Sunday, August 24, 2008

Review #2: Last Year at Marienbad

Alain Resnais is a very weird man... there, I've said it, and now we can get on with the review.

The director of
L'Année dernière à Marienbad challenges his audience in a way unthinkable in contemporary mass-market cinema... and by all descriptions he expected people to pay to see his film. Nowadays, a similarly adventurous movie would be funded by a foundation and presented at a museum or gallery for the admiring few... at best it would be given an "arthouse" label and consigned to the obscurity that that suggests.

Resnais has a strong connection to literature, especially the nouveau roman movement... [he was also married to Florence Malraux, daughter of André Malraux]. The screenplay for his 1959 film
Hiroshima, mon amour was written by Marguerite Duras; for this film Resnais turned to the master of enigmatic non-linear fiction, Alain Robbe-Grillet.

For some, watching Last Year at Marienbad could be trying; the use of off-putting camera angles in the opening sequence – with a minor-key repetitive score, and a vocal track that drifts into and out of comprehensibility – gives either a sense of anticipation because it is obvious that one is about to witness something excitingly different, or a sense of foreboding because it is obvious that one is about to be subjected to something weird. Both are legitimate responses, but I will challenge those who would put themselves in the second camp upon seeing this movie to suggest that it does not in some significant way haunt them... if anything, Last Year at Marienbad, gives one something to talk about and inspires a willingness to do just that.

And I've come this far without really saying anything about this film, so I must rectify this problem. There are three main characters: X, A, and M. X [a man] is trying to convince A [a woman] that they have met in the past. A seems unwilling or unable to accept this, but seems unwilling, also, to put X off completely. M may or may not be A's husband, but he is a gambler, for sure, and X and he play a number of variations of the same game of chance, with the same result. As the show goes on, one becomes both confused and convinced: confused because it isn't always apparent whether one is in the past, the present, or in a fiction of one of the character's making at any given time; and convinced that something has gone on between X and A [an affair? a kiss?] and that they do have affection for one another. All three characters have at least two sides presented: M seems both objectionable and sympathetic; X seems both passionately interested and a little creepily obsessed; A seems both vitally engaged and completely uninterested [while being played by the quite scrumptious Delphine Seyrig, dressed to the nines in Coco Chanel creations (uncredited)].

What is apparent is that this film is made by a consummately gifted filmmaker; the cinematography is stunning [sharp focus black and white], the mise en scène is brilliantly constructed, and the formalistic blocking of movement within the frame gives a sense of unreality to a very conventional cinematic plot: boy met girl, lost her [perhaps in a card game?], sees her again and tries to get her back, seems to fail, seems to succeed, all with the brooding presence of her other suitor casting a shadow over the whole [non] affair.

The film ends [yes it does, for those who might find it slightly torturous... it is only a bit over 90 minutes long] and one is left wondering what really happened... did something happen? Of course, one knows that something did happen, one watched this film and it will stick in memory for a long time. Watch it. Let me know what you think... I liked it.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Euro – JRTs









Those who are in the know know that my dog, Bergman, is a Jack Russell Terrier. While I was traveling, I took some shots of Jack Russells being themselves... and there's one bonus shot from Vienna that's a sassy reminder to not leave your sausages in the park... The first two are from Paris, the second two are from Aix-en-Provence, and the fifth one is already introduced.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Squirrel Meat

I was looking through my many photos, trying to find something to share... how to group them? how to make little photo-essays to entertain and amuse? Having failed to be inspired... sometimes a lot of photos remains just that, a lot of photos, for a while, but I did find this inexplicable offering, worthy of a post.

In the rather nicely-arranged window display of a butchershop [boucherie-charcuterie] amongst the sausages and cuts and the more-expected bottles of wine, I saw
the following:

Tastes like chicken? Does this explain those little brown-paper-wrapped packages people were sneaking out of the establishment?

If a horsemeat shop is a chevalerie, would this be a
écureuilerie? Inquiring minds would like to know.

What kind of wine is good with squirrel? Evidently, ros
é... those sophisticated French folks, eh. In the hills around these here parts, we're more likely to serve it with some homemade porchclimber...

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Some little movies I made

While I was traveling around, I took about 1400 pictures [no, I won't just put them into a single, long post!]... also, I shot a few little movies... here are two that seem worth taking a look at. I tried to upload another one, but I think that it is too big for Blogger... I will try again, as it is pretty funny. For now, though, check these ones out.

The first is of the Moulin de Trobodec at Pointe de Beg an Fri in Brittany. I shot the little movie, because the still photos didn't seem to capture the essence of the mill:




The second film is an homage to the Lumiere brothers. It is called Train Arriving at the Station at Chambery:



You can compare it with the original, Train Arriving at the Station at La Ciotat.

Friday, August 15, 2008

Review #1: Classe Tous Risques

This dandy film [I'll get the opinion out right in front] by Claude Sautet is a gem that has been a little lost in film history, being released in 1960, the same year and with a star in common [Jean-Paul Belmondo, but here in a supporting role] as Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless, and we've all heard of that one...

While Sautet [better know for 1992's
Un Coeur en Hiver... a dandy flick, too] is paying tribute to American gangster films with his take on the "honour among thieves" theme, this film did not hit on enough of the theoretic notes of la Nouvelle Vague, [the New Wave] to be noticed, either in 1960 or in subsequent film criticism.

Abel Davos [played with vulnerable menace by Lino Ventura, an Italian-born former prize-fighter and professional wrestler who made a career out of playing thugs, heavies, and police officers...] is a wanted man, on the lam in Italy [before the days of the European Union's ease of travel between states], and feeling the heat. To complicate matters he is accompanied by a henchman [Raymond, played by Stan Krol], which is expected, and by his wife and two sons, which is unexpected... and it seems that he cares for his family life more than his life of crime... except he needs one last big heist to secure their return to France... and in the crime drama genre, we all know what one last job means, don't we?

Not to gloss over important details but also not wanting to ruin this film for you, I will jump ahead to when Abel waits in Nice for his "old friends" in Paris to help him out [are there any friends in the world of crime (on film)?]... and they insult him by not coming to his rescue personally, but sending a young unknown, Eric [played by Jean-Paul Belmondo], to help him return to Paris. Can Abel trust Eric? Can his family be saved? What should be done about the apparent betrayal demonstrated by the half-hearted attempt at support? The rest of the film deals with these critical questions.

What I particularly enjoyed about this film is its dependence on character, rather than action, to tell the story. At their first introduction, most of the characters do not strike the viewer as especially sympathetic; however, I found myself both cheering for otherwise-reprehensible gangster-types and seeing the virtues of lying and revenge. Of course, this might say more about my moral ambiguity than I would like to reveal in a simple film review, but I am sure than anyone else watching this film will enjoy the notion of the vulnerable villain... Abel's hardman/ familyman duality is something we have witnessed more currently with Tony Soprano [with the added variable of the necessity of a psychiatrist]; in Sautet's work this element is played out with simplicity and grace.

The title of this film is translated into English as The Big Risk; however, Classe Tous Risques is a hard-to-translate play on words that combines tourism and insurance... both of which seem risky in this production.

Rather than prattle on, I will just say that I liked this film and hope that you will trust this judgment sufficiently to take a look at this film noir gem.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety-jig

Well, I made it safely back to Prince George, after a rather uneventful flight from Frankfurt to Vancouver, then an overnight stay with Melinda's parents [thank you very much, B+M], then an equally uneventful flight to Prince George, where I was met by Melinda and Bergman...there was much butt wiggling and face licking, and Bergman was happy to see me, too! [hardeeharhar]. In all seriousness, it was great to be home, even though the trip was over much too soon.

After a long night's sleep in Vancouver, I took Melinda's folks out for lunch... they are a rather cheap date, because they just love Hon's on Robson [House of Noodles], and there is plenty to like, there... if you like noodles. I had egg noodles and barbequed pork in special broth. The lay-over was beneficial, as I wasn't completely jet-lagged when I got to Prince George... although, I still wouldn't volunteer to answer the hard question even today... I have cotton-batting between the ears.

I spent a couple of hours catching up with the garden... it has exploded... the past month has been hot and then cool, dry and then wet, so much growth and death has occurred. Melinda, even though a bit phobic of dirt and bugs and stuff, managed to keep most things alive during this trying period... thank you, very much for doing so [I can speak almost directly, considering the low readership of this blog!]... I know it is not your thing and I felt bad leaving you with a relatively heavy maintenance load.

This instant, I am avoiding thinking about other work that needs to be done, including preparing for the new semester... maybe tomorrow.

While the impetus to begin this blog when I did was to record the events of my trip and to keep in touch with friends during time away, I will be continuing to type away, so keep having a look, if you are interested... reviews and rants and updates will come your way.


Sunday, August 10, 2008

Goodbye Frankfurt: Hello Prince George [soon]

Right now, I am sitting in my friend Martin's apartment in Frankfurt, spending the last couple of hours of my holiday, waiting to go the the airport to return to Canada... while it will be good to be home and to see Melinda, this trip has gone by far too fast.

Yesterday, Martin, Arabella, Arabella's mom, and I went to Wiesbaden for the day. We saw a schloss [beautiful, with a huge park with parrots in it, situated right on the Rhine], visited the German Film Archives [where Martin currently works... they just moved into new digs and things are mildly chaotic there... but there are LOTS of films, and it was very cool to be able to visit], and visited a wine festival right in the middle of town. We had a bunch-o-wine from a number of different producers [there were only 135 or so stands there... where's the dedication to selection?]. We had originally meant to go to the monastery where The Name of the Rose was filmed, but ran out of time... I guess it is good to leave something for the next trip.

This has been an interesting voyage, because I spent so much of the time visiting people... it is quite something to have friends all over to go see; it makes a trip special to be able to share it with folks who are familiar with the sights from a local perspective. Sometimes, the draw of acquaintance takes us places we might otherwise overlook. This made me go to Brittany for the first [and not the last] time, for instance... I would like to thank Rosemary and Frederic, Nicole and her family, Claudio and the myriad Massini's, and Martin and Arabella for making my visits so dandy... without these friends, this would have been just another grand tour of the major sites and not the participatory experience that it has been.

Next stop, Vancouver, then Prince George on Monday!

Friday, August 8, 2008

And Now... Frankfurt

The last little bit of my trip seems to be taking on a bit of "if it is Friday, this must be Rome" sort of feel, at least in the blogosphere, but I swear it doesn't feel that way in person, although I must express alarm at the speed at which it has gone by... I will be back in Prince George in three days... hard to imagine as I listen to the bells on the cathedral here in Frankfurt strike for 4 o'clock... I've had a good time, so far. I went to the Liebiegshaus Gallery yesterday, which is the notably good sculpture museum here. Last evening, I hooked up with my friends Martin and Arabella, as well as Martin's roommate, Matthias, for some good old Swabian cooking, courtesy of Martin [who hails from the great state of Swabia, Tübingen, to be precise]... he made spaetzl with cheese, one of his specialties. We drank a bit of wine and had icecream and fruit salad for dessert.

Today, I went to the German Film Museum and the German Architecture Museum, conveniently located right next to one another... a great feature of Frankfurt is that the majority of this city's museums are located on one stretch, the Museumsufer, along the Main River, which makes getting to them and navigating around quite easy... one just gets there and decides whether fine art, sculpture, communications, film, or a whole host of other options appeals. Anywho, the Film museum had a special exhibit on Japanese animation, which was well presented. The permanent exhibit on the history of film was delightful, as always, [I've visited a few times, I must admit], but some of the items were a little dusty... get in their with a swiffer, please folks... the architecture museum had a number of exhibits, one in particular was striking: it is a display on outsider art that features architectural detail... that is, when someone a little out there designs a new world or city or state for themselves and draws it... the show is called Heterotopia and features, particularly, Willem van Genk, who makes these marvelous contraptions [he was a clockmaker by trade] for his free state. Many of the artists featured are, were, or have been in psychiatric institutions. His stuff reminded me a little of Henry Darger, about whom the movie In the Realms of the Unreal was made.

Well, I am off to go with Martin and Arabella to a friend of their's birthday party... I will let you know what happens.

Oh, and one correction... I had a brain freeze in my post about Vienna... it is spelled Grüss Gott...

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Vienna

As mentioned earlier I am in Vienna and now have something to report, in case anyone is interested.

I am staying at the Hotel Post, which is a surprisingly affordable place... it has been around for quite a while [and it shows a bit], but it is a three star hotel for one-to-two star prices. And the breakfast is enormous and the staff are very friendly and helpful... not that I am trying to sell you, but it is always good to know a nice place in a city, in case one would like to go there some time.

The Hotel Post is, not surprisingly, right across the street from the post office... and what a post office it is! There is the regular old post office part, a philatelic centre, a bank, a telephone centre, a museum, a lounge, and a retail outlet [they sell all kinds of stuff, from the obvious... postcards, to the not-so-obvious... televisions. And the staff are very nice.

In Vienna [perhaps in Austria?] people don't say guten morgen, guten tag, and guten abend as greetings... they almost universally say "gruss got" [god is great], but don't mean anything by it, except to be friendly, judging by its almost universal application [I can't really imagine that the rather punkish young woman at the internet cafe is particularly religious, considering some of her tattoos, but you never know].

In my time here, I have seen a lot. I've also learned a lesson about reading the fine print... I went to the Vienna Secession, to see Gustav Klimt's Beethovenfries, but it was closed, because it was Monday... important information available to me, if I had only read the fine print... the other places I considered going on that day, The Belvedere and The Kunsthistorischesmuseum... both closed on Monday... so I looked through my information [reading closely this time] and found the Leopold Museum [no, it is not full of Leopolds], which had a great display of Egon Schiele and a number of Klimts as well as a whole bunch of other stuff... then, I went across the courtyard to the Museum of Modern Art, which was tremendous, including the building itself, which is made entirely of grey basalt and looks like a big monolith, especially against the fundamentally beigey-yellow of most of the baroque buildings in Vienna.

Today, I visited St. Stephen's, climbing the 350+ stairs of the tower, then the Kunsthaus and Hundertwasser Haus, both designed by Hundertwasser, with a cool exhibit about Jean Tinguely... then I made it back to the Secession and finally to the Academy of Fine Arts for a look at Bosch's Last Judgement.... with a bit of a walk and the climb up the tower, I think that I have earned my somewhat fattening middle-european repast that I am going in search of as soon as I finish typing this post. So far, I have had a couple of dandy meals, and one good coffee break at the Cafe Central, where I had coffee [duh] and an apricot dumpling, while listening to the live piano music, ranging from the traditional... Strauss, to the other-traditional... Billy Joel... all-in-all a pleasurable experience.

Well, I am off... the next update will be from Frankfurt, as I am heading that way tomorrow.

Auf Wiedersehen!

Monday, August 4, 2008

Update - Leonard Cohen

Right now, I am in Vienna, a lovely place worthy of an entry, but I have done little, yet, so I will give an update on Claudio and my evening with Leonard Cohen [oh, a quick hope that Claudio made it home okay... he should, I heard that Lufthansa settled the rotating strike with its employees... this was the only worry, especially for Lufthansa, as many members of Claudio's extended family were due to be on that flight, and I certainly wouldn't want to walk in the boots of the person who had to explain to a gaggle of Canalese and entourage why they weren't going to get on the plane.]

Leonard put on a great performance... I'd like to say that I wish I will be that captivating and sexy when I am in my seventies... hell, I wish I had Len's stuff now!

He sang 24 or 25 songs, including 6 encores... there were a number of standing ovations and much enthusiasm during the concert... I am from the school that says that people are too prone to overpraise, too prone to stand up for only decent performances, but Leonard Cohen in Rome was worth every clapped hand and every rise to the feet.... it is just unfortunate that all the tendency to puff up other performances might cheapen the truly great ones.

Cohen's band was extraordinary, especially the Spanish guitar player [I am referring to the style, but he might very well be Spanish... it seemed to be in his blood, the way he played].

The playlist included [I tried to write them all down, but lost a few in the second set and encores] Dance Me to the End of Love [the opener, a personal fave], The Future, Ain't No Cure for Love, Bird on a Wire, Everybody Knows, In My Secret Life, Who By Fire, That's No Way to Say Goodbye, Ring the Bells, Tower of Song, Susanne, Halleluiah, Democracy is Coming, I'm Your Man, Little Viennese Waltz, So Long Marianne, First We Take Manhattan, Sisters of Mercy, and Closing Time.

When we were driving in to Rome, we managed to get lost, even though we knew pretty much exactly where we were going... Italian signage sucks, but so does our sense of direction, evidently.... at one point, Claudio made a quick turn to try to rectify an obvious mis-direction, and we found ourselves on a one-way street with a stream of Roman drivers coming straight at us... and could they just let it go, as we obviously knew that we'd goofed and were pulled over to the side? Nooooo, each person slowed down and rolled down their windows and had to give two or three or four cents' worth... some of it trying to be helpful, but all of it unwanted... Doi! all it did was make more drivers behind pissed off, giving them the oportunity to give their opinion, etc. [sorry Claudio, but it is kind of funny]. We did get turned around and then moved toward the music hall [luckily, we weren't arriving just on time... we were planning to park near the venue and take public transit for sightseeing]... we could see the venue from the bridge where we were, but kept circling it... it was like it we and it were like magnets... we could approach, but could not actually make contact.... eventually, we did manage to get within sight of the music hall, but, unfortunately for later, couldn't really explain how it happened, it was just there... and, miracle of miracles, found A FREE PARKING SPOT IN ROME! [all the machines in the parking lot were out of order] I expected a band of angels to appear in a beam of light from heaven and take us up to sit at the feet of god or something... I should probably report this to the Vatican... it will go a long way towards our beatification... the Day of St. Claudio and St. Peter, July 28th... I can see it now... of course there is the problem of some other guy claiming my name, but maybe he's willing to go by "Pete". Anyways, we took the tram and the metro to the EUR, Mussolini's model neighbourhood... with wide boulevards and funky fascist architecture. It is spiffy. We saw the sights, then ate a quick dinner at a tavola calda [literally "hot table"... a cheap and decent type of place to eat in Italy], and made our way back to the concert... I haven't mentioned, yet, that it was in an outdoor amphitheatre with intimate seating for about 2800-3000 people... there wasn't a crappy seat in the house.

After the concert, our experience of approaching the hall was reversed... we couldn't get away... it was like checking into the Hotel California, only scarier, because it included Roman drivers. We circled the building for a while, turning left, turning right, going straight ahead, but always ending up swinging by where we started... there's one damned roundabout that we went 'round about 10 times... asking "how did we get here?" and remembering that we had no idea... then, suddenly, we were on the bridge, looking down at the concert hall and heading for Canale... can either of us explain how this happened? No, no we can't. Perhaps the tribulation of the concert hall is part of our road toward having statues carved of us... and Claudio's dad's trusty Ford. We zipped to Canale with the windows down, had a big old glass of grappa, and slept with Leonard Cohen induced dreams.

Saturday, August 2, 2008

Venice

I am having a good, if sweltering, time in Venice... even though the city is infected with tourists to a near-fatal point, it is still a lovely and beautiful place to visit.

I have seen paintings, both old and new, in the Galleria dell Accademia and the Guggenheim Venice [you figure out which is which]... I went to St. Mark's and to the Doge's Palace... I'd been to Mark's place before, but in the several times I've been to Venice, I've never ventured to the palace... and it was full value for the entry... there are a lot of paintings by the big names of Venetian art [Tintoretto, Titian, Veronese, Bellini, Carpaccio] located in the places for which they were painted, including some stunning ceilings... some of the individual panels were too big for the studio spaces the artists had, so they had to find alternative places to work. The capper of the tour of the palace is a visit to the prison... dungeon... it was supposedly built as an improvement in conditions over the other facilities available... it still didn't look too spiffy. Anyway, you get to that side of the workings via the Bridge of Sighs... a most famous sight... I put my hand out the grill at the side, and I am sure that it will show up in about 350 tourist photos... there were a gaggle snapping away below when I was going over. The odd thing is that, unlike, say, Paris, Venice is crowded outside, but inside most sights there are not the gigantic crowds... saying that, one does have to stand in line at St. Mark's, but this seems mostly so one can be hassled for too short a skirt, uncovered shoulders, having a backpack, etc. [my skirt was acceptable... in case you were wondering].

Well, I am off to have dinner... I don't know where, yet. I have had two meals in places I have been before and liked, both a little away from the grotesqueries of tourist exploitation located near the Grand Canal. More later. Ciao!