Quality Quaran-time

Stuff watched during Quarantine. People keep asking me what TV and film I’m watching, so here’s a list. I’d like you to know that I am actually working, too.

 FILM

The Chambermaid (La Camarista) (Kino Now)

Small scale, unadorned, minimal and strangely beautiful portrait of the working days of a chambermaid in an upscale Mexico City international hotel. While it’s a glimpse into a life you’ve almost certainly encountered and probably never given much more than a passing thought to, the canvas is large enough to document Eve’s plight and the drudgery and hope in her cloistered world. Features the best sketch of behaviours of the thoughtlessly rich that I’ve seen on film recently. A must-see. 

Queen and Slim

Bonny & Clyde-esque in terms of influence, racially aware and highly pertinent in execution with superb performances from Daniel Kaluuya and Jodie Turner-Smith. Written by Lena Waithe of The Chi and Master of None fame. Loved this. 

The Kindness of Strangers

Most mainstream reviews slate this film, but I think they miss its subtlety and are looking for a central character in its entirely deliberate sprawl. Here’s an IMDb review I wrote in its defence: 

“The understated quality of this movie might be why it hasn’t received better reviews. I don’t think it means to be a treatise on homelessness or a precise rendition of the conditions thereof (an assumption I’ve seen some high profile critics make). That’s a fate that befalls one of the characters and her two children, part of an ensemble whose interlinked stories together make a case for empathy and impulsive altruism being among the most admirable aspects of human nature. 

Homelessness is one thematic layer to a story that investigates kindness as the social glue that matters most and is possibly also the most underrated of dispositions or inclinations, often being seen as weak or oversensitive. Personally, I found it a lovely film, quite moving in places with its acknowledgment that, without kindness and the generosity of strangers, society would fall apart.“

Fast Color

Second time I watched this thoughtful take on generations of characters with superpowers, this time with my daughter. I thought it’d appeal to her as 1.) the lead is, like her, a biracial female (the always excellent Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and 2.) it features nascent superheroes. Sort of. Alas, it failed to have enough Avengers-style punch-ups for her, but I loved its low-key humanism, intergenerational issues and, yeah, the depiction of the power of black women. 

The Invisible Man 

A great approach but largely tension-free and increasingly ridiculous as it meanders to a guessable conclusion. It is, however, a great vehicle for Elisabeth Moss emoting if you like that sort of thing.

Swallow

Swallow is a difficult film to catagorise. It could be horror, it could be a snapshot of a moment from the #MeToo movement, it could be a wider treatise on oppression and what the human animal will do to gain (or regain) a sense of internal freedom. It’s beautifully filmed and played, and isn’t quite as downbeat as it might first seem to be. Within that framework are mediations on many other recgnisable social mores. Memorable, and a little haunting.

Le Concours (The Competition) (Kino Now) 

We watched this documentary because it's got a great trailer and promises insight into the processes of how one of the most prestigious film schools in the world picks its students. Unfortunately, what you get is something that's slung together in an editing suite with little-to-no coherence other than a boringly linear track that doesn't follow any one would-be student or staff member, so it's impossible to feel genuinely engaged. This lack of structure or context might be a stylistic choice - I'm all for footage being allowed to tell its own story without any narrative tricksiness - and "raw" it most certainly is. However, there's barely any overall through-line, no cutaways or direct interviews to give greater depth to any of the situations or characters involved. Surely the purpose of a documentary is to lift the lid on and illuminate processes that might seem arcane to an outside observer, not make them more opaque? There is a payoff of sorts, if you're not asleep by the end of it, but we were left wondering how it’s possible to make a documentary about a French film school so incredibly dull.

TV 

(We started and didn’t finish several shows, so this is a ”Best of” list for both finished and ongoing - scroll down for the latter.) And check back for updates! [EDIT: Now with added Hatewatch list! Scroll to bottom.]

Babylon Berlin

Every so often, a TV series comes along that makes you feel that your life was incomplete before watching it. I don’t really know how to describe the experience that is watching Babylon Berlin - it feels like watching a Star Wars film when I was 13 years old, before I got jaded and good at spotting the tricks of storytelling and mythology-building. It’s a lived-in, recognisable, parallel universe, a world so familiar and yet too frighteningly different from our own to be real - and yet, it’s set in Weimar Germany, 1929. I want to use words like compelling and irresistible, but that doesn’t really indicate what a beguiling work of art it is. Imagine Cabaret (the 1972 Bob Fosse movie with Liza Minnelli and MIchael York) as a detective story and you might get a sense of some of the flavour and themes, but it also feels incredibly current. When TV is this good, it’s like the book that changed your life as a teenager,  the band you couldn’t stop listening to, a cultural experience that helps shape you. 

We finished seasons 1 and 2 within a week, and attempted to ration season 3 so as not to eat it up too quickly. It’s dark, but brilliantly so. NB If watching on Netflix, be sure to watch in German with English subtitles.

Kalifat (Caliphate) (Netflix)

A tale for our times. This excellent Swedish drama depicts how young women become radicalised by religious fundamentalism and where it takes them. Three plot lines slowly weave together: the first depicts the recruiter, manipulative chameleon Ibbe, who poses as a teacher’s aide and who grooms various young girls by preying upon their alienation and societal fears. He promises them a paradise in Syria, in the Caliphate where we meet Pervin, a woman now living that very dream, which has become a waking nightmare. Pervin is desperate to return with her baby to Sweden and finds a possible escape route by contacting Fatima, a Muslim secret police woman desperate to prevent a terrorist attack back in Stockholm. As we follow Fatima’s fortunes and failings, these three threads together form a greater tapestry that becomes ever more taut and gripping. That description makes it sound like a political thriller, but it’s far more than that. It is put together with an almost surgical precision and is incredibly well acted. You are left with a much deeper comprehension of the human cost of fundamentalism and religious extremism, on all sides . 

Watch the original Swedish/Arabic language version with subtitles for the full dramatic effect.

The Plot Against America (HBO)

An HBO drama based on the novel by Philip Roth, this is an alternative history set in the early 1940s, and posits what might’ve occurred if Charles Lindbergh had defeated FDR in the 1940 presidential election. It’s told through the eyes of a working-class Jewish family and shows how Lindbergh, a fascist, promotes antisemitism for political traction. It’s chilling to see how easily things could’ve gone the wrong way (and still could). Tense, plausible stuff from the stable of David Simon, so expect quality. 

Hanna (Amazon)

Bourne, sort of, but with genetically-engineered girl super-soldiers instead of old white blokes. Ludicrous but absolutely compelling and beautifully crafted. If you want a Euro-thriller with loads of grit and intrigue, this is it. Fantastic performances all round; features Joel Kinnaman from For All Mankind.

This Way Up (Hulu and C4)

As a lifelong sufferer of depression, I found so much familiarity with the main character in this it was discomfiting. Bleak in places but very human (and humane) and very, very funny.  

Never Have I Ever (Netflix)

Sweet, silly teen comedy overseen by one Mindy Kaling and narrated by one John McEnroe. Yeah, him. Diverting if you want to take your mind off the stupidity of the world and laugh at what seemed important to LA teens before all this Covid-shit went down. 

Star Trek: Picard (CBSAA in the USA and Amazon, rest of world)

Star Trek does literate character drama for adults, and does it within a novelistic, serialised structure unlike the one-off episodes of yore. Gone are the old, mannered and slightly stilted Starfleet exchanges and anomalies-of-the-week, which are replaced with naturalistic dialogue, a philosophical quest for the former captain of the Enterprise and a new crew of various highly engaging sidekicks. If you liked Star Trek: The Next Generation and Voyager, there are also welcome extended cameos from several faces from the past. It is really, really good and while the path it takes to get to its conclusion might not all be lighthearted, it leaves you with an optimistic and life-affirming feeling, which I can’t get enough of right now. 

Devs (FX / Hulu)

Alex Garland’s TV mini-series ostensibly is about quantum computing and AI but actually is more about the nature of free will. If you like his films (I do), you’ll like this, but it’s not for the faint-hearted. Everything Garland ever touches is provocative, highly intelligent, incredibly stylish, labyrinthine and often downright weird, but that’s why I love his stuff. This is not exactly barnstorming - that’s not his thing - but I find I’m always thinking about the latest episode the next day. Just watched episode 5 (of 8). To my mind, essential.

[Edit]: Finished Devs, and I think it’s nothing short of a small masterpiece. Garland can be quite downbeat, but this is weirdly uplifting.

I Am Not Okay With This (Netflix)

Shapes up to be a ’Dear Diary’ superpowers origin story, but don’t be put off by that. The characters are charming and immediately engaging and it’s very funny. Highly enjoyable. 

WestWorld III (HBO)

I have no idea what’s going on this show anymore, if I ever even did, but it looks nice - the production values are incredible. It’s portentous and takes itself ever-so-seriously, but it’s worth watching for Thandie Newton’s Maeve alone. If you want a low-budget (and to my mind, superior and more realistic) take on what a world where androids and AI live side-by-side with humankind, watch HUMANS.

[Edit] Disappointing end to season 3. Not much to say about that except that it all felt a bit pointless.

The Clone Wars - Season 7 (Disney+)

You either like Star Wars or you don’t; you either like animation or you don’t. If neither of those sound like entertaining prospects to you, read no further. If they do, and you’ve never watched any animated Star Wars, begin here. You don’t actually need to have seen the previous six seasons to get into it (though that will help). The Clone Wars is a rich, incredibly textured show quite different from the movies and perhaps much more layered. It shows why Anakin Skywalker (Luke’s dad) was thought to be such a hero before he fell to the Dark Side and become Darth Vader. With his comrades-in-arms Ahsoka Tano, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Clone Commander Rex, we find out why wars among the stars are hell, albeit a hell fought for in exotic locales. Much of it is Ahsoka’s story and she is, to my mind, equal to Leia and Rey in terms of being a definitive and major female Star Wars character. Her arc through these seven seasons is the kind of grand, mythical storytelling I really thirsted for as a child and haven’t lost any appetite for as an adult. She’s a brilliant character, both flawed and resolute, and her tale continues into sister series Star Wars: Rebels (also available on Disney+) and on (apparently) into next year’s live action season two of The Mandalorian. For my tastes, that makes this required viewing. The final four episodes of this season are up there with the best Star Wars films, and are some of the best purely visual storytelling I’ve seen in a long while. They occur concurrently with events shown in the final prequel movie, Revenge of the Sith, and feature a sense of loss and all the poignancy that film should’ve featured and didn’t. Truly epic.

Friday Night Dinner (Hulu, C4)

We’ve been watching this sitcom for years, but it’s now available to US audiences too via Hulu. Every Friday night, Johnny and Adam visit their (secular) Jewish mum and dad in north London for dinner. That’s it. That’s the high concept. From this very basic cloth, writer/director Robert Popper weaves an abundant tapestry of silliness and ridiculous hilarity which also happens to be a brilliant set of observations on the mechanics of family life and human foibles in general. 

Features Simon Bird of The Inbetweeners and Tamsin Grieg of Episodes/The Green Wing, British comedy fans, plus Tom Rosenthal and the always superb Martin Ritter (you may have seen him last year in Chernobyl) and Mark Heap as Jim, their neighbour-with-terrifying-dog, Wilson/Milson. 

ONGOING TV: 

Pandemic (Netflix)

For reasons that I can completely understand, you might not want to touch this Netflix documentary that was made last year, but it’s brilliant, in-depth and gives you some insight into what we’re up against. No, I’m not talking about COVID-19, I’m talking about the political morons who pretend it, and various other pathogens, don’t exist or will pass harmlessly by without requisite preparation. This show proves that health workers the world over are the true heroes of society, not the showboaters and powermongers. Watch and learn. In the end, it’s all about politics and big business and how science, creativity, foresight and humanity may just get us through. 

Ragnarok (Netflix)

Norwegian ancient gods revisit a small town. Buffyesque, slightly daft soapy fun at the end-of-the-world. 

A quick word on a show I haven’t rewatched but am still thinking about - the German Netflix family-noir SF drama, Dark. Probably my favorite show from last year. 

There are thoughts on that show and another whole list from 2019 here. 

Detectorists (Netflix)

A reminder that, if you’ve never seen it, Detectorists is also on Netflix - one of my favourite comedy shows of all time, from Mackenzie Crook. Gentle, wise, silly, beautiful. 

Hatewatches

Things we either hatewatched or didn’t finish…

Little Fires Everywhere (Hulu)

Clearly supposed to be prestige TV, this is a weird one, because it’s got people like Reese Witherspoon and Joshua Jackson in it and all the kids are great and even Kerry Washington’s grimace-a-like school of acting suits the character she’s playing. But IT’S ALL SO HELLISHLY PREDICTABLE AND STOOOPID. Sometimes it’s fun to watch this kind of stuff and nitpick though, and that’s exactly what we did. (And we did actually finish this one, so I can’t say it wasn’t entertaining.)

Hollywood (Netflix)

Ryan Murphy’s latest (he of Nip / Tuck and American Horror Story). I like alt-history tales (see The Plot Against America above, or The Man in the High Castle’s first three seasons for how that’s done). The problem with Hollywood is that it really doesn’t deserve an alt-history take on itself set in the late forties wherein everything is made nice and cool, because it’s not nice and everything is not cool in 2020, especially after #MeToo. The suspension of disbelief required to deal with some of this show’s glossy takes on minority experiences and happy endings is simply too great and we came to the conclusion that this is well-meaning but vacuous garbage.

Into the Night (Netflix)

Lost meets Airplane, except they didn’t mean to do the latter bit as comedy, but it is. Sadly, the best thing I can find to say about this Belgian TV show is that it’s quite a good premise that quickly becomes too ludicrous to waste time on. I fast-forwarded to the end so you don’t have to. Trust me on this.