Hideous Kinky

 

Hideous Kinky is a 1998 drama directed by Scottish director Gillies MacKinnon. Based on Esther Freud's semi-autobiographical 1992 novel of the same name, it follows a young English mother who moves from London to Morocco with her two young daughters in the early 70s. The film stars Kate Winslet and French-Moroccan actor Saïd Taghmaoui. The soundtrack mixes original music with songs from the 60s, including tracks from Canned Heat, Richie Havens and the Incredible String Band.

"Culloden"

Written and Directed by Peter Watkins for the BBC in a quasi-newsreel style and with nonprofessional actors. It first aired in the UK on December 15th 1964. It is a highly detailed and authentic reconstruction of the April 16, 1746 Battle of Culloden - the final confrontation of the Jacobite rising of 1745. Here, the Jacobite army of Charles Edward Stuart was decisively defeated by a British government force under William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, on Drummossie Moor near Inverness in the Scottish Highlands. It was the last pitched battle fought on British soil. The documentary was unique at the time as it broke the “fourth wall” with historical participants commenting as if modern TV cameras were present.

With a shoe-string budget and a troop of amateur actors, Peter Watkins created a controversial and grim look at the decaying Scottish clan system and the British occupation of Scotland. During the duration of the film Mr. Watkins takes no side and scathingly shows how both sides of the battlefield are morally and socially corrupt. Prince Bonnie Charles Stuart (pretender to the throne) on the battle field against the superior forces of the House of Hannover. The Jacobites didn't really stand a chance against the World's greatest army. Stupidity and jealousy ruined any chance they had.

Peter Watkins also showed the aftermath of the battle and the devastating effects the battle had on the surrounding communities. He shot this film in his trademark faux-documentary style. Even with a small budget, Mr. Watkins still manages to create a very important film. One that he spent months on researching and planning. The film also reflects how the media treated combat as we have one the field reports from the attacking army and interviews with the soldiers and their views on the enemy.

Culloden Moor, known then as Drummossie Muir, was the site of the last pitched battle on the British mainland on 16 April 1746.

The Jacobites were pulling back into the Highlands, ending their siege of Stirling as they headed for Inverness. Despite their victory at Falkirk, Jacobite morale was declining. Hunger saw the men spreading out wide to find their own food, some of them breaking ranks for home.

Most of their artillery had been ditched since reinforcements from France were growing more unlikely.

Things were very different for the Duke of Cumberland, now leading the Hanovarian army. His army was being well supplied by sea as he followed Prince Charles up the east coast.

Lord George Murray advised his Prince that the Jacobites would be best dispersing into the hills to use guerrilla strikes, bringing the army back together in the summer. Charles chose however, to reject the tactics the Highlanders knew best and opted to meet the enemy again in an open area.

On the night of the 15th, a mismanaged strike was launched on Cumberland’s camp which achieved nothing, resulting only in sleepless, hungry Highlanders for the next day. When they met on the Moor near Culloden, the Jacobites numbered four and a half thousand to Cumberland’s nine thousand Hanovarians.

Restricted by flanking dykes, the Jacobites presented a narrow, dense front. For the first twenty minutes of the hour-long battle the Hanovarian cannons pummelled the crowded area. When the Jacobites advanced the men in the centre found themselves having to squeeze to the right to avoid soft ground. There were so many men in such a small area that muskets could not be used. Nevertheless they butchered on through the Hanovarian left only to meet another regiment behind.

The Jacobite left had not joined the attack, and with two-thirds of the men now in difficulties, Cumberland’s cavalry had little trouble sweeping in to end the battle by two’o’clock. Working at their leisure, they proceeded to slaughter every Jacobite they had until the following day and continued to kill in round-ups for weeks following.

The fatalities numbered three hundred Hanovarians and two thousand Jacobites.

This was the end of the second Jacobite Rising.

Capitalist Realism and the New Hollywood

An exploration of Mark Fisher's concept of capitalist realism as it manifests itself in the films of the New Hollywood, such as The Godfather and Five Easy Pieces. The New Hollywood at once reveals the dominance of capitalist realism and, at times, attempts to pose a challenge to it.

Breadcrumb Trail (2014 Slint Doco)

 

Slint was a band that broke new ground. Their album Spriderland leaked its way across the Pacific Ocean to us in the early 90s. We were blown away. Spiderland created a sonic landscape. It bent time, added a surreal fragmented narrative, more chanted and spoken than sung, and lulled us into relaxed by uneasy states before building into sublime peaks of intense sound that seemed to go deep into a dreamlike collective memory.

Breadcrumb Trail focusus on Slint's seminal album, Spiderland, and the Louisville music scene from which the band originated. Appearances are made by former members of Slint, their friends and family, Steve Albini, Brian Paulson, and other musicians. The film includes songs, demos, and live performances from Slint and other bands; most of these bands had contained one or more members from Slint's lineup.

Come and See (1985)

Come and See (Russian: Иди и смотри, Idi i smotri; Belarusian: Ідзі і глядзі, Idzi i hliadzi) is a 1985 Soviet anti-war film directed by Elem Klimov and starring Aleksei Kravchenko and Olga Mironova. Its screenplay, written by Klimov and Ales Adamovich, is based on the 1978 book I Am from the Fiery Village (original title: Я из огненной деревни, Ya iz ognennoj derevni, 1977), of which Adamovich was a co-author.Klimov had to fight eight years of censorship from the Soviet authorities before he could be allowed to produce the film in its entirety. 

 The film's plot focuses on the Nazi German occupation of Belarus, and the events as witnessed by a young Belarusian partisan teenager named Flyora, who—against his mother's wishes—joins the Belarusian resistance movement, and thereafter depicts the Nazi atrocities and human suffering inflicted upon the Eastern European villages' populace. The film mixes hyper-realism with an underlying surrealism, and philosophical existentialism with poetical, psychological, political and apocalyptic themes.

Les chemins de Katmandou/The Pleasure Pit (1969)

 

Adapted from the novel by René Barjavel of the same name, Le Chemins De Katmandu or The Pleasure Pit (1969) tells the story of a man who joins a group of hippies who live and travel in Nepal, where they take drugs and practice free love in the belief that it will free them from materialism, only to meet disappointment. The Pleasure Pit (French: Les Chemins de Katmandou, Italian: Katmandu, also known as Dirty Dolls in Kathmandu, The Road to Katmandu and Ways of Katmandu) is a 1969 French-Italian crime-drama film written and directed by André Cayatte.

Oliver is a rebellious socially-conscious young man and activist who despises overt materialism, but dates a model. He tries to convince her to leave her materialistic and exploitative profession, but he can barely support himself, let alone her as well. That's when he decides to leave Paris where he lives with his mother to find his deadbeat dad who moved to Nepal some time ago and made good business as a professional hunter. Oliver wants to try to convince him to help him with his financial situation. Almost broke, Oliver manipulates his friend who works on a relief program in India to get the money to travel to Nepal. Once there, he's picked up by a band of hippies from Europe. One of them is Jane, a beautiful young carefree girl who practices free love. He falls for her immediately, but moves on, since he's not that anti-materialistic. When he finally finds his dad, he discovers that his father is in fact almost broke and working for a sleazy businessman who deals with stolen artifacts. Oliver is forced to steal artifacts for him as well to support himself. On one mission he meets Jane again, now a total drug addict. His new mission becomes to save her, but she doesn't want to be saved. Meanwhile, his dad is openly having an affair with the sleazy businessman's wife which complicates things even more for Oliver and everyone involved.

It stars Renaud Verley (Olivier), Jane Birkin (Jane), Elsa Martinelli (Martine), Serge Gainsbourg (Ted) and Pascale Audret (Yvonne). Large portions of the film were shot in the Katmandu Valley. Serge Gainsbourg did the music to it. This is a psychedelic trash masterpiece. 

Directed by: André Cayatte

Written by: René Barjavel, André Cayatte

Starring: Renaud Verley, Jane Birkin, Elsa Martinelli

Music by: Serge Gainsbourg

Cinematography: Andréas Winding

Release date: 1969

Language: French

Life With Nomads (Kate Humble Documentary Series)

 

The first in a series of three documentaries (all featured here) where British journalist Kate Humble lives with different nomadic groups still practicing their traditional life. In this first episode Kate lives with the Mongolian nomads from the secluded Hugh land steppe, where she will learn about the challenges faced by these ancient nomadic tribes.

Kate Humble and a camera crew enter the rugged and nomadic life of the Nepalese Raute people, roaming the altitudes of Nepal's mountains. They are not immediately welcomed into the tribe but as Kate proves helpful in moving the camp and as a contributing part of the workforce, she is able to get closer to the tribe - and by that closer to an understanding of the Raute people's way of life, including the challenges and possible new lessons for Kate to learn.

In Afghanistan, Kate Humble meets traditional shepherds in the remote Wakhan Corridor.

A nomad (late 16th century: from French nomade, via Latin from Greek nomas, nomad- ‘roaming in search of pasture’, from the base of nemein ‘to pasture’) is a member of a community without fixed habitation which regularly moves to and from the same areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), and tinkers or trader nomads. In the twentieth century, population of nomadic pastoral tribes slowly decreased, reaching to an estimated 30–40 million nomads in the world as of 1995.

Nomadic hunting and gathering—following seasonally available wild plants and game—is by far the oldest human subsistence method. Pastoralists raise herds, driving or accompanying in patterns that normally avoid depleting pastures beyond their ability to recover.

Nomadism is also a lifestyle adapted to infertile regions such as steppe, tundra, or ice and sand, where mobility is the most efficient strategy for exploiting scarce resources. For example, many groups living in the tundra are reindeer herders and are semi-extra nomadic, following forage for their animals.

Sometimes also described as "nomadic" are the various itinerant populations who move among densely populated areas to offer specialized services (crafts or trades) to their residents—external consultants, for example. These groups are known as "peripatetic nomads".