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The Guardian
26-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘I call it a nihilist western': director Athina Rachel Tsangari on her trippy folk horror Harvest
A hand emerges from sheaves of wheat waving in the wind. Then we see a face, trying to eat moss on a log, and a tongue searching for liquid in rocks. When Caleb Landry Jones (Dogman, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) fully emerges, his blue cape flows like a toga or a Japanese courtier's cape, close mics capturing every tiny sound – and then exhilarating Romanian prog rock kicks in. Harvest has been described as a folk horror film – one that has sharply divided the critics – but its trippy, haunting opening, inspired by Jean-Jacques Rousseau's unfinished book Reveries of the Solitary Walker, introduces something far stranger than that. It's been a 'very personal film' for its genre-hopping Greek new wave director Athina Rachel Tsangari, whose previous work includes an avant garde commentary on Greek society (Attenberg), a twisted male friendship comedy (Chevalier) and a BBC Two series about a throuple (Trigonometry). Today, the 59-year-old is presenting a retrospective of her movies at the New Horizons film festival in Poland, where Attenberg won best film in 2011. 'It's full of people in their 20s,' she says, smiling. 'Really hardcore film buffs, who come for 10 days and watch like five, six films a day.' Harvest was a project brought to her by Joslyn Barnes, who was Oscar-nominated this year for the screenplay for US reform school drama Nickel Boys. 'She had a script and a mood board already, so there was a world there. I just needed to figure out how and if I fitted in.' Adapted from Jim Crace's 2013 Man Booker prize-nominated novel of the same name, Harvest tells the story of the descent and destruction of a village over seven days. The cast is made up of local people from Oban in Scotland, where Harvest was filmed, and outsiders slowly enter the fray: two unnamed men who get put into stocks, a woman who is suspected of being a witch (Trigonometry's Thalissa Teixeira), and Quill (Arinzé Kene), a map-maker tasked with charting the land. Tsangari 'completely identified' with two of the lead characters, she says: Walter Thirsk (played by Landry Jones) and Quill. Why? '[Walter is] such a tragic, tragic character. You know, someone who does not really belong and he never will.' And Quill? 'Because he's the artist – his job is to draw and describe and name things. I suppose I was fearing that in the end. As an artist, you are going to be complicit with some kind of system that's going to try to co-opt you, devour you, or employ you to its service.' Two Harry Potter alumni also put in haunting appearances: Harry Melling is the town's weak-willed mayor and Frank Dillane, as his city cousin, arrives with a terrifying Witchfinder General vibe, as well as tall hat. Keen to preserve the novel's peculiar mood, Tsangari turned to her 'treasure trove' of favourite films, she says, including Peter Watkins' 2000 docudrama La Commune (Paris, 1871) and wayward 70s westerns McCabe and Mrs Miller and The Missouri Breaks. She doesn't buy that Harvest is a folk horror. 'It's more pastoral … yes, there is paganism in it, but I've called it a nihilist western.' The passivity of its characters as dread encroaches has a contemporary power, while Crace's setting of the story in an unspecified era – albeit with echoes of the Highland Clearances – adds to its allegorical sheen. 'The last thing I wanted to do was locate it and lodge it in a specific time,' Tsangari says. 'Especially since the dissolution of communities, and the bordering up of land, the ghettoes, are happening literally everywhere now.' This is Tsangari's first full-length film as a director in nearly a decade. Greek cinema is in a dire state, she says. 'There is not enough support by our government, especially after the big exodus Greek cinema has had in this century.' She often worked with Yorgos Lanthimos before he found Hollywood success with The Lobster and The Favourite (she co-produced his Greek-language films Dogtooth and Alps), but says the problems have been longstanding, citing one man as Greek cinema's saviour. '[Producer] Christos V Konstantakopoulos single-handedly financed half of the Greek new wave films. That's actually a fact.' She is now part of Visibility: Zero, a campaign launched with an open letter from nearly 2,000 signatories in June, demanding institutional reform within the Greek arts. Or as Tsangari puts it: 'It's a revolt against the total disregard for the Greek cinema community by our state.' Part of the problem is a cash rebate programme for non-Greek film-makers working in the country, she explains, that has prioritised movies with bigger budgets and squeezed indie productions. 'It's an issue happening more and more in Europe – the whole industry is getting overextended, and then it becomes prohibitive for our very modest films to be made. It's also becoming more and more difficult to make films in my own language.' A few days after we speak, 176 international actors, directors and producers, including Juliette Binoche and Willem Dafoe, signed a letter demanding that the Culture Ministry and the Hellenic Film and Audiovisual Center – Creative Greece take immediate action. But back to Harvest, loved by some critics and hated by others. I ask if Tsangari likes making films that produce extreme reactions. 'I'm not the right person to respond to this,' she says. She doesn't read reviews, she adds, but admits to reading the Guardian's chief film critic Peter Bradshaw's negative take. 'It was the first one … a bit traumatic'. Now she is focusing on travelling, she says, to present the film 'out in the world'. She is much happier talking about the film's epic sound design. The fabulous opening track, by Romanian experimental one-man band Rodion GA, was made on cassette during the culturally punitive rule of Ceaușescu; she tells me excitedly that she got the masters from bandleader Rodion Roșca's daughter. She also loved building up a Harvest Family Band, which included Landry Jones (who is also a musician) and experimental recorder player Laura Cannell, with support from ethnomusicologist Gary West and Gaelic musicians Sarah and Anna Garvin. Sound of Metal's award-winning composer Nicolas Becker and sound engineer David Bowtle-McMillan also bolstered the film's extreme sensory intensity, the latter often using 20 mics at one time, 'buried in the mud, when it was raining, like a Zen Buddha, as if he was mixing jazz,' Tsangari says with a laugh. Whatever your take on it, Harvest is a film that envelops you in its noise, that lingers, that you can't extract yourself from, I say. Tsangari smiles, perhaps with relief. 'That is literally music to my ears!' Harvest is in cinemas on 25 July and on Mubi from 8 August.
The Guardian
25-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘I call it a nihilist western': director Athina Rachel Tsangari on her trippy folk horror Harvest
A hand emerges from sheaves of wheat waving in the wind. Then we see a face, trying to eat moss on a log, and a tongue searching for liquid in rocks. When Caleb Landry Jones (Dogman, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) fully emerges, his blue cape flows like a toga or a Japanese courtier's cape, close mics capturing every tiny sound – and then exhilarating Romanian prog rock kicks in. Harvest has been described as a folk horror film – one that has sharply divided the critics – but its trippy, haunting opening, inspired by Jean-Jacques Rousseau's unfinished book Reveries of the Solitary Walker, introduces something far stranger than that. It's been a 'very personal film' for its genre-hopping Greek new wave director Athina Rachel Tsangari, whose previous work includes an avant garde commentary on Greek society (Attenberg), a twisted male friendship comedy (Chevalier) and a BBC Two series about a throuple (Trigonometry). Today, the 59-year-old is presenting a retrospective of her movies at the New Horizons film festival in Poland, where Attenberg won best film in 2011. 'It's full of people in their 20s,' she says, smiling. 'Really hardcore film buffs, who come for 10 days and watch like five, six films a day.' Harvest was a project brought to her by Joslyn Barnes, who was Oscar-nominated this year for the screenplay for US reform school drama Nickel Boys. 'She had a script and a mood board already, so there was a world there. I just needed to figure out how and if I fitted in.' Adapted from Jim Crace's 2013 Man Booker prize-nominated novel of the same name, Harvest tells the story of the descent and destruction of a village over seven days. The cast is made up of local people from Oban in Scotland, where Harvest was filmed, and outsiders slowly enter the fray: two unnamed men who get put into stocks, a woman who is suspected of being a witch (Trigonometry's Thalissa Teixeira), and Quill (Arinzé Kene), a map-maker tasked with charting the land. Tsangari 'completely identified' with two of the lead characters, she says: Walter Thirsk (played by Landry Jones) and Quill. Why? '[Walter is] such a tragic, tragic character. You know, someone who does not really belong and he never will.' And Quill? 'Because he's the artist – his job is to draw and describe and name things. I suppose I was fearing that in the end. As an artist, you are going to be complicit with some kind of system that's going to try to co-opt you, devour you, or employ you to its service.' Two Harry Potter alumni also put in haunting appearances: Harry Melling is the town's weak-willed mayor and Frank Dillane, as his city cousin, arrives with a terrifying Witchfinder General vibe, as well as tall hat. Keen to preserve the novel's peculiar mood, Tsangari turned to her 'treasure trove' of favourite films, she says, including Peter Watkins' 2000 docudrama La Commune (Paris, 1871) and wayward 70s westerns McCabe and Mrs Miller and The Missouri Breaks. She doesn't buy that Harvest is a folk horror. 'It's more pastoral … yes, there is paganism in it, but I've called it a nihilist western.' The passivity of its characters as dread encroaches has a contemporary power, while Crace's setting of the story in an unspecified era – albeit with echoes of the Highland Clearances – adds to its allegorical sheen. 'The last thing I wanted to do was locate it and lodge it in a specific time,' Tsangari says. 'Especially since the dissolution of communities, and the bordering up of land, the ghettoes, are happening literally everywhere now.' This is Tsangari's first full-length film as a director in nearly a decade. Greek cinema is in a dire state, she says. 'There is not enough support by our government, especially after the big exodus Greek cinema has had in this century.' She often worked with Yorgos Lanthimos before he found Hollywood success with The Lobster and The Favourite (she co-produced his Greek-language films Dogtooth and Alps), but says the problems have been longstanding, citing one man as Greek cinema's saviour. '[Producer] Christos V Konstantakopoulos single-handedly financed half of the Greek new wave films. That's actually a fact.' She is now part of Visibility: Zero, a campaign launched with an open letter from nearly 2,000 signatories in June, demanding institutional reform within the Greek arts. Or as Tsangari puts it: 'It's a revolt against the total disregard for the Greek cinema community by our state.' Part of the problem is a cash rebate programme for non-Greek film-makers working in the country, she explains, that has prioritised movies with bigger budgets and squeezed indie productions. 'It's an issue happening more and more in Europe – the whole industry is getting overextended, and then it becomes prohibitive for our very modest films to be made. It's also becoming more and more difficult to make films in my own language.' A few days after we speak, 176 international actors, directors and producers, including Juliette Binoche and Willem Dafoe, signed a letter demanding that the Culture Ministry and the Hellenic Film and Audiovisual Center – Creative Greece take immediate action. But back to Harvest, loved by some critics and hated by others. I ask if Tsangari likes making films that produce extreme reactions. 'I'm not the right person to respond to this,' she says. She doesn't read reviews, she adds, but admits to reading the Guardian's chief film critic Peter Bradshaw's negative take. 'It was the first one … a bit traumatic'. Now she is focusing on travelling, she says, to present the film 'out in the world'. She is much happier talking about the film's epic sound design. The fabulous opening track, by Romanian experimental one-man band Rodion GA, was made on cassette during the culturally punitive rule of Ceaușescu; she tells me excitedly that she got the masters from bandleader Rodion Roșca's daughter. She also loved building up a Harvest Family Band, which included Landry Jones (who is also a musician) and experimental recorder player Laura Cannell, with support from ethnomusicologist Gary West and Gaelic musicians Sarah and Anna Garvin. Sound of Metal's award-winning composer Nicolas Becker and sound engineer David Bowtle-McMillan also bolstered the film's extreme sensory intensity, the latter often using 20 mics at one time, 'buried in the mud, when it was raining, like a Zen Buddha, as if he was mixing jazz,' Tsangari says with a laugh. Whatever your take on it, Harvest is a film that envelops you in its noise, that lingers, that you can't extract yourself from, I say. Tsangari smiles, perhaps with relief. 'That is literally music to my ears!' Harvest is in cinemas on 25 July.
Yahoo
15-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Spinals Tap's David Kaff dead at 79
David Kaff, best known as keyboardist Viv Savage in This Is Spinal Tap, has died peacefully in his sleep, aged 79. Kaff, full name Kaffinetti, played one of the most memorably low-key characters in Rob Reiner's legendary 1984 rock mockumentary. He was also an actual prog-rock player. Before going fictional with Spinal Tap, he was a founding member of Rare Bird, who scored a UK Top 30 hit in 1970 with Sympathy. Spinal Tap fans will remember Kaff's deadpan delivery of lines such as, "Quite exciting, this computer magic!" and his signature mantra: "Have a good time... all the time." He gigged with the band for a short spell post-film, including a Saturday Night Live appearance - but quietly stepped away from Spinal Tap not long after. Kaff's later years saw him still making music, playing with outfits including Model Citizenz and Mutual of Alameda's Wild Kingdom - the latter of which broke the news of his passing on Facebook. "Our brother David Kaffinetti passed away peacefully in his sleep yesterday. We are devastated by this event. David always had a kind word and a quick wit that would slay you where you stand. Then he'd make you smile doing it! RIP dear brother." Kaff does not appear in the upcoming Spinal Tap sequel, which is due out in September.
Yahoo
14-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
King Crimson's Manager Warns of ‘Premature' Excitement Following New Album Rumors
As rumors swirl regarding a new album from prog-rock icons King Crimson, the band's manager has urged fans not to get too excited about the prospect. News of a fresh record from the English outfit first came to light last week when guitarist Jakko Jakszyk spoke to Goldmine Magazine about his recent solo album, and his joining King Crimson back in 2013. More from Billboard Travis Scott & Cactus Jack Present 'JACKBOYS 2' Compilation Album: Stream It Now Backstreet Boys Kick Off Sphere Residency With Larger-Than-Life Show in Las Vegas Scooter Braun Shares His Opinion on Justin Bieber's 'Swag' 'It was an amazing thing to have done, and in a way, part of it's still happening. As we speak, we're doing a King Crimson studio album,' Jakszyk admitted. 'When that will come out and what format or how—that's beyond my brief. But yeah, we've been doing it piecemeal, and then a couple of months ago, the management said, 'Can we?' So, yeah. I've been recording that with a view to it coming out in some format at some point. But who knows when?' Word of a potential new album from the veteran group undoubtedly came as a surprise to many, especially given that King Crimson was viewed as having effectively come to an end following the completion of their 2021 tour dates. In the wake of mounting speculation, manager David Singleton took to social media to respond to the claims that King Crimson have been in the studio. 'Addressing this very question before he died, Bill Rieflin posed the excellent question 'why make a studio album? There are excellent live recordings of all the songs out there already,'' Singleton wrote. 'One possible answer would be an album the very sound of which no-one has ever heard before. A sound driven by the three drummers. And it is true that those drummers have now recorded studio versions of their parts – separately, so that there is perfect separation. 'So there is indeed the seed of a new recording,' he continued. 'Whether it is an album, whether it sees the light of day, whether it is something else is unknown. As is the outcome of any creative process. 'So yes, recordings have taken place. We are building a new studio, and when it is complete I am looking forward to seeing what may, or may not, exist. Getting excited about the possibility of a new album, as has been happening in some quarters, is however somewhat premature. Carts before horses.' King Crimson was initially formed in 1968 by Robert Fripp, Ian McDonald, Greg Lake, Michael Giles, and Peter Sinfiel, with the band releasing their debut album, In the Court of the Crimson King the following year. Initially disbanding in 1974 after seven albums, further reunions would take place throughout the '80s and '90s, with the group's most recent record, The Power to Believe, arriving in 2003. At the time of their last dissolution, in December 2021, Fripp remained the only continuous member from the original lineup, telling Rolling Stone the following year that future tours from the band would only take place 'If I knew for certainty that King Crimson touring was the only way to prevent World War III.' Best of Billboard Chart Rewind: In 1989, New Kids on the Block Were 'Hangin' Tough' at No. 1 Janet Jackson's Biggest Billboard Hot 100 Hits H.E.R. & Chris Brown 'Come Through' to No. 1 on Adult R&B Airplay Chart
New York Times
07-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
A Major Writer Remembers the ‘Nonreading Family' That Shaped Him
HOMEWORK: A Memoir, by Geoff Dyer 'The single most important thing about my formation as a writer,' Geoff Dyer told The Paris Review in 2013, 'is that I come from a nonreading family.' 'Homework,' the latest book from the prolific and award-winning writer, tells the story of that formation in Cheltenham, England, and describes the world Dyer left behind for Oxford at the age of 19. Or did he leave it behind? He would not be the only writer who has spent a lifetime returning to events that happened before he had words to express them, let alone write them down. What relation does the genre-disdaining, intelligently unintellectual, painfully hilarious 67-year-old writer have to the boy who once collected the promotional cards in boxes of Brooke Bond tea? One continuity is an exquisite and exasperating intimacy with boredom. Dyer has played ennui like a piano in his previous books, turning his impatience with writing about D.H. Lawrence into the sui generis book 'Out of Sheer Rage' — a display of frustration, by the way, entirely appropriate for a Lawrentian. As a child, Dyer was a collector of not only cards, but also model airplanes (built impatiently of course) and plastic soldiers, before he moved on to prog-rock vinyl and modernist books as a teenager. The young Dyer's objects of desire feel achingly English, not just from half a century ago but from a civilization that has since vanished. Although hearing about someone else's personal memorabilia is as dull as it ever was — at its low points, reading this book can feel like being trapped in a conversation with an uncle who is enjoying his reminiscences rather more than you are — Dyer is wonderful on the strangeness of remembering itself. As an adult, he notices that his younger self's attachment to a card about the Galápagos tortoise far outweighs his emotion on seeing one in real life. 'Homework' records the kinds of memories we all have — first sip of beer, first fight, first sexual encounter — but also the vividly remembered oddities, like the summer afternoon when the children in Dyer's neighborhood played on the street with a beach ball until it popped. The important fades so quickly and the trivial turns out to be unforgettable. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
