Before the film I had time to drop by Aitken’s Wine Warehouse where the temptations are infinite.

I came out with a bottle of Akrathos Assyrtiko dry white wine from Newlands Winery in Halkidiki plus a bottle of Tobermory Gin from the Isle of Mull. I’d already had a bottle of the Akrathos and rated it a 10 so I knew it would be good. The Tobermory Gin also turned out to be very good, radiating a rich lively lingering flavour.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/sep/24/on-falling-review-the-strip-mining-of-an-online-warehouse-workers-sanity With the two bottles stashed in my backpack, I headed down from Hawkhill to DCA to see ‘On Falling’, written and directed by Edinburgh-based Laura Carreira.   

The film follows Aurora, a Portuguese migrant working in a warehouse somewhere in Scotland. Though don’t expect any uplifting Visit Scotland imagery as the film is shot indoors or, for a few scenes, outside at night.

This all-pervading lack of daylight and sunshine in ‘On Falling’ reinforces the oppressive limitations of Aurora’s life as she works a thankless job where excellent performance is insultingly rewarded by a bar of chocolate, as if the warehouse workers are mere children with no rights to respect or appreciation.

Joana Santos is excellent as Aurora in an understated, downbeat performance devoid of self-pity despite the constantly stressful breadline existence Aurora is enduring.

There are moments of humour scattered through the film that alleviate the gloom and affirm a consoling solidarity between Aurora and the other workers who are struggling to get by in a brutal low-wage economy.

‘On Falling’ is a wonderful film that fully deserves the accolades it has received, such as Winner of Silver Shell for Best Director at the 72^nd San Sebastian Film Festival 2024 and Winner of Best Actress Award at the Thessaloniki Film Festival 2024.

After the film it was a short stroll along Perth Road for a fish supper at Tay Fry Inn washed down with a can of Scotland’s other national drink, Irn Bru.

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On a trip to Edinburgh a couple of weeks ago I visited the exhibition ‘Adam Bruce Thomson: The Quiet Path’ at City Art Centre, which is very conveniently located if you are arriving by train as the venue is just over the road from Waverley station.

Adam Bruce Thomson was a well established figure in the Edinburgh art scene during his lifetime but has been somewhat overlooked in recent years.

Hence this major retrospective exhibition at City Art Centre.

The exhibition exceeded my expectations – I thought it was going to be good without being exceptional, but it turned out to be superb.

As the informative wall panels mentioned, Adam Bruce Thomson ‘was never at the cutting edge of modernism’, but what makes his work so appealing is how he integrates elements of art movements such as cubism and expressionism to elevate his art, his landscapes in particular, above run-of-the-mill straight representation.

The skies in his landscapes are quite stunning.

Many of his paintings reminded me of the ‘Expressionists: Kandinsky, Münter and The Blue Rider’ exhibition I visited recently at Tate Modern in London. Works by Thomson such as ‘Cedars’ (c.1931) and ‘At Colinton’ (c.1937) would not have been out of place in that exhibition.

With Adam Bruce Thomson, there is a striking contrast between the sharply drawn geometric precision of architectural features and the wild expressive skies and trees that swirl around the solidity of the buildings in each scene. His 1930s oil on canvas ‘Achnaba’ is a prime example of this. The squat solid church in the centre of the frame is set off against a backdrop of mountains and sky that have a dramatic life of their own.

Other memorable paintings with a strong expressionistic feel include ‘Park and Ruined Abbey’ (c.1961), ‘The River Tweed above Melrose’ (before 1966), and ‘Loch Carron Shore’ (c.1968).

The influence of fauvism on Adam Bruce Thomson can be seen in the extravagantly coloured ‘Palm, Pampas Grass and Duncraig’ (c.1967). When I saw this painting, I assumed it was a landscape from the Mediterranean so I was surprised to learn that it’s actually of Plockton in the West Highlands.

What a fabulous exhibition this is.

Spread over two floors of the City Art Centre, it brilliantly succeeds in showcasing Thomson’s contribution to Scottish art.

On the way out, I bought the exhibition book authored by Dr Helen E. Scott and then headed over to the New Town to drop by the marvellously quirky Library of Mistakes tucked away down Melville Street Lan. Many thanks to David for letting in me for a look around this unique venue.

Back in Dundee, I went to DCA to see the 2024 documentary ‘Wilding’, directed by David Allen and telling the story of married couple Isabella Tree and Charlie Burrell as they attempt to redress decades of over-exploitation of their farmland by restoring nature through the re-introduction of native ponies, pigs, cattle and birds.

It’s an inspiring and beautiful film showing what can be done to encourage nature to revive and prosper, especially if the rewilding is done at scale as in the ambition for a wildlife corridor stretching from their farm as far as the coast.

Opposition from neighbouring farmers and landowners has to be overcome, as not everyone buys into the rewilding vision.

With a relatively short running time of 1 hour 15 minutes, the film doesn’t really delve into the economics of farming and rewilding; maybe that could the subject of a separate film.

After ‘Wilding’ finished, the post-film meal took place at The Maker on Perth Road, an excellent dish of venison frites washed down with a pint of local craft brewery 71’s Close Encounters of the Thirst Kind IPA.

Related Post: ‘Evil Does Not Exist’, The Garden Cinema London

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The scheduling of this film was poignant, as it was a year to the day that Japanese composer and musician Ryuichi Sakamoto died.

‘Ryuichi Sakamoto – Opus’ is pretty minimalist.

There is no orchestra and there are no cuts to interviews with Sakamoto or tributes from friends.

It is just an hour and three quarters of Sakamoto at the piano playing his repertoire. And it’s absolutely engrossing, the effect of the film heightened by its being shot in austere black and white, which avoids the distraction that bright colours may have introduced.

Sakamoto’s performance is beautifully filmed in a series of exquisitely framed shots that could stand on their own as an exhibition of photographic stills.

Sometimes the camera zooms in on Sakamoto’s hands spidering across the piano keys whilst at other times the focus is on his face or silhouette.

Occasionally the camera lingers on some of the studio equipment, microphones and cables, a physical grounding that contrasts with the ethereal music.

The first twenty minutes of the film were slightly marred by some clown in the back row of the cinema scoffing crisps out of a loudly rustling bag. Not ideal when the film is such a quiet, intense cinematic experience.

But I had a pint of 71 Brewing Jute City beer nestled in my seat’s cup-holder to console me so all was not lost.

You might think that 103 minutes of one person sitting at a piano might drag a bit, but that was not the case at all.

‘Ryuichi Sakamoto – Opus’ is superb and could have gone on for longer without losing its magic.

After the film we left DCA and walked along Perth Road to The Maker, which has quickly established itself as a great new restaurant in Dundee.

As we tucked into delicious croquettes, pulled pork and salad, a boisterous crowd could be heard enjoying a show in the restaurant’s basement.

Related Post: ‘Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda’, Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA)

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After the first fifteen minutes or so of ‘Uncut Gems’ I was thinking this is great but there’s no way that directors Benny and Josh Safdie can keep up the film’s manic intensity and tempo. But they do.

The invasive music is set at a higher than normal level in relation to the spoken dialogue, which adds to the film’s maelstrom effect and transports us very effectively into the frazzled mind of Howard Ratner, Adam Sandler’s character.

At two and a quarter hours, ‘Uncut Gems’ is longer than most, but it is gripping from start to finish and never sags.

There are just enough quiet moments punctuating the mayhem to make watching the film an enjoyable experience rather than an unrelenting ordeal.

Adam Sandler is a revelation in this film: he plays his character Howard Ratner as brash, charismatic, at times totally in control and at other times floundering helplessly, a deeply flawed but nonetheless sympathetic figure.

Sandler is very much the star of the show but there are other good performances here from Lakeith Stanfield, Kevin Garnett, Julia Fox, and the rest of the cast.

The grounded presence and reassuring solidity of former basketball player Kevin Garnett plays particularly well against Sandler’s character’s anarchic machinations and scheming.

Though set in New York’s Diamond District, there are few external shots of the city so the New York feel comes from the brash, driven characters rather than the city’s streets or architecture.

At one point during this showing of ‘Uncut Gems’ here at DCA there was a bizarre moment when the line between the film on screen and the audience in the auditorium became blurred. It was during the scene where Ratner is hiding in the closet so that his girlfriend Julia can’t see him. They are texting each other, with Julia completely unaware that Ratner is there in the apartment watching her. This is one of the film’s quieter scenes, a break from the manic music soundtrack. In the silence of the scene, there is a cough.

I assumed it was Ratner coughing and that Julia would be startled by it and realise that he was hiding there in the apartment. But surprisingly Julia makes no response, doesn’t seem to notice. It took a couple of seconds for me to realise that the cough had come from someone in the audience, not from Adam Sandler.  

Related Post: ‘The Post’, Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA)

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Before the film we dropped into Tailend restaurant and enjoyed a meal of sea bream and Thai seafood curry, washed down with a pint of Eden Mill Shipwreck IPA and a gin cocktail.

This basement restaurant is a welcome sanctuary on a dreich day like today. The food was great, especially the Thai seafood curry which came loaded with generous amounts of seafood. There wasn’t time for desserts because the showing of tonight’s film, ‘Mrs Lowry & Son’, was at 6.30pm. So we got the bill and headed across the street to nearby DCA.

‘I haven’t been cheerful since 1868.’

This is just one of several pithy, morose comments from the bedridden Mrs Lowry to her son which go towards making this film so riveting and enjoyable.

The whole film revolves around just the two main characters, as could be guessed from the title. There are very few supporting roles, but Vanessa Redgrave and Timothy Spall’s performances as the main characters are so engrossing that the film never feels like it needs a bigger cast. 

This film is beautifully lit, particularly the many extended scenes set in Mrs Lowry’s bedroom where she and her son share their lives.

One scene in particular is brilliantly framed, it could be a painting itself, a scene where the mother is lying on her side in bed, with her son standing between the bed and the window; a moment of stillness and peace for two people getting by in a tough, hard industrial environment.

The film’s palette consists of subdued browns and greys for the most part, vividly disrupted now and again by the bold red of the telephone box in which Lowry makes furtive calls to a dealer in London who has expressed interest in the possibility of exhibiting some of his paintings.

‘Mrs Lowry & Son’ is touching and drily funny in a downbeat understated way, an affectionate rendering of the relationship between mother and son that never sinks into mawkish sentimentality.

Mrs Lowry treats her son with what she probably considers to be tough love, constantly criticising his paintings and chiding him for wasting his time on what she dismissively terms his ‘hobby’. She makes no effort to hide how disappointed she is in her son, blaming him for doing nothing to provide a more financially comfortable life for the two of them.

For someone who had ambitions to be a concert pianist in her younger days, Mrs Lowry shows surprisingly little understanding for the son who is seeking to pursue an equally creative life but to date with little or no financial success to show for it.

Timothy Spall inhabits his role as Lowry with great conviction, portraying Lowry as a determined,  committed observer of the grim industrial life present all around him in his native Lancashire. His mother is filled with embarrassment and shame when the art critic in the local paper ridicules Lowry’s work; her son, though, is unconcerned by the art critic’s pronouncements.

The film is a great tribute to Lowry and his art.

After having seen the wonderful ‘Lowry and the Painting of Modern Life’ exhibition at Tate Britain in 2013, it was good to see some of Lowry’s art up on the big screen in this film and also in the excellent short documentary that was shown immediately after the film ended.

In the documentary, Timothy Spall visits The Lowry Centre in Salford where there is a permanent exhibition titled ‘LS Lowry – The Art & The Artist’. Here he talks with the museum curator about some of Lowry’s pictures, which they stand in front of and dissect.

I’m glad I decided to stick around after the main film ended to watch this short documentary, as Timothy Spall’s comments on the paintings were very interesting and insightful. Spall describes how he immersed himself in Lowry’s art as he was preparing for the role in the film. During the shooting of the film he would paint his own pictures based on Lowry’s originals, and this gave him deeper understanding and motivation to play the role of Lowry.

When we emerged from the DCA at the end of ‘Mrs Lowry & Son’, it was a very still, mild September evening, perfect for the walk home along Perth Road.

Related Post: ‘Prophecy’, Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA)

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I got to DCA in time to get an IPA from the bar to take into the film. The trailers and the crass pre-film ads seemed to pass by quicker than usual.

It was a Friday afternoon showing of Pedro Almodovar’s ‘Pain and Glory’, starring Antonio Banderas as world-weary film director Salvador Mallo. The character’s name is almost an anagram of Almodovar, signalling the autobiographical nature of the film.

Banderas gives a wonderful low-key performance, his character a successful wealthy man stuck in a rut of melancholy reflections and chronic ill-health.

When Mallo recites his litany of ailments, those medical conditions are illustrated by a series of infographics, a jarringly surreal visual intrusion exemplifying the dry deadpan humour that flows under the surface of this brilliant and touching film.

Mallo seems to have accepted his solitude. When a famous art museum asks him for the loan of two of paintings for an exhibition, he refuses because the paintings – rather than any human beings – are  the companions he lives with.

Asier Etxeandia, Penelope Cruz and Leonardo Sbaraglia all give great supporting performances. 

As the actor Alberto Crespo, who worked with Mallo thirty years previously but who has been estranged from him since that time, Etxeandia is mesmerising when he performs a monologue written by Mallo on the subject of addiction and loss. This performance leads to a downbeat but emotionally charged reunion between Mallo and Federico, Mallo’s former lover.

The new life that Federico (Leonardo Sbaraglia) has made for himself in Argentina, building a business and starting a family, stands in sharp contrast to the hermetic existence that Mallo has chosen to live in his chic, stylish, lonely Madrid apartment.  

Almodovar gives a final wink to the audience in a scene near the end of ‘Pain and Glory’ where the camera pulls back to reveal a boom operator standing to the side of the two actors in that scene.

After this hugely enjoyable film we nipped across the street to Beer Kitchen for a quick meal of chicken confit, ‘Tofish’ (a surprisingly good tofu version of a fish supper), sweet potato fries and market salad washed down by Gunnpowder IPA and a wheat beer.

Well fed, we emerged from Beer Kitchen around 8pm and headed home. It was a still and mild evening, with great views of the River Tay and the hills of Fife in the distance.

Related Posts: ‘Can You Ever Forgive Me?’, Cinema Vendôme, Brussels, Belgium; ‘The Great Beauty’, Curzon Renoir, London

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I just finished reading ‘The Big Picture – Cinemas of Dundee’ by Jack Searle and Craig Muir, published by Dundee Civic Trust, with a Foreword by proud Dundonian, the acclaimed actor Brian Cox.

This book is a gem. It brings to life the whole cinema-going experience in Dundee from the earliest days of silent film through to today, focusing not only on the cinemas themselves but also on the people who ran them and the public who went to them.

It’s fascinating to find out just how many cinemas there used to be in this city, although there is a melancholy tinge to the fate of so many of these buildings, as their life cycle proceeds from cinema to bingo hall to dereliction to demolition.

Without reading this book, I would never have guessed there used to be a 900-seat cinema in Shepherd’s Loan or a similarly sized cinema on the site of what is now the University of Dundee library. In these ways, the book opens your eyes to the surprising past of a familiar environment.

The book also paints a vivid picture of what it was like to be a member of the audience in the city’s cinemas back in the days of silent film. Quotes like this make you wish you could have been there to experience it for yourself:

‘To enhance the experience, dialogue was often supplied by speakers standing behind the screen. Given that the speakers were always locals and spoke in the local dialect, this gave another dimension to the action, particularly when a scene was set in a Royal Court in Italy or in a temple in ancient Rome, and the dialogue was in broad Dundonian’.

The photographs that illustrate the book provide an interesting lesson in local history. Amongst the most striking is the photo showing the amazingly opulent interior of what used to be Green’s Playhouse (page 26).

But the book does not wallow in rose-tinted nostalgia; the un-wholesome state of some of Dundee’s old cinemas is mentioned, sometimes with wry humour as in the case of a cinema that was originally called the Stobswell Cinema Theatre, as recollected by someone who used to work there:

‘Only J.B. Milne had the brass neck to rename such a humble little fleapit The Ritz, a name with connotations of grandeur and luxury. Neither was in evidence in this cinema’.

The same person – Alex Braid – does, however, go on to praise the cinema for its character:

‘Like most cinemas from the golden era of film going, the Ritz had atmosphere and individuality, something lacking in the sterile and bland auditoria of the present day multiplexes’.  

Fortunately, present-day Dundee has the DCA, a wonderful alternative to the sterile and bland auditoria referred to by Alex Braid, and that is where I headed on this warm July day.

I got to DCA an hour before the 6pm showing of ‘Prophecy’, an engrossing documentary about painter Peter Howson and his creation of the apocalyptic work that gives the film its title.

There was time for a pre-film bite to eat, tasty Thai fishcakes washed down with a bottle of local brew 71 Dundonian Pilsner and a bottle of IPA, before joining a decent turnout in Screen 2 for a showing that was thankfully devoid of trailers.

Howson is an intense and brooding presence.

Set in the artist’s Glasgow studio, ‘Prophecy’ captures the whole creative process, from the artist reflecting out loud as to what changes and additions the painting needs to close-up shots of Howson’s brushwork, the brushwork sometimes delicate and precise, at other times almost manic.

The soundtrack is perfectly synced to the brushwork, with intense classical music complementing the visceral art being produced by Howson.

Howson’s use of colour to render reflected light is extraordinarily effective and impressive.

One of the influences on his work that Howson cites is Cecil B DeMille’s 1927 silent film ‘The King of Kings’. I saw that amazing DeMille film a few years ago at Cinemateca Portuguesa in Lisbon and reviewed it in one of the chapters in the ‘Silver Screen Cities – Lisbon’ book. That chapter can be read as a blog post here.

The clip of ‘The King of Kings’ shown in ‘Prophecy’ is a truly terrifying scene of death and destruction and the silhouette of Judas’ body hanging from a tree branch. Chilling stuff.

The oil painting ‘Prophecy’ at the heart of this documentary has a shuddering power and intensity. It reminded me of Chinese artist Liu Yaming’s ‘Eye in the sky’ painting, a work even more monumental than Howson’s ‘Prophecy’ and equally bold and apocalyptic.

I had the honour and pleasure of visiting Liu Yaming’s studio outside Beijing last year. Having the opportunity to stand in front of some of his huge, epic paintings was a breathtaking experience, one not easily forgotten.

Related Post: ‘Mrs Lowry & Son’, Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA)

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I doubt that many in this Saturday afternoon’s audience for ‘Vita & Virginia’ would be interested in going to see ‘The Fast and the Furious’, despite Vin Diesel’s exhortations to do so in an ad that preceded today’s showing of the Vita Sackville-West/Virginia Woolf film.

Thankfully the pre-film ads and trailers didn’t seem to go on for too long today and we were soon into the film we’d come to see.

The practice in recent years of soundtracking period pieces with modern music – perfectly executed in TV series Peaky Blinders – works brilliantly in ‘Vita & Virginia’, today’s film at DCA, directed by Chanya Button and featuring Gemma Arterton as successful author Vita Sackville-West and Elizabeth Debicki as the lower-selling but more iconic literary figure Virginia Woolf.

From the opening moments of the film, Isobel Waller-Bridge’s bold electronic music injects power and urgency into a milieu (the 1920s London literary scene) that in a lesser film could have been stodgy and sedate.

By not relying on genteel classical music, the film makers have elevated this film into something much more than a clichéd period drama.

The two leads give very good performances – Gemma Arterton as the persistent but fickle Vita, and Elizabeth Debicki as the wonderfully creative but psychologically fragile Virginia. The constantly changing dynamic of their relationship is at the core of this engaging and enjoyable film.

There are also strong supporting performances by Peter Ferdinando as Virginia’s husband Leonard and Adam Gillen as the painter Duncan Grant.

The only disappointment with ‘Vita & Virginia’ is that it doesn’t conjure up much atmosphere or feel for Bloomsbury, the part of London where the bohemian literati convened during the 1920s and 1930s. The scenes that are ostensibly set in Bloomsbury look like they could have been shot anywhere; from the IMDB list of production details, it looks like those scenes may have been shot in Dublin or Greenwich rather than in Bloomsbury.  

After the film we headed out of DCA and down towards the river to St Andrew’s Brewing Company Caird Hall for a mid-afternoon lunch of haggis croquettes, tempura cauliflower, duck stovies and ‘The Asian Bowl’, a very tasty meal washed down with a pint of St Andrew’s golden ale and a Slessor cocktail.

The place was busy with what seemed like locals rather than tourists from the nearby V&A Dundee museum. Frequent peals of infectious, wine-fuelled laughter from a group at a nearby table provided an entertaining soundtrack to the meal.

Related Posts: ‘Can You Ever Forgive Me?’, Cinema Vendôme, Brussels, Belgium; ‘Anna Karenina’, The Phoenix Cinema, London

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I was really looking forward to ‘Stan & Ollie’. I love the old Laurel and Hardy films, like the hysterically funny ‘A Chump at Oxford’ (1940).

Judging from the trailer, ‘Stan & Ollie’ looked like it would be a fitting tribute. Today’s opening day for the film arrived with it accompanied by lavish praise from the critics, according to whom the film is ‘incredibly funny’ (it’s not) and ‘sublime’ (it’s not).

‘Stan & Ollie’ was disappointing not because it’s a bad film. It’s actually good, it just gets nowhere near the heights it could have achieved and which the critics seem to have declared for it.

Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly are both brilliant, as are the rest of the excellent cast.

The cinematography is very fine, too; the film looks great.

What lets everything down is the appalling soundtrack – twee, saccharine musak that robs the film of its emotional depth and which is a permanent irritant running through the whole thing, undermining the excellence of the acting and the witty script.

The film is a gentle and affectionate tribute, but it doesn’t have any big laughs. There were two or three chuckles from the audience at the Friday showing I went to, but none of the guffaws that the original Laurel and Hardy films would have elicited.

It’s an enjoyable and likeable film, but far from the masterpiece that the reviews would have you believe.

If I’d gone to it with lower expectations I would have enjoyed it more.  

There was an added poignance to the scene where Ollie announces that he will be retiring due to ill health, because today was the day when tennis player Andy Murray held a tearful press conference to announce that he will be retiring due to ill health. I’m sure that will have struck a chord with other members of today’s audience.

Feeling distinctly underwhelmed when ‘Stan & Ollie’ ended, we headed to nearby Dynamo bar for a couple of superb beers by Scottish craft brewers Six Degrees North – their IPA and the Wanderlust Wheat beer.

A couple of very tasty fish suppers from Tay Fry Inn then set us up for the walk home along Perth Road, a crescent moon hanging over the Tay on this cool and breezy January evening.

Related Post: ‘Florence Foster Jenkins’, Picturehouse Central, London

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We went for a pre-film beer at the Phoenix bar, a Dundee institution that looks a bit grim and forbidding from the outside but once you’re inside it’s welcoming and characterful.

Perched on bar stools we ordered a couple of pints of Deuchar’s IPA which slipped down very smoothly. The DCA cinema is just across the road from the Phoenix, so it’s a very handy watering hole for before or after a film.

Today’s film was ‘Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda’, a wonderful portrait of the Japanese musician and composer who scored Bertolucci’s films ‘The Last Emperor’ and ‘The Sheltering Sky’ as well as Iñárritu’s ‘The Revenant’.

Subdued colours predominate in ‘Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda’, faithfully reflecting Sakamoto’s low-key yet good-humoured and passionately engaged personality.

The film’s mood is one of warm, wistful melancholy, as Sakamoto is shown dealing with the personal challenge of a cancer diagnosis as well as the social and environmental threat of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster and its repercussions throughout Japanese society.

Heavy stuff indeed, but ‘Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda’ is life-affirming in its portrait of Sakamoto as a quietly inspirational figure whose beautiful music, environmental awareness, and social conscience shine through every minute of the film.

Sakamoto’s creativity draws heavily on ambient sounds, which he is attuned to with an extraordinary degree of sensitivity, whether out in remote woodlands with no one else around, or in his own garden with a bucket on his head to hear what the falling rain sounds like as it hits.

My favourite scene from this superb film is the one where Sakamoto’s trio (comprising himself on piano, Judy Kang on violin, and Jaques Morelenbaum on cello) play to a post-tsunami audience huddled together for warmth in what I think was a school hall. Sakamoto’s piano notes are like raindrops falling softly on still water, a gentle therapeutic counterpoint to the tsunami’s destructive rage. It’s a breathtaking scene.

Related Post: ‘Ryuichi Sakamoto – Opus’, Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA)

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