The Times’ art critic Rachel Campbell-Johnston has an almost endearing knack of breathlessly stating the latest received opinion as a profound insight, and stringing together tired cliches as though they were important contributions to the debate. I suppose it’s part of the job description. How else can you write seriously about the Turner Prize? – “It begs important questions about the ways that we negotiate our planet“. Now, from her latest Arts Notebook:
King Kong has a visceral power because it speaks with the voice of a myth: with the bellow of the Minotaur as he lumbers through his labyrinth; with the arrogance of Theseus as he trusts to his thread; with the sorrow of Ariadne left abandoned on an alien island. This is a movie that reverberates with a deep symbolic resonance. It speaks of the inner life of mankind: explores the emotional jungles that explanation alone cannot navigate. Myths like this help us to feel our way back into the world.
This film speaks directly to a mankind more than ever numb to nature. This Kong — not a monster but a magnificent silverback gorilla — speaks of the ravages that we wreak upon the splendours of the planet, of the greed that lays waste to natural glory. This is a movie that explains why in a world of almost six billion people there are barely 600 gorillas left; why in a Montreal conference dedicated to environmental matters, the chief American negotiator upped sticks and walked out.
It does??
Leave a Reply