The Bridge – series 3 (Bron/Broen, Sweden-Denmark-Germany, 2015)

Saga’s character tells a tale

Unsurprisingly this would have been in my top ten of last year if I’d seen it then; it will be in this year’s. The brilliance of the series is in the protagonists, though the elaborate plotting – this one is built around parenting – is also impressive. Sofia Helen’s autistic Saga is extraordinary in both the former’s performance and the latter’s personality as she strives to empathise but is ‘imprisoned’ by her difference.

After the demise of Martin as her partner, in series two, the producers had to be careful with who became Saga’s foil; he (or she) couldn’t be like Martin. The team’s sure-footedness was apparent by initially having an older woman and then introducing the unsympathetic, at first, Henrik (Thure Lindhardt) who works both as a foil and a man with his own traumatic past.

Apparently the ratings, on BBC4, reached 1.4m showing an appetite, albeit a minority one, for subtitled brilliance. Long may Nordic Noir continue.

Enemy of the State (US, 1998)

They ARE all around us

I really enjoyed this film when it came out and have used it in the classroom. I wondered how it stood up given the Edward Snowden revelations about how our online and telephonic presences are surveilled and the answer is ‘very well’. That’s because it’s a superbly scripted (David Marconi), shot (Daniel Mindel), directed (Tony Scott) and performed thriller. The cast is stellar and Will Smith’s malleable charm works well against Gene Hackman’s flinty cynic. I was gripped and it’s telling that the spooks could penetrate our lives fully at the end of the 20th century and appalling to know what they are doing now see Citizenfour.

Review of 2015

Top films

1. Carol
2. Citizenfour
3. The Imitation Game
4. Inside Out
5. Mad Max: Fury Road
6. Birdman
7. Suffragette
8. The Falling
9. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
10. A Syrian Love Story

Top TV

1. 1864
2. London Spy
3. Spiral series 5
4. The Game
5. The Fall series 2
6. River
7. Homeland series 4
8. The Eichmann Show
9. Jonathan Norrel and Mr. Strange
10. Wolf Hall

Films seen last year

1. The Searchers
2. Good Night, and Good Luck
3. Crash (2004)
4. The Matrix
5. Carol
6. Citizenfour
7. Babel
8. The Imitation Game
9. Play
10. Blue is the Warmest Colour

Top live

1. Kunsthalle Museum, Vienna
2. The Unthanks, Trades Club – Hebden Bridge
3. Brodsky Quartet – Howard Assembly Rooms, Leeds
4. The Unthanks – Irish Centre, Leeds
5. Josienne Clarke and Ben Walker – The Live Room, Saltaire
6. Richard Hawley, Scarborough Spa
7. A View from the Bridge, Arthur Miller – Wyndham’s Theatre
8. Leopold Museum, Vienna
9. Jackson Pollock, Blind Spots – Tate, Liverpool
10. Richter/Part, Whitworth Gallery – Manchester

Top books

 

1. The Narrow Road to the Deep North, Richard Flanagan
2. The Bone Clocks, David Mitchell
3. Guantanamo Diary, Mohamedou Ould Slahi
4. Fallen Land, Patrick Flanery
5. Buffalo Soldier, Tanya Landman
6. Nothing is True, Everything is Possible, Peter Pomerantsev
7. How Music Got Free, Stephen Will
8. The Whites, Harry Brandt
9. The Quest for a Moral Compass, Kenan Malik
10. Digital Media and Society, Andrew White

Top albums

1. Josienne Clarke and Ben Walker, Nothing Can Bring Back the Hour
2. The Decembrists, What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World
3. Jenny Hval, Apocalypse Girl
4. Samantha Crain, Kid Face
5. Smetana: String quartets, Pavel Haas Qt
6. Wire, Wire
7. Public Image Limited, What the World Needs Now
8. Sexwitch, Sexwitch
9. We Are Shining, Kara
10. Emily Hall, Folie a Deux