Never Let Me Go

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Never Let Me Go movie posterThis film left Hanover yesterday and with a last-minute meeting cancellation, I was able to see it on its final night.  I had a vague recollection that it had been part of the Telluride Series done at Dartmouth in September, and it turns out that it was indeed part of that festival. Alas, I missed them all in September, so I’m glad I caught this one.

I thought it was some kind of science fiction film, and I suppose in some sense it could be taken as that. An alternative reality Britain, stuck in some kind of dingy 1980’s Thatcherian England, where the National Donor Programme is the norm.  Clones are made from people in order to provide organ transplants.  After they have “donated” 2, 3 or sometimes 4 organs, they die, or as they say in the film, they “complete”.  It is a government organization, with specials schools and forms, and electronic bracelets to monitor movements.

The first section takes place in a grim kind of boarding school, and we are introduced to the three protagonists: Kathy, Ruth and Tommy.

The whole film has a dark, grim tone that matches the story. It is utterly credible. And the ethical question: what if we did have clones to provide organs?  Is it better that they should die so we could live, or that we should die of the disease?

Walkabout

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Walkabout movie posterI think I mixed this one up with Rabbit Proof Fence when thinking about movies, and even when I found out that they are in fact different movies, I decided to go all the same.

This is first of all a very strange movie. It is a mixture of photography, nature scenes, urban scenes, with a loose plot that seems somewhat mysterious. The rather mundane father goes to work in an office area, and seems mildly upset about something.  The mother is at home in an apartment cooking while listening to a kitchen show on the radio. Soon the scene shifts, and the father and two children are in the car in the middle of the outback.  He is reading something about minerals, while the daughter prepares a picnic.  Suddenly he starts shooting at them, and then sets the car on fire and kills himself.

The daughter and son run away, and soon realize that they are lost in the middle of the Australian outback, wearing their school uniforms: blazers and silly hats and all.

They wander around, and eventually run into an aborigine boy. He is quite a hunter, using spears and boomerangs, and keeps them fed with wild game, prepared in quite a graphic but realistic fashion. They talk to each other in their own languages, without understanding, except a few words, such as “water”.

The scenery and wildlife closeups are spectacular, and highlight the beauty of the outback. The film’s director is Nicholas Roeg, who did the photography for “Lawrence of Arabia”.  There are also some strange scenes, such as a group of scientists in the middle of the desert with weather balloons.  There is one lab-coated woman, and a bunch of male oglers.  A balloon with a gadget blows away, and is found later by the group of children.  There are strange mixes of sequences, such as the girl skinny dipping is a rocky pool interspersed with scenes where the boy hunts animals.

Eventually they end up in an abandoned house.  Some kind of sexual tension develops between the boy and the girl, both around 16 perhaps. The boy does an extended courtship dance, but is rejected by the girl, leading to tragic consequences.

Eventually the girl and her brother find a road, and they wander back to civilization.  The film ends with a scene where the girl is perhaps 10 years older, cooking in the same kitchen, and her brother comes in and natters about his office.  She imagines a scene where the three children are swimming again in the same rocky pool.

The lead is played by Jenny Agutter, who I remember from Logan’s Run, and also Equus.  The boy is played by David Gulpilil, who was also great in “The Last Wave”, and who did “Ten Canoes”.

Strange but very memorable.

The cost of health care

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The cost of health care and life expectancy
The cost of health care and life expectancy

From National Geographic:

The United States spends more on medical care per person than any country, yet life expectancy is shorter than in most other developed nations and many developing ones. Lack of health insurance is a factor in life span and contributes to an estimated 45,000 deaths a year. Why the high cost? The U.S. has a fee-for-service system—paying medical providers piecemeal for appointments, surgery, and the like. That can lead to unneeded treatment that doesn’t reliably improve a patient’s health. Says Gerard Anderson, a professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who studies health insurance worldwide, “More care does not necessarily mean better care.” —Michelle Andrews

Le moulin à images

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Il s’agit d’un spectacle énorme au vieux port de Québec. Il y a là des silos à grain, et à partir de 22h, les images y sont projetés.  C’est un mélange d’images, d’animation, avec de la musique.  Il y a 4 sections qui racontent l’histoire de la ville: le chemin d’eau, le chemin de terre, le chemin de fer, et le chemin d’air.

C’est ce génie de Robert Lepage, qui surgit encore une fois.

Le spectacle est gratuit, et dure trois quarts d’heure. Mais on ne s’ennuie pas – c’est vraiment très bien fait.

Moulin à images

Pilobolus

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A sold out performance in the Moore Theater, and Pilobolus was, to quote H, amazing. This type of modern dance is interesting, compelling, innovative, with effective music.  Its hard to describe, but there is a physical element that draws ooh’s and ah’s from the audience – and you don’t usually hear that at a dance show. I am thinking of one scene where one dancer is holding himself up on his arms in the middle, like a see-saw, and another pushes down on his head, and he pivots down like a board, and then another pushes down on his feet, and he pivots up.  All the while, he maintains his straight position.  Or in Walklyndon, where 4 dancers roll around the stage as a giant ball.

The program was changed slightly to have Gnomen instead of Symbiosis after intermission.

The last piece was called the Hapless Hooligan in Still Moving. It started off as a cartoon on a big screen.  Then a silhouette of a dancer emerged from the mouth of a screaming child, and the story started. It was a clever mix of silhouettes, comic strip and animation.  Sometimes the dancers emerged out in front of the screen.  Sometimes the silhouette loomed large, and then small, as the dancer approached the projecting lights behind the screen.

After the ovation, the Pilobolus Director Michael Tracy and author Art Spiegelman did an informal discussion with the small group that stayed behind.  Although I hadn’t planned on staying, I am a big fan of Maus, so I changed my mind and sat down. It was a very dynamic collaboration from the sounds of it, with dancers and directors improvising while Spiegelman sketched. Apparently “Hapless Hooligan” was a stock character from around 1910. And the film noir dance was an apache dance, a sort of violent pas de deux from the 20’s in Paris.  Some of the dancers were at the back – they seemed so much younger and smaller than they did on stage!

Pilobolus Program Notes