Nostalgic Films

This is getting slightly more difficult. What to write about?  I have become sympathetic to those journalists who have regular newspaper columns and have to produce copy daily. No wonder sometimes they might seem a little fatuous: compelled to give an opinion on something! Fortunately my income does not depend on this, nor my reputation. So I could choose to write about the dilemma of whether to throw away year old frozen broad beans which still rest in the bottom of my freezer, were grown in my allotment and which I know to be tough. Or I could expand on the pros and cons of having five kittens who are only semi-toilet trained.  But I will save you from this trivia and try to find something more engaging.

I do enjoy a good film and one of the features I like on Amazon Prime is the little tabs which say ‘people who watched this also enjoyed’- or words to that effect. It seems to be quite good at indicating films which have a similar tone or genre to the one you have just liked.  Such clicking recently lead me to ‘The Man in the Hat’  https://rathergoodfilm.co.uk/the-man-in-the-hat/ This proved to be a delightful gentle tale of a French man who thinks he might have witnessed a crime committed by a group of men in a Citroen Dyane. He departs the scene in his little Fiat 500 on a journey from Marseilles only to discover that he is being followed by the said Dyane. On his trip he encounters a number of characters, each with their own challenges and idiosyncrasies, who are both comic and poignant. His encounters with these characters are amusing, tender and deeply human. There is very little dialogue and what there is is in subtitled French, but don’t let that put you off.  One of the the glories of the film is  the wonderful French landscape , starting with the Camargue and journeying through tiny towns and villages over bridges and along gorges. Truly delightful. It reminded me of the many lovely holidays we had in France; sunshine, scenery, the open road, food, wine and, of course, the accordion.

Memories of a very different kind were evoked by the film ‘Between Two Women’ set in 1957 in the West Riding of Yorkshire.   https://www.amazon.co.uk/Between-Two-Women-Barbara-Marten/dp/B07P42NPP3    It is the tale of a working class woman, Ellen, who makes friends with her son’s middle class female school teacher. Ellen is married to a miserable, chauvinistic  factory worker who expects his tea on the table when he comes home and resents any culture to which Ellen might aspire for herself and their artistically gifted son. As I grew up in the 50s in the West Riding this film was a great nostalgia trip and a reminder of just how much life has changed since then. Growing up in Manningham, Bradford you could never escape the dominant presence of Lister’s Mill and if you lived within a mile of that mill then you were likely to live in one of the hundreds of stone terraced houses built in the 19th century for the mill workers. Everywhere was blackened stone which was frequently wet from the Pennine rain.  The film brought this all back, except the stone now tends to show its original golden hue. I was reminded of the excitement of travel by steam train and also the necessity of travel by diesel bus. I could almost smell the diesel as the sound of an idling engine drifted into my sitting room! The wallpaper, the kettle, the box of Rinso and packet of Vim, the Hornby train set, candlewick bedspreads, the Austin A30. I might add that the Yorkshire accents felt to me to be genuine.  I suppose I should comment on the fact that the film portrays the growing love between these two women and has been described as a ‘coming out’ film, but in many ways for me that was secondary to reminiscing about my childhood. For anyone unfamiliar with this cityscape it must appear grey and grim but strangely my memory of it is as embracing. We are all familiar now with the the Danish concept of hygge capturing a sense of warmth and coziness. In some ways that is what I associate with these northern streets. After being out in the grey drizzle you come in to the warm fire and to that deep sense of belonging.  You can take the girl out of Yorkshire but never take Yorkshire out of the girl! 

Other film recommendations:

That Good Night 2017 - John Hurt’s final role. Ralph, a once-famous screenwriter, is in his seventies and terminally ill. He has two final missions: to be reconciled to his son, Michael, and, secretly, to ensure he is not a burden to his wife, Anna, as he goes "into that good night". 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5271794/

Dusky Paradise 2016 -  After the death of his parents an apathetic young man travels to a foreign country to live in their house and look after their turtle. (Except it was a tortoise). Curious film but I enjoyed it.  

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4119044/

The Beautiful Fantastic 2016 -  A young woman who dreams of becoming a children's book author makes an unlikely friendship with a cantankerous, rich old widower. (I loved this film and might have to watch it again)  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4560008/