Christmas 2014

During the second half of the 20th Century, Christmas  generally become synonymous with gift giving, Christmas trees and rampant consumer spending. In contrast, prior to the Second World War, it was a far more limited celebration which was largely confined to the middle and wealthier classes in Great Britain and Europe although there was a limited involvement for the working class. It's worth reflecting on the deeper origins of this festive season to provide a broader perspective than the current pre-season sales would otherwise project.

The word itself is derived from Middle English Cristemasse which dates back to the 11th and 12th Centuries in various uses and basically meant Christian mass. The Cristen part is derived from earlier Greek and Hebrew terms such as Khristos and Messiah (which means 'anointed'). The masse part comes from the Latin 'missa' or celebration of the Eucharist. In short it was simply a celebration of religious observance. All of the additional 'accessories' were added in later centuries with the major gift giving and large meals occurring in the late 19th and 20th Centuries.  As for the birth of Christ, on which this observance originates,  it is generally accepted by scholars and religious historians that the year Jesus was born was between a period of 7 BC and 2 BC. There is no certainty as to the exact month or day. The choice of the 25th December occurred during the 4th Century AD within the Western Christian Church and later adopted by the Eastern Church.  In most respects this makes little difference in any meaningful manner as the true value of the event is the focus on others rather than oneself. In that sense the Spirit of Christmas transcends the fixation with pre-Christmas discounts and Boxing Day Sales. Peace be with you wherever you may reside.

Film Review - The Water Diviner - Russell Crowe

Russell Crowe as Connor searching for his surviving son - The Water Diviner

Russell Crowe's first credit as a film director (while also being one of the lead actors) is an impressive effort with The Water Diviner.  Shot on location in Australia and Turkey with a joint Australian/Turkish cast and crew, a reported $9M budget and a good interplay between backstory flashbacks juxtapositioned with current scenes, this is a technically well crafted film.

A period piece set after the conclusion of World War I and four years after the disastrous Gallipoli campaign, Australian farmer, Joshua Connor (Russell Crowe) has left his farm and travelled to Turkey to the Gallipoli battlefield in search of the remains of his three sons, believed to have been killed in action. Turkey, as the centre of the defeated Ottoman Empire, is under Allied Occupation but Connor receives little support for his quest from the British authorities in Istanbul. While staying at his hotel in the Turkish capital he is treated sympathetically by Ayshe (Olga Kurylenko) the Turkish widow of the Hotel's owner, and provided with advice how to reach Gallipoli without an official travel permit.

Connor reaches the Gallipoli shore to find an Allied Graves Unit commanded by an Australian officer (Jai Courtney) engaged in the recovery and registration of soldiers remains assisted by two liaison staff from the Turkish Army. It is at this point the story takes a twist as Major Hasan (Yilmaz Erdogan) the senior Turkish liaison officer discovers one of Connor's sons survived as a Prisoner of War and may still be alive. Connor's quest to reclaim his lost sons from the battlefield becomes a mission to rescue his surviving son as the Ottoman Empire disintegrates. Added to the mix is the growing romantic interest between Connor and the widow, Ayshe.

The Water Diviner has graphic violence due to the flashbacks of hand-to-hand combat at Gallipoli and later the invasion by Greece of Turkey's border region where Connor must travel to search for his surviving son. The film's plotline and representation is very sympathetic to the Turks and portrays the Greeks in an unflattering light which no doubt will add some controversy to an otherwise clear linear perspective. There is some inconsistency as Connor moves from grieving father to action man almost instantaneously in the later part of the film and stereotyping of some characters, most notably the British. Of note, the film is almost complimentary to Australian Director, Peter Weir's 1981 film classic 'Gallipoli'.  This is a film for cinema viewing rather than DVD or download.

Film Review - Interstellar

On board the Endurance - Interstellar

Christopher Nolan's Interstellar mixes theoretical physics, strong character development and an in-depth back story with stunning visual effects to deliver a complex layered film quite distinct from many recent efforts in the science fiction genre.  A simple straight forward space exploration film this is not and with a screening time of 169 minutes it is a film which will appeal to those who would like more than dazzling CGI effects (although there are more than enough scenes with high end imagery).

The plotline of the story is set on a dying planet Earth, not too far into the future with crops failing and endless dust storms. Society has fallen back into an agrarian culture to survive with technology and space exploration abandoned. Former NASA pilot and widower, Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) runs a farm with his father (John Lithgow) and his son, Tom and daughter, Murphy.  Through strange messages he discovers that NASA still exists and through the efforts of Professor John Brand (Michael Caine) is launching a mission to a worm hole which has appeared near Saturn. Probes through the worm hole have established that three potential planets for human habitation exist on the other side.  Cooper is enlisted by Professor Brand to pilot the mission shuttle with a team consisting of Brands' daughter, Amelia (Anne Hathaway) and scientists Romilly (David Gyasi) and Doyle Wes Bentley) with very quirky robots operating with almost human personality programming.

On Earth, as time relativity passes more quickly, Cooper's daughter Murphy has become an adult (Jessica Chastain) and joined Professor Brand working on an equation to launch massive space stations from Earth using gravity. All is not what it seems and Cooper and Amelia are confronted by endless challenges far away in space (including a massive black hole termed 'Gargantua') and some unexpected but devastating deception from their own colleagues.

The film was shot on locations in the United States, Canada and Iceland and theoretical physicist, Kip Thorne (a collaborator with the late renowned scientist, Carl Sagan) was the scientific consultant both with story development and visual effects. If you're familiar with terms such as worm hole, event horizon, singularity and gravitational lensing, the actual science gives the storyline a high level of gravitas.

The supermassive black hole,Gargantua, as shown in Interstellar

Sydney Theatre Company 2014 Season - Cyrano de Bergerac - Review

Cyrano de Bergerac - Richard Roxburgh

As the 2014 Sydney Theatre Company season draws to a close, it seems very appropriate that Edmond Rostand's, Cyrano de Bergerac concludes the year on a high point. This version of the play is an adaptation by Andrew Upton of the original tragicomic work by Rostand and mercifully the adjustment of dialogue does not transpose all of the script into lazy 20th Century colloquialism. There are, however the odd moments in scenes where the modern English usage is cringe worthy but these are few and far between.

Rostand's play is focused on Hercule Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac, a nobleman serving as a soldier and commander in the French Army. He is a man of many talents  being a gifted duelist, swordsman, poet and musician but he has considerable self doubt due to having an extremely large nose. His romantic interest is his distant cousin, the beautiful and intellectual heiress,  Roxane, whom he has known since childhood. Unaware of his affections, Roxane has become interested in the handsome yet stupid young nobleman, Christian de Neuvillete who has enlisted as a cadet in de Bergerac's regiment. It is from this point that a grand deception takes places for the handsome Christian does not possess the written poetic and oratory skills to win Roxane's heart yet Cyrano does not believe that Roxane could love as ugly a man as believes himself to be. He thus concludes an arrangement to provide Christian with the letters and poems to win Roxane's heart reasoning that at least if she does not love him, then she will love his words spoken by Christian.

Richard Roxburgh more than ably handles the role of Cyrano de Bergerac conveying the perfect measure of the character's emotional, if somewhat, contradictory expressions of self loathing, bravado, angst and poetical romanticism. He is supported by a competent cast with Eryn Jean Norvill as Roxane, Yalin Ozucelik as Le Bret, Josh McConville as De Guiche, David Whitney as Ragueneau, Julia Zemiro as Roxane's nurse and veteran Australian actor, Bruce Spence appears as the drunkard Ligniere. Set design by STC's Alice Babidge is functional, imaginative and gives maximum focus in the performance  space to the actors. This is a professional and entertaining production to end the season.

Film Review - Gone Girl - Ben Affleck

L to R Rosamund Pike, Ben Affleck - Gone Girl

Directed by David Fincher, Gone Girl is in the mystery thriller film genre with the screenplay by Gillian Flynn (based on her book with the same title). Set in the State of Missouri in the Midwestern United States, the story follows the investigation of the disappearance of Amy Elliott Dunne (Rosamund Pike), who has vanished while her husband, Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) exhibits awkward behaviour with almost a total lack of knowledge about his wife's day-to-day life. As the plot line progresses, their marriage is revealed as having all but disintegrated with Nick becoming unfaithful and distant while Amy becomes increasingly alarmed and fearful of loss. With the discovery of Nick's affair with a young student, Amy becomes vengeful and plots his downfall through faking her own death with Nick taking the blame. But who is the greater sociopath, Nick or Amy ?  Much of the film examines the couple's dishonesty with each other as well as with the people in their lives with other topical issues such as the role of talk show media in public interest stories added to the plot. 

With a duration of 149 minutes screening time, this film is too long containing elements of unnecessary repetition which concise editing could have removed without losing the continuity and the intent of the narrative. The juxtaposition of different time periods within the chronological sequence while detailing steps in the plot also make the film appear disjointed. The characters of Nick Dunne and Amy Elliott-Dunne are neither likeable nor sympathetic and an audience would find little empathy for either. Rosamund Pike delivers her role expertly as Amy and to a degree eclipses Ben Affleck's performance as Nick. As a who-dunnit thriller it also loses the element of surprise as soon as the tactics and plot are uncovered. This is a film for the DVD rental rather than the cinema ticket.

Cirque du Soleil - Totem - Sydney Review 2014

Cirque du Soleil - Totem - Evolution

Cirque du Soleil have returned to Australia with one of their more recent touring  performance creations, 'Totem' written and directed by long term collaborator, Robert Lepage. On stage are 45 performers from 16 countries demonstrating the breathtaking range of circus arts and skills, unique, themed costumes and imaginative state-of-the-art technological set designs which have become synonymous with their brand. Totem's overall theme is described as being the evolution of humanity from the primordial, amphibian period towards the aspiration of flight taking many founding myths into the narrative.

Totem utilises the Grande Chapiteau which better captures the theme and atmosphere intended for the show rather than being staged indoor in a sporting arena.  The various acts are themed under 12 titles being: Evolution, Mutation, Seduction, Legende, Nature, Culture, Attraction, Passion, Science, Elegance, Innovation, concluding with Celebration. The various performances include a large tortoise carapace which doubles as a gymnastics apparatus; seven foot high unicycles with female performers juggling and balancing metal bowls on their heads; fixed trapeze duo with a couple performing movements high on the trapeze; a juggler (dressed as a scientist) rolling multiple LED lit balls in a giant glass cone; a couple in Amerindian costume twirling at high speed on roller skates on a circular drum. Cirque du Soleil's entertaining clowns are in full swing with a 'Sad Fisherman' and an 'Italian Tourist' providing humour between the high end performances. An amusing, recurrent skit involves performers costumed in the various stages of human evolution from ape to Cro-Magnon to Neanderthal chasing a business man in a suit holding a mobile phone around the stage.

Altogether an impressive range of circus arts are on display in Totem with bars, hoops, rings, foot juggling, hand juggling, handbalancing,  high trapeze, roller skates, object manipulation, Russian bars and the unicycles.

Cirque du Soleil compose their own music for each of their shows and have the musicians cleverly concealed behind large inflatable reeds on-stage for Totem. The quality of the music and sound effects compliments the performances and matches the use of powerful, interactive projection technologies used for this show (which includes moving images of swamps, starry nights, lakes, volcanoes, beaches and the natural environment). The 'scorpion' bridge which doubles as both a stage performance point and an exit/entry point for performers operates in three dimensions, extending, retracting and curling. This technical mastery of design by Cirque du Soleil's production staff together with the on stage performers demonstrate that this is a second-to-none class show.

G20 Brisbane Australia - Environment and Climate Change

The efforts of the Australian Government not to have climate change included as part of the G20 Brisbane meeting agenda or discussed in any prominent manner were ultimately futile.

The G20 Leaders Communique included at item 19, the following statement -

"We support strong and effective action to address climate change. Consistent with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its agreed outcomes, our actions will support  sustainable development, economic growth, and certainty for business and investment. We will work together to adopt successfully a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force under the UNFCCC that is applicable to all parties at the 21^st  Conference of the Parties (COP21) in Paris in 2015. We encourage parties that are ready to communicate their intended nationally determined contributions well in advance of COP21 (by the first quarter of 2015 for those parties ready to do so). We reaffirm our support for mobilising finance for adaptation and mitigation,such as the Green Climate Fund".

Sydney Theatre Company 2014 Season - Theatre Review - Switzerland

L to R Eamon Farren and Sarah Peirse - Switzerland

In association with the Geffen Theatre in Los Angeles, STC have included the premiere of a one act, two actor play 'Switzerland" in their 2014 season. Written by Australian playwright Joanna Murray-Smith as a commissioned work for Geffen, the play explores the fictional last days of the master crime writing novelist, Patricia Highsmith, as she spends her final hours at her home in Switzerland confronted by a mysterious protagonist claiming to be an agent for her publisher. Highsmith had enjoyed considerable success with her books, short stories and cinematic adaptations including the series with the character Tom Ripley (the best known title being The Talented Mr Ripley) but she was renowned for her macabre sense of humour, a fascination for psychological disorders and being in some respects just plain mean.

Murray-Smith has provided a superb script, building an original thriller with a disarming simplicity in the first few scenes but escalating the action with calculated contests of words and wits between the two protagonists to a final conclusion - worthy of the intellect and reputation of Highsmith herself. Sarah Peirse expertly portrays Patricia Highsmith in form and character while Eamon Farren deftly moves from being the mysterious visitor to later revealing he is actually her principal fictional character. Although American, Highsmith spent most of her life in Europe and considered Switzerland as her home, dying from cancer in 1995. Her literary archives are held in Bern.
 

Measuring the Impact of Climate Change - Australia's coastal communities

Academics and researchers from the University of Tasmania have provided a valuable online tool and resource for measuring the potential impact of climate change on coastal communities in Australia. The Coastal Climate Blueprint website brings together a range of information and factors (ocean temperature, marine hotspots, infrastructure) to provide a score for coastal towns vulnerable to climate change. The website also has a function to create  a tailor-made blueprint for local coastal towns comparing data from the local region with state and national averages.

The website can be reached through the hyperlink below:
Coastal Climate Blueprint

Pop to Popism - Art Gallery of NSW - Exhibition Review

The major Summer exhibition for the Art Gallery of NSW, Pop to Popism opened on the evening of Friday 31 October with the usual fanfare of copious amounts of alcohol, sporadic tray food and extensive crowd watching opportunities. The juxtaposition of Halloween parties occuring across the city and nearby added to the overall atmosphere of being at the Mad Hatters Tea Party  (with just as interesting an odd assortment of guests). Some of the fashion on display would have as readily been in place on the walls as on the floor.

The 73 artists represented in the exhibition are from a variety of different periods of time of the Pop period some very recent and many, not so. Predominantly the exhibition consists of colourful mounted wall works rather than sculptures, objects or other film/video installations which are often part of the 'Pop' genre or the wider Post-Modern period. The focus on consumerism as the central observation and social materialism is nonetheless well encompassed in the works. Past giants of this art form such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Gerhard Richter have measureable inclusions in the works selected with Gilbert & George, Cindy Sherman, Martha Rosler and Jeff Koons adding a more contemporary influence. The sizeable Australian contingent include the works of Brett Whiteley, Jenny Watson, Imants Tillers, Garry Shead, Martin Sharp, Gareth Sansom, Colin Lanceley and Vivienne Binns. The exhibition is an in-house one staged by the AGNSW rather than a touring collection and to that extent the historical survey of pop art is limited. It is a pleasant experience but not one which will startle the viewer.