Monthly Archive for June, 2009

Katyn (2007), directed by Andrzej Wajda


published in Column 2
on June 30, 2009
.

Katyn, by Andrzej Wajda, is an angry treatment of the massacre of thousands of Polish military officers in April 1940 by the Soviet secret police, the NKVD. The film covers roughly a decade, from the invasion of Poland in 1939 by the German and Soviet armies to the post-war establishment of Poland as a satellite state of the USSR in the mid- to late-1940s. It is the story of the search by the extended families, mostly women, of several Polish officers – they were prisoners of war – to discover the fate of their husbands, brothers, and fathers. Their search becomes extremely inconvenient to the post-war Polish Communist authorities.

There are crude ways of delineating good from evil in this film. The good – anti-Soviet Poles – are mostly slim, beautiful women with finely arched eyebrows. The bad Poles – Soviet sympathizers – are mostly potato-featured and podgy. The music throughout is suitably sombre and also clunky like the film.

Katyn was clearly made for a Polish audience already outraged about the massacre, and it should never have gone any further than domestic television. Andrzej Wajda, perhaps the most illustrious director from his country, is in his eighties now. He lost his father at Katyn. Regrettably he has made a rather loose and tired attempt here to cap his long and successful career. The younger Wajda might have done better – a more energetic and no less outraged effort.

There is poor subtitling throughout with many incomplete sentences and even the odd spelling mistake. It has apparently been translated for a teenage American audience. One character, having escaped reprisals after a popular uprising against the Germans, later tells a priest she “lucked out.”

The word of mouth about the film has tended to concentrate on the shocking end sequence that depicts the mass murders themselves. A group of officers recite the Lord’s Prayer, verse by verse, relaying the prayer from one officer to the next, before each takes a bullet in the back of the head and falls into a mass grave. I found it reminiscent of the best of Krzysztof Kieslowki’s work in the Three Colours trilogy, but without his skill or audacity. That is perhaps because Kieslowski places scenes like these, of unreality, in incongruous and banal settings, and the effect is to create an extraordinary feeling of the sacred in the most unexpected places. In Katyn the scene is flat and predicable. It caricatures the officers’ fates. We already know that the Soviet action is bestial. We do not need to be reminded that the victims are martyrs. It goes dangerously close to the melodrama of a Hollywood Biblical epic.

The film will satisfy its Polish audience and further re-enforce the massacre as a crucial historical event and part of the national identity. In that it will have achieved something important, though it is still not a well-made film.

The Russian government refuses to take responsibility and apologise for the massacre to this day. – Joe McCarthy

An animated film on how we are always slyly looking at each other


published in From the Editor
on June 30, 2009
.

I came across this in the New York Times – an animated film by Jeff Scher, called “The Parade.” I thought it was visually powerful and had great music. The music is by Shay Lynch. The animator, Scher, says:

The street etiquette of avoiding eye contact lets us go about our business without the distraction of interaction… But the truth is that everyone is looking at everyone else all the time. It’s done on the sly, looking away when caught, often with instinctive pretense (as in, I wasn’t looking at you, but at that very interesting doorknob just behind you).

I’m linking to it not because I think it’s the best piece of art I’ve ever seen, but because it’s precisely the thing I’d like to publish on a regular basis in Some Blind Alleys.

A word on the Irish Writers’ Centre public meeting


published in From the Editor
on June 29, 2009
.

The Irish Times has already written a fair assessment of the meeting that took place on the future of the Irish Writers’ Centre. The article reflected the fact that the suggestions made by the public were largely expressions of frustration, or expressions of goodwill, and were not, in my opinion, things that the board could vote on when they meet on July 14.

(But since I have no knowledge of the agenda of that meeting, I’m only speculating.)

I think this unproductive, poorly attended meeting, without any striking ideas, is a result of the fact that people have lots of answers but no questions.

Some good ideas:

    Conor Costick, a teacher at the Centre, said the Centre ought to see itself as more of a hub for the provision of services rather than a provider itself.

    Declan Meade, publisher of the Stinging Fly, said the Centre ought to be reaching out to organisations and letting them innovate in the space that the Centre provides.

    A woman from Poetry Ireland said the Centre needed a business plan.

    A woman from the Abbey Theatre said there needed to be tighter links to theatre.

    A woman who is doing translation or something-or-other said the Centre needed a better website and could look into EU funding if it supported European writers.

These were all good, solid enough recommendations, but I couldn’t help thinking, What in the world were those people doing there? The Stinging Fly, the Abbey Theatre, and Poetry Ireland – I would have thought these organisations had already been consulted. Perhaps they were consulted, and, like me – I’d made my recommendations – were there to hear what others had to say.

I suppose, if I am to be perfectly honest, I went to confirm my suspicion that there really is no answer, because writing has moved beyond the question of, Why write? And has moved completely into an obsession with, How do I get published?

I wanted to prove to myself that my evaluation of literary society (I nearly gag when I write things like that) was correct. I found, in the majority of suggestions, exactly what I’d come looking for: really what writers want is not development, not improvement, but publication. If only there were a place to go to meet people who will tell them how to get published, they would become happy. It is like they think somewhere there is a smoky and jade-green brothel of agents and publishers in which they can go and smoke opium and be adored and fought over – if only people would recognize their genius.

One woman asked if they could get someone from Eason’s in to tell them what the anatomy of a bestseller was. If this is what the Irish Writers’ Centre becomes, no good writer will ever want to be associated with it. It will become a ghetto of talentless, second-rate poets whose only audience are themselves.

On top of this, people urged the Centre to get rid of the foundation classes (i.e., Beginners’, Intermediate, Advanced) presumably because it is a better idea to stop teaching people an appreciation of good books and start helping them write shit books – or running masterclasses that avoid the issue of learning as a foundation.

I watched some masterclasses once on BBC4, in which the classical pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim worked with really talented young professional pianists. That seemed like a pretty good masterclass.

But one can imagine the pressure Carlo Gebler and Jack Harte – the two men who led the discussion, and the men largely in charge of revitalising the Centre – must be under to create a Centre that will fulfil the hopes and dreams of the desperate and in-pain. When asked what I thought, I simply suggested they ought to shoot high instead of low – to create something that celebrates good writing instead of cuddling bad writing. But that is easier said than done. Because now they have to make money, and lots of it.

Seoul diary

Tristan Burke
published in Essays
on June 29, 2009
.

Seoul diary
In Korea I began to live my desires intensely. I drank too much, I ate too much, I whored around too much. After I met M, I was filled with a semi-demented desire for her.

One of my students in Korea remarked that, in comparison to the quiet, ordered streets of Europe, Seoul must, at first, seem like a kind of hell. She had travelled to Europe and liked it. But she had missed the chaos of Seoul.

Night comes, and the city fills with neon. An old woman chopped onions into irregular lumps and then fired them on to a hot pan in the middle of our table. With silver chopsticks we picked slivers of garlic and dropped them into the pan, watched them melt, and then we tossed in red peppers. The old woman held strips of meat up in the air with a tongs and cut the meat into smaller strips with a scissors. Pork fat sizzled in the pan; we picked out the cooked meat, dipped our pieces into bowls of hot sauce, then placed the meat on a leaf that was laid out flat in the palm of our free hand; we added rice and folded the leaf over, making a ball. The ball went into our mouths in one, and we chewed it down. The sauce was fiery; we washed the whole thing down with Soju. Soju is a strong, clear alcohol made from rice. It only costs a dollar a bottle.

Continue reading ‘Seoul diary’

All My Sons, Gate Theatre


published in Column 2
on June 28, 2009
.

The Arthur Miller play, All My Sons, directed by Robin Lefevre, has one more week in its long-extended run in the Gate before it finishes on July 4. It is an ironic date on which to end a play that portrays the rottenness at the heart of how one man achieved the American dream.

I went to the play ignorant of the story. I am less consciously critical of a production if I am unfamiliar with the play, so when I heard the production was good, I stopped reading reviews; I didn’t want to know what happened.

All My Sons is about a family in small-town America after World War II. One son, Larry, is missing, presumed dead by all but his mother. The other, Chris, is in love with Larry’s former girlfriend, Annie. Annie and Chris’s fathers were business partners, but during the war their factory supplied faulty parts to the US Air Force, causing the deaths of twenty-one pilots. Both men were found guilty, but Joe Keller (Chris’s father) appealed and was found innocent. The play opens with the news that Annie is coming from New York to visit Chris. She has not been back since her father was convicted and her visit is the catalyst for the internal breakdown of the Keller family.

Miller builds the potential for conflict into each character’s motivation, and in the second half of the play these private conflicts swell to blight every relationship onstage. The first hour of the play held me gripped until Garrett Lombard, as Chris Keller, first utters his love for Annie.

Lombard plays very convincingly the part of a mild-mannered young man, overshadowed by the memory of his brother, gentle with his parents, honest, honorable, and still disturbed by his part in the war. However, the portrayal of deep emotion is beyond him. When it came to telling Niamh McCann’s Annie that he loved her, something astonishing happened. I can only say that I thought at once of Terminator: Lombard’s voice deepened, his American accent became hugely pronounced and he roared out the words. The audience roared back with laughter; it felt like pantomime. McCann couldn’t hide her anger.

During the second half, revelations occurred. One is that the elder brother is dead – he committed suicide because he knew his father was guilty.

Suddenly the Terminator returned: this time Lombard lost hold completely of his American accent as he stormed about the stage and reduced everyone onstage to tears. In the audience, meanwhile, people attempted to stifle the kind of nervous giggles that come out when you are learning to drive and find yourself somehow in the path of oncoming traffic.

The set was also disappointing. I am always interested in if, and how, actors use the set to contribute to meaning. I want to see a little inventiveness and innovation in this matter, but the set felt stale and recycled. The clapboard house, outside which most of the action takes place, certainly brought to mind the disastrously melodramatic production of Hedda Gabler last October, and the front steps smacked of the early 2008 production of The Glass Menagerie, in which Lombard also starred.

A rifle is mentioned in the first ten minutes of the play. I’d been waiting since then for two things: to find out who would say the words “all my sons,” and who would shoot himself/herself with the gun. You only find out right at the end. – Susan Leahy

Anaïs Nin (1903 – 1977), from A Spy in the House of Love


published in Plugs
on June 26, 2009
.

Anais NinThe moment when she took flight, if the man had admired another woman passing by, or talked too long about an old love, the little offences, the small stabs, a mood of indifference, a small unfaithfulness, a small treachery, all of them were warnings of possibly larger ones to be counteracted by an equal or larger or total unfaithfulness, her own, the most magnificent of counterpoisons, prepared in advance for the ultimate emergencies. She was accumulating a supply of treacheries, so that when the shock came, she would be prepared.
- Anaïs Nin

A meeting on the future of the Irish Writers’ Centre, followed by pints


published in From the Editor
on June 26, 2009
.

Irish Writers' Centre
The Irish Writers’ Centre has invited the public to a meeting about its future. This looks to be the last major consultation before a board meeting on July 14, after which – presumably – the Centre will point itself in a direction and try to a) become a relevant organisation in the literary culture of Ireland and b) stay open.

The Arts Council – for anyone who does not know the story – defunded the Centre in December of last year. The Centre is now working to find an identity that does not include an annual grant of €200,000.

Part of that has been a consultation process with other literary and arts organisations. The meeting tomorrow represents the Centre’s consultation with the public.

From the IWC’s website:

The purpose of this extensive consultation is to ascertain what role, if any, the Irish Writers’ Centre should play in the cultural life of the country in the future.

If you’ve got any suggestions, all you have to do is show up at the Centre at 3:30 and voice them. I’m going to drop in, even though I don’t know why exactly. I’ve made my submission in an official capacity already, but I think it might get interesting. And it gets me into town on a Saturday.

Venue: Irish Writers’ Centre (19 Parnell Square, Dublin 1)
Date: Saturday 27 June
Time: 3:30 p.m.

Afterwards, if you’re around, we’ll go have a drink at the Hop House.

Traz, Stoneybatter block party


published in Column 2
on June 26, 2009
.

Traz are a four-piece band featuring transition year students from Mount Temple Comprehensive School in Dublin. They performed at a Stoneybatter block party in the early evening last Sunday, the summer solstice. They played three songs, all covers. It was the most memorable musical experience I can remember since a trad session in O’Halloran’s pub in Ennis in 2007.

Even more memorable was a Traz rehearsal I stumbled onto a few hours before the gig in the Joinery, a gallery space on Arbour Hill. I had wandered in from the street to see if there was art to look at. Feargal, one of the two people in charge of the gallery, was standing with his back to us, in front of a sculpture of twelve televisions. He was trying to tune in twelve DVD players with a universal remote control. As he worked, the four teenagers began to play in the back of the room.

They played a folk song. A skinny guy with an angular haircut strummed a small acoustic guitar. Another skinny guy with a mullet sat in front of a Yamaha keyboard. They played with a cool lack of enthusiasm, which I understood as teenage cool. They were accompanied by two vocalists who sang together, in harmony: a boy with a bush of marmalade hair whose voice hadn’t changed and a girl with dirty-blonde hair who wore an oversized T-shirt with two lobsters on it. The redhead stood; the girl sat in the corner.

The skinny guys played quietly, with the Yamaha keyboard driving the melody. The singers had pitch-perfect voices. Of the two, she was the leader, the raw force, and he tried to lift her singing through harmony. Somewhere around the song’s central lament – “Terrible am I, child” – their vocals seemed to float to the ceiling. This all jarred wonderfully with the subject of the song, which was worldly. It was called “Blue Ridge Mountains” (and written by the Seattle band Fleet Foxes, I later learned). There is a churning mandolin in the original version, but Traz relied on the keyboard. As a result, the song sounded like weird church music.

They played again around seven that evening, in front of Lilliput Press. All of funky Stoneybatter had assembled to sip wine and eat olives. Some people wheeled couches out their front door and onto the street. There were about seventy-five people in attendance. Traz opened with “Blue Ridge Mountains” and then played another Fleet Foxes song called “White Winter Hymnal.” Performing to a larger audience, it was clear what they were: a folk group. Traz use a time-tested folk formula – layered male and female vocal harmonies with melodies from an acoustic guitar. On the folk continuum, they’re much closer to newer artists like Fleet Foxes and Bon Iver than, say, Peter, Paul and Mary, or the Clancy Brothers.

Playing outdoors did not flatter them. The vocals got lost in the open evening and microphone feedback echoed between songs. But the crowd stopped and listened. The between-song gossip among the audience was that the female singer was only fifteen. The keyboard player announced that there would be no saxophone on the last song, “Mango Tree,” by Angus and Julia Stone. Was this a good thing? The original is a quietly catchy folk song. The Traz version was slower and sadder because of the way they sang the words mango tree. -Donald Mahoney

Help get the word out: put this poster everywhere


published in From the Editor
on June 25, 2009
.

Some Blind Alleys
Some Blind Alleys – the online magazine for new Irish writing and visual art – is a non-profit entity that needs your help to get the word out to writers, artists, and people interested in good writing and art.

The Some Blind Alleys poster is an A3-sized pdf image that you can download (by clicking the link) and print in your office, if nobody is looking. If you have access to a printer, and can sneak a few or a handful or many copies, please tack them up around Dublin, or wherever you live, in cafés, on office notice boards, on the street, in universities, in galleries, in theatres, in windows of just about any building – wherever they will fit.

Your help is deeply appreciated.

A lunchtime lecture: Brian Duggan at Hugh Lane


published in From the Editor
on June 24, 2009
.

Magenta Wall of Death
The artist Brian Duggan will be giving a lecture this Friday (June 26) on his exhibit in the Hugh Lane Gallery – Step inside now step inside. The lecture takes place at 1 p.m. The Hugh Lane website says:

Step inside now step inside is a new installation conceived by Brian Duggan specifically for The Golden Bough, taking special consideration of the particular architecture in Gallery 8. In today’s informal talk Duggan will discuss his approach to The Golden Bough commission and some ideas about, and around the new work presented.