Apparitions
Apparitions (first episode last night, BBC1, 9pm) was very good, I thought. It's a supernatural drama starring Martin Shaw, who plays a Catholic priest who ends up doing exorcisms. I realise that makes it sound corny, but I thought it was nicely done - the assumed reality of demons to propel the plot didn't seem problematic at all to me (why should it be, given that it's fiction?), and I didn't really think the 'controversial' aspects were at all harmful.
At the heart of it, there's a lovely emphasis on old-fashioned story-telling. None of the new-fangled shaky camera stuff, no difficult-to-accept new concepts of plor revelation, no horror-shyness. Just a nice central good vs. evil morality, conveyed through largely sympathetic characters (though the nun is driving me mad at the moment), with some genuinely scary bits made realistic by the clear portrayal of what demons are like and what they do.
I have to say, I'm linguistically impressed too! We got some Italian at the beginning, then an Indian language that I didn't pin down because I don't know them very well (whatever they speak in Calcutta? do they speak Hindi generally there? it didn't sound especially like Hindi, but then it was quite fast), and also whatever language it is that demons seem to speak when given a choice (I'm assuming that was Hebrew, but again am completely incompetent at recognising it when spoken, though I'd recognise it on paper of course). I wonder how demons know so many languages... Actually, I wonder how priests know so many languages too...
I suppose I should comment on how fair a representation of the Catholic Church I thought it was - very good, I'd say. There was the clash between tradition (acceptance of the existence of demons, lack of acceptance of homosexuals who want to become priests, grand old architecture) and the new wave (questioning what is and isn't accepted, e-mails, phone exorcisms[1]), and that is very true to the UK Catholic Church (though in my experience this has usually manifested itself in priests playing guitars, but then we had some trendy priests visiting our school![2]). These two opposites were expressed nicely in the Chief Exorcist and the trendy nun respectively. I also liked the idea of sanctuary being played with - on the one hand the gates of the seminary (or whatever it was) were a great visual barrier that the possessed guy didn't manage to pass; on the other, we saw a demonic presence manifesting itself in the chapel itself in the mind of Vimel (did I spell that right?).
Now then, the contoversy. I didn't think it was very controversial. Firstly, there's the issue of homosexuality, and the way they presented the Catholic Church's problems with this issue was realistic, if not terribly sensitive (in that we saw demons taking hold of the issue and using it to torment poor Vimel). Secondly, there was the paedophilia issue - the possessed man was going to sexually assault his young daughter because he was possessed, which I think people were worried about because it somewhat absolves the man from the crime if you imply that the demon was responsible for it. The reason I don't think this was controversial is that they didn't at all imply that all paedophiles are possessed by demons[3] (even paedophiles might have been offended by that) - they just presented one particular demon (well, in some cases it seemed to be plural, as in 'legion' I suppose) who was on a campaign to weaken Father Jacob's (MS) resolve (so that he wouldn't become Chief Exorcist) by getting at young, innocent people. So far, so fantastic - I'm just not offended, and rather enjoyed the way the plot ran.
The effects were great too - no rotating heads, no ectoplasm, just strange voices and super strength and so on. The exorcisms were quite chilling because of the acting and the writing, and were helped along by a certain darkness to the whole thing - though, I should note, a darkness that didn't have the side-effect of making it difficult to see what was happening (a common complaint of mine for 'dark' film and television).
Finally, I'm sure some DDs[4] will be reading this, and they'll be glad to hear (or will probably already know) that MS looked fantastic in this. The beard really suits him. Actually, this is the most he's reminded me of Doyle in a long time - the twang in his accent is still there, he sat on desks, he was nice to people... all in a very Doyle sort of way. Lovely.
Watch it, it's good.
[1] Yes, seriously.
[2] Should say for people who don't know - I was raised Catholic, went to a Catholic school and continue to believe in God and accept Catholicism's main tenets in all but a few areas - including the homosexuality problem, because my personal take on that is that a) I have doubts about 'sacred texts' like the Bible (it's a hazard of my profession!) and so don't have any problem with dismissing an argument from the Bible and so *do* think God embraces rather than condemns homosexuals, and b) priests take a vow of celibacy, so what does it matter what their sexual tendencies are?
[3] Though an argument against paedophilia that it's 'evil' isn't exactly uncommon, of course - but that's a phrase, not an implication that a third party is responsible for it.
[4] Professionals technical term!
At the heart of it, there's a lovely emphasis on old-fashioned story-telling. None of the new-fangled shaky camera stuff, no difficult-to-accept new concepts of plor revelation, no horror-shyness. Just a nice central good vs. evil morality, conveyed through largely sympathetic characters (though the nun is driving me mad at the moment), with some genuinely scary bits made realistic by the clear portrayal of what demons are like and what they do.
I have to say, I'm linguistically impressed too! We got some Italian at the beginning, then an Indian language that I didn't pin down because I don't know them very well (whatever they speak in Calcutta? do they speak Hindi generally there? it didn't sound especially like Hindi, but then it was quite fast), and also whatever language it is that demons seem to speak when given a choice (I'm assuming that was Hebrew, but again am completely incompetent at recognising it when spoken, though I'd recognise it on paper of course). I wonder how demons know so many languages... Actually, I wonder how priests know so many languages too...
I suppose I should comment on how fair a representation of the Catholic Church I thought it was - very good, I'd say. There was the clash between tradition (acceptance of the existence of demons, lack of acceptance of homosexuals who want to become priests, grand old architecture) and the new wave (questioning what is and isn't accepted, e-mails, phone exorcisms[1]), and that is very true to the UK Catholic Church (though in my experience this has usually manifested itself in priests playing guitars, but then we had some trendy priests visiting our school![2]). These two opposites were expressed nicely in the Chief Exorcist and the trendy nun respectively. I also liked the idea of sanctuary being played with - on the one hand the gates of the seminary (or whatever it was) were a great visual barrier that the possessed guy didn't manage to pass; on the other, we saw a demonic presence manifesting itself in the chapel itself in the mind of Vimel (did I spell that right?).
Now then, the contoversy. I didn't think it was very controversial. Firstly, there's the issue of homosexuality, and the way they presented the Catholic Church's problems with this issue was realistic, if not terribly sensitive (in that we saw demons taking hold of the issue and using it to torment poor Vimel). Secondly, there was the paedophilia issue - the possessed man was going to sexually assault his young daughter because he was possessed, which I think people were worried about because it somewhat absolves the man from the crime if you imply that the demon was responsible for it. The reason I don't think this was controversial is that they didn't at all imply that all paedophiles are possessed by demons[3] (even paedophiles might have been offended by that) - they just presented one particular demon (well, in some cases it seemed to be plural, as in 'legion' I suppose) who was on a campaign to weaken Father Jacob's (MS) resolve (so that he wouldn't become Chief Exorcist) by getting at young, innocent people. So far, so fantastic - I'm just not offended, and rather enjoyed the way the plot ran.
The effects were great too - no rotating heads, no ectoplasm, just strange voices and super strength and so on. The exorcisms were quite chilling because of the acting and the writing, and were helped along by a certain darkness to the whole thing - though, I should note, a darkness that didn't have the side-effect of making it difficult to see what was happening (a common complaint of mine for 'dark' film and television).
Finally, I'm sure some DDs[4] will be reading this, and they'll be glad to hear (or will probably already know) that MS looked fantastic in this. The beard really suits him. Actually, this is the most he's reminded me of Doyle in a long time - the twang in his accent is still there, he sat on desks, he was nice to people... all in a very Doyle sort of way. Lovely.
Watch it, it's good.
[1] Yes, seriously.
[2] Should say for people who don't know - I was raised Catholic, went to a Catholic school and continue to believe in God and accept Catholicism's main tenets in all but a few areas - including the homosexuality problem, because my personal take on that is that a) I have doubts about 'sacred texts' like the Bible (it's a hazard of my profession!) and so don't have any problem with dismissing an argument from the Bible and so *do* think God embraces rather than condemns homosexuals, and b) priests take a vow of celibacy, so what does it matter what their sexual tendencies are?
[3] Though an argument against paedophilia that it's 'evil' isn't exactly uncommon, of course - but that's a phrase, not an implication that a third party is responsible for it.
[4] Professionals technical term!