Blackrock Library Reopens On Bloomsday!

An Cathaoirleach Cllr. Marie Baker with Zoe Healy of Zenith PR Cllr. Deirdre Donnelly, County Librarian Mairead Owens and Cllr. Seamus O'Neill Colm Keegan, dlr Writer in Residence for 2014-2015, chatting with local poet Gerard Fanning at Blackrock Library Blackrock Library opened to the public yesterday on June 16th, Bloomsday, at 10.00am! We welcome back all our library users! Come and see the beautifully updated, modernized and extended library on the site of the Town Hall complex which also accommodates the Blackrock Further Education Institute (BFEI).  Architects McCullough Mulvin carried out the redesign and refurbishment. An Cathaoirleach Cllr. Marie Baker said " I am delighted that the people of Blackrock and the wider dlr Library community can avail of this bright, spacious library with its enhanced public internet and self-service facilities and most importantly the extended selection of books, CDs and DVDs. The attractive Reading Room area will undoubtedly be a much sought after space for regular book clubs, storytelling sessions and for students and readers alike." We look forward to welcoming everybody back to this much loved local library over the next few weeks. A formal launch will take place later in the summer. For more information check out our website: http://www.dlrcoco.ie/library/

DLR LIBRARY BLOG

Un Prophete

by Jacques Audiard (France,2009)

Set in a contemporary French prison outside Paris, Jacques Audiard's Un Prophete tells the story of nineteen-year old Malik el Djebena (Tahar Rahim). We meet him in the opening scene, arriving scared and bewildered to begin the first day of a six year sentence. From that point on we are with him throughout this tough,uncompromising two and a half hour film, the camera kept tight to his face. Everything he sees and hears we see and hear too, plunging into the dark, violent world of prison life with him.

Unable to read or write, Malik does not seem at first a hardened criminal. He is completely alone in jail, and initially finds himself beaten in the yard and hit on in the showers.He is then attacked and threatened by a Corsican gang who he learns hold considerable sway,both with their fellow inmates and the prison guards. They force him to do a favour for them, and from then on he begins a fascinating journey, becoming more and more integrated into the gang and slowly developing both as a man and a powerful gangster before our very eyes.

Gang leader Cesar (a brilliant Niels Arestrup,who featured in Audiard's earlier 2005 De Battre Mon Coeur s'est Arreté) takes Malik under his wing, using him for further criminal activities both inside and (during day release later in his incarceration) outside prison. But this is no soft-centred father-son relationship. Cesar is cold-hearted,violent and calculating, and Malik learns that in order to survive he must become so himself.On short trips undertaken for Cesar to Paris and Marseilles, he begins to establish his own,independent criminal contacts and operations, and to make plans for a life of organised crime, post-prison.

The main strenght of the film is the approach it takes to this material. Audiard has said he intended the film as the anti-Scarface, and it is most certainly this and a whole lot more.There is no glamour in this world, no rags to riches aspirational tale disguised as a crime drama. Malik's world is cold and brutal, with the grittiness alleviated but never glossed over by gorgeous, often handheld cinematography and mournful, stirring piano and strings.

Un Prophete exceeds on every level,and is one of the finest films in any genre of the past five years. To say anymore in this review would be to spoil it. It has the unmistakable feel of greatness to it, and serves to remind how thrilling, daring and powerful cinema can be both as art and entertainment.

I borrowed my copy from DLR Libraries, and you really should too.

Steven Callaghan

Steven Callaghan is the author of the Paris set novel Fishing in Beirut. For more information see fishinginbeirut.com

DLR LIBRARY BLOG

Spaced

The Complete First Series

Thanks To Jessica for the review

People may be familiar with director Edgar Wright from Shaun of The Dead, Hot Fuzz and more recently Scott Pilgrim Vs the World, but before he was entertaining us with these films, he was making TV series called called Spaced. One of the best flat share comedy series around
Spaced features Tim (Simon Pegg) and Daisy ( Jessica Hynes) as two strangers who pose as a professional couple to successfully rent a desirable flat in London.
Peripheral characters include a deranged landlady, an eccentric artist who lives in the basement and an assortment of friends and acquaintances.
It's full of pop culture references from cult films and comics, and  this keeps it light and consistently funny. If you've ever shared a flat,been to a rubbish house party, stayed up all night playing computer games or been so disappointed by The Phantom Menace that it still hurts ten years later, then this is for you.

With only seven espisodes in each of the two series Spaced can be watched over a couple of nights; it's easy to see how this series has gained cult status.
Have fun seeing how many of the film and sci-fi references you can get!!


Jessica