When I started work at the Cheltenham Music Festival on the 2^nd July, I couldn’t have guessed that two days later I would be page turning in a headline concert. The evening was one of the centrepieces of the festival, featuring world-renowned violinist Nicola Benedetti, cellist Leonard Elschenbroich, pianist Alexei Grynyuk, violist Benjamin Gilmore, and violinist Alexander Sitkovetsky.

My role as page turner offered a rare snapshot into the behind the scenes lives of these musicians. While sitting in on the pre-concert rehearsal, it was comforting to realise that international professionals share many of the poor rehearsal habits that we normal folk have: while Grynyuk determinedly practised a tricky passage, Sitkovetsky and Elschenbroich argued over which of them would win in a fight against one another, and the amused Benedetti began to text a friend in the corner.

It is testament to the incredible talent of these performers that, during rehearsal, they were able to maintain a spellbinding level of musicianship while simultaneously sharing jokes and tips on each other’s playing. 

The atmosphere on the stage was electric. I was acutely aware of the intensity of the concert for audience and performers alike, yet felt oddly removed from the music itself. My part in all of it was as a cog: to carry out a function as quietly as possible, while the musical fireworks erupted all around me.

As an audience member, you forget the physical effort that goes into creating such a rousing performance. However, given my proximity to the artists, I was struck by the sheer visceral physicality of their performance, especially in the ‘rondo alla zingarese’, or ‘Gypsy rondo’ of the opening Brahms G minor piano quartet.

To see the tiny communicative glances and smiles between each performer gave me an impression of the power and spontaneity of each moment. All at once, I was acutely aware both of the mechanics of the performance itself and the incredible musicianship on display; the edges of all four musicians began to melt into one another to create one entity.

The most striking feature of the evening was the dynamically unbalanced nature of the programme. The last item, Shostakovich’s deeply introspective G minor piano quintet, could have felt anticlimactic; the explosive Brahms would arguably have suited the role of finale rather better. Yet the performers handled the immense emotional load born by the quintet very sensitively, leaving the crowd in stunned silence.

Cheltenham music festival has long been known as a cultivator of new music: the  concert included ‘Butterflies Remember a Mountain’, a new commission by female composer Arlene Sierra. Sandwiched between the Brahms and the Shostakovich, the piece complemented the programme’s focus on emotional transparency; its delicate scoring and use of fluttering extended techniques created a darkly wistful atmosphere.

The balance of emotion between this contemporary work and more standard repertoire felt entirely genuine. The overall effect of the concert was therefore one of reserved introspection, with the audience left spellbound after the final bars.

The opportunity to meet and work with such talented musicians was a privilege. Viewing the festival from a unique viewpoint was an experience that I will remember for a long time to come.

★★★★☆
Four Stars

“See. You felt everything. Fear, worry, blurred vision, dizziness, shaky legs. That’s the full experience.” These are the words of Lea Seydoux’s Karole to Tahar Rahim’s Gary after their first romantic encounter, making explicit the central conceit of Grand Central, a French romantic drama which explores the toxicity of love through a forbidden affair forged in the shadow of a nuclear power plant. Gary is a migrant worker who joins a team of labourers led by Karole’s fiancé that works in the innermost sections of the reactor. Here, tensions mount as loyalties are tested and lives put in danger, lending the film an unexpected claustrophobia, even whilst the disparate tones of Rebecca Zlotowski’s film never entirely connect. 

Whilst the film’s title ostensibly refers to the name of its nuclear power plant setting, its ironic bent becomes clear within minutes of the film’s opening, as we observe that little about these character’s lives is either grand or centralised, with their time divided between minimum wage work at the plant and a mundane existence in an impoverished trailer park. It is here that the lovers’ secret affair occurs, but it is in the plant where it threatens to unravel tenuous but vital bonds of loyalty. Compounded by the divisions of class and gender inherent in the film’s setting, the film develops an escalating sense of peril which sustains into the film’s credits. Zlotowski’s interest in the peripheral existence of the cast of migrants, gypsies and criminals imbues the film with social realism and capitalist critique, as the disadvantaged characters sell their health, identity and futures to the plant’s toxic operation.

For all these poetic and academic ambitions that distance Zlotowski’s directorial voice from that of the characters, both are deeply preoccupied with the properties of skin, particularly how it is displayed and concealed. An early flirtation which sees our lovers’ bodies trapped behind white work overalls cuts to a later scene of his arm pressed tightly against her naked leg in a secretive and sexually charged exchange in the back of a car. These juxtapositions of concealment and exposure show how these lovers find comfort and sexuality in each others skin, even as they view their own with increasing paranoia.

Zlotowski’s camera lingers over the characters’ bare flesh as they go about their days, capturing glimpses of the eroticism they find in their forbidden liaisons. The recurring shots of manic scrubbing and relentless showering combine the tension of the plant with the tensions of the affair; the lovers struggle to scrub the traces of radiation from their bodies, but also traces of each other. This constant eroticism effectively foregrounds the simmering romance at the story’s core, even whilst the elements of social realist drama occasionally threaten to overwhelm it.

However, the film operates as a strange mix of genres and ideas, with the saturated blues and greens of the excruciatingly tense scenes inside the plant reminiscent of science fiction, whilst around the trailer park the film shifts between gritty drama and romanticised sex scenes which unfold in sun dappled fields. These varying tones capture the conflicting moods of the film, and illuminate the fractured relationships at the core of the narrative, but the shifts between them feel uneasy, and consequently the film never coalesces into an entirely satisfactory whole.

Furthermore, the film’s attempts to balance its lyricism with its realism results in several overwritten scenes that sacrifice consistency of character to the film’s larger points about the destructive power of love. This imbalance is also felt in the predictable ending, where the film’s poetic sensibilities overpower the narrative, leaving the emotional arcs of the characters feeling somewhat incomplete.

With regards to the film’s performances, Tahar Rahim makes for a likeable protagonist, playing his undereducated labourer with a sweet innocence even as he knowingly jeopardises the safety of himself and those around him for his own selfishness. Meanwhile Lea Seydoux brings her usual intensity to the part of Karole, filling the screen with a confidence and barely suppressed rage which is gradually stripped away to reveal some of the actresses’ most delicate and affecting work to date. Seydoux uses her aggressive femininity to challenge the male character’s dichotomous sexual identities and machismo, bringing an added dimension to the film’s social exploration. The ensemble cast also deliver affecting work in supporting roles, particularly Denis Ménochet as Karole’s fiancé, who adds shades of sadness and jealousy beneath his character’s macho facade.

Ultimately, Grand Central‘s themes and performances are interesting enough for the film to remain compelling even as it struggles to decide on its identity.  Rebecca Zlotowski has crafted a poetic examination of forbidden love which is grounded in a fascinating exploration of marginalized workers, and in which the potent setting creates a consistent tension that elevates the film over other contemporary romances.

★★☆☆☆
Two Stars

A lot of people were breathless in anticipation of the release of the new Transformers, but perhaps none more so than me, as I panted through the Odeon lobby and sat down ten minutes into the showing. I was late and deathly afraid that I had missed key plot points, character exposition and scene setting.

I had purposefully waited to see Michael Bay’s latest contribution to cinema, in order to let all the hype die down. I didn’t want to be influenced by talk of how it will breeze past a billion dollars at the box office, how it was the biggest ever film to open in China or that it had received dreadful reviews. I tried to go into Transformers: Age of Extinction with an open mind.

To my credit, I’m not a card-carrying member of the ardent ‘Michael Bay is cinema’s Antichrist’ lobbying group. The previous Transformers didn’t rile me; they just melded into an orgiastic montage of bright colours, sparks, and unnerving numbers of up-skirt shots. And to be honest, I didn’t really hate this one either. I wasn’t left angry or annoyed. I was just left dazed and confused and with a mountain of questions.

I’m going to leave out the story synopsis, because it’s exactly the same as the previous three films. In a nutshell, aliens arrive and the robots fight each other. It’s more interesting to notice what’s new about this latest edition to the growing Hasbro canon. For one, gone is charisma-vacuum Shia LaBeouf, replaced by hard man Mark Wahlberg. An interesting switch? No, not even slightly. It would be interesting if Bay paid attention to his human characters. But he doesn’t. So it doesn’t matter who the actors are. There are also now robots than can transform into dinosaurs. They’re called Dinobots. Obviously.

But the most interesting change for the franchise as a whole, in terms of marketing, is that more than half the film is set in China. It’s a change not driven by artistic intent, but one to try and crack the single largest cinema audience in the world. That’s why Bingbing Li, one of China’s most famous actresses, features prominently.

It’s probably also why it seems like the film was paid for entirely by the Chinese Tourism Board, flitting as it does between snazzy urban metropolises to picturesque ruins and idyllic valleys. And why the Chinese government gets some cracking positive publicity, where they valiantly and completely free of any agenda pledge to protect Hong Kong. And why Optimus Prime now has ‘Visit China’ lasered onto his face (that’s not true).

Acting wise, it’s pretty non-existent. Mark Wahlberg frowns occasionally. And to give him credit, it is a good frown. Stanley Tucci shouts and swears. Kelsey Grammar is hideously miscast as the villain. He has a naturally smiley face. That’s not frightening. And he’s the voice of Sideshow Bob, who is far more villainy than the cack-handed bad guy role he’s landed here. Nicola Peltz, playing Walhberg’s daughter, is so wooden she makes a scarecrow look like a rhythmic gymnast. And Titus Welliver, playing another villain, has a great name. Safe to say, the acting is pretty thin on the ground. Thin in the air too. Just generally pretty trim.

If I could level one original aspect of criticism at Michael Bay, it’s that his understanding of head injuries and casualty counts is suspect at best. Near the beginning, Optimus Prime whacks a man in the head with a gun the size of a vending machine, and does the victim’s head explode like a melon being hit with a sledgehammer? No. He gets a bruise.

Let me remind you that Optimus is a 28 feet tall robot, who weighs 4.3 tonnes, and can flip cars with a finger. A few minutes later, there’s a slo-mo sequence where a rally car hits a man in the face. Does his head explode? You don’t seem to be getting the pattern here. I don’t really have a choice but to dock some points for that. Poor show Michael. 

But on the bright side, it’s revealed that in the battle at the end of the last film that levelled the entirety of Chicago, apparently only 1300 people died. In a battle that destroyed an entire city. A city that hadn’t been evacuated or had any shelter system of even the most rudimentary kind installed. So that’s a plus.

One thing that didn’t bother me was the 2 hours and 45 minute running time. That is almost a lethal spell to be in a cinema for. A period of time so extended that there should be adverts beforehand warning of DVT. 2001: A Space Odyssey was just over 2 hours long, and that goes from the origins of man to the birth of a new species. Transformers doesn’t. In 2 hours and 45 minutes you could fly to Malta, or Romania or Iceland. But I was so engrossed in trying to keep a mental list of all the plot holes that I didn’t notice the running time at all.

It’s like they used the first draft of the script that no one had re-read; it was more full of holes than the Titanic, a packet of Hula Hoops and a colander combined.

Why is Optimus in an abandoned cinema at the beginning of the film? You would expect to find a lot of interesting stuff in an old cinema, but not a mortar-shelled HGV lorry. How does Wahlberg’s character, a jumped-up electrician, have the requisite skill and knowledge to repair an alien transforming robot who even says he needs his robot friends to fix him? Why, when Optimus is on the run from the government and needs to be covert, does he repaint himself in the gaudy red and blue that he is globally infamous for looking like? How does Wahlberg, a man wanted by the CIA, walk through the front door into a top security arms-production plant? Why does a ship designed for 28 feet tall robots carry guns that are human-sized? Since when can Optimus fly? Wouldn’t that have been a useful thing to crack out, oh, I don’t know, in any of the three preceding films? Where do all the new Autobots come from? Why are the dinosaur robots left to randomly roam across China at the end of the film? Why do all the characters insist on using lifts when it is manifest that collapsing buildings are regular occurrences? 

But if counting that isn’t entertaining enough, then you could also try and keep track of the number of product placement scenes in the film. What with the contribution by the Chinese Tourism Board and the breathtaking number of crass advert moments, this could well be the first blockbuster film to have no budget at all.

It is nice that the product placement scenes are made to seem almost coincidental. So now, when the robots transform, it just happens that the car logo stays on their chest. Or that Stanley Tucci really did want a carton of Shuhua milk after being chased to the top of a building by government assassins. Or that a bus with Victoria Secret emblazoned on it just happened to be in the middle of an extended panning shot. Or that the alien ship just happened to crash into a Budweiser Light truck. Or that there is now a transformer that turns into a Beats speaker. But then again, what else would you expect from a film franchise that has to have a mandatory trademark insignia in the title?

In the end, the film is exactly what I was expecting. It was like meeting an old acquaintance, whom you were never very fond of to begin with, and asking them to urinate into your eyes. All you’re left with is a warm stream of sterile repetitiveness marinating your retinas.