A Christmas Carol: Part Two

"This is not reason versus fancy, Ebenezer."

Two thirds in and I think I can say that this daring, dark and devilishly clever version of the story is really rather brilliant- give or take a certain two things which I'll come to in the next paragraph. It was all about the Ghost of Christmas Past, though- the last episode will have a lot to squeeze in.

There are a certain two bits of this episode that are particularly edgy, though. It's been a long while since I read the novella, probably more than twenty years ago, but I'm fairly sure that the sexual abuse of Scrooge at boarding school was not remotely hinted at. Nor was his sexual exploitation of Mary Cratchitt for Tiny Tim's operation. These two elements both make Scrooge initially more sympathetic by showing us his "old pain" from his early childhood, but then go on to make us hate him as a sexual abuser. That's brave, and will make it harder to end this satisfactorily- how can such a monster be redeemed? Of course, his shockingly brutal and immoral business practices are shown in greater detail too, so there's a wider picture here. And it's notable that the multiple plot threads of the first episode (Marley's angle, Mary's source of money) all feed like tributaries into one here.

What we have here, I think, is a very modern deconstruction of Victorian Britain and its literature, not limited to the fairly foregrounded references to Hard Times as seen in the quote. Of course sexual abuse was never mentioned- but it was rife, as it has been throughout history. And so, of course, was the sexual exploitation of desperate women by powerful men. Both evils are still with us today, but in Victorian times there was the added evil of a woman always being judged harshly for any sexual act  not with a husband, circumstances be damned. In any Victorian novel, any woman such as Mary, however blameless, would die- I'm thinking of The Odd Women and Tess of the d'Urbervilles but the tendency was, I think, universal, How will this series deal with Mary?

There's an awful lot that the third episode needs to do. But this episode has been masterfully done, with some brave decisions, certainly, but handled with skill.

A Christmas Carol: Part One

“Bah humbug!”

It's quite a statement of intent to begin an adaptation of A Christmas Carol with a boy pissing on a bloke's grave, but that's what happens here. It's a very clear sign that the three hours of Dickensian drama that lie before us are going to be devoid of the normal schmaltz and sentimentality.

This is a grubby, harsh and, well, Dickensian London, just before Christmas 1843. It's a time of poverty, suffering, starvation and sickness, long before the Welfare State and, indeed, probably where we're headed in the next few years, unprotected by EU membership from Trump's rapacious designs on our food and our health system and where the Welfare State is becoming deeply unfashionable to those in power, much like such things as objective truth, the BBC, an independent Civil Service and, you know, institutions that one imagines a "Conservative" ought to want to preserve. But I digress. At least, in 1843, things were getting better. They had Sir Robert Peel, not "Sir" Iain bloody Duncan Smith.

None of that hope means much to poor Bob Cratchit, forced to work for an unusually lean Ebenezer Scrooge in the shape of Guy Pearce, a cynical smartarse who manages to be just likeable enough as an antihero. There's a long scene of dialogue between Cratchit and Scrooge, with Cratchit anxious to get home for Christmas Eve from his job as a human photocopier, or "clerk" in 1843 speak, which nicely gives us all the necessary exposition about his family's unfortunate situation and their respective situations. This side of thngs is almost traditional.

However, all this stuff with Jacob Marley and a very hellish Purgatory (it's all very Catholic but then it's a concept rather necessary to the idea of a ghost)- it's all very dark, scary, visual and not in the novella. Nor is this odd little sub-plot with Mrs Cratchit's cousin. And surely if, on Christmas Eve, Scrooge is told there will be three ghosts on successive midnights, this will take him long past Christmas morning?

This is brazen, bold, brave and different. Is it going to work? Well, the jury's out.

Iron Man 3 (2013)

“Gods, aliens, other dimensions- I’m just a man in a can.”

 I rather liked this film the first time I saw it. And this time around it still struck me as well-directed, very much so in fact, well acted and characterised with Downey and Paltrow as superb as ever. And perhaps this time around the identity of the “Mandarin” was less of a surprise. But the film seems to be lacking something.

Perhaps it’s the lack of a real supervillain. Perhaps it’s the deliberately small scale of the film (compared to Tony’s last outing, at least) with his anxiety attacks in the wake of the events of The Avengers- which is actually a good character point, Tony Stark bring the kind of rich, powerful, arrogant type who needs vulnerabilities to remain sympathetic, although Downey’s huge charisma does a huge job on its own. But ultimately the film feels entertaining but, well, insubstantial by MCU standards. And it never quite convinces how he gives up all the armour at the end.

There are some very good bits. The twist with the Mandarin is brilliant, and Ben Kingsley gives us a superb comic turn, and the Mandarin videos themselves are a superb visual riff on the iconography if the “War on Terror” which feels oddly retro six years later. Guy Pearce is ok as Killian, although his accent slips in places. Don Cheadle further cements himself as a mainstay. And there’s a lot of fun with armour, and various bits of it. But this film is unexpectedly inconsequential. Even the post-credits sequence is a bit of a damp squib.

Memento (2000)

"I have to believe in a world outside my own mind."

This film still blew me away sixteen years later. The concept- the story of an amnesiac told in reverse- is an ingenious use of both form and content and a story that can only be told through the medium of cinema. The twist is staggering. Christopher Nolan well and truly announced his arrival with this superb piece of cinema.

Credit also goes to Guy Pearce, given the heavy burden of carrying the entire film, all of which is told from his perspective. The film works because of the ingenious script, however and, while I'm not going to simply recite the plot.. SPOILERS!

The film is gripping, a very clever puzzle that it's fun to see unfolding, but it's also tragic. Leonard's "system", as we see, simply doesn't work, and he is constantly being cruelly manipulated by the likes of Natalie (particularly nasty) and Eddie. But, worst of all, as we see the twist, we learn that he's manipulating himself to give himself a continuing mission. He is simultaneously the villain and one of his own victims.

He's a truly tragic figure, though, a Sisyphus sentenced to never-ending labours by himself. This is a mind-blowing film on many levels and one of the finest I have ever seen.