United States of Love (Zjednoczone stany miłości) , Film, Poland 2015, written and directed by Tomasz Wasilewski, 8* out of 10

United States of Love masterfully presents a slow-moving, beautifully acted drama of women in pursuit of women’s sexual obsession, desire and love. Great direction and photography capture a personal sadness in an atmosphere of hopeful political departure. Be warned though: if you do not leave the cinema depressed after seeing this movie, you must have been ingesting something very special before you sat down to watch it.   

Poland in 1990, after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Politically, things seem possible, that no one had dared to dream of only a short time ago. While trust in existing institutions and conventions is collapsing, every day-life continues. Yet, for the four women who are protagonists in Tomasz Wasilewski’s film the political and social atmosphere of departure gives the impetus to follow desires that lay deep within them, perhaps dormant but certainly unpursued until now. Agata (Julia Kijowska) caught in a marriage that has become unhappy for her is obsessed with the young, attractive roman-catholic priest, who teaches her teenage daughter. The respected head-teacher Iza (Magdalena Cielecka) has a long-standing secret affair with a physician who is the father of one of her pupils. When his wife dies, she is sure that her love for him will turn into a happy marriage. But the ruthless doctor has other ideas. Iza’s sister, Marzena (Marta Niradkiewicz), a former beauty-queen, is waiting for the return of her husband from Germany - or to be called to join him. Marzena’s neighbour, Renata (Dorta Kolak), a teacher at Iza’s school, meanwhile finds the courage to pursue the crush she has had on Marzena ever since she laid eyes on her.

Against a bleak and hopeless architectural, meteorological background and faced by men that range from baffled (and tepid) via clueless (and cold) to brutal (and icy), the women in United States of Love, are made to suffer relentlessly. In all the scenes in which a priest appears he speaks of the centrality of love, its beauty its importance, its heavenliness. But in key-scene a student raises his hand and asks the priest: “And, have you ever had sex?”.  

At the heart of United States of Love there is a striking contrast between the idealized love praised by the men of the church and the abject failure of the attempts at the pursuit of earthly love with men by intelligent, practical women. It is this contrast and the tension between political optimism and personal misery which make this fittingly slow-moving drama both impactful and deeply depressing. 

Direction, photography and the understated form, in which the excellent acting performances, none of them stronger than Magdalena Ciliecka’s, are captured, all reinforce the tragedy of women’s disappointments when it comes to living their love, desires and obsessions. 

United States of Love won the prize for best screenplay at the Berlin Film Festival, but if you’re looking for any light relief in adversity, you won’t find it here. 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5333110/

Nice Fish, Play by Louis Jenkins and Mark Rylance, Harold Pinter Theatre, London 7.5* out of 10

Mark Rylance gives another brilliant performance, this time in a lighter register. Louis Jenkins’ play is a series of vignettes with folksy, homespun philosophy from the frozen lakes of Minnesota.  

Have you ever wondered whether the Minnesota of TV-Series “Fargo” would make an entertaining setting for a film or a play free of violence?  You need wander no further than the Harold Pinter Theatre to find the answer – and it is affirmative.

In “Nice Fish” Ron (Mark Rylance) and Eric (Jim Lichtscheidl), two middle-aged men of hardy Scandinavian stock have put up their tents or huts on the ice of a frozen Minnesota lake waiting for the end of the long winter while enjoying the great outdoors. Ice fishing (whereby a whole is drilled through the thick layer of ice and the angling rod planted above it) seems more of a justification for friends engaging in deep philosophical exchanges disguised as banter and in banter disguised as deep philosophical exchanges. 

Clare van Kampen directs Louis Jenkins’ play which is really a series of vignettes from a holiday-on-ice. Together they provide 90 minutes of amusingly enjoyable comedy drama in an inventive set by Todd Rosenthal performed by a competent cast, led by the brilliant Mark Rylance (recently of Bridge of Spies, Big Friendly Giant and Wolf Hall and sometimes referred to as the greatest stage actor of his generation). 

Like the packed audience, I was in the mood for the melancholic, homespun, folksy wisdom. Those who came to see Mr Rylance in a register a bit lighter than usual will also not have been disappointed. Good, light fun for the thinking person. 

http://www.nicefishtheplay.co.uk/?gclid=CjwKEAiAyanCBRDkiO6M_rDroH0SJAAfZ4KLnpDUleoRZFSJ6ZqLA7yBDJeccRSxQvcCT_9myCy3ChoCx4jw_wcB

Travesties, play by Tom Stoppard, Menier Chocolate Factory, London, 10* out of 10

Director Patrick Marber and his outstanding ensemble of actors perform Tom Stoppard’s hilariously funny rapid-fire succession of dialogue, movement, choreography and song to perfection.

In which tranquil European city could you have found the co-inventor of a modern art movement, the soon to be leader of superpower and the author of arguably the most influential, best known and most unread novel of 20th century world literature? The metropolis in question is no other than Zurich, the time period 1914 to 1919, not too long before the gnomes had replaced the radical thinkers and intellectuals with strong-rooms full of Krugerrands, Vreneli and all sorts of other valuables. 

In Tom Stoppard's comedy, Tristan Tzara (Freddy Fox), the Romanian-French avant-garde poet, cabaretier and co-founder of the Dadaism absurdist art-movement, James Augusta Joyce (Peter McDonald), the author of Ulysses and Vladimir Ulyanov (Forbes Masson) who would later be better known as Lenin, all possess a membership card to the Zurich municipal Library during and shortly after World War I. So does the lesser known Anthony Carr (Tom Hollander), a young British war veteran, and consular official, who, as the records of the Zurich courts show, will sue Joyce over the latter’s production of Oscar Wilde’s comedy The Importance of Being Earnest in the Kaufleuten Hall in the centre of Zurich, in which Carr was among the cast. 

Tom Stoppard has meticulously researched the facts on which his witty and hilarious play is based. Many years after the events, an aged Anthony Carr reminisces about this vignette in the European history of the 20th century, in which as a member of the British consulate he had a small (or perhaps not so small?) role to play. Ostensibly though it is Lenin, Joyce and Tzara who are the protagonists of the events on stage. Although their female companions and love interests, Cecily Carruthers (Clare Foster) and Gwendolen Carr (Amy Morgan), and Nadya (Sarah Quist) and the indispensable butler Bennett (Tim Wallers) have more than minor roles and energise the story with the prospect of romance and international class struggle. The latter in the elegantly understated and restrained manner that befits the archetypal English butler.

The plot of Travesties mirrors and self-references Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Ernest” and is a firework of witty allusions in English, Russian, Latin and Dada delivered rapidly by an outstanding cast led by Tom Hollander. It is almost impossible to get all the jokes and allusions on seeing Travesties once, as every dialogue is meticulously crafted to deliver in rapid succession gags, jokes and wit including the breaking out in song and dance. Originally written in 1974, Travesties has something of Monty Python about it and must also have inspired creators of such British cult TV series as “Fawlty Towers” and “Blackadder”.

Travesties is such a complex rapid-fire succession of dialogue movement choreography and song, that it is anything but easy to perform it to perfection. But director Patrick Marber has managed to harness his outstanding ensemble of actors do just that. The production design by Tim Hatley matches this high standard. 

The packed house at the Menier Chocolate Factory enjoyed the hilarious treat presented to them and gave it more than one round of fully deserved rapturous applause. Highly recommended, a wonderful treat. 

On the evening we had come from Zurich to see the play I was surprised a casually distinguished older gentleman next to me noisily unwrapping a candy during Act 1. It was none other than the author Tom Stoppard himself, who had come to check out the production of his play. When we told him we had come from Zurich to see it, he said “How ironic!”. 

https://www.menierchocolatefactory.com/Online/default.asp?doWork::WScontent::loadArticle=Load&BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::article_id=73D803FA-C2C4-4FCA-878F-4C3785FAC636&sessionlanguage=&SessionSecurity::linkName=

The Arab of the Future (L’Arabe du Futur), Volumes 1 and 2 of a Graphic Memoir by Riad Satouff, 10* out of 10

The Arab of the Future tells of an unusual childhood in the Middle East of the 1980s told in the form of a graphic memoir. Riad Sattouf’s voice is original and unique; deceptively simple, his observations are deep, intelligent, often funny and at times very moving.  I read the first two volumes  in one sitting.

Riad Sattouf grows up in the 1970s and 80s, the son of a Syrian University professor and a French mother. His father has risen from very modest beginnings in a small village near Homs in Syria. He is a pan-Arabist, who fervently believes that Syrians are best, that Arabs on the whole will throw off the shackles of Imperialism and demonstrate their superiority to the West. If they haven’t done so already, it is of course due to a global conspiracy perpetrated by the Jews. Moreover, he is convinced that despite of his humble origins he will one day become respected, successful and very rich and that his son will be the epitome of the new Arab man, the eponymous “Arab of the Future”.

Riad’s mother is Breton, the daughter of French civil servants. She believes in the virtues of French values liberté, egalité, fraternité and laïcité. The last of these being the untranslatable concept of how the French think any civilised state should organise the place of religion in society. Unfortunately they are still struggling to find a single other country that might agree with them. At the grassroots level French values translate into the civil servant's right to job security, retirement around the age of 55 with a good pension, and generally enjoying a good life. All of these are accessible to Riad’s maternal grandmother, but Riad’s mother has none of these in prospect. She is waiting rather patiently for her husband to become as successful and wealthy as he always claims he will soon be. 

Riad born in France with an abundant mane of gorgeous blond hair, enjoys that adults find him cute and irresistible. At a very young age he moves with his family to Libya and then Syria and returns to France occasionally to visit his grandmother on vacation. Very early on his talent for drawing what he sees around him becomes evident. And while to his great chagrin sometime in later life his gorgeous blond hair will turn dark, his great sense of being able to represent in annotated drawings what he sees, feels and hears never leaves him. 

As a result, readers of volume 1 and 2 get a treat of learning about France, Libya and Syria in the early through the eyes of a child that sees what is going on around him and tries to interpret it with the help of his father's and mother's views as they were presented to a child. For instance, from the moment he hears his mother refer to France’s iconic chanson singer George Brassens as “a God, whenever, God is mentioned the grey-haired moustachioed face of Brassens appears in Riad’s imagination.

The first two volumes of Riad Sattouf’s autobiography are deceptively simple in drawings, dialogue and annotation. Riad's curiosity and acute observation get under the reader's shield of preconceptions. He "draws us in", literally,  to hear his story and allows us to take the perspective of a little child as we consider the complicated, confusing and sometimes downright crazy world full of contradictions in which he finds himself. Riad will somehow have to integrate all this into what we now refer to as his identity. Thanks to his talent and sense of observation, and mainly due to his being a small child he does this naturally and playfully. Imperceptibly he makes the reader adopt his perspective, and a highly rewarding experience this is, too. 

Now in his 40s, and acutely feeling the irretrievable loss of cute infantile blondness, Satouff’s graphic autobiography gives the reader a ringside seat to an extra-ordinary multicultural childhood. Perspective, simplicity and humour combine to give us the sounds, sights and feel of the places the young Riad lives at and the institutions he experiences and tries to make sense of. 

The deservedly multi-prize-winning "Arab of the Future" is in fact an “unputdownable” work of child psychology, sociology and human geography rolled into one -  without any jargon and absolutely no boring bits. I cannot wait to see the future volumes of the autobiography by this supremely talented observer of life, man and nature. Highly recommended!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Arab-Future-Childhood-1978-1984-Graphic-ebook/dp/B01ARXVW4W/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1475766303&sr=1-3&keywords=riad+sattouf

I Am Not Madame Bovary, Film, China, 2016, Zurich Film Festival, 9* out of 10

Liu Zheniun’s screenplay, adapted from his novel, is a brilliant satire of Chinese State, reminiscent of Kafka’s “The Trial” – but in reverse. Director Feng Xiaogang’s cinematography is inventive, beautiful and brilliant. Fan Bingbing's performance in the leading role is outstanding.

In order to obtain a second apartment Li Xeluian (Fan Bingbing) comes up with a plan to circumvent he Chinese legislation forbidding and begins to implement it with her husband. The plan involves that they will first divorce and then remarry after the second dwelling has been allocated to her. But her husband has other plans: after the divorce he implements the plan with another woman, leaving Li Xeluian with nothing. But the jilted young woman is nothing if not persistent and resourceful. She starts a battle through the Chinese judicial and political institutions to have her sham divorce reversed and she is not ready to give up no matter how long and difficult this is. What happens next is something that is reminiscent of Kafka’s “The Trial” – but in reverse: Li Xeluian is the grain of sand in the Chinese Judicial and administrative system that makes the institutions start to turn in on themselves and on their representatives.

Liu Zheniun’s screenplay, adapted from his novel, is a brilliant satire of Chinese State and political made poignant by his depiction of his characters as very real and feeling human being, whether they are ordinary people or functionaries of the People’s Republic of China who are trying to make its institutions work while protecting their positions. The acting is excellent with an outstanding performance by Fan Bingbing. Director Feng Xiaogang’s cinematography is inventive, beautiful and brilliant. The combination of screenplay, acting and cinematography makes this a highly original and spell binding film. I Am Not Madame Bovary is a pleasure to watch and very accessible to international audiences. Speculating about what is behind the film’s English title is one of the fringe benefits Western audiences are left with after seeing this memorable film. 

I Am Not Madame Bovary richly deserves the many prizes it has received, among them the nomination as Best Film at the prestigious San Sebastian Film Festival.

http://zff.com/en/archive/16589/

Café Society, Film 2016 written & directed by Woody Allen, 8* out of 10

Jesse Eisenberg's great performance in the lead role give this solid Woody Allen comedy/drama/romance additional appeal. 

Bobby Dorfman (Jesse Eisenberg) introvert, intelligent and unhappy with working in his hen-pecked father’s (Ben Stott) small business in New York City, arrives in Los Angeles where his mother (Jeannie Berlin) tries to get him a job with her brother the successful, dynamic and ubiquitous Hollywood-agent Phil Stern (Steve Carell). When he finally meets his uncle he proves to be a talented and effective networker whose “deer caught in the headlights look” not only helps him to build up a useful business network but also to woo his uncle’s secretary Vonnie (Kristen Stewart). 

What follows is romantic, darkish, philosophical comedy as vintage Woody Allen meets shades of The Great Gatsby and Casablanca. On the way, we see the protagonists of the drama, as well as the supporting characters from the Dorfman family, struggle with the day to day practical questions of life (noisy neighbours worsening your migraine) and the more philosophical ones (what about the after-life? They do so in a quintessentially pragmatic secular Jewish manner with the desire to requite true unrequited love between the Jewish New York boy and his Nebraska protestant girl takes the centre-stage of his inner-life.

Café Society is an undeniably Woody Allen comedy/drama with Jazz classics and narration adorning an outstanding 1930s set. The action moves inevitably between Hollywood mansions and New York City views. 

Within a competent ensemble cast, Steve Carell, Kirsten Stewart and Jesse Eisenberg give outstanding performances. The most interestingly written character is the one of the Jewish-neurotic lead played by Eisenberg, who, in contrast to Woody Allen's own "single-layer-cake" performances in this type of role over the past decades, manages to credibly show the development and complexity of a "multi-layer-cake" character.

Café Society is an enjoyable and entertaining film with an undeniable plus provided by Kirsten Stewart and Jesse Eisenberg’s Vonnie and Bobby, the handsome couple with the slow-burning will-they-won’t-they love-affair.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4513674/?ref_=ttfc_fc_tt

Faith Healer, play by Brian Friel, Donmar Warehouse, London, 10* out of 10

Theatre as one hopes to see it; a masterpiece, worth a trip to London. 

Frank Hardy (Stephen Dillane), the fantastic faith healer – one night only, travels through Wales and Scotland with his show, his girlfriend (or wife?) Grace (Gina McKee) and his Cockney manager Teddy (Ron Cook). As they tell us the story of their lives together in partly conforming, partly colliding accounts a dark and compelling tale emerges.

Irish playwright Brian Friel, who sadly died in October 2015, is one of the greats of English speaking theatre and the Faith Healer is a great piece of writing. The powerful and moving story is developed in four spell-binding monologues of poetic prose, reminiscent at times of Dylan Thomas’ writing.

The production as the Donmar is dramatic theatre at its best as set (Es Devlin), direction (Lindsay Turner), acting performances, content and form of the play (the late Brian Friel) are all at a high level and perfectly matched to each other.

Theatre as one hopes to see it; a masterpiece, worth a trip to London. At the end, stunned silence followed by enthusiastic applause from the theatre filled to the last seat. 

http://www.donmarwarehouse.com/whats-on/donmar-warehouse/at-the-donmar/2016/faith-healer

Egypt’s Sunken Cities, Special Exhibition, The British Museum, London, 9* out of 10

At the British Museum in London this summer, the under water archeologist Franck Goddio presents stunning, beautifully preserved statues and objects from the last 20 years of his exploration of two Egyptian sunken cities in the Nile delta, Thonis-Heracleion and Canopus. An unforgettable museum visit.

In a short and stellar military career, Alexander the Great accepted the religious and cultural practices of the countries he had conquered. Soon after Alexander’s premature death in 323BC, Ptolemy I Soter, a Macedonian like Alexander and a general, friend and possibly half-brother of Alexander, obtained his wish to be named ruler of Egypt. He established a dynasty that would rule that country into Roman times, ending with the dramatic death of the Cleopatra VII (who in most people's minds will look forever like Elizabeth Taylor dressed in Egyptian costume). 

Ptolemy I Soter and his successors adopted and enhanced the cultural and religious traditions of the land they had come to rule and encouraged the development of strong religious and cultural links between Egyptian, Greek and finally Roman mythology and religion, which was reflected in the practices as well as the works of art of the time.

This summer at the British Museum in London, the spectacular and beautiful exhibition “Egypt’s Sunken Cities”  provides a dramatic illustration of how Egyptian Greek and later Roman Culture interacted during the reign of the Ptolemaic dynasty. Two important cities of the time Thonis-Heraclion, a centre for trade and Canopus, a centre for worship of Egyptian gods, which lay in the Nile delta slowly sank into the muddy waters of the Nile and Mediterranean and had eventually to be abandoned by their inhabitants. There they lay hidden and untouched by grave robbers, until they were first rediscovered by the British in the 1930s. But the retrieval in earnest of most wonderfully preserved artefacts from the watery depths is the work of French under-water-archaeologist Franck Goddio and his team, who have been uncovering the beautiful secrets of these two sites for the last 20 years. 

The spectacular results are marvellously assembled at the British Museum until November 2016; there they are put in context by the museums experts and enriched with filmed under-water sequences of the divers’ work.

It is a wonderfully impressive and evocative exhibition about the interaction of our cultural heritage during a period of great mutual interaction among the cultures and civilisations that formed our age, augmented by the fascinating tale of their discovery and the work of the archaeologists. In the audio-tour the curators and experts of the British Museum and Franck Goddio himself vividly tell us the story of Egypt under the Ptolemaic dynasty and the excitement of finding unique objects of this advanced multicultural urban civilization under water. An unforgettable museum visit.

http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/exhibitions/sunken_cities.aspx

A statue of the ancient Egyptian queen Arsinoe II 

CREDIT: PHOTO: CHRISTOPH GERIGK

  

Our Little Sister (Umimachi Diary), Film Japan (2015), directed by Hirozaku Koreeda, 9* out of 10

Hirozaku Koreeda’s Our Little Sister is an uplifting family drama. It is very Japanese, yet deals with universal subjects which resonate with audiences all over the world; a delight.

The three Koda sisters, Sashi 29 (Haruka Ayase), Yoshino 22 (Masami Nagasawa) and Chika 19 (Kaho), share a house in Kamakura, a provincial Japanese town. Sashi is a nurse and has replaced the young women's mother as best a sister can. Sashi is in a relationship with a married man, a doctor at the hospital at which she works. Yoshino works at a bank and has a penchant for going out with the wrong kind of boyfriend. The lively and quirky Chica works in a sport-shop, and has found a similarly quirky soul-mate there. When the three sisters hear that their estranged father, a bon- vivant who was in his third marriage, has suddenly died, they decide that it is their duty to go to his funeral. There they meet their father’s daughter by his second wife, Suzu Asano (Suzu Hirose). As far as the three sisters are concerned their half-sister Suzu is the daughter of the home-wrecker. But she is also their little 14-year-old half-sister, who has nobody in the world, now that her beloved father has died. His third wife always disliked Suzu anyway. The three Koda sisters make a decision that will change their and Suzu’s life.

Based on a Manga comic by Akimi Yoshida, writer/director Hirokazu Koreeda has succeeded in making a beautifully observed and photographed film, exploring the concept of family relationships; how they exist, how we can construct, mould and extend them into a circle of friends and our local community. 

The acting performances match the high standard of the screenplay and direction. Striking for a Western audience are the high standards of teenage children’s behaviour at home and at school and Japan’s mono-cultural society, so different to what we are now used to. But feelings of friendship, family problems and family joys resonate all over the world, and so Our Little Sister is an uplifting delight of a film for audiences everywhere.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3756788/

Award-winning Novelist David Grossman in conversation with (in English) Swiss journalist Mikaël Krogerus, 20 April 2016, Kaufleuten Zurich, 9* out of 10

Thanks to his sensitive and creative interviewing style and the eloquent interviewee Swiss journalist and author Mikaël Krogerus got Israeli author David Grossman to share about himself and the manner in which he works. Much wisdom and and true human warmth shone through. The audience in packed Kaufleuten hall in Zurich was delighted. They left thoroughly satisfied and keen to get their hands on the German translation of his new book.

For exclusively English speaking residents or tourists in Zurich availability of high quality events is growing but still somewhat limited. 

One place that they may not easily come to mind, but which has in the last year yielded some memorable and thought-provoking entertainment in the English language is the Kaufleuten complex near Paradeplatz in the heart of Zurich’s shopping and Banking district. Kaufleuten has a literature series where authors are interviewed when the German translations of the latest works are launched. The last year included John Cleese (of Monty Python fame) who launched his auto biography, Karl Ove Knausgaard with his epic biographic novel My Struggle to Gary Shteyngart’s Little Failure. All of which turned out to be rather entertaining and highly informative events which were largely held in English (except for the excerpts read by an actor from their books, which were in German).

It was therefore without hesitation that I bought tickets for the launch of David Grossman’s new novel. David Grossman is an internationally known Israeli writer. He writes in Hebrew and for his latest book the German translation precedes the English. Its title is Kommt ein Pferd in eine Bar (A Horse Walks Into a Bar). It tells the story of a stand-up comedy evening in the provincial Israeli coastal town of Netanya that swings from funny-ha-ha via funny-peculiar to tragically dramatic.

The Kaufleuten hall is packed to the last seat. As a Swiss audience can be expected to understand English very well, the interview is in English without translation. 

Mikaël Krogerus gets David Grossman to speak eloquently in English about his novel, about a person he thinks about at the moment (his infant grand-daughter in this case), about his writing process. The characters of his novel come first; their physical characteristics and mannerisms come before their inner life and thoughts reveal themselves to their creator. For Grossman, the happiest moment in the creative process is when he has got his characters ready in his mind but before they have started to act. That is for him the moment of the greatest potential, a moment of great excitement when Grossman does not yet know where the characters will lead him. As soon as they take an action or make a decision, the infinite potential is restricted and the hard work of writing a coherent story begins. Grossman tells his audience that the desk where he writes is close to a long corridor. He needs to physically walk up down that corridor to develop his ideas, they won’t just come to him when he is sitting still.

Grossman, a peace activist lost his son Uri an officer in the Israeli army in the latest with the Lebanese Hezbollah. But while dealing with the pain of losing his beloved son, he has firmly turned his gaze to the outside world, to the present, to the future. He is an acute observer of the individual human being n their natural habitat trying to cope with the other human beings around them. Hell s other people, but no man (or woman) is an island. Grossman is a friendly witness of his characters’ struggles. His observations in his books as well as in his interview are full of wisdom and good will towards his characters full of their quirks and foibles. Nevertheless, his generally kind eye sees people in a down to earth and realistic way. 

From this quite profound and wide-ranging interview there also emerged the picture of a man who loves his country and above all its language, Hebrew, the most important instrument of his art and craft. And so he includes a reading of an excerpt from his new novel in the original Hebrew.

Deservedly and fittingly Grossman remarks that Mikaël Krogerus, his interviewer for the evening, has been outstanding and asked Grossman has not been asked before in interviews.  I have had the pleasure of seeing Krogerus interview other award-winning authors (Karl Ove Knausgaard, Gary Shteyngart) and he does an excellent job in making them feel at ease, but not so much at ease, that they don’t care about their answers. Krogerus strength is that he appears much more interested in what his interviewees will say than in self presentation. The Kaufleuten literature series is lucky to have him. Long lasting warm applause for above all for Grossman but also Krogerus as well as the actor who read the excerpts in German.

Man-Booker-Prize-winning author Yann Martel (the Life of Pi) is next on the Kaufleuten Literature interview list. I look forward to it. 


http://www.kaufleuten.ch/events/kultur/

David Grossman

Mustang, Film, Turkey (2015), directed by Denis Gemze Ergüven, 8* out of 10

A heartbreaking, yet uplifting tale about the fate of 5 girls being forced to conform to the customs of the Anatolian village life, where girls are being treated as property, being passed on from guardian to husband - and are supposed to comply and enjoy it.  Deservedly made it to the shortlist of the 2015 Academy Awards for Best Foreign Film. 

At the beginning of the Summer Lale (Günes Sensoy) at 12 years old the youngest of 5 sisters, is sad as she has to say goodbye to her favourite teacher who is moving from the Anatolian village where Lale and her sisters live to Istanbul. The Lale, Nur (Doga Zeynep Doguslu), Selma (Tugba Sunguroglu), Ece (Elit Iscan) and Sonay (Ilayda Akdogan) are a tightknit bunch full of laughter, fun, joy of life and a little bit of mischief. Orphans, they have had an unusual amount of freedom growing up, as they were brought up by their grandmother (Nihal G. Koldas), who has been ambivalent about conforming to the the misogynous, narrow minded morals and customs of country-life in Turkey. But now that most of the girls are in their teens, their severe, abusive uncle is taking greater control of their lives. As their grandmother decides to marry them off, Lale senses that her easy-going childhood in comparative freedom together with her elder sisters is coming to an abrupt end when child’s play with boys at the beach sets tongues wagging in the village. At the end of the summer nothing will be as it was before.

Deservedly awarded the prize for the best debut screenplay at the Berlin Film Festival and nominated for the 2015 Academy Award as Best Foreign Film, Mustang works because it does not preach or overdramatise; on the contrary:  it is told, in a matter of fact at times humorous and understated manner by the gutsy little Lale. She introduces us gently to an everyday reality of Turkish village life before the enormity of what is being done by a patriarchal, virginity-obsessed male-dominated society to young adolescent girls becomes clear.  

Putting five girl/woman protagonists into your first screenplay is daring, but Denis Gemze Ergüven and her more experienced co-author Alice Winocour have pulled it of. Under Ergüven’s direction the 5 girls give a strong ensemble performance. Günes Sensoy as Lale and Nihal G. Koldas as the grandmother stand out.   

I do not know enough about Turkey to judge which aspects of this story can be seen as typical of Anatolian village life or how much this is a one off individual tale.  In any event, Mustang is an entertaining and moving film about the loss of innocence that reminds us about the importance supporting those who highlight and defend children’s and women’s rights so sadly lacking not only in Turkish Anatolia. 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3966404/

A War (Krigen), Film, Denmark (2015), written and directed by Tobias Lindholm, 9* out of 10

Shot in a factual documentary like manner, A War is compelling viewing from beginning to end and fully deserves its Oscar nomination for “Best Foreign Language Film”.  

Claus Michael Pedersen (Pilou Asbæk) is the Commanding Officer of a Danish unit in the Afghan War. After one of his soldiers on patrol is killed by an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) he decides to move from command-centre to leading patrols of his units in the field. Meanwhile back in Denmark, waiting for the occasional phone call Pedersen’s wife Maria (Tuva Novotny) is doing her best to manage with her three young children, one of whom finds it particularly difficult to cope with his dad’s absence on dangerous duty. 

When on one of his unit’s patrols, Pedersen administering medical care to the little daughter of a local Afghan farmer, a tragic chain of events is set in motion. It will impact not only the local people, whom the Danish soldiers are trying to protect from the Taliban, but also test spirit and morale of Pedersen and the soldiers under his command to the limit.

Shot in a factual documentary like manner, A War is compelling viewing from beginning to end. The action is shown from the perspective of the soldiers and of the unit commander’s family in Denmark. The miniscule area of Afghanistan that the unit is responsible for and its population are viewed through this lens as potentially and of actually dangerous and hostile, but almost always as strange and threatening. By taking this perspective the viewers feelings towards the local civilians and even children vacillates between suspicion and affection.  

For European audiences it is easier to instinctively sympathise with soldiers from a small European country such as Denmark than with troops larger powerful countries like the US, Britain, France or Germany. Considering the duties and dilemmas of an individual soldier, such a predisposition on the part of a supposedly neutral audience is hardly justified; but it plays an important role in the extent of the emotional rollercoaster ride which this film takes us on.    

Writer and director Tobias Lindholm, who gave us The Hunt (http://alondontheatergoer.blogspot.co.il/2013/03/the-hunt-original-title-jagten-film.html) and The Hijacking, has again done an outstanding job, showing both the interpersonal relations among the soldiers in Afghanistan's theatre of (low intensity) war and the impact that such a posting has on an officer’s family at home. Acting performances are strong, too, with outstanding performances by Pilou Asbæk and Tuva Novotny.  Without being didactic or preachy, the story leaves us with a moral and emotional dilemma which viewers will have to think through and answer for themselves. Krigen fully deserves its Oscar nomination in the category “Best Foreign Language Film”. Highly recommended.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3830162/

The Big Short, Film (2015), directed by Adam MacKay starring Christian Bale, Steve Farrell, 9* out of 10

Don’t be put off by the title or the apparent technicality of its subject matter; thanks to great acting performances by Christian Bale and Steve Carell, The Big Short is above all an emotional roller-coaster ride with great insight about human nature and a wicked sense humour. It gets my vote for Hollywood Film of 2015.

The Big Short is a fictionalised account following five people who foresaw the great crash of 2007 long before it happened and acted on this insight. Among them is Michael Burry (Christian Bale) a medical doctor turned fund manager with an autistic streak.  Jared Vennet (Ryan Gosling) is a swaggering bond-salesman from Deutsche Bank New York. And then there is Mark Baum (Steve Carrel) head of a hedge-fund connected to Morgan Bank who thinks he loves his job, but has become resentful of everyone and everything else in his life except his loyal, loving wife. And finally, there are Charlie Geller (John Magaro) and Jamie Shipley (Finn Whitrock), two young investors from California, who started with ten-thousand Dollars of their savings and turned that initial pot into thirty million.

Except for Jared Vennett, who is outwardly as cool and superior as any of your average cocaine-consuming, Lamborghini-driving Wall Street trader, all of the characters are in some way “misfits” who are mentally or physically disconnected from Wall Street and its culture of greed. Far from being triumphant about seeing something the Wall Street “greats” did not, they end-up if not broken, so at least severely shaken and stirred by the emotional roller-coaster ride that The Big Short takes them (and us) on. On the way we get great insights about human nature and a healthful dose of a wicked sense of humour.

Turning a factual book, even one written by a talented bestseller trader turned journalist like Michael Lewis, into a riveting piece of “faction” with funny and moving moments is no mean feat. But the talented screenwriters (Charles Randolph, Adam McKay and Michael Lewis himself) and an excellent director (co-screenwriter Adam McKay) have managed very well; but what makes a very good film outstanding are the unforgettable performances by Christian Bale and Steve Carrell.

So even for those who do not understand the valiant and entertaining attempts to explain to the audience the causes of the 2007 financial crisis, the human interest and the fast-paced humour make this an entertaining, watchable and thought provoking film.

In a year where Hollywood has mainly lived off the enjoyable continuation of antediluvian franchises, The Big Short stands out as afresh high quality film that makes you think about the price you pay when you decide to swim against a very powerful stream – even when you are ultimately proved right on the substance of your argument. High quality, witty and entertaining this film should be required watching and discussion for any graduate class on business ethics. The Big Short gets my vote for Hollywood film of 2015.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1596363/

      

An, (Japan 2015), Film written and directed by Naomi Kawase, 7.5* out of 10

A moving tale of three outsiders, revealing a Japanese culinary speciality and an unknown chapter of a history of social exclusion. Actress Kirin Kiki shines in the main role. 

Sentaro (Masatoshi Nagase) is the grumpy manager of a small business specializing in red bean-paste cookies, called dorayakis.  Sentaro’s dorayakis are edible but not particularly tasty. His customers are mainly teenage-girls from the neighbourhood school. One of them is the solitary Wakana (Kyana Uchida) who finds Sentaro’s cookie restaurant a safe place to spend her afternoons. One day Tokue (Kirin Kiki), an elderly lady, appears and humbly yet persistently asks the reluctant Sentaro for a job. When she brings a sample of her home-made red-bean-paste the life of the three outsiders will become connected and impacted in unexpected ways.

The strength of Naomi Kawase’s film (adapted from a novel by Durian Sukegawa) lies in the substance of the story it tells, as it reveals an –at least in the West unknown aspect of Japan’s culinary offering and more importantly of its social history that still appears to impact people today. The slow pace in which she tells the story and reveals aspects of the character of the protagonists is another strength of this film. There area some flaws in the technique of the story telling particularly when there is an over-reliance on letters revealed in long voice over sequences. But the beauty of the photography, the sensitive performances by all the actors, with an outstanding one by Kirin Kiki, who in real life is Kyana Uchida’s (Wakana) grandmother, outweigh those weaknesses.

While other critics have been harsh with Kawase’s film, I believe that its inclusion in the 2015 Cannes Film Festival’s “Un Certain Regard”-section was justified. 

"An" is an unforgettable moving story told with delicacy and humour. It very much merits a visit to the cinema.  

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4298958/

      

The Golden Bride (Di Goldene Kale), Operetta, Music by Joseph Rumshinsky, lyrics by Louis Gilrod and a book by Frieda Freiman, National Yiddish Theater – Folksbiene, New York, 8* out of 10

Goldele (Rachel Policar) is being brought up by a foster family in a Russian Village. One day her uncle and his son Jerome (Glenn Seven Allen) from America turn up and inform everyone that her father who had left for America leaving her behind has died and left her a great fortune. Her uncle who is himself wealthy wants to take her back to America to live with him. Misha (Cameron Johnson), the son of her foster parents who has been in love with Goldele when she was poor, now finds that he must compete for her with suitors attracted to Goldele by her nouveau riche state.

The National Yiddish Theatre - Folksbiene now in its 101st season, is a theatre established as entertainment for the Jewish immigrants from Russia and Ukraine that arrived in large numbers between 1885 and 1922, when legislation hostile to accepting immigrants abruptly ended this chapter in the history of immigration from Europe to America. They lived and worked mainly in the textile industry in the tenements of New York’s Lower East Side looking for freedom from pogroms and the opportunity to better themselves economically.

The Golden Bride was written and composed in the New York of the 1920’s, the high point of Yiddish theatre in New York with more than 20 Yiddish theatres on 2nd Avenue, as a light-hearted operetta. 

It was first performed at the Folksbiene in 1923 and fell into oblivion; but parts of the original score and libretto have recently been found and made this revival possible.

This gives audiences in 2015 an immersive treat as they enter into the world of this immigrant community; in particular, The Golden Bride speaks of their dreams hopes for economic and social advancement.  But it also gives us a glimpse of their humour, of their nostalgia for their home-country, of the customs of their Jewish religion and even of their hopes that the October Revolution would make Russia a dynamic modern country with equal rights for workers of all backgrounds and religions. 

At key moments the protagonists switch from Yiddish to Russian. and the operetta form and its tunes reminiscent of of the central European masters of the genre Johann Strauss or Franz Lehar, was the equivalent at that time what would be the Musical today. 

But quite apart from its historical interest, The Golden Bride, is an enjoyable and funny musical romp. The ensemble of the Folksbiene enthusiastically performs in more or less authentic Yiddish with some Russian bits. English and Russian surtitles are provided for the audience. The singing and the live orchestra conducted by Artistic Director Zalmen Mlotek are of good quality and the direction  and set make “Di Goldene Kale” a highly enjoyable treat and a fun show.

http://nytf.org/?event=di-goldene-kale-the-golden-bride&event_date=2015-12-02

Award of the Jonathan Swift International Literature Prize for Satire and Humour to Berlin-Based Austrian Author Eva Menasse, Literaturhaus Zurich, November 2015

Literaturhaus Zurich high noon. About 100 members of Zurich society sip champagne, wine and orange juice, nibble on blinis with salmon caviar and catch-up on the latest Zurich gossip. They have just attended the ceremony awarding the brand-new Jonathan Swift Prize for Satire and Humour in International Literature of the Werner Dessauer Foundation. 

The Burghers of Zurich have many things in abundance: champagne, wine and blinis with salmon caviar among them; humour and satire however are in somewhat short supply. But the Swiss are nothing if not practical and so they have decided to import what is locally in scarce supply. 

Therefore, the Jonathan Swift International Literary Price for Satire and Humour will henceforth be awarded every year. Eligible are living authors with no restriction of provenance and nationality, who either write in or have been translated into German.

The first Jonathan Swift Prize has been awarded to an Austrian author living in Berlin Eva Menasse, who having received her award cuts a lonesome (though perhaps not lonely) figure in the foyer next to the bookstand on which her various publications are available for sale. And very kindly she is ready to sign a book or two, bought by those few attendees of the ceremony who may actually have been brought here because of their passion for quality literature. She looks rather relieved to stand here in the foyer rather than joining the cocktail party. 

An hour earlier, at 11:00 am sharp the award ceremony had begun.

The publisher Gerd Haffmans, explained who Jonathan Swift the author of Gulliver’s travels and the rather shocking Modest Proposal was and managed to digress incongruously to Samuel Pepys, the German translation of whose diaries he had recently published. 

Helmut Schödel from the Süddeutsche Zeitung spoke with insight and skill about the work of award winner Eva Menasse, doing his job professionally and thoroughly as you would expect from a German journalist and professor and keeping scrupulously to the the time allocated to him. 

Apart from the master of ceremonies, the Swiss author and member of the jury Charles Lewinsky, whose very readable and funny family saga Melnitz is available in English, the first speakers seemed rather sombre, especially for a prize that is dedicated to satire and humour. Perhaps this was out of politeness, a desire to leave the monopoly of "good humour" in both senses of its meaning to the protagonist of the event. 

Eva Menasse’s acceptance speech dealt with the nature of humour and distinguished between two very different kinds of humour, one that thankfully she doesn’t have a lot of time for (the one that is present at the German and Carinthian Carnival) and the other one that is central to her writing. 

Best known for her autobiographical novel Vienna she is an excellent exponent of the fine Viennese-Jewish tradition that one could be forgiven for thinking had been erased the special German thoroughness amplified with the special Austrian nastiness directed towards the Jews of Germany, Austria and the rest of Europe between 1933 and 1945. Against all the odds though, a small but significant and visible group of Viennese writers with (semi)-Jewish roots, whose parents had somehow escaped the fate prepared for them by the German Nazi government and its more or less enthusiastic acolytes, grew up in post-World-War-II Vienna. There they found not only their distinctive voices, that have enriched modern German-speaking literature as a whole, but also with resolute political engagement courageously, yet inevitably less successfully, fought against against racism and anti-Semitism in post-war Austria. They include Robert Schindel, Eva Menasse’s brother Robert and the Tel Aviv born Viennese historian and novelist Doron Rabinovici. 

Born in 1970, Eva Menasse is probably the youngest of that "second generation group" of Viennese authors. She is also the only woman among them, which makes her achievement as a journalist in the Austrian quality journal Profil and as an editor on the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung especially remarkable. 

With an unerring sense for the perfect epithet, she has become expert at explaining Viennese-ness to the Germans and the German-ness to the Viennese. In the process, Viennese and Germans can unwittingly learn even more about themselves than about each other. 

Central to the success of Menasse’s writing is the role humour has in it: it is the key instrument that allows the reader to gain insight into difficult subjects; difficult because, flawed emotional sentient thinking beings that we are, we are programmed to jump to conclusions that allow us to repeatedly confirm our most dearly held preconceived ideas and prejudices. 

Eva Menasse masterfully makes her and our preconceived ideas and notions ricochet around the brain, slowing them down just enough to create that little space for reflection, including self-reflection, which is needed to give us room for really considering another point of view -  a process that is indispensable to learning and understanding.  She does this authentically and humanely, not like many of her German colleagues with the moral index finger held high, but with deploying humour in a way that exercises our deep-thought muscles like a Pilates session exercises the deep muscles, that we need keep us straight and upright. That is probably why she does this quite successfully. Besides, Menasse’s humorous prose  makes for a damn enjoyable read. 

As befits a worthy winner of a prize that carries the name of a British/Irish satirist, Menasse’s highly successful, thought-provokingly humorous and critically acclaimed first novel "Vienna" has been published in English translation (and I hope still in print). I can recommend it; and I am already curious to see who the jury will select as Zurich's purveyor of fine satire and humour in literature next year. 

http://www.jonathan-swift-preis.ch/index.html

Werner Dessauer, Eva Menasse and Charles Levinsky

Amber (German Title: Bernstein), written by Liao Yimei, directed by Meng Jinghui, Beijing Young Dramatists Association, Schauspielhaus Zurich, 7.5* out of 10

Director Meng Jinghui and his enthusiastic and talented acting ensemble manage to maintain coherence and dynamism in this play of two disparate halves. 

Gao Yuan is a charismatic small time crook, expert at extracting financial gain out of any life situation. Operating from a shady downtown club, he leads his entourage, a motley crew of none-to-bright hangers-on, who help him carry out his various schemes. 

Bored with the easy success of his various small-time schemes, Gao Yuan decides for his next scheme to enter the national big time (; when national is all of China, it is bigtime by any standard). Yuan’s new plan, fully in tune with the Zeitgeist, is to ghost-write a blog detailing the sexual exploits of a 21st century libertine girl. For this purpose, he also engages a young lady of suggestive looks, easy-virtue and negligible intellectual faculties to front as the blog’s actual author. 

But Gao Yuan is a crook with a heart. And when his heart seriously malfunctions, after his blog-plot has been exposed before he can reap its profits, he finds himself in hospital undergoing a heart transplant. While this does not seem to have much influence on his character, it does in some mysterious ways lead to him meeting a young lady museum guide, who is not his type at all, but seems to have developed an inexplicable interest in Gao Yuan. Almost imperceptibly, and disturbingly for the unprepared seemingly unchanged and unfazed Gao Yuan, she finds her way to his new heart and more. 

The production of the Beijing Young Dramatists Association uses costume music and dance very effectively to create the ambience of a dystopian comic-strip world eerily close to the one whose pictures and icons invade our space nowadays through television, cinema and social media. For European audiences very much dependent on the surtitles for being able to follow the Chinese dialogue on stage the the visual cues and the dynamism and enthusiasm of the young ensemble are not only enjoyable but genuinely helpful. The fact that a non-Chinese speaking audience is able to follow what is going on and not to tire from the effort of reading surtitles is a tribute to director Meng Jinghui as well as the acting ensemble with Kong Yan as a charismatic lovable rogue in the role Gao Yuan. Yu Lei und Jnby & Croquis also deserve a special mention for costumes.

Amber is a play of two halves, which are at risk of not fitting together; the fact that this production manages to maintain coherence and does not lose the plot is a credit to the director and the acting ensemble. 

The Schauspielhaus is to be commended for bringing this contemporary Chinese play to Zurich, even if only for two performances.  

http://www.schauspielhaus.ch/spielplan/gastspiele-extras/619-bernstein

The Father (Le Père), play by Florian Zeller, translated by Christopher Hampton, directed by James MacDonald, Wyndham’s Theatre London, 9* out of 10

Florian Zeller's award-winning play is savagely funny, playful and disconcerting; the cognitive dissonance felt by the protagonist on stage sets out to infect the audience with fear, uncertainty and doubt. Theatre as it should be: relevant and riveting. 

André (Kenneth Cranham) is charming and witty and knows what he wants. He is a former tap dancer and circus artist in his eighties living with his elder daughter Anne (Claire Skinner) and her husband Antoine. No not really. André is a former civil engineer in his 80s living in his own apartment, whose daughter Anne will be moving to London soon. André is intermittently losing his mind. Or is he? André’s daughter Anne is trying to make him believe he is losing his mind in order to lock him away in an institution and take possession of his lovely apartment in Paris. And where is Elise, his younger favourite daughter whom he loves so much? Why is she never coming to visit?

In a series of short scenes at times savagely funny at times uncomfortably disconcerting playwright Florian Zeller makes his audience feel the cognitive dissonance André. Those moments of doubt and uncertainty in the intentions of those he has loved and trusted and in his own ability to correctly interpret what is happening around him and to him – and who he is. 

In Christopher Hampton’s excellent translation from the original French the play does not lose any of its punch – on the contrary. And James MacDonald’s direction keeps the audience's mind riveted to the action. The use of light and music enhance the suspense.  The musical ambience that life, as the title of a film by Eric Rohmer puts it, “is a long tranquil river” breaks into frightening moments straight out of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Gaslight”.  
Amid strong supporting performances by the other members of the cast, Claire Skinner is an excellently understated Anne. Kenneth Cranham is outstanding in the title role. 

Modern theatre that’s everything theatre should be; definitely one to watch.

http://www.delfontmackintosh.co.uk/Tickets/TheFather/TheFather.asp

The Intern, Film 2015, written and directed by Nancy Meyers, 7.5* out of 10

The idea of senior-citizen internships at internet start-ups certainly sounds far-fetched; but then again this film may turn out to be prescient of the shape of things to come.

Former business-executive Ben Whitaker (Robert de Niro) is desperately looking for ways of making his retirement active and enjoyable – particularly in the three years since his wife of many years passed away. When a successful internet fashion shop start-up with offices near Ben’s Brooklyn home launches a senior citizen internship, he decides to apply and gets the job.

The fast-growing internet business is being run by its founder, mid-thirties working mom Jules Ostin (Ann Hathaway), who is committed to her ideas and her customers and wants everything to run just so. But while her employees, all young, seem to have a great time, the long and busy working days, take their toll on Jules and her family life. And the the Venture Capital providers are pushing her to hire an experienced CEO to bring order and shareholder value orientation into the business. The last thing she wants is getting landed with having an intern assigned to her, least of all a seventy-year-old male.

The Intern is a gentle romantic comedy-drama about the possibility of friendship developing across generations. The premise of the story, some witty repartee and competent acting especially Robert de Niro, lifts The Intern a bit above the traditional competently executed rom-com, and makes it a film worth watching; this is also to the credit to writer/director Nancy Meyers.

Anyone 10 years either side of the prospect of retiring in what increasingly feels like advanced middle age, will be given food for thought. The idea of senior-citizen internships at internet start-ups certainly sounds far-fetched; but it may turn out to be prescient of the shape of things to come; God help us.  In this sense, The Intern, beyond being an enjoyable film to watch, transcends its genre. 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2361509/

The Second Mother (Que Horas Ela Volta?), Film, Brazil (2015), written and directed by Anna Muylaert, 8* out of 10

Director Anna Muylaert has managed to meld an acutely observed study of the upper middle class urban Brazilian household with an ultimately uplifting tale of courage and emancipation. Regina Casé’s performance is a tour de force. 

Val (Regina Casé) works as a live-in housemaid for an upper middle-class Brazilian family in Sao Paolo. She has been with the family for many years. 17-year-old Fabinho (Michel Joesas) whom Val has looked after while his mother Barbara (Karine Teles) launched a successful business career, is devoted to her. Barbara is married to Carlos (Lourenço Mutarelli), whose inherited wealth allows the family to live well, but who appears frustrated and unhappy. Val who is originally from Pernambuco in the north of Brazil, has left her daughter Jessica (Camila Márdila) with relatives to whom she regularly sends money, but out of guilt she has not seen or spoken to her 17-year-old daughter for 10 years. But as Jessica announces she is coming to stay with Val to prepare for the difficult admission exam to university of Sao Paolo, the Val’s life and her employers’ household are in for some unexpected turbulence.

The Second Mother is a slow and atmospheric film. It beautifully shows the relationship of the different protagonists as individuals living in a confined space of one household. And in acutely observes the Brazil of the 21st century, where the social rules of interaction between “upstairs” and “downstairs” are present and known to all who live within. The camera shows the action mainly from the perspective of the household staff. Director Anna Muylaert has managed to meld an acutely observed study of the upper middle class urban Brazilian household with an ultimately uplifting tale of courage and emancipation, in which all the protagonists are flawed but some are flawed heroes, non more so than Val. 

Among a competent cast, Regina Casé’s performance as a formally uneducated housemaid, who is woman with her feet on the ground and an irrepressible good humour and optimism is a wonderful tour de force thanks also to Camila Márdila, who shines in the role of Jessica.

Go see this is a little jewel of human and social observation; it fully deserves the prizes it has received at the Sundance and the Berlin Film Festival.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3742378/