It seems an age since I last posted on this blog. Apart from the distractions of real life my main excuse is that I have been heavily engaged on reading "The Story of the Stone", all 2500 pages or more, and Len Deighton's "Game, Set and Match" trilogy: I will report further on both counts shortly. But a colourful departure from these works has been to view and read respectively, the film "Colette" and all the books by her that I could find in the local library. So, let me first say something about the film. It is a well-made and acted historical drama, re-creating the world of Paris when the 19th century was turning into the 20th century. The story is fashionably feminist, with the naïve young girl from Burgundy falling for the older man about town known as Willi, whom she marries and allows to publish the texts of her early writings under his name. The film portrays her gradual liberation from male domination into acting, lesbian affairs and self-expression. All very much in tune with current concerns. Keira Knightley plays Colette in a truly mammoth role: it is hard to think of a moment she is not on the screen. It is an impressive performance, though I did wonder at times if the Colette she portrays was not a little too good to be true, given she was a woman who confessed to preferring 'passion to goodness'. Dominic West is excellent, I thought, as wicked Willi, giving him all the bluster of the old charlatan but combined with a degree of self-knowledge of what he was doing wrong, that makes him a very rounded, believable character. All in all, well worth seeing, if you can find a cinema near you that is showing it. I will return to Colette's writing in a later entry.
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