THE MARIGOLD HOTEL - NEW FILM SET IN JAIPUR

THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL


We were luck enough to see this new film at a preview in Surrey last night.  


This is extremely enjoyable and I recommend it - in fact I might go and see it a second time!
Some of the dialogue is very funny indeed and of course the cast is one to die for - even the beginning of the film, set in England, is amusing and relevant to me, being somewhat 'over the hill' myself!


Very beautiful did India seem.  Top marks to the photographer and director and all the back-room people, it must have been very difficult to film in the streets, of what I presume is actually Jaipur.
IMDb website with more about the film


The colours and plants, the market stalls, the drummers, the marigolds themselves, all delightful.


I particularly liked the crumbling building that formed the hotel itself.  It makes me want to go to India, to that part, where I have not had a chance to go, as yet.  I have visited Goa, which seemed much more quiet and sedate.


Of course, one thing the film missed out was the smells, the heat, the problem with tummy upsets and the long boring waits for things, such as taxis that don't turn up on time.  But then, the real thing is always going to be more fun than a film.  What the film can give you, is a nice burst of colour and nostalgia at the turn of a switch (if you have the DVD of course).


I congratulate everybody concerned with this film, and wish it great success.


Holywood Reporter website about the film

THE MYSTERY OF APPEARANCE

HAUNCH OF VENISON - 103 NEW BOND STREET, LONDON

"TEN OF BRITAIN'S MOST IMPORTANT POST-WAR PAINTERS"

This was my first visit to this gallery, at the top end of Bond Street so not far from Oxford Circus or Bond Street tube stations.
I was intrigued to read a description of the exhibition, The Mystery of Appearance, which ends 18 February, from the gallery website.

THE MYSTERY OF APPEARANCE

The painters are well known to me, so I thought to see something familiar from previous gallery visits.  There were some things which are new to me, but the two big Hockneys I have seen before certainly.  Apparently only three of these ten artists are alive today.

The two painters who prefer to use very dense, textured oils have similar works on display, Leon Kossof and Frank Auerbach.   I don't like them.  There is an Auerbach with a title including the name  Gerda Boehm of 1971-73 which is aesthetically unpleasant.  One painting by Kossoff titled Seated Woman No 2 of 1959 reminded me of a very large cow turd which had been played about with - brown and nasty.
The Hockney painting of a young man reclining on a bed, The Room Tarzana, showed his ability to paint tufted rugs and venetian-blind slatted doors, but the figure has a strangely floating arm, rather oddly positioned buttocks and very tiny feet. 

A small female nude by Freud of 1956 seems to be mainly a view of her bottom, with very large feet which reminded me of feet painted by Francis Bacon. 

There is a large Bacon painting  (Pope 1) which is very familiar.

The Euan Uglow paintings did not seem so exciting in actuality, they seem to present themselves better in reproductions.  Maybe it is the very very pink paint in the large female nude study?

There is a small sketchy head by Michael Andrews which appeals, maybe because it is so very sketchy.  As a contrast there is a very large painting of Norwich Castle Keep, which is entitled Lord Mayor's Reception, Norwich.  This is apparently oil on canvas but seems to be oil on photograph, the black and white shows in large parts of the image.  I presume the photograph was transferred to the canvas and then he painted over it in parts.  Since I have just returned from looking at an exhibition in Norwich Castle Art Gallery, and walked through the keep, this was of interest and I felt that he had tackled a very difficult and boring subject with a certain amount of panache.
The Lord Mayor's Reception

However, to sum up, all these painters seemed to working without any lightness or humour, a lot of works are dour and gloomy, the paint looked as it it needed dusting,  I made a note in my little book that the artists were, from these representational painting, all very serious and po-faced.

There were three working drawings, squared up, by Patrick Caulfield, and I wonder at the decision to hang these, since they did not seem to stand up to hanging alongside finished work by him, of the usual bottles.  Very accurate-looking architectural drawings.

I was interested to see the black and white portrait photographs downstairs in the 'bookshop' which somehow seemed refreshingly honest and direct, unlike some of the paintings upstairs. They are by Bruce Bernard in the 1980s, of Bacon, Freud, Andrews and Auerbach.

Portrait of Francis Bacon 1984 by
Bruce Bernard

It was a relief to come out into the afternoon Bond Street glitz which in a way seemed so much more interesting and vibrant than these rather dejected works.