Let me first say this; I love old Juliette Brioche.

I mean, I really love her. If you’d asked me a couple of months ago I probably would have said “God, I could just watch her for hours. Give me Juliette Binoche, in a nice outfit, and I’m happy. Throw in a silver fox, some beautiful Tuscan landscape and some romance and I’m happier than un coucon in merde.”

Which just goes to show what a plumheaded fool I can be, because, frankly, I didn’t enjoy Certified Copy at all. Described in the ’short synopsis’ handed out at my screening as ‘the story of a meeting between one man and one woman, in a small Italian village… this is a common story that could happen to anyone, anywhere,’ the film was in fact a confusing depiction of an incomprehensible relationship.

The Woman, played by Juliette Binoche, is a beautiful, educated mother who owns an antique shop and attends a lecture being given by The Man. The Man, played by William Shimell, is a historian and author who has written a book about the old ‘original vs copy’ debate from which the film takes its title. The two meet up at some point after the lecture, which she had to leave early because her son is sick of philosophical/esoteric posturing and wants a burger. I know how he felt.

The Woman and Man then go on to have a very strange day in and around a Tuscan town. I say strange, what I probably mean is deliberately flummoxing. At first, this meeting seems very like a date – she is nervous, he is polite, she wears heels, he acts suave and they are both shy of suggesting what to do. Then, as they drive, the conversation becomes more confrontational, more academic, while they discuss his book. Once at their destination The Woman suddenly bursts in to tears about the way The Man describes his attitude to work and family. I should point out that he is describing a possibly fake relationship and possibly fake family because The Woman has let the owner of a café believe that they are a married couple. So, they may be married. They may be divorced. They may be neither. And she is crying about the way he described his possibly fictional marriage to her.

Later in the film the two have a big argument in a restaurant. It is the kind of irrational, emotional, backwards-looking argument of a weary husband and wife locked in a dysfunctional marriage. After storming out of the restaurant the couple then go to a hotel they possibly stayed at before (although The Man cannot remember it) where The Woman lies seductively on a bed in the evening light, begging The Man for a little love and affection. Remember, this is all just a few hours – or a mere hour of screen time – since the two were nervously dancing around each other like strangers on a first date.

It almost goes without saying that the film is beautiful to look at. Juliette Binoche is stunning; mature, sexy and wildly erratic in a way that makes me wonder why she hasn’t played more mad women in attics. William Shimell is attractive, versatile and very convincing during his spiteful moments. The Italian scenery is gorgeous, well worth director Abbas Kiarostami making his first trip out of Iran for, and most shots are framed beautifully. The problem is the script: the relationship was too opaque, the dialogue too odd to be truly convincing and the plot too ambiguous.

I left the screening feeling rather sheepish; that perhaps I had missed the whole point; that I was too stupid to ‘get’ the film; that perhaps this was a stunning analysis of love and our subjective view of it. Perhaps the film shows that we can’t tell what’s true love, and what is just a copy of the behaviour we believe to be love. That in matters of the heart, all we have is a certified copy.

But then I thought, ‘Oh who cares. I want a burger.’

Nell Frizzell

Call me childish, suspicious and lewd, but I have just read the Wikipedia page on revolvers and the whole thing seems to have been web optimised by a horny thirteen year old boy with more screens than pubic hairs.

In the first two paragraphs alone I found references to ‘cock’, ‘pull back’, ‘pump action’, ’self-cocking’, ‘one long squeeze’, ‘traditional double action’, ‘rimless’, ‘users with small hands’, ‘front loading’, ‘balls’, ‘rod’, ‘ and the truly arresting ‘Finally, the user would place percussion caps on the nipples on the rear face of the cylinder.’

Freud used a Colt Anaconda Magnum double-action revolver, or so I’ve heard.

Nell Frizzell

Here is my latest column for Ideas Tap. I cannot urge you enough to visit their website.

As anyone who’s ever tried to cop off in the toilets of the Louvre can tell you, sex and art can be a heady, if uncomfortable, combination.

While theatre, sculpture, painting and music all give it a bash, the art form that most often straddles the old art/sex divide is dance; particularly when that dance is choreographed by ballet punk legend Michael Clark.

I spent this bank holiday weekend watching the finale of Clark’s seven week residency at Tate Modern, in which a group of seventy-eight untrained, non-professional dancers performed in a half hour piece specifically choreographed for the event.

Now, I hate to poke my nose under other people’s duvets here, but I’m guessing that Michael Clark wasn’t exactly a stranger to the horizontal tango during the late 70s. The black and white tiled stage of the turbine hall, the bright golden lights, the booming soundtrack of Bowie and Kraftwerk, the crowded balconies and the hordes of beautiful men and women filling the dance floor all had more than a hint of Studio 54 decadence about them. Black lycra, teased hair, spread legs, accidental touching and synth electro; this wasn’t art, it was indie dance floor foreplay.

So, can dance ever really work in the cerebral cultured setting of an art gallery, or will our carnal physical impulses always trip us up?

The same question had struck me earlier in the year as I accidentally stumbled across Wayne Hemmingway & Son’s ‘Sculpture Remixed’ silent disco on the second floor of Tate Liverpool. Now, there are a few, tiny differences between Tate Liverpool and the ‘every room’s a different nightmare’ themed club Oceana; one is haunted by the cloying smell of WKD Blue, farts and semen, while the other smells of European arts funding. One sells hairspray and condoms from a toilet vending machine, the other sells fair-trade coffee. One is the place where I was offered £10 (in change) to show a stag do what I was wearing under my coat, the other is the place where I spent 50p on a postcard. I’ll leave it up to you to work out which is which. Anyway, thanks to Hemmingway, one thing both venues have in common is that they’ve been fitted out with a Saturday Night Fever-style light-up dance floor in an attempt to get visitors moving.

The idea was that you would put on a pair of headphones, choose from the three channels of specifically mixed DJ compilations and shake your money maker on the flashing coloured squares, while contemplating the sculptures of the human form around you. In reality I stood alone, stone cold sober, at 3pm, trying to sum up the cojones to dance in front of a strange woman wearing ill-fitting nylon trousers and a walkie talkie. Somehow, the combination of gallery etiquette, quiet concentration and priceless works of art turned my feet to useless lumps of lard.

Of course, trying to define dance as either sex or art is about as useful as trying to define whether a cup of tea is hot or wet. Whether you spend your August bank holiday dancing in an art gallery, or dancing in the street at the Notting Hill Carnival, I suppose the only real question I’m askin’ is if you’re dancin’?

Nell Frizzell

First published by Ideas Tap, September 2010

Darrell Rivers looked at herself in the glass. It was almost time to start for the train, but there was just a minute to see how she looked in her new school uniform.
‘It’s jolly nice,’ said Darrell, turning herself about. ‘Brown coat, brown hat, orange ribbon, and a brown tunic underneath with an orange belt. I like it.’

Poor, deluded Darrell, eh? There she was, dressed like a cross between a Dutch footballer and a chocolate Michelin Man, and all she could think to say was ‘I like it’. I hate to piss on old Darrell’s chips, but put me in that kind of get up when I was twelve and the only thing I could have done in the mirror would have been a noiseless recreation of Edward Munch’s The Scream before running in to the nearest wall. Brown coat, brown hat, orange ribbon, a brown tunic and an orange belt? That’s not a uniform, that’s the old London Underground seat covers.

Luckily, for those of us who are about to be launched ‘back to school’ this season, uniforms have come a long, long way since Enid Blyton tortured Darrell with that Malory Towers outfit. Ah yes, September; the month of new pencil cases, fresh exercise books and, for the lucky ones, a whole new wardrobe.

My school uniform was a pretty simple affair – black or grey bottoms, a white shirt and a red jumper. While this meant that I spent much of my early adolescence looking like a wandering waitress, it did at least curb some of my more ill-conceived fashion ideas (ripped flares and boob tubes made of dish cloths spring to mind).

Modern school pupils can now enjoy all the uniform-inspired fashion fancies the modern retailer has to offer; blazers, pencil skirts, crisp shirts, v-neck jumpers, low heels, thick tights, blouses, brogues and knee-high socks have all enjoyed their moment in the fashion sun over the last few years.

So, forget about the corridors of power. This autumn, sartorially-minded children across the country are going back to cool. Owch.

Nell Frizzell

First published by Director-e, September 2010

Now those poor Chilean miners have to try and sort out Plan B’s accent.

Benjamin Paul Ballance-Drew, to give him to full title, got trapped several months ago in a strong estuary accent after two hundred tonnes of critical attention collapsed over his performance in ‘Harry Brown’ and his 2006 album Who Needs Actions When You’ve Got Words.

However, the singer has made several attempts to dig his way out of this commercially lethal rap avenue, firstly by buying a suit and secondly by singing in a falsetto American accent on his recent album The Defamation of Strickland Banks.

Fans and followers above the surface are said to be able to access all of Plan B’s accents through a tiny borehole that emerged in the song ‘She Said’, but fears are mounting that this change in direction may well itself become unstable in the coming weeks.

It is hoped that the Chilean miners, due to their lack of daylight and running water, will be disorientated enough to dig Plan B a path through his American singing accents and south London rapping pronunciation before the release of The Ballad of Belmarsh later this year.

Nell Frizzell

According to my new Cameron model for baby-naming – place conceived + flower + place born – I would be called…

Clapham Hogweed Tooting

A fine name.

Nell Frizzell

Well, paint my legs and call me grandma, I’m a columnist! Those lovely, generous and wildly optimistic people over at Ideas Tap have made me their entertainment columnist!

I have never been so pleased, nervous and surprised.

Here is my latest column. You can read it in situ, as well as find out about all their amazing work here. They describe themselves as a creative network and funding body for emerging arts talent, bringing creative people together and offering cash funding, opportunities and a portfolio to showcase your work.

I call them the best thing that’s happened to me all year.

Nell Frizzell on Livetweeting TV

We used to have a word for people who would rifle through the internet while watching strangers pout and pose on their TV screen; perverts. Now, of course, we call them livebloggers, or perhaps even commentators.

As a crew so motley even Tommy Lee would think twice enter the Ultimate Big Brother house, and yet another generation of shameless no-marks step up to the auto-tuned microphone of X Factor, it’s time to finally lay to rest the critical adage that event TV is dying out. Watercooler television is alive and well; we just don’t discuss it around the watercooler anymore. Why would we, when we can discuss it with the disembodied ghost of Princess Diana on Twitter as its happening?

I first became aware of television livetweeting during the leaders’ debate in the run up to the general election. As David waggled his strangely featureless face, Gordon chomped on his imaginary gob of chewing tobacco and Nick fiddled with his testicles through the hole he’d cut in his suit trousers, I was glued to the biting, hilarious and at times shocking commentary happening on Twitter. Now, Twitter is what you make it. I follow a lot of comedians, journalists and reporters, so my feed featured people like Armando Iannucci and Jon Snow pointing out the lies, U turns and downright hypocrisy of what was being said from behind those podiums. Had I followed less wisely, I could have spent the night reading about how amazin’ Justin Bieber is and #shitmygirlfriendsays, as the fate of our nation unfurled in front of me.

‘Replace Conservatives with the Green Party and this could be the backdrop to a really well-lit reggae night,’ someone tweeted as the lights came up on a red, blue and gold studio which had apparently been stolen from the Krypton Factor. ‘”Do you want five more years of Gordon Brown” is not a policy’, tweeted another.

For years, television companies have pumped millions of pounds in to engaging audiences and increasing participation. Sadly, all they really managed to come up with was a couple of seriously flawed and legally suicidal competitions, or the old ‘press the red button’ turn off. Yet, through Twitter, livejournal and the blog community we can now participate in a huge, immediate and totally uncensored debate on everything from the World Cup (“No matter how far we evolve as a species, people will ALWAYS look at the video screen they appear on rather than the camera that’s filming them”) to Michael Jackson’s Memorial (“Oh dear, Berry Gordy just used the phrase “top himself”).

Traditionalists mourn the years when whole streets would empty as 28.5 million viewers tuned in to see Hilda Ogden leave Coronation Street, or when happy families would gather together to watch a mother and daughter bury the remaining chunks of Trevor Jordache under the patio. But while cheaper technology has undoubtedly individualised television watching (a TV is no longer a piece of investment furniture that takes up half your living space) the internet can bring us together again.

Thanks to Twitter, X Factor has become my event television. If only to read Dianainheaven tweet “Somewhere, a karaoke night is missing an annoying twat.#xfactor”

Nell Frizzell

First published by Ideas Tap, 25 August, 2010

For just £4.70, you could hold the whole spectrum of mortality in your hand.

There’s nothing like some beef-stuffed rice pastry to put the spring in my sausage, if you know what I mean. Especially when it comes with a side order of oven chips and the recommendations of a horny chef.

And who can forget the terrible maniacal, hate and rage-filled murders of Henry VII, that Marilyn Monroe lookalike and the young Mikey Rourke.

Nell Frizzell

If eyes are windows to the soul, then goggles, glasses and masks must surely be the curtains. Or perhaps the Venetian blinds to the soul. Or maybe even soul shutters.

But soul-searching aside, goggles are a vital piece of protective clothing for everyone from carpenters, to fighter pilots. As well as protecting the wearer from flying chunks of potentially-blinding material, they can reduce glare, prevent damage in freezing temperatures and help us see in the dark without carrots.

Possibly the first instance of protective goggles are those carved out of caribou antler, wood and shell by Inuit to protect against snow blindness. You could present me with a stack of wood, a couple of caribou antlers, a pile of shells and blinding ultraviolet rays for nigh on ten years before it would ever occur to me to fashion my very own pair of protective goggles. Some of us are ingenious, others are merely disingenuous.

The interface between goggle fashion and function is an interesting one. While flying goggles like those worn by Biggles and Amelia Earhart have a certain retro charm, modern aviators tend towards something slightly more high-tech. Equally, the sort of brass-rimmed mad scientist glasses last seen in Lady Gaga’s ‘Alejandro’ video are far more likely to be found on the face of a steampunk cyber-goth than in your local laboratory.

For those of us who work in offices, where the likelihood of flying bits of metal, wood or corrosive chemicals are about as slim as an HB pencil, goggles are replaced with glasses, which are as useful in their way. Eye strain by staring at computer screens is a serious business and many companies now offer free or subsidised eye tests for their staff. The only real worry is what frames to go for.

Of course, the final word in protective eyewear must surely go to the frankly amazing doggles. Yes. Goggles for dogs. The mind boggles.

“Remind me to hairspray my face when we get off, to stop my make-up from running. I don’t want to do it on here in case someone’s got asthma.’

I should have known, at this point, that V Festival was going to be different. The girl sitting across from me on the train had re-applied her makeup at least eight times in the hour it took to travel to Chelmsford. She was also dressed as a 1960s call girl. And she was about to spray mount her own face.

Firm-hold facial embalming aside, V Festival hosted several other seriously arresting moments. Firstly, I watched Jack Tweed and Callum Best walk through the guest bar and in to the main arena armed only with a leather hold-all, designer jeans and an entire crate of orange Bacardi Breezer. That’s right – an entire crate of orange Bacardi Breezer. That’s like going in to a shark cage wearing a steak suit. Or a hornet’s nest in a sugar bikini. In fairness, I imagine the alcoholic Kia Ora was merely a little refreshment for Callum and Jack’s male friends to enjoy while watching Paolo Nutini, and in no way was part of a plan to get ’star’-struck teenage girls drunk enough to loosen their knickers. Hell no. I’m sure Tweed and Best often kick back with twenty four bottles of orange Bacardi Breezer at home. People can be so cynical.

But far and away the most troubling was this moment, captured brilliantly by Narcsville himself, Nick Scott:

That, for anyone who doesn’t see colour, is a photo of Maxi Jazz from Faithless with his arm around a man in black face. Blacked up. He’s put boot-polish on his face, a load of gold jewellery around his neck and a woefully bad Mr T wig over his, no doubt, caucasian hair. In his favour, old Maxi did meet the invitation for a photo for a couple of seconds of total confusion and probable horror. Meanwhile, the man who I assume to be his manager in the background tried desperately to minimise the damage.

Now, I don’t want to say that the battle for civil rights has been lost. But it’s been seriously kicked in the nutsack.

Nell Frizzell