BOOK: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (2008)


The Hunger Games is a dystopian novel which is set in Panem, or what used to be North America. The wealthy inhabitants live in the powerful and luxurious centre of the Capitol and everyone else is divided into twelve districts, which provide various necessities for the economy (mining, agriculture, luxury goods). To keep the districts from rebelling the Capitol has set up the ritual of the 'Hunger Games' where one boy and one girl from each district is chosen to enter a documented arena where they will fight to death until one person emerges victorious. Collins has said she came up with idea for the book when she was flicking between two television programmes: an American game-show showing boys and girls competing, and a war-zone showing young people fighting and dying. In her novel she highlights this modern disconnect between the frivolous power and luxury of the Western nations and the hardship and poverty of much of the rest of the world through the contrast between the vacuous image-obsessed people of the Capitol and the starving oppressed people of the districts. However, apart from a few comments that are obviously aimed at contemporary life, such as Katniss' disgust at how the people of the Capitol use surgery to make themselves younger and thinner, Collins stays pretty safe in the world of fantasy and there is not much biting social criticism. The main character, and the most interesting part in the book, is Katniss, a young girl who has struggled to keep her younger sister and slightly useless mother from starvation since the death of her father in a mining accident. Katniss may not be a kick-boxing superhero like Buffy, but she is intelligent, street-wise (or forest-wise) and good with a bow and arrow, and the book is as much a battle of wits as a battle of strength. I found the novel pretty addictive, reading it in one sitting: the narrative was well-paced and fairly well written, the main characters were believable and likeable, and the plot was exciting, gory and not too predictable. However, the whole thing seemed rushed to me: the characters in the periphery were not fleshed out; the motives and emotions of Katniss were not developed sufficiently; and the whole thing was a frantic rush from scene to scene, where in depth descriptions of food, rather than character, seemed to take priority. The snippets of back-story were a nice addition, but once again they were brief and slightly dissatisfying (although maybe these are worked on further in the later novels). There were two things that really annoyed me though: the love triangle and the wolf-mutts. The love-triangle in the novel just seemed out of place: unnecessary and unconvincing. I really hope this doesn't follow in Twilight's shoes and spend the next two books chronicling the mundane agonising of a teenage girl who has to chose between two boys who are desperately in love with her. Similarly the addition of 'werewolves' also seemed to be inserted to please lovers of Twilight rather than to enhance the narrative. Without giving too much away, the wolf 'mutts' come in during one of the final scenes, and I thought their presence was the only thing that was not sufficiently explained or rationalised, as such I found them a bizarre and dispensable add-on in an otherwise compelling and imaginative plot.

FILM: Midnight in Paris dir. Woody Allen (2011)

Woody Allen’s latest film is a beautiful and amusing homage to Paris in the 1920s. It follows Gil (Owen Wilson) and his fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams) on their holiday in Paris. Both Wilson and McAdams played their parts fantastically: McAdams plays a beautiful and spoilt, all-American blonde who is exasperated by Gil’s romantic and fantastical musings and Wilson plays a whimsical Hollywood script writer,who is desperate to escape America and move to Paris to become a successful novelist. Wilson plays the Woody Allen protagonist wonderfully, capturing Allen’s signature neurotic intelligence without becoming a cheap imitation of his acting. From the outset is it obvious the two characters are a mismatch and Gil soon leaves Inez' company to go on solitary late-night walks through Paris. As the clock strikes midnight, a vintage car pulls up and he is transported back to his favourite era, the 1920s. He meets all the major artists of the period: the Fitzgerald’s have fantastic energy and Allen's depictions of Ernest Hemingway and Salvador Dali are hilarious. I loved the lavish and indulgent, nostalgic celebration of the 1920’s complete with jazz music, beautiful dresses and wild partying. Marion Cottilard, the 'art-groupy', loved by Hemingway and Picasso is beautiful and captivating, perfectly suited to the glamour of the 1920s. The shots of the cobbled streets of Paris in the dusky street-lit darkness are stunning: the film is a touching and beautiful musing on time, nostalgia and love and you cannot help but follow in Gil’s footsteps and fall in love with the city in this beautiful and inspiring film. Without taking anything away from The Artist, I have to say that Midnight in Paris is the best film of 2011 that I have seen so far.

My favourite scene - Gil meets Dali (excuse the subtitles): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GU7IGKDqcSU

FILM: Shame dir. Steve McQueen (2011)

After hearing a lot of great things about Shame, I have to say I came away from it slightly disappointed. The story follows sex-addict Brandon Sullivan (Michael Fassbender), whose mundane and brutal existence is interrupted by the arrival of his sister, Sissy (Carey Mulligan). The film exposes the sordid underbelly of Manhattan and follows the breakdown of the relationship between the two siblings, as Brandon becomes increasingly irritated and suffocated by Sissy's presence. McQueen purposely leaves out the protagonists’ back-story, leaving it up to the viewer to imagine what 'shameful' upbringing led to their neurotic and isolated adult lives. The problem I had with this was that it was hard to feel any sort of empathy for the siblings as they unravelled desperately throughout the film, or to feel any emotional response towards them by the end. Thus when Sissy did her (agonisingly) slow rendition of ‘New York, New York’ which brings Brandon  to tears, I was left emotionally cold and slightly bored. Also, although I found the majority of the sex-scenes important in revealing Brandon's desires and motivations, I found myself really irritated by the final threesome, which dragged on forever and seemed entirely gratuitous. I was not convinced by the casting choice of having Mulligan play Sissy, as I did not find her quite manic or desperate enough and she appeared slightly one-dimensional throughout.  Having said that, there were a lot of great moments in the film – Fassbender’s acting was phenomenal throughout and the film was well-paced and shot beautifully - showing the gritty underside of urban life and the cold, bare monotonous routine of Brandon's sex-obsessed existence. The relationship between Sissy and Brandon was compelling (and uncomfortable) to watch; plagued by need, anger and incestuous desire. The most interesting parts of the film were the scenes between Brandon and his recently separated co-worker, Marianne, as they debated the point of monogamy in modern life, and eventually embarked on a doomed sexual encounter. Although I thought the film had its flaws, Steve McQueen's directorial style was unique, beautifully real and definitely thought-provoking, which made them somewhat forgivable.

Carey Mulligan singing 'New York': http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktLmRCGM7r0

FILM: Life is Beautiful dir. Roberto Benigni (1997)


Having watched the big Steven Spielberg Hollywood blockbuster about the holocaust, Schindler's List, I was much more moved by Benigni's attempt to show the courage and pain of the Jewish victims in his film, Life is Beautiful. The plot follows the Jewish character,Guido Orifici, as he attempts to woo his 'principessa', the beautiful Dora. She leaves her Aryan fascist fiancée for the amusing and loveable Guido, but just as they start to enjoy their life together, Italy becomes suffocated by the influence of Nazi power. Eventually Guido, along with their son, is captured and sent to Auschwitz. Despite her wealthy and influential background, Dora refuses to be left behind and demands a place on the death train beside them. When they reach Auschwitz, Guido desperately attempts to keep his son from being afraid by pretending that they are participating in a game to win a tank, rather than being held against their will. The references to the mass murder of the Jewish nation are all the more powerful through their subtlety: we are shown vans full of women driving off not to return, a group of old people and children undressing for the showers which cuts to the piles of empty clothes, and finally a smokey obscured image of the horrific pile up of corpses in the camp. The film is both beautiful and brutal and you will find yourself simultaneously laughing out loud and crying, captivated by Guido's touching attempts to keep his son safe and alive. It is a beautiful celebration of a father's love for his son and of the sacrifices and bravery that went on in order to liberate the surviving members of Auschwitz from the death camps.

FILM: Blue Valentine dir. Derek Cianfrance (2010)


Blue Valentine chronicles the relationship between Dean (Ryan Gosling) and Cindy (Michelle Williams) and portrays the all-too-realistic pain and anger that can come hand in hand with falling in love. Cindy is a quirky blonde who had fallen for the typical high-school jock character before Dean turned up with his ukulele, serenading her with the apt song 'You always hurt the ones you love'. The film switches between these early scenes of passionate attraction to the bleak final days of their relationship: stuck in a dead end job, Dean drinks and struggles with his anger as Cindy tries to balance her job, her daughter and her relationship. Gosling and Williams act the parts faultlessly and I was completely captivated by the characters as they fell in love with each other, and cried with them as it all fell apart. It is a deeply painful and endearing love story and it is almost relentlessly grim, so anyone hoping for a happy ending will probably want to give this one a miss. My only criticism would be that the story jumps from the captivating scenes of the couple falling in love to the brutal breakdown of their marriage without sufficiently showing how it got to that state. As a result, sympathy tends to fall with the loveable but slightly useless character of Dean, as he is neglected and snapped at by Cindy and yet the film seems to want to give the impression that each are mutually hurt and responsible for the failure of the relationship.

Dean and Cindy falling in love to the sound of the ukulele: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbk1l5_gp-I

BOOK: Evelina by Frances Burney (1778)


As I am a huge Jane Austen fan, I decided to look at some of the female-authored literature that influenced her writing. The first novel I came across was Evelina. Like the well-known Austen plot of a parentless young girl negotiating her way into the wider world of adulthood, Burney's novel follows Evelina as she leave her secluded country life for the cunning and manipulative world of eighteenth-century London society. Austen obviously drew great inspiration from Burney's host of amusing, despicable and/or outlandish characters, but she toned down  Burney's burlesque style, using a subtler, more subversive voice to critique her society. Although Burney's novel lacks the polish and sparkle of an Austen novel, it is well worth reading for its comic characters, interesting plot turns and compelling narrative voice.  Of course the ending is predictable and like Austen, it pairs everyone off neatly and succinctly, but that is not without revealing the many dangers and difficulties for young women in a patriarchal society along the way. Although the beautiful Evelina appears to have every eligible bachelor falling at her feet, she is coerced from all angles into following other peoples desires for her future.The claustrophobia of Evelina's position highlights the lack of autonomy for women in the eighteenth-century and the worth Burney invested in her female character's morals and perception, signalled the beginning of a female writing tradition that attempted to subtly elevate the moral status and intelligence of women to that their male counterparts, through literature. An important novel for anyone interested in Austen or in a female writing tradition, it offers an interesting portrayal of eighteenth-century society from a female perspective.