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challengers

by Simon Aulman

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challengers 46:00
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Yesterday I saw the new film Challengers. I normally can't bear films that jump about in time. I am certain that in my top 100 favourite films there isn't one time-jumper. But now there is one. Every ten minutes in Challengers you get a sudden caption saying Twenty Years Earlier or Later The Previous Morning (?). But I found that it didn't matter. I never cared. I never follow plots anyway. I never cared which of the two guys she'd end up with or who won the tennis or anything. As I'm sure every proper reviewer has already said - it's a tennis film that's not really about tennis.

For me what it was about was making a very conventional film but doing one or two things that were a bit odd and that made the whole film brilliant. The most obvious thing is that every time there is a tennis match the music suddenly gets very loud - very loud techno. I loved it from the first. Trent Reznor and some other bloke. I think Trent used to try to make annoying "experimental" music, but now he's trying to make music that people like, and sitting in the front row of an empty cinema yesterday I absolutely loved it. I want to get the soundtrack. There's a staggering beautiful quiet gentle choral thing near-ish the end which made me cry - nothing soppy - I cry all the time in films, they're the only things that ever move me.

I'd actually quite like to be able to make music like that noisy techno myself, but it's too much work and I'm too lazy - and that bit of the sentence is the sight of me dodging the fact that I'm not talented enough, or talented at all - which is why I continue to hide under the "experimental" tag. After the film yesterday I walked back home and along the way there were lots of blue flashing lights and the fire brigade and a big ladder and at the top, on the roof of the tall building, were two firepersons grappling with a panicky seagull. I promise I'm not making that up. On the roof of the Everest restaurant. Inside, people were eating chickens and ducks and things, and on the roof the council tax payer was spending a million pounds to save a seagull who had its foot caught in some netting.

Sometimes I reread the shit I write here and realise that I'm coming across as a grumpy old twat - and most of those words are accurate - except the "grumpy" one, because I find it nearly impossible to be grumpy nowadays. The world is mad - yes it is - but it is also unbelievably hilarious, and brilliant - films as brilliant as Challengers are made every week and no one even notices, seagulls are rescued on high buildings and everyone was calm, I was just about the only rubber-necker. I suppose I'm lucky to be a bit HSP and to not need much stimulation to be very stimulated.

Challengers and the seagull were the only interesting things that happened to me yesterday, and I guess that for most people that shouldn't be enough - where was the all-night-party with me dancing on the tables and chatting up beauties and shagging ten faceless people before cocktails ? - nowhere - never - way too overwhelming - even if spread out over a lifetime.

recorded this morning, photo yesterday

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released April 27, 2024

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