In Profile - John Pilger

It's mid-December and for the last two or three weeks I have been binging on the filmography of the legendary journalist John Pilger, chomping through his films as though they were laid out as a buffet of issues. The problem is that I've begun to suffer from an indigestion of invectives, stemming my appetite somewhat for the rich and delectable array of hard-hitting reportage and moral positioning.


Watching Pilger's numerous documentaries in chronological order over a short period of time is indeed a curious experience; you can't help but feel bonded to him in some way as he ages gradually, developing trust in his standpoints and journalistic credibility, and almost mentally preempting and tracing out his particular lines of inquiry.  

You come to revel in his trademark onscreen book-ending of his films, taking the moral sledgehammer approach to any feasible opposition, often becoming increasingly animated with bile as the words of scorn scramble to cohere into reasoned argument, his head jolting from one side to the other like an angry teacher lecturing a disobedient classroom.

I think the heightened sense of identity with Pilger is evidence of the anemic state of contemporary journalism in terms of distinct individual voices. He is representative of a by-gone age when maverick journalists had, not only the editorial freedom, but the investment to travel the world and seemingly stop at nothing to root out a story, of which its hard not to find oneself lamenting. Journalist integrity has been fractured by hacking scandals, propagandising, paparazzi 'scoops' and other such events that engender a moral race to the bottom in the hunt for a marketable story.

It is certainly a romantic view, but watching the early documentaries it is clear that Pilger was positioning himself as the archetypal pioneering and principled journalist; tall and handsome with his Ozzie tan, always pursuing a fresh adventure, he calls to my mind almost a real-life Tintin figure (minus the quiff and little dog). Pilger managed to secure an independent name for himself in the late-60s working as a foreign correspondent for the Daily Mirror (back when it was largely issues-led rather than the tabloid chip-shop-paper-in-waiting).

His breakthrough was in 1970 with 'The Quiet Mutiny', focusing on the discontent and demoralisation festering like a dry rot through the ranks of American GIs serving in Vietnam. It is a fascinating portrayal of the stultifying life in the field, as the illusions of the war gradually melt away from before the new recruits' - or 'grunts' - naive eyes. "Hey man", one of them says, "how come TV doesn't show how boring this war is?"

The turmoil in Indochina would continue to fuel Pilger's investigative ire in 'Vietnam: Still America's War' (1974) and 'Do You Remember Vietnam?' (1978) before shifting to the heinous horrors of Cambodia in the groundbreaking 'Year Zero: The Silent Death of Cambodia' (1979) in which he mourns the once vibrant and prosperous city of Phnom Penh.

Foreign warzones aside though, Pilger honed his stentorian craft through a series of documentaries in the 1970s that were rooted in more domestic affairs. These addressed a spectrum of blinding injustices, from the forgotten victims of thalidomide; the penal remand system; the integration of 
black families into British communities; to mentally ill children abandoned in Victorian-era asylums.

His detractors, including Christopher Hitchens, have tried to skewer him with the rapier of anti-Americanism, in the same way as people have tried to discredit the likes of Noam Chomsky. Indeed, it is hard to deny that Pilger approaches the United States with something of a pre-fabricated agenda, but it is my belief that this is only natural given the scale of influence, positive and negative, that America exerts. However late you may be, once you fall head first into the rabbit warren of US (and British) foreign policy there is no way of climbing out again with naive preconceptions intact.

That's not to say that despite his earnest nature Pilger doesn't occasionally register the humorous irony; in 'Burp! The New Cold War' (1984) he delivers the brilliant summary, "just imagine how popular God would have been if only his image people had come up with a slogan like 'it's the real thing...' He might even have been as popular as Coca-Cola". Or in 'Mr. Nixon's Secret Legacy' (1975) when interviewing the new missilers of an American nuclear base launch capsule, the men sat guarding the red button itself. Probing as to the reason for them both being armed, they stutter and admit to it being in case the other attempts to break protocol (i.e. launch the bomb). The Dr. Strangelove-esque absurdity is overwhelming.

Beyond this though, Pilger clearly subscribes to the ethos of H.L. Mencken, who stated that the raison d'être of journalism was to 'comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable'. Nowhere is this more evident than in his strident tone reporting on the 1975 Bangladeshi famine in 'An Unfashionable Tragedy'; the plight of East Timor in 'Death of a Nation' (1994); or the injustices meted out to the indigenous people's of the Chagos Islands, robbed of their homeland by the British government who sold it to become the largest US military base (in 'Stealing a Nation', 2004).

It is on the subject of imperial hegemonies imposing their colonial will on the indigenous populations, often with little to no recourse to justice, that Pilger has excelled in documenting. Over the last decade this has manifested itself in 'The War on Democracy' (2007), an excellent study of Venezuela's socialist renaissance under Hugo Chavez; and 2013's 'Utopia', in which the shocking and abysmal treatment of the Australian Aboriginal communities (amounting to what he concludes is equivalent to apartheid) is exposed to the full glare of Pilger's forensic scorn.

Always an adept and surprisingly restrained interviewer, by 'Utopia' Pilger's interview technique has become honed to that of the predatory polar bear smashing the cold floor to expose a vulnerable seal on a swiftly shrinking catafalque of ice. 

As the Australian Minister of Indigenous People's tries to emphasise his pride at the negligible gains made by his policies, Pilger tosses overboard his fraying guy ropes from the shore of neutrality by reminding him that he has been in office for 23 years - "how can you possibly be proud of your record?!"

Naturally, this type of approach has attracted notable criticism; in particular, the coining of the term 'pilgerize' - 'to present information in a sensationalist manner to reach a foregone conclusion'. Noam Chomsky came to Pilger's defence, stating that the term 'was invented by journalists furious about his incisive and courageous reporting, and knowing that the only response they are capable of is ridicule'.

Indeed, Pilger himself has acknowledged his alleged one-sidedness by saying that sometimes there really is only one side worth bothering about. In the vast majority of his film work this qualification would probably apply; justifiably in my view considering the many apologisers for tyranny, aggression and oppressive regimes that clog the arteries of mainstream media platforms.

Although their targets are often the same, Chomsky adopts the technique of an aged and wise watchmender, carefully scrutinising with his loup the intricate gears and mechanisms of hypocrisy and malfeasance. Pilger's approach is more often than not to take a mallet to the watch itself.

Now 75, Pilger is still going strong, actively supporting the Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and planning a new documentary film focussing on the American 'pivot' towards China with the danger of inciting a new Cold War. Whilst his modes and methods might deter some, I firmly subscribe to the view of BBC World Affairs Editor John Simpson, that 'a country that does not have a John Pilger in its journalism is a very feeble place indeed.'

One can only hope that whilst Pilger might be symbolic of a now-outmoded journalistic age, the kind of rigorous investigation and truth-seeking that he propagated hasn't been bleached clean from the profession entirely; for where there is continual abuse and exploitation of power we need people like Pilger to be unflinching in holding it up before our eyes.

'The Interview' story - American hypocrisy towards North Korea

 

 

What better way to draw 2014 to a close than an international news story that positively bristles with hypocrisy and propagandising on an incendiary scale?  I refer to the decision taken by Sony Pictures to withdraw the distribution of a new comedy film ‘The Interview’ (starring Seth Rogan and James Franco) in the wake of a cyberattack by forces attributed by the FBI to come from North Korea, that hacked into Hollywood emails and threatened terrorist action were the film to be released.

In the wake of this story, the tone has been almost unilaterally apoplectic on the part of the US, with President Obama himself castigating Sony for their spineless backing-down under the threats from terrorists, and the likes of George Clooney extemporising over the very serious threat to freedom of speech that such a terrible precedent has enshrined. 

Far from being a dire and doom-laden constitutional threat, with just a modicum of deeper investigation and contextualising, it is possible to expose the hysterical chest-beating on the part of America’s liberal elite to be little more than arrogant short-sightedness, and a wilful ignorance of America’s culpability when it comes to North Korea’s status in the world.

 

 

 

Shortly after the Sony decision to withdraw their support for ‘The Interview’ (a film in which two journalists are sent by the CIA to assassinate Kim-Jong Un), Obama trotted out his trademark rhetoric about how “we can’t have a society in which some dictator someplace can start imposing censorship here in the United States”.  He also offered vague yet suitably ominous noises about how “they caused a lot of damage and we will respond proportionately and in a place and time we choose”.

 

Before examining the recent history between America and North Korea, it’s worth placing this story within the context of other recent developments, to realise just what a useful distraction it has been to latch onto. 

For America to pour scorn on North Korea for its attempts to impose censorship on an American film, is it not the most striking hypocrisy that this story emerged barely a week after the US released a heavily censored report damning the CIA for its collusion with the US military-industrial complex in instigating depraved and illegal acts of torture, rendition and incarceration without due process?  The report had taken years to emerge, with Obama trying to suppress its release on woolly grounds of ‘national security’, and in the end only around 400 pages surfaced out of approximately 6000.

Not only this, but the climate change talks in Lima were concluded with little-to-no positive action having been agreed, negligible (and in some respects, backwards) steps having been made, and a resounding shrug from the international news media.  Why were these far more important developments largely swept aside in favour of ramping up the hyperbole around ‘The Interview’ story?  Quite simple; because it concerned Hollywood – a key constituency amongst America’s elite – and allowed America to play the victim slighted by ‘some dictator someplace’.

It is interesting to note that only a couple of days earlier, in response to the UN Security Council getting set to issue a fresh batch of sanctions targeting North Korea’s ‘human rights abuses’, their UN ambassador Ja Song-Nam had formerly objected to such an inclusion and urged the Council to instead focus on the ‘CIA torture crimes committed by the US, which have been conducted worldwide in the most brutal medieval forms, [and] are the gravest human rights violations in the world.’  America, who utilised simulated drowning and improvised enemas amongst their many procedures, hold the ‘power of veto’ which means that such discussion is most unlikely to materialise.

 

 

 

Freedom of speech and Satire

It is also important to view this story in terms of its implications for freedom of speech and satire as a credible art form.  Those in the film industry have already raised grave concerns about what Sony’s precedent means for future film projects that may now struggle for studio backing.  (The development of a Hollywood thriller ‘Pyongyang’ has indeed been scrapped in recent days.) 

If you take satire, which is a very healthy arbiter in a functioning society, it can be said to truly be effective only if the intended ‘butt of the joke’ holds the higher position.  Jokes at the expense of weaker parties are more often than not distasteful and offensive, and seldom make for good satirical comedy.  If you take ‘Team America’, the reason the film is such a successful satire is because the overriding butt of the joke is America’s hubristic hegemonic ambitions as a ‘world police force’, depicted as a blundering military complex that smashes its way around the world with scant concern for anyone else.

I cannot comment on the intended satirical target in the case of ‘The Interview’, but if the nature of the film is the implied or explicit ridiculing of North Korea as a country, then such a threatening riposte must surely have been anticipated.  And if the film is a more sensitive and astute stab at satire, aimed at poking fun at America, then still the studio should have anticipated an inflammatory response and have formulated a plan to counteract it. 

 

Indeed, back in early-July North Korea had lodged a formal protest at the UN against the mooted release of the film, stating that it ‘constitutes the most undisguised sponsoring of terrorism as well as a war action’.  From what can be deduced, this legitimate concern was laughed of and/or ignored, yet the fact of it being made means that Sony should been well aware of the adverse reaction that was to come.

 

Free speech and the ability to ridicule power figures are absolutely integral tenets of the creative industries, and yet sensitivities must be appreciated and accounted for.  For instance, Salman Rushdie’s right to release ‘The Satanic Verses’ must rightly be defended, and yet when it involves highly provocative material likely to inflame religious or cultural sensitivities, there is a duty to fully expect a reaction, however unjustified or overblown it may be.

Many in recent days have drawn the comparison with Charlie Chaplin’s classic satire on Nazi Germany ‘The Great Dictator’.  And yet, the comparison and legacy of this film is not quite so straight-forward. 

 

 

 

 

It is worth noting that during the production of the film, the British government stated their intention to censor its release, since at the time they were still avidly appeasing Hitler’s regime.  By the time of the film’s release war had been declared and the film was gleefully promoted as propaganda against the tyrannical despot that the Allies were mobilising against.  After the war had ended and the full horrors of the Holocaust became known, Chaplin himself said that had he known of such atrocities, he would never have made the film.  Similarly, with Monty Python’s ‘Life of Brian’, a highly controversial film that was released to great opposition from those it purported to satirise; in this case the hierarchical forms of organised religion, a powerful and influential establishment body, and therefore a legitimate target.

America's legacy in North Korea

I would contend that given the 20^th-century’s history of American atrocities and continued provocation towards North Korea, the country (i.e. its innocent civilians), should be handled with sensitivity and empathy, rather than treated as a legitimate target for ridicule and demonization.  Because when you examine America’s record in North Korea with some objectivity, you begin to understand why a film like ‘The Interview’ might justifiably have been seen as profoundly insulting.

 

 

 

The Korean War of the early-1950s was intended by the US to ‘roll back Communism’ in the region, just as they would go on to attempt in South-east Asia and throughout the Cold War.  As the Korean War unfolded, the US officially adopted the policy of ‘destruction’ of North Korea, with atrocities that are as staggering as they are now largely forgotten.  Despite adopting policies of tacit support for despotic tyrants throughout the world, the US adopted an aggressive stance towards North Korea because it had overthrown capitalist rule and adopted a warped Stalinist socialism based on an extreme ‘personality cult’ in the form of their Dear Leader.

After WWII, the US-backed South Korean forces embarked on a brutal programme of communist repression, with several hundred-thousand suspects summarily tortured and executed whilst America stood by.  But this was only the beginning of the horrors meted out on the country by the US military, that set about carpet-bombing virtually every North Korean city under the aegis of ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’.  The capital Pyongyang was almost completely levelled by US bombing.  By dropping tons of napalm, executing thousands of refugees (in massacres like No Gun Ri), and deliberately targeting civilian hubs, the US exterminated one-fifth of the entire North Korean population (approximately 1.5 million people), something the Pentagon went about suppressing and denying for decades thereafter.

 

 

 

Not only this, but when there were no targets left for the US Air Force in their ‘object lesson in air power to Communists worldwide’, they were sent to destroy irrigation dams that wiped out 75% of the controlled rice production supply of North Korea; a heinous crime that consigned many more to years of poverty, malnutrition and starvation.

But even these events pale in comparison when you consider the plans of US Commander General McArthur who oversaw the war.  In 1950, he made a formal request to President Truman for 38 atomic bombs which he proposed should be employed to render North Korea completely uninhabitable, a wasteland of contamination that would emphasise American strength and dominance to the Soviet Union and communism in general.  In light of this planned genocide, suddenly the indignant American response to ‘The Interview’ looks decidedly vulgar.

 

 

After the 1953 armistice, however, the tangible American threat did not dissipate.  Thousands of US troops have been stationed in South Korea ever since, and during the Nixon administration nuclear warheads were regularly primed on a '15-minute warning’ aimed straight at North Korea as an explicit threat of action.  Indeed, over recent decades North Korea has made several credible attempts to integrate with the international community; attempts that have been vetoed and spoiled by the US who have preferred to maintain a policy of provocation and propaganda.

For instance, in 1993 Israel was poised to strike a deal with North Korea to end missile exports to the Middle East in return for diplomatic recognition.  Lo and behold, America leaned heavily on Israel to call off the deal and dutifully they adhered to their paymasters’ demands.  In retaliation, North Korea carried out its first test of a medium-range missile.

Post-9/11, President Bush began touting his war against the ‘axis of evil’, in which he had firmly placed North Korea.  Due to the fact that North Korea offered little in the way of natural resources, Iraq was the nation prioritised for invasion. 

 

 

 

 

As Noam Chomsky wrote about the imminent 2003 invasion - ‘right now, Washington is teaching the world a very ugly and dangerous lesson: if you want to defend yourself from us, you had better mimic North Korea and pose a credible military threat.  Otherwise we will demolish you.’ 

 

Subsequent efforts at installing non-aggression pacts and removing economic sanctions on the part of America were all routinely scuppered by the Bush administration, whilst (as it did in China and Russia) provoking North Korea into renewed development of their nuclear arsenal as a defensive measure against facing Iraq-style invasion.

Still this response persists.  Upon his accession to power, Kim-Jong Un called for an end to confrontation between the North and South, inspiring hopes that frosty relations between the two nations may be beginning to thaw.  Yet in response to the launch of a satellite into orbit earlier that year, the UN Security Council issued more sanctions about North Korea, to which the predictably riled response was to threaten further missile tests and attacks on America.  All of this makes North Korea an increasingly difficult dilemma for America, who cannot abide the prospect of them forging closer ties with the rest of Asia and in the process becoming an increasingly powerful player in the global economy over which the US fear they will have little influence.

 

 

 

I am making no attempts to apologise for the regime in North Korea, which is undeniably a tyrannical force that seeks to brainwash civilians and suppress their rights as citizens.  And yet, reports document slowly improving conditions in the country, and a gradual awareness on the part of citizens of how to influence and shape their own lives.  I

 

n 2013, The Economist wrote of civilians increasingly relying on word-of-mouth and imported Western media, as well as a burgeoning ‘private market’ in which goods proliferate without regulation, helping to satiate growing materialism amongst the populace.  There are reports of a growing ‘nouveau riche’ who openly flaunt their wealth and who may prove to be a threat to the stability of the status quo, as inequalities become evermore visible.

With all of this in mind, it would seem that the most respectful attitude that America (and the West in general) could adopt when it comes to North Korea is to leave it alone.  In time, the civilian population will grow strong and engaged enough to call for significant regime change, in the guise of revolution or gradual modernisation away from the deranged contortion of socialism that holds sway there.  All America can do is try and encourage the leaders in from the cold, attempt a benign form of engagement and cooperation, acknowledging the dreadful wrongs inflicted on them in the past, and offering to help expand their country in positive ways, rather than inciting the build-up of arms defences.

Taking all this into consideration, suddenly it is difficult to have much sympathy with those ‘victims of censorship’ in their gilded towers nestled in the Hollywood Hills.  Because of course, free speech and satire are vitally important; but, as with any joke, there is a duty of sensitivity and compassion that must be exercised on the part of those telling the joke towards their intended target.  When it comes to American aggression, continual ridicule, the rhetoric of Obama and the ominous threats of a ‘response’, quite reasonably on the part of North Korea, that joke isn’t funny anymore.

Top 10 Films of the Year

In compiling this list I have decided to include films that may have been released internationally in 2013 but which I saw upon their release in UK cinemas in 2014.

10. 'Her' (Spike Jonze)

Spike Jonze's 'Her' is a compelling depiction of a near-future in which human relations have become fragmented and challenged by the development of 'sophisticated software' that has the faculties to emote and provide some kind of companionship for the lonely and disaffected in a digital world.

Whilst its premise may be contentious, there are certainly societal trends manifestly unfolding that render 'Her' a useful extrapolation of possibilities. For a film ostensibly about a man falling in love with his computer system, I found it rather affecting and an interesting view of where technology may be heading.


9. 'Calvary' (John Michael McDonagh)

Despite its flaws, 'Calvary' is a very worthwhile watch, in that it escalates tension to a satisfying conclusion and cleverly examines the resilient faith and conviction in the Stoic individual when all that seems to surround him is a cumulus of apostasy.

Read my full review of 'Calvary' here.


8. 'Blue Ruin' (Jeremy Saulnier)

A low-budget, independent American film, 'Blue Ruin' is a taut and effective revenge thriller with little in the way of genre pretensions to keep it from seeming either fresh or involving. It attempts to take the Peckinpah vigilante drama, as in 'Straw Dogs', and push it into oft-unexplored recesses of motive and retribution.


7. 'Norte - the End of the History' (Lav Diaz)

Lav Diaz's 'Norte' is a film that requires perseverance and patience; many shots linger interminably (despite the cinematography being constantly wonderful), and many scenes appear to languish unnecessarily; but the overall impact is of a sprawling, novelistic investigation into the lives and fates of two disparate men woven together by the strands of situation and circumstance.

Read my full review here.


6. '12 Years a Slave' (Steve McQueen)

It would be a stubborn philistine who managed to come away from Steve McQueen’s adaptation of Solomon Northrup’s harrowing autobiography without feeling some degree of emotional turmoil, and there are few films that really do demand mandatory viewing. The performances are outstanding and the overall handling of the subject is very well achieved.

 

At times I felt that McQueen’s direction was in danger of skirting over the line into the realm of gratuitousness, instead of maintaining a cold, affectless and ‘observer’ eye. Nevertheless, '12 Years a Slave’ is one of the hardest-hitting films of the year and certainly one of the most essential.

5. 'Two Days One Night' (Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne)

As a portrait of resilience amidst despair and self-belief amidst doubt, 'Two Days, One Night' is an engrossing and affecting story about one woman facing redundancy unless she can convince her fellow colleagues to stand in solidarity and support her. As an example of natural realism it is reminiscent of 'Bicycle Thieves' in its instilling of justice and dignity in work, along with the assortment of ordinary people with their principles, convictions and foibles.


4. 'Citizenfour' (Laura Poitras) (documentary)

Set almost entirely within the claustrophobic confines of a high rise Hong Kong hotel room, as a unique insight into the life and circumstance of a man surrendering his life as he knows it for a principled cause, ‘Citizenfour’ is easily the most important documentary film of the year, if not the decade.

Read my full review here.


3. 'Boyhood' (Richard Linklater)

Richard Linklater’s ‘Boyhood’, 12 years in the making, is one of the most life-affirming films I have seen in a long time.  It is thoroughly well-observed, poignant and tense in all the right places and succeeds in pretty conclusively cordoning off the coming-of-age film as unsurpassable territory for quite some time.

2. 'Blue is the Warmest Colour' (Abdellatif Kechiche)

I can scarcely think of another film I've seen that captured so accurately the exhilarating high of falling in love, and the suffocating low of subsequent loss.

Read my full review here.


1.  'Under the Skin' (Jonathan Glazer)

Scarlett Johansson is superb in this bizarre and disturbing depiction of alienation and separation, an examination of the void that permeates between our sensibilities and emotional attachments. 'Under the Skin' is almost impossible to categorize, slithering as it does from one stylistic trope to another like an only slightly more restrained David Lynch film. From the homage to Kubrick in the opening 'birth' sequence onwards, the film presents a delightfully ambiguous commentary on modern society, exploring the vacuity of existence, the struggle to relate and the pervading sense of feeling decidedly 'other'.

Top 10 Albums of the Year

2014 has been a rich harvest for exciting music and in compiling this Top 10 there were several very decent albums that I had to ruthlessly shunt downwards.

The Tune-Yards album 'Nikki Nack' was characteristically and delightfully deranged; Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross released another captivating ambient soundtrack for 'Gone Girl'; Manic Street Preachers released 'Futurology', their most consistently strong effort in a number of years; Aphex Twin made a triumphant return after 14 years with 'Syro' (although I actually preferred the long-awaited 'Caustic Window LP'); The Brian Jonestown Massacre released another solid album 'Revelation'; Esben & the Witch's 'A New Nature' was a welcome return to their gothic form after their dreary second album; and Goat followed up their raucously brilliant debut 'World Music' with 'Commune'.

As my interest in guitar-rock bands has continued to atrophy over the last few years, there were 2 albums this year that really piqued my interest - The Amazing Snakeheads' 'Amphetamine Ballads' and Royal Blood's self-titled debut, both demonstrating that it is still possible to inject some supple aggression into the rigor mortis of contemporary rock music.


10.  Liars - 'Mess'

Right from its bizarre opening, being instructed to "pull my face off!", 'Mess' is another engaging and surprising album from Liars, a band who orchestrated an astonishing volte face with 'WIXIW' in 2012, shedding their proto-punk roots in favour of an experimental electronic sound more attuned to someone like LCD Soundsystem. This is one of those albums that rewards repeat listening, unveiling more subtleties and nuances over time.

Highlight: 'Mess on a Mission'


9.  Little Dragon - 'Nabuma Rubberband'

This fourth album from Swedish electronic act Little Dragon is beguiling and minimalist; an intriguing fusion of Portishead-style trip-hop with down-tempo drum-and-synth sounds clearly inspired by Massive Attack. Instead of leaning on these 1990s influences as a crutch, they only serve to enrich the album, envigorating it with a completely fresh appeal.

Highlight: 'Klapp Klapp'

8.  Damien Rice - 'My Favourite Faded Fantasy'

Damien Rice had, before the surprise October release of his third album, been for many a curiously frustrating enigma. After '9' in 2006 he seemed to have retreated to an almost hermetic hush, performing live infrequently and publicly proclaiming a new-found antipathy to the art of song-writing itself. The pleasure to be gained from 'My Favourite Faded Fantasy', and the fact that Rice's ability to craft haunting and plaintive odes to lost love and introspection remains undiminished, is substantial. Whilst overall there is nothing as timelessly classic as his debut 'O', the album contains several worthy gems that reinstate Rice as one of the most gifted singer-songwriters of his generation.
Highlight: 'I Don't Want To Change You'


7.  Mark McGuire - 'Along the Way'

Formerly of the band Emeralds, Mark McGuire's 'Along the Way' is a beautiful and enchanting collection of soundscapes that drift and float through the consciousness with metaphysical ease. Largely instrumental, the electronic-acoustic album takes influence from the ambient work of Brian Eno, Boards of Canada and Bonobo, with shimmering guitarwork reminiscent of U2's The Edge.
Highlight: 'For the Friendships (Along the Way)'


6.  Lana Del Rey - 'Ultraviolence'

As a mysterious, sensual and nihilistic siren, Lana Del Rey continues to inspire intrigue in me. With her follow-up to the magnificent 'Born to Die', 'Ultraviolence' treads a lot of the same aesthetic pathways but doesn't feel derivative for this, rather a well-accomplished companion piece. The songs are drenched in the kind of Los Angeles vainglorious debauchery of a Bret Easton Ellis novel, louche and alluring, with Del Rey's ethereal and seductive vocals scorched by bourbon, marijuana and lost summer nights.
Highlight: 'Brooklyn Baby'


5.  Robert Plant & the Sensational Space-Shifters - 'lullaby... and the Ceaseless Roar'

The 'Golden God' of rock n' roll, Robert Plant continues his solo expedition through musical hinterlands, a persistent and restless quest for fresh textures and tones that seems to infuse him with an almost ageless quality. Drawing from African worldbeat, American folk and blues, and European trip-hop, 'lullaby...' is a thoroughly enjoyable album, equally as vibrant and joyful as his previous album with the same gang of musicians 'Mighty Rearranger' in 2005. Whilst 'Rainbow' soars almost weightlessly, 'A Stolen Kiss' is a forlorn love song that displays Plant at his most vulnerable and revealing. With the media whipping up rumours of Led Zeppelin reformations almost by the week, it is hard to imagine Plant being tempted by such a regressive step again, given that the standard of his solo material remains as strong and as searching as this.
Highlight: 'Somebody There'


4.  Mica Levi - 'Under the Skin (OST)'

Jonathan Glazer's wonderful and disturbing film 'Under the Skin' was enforced beyond all measure by Mica Levi's utterly haunting score. With numerous refrains and repetitive passages, the overall effect is as otherworldly and inorganic as the film itself. String loops and deadened echo-beats amplify the overriding sense of unease and disorientation that permeates through the visuals, and succeeds in being one of the most fascinating soundtracks of recent years.
Highlight: 'Lipstick to Void'


3.  I Break Horses - 'Chiaroscuro'

Like a modern psychedelic mash of The Velvet Underground, the shoegaze of My Bloody Valentine and the bright indie-electro of M83, I Break Horses' 'Chiaroscuro' manages to exceed the expectations set by their debut 'Hearts' and stand out as being an atmospheric and hypnotic success.

Opening with the enchanting 'You Burn', the album undulates throughout with sumptuous rhythms and synth orchestrations. With only two albums behind them, I Break Horses are the band whose future I am perhaps most excited about.
Highlight: 'Weigh True Words'


2.  U2 - 'Songs of Innocence'

Perhaps the most controversial and talked-about album of the year (a remarkable achievement in itself for a band as established as U2), 'Songs of Innocence' is an album that richly rewards repeated listens, and for me stands up sturdily alongside their very finest work.  The album fails to accomplish the cohesiveness that made 'The Unforgettable Fire', 'The Joshua Tree' or 'Achtung Baby' such complete albums, the second half is noticeably more interesting and engaging than the more predictable first.

Having jettisoned their long-time production team of Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, Brian 'Dangermouse' Burton provides the band with a fresh and energised sheen that gives the impression that this could almost be a new band's debut album. As a band now approaching 40 years together, with this their 13th studio album, U2 have long been left to roam in uncharted musical territory, loved and loathed in equal measure, yet continuing to defy the legions of critics, explore new territory and simply craft great songs. 
Highlight: 'Sleep Like a Baby Tonight'


1.  Swans - 'To Be Kind'

 

 

Originating back in the New York 'no wave' scene of the early 1980s, Swans (led by multi-instrumentalist Michael Gira) are a formidable and explosive experimental-rock outfit that I have had the pleasure of discovering over the last year. This double-album begins with the monumental 'Screen Shot', and a more devastating opening is scarcely imaginable; the intermeshing guitars and propulsive rhythm section building higher and higher until the volcanic eruption of noise.

 

The centre-piece, 'Bring the Sun/Toussaint L'Ouverture' is a colossal 34-minute epic of sense-shattering industrial noise alternating with spell-binding and soporific stretches of menacing ambience punctuated by Gira's snarling and brooding vocals. The overall impression is of a band operating at the very height of their powers, conjuring sounds that are as mind-crushing and intense as they are consistently surprising.  A masterpiece of an album.

Highlight: 'Screen Shot' 



'Citizenfour' - Edward Snowden, NSA, GCHQ and the death of privacy

There’s a moment about midway through Laura Poitras’ ‘Citizenfour’ which is loaded with such dramatic potency that by comparison any fictional thriller released this year is left looking like hyperventilating melodrama.  It comes as whistleblower Edward Snowden has just revealed himself as the public face of the scandalous intelligence leaks from the NSA and GCHQ. 

 

He stands tentatively gazing out of his hotel window at the Hong Kong cityscape, the urban arena of absolute anonymity juxtaposed with the fact that Snowden is now one of the most famous faces in the world.  He is the news that is currently breaking.  The camera remains trained on his back as he silently contemplates the ramifications of his actions, realising perhaps for the first time that the plate glass window separating him from the world beyond is now symbolic of the barrier impeding him from ever freely re-joining it.

 

Set almost entirely within the claustrophobic confines of a high rise Hong Kong hotel room, as a unique insight into the life and circumstance of a man surrendering his life as he knows it for a principled cause, ‘Citizenfour’ is easily the most important documentary film of the year, if not the decade. 

Hastily edited and completed in time for the climax of the London Film Festival, the film barely puts a foot wrong in 114 minutes, skating over the surface of such fast-moving events with a prickly nervous adrenaline. It begins with the thin lights of a traffic tunnel sinewing along in rhythm with the bristling static drone of Nine Inch Nails, that appear like the transoms of digital information coursing through cyberspace.  It is a revelatory moment in itself when this mysterious informant steps out from the shadows of his avatar and the cryptic email exchanges between himself and Poitras, and is revealed to be a young, self-assured but slightly edgy American guy  in a hotel room. 

His conviction that his actions are justified and moral is instantly tangible and only gains its legitimacy and strength as the film proceeds. For this is the real Snowden laid bare; eloquent, intelligent and apparently completely unblemished by any egotistical drive for infamy or fame.  The film manages to emphasise the glaring contrast between the very human reality here documented (becoming jittery with paranoia as a hotel fire alarm repeatedly sounds, for instance), and the farcical media portrayals of him being a Chinese and/or Russian spy, and having wantonly exposed swathes of American operatives to immediate danger.

While Poitras remains off-camera, journalists Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill initially seem slightly wary of Snowden, perhaps thinking to themselves that the whistleblower is too good to be true.  Indeed as they begin to trust him and he relates the audacious scale and implication of the intelligence networks, you can detect a definite sense of restrained excitement as though already imagining this to be their ‘Pentagon Papers’, their Woodward & Bernstein moment.  Not that I mean to question their motives, but nevertheless as career journalists you can sense them almost imagining the Pulitzer Prize that The Guardian would go on to win for the story.

 

By the time the film is over, you can’t help but leave the cinema and impulsively want to hurl your mobile phone against the nearest brick wall, or embark on a paranoid frenzy like Gene Hackman at the end of ‘The Conversation’.   The sense of hopelessness in the face of such vast and unaccountable power is palpable and inevitably is what fuels the wilful apathy of the masses to this day.  For what is perhaps the most striking and maddening legacy of the whole affair is the deafening chorus of shrugs that the story was met with.

Amongst my personal peer group, I remember angrily arguing to try and elucidate the outrage and indignation that was crystallised by the leaks, and finding myself outnumbered by the meek rejoinders of “what’s so wrong with it?”, “it’s hardly a revelation”, and (the most infuriatingly ovine) “if you’ve nothing to hide, what does it matter?!”

 

Far from being exceptional, this kind of apologia was the default mentality it seemed of the population at large.  It is telling, I think, of the current societal malaise that exposures can be released of an endemic and indiscriminate surveillance far broader and more pervasive than any Orwellian nightmare, unprecedented in the whole of human history, and, far from the chairs on the deck of the ship being rearranged, they barely seem have been budged at all.

 

James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, delivered a barefaced lie to the Senate Select Committee in March 2013 on the question of NSA’s civilian data collection, and yet astonishingly remains in his job; President Obama having assured him of his full confidence.  Leaks revealed that the NSA and GCHQ have infiltrated the users of World of Warcraft and Angry Birds; that using the crowbar of coercion they have backdoor entry to major internet companies including Facebook, Yahoo and Google; and, perhaps most insidious of all, have developed a programme of ‘Smurf’ apps that enable high-precision geolocation and devices’ microphones to be activated remotely.

The response of governments was telling in its own way. The US government instantly moved to revoke Snowden’s passport and brand him a traitor on the grounds of having threatened national security. In the UK, the government went to the ludicrously draconian lengths of entering the offices of The Guardian and personally overseeing the destruction of laptops and other hardware that might have contained encrypted materials. That they chose to undermine the principle of a free press in this manner as well as detain Greenwald’s partner David Miranda at Heathrow Airport for 9 hours on spurious grounds of carrying sensitive security information illustrates the deluded panic that they had been thrown into by the leaks.

 

In Germany, the response was relatively muted until it was revealed that Angela Merkel’s phone had been placed under surveillance by US intelligence at which point they assumed the mantel of outrage. This is telling because it demonstrates a lack of adequate concern regarding the privacy of civilians, but plenty when it concerns the highest echelons of power (who surely can’t have been that surprised that foreign interests were trying to spy on them?)

Meanwhile, Putin has mooted the idea of cleaving away from the internet and establishing an exclusively Russian alternative devoid of foreign infiltration.

Whatever the long term ramifications, it’s hard not to see this as being the end times for the internet as we know it; an epoch destined to be seen as a brief Eden-like glimmer when information was freely available and largely unmonitored, when the notion of privacy as a citizen of a western state hadn’t become so tattered and threadbare.

 

 

The close of the film shows Greenwald relaying to Snowden the news that a second whistleblower has emerged, inspired by his brave example. He shows him a figure representing the number of people on the US government’s watchlist, currently under surveillance as a potential threat or suspect. The number is a gargantuan 1.2 million.

Regardless of the extent of any additional leaks, that figure tells you everything you need to know about the heightened state of American paranoia that has possessed them since 9-11, resulting in the impinging upon constitutional rights and liberties on a scale that must have so astronomically exceeded Osama Bin Laden and the other terrorist plotters’ wildest dreams.

The multiplier effect of the metadata from one person’s connections to the next allows for a colossal outreach in the agencies’ dragnet. So if you have, say, 200 friends on Facebook, if you are inexplicably labelled as a ‘potential threat’ for some arbitrary reason, that means they can also access those additional 200 people as well (potential ‘accomplices’ perhaps?).

It is depressing to realise that there is so little prospect of change on this issue of data freedom and online privacy. Sadly, it just doesn’t seem to be of pressing concern to western civilians, who are far more easily distracted with the perennial matters of Europe, immigration, the odd political scandal or inquiry, and the constant crisis with the NHS. But be that as it may, it is reassuring to know that people with ethical principles and courage such as Edward Snowden are willing to come forward to enlighten us as to the crooked and pernicious practices of the powers-that-be, and in that spirit ‘Citizenfour’ is a thoroughly worthy celebration.