Review: David Hockney in Normandy, and Asako Yuzuki's new novel

You're listening to Front Row with me, Samira Ahmed. Hello, in tonight's review programme it's springtime for Hockney in Normandy with a major exp. exhibition even of his iPad works and paintings. We watch the feature film about the young women forced to work as tasters for Hitler's food. Trad Wives Japanese style we review hooks. The satirical new novel about female online influences by the author of the huge global bestseller Butter, Asako Yuzuki.

and just ahead of the closing date for entries, I talked to one of the judges of the BBC Short Story Award about what makes a winner. Our reviewers tonight are theatre critic Sarah Crompton and Ben Luke of the Art Newspaper. Welcome to you both. Welcome to Front Row. We start with a bit of theatre news. Quentin Tarantino, um, Sarah has announced his debut as a theatre writer and director with what's been described as a

swash buckling comedy drama and it's coming to London's West End, apparently set in eighteen thirties Europe. What what do you think of this news? Well the the plot sounds preposterous, but the idea of Quentin Tarantino bringing something to the stage I don't think does sound preposterous. He he did appear on Broadway as an actor in the light

nineties rather unsuccessfully. And if you think about his movies, particularly things like uh Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs, they are quite theatrical. There are long passages of two characters talking to one another. Um, so I am intrigued by him coming to the stage and I think it's exciting for British theatre.

to have a film director of that status coming here. Yeah, it's interesting. When I interviewed him in twenty sixteen he he said he was thinking of turning the Hateful Eight, the film he'd made at the time, into a stage play that he very much wanted to do something on the stage. This is called the Popin J Cavalier.

Uh Ben, what are your thoughts? Um I I I I guess I tuned out I guess of of Tarantino World after the Kill Bill movies and so I'm probably not best placed to comment given his recent work but I think of him as somebody so immersed in the language of cinema that the idea of him bringing that bringing his language to the stage is intriguing. Yes, but yeah, I I can't fathom the idea of what a Tarantino stage

production would look like. But his his work is very imagery based. You think about the strong imagery that he always achieves. in in everything that he that he's done that I've seen. And I think therefore there is potential for that to translate to the stage. Interesting. Well another um uh bit of stage news. The the death of Jane Lapoter, who's died at the age of eighty one.

Um the moment I heard this new Sarah, I thought straight away of her as Mary Curie on T V. Um Catherine of Aragon. Yes. Yes. She she had that great run that there is a generational thing that too. I think a lot of people a lot of women particularly. She played interesting women on television. And um that Mary Curie was really memorable and I

Everything I know about Mary Curie basically comes from that. Um and in the same way everything I know about Mary Curie uh uh everything I know about Edith Pf comes from her performance in PF by Pam Jems. which was an astonishing stage performance won the Tony. And I c I remember cueing to see it and this little fragile, tragic figure.

No, well, goodbye to Jane Laporte. Thank you. Time for our first review now. And is there any living British artist? who engenders as much joy and detailed looking as David Hockney. Now, eighty eight, his latest exhibition is like a a kind of unique take on the bio tapestry. It centres around a ninety metre frieze, a year in Normandy, displayed on a kind of continuous loop, around the four walls of the Serpentine North Gallery in London.

The images are a composite of his iPad paintings made over recent years to create a three hundred and sixty degree rotation of views around his garden throughout the four seasons. starting with the bare branches and fields of January and ending with snow. Um, Sarah, it's obviously those paintings as well, but how would you describe this exhibition and indeed this freeze in particular?

It's it's an amazing thing to walk into. I think the Serpentine, which is a difficult space actually for exhibitions. has managed to make it work brilliantly by putting the whole of the iPad paintings around the outer wall and the portraits are in a box in the centre. Um and what happened while I was looking at it was that people were walking along the outer wall filming. One person on a scooter, rather daringly I felt. Um and there is that sense that you walk through the air with him.

And um I found it qu I think quite emotional the idea that of of having a man in a landscape at eighteen eight eight still engaging with the world around him in that way of just standing there or sitting there probably and um

Painting. Yeah. Ben, it has been shown before, hasn't it? What did you think of how it was presented here? Sarah said she thought it works very well in this space. Yeah, I think it's the best presentation of his iPad works that I've seen actually. Because apart from anything else, one of the things that works best about it is that it looks illuminated and so it's a very dark space.

Yeah. And it seems to be l illuminated from within, which of course is the effect of an iPad. But it's actually on paper, that's it. It's a work on paper, it's a print on paper that extends throughout the space. Interestingly They that apparently the Serpentine had been talking to Hockney for ages and then he th he he came to the space and had sort of mapped it in his brain as he went round the space and it seemed and it i it it perfectly mapped.

Yeah and um as you mentioned there are these ten new paintings, five portraits and five abstracts that are contained within the box in the middle. Tell us about those, Ben. So yeah, th they are conventional paintings as opposed to iPad paintings. Um

Five R portraits, as you say, I think these are the most successful portraits that Hockney's done for some time. I I've I've found I've struggled with the portraits that ended the National Portrait Gallery show recently. I felt they were too loose, that there was no sort of route to them, but they're these are better. They're let down I think by the fact that they are these portrait Uh of people are they're sitting at

part of the table nearest you. So basically instead of disappearing into um the distance a point of perspective, it does it the opposite way. Exactly. But to me it just looks awkward. I I I however much I realise there is a v an optical visual theory behind this.

on the on the canvas in a way that I find satisfying. Okay. But also interestingly, as well as the portraits, there are these these works which have abstractions in the middle of exactly these same tables. And it's a long pro long time now so that Hockney has been fathoming abstraction versus figuration. He's so committed to figuration and there's there is a sort of satirical side of him that that wants to point to figuration as the preeminent form of painting

And to in a s in a sense almost ridicule abstraction and there is a Rothko and a Gerhard Richter and so on that he he's placing on these tables as a means of saying everything's an abstraction, even what I'm doing is an abstraction, but this is what I'm doing is a an abstraction that you should be looking at. Rydyn ni'n gwneud yma. Mae Hockney yn ysgrifennu i'r cymdeithasol i'r cymdeithasol i'r cymdeithasol a'r cymdeithasol a'r cymdeithasol a'r cymdeithasol a'r cymdeithasol a'r cymdeithasol

Tell us first, sir, about the people who are in the the five portraits and of figures sitting'cause one of them is Kerer, isn't it? One of them's a Kerr, Thomas, and he

He wears a badge saying, End bossiness soon. Which you can buy in the gift shop. It was obviously a joke between him and Hockney. Um and Hockney's uh longtime partner is there and his friends and I found the portraits um amazing because I think the thing that I love about Hogney is that he has this great vitality as both as a painter and as a man. But he always engages with the world through painting. And I love the fact that that they there are they're brightly coloured these gingham cloths.

and the wallpapers behind them he's playing with pattern and graphic ideas, which he always has done. And you just get this incredible sense of him talking to the people. There's a an extraordinary humanity of the idea that he is meeting them for five days. and they're sitting together. Um and JP he he looks a bit tired of this. He looks as he's got his eye f uh his phone out as if he wants to be getting away. But this I they are an really amazing the portraits.

And they've got an energy that actually people will look at the s the i the the freeze, but they've got an energy that is unique because he he's g also the paint's so lovely, the great blobs and swirls of paint. Um and I found it I I do find it so incredibly um in Hoknia. I it's a quality I can never escape from really.

is he's working leaning over to paint on the floor or against an easel. And I thought that some of the details in the iPad works, like the bales of hay, surprised me because I felt the level of detail was very well done in draftsmanship wise. What were your feelings about that? I know iPad

Painting is divides people, doesn't it? Yeah, I mean I f I find the paintings in as physical objects much more satisfying than the iPad works. I think that the iPad works work far better at a distance but the minute that you get up close. I think old mess as the She said. I find I f yeah, when there is when they're trying to describe density, they're okay, I think. But when you have branches attached to other branches, some of them just sort of float in midair

There is a there's a really unsatisfying physical quality produced by the iPad sketches. There's re a a strange blurriness that takes over. There's a there's a a sort of cluster of logs in one part of the paint of one part of this frieze where

everything is so blurry and you're you're wondering th if there's just limitations to the software and these particular brush marks that he achieves with the software that you know, basically they're sort of uh ready made brush marks that he applies very quickly in the process of making them.

And the and and the physical effect of these, when I get up close, I find deeply unsatisfying actually, in a way that when you when you look at the paintings themselves, you know, the physical paintings, there's something satisfying about that about about um you know, a really A man who spent all seventy years doing this, more than seventy years doing this. And there is all that knowledge and all that sort of muscle memory and so on.

uh so intrinsically linked to the final image that you see. What are your feelings about that? Well it is interesting to compare them with the Royal Academy exhibition had the big Yorkshire landscapes which weren't iPad paintings, they were paintings. And obviously you do get the same thing of blossomy as blossom in this, which is I always find moving in Hotney, these use of blossom and lollipop flowers.

And if you compare them when he does them in acrylic and when he does them on the iPad it's not the same. But you do get it's the energy I think that he brings th what you saying that there's There's such a sense of life in them. And even I get that even in the iPad um freeze, there's one sort of squiggle which he uh he obviously just filled in and you just have that sense of of him being so alert and so there. Which I think is why people love him so much.

I have always believed that art should be a deep pleasure. There is always everywhere an enormous amount of suffering, but I believe that my duty as an artist is to overcome and alleviate the sterility of despair, New ways of seeing mean new ways of feeling. I do believe that painting can change the world. I thought that new ways of seeing means new ways of feeling. I thought was I think that's what is contagious about his work, isn't it? I th I think there is uh there is an undoubted

remarkable quality to somebody who just wants to keep making. And as you say, new ways of seeing. He is trying. He is he has theories about how he wants to present new forms of seeing. He is constantly pushing his way of responding to the world and and you sense that there is that freshness, you know, and and wanting always to respond. Getting up every single day and wanting to make art is an astonishing thing. And

I think also there is a you know, there is a a wonderful we're in a wonderful moment to an extent with Hockney because it is his late career. And late careers of artists are always so fascinating, you know, and I and you know, you think about how much he adores Picasso and how much he adores Matisse. And those artists must be in his mind every time he's making a work. And I think that there is a there is a moving quality just in the sheer inspiration that he takes from it.

I really wish he would just paint. I I uh I I just wish he wouldn't go near that bam iPad. You know and I w so yeah. I've had myself thinking of what you know he used to do fax works in the um late eighties, early nineties and he would fax people for of course the paper would j degenerate. There's something about him grasping new technologies, even though they're becoming obsolete or

They're kind of frustrating even as he uses them. I love that he doesn't care, he still tries to make them work. Yeah, I think it's the curiosity about the world and as I say, it's the engagement with the world through art that he sees through art. So he sees something and thinks about the painting. And he says it's about the portraits, you know, they're about painting, not about portraits. But in fact what makes him so special

Is that they're about both. Well oh that's fantastic. Um David Hockney, A Year in Normandy and some other thoughts about painting is at Serpentine North in London until late August. Now admission is free, but you might have to queue or you can pre book entry online.

The novel Butter, about a Japanese female serial killer targeting lonely businessmen, became a huge bestseller and was Waterstone's book of the year in 2024. It sold 300,000 copies in the UK to date. It was inspired by a real case and was welcomed as a twisted feminist fantasy with mouth watering descriptions of food.

Now the author Asako Yuzuki is back with the novel Hooked about female friendship and the buried pain behind the public faces women wear. Single career woman Eriko becomes obsessed with the blog written by a self-confessed World's worst wife, Shoco, a housewife who does no housework and no cooking, and after a tentative friendship quickly comes to feel more like stalking, Schoko tries to end contact.

The thing about same sex friendships was that, unlike with relationships between men and women, it was extremely difficult to bring them to a definitive end. If he were to acknowledge the darkness in Edicor, she would have to continue hearing her out until she was done. What a pain. She found it ironic that she, as someone with all this time on her hands, couldn't be bothered to get involved in other people's problems.

Or the ever busy Edicore was the one chasing her. She pulled out a very bobbled fleece from the laundry pile. The scent of fabric softener like cotton candy rose up from its fabric. That alone was enough to make Shawcore feel she was doing a decent job at life. And so she let herself, ever so easily, off the hook.

An extract from the audiobook of Hooked Raid Ba read by Amy Okumura Jones and translated by Polly Barton. And Sarah, we were talking on Front Road this week about the trends at this year's London Book Fair.

And Asako Yuzuki's one writer credited with a huge rise in translated fiction in recent years. I think You Read Butter, which was that really successful breakthrough in the UK, um and listeners might well know it. Um this novel I gather was written earlier. I wonder if Hook had the same appeal for you. I think it's not as good as butter. I But I also think it contains some of the same problems.

So I I think the thing about butter was it was a brilliant story and it was also had food. So it had this idea that If you read it, part of the delight was that uh the the the possible murderer is telling the heroine about recipes. So it's fascinating'cause it's about Japanese food.

This hooked is just as interesting about Japanese society. The view of Japanese society that emerges from both novels is slightly terrifying of women being completely under the thumb of men and if they want to compete with them at work having to meet certain expectations.

And then if they don't want to compete in at work, having to marry and f perform very traditional roles as wives. It's very, very frightening what she uh describes and really interesting. I feel in hook There is a slight problem with the plot that both women are As i I mean in a way it's good. They're both mirrors of themsel uh of each other. So they're both lonely and unhappy and they but she sort of having set up this brilliant idea.

i it doesn't really go anywhere, it just it felt slightly circular. Okay, Ben, you're a first time reader I think of this author. What what did you think of Hooked? Similarly felt that there was a sort of grimness, an overall grimness about the presentation.

Which is on the one hand uh sort of counterintuitively, it's also incredibly gripping to me. There's a s there's a there's an element in which it's a page turner. I felt utterly compelled but but um so um amazed by the level of disenfranchisement, the level of alienation. You know, it is an incredibly depressing read as well as a compelling one, which is a kind of curious balance to find yourself in as a reader. very successful in her workplace and she's trying to do this whole thing selling

Is it Nile Perch? Nile perch, which everybody should read about Nile Perch. It's a fascinating story. It's an invasive species that was introduced to Late Victoria and just sort of decimated the ecosystem. Um it w it's repeated several times in the book about the fact that lots of different types of fish are characterized as other types of fish in sushi restaurants. And so that's under sort of one sort of subplot.

But yeah, there's there's a sense in which um we're we're constantly fail feeling that um that the the women in in in this book are unable to engage with other women and with and with the men in their lives too. So th so that so the level of loneliness and alienation is stratospheric, you know. That's what s what really drew me in, uh Sarah, was the fact that

Both women find they really want female friendship and they they can't seem to do it because and then you also find out there are these traumas in their backstories that start to emerge very gradually. You know, the family of the um the housewife that she's left, her slovenly father who

who does nothing and her brothers who do nothing. Yeah, I think that I think it is I think it's interesting. I find the books frustrating'cause I think there is so much that's interesting in them. And I think the idea about female friendship being distorted by the expectations of men which e g is the underlying theme as well, and the expectations of daughters and wives, is really, really interesting.

Mm. And I think the idea that the you know, you stalk that the idea of what social media is doing so that you can stalk somebody so effectively, that's also a fascinating idea. And the characters are interesting and as Ben says, you pe it's very good to read, you turn the pages, but I felt that she didn't quite get deep enough. with it. And what's interesting is that she gave an interview in which she said she stopped writing this kind of novel and is now writing the happy romantic novels.

of the sort that um Japanese readers like. But that the international suc success of butter makes her feel that she might go back to hook And to the satire and to the misery. And actually it might be really good if she does that because I think it's It's the plotting mechanics she lacks her, observation of character.

It's brilliant. Jane, I wondered what you thought about the prose because of course it's in translation and um Polly Barton who translated this did translate butter. Um and I say we never know for sure exactly how it would read if you were a native Japanese speaker. I thought the voice was quite interesting because it's deceptively simple at first and they talk about going to a family restaurant which sounds such a bland description but that's

perhaps describes the landscape in which they're they're operating. Yeah, I think that's very true. There's a there's a sort of brutality about the prose which matches the kind of brutality of the relationships in the book, I think. There's a there's a there's a simplicity to a degree but actually it grows with complexity through the book, I think. But for instance, the descriptions of people re always read as judgments. Th there is no description of a person in this book that isn't.

so utterly cutting and devastating about that person. That's so interesting because they'll talk about oh how their eyelids are are single eyelids. And their skin's pallid and Or the men are they're starting to get a bit um podgy. Yes. Straight away that's how they s they're seeing people. Um I wondered as well about the fact that she wrote her thesis as a as a a graduate student, I think, on Balzac, that great chronicler of nineteenth century um life. And I wondered if

if knowing that affects how you you see the world that she's evoking,'cause it is that a very real, a very everyday world, isn't it? I think I think as a chronicler she's brilliant. This I the sense of what it's like to live in suburban Japan. and um to have the sense of um you know she writes about the hotels for w that are the arranging holidays for women because that's a new thing. And I was reading today in The Guardian about this trend to barge people down.

on Zebra Crossings so that there's a a new thing where you knock people out of the way and it's got a a name. um and they're wondering whether to make it a crime. And when you've read Hooked, you absolutely understand that because what she's describing is this world of hard surfaces that's hugely competitive and underneath these Skinny, beautiful people. Or is this sort of m mass of mess wanting to come out and escape the constraints?

Sarah was saying earlier about how food was and beautiful food was such a central part of the attraction of butter. The food in this book is very different, isn't it, Ben? Because um the housewife doesn't cook, so often she's talking about eating, you know, flavoured packets of vegetables. Crisps and things or the yeah, they're sort of weird soup. Instant foods. um, deeply artificial foods, and of course that taps into this deeply artificial world that we're seeing through the blog.

ac yn ysgrifennu, ac yn ysgrifennu, ac yn ysgrifennu, yn ysgrifennu, mae'n ysgrifennu. in this book. You know, there is such a an obsession with surface and sheen. And it in that sense it is an extraordinary satire, I think. But in th i that that again, you know, the deepest relationships that we have are are probably apathetic at best, you know. Can I ask what you thought about the men in the book then? yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n

uh a p p popular blogger for being a terrible housewife. He he's the most likable character in the book, but he's utterly pathetic, you know. And and I think that's it, you know. Um he's called Kenskey and and and he He's generally supportive but barely able to offer any kind of view or opinion. I mean there are probably deeply entrenched Uh feelings of love somewhere in there. But it's very difficult to to fathom that. There's also this sense in which th there's a moment, I think, where.

Erico delivers a great feminist. speech and you think th is this going to be the turning point in the novel? Will this be a moment where suddenly all of the in alienation makes sense and we see a coming together? But actually no. And maybe that's the point. But also I know what you mean about th a a narrative arc an alternative narc narrative art could have existed had

the plotting moved in a particular direction. Yeah, maybe it's and and that artificiality of food, the fact that the most exciting moment in that reading we just had was when she smells her favourite fabric conditioner. Yes. That's the thing. And there's an obsession uh in both books with Creating for perfect families. And with cleaning, th there's an awful lot about cleaning products as well as about food. It it it it's riveting. Yeah. It is. And

In a fascinating dark way. Thank you. Hooked by Asako Yuzuki and translated by Polly Barton is out now. And coming up shortly, a very different artwork, a film about food. We're reviewing tasters about the women forced. to test Hitler's meals for poison.

Now, global best-selling author Osako Yuzuki started out like many novelists with short stories, and if you have ever had your writing published, you may be eligible to enter the BBC National Short Story Award, the annual prize worth£15,000. Submissions are open until this coming Monday, so there's still time to finish your story and submit it.

Earlier I spoke to the writer Tamima Anam, one of this year's judges, and a familiar voice, of course, on Front Row's Thursday Review Show. She began by telling me what she looks for in a good short story. Well, I have a very idiosyncratic set of rules that I follow when I'm writing a short story and I'm gonna tell you what it is. It follows that old thing that you say to people when they're getting married. Um, something borrowed, something blue, something old and something new.

Well so something has to be sad in it. Or something racy when you say blue has a double meaning. Uh no, I mean sad. I think that short stories are always sad. I think there's it's a fundamentally tragic genre. Um, I've never read a short story that's only funny from start to finish. There's always something poignant or a little bit sorrowful or wistful about it.

Oh, that's so interesting. Um, I can imagine that the short story is a form is you know, the great short story people can remember and the great short story writers, but I imagine it's easy to write badly. Does it feel like it's more difficult to write a good one? And and who are some of the great short story writers, do you think? Well, I think it's very hard to write a really good one. And the reason is your canvas is so tiny.

and it's so easy to get it wrong and it's very difficult to set out to write a really good short story. I mean, th some of the really great ones, uh Raymond Carver obviously, Murakami I think contemporary writers, I think Elizabeth Strout, Hallem Tabin, um Sarah Hall, who's won this uh BBC uh short story prize twice. She's the only person to have won it twice. There's just a a way that you can be completely immersed in a world in just a few pages and that's very difficult to do.

Rydyn ni wedi'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i There have been some big names coming through the awards over the years, and some lesser known.

It's not just about the prize money then, is it? It's it's clearly felt to be important to a writer's career to win. Absolutely. Yes, I've met so many writers for whom this prize has meant so much and really we don't have anything like this, so it's one of the few remaining

big short story prizes and given that it's a sort of difficult and sometimes unrewarded art form, um, some really great writers have been shortlisted. And yes, I was in the green room with Hilary Mantel the night that we both lost and it was a huge comfort to me. Um, as well as the National Short Story Awards for published writers, which you're judging, there's also the BBC Young Writers Award for fourteen to eighteen year olds.

What is your advice to all writers, whether entering that youth award or established writers entering? I would say edit, edit, edit. And if you can make it even shorter, if you can scale it down, if you can pare it down and distill your story down to its very bones. That would be my recommendation. Interesting. Are there any pitfalls that you've noticed or w uh think would be useful for short story writers to know?

I would say that trust your reader and trust that you can say a lot with very few words. So if you're tempted to like set the scene or go too much into the backstory of your character, try to resist doing that. It should be an immersive experience, like a very intense. flavor that you can just sink into immediately.

My thanks to Tamima Anam. The BBC National Short Story Award for Published Writers in the UK closes this coming Monday at 9am. Go to bbc.co.uk slash nsa for information on eligibility and how to enter. And as mentioned, the BBC Young Writers Award for fourteen to eighteen year olds is also open, but for an extra week. The deadline for that is Monday the twenty-third of March. Again, you can search online for more details.

Now you would think that all the horrors of the Nazi regime would have been told by now, but we know that's not so. Last month on Front Row we discussed the play Here There are Blueberries about the real souvenir photo album kept by a military adjutant at Auschwitz. documenting his recreational time only brought to light in the two thousands.

Well a new film is similarly inspired by a previously unknown aspect of Nazi rule. In twenty twelve, ninety five year old Margot Volk broke her silence about being one of a group of young women in East Prussia forced to work. tasting food for Hitler at his rural estate, in case it was poisoned. Her account inspired a novel and now the film Tasters following a group of women who have no idea at first why they've been brought by soldiers to a dining room with a hearth with a

A neatly laid table and a waiting chef, encouraging them to try a free lunch at a time of great shortages. We dürfen wirklich essen? Aber sicher. Na los, nicht zu schüchtern, sonst wird es kalt. An extract from Tasters directed by Silvio Soldini with a chef telling them to eat before it gets cold.

Um Ben, did you know anything about this true story of Hitler's tastes before you watched the film? I didn't actually. Um but it's interesting that it it I mean actually interesting some scholars have doubted it. But um but but but it obviously has made it into fiction and now into the cinema and that's in interesting that it's su it's it's obviously that compelling a tale that that it had to be told in different forms. What were your impressions of the the the story that the film is telling.

I th I think the story is is is you know, it has so much promise. You know, obviously it is a deeply tense film and they I think they it is achieved through the film and I think I think, you know, it It's a is a nightmarish scenario. Yes, so we see the devastation of her learning that that her husband is missing in action um and she must then go the following day in in her nightgown and

sample food that may kill her. And so th this idea that every single time that every day that Hitler is is in the wolf's lair, they are potentially about to die. is obviously a deeply compelling story to tell.

Amazing. It sets up a very powerful drama. You know, almost like a locked room horror film. They they have this lovely lunch, they start to eat it, then they're told they can't eat each other's food and then they're told after they've eaten, they've eaten everything on their thing, that y the reason you've been given this food is to check that Hitler isn't poisoned. And

the way it turns to panic. Uh I thought that could have been an amazing, amazing film. But what were your thoughts? Well I I think that scene is good and I think that the relationship there are seven women who are chosen. And the relationship between the different women and their different attitudes to what they're doing is is is the most

interesting dynamic in the in the film. So there's one um pro Nazi woman who's very happy to very lo very happy to put her life at risk for Hitler and the others are much more mixed and s and they're all widowed or single, but some of them have children, which obviously again

changes um how they feel about doing it. So I thought when you were in the room with them that it was really interesting and they'd sit and smoke in the yard and and talk. And those were the bits of the film I liked best. I have problems with the other aspects of the film. There's also a love story between the heroine and um one of the officers. which seemed given that we're led to believe that Rosa is um outspoken and brave and Um a spokesperson for you know

standing up for the women. It felt very odd as a a a as a plot development. Yeah, I mean, it's not a conventional love story, is it? Because you know, he's married Rydyn ni'n gwybod, mae'n gwybod, mae'n gwybod, mae'n gwybod, mae'n gwybod, mae'n gwybod, mae'n gwybod, mae'n gwybod, mae'n gwybod, mae'n gwybod, mae'n gwybod, mae'n gwybod, mae'n gwybod

And and I but I think that the the leap from her falling to the snow in devastation because she's just learned that her husband is missing in action, to a few months later With very little persuasion it seems to me, falling in love with a Nazi officer.

and engaging in this relationship. There's an awful lot of time spent with them in the cow shed, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, and and it but but that link and I think this is the deep problem with the film is that the characters However well performed actually they are, I think the the script and the direction is lets the characters down because you don't have

a sense of their internal lives that prompt them to make the decisions that they're making. We have to remember that she's having a relationship with a m with a man that is one of a group of people that could on any given day be killing her. And there is no sense in which you really get this the conflicted nature of her thoughts.

if she was going to make that decision. She she seems to make the d decision far more easily than she should. Yeah. What struck me was how I thought there were a lot of cliches in how it's structured. Like, you know, in the mixed group there's there's the loyal one, there's the one with the secret and you kinda can guess what that secret might be.

Um but I was interested in the timeline because it takes place over a couple of years in the lead up to I mean nineteen forty four and the winter of nineteen forty four where we know the Russians are advancing and East Prussia was of course I've only been reading a very good book by Len Dayton called Winter, which is actually set a lot of it is about that time. And it is a really interesting study of what was happening in that area in Prussia.

as as the um Germans begin to face defeat and and what happens to the the native population. And I thought that it was fascinating again that you know, how they all do react. It's just a film that doesn't quite know what it wants to be. It looks very beautiful, I had to slight problems with that as well. It continues to look beautifully even as they're all starving and as conditions get harder. They've all got lovely textured clothes and and r you know, rather radiant when they go to eat and

I don't know. I I think it's a film that can't quite decide what it wants to be. Well. And has got lots of interesting facets in it, but

doesn't know which one to lean into. So I think the best bits are when they are in that dining room and there's an amazing scene when the chef is talking to them about um Hitler wanting the ms mosquitoes eliminated, so they devastated the whole area and then all the frogs died and so Hitler had frogs brought in from the surrounding areas to'cause he couldn't sleep without the frog sound at night.

And also an amazing account of allegedly why Hitler became vegetarian which was being horrified by the blood and an abattoir he visited. Yeah. I wondered if that image wasn't just trite though. I mean do do you know what I mean? It's like oh come on, is that too obvious and is that is that you know One of the things that they're doing.

film does terribly I think is imagery, is symbolism. The final scene I won't tell you anybody what it is, no spoilers obviously, but the final scene is so unbelievably terrible in its symbolism. You cannot believe that a filmmaker is mak is is actually producing a film with this f this image as the final image. You cannot believe how clunky it is.

And I think that's the problem is that I I I agree with you that the best parts of the film are when you're in that dining room with them and that sense of tension and and it is established very well, I think. But everything around the dining room just doesn't work. And I think that You know, that's there were serious problems as I say with the scripting and the direction. There was one moment which I wondered if that was from a true account, which is when a couple of the women fall sick.

And there's huge panic and of course they don't get any medical treatment, they just lock them in a room to see if they die. And it turns out to have been something to do with honey. Yeah. I I think that's the other problem with the film. I mean I I absolutely ac accept that, you know Fictional films don't have to be true.

But one of the problems with it is you do not know how much of it is is complete is completely made up and how much is is true. And I I uh that was problematic I think. And I also think there is a difficulty about Um i it's got this cool gaze of in terms of its cinematography and its direction. And once you've seen zone of interest I think a cool gaze on ordinary Germans living their lives while terrible things happen next door is really hard to pull off and

I kept feeling really uncomfortable with th many of the decisions which are quite trite. Yeah, I think with the Nazis you kind of ha it has to you you feel you deserve truth, don't you? Yeah. Yeah. And of course you've got to be brutal, but then you know, y you as a filmmaker your dilemma is how do you make it compelling enough m to make people want to watch or not? And I think you sense the director, the script writer and so on. They are struggling to make this a film which people should

want to see whilst also depicting an incredibly grim story. Yeah I'd rather see a good documentary about the subject if one could be made. Well The Tasters, if you want to try it, is out in cinemas tomorrow, certificate fifteen. We have time now for cultural pitch.

Um which is things that you have watched, read consumed would you like to share. Sarah, do you want to go first? I want to share two. Uh one live and one on iPlayer. On iPlayer there is a documentary about the Royal Ballet principal Melissa Hamilton.

Made by True North and it's called Principal Ballerina. And it's a brilliant story because m Hamilton, everything's against her becoming a principal. She starts dancing too late. She is Fighting against the odds, she says she always feels behind, she's always catching up. At the age of thirty six.

when she should be retiring. She gets to be a principal and it records that moment and it's brilliant. The second thing that I just want to say is that Russell Malifant, who is one of the great choreographers, contemporary choreographers of our time is dancing at the age of sixty four, brilliantly, in a brilliant programme called Landscapes at Saddles Wells East. There are tickets, I checked before I came on. It's on Friday and Saturday. And it's a w it also has um Alina Kojikaro

and Daniel Pareto who are amazing dancers and it's just a wonderful evening where you see great dancers doing great work. And Sadlaswell's East is at Terrific Venue. Um Ben or Pick. Uh my pick is an exhibition by an artist called Rayen Song at Tramway in Glasgow. Tramway's a fantastic exhibition and actually general cultural venue in Glasgow. It's had some of the great exhibitions of recent years.

And This exhibition by Ray Yen Song, who's a young Edinburgh born artist, uh is about a kind of micro beast. Who is a kind of ten vast tentacled structure? in the gallery and you walk through the tentacles where you'll see sort of uh ob uh beings created through inflatables and glass into a central kind of brain as it la if you like, which has a pond in it

and with ceramic constructions and then offerings in w in these ceramic constructions and actual real pond life in the pond too. And it's it r it refers to Taoism, it refers to ancestral family mythologies. It's it's tapping deeply into the politics of m more than human life which is which is so current in contemporary art. So it's it's a it's utterly entrancing. It has great shadows and light. It is a marvellous theatrical

brilliant construction by a very promising artist. You have definitely sold it to all of us, I think, Ben. Thank you. Well I would pick The Great Arch, which is a French film by Stéphane Desmoustier. It's only on at the Institut Francais in London, um, but it is on all month and it stars Claise Bang.

a'r real-life Danish architect, who, in 1983, won an open competition to design what became the great arch de la défense for President Mitterrand. The film looks at the process and how it became mired in politics and bureaucracy. It's a really fascinating film.

Um now coming up on Monday's front row well I should say thank you both to to Ben Luke, sorry, and Sarah Crompton, you were brilliant reviewers, sorry about that. And very rude of me. On Monday's front row, Ryan Gosley. And we'll be giving our scores on Claudio Winkleman's new chat show. But we end tonight with a salute to Liza Minelli, eighty today with the role that won her an Oscar, Sally Bowles in Cabaret. Take this way your table!

Thanks for listening to Front Row. I'm Samira Ahmid and the producer was Claire Bartleet. The production coordinator was Fiona Anderson and our studio manager was Sue Mayo. And you can find lots more front rows, including my interview with Killian Murphy on BBC Sound.