Celebrating a Year of Beamafilming

It’s a whole year since the Library started offering the Beamafilm streaming service and I have to say I’ve been impressed with the selection of movies, TV series and documentaries on offer. 

Particular highlights I've enjoyed include Viceroy’s House, which describes the huge challenge surrounding the 1947 partition of India for temporary Viceroy Mountbatten and his family. But it’s not just a sumptuous British period piece tricked out with great sets and costumes. Even if it does star Hugh Bonneville fresh from Downton Abbey. No, indeed. You also get the story from the locals' points of view, with both Muslim and Hindu characters - including a love across the religious divide - as well as the huge loss of life brought about by the brutal division of a country. The story is based on real people and real events and is quietly moving.

Then for something completely different there's Toast, a brilliant, coming-of-age biopic based on the writings of Nigel Slater, a British food writer you may have come across in newspaper columns. I’ve always loved his writing, describing his love of simple culinary pleasures. But his childhood was far from simple. The film chronicles his fond relationship with his mother who couldn’t boil an egg - they lived off tinned vegetables, toast and what looks like spam. And then his not so happy relationship with his stepmother who could really cook awfully well, and a face-off involving lemon meringue pie. Nigel has to come to grips with his sexuality, as well as a distant and difficult father. The movie is a design marvel full of retro 1960s interiors and with Dusty Springfield’s husky tones in the background. 

There are some oddly compelling documentaries. National Gallery is a look inside the National Gallery of London, which is fascinating if you’re into art. Included are some interesting behind-the-scenes stories. I was amazed at the art history classes held for people who are vision impaired, taking them though a picture that has raised surfaces they can feel with their hands like Braille. 

Searching for Sugar Man is a biopic about Rodriguez, the blues-inspired singer songwriter from Detroit, who was scarcely heard of in his home country, yet became a big hit in South Africa. Just something about his music seemed to strike a chord when people were demonstrating against the Apartheid regime in the 1970s. But then he just vanished into obscurity. The film explores what happened to him and it’s a fascinating story, worth viewing now particularly as the singer passed away recently.

And being a streaming service offered through the library, there's a suitably varied bunch of films and TV series based on books. You can watch the wonderful Brooklyn, from the novel by Colm Toibin, the movie of Mr Pip by Lloyd Jones, or Babette’s Feast based on the story by Isak Dinesen (of Out of Africa fame). 

You’ll find the old TV series based on the books by John le Carré: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley’s People, both starring Alec Guinness (yes, I said they were old, but what classics!). There’s the Italian series based on The Name of the Rose (Umberto Eco), and quite a few series based on the Inspector Montalbano books by Andrea Camillieri. These have been so popular in Italy, the series ran from 1999 to 2021 and you get glorious Italian settings, murders plus the cool dude who has to solve them.

This is just a very small sampling of offerings that caught my eye. You can filter your view-list by genre, create a favourites list to watch later, and see titles that are recommended just for you.

Beamafilm also collates films to go with various events happening in the real world, such as ANZAC Day and Pride Month, which is kind of handy too. And while there’s plenty to watch to challenge the brain-cells, particularly on topics like history, politics, art and culture, there’s some fun stuff too. I'd be surprised if you couldn't find a good watch on Beamafilm to suite whatever you're into. And did I mention, there's no advertising. Bliss!

Posted by JAM

31 August 2023

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