Melancholia end of the world, A Round-Heeled Woman & Human Rights......

The week that Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi was beaten to a pulp, Liam Fox was delighted that the despots demise knocked him off the front pages.  The EU rebels showed that they weren't scared of David Cameron, 79 Tory MPs rebelled against the government by voting for an EU referendum, as well as 19 Labour MPs and the most exciting news of all that Just A Minute with Nicholas Parsons will be broadcast on BBC2 to mark its 45th anniversary.  I think we've all known for a long time that the world has gone completely bonkers.  The world's weather, the world's diet and the world leaders’ brains have got inexplicably mushed and it is not even Halloween quite yet!

So is Lars von Trier a modern day Nostradamus predicting the end of the world or just a manic depressive genius?  Should we wonder why are we all striving for yet another Xbox to practice our embarrassing moves to, or working 100 hour weeks when we're just about to go up in smoke?  2012 Nostradamus predictions paint a bleak picture of massive destruction and havoc brought about by a comet. It is not clear whether this comet will strike the earth or will pass very close to our planet, causing massive earthquakes and other cataclysmic occurrences.  Certain interpreters put the size to be just a little less than the planet Jupiter, and if such a comet passes close to the earth the effect of its gravity will cause the oceans to rise and also give rise to earthquakes. 

Another theory is that the even though the comet will pass close to the earth it might cause an asteroid to shift course and impact the earth. Such an impact will be the size of several atomic bombs and will cause massive destruction. Some predict that the superpowers of the world will send atomic missiles to break this asteroid in space, but still there will be a shower of hail and fire from its fragments.  For 2012 Nostradamus also suggest that because of the massive destruction caused by the comet there will be widespread anarchy and certain nations can take advantage and plunge the world into a third World War.

So far so jolly then and Lars von Trier kicks off 'Melancholia' with the end of the world and then he hits us with a mesmerising story that's moving, troubling and beautifully filmed.  Jonathan Romney in The Independent probably wrote the best review and so without shame, I have done a Johann Hari (who I think is terrific by the way!) and lifted some of his best comments, as I couldn’t begin to describe the movie better.  The Dane's facetious "I'm a Nazi" routine in Cannes – which suggested that he's less cinema's John Galliano than its Frankie Boyle – drummed up the scandal that, unusually, his film itself didn't.  Melancholia isn't, this time, a Von Trier shocker – in contrast to the screeching excess of the art-horror ordeal Antichrist. Instead, Melancholia is intimate, surprisingly honest-seeming, and less interested in provocation than in weaving an eerie, troubling spell. Not that Von Trier isn't out for effect, to a degree – he does kick off with nothing less than the End of the World, our globe pounded to dust as it collides with a bigger planet to the overpowering swell of Tristan und Isolde.

This is only part of an extraordinary opening that's one of the strangest, most beautiful things in recent cinema. Melancholia's prelude is a series of tableaux in uncanny hyper-slow motion: a falling horse seeming to deflate like a balloon; Charlotte Gainsbourg carrying a child across a golf course that has turned to sponge at her feet; Kirsten Dunst in bridal white, entangled in ugly grey tendrils. The first chapter follows radiant bride Justine (Dunst), as she arrives at her wedding party only to find everyone behaving appallingly. Justine's sister Claire (Gainsbourg) and her wealthy husband John (Kiefer Sutherland) are fussing about cost and timekeeping; the bride's mother (Charlotte Rampling) is in a venomous sulk; and her boss (Stellan Skarsgard) is hounding her for an advertising tag-line. Little wonder Justine's one moment of real pleasure comes when she hoists her billowing meringue skirts to take a rapturous piss on the golf course. 

This part of the film is briskly comic, like a knockabout remake of Festen, but also decidedly odd: it's supposedly set in America, but you feel you're in a curious semi-Scandinavian non-place.  The sparer, more sombre Chapter Two is seen largely from Claire's viewpoint.  We learn that the planet Melancholia is hovering overhead, possibly on a collision course with Earth. Rationalist John, armed with charts and telescope, insists that there will only be a "fly-by", but Justine seemingly knows something that other mortals don't. "The Earth is evil," she snarls. "We don't need to grieve for it." This, the film's most explicitly adolescent bit of doomsaying, is closely followed by the only moment that's unintentionally comic, as Justine samples a slice of her sister's meatloaf, then mumbles: "It tastes like ashes."

Von Trier's detractors may complain that he hasn't really created characters, that he's not seeing beyond himself, and that it's terribly petty-minded for an artist to invoke cataclysm just because he's feeling out of sorts himself. Von Trier, however, is both a showman and a lover of the intimate: only he would pulverise the globe as a preface to a chamber drama about family unhappiness. I don't know if the world will quickly forgive him his Hitler quips, but for Melancholia, I'll even forgive him Antichrist. 
 

Let’s lighten up the mood for a second and I beg you to do one thing before the 20^th November and that is, to go to the Riverside Studios (make sure you treat yourself before or after the show at The River Café) and watch multi-award winning actress Sharon Gless (Cagney & Lacey, Queer As Folk, Burn Notice) in the fantastic A Round-Heeled Woman. The play is an adaptation of Jane Juska’s best-selling novel that chronicles the real-life adventures resulting from a personal ad she placed in The New York Review of Books: Before I turn 67 - next March - I would like to have a lot of sex with a man I like. If you want to talk first, Trollope works for me. She received 63 replies, from men aged between 32 and 84.  Beware, it doesn't necessarily portray men in a great light, the only person who really understands her is the youngest guy and something very emotional in a library between them, becomes the most poignant part of the play.

Along Jane's courageous journey she falls in love, has her heart broken, suffers rejection and humiliation, has a lot of laughs and her first orgasm with a man after 30 years.

Book your tickets: http://www.riversidestudios.co.uk/cgi-bin/page.pl?l=1308749590

And so to the Human Rights Act.  Love it or hate it, it's here to stay.  Do you throw your remote control at the television everytime Shami Chakrabarti appears on Question Time, like a friend of mine does? or are you a paid up member of Amnesty International? with who you have to admire greatly in their quest for justice, whatever your political persuasion.  Perhaps the idiots that run our country are Lars von Tier's long lost cousins, considering the time and utter drivel that is written and spoken about in Parliament.  Theresa May won cheers as she declared that the Human Rights Act "needs to go".  At the same time, David Cameron admitted he would like to go "a little further" at reforming the controversial laws, which Liberal Democrat leader Nick Cleff has vowed to keep.  "We all know the stories about the Human Rights Act," May said.  "The violent drug dealer who cannot be sent home because his daughter lives here.  The robber who cannot be removed because he has a girlfriend.  The illegal immigrant who cannot be deported because - and I am not making this up - he had a pet cat."

Ken Clarke accused Theresa May of using a "laughable, child-like" example to press the case for scrapping the Human Rights Act.  David Cameron used his conference closing speech (unless you'd fallen to sleep by the end of the conferences, which of course you had every right to do, they were so tedious) to poke fun at Ken Clarke, suggesting his top team should read children's book Mog The Cat.  Cameron said, "If you, like me, read that book to your children at bedtime, you will remember that Mog The Cat helps the police to catch the burglar, not keep him in the country" and even walked off stage to The Cure's song Love Cats.

Good god, what a performance by the so called expensively educated people that run our country.  Is that Melancholia comet due to zoom past any time soon?!

Aside from above, 10 other things I read, did and encountered this week that may be of interest, or maybe you would prefer me to shut up and you can go back to reading your new Heat magazine:

1.  Dreaming of a beach holiday even though summer hasn't truly ended;

2.  Booking Jerusalem, missed it at The Royal Court and the perfect Christmas Eve performance;

3.  Fascinated by the new Conde Nast magazine Baku - who would have known it could rival the South of France?!

4.  Buying Christmas charity cards & presents early this year to avoid the weekend crowds, even better, buy everything online and get it delivered;

5.  Missing TOWIE, X-Factor & Made In Chelsea, reason is as am out having a real life and not being remotely bothered by missing any of it;

6.  Re-visiting Notting Hill & Portobello market for old times sake, beware of the many, many, tourists looking for the blue door;

7.  Buying new clothes on The Outnet, Net A Porter's perpetual sale site & a big nod to designer austerity;

8.  Grayson Perry: The Tomb of The Unknown Craftsman at The British Museum;

9.  Booking a flu jab, so as not to come down with the lergy at the forthcoming Christmas parties;

10.  At last have seen Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, amazing acting and tension, although not quite the 5 stars I was anticipating.