Father Mother Sister Brother (2025): review: 8/10

 *

Three films, inter-related, by Jim Jarmusch, set in a country town in the USA, in Dublin and Paris, and featuring Tom Waits, Adam Driver and Cate Blanchett among others. 

The film concern relationships, small deceits, hypocrisies, and dishonesty across generations. All feature cars as visual devices, homes in states of dilapidation, as upper-middle class showcases or for sale.

The least satisfactory of these is Father, featuring Tom Waits and Adam Driver: unsatisfactory because of the clumsy performances both from Waits and Driver. Waits really is a dreadful ham.

The film suggests, with the Paris section, that only with the death  of their parents, can children live freely from a parental web of half-truths.

The film is beautifully shot.

Coastal (2024): review 2/10

 *

Documentary following Neil Young on tour.

He sits on a bus, as do members of his crew, and some of whom give interviews which are of no interest whatsoever. 

There is some likeable concert footage. Young`s songs are very good, of course. It is in black and white (oh so arty).

Uninspired and lazy film, for fans only. I give 2/10 because I am a fan, and can`t bear to accept that anything with Neil Young  it should deserve less.

I Swear (2025): review 8/ 10

 *

The life and career of a Scottish man who suffers from Tourette`s Syndrome, then seeks to promote better understanding of the condition and help others.

The film describes Scottish provincial and working class life, containing scenes which are in turns, disturbing, sad, and reassuring. It is occasionally funny, unsentimental and even disturbing in places.

It`s freshness of style is, thankfully, free of amateurishness of naivety.

Winners (2022): review: 2/10

 *

Iranian/British (Scottish) film  about recovering a lost Oscar statue near a dump and scrap merchants.

The film meanders, losing focus: boring. The child actors, as is typical, are tiresome. The characters have no relationships. It is impossible to care abut them or their dilemmas. 

Through sentimental devices the film attempts to be a celebration of cinema, but this is merely irksome.

The landscapes, however, are enjoyable to see, and for this the film gets a 2 stars.

 Reviewers often give these flabby, overlong Iranian films a free pass, and f you look online it is very generously treated. If it were a Hollywood film it would be ripped to shreds, or not reviewed at all.

El Jadida: street

*

El Jadida: street, oil on card 27.1 x 24 cm - available

This was painted on one of those streets off Rue Abdelkader Ben Driga, a curious parallel world to the apartment bocks on Avenue Mohamed VI, much more working class and much more interesting.

 

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El Jadida: sea

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El Jadida: sea, oil on card, 27.2 x 22.2 cm, available

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El Jadida: door and windows

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El Jadida

El Jadida: Mazagan, door and windows

 21.4 x 24.5 cm, oil on card, available

This was the third place on our tour. 

It has an odd feel about it: unfinished, sometimes quite slummy at other times aspiring with new, very anonymous blocks along the seafront to the east, along with fast food joints and a cinema, all oriented towards car users. The town centre is full of shops selling bric-a-brac, cheap clothing and, not to mince words, rubbish. There are innumerable cafes which seem to be occupied by men in black or brown clothes doing very little except occasionally using their cell phones.

There are restaurants serving piles of fried seafood We ate at one and I`m not sure I`d recommend the experience. The seafood is cooked in batter like British fish and chips but had an appalling greasiness about it. The service was needlessly hurried and brusque.

Mazagan 

Mazagan is a walled enclave by the sea, with a church and other Portuguese  architecture, and tourist oriented shops and cafes. I enjoyed painting here.

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