Category Archives: Hedonism

Given the apocalyptic tone of the real news these days, Jose Cuervos new campaign, Tomorrow Is Overrated, could turn out to be positively prescient.

Lets hope not. But its certainly a direct, if tongue-in-cheek, attempt to tap into Americans current fears and need for an occasional release like a shot of no-nonsense liquor, ideally in the context of a madly romantic moment.

The brand describes the creative as seeking to resurrect the original intensity of tequila by celebrating Cuervos historic disregard for anything but celebrating the moment as contrasted with other tequilas focus on refinement and conformity.

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But Kevin Jones, chief creative officer of Cuervos agency of record, Crispin Porter + Bogusky LA, cuts to the chase: This campaign bluntly points out that whatever awaits us tomorrow might not be that great of a reason to miss out the fun you could be having tonight, he says. And with all the uncertainty there is in the world now, this message seems particularly relevant.

The campaigns centerpieces are a two-minute video (below) and a 60-second TV spot adapted from it.

Directed by Ringan Ledwidge known for unnerving films like Gone and Voodoo in My Blood, as well as ads for Nike (Winner Stays) and Planters (Planters Holiday Party) the video depicts a handful of people who are in a bar out West somewhere when an announcement comes over the television: The end of civilization is upon us. Hold your loved ones close.

As a powerful wind (nuclear firestorm?) blows fellow citizens past the bars windows, one handsome, be-jeaned dude puts Elviss Its Now or Never on the juke box and makes like Astaire with the woman nearest him. (Luckily, shes gorgeous, in an unpretentious, cow-gal kinda way.)

Other watering hole denizens are inspired to follow suit and enjoy Cuervo shots relishing the moment even as the roof blows off and the end is nigh.

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Jose Cuervo's Apocalyptic Vision Encourages Hedonism 03/08/2017 - MediaPost Communications

On a quick jaunt away from tearing up American stages, Australia's favourite "s**t-pop" band, the Gooch Palms, arrive in Mandurah on March 10 to blow away Hooch punters.

Heres an idea: think about how many bands there are. The ones you know, the ones youve heard about. Now think about how many of those bands do something different. Really different. Possibly get-naked-on-stage different.

The Gooch Palms are one of those bands, and their weird and wacky take on musical performance built largely on on-stage stunts, bright colours and the aforementioned nudity. At this point, its only done them favours.

I dont remember the last time we stopped, Gooch Palms frontman Leroy Macqueen said.

At this point, its felt like two years since weve had any meaningful break. Weve probably clocked up close to 400 shows in the last two years.

Thats a pretty crazy number for any band, but for the Gooch Palms, its par for the course. The two piece partners Macqueen and Kat Friend, the symbioticparing somehow manifesting more energy than most full-size bands have a very definite, and much-loved, aesthetic.

Describing themselves as Australias pre-eminent s**t-pop band, Gooch Palms stage sets, video clips and all-around appearance drips novelty.

But this is only, really, the facade on what is a well-oiled machine; Macqueen and Friend live the Gooch Palms, the entire ship being steered by their ever-creative minds.

The release of their second LP, the revealingly-titledIntroverted Extroverts, also saw the formation of their own label imprint, as well as their shot at the stages of the US.

The first album we did, we made in nine hours in our front room, Maqueen said.

I dont wanna say it was half-arsed, but it was definitelypretty off the cuff. So going into a studio, with an actual engineer, was a huge change for us.

We had started building a bit of a base by that point, so we wanted to make something that reflected who we are, and what it is we do at our shows, which is basically have fun above anything else. It was definitely everything we wanted from the second album.

The jump to American audiences seems like a given for Australian bands these days, but it arguably makes more sense for the Gooch Palms: their raucous sets basically built around Friends pounding drum beats, Maqueens riffs from a crotch-covering guitar, and both of their anthemic calls to action, or to party, or to sit around in the living room seem tailor made for US audiences.

They love it, they eat it up, Maqueen said.

I mean, if you show initiative and passion in what youre doing, audiences will respond anywhere. You cant be lazy about it; youve gotta show the fans that youre as into being there as they are.

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The Gooch Palms are a handful of hedonism - Mandurah Mail

TAKE a look around the exclusive Mayfair wine shop Hedonism, which counts some of football's richest men among its clients.

TAKE a look around the exclusive Mayfair wine shop Hedonism, which counts some of football's richest men among its clients.

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Take a look around the Hedonism wine shop in Mayfair

The Sun claim that this is the place where Leicester owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha recently boasted about sacking Claudio Ranieri after a 500,000 spending spree.

It's also one of Jose Mourinho's favourite places to buy his wine.

Bottles are sold for as much as 100,000 each in the west London joint.

The Manchester United boss was spotted with a bag from the shop the day before he was confirmed as manager of the Old Trafford side.

Click through the gallery above to take a look around Hedonism.

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Claudio Ranieri: Look around the wine shop where Leicester boss ... - Daily Star

The worldview of unhindered pleasure in life is often called hedonism, a word derived from a Greek word that means pleasure or delight.

The worldview of unhindered pleasure in life is often called hedonism, a word derived from a Greek word that means pleasure or delight. Its main concern in life is maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain. We know from history about the orgies and drunkenness in the ancient world in Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome. And we see the same thing in our culture today.

But what does the Bible say about pleasure? Hedonism can be traced all the way back to the Garden of Eden. There, Eve was tempted by the devil to eat the forbidden fruit, seeing that it was good for food and a delight to the eyes. Ironically, her pleasure led to pain in childbearing, pain in toil for Adam, and pain in husband-wife relationships.

In contrast to this godless life of pleasure that many hedonists pursue today, Ecclesiastes 9:7-10 tell us that certain pleasures in life are approved by God: Food and drink, delightful possessions and romance. But in all the writers talk of enjoying the pleasures of life, God is the center. Eating, drinking, possessions and finding enjoyment in our toil under the sun are from the hand of God (Eccl 2:24-25; 3:13; 5:19). The Bible even says, Enjoy life with the wife whom you love (Eccl 9:9).

These pleasures are Gods good gifts, so we are to give thanks to God for them (1 Timothy 4:4-5). Even work is given by God for our pleasure. Our toil is not in vain when we find enjoyment in the fruits of our honest and diligent toil because it is from the hand of God (Eccl 2:24).

Enjoy all these pleasures today, because life is very short, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun. These pleasures will one day come to an end, to which [we all are] going.

The pursuit of pleasure is not a sin in itself. But it becomes sin when it turns into hedonism, the priority in your life, apart from serving and living for God. When this happens, real pleasure becomes only temporary, fleeting pleasures. Life is so short that God-less pleasure ends in eternal death and pain. After death, there is no pleasure or joy for those who have no fear of the LORD. Instead of joy, there is only fear of a future judgment (Hebrews 10:27). Instead of gladness of heart, there is only weeping and gnashing of teeth.

So why enjoy pleasures that are godless and meaningless? Our lives become meaningful only when we know the salvation that Jesus Christ gives. We can only eat bread with joy, drink wine with a merry heart, enjoy the love of our wives, husbands and children, and find joy in our labors, when we know that these earthly pleasures do not come to an end at death.

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Pastor's column: Hedonism: Self-driven life of pleasure - Gridley Herald

Leicester City chairmanVichai Srivaddhanaprabha boasted of axing Claudio Ranieri whileon booze spending spree

JOSE MOURINHO celebrated landing the Manchester United job in the same exclusive wine shop where Claudio Ranieris future was decided.

The Sun exclusively revealed Leicester chairmanVichai Srivaddhanaprabha boasted of axing the Italian during a 500,000 spending spree.

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Here is everything you need to know about pricey Mayfair vendor Hedonism Wines used by some of footballs richest men.

Keep up to date with ALL the football news, gossip and transfers

Sir Alex Fergusons love of fine wines saw him label Chelseas collection of plonk as like paint stripper.

So when Mourinho prepared to visit Old Trafford he tried and failed to impress the picky Scottish connoisseur.

Fortunately the Special One learned his lesson and started frequentingHedonism to avoid upsetting legendary Old Trafford chief Fergie.

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Mourinho was then spotted with a bag from the posh retailer a day before he officially became the third man to try and replace Ferguson.

Off Licence News installed the merchant as the fifth best in the country as itchallenged industry experts to make their picks in 2016.

Hedonism is owned byRussian exile and fierce Vladimir Putin critic Yevgeny Chichvarkin.

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A simple Halloween prank caused chaos in 2015 as a fake crime scene complete with blood and body line was reported as a murder.

Several Russian media outlets reported thatScotland Yard detectives were at the scene investigating, withChichvarkin hitting out at the coverage.

The outcast opened his shop which has over 5,000 bottles of plonk in 2012.

Cheaper varieties include a 2014 Rose going for just 11.60 while a rare Penfolds Block 42 Ampoule will set punters back a staggering 120,000.

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What is Hedonism wines? Mayfair vendor owned by Russian exile counts Jose Mourinho among its clientele and ... - The Sun

The earliest Arctic Monkeys tracks were brimming with a fast-paced, frenetic energy thats hard to match. Their later effortsSuck It And SeeandAMwere a different beast; mature, considered and wholly held together by Alex Turners commanding baritone.

Somewhere in between the two, sprinkled with a smattering of church organs and and an even more palpable vigour is the latest EP from The Byzantines,You Pull It.

Michael, David, Jose and Johnny are the lads from Adelaide who have pulled together this thrumming release. Listening to the EP, you have to wonder exactly what this foursome have been getting up to on tour, but that pervasive, pitch-black and often perverted underbelly givesYou Pull Itcharacter beyond the bands years.

Lyrically The Byzantines adopt the adept philosophy of the practised hedonist. Brutally honest, provocative and even spine-chilling at times, the EP is a murky swamp of vice from start to finish. But ifmusical history has taught us anything, a little high-end degeneracy goes a long way. The band sculpts their wickedness for the better onYou Pull It, employing their character as a draw-in rather than any sort of repellent.

The music is uniformly interesting, a consistent metamorphosis that keeps you on edge. The way the Byzantines employ fills, key changes or the introduction of a new layer is unswerving in their effectiveness its the furthest youll possibly get from boring instrumentation.

Closing trackBefore I Go Under demonstrates this consideration. At times a dancehall, Brit pop singalong, this track reaches into the abyss of psych rock raunchiness for an almost out-of-place breakdown. The singing, tremolo chords come out of nowhere, but ripthe song and EP into a different state of mind with their introduction.

The British influence is worn on The Byzantines sleeve, Arctic Monkeys have been mentioned but the sonics of Kasabian consistently rear their head. That being said, the heavily employed organ, adaptive musicality and lyrical impurity of this record carve out something unique for this four-piece from Adelaide.

WithYou Pull ItThe Byzantines have carved their names into their genre-scape and the Aussie scene. No longer a simple of imitation of music which hascome before, this EP speaks volumestowhatever will follow.

You Pull Itis out now.

The Byzantines are on tour right now. Catch the dates below, and head to their Facebook page for the details.

Fri Feb 24 The Karova Lounge Ballarat, VIC Sat Feb 25 The Workers Club Geelong, VIC SunFeb 26 The Workers Club Melbourne, VIC Wed Mar 1 Rad Bar Wollongong, NSW Thur Mar 2 Transit Bar, Canberra, ACT Fri Mar 3 The Brighton Up Bar Sydney, NSW Sat Mar 4 Clipsal 500 Adelaide, SA Fri Mar 10 The Currumbin Creek Tavern Gold Coast, QLD Sat Mar 11 The Milk Factory Brisbane, QLD

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How dirty do you like it? Revel in hedonism with You Pull It, the new EP from The Byzantines - Happy

The 90s saw a huge surge in drinking, but alcohol consumption has been in steady decline since 2002. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

The behaviour of this nation, its relentless heeding of expert advice, the stiff downward curve of its self-harming habits, must be the cause of intense frustration to the hell-in-a-handcart lobby. It has long been observable that the youth of today act the way the youth of two decades ago used to be told to act, when they arrived at the GP with astomach ulcer and an anxiety disorder. They go to the gym, they have personal bests, they count their steps, they walk up stairs. They spend less on alcohol and more on coffee. Their behaviour is so different, so pronounced, that it has affected the entire cohort known as adults. The family-spending data from the Office of National Statistics reported last week that average weekly spend on alcohol, cigarettes and narcotics had fallen below 12 for the first time.

Generation X has of late cast itself as the buffer of decency between the righteous self-interest of the baby boomers and the fragile solipsism of the millennials. But the really salient development, incremental in its arrival but sudden in its obviousness, is the total rejection of hedonism, which was all we X-ers were ever good at. Alcohol consumption has been in steady decline since 2002. The 90s saw a surge, among young men in particular; between 1994 and 1999, they increased their intake by an incredible eight units a week (young women were less dramatic, starting from a lower bar, but female drinking overall increased by a third over the same period). These spikes are understood to be spurred by economic booms, although the relationship between those and a kind of cultural exhilaration must surely be symbiotic, each driving the other. To recap for the younger reader: these were the years when binge was a compliment; William Hague would show off about drinking 14 pints at a sitting; whole sitcoms would be built on the assumption that you could drink wine in the morning and that would be funny. It was the era of ladettes and self-parody, hangovers and fags, gleeful personal failure. All of that has been comprehensively rejected; nobody even staged a rebellion. They just thought we were silly.

There are other things happening here, sometimes in parallel, sometimes bisecting. People spend what they can afford, and other costs have gone up. Wages have stagnated, rents increased. Credit is tight and viewed with suspicion. As Reni Eddo-Lodge, a 27-year-old activist turned writer, explains to me, rather wearily: Its really just about money. When I was a student, I drank more heavily than I do now. Ihavent smoked since 2012. It wasnt a puritanical thing; I just couldnt afford to. Everybody who I was friends with when I was 18 is limiting nights out because the cash just isnt there. The economic circumstances since the crash have been most punishing to the young, and their behaviour has changed the fastest.

Yet their drinking attitudes reveal motivations beyond frugality: Heineken polled 5,000 21-35 year olds in five countries this year, and found that self-awareness and staying in control were two considerations behind the fact that three-quarters of millennials limited the amount they drank on the majority of nights out. The alcohol industry has been wise to this for at least a decade. Bruce Davis, an anthropologist turned, briefly, consumer-whisperer, remembers seeing this anxiety in the 00s: Its the one thing thats constantly worrying drinks companies; all profits are based on volume. If you make beer, you only make money when you sell lots of it. They get really worried when they see volumes decreasing. But as soon as the millennials came of pub age, volumes did decrease, and at that point, it was more about self-fashioning than it was about cash. In the past, you didnt go drinking to be individual, you went to be the same as everyone else. Volume drinking is driven by people trying to keep up with each other. Millennials behaviour was always much more individual. People dont buy rounds as much. People are nomadic, they might not even stay with one group for the whole evening. Its a much more liquid, modern social life. But it would be a mistake to take modern as an unalloyed good; its partly modern because its atomised, insecure and precarious. Even among working-class millennials, theyre not going to the same workplace, so theyre not drinking in the same place. The big volume push for alcohol was drinking in groups.

Eddo-Lodge reminds us not to elide these new working patterns with adeliberated individualism. Theres this significant uptick in the number of young people freelancing. Its not achoice, thats just us making the best of a bad situation.

Swerving off the labour market and back to the pub, the industrys response was to devise interesting spirits, drinks that would generate income even in relatively small amounts. Davis invented Monkey Shoulder whisky and Sailor Jerrys rum, brands that consciously sought to disassociate themselves from the generations that drank in order to get drunk. The signature drink of this trend is craft beer, which partly through international cross-fertilisation the Antipodeans with their more distinctive hops, the Americans with their entrepreneurialism, us with our romantic attachment to beer has become the ultimate drink-as-self-expression, definitely-not-drunk-to-get-drunk drink. Chloe MacDonnell, 30, who works for the fashion title InStyle, lives the niche alcohol dream. We spend a lot of money getting the best gin, or the best beer. But at the same time, I will buy a bottle of wine for a fiver in Tesco. Its like fashion, the high and low element, designer to highstreet.

There is a health element that, again, occupies that uncomfortable space between individualism and insecurity. If you look at gym membership and gym frequency among millennials, its higher. You drink water and you take pills because it doesnt make you fat, Davis observes. (Gym-going, interestingly, may drive spending in all kinds of areas going out to eat, clothes shopping but it doesnt drive people to drink.) Narcotics spending has probably gone down not because of abstinence but because drugs are cheaper and purer and altogether better, proof if any were needed that market forces do work especially well on non-essential commodities. Yet both the surge in legal highs and the spate of clubs turning into bars makes me wonder whether the majority of people just prefer not to break the law. As a footnote, notions of indulgence and masculinity have changed: it used to be signifier of something or other, something good, if you could drink 10 pints without soiling yourself. That doesnt impress millennials so much.

MacDonnell names the defining generational difference: brunch. Me and my friends would go out for brunch at the weekend; older colleagues think thats just weird. Why not wait for lunch, so you can drink? For a short time last year, Ilived on ahill in the semi-suburbs of south-west London where young people would queue down the street on aSaturday morning to go to cafe/brand the Breakfast Club. I kept wanting to close-question them about it youre waiting in line, for an egg. Who does that? but they all looked so fit.

Both eating out and event spending minibreaks, day trips, experiences have peaked this year, which illustrates that its not leisure that has dropped off so much as hedonism. Spending on experiences is variously characterised as a new wisdom people realising that memories are more important to ones identity than things and a new self-fashioning people deciding that mindless enjoyment didnt add much to Project Me. Eddo-Lodge says: Once you get out of the habit of big nights out, theyre no longer attractive. If Ihave a bit of disposable income, Id rather go for a day trip. Ive actually decided to go to Maldon.

Sara Mahmoud, 30, is an economic analyst in the housing sector. Im aprivate renter, as a lot of young people are. When youre renting privately, no matter what your income is, you feel that you are being made poorer by having such high rents. And you feel your life is insecure because of the instability of renting. But I know how lucky I am, because I look at household-income data all day long. What really shocked me was how many renters have no savings at all. Zero in the bank, totally hand-to-mouth. And that is really serious, because obviously, people have very limited prospects of being able to get themselves out of whatever insecure situation theyre in.

Beyond that, it is incredibly unusual for those under 30 to think of themselves as saving to buy a house; its unrealistic, for anyone who doesnt have help from their parents. Shelter did a study that showed 50% of first-time buyers, rising to 60% in London, had help from their parents, Mahmoud continues. One of the things that concerns me is the concentration of wealth that that implies. But also, there is a real tension; were increasingly moving towards asset-based welfare. People have to rely on the value of their homes to pay for their care, while also paying for their children to get on to the housing ladder. This colours all other decisions where to live in the long term, when to start a family, whether to eat or put the heating on. It has a different effect on social behaviours across the income distribution. At the affluent end, there is very little point saving 50 on any single decision, since those 50 quids are not as they would have in the 90s ever going to add up to a deposit on a flat. At the low-waged end, there isnt any flexibility at all, and there is more pre-loading at home, Scandinavian-style.

Yet Mahmoud, being also in a punk band, doesnt see her generation as particularly abstemious or reserved. If anything, she thinks youth culture is rediscovering its rebellion, an antipathy to the mainstream not seen since Thatcher. Young is really defined by social constructs over time. I wouldnt necessarily count myself as young, but someone in the government would aim a scheme at me. Because Im not on the property ladder, my life has only just begun. All our lives have been characterised by the financial crisis, and it is really interesting to see that feeding through to actual youth culture, how they think about the world, how they go out and enjoy themselves.

Theres never much national mourning when unwanted, smelly, disease-causing behaviours decline; and nobody, probably, would be sorry to see the back of smoking, although I will add here that the e-cigarette technology partly driving that has left me more addicted to nicotine than Ive ever been in my life. But large-scale restraint in the booze arena, while it may shave a few off the cirrhosis register decades hence, has implications for the present reality that we should take seriously and not cheerlead: plain lack of disposable income, for one; reordering of power between renters and rentiers, which cannot, I dont think, be waived away with acasual, everybody rents in Berlin; a growing economic insecurity and intensifying personal perfectionism that cant possibly be unrelated. All this clean living is driven by some dirtydata.

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When did Britain stop being a nation of hedonists? - The Guardian

Photo courtesy of Leonid Afremov

At 18 years old, a sixth of my life is quite possibly already over, maybe even a fifth. Never again will I be absolutely absolved from responsibility, the way I was when I was three and had all the time in the world, sparing not a thought to matters that did not involve Clifford the Big Red Dog. All that stretches before me is a sea of taxes and Social Security and grocery shopping truly an appealing prospect.

My God, how fleeting and fragile life is! But to my thinking, while were here, theres no reason not to enjoy ourselves. Ive never bought into the existence is futile and meaningless crap. It seems like such defeatist thinking. Doesnt perpetual bitterness get tiring after a while? Isnt constant cynicism exhausting to maintain?

I would call myself a hedonist, though that invites negative connotations. A hedonist is, to many minds, someone who engages in mass debauchery: wild orgies and gross overindulgence and the like. The word hedonism is evocative of sex, because sex is the highest and purest form of pleasure, right?

Thats not what I mean. The ticket is to appreciate the simple things: the smell of rain, loose leaf jasmine tea and Leonid Afremov paintings. Yeah, its cliche, but its true. Finding beauty in the mundane, putting a positive spin on whatever crosses your path, because thats just so much more fun. Being alive wasnt a choice, but youll sure get a hell of a lot more out of it if you stop taking it so seriously. Dont you want to feel good, genuinely good, rather than the perverse pleasure derived from hunkering down in your basement and festering in your own misanthropy, secure in your self-perceived superiority over your fellow human beings?

I simply cannot fathom why one would choose to commit suicide. Why cut your life short, when its still saturated with potential droplets of pleasure? Youve never ordered a crepe in a Paris cafe or bathed in the crystalline Reykjavik hot springs or stood on the edge of the Grand Canyon and shouted your name to hear it reverberate against the rust red ravines. There is so much yet to explore. If I could, I would snatch up all the time you relinquished when you decided to end it all and add it to my own stockpile. I would never have enough to check off everything on my bucket list.

Of course, I grew up am growing up surrounded by a dense layer of packing peanuts, safely cushioned from the crushing blows life is capable of dealing. I freely admit to my naivete. But I have only my own experience upon which to base my philosophies, and I find it incredible that people would choose to throw away the greatest gift they have ever received.

I want to travel this world and experience everything it has to offer me, soak it all in. I want to milk every last droplet of pleasure from my existence, wring it dry, until it crumbles into a powdery dust. Except I cant. In this capitalistic society, free spirits and independent thinkers are actively discouraged; all America wants is another automaton to join the workforce. Id need money to carry out my dreams, and to obtain money, Id need to work, and by the time Id have retired, my bones will creak and my joints will ache and any opportunity of carrying out my dreams will have slipped away quietly while I was preoccupied with the daily nine-to-five grind.

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Living Like a Hedonist - Daily Trojan Online

One of the great gifts we have received from God is the gift of pleasure. Some might think that pleasure is wrong but the truth is it has its rightful place in our lives or God would not have provided it for us nor given us the capacity to experience it.

Pleasurable experiences in life are sort of the desert of life. But sadly what God meant to be a blessing can, when used incorrectly, become a curse. This happens when pleasure becomes a persons primary focus or pursuit.

When seeking after pleasure becomes the emphasis in ones life, love of God becomes totally corrupted. The bible tells us, If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but from the world. 1 John 2:15b-16 (NAS) The desire for worldly pleasure nullifies ones ability to be in a true loving relationship with God. Though a person can maintain their outward form of godliness, in reality their spiritual life is missing the power that comes from godly living. It is the life that is well balanced with prayer, bible reading, church attendance, acts of kindness, giving to God, and other healthy spiritual staples of life that will be a life that has true love for God and can enjoy pleasure as a gift from God.

A careful examination of Christianity today demonstrates the sad fact that it has fallen in line with our culture as more and more Christians simply maintain an outward form of godliness but are actually lovers of self and pleasure rather than lovers of God. The technical term for this is hedonism which simply put is living life to please oneself. The typical evangelical will avoid obvious sins that would identify him/her with the world and yet all the while the lust for the things of the world thrives in his/her heart. I think it is safe to say that this is becoming more and more prevalent with each new generation since each new generation becomes more and more tolerant and accepting of hedonism.

We must realize the only power to break the hold of any sin, including hedonism, comes from true intimacy with God. And until a person makes a resolute decision that obedience to God and submission to His will are going to establish the course of his life, he will never get free from the addiction to pleasure. Paul told us, Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. Romans 12:2 (NAS) Every true believer must heed this word.

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Pleasures: the desert of life - Tulsa World

Berlin Film Festival 2017: Berlin Syndrome | Review

Berlin can be such a transitional city for many people. Backpackers treat it as a destination for unbridled hedonism, the likes of which is not seen in many other cities. Even those who opt to move to the city will find that it can be a solitary place, since the typical Berlin party and tourist lifestyle is not sustainable. So many people leave Berlin once the enchantment has worn off, leaving the population of the city in a constant state of flux. Clare (Teresa Palmer) is an Australian backpacker who would dearly love to leave Berlin, if she wasnt imprisoned in the apartment of the man shes just met in the type of swirling, heedless fashion that can happen while on holiday.

Director Cate Shortland made her feature debut with 2004s Somersault, which married dreamy visuals with heftier emotive themes, and Berlin Syndrome delivers her most sure-footed work yet. Berlin is certainly not depicted as dreamy, and Director of Photography Germain McMicking has given the city a stark, austere beauty, which (fittingly) seems ominous at times.

While not quite in pursuit of unbridled hedonism, Clare is still travelling alone, with the imprudent decisions that can often occur in this situation. It was not a foolhardy decision for her to go home with Andy (Max Riemelt), since for the film to be effectively chilling, sympathy for Clare could be minimised if there was a true sense of recklessness.

And it is chilling, more so when the action shifts to her confinement. The canvas of the story is reduced, though not minimised, and there can be easy comparisons to mainstream horror (which should help the film to find a wider audience). While the outline of Clares jeopardous circumstances might seem like something that has been done a million times before, rarely has it been done so intelligently.

Oliver Johnston

Berlin Syndrome is released nationwide on 9th June 2017.

For further information about the 67th Berlin Film Festival visit here.

Read more reviews from the festival here.

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Berlin Syndrome - The Upcoming