Saw Paolo Sorrentino's remarkable Il Divo last night. In purely picture-making terms it is fantastic. The historic architectural settings are brilliantly contrasted with the moral squalor of the main characters, and the camera work and sound track are really exciting. The actor, Toni Servillo, who plays Giulio Andreotti is brilliant. He glides around like Murnau's Vampire, while uttering increasingly annoying epigrams and praying a lot. One thing could have been better. The director is too intelligent to entirely subscribe to the P2 Lodge/Mafia/CIA take on Italian history not to leave a shadow of doubt as to whether 'The Hunchback' was really guilty of all the murders and other crimes imputed to him by investigating magistrates archly shown using hair spray before TV performances. Although the Red Brigades got a look in, in a simplified version of the Aldo Moro crisis, I also missed the wider Commie threat to Italy after the war which would have given greater context to what the Christian Democrats were doing. Still, even at 118 minutes, this was a marvellous technical display of film-making which audiences will get even if they don't know much about Italian politics. What a shame our film makers can't rise to this level of accomplishment.

Arriving home early, I caught the first episode of the 1970s cop drama Law and Order about corruption in the Flying Squad. BBC Four is doing an excellent job, it seems, of reminding us how good black and white TV used to be, and this four parter looks like an excellent example of it.

I've also been stocking up on DVDs of recent Russian war films, partly for my book (lot of progress there) but also to see how WW2/Afghanistan are being treated by the sovreign autocrats. I imagine there is a political philosophical/cultual turn that accompanies the Putin era.