Inflight Magazine of Brussels Airlines

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A round-up of the top films, music releases and books heading your way this month

Text Matt Bochenski

Q+A OLIVIER ASSAYAS

Summer Hours

Director Olivier Assayas Starring Juliette Binoche, Charles Berling, Jérémie Renier, Edith Scob

Olivier Assayas talks to b.there! about his new film Summer Hours, the story of three French siblings who are forced to come together to dispose of their mother’s treasured belongings after her death.

How did you first get involved in Summer Hours?

It started as a project to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Musée d’Orsay in Paris. The head of the museum wanted films with a shot of it in the story, but I took the notion of making a movie in a museum seriously. For me, it all boiled down to how art starts with life, and the relationship between humans and their perception of reality, and how it dies in a museum.

Looking back at your career, which of your achievements makes you most proud?

I think when you make movies the greatest achievement is just being able to keep on making films; to be able to protect the freedom of making your own films, which isn’t actually very easy. I’ve always managed to make the movies I wanted to make when I wanted to make them and how I wanted to make them, even if it involved a smaller budget. I did manage to protect some sort of freedom, and I’m proud of that.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

Director Andrew Adamson Starring Ben Barnes, Georgie Henley, Skandar Keynes, William Moseley, Sergio Castellitto

Manfully stepping into the sizeable breach left by The Lord of the Rings, 2005’s The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe cleared up to the tune of $800m at the box office, making this sequel less a certainty than a financial obligation.

But there was something else as well. CS Lewis’s books were notorious for their promotion of down-home Christian values and striking Catholic allegory. When it came time to adapt them for the big screen, a company called Walden Media, headed by conservative businessman Philip Anschutz, took on producing duties with the intention of promoting them as a Christian alternative to such godless fare as the Harry Potter series. So it hardly seemed to matter that the first film in this franchise was a horrible muddle of metaphors with terrible special effects and cookie-cutter direction by ex-Shrek hack Andrew Adamson. Just as it doesn’t matter that Prince Caspian is effectively more of the same.

The story, in which the Pevensie children return to Narnia for a spot of regime change (now there’s an allegory for you), is a bit darker, a bit more assured and maybe even a bit better. But at heart it’s still an unwholesome meeting of finance, faith and film.

Book club

Eve: The Empyrean Age by Tony Gonzales

For those who don’t know (and it’s OK, you’re not in the minority), Eve is an MMORPG, or ‘massively multiplayer online role-playing game’. To put it another way, it’s a virtual universe in which thousands of people can ply their trade as merchants, bandits and, no doubt, various species of intergalactic deviant, all from their comfort of their own homes.

If that doesn’t sound like a good premise for a book, get used to it. Sci-fihas always been at its best when exploring the vast complexities of alternative worlds, and what could be more vast or complex than the closest we have to a real-life version?

Eve is a whopper of a good read, a story conceived on an epic scale that takes in clones, corporate-owned worlds, sinister governments and man’s dream of immortality.

Yes, it’s a little bit nerdy, and no, it doesn’t have the intellectual sheen of an Iain M. Banks. But it’s one heck of a ride.

The Subways

All or Nothing

A subway under the roads and pavements of the UK’s Welwyn Garden City may not sound like a promising place to find rock’n’roll inspiration, but it was exactly where Billy Lunn needed to be. The escape he found there led to him calling his band The Subways, which would go on to become one of the most infectious UK indie outfits. They got a taste of the big time in 2005 when their first album, Young For Eternity, landed them a slot on US teen-scene show The OC. Now, having spent four years gigging relentlessly and building a devoted fan base, they’re finally set to release an aptly named second effort, All or Nothing.

Although immediately recognisable as a Subways record – with its irresistible pop-punk hooks and Lunn’s wailing vocals – All or Nothing also shows satisfying signs of progressive musical ambition and marketing nous. Lead single ‘Girls & Boys’ was made available early as a free download, while ‘This is the Club’ (on the special edition CD) was part of an internet competition in which fans could win the chance to produce a video for the band.

Like it or not, with All or Nothing The Subways have proved it’s time for them to move from the underground and take their place in the mainstream.

Seth Lakeman

Poor Man’s Heaven

The world doesn’t really need any more folk singers crying into their beards about love and the planet and stuff. So it’s a good job Seth Lakeman isn’t one of them. Beardless and apparently not a veggie, Lakeman is every inch the modern folkie and already a veteran of the scene at the age of 31. He started playing with his brothers while a child, and released his first album in his teens.

Poor Man’s Heaven represents a significant step forwards. Many of the tracks clearly benefit from time spent in front of a live audience at festivals such as South by Southwest and Glastonbury, in particular the title track and ‘Race to be King’. These are rockier, tub-thumping tunes with an emphasis on a more electric sound than the straight acoustics of previous albums. There are also some dark themes in the mix. Lakeman says ‘I’ll Haunt You’ is the “darkest material” he’s ever written.

But the second coming of Bob Dylan this isn’t. There’s still plenty here for traditionalists, including ‘Blood Red Sky’, which Lakeman has performed live with Jethro Tull.

Book club

Dead Man’s Footsteps by Peter James

Among heavy-hitters such as Harlan Coben, Robert Crais and James Ellroy, it’s good to see a European author making waves. Peter James is a multi-talented Brit whose non-literary activities include working as a film producer on Al Pacino’s Merchant of Venice.

Peter James’s signature character, Roy Grace, has risen to Detective Superintendent for the release of his latest novel, Dead Man’s Footsteps.

It’s a taught suspenseful tale about a Brighton man who flees a mysterious past to reinvent himself in the US in the wake of the terrorist attacks on New York’s World Trade Center. But back in Brighton, the discovery of a body throws up a number of unanswered questions, and Grace must travel to America to track the man down before anyone else meets a similarly grizzly fate.

James’s strength has always been his attention to detail, in the observational accuracy of Grace’s police work and the tightness of his prose. Dead Man’s Footsteps doesn’t disappoint on either count.

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