Diary of a Film
Author: Niven Govinden
Published by: Dialogue books
Pages: 215
Format: Hardback
My Rating ★★★★★
Published by: Dialogue books
Pages: 215
Format: Hardback
My Rating ★★★★★
An auteur, together with his lead actors, is at a prestigious European festival to premier his latest film.
Alone one morning at a backstreet café, he strikes up a conversation with a local woman who takes him on a walk to uncover the city’s secrets, historic and personal. As the walk unwinds, a story of love and tragedy emerges, and he begins to see the chance meeting as fate: her story must surely form the basis for his next film.
This is a novel about cinema, flaneurs, and queer love - it is about the sometimes troubled, sometimes ecstatic creative process, and the toll it takes on its makers.
But it is also a novel about stories, and the ongoing question of who has the right to tell them.
Alone one morning at a backstreet café, he strikes up a conversation with a local woman who takes him on a walk to uncover the city’s secrets, historic and personal. As the walk unwinds, a story of love and tragedy emerges, and he begins to see the chance meeting as fate: her story must surely form the basis for his next film.
This is a novel about cinema, flaneurs, and queer love - it is about the sometimes troubled, sometimes ecstatic creative process, and the toll it takes on its makers.
But it is also a novel about stories, and the ongoing question of who has the right to tell them.
My thoughts:
The protagonist, a director called Maestro by all those around him, arrives at a film festival in an unnamed Italian city where his latest work, a tragic romance based on William Maxwell’s novel The Folded Leaf is due to premiere.
On arrival in the city, he ducks out of immediately arriving at the hotel and getting dragged into the rounds of publicity, and instead walks around the city (in walking I felt a purpose regained). This quickly sets the tone for the rest of the novel.
It soon becomes clear that the director is enthralled by his two lead actors and the growing relationship between them in this beautiful exploration of artistic obsession. Imagine a behind-the-scenes documentary of what may have happened when Luca Guadagnino brought Call Me By Your Name to festivals if Timothee Chalamet and Armie Hammer had developed a real life relationship during filming.
The story is told over several days at the festival, and the narrator muses on and discusses his life and the creative process in general with his walking companions as they explore the city in between promoting his latest film release.
The woman he meets in the café shows him around the city. Cosima has a vast knowledge of art history and criticism, but, many years earlier, in her twenties, was a novelist. The two talk and walk, exchanging stories and views on art, and she shows him a spectacular mural by her ex-lover, one that makes a deep impression on him. He later reads her autobiographical novel based on the suicide of the same artist and immediately sees the book as the perfect basis for a next film. As the novel progresses, others question the director on the right of someone to tell someone else’s story as he has done with the Maxwell novel and hopes to do with Cosima’s.
Govinden uses film and the creative process as a quietly powerful metaphor for seasons of our lives and our struggles with the choices we make; how they have affected our relationships and what they ultimately say about us as individuals. There are moments of both beauty and sorrow which the narrator quietly leads us through. There are also many worthwhile reflections on the creative process and how that interacts with the artist’s home life.
This is a magical read. Overall, a quietly impressive novel. I truly fell in love with Diary of a Film and I highly recommend adding this to your reading list over the summer.
Overall reaction:
The protagonist, a director called Maestro by all those around him, arrives at a film festival in an unnamed Italian city where his latest work, a tragic romance based on William Maxwell’s novel The Folded Leaf is due to premiere.
On arrival in the city, he ducks out of immediately arriving at the hotel and getting dragged into the rounds of publicity, and instead walks around the city (in walking I felt a purpose regained). This quickly sets the tone for the rest of the novel.
It soon becomes clear that the director is enthralled by his two lead actors and the growing relationship between them in this beautiful exploration of artistic obsession. Imagine a behind-the-scenes documentary of what may have happened when Luca Guadagnino brought Call Me By Your Name to festivals if Timothee Chalamet and Armie Hammer had developed a real life relationship during filming.
The story is told over several days at the festival, and the narrator muses on and discusses his life and the creative process in general with his walking companions as they explore the city in between promoting his latest film release.
The woman he meets in the café shows him around the city. Cosima has a vast knowledge of art history and criticism, but, many years earlier, in her twenties, was a novelist. The two talk and walk, exchanging stories and views on art, and she shows him a spectacular mural by her ex-lover, one that makes a deep impression on him. He later reads her autobiographical novel based on the suicide of the same artist and immediately sees the book as the perfect basis for a next film. As the novel progresses, others question the director on the right of someone to tell someone else’s story as he has done with the Maxwell novel and hopes to do with Cosima’s.
Govinden uses film and the creative process as a quietly powerful metaphor for seasons of our lives and our struggles with the choices we make; how they have affected our relationships and what they ultimately say about us as individuals. There are moments of both beauty and sorrow which the narrator quietly leads us through. There are also many worthwhile reflections on the creative process and how that interacts with the artist’s home life.
This is a magical read. Overall, a quietly impressive novel. I truly fell in love with Diary of a Film and I highly recommend adding this to your reading list over the summer.
Overall reaction: