Inflight Magazine of Brussels Airlines

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Matt Bochenski rounds up the top films, music releases and books heading your way this month

Images Allstar, Rex Features
Pearl Jam image Danny Clinch

Antichrist

Director Lars von Trier
Starring Willem Dafoe, Charlotte Gainsbourg

Lars von Trier’s Antichrist landed at this year’s Cannes Film Festival with a deafening impact. Now it’s time to find out what all the fuss was about. Quite a lot, actually. Von Trier is the master provocateur of European cinema and Antichrist is his two-fingered salute to every critical dig he has ever suffered.

It’s the story of a couple who, having suffered the death of their baby son, retreat to a cabin in the woods in an attempt to repair their shattered lives. What follows is not pretty. Not pretty at all.

Playing out as a psychological body horror, the film presents us with the complete breakdown of the mother, played by Charlotte Gainsbourg. It then goes even further, morphing into an enquiry of the nature of evil, which, Von Trier dares tell us, is synonymous with the nature of woman.

If that all sounds a bit intellectual, it’s because the stuff that actually transpires on screen is too extreme to detail in a review such as this. In Cannes, many couldn’t stomach it, but if you’re still in the cinema when Gainsbourg picks up a pair of scissors, do yourself a favour and shut your eyes…

Rudo y Cursi

Director Carlos Cuarón
Starring Gael García Bernal, Diego Luna, Jessica Mas

A few years ago, the Mexican new wave of cinema was on everybody’s lips, pioneered by the success of the ‘three amigos’ – Alfonso Cuarón, Guillermo del Toro and Alejandro González Iñárritu. The buzz has quietened, but great filmmakers continue to emerge.

The latest is Alfonso’s younger brother, Carlos, whose football comedy is an arch deconstruction of sibling rivalry starring the same actors – Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal – made famous by Alfonso’s first hit, Y Tu Mamá También, which Carlos co-wrote.

But this is no self-referential road trip through the annals of modern Mexican film. It’s an enjoyably frothy story in which Luna and Bernal play half-brothers given the chance to escape their provincial lives for the glamour of the city by becoming professional footballers.

Of course they end up on opposing sides, of course there’s a dramatic showdown and of course they learn important life lessons along the way. But it moves with such energy and charisma you’ll enjoy every predictable second.

Pearl Jam

Backspacer

Along with Nirvana, Pearl Jam were at the head of Seattle’s grunge scene in the early to mid-90s. Along with Kurt Cobain, Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder became a poster boy for alternative rock in the US. And along with Cobain, Vedder struggled for years with the pressures that fame placed on him.

But unlike Cobain, Vedder survived and Pearl Jam have spent the last decade evolving beyond the limits of the Seattle scene. Backspacer is their ninth studio album, made in conjunction with Springsteen producer Brendan O’Brien.

His influence can be felt from the outset in an album that wears its pop/New Wave heritage on its sleeve. This is a strong rock’n’roll record, with tracks like ‘The Fixer’ and ‘Supersonic’ matching Vedder’s potent vocals to the tightest of rhythms.

The album can’t completely escape the curse of the ballad, but even these are delivered with a supreme confidence thanks to Vedder’s gifts as a lyricist and singer.

Mika

We Are Golden

After going supernova in 2007 and early 2008, it’s been a quiet 12 months for British singer/songwriter Mika. At least, it has seemed that way. In reality, he has been off doing pop star stuff – conquering America, touring Europe and, it now appears, working on the follow-up to his smash hit debut album, Life in Cartoon Motion.

Indeed, Mika himself has described We Are Golden as “part two” of his musical story, a sequel of sorts to the earlier album. The new record deals with Mika’s teenage years, when he graduated from the Royal College of Music and took his first, faltering steps in the music biz.

It all sounds much more exciting in song than on paper. Not least because Mika is as flamboyant as ever, giving full voice to his incredible vocal range. Once again recalling a litany of greats from Freddie Mercury to David Bowie, Mika hams it up for the title track, before segueing into the raucous ‘Blame it on the Girls’.

Across the album, trumpets blare, cymbals crash and guitars squawk, all of it held together by Mika’s undeniable charisma, which practically bursts out of the speakers to assault your ears.

Book club

This month’s must-reads

Val McDermid is one of a growing band of ‘tartan noir’ authors – Scottish writers taking inspiration from the characteristics of life north of the border to write detective fiction steeped in murder and mystery. Her most famous creation, Dr Tony Hill, is back for his sixth case with DCI Carol Jordan.

Once again, McDermid’s imagination has given rise to a story that disappears into a world of torture and violence. A serial killer is on the loose and he has a shopping list of victims, starting with teenager Jennifer Maidment. The case reawakens uncomfortable memories for Hill, who is also battling against demons in his professional life.

With more than 10 million books sold, it goes without saying that McDermid has all the tools of a great crime writer, and she’s an expert at building and manipulating tension. Some may find her too dark at times, but Fever of the Bone is gripping stuff – if you can stand it.

The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution

Richard Dawkins

Professor Richard Dawkins has a daunting task in following up the hugely successful The God Delusion, the book that outlined why the evolutionary biologist doesn’t believe in the divine.

Even more worrying for Dawkins is the fact that a second book was even necessary, especially one that looks to defend Darwin’s theory of evolution. But anyone who has seen him squaring up to religious fundamentalists and advocates of intelligent design knows what to expect.

And we get it in spades in this excellent book: a clearly articulated, immaculately reasoned and passionately argued case for evolution that tackles critics head on and demolishes their objections piece by piece.

This is the sort of book you’ll want to pass on to everyone you know. A timely and well-deserved slap in the face to the forces of ignorance.

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