I have to write today's post in the daytime, which I almost never do and this has made me sort of force myself to think of a solid thing to write about instead of chattering on like I do usually. Then I started thinking about how much of my blog I spend telling you "listen to this", "buy this", "read this".
For someone that loves music and books and film, it's hard not to do that a lot so instead of giving up completley I'm going to try instead to condense it all into one post every so often. I stole the idea of a recommendations section from this.
So the idea is, I write, say, one of these a month (though that will speed up and slow down, we know how bad I am at sticking to things). I will also try to "recommend" one thing from each area, but there'll probably be more or less of those depending on how I'm feeling.
LIZZIE'S RECOMMENDATIONS (August 2011)
Song: "Maria" - Dizraeli
This came up on my tumblr dashboard yesterday. I'm normally quite quick to be judgemental about music with spoken lyrics, but this is sort of brilliant, at the same time completley heartbreaking. A story.
Food: Lily O'Brien's chocolate
My mother buys us these whenever something bad happens. Things of deliciousness which I think started out being made my an Irish woman in her kitchen. When I was twelve I sent them a complaint letter because a label was wrong, they sent a box of toffee to my house. Happiness.*
Book: "Five People You Meet in Heaven" - Mitch Albom
An old man passes away and goes through the first stage of "Heaven"; his life is explained to him by five people that played a role in it, not necessarily the ones closest to him. A wonderful novel about people and how we relate to each other, about guilt and most importantly about forgiveness.
Film: "Beckie0 in Technicolor"
I was thinking of choosing Enduring Love, or another, y'know, full length film. But Beckie0, a Youtuber, is extrodinary and a brilliant filmmaker. I think it's fair for this to count just as much.
Album: "The Head and the Heart" - The Head and the Heart
Since I was talking about them a few weeks ago, I bought their record and it's brilliant - I might even go as far as to say that at the gig, they were better than Death Cab For Cutie, who they were supporting. That is saying something.
I was going to do a TV show as well, and when I couldn't think of anything I decided I'd make one of my friends who are coming round do it instead, but we'll probably just eat nachos and talk about how much we missed each other.
I'll see you soon! (I'm not going to say I'll see you next Wednesday, because I go back to school then and I don't even want to think about it.)
baiiiiiiiiiii. <3
* * *
*Don't even be surprised that there's a food section.
Wednesday 31 August 2011
Saturday 27 August 2011
Zakynthos
Hello!
This is where I'm sat right now:
Zakynthos, or Zante, is a Greek island, and the area of it I'm in is called Tsilivi and lives off of tourists, turtles, and oranges and lemons.
So far my dad's gotten into a fight with a German who yelled at him for taking the sunbed he said he'd been in for ten days, I danced with a guy who had pom-poms on his shoes, we bought a giant loch-ness-monster floatie and Kathryn, my holiday-sister, was beeped at by a van driver. Also for the first and also last time I drank so much that I threw up in a sink, which I'm not really very proud of. It's lovely having a sea that you can swim in without acquiring blue feet, and we saw a sea turtle the other day.
Because of the fact that my dad is sort of a social butterfly, a lot of the hotel seem to be acting like family friends - Ivan, an entertainment manager who used to be a singer in a rock band, Nico, a Greek waiter, an adorable Russian couple, a demented kitten named Howard who hangs around other tables and a half-Greek half-British man living in London who's name we don't know. Secretly we call him E.D.G-ar - short for "Eating Disorder Guy", because at the buffet dinner he sits alone and tucks three napkins into his shirt, then lines up every plate of food he's going to eat in front of him. There'll be a plate of only chicken legs, or one of tomatoes, and there's always odd numbers of each item. It's really interesting to watch.
I'll post some footage or photos when I get home. I hope you're doing well and I'll see you soon! :D
This is where I'm sat right now:
Zakynthos, or Zante, is a Greek island, and the area of it I'm in is called Tsilivi and lives off of tourists, turtles, and oranges and lemons.
So far my dad's gotten into a fight with a German who yelled at him for taking the sunbed he said he'd been in for ten days, I danced with a guy who had pom-poms on his shoes, we bought a giant loch-ness-monster floatie and Kathryn, my holiday-sister, was beeped at by a van driver. Also for the first and also last time I drank so much that I threw up in a sink, which I'm not really very proud of. It's lovely having a sea that you can swim in without acquiring blue feet, and we saw a sea turtle the other day.
Because of the fact that my dad is sort of a social butterfly, a lot of the hotel seem to be acting like family friends - Ivan, an entertainment manager who used to be a singer in a rock band, Nico, a Greek waiter, an adorable Russian couple, a demented kitten named Howard who hangs around other tables and a half-Greek half-British man living in London who's name we don't know. Secretly we call him E.D.G-ar - short for "Eating Disorder Guy", because at the buffet dinner he sits alone and tucks three napkins into his shirt, then lines up every plate of food he's going to eat in front of him. There'll be a plate of only chicken legs, or one of tomatoes, and there's always odd numbers of each item. It's really interesting to watch.
I'll post some footage or photos when I get home. I hope you're doing well and I'll see you soon! :D
Wednesday 17 August 2011
Lies
This came up on my tumblr dashboard today. Normally I put pictures over there, and the words go here but this just summed up my blog too much to ignore.
I had a hair appointment today, and a different hairdresser than usual, and whilst he was making hairdresser-small-talk with me, I realised he'd been asking about my holiday and I'd lied to him about something not that significant but for no particular reason, what I'd said didn't make me seem a better/worse person, I couldn't have gained anything from it. I hadn't even noticed I'd done it until afterwards.
And it links in with what I've kept thinking about recently: we lie to each other. All the time.
Yesterday I was at my friend's house. She has a brother who is three years old, and we took him to a shop with us to buy him sweets, and on the way we saw a dead sparrow at the side of the road.
"Watch out," she said, "there's a d-e-a-d bird there."
I laughed. "Why did you just spell out dead?" I knew it was for her brother's sake, she was shielding him from something, but it seemed completley stupid to me.
"He's three! You can't teach him what dead is!" She went on to tell me, "The other day, my mum came in crying because she had to tell him that insects are bad."
"What do you mean?"
"He's used to having ladybirds crawl on him, but there was an ant on his hand and Mum had to explain to him that ants are bad and it made her cry."
I can't even explain how much this conversation confused me.
1. Regular brown ants don't bite.
2. By protecting him from things, in these watered down versions of the truth, it doesn't make them go away or even stop them happening to him.
3. I hadn't thought about what age we start to know about death.
"But what would you tell him if someone in your family died, someone he'd know to miss?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. Something like "oh, they've gone to be with the angels"."
"But they haven't! And he'd know, I think, a little bit."
"He couldn't understand. You can't explain to a three year old that someone's just gone."
I'm trying to think of phrases you could use to describe death to a small child. Things like, "he's gone to sleep forever, now" and "his body stopped working".
My grandmother is a schizophrenic and an alcoholic and aside from that just a mean person. I didn't know any of that until I was about eleven or twelve, and she babysat me and two of my cousins. She was telling us stories that now I think back had no truth in them, but I didn't quite know whether to believe because I was quite young, and because I'd never been introduced to her as someone not to trust before. But it was explained to me, over time, or it just because obvious. My mum says it's not so much that we were being shielded, but she wanted me to be able to form my own opinion instead of carrying around everyone else's resentment. And I have.
I think that was a good type of lie to tell, but I think lying or shielding someone from the truth also requires a knowledge of how much they already know, especially with a smalll child. There is protective and there's white lies, and I can't really decide which side of the line some of these things fall on.
I had a hair appointment today, and a different hairdresser than usual, and whilst he was making hairdresser-small-talk with me, I realised he'd been asking about my holiday and I'd lied to him about something not that significant but for no particular reason, what I'd said didn't make me seem a better/worse person, I couldn't have gained anything from it. I hadn't even noticed I'd done it until afterwards.
And it links in with what I've kept thinking about recently: we lie to each other. All the time.
Yesterday I was at my friend's house. She has a brother who is three years old, and we took him to a shop with us to buy him sweets, and on the way we saw a dead sparrow at the side of the road.
"Watch out," she said, "there's a d-e-a-d bird there."
I laughed. "Why did you just spell out dead?" I knew it was for her brother's sake, she was shielding him from something, but it seemed completley stupid to me.
"He's three! You can't teach him what dead is!" She went on to tell me, "The other day, my mum came in crying because she had to tell him that insects are bad."
"What do you mean?"
"He's used to having ladybirds crawl on him, but there was an ant on his hand and Mum had to explain to him that ants are bad and it made her cry."
I can't even explain how much this conversation confused me.
1. Regular brown ants don't bite.
2. By protecting him from things, in these watered down versions of the truth, it doesn't make them go away or even stop them happening to him.
3. I hadn't thought about what age we start to know about death.
"But what would you tell him if someone in your family died, someone he'd know to miss?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. Something like "oh, they've gone to be with the angels"."
"But they haven't! And he'd know, I think, a little bit."
"He couldn't understand. You can't explain to a three year old that someone's just gone."
I'm trying to think of phrases you could use to describe death to a small child. Things like, "he's gone to sleep forever, now" and "his body stopped working".
My grandmother is a schizophrenic and an alcoholic and aside from that just a mean person. I didn't know any of that until I was about eleven or twelve, and she babysat me and two of my cousins. She was telling us stories that now I think back had no truth in them, but I didn't quite know whether to believe because I was quite young, and because I'd never been introduced to her as someone not to trust before. But it was explained to me, over time, or it just because obvious. My mum says it's not so much that we were being shielded, but she wanted me to be able to form my own opinion instead of carrying around everyone else's resentment. And I have.
I think that was a good type of lie to tell, but I think lying or shielding someone from the truth also requires a knowledge of how much they already know, especially with a smalll child. There is protective and there's white lies, and I can't really decide which side of the line some of these things fall on.
Monday 15 August 2011
a crab called One, and more adventures in "pays de galles"
Sorry there was no post last Wednesday. Here is why.
isaline and mélanie in the uk, summer 2011 from Elizabeth Hudson on Vimeo.
Tuesday 9 August 2011
Riots
The validity of this picture is unconfirmed, but alledgedly this tiger ran out onto the street tonight after the London Zoo break-in.
There are currently riots happening in several different cities across my country. I'm honestly unsure of how this started off, a few days ago in Tottenham, and it didn't sink in to me that it was serious until tonight, seeing a pinpointed map online of where things are going on right now. At around midnight I saw that Kyle Cassidy had tweeted this:
"Oh England, I don't want you to be like the rest of us. These images break my heart."
It's scary because I've always felt like I live in a kind of safe bubble from the rest of the shit that goes on, in Egypt or Libya or Afghanistan, but not here, we all like to think we're far too civilised for that. Then, constantly refreshing my news feed, over the last few hours I've seen that Manchester's been affected, and now Liverpool.
That's what made it feel close and feel real. That and the tiger.
Sunday 7 August 2011
Liveblogging a Loaf of Bread
I found the bread machine we used to use all the time in the garage this morning, so I looked for the instruction manual on the internet and currently bread is baking. It's going to take over two hours so I'm going to be annoying and liveblog my attempt at machine breadmaking.
The little green light is next to "kneading" at the moment.
It's nearly two o clock and my hair's still wet. I'm listening to The Head and the Heart, who were the support act when I went to see Death Cab For Cutie and probably drawing with Back Ted N-Ted as my favourite support act I've seen. They're a folk band from Seattle. On stage they were just all completley into it and happy, three of them sort of took it in turns to be lead singer and I saw the most enthusiastic shaky-egg playing I think I ever will.
The music video for that song is also pretty freaking beautiful. I think I'm turning into a fan of theirs. Someone said in the Youtube comments; "if fleet foxes and mumford sons had a happy sparkly-eyed child they would name it head and the heart." S'true.
It's exactly 14:00. Going to check on the bread machine.
We're now "Resting" at 14:03. I keep repeating "Lost In My Mind".
"Oh-ooh..."
I know it's the middle of the summer, and I'm really close to going somewhere really hot on our family holiday, but I miss winter. Is that stupid?
Up to recently, I'd never really appreaciated that England is pretty; it went from being just the place where I live, to somewhere I started to want to escape from, but in the last month or so I've started to be able to find beauty in places I am all the time. I think it's partly because of Laura Marling's I Speak Because I Can, talking about rides on bicycles and England in the snow and a walk past a village church she used to take with her father.
It's funny, last year I discovered wanderlust and friendship through the internet and electronica. 2011 has so far brought me love for folk music and green fields and home. I think I can find a balance of those things.
14:14. Time for another bread check.
Still "Resting." I got rich tea biscuit because I'm hungry and haven't had lunch yet. Now it's gone.
14:31. Kneading again. It's starting to smell delicious and I'm hungry.
Okay I'm really hungry now but waiting for the bread. I think I like to eat more than is healthy.
It's 14:44 and the machine's stopped making noise.
"Resting" again. It's a solid ball of dough now instead of just ingredients. Yay.
I also just ate another rich tea biscuit, because it has over an hour and thirty minutes left.
See... things like this is just exactly why the internet's shaping the future.
I'm reading a book at the moments called "When God Was a Rabbit", by Sarah Winman, and little things in it keep reminding me of "The Earth Hums in B-Flat". I think it's great when a writer writes from a child's point of view in an adult book, because a lot of children's books seem to patronise and just miss how children think and feel and the things they notice. I know that a book aimed at ten to twelve year olds can't exactly be filled with violence and sex references, but I know that when I was around that age I tired of children's litereture and even some YA novels and read adult books, where sometimes they were too linguistically complexed but the themes in were more interesting to me than a lot of children's books, which seemed patronising.
I got really off track there, because "When God Was A Rabbit" isn't a children's book at all, it just has a good grasp of them. It makes me laugh a lot.
15:13. Bread is rising now! It's also filled the shape of the tin it's in but still sort of a dough ball.
I don't have anything interesting to say anymore. I feel a bit like we're sat here and we're making bread together and now we're awkward and silent around each other whilst we're waiting for it to be done.
15:31 Bread still rising.
I read more of "When God Was A Rabbit" but I won't spoil it for you. Just under an hour left. I'm watching an episode of Charmed to pass the time.
16:44 I couldn't watch Charmed because I lost the remote batteries but the bread is done. It rose too much but was still delicious. Thanks for... um... keeping me company?
Times played "Lost In My Mind" this afternoon: 8
The little green light is next to "kneading" at the moment.
It's nearly two o clock and my hair's still wet. I'm listening to The Head and the Heart, who were the support act when I went to see Death Cab For Cutie and probably drawing with Back Ted N-Ted as my favourite support act I've seen. They're a folk band from Seattle. On stage they were just all completley into it and happy, three of them sort of took it in turns to be lead singer and I saw the most enthusiastic shaky-egg playing I think I ever will.
The music video for that song is also pretty freaking beautiful. I think I'm turning into a fan of theirs. Someone said in the Youtube comments; "if fleet foxes and mumford sons had a happy sparkly-eyed child they would name it head and the heart." S'true.
It's exactly 14:00. Going to check on the bread machine.
We're now "Resting" at 14:03. I keep repeating "Lost In My Mind".
"Oh-ooh..."
I know it's the middle of the summer, and I'm really close to going somewhere really hot on our family holiday, but I miss winter. Is that stupid?
Up to recently, I'd never really appreaciated that England is pretty; it went from being just the place where I live, to somewhere I started to want to escape from, but in the last month or so I've started to be able to find beauty in places I am all the time. I think it's partly because of Laura Marling's I Speak Because I Can, talking about rides on bicycles and England in the snow and a walk past a village church she used to take with her father.
It's funny, last year I discovered wanderlust and friendship through the internet and electronica. 2011 has so far brought me love for folk music and green fields and home. I think I can find a balance of those things.
14:14. Time for another bread check.
Still "Resting." I got rich tea biscuit because I'm hungry and haven't had lunch yet. Now it's gone.
14:31. Kneading again. It's starting to smell delicious and I'm hungry.
Okay I'm really hungry now but waiting for the bread. I think I like to eat more than is healthy.
It's 14:44 and the machine's stopped making noise.
"Resting" again. It's a solid ball of dough now instead of just ingredients. Yay.
I also just ate another rich tea biscuit, because it has over an hour and thirty minutes left.
See... things like this is just exactly why the internet's shaping the future.
I'm reading a book at the moments called "When God Was a Rabbit", by Sarah Winman, and little things in it keep reminding me of "The Earth Hums in B-Flat". I think it's great when a writer writes from a child's point of view in an adult book, because a lot of children's books seem to patronise and just miss how children think and feel and the things they notice. I know that a book aimed at ten to twelve year olds can't exactly be filled with violence and sex references, but I know that when I was around that age I tired of children's litereture and even some YA novels and read adult books, where sometimes they were too linguistically complexed but the themes in were more interesting to me than a lot of children's books, which seemed patronising.
I got really off track there, because "When God Was A Rabbit" isn't a children's book at all, it just has a good grasp of them. It makes me laugh a lot.
15:13. Bread is rising now! It's also filled the shape of the tin it's in but still sort of a dough ball.
I don't have anything interesting to say anymore. I feel a bit like we're sat here and we're making bread together and now we're awkward and silent around each other whilst we're waiting for it to be done.
15:31 Bread still rising.
I read more of "When God Was A Rabbit" but I won't spoil it for you. Just under an hour left. I'm watching an episode of Charmed to pass the time.
16:44 I couldn't watch Charmed because I lost the remote batteries but the bread is done. It rose too much but was still delicious. Thanks for... um... keeping me company?
Times played "Lost In My Mind" this afternoon: 8
Friday 5 August 2011
Best Day/Worst Day
These last few days I read a book called "Looking For Alaska" by John Green (AMAZING.) I'm probably going to write about it a lot in the next week or so, so do your homework if you want to... or I'll just be relatable. Sorry if I'm being too niche recently, but in short having read "Looking For Alaska" isn't really relevent to today's post. But you still should, because I really recommend it. It isn't hardgoing at all, but still provoked me to think about so many things.
They play a game Alaska spontaneously invents, called "Best Day/Worst Day" - everyone tells the story of first their best day every, and then their worst. It's also a drinking game, but I don't have anybody to drink with and getting drunk alone for the entertainment of an empty space on the internet seems stupid.
But I'm still going to play it. Though instead of choosing one I picked multiple for each, because I'm painfully indecisive.
BEST DAYS
(in no chronological order)
1. Going to Camelot Theme Park with my dad, I think I was about aged ten. I think my mum was writing her dissertation or something, so we had to do something to get out of the house so went her. It was grey and it rained, and my dad went on at me to go on a rollercoaster called The Whirlwind. I was in about a two year phase (eight-then, I love them now) when I was scared of rollercoasters, and I planned to pretend I was going to do it then get to the queue and chicken out. But I just didn't, and we got in the cart and I shut my eyes tight the whole time and that was the point I realised I quite like being thrown around over and over again.
2. Royal Albert Hall Day, 2010. I did write a post about this. Seeing my favourite musician, with my best friend, in my favourite city, and spending the weekend there.
3. Geneva, 2011. I go skiing with my parents and my cousin every year, and we drive there, a long journey through Europe, and usually cross about three different countries. This year, we stopped at a roadside bridge my dad spotted and all of us raced along it.
We spent the rest of that day in Geneva, in Swizerland, and it's one of the most beautiful places I think I've been to. We were only there for about an hour but walked through a park, saw the Lake, payed a busker and took pictures of some swans.
4. Spooning in the park, July 2011. A few weeks ago, the day we broke up from school, I went to a slumber party with just my two best friends and nobody else. It was at someone's big farm house, and I think that period - from about 5pm to 3 the next day, I was completley honest the whole time, we all were. We ate a lot of cookie dough and watched High School Musical 3 because I was deprived of it my whole childhood, then ended up getting drunk but not crazy-drunk, just the kind of drunk that opens you up and makes you laugh too much. So we walked to the park and all just lay down in a heap and talked about all the things you're not supposed to the rest of the time. I felt warm and I felt loved.
WORST DAYS
1. Harriet, the girl at the out-of-school club, 2002. The summer I started school, I went to an out-of-school club in the summer whilst my mum was working. Usually my best friend Charlotte was there, or another girl called Maia, but this one time my mum dropped me off and the only person to "play with" - that's what we did then - was a girl called Harriet. I mean, there were a lot of boys, but boys were icky. I recall playing a jigsaw computer game with Harriet, which she made me watch whilst she repeated, and shouted at me that she got three goes in a row, then I could have ONE turn. Aside from that, I can't quite remember what she did to me but I know she was some kind of four year old psycho bitch. I really clearly remember that in my mum's car on the way home, I thought to myself "THIS was the worst day ever. Nothing that has happened to me before or will happen can possibly compare."
2.Sitting on the shower floor after drinking Tia Maria, 2010.
The first time I drank a lot was at someone's house towards the end of last year. I remember a gap between when we were doing shots and it seemed fun, and then some other stuff happened and after that there's a gap between lying on a mattress being hit and then drunkenly sobbing whilst somebody stroked my hair. Then I hugged the person who'd hit me and I told them I was sorry and I don't know why, I wasn't, I was mad at them but I desparatley wanted them not to be mad at me. The next day I got home and I felt like crap and I was still angry so I sat on the shower floor and wept. That was probably quite a low moment.
There are some more worst days I can think of, but they're all similar and hard to explain.
And isn't it better to have twice as many best days than worst days?
They play a game Alaska spontaneously invents, called "Best Day/Worst Day" - everyone tells the story of first their best day every, and then their worst. It's also a drinking game, but I don't have anybody to drink with and getting drunk alone for the entertainment of an empty space on the internet seems stupid.
But I'm still going to play it. Though instead of choosing one I picked multiple for each, because I'm painfully indecisive.
BEST DAYS
(in no chronological order)
1. Going to Camelot Theme Park with my dad, I think I was about aged ten. I think my mum was writing her dissertation or something, so we had to do something to get out of the house so went her. It was grey and it rained, and my dad went on at me to go on a rollercoaster called The Whirlwind. I was in about a two year phase (eight-then, I love them now) when I was scared of rollercoasters, and I planned to pretend I was going to do it then get to the queue and chicken out. But I just didn't, and we got in the cart and I shut my eyes tight the whole time and that was the point I realised I quite like being thrown around over and over again.
2. Royal Albert Hall Day, 2010. I did write a post about this. Seeing my favourite musician, with my best friend, in my favourite city, and spending the weekend there.
3. Geneva, 2011. I go skiing with my parents and my cousin every year, and we drive there, a long journey through Europe, and usually cross about three different countries. This year, we stopped at a roadside bridge my dad spotted and all of us raced along it.
We spent the rest of that day in Geneva, in Swizerland, and it's one of the most beautiful places I think I've been to. We were only there for about an hour but walked through a park, saw the Lake, payed a busker and took pictures of some swans.
4. Spooning in the park, July 2011. A few weeks ago, the day we broke up from school, I went to a slumber party with just my two best friends and nobody else. It was at someone's big farm house, and I think that period - from about 5pm to 3 the next day, I was completley honest the whole time, we all were. We ate a lot of cookie dough and watched High School Musical 3 because I was deprived of it my whole childhood, then ended up getting drunk but not crazy-drunk, just the kind of drunk that opens you up and makes you laugh too much. So we walked to the park and all just lay down in a heap and talked about all the things you're not supposed to the rest of the time. I felt warm and I felt loved.
WORST DAYS
1. Harriet, the girl at the out-of-school club, 2002. The summer I started school, I went to an out-of-school club in the summer whilst my mum was working. Usually my best friend Charlotte was there, or another girl called Maia, but this one time my mum dropped me off and the only person to "play with" - that's what we did then - was a girl called Harriet. I mean, there were a lot of boys, but boys were icky. I recall playing a jigsaw computer game with Harriet, which she made me watch whilst she repeated, and shouted at me that she got three goes in a row, then I could have ONE turn. Aside from that, I can't quite remember what she did to me but I know she was some kind of four year old psycho bitch. I really clearly remember that in my mum's car on the way home, I thought to myself "THIS was the worst day ever. Nothing that has happened to me before or will happen can possibly compare."
2.Sitting on the shower floor after drinking Tia Maria, 2010.
The first time I drank a lot was at someone's house towards the end of last year. I remember a gap between when we were doing shots and it seemed fun, and then some other stuff happened and after that there's a gap between lying on a mattress being hit and then drunkenly sobbing whilst somebody stroked my hair. Then I hugged the person who'd hit me and I told them I was sorry and I don't know why, I wasn't, I was mad at them but I desparatley wanted them not to be mad at me. The next day I got home and I felt like crap and I was still angry so I sat on the shower floor and wept. That was probably quite a low moment.
There are some more worst days I can think of, but they're all similar and hard to explain.
And isn't it better to have twice as many best days than worst days?
Wednesday 3 August 2011
"Never Let Me Go" review
(there's spoilers, yes.)
"Never Let Me Go" is a book by Kazuo Isiguro I read back in April, and watched the film adaptation tonight. The story takes place at Hailsham, a seemingly idealistic boarding school in the English countryside, and the narrator is a young girl referred to as "Kathy H". The first portion is mostly tales from Kathy's youth, and of being at Hailsham with her two best friends Ruth and Tommy, but there are odd little things we're told about the school which suggests something behind it all - visits from Madame, a Belgian woman with an art gallery who picks out some of the children's art work, the way that the children's health is a huge priority - and the film opens with the headmistress, Miss Emily, scolding the entire hall after some burnt out cigarettes were found in the grounds. The children don't ever leave the confinement of Hailsham, or seem to want to, also their parents or families are never mention, nor are their surnames.
And although they already seem to know, it's spelt out to the children by one of the teachers - or "guardians" - that they were brought in the world purely so that when they grow up, these children will donate their organs to patients of private hospitals in need of replacements.
Considering how much I loved the book, the film was always going to have a some faults in it for me, but I really enjoyed Never Let Me Go. For one, it was just so well cast. Carey Mulligan was brilliant as Kathy - she showed all of the mature and sensibility she has in some ways, compared to Ruth and Tommy, then also the fact that she's also naive in a different way. But I think it was Andrew Garfield and Keira Knightly who stole the show for me. Garfield just was Tommy - the rage, the heart, and most of all just the tiny bits of clumsiness in his walk, and so many of his manerisms were so genuine to the character, he is a child all the way through. And Keira Knightly, who I think I've only really seen as a protagonist or a love interest type character, was absolutley brilliant in this where she was bitchy sometimes. In those early scenes in The Cottages, she showed all the tenaciosity and bitterness - I'm mostly referring to the scene where she completley downgraded Kathy in the attic. She was also wonderful playing the aged, weaker and worn out Ruth in the recovery centre.
There were only really two things I was annoyed that they missed out on.
The first was the scene in the book where Kathy listens to "Never Let Me Go" on a Judy Bridgewater tape - she thinks it's about a woman who finally has a baby after a long time of waiting, and she dances around the dormitory clutching a pillow, then notices Madame just watching her. I know it would've been hard to explain without the narrative there is in a book, but this scene was just the key to portraying how Madame saw the children at Hailsham, and how they saw her (Kathy knows she feels awkward around them, and she thinks that she's upset when she sees her dancing because she knows the Hailsham children can never have their own babies, we don't know why at this point).
The second thing was that so many little moments between Kathy and Ruth - them sitting together talking about sex on the pavillion, how Ruth came up and talked to Kathy in her bedroom every night they were together in the Cottages, were missed out on, and although their not that relevant alone, I think this ended up completley forgetting to show a lot about Kathy and Ruth's friendship. "Never Let Me Go" was hugely about friendships between females to me, and really in the film Tommy is much more of a part of Kathy and Ruth's relationship than in the book.
Visually it was beautiful - Hailsham and that area of Norfolk and the Cottages and the boat and really all of the locations were pretty much exactly how I'd imagined them. It was a weird time to watch this, because recently I've developed this odd amount of love for England (maybe it's because of all the Laura Marling music) considering normally I complain about living here. I shouldn't, really, it's beautiful, and Never Let Me Go showed that not in dramatic landscapes or anything incredible but just on what is here and what is real.
Other little things - Miss Emily was too harsh-looking, though I really liked Chrissy (even though she wasn't like I'd imagined) and Rodney (Bill Weasley?!) - I loved the scene in the cafe where Tommy, Ruth and Kathy are quite socially anxious around the waitress and have no idea how to order.
In short, Never Let Me Go was brilliantly cast, visually lovely and a very underrated British film - although I did like The King's Speech, I really think this deserved much more of the credit that had.
Um... fin.
"Never Let Me Go" is a book by Kazuo Isiguro I read back in April, and watched the film adaptation tonight. The story takes place at Hailsham, a seemingly idealistic boarding school in the English countryside, and the narrator is a young girl referred to as "Kathy H". The first portion is mostly tales from Kathy's youth, and of being at Hailsham with her two best friends Ruth and Tommy, but there are odd little things we're told about the school which suggests something behind it all - visits from Madame, a Belgian woman with an art gallery who picks out some of the children's art work, the way that the children's health is a huge priority - and the film opens with the headmistress, Miss Emily, scolding the entire hall after some burnt out cigarettes were found in the grounds. The children don't ever leave the confinement of Hailsham, or seem to want to, also their parents or families are never mention, nor are their surnames.
And although they already seem to know, it's spelt out to the children by one of the teachers - or "guardians" - that they were brought in the world purely so that when they grow up, these children will donate their organs to patients of private hospitals in need of replacements.
Considering how much I loved the book, the film was always going to have a some faults in it for me, but I really enjoyed Never Let Me Go. For one, it was just so well cast. Carey Mulligan was brilliant as Kathy - she showed all of the mature and sensibility she has in some ways, compared to Ruth and Tommy, then also the fact that she's also naive in a different way. But I think it was Andrew Garfield and Keira Knightly who stole the show for me. Garfield just was Tommy - the rage, the heart, and most of all just the tiny bits of clumsiness in his walk, and so many of his manerisms were so genuine to the character, he is a child all the way through. And Keira Knightly, who I think I've only really seen as a protagonist or a love interest type character, was absolutley brilliant in this where she was bitchy sometimes. In those early scenes in The Cottages, she showed all the tenaciosity and bitterness - I'm mostly referring to the scene where she completley downgraded Kathy in the attic. She was also wonderful playing the aged, weaker and worn out Ruth in the recovery centre.
There were only really two things I was annoyed that they missed out on.
The first was the scene in the book where Kathy listens to "Never Let Me Go" on a Judy Bridgewater tape - she thinks it's about a woman who finally has a baby after a long time of waiting, and she dances around the dormitory clutching a pillow, then notices Madame just watching her. I know it would've been hard to explain without the narrative there is in a book, but this scene was just the key to portraying how Madame saw the children at Hailsham, and how they saw her (Kathy knows she feels awkward around them, and she thinks that she's upset when she sees her dancing because she knows the Hailsham children can never have their own babies, we don't know why at this point).
The second thing was that so many little moments between Kathy and Ruth - them sitting together talking about sex on the pavillion, how Ruth came up and talked to Kathy in her bedroom every night they were together in the Cottages, were missed out on, and although their not that relevant alone, I think this ended up completley forgetting to show a lot about Kathy and Ruth's friendship. "Never Let Me Go" was hugely about friendships between females to me, and really in the film Tommy is much more of a part of Kathy and Ruth's relationship than in the book.
Visually it was beautiful - Hailsham and that area of Norfolk and the Cottages and the boat and really all of the locations were pretty much exactly how I'd imagined them. It was a weird time to watch this, because recently I've developed this odd amount of love for England (maybe it's because of all the Laura Marling music) considering normally I complain about living here. I shouldn't, really, it's beautiful, and Never Let Me Go showed that not in dramatic landscapes or anything incredible but just on what is here and what is real.
Other little things - Miss Emily was too harsh-looking, though I really liked Chrissy (even though she wasn't like I'd imagined) and Rodney (Bill Weasley?!) - I loved the scene in the cafe where Tommy, Ruth and Kathy are quite socially anxious around the waitress and have no idea how to order.
In short, Never Let Me Go was brilliantly cast, visually lovely and a very underrated British film - although I did like The King's Speech, I really think this deserved much more of the credit that had.
Um... fin.
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