M/C Reviews

DVD: Haeundae � Running from Giants

There’s no way to avoid the trend of the disaster movie. It may seem like the Americans have more or less taken over, with their special effects and quickly conjured human interest plots, but the rest of the world wants in on this terrifying cash cow. So while the climate is heating, 2012 is coming closer and closer, and nature catastrophes continue to wipe out large parts of the population seemingly at random, film industries the world over are clapping their hands at all the inspiration. Haeundae, by Korean director Je-gyun Yun, takes as its theme the ever popular – and area-relevant – tsunami. And while there is disaster to satisfy all of us who worship nightly in front of The Day After Tomorrow posters, it does have a significantly local flavour.

DVD: Chevolution � From Commandante To Commerce

When I was in Prague with my sister we bought little bottles of spirits for our boyfriends with ‘that’ image of Che Guevara on it – it was called Starkk with the subtitle ‘Original Czech Revolution Spirit”. There is very little evidence that Che Guevara ever set foot in the Czech Republic, even less that he desired to sponsor a beverage for tourists. Then, a week later, I got a red packet of cigarettes in Munich, featuring the same image, this time it was ‘revolutionary additive free tobacco’. It completed the party set. It also made me wonder how it came about that the Commandante could be found on any sort of crap product these days. And wouldn’t you believe it, there is a really comprehensive explanation for this phenomenon. Chevolution delves into the past and scours the present to unveil the paths of the most reproduced photograph of the 20th century.

Cinema: Green Zone � Where is Wally with WMDs

Usually I don’t go near a war movie without my boyfriend, who comes from a long line of military personnel. Although he doesn’t have anything to do with the military himself, he comes in handy when it comes to questions of accuracy. As he had other plans when it came to see Green Zone I won’t have anything to say on the right use of weapons and uniforms, vehicles and inter-military group dynamics. Luckily Green Zone is so much more than a war movie.

Without a Paddle: HEAT 21, New Series edited by Ivor Indyk

reviewed by Isabel D’Avila Winter

This summer’s Without a Paddle: HEAT 21 delivers the range of superb literary memoirs and essays we come to expect from this journal, and also an exciting mix of poetry and short fiction that includes jubilantly unpretentious writing by newer voices, something which you do not necessarily expect to find in a heavyweight literary journal such as HEAT – and feel all the happier when you do. Along the same irreverent vein, there is a sequence of art works entitled Up Shit Creek by Jon Campbell, based on urban signage and on colloquial expressions, such as the one that inspired the title of this issue, and which encapsulates the predicament felt by many of the heroes of the fiction and non-fiction submitted.

Snow-women and Samurais - Returning My Sister's Face by Eugie Foster

reviewed by Nin Harris

Eugie Foster's Returning My Sister's Face is uniquely situated as an anthology of graceful tales based on Chinese, Japanese and Korean folklore, history and mythology. What sets Returning My Sister’s Face apart is that Foster utilises a multiplicity of cultural markers in order to seed the deceptively simple and innocent narrations of these tales. Foster, an American writer of speculative fiction pays homage to her roots in this collection of elegant and poetic tales. The writing is filled with both the graceful simplicity I have come to associate with Far Eastern literature and poetry as well as the modern edginess which comes with the meeting between two cultures.

Marvellously woven tale - Naamah's Kiss by Jacqueline Carey

reviewed by Danielle Mulholland

This novel, Naamah's Kiss, follows on from the adventures of Prince Imriel de la Courcel, who wed Dorelei of the Cullach Gorrym, subsequently slain along with her unborn child by Morwen and the Black Bear. In doing so, they broke a most sacred pact they had made to do no harm, and as a consequence, the great magics of the oldest tribe in Alba began to wither. Now they are only left with the ability to fade from sight and some talent with encouraging plants to grow. They seem to be awaiting someone who will restore their magics or exhibit skills which will signal a new beginning; but the one they have invested their hopes in, Moirin, half of the Maghuin Dhonn and half D’Angelline, has a destiny of her own to fulfil.

Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone by Eduardo Galeano

reviewed by Timothy Wong

Eduardo Galeano is an Uruguayan journalist and writer whose life has been led mostly in exile from his native land. His best known work is probably Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent, a book which was recently made famous when Hugo Chavez presented Barack Obama with a copy at a the 5th Summit of the Americas in April 2009.

Galeano’s canvas in Mirrors is even broader than in Open Veins, traversing 5000 years of human history and seeking to find and tell stories of 'almost everyone'. Eschewing straight forward linear narrative, Galeano writes his Mirrors as a series of anecdotal and aphoristic vignettes and portraits of historical as well as mythological episodes and figures, in a style reminiscent of his own Book of Embraces or, perhaps, of Roberto Calasso’s The Ruin of Kasch.

'Bent' @ Downstairs Belvoir

Reviewed by Adam Norris

Bent by Martin Sherman
Belvoir St Downstairs Theatre - playing until the 14th of March.

Truth be told, my opinion of the production of Bent was somewhat prejudiced from the outset. Given the nature of the play (the treatment of homosexuality in Germany of 1934-36) and the circumstances of its staging (that is, as a feature of the 2010 Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Festival) a prejudice is certainly not something one should be at pains to advertise, especially in a professional theatre review. But I figure we’re all friends here, and furthermore, if we can’t be honest in a totally anonymous electronic medium then I don’t know why we bothered waging war against Skynet in the first place, and though I’m clearly mixing two entirely unrelated storylines I think the analogy stands.

Who is true and who is not? - The Black Russian: A Jack Susko Mystery by Lenny Bartulin

reviewed by Danielle Mulholland

Jack Susko owns a second-hand bookstore which deals in fine literature. Unfortunately, Susko Books is going broke so Jack needs some cash to prop up his ailing business. He travels to De Groot Galleries to sell an old art catalogue but the real find is a first edition of From Russia, With Love which Jack has stashed in his backpack. He hopes to meet up with another client after his meeting at De Groot Galleries to sell this book for a handsome profit. Unfortunately, shortly after his arrival at De Groot Galleries, gunmen arrive complete with masks to steal something mysterious from the gallery safe. Unfortunately for Jack, the gunmen also take his first edition book, an action he takes very personally. His search for the book, in The Black Russian: A Jack Susko Mystery, takes him on a dangerous journey of intrigue, crime, betrayal and mystery as he uncovers the truth about what was really stolen from the gallery, who are real friends and who are the real villains.

Lamenting music - Lovesong by Alex Miller

reviewed by Cate Gilpin

Lovesong is the latest offering by acclaimed Australian writer Alex Miller, and is another evocative, lilting tale in Miller’s distinctive style. Set between Paris and Melbourne it gently weaves together the stories of two men’s very different lives.