I even describe it? Olivier Assayas (whose Personal Shopper is a masterpiece, and I will never get tired of saying that) is making a miniseries based on a film he made in 1996 which was itself based on a French silent film from 1915. In this film (or a miniseries, whichever you prefer), a French arthouse director named René Vidal is reshooting the 1915 version and is at the same time haunted by his 1996 creation. Huh?

Alicia Vikander is playing Irma Vep, the notorious muse of a criminal vampire sect, who also appears to be the muse of René Vidal (who is both Louis Feuillade and Olivier Assayas). Ah fuck it.

The fact of the matter is, Irma Vep is a hoot. Alicia Vikander is having the time of her life playing an actress who finally wants to do something meaningful in her acting career. René Vidal is a fucked up director, but then so is the character of Alicia Vikander. They form this perfect combination, and you get caught up in all the madness that includes the wild charm of Paris, the music of Thurtson Moore, the theme song of Mdou Moctar and a glamorous German actor engaged in the habit of erotic asphyxiation. It is smart, too, and there are clever shots at the PC culture and the world of Netflix all around.

Irma Vep is hilarious and heartbreaking. Truly, you cannot look away. And while it may on occasion be testing your patience with all those meta-references, this is a TV show as an art form. In fact, if ever there was a film which could explain to you the true magic of cinema, or at the very least give it a good try, this is it. 

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (season 4)

Why am I here, exactly? 

My story begins with a slim and rather obscure book called Kafka Was All The Rage written by Anatole Broyard. I bought this book in Manhattan a few years ago, and I had no idea what it was. It turned out to be a Greenwhich Village Memoir set in New York in those post-war years which, according to Broyard, were the greatest convergence of time and place known to humanity. It certainly read that way. I am infatuated with New York in the 50s and early 60s. Mad Men is a great TV show, one of the best ever, and yet it would not have meant as much had it been set in Seattle or Philadelphia. Which is how I ended up here, in the comic world of Mrs. Maisel - by turns amusing, awkward and oddly attractive. 

It is a story of a housewife who discovers her talent as a crude stand-up comedian on a male-dominant New York scene. It is good fun, and I appreciate the 50s/60s soundtrack that goes well with this brand of New York that looks both twee and irresistible. Besides, Tony Shalhoub is an absolute thrill as a grumpy Jewish father. However, the show has been teetering on edge lately, and I am afraid it has finally jumped the shark with season 4. 

For starters, it has lost much of its humour. Watch the pilot episode again - Maisel's stand-up act was actually funny. These days, it is a drag and I do not think these jokes can even raise a smile. They are coarse, but that is the extent of it. There are people who will tell you that Miriam Maisel is in a creative slump and she was supposed to be under par this season. However, this is like saying Ringo Starr's "Don't Pass Me By" is not a very good song because it was not meant to be. Excuse me, but I still have to listen to it.

Still, a number of great scenes (the funeral speech, the on-stage hypnotism, the Lenny Bruce performance), and the whole thing looks as gorgeous as ever. It is just this emptiness inside, and an uncomfortable feeling that we are now running entirely on fumes.

Stranger Things (season 4)

There are those who will say that the Soviet angle is a farce. There are those who will say the boys look grown-up now and the haircuts are ludicrous. There are those who will say they predictably kill every new major character. There are those who will say the Eleven / Papa line has been milked to death. There are those who will say the Vecna story has too much Tom Riddle to it. There are those who will say that this has become too overblown and self-indulgent. 

And it is all true. All of it. The fact of the matter is, I do not mind one bit. This has always been a nostalgic paean to the 80s, silly and unpretentious. And it is still exactly that. I mean, there is a guy playing fucking Metallica on the roof of some goddamned shack. How silly and unpretentious can you get? 

If you have been on this journey from the start, there is no reason why you would not love this fourth season. It is pure joy. The chemistry between Dustin and Steve (my favourite character, easily) is still the best thing about the show, and the Kate Bush episode is about as good as TV gets. And as for the Soviet side of it, well, as long as you do not take yourself too seriously... The success of Stranger Things is based on the fact that none of its actors and creators do. 

***

Polish Diary. Solidarity Museum in Gdańsk.

Pretty and overcrowded, Gdańsk is a port city in the north of Poland. It is a conurbation formed with two other cities, Sopot and Gdynia. You do not really live in Gdańsk. You come here for a day or two so as to taste fish and walk along the sea coast and the numerous canals cutting through the old town. Sometimes the amount of tourists gets a little overbearing and you have to join a queue to simply get to the other side of the famous Dluga Street. None of this, however, should bother you the moment you decide to get away from the centre and walk a little to the north. The European Solidarity Centre is located in a place completely untroubled by random visitors.

The design of the building was created in 2007 and the intention was to make you think of the hulls of ships built in a local shipyard. It is monumental architecture, modern but not excessively so. Later, after walking along the temporary fence honouring the events in Belarus in 2020, you enter the huge hall which seems both welcoming and slightly overwhelming. And then, with a ticket in your pocket and an audioguide around your neck, you begin. Speaking of the audioguide, you have to take it. With an immersive experience like that, the immersion has to be complete. Deprived of oxygen, you have to be flopping about like a scared child.

The museum (the Centre also contains a library) is a detailed story of the Solidarity movement in Poland which started in early 80s and ended just before the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In actual fact, though, the beginning could be traced to the protests in the 70s and even the brief uprising in March '68. The Gdańsk shipyard was the focal point, and through powerful images and creative installations (these include interrogation rooms, police vehicles and old-fashioned printing machines) you get to see how everything unfurled. You start with a nonchalant shipyard interior that stirs little emotion and you end up in tears watching the victorious speech of Lech Wałęsa. 

It is an unforgettable story, and it unfolds like a great book. The grim triumphalism can be forgiven (as well as the inevitable appearance of the Pope). After all, Poland was the first satellite state of the USSR that became truly independent, and that has to count for something. Still, I remember how Christopher Hitchens described his visit to Warsaw in the 80s: downtrodden people, sullen faces, and Hitchens clutching onto his British passport like his most prized possession. Because really - like in any meaningful political struggle, moments of euphoria are mixed with despair and self-defeatism. 

For us today, the events in Poland in the 80s are an inspiration and a reality check. It is the latter because the martial law and the brutal force did quench the spirited movement that seemed invincible at the start of the decade. And yet it is always the former because in the end Poland did persevere. The uncomfortable question remains, however, and it keeps nagging at me as I am walking on the roof terrace of the Centre surveying the whole city spread out around me like a bed quilt. The question disturbs me and yet I cannot shake it off. The question is this: could they do it if the Soviet Union did not begin to crumble in 1986 or thereabouts? Could they really pull it off on their own? It is a question that means all the world to me, and it is a question that I dare not answer. 

Album of the Month: RIDERLESS HORSE by Nina Nastasia

While trauma is universal, it is also your own private hell. Living with trauma is something we all get to experience at some point and the question, inevitably, is how you get over it. Because, as Nina Nastasia puts it in "Just Stay In Bed", 'death is a terrible place to stay long'. 

I am all for describing the actual music, and we are getting to it soon enough, but the story of Nina Nastasia is so tightly intertwined with her musical career that I will have to say a few words. 

Nina Nastasia more or less vanished from the music scene following the excellent Outlaster (2010). She had released six albums of undeniable quality, and then she disappeared. Once a year, I would initiate an Internet search that would lead me nowhere. A brief mention, a rare live performance, a weird photo, a misjudged Christmas song, and nothing else. Which was both odd and disheartening in view of her past brilliance ("Ugly Face", "Judy's In The Sandbox", "Counting Up Your Bones", "What She Doesn't Know"... the list is endless). Then, however, after a decade of oblivion, she has resurfaced with a new album and a painful personal story. 

There is no reason why I should be recounting the story here - basically, there is no need to. The story is all here, in each one of these dark, elegant, striking songs. Let's just say there was abuse, and a great deal of love, and then the person committed suicide. 

Riderless Horse is Nina Nastasia's way of getting over the last decade, and it is a difficult album. Both lyrically and musically. There is little light to these melodies, and the elegant waltz of "Just Stay In Bed" is frankly harrowing. As is the emotional intensity of "Nature". Steve Albini is back producing and the old sound, too, is back. Chamber folk with dark undertones - only darker, much darker this time. Which is not to say that the tunes are not pretty. They are, and this is typically sharp songwriting from Nina Nastasia. "Afterwards" is a desperately beautiful closer. "Blind as Batsies" is deceptively upbeat. And "Is This Love" is worthy of anything you may remember from Dogs or On Leaving. Instrumentally, it is Nina's voice and the acoustic guitar. Just the way it used to be.

It is a painfully short album, just a little over 30 minutes, and there is not much hope anywhere in sight. However, there is an odd hope in the title - but mostly in the very fact that this album has actually been released. Played, sung, and released. 

July Round-Up

Oddly enough, I actually did go to an Interpol concert once - this was in Germany several years ago, and a friend asked me to. The concert was surprisingly good. They played Turn On The Bright Lights in its entirety, and I had to succumb to the fact that if you could get over the voice of Paul Banks and the highly derivative sound, the songs were hard to deny. However, this was a club, the bastards were two hours late and my legs were completely gone. Which is why I am very critical of their recent output. That, and the fact that the songs from this year's The Other Side of Make-Believe (★★½) lack any semblance of guts. 

Which is not something you can accuse Viagra Boys of. Guts is what these Swedish guys get off on. Guts mixed with wild saxophones and visceral grooves are spewed all over Cave World (★★★½). To me, they sound like a better version of Parquet Courts - even if I really want them to take a completely left turn with their next album. The sort of left turn Jack White seems to be incapable of. Ballads or rockers, you just know exactly what to expect from him. Entering Heaven Alive (★★★), his second album this year, is mostly ballads. It is professional and well-written - but the songwriting oomph is never really there. Despite, and I know this is going to sound insane, "A Madman from Manhattan" sounds too much like "Born To Be Adored" by Momus. Just not as good. 

Another one who has released two albums this year is Robert Pollard (obviously). I really should stop listening to all these new Guided by Voices records - perhaps it is a disease of some kind. Be that as it may, Tremblers and Goggles by Rank (★★★½) is a very good album. I am fully aware that this statement is completely meaningless, but there you go. I know this, though: the power pop of "Alex Bell" is further proof of Pollard's deranged genius and a guarantee that I will be back next time.

Similarly, I keep looking out for whatever it is that Kevin Barnes has done of late. The horrendously titled Freeway Lucifer f>ck f^ck f>ck (★★★) is nothing you have not heard from of Montreal before. Whimsical lyrics ('Phoebe fakes orgasms nobody hears'), quirky song titles and melodies that can either be unexceptional (two thirds of "Blab Sabbath Lathe of Maiden") or totally irresistible (last third of "Blab Sabbath Lathe of Maiden"). Another good indie pop album was released by Canada's Metric. Formentera (★★★) is drenched in synths and late-night vibes, and it is a very seductive sound. Too bad the endlessly intriguing ten-minute opener "Doomscroller" towers well above the rest of the album. 

However, the sound that spoke to me in the most intimate way this month was definitely that of Linda Hoover whose lost album I Mean To Shine (★★★★) has finally been released. The album, recorded in 1970 with Steely Dan, is all original material plus a great cover of The Band's "In A Station". I Mean to Shine just sounds timeless and soothing, and while some songs are more memorable than others, when she hits it ("Autumn", title song) - she hits it as hard as Joni Mitchell and Carole King. Also, I Mean to Shine reveals a new depth with each listen, and I am fully prepared to overrate it slightly. 

P.S. Also, the third song on the new album by Beyoncé has 24 songwriters and 7 producers. I'm not making any judgement - just stating the fact.

Three films. Spencer, Power of the Dog, The Green Knight.

When it comes to the Academy Awards, everybody likes to quote Christopher Hitchens who famously said that it is impossible to have a nourishing conversation about the Oscars once the ceremony is over. True. However, I would have to go even further. Because too often, it is impossible to have a conversation about the actual films once a few months have passed. 

So now that we are deep into the second half of the new year, what is there to say about 2021? These are the three films that stick in the memory - for better or for worse.

Spencer (2021)

This film is so over the fucking top that you simply have to admire it. Kristen Stewart plays a tormented, dysfunctional Princess Diana who has to go through the ordeal of Christmas holidays with the royal family. There is nothing else to it, really, as the plot is mostly made up of minimalist jazz and Diana's misery. But it works.

It works because Kristen Stewart gives one hell of a lead performance (tied with the one she gave in Personal Shopper as her overall best). She really is suffering through all these uptight dinners, breakfast dresses and shooting exploits ("I love fast food and I feel sorry for pheasants"). She carries the whole premise on her shoulders, a premise that includes contrived parallels between Princess Diana and Anne Boleyn. She is affectionate with her children and she is contemptuous towards her estranged husband, and she is never anything less than absolutely transfixing. 

The film has stayed with me - for many reasons. Timothy Spall's sour face, for instance, and Sally Hawkins's unlikely confession. Mostly, however, for its raving madness that seemed so compelling that at the very end, when Diana and the kids were leaving Norfolk for London, it would have felt natural if the radio had started playing "Summer Smash" by Denim. 

Power of the Dog (2021)

Interestingly, this film only makes sense once it is over. Before that, these Western meanderings in 1925 Montana are little more than extended foreplay. Then, however, it all comes together, the puzzle is complete and you experience the kind of psychological orgasm the film was probably aiming for.

The film features another strong lead, and this time it is Benedict Cumberbatch playing a seemingly tough rancher (Phil Burbank) who hates the idea of a marriage between his brother and a widow who goes by the name of Rose Gordon. Even more so because Rose has an effeminate son who makes paper flowers and cannot stand up for himself. The characters are all complex, flawed and strangely intriguing. Phil in particular is all burning jealousy, manly demeanor and sexual understatement. At one point, he is shown castrating animals. At another, he is seen masturbating in the film's most tender and romantic scene. 

While you could say there is little going on in the film, you cannot look away. Jane Campion really is a master of intricate drama, and Johnny Greenwood's typically nuanced soundtrack only highlights the experience. I have not forgotten this film. In fact, I still marvel at the symbolism and the execution.

The Green Knight (2021)

I stand by what I felt back in August when I saw this film at The Odesa Film Festival. If there is just one masterpiece allowed for each year (and I firmly believe that is the case), then The Green Knight is that masterpiece for 2021. Quite simply, it has everything I need from the cinema: it is bizarre, unique and totally captivating. 

The plot of the 14th century poem which this film is based on is nightmarish in the best sense of the word. It tells of a strange deal proposed to a young man named Gawain (Dev Patel) by a mysterious Green Knight. If Gawain manages to sever his head, the young man will have to come to the Green Chapel the next Christmas and get the same treatment. Insane, is it not? Insane and initially impenetrable, but my advice would be to bear with it. I am not a big fan of medieval fantasies, and yet I was completely engrossed in the otherworldly atmosphere and the resolution that still seems as bone-chilling and magnificent as it did a year ago. 

More films should be as idiosyncratic as this. Clever, too, as in its own bizarre way the film says more about dictatorship than any modern documentary. It shows you its nature, the guts of it - and the timing could not have been more devastating.

Polish Diary. "Drive Your Plow Over The Bones Of The Dead" by Olga Tokarczuk.

It takes guts to write a detective story where the identity of the murderer is never in doubt. In the end, this is what elevates great art above mediocrity: the journey, not the destination. And the journey as presented by Olga Tokarczuk, the 2018 Nobel Prize laureate in Literature, is an oddly fascinating romp through Polish countryside.

While pigeonholing this book could be a thankless pursuit, I would say that Drive Your Plow Over The Bones Of The Dead is a gothic detective story with elements of black humour. The novel is set in a remote Polish village on the border of Czech Republic (or Czechia, as they prefer to be called these days). An ageing woman, Janina Duszejko, discovers the body of her neighbour who happened, just happened, to have choked on the bone of a deer. This neighbour is a known poacher, and Ms Duszejko (because she hates it when they call her Janina) first entertains the idea that it may have been some sort of revenge on the part of animals. From there, the story unravels in ways that are both sinister and honestly quite funny. It certainly helps that Ms Duszejko is a character. She gets off on William Blake, love of animals, position of planets and disdain for conventional names (she calls her neighbours things like Oddball, Big Foot and Good News). Or and also - she wants to know the date of your birth.

Drive Your Plow Over The Bones Of The Dead (a William Blake quote, one of many) is always more than just a detective novel. Quite simply, the depth of its main character is much too big for that. Ms Duszejko spends her days looking after the houses of her neighbours and she is also someone who 'loves crossing borders'. She is suffering from various Ailments and yet she says that 'being healthy is an insecure state'. She only watches weather channels and she firmly believes in the power of Anger ('sharpens your senses'). She values animals over humans and she has this interesting tendency to start certain words with capital letters (see above). You are on her side but you are also slightly creeped out by her ways. 

The story itself is drenched in folklore and astrology. The former provides one of the most genuinely chilling stories I have read in a while. The latter is dangerously engrossing and rarely tedious. Also, the book is filled with Tokarczuk's sharp observations filtered through Ms Duszejko's restless mind. For instance, she mentions that at some point all men become 'testosterone autists' who stop talking and just read books on the Second World War. Or else she writes a poignant passage about the treatment of elderly people and how at some point they get used to being brushed aside and disregarded, which, and this is the tragic part, no longer seems strange or disheartening.

Naturally, there is a strong detective element to it. It is central without being overwhelming. It hovers over the story and makes you think of the old cliché: it is not about where you get, it is about how you get there. The mystery is certainly intriguing, but you are just as invested in the actual world created by the author. Because the imagination is running wild over these 300 pages, and when Ms Duszejko describes the way Man fell to earth, it is both deranged and absolutely compelling. In the end, the question you are left with is this: who is there to say what is sanity and what constitutes madness? 

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds in Verona, 04.07

Every Nick Cave concert is an event, even the weather treats it as such. Italy is a scorched country these days, undergoing a heatwave of historic proportions. The region of Veneto in particular is hit hard by the motionless air and the unforgiving sun - so much so that the government has announced an emergency state until the end of the year. Which does not detract from the magic and magnetism of Verona - but it could make it a gruesome task for Nick Cave to perform the high-octane show we had all been expecting. 

And yet, a couple of hours before the start of the concert, the clouds closed up and the wind rose. There was a point when the wind grew so strong that the glasses and the bottles got blown off restaurant tables and the eyes got filled with flying sandstones. It was brutal and unrelenting. Warren Ellis would write the next day that the equipment was overturned and it took a heroic effort from the venue team to get everything ready. In hushed whispers and concerned tones, Italians were discussing the distinct possibility of a thunderstorm and even a tornado. In the end, though, after a brief rain and a field day for poncho sellers, the temperature dropped, the clouds disappeared and Nick Cave performed in near perfect conditions.

                                                                                        photo by Alice Blandini

I have seen Nick Cave live multiple times now. Each time was a two-and-a-half-hour outburst of emotional intensity - wild, professional, utterly unique. And it was no different in Verona where Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds played at the famous Arena, a Roman amphitheatre built in the 1st century AD. In a way, I have seen it all before - Nick Cave casting a spell on a fair-haired girl during the impromptu section of "Higgs Boson Blues" and Warren Ellis's body contorting fiercely towards the end of "From Her To Eternity". I have seen it all, and yet there is no escaping the sheer magnitude of the occasion. 'I'm transforming, I'm vibrating...' screams a possessed Nick Cave during the sped-up second half of "Jubilee Street" - and this is all true. Every word of it.

The concert starts with a double punch from Abattoir Blues/Lyre Of Orpheus - "Get Ready For Love" (PRAISE HIM!!!) and "There She Goes, My Beautiful World", and your pumped up heart is already cooked. Next, there are old classics ("The Mercy Seat", "Red Right Hand", "The Ship Song") mixed with new ones cherry picked from his latest albums ("Bright Horses", "White Elephant", "I Need You"). It is a vast catalogue of music, and surprises come by way of the soaring, majestic "O Children" (introduced by Cave as a song written, well, for children) and the adrenaline rush of "The City Of Refuge" (I used to think Tender Prey was his best album, and after a performance like that - maybe I still do). The encore was brief but to the point, as Cave gave us the disarming beauty of "Into My Arms" and the propulsive energy of "Vortex". The playing was superb, the forays into the crowd were hypnotic, the microphone was dropped and the piano sections were spectacular - and still, amid it all, "Tupelo" was the best. It always is. 

These days, the Arena is surrounded by the props for Aida and La Traviata. All these carriages and porticos and statues of Egyptian pharaohs - they look gargantuan and slightly impossible. And yet when Warren Ellis jokingly suggests that they should borrow them for Nick Cave's live shows - you laugh, but you laugh half-heartedly. Still, despite the big sound and the stage antics - you do not really need the props. You do not even need the screens. You do not really need anything, as there is not a moment during the whole show (which ends, inevitably, long after midnight) when you think that Nick Cave does not mean a word he utters or else that he is not there speaking to you. Screaming, croaking, whispering - but mostly, and most importantly, speaking.