sound + vision
on the radar
Rune Bendixen
director
words by Petra Sjouwerman
Rich Kids, a new Danish film released in March, has already received a lot of media attention in Denmark for its controversial subject matter. The film follows a group of rich teenagers who live in the suburbs north of Copenhagen. They have platinum credit cards, expensive cars and designer clothes, but needless to say this doesn’t mean they’re happy. Neglected by their career-obsessed parents, the kids choose to live close to the edge, inhabiting a clandestine world of drugs, violence and sex.
“Rich Kids is fiction, but it’s based on true stories,” explains 38-year-old Bendixen, whose feature debut Bullfighter (2000) starred Willem Dafoe. To research Rich Kids he followed a group of 17- to 19-year-old youngsters for a period of six months, hanging out with them in their favourite posh restaurants and clubs. “The film tells seven short stories: snapshots of their lives, I like to call them,” Bendixen explains. The cast is made up of actors rather than the teenagers Bendixen originally spoke to, who were warned against appearing in the feature by their schools – understandable, given the topic.
What took the director by surprise was how much he enjoyed being around them. “They were very friendly,” he says. “They trusted me and sometimes took me into their homes. They live in beautiful houses, with real art on the wall. As a regular Dane, you never enter this sort of environment.” As part of his research, Bendixen also did a number of video interviews with the teens. This gave him a unique peek into their worlds. “From the outside it looks like the perfect life, but when the girls hit the bottle too much they’d sometimes start to cry. Then they confessed that they were taking anti-depressants, or that they were consumed with sorrow over their parents’ divorce,” he explains. One guy had to be hospitalised after three years of cocaine abuse. “His parents had no clue,” recalls Bendixen.
The director hopes to start a discussion about drugs, violence and parental responsibility: “Drugs, for example, are a problem throughout the whole country, not just in Copenhagen. Young people who live in their own secret worlds are especially hard to reach for social workers. The only difference is that drug problems often become more serious for rich kids because they have so much money to spend,” says Bendixen, who lost a close friend because of drug abuse. This isn’t the only disturbing truth that the film brings out: “When you ask these kids what’s more important – money or love – they all answer money.” www.richkidsthemovie.com
for odd’s sake
Surreal Things: Surrealism and Design, a new exhibition at London’s V&A museum, shows how some of last century’s seemingly silliest designs have become its lasting legacy
words by Sophy Grimshaw
It took three years to gather the 300 exhibits that make up the V&A’s Surreal Things show, the first to examine the influence of ’30s surrealist art on design.
If one object typifies the movement, it’s surely Dalí’s Lobster Telephone (1938). For Dalí, lobsters and telephones were highly sexual symbols that were linked in the subconscious. Also on display is his more obviously sensual sofa in the shape of Mae West’s lips (also 1938), which some may be surprised to discover is coloured a dusky, natural pink.
Among the other surreal icons on show are Meret Oppenheim’s Table With Bird Legs (1939) and Óscar Domínguez’s satin-lined Wheelbarrow armchair (1936). There’s also a selection of paintings by Magritte and Dalí, as well as clothing such as the eerie Tear-design dress (1937) by high fashion’s Elsa Schiaparelli.
Surreal Things: Surrealism and Design
V&A South Kensington Cromwell road, London
+44 (0)20 7942 2000 29 March–22 July.
www.vam.ac.uk
Art review
Cindy Sherman: 30 Years of Staged Photography
Although renowned for her chameleonic capacity to continually update her look, even Madonna has nothing on American artist Cindy Sherman. This 250-work retrospective is devoted to an artist who constantly strikes a different pose. Sherman’s self portraits show her in various guises – from high-fashion vamp to put-upon frump – and they continually dramatise and analyse received ideas about femininity. It’s no wonder, then, when the media is such a powerful force in shaping people’s personalities, that Sherman’s inventions still seem effortlessly in vogue.
Cindy Sherman: 30 Years of Staged Photography runs until 20 May at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, near Copenhagen.www.louisiana.dk
CD review
Astronomy For Dogs – The Aliens
If Gordon Anderson sounds far-out on this deliriously skewed debut it’s because he’s already been there and come back. After writing the Beta Band classic Dry The Rain in 1997, the Aliens frontman struggled with mental illness for eight years. With two of his trusted Beta Band co-pilots in tow, he returns with an album of interstellar expansiveness, joyously fuelled by Rubber Soul/Revolver-era psychedelia. Only Waiting could be a Caledonian George Harrison, and The Happy Song says it all. Put your eye to their telescope.
Astronomy For Dogs – Pet Rock/EMI, released 19 March
Film review
The Good German – directed by Steven Soderbergh
It’s in black and white, it probes American values and it paints journalism in a decent light – must be a job for George Clooney. Sure enough, The Good German stars Hollywood’s favourite liberal as a military reporter investigating a murder amid the chaos of post-war Berlin. Reunited with Steven Soderbergh after directing last year’s Good Night, and Good Luck himself, Clooney does his best Humphrey Bogart impression opposite Cate Blanchett’s Ingrid Bergman. The film’s poster is an adoring homage to Casablanca, but even if The Good German doesn’t reach those lofty heights, it’s still a satisfyingly stylish affair.
The Good German – Warner Brothers, out now
Also out this month…
Zodiac, David “Se7en” Fincher’s latest thriller, is set in ’70s San Francisco and features Jake Gyllenhaal and Mark Ruffalo on the trail of a serial killer. Anne Hathaway tries an English accent for Becoming Jane, the speculative story of a certain Miss Austen in love.
Have you been watching our in-flight films? Test your knowledge here
1. What cameo role does Ricky Gervais, the British comedian and co-creator of the sitcom The Office, play in Night At The Museum?
a. The curator
b. A museum visitor
c. One of the exhibits
2. In the movie Flushed Away, what is the name of the sewer-savvy female mouse who befriends Roddy?
a. Rachel
b. Rebecca
c. Rita
Keeping you entertained…
Through March and April, Flushed Away and Night At The
Museum are being shown on selected Sterling flights.
words by Richard Clayton
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