Very pretty, very touching, but little substance

I went to see The Book Thief this afternoon.  Like a few films I've seen lately, it was very well made, and beautifully photographed in particular, but ultimately rather unsatisfying.  Set in Germany in the immediate pre-war and early war period, the film is about Liesel, the daughter of a communist, who is sent to live with a foster family.  Unable to read, she is mocked by all of her schoolmates, bar neighbour Rudy, who has a crush on her.  She learns to read with alacrity, thanks to the tuition of her foster father; develops a fascination for reading, thanks, in part, to seeing a bonfire of books; and learns about injustice, thanks to Max, a young Jewish man being sheltered by her new family.  At the end of the films everyone dies: this isn't a spoiler, as the film is framed by a voiceover narrative from the personification of death, who reminds us right at the start that everyone dies eventually.

Ultimately, that is it: everyone dies eventually.  It's a universal truth; it's of universal relevance; but, I didn't need to sit through a two-hour film to be told this.  

Other than the ubiquity of death, we see the world divided into goodies - liberal, essentially kind-hearted (even if they hide it under a gruff exterior) and individualist by temperament and baddies - prejudiced, domineering and with a tendency to follow the crowd.  In Nazi Germany this means that only Liesel, her family and her admirer Rudy express any reservations about the burning of books, persecution of Jews and other minorities, and the war with Britain (and America, who ahistorically liberate Liesel's unidentified German town).  I'm by no means an expert on Twentieth-century German history, but I suspect it was more complicated than that.

The only undercurrent comes from the casting: Liesel and Rudy are played by the prettiest blonde children, while Rudy, a strong runner, has a fascination with Jessie Owens: he reenacts Owens' triumph at the 1936 Olympics, after rolling in mud in order to look black.  The intention here is honourable, but left me slightly queasy: giving the film the benefit of the doubt, I would like to think that discomfort was the intended effect in what is otherwise a rather bland film.

Cross-promotion

Not something I'd usually do, but regular readers might what to have a look at my new blog, set up especially to promote my writing career.

Irregular readers can safely ignore this and move on to something more interesting.

Line of Duty

For the past 6 Wednesdays I have been watching the second series of BBC2's Line of Duty, a drama series focussing on a police anti-corruption unit AC12.  I was slightly disappointed with the first series, which starred Lennie James as the corrupt DCI Gates.  I admire much of the work of the writer Jed Mercurio, but found it lacked the intensity of, for example, his medical drama Bodies.  

The second series proved to be much stronger.  Whereas in the first series, we knew Gates was corrupt and the journey was simply watching how the officers of AC12 pinned it on him, the second the took a more interesting approach.  From the outset suspicion falls on another DCI, Lindsay Denton (Keeley Hawkes).  Denton is a more intriguing character than Gates.  An honest, and rather rule-bound officer, and something of a loner, she stands in stark contrast to the smooth, sociable and patently untrustworthy Gates.  From the outset there seems to be little doubt about her guilt; the question is why?

Except, it turns out there is a lot of doubt about her guilt.  The hypothesis the anti-corruption officers construct becomes increasingly rickety in the face of evidence - evidence seen by them and evidence seen only by the viewer.  Denton, meanwhile, blames superior officer and former lover DCC Mike Dryden.  While this initially looks like a desperate attempt to escape justice, the viewer, seeing her treatment on remand has to think again.  The officers, too, are convinced and Dryden is arrested.  This, of course, isn't the end, and by the final episode bets were back on again and everything was set up for the grand finale.

The grand finale, sadly, didn't materialise.  The hour-long episode unfurled, much like Jane Austen's 'tell-tale compression of the pages', but leaving more loose ends and less time to tie them up.  At around the forty minute mark, we were given an extended flashback that tied up several strands in a rather unsatisfying fashion.

To an extent, I think the exigencies of TV drama must take some of the blame: it is doubtless agonisingly difficult to plot six episodes to a set length, each containing its own dramatic arc, while contributing to the overall arc of the series.  Having seen and read a few of Mercurio's series and novels, I confess to being generally let down by the endings: it seems he is very good at creating characters and putting them into unusual positions, but he just isn't that good at resolving everything.

Line of Duty is still a great series.  There are enough loose ends, in particular the newly-revealed details of DS 'Dot' Cotton's nefariousness.  The moral ambivalence of the characters and the darkness of the dramatic world will make a third series welcome.  I just hope the ending's better next time.