Available Light

Over the last couple of months Clemency and I read all the Harry Potter books. Well, she listened, I read, except for the sizable chunks, on car journeys, where Stephen Fry helped out via Audible. Clemency had never read them before, but I had, once. Back in the late 90's and early years of the century I joined the queues, elbowing teeny boppers out of the way to get my copy of each book as it fell hot off the press, devouring each of them whole in a few hours flat, then waiting years for the next fix. We also, courtesy of Netflix and Google Play, watched all the films, but more of that later. This time, reading, the pace was more sedate. And measured. And thoughtful. After 15-20 years I had forgotten so much of the plot that,  although I knew what was going to happen in the end, I could savour, like it was new, the ingenuity and wit and erudition of this great, convoluted, clever story. J. K. Rowling is the one you'd want on your team in a pub quiz. Given that her alter...

You have to hand it to the French: they know how to make movies. I watched this one in a tiny theatre underneath the town hall. There are only 8 seats, there is a line down the middle of the screen where it joins, and the soundtrack from the next, bigger theatre boomed through the wall , but none of that mattered. Neither did the fact that the dialogue was in French, for this is one film that could have got by without any dialogue at all. Two things carried the power of this masterpiece: the stunning cinematography of Laurent Brunet and an achingly beautiful performance by Belgian actress Yolande Moreau. The story is a fictionalised account of the life of Naive artist Seraphine Louis (1864-1942). In the title role, Yolande Moreau is present in almost every shot of the film. Seraphine is first seen gathering seeds and roots and mud and blood as ingredients for the paints she has invented. Her movements are slow and ponderous, her footsteps heavy, but she glides through the countryside...