A review of the new film “After The Hunt”
October 23rd, 2025 by Roger Darlington
I so wanted to enjoy this film, since the lead role is taken by Julia Roberts, an actress I admire, and the subject matter – an allegation of sexual abuse made by a black student against a white lecturer – promised drama and topicality. But I was really disappointed. The acting is fine, with Roberts in excellent form, and the dialogue from debut screenwriter Nora Garrett – when one can hear it – is challenging enough (although there is a bit too much philosophising), but the failure of the work to succeed is down to the Italian producer and director Luca Guadagnino.
It is often difficult to catch what the characters are saying because of the loudness of the diegetic sound or the imposition of non-diegetic sound. What we can surmise from the movie is then rather problematic politically, since it appears to to challenge the current recognition that offence should be seen primarily from the point of view of the ‘victim’ rather than that of the apparent perpetrator. So, both artistically and morally, a somewhat confused and unsatisfactory work.
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A review of the 1977 classic “Annie Hall”
October 23rd, 2025 by Roger Darlington
This is a Woody Allen film: he co-wrote and directed it and takes the lead role. But it is also a Diane Keaton movie: she absolutely lights up the screen with her beauty, personality and dress style. This was the fourth of seven works which Allen and Keaton made together and, for some of the time, they were in a relationship in spite of the 11-year age difference. What’s more, Keaton was born Diane Hall and nicknamed Annie. So, to a considerable extent, they were playing themselves here which gives added piquancy to this delightful work.
Set in the mind of Allen’s neurotic character, the film deploys a whole variety of techniques to engage the viewer – flashbacks, speech to camera, split screen, subtitled thoughts – and the very funny script is full of wonderful one-liners. There are cameos from future stars such as Jeff Goldblum and Christopher Walken, guest appearances from Truman Capote and Marshall MacLuhan essentially playing themselves, and even roles for spiders and lobsters.
“Annie Hall” won four Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Screenplay. Allen won Best Director (he was nominated for Best Actor) and Keaton won Best Actress.
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A review of the unusual novel “Brian” by Jeremy Cooper
October 19th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
This is a strange novel in format, tone and subject. The 180 pages are written as a single piece of narrative with no chapters or breaks, no plot and no direct dialogue. It is a melancholic work dealing with loneliness, isolation and obsession. It is the story of the eponymous London character who has a dull job and no friends but finds meaning in cinema. We meet Brian when he is approaching 40 and leave him when he is around 70. In the intervening 30 years, nothing really happens, but we share his visits to the British Film Institute (BFI) to see a whole succession of films – over 150 are name-checked – which are almost invariably art house, many foreign, and his speciality post-war Japanese works.
Brian does not own a mobile phone but carries a notebook everywhere. He is a man of routines who does not like to make decisions: “Brian felt comforted by sticking to trusted habits” and he was “the kind of person who needed a sheaf of reasons to act”. “In his daily life Brian was endlessly anxious”, “He felt uncertain in almost everything”, and “”Everything he touched went up in smoke, always had, since childhood. He was a disaster zone.”
We are told that “There were times when Brian felt that the only thing he understood anything about was film. Nothing much else made sense. Not that he could always make sense of the movies he saw either.” We learn that “Given the day-by-day anxieties with which Brian contended, the ability to focus attention on the niceties of films was effective distraction from an existence beset on the outside by recurring banalities.” In essence, “his contradictory purpose in watching film was to escape from the world and at the same time learn about it.”
I feel that I understand Brian: on and off for the last 50 years, I’ve been a member of the BFI and I’ve seen a lot of films, although my tastes are much wider than his. I love cinema. I’ve even met people like Brian, especially on film courses: characters who have no partners, few friends and minimal social life who find solitude and solace in the darkness of a cinema.
The author of “Brian”, 77 year old Jeremy Cooper, is an art historian who doesn’t have a mobile phone and hasn’t watched television for 25 years, but he loves cinema. Although the novel is not autobiographical, there is more a little of Brian in Jeremy who told a newspaper interviewer: “I live alone in a secluded rented cottage in west Somerset doing the same thing at the same time seven days a week” and “Almost all the films which Brian sees I too have seen, none of them re-seen for writing the book. I’ve only ever watched film live on a cinema screen.”
I guess this is why the novel is oddly compelling and why the author Zadie Smith has written a screenplay.
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Visit to Tunisia (9): conclusion
October 19th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
Tunisia deserves to be more popular as a tourist attraction, especially with Europeans, than it is.
For the British, it is a flight of only two to two and a half hours and there is no time difference. All the signage is in French as well as Arabic, French is widely spoken, and English is usually understood. The roads are good.
In spring and autumn, the weather is sunny and hot but not unpleasantly so. Prices are low by western standards.
For those who appreciate culture, there are many impressive Roman ruins and spectacular collections of mosaics plus mosques and mausoleums (although entry to the former is usually forbidden to non-Muslims). The medinas are simply magical. For those who like to relax, there are lots of beaches and good hotels.
It is a decade since there were attacks by Islamic extremists on tourists and Tunisians practice a more relaxed form of Islam than in the Middle East.
Tunisia was never as appealing to tourists as Morocco or Egypt and visitor numbers have not recovered from the Covid pandemic, but this makes it more attractive to those who do visit.
Note, however, that there is a tourist tax in Tunisia which currently is 12 dinars (about £3) per person per night. This is collected by the hotel on registering or checking out.
Politically, Tunisia has failed to use its independence to achieve genuine democracy. The first president served for 30 years before doctors declared him unfit to rule, while his successor, who mounted a coup d’etat, was in office for 23 years before being overthrown early in the Arab Spring of 2011.
The first democratically-elected president died in office aged 92 and his successor, who is still in office, has instituted a swath of anti-democratic and repressive measures.
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Visit to Tunisia (8): Sousse
October 10th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
The last day of our trip (Friday) was spent in Sousse. Sousse is in the central-east of the country, on the Gulf of Hammamet, which is a part of the Mediterranean Sea. It has a population of 217,000.
We started at the Archaeological Museum which houses one of the largest mosaic collections in the world. By now, we have seen a lot of mosaics, especially in Tunis and Monastir, but the quality, colour and subject matter of these particular works make them simply breathtaking.
Next we strolled through the medina. This one is much smaller than the one in Tunis, but it is a UNESCO-listed masterpiece which is gloriously preserved.
Then we had an hour in the Soula Shopping Centre to purchase souvenirs and gifts in an environment which was air-conditioned and presented lots of choice over four floors. Everything was fixed-price and credit cards were accepted which we all preferred to bargaining in the souks.
Lunch was in a restaurant called “Le Lido” which it located by the sea and specialises in seafood and couscous dishes.
Finally, we had an afternoon lecture in the Ribat medieval fortified enclave which was originally constructed in the 8th century and has since been modified and expanded. The talk was given by a local university professor.
In just one hour, he described over 3,000 years of Tunisia’s history covering the periods of occupation by the Phoenicians, Romans, Vandals, Byzantines, Umayyads, Abbasids, Ottomans and French. He insisted that, in spite of all these conquerors, essentially Tunisians are descendants of the Berbers, the indigenous population before the arrival of the Phoenicians.
Next day (Saturday) we flew back from Tunis to London Gatwick. As with the outward flight, the airline was Tunisair and again the departure was two and a half hours late. The return flight was a bit longer than the outward one: two and a half hours.
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Visit to Tunisia (7): El Djem and Monastir
October 9th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
Thursday was a long but enjoyable day, starting at 9 am and finishing about 5 pm. Using Sousse as a base for local travel, we visited two historic towns.
The first was El Djem, called Thysdrus in Roman times, which is a drive of just over an hour south of Sousse.
This is the location of a Roman amphitheatre built around 200 AD with a spectator capacity of 35,000, second only in size to the one in Rome. It is one of the largest and best preserved in the world and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. I enjoyed this visit more than my visits to the Colosseum in Rome because there were so few other tourists.
Also in the town, we visited the Archaeological Museum which has a spectacular collection of original mosaics drawn from local Roman sites. There were models of the villas from which the mosaics were found, showing the original location of the various mosaics. Of course, mosaics were constructed on floors but are now displayed – more Impressively – on walls.
Next to the museum is an actual Roman house relocated and rebuilt.
Lunch was at a local hotel called Dar Ammar which, unlike our previous set lunches, was self-service. There was a menu with banana split on it and I fancied that for dessert and offered to buy one, but the hotel had no bananas. Indeed I never saw one on the entire holiday.
After lunch, it was a one hour drive north-east to Monastir
Traditionally a fishing port, Monastir is now a major tourist resort. Its population is about 90,000.
Here we visited the Ribat Fortress and three of us – including yours truly – climbed to the top of the tower. This involved taking 86 stone steps in a dark and sharply turning staircase.
Finally we visited the huge, opulent Mausoleum of Tunisia’s first president. Habib Bourguiba (1903-2000) led the country as prime minister from 1956-1957 and as president from 1957-1987.
Our guide was a big fan of Bourguiba decribing him as “this hero” and praising his early measures to promote the rights of women. But Bourguiba was a man who declared himself president for life.
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Visit to Tunisia (6): Kairouan
October 8th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
Wednesday was another early start as at 8 am we left Tunis to head due south on a modern motorway. It was the hottest day as the temperature rose to 31C. Our destination was Kairouan.
Kairouan – the name means ‘military camp’ in Arabic – is Tunisia’s oldest city, founded in 670 AD by Oqba ibn Nafi. It is Islam’s fourth holiest city, after Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem.
This UNESCO-listed city was a revered centre of Islamic scholarship in the 9th century and today it is a place of pilgrimage. Indeed it is said that seven visits here by the faithful equates to one pilgrimage to Mecca.
The town includes the enormous Great Mosque of Sidi Oqba, dating from the 8th century with most of its buildings constructed in 17th century.
The oldest part of the mosque is the square minaret which was built between 724 and 728, making it the oldest minaret in the world. The location features a total of 414 marble, granite and porphyry pillars, many reused from ancient Roman and Byzantine sites across North Africa.
Our other visit in the city was to the Mausoleum of Sidi Sahab, also known as the Zaouia of Sidi Sahab or the Mausoleum of the Barber.
It is one of Kairouan’s most famous religious monuments. The mausoleum is dedicated to Abu Zama‘a al-Balawi, a companion of the Prophet Muhammad who, according to tradition, always carried three hairs from the Prophet’s beard—hence the nickname “the Barber.”
The complex includes a mosque, courtyards, and richly decorated rooms, making it a significant site of pilgrimage and an excellent example of traditional Tunisian architecture.
We remained in the city for lunch – an affair of four courses – at the Hotel Amina. Afterwards we drove north-east to our accommodation in Sousse, arriving in mid-afternoon so that it was not too challenging a day.
Our stay for the next three nights is the Movenpick Hotel. Located on the beachfront in the heart of the city, this is a splendid, modern hotel with over 600 rooms. Tess and I were given one overlooking a terrace garden with the Mediterranean Sea just beyond.
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Visit to Tunisia (5): Carthage
October 8th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
What remained of Wednesday afternoon was devoted to Carthage. Located in the north-east suburbs of Tunis, this was the capital of the ancient Carthaginian civilisation that was a major trading empire from the 6th century BC. It was home to Hannibal and his elephants.
However, it was destroyed by the Romans in 146 BC. About a century later, Julius Caesar had it rebuilt as Roman Carthage on its ruins centred on the Hill of Byrsa. It became the second city in the Roman Empire after Rome itself. Arab invaders levelled the city once again in the late 15th and early 16th centuries.
Today it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. There is so little left to see: hardly anything compared to Uthina and almost nothing contrasted with Dugga. We focused on the Antoine Baths and the end of the aqueduct by the huge cistern.
Our guide was bitter about the Romans. He told of us the three Punic Wars between the rival Carthaginians and Romans, which took place from 264-241 BC, 218-201 BC and 149-146 BC respectively, and asserted that the third was “not a war but genocide”. Apparently the Romans did not just kill the Cathaginians but obliterated their civilisation, and even poisoned the land with salt.
He also reaffirmed the axiom that history is written by the victors. The Carthaginians were descended from the Phoenicians, who gave the Ancient World the alphabet, but most accounts of Carthage were written by Romans who lived long after the events and had never visited the site.
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Visit to Tunisia (4): Tunis
October 8th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
Tuesday was spent in and around Tunis. It was a long day, because we left the hotel at 8.45 am and did not return till 5.40 pm, so we were out for 9 hours. But there was very little travel and fine weather and wonderful attractions.
The capital of Tunisia, which gives its name to the country as a whole, is located on the northern Mediterranean coast and the wider metropolitan area has a population of 2.7 million.
Our morning visit was to the famous Bardo Museum. The Bardo Museum is a complex of 13th- to 19th-century buildings that includes the Beylical Palace. It houses the continent’s largest selection of mosaics, arguably the finest in the world.
One mosaic is the most valued in the entire collection. It depicts the poet Virgil and the two muses: Callope, the muse of epic poetry, and Polymnis, the muse of pantomime. Our guide called it “more than a masterpiece”.
The earliest true mosaics in the world – dated to the 5th or 4th century BC – were discovered in Carthage indicating that it was the Carthaginians, and not the Romans, who invented the art form.
Next we went over to the UNESCO-protected medina which was built in the 7th century. It includes mosques, mausoleums, madrasas, palaces and fountains, some 700 historical monuments in all. Most notable are the Great Mosque, the Bey’s Palace and the Aghlab Palace. There are some 400 Art Deco buildings including the Villa Boublil.
We only had time to savour the atmosphere by walking through the narrow, cobbled lanes lined with shops selling everything and locals shuffling in front and behind us, all friendly and welcoming.
Our one stop was in a government-sponsored carpet shop. The ‘soft sell’ began with a climb up flights of stone steps with carpets on every wall, all the way up to the roof, where we had excellent views of the medina.
Then we were ushered into the sales area where we were served with mint tea and small pieces of baklava before the English-speaking manager explained how the carpets are made and the choices of design and size (and price), as his colleagues continually rolled out one carpet on top of another. Two sales were obtained from our group.
We left the medina to walk down the wide, tree-lined main boulevard of the city, the Avenue Habib Bourguiba – reminiscent of the Rambla in Barcelona – to find our bus and return to our destination of two days ago – “La Victoire” at La Goulette – for a lunch of chicken and rice.
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Visit to Tunisia (3): Testour and Dougga
October 6th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
The second day of our tour (Monday) involved a long drive to Roman ruins and our guide was keen to avoid crowds and heat, so we made an early start of 8 am. In fact, once we were there, we had the place almost to ourselves and the weather veered between overcast, spitting and then bright sunshine.
First, though, we made a stop at a small town called Testour where we had some time to explore the bustling main street. Testour’s old town dates to the 17th century, making it one of Tunisia’s oldest cities.
Our main destination was the site of Dougga. This was built in the 2nd & 3rd centuries on the foundations of a much earlier Numidian settlement which was once the seat of power for the Numidian king, Massinissa. Today it is the best preserved Roman monument in Northern Africa.
There are 12 Roman temples, three baths, numerous cisterns and fountains, two heavily restored theatres, a nymphaeum, an aqueduct, a market, a circus, several necropolises and a handful of mausoleums.
For us, highlights of this UNESCO World Heritage Site included the fabulously preserved amphitheatre seating 3,500 (in a town of just 5,000), a splendid Capitol dating to the time of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, The House of the Trifolium for the most honoured of citizens, and an early example of public toilets for all who needed them
Lunch was at the Hotel Thuggar at Teboursouk and then we made the two-hour ride back to Tunis.
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