tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14720904635255665302023-11-16T06:22:59.553-08:00Twenty Five Narrative DriveAbout films, books and the different ways we tell stories. Katherine Tankohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02594636107508014518noreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1472090463525566530.post-4386221386915401182015-03-04T01:34:00.001-08:002015-03-04T01:37:49.137-08:00You can’t smoke a book by its cover<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Looking through the short story collection in my local library (a dispiriting, disheartening exercise unless you are after the collected works of Paul Theroux or Philip Hensher) I came across Ten Stories About Smoking by Stuart Evers. Intrigued, I pulled it out to discover the book had been designed to resemble a cigarette pack. The hardcover opens at the top to reveal an inner paperback (with cigarettes cover) which you pull out.<br />
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I can't remember the last time I enjoying the physcial act of reading like I did with this book. To sit on a train and pull out my giant pack of fags was (for a former smoker) deeply satisfying. The only down side was that, by the time I had finished the book, I was actually fancying having a cigarette for the first time in 15 years.<br />
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The stories themselves were good, written in minimalist Carveresque style (though any similarities with the great American writer end there). The smoking link was tenuous at best. With concept packaging like that, I would hope for smoking to play a more central role as metaphor, rather than characters randomly lighting up.<br />
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But small quibbles: I liked the book and the design did enhanced the quality of my reading experience. It has taken some flack for being too much of a "gimmick" to which I say: yes, and a good one, and why the hell not. I would happily buy this kind of gimmick over the tedious straight jacket of genre cover designs any day --the perky typeface and pink high heeled shoe of women's fiction covers or the blurry figure in the distant mist of a mystery novel. The design and feel of a book make a huge difference to the pleasure of the reading experience. Which is why hardcovers are bliss --the very act of cracking them open, the thick pages, the lovely typeface. And mass produced knock off copies of "The Classics" in blurry point 9 go straight to the Charity Shop.<br />
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In an era of downloads and kindles, book design should look to be interesting and engaging and daring.Katherine Tankohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02594636107508014518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1472090463525566530.post-40495124694552381022014-12-01T02:28:00.001-08:002014-12-01T02:30:45.289-08:00Why can't history be fun?I've been meaning to read Christopher Clark's The Sleepwalkers, considered by many to be the definitive history of the years leading to WWI. But every time I pick up my doorstop volume I soon put it down again. Yes it's well written, yes it's impeccably researched, but frankly it strikes me as dull. It suffers from the same problem a lot of historical writing does --too much attention to detail and the minutiae of political wrangling and not enough to much else. There is no storytelling here to engage me, no sense of the world beyond the corridors of government.<br />
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My feelings have probably been coloured by another history book I read recently, the improbably titled Hhhh, by French writer Laurent Binet. It is a fantastic book telling the story of the assasination attempt on Reinhard Heydrich in Prague in 1942. It is non fiction written as a novel, with the thorny issue of how do you write about the past without making stuff up, at its heart. It is a fantastic, compelling read, full of humour and infused unashamedly with the author's own voice. Best of all, it tells the fascinating, true story of Operation Anthropoid, when two Czechoslovakian resistance fighters were parachuted into Prague to assassinate Heydrich, aka "The Butcher of Prague". It opened up a piece of the past I knew nothing about while offering a meditation on the nature of historical writing itself. It's greatest success is in creating a big story out of an obscure tale, obscure only in the context of the madness of the big, overarching story of WWII. It highlighted for me how many more similar WWII stories are out there, slowly fading into oblivion.<br />
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I love history, it is the story of everything, and it's exciting to see it being presented and talked about in new ways. Which brings me naturally to Horrible Histories, the books (and tv series) that made history interesting to a generation of British schoolchildren. Its author, Terry Deary, found history in school boring (like I did, and like my 13 year old daughter still does) and vowed to save future generations from a similar fate. It too brings out the tiny stories of the past --in this case usually related to rudeness and bodily functions-- to engage children and bring history to life. It helps them understand that the past is a fascinating place and completely relevant to their lives. And it's fun!<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span> <iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="510" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/FA5abHKvUBQ" width="854"></iframe>Katherine Tankohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02594636107508014518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1472090463525566530.post-68450822543690966452014-11-24T02:06:00.000-08:002014-11-24T02:06:10.872-08:00Am I the only person who didn't like this film?After last week's rant about bad Hollywood films, I thought I'd do a good Hollywood film just to show how fair and even handed I am. With that in mind I sat down to Gravity at the weekend, the multi-Oscar winning, critically acclaimed "sleeper" hit of 2013.<br />
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It all started off well. Fantastic space setting with astronauts floating about, the blue earth providing a magnificent backdrop. Definitely a movie for the big screen, I thought tucking into my popcorn. So far, so spectacular. But once we got down to the story --and the characters-- it became clear that spectacle was the only original thing on offer. George Clooney's Matt was the kind of wise talking, fearless male hero that has become the mainstay of action films since Bruce Willis mugged his way through Die Hard. Here, Matt zooms around in space on his jet pack, telling funny stories to mission control, exhibiting all the standard traits of masculine heroic cool. The role of scaredy cat went to Sandra Bullock's Ryan, the novice space travelling scientist on her first mission, who starts the film panting in illness and doesn't really move on from there.<br />
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The plot almost immediately moves into action movie mode, as though fearful we will get bored of pretty space pix or character development (beyond Matt = brave+experienced x Ryan = novice+nervous) and soon our heroes are dodging hurtling debris and spinning through space untethered. Their shuttle is destroyed and they must make their way across the heavens to another space station in the hope of finding a ride home.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA8QrWoL4ONVgQr5oOJ3YQzkjQXSeAjfGEugKtroNfOrSo3a9vTDpUu3YgCCaXTfW28m-3YEDLpX_4-LWgSP7GqLaUsi3xI6QsRD6j-YKmg0SWU9GTLSCaZ7-NPOvnFQk0FF5R31k0MEc/s1600/fearful.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA8QrWoL4ONVgQr5oOJ3YQzkjQXSeAjfGEugKtroNfOrSo3a9vTDpUu3YgCCaXTfW28m-3YEDLpX_4-LWgSP7GqLaUsi3xI6QsRD6j-YKmg0SWU9GTLSCaZ7-NPOvnFQk0FF5R31k0MEc/s1600/fearful.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a>It is at this point we realise the filmakers, so intent on creating a visual spectacular, have had an imagination failure when it comes to the details of the plot and characters. As Matt escorts Ryan across the cosmos, doing his casual shtick, he asks if there is "anyone special" back home. Now I'm no expert, but I'm guessing astronauts spend a hell of a lot of time in close quarters and probably get the basics out of the way quite early --married, kids, hobbies? It is hard to believe that only a life or death space walk has prompted Matt to suddenly ask whether Ryan has a partner. Because the only point of the question is to reveal Ryan's Big Secret and Key to her Personality --her daughter died when she was four.<br />
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Personally, I couldn't see the point of this, other than the hope it gave Ryan depth (it didn't) or somehow made her more sympathetic (nope) or her fight for life more poignant (again, no).<br />
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There is a great deal of rebirth imagery going on which, in a film with some depth might be profound, but here it just looks silly. And then there is the inevitable God Reference. At one point Bullock whimpers that she can't pray "Because I was never taught how." She even says it twice, just to hammer the point home. The message is clear: secular, non church going types are threatening the future of the species and the universe by not inculcating some god-fearing sentiment in their children. At least if it was taught in schools, everyone would have some Our Fathers up their sleeve in the event of a sudden untethered space walk....<br />
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Gravity is an inherently conservative, conventional Hollywood film dressed up as cutting edge. Personally, I feel insulted by that. It's like being promised Beef Wellington, then being given a sausage roll instead. The effects may be spectacular, but character and story-wise it feels like we've gone back in time. Ryan is no Ripley: she is a rather dull heroine who never seems to move beyond an emotional monotone: fear and lack of confidence. She is a vehicle for the plot, a body in a spacesuit. Personally, I didn't really care whether she made it or not.<br />
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To add insult to injury, after the dvd was over, we flicked on the tv to catch 20 minutes of Minority Report. In that time, a series of men led by Tom Cruise did serious things and had serious conversations about the serious plot of the film. Three women appeared in the film during that time: one to serve tea to her husband, another to provide a laptop to her boss, and the third to have sex with someone.<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>Katherine Tankohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02594636107508014518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1472090463525566530.post-45635177386902504252014-11-10T01:24:00.000-08:002014-11-10T01:25:11.011-08:00<b>A Plea to US Studios: Start making good movies again</b><br />
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Apparently people have been staying away from movie theatres in the US. Some blame the world cup. I blame crap films.<br />
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This was brought home to me watching Transcendence at the weekend, an ill judged last minute hire from the DVD rack at the library. A big budget, all star cast, sci fi theme and absolutely the dullest, most tedious film I have had the misfortune to sit through in a long time. It is as though US studios, so caught up in the machinery of big budget productions, have forgotten what makes a good movie. Characters we care about. Emotion. Not scientific guffery and an endless stream of special effects and ideas pinched from half a dozen other movies and strung together in the backs of big star names. These are films born in the boardroom, where creativity is reduced to the bottom line and the economic orthodoxy of modern studio film production, ie the more blockbuster the better. These are films made by men in suits.<br />
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US studios have strangled the life out of what was once the finest film industry in the world and turned it into an empty vessel of noise and spectacle. Those that like that kind of thing probably prefer to play Call of Duty anyway. Those that don't now watch HBO.<br />
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So a plea to all the big US studios: Enough with the overblown tech films, the endless superhero franchises. Please go back to making movies that tell stories about characters we care about.Katherine Tankohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02594636107508014518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1472090463525566530.post-88115077849914085002014-06-10T01:59:00.001-07:002014-06-10T02:00:48.648-07:00Where are the African stories?<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT4EBvfyoQShF5VOClcnuWLA-mRg89Ue3PTLU9fL5Nx8ilCFXXZvb_winyzBKMZF8LO1N04CujXbWg7mTQzfM4kqnYzt99ug5-zXXEdujmX5WtTikuxY9-X0fbuRuzdjRTRjGcfG6Vhbg/s1600/12+years2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT4EBvfyoQShF5VOClcnuWLA-mRg89Ue3PTLU9fL5Nx8ilCFXXZvb_winyzBKMZF8LO1N04CujXbWg7mTQzfM4kqnYzt99ug5-zXXEdujmX5WtTikuxY9-X0fbuRuzdjRTRjGcfG6Vhbg/s1600/12+years2.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a>The wonderful Steve McQueen (a magnificent directors whose films I will go see whatever the subject because he always has a compelling story to tell) became the first black man to win an Oscar for <i>12 Years a Slave</i>, the first film, I read somewhere, to be told from the viewpoint of slaves. Surely not, I thought spluttering on my corn flakes, thinking back to Alex Hayley's <i>Roots</i> (a miniseries, not a film) and Toni Morrison's <i>Beloved </i>(about <i>former</i> slaves). The point is that this massive human story fracturing American history has had such high profile on the big screen in some ways --Amistad, Django Unchained-- and yet 12 Years is the first feature film to tell the story from the point of view of those who actually lived through it?<br />
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In a word: shocking.<br />
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But not entirely surprising. Hearing this made me think of one of my all time favourite books, <i>Things Fall Apart,</i> by Chinua Achebe. Apart from the fact that it does that magical thing that great books do (tells a complex, multi-layered story using a simple, straightforward narrative) it was also the first book to pose The Great Question in fiction, history and all storytelling: who is telling the story. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLyzNOncD-cmrBKOkKu8E2e5qEdG4CKjS0IIuaGT87VaZXZygMxxMHyzkb4gH_HUNI2ubrJAlRuD4JBITYGzayUh8jSIMGdRIVx5etM28YIwhMKrQgBSXkGglF-yMzWvjBsvG473Uuf4k/s1600/things-fall-apart.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLyzNOncD-cmrBKOkKu8E2e5qEdG4CKjS0IIuaGT87VaZXZygMxxMHyzkb4gH_HUNI2ubrJAlRuD4JBITYGzayUh8jSIMGdRIVx5etM28YIwhMKrQgBSXkGglF-yMzWvjBsvG473Uuf4k/s1600/things-fall-apart.jpeg" height="320" width="208" /></a>The book is written from the point of view of Okonkwo, the last of the great Nigerian tribal men on the eve of colonisation. Until the very last chapter. Suddenly the point of view changes and we hear the story being told with the voice of a newly arrived colonial administrator. The method is startling and effective: the story of Africa as told by Africans is over: From here on in, it is the white man who will tell the story, who will interpret events and present them to the outside world. It is a brilliant device copied by all devotees of the Bard, including Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche in <i>Half a Yellow Sun. </i><br />
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In the same way that history is written by the victors, so the telling of stories, and who does the telling, shapes our social narrative. This is a complex, prickly issue with no straightforward answers, which is as it should be (never trust a world made up of straightforward answers, son). Sex, race, class all overlap here. If you want to get right down to it, why should writers and film makers have cornered the market on telling stories in the first place?<br />
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But back to African stories: our efforts to have an "Africa Film Season" recently made me realise how hard it is to access movies about African, made by Africans. The fact that I am referring to "Africa" at all is the starting point of the problem: a conceptualised nation forged from a vast continent made up of vastly different countries. I have no doubt there are many talented filmmakers telling their stories --or trying to tell their stories-- across that vast continent. The difficulty for the story nut living in the UK is --where on earth do I find them?<br />
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Recent efforts find some African cinema on Love Film threw up the usual South African offerings, ie the Gods Must Be Crazy and District 9. Sigh.<br />
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The situation is not much better with books. The profile of African writers in the west remains inexplicably low. At the Bath Lit Festival this year, I went along to Around the World in 10 Books, celebrating books in translation. One African novel was chosen, a South African book. By an Afrikaans writer....<br />
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But help is at hand: I recently discovered Mubi, an online site fat with world film recommendations I have never heard of. Now all I need is that superfast broadband:<br />
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<a href="https://mubi.com/lists/essential-african-films">https://mubi.com/lists/essential-african-films</a><br />
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And finally, no post about African storytelling would be complete without reference to that fabulous essay by Binyavanga Wainaina, <i>How to Write About Africa:</i> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'helvetica neue', helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;"> </span><br />
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<a href="http://www.granta.com/Archive/92/How-to-Write-about-Africa/Page-1">http://www.granta.com/Archive/92/How-to-Write-about-Africa/Page-1</a>Katherine Tankohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02594636107508014518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1472090463525566530.post-65264185093195633582014-03-02T08:40:00.001-08:002014-03-02T08:40:31.469-08:00Gary Shteyngart: Little Failure, Big Success<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIOC2xoTc0kYWIEG0fuPYw6CQWO_xzmysSZj-fzmblOtz9z-GagkcpwWcq6OS1-xuSs23yGkHpOXDN5i_AsHyJ8c1I7sYuexwTyI5mA2bmgvSeoojqwS9t5uDaVO4BYnBNeD_5gnKrJ9g/s1600/LF.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIOC2xoTc0kYWIEG0fuPYw6CQWO_xzmysSZj-fzmblOtz9z-GagkcpwWcq6OS1-xuSs23yGkHpOXDN5i_AsHyJ8c1I7sYuexwTyI5mA2bmgvSeoojqwS9t5uDaVO4BYnBNeD_5gnKrJ9g/s1600/LF.jpg" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6K0H5UP1cYVw_jiempXu1ktj_BB_xbplJxJ2QhG-2A-yVHr69DA5TfmYY6yHFoMd2rCev1H3TGV2q9ijWfqT5pcowbafpfVKgB3jk59_IRznS5D56Kl2qomG3mukRT0G-LSHIzq2StZQ/s1600/little+failure.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a>Saw Gary Shteyngart at the Bath Literature Festival yesterday. I've never read any of his work, but an excerpt I read in the Guardian of his new book, Little Failure, was instantly enthralling, so I snapped up a ticket when I heard he was coming. And I wasn't disappointed.<br />
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Shteyngart works in a genre, if you can call it that, that I love: Diaspora Fiction (or immigrant fiction). First or second generation writers talking about the immigrant experience, with a foot in two worlds and two cultures and all the conflict that goes with it. The Americans seem to do it particularly well, writers like Jhumpa Lahiri and Junot Diaz, who bring a freshness and vibrancy to their work that makes the writing of all those white, male New England scribes seem a little insular.<br />
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It's personal of course. My parents were immigrants, as were the parents of virtually everyone I knew growing up in Canada. Our street was like a map of post WWII Eastern European refugees: Poles, Hungarians, Yugoslavians, Czechs, and we all lived in two worlds. The Canadian world outside --safe, colourless, without history-- and the world of our homes where we each had our own traditions, foods, culture, history and ugly wartime traumas and secrets that no one wanted to talk about.<br />
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Little Failure tells Shteyngart's story: immigrating from Russia, aged 9, his desperation to be accepted in Ronald Reagan's America, dealing with the crushing weight of immigrant parental expectation, his parent's difficult marriage, his desire to be a writer.<br />
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I absolutely love the cover of this book! And in what might be a first, Shteyngart has produced a trailer for his novel, staring the likes of James Franco (a former student) and Jonathan Franzen. Now, <i>that</i> is marketing.<br />
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<br />Katherine Tankohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02594636107508014518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1472090463525566530.post-28122189506973672312014-02-17T01:30:00.002-08:002014-02-17T01:30:57.557-08:00Wadjda: a story for our times<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy8RDo4Btzj5DbUZL7X9-z4uCkYR8xvHxhY0R41iVg8R0wUEaIoFoCf7Ynne27IORWJLdk4YsMJiXsn3lBkj0cS7eJKlir9GMBwWpAcvioOLiC0JOAgjjqW-D-n6GD3ejjD-T76Pe4iF0/s1600/Wadjda_(film).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy8RDo4Btzj5DbUZL7X9-z4uCkYR8xvHxhY0R41iVg8R0wUEaIoFoCf7Ynne27IORWJLdk4YsMJiXsn3lBkj0cS7eJKlir9GMBwWpAcvioOLiC0JOAgjjqW-D-n6GD3ejjD-T76Pe4iF0/s1600/Wadjda_(film).jpg" height="320" width="230" /></a>Wadjda has been getting rave reviews since it was released in 2012. It is the first feature filmed entirely in Saudi Arabia (where cinema is banned) and the first written and directed by female Saudi director Haifaa al-Mansour.<br />
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In the way of great films, it shines light on a complex, difficult issue with a simple, yet clever allegorical storyline about a 10 year old girl who wants a bike --forbidden for girls in Saudi.<br />
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Wadjda is a heroine and a role model for women: she is cheeky, bold, entrepreneurial, an independent thinker. Most importantly she considers herself an equal to her friend Abdullah whom she can beat when racing --except when he is on his bike. Her response is to get her own bike even though, she is told time and again, girls do not ride bikes. She is not even thwarted by the huge cost, determined to raise the money somehow. When Abdullah offers to give her his bike, she rejects it ("How will I race you then?")<br />
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The movie follows Wadjda's efforts to raise money, which she does with a mix of enterprise, extortion and entering the school's Koran reading competition. She is discouraged and laughed at, but is single minded in her determination. It is not the men who are cast as the great oppressors in this: they have so little contact with the world of women that women's concerns are not even on their radar. Instead it is the collusion of women and culture in keeping women passive that Wadjda must battle. Her mother is preoccupied only with holding onto Wadjda's father, who is thinking of getting a second wife. She straightens her hair because he likes it long and silky and smiles with pride when complimented on the tray of food she prepares for his friends. She even refuses the chance of a job at the local hospital that would save her a hated 3 hour commute to work because her husband would be jealous if she were to work with other men.<br />
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Her mother's fear and conformity is magnified at school, where the dreaded Ms Hassan scolds girls not to laugh outside as they arrive at school, reminding that "a woman's voice is her nakedness." When playing in the courtyard at break, some girls notice workmen on a distant roof and scurry inside to protect their modesty. Wadjda does not rush in: she continues to play hopscotch, confident that it is her right to do so. At every turn Wadjda challenges and questions.<br />
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It is no surprise when, at the end, Wadjda finally gets her bicycle. To see that she has succeeded in her determination. The final scene is of Wadjda and Abdullah racing their bikes, Wadjda pulling ahead and flying at speed in a wonderful image of forward momentum, personal freedom and victory. She rides to the end of a t-junction and stops, looking both ways. The message is clear: where to now, ladies?<br />
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A final note: this was the first feature film ever shot in Saudi Arabia, written and directed by female director Haifaa al-Mansour, who had to hide herself when filming on the street. To produce such an excellent, assured film is a rarity anywhere: to have done so under these conditions is astonishing and an inspiration to women everywhere.<br />
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<br />Katherine Tankohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02594636107508014518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1472090463525566530.post-68485337000198843822014-02-10T10:17:00.001-08:002014-02-10T10:17:52.421-08:00The Great White Middle Class Lit FestivalWhat on earth has happened to my beloved Bath Literature Festival? When I first moved here ten years ago, the festival was the literary highlight of my year. I would pounce on the programme as soon as it came through the door, pouring over the pages to see who was coming, which writers were being featured that year. New writers, different writers, <i>literary</i> writers --this was what the literature festival was all about. I could always count on a few events with obscure writers from far flung corners that promised to open up new worlds, allowing me to discover great new talents I would otherwise never have heard of.<br />
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Over the last few years, for reasons that are not entirely clear to me (budgets? creative directors? pressure from sponsors? collective lack of imagination?) this tradition has slowly disappeared. Instead of discovering new worlds and new writers, we are now invited to revisit the same worlds we see on our TVs or in the review section of our newspapers every week. We are invited to pay £10 to listen to the likes of Alan Titchmarsh flog his new book (really) or listen to one of many home-grown writers we can hear tuning into Radio 4 on a given week. Instead of embracing the world of writing in all its diversity, it is slowly closing in on itself and becoming an insular, dull affair.<br />
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This year, under the directorship of Viv Groskop, it has reached a new low. With the exception of Russian crime writer Boris Akunin and American Gary Shteyngart, there are no international fiction writers at the festival at all. There are certainly no African or Asian writers, none from Latin America. It is an almost exclusively white, middle class programme full of the kind of household names you can hear about and read about in the mainstream press on any day. It is less a literature festival than a publishers' clearinghouse of popular fiction where the focus is on bland, mainstream events catering to the lowest common denominator in the hopes they will pack the rooms to the rafters.<br />
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An example: A few years ago, I went to see Gyorgy Dragoman, a Hungarian writer I had never heard of, talk about his book The White King, about life as a child behind the iron curtain.There must have been a dozen people in the audience. After a terrific talk and reading, I rushed out to buy the book. Standing in the non existent queue to have my book signed by the author, Dragoman stood up, shook my hand and thanked me. If it hadn't been for that event, I would never had discovered this wonderful book and writer and my life would be the poorer for it.<br />
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For those heading to the Bath Lit Festival this March, Germain Greer is already sold out, but tickets are still available for Jonathan Dimbleby and Philip Hensher....<br />
<br />Katherine Tankohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02594636107508014518noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1472090463525566530.post-66422055500404367082014-02-01T11:22:00.000-08:002014-02-01T11:23:20.704-08:00The Lowland<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga1wd5zwDxD0Wpo4jeCB7zlJjA6EPEHxSyszsEv3wTgtghKjkRgJCu8zFVcd-YBSQurtHYgmzG7o8oQyEiUpDot5lcAMYgtvbMtU_i7ccCaVBs-CdohCajtWhyVxlqk-rDN8ay1e5CfX4/s1600/90.Jhumpa-Lahiri-The-Lowland.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga1wd5zwDxD0Wpo4jeCB7zlJjA6EPEHxSyszsEv3wTgtghKjkRgJCu8zFVcd-YBSQurtHYgmzG7o8oQyEiUpDot5lcAMYgtvbMtU_i7ccCaVBs-CdohCajtWhyVxlqk-rDN8ay1e5CfX4/s1600/90.Jhumpa-Lahiri-The-Lowland.jpg" height="320" width="206" /></a>Just finished Jhumpa Lahiri's The Lowland, her second novel. I love love love her writing. She is in the upper echelon of outstanding short story writers, part of the enviable and elite group who know how to capture a story in the short form so perfectly, and seemingly without effort.<br />
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But as a novelist, I am sad to say I am less enthralled. The book is of course well written and I enjoyed it a great deal --it is impossible not to enjoy Lahiri's writing. But the story she tells over so many pages, the characters, their dilemmas, did not fully capture me. Or left me feeling a little unfulfilled somehow.<br />
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In the end, I don't really understand what motivated her to write this story, what it was she really wanted to say about these people, about their lives, their space in history, their movement across time and culture, their choices. By the end of the book I had rather tired of the characters and all their problems.<br />
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The message I took away from it? He died --get over it.Katherine Tankohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02594636107508014518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1472090463525566530.post-45681667143862986852014-01-27T13:25:00.001-08:002014-01-27T13:26:39.546-08:00The Great Indian LSD TripAt long last Om Dar-B-Dar, an India film made in 1988, has
finally had its theatrical release this month. The reason? It fell foul of
India's notorious censor board, who refused to issue it a viewing certificate
not because it was too violent or explicit --but because it was weird.<br />
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Well, how weird would that be exactly? It has been described as a surreal, postmodern satire, and The Great Indian LSD trip, but I prefer how TheSeventhArt.info describes the film:<br />
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‘Horoscope. Dead frog. Cloudy sky. Radio show. Terrorist tadpole. Caste-based reservation. Bicycle. Mount Everest. Women’s lib. Communism. Sleeveless blouse. Yuri Gagarin. Miniature book. Nitrogen fixation. Computer. Man on moon. Biology class. Hema Malini. Turtle. Typewriter. Text inside nose. Googly. James Bond. Severed tongue. Shoes outside temple. Gandhi. Hopping currency. Goggles. Helium breath. Diamonds inside frogs. God. Promise toothpaste. Nehru. Aviation centres. Potassium cyanide…."<br />
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That is the view in 2014. Way back in 1988 the censor board couldn’t make head or tail of the movie and feared that subliminal, subversive messages were being transmitted through he film that could adversely affect an unsuspecting public. So it got the axe.<br />
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Read<a href="http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/voices/one-head-scratcher-of-a-movie"> the full story in Open Magazine</a>:<br />
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Katherine Tankohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02594636107508014518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1472090463525566530.post-91651313266813171722014-01-19T10:51:00.001-08:002014-01-19T10:51:52.055-08:00Saying it with song (and dance)For reasons that are not entirely clear, we are having a musical January. It all kicked off with White Christmas over the holidays, followed by Grease, The Sound of Music, Singing in the Rain and Hairspray.<br />
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And it doesn't look like it will be letting up any time soon. An American in Paris and West Side Story are in my sights now, and then there is the Bollywood backlist to consider. So why musicals and why now?<br />
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Perhaps it is a way of extending the xmas sparkle into the New Year with films that truly kick ass in the way they tell a story. I have always loved musicals, particularly musicals with great dancing, for their ability to transcend a straightforward narrative in the most powerful and emotive way. Music and dance in a film are like a different language, they convey an idea, emotion or sensibility in a way that dialogue cannot. And they are <i>fun.....</i><br />
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What's not to like? Why then are there not more of them? The few recent musicals I can think of --with they exception of Baz Lurman's Moulin Rouge-- are all celluloid versions of musical stage plays. Where are the new, original musical films? Why is this form acceptable in the theatre, but so rare in western cinema?<br />
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At the very least, it would make a terrific break from the tedium of the war-without-end blockbusters....Katherine Tankohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02594636107508014518noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1472090463525566530.post-88980658472743214842013-12-11T13:10:00.000-08:002013-12-11T13:10:55.805-08:00What's in a cover?<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span lang="EN-US">Tender Hooks, by Moni Mohsin, is a wonderful, fiendishly clever satire on contemporary Pakistan, but you wouldn't know it from its cover. This is one of those books that committed the terrible crime of not slotting neatly into any genre that could be easily marketed. So it got sent to the chick-lit ghetto and given a cover that the likes of me would normally <i>never</i> pick up in a squillion years.</span><br />
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I did pick it up though, but only because I had heard Mohsin speak at a Bath Literature Festival event on "Politics and Satire" and was so impressed I rushed out to the bookshop to buy it. I love books that take me different worlds I know nothing about and tell me what is <i>really</i> going on there. I hoped Tenderhooks would do that --and it did.<br />
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<span lang="EN-US">The book </span>is best described as a kind of Diary of Adrian Mole, narrated by a snobbish, poorly educated middle
aged Pakistani woman recording her efforts to find her cousin a wife. It is
smart and funny and touches on everything from the education system to marriage
to terrorism to "fundoos". Best of all it satirises the venality of the elites, their self
absorption, snobbery, greed, lack of self awareness and distraction by minutiae
while around them chaos and absurdity reign. It may be about Pakistani, but like all good books, it's about everywhere.<br />
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The title isn't great either, particularly when you put it into Google looking for pix of the book cover for your blog....Yeeewwwww.<br />
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Katherine Tankohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02594636107508014518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1472090463525566530.post-70266703117823867322013-12-02T00:58:00.000-08:002013-12-02T00:58:03.229-08:00Thank you NaNoWriMo<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP39cigqoLWbjvKVB1dNoZVnakadsVa-joLMbi-sI0Y_42WY32Q1KIHhNTfUgIzkJ-XvVO0p0sJhEO45UVXXXE6GIRARqNlYE_TySZnHCNrJ4DqZkLGqmZ-sqIssn4OxDmfLE1w1eZm9E/s1600/NaNoWrMo.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP39cigqoLWbjvKVB1dNoZVnakadsVa-joLMbi-sI0Y_42WY32Q1KIHhNTfUgIzkJ-XvVO0p0sJhEO45UVXXXE6GIRARqNlYE_TySZnHCNrJ4DqZkLGqmZ-sqIssn4OxDmfLE1w1eZm9E/s1600/NaNoWrMo.png" /></a>I've resurfaced after a month at the coal face of NaNoWriMo. That is short for National Novel Writing Month and it does what it says on the tin --a writing challenge to produce £50,000 words of a manuscript from the 1 Nov to the 30 Nov.<br />
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It might sound like madness, but having done it for the first time this year, I think it is a little bit of genius. First of all, what better way to spend November, that dark and dank waste of a month, than with fingers glued to the keyboard? But mostly, it was a brilliant way to kickstart my second novel, which I had been avoiding (more like dreading). I had spent a torturous seven years writing the first one (or mostly re-writing the first one...) and could not face starting to climb that mountain again. NaNoWriMo gave me a way to dive straight in and just start swimming, without worrying about the quality of my strokes or whether I looked fat in my bathing suit, etc. Without it, without the impetus to produce close to 2,000 words each day, I would have stalled early on, getting bogged down in detail, backtracking. Instead I was able to write roughshod over my own pedantry and get on with the story.<br />
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I managed to write a reasonable draft too. Or maybe it is better described an elaborate outline. Either way I have completed the whole story in 50077 words, with my characters established, plot laid out, themes, symbols and pretty much everything coming together in the way it should. There is even some good writing in there, amidst the dross. I can now use that to write the book properly. And it definitely won't take me seven years.<br />
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Thank you NaNoWriMo. You are ace!<br />
<br />Katherine Tankohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02594636107508014518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1472090463525566530.post-32871970027527542292013-11-18T00:30:00.000-08:002013-11-18T00:30:40.847-08:00The genius of Doris Lessing<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2PblCREjlDAytjLY6mMdRNJAw0nsBMJ7MWTSoPuiD1wkN2N71m6JQFGRmRTgUXaBvIO2CsWKuMGxdY7UcaN4MWdJfh60JTpQ4ykjFCjMpgnvHj6crrZxbuFb2Yt_a1PkCbgADLwz6EvA/s1600/doris.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2PblCREjlDAytjLY6mMdRNJAw0nsBMJ7MWTSoPuiD1wkN2N71m6JQFGRmRTgUXaBvIO2CsWKuMGxdY7UcaN4MWdJfh60JTpQ4ykjFCjMpgnvHj6crrZxbuFb2Yt_a1PkCbgADLwz6EvA/s1600/doris.jpg" /></a>Taking a break from NaNoWriMo to pay tribute to the great Doris Lessing, who died yesterday. Truly one of the greats, a fantastically honest and political writer who was not afraid to shine a light on uncomfortable corners.<br />
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She is most famous for The Golden Notebook (which established her in many eyes as first and foremost a feminist writer) and for her science fiction works, which broke with serious literary convention.<br />
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But for me, it is Lessing's Children of Violence series that is her most brilliant legacy. Five books covering a pivotal time in the 20th century, socially and politically, encompassing both world wars, colonialism, dysfunctional families, sex, parenting, communism, politics, art and liberation. It is not the happiest read in the world, but it is an essential read. If you want to know what really happened in the 20th century, these five books will take you there.<br />
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Lessing would have hated all the fuss being made about her. She continually resisted being labelled a "wise woman" or a "feminist". She resisted labels in general. Which is what made her writing great.<br />
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<br />Katherine Tankohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02594636107508014518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1472090463525566530.post-76783598568811445652013-11-06T13:47:00.000-08:002013-11-06T13:49:03.779-08:0010,000 words and countingI am taking some time out to do NaNoWriMo this month so the posts are going to be thin on the ground, and sparse.<br />
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For the uninitiated (meaning all those who live beyond the boundaries of writingland) NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month, where in a moment of madness, crazed writers from around the world commit to writing a novel in a month. Or 50,000 words in November. That's 1600 words per day folks. Madness.<br />
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Six days in I am right on target. And loving it. Because the point of NaNoWriMo is to loosen the fuck up and just do some writing already. And forget about everything else.<br />
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More eloquent analysis to come later....<br />
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<a href="http://nanowrimo.org/">http://nanowrimo.org/</a>Katherine Tankohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02594636107508014518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1472090463525566530.post-4641737903471508502013-10-31T05:49:00.000-07:002013-10-31T05:49:16.820-07:00Behind the Beautiful Forevers<div class="yiv4823476550MsoNormal" id="yui_3_13_0_1_1383220653614_6837" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Segoe UI', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; padding: 0px;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu-6eQT7Jif1a7i1oThry8MlSG1W92Yg8zzbeFQaTXJr4RLermgXN6ryDjIJ6u_Bd3D7SjqjhQR9MbTNONaJSw5OOUSWdyPDyQUgVbhKmCvnCn8ccjhUHt27vfmRSRkCH4Ekn-N7FHd8o/s1600/BehindBeautifulForevers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu-6eQT7Jif1a7i1oThry8MlSG1W92Yg8zzbeFQaTXJr4RLermgXN6ryDjIJ6u_Bd3D7SjqjhQR9MbTNONaJSw5OOUSWdyPDyQUgVbhKmCvnCn8ccjhUHt27vfmRSRkCH4Ekn-N7FHd8o/s320/BehindBeautifulForevers.jpg" width="207" /></a>It took me awhile to get round to reading this book as when it first came out I was suffering from Slum Fiction Fatigue…I called it the Slumdog Millionaire Effect whereby suddenly every book, every documentary, every travel show seemed to zone in on the slums of Mumbai as though this were the only story worth telling about India.</div>
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<span id="yui_3_13_0_1_1383220653614_6815" lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: small;">More to the point, they are all told the same </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">way. Privileged western wades into slum, hanky to nose, to witness the sorry state of the lives of the poor, emerging tearful and humble having discovered how jolly nice they all are. This is where Katherine Boo’s book is truly unique. Based on years of living (sort of) in Mumbai's Annawadi slum, what makes it such compelling reading is the way she has chosen to tell the story, through the eyes of half a dozen slum dwellers, alternating their points of view. The effect is one of strange balance that could not, to be honest, be achieved with straight reportage. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: small;">By writing about events from the point of view of each character, Boo has managed to tell the story from within. In doing so she humanises and normalise the residents of Annawadi, showing their struggles, fears and problems are not a million miles away from anyone else's. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">There are no violins grinding away in the background as we gaze benevolently on the noble poor. Instead we are offered the individual stories of real people, warts and all. We are offered understanding. By the end you feel you know the people in the book, can identify with them. You do not think of them as slum dwellers. They could be anyone. They are anyone.</span></div>
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<span id="yui_3_13_0_1_1383220653614_6818" lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: small;">What I also liked about this book is how well it illuminates the inequities of an economic system that sees fantastic wealth existing alongside absolute poverty, how it is seen as completely acceptable --and how systems are built to maintain it. It shows how the powerful exploit the weak, the impossibility of escape and how shameful the whole thing is. It is not just about Annawadi --it is about the whole world.</span></span></div>
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<span id="yui_3_13_0_1_1383220653614_6821" lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: small;">At the end of the book, Boo explains her methodology and claims to have only represented thoughts and feelings that were reported to her. An extraordinary achievement.</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Final point on the bookcover design: </span><span lang="EN-US">Dynamic, colourful shot of boy shooting through alleyways. Now where have I seen that before... </span></div>
Katherine Tankohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02594636107508014518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1472090463525566530.post-84026857306005354662013-10-21T01:03:00.000-07:002013-10-21T01:03:30.579-07:00Who's telling the story?<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">When I read that Francois Ozon had a new film coming out --Jeune & Jolie, to be released at the end of November-- I was thrilled. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Then I saw the full page promo pic (below) and read that the subject was "a French teenager's sexual awakening". </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;"> </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">I read on into the detail. </span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">The French teenager in question is a 16 year old girl (alarm bells starting to ring now) </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">played by stunning French model Marine Vach (oh dear) </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">who loses her virginity while on holiday and then becomes --a prostitute. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">Really Francois? I was expecting something a little more original from the </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">director of the fantastic Swimming Pool and Under the Sand. Does he imagine this is the story w</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">e have all been waiting for, the one that really blows the lid off female sexuality? Are thousands of women reading about the film over their morning coffee going to nod in recognition: Yes, that's exactly how it was for me too! I lost my virginity to a clumsy German, then slept with men for cash in order to get over the disappointment and find my true self. How refreshing to finally see to it all on the big screen! </span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">Now, I haven't seen the movie yet, and for all I know it is a feminist masterclass on French patriarchy (Ozon has a strong track record on this, so there is still hope). But it got me thinking about the whole question of Who is Telling the Story. And why. I touched on this in my post on Samantha Lewthwaite and The White Man in Africa. In this case I am talking about who tells the story of women and girls. Why do they tell it? What do these stories really say?</span><br />
<br />Katherine Tankohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02594636107508014518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1472090463525566530.post-21856414002971193442013-10-14T01:06:00.002-07:002013-10-22T00:07:23.364-07:00The Genius of Studio Ghibli<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 107%;">“This looks
like it’s going to be a sad one,” my daughter said as we slipped Grave of
the Fireflies into the DVD machine last night. She was half right. Describing the film as "sad" is a bit like saying Einstein was clever. It was heart-wrenching, traumatic and totally brilliant.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 107%;">Grave of the Fireflies is
the story of children and war. There is no sugar coating to the story here, no cotton wool to protect us from the harrowing tale of two children struggling to survive in Japan in the final months of WWII. Orphaned, abandoned, forgotten, the film charts their experience in all its emotional horror. It's like Come and See for children.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The film was made by Studio Ghibli -- best known for Howl's Moving Castle and Spirited Away-- and is another example of why this Japanese animation studio is peerless in the world of children's cinema. The breadth of its imagination, the boldness of the storytelling and the sheer creativity of its output is unrivalled. And it takes children's movies to some very dark and difficult places.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In Grave of the Fireflies, the story is framed in a way that makes the difficult subject matter manageable for children. The story starts with the narrator, a young boy, telling us the date when he dies. And immediately we see him in rags, slumped against a pillar, and watch as he closes his eyes and falls to the ground, dead. He is not alone; there are other dead or half-dead children all around him. He is found by a policeman who throws a sweet tin in his pocket away, releasing the spirit of the boy and his little sister. These two spirits, well dressed, happy and together, begin their final journey and the boy begins to tell their story.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">So right from the start, we have been given the emotional tools to deal with the story we are about to hear. We know these children will die, and we know they will be reunited as spirits, looking well fed and at peace. This simple framing makes the story of their cruel abandonment bearable. No one escapes censure; the heartless relatives, the disinterested doctor, the well-off children mocking them. The policemen who treat the dead children as so much rubbish to be cleared off the street. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The film works on three levels: the very specific story of children in Japan at the end of WWII (the background of nationalist rhetoric, illustrated with a short scene of people fleeing while one man marches around shouting slogans); the story of children and war (and the lie of war, evidenced by the boy's sense of betrayal on hearing Japan had surrendered); and the story of vulnerable children, abandoned by family, society, state.</span></div>
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Katherine Tankohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02594636107508014518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1472090463525566530.post-12803622467570290912013-10-05T03:37:00.001-07:002013-10-05T03:37:37.898-07:00Samantha Lewthwaite and the White Man in Africa<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
Afua Hirsch writing in The Guardian today bemoans the media
obsession with Samantha Lewthwaite and her connection to the Nairobi attack,
charging that she is the white, western character we need to remain interested
in a story that is primarily African. <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/profile/afuahirsch">http://www.theguardian.com/profile/afuahirsch</a></div>
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She linked this to Hollywood's tendency to use of white characters
to tell African stories, something that has annoyed me for years. And it is not
just African stories –any Hollywood film about non-white people always has to
have at least one white character in the story. This is done, the orthodoxy
goes, so that white audiences have someone to “identify with”. As though we can
only identify with people who have the same skin colour. <o:p></o:p></div>
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One of the worst offenders is Richard Attenborough, whose <i>Ghandi</i>
is full of minor white characters of no interest to anyone (as though Ghandi wasn't interesting enough to carry the film). And my personal favourite, <i>Cry Freedom</i>,
supposedly the story of Apartheid activist Steve Biko, but really about the
white South African journalist who covered his story. WTF? I think the image says it all, really.</div>
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The only movie that has challenged this orthodoxy is Slumdog
Millionaire. This is a western film about non-western characters without a
white face to be seen in the whole film. Danny Boyle struggled to get this film
distributed for that reason; who would pay money to watch a movie about a bunch
of Asians, the suits argued. Er –lots of people. </div>
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Which once again proves, as William Goldman famously said, in the movie
business “nobody knows anything.” </div>
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Katherine Tankohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02594636107508014518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1472090463525566530.post-76505761112538190782013-10-04T01:05:00.000-07:002013-10-04T01:05:31.840-07:00Does Feminism need a re-brand?<br />
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According to Elle magazine, the answer is yes. They asked three ad agencies to work with prominent feminists to Rebrand Feminism and the results are, well, kinda depressing really.<br />
<a href="http://creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2013/september/elle-feminism">http://creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2013/september/elle-feminism</a><br />
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We are always being told that feminism had an image problem, particularly among young women. Why? Does Civil Rights have an image problem? Is it uncool to be anti-racist? Where does this image problem come from, exactly? Feminism is hardly a hot topic in the media, with daily coverage of it's evil ways. I can't even remember the last time I saw a grainy photo of a dungaree-weaing 70s feminist waving a placard in the paper. So where does The Feminist Fear come from?<br />
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Us old school feminists might think it all part of a dastardly plot by the agents of patriarchy to keep women from challenging the status quo, and any woman who obliges some kind of damned fool. The truth is that feminism is having a beautiful, Social Media resurgence, led by young women, with some kick-ass campaigning, initiatives like The Everyday Sexism project and websites like The Vagenda (who took part in the re-branding exercise. You can read their rationalisation here <a href="http://vagendamag.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/so-we-rebranded-feminism.html">http://vagendamag.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/so-we-rebranded-feminism.html</a> )<br />
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Which brings me to Caitlan Moran's How to be a Woman. This too was a rebranding exercise, a reclaiming of feminism from the hairy-armpit brigade. Her aim was to make feminism funny, ie cool, and extend the "it's okay to wear makeup" school of thought to porn and pole dancing and the like. It was funny in parts but I wasn't convinced of this rebrand either --ladette feminism.<br />
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What is becoming clear is that the story of feminism is not an ancient monolith, fixed in time and space, like Stonehenge. It is alive and well and as varied as women themselves.<br />
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<br />Katherine Tankohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02594636107508014518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1472090463525566530.post-13969240360631288412013-09-28T06:35:00.000-07:002013-09-28T06:35:34.288-07:00That explains the kraken fixation then<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Leafing through the Guardian Review section this morning over tea and toast, I came across this image illustrating an article about the Shunga exhibit on at the British Museum. Shunga, I discovered, is Japanese erotic art and Ian Buruma's piece offered a fascinating overview of this mainstream art form, its links to Shinto and the like. But for me this image, by Hokusai (he of the giant curling waves and images of Mount Fuji) says it all. Titled Dream of the Fisherman's Wife it is surreal, fantastical, absurd, sensual, disturbing and very funny.</div>
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Read the article here <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/sep/27/joy-art-japan-sex-passion">http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/sep/27/joy-art-japan-sex-passion</a></div>
Katherine Tankohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02594636107508014518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1472090463525566530.post-73870189825254412552013-09-14T10:05:00.001-07:002013-09-14T10:05:43.079-07:00Books are my bagThe Books are my Bag day would have passed me by if it wasn't for an early morning flick through the twitter feed. A day celebrating independent bookshops and the supremacy of the book as an unparalleled accomplishment in reading technology? Count me in.<br />
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So what is in the fab bag? A hardback copy of Jhumpa Lahiri's new book, The Lowland --last copy in the shop.<br />
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Katherine Tankohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02594636107508014518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1472090463525566530.post-47970583208152221832013-09-14T03:32:00.000-07:002013-09-14T10:08:22.833-07:00There are no new stories (just ways to tell them)<div class="MsoNormal">
This sobering message is one of
the first things I learned when I attended my first fiction writing workshop,
way back when. Pen in hand, bristling to unleash tales of earth-shattering
originality, I was informed by my tutor that, actually, there are no new
stories. It’s all done before, loads of times, and the only new thing a creative brings to the story
is their unique point of view.</div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Every day I am grateful for receiving
this insight early on. It saved me from wasting years at the keyboard trying to
be different, or original or clever. It also made me look at stories, in whatever
from they take, in a different way. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Which is a rather long winded
way of saying this blog is all about different ways of telling stories. It is
where I explore different forms of storytelling, what works, what doesn’t --and
why. I am not interested in writing reviews or focusing on only books or film
or art. My interest lays in how the story is told.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
Katherine Tankohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02594636107508014518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1472090463525566530.post-8425345384444325272013-08-17T06:05:00.000-07:002013-08-17T06:05:02.946-07:00Welcome to my blog....Please take a seat, the show will begin shortly.Katherine Tankohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02594636107508014518noreply@blogger.com0