Don't loose your paddle

I originally saw this in the cinema when it came out, and it has aged very well. Not quite as extreme as I remembered it, but very good buddy drama that rattles along. A standard storyline often told in different variations, but this one is very well executed.

The slightly eco-aware background, although tangential to the story and not fully explored, was new in 1972, and is still highly relevant today. 

Burt Reynolds particularly good, not so much for the macho-man which he always plays, but for his collapse in the final third showing the weakness behind the facade. 

The white water scenes are very good, gradually building from the tame to the more extreme, however the climb out of the gorge is unconvincing and the day-for-night in that scene is very poor quality on the print we saw.

The treatment of the "mountain men" is slightly insulting perhaps, and presages the appalling approach to native south Americans in Boorman's later Emerald Forest (a one star movie) - but on the other hand the story is being told from the perspective of the city boys who, apart from Lewis, have no empathy for other ways of life. And the cars did get delivered as Lewis said they would be.

I had completely forgotten the ending in the doomed town, which is nicely ambiguous, although what happened to Lewis and Bobby immediately after is not shown as Ed awakes screaming from a nightmare.

Morally it is not clear to me why Drew is the one who died, since he was the one wanting to report the death of the first mountain man, was possibly the least guilty of any of them of doing any harm, and had achieved a connection with the banjo player. It should have been Lewis - which would have led to a more interesting dynamic between the three survivors as the power relations re-aligned.

What a brilliant Mayor

This is a documentary that doesn't take an explicit stance towards its subject, rather it sits back and lets us observe what is going on and reach our own conclusions.

Two big surprises for me - one was to see Ramallah as very much a modern city, and very multi-cultural. And secondly to see in practice that there is a thriving Christian community in Palestine, and the elected mayor is a himself a Christian. It is far from all about towel-headed hot-heads and burnt out buildings. 

Musa comes across as a charming and dedicated public servant. The wider politics underpins everything even as he is dealing with random fires and sewage leaks - Palestine is a virtual state imprisoned by an apartheid regime, and Ramallah is a city that is surrounded by illegal foreign settlers who have stolen the land under protection of the occupying force; an occupying force that regularly enters the city uninvited to spread terror and disruption.

He was very clear in his exposition to a visiting German Parliamentary delegation as to exactly why it as not yet appropriate for them to try and promote grass-roots contact between the conflicted communities. Prince William's visit went much better, although the Palestinians well recognised that the English Royal Family doesn't do politics - so what's the point! 

Overall this was a very welcome different look at life in Palestine, and should be widely seen as it helps build an understanding of the terrible nature of the illegal Israeli actions. 

It Rings True

Although it is quite short (or possibly because of that as the others all have scenes that go on far too long), this is the most satisfying of the Small Axe set. 

Again dealing with a true story, it unfolds Alex's background in a way that enables us to both understand where and why he is what he is in 1981, and see the seeds of what he is to become after the film ends.

The milieu is convincing, the arrival of young Alex ("I'm from Surrey" when asked where in Africa he is from by his new radical mates) in wide-eyed amazement in Brixton is a treat.

The 1981 riots are not treated in any detail, more as background to Alex's story - that would have been a different film hose core theme was already covered in Mangrove.