Thursday, January 26, 2006

Holocaust Memorial Day

Today is Holocaust Memorial Day.

My suggested reading to commemorate the occasion:

Mike Davis, "Late Victorian Holocausts: El Nino Famines and the Making of the Third World"

Also looking very interesting an pertinent is a new book from Julie Flint and Alex de Waal, "Darfur: A Short History of a Long War"


Of course, I'm not suggesting that there's no point studying the Nazi Holocaust - or commemorating it; I'm saying if you don't think more generally about how any why mass murder happens, and how it can be stopped, on a day like this, then not much has been achieved. Given that most people have a pretty decent idea of what happened in wartime Germany and Poland, I believe attention could more profitably be spent on other matters.

How the UN works

Today's FT carries 2 stories that reveal a lot about how "international consensus" is constructed and how legitimacy to act in a manner of their choosing is created by the world's most powerful states. Robert Zoellick, US Deputy Secretary of State was pleased to be able to speak on behalf of China's government (obviously, they are unable to say it for themselves) on the matter of Iran:
"China has emphasised its support for international efforts to stop Iran’s nuclear programme in talks with the US, Robert Zoellick, the US Deputy Secretary of State said on Wednesday...Mr Zoellick said he had argued in Beijing that China’s interests in maintaining the flow of oil and gas from Iran would be served by helping ensure that Tehran did not develop nuclear weapons...“If you are concerned about energy security … one might conclude that developing a nuclear capability in a sensitive political region which is the heart of the world’s energy resources would be extremely dangerous,” Mr Zoellick said."
"Zoellick says China shares international view on Iran" Richard McGregor, FT, 26/01/06.

And if that isn't brazen enough, the US ambassador to India apparently sees no reason to disguise his threats to Dehli:
"Washington on Wednesday raised the stakes in the confrontation over Iran when it warned India that Delhi’s own nuclear deal with the US could be ditched if the Indian government did not vote to refer Tehran to the United Nations Security Council...
In comments reported by the Press Trust of India news agency, David Mulford, US ambassador to India, said that if India decided not to vote against Iran, the US-India deal on nuclear energy co-operation would “die”. He added: “The effect on members of the US Congress with regard to the civil nuclear initiative will be devastating.”"
Daniel Dombey in Brussels, Roula Khalaf in Tehran and Arkady Ostrovsky in Moscow, "Washington warns Delhi over UN vote on Iran," FT 26/01/06.

Comment seems unnecessary.

Sunday, January 08, 2006

Panda Propaganda

From Saturday's Financial Times:

China gift of pandas ‘an insult’ to Taiwan
By Mure Dickie in Beijing and Kathrin Hille in Taipei
Published: January 6 2006 19:10 | Last updated: January 6 2006 19:10

China’s “panda diplomacy” threatened to backfire on Friday after its offer to rival Taiwan of two pandas provoked outrage in the island’s government.

Officials in Taipei accused Beijing of “disrespect” and “pro-unification political warfare” after it announced it would give Taiwan a pair of pandas.

For a year, Beijing has downplayed its threat to use force to back its claim to sovereignty over Taiwan, instead launching policy initiatives intended to appeal to Taiwanese opinion.

Such moves are usually double-edged. The proffered pandas, for example, support China’s claim to sovereignty over Taiwan because Beijing no longer gives the animals to foreign countries.

The pair, chosen from a pool of 23 candidates, were selected for their cuteness, character and compatibility after a series of genetic tests and trial marriages, Beijing officials said.

But while the Chinese and Taiwanese media indulged in an orgy of coverage, with revelations of the panda’s hobbies, star signs and favourite foods, Taipei reacted with anger.

Joseph Wu, chairman of the Mainland Affairs Council, Taiwan’s cabinet-level China policy body, attacked the mainland propaganda as political warfare.

“They unilaterally announce the pandas will be sent over here in June, without having discussed the matter with Taiwan’s government . . .  That is very disrespectful,” Mr Wu said.

However, many Taiwanese are charmed by the cuddly creatures and opposition parties that support reunification with China have attacked the government as obstinately obstructionist.

Thursday, January 05, 2006

King Kong

Well I finally saw it today, and it was truly excellent. Not only a wonderful, gripping adventure in itself, but a truly encouraging piece of work. I did have some doubts about Naomi Watts at times, but in the end I think she pulled off an extraordinarily difficult role extremely well (the vague bewilderment she displays throughout Mulholland Drive was quite fitting to play a woman who has a giant gorilla gradually falling in love with her). Jack Black was an inspired piece of casting, and as has been repeated ad nauseam, Andy Serkis is simply magnificent as Kong.
Jackson had few qualms about piling on the CGI in the central hour of the film, but the results were truly breathtaking, and although it is too often over-done these days, in this case it was definitely money well spent. These sequences would have been impressive in isolation, but what really give them their power is the effort that had been put in to the rest of the film. Jackson has the power to tell an epic adventure story in a way puts many blockbuster directors of recent years to shame. King Kong lasts 187 minutes, but feels more like 100. The first part of the film is not simply 'setting up' the action sequences that follow, it is engaging the audience, giving the action meaning, and thus enhancing the visual spectacle. This is what the lazy, unimaginitive 'blockbusters' of the 1990s simply never achieved - the boring, ludicrous premise of Jurassic Park; the convoluted, unengaging love-story of Titanic; the culmination of all this with Saving Private Ryan which simply does away with an introduction and jumps straight in to the action, with the 'story' presented for what it is - an empty afterthought. Jackson's recognition of the importance of properly engaging the audience probably comes from his love of horror - what seperates truly gripping horror from dull, flat slasher films is the emotional attatchment formed with the characters before the action begins. Jackson realises that truly great action adventure epics needn't be merely expensive exploitation films (and this is what Spielberg has been doing at least since circa Jurassic park) but can be truly great cinematic stories.
It seems to me that King Kong represents an attempt to return to what cinema was really always supposed to be about: great stories that everyone can enjoy. It is a massive challenge to those who claim that blockbusters are necessarily an unintelligent, uninteresting, over-commercialised waste of money that carry no meaning and appeal to the lowest common denominator of violence and tension. It also disproves the argument that large audiences can only be gained with sex and unnecessary violence, of which there is almost none here. Most importantly I think, it is a challenge to directors and producers who are content to spend their huge budgets producing lazy, unimaginative, CGI-saturated films with no meaningful plot. There is plainly no excuse when you're working with a decent story (if you don't have a decent story, you should find one before carrying on with the film).
One reason cinema was important and interesting in its initial development was that it was a cultural medium which could transcend the elitism that plagued (most) theatre at that time. It provided the possibility of a cultural experience which just about everyone could enjoy. There is an extent to which this importance is diminished with the ubiquity of television, but it is not total - the best things shown on TV are still films anyway. This is why it is such an insult, as well as a disappointment, when the films that enjoy the greatest publicity and are given the biggest budgets are so lazy, so insulting to their audience by failing to make an imaginitive effort to tell a story, or make an interesting statement.
This, incidentally, is why the fawning over 'Crash' (2004) is such a disappointment to me. This self-important morality-tale that fails even to hint at the complexities it claims to explore is lauded universally merely because 'making a statement' of any kind is such a rarity in Hollywood these days. (To clarify, I am not suggesting that racial tension in Los Angeles is not an important or interesting question, or that cinema should not deal with it; I am saying that this issue is of such importance, such interest and such complexity that this arrogant over-simplification
of the issues cannot be taken seriously.) It looks more like a sick form of cinematic 'therapy' designed to make aspirational middle-class viewers (of any ethnic background) feel as though they have 'dealt with' these issues merely by sitting through this two hour film. This is similar to the widespread notion that one +must+ watch Schindler's List, and those who do not are irresponsibly failing to confront the horror of, and disrespecting the memory of The Holocaust. In reality, it is very rare to find that those who are so desperate for people to respect The Holocaust in this manner have bothered to interrogate the history at all - try asking them about the people who wrote (what nearly everyone agrees is) the best work on the subject, Raul Hilberg and Christopher Browning, and you will nearly always be confronted with blank stares. Of course, Schindler's List is a substitute (albeit an embarrassingly weak one) for confronting the industrial, inhuman horror of that period of history. In the same way, Crash is a weak substitute for confronting the intertwined issues of racial tension, urban decay and social alienation that make Los Angeles such a tragic and fascinating example of the (post?) modern city.


Films of the year then...
King Kong
A History of Violence
The Beat that My Heart Skipped (De battre mon coeur s'est arrete)
Wolf Creek
Sin City

There are probably some I have forgotten too. But those five were all very good in their own particular ways. Batman Begins is the other very good film of the year, but narrowly misses out on the top 5.