Regular reader will know that the original version of And Soon The Darkness is one of our favourite films. The work of the team behind The Avengers and set in rural France in 1970, the film has been remade, with much the same scenario, in Argentina. That version is getting a reissue on DVD this month.
In the remake, best friends Stephanie and Ellie decide to head off on their own for the final days of the trip hoping to find a bit more fun before having to head back home to the US. They wind up in a pretty rural village and spend the evening getting drunk in a bar, where Ellie picks up a handsome local while Stephanie heads back to their hotel alone intending to get a good night’s sleep. Stephanie is soon awoken by a booze-fuelled altercation between Ellie and her new 'friend', which is eventually broken up by an American ex-pat called Michael, who is also staying at the hotel.
Rushing in where angels fear to tread, I found myself in the lobby of the Curzon Soho, awaiting the arrival of Mme. Scenester for an appointment with what may be this year's most anticipated film. Almost 65 years have elapsed since Graham Greene's masterly novel Brighton Rock was made into an excellent film, and where the action was set firmly in the inter-war years the book was set in.
It was therefore with some trepidation that I greeted the news trailed throughout the latter part of last year, that the action had been advanced to the 1960s, although I can report that the setting is secondary to the plot here, with a few omissions and some liberties being taken here and there, it remains largely intact.
Sadly, I don't have an arthouse cinema in the area, just the usual couple of multiplex cinemas, neither of which chose to screen Gainsbourg last year. Instead, they to chose show 3D versions of third-rate Hollywood flicks. Shame really, as Gainsbourg really is the type of foreign language movie that really could have appealed to a broader audience. But is it the definite record of Serge Gainsbourg? We'll deal with that later.
But let's start with the movie itself. Directed by Joann Sfar and starring Eric Elmosnino as the man himself, it's effectively the edited highlights of Gainsbourg's life, from his earliest days as a Jewish/Russian refugee in Paris during the World War II, ending as he drives into the sunset with his final partner, Bambou, bizarrely the grand-daughter of General Friedrich Paulus of the German army on the Russian front. I'm guessing that's some kind of symmetry.
To be honest, I have little or no time for northern soul nostalgia. Yes, I enjoy a chunk of the music from that particular scene, but I can do without the never ending desire to re-create the 'Wigan Casino years'. I'm sure it was a good night out, in fact I know it was as two older sisters of mine were regulars there. But they moved on - and maybe others should too. Although for some people, the Wigan nostalgia is a very profitable way of life, so that's hardly going to happen, is it?
Anyway, that nostalgia phobia is exactly the reason why I didn't go and see Soulboy at the cinema and the same reason why I've put off watching and reviewing the DVD that popped through the letter box on Christmas Eve. But today, I bit the bullet and you know what? It's not so bad after all.
Make a note of this date - 30th August 2010 - that's the date for the DVD and Blu-ray release of The Doors: When You’re Strange.
Offering up only original footage from between 1966 and 1971 - unreleased, rarely seen and classic clips - Tom DiCillo's documentary captures the band at their height, with Johnny Depp taking up the narration duties, talking through the band's fame, as well as the drug and alcohol excesses. But that's just the sideshow to the main act - classic sounds Morrison, Manzarek, Krieger and Densmore created in that brief period.
