Room

Seven years ago, Josef Fritzl was the punchline on every comedian's lips. Laughter seemed the only way to deal with the shocking details of the Fritzl case. In 1984 Fritzl lured his daughter, Elisabeth, into a basement where he kept her imprisoned for 24 years. Over the period of her confinement, Elisabeth was raped and as a consequence carried eight children, of which two died: one during pregnancy, the other after three days. Three of the six children were reared upstairs by Fritzl and his wife (Fritzl told Social Services his daughter had ran away from home, returning only to leave her unwanted children on the doorstep: his wife and the Services believed him). The other three children were brought up in a 600 sq ft cell with food brought to them bi-weekly. Stoically, Elisabeth created a haven out of a hovel, educating and nurturing the children as best she could. In 2008 Fritzl called time on his double life and released Elisabeth and the children from the basement, explaining to his wife that Elisabeth had decided to return home after 24 years. Traumatised and hospitalised, it wasn’t long before the authorities realised what had been endured. A year later, the captor Josef Fritzl became the captive when he was sentenced to life imprisonment. Never has justice been served with quite so much irony.

Fritzl: a man who now tastes his own medicine.

But what for the children born into captivity? How do you come out of the darkness and into the light? The issue has been explored in two things I’ve enjoyed this week. The first being the Netflix series, The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt about the titular character adjusting to the modern world after fifteen years imprisoned underground. With Kimmy moving to New York Tina Fey’s series can read like a fish-out-of-water Crocodile Dundee story, but with the flashbacks to her incarceration we also appreciate our heroine's indomitable spirit. The second is Emma Donaghue’s Room, which has just come out on the silver screen. The book has been keeping me up this week, which is why I feel compelled to write about it.

Tina Fey's Unbreakable turns tragedy into sparkling comedy.

Room is patently inspired by the Fritzl case. The book begins with Jack telling us that he has just turned five. Intriguingly, he asks his mum: “Up in heaven. Was I minus one, minus two, minus three?” Surprisingly, his mum replies: “Nah, the numbers didn’t start until you zoomed down.” The lies we tell our children about conception are far-fetched, but this one seems more creative than most. Jack doesn’t see the lie because there is no one to contradict his mother, or as he calls her ‘Ma.’ The only other person who visits their room is ‘Old Nick,’ who is under strict instructions to never talk to Jack. Coaxed into the wardrobe whenever Nick visits, Jack is kept hidden from the ogre's rapacious desires. Unaware of the horror Ma is subjected to, Jack loves his life. Why wouldn’t he? He doesn’t know he’s in a 10 x 10 cell – he’s never been in another room. He doesn’t know that it isn’t normal for you to hide your mother’s drawing of you so your 'father' doesn’t see it. He doesn’t know. All he does know comes from Ma. Her word is Gospel. She is the way, the truth and the life. She is the omniscient deity that attends to the curiosity of the child. Her inventiveness to turn their cell into a playground is a feat of resilient wonder. Furniture is kicked aside to turn the carpet into a track; egg shells are collected and manipulated to make animals; bedtime games of rhyme go back and forth until the child sleeps.

Jack and Ma at play.

When the TV is on, the adverts are muted to stop Jack getting ideas about what he's lacking. News footage is explained as being from an imaginary TV world. In Room knowledge is weakness, ignorance is strength: to know of his mother’s pain, of the brutality she is subjected to, would be to subdue Jack; to keep him afraid. Ma will not do this. She will make a heaven out of a hell. She won’t let circumstances destroy joy.

Lucky to have loving parents, I’m always moved by stories of paternal love. My favourite moments as a teacher are when I see a parent turn to a child at parents evening and say, “I’m proud of you.” The power of that love is profoundly moving. As a child without children, I do not have first-hand experience of the sacrifice parents make; it’s books like Room that make us aware of selflessness in action. A story Room reminded me of was Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. In that book, father and son are trying to survive a nuclear fall-out. With food scarce, his son becomes quarry to bandits desperate for sustenance. The son depends on the father to keep him alive, but you get the feeling that spiritually the father depends on the child too. Room is similar: for all the hardships the mother endures for the child, the child brings joy and distraction that preserves her. Maybe earlier in the paragraph I was doing children a disservice; maybe parents need us as much as we need them. Whatever the answer, Room is a book that moved me beyond measure. It is proof that flowers can bloom in the darkest of rooms.

Room is available in all good bookshops and is now on cinematic general release.

The Hateful Eight

Prologue: Deconstructing Ryan

“Any plans for the weekend.”

“I’m going to visit my friend’s new baby and then go and see the new Tarantino movie.”

“Oh, I’ve heard good things about that.”

“I have too. Hopefully it lives up to its billing.”

This conversation is verbatim. Unfortunately, I actually say things like ‘lives up to its billing.’ You might also notice I’ve referred to a film by its director – and not its title – and should therefore appear in Shoreditch Crown Court charged under the Dangerous Hipster Act. If you feel this way, please now let me plead extenuating circumstances. You see Tarantino isn’t like most movie directors. His chat-show appearances and combative news interviews (“I’m shutting your butt down!”) make him more famous than the actors he hires. He is the millennial answer to Alfred Hitchcock: the celebrity auteur that people pay to see.  With this line of defence, I hope I've now earned your conditional pardon. I understand your honour that if I tell my colleagues next week that ‘I’m going to see the new Lenny Abrahamson picture,’ then I deserve to be garrotted with piano wire.

The only thing standing between me and this hirsute grooming regime is my marking workload.

Prelude to Pacing

The new Tarantino film is an amalgam of what’s come before: it has the ensemble of Reservoir Dogs, the narrative shifts of Pulp Fiction and the Civil War setting of Django Unchained. In essence, The Hateful Eight is Tarantino’s ‘Greatest Hits’ with added bonus tracks. The bonus tracks being a more ponderous pacing that has divided critics into two camps: a sign of growing maturity, allowing the subject matter to breathe or a symptom of Tarantino’s atheism, disavowing the existence of an editor. Ever the Worzel, I appreciate both points of view.

The Story

The Hateful Eight could be seen as a sequel to Django Unchained. Django was Tarantino’s first shot at a Western, an experience he enjoyed so much that he vowed to make more. Where Django was set before the American Civil War, Hateful is set after. The story begins in a blizzard on a stagecoach journeying to Red Rock. Within is John Ruth, a bounty hunter, handcuffed to him his bounty, Daisy Domergue. On route a man, Major Warren (Samuel L. Jackson), waves them down, explaining how his horse didn’t survive the difficult terrain, which leaves him needing a lift. Like Ruth the Major is a bounty hunter, so in the spirit of shared experience Ruth acquiesces and allows him to board. Further on, another man on foot signals the stagecoach to stop. Initially, the bounty hunters are resistant to share their journey with a southern hee-haw that doesn’t share their sensibility; but when he announces that he’s Sheriff Chris, the new incumbent of Red Rock, they agree, aware they won’t get paid if they don’t get this man to town. 

Allowing the Sheriff to board is the jumping-off point for simmering tension, a beginners guide to the racial fall-out of the Civil War. You see, Major Warren served for the North and was interned in a prison camp; Sheriff Chris, on the other hand, belonged to the rival faction 'the Confederates,' a separatist group unhappy with President Lincoln’s proposal to emancipate slaves amongst other things. The two share the coach and their war stories in the spirit of détente, but is this cooling of enmity going to last? Or will the fires of battle rage again? Finally, the four arrive at their stop-over Minnie’s Haberdashery, but instead of Minnie welcoming them they’re greeted by a Mexican called Marco and three other patrons (a hangman, a general and a grizzled man allegedly travelling home for Christmas). The Mayor, a frequenter of Minnie’s, eyes the scene with distrust: is it indicative of the wariness black men felt in any environment or particular to this one?

I would take my chance with hypothermia over riding with this pair.

Pacing

The first half of Hateful Eight is slow. To use an apt analogy, Tarantino is pulling the stagecoach at a glacial pace. Even when the action moves from trot to canter in the second half, there are lounguers that don’t seem to have the requisite tension. Given Ennio Morricone, the great conductor of the Spaghetti Western, is enlisted for the film, I felt more could have been done with the score to punctuate tension. The camera is largely still in the movie too; it doesn’t jump with the verve that Tarantino’s earlier works did. Undoubtedly, the exterior world of The Frontier is expressed beautifully, so too the dim lit interior of the chamber piece second half, but I wouldn’t have minded some of the brio that Sergio Leone brought to his Western directing. That said, an argument could be made that Tarantino has come of age and no longer depends on tricks and flicks to satisfy his audiences. Indeed with the largely one-set location and emphasis on talk over action, our postmodern director has done something new in dispensing with style over story, invoking classics like Twelve Angry Men and Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None.

Despite the numerical difference, The Hateful Eight would take Twelve Angry Men.

Epilogue

The Hateful Eight is a grown up piece of cinema from the enfant terrible of cinema. The film retains Tarantino’s impish obsession with vulgarity and violence, yet says something quite profound on the big questions: does war excuse all barbarism? When is a lie necessary? Can justice ever be administered with violence?
In turning his gaze in, it might be our 52-year-old boy has all grown up.

Esio Trot

In Roald Dahl’s glittering body of work Esio Trot is something of an anomaly. For a start, it is tiny; for another, it relegates children to the background, centring on two elderly protagonists. If you think of Grandma in George’s Marvellous Medicine and Trunhbull in Matilda, much of Dahl’s stories are about lampooning adults and criticising their supposed wisdom; but in this tall tale he goes against type, and instead of creating a carnival of grotesqueries draws a naturalist portrait of love – albeit one that features tortoises.

Being familiar with the novella from childhood, I was struck by how beautiful the TV adaptation was. Dahl’s Esio Trot is a lovely yarn but weighing in at 62 pages it is as flimsy as the book’s tortoise. In creating a ninety-minute film, Vicar of Dibley co-writers Richard Curtis and Paul Mayhew-Archer have stayed loyal to the source material whilst imbuing in it greater heft and emotional depth.

The adaptation starts with the narrator James Corden addressing the flirtation between two tortoises:

I don’t know about you but to me there’s something a bit funny about tortoises. The way even the teenagers are wrinkly. I bet that leads to some awkward moments.

 “Oh Brian, I love you so much. How old are you?”

“I’m 17. How old are you Janet?”

“I’m 86.”

“Goodness me, you’re old enough to be my Grandmother.”

“Yes, actually Brian. I AM your Grandmother.”

James Corden, a marmite personality. By that I mean I would have him on toast but not in a sandwich.

These narrative interludes are wonderful additions to Dahl’s book, as Corden’s puppy-dog enthusiasm helps sell a story that may otherwise appear too off-kilter for viewer empathy. And what a story!  This is a story of love. Perhaps the greatest love story ever told. Mr Hoppy (Dustin Hoffman), you see, lives in a flat. He is kind, shy and loves Jazz. Below him lives Mrs Silver (Judi Dench). Mrs Silver is widowed and has a laugh perhaps more inviting, perhaps more sonorous than Louis Armstrong himself.

Mr Hoppy has a secret. He loves Mrs Silver and wishes he could find a way of telling her. As far as he’s concerned though, Mrs Silver has eyes for just one man. Alfie. Her tortoise. Mrs Silver has a problem though: Alfie is infinitesimal. I mean, tiny. For a boy already with a shell on his back, being small is just another weight to bear. How can he walk tall when he isn’t? If only there was some way he could grow big? The delightful Mrs Silver would give anything for this to happen. Fortunately, Hoppy steps forward to be the corduroy Genie of the lamp. He informs Mrs Silver that all she has to do is read some profound nonsense three times everyday for a month and then abracadabra her wish will be realised.

ESIO TROT, ESIO TROT,
TEG REGGIB REGGIB!
EMOC NO, ESIO TROT,
WORG PU, FFUP PU, TOOHS PU!
GNIRPS PU, WOLB PU, LLEWS PU!
EGROG! ELZZUG! FFUTS! PLUG!
TUP NO TAF, ESIO TROT, TUP NO TAF!
TEG NO, TEG NO, ELBBOG DOOF!

Dame Judi talking to a tortoise.

Unfortunately, Hoppy hasn’t thought through this promise. How can he guarantee a tortoise will double its weight in a month? What use a silver tongue if it can’t deliver him the heart of Mrs Silver? As our narrator tells us, “For the first time ever the happiness of two human beings rested entirely on the possibility of a small tortoise becoming a bigger tortoise.”

Fear not. Love can make an Einstein out of an idiot; Hercules out of a rake; and love - in the case of Hoppy – can make a daredevil out of a scaredy-cat. Hoppy’s plan is to go cash-and-carry on the operation, buying tortoises of different size in bulk. Each day he replaces the tortoise with a slightly bigger one, giving off the illusion that Alfie is increasing in weight. Mrs Silver is none the wiser. This venture, however, isn't without costs - quite literally. All of Mr Hoppy's savings are invested into winning Silver's heart, a fact beautifully illustrated in a series of sight gags. Further, the trouble with this ingenious scheme is that it means his former life of order is transformed into a cluttered nightmare of chaos. Hoffman, who could shilly-shally for America, is brilliant as the put-upon bachelor trying to keep disorder under control.

Another example of over-crowding in London.

What makes the adaptation more enriching than the book are the sub-plots added to it. Dahl in his version makes the path to true love run smooth, but the writers here add dramatic obstacles that have us fearing the worst. Mr Pringle does not appear in the source material, but here the oaf is all too present, keeping the lovers from sealing their fate. Whilst Hoppy struggles to express his feelings, Pringle is all to ready to give his tuppenceworth. I hated every fibre of his being. The antipathy I held him in is a testament to Richard Cordery, who through his portrayal shows another, less dignified, side to loneliness.

Esio Trot was very much my pick of Christmas TV. It is beautifully written, performed and directed. It made my tummy go whoosh and my heart go boom. If you missed it, my advice would be to make a resolution and watch it.

Esio Trot is available on BBC iPlayer now.

Brookyln

My Christmas day tradition involves avoiding what my mum watches (Queen’s Speech, Call The Midwife and Downton Abbey) by reading a book. Typically, I sit down and read a comedian’s autobiography (see last week’s blog) but, not having read any fiction in a while, I decided to get my imagination on and read Brooklyn.

I’d been looking forward to reading Brooklyn off the back of Mark Kermode’s movie review.  In his appraisal he praised the film’s subtlety, commenting on how it managed to move the viewer without resorting to an X Factor score. Having missed the film at the picture house, I put the novel on the top of my Christmas wish list. Needless to say I’ve been a good boy this year and the man in the red fulfilled his end of the bargain by delivering me some prize-winning literature.

The story centres on Eilis Lacey, a young woman unable to find work in 1950s Ireland. She lives at home with her mother and sister, Rose. Brooklyn begins with Eilis admiring Rose from her bedroom window, musing on her sister’s sense of style and independence. Eilis as observer is a motif that runs throughout the novel: unable to shape her own destiny, she is passivity personified. The fact we don’t get frustrated with this wallflower owes much to Toibin’s characterisation.

Eilis is over-submissive to her fate, but her Ireland, we must remember, was a long way off from the Tiger’s roar; the economy was parochial, work was scarce. Therefore, Eilis’ acceptance to give up the home she loves for New York isn’t a show of weakness but a pragmatic solution to prospective unemployment. Moreover, Eilis as 1950’s woman was yet to enjoy the trappings of free love and feminist revolt; consequently, her inability to determine the course of her heart is more society’s failure than hers.

Eilis's small town home of Enniscorthy, Ireland.

What is most beautifully etched in the book is the immigrant experience. In today’s media migrant workers are often cast as villains, threats to the human race in a dystopian movie titled, ‘Invasion of the Job Snatchers.’ Perhaps a truer representation is Toibin’s description of people longing for home. For many of us, homesickness is a temporary state: the holidays will come and we’ll be re-united again. But for victims of poverty and war, returning mightn’t be an option; home may never be reclaimed. The realisation that home is now a foreign concept is poignantly captured by Eilis in Brookyln:

She was nobody here. It was not just that she had no friends and family; it was rather that she was a ghost in this room, in the streets on the way to work, on the shop floor. Nothing meant anything. The rooms in the house on Friary Street belonged to her, she thought; when she moved in them she was really there. In the town, if she walked to the shop or to the Vocational School, the air, the light, the ground, it was all solid and part of her, even if she met no one familiar. Nothing here was part of her. It was false, empty she thought.

Unanchored and adrift, she is a boat against the current, borne back ceaselessly into her past.

Eilis experiences the big city in Brooklyn, New York.

I should hasten to add that the book isn’t an unremitting howl for home. It has wonderful moments of humour too. You’ll struggle not to laugh at shopkeeper Miss Kelly’s less than egalitarian approach to serving customers; more at Eilis’ mother hypocrisy at welcoming visitors into her home then assassinating their characters on them leaving. Further with Eilis meeting two men – one in Brooklyn, one in Ireland – we learn that love is not always all-conquering, that separation can defeat it.

Ultimately, this is a wise, poignant book that makes you appreciate how some people, through character or circumstance, don’t have control over their lives. For those of us who do, we should be thankful and support those who don't.