2009 Best Ofs [Theatre]

The Merchant of Venice (Propeller)
Where Sam Mendes’s cross-cast The Cherry Orchard/Winter’s Tale productions were solid but rather staid and unsurprising, Propeller’s artful, prison-set all-male Merchant reinvigorated the play.

All’s Well That Ends Well (NT)
Ditto for Marianne Elliot’s entrancing re-imagining of All’s Well as Tim Burton-esque Gothic fairytale.

Phedre (NT)
Not all it could have been, due to a compelling but overly contained Helen Mirren and a bombastic Stanley Townsend. But Nicholas Hytner’s elegant production had some fine, memorable moments.

Mother Courage and Her Children (NT)
Deborah Warner’s thrillingly messy production of Brecht’s classic, with a magnificent Fiona Shaw.

Allison’s House (Orange Tree)
A rare outing for, and a beautiful production of, Susan Glaspell’s neglected 1932 Pulitzer-winner.

2009 Best ofs [Music]

Somehow I didn’t seem to open myself up to a lot of new albums this year. Whether the fault was mine or the music's I’m not sure, but alot of the year's most praised releases left me cold. Florence Welch’s strident, pushy vocals had me cowering and reaching for a Gillian Welch record and the synthpop revival seemed fairly unexciting - give or take a couple of decent songs. But here are a few things I enjoyed.

Abnormally Attracted to Sin/Midwinter Graces - Tori Amos
So you’re still busy processing one Amos album when, lo and behold! - along comes another one. For me, neither AATS nor Midwinter Graces take their place as bona fide Amos Classics: the former is too uneven, the latter - necessarily - too limited in scope. Yet even “lesser” Amos works end up monopolising my musical year, and songs from both of these records provided me with more intense listening pleasure - and more little (and large) epiphanies - than those on any other release. “Give,” “Welcome to England,” “Ophelia,” "Curtain Call," “Abnormally Attracted to Sin,” “Lady In Blue” and “Winter’s Carol” bestow delight, orientation, courage and resolve. Colours that violate the blackness. Other worlds in parallel. Poems they can’t reach you in. Ways to break the chain.

Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix - Phoenix
Cool (but warm) pop music by clever Frenchmen. An infectious, invigorating record. Encore!

Actor - St. Vincent

There’s a smug, art-conscious aspect to Actor that I don’t really enjoy that much; Annie Clark often seems less intent on bringing you into a song than in getting you to stand back and admire its cleverness . But on most of Actor's ambitious tracks the view looks pretty good.

Merriweather Post Pavillion - Animal Collective
This year’s Fleet Foxes in terms of praise: not as great as claimed, perhaps, but an undisputed grower.

A Loud Call - Holly Throsby
Throsby’s three disarming, low-key albums form a lovely trilogy. A Loud Call is the best.

Gavin & Stacey: The End

The final episode of the popular BBC3 (now BBC1) series Gavin and Stacey screens on New Year’s Day. But, in a canny marketing ploy, the series is already out on DVD, and I just watched the final episodes. To be honest, I found this final series a bit scrappy and rushed as a whole - and, sad to say, it reaches the most phoney, contrived and banal of conclusions. The new characters didn’t really take; many elements were introduced only to fizzle out; and Joanna Page's Stacey unfortunately became an irritant. But the glory of G&S has always been in its details, rather than its conventional and sometimes soapy plotting. It was a series of quirky moments and lovely non-sequiturs, and one that - a rarity these days -had genuine warmth and affection for its characters. I loved the barn dance, the fishing trip mystery, the oven gloves, the omelettes, the singalongs, the cultural refs. A throwaway line about “that big strawberry blonde fella from Patch Adams” in the final series sums up this show’s appeal for me. I’ll miss it.

2009 Best Ofs [Film]

Films that floated the Ramon boat. And a few that didn't.

The Class (Entre Les Murs) [dir. Larent Cantet] - Anatomisations of the work-place are one of the (many) things that contemporary French cinema does so well. Through realistic and detailed real-time sequences, Cantet produced the best depiction of classroom dynamics ever seen onscreen. A classic. Waterloo Road fans should be made to watch this.

Rage [dir. Sally Potter] - Beautiful, angry and stylistically innovative, Sally Potter’s critique of marketing, corporatism, celeb culture (and much more besides) was a singular experience. Jude Law preens; Judi Dench lights a joint. A fascinating movie. At age 60, Potter’s sheer bloody inventiveness puts most directors to shame.

Wendy & Lucy [dir. Kelly Reichardt] - One woman and her dog: a compelling performance from Michelle Williams and attention to the corners of America that we don’t usually get to see.

35 Shots of Rum (35 Rhums) [dir. Claire Denis] - On the Nightshift.

The White Ribbon [dir. Michael Haneke] - Eerie, haunting, and quite wonderful. It’s almost reassuring now, the way things are never all well in Haneke-land.

Mid-August Lunch (Pranzo di Ferragosto) [dir. Gianni Di Gregorio] - Italian neo-realism + Ealing comedy = joy.

Broken Embraces [Los Abrazos Rotos] [dir. Pedro Almodóvar] - Just enough bravura sequences to keep this out of the “Disappointments” category. But only just.

Seraphine - [dir. Martin Provost] - Absorbing, moving. "C'est beau" indeed.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus [dir. Terry Gilliam] - “A bit of fantasticality”: not always coherent (it’s a Gilliam film after all) but there are unforgettable sequences here.

The Hurt Locker [dir. Kathryn Bigelow]- Partial in its perspective, and problematically gung-ho in tone. But Kathryn Bigelow’ s tense and engrossing movie still feels like the most authentic depiction of Iraq War experience (from one side…) yet to make it to the US screen.

Vicky Christina Barcelona [dir. Woody Allen] - It’s trivial but it’s fun.

Disappointments of the Year

Antichrist [dir. Lars von Trier] - In which Torture Porn masquerades as High Art.

Chloe [dir. Atom Egoyan] - In which Atom Egoyan masquerades as Paul Verhoeven.

Let The Right One In (Låt den rätte komma in) [dir. Tomas Alfredson] - For me the year's most flagrantly overrated movie. Teen romance + vampire flick = hell.

Che [dir. Steven Soderbergh] - Great moments, especially in the final stretches of Part Two, and a committed del Toro. But Steven Soderbergh’s uneven opus felt oddly unsatisfying overall. Seldom has starting revolutions seemed a duller prospect.

Bright Star [dir. Jane Campion] - Lovely images, but I expected more idiosyncrasy in Campion's treatment of the material.

35 Shots of Rum

The elliptical, moody nature of Claire Denis’s cinema can be a cause of intermingled fascination and frustration for a viewer.

"Frustration," for me, reached its apex during Denis’s last movie, The Intruder (2004), an impenetrable tone poem/travelogue involving huskies, heart transplants and Beatrice Dalle. Happily, Denis’s latest film 35 Shots of Rum (just out on DVD in the UK) is a much more welcoming experience - albeit one that (I would argue) still fails to mean quite as much as it might. The film focuses on the relationship between a RER train driver Lionel (Alex Descas) and his student daughter Jo (Mati Diop), a close bond which is subjected to some shifts when Jo draws the romantic attentions of a neighbour (Gregoire Colin). Lionel, it transpires, also has his own complicated history with another neighbour, the vibrant Gabrielle (Nicole Dogue).

Denis’s estimable talents are evident throughout 35 Shots of Rum. No director I know films bodies at rest or in motion with more eloquence: a glorious sequence in which the characters dance to the Commodores’s “Nightshift” in a bar (and the viewer experiences the intense, inchoate emotions circulating among them) is a candidate for scene of the year. As in Chocolat (1988) and Beau Travail (1999), the attention that Denis and her cinematographer Agnes Godard pay to people and space is invigorating, and there’s also something pleasingly subversive about the about the way that Denis lingers over “inconsequential” moments (the preparation of meals; Lionel’s train journeys) while jumping over other, “crucial” details. Few films have conveyed the mystery and materiality of the everyday better than this one.

But Denis’s approach also has its drawbacks. Proficient at creating moods, her films too often let the narrative go hang. Character motivation is so hazy, and some of the scenes are so insufficiently dramatised, that the meanings don’t emerge. In a period of punishing, obvious mainstream movies her tactics are admirable, but they can sometimes make for a slightly unsatisfying viewing experience. The rather inscrutable performances that Denis draws from her actors don’t always give enough away, either, and there are a couple of crucial subsidiary characters here that simply remain too opaque for us to know how to respond to. I get the feeling that Denis’s movies sometimes lose (rather than find) their meanings in the editing room; on the DVD interview here, she reveals that she cut the anecdote that explained the title from the film because it was “boring.” (Why name the film for it, then?) 35 Shots of Rum is a wonderful and beguiling movie in many ways. But I’d still like to get closer to its characters than Denis ultimately allows us.

Seraphine

The mystery of creativity and the oddity of genius are the central themes of Séraphine, Martin Provost’s moving and absorbing biopic about the painter Séraphine Louis, known as Séraphine de Senlis. A maid troubled by mental problems, Séraphine produced vibrant, expressive canvases inspired by her love of nature. These drew the attention of the German art dealer Wilhelm Uhde, who rented an apartment in one of the houses in which Séraphine worked. The film opens in 1914, covers Séraphine’s greatest years of artist productivity, and climaxes with her incarceration in an asylum in the 1930s.

Yolande Moreau’s performance as Séraphine deservedly won her the Cesar for Best Actress this year. Moreau’s is a striking, finely modulated performance that never descends to the level of sentimentalised caricature. (No mean feat, in a movie that features non-ironic tree-hugging.) Whether stomping through the Senlis streets, communing with nature or working with rapt concentration on her canvases, Moreau is a captivating and charismatic presence. But the movie is in no sense a one-woman-show. Rather, it’s Séraphine’s relationship with her patron Uhde (a deeply sympathetic Ulrich Tukur, The White Ribbon’s Baron) that is the beating heart of this soulful film, an alliance I found far more touching than the Keats/Brawne romance in Bright Star. I dreaded the asylum scenes, but the tactful Provost doesn’t dwell on them excessively, and succeeds in bringing the movie to a tender, quietly redemptive close. A lovely, resonant and rewarding film, Séraphine deserves a wide audience.

Midwinter Graces

“This is winter’s gift,” coos Tori Amos over harpsichord and piano on “What Child Nowell,” the inviting opening track to her determinedly non-denominational “seasonal” album Midwinter Graces. Following Abnormally Attracted to Sin, this is the second release this year from the musician who must surely rank as one of the hardest working (and most underrated) in the industry. Even so, this project may seem something of an unlikely one for Amos. This is, after all, the woman whose songs have variously speculated on God’s need of a girlfriend (“God”), recalled masturbation upstairs during prayers downstairs (“Icicle”), suggested Jesus was a woman (“Muhammad My Friend”) and appropriated the motif of crucifixion as an analogy for self-abnegation (“Crucify”). Few contemporary artists have made religion as central to their work as Amos has, and it’s precisely for those reasons that a seasonal album from her makes such good sense. Her Native American ancestry and her rebellion against aspects of her “Christianization” have always been focal points of her music, and have turned her into an open, willing student of many different belief systems and practices. (Then there are the memorable covers of “Little Drummer Boy” and “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” that she put out in the 90s). Unsurprisingly, then, Midwinter Graces approaches the genre with a mostly winning mixture of reverence and irreverence, transforming the Christmas album into the solstice album, adapting and amalgamating classic carols, and featuring a few Amos originals (which are, for me, among the highlights of the work). Always alert to the patriarchal manipulations of Christian doctrine, Amos’s focus here turns out to be the rebirth of light - the sun as much as the son - and she thereby turns Midwinter Graces into an inclusive experience that, nonetheless, should not offend traditionalists. (“I’m a big fan of Jesus,” Amos reminds us on the DVD interview, in a tone that suggests she could just as easily be talking about Robert Plant.) Difficult tightropes to walk, these, but Amos - a glorious walking contradiction herself - has pulled it off pretty well.

Musically, the album is a fairly rich experience. With Amos on keyboard duties (of course) and her usual cohorts (Matt Chamberlain: drums; Jon Evans: bass, MacAladdin: guitars; John Phillip Shenale: string arrangements) backing her, the overall sound is at once classical and fresh. Highlights include the medievally-tinged “Candle: Coventry Carol” and the evocative “Holly and the Ivy”/“Lo, How A Rose E’er Blooming” amalgam “Holly, Ivy, and Rose” (with effective cameos from Amos niece and daughter respectively). Of the originals, the playful big-band number “Pink and Glitter” sparkles, the lovely “Snow Angel” has both sweetness and sweep, and the stunning, dramatic “Winter’s Carol” (from The Light Princess) bodes very well indeed for the forthcoming musical. Amos elegantly and understatedly injects a healthy does of anima into each of these songs - and, indeed, into the Christmas story. The two piano-only bonus tracks - in particular an inspired reinvention of “Comfort and Joy” - are also worthwhile.

Nonetheless, the subversiveness of Midwinter Graces is evident more at the level of concept and lyrics than interpretation. Amos’s singing is fairly restrained throughout; she’s described the album - rightly - as the first record of hers in which there is “no anger in the work,” and it’s hard not to conclude that this has resulted in a limitation in her vocal approaches, one’s that’s particularly apparent for an artist best defined by her exhilarating ability to swing between emotions and moods. Midwinter Graces simply does not afford her that opportunity, and, conveying wonderment, Amos sometimes ends up sounding merely twee. (Worst offenders: the schmaltzy “A Silent Night With You” and the rather clunky closer “Our New Year,” which is also too close in content to The Beekeeper’s more elegant “Toast”). But like all of Amos’s albums, Midwinter Graces ultimately repays the quality of attention that the listener is willing to give it. The record is not an Amos classic, by any means. But as “winter’s gifts” go, it’s not a bad one.