an Oscar Wilde retrospective: the (un)Happy Prince

In a cheap Parisian hotel room Oscar Wilde (Rupert Everett) lies on his death bed. The film The Happy Prince chronicles Wilde’s destitute final years in France as a tangle of memory streams, boozy vignettes and flashbacks within flashbacks. As the audience, I am drawn to observe Wilde's failures with ironic distance, detachment and dark humour. The film opens with Wilde in 1897 leaving a British prison after serving two years for gross indecency. There is an early flashback to him telling stories as he put his two sons to bed. The somewhat autobiographical story of the happy prince, a gilded statue who allows a swallow to denude him of all his gold to feed the poor permeated the movie. We then watch him wander, exiled and frequently penniless, through Dieppe and Naples before expiring of meningitis in Paris 3 years later. Contrasting flashbacks from the humiliation of his trial to the opening-night adulation underline the tragedy of his fall. We also experience the unrequited love triangle between Wilde, the beautiful and manipulative Bosie, Lord Alfred Douglas (Colin Morgan) and Wilde’s devoted literary executor Robbie Ross (Edwin Thomas). It seemed that Bosie left Wilde for younger and beautiful lovers, while Wilde played the unrepentant hedonist with the dutiful and loyal Robbie. Wilde treats his loyal allies with ungrateful negligence. While he maintains his male friendships with Robbie and Reggie Turner (Colin Firth), he cannot reconcile with his wife Constance (Emily Watson) and loses her financial support. He does however befriend a young Paris rent boy and his tough kid brother and holds them spellbound with his fairy-tale of the happy prince. It is the closest Wilde comes to any form of personal redemption, where he realises that love is the only thing worth worshipping. To complement this sad and melancholic content, the film is filmed in dark and seedy alleyways, pubs and faded restaurants. The constant horror of humiliation and poverty is at odds with the characters' indulgent search for luxury. So perhaps after all, there is a higher order explanation where polite society was prepared to turn a blind eye to homosexual affairs with the lower orders, who could be bought and bought off. It seems that Wilde's flaunted connection with the Queensberry family was a class transgression and his fatal flaw. So as a tragic genius, he lived and died for love.

Inspired and entertained by Woman at War

I was attracted by an Icelandic film with a female lead more than the actual title: Woman at War. I was pleasantly surprised as the war was a subtle environmental one and the woman, Halla (Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir) was a smart and talented fifty-year-old. The Icelandic scenery and the haunting music played by musicians across the country was also a pleasant surprise. Wherever she was, there was a trio nearby of poker-faced musicians. This film was spectacular at every level. It was an intelligent feel-good film that addressed real and urgent global issues with humour, music and a satisfying sense of justice. Behind the scenes of her regular routine as a choir director, Halla led a double life as a passionate environmental activist, known as the Woman of the Mountain. In the opening scene we see her firing a bow and arrow across high power lines to cut power to the local aluminium smelter and protest against the energy corporations that are moving into Iceland. There are some wonderful cat and mouse scenes on wild moors where she hides from the helicopter under a mossy overhang. As she seeks help from local sheep farmers, we see their support for the environment. There is also a comic counterpoint, played by a wandering Spanish tourist named Juan (Juan Camilla Roman Estrada) who keeps cycling in the wrong place and is mistakenly identified for Halla’s crimes. She continues her dramatic industrial sabotage with help from a Government insider but as American thermal cameras monitor Iceland's highlands from space, Halla is trying to decide if she should stop using her bow and arrow and issue the ecological manifesto she’s been planning. A surprise phone call reveals that an application Halla made years earlier to adopt a child has unexpectedly been accepted. A sprightly Ukrainian girl orphaned by war needs a mother. So Halla's challenge is whether she can risk being imprisoned when she’s responsible for a child already traumatized by the loss of one home. At the same time, a cappella trio of women in traditional Ukrainian folk dress sing up a storm at key decision-making points. With perfect timing, Halla’s twin, Asa, shows up although she has just agreed to join an ashram in India for two years. This sets the scene for a few interesting twists and turns. The final scenes offer a heart-warming resolution, but the environment wins out, in a lingering warning.

wet weekend escapism in The Aftermath

A Ridley Scott period drama set in Germany seemed like a cathartic wet weekend escape. Emotional scenes at opposite platforms of Hamburg's main station, several months apart begin and close this dramatic film. In 1946, Rachael Morgan (Keira Knightley) arrived to the snow-covered ruins of Hamburg to be reunited with her British General husband Lewis (Jason Clarke). While he was duty bound to rebuild the occupied city, she was grieving her son, recently killed in a London bombing raid. Despite a well manicured retro wardrobe, Keira's girlish pouting reinforced naïve ignorance while emphasising her romantic and unrealistic expectations of 'dedicated' time with her almost estranged husband. Lewis moved Rachel into a mansion on the North Sea that was recently confiscated by the British government from its former tenants, Stephen Lubert (Alexander Skarsgård) and his teenage daughter, Freda (Flora Thiemann). While Lewis cannot show compassion for his lost son, he does allow Stephan and Freda to live upstairs in their own house, rather than sending them to the POW camps. When we realise that Stephan has just lost his wife in the final bombing raid on Hamburg, the scene is set for the inevitable drama triangle. The plot builds on the precarious living arrangement between strangers and former enemies connected by their respective losses and unresolved grief. The quick escalation to the ultimate betrayal is somewhat forced, but the later twists are not as predictable and prompt thoughtful reflection. This film portrays a challenging historical epoch that has not been addressed in many films; the painful process of establishing peace between recent enemies amidst the daily devastation. Behind this, there is also the cultural 'hatred' between the triumphant British occupiers and the German who were losing their homeland. The young and naïve British army were bumbling and arrogant in their attempts to wipe out Nazi sympathisers while occupying homes of previously successful and educated Germans. The process of building peace was not well explored given that the German younger generations are still coming to terms with the complexity of their grandparents' lives. Neither Nazism or resistance was simply good or bad, and most individuals were living with complex personal and political losses.

disappointingly entertained by...Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri

There's two hours of my life I will never get back... and I am struggling to understand the message behind the pain, hatred, anger, rage, violence and onslaught of foul language... Is this really where we are at... celebrating the rough and dark depths of ordinary... So let's step back and see where there might be some insights. Mildred's caustic language and behaviour sent her daughter out to walk along a dark deserted highway - where she met a nasty outcome - but somehow Mildred denies her partial contribution to this terrible tragedy and takes out her anger on the local police chief via confronting messages on 3 Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri. The targeted police chief is dying from cancer and shares the truth about the unsolved case while she continues to berate him. There are glimpses of her pain but they are not that sincere or believable. She seems so tough and rough that she she is incapable of insight or regret. She hates her ex, makes life hell for her son and even treats the town's midget who covers for her terrible crime, with complete disdain. And then there is the dark and shocking moral ambiguity of gratuitously violent crimes, rampant racism and vicious vigilantism without comparison or consequence. The only believable characters are nasty, ruthless, brutish and dim witted.

an unexpected story... The Black Dress

I was given this book to read by a trusted colleague, who, on observing my work challenges, suggested I might relate to the description...a book about suffering and strength, religion and rebellion, love and anger. Many months later, I picked it up and started reading The Black Dress, by Pamela Freeman. It is a convincing story about Mary MacKillop, based on historical facts, of the eldest daughter of a Scottish immigrant catholic family in the mid 1800's. Alexander MacKillop left Scotland to join the seminary in Rome, but opted instead to become a god-fearing farmer in country Victoria, alongside his well educated wife Flora, who grew up in the foothills of the highest mountain in Scotland. We experience life from the perspective of Marie Ellen who experiences her father's educational aspirations while also feeling abandoned as he leaves the family and generally opts out of his paternal responsibilities. She experiences her mother's fatalistic 'god will provide' acceptance of their resultant poverty and as a reader we also have an insight into her personal anger, which would never have been appropriate at that time. The underlying question is the extent to which she can ultimately forgive her father, while carrying forward his religious fervour for her own life as an unconventional nun. Mary was clearly an independent thinker whose actions have had a lasting impact on rural children's education in Australia.

walking across the Sahara with Paula Constant

Why would an Australian woman walk across the Sahara with camels? The question was forming while I listened to Paula Constant in a segment of the Ubud Writer's Festival titled Incredible Journeys. She did not really answer my question in that session, but I did enjoy her style of story telling sufficiently to buy her book simply titled Sahara. Having walked more than 3,000 miles from Trafalgar Square to Morocco, Paula starts this adventure at the western edge of the Sahara, with her husband Gary, planning to walk from the western coast to Egypt in the east. Initially the book is quite self-indulgent, but in a way, it has to be, because the decision making behind this adventure is not always logical or linear. However, Paula's honesty, careful descriptions and self-analysis are compelling.

She writes with amazing clarity and compassion about the people of the Sahara and compares cultures between the original Saharawi nomads, Arabs, Bedouin and Touareg, and especially between men and women. I really enjoyed beginning to understand the racial and tribal connections and the importance of the infamous tea ceremony. Paula hires local nomadic guides, initially to teach her about walking with camels and later to navigate the route and languages.

However, the selection and choice of guides is quite challenging, while offering her and the reader amazing geographical and cultural insights. The Sahara is really more than the barren sand dunes we all visualise. She walks through the countries of Morocco, Mauritania, Mali and finally Niger, where she had to terminate her journey for political and health reasons.

The story is ultimately one of Paula's struggle to address her innermost demons and take control of her journey, her camels, and the men she hires to guide her through the romantic "big empty" desert. Early on in the trek, her husband leaves and the dynamics change quite dramatically. She writes honestly of her physical, emotional and spiritual journey; sharing both her courageous and naive decisions. She describes the challenges of hidden landmines, political bureaucracy, extreme weather, bandits and corruption without complaint or dramatic exaggeration as these are the tools for her own self discovery. It is clear that she is not trying to be a super-hero, but just testing her abilities to their limits. Her adventure is strangely believable and I found myself experiencing with her, emotions of joy, heartache, inspiration, and despair.

I also realised that she found her own threshold of sanity and realised the power of the human spirit in all its guises. However, she is much more courageous and capable that I ever could be! Finally, after finishing this book, I found 2 podcasts of Richard Fidler interviewing Paula about this journey and a TEDx talk 'The Power of Enough' where Paula shares her profound insights and acceptance of herself. She acknowledges the simplicity of accepting that she is where she is supposed to be, and that she is enough just as she is. I am glad that I found this because I realised her story was not about success or achievement but the process we all go through in one way or another or trying to be the best we can, but ultimately settling for accepting and enjoying our own authenticity.

Just to be sure...finding the extraordinary in the ordinary

What I love about french movies is the detailed depiction of ordinary lives with such detail that they seem extraordinary Just To Be Sure is set in coastal villages of Brittany, and begins by contrasting a DNA test with a robot defusing WW2 bombs. Detonating bombs is a wonderful metaphor for the unexpected surprises throughout this film. Erwan Gourmelon, played by Belgian actor Francois Damiens is a middle-aged widower with a feisty daughter, Juliette (Alice de Lencquesaing), who is very pregnant. She won't identify the baby's father as it was conceived during a one-night stand, and she does not want to hold him responsible. So the first big surprise is that following DNA tests for Juliette to exclude a recessive form of cerebral palsy, Erwan finds out that he has no DNA match with his father! To list out every personal challenge and dilemma along the way and highlight how they are often resolved in an unexpected way would only minimise the beauty in the everyday scenes and the seeming coincidences. Suffice to say, Erwan discreetly sets out to learn about and to find his father, who happens to be an elderly and very endearing man. He also seeks to seduce the elusive doctor, Anna, until he finds out who she really is... Erwan also facilitates Juliette to accept her baby's father and while many loose ends are resolved, it does not necessarily end happily ever after.