Jamie passion and passionfruit!

A writer that I discovered a year or so ago, whose first novel Lost City Radio has just won a major literary prize in the US.  Prior to that he had published some excellent stories and was one of Granta’s young American writers of the decade. Alarcon is Peruvian by birth but has been brought up in the US where he currently resides.  He writes in English mainly and has spent time back in Lima to get research and prepare his writing.  Although his work tends to take place in anonymous cities and countries, the main inspiration is clearly the country of his family with maybe some Ecuador, Colombia and even –Argentina  thrown in.  Lost City Radio is about a country that is torn apart by civil war and features a late night radio announcer who as mother to the nation runs a show uniting people who have lost contact with family members or trying to track down lost souls.  The audience do not know that she has her own tragedy which she is trying to overcome, an event which returns to the surface when a young boy comes from the countryside and is dumped on her doorstep in a manner of speaking.  Alarcon creates a wonderful tense and weary atmosphere in the book, his characters are totally credible and sustains the narrative well in the way of a great storyteller.  I look forward to more of his slightly sad and melancholic work – he gets right down to the core of life and spirit.

Old fashioned 7 year-old movie that is all of a BBC costume drama directed by Lina Wertmuller of all people but she too now in her 80’s and perhaps excused if she resorts to the tried and true.  Basically as a telemovie you can have few complaints about this – it delivers the melodrama it promises but it gives us no innovation, no real difference, even if it is a heavily feminine film and one that has political and economic contexts to contrast with the romantic side.  Sophia Loren in the lead role is exemplary in her ability to dominate a scene.  She is able matched by Giancarlo Gianini and in the supporting roles, Claudia Gerini shines as a sort of Greta Scacchi and Raoul Bova is sufficiently the matinee idol.  Watchable for a wet afternoon and a decent addition to the filmography of those involved but absolutely nothing special.

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