SVEGLIAMI A MEZZANOTTE (Wake Me Up at Midnight)

 

Fascinating documentary on personal trauma

Directed by Francesco Patierno, this is based upon an autobiography by writer and narrator, Fuani Marino, who attempted suicide by falling from the fourth floor of a building a few months after giving birth to her daughter, Greta.

Suffering from post-partum depression, Fuani makes the case that this was a build-up of pressures and emotions that led to her attempt to take her own life and leave the darkness she found surrounding her world.

Told with a mixture of archive photographs from her own family albums, with up to date photos and videos along with stock library footage; in unison Patierno and Marino craft a gripping and intense viewing experience that is both first-hand but welcoming to the audience to understand where Marino has been and is going.

The loss of her writing (left) hand following the accident is tragic for any writer, having to re-learn that skill and not being able to recognise your handwriting as your own is hard. What is telling is that Marino has now recovered and she is not trying to hide her suicide attempt - in her words the writing of the memoir on which this film is based was in fact a political statement on behalf of all those who choose to remain silent.

A gripping and intense watch that is rewarding in its naked honesty on a taboo subject; she lived so she could tell the tale.

Screening as part of the Cinecitta Italian Docs at Bertha Doc House receiving its UK Premiere on Saturday 24th June 6.30pm with a Q&A with director Patierno afterwards.

Black Valley Farm - Sheila Bugler

 

New crime thriller from Sheila Bugler out 22nd June from Canelo Crime

Hailing from the South Coast, well Eastbourne to be precise, Sheila Bugler has curated a nice niche for her crime fiction. Previously she has written a series of novels featuring Dee Doran an investigative journalist which were very entertaining. This time she has written a novel that could read like a true crime novel about the discovery of bodies at the pseudonymous farm where a cult had been residing.

Incorporating dual narratives and timelines, so we follow the tale of Clare on the run for 10 years following the fire at the farm and how the fire started that engulfed the site killing ten people including children.

Nuala Fox, is a podcaster who won awards for her series based upon the cult, has now fallen by the wayside and needs another hit. She takes the job of working on a documentary with Andrea Leach, a far-right MP candidate for the new Progress Party, yet who is Ms. Leach and where did she come from.

Nuala though is hiding a secret herself in that she fabricated the end of her series to get better results, morality and ethics circumvent the narrative throughout. Everyone is being chased and all are chasing something, namely the truth.

Bugler is a writer this reader admires, and following her career has been a pleasure, and this book took a while to start but once it did get its wheels on track the pacing of the narrative was cranked up and handled with such robustness and thrills that it was hard to put down afterwards. 

The impending threat of being found out or discovering a hurtful truth is encompassing and the claustrophobic atmosphere Bugler creates of the cult itself along with the judgmental world we find ourselves in today, where we feel we have to please everybody but ourselves is key to the tension.

Heart-pounding by the books conclusion, Bugler has again written an engrossing tale of thrilling suspense that you will find hard to put down and find hard to forget.

Black Valley Farm is out on all formats from Canelo Crime on 22nd June.

Check out my reviews of other Sheila Bugler books below:

NextToTheAisle: When The Dead Speak - Sheila Bugler

NextToTheAisle: Before You Were Gone

NextToTheAisle: I Could Be You - Sheila Bugler

A Steady Job (Il Posto) - Cinecitta Italia Docs

New documentary highlighting the plight of full time employment in Southern Italy, screening as part of  Cinecittà Italian Docs

A Steady Job (Il Posto) focuses on graduate nurses and healthcare workers in Italy who compete for just a few vacancies in their desperate search for job stability. Filmed largely before, but ultimately impacted by, the coronavirus pandemic, it provides a disturbing overview of the labour market in Italy – a portrait of a tragically broken system.

 

Filmed in the hand-held form focusing on those trying to find work for these graduates, travelling to job fairs on long journeys, the documentary has this unfortunate air of resignation about the downfall of government to give jobs in a vital industry.

As the film notes in the beginning, one in two adults in Southern Italy are unemployed and so they travel on coaches to these job markets in the hope of gaining employment abandoning family with dreams still in their hearts.

A telling scene is when the man who arranges the trips for these hopeful souls is driving home with his business partner and he stops saying is it worth it for him to do this anymore in this recrutiment industry - the weight of the world and the burden he feels weighs heavy upon his shoulders. This moment is shot as an excised scene from Michael Mann's The Insider.

The ending of the film which poses more questions than supplying answers for those seeking employment, shows the individuals walking zombie-like with a melancholic ethereal electronic score underneath - this is a generation of souls lost without a direction in this world.

Filmed largely before but ultimately more impacted by the global pandemic, this overview of the Italian health system is both sombre and tragic. This film grips the audience and becomes an alternative road movie of sorts.

A Steady Job (Il Posto) will have its UK Premier and screen as part of the Cinecitta Italian Docs season at London's Bertha DocHouse on Saturday 24th June with a Q&A with directors Mattia Colombo and Gianluca Mattarese

Inland (Fridtjof Ryder, UK, 2022)

 

Debut film from highly touted Fridtjof Ryder released 16th June

Set in rural England, Inland explores the troubled reality a young man faces following the strange disappearance of his mother some years previously.

Following a prelude where the boy whose character name is the Man played by Rory Alexander is released from an institution after a period of time, he returns to his home town to settle down with a father figure named Dunleavy played by Oscar winning actor Mark Rylance.

The film is shot with an unforgiving close up of its actors throughout, the audience being made to feel uneasy by what is transpiring, the man is having to cope with a lot following his mother's strange disappearance, and this is a point of view film in that respect with Alexander featuring in every scene.

Mixed with experimental footage to depict his fragile mental psyche of visions and memories splintering his day-to-day life; Ryder has moulded a modern folk tale within this rural landscape for the modern era.

Following on from the January release of Mark Jenkin's Enys Men and even Alex Garland's MEN, the clash of individual and nature and what that collision causes is certainly in vogue currently.

Most folk tales incorporate a quest of sorts, the Man in this instance is searching for answers with a cast of characters eager to look after him for the best. Rylance in particular is channelling his famous role of Rooster from Jez Butterworth's Jerusalem to a degree, and acting as Executive Producer also, he is guiding the man in more ways than one.

The journey the man must navigate is unsettling at times helped by the ambient score utilised by Bartholomew Mason, evoking a disharmony amidst the harmonious surroundings of the woodlands. Coupled with the haunting voiceover of the mother by Kathryn Hunter and you have an eerie creation that is both stylistic and substantial.

An atmospheric and moody tale of life, grief and family, Inland is a film of great promise and character from a first-time director.

Inland is out on Friday 16th June on limited release from Verve Pictures.

A Blind Eye - Marion Todd

 

The latest installment in the DI Clare Mackay series is Seventh Heaven

Marion Todd is a St. Andrews based novelist who with the help of her publishers, Canelo Crime, has produced a great series of detective novels featuring the forthright DI Clare Mackay as she navigates high profile crime cases upon the streets of the famous Scottish town.

The latest case which pushes Mackay to the limit is about the mysterious disappearance firstly of solicitor Harry Richards and then the discovery of his corpse. What follows is a typically labyrinthe case that has many twists and turn as Clare discovers Richards was not the straight laced figure he appeared to be.

While the case gets more involved, Mackay must also contend with personal relationships as the blossoming relationship with her boyfriend continues apace and the possibility of moving in together looms.

What sets Todd's novels apart from others is the camaraderie of Mackay with her colleagues, it paints the loyal serving police force in a positive light with no bent coppers on this force.

Something I have noticed for the first time is how well Todd writes about her hometown, with a real eye for landscape and the feel of nature, this is a writer who loves where she lives and wants to share that love with her readers.

Gripping as always and page-turning to the maximum, A Blind Eye does not disappoint and as ever this reader can heartily recommend this crime thriller to fans old and new.

A Blind Eye is out 8th June from Canelo Crime on all platforms.

The Mess We're In - Annie MacManus

 

Brand new book from Annie MacManus THE MESS WE'RE IN from Wildfire books

Renowned DJ Annie Mac returns with her second book, set in the early 2000s it follows a young Irish girl named Orla who moves from Cheltenham to London to follow her dream of becoming involved within the music scene. This goes hand in hand whilst living with an up and coming indie band called Shiva in the digs of Kilburn.

Orla wants to make music, but juggling a temp job in new PR company RedStar and a pub job whilst partying every night is not helping. Meanwhile, in Ireland her parents marriage is falling apart and she is not speaking to her Da.

As Shiva strife to breakthrough, the hedonism gets bigger and relationships within the house are strained.

A story about a young woman making sense of living in a strange land but finding yourself through the rhythm of life. Annie Mac delivers in a big way with this nostalgic look at the boom in music and how being in the music business remains one of the coolest aspirations for many people

THE MESS WE'RE IN is out now from Wildfire Books.

My thanks to Headline for the review opportunity.

Hide and Seek - Ken Lussey

 

Fifth book in the Bob Sutherland series by Scottish based author, Ken Lussey, out 26th May from Arachnid Press.

It is April 1943. Set in and around Stirling Castle, Bob and his bride-to-be Monique Dubois are attending a secret meeting at the castle to discuss details of national security.

Meanwhile, medical student Helen Erickson is followed from London to her aunt's farm in Perthshire, why is she being followed? Is it about the work her mother is taking part in at Bletchley Park?

An old adversary is murdered mysteriously whilst the secret meeting is taking place, Bob and the MI11 team are called in to investigate when everyone has a motive to the victim.

Lussey has in the past six years created this quite wonderful world of World War Two espionage and mystery surrounding this lone central character of Bob Sutherland and yet in each book through the four previous (Eyes Turned Skywards, The Danger of Life, Bloody Orkney and The Stockholm Syndrome) there has been perpetual growth of Bob as an officer and a gentleman, he and Dubois have grown closer together from flirting to close to being married and in the last book Bob killed a man with his gun breaking his virginity.

What is so good about this book in comparison to others previously, is that there is a genuine sense of not coming next. While others have followed traditional narrative paths, for instance in the Stockholm Syndrome the daring pair are in the Swedish capital meaning the action is contained within that city. Here we start in Stirling Castle, yet there was a short prelude where German crew seek asylum and land in Scotland. We then go to Stirling Castle and after the murder, Monique is on the trail of Helen while Bob must investigate the murder himself. 

The separation of the pair for narrative reasons is cleverly done because again it helps to let the pair grow, but Monique's chase of Helen across the Scottish Highlands and train tracks means it is her story we are more engrossed upon. The scene where Helen and Anthony discover the carnage at the aunt's farm was to this reader reminiscent of the opening to No Country for Old Men told with such assuredness that comes from a writer confident in the characters he has created.

While that is daring and driven, Bob's castle death is closer to an Agatha Christie novel and those famous drawing room murders where everybody is a suspect.

Drawing from a wealth of influences and his own Royal Air Force career, Lussey has again written an entertaining page-turning novel that delivers in spades of enjoyment and tension.

Hide and Seek is out in Paperback from Arachnid Press on 26th May