Book Review—Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee

The much discussed release from Harper Lee. It has had many tongues wagging, from rumours of shady dealings by lawyers and publishers to fears that it will taint Lee’s legacy. Now that it has been released we can finally see for ourselves.

26 year old Jean Louise “Scout” Finch returns to Maycomb from New York to visit her family. Her visit comes at a time when many changes are happening in the country, particularly regarding race relations. But on this return trip she discovers that all the small changes that she has been witnessing in Maycomb are but a precursor to the sweeping social shift that will affect everyone, including her much loved and admired father, Atticus.

It is difficult not to make comparisons with To Kill a Mockingbird, Watchman being an earlier incarnation.  The most apparent difference is that Watchman does not have the charm of its successor. Gone is the child narrator, and although the mix of folk tales and tall tales that so enlivened Mockingbrid are here, these whimsicalities are only shades, with the dialogues and tales that would, in subsequent rewrites, become the exchanges that gave Mockingbird its uniqueness and heft apparent only in sketches.

The South’s struggle with segregation is still present, but where Mockingbird focused on the personal Watchman deals with the political dimensions. Its treatment of Atticus is more complex, Mockingbird being, after all, Scout’s reminiscences of her heroic father. In Watchman this idolisation is replaced with disillusion. He may have upheld Tom Robinson’s rights, but that does not mean this old Southern gent isn’t worried about Southern heritage, including all the fears of miscegenation, worries about state’s rights and individual liberties, and a mistrust of outside forces like the federal government and NAACP that go along with the Southern mentality. But even these passages are often laden with stereotypes and awkward phrasing, giving reminders that Watchman, even in published form, is a draft, both in how it handles its subject matter and also in its flow.

Despite its short comings it is not the death knell of Lee’s reputation. When viewed alongside Mockingbird it provides a unique study not just into the creation of a much loved classic, but of an author who began with an admirable if muddled story and was able, with some help from an editor, to craft it into a fascinating tale.

Andreas

Film Review—The Babadook by Jennifer Kent

Amelia (Essie Davis), a widow, tries to live with her son Samuel (Noah Wiseman) who has behavioural issues. Hyperactive, he fears monsters, a fear that has real world effects on both mother and son. One night she lets him choose his bedtime story and he selects Mister Babadook. In the pages is a terrifying bogeyman, who warns “the more you deny/ the stronger I get”. Having to deal with the lurking grief of her husband’s death as well as Samuel’s increasingly severe behaviour, Amelia becomes more disturbed by her son’s focus on The Babadook and the real threat it begins to pose.

The film is disconcerting throughout, presenting a world that resembles ours but with the strange proportions of a Grimm’s fairy-tale. This is heightened by the fairy-tale like Mister Babadook, reminiscent of old children’s tales like the Great, Long, Red-legged Scissor Man, that both fascinate and frighten children and adults. The colour palate of the film is true to its story, where we get hints of emotion that slowly build, rather than raucous shifts in mood, or the overused and ineffective quite-quiet-LOUD copout that passes for ‘technique’ in so many horror films. The spectre of the Babadook and Amelia’s grief are fantastically twined within the cold and claustrophobic tinge that stains every shot and conjures the evocative interplay of light and shadow. The result is a subtle story where even the happy ending is marred.

Understated and unsettling, The Babadook is not just horror cinema at its finest, but a strangely beautiful look at grief.
Andreas

Film Review - Gone - By Director - Heitor Dhalia and Writer Allison Burrett

Jill is a beautiful young women living with her alcoholic sister. She was previously a kidnap victim of a serial killer but as no evidence was found, the police didn’t believe her and she was committed to a mental institution for a number of years.

In Gone, when Jill's sister disappears she is convinced her kidnapper is back so she takes matters into her own hands, as the police believe it is all in her head. Brilliant acting by Amanda Seyfrend (Mamma Mia).

Rated M 15+

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie as it keeps you on the edge of your seat till the very end. Anne

Book Review—The Eye of the Sheep by Sofie Laguna

Winner of the Miles Franklin Literary Award 2015

Jimmy Flick is a child with behavioural issues with a manic energy and fascination. His mother, Paula, is deeply protective of him with a strong and special bond. Gavin, his father, is an abusive alcoholic, like his father before him. His brother, Robby, is frustrated with the life he was born into and wants to leave, but feels a sense of duty to Paula and Jimmy. As Jimmy grows we see the struggles of different members of the family to remain personally whole while trying desperately to maintain their bonds, with the very members of these bonds receiving the brunt of these conflicts.

Laguna’s writing is striking in the voice of Jimmy, giving slanted, strange, surreal descriptions to the commonplace and the domestic. For him the acts of everyday life are cause for wonder, from the pipes that fuel the machinery inside us all, to the engine of crying and the taps that control tears, to the transfer of energy from a slap to a look and the clouds of laughter that float above our heads in moments of joy. But this does not detract from the brutal passages when Gavin strikes Paula, or the poignant scene when Robby makes his difficult decision. Despite their unusual expression these thoughts and emotions are still human, the reality of the actions and consequences immediately apparent.

The Eye of the Sheep is a mesmerising, warming yet gritty look at the struggle of domestic life in a working class family.

Andreas

Film Review—Nightcrawler by Dan Gilroy

Louis "Lou" Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a driven young man who sees a future career as a stringer, a freelance cameraman who films violent accidents and brutal crimes to sell to television news outlets. He discovers he has a talent and interest in this activity, and begins to gain more and more success. But his behaviour, already on the border of decency, slips, and he starts going to extreme lengths to get the best footage.

Gyllenhaal is phenomenally creepy with an unsettling charm that lures both business associates and the audience. The warped Bloom, with his frightening focus and unhinged outlook on life provides an arresting lead into the pseudo-world that is overly sensationalised media. But the skewed reality extends to overt corporation and the isolating affects it and media have on lives. Sometimes these jabs at mass media and business become a little redundant and clichéd. But when viewed as a distorted character study, through the prism of Bloom, who views the world through this media lens and interacts and negotiates life in business jargon, the film really takes hold. “It looks so real on the news”, Bloom says in woeful awe to a backdrop of the Los Angeles cityscape in the studio. He has indeed found his niche in this world, where the hyper-reality of the news and the detachment of business can fuel his strained waking hours.

Nightcrawler is an alluringly repugnant neo-noir thriller with a sensational lead performance.

Andreas