The State Of The Nation

What exactly is the point of Kemi Badenoch? No seriously, what has happened to right of centre politics - we seem to be left with a vast wasteland where once was important ground. Still we can at least take some comfort from the fact that the morally ungrounded Keir Starmer is turning out to be the best Conservative prime minister since that nice Tony Blair.

Enough of such gloom (well actually ther might be some more to come - sorry) because I am on one of my flying inspection visits to Plas Piggy. The sun is shining and the Great Orme smolders in a heat haze in the distance. The wretched flying vermin gulls are nesting on our roof again but that cannot take away the attractiveness of this place.

And last night I watched an interesting film, a Danish/Icelandic speculation on humanity and morality - Godland.  It follows the travails of a Danish pastor tasked with building a new church in the remoteness of South-East Iceland. It is a tale of endurance and obdurance. Three men die, as do two horses. The pastor is a pioneering photographer and the movie is shot in an almost square ratio with rounded corners that mimics his glass-plate photography. A serious film. A good film. Available on iPlayer. 78/100.

The VE Day celebrations last week were moving. I particularly enjoyed how much it all meant to my mother who remembered the sheer joy and relief of that end to war, celebrated in her case as a ten-year-old in Gloucester. That generation who lived through WWII have been the guiding influence on my generation and as we lose them we need to reflect on our own actions upon those growing-up behind us. Are we, the baby-boomers, as wise an influence as our own parents have been? Such thoughts can cast a pall over my day so I have risen from my desk and looked out once again over the sun-dappled sea. I may even have a third cup of damned fine coffee. Life's been good to me so far.

 

Manifest Destiny/The Mystery Of Faith

I have wrtitten before about the doctrine of Manifest Destiny that drove the white American conquest of its continent. It is one of my principal obsessions and I have come to realise that a misguided modern conception of the doctrine drives much of the putrid immorality of MAGA. 

A more measured contemplation of Manifest Destiny can be found in the cumbersome 1962 Cinerama movie, How the West Was Won. Fealty to the original Cinemascope  format means that the modern televisual print is shown in a distracting letterbox but that is better than a truncated cut. I would like to see this in proper cinematic projection but I don't run to my own theatre.

I say that this is a cumbersome film and so it is. Three strands held together by the constant presence of Debbie Reynolds, each with its own director and a fleeting appearance in each chapter by a giant of the western genre, James Stewart, John Wayne, and Henry Fonda. It even has three directors. Ponderous it may be at times but it should not be dismissed. Its examination of Manifest Destiny is modestly nuanced. 68/100. I depart from my usual layout and reproduce the poster in an imitation of Cinerama.

A recent film to have been given a boost of relevance is Conclave. It records the imagined machinations and political manoeuvres of a papal election. Quite early in the piece the central character makes a cogent case for the important differences between stubborn certainty and its more flexed cousin, faith. I'm not at all sure that this film is quite as good as it wants to be but it rattles along nicely and is buoyed by a proficient cast. 70/100.