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Part 1 Part 2   Part 3   Part 4   Part 5   Part 6  Repeating History In addition to the similarities between Northern Ireland and Chile, Good Vibrations and No were produced and released in the wake of political shifts to the right in the leadership of both governments. A coalition government led by the Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron was established in the UK in 2010, replacing the Labour leadership held since 1997. In Chile also in 2010, the right-wing Sebastián Piñera was elected President, replacing the now dissolved Concertación, or Coalition of Parties for Democracy, voted in after the 1989 general election. While the Conservative government remains in power due to the UK’s firmer shift to the right after the 2015, 2017 and 2019 general elections, Michelle Bachelet of the Chilean Socialist Party, was returned as President in 2014, only for the billionaire Pi ñera to be re-elected in 2018 (Chilean Presidents understandably canno...

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3   Remediating the past Bearing in mind the nostalgic tone of Good Vibrations , some of its sequences can also facilitate critical re-evaluation of the past. Its opening implements accelerated archival footage showcasing Northern Ireland’s products and industries that then capture the sense of nation-/region-hood beginning to fragment as collectives splinter off in the transition to civil conflict. While No economically tells the politics of Chile’s recent past, Good Vibrations shows two decades of Northern Ireland’s industrial, cultural, religious and political histories. Both of these compressed accounts serve as backdrops to the individual men on which the films centre, with René and Terri both embodying the fictionalized truths the films (re)present. Whereas Good Vibrations uses the archive to show Northern Ireland’s transition into conflict, the opening sequence in No consists of text outlining a brief contextual synopsis of the 1973 mili...

Having earlier this year received counselling for mental health issues, I found the many topics raised in A Monster Calls deeply affecting and cathartic. Like Conor O’Malley (Lewis MacDougall), I was a child who lost a parent to illness and at around the same time experienced extremes of either being bullied or being ignored at school. The other kids either didn’t know how to treat me, or thought I was an easy target. I was placid, and big for my age. Aligning this with hardwired gender constructs, they decided I was ‘manly’, stoic and strong, never once considering that I was breaking inside and needed my pain to be treated as normal. It was easier to shut me down and confuse me about my gender identity than to dare disrupt their safe assumptions that parents lived to old age. At 32 years old, I was still getting bullied, this time in a bigger playground by people who could exert even more power over me. Like my childhood experience, when I defied their expectations and stoo...