Still Catching up

My October KultureFest came to a glittering and glamorous end at the weekend.

On Saturday I was at the Barbican for the culmination of MichaelClark Company (as it seems to be called now) ‘s 3 year Stravinsky Project. Previous years' O (Apollo) and Mmm (Rite of Spring), were complemented by a completely new work, I do (Les Noces). This left no time for angular scary dancing to the likes of Wire and Sex Pistols, as in previous years, and left one with a distinct feeling that perhaps the enfant terrible of British Dance, as it is obligatory to call him, may actually not be quite so enfant any more. He barely dances now, and may be growing into his role as choreographer a little, could I say, too gracefully. For the two older works had noticeably improved from previous years, and Les Noces looked great and serious. The stage was flanked by the New London Chamber Choir, and to my ears the discordant and violent score was every bit as frightening as say Laibach (to who’s protofascist hardcore metal Clark danced in the 1980s.)

I’m not happy with the way this review is going – I sound a bit of a tosser. And my syntax is well weird today. Too much stimulation I fear.

Anyway it was great, with some maverick touches, such as the bride in Les Noces being dressed in a giant lacy loo-brush cover. I worry for Michael Clark – last year he was all but destitute until a celebratory artist auction raised some cash for him, and with his 3 year relationship with the Barbican coming to an end, he had to come up with something which suggested he still had the capacity for greatness. And he did.

On Sunday it was the opening of the UK Jewish Film festival, and Shira Geffen/Etgar Keret’s sublime Jellyfish.

Query – would this film have felt any different if I had manage to catch its (sold out) screening at the BFI London Film Festival?

Answer – No.

In fact it probably had more in common with the films showing at the BFILFF than the UKJFF. Jellyfish is a subtle, meditative, swirling film, much closer to my new favourite director Apichatpong Weerasethakul than to films such as “My Nose” and “Kike Like Me” showing in the UKJFF.

It felt so refreshing and so radical to have a film treat its Jewish/Israeli (and other) characters as rounded, complex individuals, often quiet and dignified, with none of the histrionics and stereotypes prevalent in modern Jewish art and art about Jews. Yes the BIG THINGS were here, “we are all second generation [holocaust survivors]” says one character, another has been scarred in conflict, but neither characters nor film are defined by these things, they are in the background, not ignored, but contextualised, in a film about people getting on with their lives. It is a film about relationships: parents and children, husband and wife, a possible lesbian romance – the stories interweave and resonate, whilst a magical/symbolic metaphorical system connected with the sea and boats develops in the course of the film. There are some beautiful moments, my favourite being a picture of “the ice cream man” in a photograph album, the man’s shirt moving gently in the seabreeze (it reminded me of David Lynch’s story about how some of his paintings started to move – you mean they looked like they were moving said the interviewer – no, they were moving corrected Lynch). It’s a film about people, not about Capital J Jews, and it is terrific.

So that’s the end of my Oktober KultureSplurge (I know its dragged on into November) and in a way I am a little relieved to get my life back. The next couple of months are a bit quiet, although there is a mini ClassicalMusicSplurge at the end of the month, and a couple of trips to the Red Death to look forward to. Oh and Múm at the Scala. And Gimpel the Fool on stage. And then there is Mime Fest in Jan. So maybe not so quiet. More importantly, I hope I can make some progress on the book. It wont write itself you know.