Musings of an Angry Existentialist (at the Cinema): Act 2

The second act begins in a gloomy psychiatric ward, as stale dust envelops the Bourgeois Audience. You, Dear Reader, suffer from a cacophonous sneeze which momentarily derails proceedings. On a bed with a supernaturally creaky mattress lies an emaciated figure. On the bedside table is a well thumbed copy of Jean Paul Sartre's Nausea. A steady drip of tears can be heard as a sizeable puddle of salt water collects on the floor. As the Bourgeois Audience has probably guessed, this is Angry Existentialist (AE), having remarkably survived certain death at the climax of Act 1. A bearded stranger interrupts AE's sorrow.
"How did you find me?" AE's voice tremors with the depth of his pain.
"I found Mysterious Beginning hospital and drew my own conclusions," responds the bearded stranger with an appropriate level of solemnity. There is a brief pause. "Your Hipster Girlfriend is in grave danger. You must come out of hiding, and re-enter civilisation in order to save her from the clutches of her Jealous Lover."
"But hell is other people!" whines AE.
"Her heart is heavy with longing for you. It is time to shake of your morbid stupor and rise to your role as Initially Underwhelming But Ultimately Heroic Protagonist."
"Well, if you insist...."
The old friends dramatically walk into the Gimmicky Flashback Ward, taking the audience back to....

-Part I-

-The Resolution of the Cliffhanger-

Jealous Lover is the first to breath after AE tumbled off Possibility of Tragic Death Tower Block. Hipster Girlfriend so stubbornly refuses to breath after the death of her gallant lover that she comes close to fainting.

"Well!" begins Jealous Lover pompously, "It hurts my pride that you would think of replacing me with someone so unschooled in the art of dance..."

"But your idea of dance preceded your existence, and forced you to conform..."

"My God, the rascal has infected you too. Come along now Hipster Girlfriend, come to my dark and foreboding tower where I shall take advantage of your grief and make you mine once more!". Numb with her pain, Hipster Girlfriend acquiesces. With his ex-lover safely imprisoned in the back of his car by the child-lock, Jealous Lover takes a brief walk in order to take an indulgent look at AE's mangled corpse. But ice freezes his vains. There is no bloodied corpse. AE has survived.

Indeed, a series of Remarkable Coincidences have ensured AE's continued existence. An Eccentric Aristocrat had just been left by his Snobbish Wife, and his unbearable grief had found her only gift to him, an extremely sturdy trampoline, as its focal point, The Eccentric Aristocrat's first instinct was to burn this nostalgic gift, but then a sense of Philanthropy stirred within him. Rather than engage in wanton destruction, he decided to give his unwanted trampoline to the proletariat. But then he recoiled from his altruism, realising that he would have to mix with the unwashed masses in order to pass on his gift. Arriving at a happy compromise, the Eccentric Aristocrat made a trip in his private helicopter over the area which most evoked T. S. Eliot's The Wasteland, and tossed the offending trampoline into the abyss, before returning to his mansion fulfilled. By a remarkable stroke of luck, the sturdy trampoline survived the fall and landed directly beneath Possibility of Tragic Death Tower Block, the perfect place to cushion AE's fall. Jealous Lover is less than impressed.

"Damn you!" he growls, accelerating the slow decay of the tower block by giving the wall a mighty kick. His next deceleration is louder. "Do you think you've outwitted me? Eh, do you? You're gravely mistaken Sir! I will have the last laugh. Ha! You see? Ha, Ha! My Moustachioed Henchmen will ensure that you will never set foot in society again. And what's more you rogue, Hipster Girlfriend will never know you survived the fall!" Jealous Lover makes a dramatic exit whilst cackling horrendously.

And so the years drag on. Hipster Girlfriend remains imprisoned in Jealous Lover's foreboding tower. She considers doing a Rapunzal, but quickly concludes that this is futile, as Jealous Lover visits frequently with scissors. Miles and miles away, unbeknown to her in a faraway land, Angry Existentialist is watching...

-Part II-

-Breaking Bad-

AE grizzles into his larger; he has had to abandon his expensive taste in single malts as his Gothic mansion and all his worldly possessions have since been seized by Jealous Lover's Moustachioed Henchmen.

"Maybe I could be a television critic," he sulks, "I'm certainly not entering a cinema again!". He hasn't seen another human being for several years, or shaved, or washed, or changed his clothes. His suit is now a distinctly less brilliant shade of pink. His attention is once more drawn towards the plights of Walter White and Jesse Pinkman.

"Why seek to prolong your life at all? Especially via the production of a drug which distracts people from their true quest of creating meaning in their lives! Oh this mortal coil!"

There is a knock on the door. AE is mightily shocked. Taking inspiration from the show's protagonists, AE has purchased a squalid camper van with what remaining funds he has left and driven into the depths of the American wilderness. It is an 1000 mile walk to the nearest town. It is absolutely impossible that Jealous Lover could find him here. AE has been on the run from the Moustachioed Henchmen across the globe.

"Nobody's here!" yells AE in a self defeating attempt to deny his presence. The door creaks open, and in strides the bearded stranger. They exchange Meaningful Eye Contact, before AE lets out a primal wail and comes hurtling towards his visitor.

"Where were you when I needed you? Why did you tempt me into those darkened cinemas? Why have you ruined my life?" yells AE. The bearded stranger struggles to breath through torrents of tears, and the stench of the unwashed existentialist makes him want to vomit desperately. Just in time, he hauls AE's deflated body from off of his bohemian clothes and takes a satisfying gulp of fresh air which has not yet been spoiled by AE's odour. 

"You have given up on life Angry Existentialist! How can you create yourself when you're always on the run? You must make a stand, and defeat your antagonist, reclaiming your sweetheart!"

"But I haven't the energy! Since my birth I have been engaged in an unrelenting duel with life, and now finally life has emerged the victor."

"Curse your narcissism! Your Hipster Girlfriend does not even know that you are alive!"

Guilt flashes through AE's eyes. Without further delay he scrambles over to his collection of second hand DVDs, and selects one to post to Hipster Girlfriend. He addresses it thus:

Jealous Lover's Dark and Foreboding Tower

Antiquated Village

Dark (and Haunted) Forest

Albion/Blighty/Land of Strawberries and Cream/Darn Good England

ST6 8HY

The film he chooses is:

-Part 3-

-Barton Fink-

"It must be him!" cries Hipster Girlfriend euphorically. "No one else would spontaneously send me a film about a conceited, esoteric artist falling foul to the brutality of the real world!". Her pet rat listens attentively

She realises she must take action at once. After the failure of her Rapunzal related plan, she has instead made a parachute out of her many, many floral dresses, which she now attaches to herself with blue ribbon. She takes a deep breath, clenches her fists, and without fear launches herself out of the window in a bid for freedom.

Jealous Lover does not hear the sound of smashing glass as he is deeply engrossed in a Menacing Interview with one of his mysterious associates.

"So you found him and convinced him to return to society? Right into my clutches! Oh, you have done well bearded stranger." The bourgeois audience gasps at this unexpected plot twist. You begin to choke as your sip of sauvignon blanc goes down the wrong way.

"I have done as you asked, I hope you will uphold your side of our agreement." Jealous Lover realises that the audience is in the dark about his evil scheming, and so eagerly begins a soliloquy in order to fill them in.

"Knowing that bearded stranger was a close associate of my arch nemesis, it was a natural move to track him down. While he was sleeping, I inserted minuscule explosives into the bushy depths of his beard. When he awoke he had two remaining options. Either to heartlessly betray his friend and co-operate with my repugnant scheme, or shave and thus remove the danger of spontaneously exploding. I knew which choice he would make, such is my cunning!" The bearded stranger's face is now traffic light red as he is reminded of his embarrassing predictability.

"And now," smiles Jealous Lover, "come with me to Hipster Girlfriend's cell and laugh at her helplessness!" And so they both become prithee to Hipster Girlfriend's escape. But Jealous Lover is unperturbed.

"The hunt becomes even more delicious. The situation demands that I break my promise to disarm the explosives in your beard tonight, and instead require a further betrayal from you on my behalf. You are to drive Angry Existentialist to madness, such that he will be incapable of rising to his duties as Heroic Protagonist. And I have the perfect way for you to execute my will!"

The curtain falls to the sound of Jealous Lover's crazed laughter, as the Second Act concludes. 

Quickfire Reviews (Part 8)

As the exam season drones on, the thoughts of this intrepid blogger turn to the highlights of recent British culture.

Music: The Black Keys- Turn Blue

Retro rockers follow up their storming breakthrough album, with added groove

Patrick Carney (left) tries not to look enviously at Auerbach's beard

 After El Camino (whatever that means) spawned the hit singles Lonely Boy and Gold on the Ceiling, things were looking good for Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney. They enjoyed the high-profile support of Jennifer Lawrence (now being blue once again in yet another X Men film) and scored a moral victory over Jack White after he was shockingly abusive to Auerbach in a leaked email to his ex-wife. Turn Blue represents their more laid back view on life. Opener The Weight of Love strums along happily without a lot happening for an atmospherically protracted introduction, and lasts six minutes all in all, contrary to El Camino which dashed through frantic vintage rock at break neck speeds before ending disappointingly soon. Although there's nothing here which quite matched the hit singles of their previous LP, it is a significantly more enjoyable album, tinged with a hint of indulgent melancholy. The riffs are perhaps more memorable, and the overall feel a little less monotone, especially with the surprisingly summery Gotta Get Away to close the album. All in all, a record where one can imagine oneself sprawled out in a smoky bar, half listening to a heartbroken friend whilst enjoying the effects of recreational drugs.

Rating: 8/10

Film: In Fear

Like Blair Witch, but much less irritating and Irish

Alice Englert reflects gloomily on the prospect of a long drive

The traditional recipe for horror involves either characters gleefully dismembering themselves whilst under constant attack from some distinctly unsubtle fiend (as in the recent misjudged remake of The Evil Dead) or dull as ditch water found footage films (like any of the Paranormal Activity films). In Fear mercifully fits neither of these stereotypes, and one would expect it to be more than your average horror movie. It's produced by the same people as excellent, offbeat comedy-horror Sightseers; it's director has done an episode of the consistently visually inventive Sherlock, whilst its star, Alice Englert was chilling as misled adolescent Rosa in Ginger and Rosa. It's starkly minimalist, heartstoppingly tense and visceral in its depiction of the effect of fear on human beings. Tom and Lucy are a couple of two weeks who get lost trying to find a secluded hotel in Ireland, discovering all is not well as the signs lead them in circles. As darkness falls and petrol runs low, you are in the car with them as they turn on each other and come under attack from an elusive predator, hellbent on messing with their minds. As well as being tremendously scary, the film makes some rather intelligent points about how we act under pressure and how far our 'selfish genes' will take us in order to survive. Definitely worth a watch.

Rating: 9/10

Theatre: King Lear

Bond director delivers modern adaptation of Shakespeare's masterpiece- with Lear as a raging penguin

Regan strokes Lear's luxuriously soft beard

As Sam Mendes points out in the behind the scenes feature for this hotly anticipated play, broadcast three times across UK cinemas, performances of King Lear have settled into a drearily predictable rut. The evil daughters, Regan and Goneril, wear the same clothes and are indistinguishable in terms of personality. The titular king makes a dramatic shift from bad to mad with seemingly no middle ground. Nobody quite understands why Cordelia couldn't think of something nice to say about Lear, and then none of the nasty stuff that follows would have happened. Mendes answers some of these concerns. Goneril and Regan are now distinguishable. Edgar is refreshingly gormless rather than the perfect child, so Edmund's anger is at least somewhat justified. Simon Russell Beale conducted extensive research beforehand, playing Lear suffering from dementia. But this adaptation is far from perfect. At times Beale's Lear turns into a ranting penguin, waddling across the stage before panting like a dog who's run too far. The fool is bludgeoned to death, something which was never dreamt of by Shakespeare, hence why no one refers to it afterwards. The portrayal of Lear as a modern day dictator is somewhat predictable. Yet there are some memorable and electrifying moments. Gloucester's eyes are brutally yanked out with a corkscrew and the climatic battle at Dover seems less like an afterthought than usual. This production's benefits far outweigh its flaws, with its all star cast and visual inventiveness resulting in a top notch night at the theatre, or the cinema for non-Londoners like myself. 

Rating: 8/10

Literature: Marcel Proust- In Search of Lost Time Volume 1: Swann's Way

Deeply irritating child precociously reflects on hawthorns whilst neurotic lover gets worked up about almost everything

Proust arrives at the shocking realisation that the moustache makes him look a bit of an idiot

In Little Miss Sunshine, a suicidal uncle looks deeply into his nihilistic nephew's eyes and extols the virtues of Proust. Indeed, Proust is widely thought to have revolutionised the way memory is tackled in literature, with the famous scene where our narrator recalls his childhood by sniffing some tea. But asides from this, the first volume of Proust's (rather lengthy) five volume saga  is astoundingly easy to mock. It has a deeply poetic tone, which occasionally veers into pretentiousness. This worked really well for Virginia Woolf in The Waves but is frankly silly when the narrator is meant to be recalling the experience of his pre-pubescent self. Unlike The Waves, nothing happens for the majority of the novel. There are some beautifully constructed vignettes, but there are also some drawn out passages which obsess over rather minor details. Once you get into Proust's style it's brilliant, but it's not so great for massaging one's mind after a long day or dipping in and out of. Mercifully there is an oasis amidst the pretentious child's reflections in the middle section: Swann in Love. The eponymous Charles Swann falls in love with the dubious Odette, who doesn't turn out to be the sweet, retiring figure she first appears. A painfully recounted tale of personal obsession and neurosis, the affair is always more about Swann than Odette, and illustrates teh destructive power of memory. Then, unfortunately, we're left with the annoying child again, but a shock twist and a fantastic closing section makes the overall impression positive.

Rating: 7/10