Through Glasses Darkly

On his exhilarating debut “My Aim Is True”, Elvis Costello sang, “I’m not angry any more”, but listening to his outstanding follow-up “This Year’s Model”, nothing seems to be further from the truth. Released in 1978, Costello’s second album finds him at his most scornful, dripping with the aggression, menace and dark humour that have become his trademarks, though it also defiantly deals with the disappointment and denial experienced by this Angry Young Man.

While “My Aim Is True” definitely possessed the punk spirit with its biting lyrics and stripped-down production, “This Year’s Model” actually sounds like punk, almost as if it is kicking open the door that the first album had left ajar. Perfectly balancing the raw energy of his debut with the more elegant songwriting that would come to characterise Costello’s later work, this record explodes into action with (ironically) “No Action”, two minutes of fury wrapped up in a delicious melody that immediately establishes his punk credentials, as the group sounds as if they are spinning out of control. This is a dynamic, yet complex album of sparkling songs featuring an earnest maelstrom of emotional spite, bitter frustration, sexual angst and caustic political commentary – in other words, perfect for almost every teenager.

"Let them all talk"

The songs are as fast and spiky as the most vitriolic punk band, but Costello is a true Renaissance man and he manages to successfully blend in pop, new wave, rock and roll and even reggae without missing a beat. Having worked with the likes of The Damned and The Ramones, producer Nick Lowe not only brought all the punk credibility any group could want, but also gave the record a phenomenal sense of urgency. Edgier and nastier than ever before, Lowe pumped up the volume and delivered a raucous, full-bodied sound, teetering on the edge of combustion. There is a frenetic, jerky quality to this music that is highly infectious. Surrounding Costello’s breathless, snarling vocals with swirling keyboards and slashing guitar breaks, Lowe’s superb production means that “This Year’s Model” flashes by at a blinding pace.

Much of the credit is also due to The Attractions, whose sterling efforts on this album marked the beginning of a long, illustrious collaboration with Costello. Their wired intensity adds something to this album that was lacking in his more restrained debut, as they detonate in all their chaotic glory behind him. The engine’s dynamic propulsion is driven forward by the thumping rhythm section of Pete Thomas (drums) and Bruce Thomas on bass (no relation). Pete’s powerful drumming maintains a furious pace throughout, particularly on “Pump It Up” and “This Year’s Girl”, while Bruce’s nimble, innovative playing style provides a perfect counter-point.

"I can't stand up for falling down"

However, the keyboards of the incomparable Steve Nieve are the most important ingredient in the mix. Wielding his organ with the strength of a punk rock guitar, he gives the music much of its character, combining quirky progressions with edgy, piercing chords. The irresistible momentum of Nieve’s keyboards was an ideal match for Costello’s acerbic wit and transformed his sound into an intricate, sophisticated post-punk. It’s the moment when the New Wave movement found its front man – though this did unfortunately launch a host of feeble imitators (step forward The Jags and The Vapors). Of course, Costello’s raw voice is simply perfect for the job, a stunning combination of vocal range and sneering attitude that is against virtually everything.

In fact, Elvis Costello’s style is firmly anti-heroic and he resolutely refuses to glamourise himself. His compositions are like barbed, personal missiles aimed at friends, lovers, enemies and, well, everyone really. “Me and You (Against the World)”, as Joe Jackson, one of his better copycats, would later sing. However, what saves Costello from merely being a hateful figure is that he is just as honest and brutal towards himself. On “Hand in Hand”, he bitterly spits out, “Don’t you know I’m an animal?”, and he is only marginally less scathing on “Lipstick Vogue”, when he snarls, “Sometimes I almost feel just like a human being”.

"It's the truth, you will believe, Steve Nieve"

Costello makes it abundantly clear that he is suspicious of the new showbiz world he finds himself in. Whereas many of the relationship songs on the album deal with the fear of rejection, paradoxically there is also a palpable fear of success on the tracks that potently satirise fame and the music business. Costello’s strained voice accentuates the tension and suffering of his protagonist, as he makes clear that the Material World is not for him. He explores the theme with vicious attacks on his own status as the next big thing in “Living in Paradise” (“Cause meanwhile up in heaven they are waiting at the gate/Saying, We always knew you'd make it/Didn't think you'd come this late”) and celebrity culture in the almost psychotic “Lipstick Vogue”.

In the awesome “(I Don’t Want To Go To) Chelsea” he needs all of his resolve to resist the temptations of the bright lights: “Photographs of fancy tricks to get your kicks at sixty-six/He thinks of all the lips that he licks/And all the girls that he's going to fix/She gave a little flirt, gave herself a little cuddle/But there's no place here for the mini-skirt waddle/Capital punishment, she's last year's model/They call her Natasha when she looks like Elsie/I don't want to go to Chelsea/Oh no it does not move me/Even though I've seen the movie”. The lyrics portray a claustrophobic paranoia, while the anxiety is developed by the taut, ska-influenced groove.

"A jaundiced worldview"

The pent-up scorn and anger that Costello so obviously feels is sprayed out in every track, even the slower, quieter ones, with “Hand in Hand” demonstrating the sheer force of his will, “No, don't ask me to apologise/I won't ask you to forgive me/If I'm gonna go down/You're gonna come with me”. The blistering indictment of everyone and everything that stands in his way rages on in the kinetic, hypnotic “Lipstick Vogue” when he yells, “You say I've got no feelings/This is a good way to kill them” and the deceptive “Lip Service” (“is all you’ll ever get from me”).

Even the nervy “The Beat”, which sees him wrestling with loneliness and insecurity (“I don't go out much at night/I don't go out much at all/Did you think you were the only one/Who was waiting for a call”), is fundamentally a tale of sexual frustration that brims with naked aggression and nervous energy, as he contemplates the emptiness of meaningless nightclub encounters: “See your friends - treat me like a stranger/See your friends - despite all the arrangements/See your friends - nothing here has changed/Just the beat”.

"Clowntime is over"

Most adolescent songs are about desire, but Costello’s manifesto is the antithesis of wanting something (or someone). His focus on repulsion is neatly encapsulated in the album’s opening lines, “I don't wanna kiss you/I don't wanna touch/ I don't wanna see you/Cause I don't miss you that much.”, which is a bold denial of yearning. This track, “No Action”, is a fine example of Costello’s ability to pen a harsh song about life’s negatives and is entirely appropriate for this album’s message of “don’t wants”. Examples abound throughout: “I don't want to check your pulse/I don't want nobody else/I don't want to go to Chelsea”; “I don't wanna be hung up, strung up/When you don't call up”; and “Don't say you love me when it's just a rumour”. Costello chooses not to fantasise about his unrequited desire, but to savour the exquisite torture of prolonged frustration.

Maybe that’s why this record at times can sound like a lengthy misogynistic tirade. Costello’s biographer wrote, “There is little point in denying that many lyrical images of his early songs attest to a barely contained contempt for women”. In Costello’s world, women are usually painted as one-dimensional tricksters who use their looks to ensnare men, pretending to love while planning their escape. Even the album’s title “This Year’s Model” could be a reference to the world’s oldest profession. His venomous attitude towards the opposite sex is apparently most evident in “This Year’s Girl” with its take-no-prisoners attitude: “See her picture in a thousand places/Cause she's this year's girl/You think you all own little pieces/Of this year's girl/Forget your fancy manners/Forget your English grammar/Cause you don't really give a damn/About this year's girl”. However, this could just as easily be interpreted as a condemnation of the commercial world. Costello is nothing if not an equal opportunity hater.

"Mystery Dance"

Despite all this resentment, nobody was more adept at sugaring a bitter pill than Costello. He possessed a superlative talent for contrasting (and disguising) his withering words with irresistibly infectious melodies, playing the traditional pop misfit better than anyone. Just look at how the cheerful, catchy tune of “Living in Paradise” provides some sort of respite from the song’s tormented message of wanton betrayal, “You better have your fun before it moves along/And you're already looking for another fool like me”. Similarly, while the violence of “Hand in Hand” is being described (“Don't you know I got the bully boys out/Changing someone's facial design”), Steve Nieve’s organ provides a sweet, carnivalesque background to the ferocity.

Costello himself argued, “There is less humour on This Year’s Model than on My Aim Is True. It’s more vicious overall, but far less personal”. While most would agree that it’s a vicious record, where it’s at its most malicious is when it’s dealing with fractured relationships, so it doesn’t feel any less personal. In many ways, it’s a quintessential break-up album – “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do” for the punk era, if you will – with most of the tracks either cruel tirades against former lovers or anxious entreaties about potential romances. These are indeed songs for the broken hearted, albeit from the perspective of a disgusted, enraged Romeo: “And I think about the way things used to be/Knowing you with him is driving me crazy/Sometimes I phone you when I know you're not lonely/But I always disconnect it in time” (“No Action”).

"Live and dangerous"

Actually, some might say that Costello perhaps protests too much. On closer examination, the album’s derisive critique of relationships masks our hero’s need for love. He’s a mass of contradictions, so in “Pump It Up” he can’t make up his mind what he wants: “She's been a bad girl/She's like a chemical/Though you try to stop it/She's like a narcotic/You wanna torture her/You wanna talk to her”. From proclaiming that “No, I don't want anybody/Saying you belong to me”, he immediately argues the opposite, “I don't like those other guys looking at your curves/I don't like you walking round with physical jerks”. Even in the nasty “Lip Service”, he ends up with a plea, “But if you change your mind/You can send a little letter to me”. Costello had already revealed his emotional bluffing and crossed signals in “The Beat”, when he admitted, “I don't wanna be a lover/I just wanna be your victim”. He so badly wants to negate his cynical views on love, but when any hope fizzles out, he resorts to aggression – of the verbal variety.

The rise of Elvis Costello coincided, spookily enough, with the death of Elvis Presley, which took place a month after “My Aim Is True” was released. Although “The King” had been responsible for some of rock & roll’s finest moments, he had become a bloated parody of himself and was one of the symbols of over-indulgent excess that punk was so keen to replace, as was so memorably chronicled by Brighton’s Peter and the Test Tube Babies: “Elvis had a heart attack/Cause he got so bleeding fat/He weighed nearly half a ton/He looked more like a pregnant mum”.

"The breakthrough album"

Perhaps more relevantly, the late 70s were a time of enormous social change, as the Thatcher years began. This signaled the awakening of social conscience among Britain’s youth in response to the divisive policies of the Conservative government and Elvis Costello was among the most acidic and articulate of commentators. A few years later, he would make his feelings about Mrs. Thatcher absolutely clear: “When they finally put you in the ground/I'll stand on your grave and tramp the dirt down/When England was the whore of the world/Margaret was her madam”.

The political commentary on “This Year’s Model” is restricted to “Night Rally”, which touches on a fascination/hatred for Nazi Germany that pretty much defines the next album “Armed Forces” (originally entitled “Emotional Fascism”). It conveys a warning in a disturbing, but clever way by using powerful imagery, such as “Everybody's singing with their hand on their heart/About deeds done in the darkest hours/That's just the sort of catchy little melody/To get you singing in the showers”. There is little doubt about what Costello is talking about here, but he is also comparing those atrocities with the contemporary rise of the Right in England: “I would send out for assistance, but there's someone on the signal wire/And the corporation logo is flashing on and off in the sky/They're putting all your names in the forbidden book/I know what they're doing, but I don't want to look”.

"From a whisper to a scream"

However, the social commentary is never rammed down your throat – Costello is far too good a songwriter to fall into that trap. More than any other musician, he is able to successfully combine personal truths with political views, yet never appearing at all self-indulgent. His lyrics are always elegantly constructed and incisively insightful without ever being too trite or obvious and every song includes numerous quotable lines: “He's got the keys to the car/They are the keys to the kingdom” (“No Action”) and “Things you see are getting hard to swallow/You're easily led, but you're much too scared to follow” (“You Belong To Me”). Many lines contain a double meaning: “Every time I phone you/I just wanna put you down” (“No Action”) and “Sometimes I think that love is just a tumour/You've got to cut it out” (“Lipstick Vogue”). Costello’s unapologetic cynicism is more than matched by his black sense of humour and his jaundiced worldview – no meaningless rants from him.

A self-proclaimed “bug-eyed monster", Elvis Costello didn’t look like any one’s idea of a rock star (though Buddy Holly might have disagreed), but this was one guy you really did not want to mess with. He may look like a harmless geek on the album cover, but his lyrics are anything but gentle. Written in a poison pen, he unleashed venom-dipped darts in many directions, hitting every target with unerring accuracy. You might even say that his aim was true …

"You looking at me?"

Back in 1978, Elvis Costello remarked, “What I do is a matter of life and death. I don’t choose to explain it, of course. I’m doing it and I’ll keep doing it until someone stops me forcibly”. Over thirty years later, he is indeed still making music better than most, but “This Year’s Model” remains his finest hour (or, at least, thirty-six minutes). Others may prefer the more mature songwriting on “Trust”, the clearer production of “Imperial Bedroom” or even the pop masterpiece that was “Armed Forces”, but everybody would agree that Costello and the Attractions never rocked this hard again. For fans of music bursting with energy and intelligence, it really doesn’t get any better than this. It’s a truly brilliant, absolutely essential record. Ladies and gentlemen, Elvis has torn down the building.

Hidden Depths

Most modern thrillers start with a bang, but that’s certainly not the case with Michael Haneke’s “Caché”, a coolly elegant, challenging French mystery movie released in 2005. No way, José. Instead, this insidious film opens with a lingering, static shot of a nondescript, gated townhouse in a bourgeois Parisian neighbourhood. We watch in silence as a woman leaves through the front door. We observe nameless pedestrians strolling by. We note the parked cars in the side street, for in truth nothing much happens for a few minutes. Eventually we hear a couple talking to each other, though we do not see them. Finally, the image abruptly blurs, and then begins to fast forward and we realise that we’ve been watching a videotape, along with the couple that owns the house. It’s been sent to them anonymously and they are as much in the dark as we are. In this way, “Caché” grabs our attention from the very first frame (literally).

Georges Laurent (Daniel Auteuil), the successful host of a literary talk show on television, lives in a comfortable house with his wife Anne (Juliette Binoche), a book publisher, and their teenage son Pierrot. They appear to be the perfect (happy) family, but cracks appear when Georges starts to receive surveillance tapes of his family and alarmingly gruesome drawings from a stalker who seems to know a great deal about their lives. As the tapes contain no direct threats, the police refuse to help, leaving Georges to follow a clue in one of them, which leads him to the modest apartment of an Algerian man named Majid (Maurice Bénichou), whose parents worked for Georges’ family when he was a young boy. This meeting raises questions about Georges’ childhood, which he does not want to discuss, not even with his wife.

"Welcome to the house of fun"

In fact, nothing is ever as it seems in this film, which was aptly translated as “Hidden” for the English-speaking market with a double meaning – hidden camera (camera obscura, if you will) and hidden guilt. From that very first scene, the viewer can never be sure of what he is watching: is it the film’s (semi-reliable) narrative or another tape recorded by the unknown voyeur? Before long, we feel as off-balance and confused as Georges and Anne. As their trust in each other crumbles, we also realise that the director’s perspective is untrustworthy, resulting in an ever increasing sense of dread and paranoia. The same, indistinguishable long distance view is used on numerous occasions, but only as the scene develops does it become clear whether the shot is “live or Memorex”. Haneke is subtly, but effectively warning us that we should be suspicious of any expectations we may have or indeed any “reality” that we are shown – it’s what’s under the surface that really counts.

The movie is all the more powerful for the secrets that it keeps and most of its inner tensions are left unresolved apart from one brief and shockingly visceral moment. As it happens, the director is not the only one holding out on people, as Georges informs Anne that he might know who is behind the terrifying campaign, but refuses to say any more. It becomes increasingly likely that it pertains to some unspoken and long suppressed event, but Georges keeps the truth hidden in the same way that Haneke conceals the movie’s point of view, its political references and even the identity of the perpetrator.

"Video killed the radio star"

It’s a masterclass in how to unnerve your audience, not through what you show, but what is hidden from view. The tapes sent to George contain nothing threatening, but their menace arises not from their content, but the fact that they are being filmed. In traditional European fashion, not much seems to take place, but this slow burning study in buried guilt and sub-conscious prejudice steadily ratchets up the tension and develops an atmosphere of approaching danger. The film might not scare you out of your skin, but it will most certainly get under your skin. While Haneke clearly wants to deliver a political message, he never allows himself to be distracted from the business of building suspense, resulting in a taut, unsettling psychological thriller of the utmost originality. He manages to imbue the most ordinary of moments with a feeling of vague dread, making use of disquieting devices and sinister hesitations, as he repeatedly subverts the audience’s expectations.

As with many previous Haneke films, such as “Funny Games” and “Time of the Wolf”, there is a sense that something dire could occur at any time. Another common premise in his movies is the comfortable life of a complacent, middle-class family being threatened by an outside force. In this case, the simple fact that someone is watching them is enough to shatter their smug world. Their contented existence would have continued in its merry way, except for the disturbing fact that it was being observed by persons unknown. Although Socrates believed that “the unexamined life is not worth living”, the other side of the coin is disquieting in its own way.

"Can you guess what it is yet?"

Consequently, the mystery of who sent the tapes is of almost secondary importance, as the impact on the Laurent family becomes the most significant issue. Previously unimagined weaknesses in the fabric of Georges and Anne’s marriage emerge, as their well-dressed façade begins to fracture under the pressure of untold secrets. There is no real love or sentiment with this couple, just the cosy chemistry of a shared existence. The fragility of their ideal relationship is revealed and matters are made worse when Pierrot’s simmering discontent causes him to accuse his mother of having an affair.

When the intimidating tapes start to arrive, Georges initially seems almost paralysed by the need to carry on as if nothing had disturbed his glamorous media life. The deflating of his self-importance seems almost as painful to him as the notion that his family is under attack. Aficionados of French cinema have long appreciated Daniel Auteuil as a great actor and he delivers a magnificently compelling performance here as a man who cannot acknowledge his past – not because he thinks that it didn’t happen, but because he does not appreciate its significance.

"It wasn't me"

It’s an ambiguous, and in many ways unsympathetic, role, as Georges simply refuses to accept any responsibility or express any regret for his previous actions, which is hardly surprising, as he does not even connect emotionally with the present. He is an arrogant, self-justifying man, who has repressed his youthful cruelty for a long time. His anger lies just beneath the surface, so when he feels under pressure, he reacts with (racist) aggression, repeating the behaviour that started the cycle and adding insult to injury.

As his more balanced wife, Juliette Binoche is equally superb with her subtle, but utterly convincing portrayal of a woman who comes to realise that she no longer understands a husband who cannot be honest with her. Anne is one of those beautiful women who make everything seem effortless, balancing a flourishing career with an enviable private life, where she is a loving wife, a dutiful mother and a gracious hostess. It’s a sensitive display of bemusement and betrayed trust, and Anne is shocked to witness Georges’ emerging secrets and violent reaction.

"Juliette Bravo"

Haneke’s characters are never easy to like, yet it’s impossible not to empathise with the Laurents’ predicament and their growing anxiety. Initially, we cannot help but relate to this seemingly decent couple, as their perfect lives come under threat, but gradually we begin to question the basis of their conceited, self-righteous existence, as it appears that Georges’ casual cruelty as a child has returned to haunt him.

Ultimately, “Caché” is a story about guilt and how this is denied – on both a personal and collective level. The events not only re-open old wounds that Georges had long since repressed, reminding him of the harm he inflicted on his Algerian “brother”, but also highlight the issue of the French nation’s collective responsibility for the mistreatment of Algerian immigrants. As Haneke said, “this movie is a tale of morality dealing with how one lives with guilt”. In the case of Georges, the answer is to deny any responsibility, so when he meets Majid’s son, he says, “You’ll never give me a bad conscience. I’m not to blame”.

"It's such a perfect day"

While the film is almost claustrophobically personal, it is fascinatingly broad in scope, as it addresses the universal theme of the West’s responsibility for the damage done while colonising Third World countries. On the face of it, Georges is an educated, enlightened liberal, but his response to the tapes is to accuse the foreigner in his midst, thus exposing the latent fear and hatred of the Muslims that lies not very far below his urbane exterior. This is an obvious metaphor for France’s inability to accept accountability for the way it has handled its indigenous Algerian population. We hear that Majid’s parents never came back from a march in Paris, which is a reference to a shameful night in October 1961 (“la nuit noire”), when the police massacred up to two hundred Algerians during a peaceful demonstration.

The film’s social statement is unmistakable, but it is so skillfully woven into the fabric of the story that it never feels like a lecture. Indeed, the subject matter proved eerily prescient, when the movie’s release preceded the riots in the Parisian banlieues by only a few weeks, once again demonstrating the problems caused by the divide between those who enjoy the fruits of a capitalist society and those who are consigned to its fringes. There are parallels with other recent conflicts, such as the ongoing struggles in Iraq, which is actually shown on the enormous TV screen in the background of the Laurent’s living room. Needless to say, the unworried couple remains oblivious to the deaths announced by the latest news bulletin, only reinforcing the blithe indifference felt towards those less fortunate than them/us.

"Is it because I is black?"

Yes, I do mean “them and us”, for one of Haneke’s great strengths is the way that he uses the camera to engage the audience, so that it is impossible to remain a passive participant. At first, he makes the viewer complicit in the voyeuristic pleasure in watching Georges disintegrate on receipt of the creepy tapes, turning us all into accomplices for the crimes being played out on screen, as his destructive gaze invites us to partake in the remorseless campaign of terror. Then, by creating sufficient suspicion of Majid in Georges’ mind, the film forces us to confront our own attitude to immigrants in the post-colonial world. In the same way as the camera, we edit our memories in order to spare our conscience.

With its sparse, economical manner, the film confronts viewers head-on with some issues that are profoundly uncomfortable. Haneke is just as uncompromising in the way that he does not mollycoddle his audience. He glories in ambiguity, leaving the audience to think for itself, pretty much letting people draw their own conclusions. He explained this approach thus:

I like the multiplicity of books, because each book is different in the mind of each reader. It's the same with this film - if three hundred people are in a cinema watching it, they will all see a different film, so in a way there are thousands of different versions of “Hidden”. The point being that, despite what TV shows us, and what the news stories tell us, there is never just one truth, there is only personal truth.

"He's behind you"

Frequently described as the “conscience” of European cinema, Michael Haneke is a provocative film-maker with a justified reputation for stark, sometimes brutal, films that will make heavy demands of their audience. His trademarks include tremendously long static shots, no dramatic musical scores and brief outbursts of extreme violence. “Caché” is possibly his most watchable work, and though it is still an austere piece, it manages to explore serious themes of guilt and complacency without stinting on the suspense - demanding yet accessible. Critics have long acclaimed Haneke with the Cannes Film Festival giving him the Best Director prize in 2005 for “Caché” and this year rewarding his latest film “The White Ribbon” with the coveted Palme d’Or.

With its voyeuristic theme, “Caché” inevitably recalls Hitchcock’s “Rear Window”, albeit the perpetrator’s intentions are much less benign than good old James Stewart and Haneke has a far more political agenda than “the master of suspense”. A better comparison may be David Cronenberg’s powerful “A History of Violence”, which is also about a man with a secret history hidden from his family, whose capacity for violence emerges when under attack. Like “Caché”, the fate of the “violent” hero is similarly uncertain when the film ends, though at least we are reasonably sure of the identity of the “bad guy”.

"My life's not an open book"

Haneke, on the other hand, does not play by the traditional rules of the thriller and never explicitly identifies who has been sending the tapes. He very cleverly uses the audience’s greed for a neat answer to encourage any preconceptions we may have. The desire to know “whodunit” leads us down many false roads, making us Georges’ partners in crime when he flings out false accusations. This absence of closure may frustrate some, but is an essential element in the film’s success. Haneke is unapologetic about not dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s:

I'm not going to give anyone the answer. If you think it's Majid, Pierrot, Georges, the malevolent director, God himself, the human conscience - all these answers are correct. But if you come out wanting to know who sent the tapes, you didn't understand the film. To ask this question is to avoid asking the real question the film raises, which is more: how do we treat our conscience and our guilt and reconcile ourselves to living with our actions? I look at it as productive frustration. Films that are entertainments give simple answers, but I think that's ultimately more cynical, as it denies the viewer room to think. If there are more answers at the end, then surely it is a richer experience.

It is therefore logical that the closing scene, a long shot of multi-cultural pupils conversing on school steps, is defiantly ambiguous, but it feels like a natural conclusion to a film that aims to prove that there are no easy answers. If you watch closely, you will observe two children casually talking in the background, giving a tantalizing hint of something truly horrible. But is this really the solution? Is it the end of the family’s torment? Or the birth of another revenge plot? Maybe Haneke is once again toying with our perceptions by alluding to a vision of modern France at peace with itself, when it could be yet another videotape. Whatever the answer, the ending has the desired effect of leaving the viewer feeling as paranoid and distrustful as the characters, underlining the need to think more deeply about who the real victims are in this tale.

"Silent night"

Like the best French films, “Caché” is open to numerous interpretations. It is a movie of rare, penetrating intelligence that will leave you considering the many issues that it raises long after the closing credits have rolled. Haneke has produced a wonderfully edgy thriller, while addressing important themes like guilt, racism, recent French history and even the art of cinema, so it would be churlish to also expect him to present us with the “answer to life, the universe and everything else”. As he said, “It's the duty of art to ask questions, not to provide answers. And if you want a clearer answer, I'll have to pass”.

The Fischer King

When you think that your situation can get no worse, when you are truly at your lowest ebb, when you have reached the most depressed point of your life, then you would probably describe your position as “under a frog’s arse down a coalmine”. No? Well, you would if you were Hungarian and this evocative expression is the basis of Tibor Fischer’s first novel “Under the Frog”, which describes Hungary’s desperate existence beneath uncompromising Soviet rule.

It is uncomfortable, to say the very least, to be “under the frog”, but this is where the poor Hungarians found themselves in 1944 when the Second World War drew to a close and the German invaders were replaced by their Soviet “liberators”, who installed a puppet government. The twelve years from their arrival to the heroic, but ill-fated, 1956 uprising provide the tragic backdrop for Fischer’s book.

"Things can only get better"

Tibor Fischer has a Hungarian family background and has worked in Budapest, but considers himself to be thoroughly British. In 1993 the influential literary magazine Granta selected him as one of the 20 best young British writers (along with such disparate talents as Kazuo Ishiguro and Philip Kerr), though that did not stop his main character in “Under the Frog” attributing the appeal of the English language to the fact that “it was only spoken by rotten imperialists.”

Fischer’s work is invariably a thrilling combination of the entertaining and thought provoking, full of laugh-out-loud humour and quirky, biting intelligence. Subsequent novels include “The Thought Gang” with its band of philosophical bank robbers; “The Collector Collector” with its premise of a bowl (yes, that’s right, clay with something to say) narrating vast tracts of unrecorded history; “Voyage to the End of the Room” with its take on modern travel (without leaving your room); and “Good to be God” with its tales of the Church of the Heavily Armed Christ in sunny Miami.

"The Hungary Years"

However, “Under the Frog” is generally acknowledged to be Fischer’s masterpiece. Apparently rejected by an astonishing 58 publishers, the book went on to be shortlisted for the 1993 Booker Prize. It’s a fantastic debut, written with all the energy, love of life and dazzling language of the best first novels. He takes a serious subject, life in Communist Hungary, and is seriously funny about it. The brutal suppression of the 1956 Hungarian revolution has never been told in a more humorous vein.

The bleakness of post-war Hungary under its Stalinist leaders is obviously a fairly grim subject, but Fischer’s strength is turning what should be a hopeless state of affairs into a series of blackly comic misadventures. There are all kinds of books written about misery and oppression, but there are very few that are as hilarious as this one. This does not mean that the hardships are in any way cheapened by the jokes, rather they are highlighted by the all too plausible human responses to them, such as when a History teacher does not accept the Soviet invasion as an adequate excuse for completing a homework assignment: “You were hiding in that cellar for ten weeks. You must have had plenty of time.”

"I never play basketball now"

Although some of the anecdotes are hysterically funny, the book still manages to accurately convey the sense of repression and deprivation that gave rise to the revolt. In fact, the comic passages sparkle all the more, because the reality behind them is so sombre. The vicious incompetence of the regime is all the more effectively exposed, as it is described in such a jocular manner. Written with a sure touch and chock-full of delightfully ironic wit, the tale nevertheless has many heartbreaking moments of sadness and regret.

However, the book does not get bogged down with the dry, depressing history, but instead focuses on what it is like to be young in such a society and how the protagonists avoid being ground down by the authorities. It follows the fortunes of two young men whose interests are the same as those the world over, namely looking for sex, while avoiding work and responsibility. The only difference in post-war Hungary is that they are also searching for more prosaic needs such as food and shelter, while striving to avoid military service. They indulge in many silly pranks, but it’s clear that these distractions are an attempt to create a semblance of normality and a way of keeping their sanity despite the chaos and horror surrounding them.

"Hungary like the wolf"

Gyuri and his friend Pataki are notionally employed by the Hungarian State Railway in order to preserve their amateur status, but are really basketball players for the railway team. Actually, they really spend their time touring the country drinking, gambling, chasing girls and generally fooling around (for some reason they travel to all their basketball matches in the nude, even when this involves using public transport). Like an East European Del Boy, Gyuri is skiving, ducking and diving, but most importantly of all, he is surviving.

Their basketball team is well established in the First Division, but is never going to be a credible challenger for the championship while the league contains teams from the army and the secret police, as the former can draft any player it wants, while the latter can arrest opponents. No matter, for basketball “was better than a real job where you were expected to work for the money they didn’t give you”, such as digging ditches in the army.

"Mr and Mrs"

The boys’ everyday preoccupation may be having fun, but they intermittently dream of escaping to the West. Gyuri’s bad “moral credentials” prevent him progressing in his career, but his desire to leave is not motivated by material ambitions, rather a yearning for freedom away from the heavy hand of Communism. He would be content to be:

A street sweeper in London. Or New York. Or Cleveland; he wasn't that fussy. Anywhere outside. Any job. No matter how menial, a window cleaner, a dustman, a labourer: you could just do it, just carry out your job and you wouldn't need an examination in Marxism-Leninism, you wouldn't need to look at pictures of Rákosi or whoever had super-briganded their way to the top lately.

Pataki seems to adapt more successfully to life under Communism. The effortless star of the basketball team, he is a quick-witted trickster, both on and off the court, constantly questioning authority, though his rebelliousness seems to be driven more by his restless personality than any deep-seated ideology. His approach to life is in marked contrast to his poor father, who must first endure interrogation and torture before being released to suffer another form of humiliation, having been judged “too dull” to be a conspirator.

Gyuri is only marginally more serious-minded than Pataki, though he is an opportunist of a different stripe: too cynical to be an idealist, too moral to blow with the prevailing winds. He opts to not co-operate with the dictatorship, but acts primarily out of self-interest, observing his country with a cynical detachment, though he is a perennial under-achiever. Actually, his very ordinariness is a real plus for the story, as it makes him so believable. As opposed to a heroic or tragically downtrodden figure, Gyuri is just like you and me, which makes us sympathise with his thoughts and understand his growing bewilderment and wish to join the rebels. Indeed, his character develops in line with the building optimism and rising self-belief of the whole country.

"Is it Grant or Phil Mitchell?"

It is questionable whether Gyuri would develop a social conscience, if he does not meet and fall in love with Jadwiga, a resolutely anti-Communist student from Poland. Although the romance never comes to full fruition, Gyuri at least manages to “grow a pair”. The relationship is vibrant and extremely expressive, but is made even more affecting against the background of the initial ripples of unrest and the impending revolution. Indeed, possibly the two most moving moments in the story involve Jadwiga: first, when the couple face the Russian tanks in Budapest; then, in the final scene, when Gyuri looks back from the Austrian border.

The book wastes no opportunity to put the boot into the Communist system, its brutality, corruption and plain silliness. In revenge for having to see the colossal bronze statue of Stalin “sodomising the Budapest skyline”, Gyuri uses selected speeches of the party secretary to wipe his arse:

He was trying to enjoy his sojourn at the hindquarters' headquarters with extracts from these books, but although the idea had been highly pleasing, the reality wasn't as satisfactory. The Communists couldn't even hack it as toilet paper.

"You and your Spanish eyes will wait for me"

The Catholic church does not get away scot-free, being described as not “too top heavy with brilliance”, but most of Fischer’s barbs are reserved for the Communists, who so eloquently demonstrate the maxim that a little power corrupts absolutely:

He's doing a three-year course at the Communist Party College. Three years! I mean how long does it take to learn to say “Yes, comrade”?

“Has the new Hungary overcome the old three-layered class system of workers, bourgeoisie and nobility?” Roka asked, swiftly providing the answer (before anyone thought he was posing a serious question). “Not quite. There are still three classes in the new Hungary: those who have been to prison, those who are in prison and those who are going to prison.”

You were in jail?

Only for a few days. Bribery.

Bribery. Who did you bribe?

No, the problem was I hadn’t bribed anyone. They were very upset.

There is a recurring theme of characters walking on to observe how bad things have become, saying to great comic effect “This can’t go on much longer.” The reality, of course, is that things can and often do get worse, though most Hungarians seem to accept their fate with a resigned shrug of their shoulders for sound historical reasons: “The Hungarian Second Army, like all Hungarian armies, had the unfortunate habit of getting wiped out."

Gyuri’s brother Istvan has his own way of dealing with life’s slings and arrows: “He had returned from his years on the Russian front with one important souvenir: the inability to get worked up about things that weren't three years on the Russian front.” However, Gyuri sums up his growing discontent thus: “I know life is unfair, I don't dispute that, but does it really have to be this sort of industrial strength unfair?”

"Stay Hungary"

This is particularly the case in the countryside, which would appear to be even worse than the major cities, at least according to the boys:

A place where the shoe was still seen as a daring new fashion idea, where only the sound of crops growing there disturbed the peace.

Years before Jozsi from the ground floor had returned from a summer holiday visiting relatives in Transylvania and recounted in horrified tone: “They actually fuck ducks. I'm not joking, I saw it.”

“Don't be ridiculous,” Pataki had riposted, “it must have been a goose.”

There’s no doubt that Fischer has a remarkable feel for Hungary and its people, which is hardly surprising, as many elements are autobiographical. Although the book deals with his roots, it does not contain many of Fischer’s own direct experiences, though most of it was drawn from stories he heard from his father (who escaped to the West in 1956) and godfather, both of whom were in a basketball team, and from people he met in Hungary when he worked there as a journalist. Fischer claims that almost everything in it is true, or only mildly exaggerated, “although as my sources were Hungarian, there might be more fiction in it than I think.”

"The Thought Gang"

The story aptly captures Hungarian sentiments during the Soviet takeover of their country, yet it neatly avoids too much melodrama, grief or bloodshed. It is all presented rather matter-of-factly, filtered through the eyes of Gyuri and his basketball playing buddies, giving us a fine example of how a novel can take a deadly serious subject and treat it with lightness, humour and empathy.

When Gyuri prematurely contemplates the momentous collapse of Communism, he is more concerned about the impact on him personally: “When he heard the news of Stalin's death, from the radio, Gyuri was shampooing his hair. Apart from experiencing an intense well-being, his first thought was whether the whole system would collapse in time for him not to have to take the exam in Marxism-Leninism he was due to sit the following week.” This is how people must have to bear up under a totalitarian regime, as no other approach to everyday life would be tolerable.

In fact, many of the problems exercising Gyuri’s mind are the same as any other young man: (a) the opposite sex - “1950 was a good year, I almost slept with four women”; (b) studying – “Mathematics had this to recommend it, if nothing else; it made everything else, ants, English, push-ups, ironing, washing-up, beguiling and wonderful. Whole galaxies of interests had popped open now that the maths exam was drawing close; anything unconnected with maths was irresistible.” Far from undermining the significance of the devastating events taking place around them, this technique places them in the proper perspective.

"Smile like you mean it"

The book is structured as a series of vignettes, flashing back and forth over the period. This episodic approach allows Fischer to create a patchwork of anecdotes, rather than attempting to weave a continuous story, which enables him to introduce a host of brilliantly designed characters and adds momentum to the events, while drawing a picture of the social history through allusion rather than detailed explanation.

Given the Eastern European setting and the cast of Kafkaesque characters, comparisons have somewhat inevitably been made to Milan Kundera’s “The Joke” and Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse 5”, but Gyuri is powerfully reminiscent of two great literary characters: Holden Caulfield for his escapades with authority, education and women in J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye”; and Frédéric Moreau as a young man lost in a revolution in Gustave Flaubert’s “Sentimental Education”. The comedy shares something in tone with Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22”.

"Machine Gun Etiquette"

Whatever the literary style, most importantly the book is very funny, crackling with the wicked, bittersweet humour and eloquent language that is unique to Fischer, as can be seen when the hero is confronted by yet more bureaucratic obfuscation:

Finally, he was connected to a voice whose hostility and reticence convinced him that he had at last reached the right person in the right department. “You expect me to tell you this by phone?” reiterated the irate voice. “How do I know you're not an American spy?”

“Look at it this way,” said Gyuri, chewing over this epistemological doubt, “would an American spy tell you to fuck your mother?”

Painfully moving, but also uproariously funny, “Under the Frog” is a superbly written novel that really involves you in the adventures of Gyuri and his friends, culminating in an unexpected, yet brilliant, ending that is simultaneously achingly poignant and deeply satisfying. As one of Fischer’s characters says, “Life is too short for good books … one should only read great books.”