Oppenheimer (2023)

 "You are an American Prometheus."

This is, of course, a superb film. I was expecting it to be exactly that, given its reputation, its cast and the fact that it's a Christopher Nolan film. It's a triumph. Yet, in many ways, it's also not really what one might expect.

This is, I suppose, broadly comparable to Lawrence of Arabia. It's a three hour epic (I'm not one for long films, but both films just fly by) based on the biography of one man in the context of his time, with lots of big themes to chew on. 

And this... isn't really the sort of film that Christopher Nolan has ever made before. Oh, there's a certain non-linear narrative structure ("fission" and "fusion"), but there's none of the clever structural trickery of a Tenet or an Inception. Instead, Nolan's directorial flair is used to illustrate theme and character, often showing us Oppenheimer's own imaginings of a nuclear blast.

The themes are huge. This American Prometheus has unleashed the power of the atom, with all that implies for the safety of the world. We also deal with the unfortunate consequences of having been in any way Communism-adjacent in one's past, and meet so many huge figures of the twentieth century during the course of the film. Yet the film, in its very structure based on two enquiries, one in the colourful past and the other in the monochrome "present" of 1959, focuses on both Oppenheimer himself and the mercurial Lewis Strauss, with both Cillian Murphy and Robert Downey Jr giving extraordinary performances, both of them literally Oscar-winning.

Deeply clever. A massive blockbuster. Really cleaned up at the Oscars. Simultaneously popular and acclaimed, something that just doesn't happen in these post-COVID times where, let's face it, cinema as an institution seems to be in slow but real decline. But, while films like this remain possible, perhaps there's some degree of hope.

Penny Dreadful: Verbis Diablo

"Is this what it's like to go mad? Your darkest fears made manifest before your eyes?"

More of the same superbly stylish horror-tinged Victoriana, then, as the focus shifts away from Mrs Poole and her witch underlings' psychic war against Vanessa to the careful simmering of other incipient plotlines.

First we have Caliban and his bride, named Lily by Frankenstein, as her creator shows her how to use language. Yet there are hints that she is becoming much closer to her creator than to her "betrothed". A surprising emphasis is placed on Sir Malcolm introducing Vanessa to the experience of charity work he performs to soothe his soul, but the main function of this scene is probably to engineer a meeting, and an interesting philosophical chat, between Caliban and Vanessa. The two do not agree on religion, but they seem to find a mutual affection and understanding.

Dorian Gray still pines for Vanessa, but is accosted by a prostitute, Veronique, who is bold enough to tell him that she fancies the pants off him, or Victorian words to that effect. Upon visiting her at her brother (she needs a firm hand, apparently!), of course, he is both unsurprised and unbothered to see that she is transgender, as the Victorians would certainly not have said, and genitally male.

There is also an erotic frisson between Sir Malcolm and Mrs Poole, mich though he may insist that, although separated, he is married and thus unavailable: the principled Victorian gentleman.

Mrs Poole is, of course, extremely nasty, calling Vanessa the c word and blackmailing poor Mr Lyle, who has the misfortune of being born at a bad time to be gay. Mr Lyke is extremely likeable, both for his endearing mannerisms in flirting with Ethan  ("American! I am undone!") and for his knowledge of the eponymous Verbis Diablo, a demonic and little-known tongue which Vanessa has been speaking. But the history is ominous; the writer of the sole extant text was burned at the stake.

We end with some quite disturbing scenes as Mrs Poole, surrounded by some extremely freaky dolls, proceeds to vivisect a recently-kidnapped baby, which isn't very nice but is a triumph of direction on the part of James Hawes. This is a most effectively freaky scene.

And Mrs Poole has a freaky dummy of Vanessa...

Penny Dreadful: Fresh Hell

"What would Dr Frankenstein be without his creature?"

So, at last the second season starts on Sky Atlantic. It looks as though last season's big bad is going to be witches, but in the meantime we have character arcs to set up for the new season, lushly and beautifully shot by James Hawes as always.

We add to the feminine theme of witches with a riff on Bride of Frankenstein as Billie Piper returns to play said monster, while her prospective mate finds another grimly Victorian job with poor conditions, this time working in a waxworks exhibit, a la Madame Tussaud's, except much more influence by lurid crimes and, well, penny dreadfuls. His boss, I'm pleased to see, is played by the excellent David Haig. 

Elsewhere, Ethan dithers about whether or not to return to Anerica while Vanessa remains her delightfully weird, brooding self. He tells her of his blackouts, after which he wakes to much blood. Much will come of this, especially as an inspector from the Yard is investigating the deaths of his pursuers from the end of last season.

Meanwhile, it's made clear to Sir Malcolm by his poor, bereaved wife that, after presiding over the deaths of two children, their marriage is henceforth to be eked out as a cold, artificial she'll with the two of them living apart. His surrogate daughter, Vanessa, is now his only family. No wonder she runs into his arms, able to confide in no one else. The witches, it seems, led by the mysterious Mistress Kali, are after her soul...

A very promising opening, if not quite up to the heights of last season's opener. I'm looking forward to the rest of the season.

Penny Dreadful: Season One, Episode 8 (Grand Guignol)

"Why do you think I want to be saved?"

Well, that was eventful. Quite the season finale, with many threads coming to an end, but it's pleasing to see that the episode opens as many doors as it closes. We end with the prospect of Frankenstein using Brona's body to make a bride for Caliban (that'll go well), with Ethan shown to be some sort of werewolf, able to rip his pursuers to shreds (is this why he left America, leaving tears and "a whole mess of blood"?), and with Vanessa contemplating the long, hard road of exorcism. There's plenty to fuel a second series.

In the meantime, though, there's a first season to wrap up. Obviously, there's the climactic hunt for Mina, ending in the revelation that Mina is loyal towards "the master" and the shock of Sir Malcolm shooting his daughter. Still, the hints continue that he sees Vanessa as his daughter.

It's fun to see Vanessa dumping Dorian in the same arbour where he first properly seduced her. And yet, symbolically, the flower is no longer in bloom. We, like Vanessa, are amused Dorian Gray is made to feel rejection for the first time.

Brona's death is heartbreaking, although Frankenstein's smothering her is somewhat unexpected. He's complex; on the side of the goodies yet capable of being so callous. And yet this callousness is done out of a paternal affection for Caliban.

Calibans tale is the most tragic; once menacing, he is reduced to a pathetic figure. He misinterprets Maud's kindness in making up his face and visiting her room, and is stunned by her rejection, forcibly kissing her and burning his bridges with the theatre. Maud may have sympathised with him, but she also looked down on him. He can never be attractive to a woman... except perhaps one like himself?

This is a superb finale, but it's fantastic to see how much time is spent setting up the next season.

Penny Dreadful: Season One, Episode 7 (Possession)

"Do you value cleanliness?"

"Yes, I suppose so."

"That's why you're a virgin!"

This is a very claustrophobic episode, set entirely in Sir Malcolm's house as he, Victor and Ethan debate what to do with Vanessa's increasingly horrible possession. Above all, though, it's a tour de force of acting from Eva Green, who out-Exorcists The Exorcist. It seem that the Earth did indeed move for her after last episode.

This causes friction amongst the gang; Vanessa wants to die, but should they let her live? For Sir Malcolm there is but one answer; he needs her alive to find Mina, and that is all that matters. This claustrophobic episode is talky yet gripping, depending entirely on its subtle and brilliantly crafted characterisation.

Ethan is himself briefly possessed but, in being the one who quietly cures Vanesda in the end, he hints at yet more hidden depths. There's quite a cliffhanger too, pointing towards the imminent finale, from the cured Vanessa: "I know where Mina is..."

Penny Dreadful: Season One, Episode 6 (What Death Can Join Together)

"You must risk rejection!"

This one is a far more typical episode, albeit with Vanessa now a lot less mysterious. It's one of the less eventful episodes on the whole, with the exception of Van Helsing being casually killed by Caliban after telling Victor all about vampires. It's a shame; we won't be seeing David Warner any more. It's interesting to see him point to a penny dreadful featuring Varney the Vampire!

Aside from that, well... Brona is still dying and Vanessa is still doing that thing with Tarot cards. Caliban takes a fancy to a girl. Ethan tells Sir Malcolm about Brona, and Sir Malcolm sympathies. And then they fight some vampires (which look rather like Count Orlok from Nosferatu) and actually see and speak to Mina, but to no avail. 

But the episode is mainly about a rather hot date between Vanessa and Dorian Gray. They discuss religion and philosophy, have that sort of erotically witty conversation that never happens in real life and end up having some extraordinarily kinky sex, with Vanessa scratching Dorian to the point of GBH. All he has to do, of course, is use the portrait in his attic which we all know about from our old friend dramatic irony.

Sir Malcolm returns home, empty-handed, to find Vanessa once again possessed, and levitating...

Penny Dreadful: Season One, Episode 4 (Demi-Monde)

"Is it poisonous?"

"Like all beautiful things, I hope so."

We begin with a mise-en-scene, Grand Guignol style, with Dorian Gray surrounded by naked beauties of both sexes. Yep; he's decadent, decidedly an aesthetic and portrayed as a combination of both his literary self and Oscar Wilde.

Vanessa, however, is infatuated with him, as a very flirty sequence illustrates; it seems the mysterious ice maiden is capable of melting. Victor is more interested in his scientific mentor, however; Abraham Van Helsing is portrayed with typical brilliance by David Warner, and seems to know a lot about the foe they face, considerably more than Sir Malcolm. 

Our tour of characters takes us next to Caliban, who seems quite the social Darwinian; like Herbert Spencer he believes in survival of the fittest, and sees himself as the first of a new master race. Hence the desire for a bride...

The wolf boy is still in Sir Malcolm's basement, needing blood; he seems to be something of a Renfield character. Next, Ethan takes Brona to see the Grand Guignol, with Dorian and Vanessa also watching and Caliban working backstage. It looks as though there's a real death on stage, but no one realises.

Our two couples meet, and Brona learns from Vanessa that Ethan lied to her about his job. She's upset, and dumps him- she's dying, in any case. We end up with a contrast between Brona, dying and now looking very ill, and Ethan, morose, being seduced by Dorian after an unpleasant afternoon's blood sports. We end on their kiss...

Penny Dreadful: Season One, Episode 3 (Resurrection)

"You have not known horror unless I show it to you."

So it turns out that Proteus wasn't the first life created by young Mr. Frankenstein, and that Rory Kinnear is in fact joining the likes of Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee in the pantheon of those who have played the monster. He even wants a bride! This time, though, he is called not Adam but Caliban, the name I predicted for his late brother.

It is Frankenstein and his monster who are foregrounded here, but the transplantation of the tale to late Victorian London gives us the wonderful spectre of Caliban working behind stage in the Grand Guignol, an institution which I suspect is intended as a kind of microcosm for the series itself.

Interesting, though, that Frankenstein's love of Romantic poetry, with its rejection of industrial sprawl, is contrasted starkly with Caliban's love of the dark Satanic mills of "an age of steam and turbines". Frankenstein is, of course, motivated by guilt. He is fulfilling the narrative role of a tragic hero; I fully expect him to eventually suffer a death to suit.

It turns out that Brona is a Victorian prostitute; I'm reminded of The Crimson Petal and the White, which I read a couple of years ago. I'm also reminded of Secret Diary of a Call Girl, mainly because of Billie Piper. Sadly, however, this prostitute is dying of consumption, in desperate poverty to boot. It's a reminder of the extremes of wealth and poverty that existed in the Victorian age, extremes that we are slowly sleepwalking back towards as the slow, cruel dismemberment of the NHS and the Welfare State continues apace.

Ethan Chandler finally decides to accept Eva's offer and begin working for her and Sir Malcolm. Again they go hunting for baddies, and capture a werewolf. Ethan is shocked by the cruel treatment it is subjected to by his employers, evil though it is; no one is truly good in Penny Dreadful, just various hues of grey.

Their new prisoner longs for "all life to end and the world to live in darkness." Sadly, for Brona, this seems to be her immediate future...

Penny Dreadful: Season One, Episode 2 (Seance)

"Your first-born has returned, father!"

Nice cliffhanger. The monster we saw Frankenstein creating last episode, a nice chap, was in fact the second attempt, and we see him being brutally and casually killed by his older brother, presumably the Frankenstein's monster of legend. Nice.

Interesting that Frankenstein is, against type, a cultured man, fond of the Romantic poets and choosing a name for his "son" from the secular Bible that is the complete works of Shakespeare. Proteus is nicely chosen, and close to Prometheus, which fits. I was half expecting Cailban.

So much else happens in this episode, though. We meet Brona Croft, a poor and dying prostitute played in an incomprehensible accent (I think it's supposed to be Ulster?) by the usually reliable Billie Piper. This is probably as good a point as any to whinge about the lack of subtitles from Sky on the watch again version; not good enough.

There's a murder, which the police and public are comparing to the Ripper murders (although "he only did whores!)"); is this the work of the ultimate baddie or of a odd only body-snatching Frankenstein?

Brona gets to meet, and get fucked by, Dorian Gray, quite the aesthete and fascinated by mod cons, even owning an Edison cylinder. He, Vanessa and Sir Malcolm are invited, this being the 1890s, to a seance, where he and the usually frigid Vanessa seem to hit it off. The highlight of the episode, though, is the seance itself, with Vanessa seemingly possessed by Mina's spirit and going full-on The Exorcist. This is superbly done, and Eva Green is amazing. This is also probably the finest sustained bit of swearing I've ever seen on television.

Ethan seems to start a relationship with Brona at the CGI docks (with a nicely half-finished Tower Bridge), but it's hard to tell, as I can't understand a word she's saying and there are no sodding subtitles. Meanwhile, Sir Malcolm meets eccentric Egyptologist Ferdinand Lyle, who has translated the Hierogyphs found under the vampires' skin. It seems to foretell "the annihilation of man and the coming of the beast..."

I'm still loving this. Why has it taken is so long to get round to watching it?

Penny Dreadful: Season One, Episode 1 (Night Work)

"That is my mountain. There I will ant my flag."

Yes, I know, I'm late to the party. But I'm rather enjoying Sky and Showtime's answer to The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen so far. I don't yet know where this is going, but the plot is gripping, the characters absorbing, the actors magnificent and the whole Victorian world looks superb. It's beautifully shot too.

Josh Hartnett is Ethan Chandler, our American character with whom the mainly Ametican viewers can identify, and a man with a mysterious past and a gloriously contemporary present as a performer in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. Through his eyes we are introduced to the mysterious, confident and deeply religious Vanessa, who reads him like Sherlock Holmes would, and the obsessed explorer Sir Malcolm, who seeks to rescue his daughter from vampires. Vanessa resembles Mina Harker from The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but Mina is in fact Sir Malcolm's daughter, snatched from the bog while having a crap. Nice.

Oh, and a young Victor Frankenstein is in the England of 1891 for some reason, rather than the Mitteleuropa of the late 18th century as per Mary Shelley. Our cliffhanger, nearly enough, is provided by his creating a son from various bits of flesh. I like the design of the monster.

I like Vanessa's speech to Chandler about a "demi-monde", a world in the shadows of London a la Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere. And I like everything so far about Penny Dreadful and it's serious, realistic tone contrasted with a playful take on the tropes and themes of late Victoriana.