I went along this afternoon to support the Village Film Festival in Dedham. I know a couple of the organisers, and it seemed like a good idea when I booked the tickets. Dedham is a pretty village, and I couldn't see the Systems Administrator settling down on a Friday evening to enjoy a French-Belgian film based on the true story of a French working class woman who became a painter, with subtitles.
I tried to persuade a couple of friends to come, but without success. One was on holiday, while the other hummed and hawed about it, and suggested I might like to go to a music festival instead. The music festival was last weekend, not this, and tickets cost forty pounds, not four, so I left it with her. I don't like other people trying to hustle me into doing things I don't really want to do, so I wasn't going to chivvy her, and since there was no booking fee and seats weren't reserved, she was at liberty to join me if she wished. She said she did, then last week sent an apologetic text saying that she'd just tried to get a ticket and it was sold out. I think if she'd really wanted to go she'd have tried to book earlier. For my part, I am perfectly happy to get extra tickets when I'm booking mine, but I'm not holding back while the other person makes their mind up until the show sells out without me.
The venue was a small, picturesque barn next to the playing fields, now used for community purposes. The seats were not very comfortable, and I was glad I'd followed the advice on the website to take a cushion. The barn only held thirty chairs, so it promised to be an intimate viewing experience, but there was in fact a vacant row behind me. Still, who knows. Perhaps some film festival goers had booked their tickets by the yard in advance, and then when the crunch came the prospect of another pint in the Sun Inn or a leisurely coffee after their lunch outweighed the attractions of French-Belgian culture.
The film was Seraphine. I should have told you that before. It stars a Belgian comedienne, actress and film director (whom I had never heard of) and a German actor and musician (ditto). It won the Cesar Award for Best Film in 2009 (sorry, I still haven't discovered how to do accents. There should be an acute over the e of Cesar and the first e of Seraphine). It's a good film. I'm glad I saw it. Whether it is a better film than David Cronenberg's 2011 A Dangerous Method I am not honestly sure. There is less spanking, and the run time is stretched out to two hours to allow for all those mood shots of the French countryside and stone streets. The barn was not the ideal viewing space because with no rake the bottom of the screen was obscured about three quarters of the way across to the right by the back of somebody else's head. This was not merely aesthetically annoying, but got in the way of the subtitles.
Perhaps I am being unfairly lukewarm about Seraphine because a headache that's been brewing for a couple of days got worse as the film went on. After all, I was less than enthusiastic about Hyde Hall as well. There's nothing like a headache for taking the gloss off experiences. I had got a ticket for the five o'clock showing of a documentary about the photojournalist Don McCullin, but decided to write the four quid for that off as collateral damage of the headache, and go home at the end of Seraphine before it could get any worse.
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