Phil Kirby watches a film, Historic Centre, by Aki Kaurismaki, commissioned by a former winner of European Capital of Culture, Guimarães in Portugal, and gets a bit pessimistic…
A church clock chimes seven times.
A man walks through a silent, misty town centre, down a narrow cobbled street, and rattles his keys in the lock of a tavern door.
He walks across a pitch dark bar and switches on two sets of lights. The fluorescent tubes make hardly an impression in the gloom, illuminating a glass cabinet and bare veneer surface but leaving the rest of the space in deep shadow.
The man emerges from the kitchen with a tin bucket and a mop. He wipes the tavern’s tiled floor with cold water. The metal legs of mismatched chairs scrape as he sloshes randomly beneath the tables.
A dog barks in the background.
On a metal surface in the kitchen he roughly chops an unidentified leafy vegetable with a large cleaver, and transfers the greens to a small pan of water. He empties a heap of salt from a tin box into his palm and tips it into the pan. A yellow flame gutters on the hob, the only hint of warmth or colour standing out against the silver and black appliances.
He stirs the pan with a large wooden spoon. Takes a smaller metal spoon from a cupboard and tastes the soup. One sip.
Music starts to play from an old valve radio. A song about madness and misfortune (oddly misspelled in the sub-titles) and the bitterness of unrequited passion.
Three customers enter the tavern over a cracked front step.
The tavern keeper pours wine from a row of large barrels into a series of unattractive containers and hands them to his customers. One regular, with an impressive centre parting and crumpled face, stares ahead, smoking mechanically. One just sits and stares. The third twirls his cup of wine as he smokes and stares.
Nobody has anything to say.
Two small simple square tables are covered in neat paper table cloths inside the tavern. The wall behind is blue and bare except for a crucifix, and what light there is slouches in from the street, laying down long shadows across the floor. One table rocks when the tavern keeper arranges the dishes.
A table is taken outside and laid with extreme care. A yellow flower in a narrow green vase is placed in the centre. On the tavern wall, scribbled roughly on a slate, the words, “Soup, 1.80.”
The tavern keeper is smoking, resting his elbow on an old radio which is broadcasting some incomprehensible economic news, and the time. Lunchtime.
The pan of soup bubbles away.
As the church clock strikes 12 the tavern keeper goes outside and watches droves of people entering a neighbouring establishment. He walks over, emerging from the shade into brilliant sunlight, and reads the colourful, artfully written, enticing chalk board menu. He takes some notes.
Back in the tavern he stares a long moment into the glass cabinet, which seems to contain four uncertain items of food. He chooses a yellow package.
On the slate outside he scrawls, “sardines in olive oil, 1.15.”
In a backroom he spots a large, flat, grey object hanging by a hook, casting a large shadow against a dirty wall.
He pops what looks like an Odour Eater into the boiling pot and goes outside to add, “Fisherman’s Soup, 2.50”, to the slate, watched by a smirking customer who seems more interested in the comings and goings of the rival tavern.
The tavern keeper brings the pan to the wonky table and helps himself to a ladleful. He tastes a spoonful, looks at the soup, puts down the spoon and glances over at the other tavern. He sighs. He puts up a sign over the slate, “Be right back.”
Sat at a neat table he is delivered a meal in an attractive bowl by an attentive waiter. The place is bright and warm, full of people and the sound of conversation.
He takes a spoonful of soup. He looks out of the window and seems lost in reverie – he’s in a crowd of happy, dancing people, dancing to a jolly tune, dancing with a smiling woman, whirling around, having the time of his life, a dream of colour and joy and companionship – then helps himself to another spoonful of soup. He finishes the bowl.
The sun goes down. He closes the tavern, in deep evening shadow, and walks home.
He dresses in his going out clothes, red shirt, blue tie, collar buttoned. Neat and tidy. He gets his shoes shined. He goes for a haircut. A guitarist in the barbers shop serenades him with a lament about times long gone as the scissors snip away.
He waits at a bus stop with a bunch of red flowers. He watches the bus pull in. He notes the passengers alighting. Two old tourists. He sees the automatic doors close. The bus accelerate away.
He looks down at the flowers as he starts to walk away. The flowers are abandoned on the pavement.
He walks back home. Listens to a football commentary a neighbour has turned up too loud (Italy are winning), and sits in a bare room, pouring wine into the single glass he has beside him on the shelf. The radio comes on. A melancholy song about a spurned lover.
He puts out a saucer of milk for a cat we never see…
This is a film commissioned by a winner of European Capital of Culture. In 2012 it was Guimarães.
What the hell is wrong with Guimarães
There’s not one person under the age of fifty in that film.
Not one person telling the tale of the achievements, aspirations, plans and vision of the city. It’s like Guimarães doesn’t even have a council backed cultural strategy.
Where’s the spark?
Why wasn’t Aki Kaurismäki asked to make a film about the other tavern, the one that tourists flocked to? Not this dump.
I get the feeling Aki Kaurismäki does not care about inward investment. Or the youth.
This is pessimistic. Bleak. Miserable. Melancholic.
Where are the drummers and the dancers and the pretty young people expressing their beautiful innocent creativity? Where’s the uplift?
The Tavern Keeper is a failure. His tavern’s fucked up. He can’t even attract locals never mind be an attraction for the town’s tourist offer. He’s toxic. A liability.
Why is nobody smiling?
Why that same, unchanging, stony expression?
And why isn’t anyone talking? At least they could mention that Guimarães was the best town in Northern Portugal, or say something positive about the place. There are leaflets about the heritage they could use.
And, what’s the camera doing? Nothing. Bugger all. The camera looks like it’s stuck, or used by someone who has a very bad hangover and just can’t be arsed to make the effort. Just fixes blankly on a wall, a table, a bar, a sign, while the people come in and out of shot, or mostly just parts of people. Bits and pieces. An arm, a back, a leg. It’s like the director doesn’t care. He’s probably pissed too.
And, that slate. Soup, 1.80… couldn’t they have at least got in a designer? Made it look nice. Made it match the official Capital of Culture type face. That’s the worst branding I’ve ever seen. They could have chalked a pretty font at least. That’s just an embarrassment. Shit, to be frank…
And all this is true.
But watch the film. It’s worth signing up for mubi for the free month like I did. Watch the film and tell me you won’t remember this more than the official Leeds video for 2023 Capital of Culture.
Pessimism can be poetry.