Five Films You’ll Love or Hate

Are you bored, by any chance? Looking for a film which is completely different from the formulaic crap we get so much of these days? Check out one of these films. Whether you like them or not, they’ll blow your mind.

1. THX 1138 (1971)

Wonder what George Lucas made before Star Wars? Here’s your answer. This beautiful but bleak film tells the story of a man living in a future where human beings don’t have names, sex is illegal and everyone is permanently sedated. His life changes radically when his roommate, who is in love with him, starts messing with his medication. I was struck by the film’s minimalism; without kick-ass special effects or CGI the film manages to convey a convincing and harrowing image of the future which is disturbingly similar to our world.

2. Begotten (1990)

Yup, we’re moving on the the really, really weird stuff. A disclaimer to begin with: this film is gory, disgusting and completely unsuitable for children or overtly sensitive people. Why bother to watch it anyway? Easy: it’s fascinating. There’s no plot to speak of (something about God and Mother Earth getting a son who vomits organs) even though some people, apparently, regard it as an allegory for life. If, like me, you don’t really get that part, focus on the style. Begotten was shot in black and white with extremely high contrast, making some shots look like abstract art rather than film. There’s no dialogue or soundtrack other than the sound of crickets. And yet it’s fascinating. If you’re curious; Marilyn Manson used some shots for his Cryptorchid video.

3. Immortal (2004)

Lo and behold, this film actually has a plot! It’s complicated, though, which puts many people off. But frankly, I’d still enjoy this film if it was about permaculture. It’s actually the only film I know which successfully combines CGI with life action. And it looks gorgeous. I’ve never read the graphic novels it’s based on but the film manages to convey the slightly confused feeling many graphic novels give me. Every scene and shot are packed with detail; this truly is a wholly original narrative universe. So, the plot? A mysterious girl becomes a guinea pig for a doctor whose intentions are shady at best, and meets a guy whose body is possessed by the Egyptian god Horus. Hey, I never said the plot was straightforward. But give it a go; even if you can’t stand science fiction you’ll love the film’s look.

4. El Topo (1970)

It contains horses, deserts, men with hats and sexy women, but it’s not a western. It’s a crazy and totally incoherent film which combines graphic (warning: GRAPHIC) violence with Eastern philosophy and religious allegories. To be honest, this is the kind of film which works best if you don’t try to follow the plot. Just sit back and let the disturbing images wash over you. Laugh at the bunch of bandits led by a fat guy with crazy underwear. Gasp as the hero and the love of his life are joined by a mysterious woman on a horse. Shiver when the hero finds himself surrounded by deformed people living in a cave, then an extremely violent cult. No, as the guys who left the cinema after me concluded, this is not your average western. But here’s a secret: it doesn’t claim to be.

5. Videodrome (1983)

Probably better known than most films on this list, Videodrome starts off as a film which appears to deal with media violence, morals and sexuality. And for a while it does. But in come the hallucinations, the paranoia, the exploding bodies Cronenberg is famous for. The film quickly turns into a scary labyrinth in which fact and fiction become utterly intertwined. Is main character Max losing his mind? Who’s that Brian Oblivion he keeps running into? And the most important question: what is Videodrome? Long live the new flesh…

Review: David Bowie Is

Last week I took a short break because my mum came to visit me. We´re both big fans of David Bowie, so during our trip to London we went to see an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum dedicated to his work. If you happen to be a fan: online tickets are sold out, but if you show up early on the day you might be lucky. As we were.

Bowie recently released his new album, The Next Day, and the overwhelmingly positive response shows that he’s anything but an old former entertainer. In fact, the man still has it. And it’s great to see how he got this far. Of course the exhibition shows the kind of items you’d expect – costumes, videos, paintings.

But there’s more. It shows how hits like Space Oddity and Rebel Rebel came into being; literally by displaying Bowie’s handwritten notes. It also shows that Bowie is more than a musician: his storyboards for music videos, designs for stage costumes, letters to people he has worked with – it’s all there.

I was most impressed, however, by the context the exhibition provided. I’m a big fan of A Clockwork Orange and J.G. Ballard, to name just a few examples, and the exhibition shows how these influenced Bowie. His music is never conceived in isolation; it exists in a dialogue with other works of art and other artists.

And finally, there was the music. I normally don’t like sound experiences – they turn people into zombies – but this one was appropriate. As I walked through the exhibition songs were played when I looked at costumes used in their videos, and countless people who worked with Bowie mumbled in my ears. It was truly magical.

Would I recommend this exhibition? To fans, definitely. But even if you don’t really like Bowie’s work, it’s an intriguing peek into the mind of one of the most briliant contemporary artists. I found the exhibition’s title a bit pretentious at first, but now I have to agree. David Bowie is…indeed.

Good Books: Lunar Park

Every once in a while, someone discovers that I’m working on Bret Easton Ellis and asks me whether I can recommend one book in particular. Even though I love American Psycho, I don’t want to be responsible for other people’s sleepless nights. So I usually tell them to read Lunar Park. It’s creepy, like all his novels, but it’s more: it’s funny. And even a bit moving. Yes, really.

We meet the author, who’s trying to lead a normal life after years of drug- and alcoholrelated issues. He doesn’t do a very good job: his marriage is a mess and his son hates him. What’s even worse: strange things are happening. Bret is attacked by his daughter’s toys. Furniture seems to rearrange itself. He receives strange e-mails from his bank. And then there’s a young student, Clayton, who looks like a younger version of himself…

Yes, Ellis surely explores his inner Stephen King in this novel. And he succeeds: Lunar Park is scary in a truly spooky way. But it’s not just about ghosts and skeletons in closets. It’s about failing to connect with other people, the author’s bad relationship with your father, the danger of being haunted by your past.

Contrary to his earlier novels, it actually has a plot. It reads like a thriller and it’s actually – cliché alert! – a page turner. That’s why I recommend it to Ellis-virgins: American Psycho might be too gruesome, Glamorama too confusing, Imperial Bedrooms too depressing. But Lunar Park is suprisingly accessible. It’s funny. And it shows that Ellis is actually a great author, who knows how to write a story which still haunts you long after you’ve read the last page. Give it a try. It won’t disappoint you.

Good Books: The Road

This week I reread a favourite of mine: Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. The story is simple: a father and his son travel through a post-apocalyptic landscape. Their aim: survive the winter. The danger: other people.

The Road is set in the future, in which the world as we know it is destroyed by a non-specified disaster. Humanity has almost become extinct, nature has suffered irreparable damage, and the remaining people try to stay alive as well as they can. For many that involves cruelty, murder, and even cannibalism, because food has become scarse.

The man and his son, however, are determined to keep “carrying the fire.” They only eat tinned food they find on their way and are able to keep going because of their love for each other. Now, this could have led to a horribly sentimental story. Except that it’s written by Cormac McCarthy. And the author of Blood Meridian and No Country for Old Men, among others, is never sentimental.

What makes this book so powerful, apart from its frightening portrayal of a destroyed world where some remains of civilization still exist, is its style. It’s almost poetic, and it makes it difficult to put the book down. I usually start reading it, thinking I’ll finish it in a week or so, but always end up finishing it in one day. Because once it’s got you, it won’t let you go.

A final reason to read this book: it makes you think. Even though McCarthy does not specify what kind of disaster led to the destruction of the world, the world he describes looks eerily similar to Pripryat, the city which happened to be next to the Chernobyl nuclear plant. And we all know what happened there.

In fact, I stumbled upon this project by photographer Paul Fusco, who almost nine years after the disaster went back to take pictures of the survivors. Many of them suffered from severe health problems. But the most harrowing photos he made show children, many of them born years after the event, who live in almost inhuman conditions. They suffer from cancer, MS, and other diseases. Most of them are grotesquely deformed. Many are mentally disabled. And this is why The Road is such an important book: it shows us that what we take for granted can turn against us, and lead to devastating results.

Why I Like Scary Books

Today I was making a list of the books I like most, which proved to be an impossible task. My taste tends to evolve and there are so many books waiting to be discovered. I’m currently researching science fiction for a conference paper and keep adding titles to my to-read-list. There are too many books, and too little time.

But  there are some titles I keep going back to:

• Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange
• Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting
• Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho
• Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club
• Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
• J.G. Ballard, Crash
• Amelie Nothomb, Attentat
• Herman Brusselmans, Pitface
• Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
• Charles Bukowski, Pulp

None of these novels are particularly easy reads. In fact, they’re quite scary. They’re full of violence, explicit sex, substance abuse, cannibalism, and so on and so forth. Yet, I’m not a violent person. My life is actually quite boring. I don’t do drugs. I hardly drink, and I’m never drunk. Why, then, do I love these books so much?

It’s a question which keeps popping up in my PhD-project, which is on Chuck Palahniuk and Bret Easton Ellis. How on earth can I write about books, and like them, while they depict behaviour I’m opposed to in real life? Am I such a hypocrite?

Well, no. I never like violence and other forms of abuse, be it fictional or not. The truth is: I don’t like the books because of the violence, the sex, the drugs. I like them because they make me think. They ask me questions. A Clockwork Orange makes me wonder: can you be a truly good person, if acting otherwise makes you physically sick? Fight Club asks me: is starting a terrorist army really the way to freedom? Attentat: what do words like beautiful and ugly actually mean?

And I like that. The books don’t give me answers, but that’s okay. When I first encountered most of them as a high school student I was sick and tired of all the people telling me what to think, and how. These novels didn’t do that. Yes, they were scary and repulsive. But they made me an independent thinker. That’s why I still love them.

Apart from that, they’re beautifully written. Sure, Trainspotting and A Clockwork Orange are difficult reads but once you get used to their language they are hard to resist. Pitface is deeply disturbing, but made me laugh out loud on a crowded train. I’ve never tried acid (nor do I intend to) but Fear and Loathing reads like I imagine a good trip to be.

I know many people hate these books, and that’s fine. They’re disgusting, frightening, and offensive. But if you bother to read them carefully, maybe more than once, you may discover that there’s more to them. These books will freak you out, but they may change the way you see the world.

Research Update

Sometimes I spend days staring at my computer screen without writing anything useful. Sometimes I manage to do quite a lot. Sometimes I start worrying whether there’s a mysterious drug in my favourite biscuits that I don’t know about.

This has been such a week. The plan was to write rought drafts for a sample chapter and documents I need in order to become, officially, a PhD-student (like most universities UEA registers them as MPhil-students initially). To my surprise, I got everything done. In other words: about 14,000 words in 5 days. Phew.

Of course it’s far from perfect, but for now the goal is getting my ideas on paper. Style and form are not priorities (yet). I’m a perfectionist and I’ve discovered that just writing without being worried about grammar and style conventions is liberating. Of course lots of revising is needed, but the writing process itself becomes a lot more fun.

I first encountered this technique while taking part in NaNoWriMo. The idea of this project is to write 50,000 words (a novel, more or less) in one month. Of course this means that you can’t spend much times thinking about the perfect way to phrase your ideas; you need to get the damn thing written. And it helps. Of course you can’t write a publishable manuscript in a month. But I ended up with a 50,000 word draft. Over the next few months I did some editing and eventually decided to put it away for a while, and come back to it later. But fact is: I wrote a novel-length story. Experiencing that I could do it, even if it wasn’t perfect, was great. And the same seems to be the case for my thesis.

Actually, I’m thinking about another long story which may or may not become another novel. Getting published isn’t a priority (yet). But writing makes me happy, it’s a hobby I’ve always enjoyed, and the only way to maintain my skills is to keep doing it.

The F Word: A Short Report

I just returned from my first conference as presenting delegate: The F Word, organised by PG CWWN. I could write a long and detailed report but actually I only need one word: awesome.

First of all, it was a great opportunity to hear what others are up to. The programme was varied, with people presenting on many different subjects. The panels, however, worked very well. It was great to see how different topics spoke to each other and every session was followed by a productive discussion.

It was also a great opportunity to get feedback on my own work. I got some thoughtprovoking questions which will probably make a big difference to my project. Moreover, it was interesting to compare my work to that of others and discover surprising connections.

But most importantly, perhaps, it was a lot of fun. It was great to meet so many other early career researchers and share experiences. Many of my days are spent near a computer, alone. But last week I learnt that scholarship is also a social activity, and that interaction with others is extremely valuable.

Given the theme of the conference we had many discussions about feminism. It’s good to discover that feminism lives among my generation. We may not always agree with each other, but at least we’re all convinced that feminism is far from obsolete and that more work needs to be done.

I would like to thank everyone who made the conference such a big success. First of all, the organizers. Everything ran smoothly and was well organized, you’ve been incredibly helpful and nice. Thanks for getting so many interesting people together. And of course a big thank you to all the participants. I enjoyed meeting you and hearing your views, and hope we meet again in the future.