Can there be too much fashion? I do think so…

By Julie Delvaux

(First published at Exzibit.net on 06 July 2005)

So, this is who I am – a young female journalist and writer, with a sophisticated taste, who, as any other woman, sometimes has this burning desire to buy something new – a skirt, shoes or a bag. If not any of these, then some baubles, at least. I don’t always find what I want, but as I don’t suffer from the lack of garments, I don’t bother. There is a pair of shoes that I’ve been wearing since high school, and that was almost ten years ago, so they are now a fine vintage and are regularly complimented.

However, every now and then when I walk into a shop and spend some time there strolling past rails of identical printed dresses, I can’t help wondering how hypocritical designers and labels are. They all profess individual taste and style, yet no-one – indeed, no single brand – lives up to its own stipulations. Why so?

I don’t know the answer, but the fact is that fashion has actually severely restricted our opportunities to create a unique persona. It’s good to think, of course, that a gipsy skirt you’re wearing is made by Gaultier or Cavalli, as opposed to a similar creation by a high-street label. Let’s face it, though: you would rather prefer to be the only person who drifts above the hot-burning road on a summer afternoon in this majestic gipsy skirt, and sandals with the tinkling of bracelets on your wrists. Alas, you are not the only vessel in this sea of floating fabrics, white, green, brown, black, blue… You are but a part of this summer regatta, and it will take a lot to make yourself fashionable and memorable all at once.

Or jeans… My Lord, even Liz Hurley broke silence: she said she didn’t like the low-cuts. You may think, what’s her business? She is the only woman on a planet who could wear a dress that was held together by a fair word and safety pins and looked glamorous, not trashy. Well, personally I’m quite happy she passed her opinion, as now I know that she is as hurt as I am every time she sees those atrocious looks that low-cut jeans help to create on some women. In part, I believe, they follow fashion, but do they actually have a choice?

A few years ago designers all as one began to make jeans with decorations, which usually fell beyond any sense of measure. Nowadays almost all jeans out there are low-cut. Not only jeans, in fact, but most of the trousers and skirts. Hence our eyes are exposed not just to the hanging flesh, but also to some disastrous examples of underwear. And notice this – I don’t mention any hygienic factors that rise from this full exposure. Personally, I’m too fastidious when it comes to wearing something low-cut, especially when I face the prospect of sitting on a bus seat where someone has rested their dusty trainers.

Perhaps, this complete dominance of fashion in our lives can be explained by the fact that we don’t have much time to spend on walking in and out of the shops, thinking precisely what suits us and our purse. Oh, yes, I forgot to mention just how much money is spent on creating an image, only durable for a season or two. We seem to prefer to grab a look, rather than to make a statement via a personal style. No, we don’t differ in that from our grandmothers who probably shaped their eyebrows a-la Greta Garbo or applied tonnes of mascara to look like Marlene Dietrich. Those ladies had very refined looks, which are still in demand, like the beauty and sex appeal of Marilyn Monroe and Doris Day, according to the recent Muller poll. The truth is, they were absolutely unique, which unfortunately isn’t so about very many of today’s icons.

What to do? Oh, I am still under the impression of Boris Bekker at Wimbledon: totally relaxed and elegant in that blue suit, with a white shirt and a pink tie, he said about Roddick: ‘He’s got to relax and enjoy his own game’. Taking the phrase out of the context, this is exactly what I have always been doing, and this is why I happened to wear chunky sweaters and endless scarves long before these came into fashion. And exactly at this time, three years ago, I was completely mad, searching everywhere for huge sunglasses, while everyone was wearing tiny ones. Believe it or not, I found the red pair in Grasmere, which suited perfectly my red shoes. Yet it took designers another year or two to introduce the 1970s-style glasses that used to make females look like the UFO’s visitors.

Of course, I don’t expect you to follow my high-heels and ignore fashion and go after your whims. Instead, I would hope the brands would ease their rather aggressive campaigns and clothes supply. It’s no fun to be the best-selling brand just because your frocks are cheap, as it usually means they are of a poorer quality. Women’s individuality is never in the price they pay for their garments. It’s in the equilibrium of personality and style, which reflect and influence one another. And since everyone recognises it, why not put this cornucopia of identical frocks and baubles aside and help women create their own unique personas, by limiting the offer? It may sound too revolutionary, but won’t it be fun?

An article on the first instalment of a screen adaptation of C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia for The Review Newsletter (January 2006)

By Julie Delvaux

(Published in The Review Newsletter in January 2006, and at Exzibit.net on 05 February 2006)

I have to be honest: I could not think that a fairy-tale movie may touch me so much. I used to love Czechoslovakian fairy-tale films, and I remember once taking up a fashion of reading Astrid Lindgren’s books for several summers in a row. Needless to say, I adored Andersen, Perrault, the Grimm brothers, and many other tale writers. But The Chronicles of Narnia somehow evaded me, even though the book was around. I did not read it well until last year, when I was on a placement with Songs of Praise and spent four weeks researching for the programme dedicated to the Narnia film. It was then that I had to read The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe. And even if I may not quite have become the book’s fan, it reminded me of that wonderful magical confusion I had in my head when I was a child.

What sort of confusion was it? At the beginning, I was reading European fairy-tales, as well as numerous folk tales. Then, when I was seven, my parents presented me with a book, pompously called The Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. These captivated me for several years, so much so that I was quoting passages from Ovid’s myths by heart. Antique mythology surged interest in world’s religions, as well as in medieval literature. The enchanted world I was living in absorbed all the characters and places, so that the Olympus was situated only a stone-throw away from where the seven dwarfs inhabited; both, of course, were next door from me. Becoming an historian only furthered the understanding of this eclectic quality of European, and indeed world’s, culture, where folk tales, mythology and religion co-existed and borrowed from one another.

The reason why I narrated my childhood experience in reading is simple – although not entirely, it probably matches the one C. S. Lewis had had, which he subsequently reconstructed in The Chronicles of Narnia. As we know from his biographies, he grew up on fairy-tales, ancient myths, and Christianity, which were later coupled with Northern mythology and medieval symbolism. As some critics have correctly pointed out, when Lewis decided to write tales for children he in fact decided to relive his own childhood experience in constructing the world of his own. The building material would have come from his wide-ranging reading. When the world of Narnia finally materialised in Lewis’s imagination, it was eclectic: there lived fauns and centaurs (Antique mythology) and talking beasts (folk tales); there were heroic battles, in which good and evil clashed (epic genre); and – at least in the LWW – there was the White Witch, so unmistakably resembling of the Snow Queen (Andersen).

Alas, Lewis’s prolificacy in discussing in print ethical problems dubbed him a “Christian” writer, which image is widely, if not moronically, supported by many people. The trouble, however, is that Lewis was an exceptionally ambiguous character. As a brilliant article in The Week Review in The Sunday Times illustrated, many of Lewis’s moralisations not only contradicted his own life, they probably presented Lewis’s attempts to reach some kind of moral judgement of himself. From the examples at hand one can deduce that if there was any quality that Lewis seriously resented, it was vanity. But it was neither sinful living (Lewis lived “in sin” twice in his life, although he finally did marry Joy Gresham), nor self-pleasure (in which Lewis confessed in his letters), nor even homosexuality (despite the evidences of Lewis’s resentment to it, one of his life-long friends was homosexual).

Nonetheless, the image of Lewis as the intrepid defender of Christian faith persists and more or less successfully ruined the way people think about The Chronicles of Narnia. In a way, it also shows how narrow is the reading and religious experience of those who prefer to think of the seven books as a kind of literary gateway to the Bible and Christianity. The fact is that many children do NOT pick up on Christian parallels, unless these are specifically pointed out. The attempts to boil the whole epic down to several biblical principles, let alone scattered passages from the Bible, impoverish as books, as Lewis’s vision of his fairy-tale land.

This common perception of The Chronicles of Narnia was potentially a trap for the Walt Disney Studios and the Walden Group when they embarked on the hard journey of putting the LWW to screen. Thankfully, they did not overdo it, and, if I have to describe to you my impressions, the film made me relive my childhood glee and empathy with a fairytale. Andrew Adamson’s experience in blending different enchanted worlds together in Shrek certainly added to the overall “dechristianised” adaptation. Art direction, of which I am going to speak below, is outstanding, and the magnificent score by Harry Gregson-Williams finishes off the very promising opening to the Narnia film saga.

Acting needs to be mentioned separately altogether. The four leads fulfil their task for the most part brilliantly, especially when they are engaged in action scenes. Together, the leading actors help to achieve and to maintain the playful element which is crucial for entire story and which would not have made Narnia possible in the first place. It is important to remember that the whole discovery of the world inside the wardrobe began with the Pevensie children playing hide-and-seek. This is an inverted reconstruction of how a child normally encounters and discovers the world – through a game, in which everything and everyone is ascribed a specific role. The only hope now for all four is that they indeed become more than just “children who were in the Narnia movie”, like most of their predecessors from the BBC series.

The voiceovers brilliantly convey the characters’ spirit, especially the energetic and caring Mrs Beaver (Dawn French) and the wise and merciful Aslan (Liam Neeson). Jim Broadbent (Professor) and James McAvoy (Mr Tumnus) are also impressive. Only Tilda Swinton first appears as a somewhat strange choice for the White Witch. Having seen so many screen portrayals of these ice-cold, detached, inhumane female rulers, one may feel that actresses like Helen Mirren or Glenn Close would be better. Cate Blanchett is not considered because after Galadriel this would probably be too radical a metamorphosis. But the more I think about Swinton as the White Witch the more I have to admit that, had my imagination not been tarnished by the image of Elizabeth I, I would probably have conceived of the White Witch as Swinton, from the start.

Finally, art direction and cinematography, for all the faults with computer graphics, is a really fascinating achievement. It is through the images that not only Narnia comes to life, but also the whole of Lewis’s experience in envisaging his magical land. I already described the eclectics of this land, but the filmmakers took it even further. As a medievalist myself, I cannot find enough words to praise the reconstruction of Aslan’s camp, which from the aerial view looks exactly like a page from an illuminated manuscript. Why is this important? – Because all his life Lewis was an ardent student of medieval and Renaissance literature, whose history he long taught at Oxbridge. And when you recall the knightly imagery of the LWW, you will understand that it would not have been there without Lewis’s scholarly cherishing of the noble ideals and symbolism of medieval literary tradition.

Needless to say, for me The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe was a enthralling experience. And I know I did not write anything about Christian imagery and ideas, but these are not important, and the final phrases of this review should explain, why. First, whatever Jesus we may want to see in the image of the Lion, Lewis called him Aslan, which is a Turkish (i.e. Muslim) name. It is hard to imagine that Lewis did not know what he was doing, hence perhaps one of the main lessons he wanted his readers to carry away with them is that of tolerance. And, secondly, if we think of the Stone Table as the Cross, then what did Lewis want to tell us, when he had it cracked? That Aslan saved us from our sins? Or maybe that Christianity is only a part, and not the whole, of the story?

Following the publications in the European press, the article looks at the English and French bids, and at why London has become the host city.

By Julie Delvaux

(First published at Exzibit.net on 07 July 2005)

Ever since 1066 England and France have been connected firmly by either cultural or political ties, and given this fact it is easy to see why there is still so much to debate. Be that politics, or sports, or arts, the Lion is always eagerly up against fleur-de-lis, or vice versa.

Centuries ago, during the Hundred Years, this rivalry was conducted through creating an image of an enemy. The French, of course, considered themselves more refined, while the English saw in their mirrors a reflection of sheer sophistication. The English said the French were cowards; the French said the English were drunkards. The discussion did not evolve around men only, it also included women. The English thought French women were ugly and deceitful; the French thought English women were deceitful and ugly. On the intimate matters the French wrote that because of their eternally drunk husbands, the English ladies have to please themselves, unless they wanted to wait till the second kingdom for their men to do anything. In response, the English author explained, why Joan of Arc was a virgin: she was so hideous, he wrote, that no man wanted to lie with her.

Five centuries after France beat England the two nations were again competing against each other in the race to host the Olympic Games in 2012. Like his predecessors, Chirac didn’t spare England of angry comments on their food. He went as far as to remind everyone that it was the British who imported ‘mad cow disease’ in Europe. And, truly, I wonder what he will be thinking in the forthcoming few days at the Gleneagles, where he will be eating British or at least British-cooked food. Most probably, he will be biting his tongue, but not because the food is atrocious. It will rather be a post-factum action that he should have performed at the time when the comments of English food were leaving his lips.

This time, thanks to the Olympic Committee, England responded in the best way one could only imagine. A comment on BBC’s Have Your Say read: ‘The face of Jacques Chirac will now be like the snails he eats’. And it’s not the first time in this year, unfortunately, that Monsieur Chirac is being gravely disappointed. First there was a parliamentary crisis, then the EU vote was lost despite all attempts to raise the ‘yes’ bid, and now the Olympics will be held in London, even though Paris was far better prepared in almost everything. Most of its infrastructure would only be improved, whereas the Olympic village, provided it was to be built, would subsequently become a new city quarter, thus leading to Paris’s expansion.

Unlike Chirac, Tony Blair’s 2005 has so far been lucky. He managed to stand up against all critique in a fierce electoral campaign in spring. His reputation has been tarnished by Iraqi war, education and health care problems, crime and tax rise, but whether with the help of Chancellor Brown or without it, Blair got the historic third term for Labour. And now he’s sealed his fortune with a historic battle in the Olympic bid, by winning at 54 votes against 50 in the closest ever race. He is the chief of the European Union, and keeps his cards close to his chest, like a true Grey Cardinal. And now he is also hosting the G8 summit, hoping to persuade the other seven richest countries to revise their African policy. And he backed Geldof’s initiative in calling in for music stars to press on the politicians. He had all the reasons to punch a fist in the air – it’s not the time to think of the political etiquette.

Of course, not everyone is happy. I spoke to Mancunians who were almost praying for Paris to win, because of London’s arrogant attitude to Manchester’s own Olympic bid. Even Londoners are concerned that the money which London needs to perform at the best level as the Olympic host will be extracted from their pockets. You may say it is pretty evident, but then in spring Tony Blair promised no tax rise, so now it seems to be the first promise that is severely and openly broken. The pressure on London is as bigger as the city has not hosted the Olympic Games since 1948. On the other hand, Paris has last been an Olympic capital in 1924.

So, while the Londoners cheered, what did the Parisians do? The video coverage on LeMonde.fr showed Parisians assembling at the ground near the Hotel de Ville to watch the announcement of the bid winner. As Moscow, New York and Madrid were being eliminated, anticipation intensified with every passing second. But as the name ‘London’ has left the lips of Jacques Rogge, a loud groan of disappointment and disbelief covered the ground. A little girl who was crying helplessly may remember this day all her life, so upset she was. London’s victory was a huge loss for Marseillais, who came to Paris all the way from his native city by an early morning train. A young lad with a Paris 2012 sticker on his forehead looked devastated. The ground in the centre of Paris, so full with people, emptied within minutes, and there has been no reaction at all, except for shatter and a total sense of devastation.

No-one on the French side can explain what happened. Indeed, throughout the race up until the announcement Paris was the favourite, having almost all major sport venues at hand. The video was compelling, made in the best traditions of the French cinema, somewhat nostalgic, very classy, with a little hint of miraculous grace of Amelie. Not only did high officials appear in the film backing up the Parisian bid, but also some stars, like the actor Jean-Paul Belmondo and the rock-singer Johnny Halliday. The entire bid, according to the TV presenter Michel Drucker, was telling ‘a love story between France and the Olympic Games’. However, the Olympic “Shrew” happened to be untameable. As Thierry Rey, former Olympic judo champion put it, following the loss of the bid: ‘We don’t understand… what more could we have done? I wonder if sometimes people don’t want us?’ [Reuters].

And that is a rather rhetoric question. Do people want France, and who actually speaks for them? The French may well organise furious demonstrations outside the houses of Juan Antonio Samaranch and Jacques Rogge, a la the G8 protesters, which of course will change nothing. As it happens, the decisions are made by those to whom power is delegated, and in this case it is the Olympic Committee, who knows better which city can be the best host.

Is London really the best host? Time will show, as the British capital first needs to deliver all its promises. However, as the Mayor of Paris Bertrand Delanoe said, the French ‘don’t have the same culture of lobbying, as the Anglo-Saxons’ (Le Monde, July 6^th 2005). Instead of promoting the infrastructure and facilities of the city, Lord Coe’s delegation turned to the Olympic ideals and principles of business. Paris did the same, but it was too eloquent on the occasion.

The key words of Paris’s presentation were ‘frankness, openness, humility and energy’. And they did address children, starting with the opening song by Charles Trenet about a man who recalls himself being a little boy in Paris. He adores the place, he is ‘only a little Parisian/Only a child/So simply’. Along with the steadiness, there was a constant nostalgic sense, and if anything else, it has definitely decreased Paris’s chances to win. It was as if Paris was more inviting people to visit France rather than showing France’s commitment to the Olympic movement and its future.

On the contrary, London came along with the promise of magical experience, best partnership, and the ‘lasting sporting legacy’. There was no word said about either media representation, or food, or London’s Olympic passion. Instead, all eyes were turned on the future of the Olympic sports, which are indeed the children. And so implicitly the British team has broken an Olympic golden rule. In the words of Le Monde correspondent, it is never the Games that need the city – it is the city that needs the Games. London needs the Olympics to transform the dens of the East End into a flourishing quarter. However, by focusing on children more than on anything else the team made the Olympic Committee feel like London is the only city out there that can maintain the sporting spirit. This is not to mention the wholehearted support of the Olympic bid from the government and the Royal House all the way through the campaign. And never mind the small businesses in the East End that will be ditched to make the dream come true. They will be dispersed for the sake of the future and children, and this is all that matters.

One should not of course discard the “lobbying culture”. However, Paris will have reconsidered its bidding approach, if it decides to re-enter competition for the Olympics 2016. The French may think it is not polite to press on the Committee in Lord Coe’s manner, but they have to listen to his words. Time and again in his speech he underlined the fact that nowadays it is more and more difficult to involve a child in a sporting activity. Thus, pressure is inevitable, but in this case the goal may well justify the means. The French were well prepared, and spoke from their hearts, and spoke a lot. But perhaps for their next bid they will need to reassess the legacy of de Coubertin and to rejuvenate the spirit of the presentation. And for once take the British as an example.

Naturally, scent does not only accompany and accomplish the look, it is also expected to be seductive. But what are the means of seduction in 2005?

By Julie Delvaux

(First published at Exzibit.net on 01 May 2005)

It must be a tantalising effort to design a fragrance advert. Since a scent accompanies – or accomplishes – the look, it necessarily carries the message of a designer, who is responsible for a fragrance line. Ultimately, though, it is a means of seduction, like fashion itself, and whether aggressive or subtle, it involves everyone, from a couturier to a voyeur. But, as it happens, passion evaporates as soon as its flow and outcome become predictable. And so the designer’s team twist their brain ruthlessly to create a seductive image of an elusive odour. Looking at some of these images of 2004/2005, how are these supposed to seduce us?

Forget indiscreet invitations and indecent proposals – today fashion advertising returns to naturalness and innocence. There are no sexually aggressive posters a-la Gucci in 2003. If anything else, it was an outstanding contribution to our knowledge of a female: it identified a Gucci-spot, a female lust-for-fashion trigger. But in terms of fashion photography and advertising it was probably a cul-de-sac. In many ways it was a logical conclusion to a scandalous CK Jeans advert of the 1980s: ‘Nothing stands between me and my Calvins’ – only a Gucci. How could you go further after this, without being called a pervert?

Since then we got tired of naked bodies, of looking at inviting lips, of listening to a passionate whisper… We’re tired of raw sex, albeit it doesn’t mean that we don’t want to be seduced. The 20^th century made us see everything, and we’re now aspiring for the impossible. We want love to be a miracle of Gustav Klimt’s Kiss: a tense union on the edge of a cliff, in which man fulfils his passion, and woman retains her freedom. In the end, we’re looking for a mystery, an unpronounced secret, the unseen. Style, The Sunday Times’ supplement, has recently printed an article about a dramatic change in a female bra habit. It revealed that women now love full bras, not those pieces of fabric and lace patched together only to provide support. Instead of “two breasts” there is now a “bosom”, and you, gentlemen, are not supposed to be gazing at it.

Fragrance adverts promptly reacted to this demand for mystery and subtlety. By far the most seductive campaign of the season, Valentino V, is still very prudent. A woman is naked, but she doesn’t flash her body, and, as if to intensify your aroused curiosity, she’s wearing a red feather mask… She’s inviting, and yet doesn’t promise anything. Would she be just as cold as that woman on Klimt’s painting, and why is she wearing a mask? What’s her secret? Your curiosity throws you into a sweet turmoil of unawareness, unpredictability and fantasy, which chains are too precious to break.

One of Chanel campaigns for Chance features legendary golden rain. According to a myth, Zeus turned into golden rain to unite with Danae. Even if it looks just as much provocative, as was a “Gucci-spot” campaign, it isn’t. But theoretically, this advert (that only features a bottle), bearing in mind the story of a fragrance, may rather be a take on Rembrandt’s painting, than a Greek myth. In Rembrandt’s Danae there’s a feeling of surprise, of astonishment, of anticipation as well as eagerness, and this is what Chance is attempting to evoke. A 21^st century Danae is locked in her apartments by the consumerist culture, and haute-couture has to devise new methods to reach out to her. It turns into a fertile golden rain, to penetrate Danae, to make her sense the beauty of fashion.

Dolce&Gabbana has taken Gucci’s space this season, by producing a sexually charged advert. But even then the lovers are caught in the process of foreplay, a mutual seduction that as yet doesn’t reveal more than what it wants to.

Calvin Klein’s campaign for Eternity Moment is also strikingly demure. Every shot is a hint, a black-and-white caption of a bigger picture that you’re invited to paint yourself, in your own colours or without any. A sudden look, a first kiss, and a fateful encounter that is sealed for eternity – these are only guidelines, but never a full story. Notwithstanding quite a few sensual scenes, the only strong link with sex is Scarlett Johansson, who’s often hailed “a new Monroe”.

Even Britney Spears, although being very Curious in her dreams, left it all to our imagination. Yes, she fantasises of that gorgeous guy in a neighbouring room, but we all know how enormous that abyss between our fantasies and the real life is. Would Britney bridge this abyss? Something tells me that Mrs Kevin Federline, who’s expecting her first baby, will not give us the answer as yet.

Generally, there are two trends in fragrance campaigns. One sets off to seduce a customer by offering sex on the spot or at least an unambiguous promise of it. Another is more accommodating to the needs of a modern individual, who’s got to rule his/her firm, hold business-meetings, travel, look through books and magazines (to appear, if not to be, intelligent), have family and children, and with all this he/she also needs to have some intimate pleasure. This second trend therefore starts by “winding down” this extremely successful business man/woman, and this is why in this trend seduction is identified with natural innocence, not the innocence of behaviour.

It was perhaps predictable that in the age of the green house effect and air pollution perfumers will try and bring to us freshness of mountain springs and the tranquillity of secret Japanese gardens. Air features in Ghost and Lacoste, while Davidoff, Hugo Boss and Chanel have chosen water as a motive for their adverts. And some brands attempted to combine serenity of nature with a promise for intimate fulfilment. DKNY for women features green apples, while a new man’s fragrance from Hugo Boss came out in a green round bottle, which again reminds us of a fruit of seduction.

In the fashion world, this is not the first ever demand for naturalness and the untold. However, these attempts to evoke the long-lost magic are overall very nostalgic. There is no chance to return to the early 20^th century, when those takes on mystery and demurral were appropriate, having been accompanied by stifling high-neck corset dresses and a grotesque male mannerism. Catwalk reports take us further and further from those black-and-white photos. Klimt’s Kiss is probably an emblem of this irreversible advent of time. At the beginning of the 20^th century a man had placed the last kiss on his nymph. The abyss of time has engulfed her, and all he is left is Golden Rain…

A review of the world’s best-seller for the MOOCH magazine (CSV Media, Manchester, April 2005)

By Julie Delvaux

(First published at Exzibit.net on 05 May 2005)

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown begins with a murder of a curator of the Parisian Louvre. As Robert Langdon, an American professor of religious symbology, investigates the case, curious details about Christ and his legacy come to surface. First, we’re told that for ages the Catholic Church has been concealing the fact that Christ was married to Mary Magdalene. Secondly, Mary was never a prostitute, but the aptest disciple and a gospeller. Thirdly, the two had born a child, and provided he/she had lived long enough to become a parent, it may well be that you’re sitting next to Christ’s offspring, as you’re reading this text. Finally, the Truth was protected for ages by various people and groups, including the genuine Leonardo.

It’s fairly easy to see why The Code is so popular. On the one hand, it’s a THRILLER, albeit boring at times. The further the book goes, the tenser it becomes, partly because Brown makes you wait for several chapters before finally releasing you from one and throwing into another ‘waiting’ turmoil. However, the message that everything the book talks about regarding Christ, Leonardo and the Church is a true historical fact is perhaps what drew attention to it in the first place. With those facts in his pocket, Brown potentially undermines our idea of who Christ was. And so I decided to summarise the public perception of this mind-blowing controversial message.

Vatican and the faithful are not amused. The Church has already been attacked in the 1980s, when a book The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail was first published, on which Brown relies heavily. But that was an academic study, scrapped from the reading (or misreading) of the sources (purportedly forged). The Code is quite different: based on the study of the images, which are always seen from the point of view; and it’s an easy-to-read repercussion of a medieval legend of a quest for the Grail. And, while Vatican condemns the book, it looks that the Church is being slowly encircled by its critics – the 1980s’ battalion came from the historical side, and The Code encroaches from the flank of the history of art.

Being an historian myself, I happily join my sceptical colleagues. I am very grateful to Tony Robinson for his wonderful programme, which elegantly unveiled the fictional character of most “historical” facts that Brown filled The Code up with. The only problem is, again, that people tend to read more for pleasure than for knowledge. I can’t ever remember anyone reading a history book in the street. But I do remember London last November, all beige with The Code covers. And now, in Manchester, I’ve recently run into a man with The Digital Fortress instead of a head.

Finally, as an avid reader and writer, and having spoken to some well-read friends of mine, I have to say that Brown’s book is far from being a masterpiece. Most of methods he uses in The Code have already been used in his other books. And although there may be nothing wrong with that, I nonetheless think that it’s essential for a good writer to vary in his style and technique. Surely, Brown’s literary career is by no means finished, but I doubt he’ll surprise me.

So, while Vatican frowns, and scholars dismiss, people carry on consuming the age-old tales. I expect this frenzy to reach its peak with a film release in 2006. Tom Hanks stars as Robert Langdon. I’d introduce a new anti-Oscar nomination for him, say, ‘A Remarkable On-Screen Thrust’. Indeed, what a progress: from Forrest Gump to a professor of religious symbology… It only happens in the films, you’d say.

Putting all minuses and pluses together, what did Dan Brown give to us? Well, admittedly, he gave us a myth, a doubt, a hope, and we’re all free to use it at our wish. A recent example comes from Canberra, Australia, where a man was arrested. He cut pages of The Code to smuggle drugs. So, in the end of the day, it’s not just a “hidden Code” – it’s also a hiding one.

Thoughts on Jean-Luc Godard’s latest film.

By Julie Delvaux

(First published at Exzibit.net on 28 August 2005)

Decades after his debut with a highly acclaimed A Bout Du Souffle (1959) and the rise as one of the Titans of the “vague nouvelle”, Jean-Luc Godard is still on the look-out for explanation and justification of the modern world, and it is these quests that he has been trying to adapt to the screen. It is certainly not an easy task to pursue, as Notre Musique (France/Switzerland, 2004, 80 min.) well proves. It is best to watch this film in the secluded environment of your own study, where you can stop and contemplate on what you have just seen. But even in the dark cinema hall one can still allow Godard the Virgil to lure oneself into the Dantesque journey through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise of contemporary world.

Masterful cinematography of Notre Musique, together with a sombre yet poetical story, creates a compelling eighty-minute philosophical narrative. Throughout ‘Hell’ short prayer-like phrases are recited, as wartime documentary footage blinds you with atrocities. This soon is changed by ‘Purgatory’ where people are trying to prevent wars. One of them, Olga, inspired by Godard’s lecture about the imaginary and the real, ultimately fulfils what she thinks is her vocation. Being Jewish, she returns to Israel to die for peace. We then see her in ‘Paradise’, where she and other youths are guarded by American marine officers.

It is significant that Godard has chosen to make a cinematic reverberation of The Divine Comedy. Dante himself was writing his poetic masterpiece at the time of political crises, and how could one possibly describe the early 21^st century, except that it is a sequence of critical, overthrowing events that endanger society? Death has become an almost usual outcome of these crises, and the theme of The Divine Comedy – afterlife and the impact of the earthy life on it – could not be more appropriate.

Godard (who plays himself in the film) has remained an adept of the idea of cinema as a great artistic power that influences the viewer. The world is a dark cinema hall, and cinema is the “light” that shines upon it from the screen. Cinema manipulates with the imaginary objects, but only imaginary is certain; reality is uncertain. Reflecting on this later, Olga recognises her alter-ego: ‘She’s next to me, I’ve never seen her, but she is myself. It’s like an image’.

I remember one film critic saying: ‘Can a schizophrenic philosopher be a genuine director? Well, Godard is’. Notre Musique may well disapprove of his opinion of Godard-philosopher, but at any event it is more than an idealistic reflection. It is a ruthless verdict of a recluse genius, and it comprises as himself, as the world around. ‘Humane people’, says the narrator, ‘don’t make revolutions; they make libraries and cemeteries’. Indeed, a humane person is shown, sitting in a ruined church in Sarajevo and making a book register. Now that the war has ended, he is saving books. Two Red Indians, the relics of destroyed civilisation, come to talk to him, but he doesn’t respond. He is absorbed by his task, and of course he is dedicating his work to future generations. But will there be any future, if wars continue?

‘Purgatory’ is an image of everyday peaceful life, and as such, it illustrates the contradiction between people’s desire to forget their past (an episode with a Jewish journalist’s investigation) and their ongoing wish to preserve it, or even to rebuild. The inquisitive camerawork on the reconstruction of the Mostar Bridge in Bosnia unravels the process of a literal “bridging” of the gap between the lost and the regained. The same Red Indians that now appear on the set in their native outfits represent an image of a historical approval of this redemption. Godard implicitly urges to dig the goldmine of world’s cultural heritage, to find healing against war. But it just doesn’t seem to work for the Near East.

Two female characters of the film, Olga and Judith, are antipodes. Although they are both Jewish, the way they relate themselves to the Arab-Israeli conflict is totally different. Judith is probably in accord with the view of Israel as a country that has always been restricted or occupied by someone. She is extremely meticulous and probing when it comes to uncovering the dark sides of someone’s Jewish past or to trying to understand why the Arabs are so violent to the Israelis. On the contrary, Olga comes to see the country of her ancestors as an occupant, and she decides to fight for peace, planning a fake terrorist act. But in the course of the action she discovers that she has no support from her compatriots.

Absurd in its romantic spirit story of Olga’s death as a fake bomber in an Israeli cinema is a disturbing conclusion to Purgatory. It is also in direct reference to a passage on the French cinema audience in Henry Miller’s Colossus of Maroussi (1941). After seeing a documentary on the French homicides in Indo-China, the audience had divided; the minority accused their compatriots of murdering innocent Asians, while the majority accused cinema staff of ruining their timeout. Sixty years on, Godard coldly shows that people still do not relate themselves to war. They are afraid of terrorists, even when they are armed but with books, but they are also unwilling to die for peace.

As a deliberate take on The Divine Comedy, Notre Musique has afterlife as its central problem, only this time it is reached by a new means and will thus have new implications. Death is ‘the impossible of the possible, or the possible of the impossible’, and as a fact has no significance for a philosophical inquiry. Now it is the act of death that matters. In Olga’s case, suicide, or voluntary death, becomes a response of a humane person to violence and the extinction of free will. ‘We cannot free ourselves, and we call that democracy’, says narrator; so, by committing suicide, one returns to his free “self”.

Godard expands Camus’s original definition of suicide as the only truly philosophical problem. Notre Musique successfully shifts one’s mind from the choice between life and death, to the choice between a purposeless forced death in the course of war and a purposeful voluntary death for peace. Both, in effect, are wasted, and we turn the final page of ‘Purgatory’ with a distressing feeling of being unable to ever positively contribute to making peace.

Meanwhile, Olga has found herself in ‘Paradise’. In those heavenly groves, she discovers other young people playing handball or reading books. The wonderful peacefulness of the place is in a tense contradiction with the guarding angels in military forms, armed with rifles and handguns. Through fascinating cinematography Godard sketches an image of Peace that needs to be protected by weapons against weapons. Amidst the rich scenery there is no bliss, and it takes Olga by surprise.

Recalling her earthy past, Olga uses the same vocabulary of opposition between the imaginary and the real. Only imaginary is certain, which means that her image will not be forgotten. This image of a young girl who dies a romantic death for an unreachable goal is indeed popular, as it follows from the media and peace activists’ reaction to the death of Rachel Corrie. But will these images have an impact? The thick river waters in Godard’s ‘Paradise’ also remind you of oblivion. After the carnage of ‘Hell’ and attempts to prevent it in ‘Purgatory’, ‘Paradise’ is a cul-de-sac, the Chamber of Glory for unwanted heroes. We may not make much of Godard-philosopher on other occasions, but the gripping image of modernity that he created in Notre Musique is, sadly, true.

As the porn film season at the Cornerhouse in Manchester has drawn to a close, the article looks at what heights porn filmmakers are hoping to reach for, and how likely they are to succeed.

By Julie Delvaux

(First published at Exzibit.net on 05 August 2005)

The porn film season at the Cornerhouse in Manchester was altogether a good treat to all cinema fans. Of 11 tours de force in the nude three are already in the golden fund of the world’s cinema. A Russ Meyer’s 1965 thriller Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (USA) was no. 6 in Jonathan Ross’s Top Ten. Catherine Breillart put In The Realm Of The Senses (Ai No Corrida, Japan, 1975) as her top film. In her words, without it she would never have made Romance. The third was Last Tango In Paris (Italy/France, 1978), which sadly is increasingly becoming a pornographic commonplace due to a certain bizarre scene. Other unconditionally successful films included Variety (USA, 1983), Inside “The Deep Throat” (USA, 2004), and a tragicomic Torremolinos 73 (Spain/Denmark, 2003). The rest was more or less disappointing: a currently much publicised 9 Songs (UK, 2004), a “very controversial” Baise-Moi (France, 2000), a very politically active Raspberry Reich (Canada/Germany, 2003), and a very bizarre La Bete (France, 1975).

The panel discussion held at the Cornerhouse on July 31^st included John Hoyles, a retired teacher of English and Related Literature at Hull University, Anna Span, the first British porn director, and Paul Navarro and David Hyman, both from the BBFC. Set out to provide the porn season with a closure, the panel has ultimately failed to do so. It has nonetheless proved that pornography needs more supervision because it is shrewder and less life-bursting than the films by Tinto Brass, none of which was included in the retrospective. For Brass, pornography was a myth, the Venetian blinds designed by the hypocrites in order to deny the audience access to the forbidden fruits and joys. In his films pornography is a discovery of the beauty of the body and the complications it involves. Apparently having enough of this Epicurean joie de vivre, pornography today walks the extra mile, becoming a wacky conceptual movement.

The fact that in the past few years porn directors have been trying to make a film-statement stands for pornography’s desperate attempt to define its artistic form. So, what is the goal of the porn feature films that choose pornographic action as the focal point of the plot? Is pornography simply trying to access the general viewer by making ‘deep’, serious films? Or does it actually have something important to say, which is best conveyed through the medium of a sexual act?

Raspberry Reich is by far THE illustration to this dilemma: you can concentrate either on copulating people or on political messages that go across the screen and are read by the voice-over. You may think about Iraq gazing at G. W. Bush’s grin in place of penis glands, or you may pursue a more carnal purpose, by looking at the shaft. And so Bruce La Bruce indirectly suggests that it’s up to a viewer to be offended. In the end, throughout the film there is so much talk against capitalism, imperialism and the war in Iraq that seeing an occasional erect penis shouldn’t probably bother you.

Moreover, a female protagonist invites you to join the homosexual intifada. For the sake of self-liberation, of course: you must turn gay in order to explore yourself and to become a free man. One important “but” – women are not invited to this frenzy of homosexual revolutionary love. It is a very proactive and philosophical film, indeed.

In its turn, Baise-moi is sending a socially acute message: these poor girls who ruthlessly kill other girls and boys are in fact driven to do so. You are invited to presume that the only response to this rotten world is the warm gun. Is it really? The answer depends on your belief in mankind, but the film equally fails to arouse you and to make you sympathise with these poor things. Not because we’re heartless – rather because we could be their victims.

The efforts of pornography to define itself as a paradigm have not yet reaped any benefit. We must admit that our life is quite pornographic as it is, with current vocabulary, fashion and behaviour. On the other hand, surrealists, for example, had pronounced sexual activity as the most important among all of the man’s activities, and pornography is, in the end, sex. Add to it the yearning of the porn filmmakers to fill the gap between ‘cheap’ porn and expensive but prudish mainstream cinema, and you’ll see that the status of these pornographic feature films is marginal. As stories, they rarely go beyond the expectations of the viewer, while artistically they often leave a lot to be desired.

John Hoyles expressed a wish to see more “pornographic imagination”, and it is the lack of such that had made some films of the season unbearably dull. One of the problems is that pornography has always been walking from the genital close-ups and copious ejaculations towards their ‘context’, as was the case of La Bete. But if you take the year 2005 as the 30^th anniversary of this film, it will appear that very little has changed, as one can deduce from watching 9 Songs.

9 Songs has obtained an 18 certificate because, as David Hyman said, it was not meant to arouse. A puzzling comment, surely. Yet it is pornographic exactly as outlined by Anais Nin: it is a dull, boring repertory of copulations that do not start to wind into a coherent plot well until the middle of the film. Despite some good cinematographic moments, it is an uninspiring and emotionally bare movie.

As one journalist put it, it is great to have a film that is just about sex. But that’s exactly the point: 9 Songs is not JUST about sex. It is about love, Antarctica, exploration of the libido, and the hunks on stage. When the story stumbles, a hunk steps in, until the next bedroom moment. Margo Stilley has already featured in the British VOGUE, but it is still better to have a scene like the one in Don’t Look Now than the entire 9 Songs, even so incomparably explicit.

Compare all that to Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965) – it’s electrifying all the way through, but the only sex scene the film contains is pathetic by modern standards. It’s the emotional intensity of the film that turns you on incredibly. Not sexually arouses, but urges for an enterprise. Like the films of Tinto Brass. Or take Torremolinos 73. This film is hilarious at one time and heartbreaking at another. It has a plenty of innuendos and quite explicit sex scenes, and it raises your spirits. As what is exactly the aim of art – to inspire.

The more persistent is pornography in becoming ‘serious’, the bigger is the problem of censorship. In the words of Paul Navarro, the films are being awarded the 18 or R-18 certificate by the degree of obscenity in them. But what’s the criterion? Where there were de Sade and Miller, there are now The Vagina’s Monologues. And it is not uncommon for an adult feature film to use pornographic vocabulary or verbal descriptions of pornographic scenes. Think about Festival (UK, 2005) with its open use of a word “cunt” throughout, or The Bitter Moon (France/UK, 1992) with its graphic description of a man’s orgasm caused by a woman urinating on him. None of these have been cut. Yet the BBFC is currently twisting its brains over Taxi To The Toilet (Germany, 1980), which fragment was shown at the panel in Manchester. It contains both flagellation AND urination, but because these are the actual scenes, not verbalised images, they must be cut out.

Paradoxically, a pornographic film may be a good proof of the bright side of multiculturalism. And certainly, by introducing censorship we are potentially curbing the imaginative power of a man, as well as threatening multicultural relations in society. In this case Hoyles’s wish may never come true because a really good product of pornographic imagination will be cut. However, there remains a possibility that something imaginatively poor but accurately formulated may well access the audience, as it currently is doing.

Strictly speaking, nothing of what has been shown or spoken of during the Pornerhouse season in Manchester was more obscene than what you can read in 120 Days Of Sodom. The only difference is the mediums and the speed by which this obscenity reaches us. By the time de Sade and Henry Miller have finally reached their audiences, they had become outdated. The difference with today’s practice is that we witness everything that is happening. The reason why we are so concerned about pornography is because we can no more turn our back to it. We have to deal with it, yet we don’t know how, because it’s everywhere.

And this fact alone shows our fundamental delusion about today’s cinematic art. Probably better than any other genre, pornography shows that cinema fails as a manipulative agent. At the beginning of the 20^th c. it was perceived as this omnipotent force that can influence every single species. Nowadays every single species influences cinema, which may well be a proof of what Ortega y Gasset had written about the all-powerful masses back in 1930. Ever since pornography has become a commonplace, it has also become the best check on the ability of the masses to make their way into art. The pornographic cinema, as much as it can be inartistic or artless, nonetheless falls into the same artistic category since it is being produced by the same means as non-pornographic films.

The sad fact is that all this pornosophy doesn’t take us anywhere where we haven’t yet been. The Cornerhouse porn season has offered a huge choice of mental and cultural journeys, from homosexual intifada through a grim rampage over Ile-de-France and sexual mutilation in Japanese style to the adventures of a salesman-turned-Bergman. But ultimately the choice is still very much between erotica and robotic hardcore. It is the choice between “philosophy in the boudoir” and the absurdity of Sodom. It’s up to you to decide.

Turkish Star Wars (1982). If you have seen it, there is little else to say. If you have not, make sure you do…

By Julie Delvaux

(First published at Exzibit.net on 10 November 2005)

It is no secret that there are bad films. Actually, ‘bad’ is too soft a word. Hideous. Appalling. THE WORST. (Now you can dive into a thesaurus for other synonyms). But there are some which are so bad that they are actually good – as the sheer examples of ‘badness’.

Until recently my favourite bad film was Final Fantasy (2001). I remember reading that Tom Hanks was yelling in panic, fearing that with FF the end of cinema may begin. Steven Spielberg tapped Forrest Gump on a shoulder and suggested him to calm down. The wise Jaws-man was right: FF was so bad that cinema is still there.

The change for me came this summer when I attended the Porn Film Season at Manchester’s Cornerhouse. There was this film, La Bete (1975), or The Beast. The story goes that the world’s cinema owes the honour of having this pornographic masterpiece to an incident: the director was making a different film, but eventually had to cut some scenes out. Yet the scenes were so dear to his heart that he decided to put another film together around them. So, La Bete is the fruit of this conscious plotting. The most profound effect it can have on you is to make you detest the idea of having sex for some time.

But now I have got another favourite. Shot in 1982, Turkish Star Wars (as it is known to the English-speaking audience) is certainly a cinematographic gem. To say that it is bad is to say nothing. It is in fact very good because I bet none of us, including myself, would ever get to produce such an effortlessly perfect disaster. In it, Indiana Jones meets Flash Gordon, and they are even briefly greeted by Bach and his famous Fugue in D minor. The Fugue leaves after just a few seconds into itself, but the Star Wars theme stays and honestly serves the full film.

The really bad thing is that the English translation is still not widely available. The excerpts from the movie published at the IMDB website are hilarious, and the full translation would add to the growing army of those who loved this film for its impossible badness.

So, on to the movie. It does not owe to Star Wars as much you think it may, judging by the title. This film is not a parody on SW, and although it was supposed to be entertaining, it nonetheless did not scorn Lucas. In terms of a story line and the imagery, it is a fresh account of Flash Gordon. Nonetheless, SW continuously haunts you in cut-outs. Blessed be the time of the 1980s – “plagiarism” was definitely not in the crew’s vocabulary.

The film opens with a scene of setting a rocket off to space somewhere at either Canaveral or Baikonur. The rocket then miraculously and invisibly transforms into the SW spacecrafts, which seem in our film to be treading between the Earth and the Moon in its first quarter. While wandering in the galaxy the two tough guys, the pilots, get ejected from their craft onto a planet which vaguely resembles Earth. While catapulting, they also take off their uniforms, so when you eventually see them in the middle of a desert, covered in dust and sand, without helmets, you wonder as to who they are.

From then on the acting begins in earnest, and don’t tell me now that Bruce Lee was a bad actor. He may have been predictable, but at least he was convincing as fat as the physical performance was concerned. The Turkish hunks surpass him in every sense. Much of the acting is carried out through a really painstaking eye-job. Our heroes gaze and stare, with a suspicious, yet sage and shrewd look. Yep, the guys keep all under control. They found themselves on an unknown planet, and when they throw glances around and see the Egyptian pyramids and the Sphinx, they know: this is an alien civilisation, and Allah knows what is waiting for them behind these mountains and stones.

They are certainly not disappointed, as immediately many warriors appear on horses, carrying pikes and shouting like Red Indians. As you may expect, tough guys do not surrender without fight, and in the next few minutes you watch what can become your best-loved action scene of all times. Forget those American blockbusters where heroes have to mash villains to bits to convince you that good always conquers evil. Here bad guys voluntarily fall victims to good guys. Notice, I said: VOLUNTARILY. I mean, they simply sit there on the horseback and wait for one hero or another to kill them by simply throwing them off the horse. That is what I call the great power of cinema: make-belief…

These two trends – hard-graft eye-job and the make-believe – continue for the rest of the film, which I am not going to retell you, lest I ruin the impression when you finally get to watch it. And, believe me, there is so much to see: a spiky Excalibur hidden in an Orthodox church; red and black Muppets getting mutilated and decapitated by our space team; not to mention the outstanding SFX. There will be more action scenes, in comparison to which your Bruce Lee is a pathetic karate-kid. Oh, and also there will be a romance, and then there will be one of the tenderest scenes of a male embrace and compassion in world’s cinema. So, there is a lot to look forward. At the same time, Turkish Star Wars shows no sign of sharing the ethic concerns of European and American film-makers. The latter are plagued with enormous guilt every time they have a child being killed in the film. The makers of our movie had little problem with what we would call “an extreme violence”, including some truly outrageous scenes.

You have already guessed, of course, that whenever such gems materialise, it is mainly because the film industry of a particular country cannot afford to go with better sets, costumes, scripts, directing, acting, simply put – it does not have much money to go with at all. We will continue laughing all we want at this specimen of cinematographic art, but we must admit that the film owes at least the third of its funniness to its inability to compete financially with Hollywood or even Europe. Still, we are not talking budgets here – we are talking about the art of cinema. By no means is Turkish Star Wars artistic, and given the fact that its story is different from Lucas’s (and at the same time so close to Flash Gordon’s), it becomes a fair game for all critics and cinema fans. So, why watch it? First, so that there will be fewer bad movies. But, secondly, so that if you are on the verge of making a really bad film, you make it perfect, – like this one.

A review of Gus Van Sant’s latest film

By Julie Delvaux

(First published at Exzibit.net on 08 September 2005)

Normally, films about heroes either closely follow their lives or abandon the facts in favour of recreation of the effect left by their image. In any case, the result is either deification of the hero, or his defamation, both acts being deeply rooted in the personal judgement of film’s author.

This is not what Gus Van Sant planned to do for his latest film, Last Days. The main protagonist is and is not the late Kurt Cobain: the disclaimer at the beginning of the titles says that the film was “loosely” inspired by the singer, but otherwise is a fictional story; the very last line of the titles reads ‘In Memory of Kurt Cobain’. Last Days, however, is far from being apologetic or inquisitive. Van Sant is almost indifferent to when, how and why Cobain died, in the sense that he doesn’t accuse anyone, yet directs Michael Pitt in the same pose as Cobain was found, adding no more detail. More than by a person, he is captivated by the theme of the death of a talent, and Cobain was the best example, as far as Van Sant was concerned.

The film opens with Blake pushing through the autumnal forest towards the river waterfall, where he goes for a short swim. Back to his house, as beautiful a wreck as Blake himself, he makes a breakfast and then slips into a black drag, pulls a rifle out of nowhere and wanders around the house as a haunting phantom. In fact, he is like the Canterville Ghost: his steps and sounds and his yearning for escape are ignored by people who are too preoccupied with their own pettiness to believe in a soul. The freedom and peace that he craves for are postponed with every new phone call, or unwanted visit, or selfish request. The trauma is worsened by a sense of guilt that his record executive doesn’t hesitate to maintain. He is a rock-n-roll cliché, a drugged-to-unconsciousness icon. How did it happen? Was he weak? Or did his talent push him into this abyss? There is never an explanation; instead, Van Sant lets us listen to Blake’s swan song, instilled with angst and plea for retreat. After that Blake goes to the greenhouse in the night. We last see him looking up at something; his face is lit up, and for the first time he appears composed. Next morning a gardener finds a body and witnesses Blake’s soul climbing up the window frame. Now he is finally walking on his ‘stairway to heaven’, and the medieval choir rapturously sings ‘Victor! Victor!’, announcing his complete break-off from the unbearable mundane hell.

For Michael Pitt, who starred in Bertolucci’s Dreamers (Italy, 2003), Last Days is the second film he made with Van Sant (another is Finding Forrester (US, 2001)). He is certainly the perfect cast, his slender figure and a mauve of blonde hair shaping the vulnerable lost character of Blake under strict Van Sant’s direction. But the peak of his performance comes with Blake’s last song that Pitt wrote himself, which is a stunning piece of acoustic music. With this song Van Sant drew a thick line between Blake and Cobain, thus escaping the trap of conventionality and resemblance.

As a meditation on life, youth and death, Last Days follows both technically and stylistically two previous films by Van Sant that embraced the same topic, Gerry (2002) and Elephant (2003). Once again Van Sant attempts to offer his view of a well known story. Gerry had a local incident at heart, while Elephant, which earned him the Palme d’Or at Cannes, was a harrowing reconstruction of the Columbine tragedy. Last Days (also nominated at the Cannes Festival this year) is different, however, because it lacks any kind of relation on the part of director. In Elephant, for instance, the lingering camerawork together with the melancholic autumnal landscape and beautiful Beethoven’s music conveyed an attempt and yet inability to stop the time and to prevent the extinction of youth. Last Days, on the contrary, praises death as the only exit in the given circumstances. It also succeeds in keeping the distance between the hero (Cobain), the crew (led by Van Sant), the protagonist (Blake), and the viewer. It is a totally detached film, as a philosophical reflection should be.

Van Sant himself denies the existence of any kind of plan behind the production of Gerry, Elephant and Last Days, explaining the similarity between the films by his deep interest in the relation between youth and death. He is by no means the only one who shows continuous fascination with one particular topic. Roman Polanski, for instance, is well known for his on-going interest in the unfitting freaks (The Tenant, Repulsion) or in the diabolism and black magic (Rosemary’s Baby, The Ninth’s Gate). Nonetheless, film critics did not hesitate to call all three of Gus Van Sant’s films a trilogy, of which Last Days is supposedly the last chapter. In the interview to Sight&Sound Van Sant carefully dismissed this point, so with any luck the true peak of his explorations in this field still lies ahead.

Last Days certainly sets an example of a biopic of an icon. And that Kurt Cobain was an icon is indubitable. From his emerge as a regional American rock star to his death which to this day wears a veil of mystery, he has been an example of the ‘live quick, die young’ principle on the rock scene. His image was hence romanticised, even if he wasn’t romantic by himself. And the real achievement of Van Sant is in that he successfully transmitted this romanticised vision of a dying talent to the screen, without appearing weepy or judgemental. By making religious symbolism and the references to Wilde oblique, as well as missing out many of the detail that could have spoilt his work, he managed to alienate his protagonist from Cobain to such extent that the viewer is lured into Van Sant’s ponderings on why young talents sometimes never get old, rather than wonders however exactly Cobain had died.

Last Days is hence an elegy, as poetic as many other Van Sant’s films, and certainly as arresting in the use of music. The audacity to illustrate the life of a rock star with the medieval French choral piece by Jancquin that features both at the beginning and at the end of the film singles out Van Sant for his obvious view that the best crescendos of the rock music are no more than repercussions of the well-forgotten chorales and mannerist squirms of the early operas. As an example, one of Queen’s best songs was Bohemian Rhapsody that brilliantly imitated the Baroque choir. The choice also indicates that in Van Sant’s mind the tunes of Cobain/Blake were in their own right heirs to the beginnings of the classical music.

The cinematography is impressive, although the reverses that show the same scene from two points of view are not as effective as they are in Elephant, and sometimes even seem to be an excess. Yet Van Sant doesn’t use these as much as in Elephant, and that again takes us back to the question of how Last Days is connected to the other two films. The more one thinks of this question, the more obvious it becomes that the untimely death is not the most important topic of any of the films. By choosing the featured choir La Guerre (The War), Van Sant accentuated death as the only solution for Blake. Yet death, no matter how destructive or untimely, is caused by a spiritual solitude of the protagonist, and by the others’ inability or unwillingness to see any reason behind the alienation.

This is the topic that in effect is also central in both Gerry and Elephant. Two deserted men, a deserted schoolboy, and a deserted artist all fell victims to the destructive power of human indifference and pettiness. Those fascinated with Cobain’s death will be disappointed: Van Sant did not even verbalise the last thoughts and passions of his protagonist. Instead, he carefully implies that milieu is always stronger than any of its members, and their achievements or failures are just as much down to this milieu, as to their spiritual strength. And when the choir proclaims the deceased a ‘Victor!’ it is just as truthful as it is deeply, unbearably ironic.

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A critical view of the debate on euthanasia

By Julie Delvaux

(First published at Exzibit.net on 13 June 2005)

The Lords are continuing to debate the infamous Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill bill in this parliamentary session. So far it looks like Britain has come a few steps closer to a legalised euthanasia. The Lords plan to give ‘a right to die’ to the patients who are terminally ill, experiencing unbearable pains, against which the palliative treatment is powerless. There will be a plenty of typically bureaucratic procedures. The Lords insist on allowing euthanasia only to those, who are fully aware of what they ask for. It is stipulated that 14 days should pass between a patient submitting a request for euthanasia and the act of ‘assisted dying’. In these days, a patient would sign a declaration, which is to be witnessed by at least one solicitor, and a monitoring committee will scrutinise every single case.

Euthanasia is permitted or legalised in a number of countries. The Lords used statistical evidence for the American State of Oregon, where the right to die is a law. It is also a law in Belgium, and is accepted in the Netherlands. However, in Australia a similar law has recently been ruled out.

Although there has been a number of appeals to the State in various countries from people whose condition would qualify for an assisted dying, on most occasions this is neither permitted by the State, nor welcomed by the relatives. Terry Schiavo’s case is well-known, as is an attempt of the parents of baby Charlotte to win against her doctors. However, these are the cases when a person in question is unaware of these procedures and cannot make any reasonable contribution to the debate. We may say that the doctors are heartless, but so may be the parents of a patient who want to keep their dear ones live, even if living brings onto them “unbearable pain”. One can speculate, whether a true motivation of the parents in this case is their love for a child or a subconscious desire to walk one’s own via crucis. However cruel may be this proposition, it certainly rises in hopeless cases.

An issue as sensitive as euthanasia raises a plenty of questions. ‘Does a person have a right to die?’ is perhaps the one which is most brutally discussed by theologians, politicians, and ordinary mortals. Life, it is believed, is given to a man by God, and it’s up to God, and not to a man, to take this life away. Thus, beside all ethical issues, euthanasia also challenges religion, and our view of God’s power and the concept of predestination.

This may sound altogether hypocritical. It is usually presumed that a man cannot take his life himself, yet we also pitifully admit that it is usual for other people to take a man’s life. On the day-to-day basis God has no voice at all, it seems. However, when the law is involved, morals and faith are remembered and brought into a consideration. The opponents of the British Bill, The Christian Medical Fellowship and the Lawyer’s Christian Fellowship, believe that even a mortally ill person has no right for a premature assisted death, and thus condemn the Lords’ action. The British Nurses have also had a share in the debate. Not only did they condemn the Lords’, they also put forward their own reasons. The real problem, as it seems, is not that a patient actually suffers beyond measure, but that the conditions in which he is waiting for his life to end leave a lot to be desired.

As I was reading the cited explanation, I couldn’t help remembering Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. The Savage’s mother was dying in a ward where she had everything she wanted. In particular, she was watching TV all the time. Of course, to say that the real-life patients suffer from the lack of entertainment means to underrate the extent of physical and psychological pain. Yet again arguments like these show that, once gravely ill, a patient is barely taken into a consideration. No-one is even trying to perceive the extent of his own suffering; instead, the entire focus is placed on whether or not a wish to die or to be assisted in dying goes against God’s will and humane functions of a man. Precious and high-flown categories, like charity, humility and love, are drawn to support this view, as well as arguments in favour of palliative care of all sorts.

More and more calls in favour of euthanasia for gravely ill patients come from the art world. The very recent appeal from Spain even got an Oscar. Mar Adentro (The Sea Inside) tells a story of Ramon Sampedro, a Spanish marine and a poet, who had an accident in his late twenties and was paralysed for almost 30 years. He became an ardent supporter of assisted dying, and the film evokes his trial for a right to die. The trial disapproved of Sampedro’s appeal. The suicide he eventually committed was an assisted one, yet illegal.

As it should have happened with a film like this, it provoked numerous discussions. I was greatly impressed with a forum at www.imdb.com, which consisted of two English parts and a Spanish one in between. The two main things I gathered from the English forumites’ posts were, quite predictably, as follows: first, euthanasia is a deep disrespect of a patient to his relatives, doctors, country, etc.; second, despite the fact that we have many rights, a right to grant life and death seems to belong to a transcendent power, and not to us. This is a rather curious discrepancy: in the religiously indifferent society people still access their lives in terms of a divine impact on them. Sampedro’s answer to this was laconic and ruthless: ‘Whose life is it, anyway?’

The really insolvable problem is embedded in the mentioned question. When speaking of life, should not we discern between two actions? Indeed, we receive it from a resource, and whether we prefer to think of it as a woman’s womb, or as God, this does not change the essence: at the moment of reception, we are inactive. Having received the life, however, we embark on a more or less active process of living it. Of course, there may be predestination, but its very existence depends on a personal disposition. It is not an exception for people to believe in destiny when something good is happening to them, and to refute it completely when nothing good is going on, which is again an active choice. So, in total, when we debate whether or not it is acceptable to commit an assisted suicide, it is in truth a question of who we consider to be the true owner of our lives, and of what rights we see as belonging to us inherently.

And, finally, a paradoxical bit. As already stated, when euthanasia is involved, otherwise apathetic society becomes very concerned. This concern takes the problem on a whole new level, that is, philosophical. Debating whether or not it is possible to kill oneself or to help a person die, we debate what Albert Camus called ‘a truly philosophical problem – that of suicide’. And having arrived at this level, one has to admit that the ultimate solution is never to be found. One has to accept that it is easier to put all responsibility on an overwhelmingly powerful ‘third party’, commonly known as God – that way we avoid debating this problem. Arguably, no-one has ever put it into words better than Shakespeare:

To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come… (Hamlet, III, 1).

So, with the help of appeals pro and contra euthanasia every member of society becomes a philosopher, even though rather often we tend to challenge philosophy as a too contemplative discipline. It may be a progress, except for one important thing. A philosopher strives for the broadest view possible, not ignoring facts that potentially undermine his theory. In the debate on euthanasia, two important facts are omitted, as a rule. Euthanasia is not a suicide in the strictest sense of the word; it is only applicable to those who experience immense pain and are on the brink of dying. This fact makes an exception for such people, and the very concept of charity, when drawn to these cases, appears to be ridiculed. But, most importantly, as the proposed Bill states, patients should be asked for an opinion. If we agree with Camus that suicide is the first truly philosophical problem, then the second one may well be that of happiness. And if so, why should we think that bearing those pains makes a patient happier, than facing the prospect of dying?