14 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES Thursday9 April 2020

ARTS

Martin Wolf in Dulwich Park

L

ast week, as I sat in my study,

with my back to the window,

I heard the sound of excited

childish voices. There was a

knock on the door, just after-

wards. I look out and see my grand-

daughter and grandson, aged four and

two, respectively. “Grandad,” she

cries, her face beaming with enthusi-

asm. This followed closely by another

“Grandad” from her brother, beaming

excitedly,too.

I wave and hit the windowpane, in

pleasure. Their father stands in the

background. Soon my wife, Alison,

comesdownfromherstudyatthetopof

the house and joins me. “Nanny,” the

children both shout, with yet greater

enthusiasm. Then, 10 seconds later,

alreadylookingforsomethingnew,they

turnandrunoff.Allisstill.

These two of our five grandchildren

live around the corner, with our daugh-

ter and her husband. We are used to

having them regularly in our house.

When will that happen again? We have

noidea.Thatispainful.

Ourotherchildrenandgrandchildren

live on the other side of London. We

only see them on Zoom now. It is

better than nothing. But it is not the

same thing as hugging a beloved child’s

wrigglingbody.

I do not complain. Many people do

not see their children or grandchildren

in the flesh for months, years, perhaps

ever. But the physical separation from

my children and grandchildren is, for

the moment, the only real drawback

of this new world into which we have

beencatapulted.

I read; I write; I email; I speak to my

colleagues via video-link; and I talk on

the phone. I barely participate in social

media. I have never done so and am not

going to start now. I go out to buy food in

local shops and enjoy a brisk daily walk

in Dulwich Park, just five minutes away.

Ikeepmydistancefromothersandwear

a mask, while I do so. All this is still new.

For the moment, thank heavens, we

are well. I even like working quietly at

home, with Alison my sole companion,

though she, poor woman, has to put up

with my periodic rants over the gro-

tesque folly and incompetence (not,

alas, in the least bit surprising) of our

government,onallfronts.

I do like not travelling frantically,

for a change. Discussions with my col-

leagues work perfectly well online. I

know that none of this would have been

possible before the arrival of the new

technologies. I am well aware how lucky

I am to have a job and to be able to do it

inrelativesafety.

Yet I also wonder how long this state

of limbo will last. A few months of con-

finement would be quite manageable.

But we are told we are both at a vulnera-

ble age. Maybe, we will be advised to

stay at home until a vaccine arrives at

the end of 2021, or even later. I would

miss our summer stays at our apart-

ment in Italy. I am also concerned about

what is happening in that much-loved

country now, but also that the UK may

notbefarbehind.

Nevertheless,IknowwellthatIamfar

luckier than vast numbers of my fellow

humans at such a worrying time. For

now,Imustwait,trynottogetillandsee

whathappensnext.

Martin Wolf is the FT’s chief economics

commentator

Martin Wolf on the pain of family separation

Coronavirus iaries is an FTD

series in which people in many

different situations share their

experiences of trying to work

— and live — in this time

A

few keystrokes could tell

you some basic facts about

Safy Nebbou, director of

the superior French thriller

Who You Think I Am on(

Curzon Home Cinema in the UK).

Heis51,afilm-makersince1997,theson

of a German mother and Algerian

father;beforethecoronavirusoutbreak,

he visited New York; he has a liking for

Greekfood.

Such are the kind of quick-fire details

Googled by literature professor Claire

Millaud(JulietteBinoche)atthestartof

the film, turning the tables on her new

psychologist Catherine Bormans

(Nicole Garcia) with a rundown of the

doctor’s life to date. What Bormans

knows of her patient lies in the tradi-

tional confines of a case file, a story

about the oldest passions — jealousy,

revenge, fear of ageing — transferred to

modern Paris, a tale of dual identities in

theageofsocialmedia.

We flashback. Any era could have

hosted the caddish Ludo (Guillaume

Gouix), the younger man with whom

Claire has been involved. At the end of

anafternooninbedthatsheexpectswill

beginaweekendtogether,heannounces

he has other plans. “Are you pouting?”

he asks, the second worst thing he could

say. The first follows: “Aren’t you too old

for that?” Claire — the other side of 50,

divorced—managesnottowince.“Keep

in touch!” he says brightly. It soon

becomes apparent that even that is not

on offer. In contemporary parlance,

Claireisnowtobeghosted.

The funny thing is, Ludo ends up as a

minor character, merely the prompt for

a fake Facebook profile Claire sets up to

keep track of him, but through which

she collides instead with his photo-

grapher friend Alex (François Civil).

Thisis where romance takes bloom. A

“j’aime” on one of his pictures leads,

message by message, to mutual infatua-

tion. But Claire is not involved — not

really.Instead,theprofiletakesonaper-

sona of its own — Clara, 24, not a model

although the photos Claire appropriates

suggestshecouldbe.Thetermiscatfish-

ing. You wait for the lurch into

Extremely Online Fatal Attraction. The

movie certainly has a way with a big,

glistening twist as Alex grows lovesick

and Claire struggles to avoid exposure

ontheescalatorsofthePompidou.

Except there’s more going on here

than cheap thrills (and another horror

show at the expense of older women).

The focus stays with Claire through the

giddy highs of new love — and the lows

ofself-loathing.Becauseofcourseitisn’t

her being fallen in love with. Or is it?

The air of case study is lightly worn, but

Claire’s identity is itself at stake as the

line blurs between her and Clara; she

is a teacher of literature bringing

her own creation to life. If another old

movie rings a bell, it may beVertigo,

with Binoche as both James Stewartand

KimNovak.

The script gives the star the chance to

explore all manner of messed-up ethics,

but the legwork on screen is all Bino-

che’s. Equally, while the cinemato-

graphy helps, it is the alchemy of great

actors that makes Claire look younger

every time Alex messages her. Lit by

phone and laptop screens, she avidly

watches the three dots that mean he is

there and typing — physically untouch-

able, profoundly intimate, the central

contradictionofourtimes.

Be careful what you wish for, goes the

moral ofFour Kids and It on Sky in the(

UK), as parents of young children crave

just a little quiet to cling on to their wob-

bling equilibrium. In current circum-

stances, Andy De Emmony’s unde-

manding time-killer may be greeted

with an enthusiasm greater than its

modest charms deserve. Much of the

audience will come to the film familiar

with the source novel by Jacqueline Wil-

son, an updated riff on Edith Nesbit’s

Five Children and It hat embraced thet

21st century’s extendable family unit of

kidsfromearliermarriages.

The result is a kitchen showroom of a

movie, as two spotless sets of siblings

learn the only thing more awful than

theirparentssplittingupisthemfinding

happiness with another divorcee and

matching offspring. Stuck on a getting-

to-know-you Cornish holiday, the

revolted children unite around discov-

ering the mythical creature Psammead,

granterofwisheswithstringsattached.

WhateverIt s, it is far enough fromi

cute — all fingerish toes and Eeyore

ears — that the youngest viewers

couldconceivablyfreakout,althoughat

least the oddness of the creature being

voiced by Michael Caine should pass

them by. (Unless you’re using lock-

down to introduce them toGet Carter.)

“Don’t worry, it’s shatterproof,” a

teacher shrugs from behind a classroom

window as a figure hurls a piece of play-

ground furniture towards the glass.

Boom. And then another. The assailant

is Benni (Helena Zengel), a nine-

year-old girl growing up in small-town

Germany — the havoc an everyday

scene in the punkishly propulsive

System Crasher on Curzon Home Cin-(

ema in the UK), a portrait of a child in

the grip of a troubled psyche. Now and

then she comes to rest, a 4ft bundle of

fury with a ragged blonde bob and bub-

blegum pink body warmer. Then hell is

raised again, as ever beginning with

Benni gleefully escaping adult supervi-

sion. Maybe she will hurl insults at traf-

fic, maybe go shoplifting, but what

crashes the systems of German social

careareherstormsofrageandviolence,

products of past trauma. For all that

Benni carries a cuddly dragon, director

NoraFingscheidt’sbracingfilmcouldbe

a companion piece to Alan Clarke’s bril-

liant 1982 teleplayMade In Britain, in

which the teenage Tim Roth played

delinquent skinhead Trevor, caught in

the same doomed institutional spiral.

Like Clarke, Fingscheidt has compli-

cated sympathies — like Roth, Zengel is

astarbornofmayhem.

How strange — and how telling — that

despite the wealth of big-screen docu-

mentaries released in the past 20 years,

the story behind the remarkableCrip

Camp on Netflix) has gone so long(

untold.Thestyleofthefilmisnotsorev-

elatory, a standard-issue mix of archive

andtalkingheads.Thesubjectmatteris:

Camp Jened, an oasis amid the pine

trees of the Catskills mountains, where

disabled teenagers from across America

gathered to summer together in long-

haired1971.

In fact, the camp had been running

since the 1950s, but by now had blos-

somed under the leadership of hippie

wisecracker Larry Allison into a festival

of acceptance and self-expression. On

one level, the only revolutionary thing

going on was utter normality, a loose-fit

scheduleofswimminganddancenights.

Butsomethingelsewashappeningtoo,a

spiritofthetimesmoremeaningfulthan

army surplus and acoustic guitars,

grounding camp-goers in grassroots

democracy to leave a potent legacy long

afterthescentofpatchoulifaded.

The walk Dirk Bogarde uses to

move through the first moments of

The Servant till pops off the screen.s

ThesettingisChelsea,Bogarde’scharac-

ter Barrett on his way to be interviewed

for the role of manservant in a semi-

aristocratic household, yet his onward

stride, brisk and self-possessed, is far

from deferential. The implications

play out in the film to come; that gait

gives you a sense too of the people

behindthecamera.

Director Joseph Losey always worked

with a certain strut — few films ever did

so much with mirrors as this one — and

so too scriptwriter Harold Pinter. With

LoseyexiledfromAmericabytheHolly-

wood blacklist, and Pinter the bristling

voice of young London, the film has the

glee of outsiders mid-gatecrash. And as

Barrett arrives on time for his appoint-

ment, it was punctual, released in 1963,

year of the Profumo scandal and The

Beatles’ first album, twin landmarks of

anEnglandspinningupsidedown.

The movie joined them, a snapshot of

subversion from below stairs as Barrett

enters the employ of the louchely feck-

less Tony (James Fox). The particulars

related to the British class system, but

Losey and Pinter burrowed deeper still

into the nature of power. British cinema

wasneversokinky—orsodazzling.

On Mubi in the UK until May 6 and

Amazon elsewhere

Twisted mind games of la vie online

Juliette Binoche plays a literature professor crafting her own online fiction in ‘Who You Think I Am’. Above right: Netflix documentary ‘Crip Camp’

ARTS ONLINE

Giacometti and Rodin

An online project unveils lost works by

the great Swiss sculptor (below) and

finds links to his French predecessor

Fidelio in Vienna

Beethoven’s story of incarceration and

liberation is given new poignancy in an

online production byChristoph Waltz

ft.com/arts

Who You Think I Am

Safy Nebbou

AAAAE

Four Kids and It

Andy De Emmony

AAEEE

System Crasher

Nora Fingscheidt

AAAAE

Crip Camp

James Lebrecht, Nicole Newnham

AAAAE

The Servant

Joseph Losey

AAAAA

FILM

Danny

Leigh

APRIL 9 2020 Section:Features Time: 4/20208/ - 18:08 User:raphael.abraham Page Name:ARTS LON, Part,Page,Edition:EUR , 14, 1