THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS IS NO BEDTIME STORY

IF YOU mainly equate Disney with cuddly and fuzzy, then you are in for a shock if you settle down to The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas expecting to leave the cinema with a warm glow. For while the film's title makes it sound like a cosy bedtime story, Mark Herman's (Brassed Off, Little Voice) brave drama, from Disney subsidiary Miramax, is ultimately the stuff of nightmares.

Though a tale of childhood set during the Holocaust, this is no Life is Beautiful. Where that film's mawkish coda offered the audience bogus consolation, the harrowing final few minutes of Herman's film rush us headlong into the infernal machinery of the Final Solution, to which the only responses can be silence, sorrow and tears.

Survivors' stories, or the stories of so-called righteous gentiles such as Oskar Schindler, may be uplifting and life-affirming, but they do not reflect the truth of the Holocaust: that most people perished. Irish author John Boyne's 2006 best-selling children's novella did not duck this truth, and neither does Herman's adaptation.

Read the full story at http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/features/Disney39s-39The-Boy-in-the.4479755.jp

Copyright Stephen Applebaum, 2008

NEIL YOUNG WAGES WAR ON WAR IN CSNY: DEJA VU

At the height of the Vietnam War, folk-rock supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young were at the forefront of the musical protest movement. When the US National Guard killed four demonstrating students at Kent State University in 1970, an enraged Neil Young wrote Ohio, directly attributing the deaths to Richard Nixon.

Almost four decades later, the 62-year-old Canadian is at it again, only now the targets are George W Bush and the Iraq War. His first fusillade was Living With War, a robust album comprised entirely of anti-war songs. Next, Young regrouped CSNY for 2006's Freedom Of Speech tour, building a 35-song set around the new material.

Young told his band-mates, best known for playing gentle, harmony-rich acoustic tunes, that they would only be playing 'songs about war and politics and the human condition', with 'no bullshit in-between'. In doing so, Young laughs: 'We didn't give anybody any relief. They just had to go: “Jesus, what the hell is this?”'

Directed by Young under the pseudonym Bernard Shakey, new tour documentary CSNY: Déjà Vu chronicles Americans' reactions to songs such as Lookin' For A Leader, No More Lies and Shock And Awe. We hear a broad range of views, including disgruntled soldiers back from Iraq, an army deserter, Vietnam vets, a bereaved mother and, in keeping with the tour's title, commentators who dismiss CSNY as hypocritical, over-the-hill hippies.

It adds up to a powerful piece of work. Concert-goers affronted by the group's message – the song Let's Impeach The President almost provoked a riot in Atlanta – were not paying attention, says Young, who likens the tour's name to 'a warning label on a jar of fruit or something, saying: “If you're going to see this, then you're going to get that.” If they didn't read the warning then they ended up with a rude surprise, depending on how they were feeling politically'.

The goal was to start a debate, and Young insists they succeeded. 'We could see families in the audience where the father and the mother would start arguing, and then the kids would be arguing with the parents, and then the father would say: “This is bullshit, I'm taking you out of here.” The kids would be looking at us and waving, and the parents would be dragging them out.'

The film reflects the divisions in America over the Iraq War, and the absence of a unified opposition movement. In the 1960s and 1970s, CSNY played to the converted. Then, however, young people felt personally threatened by the army draft and took to the streets to protest against the Vietnam War. Today's administration, says Young, learned from Vietnam that young people will rebel if they don't believe in the mission, so now the army recycles recruits.

'There's a huge change based on political survivability,' he sneers. '[Bush] wanted to stay in power even more than he wanted to do the right thing.' Whereas Young once believed music could change the world, he now doubts whether that's possible. It doesn't frustrate him, though. 'You just got to look at it for what it is. And anyway,' he adds, 'I'm more interested in changing the world through findinga new fuel source.'

Of course, not everyone wants to hear what Young has to say. Some Americans feel that as a Canadian, he has no right to criticise the US government or its actions. 'Even some people close to me have said: “You haven't got a leg to stand on. You're not an American.” I'm going: “Well, this is the leader of the free world. You do this, it affects us.” Things like that bother and upset me.'

Young is optimistic about the future, though, and hopeful that the US will soon have a 'good leader'. He gets angry, he admits, but tries not to lead an angry life. Indeed, he dropped all references to the war during his UK gigs in March, instead delighting crowds with career-spanning sets.

'I'm exercising a different freedom of speech,' he adds drily. 'Your right not to say anything.' Now happy to talk about the war again in support of CSNY: Déjà Vu, Young says: 'The underlying message is this: what are we doing as the human race? If somebody starts thinking war is not good, and if you can put that in your kids' minds, then maybe we can try to make the human race evolve away from war.

'Why are we stuck with war? Are we forever going to be throwing fireballs at each other like we have for the past 2,000 years? It's like we sleep, we eat and we war. That's it. Why do we need that?'

Originally published in Metro, July 14

http://www.metro.co.uk/metrolife/music/article.html?in_article_id=217744&in_page_id=25

© Stephen Applebaum, 2008

CHARLIZE THERON: IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH

Charlize Theron says smoking helped her land a role in Paul Haggis's Iraq war movie, In the Valley of Elah

"I'm going to do something filthy," says Charlize Theron. "Is that all right?" Go ahead, I say, intrigued. She places a cigarette between her lips and lights up. How disappointing.

Smokers are a dying breed in Los Angeles, but Theron partly has her "filthy" habit to thank for her role in Paul Haggis's haunting Iraq war film, In the Valley of Elah. "It's the one and only good thing that will ever come from smoking," she says, smiling, her green eyes obscured behind designer sunglasses.

To read the rest of this article in the Independent, go here: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/charlize-theron-a-chameleon-who-can-chill-or-charm-769512.html

© Stephen Applebaum, 2008

TONY LEUNG - IN THE MOOD FOR LUST

Tony Leung gets to grips with newcomer Tang Wei in Ang Lee's erotic thriller, Lust, Caution.

Tony Leung is one of Asia's biggest and best-loved stars. He is also one of its most versatile. In his acclaimed body of work with the mercurial film-maker Wong Kar-wai, he is as at home in the martial-arts world of Ashes of Time as in the Sixties Hong Kong of their international breakthrough, the dreamily romantic In the Mood for Love.

Able to make silences speak volumes with just his melancholy eyes, Leung became the ideal avatar of Wong's impressionistic style. Now teamed with the Oscar-winning Taiwanese director Ang Lee, the actor gives one of his strongest performances in Lust, Caution, subverting the good-guy image that he cultivated with Kar-wai. However, it is probably not Leung's acting masterclass that has been pulling in the crowds in Asia. More than likely, it is the film's seven minutes of graphic sex (although not in mainland China, where the scenes have been excised by the censor), the fleshy frankness of which has been generating shock and surprise ever since Lust, Caution's world premiere at the Venice Film Festival in September.

Read the rest of this story at http://arts.independent.co.uk/film/features/article3287305.ece

PAUL RUSESABAGINA: REAL-LIFE HERO OF HOTEL RWANDA

"From the day that genocide broke out I had 26 strangers in my own house and when I left I said to myself, ‘Will I leave these people here? If they die, I will never go to my bed and sleep. I will never eat and feel satisfied. I will never have a drink and feel my thirst quenched. One day, all this will be over. I’ll have to face history and my own conscience. If it ends right now and I face my own conscience and history, what kind of man would I be?’"

You have said that during the genocide you thought there were more people acting like you. When did you realise this wasn’t the case?

“During the period of what you call the end of the genocide, I took a car with my wife and a friend and we drove south, because me, I was born in the central south, my wife in the Deep South, and all along the way there were so many dead bodies. The whole country was smelling, and there was no human voice. There was no human being moving around except for rebels on the roadblocks. I went to my home and there was one of my brothers who was still there. I asked him, ‘What happened with our neighbours?’ He told me then that these ones had been killed by the militia. ‘And how about the others?’ They had been killed by the rebels. 'And how about so and so?' They were burning in a nearby house. It was burnt the previous night by the rebels. He looked at me and told me, ‘Listen, my dear brother, even these trees you can see have got ears, they’ve got eyes, they see. Please, do me a favour and leave this place.’ I drove south to see my mother-in-law. We were very, very sure that nobody could have killed her. She was a wonderful woman who was always helping her neighbours. She was a wonderful person. When we arrived, we saw first of all that the houses were destroyed; she was killed with her daughter-in-law and six grandchildren. I sat down in the ruins with my wife, we looked all around, the whole country was empty of people, and I said, finally, the whole of the country has become a hell.”

Some people find it impossible to speak about events like these or refuse to speak about them. Were you like that and has making this film been a positive experience?

“I think, psychologically, it is a mistake not to talk about it because talking about it is a kind of therapy. It is a cure. It helps to get that out and share it with other people. This is my belief. [Making this film is] a positive experience, although so far it seems strange to see your life on the screen. But I think this message had to get out and we had to tell the world that we have failed.”

Are you considered a hero in Rwanda?

”How can you call a hotel manager, who never changed, just remained the hotel manager, from 1980s to late 1990s, a hero? That would mean being a hero is very simple. Everybody can be a hero quite easily. [Laughs]”

What was important to you?

“What was important to me after a certain time was not getting the hotel clean! You can imagine a hotel where you don’t have running water -- it cannot be as clean as you might think. You can imagine a hotel where you don’t have electricity for months -- it can’t be that clean. You can imagine a hotel which was supposed to cater for diplomats and businessmen, now catering for the peasants, most of them. A hotel which was having a hundred guests, 120 according to its capacity, filling up to 1000, 12 times and more, it was not supposed to be that clean. My main concern was to give, for instance, food. You can imagine having a meal for more than a 1000 people, getting them food, something to eat, that was my main concern. I lowered the standards of the hotel a little bit.”

At the beginning of the film you talk about only saving your family and then you changed. What was it that made you change?

“I never realised that I changed. From the day that genocide broke out I had 26 strangers in my own house and when I left I said to myself, ‘Will I leave these people here? If they die, I will never go to my bed and sleep. I will never eat and feel satisfied. I will never have a drink and feel my thirst quenched. One day, all this will be over. I’ll have to face history and my own conscience. If it ends right now and I face my own conscience and history, what kind of man would I be?’ I had to take them, at my own risk, as you see in the movie. Thank God I succeeded and took them to the end.”

Did you have any sense of what was going to happen before the genocide started?

“Right from the beginning to the end, I said no. I wouldn’t be ashamed of saying no as long as I could justify my no. I can always tell you no, but I have to tell you why I say no. In such madness saying no, you had to go around and show that you’re saying no, without going straight in the subject.”

But did you have any suspicions about what was going to take place?

“Well, I was certain that I would be killed. At a given time I was the only person who could say no and who had many times said no; they had tried to kill the refugees many times, and every time I refused. So the only solution was to get me killed. So I was sure I was going to be killed. The only thing I was sure of was that. But how, when, where, those were the questions I was asking myself. But when was very easy – I know that each and every person dies just once. Then my days on earth will be over. Whether I am killed by the soldiers or the militia, how I will be killed, but when that day comes, I will die. But when that day comes, let me not die with hands crossed, fighting.”

Are you still in touch with the people at Sabena?

“Very much. We kept a very good friendship. Even when I left Rwanda and went to Belgium as a refugee, they offered me a job. But, you know in life, no one was willing to leave his office and give it to me. No one was willing to give me his chair. So I said: ‘If things are like that, if no one can sacrifice his chair and give it to me, let us remain good friends. Our relationships will be always friend to friend and we’ll have nice meals as we have always been doing, but let me do things my way. If I don’t succeed, I will come to you. But if I succeed, we’ll keep our friendship and keep our relations as you and I. And instead of being boss and employee, let us keep it the way it is.’”

What do you do today?

“I’m in the trucking business. I’ve got a trucking company in Africa. I stay in Belgium with my children and wife. We live in the suburbs of Brussels.”

They say in the film that Belgium created the divisions between Hutu and Tutsi. What do you say?

“That is from back in the roots of the Rwandan history. It was there. But when Germans came they made it a little bit wider. They even measured the noses of people and said who was smarter than whom. Who was more like Europeans and whites. Who was more elegant than whom. Who was more clever, more intelligent, than whom. They even said that Tutsis were made to rule and Hutus were made to respect. First of all Germans ruled with Tutsis and when Belgians came, in 1923, they maintained the same politics. They were the ones who introduced the first identification cards. That was a big mistake. In 1959, the revolution in Rwanda was not really a Rwandese revolution, it was a Hutu revolution overthrowing Europeans, the colonisers, and their partner, the Tutsis. Of course Belgians came to Belgium and Tutsis went to neighbouring countries. So it was in the history of Rwanda. When Europeans came in they maintained that politics, that supremacy of the Tutsi race over Hutus. In 1959, when the Rwandese took power, they never removed in the ID’s the words Hutu and Tutsi.”

Today there is no difference . . .

“It doesn’t change anything. Today those two words have become taboos. Do you believe making them taboos is the right way of solving problems? To me the right way is to let a Hutu know he is a Hutu, and a Tutsi should know that he is a Tutsi. And they should respect each other.”

The role of Kofi Annan is not mentioned in Hotel Rwanda and I wonder what your opinion is.

“Kofi Annan has got a lot of responsibilities in the Rwandan genocide. Sometimes I wonder does he go to bed and sleep without nightmares? Does he eat his meal cheerfully and feel a free man? He was the director of operations in the United Nations. He is the one that was corresponding with General Dallaire immediately. He is the one who withdrew the United Nations army instead of increasing the army. So Kofi Annan has a lot of responsibilities. And what took place in Rwanda, he is the one who influenced the United Nations decisions.”

Has he ever spoken openly about his role?

“I think each and every person feels so guilty that many times they don’t want to talk about Rwanda. He, of course, apologised. But was it enough? I do not know. It is for you to draw your conclusions.”

But behind his decisions might have been the Americans and the British.

“To us, he is the one who was writing, corresponding, saying yes, saying no. And yet we do not know the British and the Americans in the United Nations. We know the United Nations as an institution. Of course America has a big share of responsibility; they were the ones that helped with the withdrawal. Instead of reinforcing the mission of the United Nations in Rwanda they just decided to withdraw, because 10 Belgian soldiers had been killed. Why didn’t they say now what we’re going to do is reinforce the mission of the United Nations? You guys go in and get the guys who killed the 10 Belgian soldiers and bring them to trial. [If they had done that], I’m sure no one else would have killed anyone anymore.”

Could you live in Rwanda today?

“Well, according to all I have seen there is no lasting peace in Rwanda. There is an opposition of a winner and a loser. A winner is dictating his conditions and a loser is sometimes saying yes, because he has got to say yes. So if there was a lasting peace, I would be the first person to fly back.”

You basically say that you did what you did because as a human being you had to. Do you understand at all the people that acted in the opposite way?

“This is what I don’t understand. There are many people that I consider as gentlemen, I respect them as people who are respectable and also respect a human creature. So I was very disappointed to see the way all of those people were acting. I was very disappointed by the way many people behaved.”

Your attitude to life must have been changed by this.

“Certainly. You can imagine someone who could trust people, have friends and share life with others, disappointed like that . . . if you’re in my position, it’s obvious.”

Do you see the film making any changes?

“I think so. The main objective of the film is to convey a message about what is happening, and to inform. Hopefully this will help to change what is happening in Darfur. It might help to change what is happening in the Congo where 3.8 million [according to human rights organisations] have been killed since 1986. Even the media don’t talk about the Congo. It doesn’t come on the headlines. Nobody talks about it.”

© Stephen Applebaum, 2006