Bright Star Movie Review: Beautifully Dull
Bright Star is a Jane Campion film, based on a three year romance between poet, John Keats and Fanny Brawne, starring Ben Whishaw and Abbie Cornish. Campion’s best known for The Piano and The Portrait of a Lady, averaging a film every three years. While the early ’90s could be described as her heyday, she seemed to lose some of the sparkle with more contemporary films like Holy Smoke and In The Cut.
Bright Star marks a return to classic Campion cinema with a real-life love story to rival Romeo & Juliet. John Keats passed away at the age of 25… echoing the sentiment that the brightest flames burn fastest… in this case the brightest love too. Bright Star illuminates the romance he shared with Ms Fanny Brawne, who inspired some of his best work and shared some of his last moments in love.
The cinematography is exquisite… lulling us into the poetic countryside estate where the two lovers met and guiding the film home under a Bright Star. The luscious visuals make the film’s Oscar nomination for Best Costume Design seem a bit lonely, despite the period piece accuracy. This is a beautiful film to behold and swathes the viewer in an enchanting blanket of love. The atmosphere is perfect and paves the way for fine performances from a relatively unknown cast including: Ben Whishaw, Paul Schneider and Abbie Cornish.
Whishaw’s physique contrasts quite starkly with Cornish’s and this reverses the roles in this classic romance. Fanny Brawne’s name even reiterates this point and at times the two seem a little mismatched for chemistry. While the cinematography is excellent, the story seems much bigger than the execution. The scenes are taken from one country estate and it becomes a little stagnant at times. This sluggishness is compounded by the feeling that nothing’s really happened between declaration of love and death.
There are some momentary sparks between the leads, but on the whole there appears to be more bite between Brawne and Brown, which leaves the three-year romantic engagement quite hollow in comparison. Bright Star’s melancholic disposition and drawn out pacing do become a bit tedious even for a period piece, despite Paul Schneider’s best efforts to provide the odd comic interlude as Charles Brown.
The script sets the scene and tone for Bright Star, but fails to create characters with redeeming qualities. They seem so wrapped up in their own affairs and selfish desires that they alienate themselves from the rest of the world. Now if this is what being lovesick is all about, then this reviewer’s missed the boat completely.
Watching Bright Star was about as appetizing as staring into the Mona Lisa’s eyes for half an hour in an empty gallery… beautiful and enchanting at first, but cold and tedious soon after. If you love beautiful period piece romances Bright Star may be worth viewing… but it’ll do well to make you feel for the characters.
The bottom line: Dull.
Screenplay with Spling
Stephen ‘Spling’ Aspeling
www.spling.co.za
Antony and Cleopatra at Maynardville
Fiona Gordon: That fatal combination of love and politics is explored under the canopy of trees at Maynardville, in Antony and Cleopatra.
As we observe the interactions between the last queen of Egypt and her illicit lover, Roman hero Mark Antony, and their various legions, tensions run high and themes of power and love are strongly evident, as director Marthinus Basson cautions us to question our allegiances, and be considerate of our choices.
It is long, as Shakespeare plays are wont to be, but I don’t find my attention drifting, as it is wont to do. Although I am told that the production has been cut by 25 minutes, which I am sure makes a significant difference.
I could not fault anything from a production perspective. The scenery – simple, and completely effective – makes use of a raised, raked addition centre stage, and multicoloured ‘light sabres’ which give it an otherworldly feel, and denote the changes in scene. Lighting, which is particularly pertinent given the complexity of the setting, captures the moods and dramatic cues fantastically, and aids the clever use of the depth of the space surrounding the stage. The soundtrack is completely appropriate and also very well-utilised in the changing, and setting, of scenes. Costumes are neutral in colour, but detailed and interesting in their portrayal of character. The use of live snakes adds an element of excitement and authenticity to the drama.
Language seems to be a significant focus of the production, with much focus on the words and their delivery and rhythm. Diction is superb, especially considering the complexity of Shakespearean English, and the speed at which some of the actors must, and do, deliver their dialogue. Tinarie van Wyk Loots once again proves her mettle in a superb portrayal of the multifaceted Cleopatra.
Classical theatre is not everybody’s cup of tea, but classics are classics for a reason and this production is accessible and very well considered and executed in its portrayal.
Director and Designs: Marthinus Basson
Original Music: Braam du Toit
Lighting Design: Faheem Bardien
Sound Design: Lynley Pillay
Assistant Director: Hugo Theart
William Shakespeare’s Anthony and Cleopatra plays at the Maynardville Open Air Theatre Mondays to Saturdays until 20 February. Tickets, from R100, can be booked through Computicket.
Fiona Gordon
fiona@artslink.co.za
www.artslink.co.za
Three solo exhibitions at AVA
The AVA in partnership with Spier invites you to the opening of three solo exhibitions:
NDIKHUMBULE NGQINAMBI
THE WINDOW PART 1
Ndikhumbule Ngqinambi – Halo of Manhood
Ngqinambi returns to the AVA for his much anticipated second solo exhibition. A gifted story teller, his paintings offer us the opportunity to escape, to soar across farm fields and skylines. The landscape becomes a place for souls to journey. The paintings bind traditional belief and personal history as they guide us through worlds real and imagined.
MAX WOLPE
NOT EARLY EARLY FRIDAY BUT LATE LATE WINNER
Max Wolpe – detail of British Nationals
Max Wolpe presents Not Early Early Friday but Late Late Winner in the Long gallery. The works on display offer a satirical view of the spectator. Tourists and sports fans are captured during their recreational time. Astute observation of politics and personalities are transferred onto the painting surface with wit and humour.
ANGELA BRIGGS
FLOW
Angela Briggs – River on Scarborough Beach 1
Angela Briggs presents Flow in the Artsstrip. Briggs plays with the tension between abstracting and representing a view. Using the surface of the painting to explore line and colour, the paintings give expression to the impossibility of pinning down a moment or situation.
The opening is on Monday, 08 February 2010 at 6 pm.
Exhibition closes on Friday, 05 March 2010 at 1 o clock pm.
Association for Visual Arts Gallery
35 Church Street, Cape Town, South Africa
Gallery hours: Weekdays 10h00 to 17h00,
Saturdays 10h00 to 13h00
Phone: +27-21 424-7436,
Fax: +27-21 423-2637,
avaart@iafrica.com
www.ava.co.za
Doug Powell: Illustrator
Doug Powell is Cape Town Creatives’ newest member!
To view Doug Powell’s complete profile on Cape Town Creatives click here
Hoops of Creativity at Blossom
Blossom’s first handmade exhibtion for the year is Hoop. This will be a display of embroidery framed in embroidery hoops. Handwork with a contemporary edge. Blossom is at 3 Colyn Road, Kalk Bay.
www.blossomkalkbay.co.za
An Education Movie Review: Memoir of a Schoolgirl
An Education is the story of Jenny, a precocious teenage girl living in suburban London in 1962. This coming-of-age drama deals with her transition from schoolgirl to refined woman, as a well-to-do suitor nearly twice her age sweeps her off her feet. The education she receives is one on morality, ethics and coping in the big bad world. While the premise does open itself to teen exploitation in the league of The Babysitters, it’s tame in comparison with Lolita and is as prim and proper as an aristocrat’s tea party.
Carey Mulligan is Jenny, and steals the show with her terrific debut performance as the young, innocent yet not-so-innocent 16-year-old. Her brooding performance is composed from teenage angst and a side order of ice-cream parlor decadence as she aspires to be wiser in the ways of the world and more French of course. French music, Parisian holidays… are all a distant dream, until David (Sarsgaard) arrives on the scene.
Jenny’s father (Molina) couldn’t be more pleased that his daughter is dating a man twice her age. David’s charms are no match for her parent’s practical sensibilities, and it’s a matter of hook, line, sinker… rod and fisherman. The young gentleman knows his wines, is accommodating on curfews and generous with invitations. However, all is not as it seems on the surface of things as Jenny discovers another side to the gentleman’s pristine character and sophisticated friends.
An Education is a compelling drama based on the memoir of Lynn Barber, which shows Jenny as she learns life lessons at home, at school and even in love. Carey Mulligan’s performance holds the film together, with a fine supporting cast in the charming Peter Sarsgaard, the cost-efficient Alfred Molina, the ditzy Rosamund Pike, the worldly Dominic Cooper and the watchful Olivia Williams. It’s a terrific ensemble of actors, who give Mulligan a platform to shine.
Danish director, Lone Scherfiq, weaves her magic into the intensity of the drama as the cast play off one another. The adaptation roots itself in Barber’s memoir and the story is engaging, because it mimics the ebb-and-flow of reality without pushing the audience too far. An Education is almost in the same class of History Boys, Notes on a Scandal and American Beauty. The film really immerses you in the ’60s with the sets, music, fashion and Zeitgeist on the cusp of a social revolution, reflective of Jenny’s frame of mind.
The bottom line: Engaging.
ScreenPlay with Spling
Stephen ‘Spling’ Aspeling
www.spling.co.za
Spier Contemporary 2010 Update
After an exhaustive nation-wide selection process 100 artists and over 130 art pieces have been chosen for South Africa’s largest contemporary art exhibition, the Spier Contemporary 2010.
The Spier Contemporary exhibition has been conceived to provide an open platform for all artists to show their work, uncompromised by the limitations of technology, space and access. Artists in South Africa work under extremely varied conditions and see from radically different perspectives. These differences are what define our collective identity and unique social and cultural landscape. The Spier Contemporary provides a space for exploring our diversity, giving audiences insights into our complexity and thus contributing to our understanding of difference.
The Africa Centre’s art biennale, the Spier Contemporary 2010 will launch on the 14th March 2010 at the Cape Town City Hall.
The artworks were selected from a national call for submissions, with artworks collected at thirteen selection centres across South Africa. The final exhibition was chosen from over 2,700 entries, which represents an increase of 10% on the submissions received for the Spier Contemporary 2007/8. The selection was made in November and December 2009 by a curatorial team of five local and continental industry professionals.
The Spier Contemporary 2010 artists, in alphabetical order, are:
Janine Allen, Eugene Arries, Lindi Arbi, John Barron, Stuart Bird, Matthew Blackman, Joanne Bloch, David Bloomer, Richard Letsatsi Bollers, Brydon Bolton, Candice Borzechowski, Justin Brett, Bruno Brincat, Tegan Bristow, Elizabeth Buys, Kurt Campbell, Jonathan Cane, Richard Chauke, James Clayton, Melanie Cleary, Lean Coetzer, Roxandra Dardagan Britz, Araminta de Clermont, Angela de Jesus, Frikkie Eksteen, Nicola Elliot, Hasan Essop, Husain Essop, Gordon Froud, Frina Galloway, Jonathan Garnham, Jessica Gregory, Ndivhuwo Gundula, Dan Halter, Gerrit Hattingh, Matthew Hindley, Zakhele Moses Hlatshwayo, Sarah Jones, Matthew Kalil, Philippe Kayumba-wa-Yafolo, David Koloane, Arie Kuijers, Neil Le Roux, Tim Leibbrandt, Sentso Lele, Nina Liebenberg, Carla Liesching, Jacky Lloyd, Elsa Lourens, Michael MacGarry, Daniel Maggs, Maja Malievic, Zen Marie, Christopher Marsberg, Dillon Marsh, William John Martin, Maja Marx, Emile Maurice, Maurice Mbikayi, Jacki McInnes, Jean Meeran, Mohau Modisakeng, Frans Masobe Mothapo, Brett Murray, Mxulisi Nkononde, Vusumuzi Derrick Nxumalo, Mamela Nyamza, Carolyn Parton, Colin Payne, Richard Penn, Dawood Petersen, Kurt Pio, Cameron Platter, Lucy Pooler, Philip Rikhotso, Dave Robertson, Wilhelm Saayman, Brink Scholtz, Johannes Scott, Helen Sebidi, Jaco Sieberhagen, Sonja Smit, Jane Solomon, Anthony Strack van Schyndel, Karen Suskin, Nicolene Swanepool, Christoper Swift, Motseokae Klass Thibeletsa, Lucas Nkahloleng Thobejane, Rudolph Tshie, Johann van der Schijff, Francois Van Tonder, Roelof Van Wyk, James Webb, Hanje Whitehead, Xolile Mazibuko, Ed Young, Dale Yudelman, Sicelo Ziqubu, Mlu Zondi.
Work has begun on the Cape Town City Hall, where the first leg of the Exhibition will be held. The Spier Contemporary has commissioned architect Nabeel Essa to design the exhibition. Nabeel’s vision is to contrast the contemporary nature of the artworks against the historic grandeur of the Edwardian building.
For more information on the project, and the exhibition, visit www.spiercontemporary.co.za
Jill Trappler at SMAC Art Gallery, Stellenbosch
Jill Trappler’s exhibition Notions of Being/Moments of Being moves to the
SMAC (Stellenbosch Modern and Contemporary) Art Gallery from the 30 January to the 20 February 2010.
The opening is on Saturday 30 January at 11am and Christopher Peters is the opening speaker.
SMAC Art Gallery
Tel: 27(0)21 887 3607
Fax: 27(0)21 887 7624
email: info@smacgallery.com
De Wet Centre
Church street
Stellenbosch
7600
PAPERGIRL create, draw, doodle, illustrate, sketch evening
Papergirl is an art initiative project founded in Berlin, Germany in the summer of 2006 by Aisha Ronniger. In the style of American paperboys, rolled art pieces are distributed by bicycle to random passers-by on the streets of the city. The project consists of an exhibition, the distribution of the art and a party to end off the project.
Since its debut in Berlin, the project has grown and spread rapidly, reaching major cities all around the globe. A group of Cape Town creatives have now teamed up to bring Papergirl to South Africa. The project is already in the works and will be happening, for the first time in Cape Town, this summer!
The idea of the project is to bring art to members of the society in an innovative and exciting way. Papergirl SA invites artists, creative mavericks, skilful doodlers and visionaries to submit their work.
This is the first ‘CREATE, DRAW, DOODLE, ILLUSTRATE, SKETCH EVENING’ where you can submit your art and take part in papergirl SA 2010. Papergirl belongs to everyone & is free for all.
BRING your creative tools (paper, camera, parker pen, etc.) and come create something that will be handed out with love, come ride day. Papergirl SA is open to all submissions on the night, so please feel free to drop in and submit any ‘ready-made’ work and stay for a drink and feel the creative vibrations…
Visit www.papergirl-sa.com for more information on the project and updates on the upcoming Papergirl exhibition.
Skin: Apartheid’s Legacy Personified
Skin is the extraordinary true story of Sandra Laing, a “coloured” girl, born to white parents in 1950’s Apartheid South Africa. It’s a fascinating story about a woman trying to forge her way into South African culture, going against the grain because of her skin colour and racial classification. This has got to be one of the most interesting lives to have witnessed during the struggle, as Sandra essentially bridged the divide between white and black South Africans. She spent her childhood, being teased behind her back and was discriminated against by her peers and teachers. Growing up wasn’t any easier, as the rebellious young Sandra fell in love with one of her father’s fresh produce suppliers, opting for a life of love rather than comfort… trying to find solace in the township with her new husband.
Sophie Okonedo (The Secret Lives of Bees) adopts the character of Sandra as a teenager and young adult, making an easy transition from the ages of 16 to her 40s. Her performance shows a willful young woman, undeterred by her father’s shame, resilient against perception and determined to live life to the full. Sam Neill plays Abraham Laing with a good understanding of the old South Africa and enough vindication to play the complex hard-hearted man. Both international stars manage to get a grasp on the South African accent, without tripping over it. Homegrown talent, Alice Krige owns the part of Sannie Laing, balancing her character’s indecision, denial and feeling of entrapment on a knife’s edge as she passes through life, caring from a distance. While Tony Kgoroge plays a strong supporting role as Petrus, who wins Sandra’s heart over.
Skin is a film of conflicts. The situational conflict is the most obvious thematic contrast with the Apartheid era segregation and profiling all South Africans with laws instituted to keep race and culture divided. Then Sandra’s own father’s struggle to have her officially acknowledged as being white, drives a wedge between the family with her mother trying to remain neutral. Sandra’s story derives power from injustice and great divides, which leave emotional trenches and an intriguing character study in their wake.
Skin is one of those films that eventually had to be made, and Antony Fabian has done wonders in relaying Sandra’s distinctly South African story to an international audience. The sensitive direction, casting and scriptwriting keep the story in check without stumbling into melodrama or stereotypical exaggeration. Skin paints an honest picture of the South Africa Sandra experienced, without having to pluck heart strings and cue violins. Sandra survived her childhood and the Apartheid regime with her head held high and part of the inspiration from this story is just how courageous she was in combating race and classification in all her years.
This is a film that encapsulates the painful legacy of Apartheid in one woman’s struggle. It attempts to tell a uniquely South African story representing both sides and for the most part succeeds. The solid performances from the lead trio anchor the extraordinary story in real-life and Fabian’s honest approach to story-telling drives the narrative along. It’s an engaging and educative film for audiences who aren’t familiar with South African history and an inspiration for people who feel that they are in a constant battle to stay relevant within an ever-changing society. Skin may not be as gripping as many other biographical films in its class, but it certainly holds up as a satisfactory film experience.
The bottom line: Honest.
ScreenPlay with Spling
Stephen ‘Spling’ Aspeling
www.spling.co.za
