Film Review: Inception

Inception tells the story of Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), an expert at entering people’s dreams and stealing their secrets. Then he is given a new challenge – to do the opposite, to use his skill to plant an idea in someone’s mind. To do this, he needs to go deep into the dreamer’s subconscious, by creating a dream within a dream within a dream.

This concept makes for a structure as intricate as can be expected from director Christopher Nolan – each level of the dream operates on a different time scale, and events that happen to the sleeper can affect the content of the dream. For example, when the dreamer is falling, there is no gravity in the dream, resulting in one particularly spectacular fight sequence. The interactions between the different levels are well-handled, with enough markers to remind the viewer of what is going on ‘outside’ the dream. Indeed, it is impressive how the film manages to dazzle with its complexity while still not leaving the audience behind.

Nolan also finds hugely imaginative ways to represent the subconscious mind, to visually stunning effect.

DiCaprio, one of my favourite actors, is impressive, and there is a starry supporting cast, including Ken Watanabe, Cillian Murphy, Marion Cotillard, Michael Caine and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Ellen Page gives a mature performance as Cobb’s protégé the aptly-named* Ariadne, a talented trainee architect who he tempts away from her studies to learn to ‘build’ the settings for the dreams he enters. Her character in part serves as a plot device so that the processes of Cobb’s work can be explained to the audience, and to force him to face up to the past that is haunting him, but she brings a depth to the role, and there are some great sequences as she learns to manipulate the landscape of dreams, discovering the joy of “pure creation”.

*Ariadne was a character in Greek myth who guided Theseus out of the labyrinth of the Minotaur.

Art review: Céleste Boursier-Mougenot for the Curve, at the Barbican Centre until 23rd May 2010

This wonderful installation is exactly the kind of modern art I like: it’s interactive, original, and provokes a strong emotional response. You can enjoy it even if you know nothing about art and have no ideas about what it might ‘mean’.


The Curve space at the Barbican centre has been transformed into a large aviary full of zebra finches – yes, a huge flock of live birds. It is landscaped with a path winding through sandy areas with tufts of grass, and nest boxes have been placed on the walls. And around the room, there have been placed a selection of guitars, base guitars and cymbals, all hooked up to amps. As the birds fly around and come to roost on these instruments, pecking seeds out from between the guitar strings, their movements trigger a constant background of musical sounds.

Fascinating as it is to hear this soundscape, it is being in such close proximity to these creatures that makes the installation such a unique experience – and it helps that the zebra finches are just about the cutest birds imaginable. They are tiny, with delicate pointed red beaks and fluffy, prettily patterned feathers, in varying shades of grey and brown. They dart through the air at speed, and chirrup surprisingly loudly for such small creatures, their calls mingling with the more unorthodox sounds of the installation.

Since they have now been in residence for some time, the finches are very tame, and will land, uninvited on visitors’ shoulders and bags. I saw about six of them crowd onto one man’s feet, perhaps attracted by the bright yellow laces in his trainers, preventing him from walking anywhere until his companion gently shooed them away. The sense of wonder was clear to see in the faces of all the visitors.

I don’t know if there was some deeper meaning to this piece, but I believe that sometimes art is all about the experience, and this was one that I certainly won’t forget.

A video clip of this installation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89Kz8Nxb-Bg

Film Review: Shutter Island

Director Martin Scorsese has created an old-fashioned thriller, in which he openly acknowledges his debt to the likes of Hitchcock. The film is set in the 1950s, and its tropes and imagery hark back to an earlier age of cinema: the protagonists are physically isolated on a forbidding looking island, dramatic weather sets the mood, the hands of the inmates reach out through the bars of the asylum cells.

However, the film is not an exercise in knowing pastiche, more of a faithful homage. And it is fitting, therefore, that I found it enjoyable in a very old-fashioned way – as an exciting and satisfying mystery. Despite the many twists and turns of the plot, it was in no way demanding to follow and I felt that the story was always ‘fair’ to the audience in that none of the twists came out of the blue. They were not predictable, but they were always set up within the context of the story. Twists that come completely out of nowhere can feel contrived, leaving the audience feeling cheated, as though the film they thought they were watching has been tossed aside for the sake of some meaningless cheap shock. In this case, the twists, as good twists should, throw new light on what has gone before, so that, even when everything is turned on its head, the audience still feels they are watching a complete and satisfying film.

Leonardo diCaprio - an excellent and somewhat under-rated actor in my opinion -gives a typically convincing performance in the lead role, and the supporting cast do a good job too, with just the right amount of hamminess on display for the type of film. Everybody looks the part - Mark Ruffalo in particular, as diCaprio’s sidekick, seems to have the perfect face for the 1950s - and the cinematography is stunning and atmospheric.

Despite touching on some interesting points about power, exploitation and the nature of madness, it never explores any of these ideas further than they move the plot along. This is not a think piece. It set out to be a thriller and it delivers magnificently – a masterclass in tension, pace and atmosphere.

Why 6 Music should be saved (And not just because I like it)

I have to admit I love 6 Music. I listen to it all the time, and if they do get rid of it, there won’t be much point me even owning a radio any more, let alone a digital one. But that’s not the only reason it should be saved.


I would take issue with BBC Director General Mark Thompson’s crude characterisation of the station as a “pop music” station. In an interview with the BBC News Channel (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8545538.stm), Mr Thompson said: “We have, in Radio 1 and Radio 2, two popular music, UK-wide radio stations and we should concentrate on doing everything we need to do, in terms of bringing popular music to audiences in this county with those two stations.” Now, anyone with even a cursory familiarity with those three radio stations will know that the content of each of them is completely different to the others. And even if you don’t, there is still the fact that, as Private Eye points out (issue 1258, pg 10), Radio 1 is aimed at 15-29-year-olds, while Radio 2’s audience has an average age of 50, and the BBC Trust has recommended that it do more to target the over-65s. That leaves a lot of people falling into the large gulf between the two stations, even without taking into account those such as myself who feel we have outgrown Radio 1 before we have outgrown its target age bracket.

6 Music features a remarkably rich and eclectic range of music, and presenters like Steve Lamacq and Lauren Laverne really know their stuff. And, yes, it’s pretty geeky. If I was being cynical I could say its ideal listener was the main character from Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity. But it you don’t really have to be that well-informed to appreciate being introduced to great music that would never get played on any other station. And it also provides opportunities for new bands to get heard and perhaps break through into the mainstream (as was the case with the now-ubiquitous Florence and the Machine).

I suppose, when it comes down to it, its not just about 6 Music – I take issue with the Strategy Review’s whole message about ‘doing fewer things better.’ What this means is basically neglecting the niche in favour of the mainstream, and this seems to me to go against one of the main things that the BBC stands for. Surely the whole point of the BBC as a public body is that it can do things that a commercial organisation never could – like serving smaller demographics and taking risks with programming? The ‘fewer things’ it chooses to concentrate on will necessarily have to be crowd-pleasing, populist things, similar to what commercial channels and stations provide. If the BBC has no place for eccentrics, then who else will?
Make your feelings known: https://consultations.external.bbc.co.uk/departments/bbc/bbc-strategy-review/consultation/consult_view

Or email: srconsultation@bbc.co.uk

Theatre review: Money, Shunt Collective, Bermondsey St, London, 12th March 2010

For this show, the Shunt Collective has created a vast and highly original set in a warehouse near its Bermondsey Street headquarters. From the outside, it looks vaguely industrial, some huge metal machine with ladders and walkways around the outside. Then, the audience are led through a door and into the interior. They move through a series of rooms and different levels, where the action of the play takes place above, below and all around. The surprises of each different section of the structure and how it is revealed give the piece part of its impact, so I won’t give too many details, but suffice to say that it is about as far as you can get from a traditional proscenium arch theatre.


The reviews that I had read led me to believe that there was no plot whatsoever, but this isn’t strictly true. It is certainly sparse in detail, the dialogue is often absurd and elliptical and there isn’t a conventional narrative. But the play is based on Emile Zola’s novel L’Argent, which was about a real life banking crash in nineteenth century France, and with this in mind it is easy to see the machine as representative of a financial institution. Early on, a man tries to gain entry into a Kafkaesque bureaucratic organisation. Later, the same character, now a big success, reels off meaningless but ever increasing numbers to show how his unspecified enterprise is growing. Another character tells a story about a man who was desperate to buy shares in “this”, she says, with a wave of the arm that takes in the whole set without explaining what it is that is so valuable.

The machine is an apt metaphor for a bloated financial institution – a vast, incomprehensible structure, whose function is unclear, but whose vital importance is never questioned by those who rush around it, endlessly tending to its hissing, groaning pipes and gears. As the numbers on the screens shoot up, it seems ever more unlikely that the structure can take the strain.

In the end, this show is all about the spectacle. Being at the centre of the action is a successful technique because it is so immersive. Every little detail of the set produces satisfying ‘ooo’s of wonder as it is revealed. The sights and sounds and surprises produce a genuine reaction from the audience. It doesn’t play on the emotions in the way that a character-driven drama might, but it provides an intense sensory experience that never allows you to stay a step removed.

I have an article on Comment is Free...

Check out my Comment is Free article: How saying Kathryn Bigelow has made a 'man's film' does female directors no favours.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/11/kathryn-bigelow-women-male-establishment

Film Review: Up in the Air

George Clooney, despite being one of the most A-listed men on the planet, seems to spend very little of his time making blockbusters. He manages to maintain hugely mainstream status, while choosing roles in offbeat or unusual films, and supporting projects that he believes in (see: Oh Brother Where Art Thou?, Good Night and Good Luck, etc) With this in mind, I had high hopes for this quirky comedy about a businessman who spends most of his life flying from one part of America to another.


In reality, the film did not turn out to be anything special, although it was well-acted and amusing. Clooney is charming and charismatic as Ryan Bingham, who loves his life on the road and eschews emotional ties, and his skills as a comic actor are also on display. Although the film is never hilarious, there are plenty of laughs to be had. Telling little details of Ryan’s life are revealed as he shows off his frequent flyer cards to fellow business traveller and occasional lover Alex (Vera Farmiga), or demonstrates his methods for a quick and painless transit through an airport to the new recruit he reluctantly trains (Anna Kendrick). Kendrick also gives a good performance as Natalie, the overly ambitious young employee with big ideas that threaten Ryan’s way of life.
The film is directed with a light touch and neatly ducks a number of narrative clichés, but it lacks the emotional punch to really make a lasting impression. The characters go through mostly plausible emotional journeys but somehow it is hard to care deeply about them. There is a confusing scene in which Natalie confesses her insecurities to the other two main characters, explaining how she feels under pressure to ‘have it all’ – to be successful in her career but also to be married with children by a certain age. It isn’t clear whether the scene is being played for laughs, or whether these deeply stereotypical concerns are a serious attempt at character development. However, elsewhere I felt the humour was well-pitched.

This is a gentle and entertaining film that is smart enough to resist easy answers or a neat ending, but in emotional terms I felt it didn’t quite get off the ground.