The Awakening (2011) ***

Shocks aplenty for Rebecca Hall

I don’t usually acknowledge Halloween, seeing it as an import from across the Pond, like Thanksgiving. But my mood was nonetheless for a little spookiness this evening and it was well served by Nick Murphy’s film, The Awakening, which is available on BBC iPlayer for the next four weeks. I saw it when it came out nearly a decade ago, but had forgotten most of the the story until my memory was jogged by the rather grim facade of Lyme Park nearly Disley in Cheshire, whose gates I often drove past in my late teens. In the film the mansion plays the part of a prep school three years after the end of the First World War, several of its staff still bearing the physical and mental scars of that conflict. But the place gets a jolt with the arrival of a very modern young woman writer, Florence (Rebecca Hall), who specialises in debunking spiritualists and ghost stories. When all the young boys but one go home for the summer vacation the half-empty shell then echoes with the sounds of the one remaining lad, Tom (Isaac Hempstead Wright), a sympathetic but damaged schoolmaster, Robert (Dominic West), and the kindly old-school Matron, Maud (Imelda Staunton, on top form). Florence is tasked with uncovering mysterious happenings that have scared the children, one of whom recently died. But her scientific scepticism is soon challenged by the unnerving things going on around her. These become (literally) ever more fantastic, making her doubt her own sanity. A similarly sceptical viewer might also have stopped suspending their disbelief by this point. But to do so would be a shame, as of its genre of psychological horror movies it is an elegant if not super-scary example. Parts of it are eerily beautiful, much of the lighting subdued, the colour at times drained almost to monochrome. On second viewing, I found the atmosphere well-created, though Rebecca Hall is a bit too modern to be credible as a 1921 blue-stocking. The ending is a bit saccharine, too. But I suppose one of the pleasures of watching movies of this kind is to have a bit of a laugh as well as to feel the occasional shudder down one’s spine.

Fake News: Getting the Message Out

Trump vs Biden

Next Tuesday Americans will be taking part in probably the most important presidential election in a generation. Actually, more than 70 million voters have already cast their ballot, which is a pretty strong indication of how seriously they are taking it. Joe Biden and Donald Trump are as different as chalk and cheese (and neither as appealing as cake, if we are honest), but personalities are really not what the election is all about. Truth is what is a stake. President Trump turns reality on its head in Orwellian fashion, decrying mainstream media as Fake News while spewing out lies and exaggerations in an endless stream of tweets himself. In Trumpland, Twitter has become a reverse sewer, not removing human waste from the public’s households but delivering it. As someone who has spent the last half century presenting and commenting on (factual) news, I find this deeply depressing.

Real Fake graphic novel

However, one positive counter-trend has been the amount of attention being paid to Fake News and Disinformation, not only within countries such as the US and the UK but also transnationally. Cyber warfare isn’t just about hacking systems or making them crash but also flooding the Internet and Social Media with false information. This can sometimes be a rather naughty joke, like this week’s Fake News that Woolworths was going to reopen stores in the UK. But often it is much more malicious, maybe serving the interests of a foreign power. Governments are, of course, well aware of this, but a lot of the general public remains blissfully naive and thus susceptible to manipulation. Through Liberal International and Germany’s Friedrich Naumann Stiftung (FNS) I have been working with Liberals around the world to counter disinformation and educate people through the #FreedomFightsFake campaign. So I was really pleased to hear today of a graphic novel, Real Fake, published (free) online by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, CISA. I shan’t pass judgment on its content — everyone can make up their own mind — but as a method of getting the message out to people, especially the young, it is to be applauded.

Link to Real Fake: https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cisa.gov%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fpublications%2Fcfi_real-fake_graphic-novel_508.pdf&data=04%7C01%7C%7C699245781be845d9895608d87b2d2f6a%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637394781286040682%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=5xtwp50w1ZJXjltnWrJkN0JqOKLOQNZCl7QzfinjPQ0%3D&reserved=0

Disappearance at Clifton Hill **

Tuppence Middleton

Clifton Hill is the rather grotty entertainment district of the Canadian town of Niagara Falls. It looks pretty tacky even at the best of times, but in winter it is really sad under grey, snow-laden skies. That is the subdued environment at the heart of Albert Shin’s quirky noir Disappearance at Clifton Hill. The “disappearance” actually takes place by the side of the river below the falls. A seven-year-old girl glimpses a one-eyed boy being bundled into a car and years later the image comes back to haunt her. She has meanwhile had periods of depression and delinquent behaviour which even got her banned from the United States. So it is maybe not surprising that even her own sister, let alone the police, find her allegations of foul play far-fetched. Doggedly she presses on with her quest for the truth, for a while based in a run-down motel that used to be owned by her late mother. The mystery will even take her into Clifton Hill’s best know visitor attraction, the Haunted House (think ghost train, but without the train). This is not surprisingly spooky but as almost the whole movie is filmed in half-light, the colours drab and muted, it just blends in with the rest. There are certainly some unexpected twists in the plot but nothing especially shocking. Meanwhile the main character, Abby (Tuppence Middleton) is feeling increasingly isolated. Nonetheless, her perseverance pays off — or does it? There’s a sting in the tail of the story to sow new doubts.

David Cronenberg

Tuppence Middleton first came to my attention as the Head Girl in that blackest of black comedies, Tormented (2009), set among bullies in the secondary school from hell, though perhaps more people will have seen her in The Imitation Game (2014). She is a fine actress, but the part of Abby does not really let her shine. Some of the other characters — notably a creepy couple of magician tiger-tamers — are barely credible. Film director David Cronenberg unusually acts the part of a somewhat batty local radio presenter who gradually becomes Abby’s ally. But I think the main problem with the film is that it is not Gothic enough. There are moments when it could have been really scary, but they are played down (“tea-tabled”, as Christopher Isherwood aptly described the technique that was used effectively by E. M. Forster). It’s a pity, because far from being the memorable movie it could have been, Disappearance at Clifton Hill is a bit of a damp squib.

A Noble Intention (Publieke Werken, 2015) ****

Victoria Hotel, Amsterdam

Opposite Amsterdam’s main railway station is a large hotel called the Victoria, built in late 19th Century Parisian style, awkwardly out of keeping with more traditional Dutch houses around. I must have passed it a hundred times over the years but had only half-noticed the bizarre indentation in its facade in which two old-style Dutch buildings nestle. Once one is fully aware of them it is obvious that the hotel was actually built round them because two house owners refused to sell to developers. That is where Joram Lürsen’s fictionalised Publieke Werken (retitled as A Noble Intention in English; available on Netflix in Dutch with subtitles) takes off. Modernisation is beginning to impact the Netherlands but a violin-maker who lives and works in one of the old houses is reluctant to sell, demanding far more money than the developers are prepared to pay. His stand is justified not only because he does not want to leave the house but also because if he gets the inflated price he is demanding then he can finance an extraordinary scheme cooked up with a chemist cousin in a small country town to enable a community of impoverished peat-cutters to emigrate to America, escaping not just their sub-human living conditions but also, in the case of a Jewish family, religious persecution.

The key figures in the movie are the two cousins — Gijs Scholten van Aschat as Vedder, the violin-maker, who ages and disintegrates before one’s eyes during the film, and Jacob Derwig as the good-hearted chemist, Anijs — plus the father of the Jewish peat household Bennemin (Juda Goslinga). The quality of the acting helps one’s suspension of disbelief in accepting the objectively more unlikely elements of the plot. And there is an effective contrast between the noble intentions of some of the characters with the ignoble prejudices and outright criminality of some others. Even the three main characters have blatant flaws, which enhances their credibility. And from the opening scene of a rape there is plenty of brutal reality to counter-balance the idealistic good intentions.

How Zoom Changed My Life

Many of us are chomping at the bit because of limitations imposed on us because of coronavirus restrictions. Here in London we had a national lockdown during the months of Spring and from this week we are now in a Tier 2 half-way-house stage, as infections continue to rise. I doubt whether our collective mental health could survive another lengthy total shutdown, let alone the economy. But let us be thankful that technology has made home isolation more bearable. Even when we can’t meet people face-to-face we can chat via Skype or Facetime. Many meetings and events have gone virtual using platforms such as Zoom. Though there is certainly a risk of getting Zoomed out by video-conferencing if one has too many sessions in a day, the technology has delivered clear benefits. I find in meetings there is less time-wasting and it’s good to be able to see everyone’s face (if the number of participants doesn’t exceed the slots available on one screen). Screen-sharing is a more effective way of using illustrations and data than trying to focus on a powerpoint presentation the other end of a room. It doesn’t matter where participants are located, as long as they have access to a computer or even a smartphone. And webinars have made it possible to have expert panels drawn internationally. I find that the best Zoom events last just one hour, but that may just be my personal preference. Much longer and one’s attention starts to wander. Of course I miss the camaraderie of in-person get-togethers. They will return one day. But in the meantime let us acknowledge that our COVID-constrained lives could have been so much worse in the previously less-connected world.

Rebecca ***

Kristin Scott Thomas and Lily James

I tend to avoid remakes like the coronavirus, especially when an original film still occupies a special place in my heart. I don’t know how many times I have watched Alfred Hitchcock’s 1940 Oscar-winning black and white version of Rebecca but I can still see flashbacks from it if I close my eyes. So I was a little nervous about seeing Ben Wheatley’s new version of Daphne du Maurier’s Gothic tale. Comparisons are odious, so I will try to avoid them (mainly) and judge the film on its merits. On the plus side, it is very beautiful. The stately pile that stands in for Manderley (Dorset’s Cranborne Manor) is unremittingly grand (perhaps too much so) but Kristin Scott Thomas is impressively creepy as the fiendish housekeeper, Mrs Danvers, who adored the late Mrs Rebecca de Winter with an unhealthy passion. Ann Dowd gives a very jolly performance as the ghastly American social lion-chaser, Mrs Van Hoppen, to whom the young woman who is the narrator in the book is working as a companion in Monte Carlo when Manderley’s owner “Maxim” materialises. A whirlwind love affair ensues and the young woman (unnamed in the book) becomes the second Mrs de Winter.

Lily James and Armie Hammer

Her life will take on sinister dimensions after their return to England as Rebecca’s posthumous presence is everywhere and the new chatelaine feels powerless and alone. Lily James (blonde in this part) is pretty and quite persuasive in the role. But Armie Hammer is a decade too young and too hunky to be a convincing Maxim. I suppose for 2020 audiences Ben Wheatley felt that there had to be a bit of nudity and intimacy between the newly-weds, but for me that lessened the suspense. To his credit, though, Wheatley keeps more faithfully to du Maurier’s plot when it comes to the truth about what actually happened to Rebecca. Hitchcock, unusually, felt that wartime audiences might have baulked at the true nature of Maxim’s character. In Wheatley’s version, as in the book, one is left with a bitter taste in one’s mouth at the end, rather than just the smell of the burning mansion. Nonetheless, though I quite enjoyed this new Rebecca I doubt whether I will ever watch it again. Whereas Hitchcock’s film I shall return to again and again, just as the narrator of the story cannot banish Manderley from her dreams.

Wildeana

One might think that everything written by and about the great Irish playwright Oscar Wilde had already been published, but one would be wrong. While researching his magisterial biography, Oscar, published two years ago, author Matthew Sturgis came across a number of hidden gems buried in libraries and obscure volumes of memoir. These he has now published as Oscar Wilde’s Wildeana (riverrun, £14.95). Some of the stones are paste to be frank, but others glitter with the brilliance of real jewels. Oscar is perhaps best remembered for his epigrams, several of which were worked into his four masterly comedies, so of course one hunts first for these. “Boys — like postage stamps you must lick them first if you want them to be of use,” from his Oxford notebooks made me laugh out loud. Later in his all too short life he was more subtly naughty, and knew how to titillate the very aristocracy who flocked to his dramas. “I don’t know any Duchesses who could be described as the thin end of the wedge,” was a line considered but rejected by Wilde for The Importance of Being Earnest.

Like his mother, Francesca, Lady Wilde, he savoured the idea of sin as lifting one above the boredom of everyday life. As one might expect from the author of The Portrait of Dorian Gray, however, Wilde nudged this concept up a notch: “Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to explain the superior attractiveness of others.” In speculative gossip with friends (including the Fleet Street hack, William Mackay), Oscar mused, “If I were not a poet, and could not be an artist, I should wish to be a murderer.” Fame and notoriety are after all two sides of the same coin, and Wilde paid with and for both. He was indeed sometimes vain and he loved showing off, but he was also fundamentally kind and large of spirit. He also could pay genuine court to great intellects (as well as great beauties). As the poet Stuart Merrill recalled in an unpublished memoir, “I have seen him as meek as a little child before Walter Pater at a dinner given by a friend at the Garrick Club.. With a playful deference he called him ‘Sir Walter’ and he proudly recognized him as his master.” Yes, even the most “complete” library belonging to fans of Oscar Wilde will find room to delight in this welcome little volume.

Secret Service

Good investigative journalists and secret service agents have a lot in common. We follow leads, check and double check information and are careful not to compromise our sources. Yet for most of the 20th Century, Britain’s domestic secret service, MI5, was almost as hostile towards the media as it was to foreign agents. We hacks weren’t even meant to know where it was based — though any journalist worth his salt knew very well — and people working there were just said to be run-of-the-mill civil servants. Fortunately that situation has changed dramatically in recent decades, not least thanks to MI5’s Director General between 2007 and 2013, Jonathan Evans, who understood how far the demands of national security had altered in an age of open information. That was the subject of a lecture Lord Evans (as he now is) gave under the auspices of the Westminster Abbey Institute in 2016 and the text has recently been published as a short book, Secret Service (Haus Curiosities, £7.99), with a substantial introductory essay by the Institute’s founder-director, the philosopher Claire Foster-Gilbert.

Jonathan Evans

While Jonathan Evans was with MI5, the agency devised an ethical framework, to “direct our moral compass”, as he puts it. Moral philosophers were consulted and three fundamental concepts were identified as underpinning operations: legality, proportionality and accountability. One aspect of the last-mentioned is of course transparency — very much a concern of our times, and in complete contradiction to the opaqueness of the secret services of yore. GCHQ in Cheltenham has, like MI5, opened up considerably (though not completely) about what it actually does. MI6 understandably less so. All have had to adapt to changing circumstances. Even since Lord Evans’s 2016 lecture there have been significant developments (which are covered as a postscript in the book), including the rise of right-wing extremism, Islamist terror incidents in London and Manchester and Russian attacks on their nationals on British soil. Since the book went to print there have been further new developments, not least the Conservative government’s wish to give the secret service a freer hand to use extreme measures such as torture and assassination if deemed necessary. Politicians as well as agents would be well advised to read this book to sort out their own moral compass before heading too readily down that road.

Les Gardiennes (The Guardians; 2017) ****

Much of the worst fighting of the First World War took place in northern France, as armies moved slowly back and forth across absurdly short distances, the fields churned up and slashed with trenches, as the daily toll of bodies rose. But well away from the Front, life in rural France carried on much as it had for centuries, except that women had stepped in to do the work previously carried out by men, on top of their usual farmyard duties. That is the context for Xavier Beauvois’ poetic film Les Gardiennes (available via BBC iPlayer for the next three weeks). Most of the action takes place on a farm now under the charge of a grey-haired matriarch, Hortense (Natalie Baye), her ineffectual husband being too old and weak to do much other than producing home-made eau de vie to serve occasional visitors. Their two sons are away at the War — apart from short leaves — and their son-in-law is a prisoner-of-war in Germany. But Hortense manages things with the aid of her daughter Solange (Laura Smet) and a vivacious and capable orphan jill-of-all-trades Francine (Iris Bry). Unfortunately Francine falls in love with one of the sons, Georges (Cyril Descours) when he is home on a visit and Hortense — who has plans to marry Georges off to a younger girl of more suitable heritage — sends Francine packing. She persuades Georges (who has consummated the relationship) that Francine is a slut. Fortunately there are kinder souls in the community who come to her aid, and her travails — including being pregnant with Georges’ child — make her a stronger and ever more independent person.

This intense drama is set against a pastoral backdrop of lyrical beauty somehow enhanced by the greys, ochres and pastel blues of both the buildings and the characters’ clothes. We see the farm in its different seasons with their accompanying activities from ploughing and sowing to harvesting, much of this without any distracting conversation so one is drawn into the scenes. There are some remarkable, slow panning shots that are painterly in their execution, often showing the women deep in thought. Premonitions of modernisation come in the form of a basic combined harvester and a tractor that the family is able to buy, but tradition is instilled in Hortense, including her attitudes to social class, even if this will destroy happiness, including her own. But by the end of the film it is clear that change is coming.

The Mole *****

The Kim Dynasty

North Korea is a famously closed country — and an anachronism. A Communist family dynasty that viciously punishes those who dare to challenge the leadership’s brilliance. An impoverished nation that nonetheless has produced nuclear weapons and has a showpiece national capital, Pyongyang. Before COVID arrived, the country was starting to open up a little under the third generation ruler, Kim Jong-Un. There were even plans for developing beach resorts to lure foreign tourists with hard currency. But up to now visitors have tended to be either intrepid travellers wanting an experience truly off the beaten track or else members of various Friendship Associations who do apparently believe that North Korea regimented intolerance is the best answer to wicked capitalism. The members of such associations tend also to belong to various tiny Communist or far-left groups, loners in their own home communities but sometimes spotted handing out leaflets at minor demonstrations.

Jim Latrache-Qvortrup

It is among such people that Mads Brügger’s gripping two-part documentary The Mole: Inside North Korea (available via BBC iPlayer) is largely set. Brügger previously directed the 2009 comic documentary The Red Chapel, in which he and two ethnic Korean Danish comedians went to North Korea allegedly as part of a cultural exchange but in fact to send it up rotten (think Borat, but with class). The North Koreans were not at all happy with the result and declared Mads Brügger persona non grata. But he was not going to take rejection lying down. Instead he warmly welcomed an unexpected opportunity that arose in the form of an extraordinary plan to plant a mole inside the Danish Korean Friendship Association. Over the next decade he and an exuberant ex-French Foreign Legionnaire (Jim Latrache-Qvortrup, playing the role of a globe-trotting multi-millionaire investor) conspired to con the North Koreans into setting up an illicit arms and drugs production factory underground on an island in the middle of Lake Victoria in Uganda. On the face of it, the mole was as bland and boring as most Friendship Association members: Ulrich Larson, an unemployed chef who had been obliged to take early retirement through ill health and whose face is the height of blandness.

Alejandro Cao de Benós and Ulrich Larson

Like a well-trained spy, Larson sat through interminable boring Friendship Association events and managed to work his way up to becoming the main Friendship Association person in Scandinavia. He was thus able to get close to Alejandro Cao de Benós, the Spanish self-styled Gatekeeper to North Korea, whose face will be familiar to anyone who, like me, watches every documentary film about North Korea available. Cao de Benós is the ultimate fixer, a man so well-connected in Pyongyang that all doors are open at his bidding. Unknowingly, he facilitates the giant scam which sees the North Koreans going along with Latrache-Qvortrup’s extraordinary scheme, with the aid of venally corrupt officials and businessmen in Uganda and Jordan. North Korea’s underhand methods and Cao de Benós are thus totally exposed, while Ulrich Larson has to confess to his understandably miffed wife what on earth he has been up to for the past ten years. Keith Follett or John Le Carré would probably baulk at incorporating in their novels some of the twists and turns in this story, seeing them as too incredible. But as Matts Brügger has grittily exposed, truth really can be stranger than fiction.