a world gone mad Some thoughts on: > A world gone mad > The wartime diaries of Astrid Lindgren > book (2016) and film (2025) I started reading the English edition of Lindgren's wartime diaries on my recent trip to Dusseldorf, and when I was in the middle of it, I had the opportunity to watch the film in the subtitled version. So here's a combined film and book review. The English book contains only the translation of the diary entries mainly describing the course of World War II from the perspective of neutral Sweden, which is an interesting angle, especially for those of us, who are like most Europeans used to the perspective from warring factions on one of the other side. Although I haven't been able to locate a copy, I believe the German edition, which has more than twice as many pages, also includes facsimile pages of the original diaries, with clippings and all. Family life only shines through very sparingly in the English edition, mainly on the occasion of family events such as her daughter's birthday and Christmas, when the presents are listed and menus as well. The family doesn't really come alive from that, so you have to be really interested in the recounting of the war from an unusual angle to make it through this book. Although it is also relatable in the sense that we are now again living in a world gone mad, with surging fascism and wars going on elsewhere, so the feel of watching disaster unfolding from the sidelines does resonate, although there is no real solution on offer. The film by contrast, puts the family in the centre, with long appearances from several descendants, and lovely visits to the relevant properties, including Lindgren's flat in Stockholm (Wikipedia says it's open for visitors), their summer house, and the house of her parents, which I believe she bought later in life to keep it in the family. Seeing that her daughter Karin was ill for about half the duration of the war, it is good to see her fit and well at age 90. The film also gives the origins of Pippi Longstocking more time than the diaries did. Apparently, young Karin conjured up the name out of thin air when asking her mother to tell her a story (according to Karin, not in the diaries), and while Astrid Lindgren was herself off work with an injury, she found the time to write it up. Spare a thought for the first publisher who received the manuscript and rejected it. I believe the second one took it on and the rest is history. I read the books multiple times as a child and may have retained an anarchist streak from the exposure Passages from the war diaries are only used very sparingly in the film, read by an actress playing the writer reading or writing the diaries or engaging in family activities. So, altogether, although the book was useful in keeping track of what is or isn't in the original diaries, I found the film a much more enjoyable and enlightening experience than the book. Sadly, there doesn't seem to be a UK release in the pipeline.

A world gone mad
The wartime diaries of #AstridLindgren
My thoughts on the book (English edition 2016) and the film (2025)

proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2026/02/a-world-gone-mad...

#bookreview #film #filmsnotshown #sweden

music making for all Some thoughts on > Divertimento > Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar > starring Lina El Arabi, Oulaya Amamra > France 2022 > showing on TV5monde I had this film on my films not shown wishlist for a while, and now managed to catch it on TV5 monde. The TV5 blurb only gave first names for the characters and made it look like fiction, so I only found out from the end credits that this is based on real events. Twin sisters Zahia and Fettouma Ziouani grow up in the 1990s studying music and wanting to become professionals as conductor and cellist, respectively. Coming from an Algerian family in the Parisian social housing suburbs of Seine St. Denis, they face prejudice and open hostility at Paris conservatoires but manage to bridge the cultures, setting up an orchestra called Divertimento among other things. I love the way the film reflects the single-mindedness of Zahia in particular. There is absolutely nothing in it that isn't related to playing music, either as a help or as a hindrance. Fettouma gets about two seconds of dreaming of quiet conversation with a potential love interest, but Zahia rather counts that as a hindrance too. After that it's music for all and all for the music again. A musical cliché that the film should have avoided is the young cellist starting her practice with the first movement of the first cello suite. As youtuber Alexis Descharmes has pointed out in his series about cellists in movies many years ago, these bars account for the majority of cinematic cello-playing. Play the Bach suites by all means but there are so many other movements to choose from. I fear the flashmob orchestra performing Ravel's Bolero is also at risk of becoming too widely used, but in defence of this film, it was made before the other recent film that uses it, namely The Marching Band (En fanfare). Which covers a similar subject matter in an interestingly different way. More interesting music to discover through the film includes Bacchanale by Saint-Saens, which incidentally you can see on YouTube performed by Divertimento, conducted by Zahia Ziouani.

loving the single-mindedness of the film #divertimento. It's all about the music ... proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2025/12/music-making-for... #showing on #TV5monde #frenchCinema #filmsnotshown #orchestra #ZahiaZiouani

becoming Franz K Some thoughts on > Franz > by Agnieska Holland > Czech Republic 2025 We know Franz Kafka through so many reflections and distortions that the cultural phenomenon has long outgrown the real life writer and his work. Everything imaginable and its opposite has already been written about him so I don't need to feed the AI bots with more of that. Like everybody else on the planet, I have read more words about him than by him. Agnieszka Holland's film is also about the cultural phenomenon at least as much as about the person. What I find really interesting is the reflected light falling on the other people in his life. I've always been a huge fan of Milena Jesenská, who only turns up quite late in this movie, and not quite like I had imagined her. I do recommend her journalism work,a selection of which I read a couple of years ago and forgot to review. I just saw that a new German version has been published (after the copyright expired) with a hefty 400 pages and a new title (see the cover below) - my copy only had 300. It's such a shame her letters to Kafka went missing. After seeing the movie, I've started reading his letters to her (in an edition I remember seeing on my parents' shelves when I was a child). It was interesting to discover Felice Bauer, of whom I only knew the name, as well as Kafka's favourite sister, Ottla, who steals the show throughout the movie. The last lover, Dora Diamant is missing here, but she had a whole movie for herself (Die Herrlichkeit des Lebens (The glory of life)), which I sadly missed when it came out last year. The other fascinating character in this story is the city of Prague. Luckily the city hasn't changed much since he was alive. All the important buildings in Kafka's life are still standing, enabling the director to jump back and forth in time effortlessly. Interestingly, the small and isolated German language community of Prague had an amazing run at producing writers in that generation, including Rilke, born 1875, Kafka, 1883, Egon Erwin Kisch, 1885 and Franz Werfel, 1890. The movie poster used in Germany. Is the hand-written K part of the title or just a decorative element? Some sources cite the title as Franz, others as Franz K. Note that the sliced head echoes a metal sculpture of his head on display in Prague outside one of the (at least two) Kafka museums there. That sculpture also makes a brief appearance in the film. The other important question is: will it get a UK release? Given Kafka's unbeatable brand recognition, I would expect it does, but I'll slap on my "films not shown" tag until that release is confirmed. Come to think of it, The glory of life, which came out in time for the centenary of Kafka's death, hasn't had a UK release yet. So maybe even the name Kafka doesn't guarantee a release these days ... Heck, I even have a kafka tag, due to the fact that I visited Prague a couple of times when this blog was young and still had illusions ... Review in epd-film The new(ish) edition of Milena's journalism work (from 2020). I'm finding it rather hard not to buy the book when she looks at me like that, but I'm trying to establish whether there is anything in there that I don't have in my older collection of her writings (Alles ist Leben, published 1984 and republished several times with the same photo on the cover).

some thoughts on the latest #kafka #film #Franz now in cinemas in germany - wondering whether it will be released in the UK ... (note that #TheGloryOfLife hasn't shown up yet!) proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2025/11/becoming-franz-k... #filmsNotShown

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Ils sont vivants - French movie from 2021 showing on TV5 monde.
shows the #smallBoats thing from the other side while remembering that this is about human beings. Clearly French film makers are not afraid of telling stories of people risking their livelihoods to help #refugees . This one is […]

colours of time Some thoughts on > La venue de l'avenir > Cédric Klapisch > France 2025 > starring Suzanne Lindon, Cécile de France ... > released in Germany 14.8.2025 I was lucky to catch a subtitled preview of this latest oeuvre by Klapisch in a Düsseldorf cinema this week. The advance info wasn't very clear so I was expecting something family-heavy like Ce qui nous lie (Back to Burgundy). It turned out to be a much broader and more ambitious film that serves an astonishing number of my obsessions including family history,old photos, the handover of visual guide culture from sculpture and painting to photography and film (see the biographies of Renoir father and son), Paris in the Belle Epoque, as well as the music of Pomme (who plays a very cute supporting role that has nothing whatsoever to do with the story). So the central and ancestral character is Adele (Suzanne Lindon), born in 1873 (which places her in the generation of my great-grandparents, six of whom were born before and two after that year). Her house in rural Normandy hasn't been opened since 1944, but now the local council wants to put up a shopping centre and a massive parking lot in its place, so Adele's 30 or so living descendants are convened to come to an agreement regarding the property. The four family delegates sent to the location discover lots of old photos inside as well as letters and an impressionist painting, so are able to piece together the life story of Adele, which is very cleverly (and very Klapisch-ly) interspersed with the present day lives of the descendants. (There are probably similarities with Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris, which I need to rewatch some time, to compare and contrast.) Although I prefer the untranslatable word play of the original title (literally: the arrival of the future, which reflects all that excitement about modernity in the period), the German and English titles (Colours of time / Farben der Zeit) have a justification in referring to the colours, as those are obviously of prime importance in impressionist art, and the flashbacks are remarkably colourful even when they are pegged to monochrome photos. There is a lot of art in the film, with the Musée d'orsay at Paris, the Musée d'art moderne André Malraux at Le Havre and Monet's garden all playing significant parts. Official poster design. The red dress serves as a reminder that Paris in 1894 was just as colourful as today's world. Monet's painting Impression, Soleil levant plays a role in the film. PS: I have been following Klapisch's films on and off ever since Chacun cherche son chat (When the cat's away) was shown at the Phoenix Picturehouse in Oxford, back in 1996 - those were the days when weird little French films still got a UK release! Strangely, I haven't reviewed any of those that I saw since then, so I should at least list them if only to jog my memory: * 1996 Chacun cherche son chat * 1996 Un air de famille (I hated that one, and I have avoided the Jaoui/Bacri comedies ever since) * 2002 L'auberge espagnole (I rewatch this at least once every 10 years when a sequel comes out) * 2005 Poupees russes (sequel to Auberge espagnole) * 2008 Paris * 2011 Ma part du gateau * 2013 Casse-tetes chinois (Auberge part 3) * 2017 Ce qui nous lie * 2025 La venue de l'avenir

My impressions of Cedric Klapisch's new film #LaVenueDeLAvenir (#ColoursOfTime) - showing in #cinema in #Germany from tomorrow, but I don't have much hope for UK cinemas proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2025/08/colours-of-time.... #FrenchCinema #filmsNotShown #film

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one of the very few French (or indeed continental European) movies to get a release in UK cinemas these days: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/12/the-mar... I actually saw this one in Germany on its release there and […]