It was a cold, bright and clear afternoon this last Sunday in February.

After a very good lunch at Jamie’s Italian in Covent Garden, rounded off with a warming glass of calvados, we headed through the streets of central London towards the ICA on Pall Mall.

ICA’s screen 1 was packed for this afternoon’s showing of Havana Club Rumba Sessions: La Clave.

We arrived just after the trailers had started, and the only seats still available were right at the back. I wasn’t expecting this documentary to pull such a big audience.

Narrated by Gilles Peterson, with eloquent and insightful contributions from Crispin Robinson Ade Egun, ‘Havana Club Rumba Sessions: La Clave’ gives a wonderful overview of rumba and its place in Cuban culture.

It’s good that for at least one part of the film they get away from Havana and travel to the city of Matanzas.

Too many films about Cuba treat the city of Havana as if it is the only point of interest in the whole country, so credit to this film for making the effort to go beyond the over-familiar clichéd images of Havana and show us something of the rest of the country, even if it’s only a few short scenes.

Cuban singer Daymé Arocena is the perfect guide for Gilles Peterson as he delves into the rumba culture. Not only is she a great, charismatic singer, she also exudes a warmth and vitality that enlivens the whole film.

There’s always a risk with such documentaries that they begin to feel like a school lesson in which we should be taking notes, but that doesn’t happen with this film.

Gilles Peterson explains the evolution and the intricacies of rumba with a light touch that tells us a lot about the culture without ever dropping into ‘worthy but dull’ mode.

The three main styles of rumba – guaguancó, yambú and columbia – are shown through some fantastic performances by musicians and dancers both traditional and contemporary.

Some of the scenes end a little abruptly and could have been given a little longer to allow the music to build in intensity, but I guess that’s a choice the producers made in order to keep the overall running time to a digestible 73 minutes.

‘Havana Club Rumba Sessions: La Clave’ is a wonderful film and when it ended there was a happy buzz amongst the audience as everyone exited the cinema.

As we came out of the cinema just after six pm the sky was a brilliant deep dark blue, the last of the day’s light contrasting vividly with the bright whitewashed buildings lining The Mall.

Related Posts: ‘Miles Ahead’, Picturehouse Central, London; ‘We Like It Like That ’, Picturehouse Central, London

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‘Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict’ was showing at various London cinemas.

But there was one reason I chose the ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts) to watch it at – the ICA website stated that their film showings are now ad-free.

There are trailers for other films shown, but none of the annoying ads that spew forth endlessly at most other cinemas.

For anyone who wants to avoid having to sit through twenty-five minutes of advertising drivel before a film starts, the ICA ad-free policy is a breath of fresh air.

Before coming to the cinema I’d met up with someone at Café in the Crypt, a marvellously atmospheric subterranean space just off Trafalgar Square.

‘Do you want a glass of mulled wine? Let’s be festive!’ my companion suggested, this being the run-up to Christmas.

I didn’t need any persuading.

The mulled wine was very good, as was the mince pie that accompanied it.

We had a second glass and then went our separate ways.

With a few minutes to kill before the film started, I headed towards Charing Cross train station.

This station and its immediate environs has an intriguing mix of elegance and shabbiness. Nothing is linear here; people swirl around like leaves blown by the wind in haphazard directions.

With no particular direction in mind, I found myself down at a level below the station where an old vaulted tunnel leads to Craven Passage.

Here there is a pub peculiarly divided into two parts. One part of the pub is found on either side of the street, the two seemingly separate sides connected by a cellar under the street.

The pub is The Ship and Shovell, which I know is a good boozer from a previous visit a few weeks ago.

Unfortunately there wasn’t time for quick pint today, as the film was due to start in a few minutes, so I continued walking to the ICA a short distance away.

Screen 1 at ICA has charcoal-grey décor and an aesthetically pleasing series of globular cream light bulbs along the top of both side walls.

Some lively jazz was playing as pre-film background music.

Still glowing from the mulled wine, I settled down happily for this ad-free showing of ‘Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict’.

Then, just as the film was starting:

‘Are you going to talk all the way through it?’

This sharp question came from someone sitting a few seats along from me.

The question was directed at an audience member a couple of rows in front of us who had been talking loudly all through the trailers for forthcoming films.

I suppose auditorium etiquette is not completely clear-cut regarding the acceptability or otherwise of talking during trailers.

No one is going to get too upset if people talk during pre-film ads, but it is mildly annoying when someone talks loudly through trailers of films that look potentially worth watching.

Fortunately, the talker here at the ICA shut up immediately after being challenged and we were all able to enjoy the film without that audience member’s distracting yakking.

‘Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict’ is wonderful.

Peggy Guggenheim comes across as a restless spirit, complex and endearing, whose self-doubts are kept in check by an unshakeable passion for modern art and the people who make it.

This well-paced documentary perfectly sets the human story of the protagonist within the context of the art world in which she lives and thrives.

Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Max Ernst, and Piet Mondrian are some of the great names in modern art who Peggy Guggenheim talks about during the recorded interviews that form the basis of this film.

There are also brief appearances in ‘Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict’ by Marina Abramovic and Robert De Niro, the latter talking about his parents exhibiting with Peggy Guggenheim in New York during the 1940s.

Low key, rippling piano music accompanies this beguiling film, celebrating a life that was, in Peggy Guggenheim’s words, ‘all about art and love’.

Related Posts: ‘Prophecy’, Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA); ‘Mrs Lowry & Son’, Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA)

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