"The Quiet Girl" by Colm Bairéad (2022)

 

Just a previous week I was celebrating a directorial debut by British actress Rebecca Hall and now i am blown away by directorial debut of young Irish director Colm Bairéad who was born in 1981, so yes, kids are OK and the world is in a good hands. As much as we get hopeless and stressed about the state of the world, there will always be kids who have their own perspective and its wonderful to understand that the future belongs to them. Perhaps this is just as it should be, some new souls uncluttered by our prejudices and ballast.

This lovely, delicate movie is about the young unloved and neglected Cáit (luminous Catherine Clinch) whose huge family practically don't even notice her and when her heavily pregnant mother gets close to giving a birth (again), they pack her unceremoniously to spend the summer with distant relatives she have never met before. Nobody tells her anything about it, nobody asks her about her opinion, in fact during the whole car ride her father hardly even speaks to her. (And he even forgets the suitcase with her clothes) In the new surroundings, at some lovely clean farm, surrounded for the first time with love and affection, Cáit blossoms like a flower and even opens up a bit - its a healing process both for her and for childless couple who now take care of her, even if its just one summer. At the end, she has to go back to her school and her family but we know she will never forget this summer. 

Just like Cáit herself, this is a completely soft and gentle movie from a perspective of a shy, observing child. Because it speaks with understanding of child's soul, we can all instantly connect with her heart, since we were all kids once and know what it is to be surrounded with grown-ups and their coded world. Some of them are threatening (father), some are comical (nosy neighbour), basically Cáit is a child left to a mercy of the world - luckily the relatives are here to love and protect her, even if just for a short period. I grew up in a cold and hostile household where they would also pack me off to a countryside during summer vacation, so this movie spoke to me - it had open some old wounds and reminded me on people long gone. I could watch this again, its quite a unforgettable little jewel.

"Akhenaten, Dweller in Truth" by Naguib Mahfouz (1985)

Yes! I read another book! 

What was just a natural lifelong habit before, became a task now, because my attention has been stolen by too many online distractions - it does not mean I am reading less, but actually my brain is all over the place and I am busy studying Wikipedia, etc. But I promised to myself that I will never stop reading books and must read at least 12 books per year, comparative to months in a year. Years ago I have read "Cairo Trilogy" by Egyptian Nobel prize winner Naguib Mahfouz, and although I don't remember anything about it, I know that I had enjoyed it very much so this was almost like a re-introduction to and old friend. I knew that I would like it. I just didn't know that it would take me so long to plough trough what is basically a slim volume. But I did it, chapter by chapter before sleep. 

I have been in Egyptian Museum of Berlin where famed bust of Nefertiti still amazes and impresses visitors with its timeless beauty. She is truly breathtaking. But just next door, there is a bust of her husband Akhenaten and appropriately, he is all smashed and destroyed as was good old Egyptian tradition of "Damnatio memoriae" and his successors saw him as a heretic and antagonist. Akhenaten himself is one of the most fascinating characters in Egyptian history and deserves much more than to be eclipsed by his wife, who after all, was coasting on his status - luckily not all Amarna art was destroyed and we still have some priceless pieces depicting Akhenaten and his family praying to sun God Aten. It was just one glorious chapter in a long history of Egypt but still remembered to this day, kind of like Egyptian Camelot. And just to prove that human nature never changes, there are literary hundreds of different ways people look at his reign, some see it as a beautiful religious experiment, others as a abomination and break with tradition.

The novel is very much Rashomon-like: a young scribe Meriamun is searching for the truth about supposedly heretic, recently deceased pharaoh and thanks to letters of introduction from his well respected father, he interviews many members of Akhenaten's court - each of them has a completely opposite impression of pharaoh and the contradictory picture that emerges tells more about them than about Akhenaten himself. We never know really what pharaoh is like, since each character has different motivations and ambitions - while some admired him, other despised him, many of them only tolerated his fixation with new religion as long as it suited them, etc. Mahfouz is a masterful storyteller with highly sophisticated style - not unlike "The Gospel According to the Son" by Norman Mailer, we have a specific historical moment depicted in a very delicate, almost poetic way, where atmosphere means more than story itself. Perhaps the only misstep is the last chapter - everything leads to a big finale and when it comes, it felt strangely underwhelming, the novel could just as well be without it. 

"Passing" by Rebecca Hall (2021)

 

Wow, what an excellent movie! 

My head is still reeling from last night when we watched this - after a sweet and slightly theatrical argument over my preferences towards old b&w classic movies - the subsequent compromise resulted in fairly recent 2021. movie directed by British actress Rebecca Hall in her directorial debut. She is one of those actresses with familiar faces but impossible to actually place - I have exactly the same problem with Keira Knightley, Natalie Portman and Anne Hathaway, I understand its not all the same person but to me they are totally undistinguishable, pretty young faces successful in their domains but even under the torture I could not tell you one from another. However, from now on I will remember Rebecca as the only director amongst them and believe me, she is a fine auteur. In fact, this was so brilliant that I don't see how is it possible to follow it. 

"Passing" is based on 1920s novel set in a so called Harlem Renaissance when a new generation of Afro-Americans flourished in the big cities and were looking forward to upward mobility, class and success. To my knowledge this is the first generation that - despite obvious racist society - brought successful writers, musicians, artists, philosophers, etc. Even so, "passing" was a widely spread social phenomenon where light skinned people would silently slip into Caucasian society for the sake of social climbing. It was controversial back than and its still controversial today, because as much as we love to claim that race is not an issue, unfortunately it still is - we still have a long way to go, just look at the treatment of all non-Europeans as they come to the West. Who is still doing manual, dirty work but ethnic minorities from all over the world. 

The movie has a claustrophobic, small cast with only several characters: two friends Irene and Clare, their husbands, servants, children. The ladies meet after a long time and are thrilled how each of them lives completely different lives - while Irene has a relatively comfortable, middle class life with charities and parties, Clare had married a wealthy white husband who is openly racist and had no idea she is black. From this start, the story unravels and I can't go into more details but it turns really hypnotic and mesmerising, with beautiful black & white photography, tinkling piano and dreamy atmosphere that occasionally turns ominous and scary. It's not only that Clare passed for white, almost everyone in this movie passes for something else - Irene passes for a happy wife, her white journalist friend (based on a real-life Carl Van Vechten whom I know because he patronisingly praised Bessie Smith and many other artists of the time) passes for a straight man, etc. Almost everybody here has a secret and their polite demeanour is just a mask. Its just mazing how director Rebecca Hall created something so brilliant without big budget, in fact it might be said that the brilliance is exactly because she had a limited budget so she was forced to be creative - for example, because she could not show a whole street full of people in 1920s costumes, the opening scene gives us a bits of dialogues and feet of people passing by, we immediately know and understand everything even though its just being hinted at. Somehow this all turned out beautiful to watch and very memorable, despite a limited budget. I have just read that even black & white cinematography was more choice out of necessity and it works wonderfully here. I think its one of the best movies I have seen recently.