After my fourth Ian McEwan book, the balance has tipped towards "irritating." I genuinely like Atonement; I find the structure interesting and at least some of the characters are sympathetic. The Ian McEwan Guide to X section of Atonement was on WWII history and I wasn't massively interested but the narrative was convincing and I always like the unreliable narrator device, as well as the way the role of the writer and her relation to the reader is examined and re-evaluated here. I am undecided about Enduring Love (The Ian McEwan Guide to Science Writing, Atheism and Stalking); it certainly stuck with me and still troubles me. I like the Oxford / Chiltern Hills references but ultimately, I just didn't care that much about the protagonist. Saturday irritated me immensely and not just in the Ian McEwan Guide to the Political Situation in the Middle East, but also in the main plot, which follows the life of a surgeon and his family one Saturday. Something about it grated on me.
The events of On Chesil Beach also take place over the course of a single day - the wedding night of young, inexperienced Edward and Florence - although much of the slim novel looks back on how they got to where they are. It's obvious from page one that something isn't quite right between the two. We soon learn that Florence is somewhat asexual and has been using the "not 'til we're married" excuse for some time. Edward thinks he is finally about to get lucky but the course of true lust never did run smoothly and after a series of miscommunications, exacerbated by the ignorance and naïveté of Florence, trouble quite literally spurts out and a furious Florence storms out of their marital suite onto Chesil Beach, where they finally talk to each other, not that that helps matters.
Before we get there, however, Edward and Florence, in turn, relive various moments from their past - from their childhoods and from when they met. We don't hear much about the early days of their relationship - only that they met at a political rally and that Edward caught the train up to Oxford to visit her a lot. They never seem comfortable with each other or to make each other as happy as they claim. This description of the past serves only to cement our belief that their relationship is constructed around false ideas and that neither has the courage to speak their true feelings. Still, the back story does at least fill out each of their characters and their relationships with their families, but ultimately, I couldn't grow to like either of them very much.
Florence and Edward are quick to say how much they love each other - both out loud and in their reveries of the events leading up to the wedding. Yet, where is this love? They never seem to show it in their behaviour. In fact, they don't seem to know each other at all and nor do they really talk to each other. They are very different people and don't even understand each other, probably because they lock up their thoughts inside and don't discuss things. Even the marriage proposal was a bit of a joke: Edward pushes Florence's no-contact boundaries too far one day and causes her to lose her temper; his response is to propose but, like Florence's response, it is so automatic, you really wonder how they made it to the altar at all. Probably because both were unsure whether they were doing the right thing but neither had the balls to speak up for fear of offending the other.
The quotation on the cover, from The Independent on Sunday proclaims the book is "wonderful," "exquisite" and "devastating," so in case the first few pages failed to alert the reader to the fact that Edward and Florence are not the happiest of newly-weds. It took me a while to discover that the year was 1962 - from their attitudes and behaviour, it could easily have been 1942 or even earlier. The language is very overblown and euphemistic, particularly in the discussion of their previous sexual exchanges, and then, suddenly, McEwan rams in the word cock on page 31, which is so unexpected, it jars you; Florence would clearly sympathise.
Less jarring but still a bit off is the use of the word mates to describe Edward's friends. Throughout the book, it is made clear that Florence (daughter of an Oxford don and her husband, a successful business man, who live in Oxford) and Edward (brought up by his "poor," country bumpkin father in a tiny hamlet near Henley, who has to look after Edward's brain damaged mother and his twin sisters) are from different worlds so perhaps these inappropriate words were just another way that Florence was reminded of how different they were. She always says that money and their backgrounds mattered nothing to her and there is no reason not to believe her. For us, it's just more evidence that they were never meant to be.
I got to the end thoroughly unsatisfied. I'm not sure how the ending could have been improved but the whole story just irritated me. The best bits were the Oxford references - The Vicky Arms, Oxford High (my school), the "illicit [teenage] drinking at the Turl" (some things never change, even given 40 years), the yet-to-be-built motorway that would cut through the Chiltern Hills and the villages near Henley: Turville Heath and the comically named Bix Bottom (I always wanted to move to Christmas Common and kept leaving estate agents' brochures around for my parents when I was about ten; Fingest and Skirmett aren't so appealing, although Nettlebed has a great pub).
The Sunday Telegraph, on the jacket, compares On Chesil Beach to the "erotic misunderstanding" of Milan Kundera's characters; I disagree. In The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Kundera's characters manage to be sensual, erotic and charismatic, in spite of all their issues. Florence and Edward are simply awkward; I would probably turn away in embarrassment during some scenes of the film version, if one is ever made. Ultimately, though, for all their flaws and problems, the only one of importance is their utter unwillingness to trust each other enough to tell the other what they are feeling, what they are thinking and what they are fearing.
Florence's thoughts - that she knew that consenting to touch Edward's thigh or to erotically eat a cherry would only push her closer to that which she fears the most (sex) but that equally, she didn't want to be such an utter failure - show that she has been following the path of resistance throughout and that it was easier to just go with the flow...until she wound up married and starts to wonder whether she should have been honest earlier. Edward too has his doubts and fears - often, they are about Florence's fears - and is just as unwilling to reveal them to his wife and to put himself on the line. To open his heart. To make himself vulnerable.
Ultimately, then, I just can't muster any sympathy for them - or any emotions, other than frustration and irritation. I'm just glad it was such a quick read; certainly not worth the wait for the paperback to come out. Gah. 1/5 for The Ian McEwan Guide to Miscommunication and the Dangers of Marrying Too Young.
26 January 2008
New York State of Mind
So, it's official: the flights are booked and my bags are all but packed and my NYC Moleskine is raring to go. As as added bonus, I discovered that my brother and I are flying out World Traveller Plus and returning Club World, which means we don't even have to haggle over an upgrade.
We are staying at aka near Central Park, which is a sort of apartotel consisting of luxury suites. The main reason we are staying there is because it used to be a hotel called The Wyndham, which was our regular haunt for about five years and which was wonderfully characterful. The Wyndham was part hotel and part long-term apartments for actors and with its red carpets, old paintings on the walls and oh-so-slow lifts operated by the doormen (which always made me think of Brave New World), it was chintz-central. However, the rooms were huge, especially for Manhattan, and at West 58th Street and 5th Avenue, you could hardly beat it for location (I prefer SoHo and the Village myself but my parents like to be near Central Park).
Then, one sad day, we heard that it had closed down and was being sold off as apartments and since then, we have been staying in a variety of hotels of the more minimalist bent. I wanted to post a photo of the original Wyndham for comparison with its slick successor but all of my Wyndham trips were pre-digital and the only one on my computer, complete with flowery sofas, is also complete with a none-too-flattering sighting of me. Suffice to say that the change is remarkable.
Looking back at some of the hundreds (probably closer to 1,000 now) of photos of my various trips to New York since I went digital in 2003 makes me realise how I have, in my mind, amassed the visits into one big trip and I often find it hard to remember on which trip a particular photo was taken. So, for example, there's a photo of me posing in the 'Love' sculpture on 6th Avenue wearing a dress that suggests it probably wasn't taken at the end of October when the weather was only mild and not warm enough for a dress at night. Then again, I thought I had only bought the particular dress in San Francisco in August, which means it has to be my end-of-September trip. Except, I didn't go there with Subway Dude and so who would have taken it? My memories have definitely got mixed up somewhere along the way.
In any case, I have now been in all four seasons, although only once in the middle of summer, when it was so hot and smoggy, we were relieved to escape to a resort in the middle of the Blue Ridge Mountains; I've seen Manhattan blanketed in a foot of snow, drenched in rain, hot and humid, cold and crisp. I've been with friends, SOs, family and alone and I still can't imagine ever growing bored.
Dedicated reportage in the Village, December 2003 (she was expressing concerns about more than half of the city's annual snow budget being used up by the first week of December):
Stopping the traffic: Easter Parade, Fifth Avenue, 2006:
We are staying at aka near Central Park, which is a sort of apartotel consisting of luxury suites. The main reason we are staying there is because it used to be a hotel called The Wyndham, which was our regular haunt for about five years and which was wonderfully characterful. The Wyndham was part hotel and part long-term apartments for actors and with its red carpets, old paintings on the walls and oh-so-slow lifts operated by the doormen (which always made me think of Brave New World), it was chintz-central. However, the rooms were huge, especially for Manhattan, and at West 58th Street and 5th Avenue, you could hardly beat it for location (I prefer SoHo and the Village myself but my parents like to be near Central Park).
Then, one sad day, we heard that it had closed down and was being sold off as apartments and since then, we have been staying in a variety of hotels of the more minimalist bent. I wanted to post a photo of the original Wyndham for comparison with its slick successor but all of my Wyndham trips were pre-digital and the only one on my computer, complete with flowery sofas, is also complete with a none-too-flattering sighting of me. Suffice to say that the change is remarkable.
Looking back at some of the hundreds (probably closer to 1,000 now) of photos of my various trips to New York since I went digital in 2003 makes me realise how I have, in my mind, amassed the visits into one big trip and I often find it hard to remember on which trip a particular photo was taken. So, for example, there's a photo of me posing in the 'Love' sculpture on 6th Avenue wearing a dress that suggests it probably wasn't taken at the end of October when the weather was only mild and not warm enough for a dress at night. Then again, I thought I had only bought the particular dress in San Francisco in August, which means it has to be my end-of-September trip. Except, I didn't go there with Subway Dude and so who would have taken it? My memories have definitely got mixed up somewhere along the way.
In any case, I have now been in all four seasons, although only once in the middle of summer, when it was so hot and smoggy, we were relieved to escape to a resort in the middle of the Blue Ridge Mountains; I've seen Manhattan blanketed in a foot of snow, drenched in rain, hot and humid, cold and crisp. I've been with friends, SOs, family and alone and I still can't imagine ever growing bored.
Dedicated reportage in the Village, December 2003 (she was expressing concerns about more than half of the city's annual snow budget being used up by the first week of December):
Stopping the traffic: Easter Parade, Fifth Avenue, 2006:
23 January 2008
Not Your Average Joe
I was devastated when I read the NY Times headline At Last, a $20,000 Cup of Coffee; I thought I'd pounced too soon with my Nespresso machine. The premium coffee machine being discussed does, indeed, as the journalist says, look like something out of a Jules Verne novel, or at the very least, like my year nine chemistry class. It turns out, though, that this wallet buster doesn't even do espresso! A $20,000 filter coffee? Erm, why?
Well, it's not technically filter coffee but "siphon coffee" which, according to the owner of a new, SF café in which this beast is housed, is "very delicate. [...] It’s sweeter and juicier, and the flavors change as the temperature changes. Sometimes it has a texture so light it’s almost moussey.”
The writer then goes on to explain how this magic, moussey coffee is produced, although the physics is somewhat lost on me ("[It] works something like an inverted French press: coffee grounds go into a brew chamber, hot water shoots in and a powerful piston slowly lifts and plunges a filter, forcing the coffee out through a nozzle in the front. The final step, when a cake of spent grounds rises majestically to the top, is so titillating to coffee fanatics that one of them posted a clip of it on YouTube.")
I remain unconvinced. I like coffee far more than most and yet I am sure that I am not really a conoisseuse. There is simply good coffee and bad coffee and given that I prefer my caffeine hits to be more intense in flavour, I'm not sure whether I'd even be able to tell the difference between super siphon coffee and your average joe. Of course, the café owner grinds out every superlative in the book to try to justify his purchase ("kaleidoscopic," "a whirlpool" with "delicate, pretty, sexy flavors") but I remain unconvinced. I like red wine but I wouldn't pay $20,000 for a supposedly really good wine because although I may well like it more than a mid-priced bottle, I am sure I wouldn't like it 1,000 times more.
Obviously, it's a moot point as I don't have $20k lying around behind the back of my sofa but it just goes to show that I am not as dedicated to coffee as I previously thought. Error.
Well, it's not technically filter coffee but "siphon coffee" which, according to the owner of a new, SF café in which this beast is housed, is "very delicate. [...] It’s sweeter and juicier, and the flavors change as the temperature changes. Sometimes it has a texture so light it’s almost moussey.”
The writer then goes on to explain how this magic, moussey coffee is produced, although the physics is somewhat lost on me ("[It] works something like an inverted French press: coffee grounds go into a brew chamber, hot water shoots in and a powerful piston slowly lifts and plunges a filter, forcing the coffee out through a nozzle in the front. The final step, when a cake of spent grounds rises majestically to the top, is so titillating to coffee fanatics that one of them posted a clip of it on YouTube.")
I remain unconvinced. I like coffee far more than most and yet I am sure that I am not really a conoisseuse. There is simply good coffee and bad coffee and given that I prefer my caffeine hits to be more intense in flavour, I'm not sure whether I'd even be able to tell the difference between super siphon coffee and your average joe. Of course, the café owner grinds out every superlative in the book to try to justify his purchase ("kaleidoscopic," "a whirlpool" with "delicate, pretty, sexy flavors") but I remain unconvinced. I like red wine but I wouldn't pay $20,000 for a supposedly really good wine because although I may well like it more than a mid-priced bottle, I am sure I wouldn't like it 1,000 times more.
Obviously, it's a moot point as I don't have $20k lying around behind the back of my sofa but it just goes to show that I am not as dedicated to coffee as I previously thought. Error.
In Anticipation of Moleskine Gratification
According to Moleskinerie (the blog that never ceases to dissuade me that my life will only be complete once I have one of each type of Moleskine in each of my residences and my place of work), in order to brighten up the dull, depressing days of February, from next month I will be able to buy coloured Moleskines. Sensational stuff, I know, given that those neat, black covers and the creamy, smooth paper are the main identifying points of a Moleskine. They will also have a new mini size (the smallest is currently pocket-sized, although too big for my feminine pockets), and I know that I will end up buying at least one.
I'm not quite sure from where I acquired my stationery fetish (and in particular, my notebook fetish) but one of the high points of my youth was going into my father's office and being able to raid the stationery cupboard. Sad, perhaps, but true. Similarly, one of my earliest memories was going to Gibert Jeune, a series of Quartier Latin bookshops and stationers in Paris, when I was about four, and being allowed to choose a selection of pens and some posh notebooks in which I could create my own "books" that had surprisingly ambitious titles and plots like Sunshine and the Coral Flowers. That was before I discovered Creative Writer, though...
Even now, although Moleskines remain my notebook/diary/DIY travel guide of choice, par excellence, I am frequently tempted to cheat: Rhodia, for example, does a nice, little, squared, tear-off notepad that I keep by my bed for when I have a Eureka! moment, and I have a slim Apica notebook that I don't use but was too pretty not to buy. I always wanted a Smythson notebook with their pretty, leather covers, silver-edged pages and cool titles like "Me, Me, Me" (a red notebook) or "Blondes, Brunettes, Redheads" (a navy blue address book) but a) they were too expensive and b) the pages are very thin and not ideal for use with a fountain pen.
Perhaps this was really why I used to keep a diary, as well as travel scrapbooks, catalogues of cool places I liked, random lists, bad poetry I'd written, and so on - I liked to buy notebooks and all of these activities gave me the excuse. Since the acquisition of my mini-laptop two years ago, I write less and less manually, which is a shame because give me a Waterman and a smooth-textured notebook and I could while away happy hours. The bitch was typing it all up onto my computer later for ease of reference and editing...
I'm not quite sure from where I acquired my stationery fetish (and in particular, my notebook fetish) but one of the high points of my youth was going into my father's office and being able to raid the stationery cupboard. Sad, perhaps, but true. Similarly, one of my earliest memories was going to Gibert Jeune, a series of Quartier Latin bookshops and stationers in Paris, when I was about four, and being allowed to choose a selection of pens and some posh notebooks in which I could create my own "books" that had surprisingly ambitious titles and plots like Sunshine and the Coral Flowers. That was before I discovered Creative Writer, though...
Even now, although Moleskines remain my notebook/diary/DIY travel guide of choice, par excellence, I am frequently tempted to cheat: Rhodia, for example, does a nice, little, squared, tear-off notepad that I keep by my bed for when I have a Eureka! moment, and I have a slim Apica notebook that I don't use but was too pretty not to buy. I always wanted a Smythson notebook with their pretty, leather covers, silver-edged pages and cool titles like "Me, Me, Me" (a red notebook) or "Blondes, Brunettes, Redheads" (a navy blue address book) but a) they were too expensive and b) the pages are very thin and not ideal for use with a fountain pen.
Perhaps this was really why I used to keep a diary, as well as travel scrapbooks, catalogues of cool places I liked, random lists, bad poetry I'd written, and so on - I liked to buy notebooks and all of these activities gave me the excuse. Since the acquisition of my mini-laptop two years ago, I write less and less manually, which is a shame because give me a Waterman and a smooth-textured notebook and I could while away happy hours. The bitch was typing it all up onto my computer later for ease of reference and editing...
18 January 2008
Mate Expectations
"Enjoy," said the cashier at the Arts cinema when she handed me my ticket for 4 Months, 3 weeks and 2 Days. "Well, not enjoy but er..." she added hastily.
"Absorb? Digest?" I suggested. She nodded. She was right, though; the tale of a girl in her early 20s trying to help her friend get an abortion in Ceauşescu's Romania in 1987 it isn't exactly light-hearted stuff. I suppose the film is opinion-provoking rather than just thought-provoking. As my only previous knowledge of abortion in Romania under Ceauşescu came from Freakonomics (the chapter about Levitt and Dubner's proposal that legalising abortion reduces crime), 4 Months... was also very enlightening for me.
Enter Gabita and Otilia, best friends and roommates in a hall of residence at their university. It quickly emerges that Gabita seems to be the selfish, self-involved one but although when she asks Otilia to get things for her, the latter agrees, Otilia is by no means a walkover; far from it, in fact: she proves to be the strong one, the brave one, the selfless, caring, loyal, self-sacrificing one. When we meet them, they appear to be packing up to go away on a trip and we soon learn that this is no holiday; Gabita is pregnant and she and Otilia are going off to a hotel where a man named "Mr Bebe" will perform an illegal abortion.
We don't find out who the father of Gabita's baby is, nor do we find out the circumstances under which she fell pregnant. This doesn't really matter because, unlike the many of the people who will watch the film, Gabita doesn't have a choice; the regime dictates that there shall be no abortions. This added dimension makes it harder to imagine what you would do in her situation, simply because you don't have to worry about the illegality of the abortion or about the possible dangers and risks associated with the abortion.
Early on in the film, Otilia demonstrates what a good friend she is to Gabita; she keeps on giving and giving in her efforts to help her friend. She borrows money from her boyfriend (and ends up showing up late to a family event that is important to him), she rides a bus across town (without a ticket) to check in to the hotel, only to find that there is no reservation, so she has to go and literally beg a receptionist at another hotel. It is Otilia who goes to meet the abortionist because Gabita is too scared.
The abortionist himself starts out as a reasonably sympathetic character. He is suspicious, sure, but then he has to be given what is at stake if he gets caught. He gets cross when he finds out that Otilia and not Gabita shows up to meet him and he gets even crosser when he finds out about the change of hotel; he feels he can't trust them when he is about to put himself on the line to help them out. His anger flares up again when it emerges that Gabita is not two months pregnant as she mentioned on the phone but more like four months, three weeks and two days, which turns the crime into murder rather than abortion. She fudges about her irregular periods and not knowing where to count from, but abortionist remains unconvinced.
The new hotel is more expensive than the original one and as such, the girls only have 2,850 lei instead of the 3,000 their friend Ramona said they would need. Then abortionist gets angry again - he never said anything about money....oh no. For a second, you think that maybe he is some altruistic, idealistic, anti-establishment figure, who helps out these young women out of the goodness of his heart - a Romanian Vera Drake. Then, of course, you realise exactly how he expects to be compensated for his assistance and how far Otilia has to go to help her friend.
The film is really about Otilia - the ordeal she goes through, her courage, her relationship with her boyfriend and his family (who look down on Otilia's "countryside" upbringing and peasant parents), her relationship with Gabita and her bravery. We never really learn very much about Gabita other than that she appears to be rather foolish, selfish and demanding. She doesn't think about things properly, she makes mistakes and expects others to clean up after them. She seems quite cowardly. That said, I cannot even begin to think about what a state I would be in if I were in her situation. I am sure I wouldn't think clearly and wouldn't be capable of making sensible decisions. Perhaps I too would procrastinate as long as possible to avoid making it "real" and then panic and flap around like a headless chicken to try to resolve the problem as fast as possible. She has no history, nor is she given much personality and her friendship with Otilia seems to be her strongest point; she must have some redeeming traits if Otilia is willing to do so much to help her.
The film is pretty tense throughout; I can't even comment on the music, if indeed there was any, as I was so involved in the plot and the dialogue (not least as I had to read the subtitles, although I was surprised by how many words I recognised from the Romanian). It starkly contrasts with Paranoid Park, although both consider how the events of one single day can have a massive impact on the rest of your life, because in 4 Months... the narrative was chronological and there was a clear beginning, middle and end. However, while the whole of PP seemed to be a case study of the confused, disordered thoughts of the protagonist after the event, 4 Months... was the opposite and was focused around the build-up to the event and the physical aftermath, if not really the characters' reactions (other than relief) to the event.
Both actresses were pretty good in 4 Months..., although particularly Anamaria Marinca, who played Otilia. Otilia's boyfriend (Alexandru Potocean) was played quite convincingly too as he doesn't really understand the situation at first and then when Otilia tells him about Gabita, he immediately goes on the defensive, resulting in a fight between them - this is realistic. If they stay together after the events of the film, I can't imagine she would tell him just how far she went to help her friend.
Gosh, that was a bit heavy. I'll have to make an effort to be more light-hearted next time. I think Juno will make the perfect contrasted; a sharp, sarcastic, witty, yet poignant look at pregnancy. In fact, Juno sounds as though it is the opposite of 4 Months... in every way but I'll have to wait and see..
"Absorb? Digest?" I suggested. She nodded. She was right, though; the tale of a girl in her early 20s trying to help her friend get an abortion in Ceauşescu's Romania in 1987 it isn't exactly light-hearted stuff. I suppose the film is opinion-provoking rather than just thought-provoking. As my only previous knowledge of abortion in Romania under Ceauşescu came from Freakonomics (the chapter about Levitt and Dubner's proposal that legalising abortion reduces crime), 4 Months... was also very enlightening for me.
Enter Gabita and Otilia, best friends and roommates in a hall of residence at their university. It quickly emerges that Gabita seems to be the selfish, self-involved one but although when she asks Otilia to get things for her, the latter agrees, Otilia is by no means a walkover; far from it, in fact: she proves to be the strong one, the brave one, the selfless, caring, loyal, self-sacrificing one. When we meet them, they appear to be packing up to go away on a trip and we soon learn that this is no holiday; Gabita is pregnant and she and Otilia are going off to a hotel where a man named "Mr Bebe" will perform an illegal abortion.
We don't find out who the father of Gabita's baby is, nor do we find out the circumstances under which she fell pregnant. This doesn't really matter because, unlike the many of the people who will watch the film, Gabita doesn't have a choice; the regime dictates that there shall be no abortions. This added dimension makes it harder to imagine what you would do in her situation, simply because you don't have to worry about the illegality of the abortion or about the possible dangers and risks associated with the abortion.
Early on in the film, Otilia demonstrates what a good friend she is to Gabita; she keeps on giving and giving in her efforts to help her friend. She borrows money from her boyfriend (and ends up showing up late to a family event that is important to him), she rides a bus across town (without a ticket) to check in to the hotel, only to find that there is no reservation, so she has to go and literally beg a receptionist at another hotel. It is Otilia who goes to meet the abortionist because Gabita is too scared.
The abortionist himself starts out as a reasonably sympathetic character. He is suspicious, sure, but then he has to be given what is at stake if he gets caught. He gets cross when he finds out that Otilia and not Gabita shows up to meet him and he gets even crosser when he finds out about the change of hotel; he feels he can't trust them when he is about to put himself on the line to help them out. His anger flares up again when it emerges that Gabita is not two months pregnant as she mentioned on the phone but more like four months, three weeks and two days, which turns the crime into murder rather than abortion. She fudges about her irregular periods and not knowing where to count from, but abortionist remains unconvinced.
The new hotel is more expensive than the original one and as such, the girls only have 2,850 lei instead of the 3,000 their friend Ramona said they would need. Then abortionist gets angry again - he never said anything about money....oh no. For a second, you think that maybe he is some altruistic, idealistic, anti-establishment figure, who helps out these young women out of the goodness of his heart - a Romanian Vera Drake. Then, of course, you realise exactly how he expects to be compensated for his assistance and how far Otilia has to go to help her friend.
The film is really about Otilia - the ordeal she goes through, her courage, her relationship with her boyfriend and his family (who look down on Otilia's "countryside" upbringing and peasant parents), her relationship with Gabita and her bravery. We never really learn very much about Gabita other than that she appears to be rather foolish, selfish and demanding. She doesn't think about things properly, she makes mistakes and expects others to clean up after them. She seems quite cowardly. That said, I cannot even begin to think about what a state I would be in if I were in her situation. I am sure I wouldn't think clearly and wouldn't be capable of making sensible decisions. Perhaps I too would procrastinate as long as possible to avoid making it "real" and then panic and flap around like a headless chicken to try to resolve the problem as fast as possible. She has no history, nor is she given much personality and her friendship with Otilia seems to be her strongest point; she must have some redeeming traits if Otilia is willing to do so much to help her.
The film is pretty tense throughout; I can't even comment on the music, if indeed there was any, as I was so involved in the plot and the dialogue (not least as I had to read the subtitles, although I was surprised by how many words I recognised from the Romanian). It starkly contrasts with Paranoid Park, although both consider how the events of one single day can have a massive impact on the rest of your life, because in 4 Months... the narrative was chronological and there was a clear beginning, middle and end. However, while the whole of PP seemed to be a case study of the confused, disordered thoughts of the protagonist after the event, 4 Months... was the opposite and was focused around the build-up to the event and the physical aftermath, if not really the characters' reactions (other than relief) to the event.
Both actresses were pretty good in 4 Months..., although particularly Anamaria Marinca, who played Otilia. Otilia's boyfriend (Alexandru Potocean) was played quite convincingly too as he doesn't really understand the situation at first and then when Otilia tells him about Gabita, he immediately goes on the defensive, resulting in a fight between them - this is realistic. If they stay together after the events of the film, I can't imagine she would tell him just how far she went to help her friend.
Gosh, that was a bit heavy. I'll have to make an effort to be more light-hearted next time. I think Juno will make the perfect contrasted; a sharp, sarcastic, witty, yet poignant look at pregnancy. In fact, Juno sounds as though it is the opposite of 4 Months... in every way but I'll have to wait and see..
15 January 2008
The Delusion That Your Enemies Are Organised
The first and last Goosevanson (Gus Van Sant) film I saw was Elephant and it wasn't my favourite film ever. I only went along because Monsieur E (who loves Goosevanson, whose name he pronounces as I now spell it) and S were going and generally, I like going to the cinema so much that I'll watch pretty much anything if there's an outing on the cards. I disliked it a) because I'm keen on unravelling plots and character development, rather than long, slow-mo, arty camera work and b) because I was so stubbornly determined to resist Monsieur E's attempts to introduce me to culcha (previous attempts included playing Rach and [composer]'s [#] loudly and often throughout the second year, and taking me to see The Magic Flute at the Royal Opera House during which I fell asleep and then developed a migraine thanks to the oppressive atmosphere). I guess I disagreed with Monsieur E a lot back then - often just for the sake of, for the sake of winning an argument - so I was determined to dislike Elephant and dislike it I did.
However, I am older and more open to cultural enrichment of all varieties now, if not wiser or more knowledgeable about arty films. Paranoid Park did have more of a plot and more satisfying character development, even if about a third of the film consisted of moody shots of the sad, puppy-dog, brown eyes of the main character Alex (both PP and Elephant have a main character named Alex and are about the youf of today; that's about it though), and another third of slow-mo shots of skateboarders, floating through the air like birds, twisting and turning and doing their skating thing. In the air they are free, they are dancing, they are flying... Whatever. As I said, I have little patience for arty shots that add little to my overall experience of the film.
So, Alex is one sad skater kid, and a very thoughtful too - how clever of Goosevanson to create such an non-stereotypical character like that! Within about the first minute or two of the film (excluding the credits shot of traffic moving quickly over a bridge in Portland; the city is restless and cannot be at peace; etc.), we realise that this is going to be of the achronological plot genre of films. In fact, Alex even comments on this as he is writing in a notebook (not a Moleskine, I think, but looked a bit like) while voice-overing his thoughts to us throughout the film. He says something like, "I don't really know anything about writing and this is kind of in the wrong order." Obviously, his high school English teacher didn't teach him much about the now clichéd power of the achronological plot as a narrative device, although it was Aristotle rather than Hollywood who is (or should be) credited with this technique.
I quite like films that aren't show sequentially, actually, Mulholland Drive being one of my all-time favourites. I like flashbacks. I like it when a casual, throwaway remark takes on a whole new significance when you see it the second time around with your additional knowledge. Monsieur E would kill me for contaminating a Goosevanson post with Dawson's Creek but one of my favourite episodes is The Longest Day when everyone finds out about Joey and Pacey's secret relationship and all hell breaks loose - four times, for we get to see the whole day from the points of view of all of the main characters. Joey goes to visit Dawson, finds him watching The Last Picture Show and remarks it was the film they saw on their first date. Yes, he says, he's just reliving better days. She thinks he's missing her but is probably paranoid and also guilty that she's been hooking up with his best friend Pacey for months now. Dawson meanwhile rehashes the plot: two best friends, one of them goes out with this girl (who is a bitch), then dumps him and moves on to the other guy, and everyone ends up alone and unhappy. Of course, when we switch to Dawson's POV, we find out he already knew about Joey and Pacey at this stage, which was why he was really watching that particular film. Très poignant, especially when the whole "when will Dawson find out?" part had been building up for months.
I digress. The achronology works quite well for PP, I think; it's a lot more fluid and less formally structured than DC, which makes sense because the film is essentially the reflections of the sad skater kid about a terrible accident in which he becomes involved and which changes everything. And of course, whenever some big, all-encompassing event takes place, that is how your mind works - a stream of unordered, unorganised thoughts flow out unsystematically. You add another remembered dialogue here, and another minor development there and when you get the whole thing down on paper, it is in the order of importance to you and relevance rather than in chronological order. I don't think I am like that: I tend to remember stuff sequentially, in the order it happens, although my memory is not perfect.
And so it goes: the film slowly unravels this big event in Alex's life but also all the reasons that caused him to be unhappy that predate the accident: the messed up family life, the girlfriend about whom he is pretty ambivalent, his lack of confidence about his abilities in the thing that he seems to enjoy the most (skating) and so I'm not sure it is fair to say, as the IMDb summary says, that the accident causes his life to begin to fray, so much as it only exacerbates the underlying issues he had.
Alex's hair annoyed me most - in fact, I think all of the skater kids in the school had long hair, showing their conformity even though they didn't consider themselves to be part of a "skateboard community." Still, I guess the long, floppy hair did detract a little from those long shots of the big, brown eyes.
The music, meanwhile, was excellent; from Beethoven (9) to Cool Nutz (whom I assume were the punk rock band playing while Alex drives about in his mom's car; rude boy) to Elliott Smith, which is a sweet song and very fitting. I particularly liked the way that although the mood of the whole film was overwhelmingly sober, there were a couple of comic interludes that were created entirely through the means of an incongruously funny piece of music while Alex moodily skates (is it possibly to cheerfully skate?) through some falling leaves, emo-nising over what he has done and what he can do. This is done without changing anything visually and I thought it worked quite well.
Finally, the themes of confession and absolution rang through the whole film. Alex's rambling, disorganised, repetitive attempts to write down everything that has happened - to make more sense of things for himself and to try to purge the events from his soul by externalising them on the paper; indeed the (related) penultimate image of the film is very powerful indeed (the last shot being of the flying skater dudes, again).
One of the characters wisely says that if you are bottling something up inside, you should write a letter about it to someone you care it; whether or not you send the letter matters very little but it is the very process of writing it down, ordering it (badly, here), processing it and dealing with it, as Briony tries to do in Atonement. I find that writing down my thoughts and feelings on important events or issues generally does help, although I find that I tend to get way too self-analytical and consciously critical when I do this, rather than just letting my id run riot.
Paranoid Park did provide me just about enough in the way of plot and although the ending of the film was somewhat anti-climactic, one could argue that the ending of the story was earlier on in the film and more important. Definitely one to ponder on for a while. Bloody demanding arty directors; can't they just tell us what flippin' happens? Still, Monsieur E will be very impressed I have seen the film.
However, I am older and more open to cultural enrichment of all varieties now, if not wiser or more knowledgeable about arty films. Paranoid Park did have more of a plot and more satisfying character development, even if about a third of the film consisted of moody shots of the sad, puppy-dog, brown eyes of the main character Alex (both PP and Elephant have a main character named Alex and are about the youf of today; that's about it though), and another third of slow-mo shots of skateboarders, floating through the air like birds, twisting and turning and doing their skating thing. In the air they are free, they are dancing, they are flying... Whatever. As I said, I have little patience for arty shots that add little to my overall experience of the film.
So, Alex is one sad skater kid, and a very thoughtful too - how clever of Goosevanson to create such an non-stereotypical character like that! Within about the first minute or two of the film (excluding the credits shot of traffic moving quickly over a bridge in Portland; the city is restless and cannot be at peace; etc.), we realise that this is going to be of the achronological plot genre of films. In fact, Alex even comments on this as he is writing in a notebook (not a Moleskine, I think, but looked a bit like) while voice-overing his thoughts to us throughout the film. He says something like, "I don't really know anything about writing and this is kind of in the wrong order." Obviously, his high school English teacher didn't teach him much about the now clichéd power of the achronological plot as a narrative device, although it was Aristotle rather than Hollywood who is (or should be) credited with this technique.
I quite like films that aren't show sequentially, actually, Mulholland Drive being one of my all-time favourites. I like flashbacks. I like it when a casual, throwaway remark takes on a whole new significance when you see it the second time around with your additional knowledge. Monsieur E would kill me for contaminating a Goosevanson post with Dawson's Creek but one of my favourite episodes is The Longest Day when everyone finds out about Joey and Pacey's secret relationship and all hell breaks loose - four times, for we get to see the whole day from the points of view of all of the main characters. Joey goes to visit Dawson, finds him watching The Last Picture Show and remarks it was the film they saw on their first date. Yes, he says, he's just reliving better days. She thinks he's missing her but is probably paranoid and also guilty that she's been hooking up with his best friend Pacey for months now. Dawson meanwhile rehashes the plot: two best friends, one of them goes out with this girl (who is a bitch), then dumps him and moves on to the other guy, and everyone ends up alone and unhappy. Of course, when we switch to Dawson's POV, we find out he already knew about Joey and Pacey at this stage, which was why he was really watching that particular film. Très poignant, especially when the whole "when will Dawson find out?" part had been building up for months.
I digress. The achronology works quite well for PP, I think; it's a lot more fluid and less formally structured than DC, which makes sense because the film is essentially the reflections of the sad skater kid about a terrible accident in which he becomes involved and which changes everything. And of course, whenever some big, all-encompassing event takes place, that is how your mind works - a stream of unordered, unorganised thoughts flow out unsystematically. You add another remembered dialogue here, and another minor development there and when you get the whole thing down on paper, it is in the order of importance to you and relevance rather than in chronological order. I don't think I am like that: I tend to remember stuff sequentially, in the order it happens, although my memory is not perfect.
And so it goes: the film slowly unravels this big event in Alex's life but also all the reasons that caused him to be unhappy that predate the accident: the messed up family life, the girlfriend about whom he is pretty ambivalent, his lack of confidence about his abilities in the thing that he seems to enjoy the most (skating) and so I'm not sure it is fair to say, as the IMDb summary says, that the accident causes his life to begin to fray, so much as it only exacerbates the underlying issues he had.
Alex's hair annoyed me most - in fact, I think all of the skater kids in the school had long hair, showing their conformity even though they didn't consider themselves to be part of a "skateboard community." Still, I guess the long, floppy hair did detract a little from those long shots of the big, brown eyes.
The music, meanwhile, was excellent; from Beethoven (9) to Cool Nutz (whom I assume were the punk rock band playing while Alex drives about in his mom's car; rude boy) to Elliott Smith, which is a sweet song and very fitting. I particularly liked the way that although the mood of the whole film was overwhelmingly sober, there were a couple of comic interludes that were created entirely through the means of an incongruously funny piece of music while Alex moodily skates (is it possibly to cheerfully skate?) through some falling leaves, emo-nising over what he has done and what he can do. This is done without changing anything visually and I thought it worked quite well.
Finally, the themes of confession and absolution rang through the whole film. Alex's rambling, disorganised, repetitive attempts to write down everything that has happened - to make more sense of things for himself and to try to purge the events from his soul by externalising them on the paper; indeed the (related) penultimate image of the film is very powerful indeed (the last shot being of the flying skater dudes, again).
One of the characters wisely says that if you are bottling something up inside, you should write a letter about it to someone you care it; whether or not you send the letter matters very little but it is the very process of writing it down, ordering it (badly, here), processing it and dealing with it, as Briony tries to do in Atonement. I find that writing down my thoughts and feelings on important events or issues generally does help, although I find that I tend to get way too self-analytical and consciously critical when I do this, rather than just letting my id run riot.
Paranoid Park did provide me just about enough in the way of plot and although the ending of the film was somewhat anti-climactic, one could argue that the ending of the story was earlier on in the film and more important. Definitely one to ponder on for a while. Bloody demanding arty directors; can't they just tell us what flippin' happens? Still, Monsieur E will be very impressed I have seen the film.
14 January 2008
Accept Suffering and Achieve Atonement Through It
I'm never very good at predicting movie award winners, especially when I haven't seen most of the movies on the list. For example, Atonement won best film (drama) and much as I enjoyed it (with hindsight it is starting to grate on my nerves a little, although I still like some of the ideas) but then I haven't seen any of the other films on the list so there's nothing to which I can compare it. I haven't seen any on the "best film (comedy)" list either, although I will see Juno (dry, witty teenager gets pregnant, recruits seemingly perfect, smug yuppie (smuppie?) couple to adopt it, hits on the husband; everyone learns) when it finally makes it to Nowheresville in February.
Even so, I am surprised how few I have seen from the total list: Atonement, Elizabeth: The Golden Age (Cate Blanchett nominated for best actress - she was good, though not amazing), Lust, Caution (nominated for best foreign language film) and The Simpsons Movie (for best animated feature film).
Pitiful! Thankfully, with two more films on the cards this week (Paranoid Park by Gus "Exquisite" van Sant and that Romanian abortion film that won the Palme d'Or at Cannes).
At the very least, the latter will allow me to practise my Romance linguistics: although Romanian, at a first glance, looks and sounds very different to the other Romance languages (it actually sounds pretty similar to Southern Italian), there is a lot of shared vocabulary; even the title in Romanian, 4 luni, 3 saptamani si 2 zile can be deciphered by anyone with a vague knowledge of Latin: luni mois and Italian mense actually come from Latin MENSEM, which is related to menstruation. Saptamani = < Latin SEPTIMANA (seventh).
A quick glance at the Romanian Wikipedia tells me I could probably get the gist of written Romanian but I doubt I would pick up much from a conversation. The same is true with Portuguese to some extent. As it's Wiki's seventh birthday today, here's a translation of the intro of the Romanian article on Wikipedia:
Wikipedia: este un proiect de enciclopedie în mai multe limbi, având conţinut deschis tuturor, dezvoltată prin colaborarea voluntară a unui mare număr de persoane şi administrată de fundaţia non-profit Wikimedia. Ediţia în limba engleză, cea mai dezvoltată dintre versiuni, a depăşit în anul 2007 pragul de 2 milioane de articole, iar numărul de articole în toate limbile a depăşit 9 milioane. Ediţia în limba română are aproximativ 1.0E+5 de articole.
Wiki is an encyclopaedia project in many languages, contiually edited, sometimes by voluntary collaborators as well as a small number of administrators from the non-profit Wikimedia. The English language version, one of many others, has more than 2 million articles as of 2007; if all languages are included, this number is more than 9 million. The Romanian section has about [insert maths/coding error here] articles.
Ah, the joy of the linguist. Not that it did me much good tonight when it came to identifying the country in which various Coke bottles with crazy scripts were from. I even admitted my former days of philately to bring up Cambodia (Kampuchea on the stamps I had) and got it wrong. Bastards. If only I'd learnt more useful languages...
I take back my dislike of Atonement too; I was just listening to the soundtrack and I remember how much I enjoyed the film first time round. Elegy for Dunkirk is a great track - très poignant and all that. Context has a funny way of calibrating opinions like that .
Even so, I am surprised how few I have seen from the total list: Atonement, Elizabeth: The Golden Age (Cate Blanchett nominated for best actress - she was good, though not amazing), Lust, Caution (nominated for best foreign language film) and The Simpsons Movie (for best animated feature film).
Pitiful! Thankfully, with two more films on the cards this week (Paranoid Park by Gus "Exquisite" van Sant and that Romanian abortion film that won the Palme d'Or at Cannes).
At the very least, the latter will allow me to practise my Romance linguistics: although Romanian, at a first glance, looks and sounds very different to the other Romance languages (it actually sounds pretty similar to Southern Italian), there is a lot of shared vocabulary; even the title in Romanian, 4 luni, 3 saptamani si 2 zile can be deciphered by anyone with a vague knowledge of Latin: luni mois and Italian mense actually come from Latin MENSEM, which is related to menstruation. Saptamani = < Latin SEPTIMANA (seventh).
A quick glance at the Romanian Wikipedia tells me I could probably get the gist of written Romanian but I doubt I would pick up much from a conversation. The same is true with Portuguese to some extent. As it's Wiki's seventh birthday today, here's a translation of the intro of the Romanian article on Wikipedia:
Wikipedia: este un proiect de enciclopedie în mai multe limbi, având conţinut deschis tuturor, dezvoltată prin colaborarea voluntară a unui mare număr de persoane şi administrată de fundaţia non-profit Wikimedia. Ediţia în limba engleză, cea mai dezvoltată dintre versiuni, a depăşit în anul 2007 pragul de 2 milioane de articole, iar numărul de articole în toate limbile a depăşit 9 milioane. Ediţia în limba română are aproximativ 1.0E+5 de articole.
Wiki is an encyclopaedia project in many languages, contiually edited, sometimes by voluntary collaborators as well as a small number of administrators from the non-profit Wikimedia. The English language version, one of many others, has more than 2 million articles as of 2007; if all languages are included, this number is more than 9 million. The Romanian section has about [insert maths/coding error here] articles.
Ah, the joy of the linguist. Not that it did me much good tonight when it came to identifying the country in which various Coke bottles with crazy scripts were from. I even admitted my former days of philately to bring up Cambodia (Kampuchea on the stamps I had) and got it wrong. Bastards. If only I'd learnt more useful languages...
I take back my dislike of Atonement too; I was just listening to the soundtrack and I remember how much I enjoyed the film first time round. Elegy for Dunkirk is a great track - très poignant and all that. Context has a funny way of calibrating opinions like that .
12 January 2008
The Divine Tragicomedy
I don't normally like new age music but the first time I heard Dante's Prayer by Loreena McKennitt, I couldn't resist, not least because I was studying Dante at the time in my Italian translation class. Also, the verse
Though we share this humble path, alone
How fragile is the heart
Oh give these clay feet wings to fly
To touch the face of the stars
struck a chord as my heart was feeling pretty fragile. I brought the song along to one of my supervisions and the Prof and I spent a happy twenty minutes pulling out all of the Dante references of which there are many, from the opening, "When the dark wood fell before me /And all the paths were overgrown", mirroring closely Dante's opening lines, to references to "the mountain" (of Purgatory) and the "fountain of forgiveness" and so on. It's a pretty song regardless of the Dante references; one of the few of my favourite songs that doesn't involve a catchy guitar riff, upbeat pace and moany and/or shouty lyrics.
The Divine Comedy is so-called because of the tendency of the Greeks and Romans to divide poetry into two categories: comedies (of the "Low" style, on everyday subjects and with generally happy endings) and tragedies ("High"poems, which were about more serious matters (i.e. divinity). Perhaps this is slightly inaccurate because The DC actually transcends both styles, from the vulgar, graphic, comic descriptions of the punishments of the sinners in Hell, to the depictions of the divine, righteous love Dante the pilgrim finds in Paradise, and everything in between. You can pick pretty much any canto and it will crammed full of references, from classical literature to (then) contemporary figures. The same with events.
Perhaps it is fitting, then, that a work of such great scope that references everything should be referenced so much in contemporary (and popular) culture. This Wikipedia page reminded me of a few I had forgotten and recommended some more to try to get my Dante fix, including:
1. Clerks. I love this film (as does, presumably, everyone who has worked in the service industry) whose structure is based (very loosely) around the circles of Dante's Inferno.
2. American Psycho. The book (which opens with the lines "abandon all hope..." as per the gates of Hell) is one of my favourites, and any film with Christian Bale can't go too far wrong. WoW references this quotation too.
3. Rachmaninoff's opera Francesca da Rimini based on the star-crossed lovers, Francesca and Paolo.
4. Thom Yorke apparently used Dante's work for inspiration in creating music (but then, anyone could say that really, given the breadth of the poem).
5. Se7en, another favourite film of mine is bursting at the seams with Dante in-jokes.
There's also a film of Inferno coming out this year, although I can't imagine it being any good. The whole point of The DC is the amazing language and the poem is so vast that capturing the essence in a two-hour film has to be bloody difficult. I am glad that the latest film version of one of the other 14th century Italian greats (Boccaccio's (hilarious) Decameron, from which Chaucer pinched most of his best ideas), starring Mischa Barton, of all people, keeps getting shelved. The film has also changed names so many times, from The Decameron: Angels & Virgins to Virgin Territory (via several others). It's bound to be truly awful, which is a shame as the book is outrageously funny and clever.
It strikes me that this blog is Dante-like in the scope of the content: I am too easily distracted by new, different things to write only about one subject but I hope that there is some cohesion. While I try to keep any divine argumentation out of it, there is definitely a mix of high and low here. Here and in most other blogs in the known universe... Whatever would Dante think?
Though we share this humble path, alone
How fragile is the heart
Oh give these clay feet wings to fly
To touch the face of the stars
struck a chord as my heart was feeling pretty fragile. I brought the song along to one of my supervisions and the Prof and I spent a happy twenty minutes pulling out all of the Dante references of which there are many, from the opening, "When the dark wood fell before me /And all the paths were overgrown", mirroring closely Dante's opening lines, to references to "the mountain" (of Purgatory) and the "fountain of forgiveness" and so on. It's a pretty song regardless of the Dante references; one of the few of my favourite songs that doesn't involve a catchy guitar riff, upbeat pace and moany and/or shouty lyrics.
The Divine Comedy is so-called because of the tendency of the Greeks and Romans to divide poetry into two categories: comedies (of the "Low" style, on everyday subjects and with generally happy endings) and tragedies ("High"poems, which were about more serious matters (i.e. divinity). Perhaps this is slightly inaccurate because The DC actually transcends both styles, from the vulgar, graphic, comic descriptions of the punishments of the sinners in Hell, to the depictions of the divine, righteous love Dante the pilgrim finds in Paradise, and everything in between. You can pick pretty much any canto and it will crammed full of references, from classical literature to (then) contemporary figures. The same with events.
Perhaps it is fitting, then, that a work of such great scope that references everything should be referenced so much in contemporary (and popular) culture. This Wikipedia page reminded me of a few I had forgotten and recommended some more to try to get my Dante fix, including:
1. Clerks. I love this film (as does, presumably, everyone who has worked in the service industry) whose structure is based (very loosely) around the circles of Dante's Inferno.
2. American Psycho. The book (which opens with the lines "abandon all hope..." as per the gates of Hell) is one of my favourites, and any film with Christian Bale can't go too far wrong. WoW references this quotation too.
3. Rachmaninoff's opera Francesca da Rimini based on the star-crossed lovers, Francesca and Paolo.
4. Thom Yorke apparently used Dante's work for inspiration in creating music (but then, anyone could say that really, given the breadth of the poem).
5. Se7en, another favourite film of mine is bursting at the seams with Dante in-jokes.
There's also a film of Inferno coming out this year, although I can't imagine it being any good. The whole point of The DC is the amazing language and the poem is so vast that capturing the essence in a two-hour film has to be bloody difficult. I am glad that the latest film version of one of the other 14th century Italian greats (Boccaccio's (hilarious) Decameron, from which Chaucer pinched most of his best ideas), starring Mischa Barton, of all people, keeps getting shelved. The film has also changed names so many times, from The Decameron: Angels & Virgins to Virgin Territory (via several others). It's bound to be truly awful, which is a shame as the book is outrageously funny and clever.
It strikes me that this blog is Dante-like in the scope of the content: I am too easily distracted by new, different things to write only about one subject but I hope that there is some cohesion. While I try to keep any divine argumentation out of it, there is definitely a mix of high and low here. Here and in most other blogs in the known universe... Whatever would Dante think?
11 January 2008
C'era una Volta l'East
Intesi ch'a così fatto tormento
enno dannati i peccator carnali,
che la ragion sommettono al talento
"I learned that those who undergo this torment
are damned because they sinned within the flesh,
subjecting reason to the rule of lust."
- Inferno, Canto V; Dante Alighieri
So, Ang Lee's latest cinematographic effort: Lust, Caution. It's probably a good sign that the title annoyed me more than anything else about the movie, although I'm not quite sure why. Perhaps it just sounds like the many foreign shops, restaurants and t-shirt slogans of the "pick two random English words and slot them together" genre. Of course, the film is about lust and caution - both in tandem and separate from each other and of course, it is a literal translation from the original Chinese Se, jie; even Wiki agrees that the translation is a bit off (ah, that takes me back to my first year when I had to deal with the joys of translation loss and translation gain). As for what I would have called the film, I would have to think.
I have seen two other Ang Lee films: Brokeback Mountain and The Ice Storm; I quite liked the former and I used to count the latter among my top 10 all-time favourites although I haven't seen it for a while (out of sight, out of mind, in this case, rather than absence makes the heart grow fonder). On the surface, gay cowboys in Wyoming (?), marital-tardery in 1970s New England and a group of students-turned-resistance-fighters in 1940s Japanese-occupied China seem pretty different, but certain themes run through them all: unhappy marriages, lonely or isolated characters, failures to communicate (whether through lack of courage, desire or ability), a young or naive n00b-type character who learns the ropes, anguish, regret, loyalty - the usual...
I hate to ruin a story, especially a story that is as well told and well played out as Lust, Caution, but gorgeous, naive Wong Chia Chi meets a group of wannabe resistance fighters masquerading as drama students in Hong Kong in 1938 and life can never be the same again. Her turn in the play they put on leads to a standing ovation from the audience who all proclaim their loyalty to China and how great China is. The success goes to the group leader Kuang's head and he decides they should start aiming higher. He also fancies the lacy knickers off Wong and she clearly likes him back but neither acts on these feelings.
The gang decide to assassinate Mr Yee, a big political figure and Japanese-collaborator. They also decide that they will do this by getting Wong to use her Acting Skills (and no, this isn't reminiscent of Team America...): she becomes friends with Mr Yee's boring wife Mrs Yee (whose main role is to sit around drinking tea, shopping and playing mah jong with her girlfriends, gossiping and chattering away mindlessly). Soon, though, it transpires that Mr Yee takes a fancy to Wong and before long, he takes her out to dinner as is proper in such situations. They have a pleasant, intimate conversation (the only one of the film) and she comes very close to luring him back to her apartment where the Famous Five are waiting to murder him (cue some comic interludes as they scramble to "hide" when they think Wong and Mr Yee are returning...).
Sadly, though, Mr Yee just can't quite trust folks so he and the trouble and strife head back to Shanghai where it is safer. Three years later... The gang have all gone their separate ways and Wong is back at university, not a happy bunny, not least because they make her learn Japanese, which she finds marginally better than moping around at her aunt's house. Then: surprise! Along comes Kuang who admits that their earlier forays into resistance fighting were a bit naive and childish but that he's now hooked up with some bigger fish and even though he hasn't seen her in three years, he wants to drag her back to the political intrigue, stress and drama of that summer...
She agrees and before long is able to become Mr Yee's mistress. The promised lust had been building up for so long, by this point that it certainly was a real release when they got down to business (earlier in the film, one of the gang (who'd had lots of practice with whores) taught Wong how to please a man, although those scenes were far more comic and awkward than erotic and lustful). The sex was very graphic but tasteful rather than trashy and absolutely fitted the mood of the film. Perhaps I am just desensitised to sex and violence at this point. The actress, Tei Wang, did really well anyway in the scene where Wong and Mr Yee hook up. There is none of the earlier (or later) tenderness between the two. It is clear who is in charge. She is just his mistress, his whore. Except, she tries to take control and he punishes her by ripping off her dress, pushing her around, whipping her with his belt and taking her very, very violently. And she enjoys it, although is also clearly very shocked that she does. It's only then that he yields a small segment of the power back to her and allows her to be in charge of his pleasure, albeit briefly.
You know this can't end well, though, because she absolutely can't fall in lust or in love. She is just supposed to do her job, except given how the film begins in the present and then jumps back three years before working back to the opening scene, you know what choice she will have to make. Except, she can't really help herself. At first, she was just playing a role - doing her bit for her country and her friends, and maybe even to impress Kuan. She was such a convincing actress, though, that she even fooled herself and then she couldn't believe it was just a role, any more, or at least, she couldn't distinguish between the role and her real self.
It's always dangerous being a honeytrap. You think that you are infallible - that your heart is stone cold and completely closed to every emotion, that you can resist the temptation to fall...no one is infallible, though. Even falling in lust isn't acceptable on the job when you're a spy, although this film interchanges the words lust and love in the opposite way to normal, hypercorrecting and saying lust when it means love. When the operation goes wrong, you lose out doubly: your heart is broken and your job, aspirations or even your life are taken away. And, of course, if the operation is a success and you destroy the object of your lust, how can that be considered a victory? How can you reconcile that?
Some interesting questions to ponder, anyway. Wei Tang is absolutely stunning - more so as herself, the young, (increasingly less) innocent student, than as the well-off, mah jong playing, society mistress - and does portray her dilemma and conflict exquisitely. The movie also went a small way to educating me about World War II outside Europe, as my knowledge is practically non-existent. I have been to Hong Kong (parts of which looked very similar to the HK shown in the movie, although now there is a lot more neon) and to the national history museum there but for obvious reasons, they didn't focus too much on the Japanese occupation. Yes, it was a long film (I read somewhere that the pace was too languorous for it to be classed as a thriller but it did keep me nervous and agitated throughout, which, I think, is the sign of a thriller for me, even if the action was somewhat sporadic).
Thumbs up, overall, and also, two films in two weeks; I'm doing pretty well, so far. Of course, given that my sleep was so intermittent last night, I probably should just have gone to bed but my mind is so awash at the moment, I tend to forget things within hours (minutes, sometimes). Also, I'm too pissed off with Firefox, which has deleted all my bookmark toolbar folder bookmarks again! Why, Firefox, why? My browser looks naked and I'm seriously annoyed...
E quella a me: "Nessun maggior dolore
che ricordarsi del tempo felice
ne la miseria; e ciò sa 'l tuo dottore.
And she said to me: "There is no greater sorrow
than thinking back upon a happy time
in misery - and this, your teacher knows.
enno dannati i peccator carnali,
che la ragion sommettono al talento
"I learned that those who undergo this torment
are damned because they sinned within the flesh,
subjecting reason to the rule of lust."
- Inferno, Canto V; Dante Alighieri
So, Ang Lee's latest cinematographic effort: Lust, Caution. It's probably a good sign that the title annoyed me more than anything else about the movie, although I'm not quite sure why. Perhaps it just sounds like the many foreign shops, restaurants and t-shirt slogans of the "pick two random English words and slot them together" genre. Of course, the film is about lust and caution - both in tandem and separate from each other and of course, it is a literal translation from the original Chinese Se, jie; even Wiki agrees that the translation is a bit off (ah, that takes me back to my first year when I had to deal with the joys of translation loss and translation gain). As for what I would have called the film, I would have to think.
I have seen two other Ang Lee films: Brokeback Mountain and The Ice Storm; I quite liked the former and I used to count the latter among my top 10 all-time favourites although I haven't seen it for a while (out of sight, out of mind, in this case, rather than absence makes the heart grow fonder). On the surface, gay cowboys in Wyoming (?), marital-tardery in 1970s New England and a group of students-turned-resistance-fighters in 1940s Japanese-occupied China seem pretty different, but certain themes run through them all: unhappy marriages, lonely or isolated characters, failures to communicate (whether through lack of courage, desire or ability), a young or naive n00b-type character who learns the ropes, anguish, regret, loyalty - the usual...
I hate to ruin a story, especially a story that is as well told and well played out as Lust, Caution, but gorgeous, naive Wong Chia Chi meets a group of wannabe resistance fighters masquerading as drama students in Hong Kong in 1938 and life can never be the same again. Her turn in the play they put on leads to a standing ovation from the audience who all proclaim their loyalty to China and how great China is. The success goes to the group leader Kuang's head and he decides they should start aiming higher. He also fancies the lacy knickers off Wong and she clearly likes him back but neither acts on these feelings.
The gang decide to assassinate Mr Yee, a big political figure and Japanese-collaborator. They also decide that they will do this by getting Wong to use her Acting Skills (and no, this isn't reminiscent of Team America...): she becomes friends with Mr Yee's boring wife Mrs Yee (whose main role is to sit around drinking tea, shopping and playing mah jong with her girlfriends, gossiping and chattering away mindlessly). Soon, though, it transpires that Mr Yee takes a fancy to Wong and before long, he takes her out to dinner as is proper in such situations. They have a pleasant, intimate conversation (the only one of the film) and she comes very close to luring him back to her apartment where the Famous Five are waiting to murder him (cue some comic interludes as they scramble to "hide" when they think Wong and Mr Yee are returning...).
Sadly, though, Mr Yee just can't quite trust folks so he and the trouble and strife head back to Shanghai where it is safer. Three years later... The gang have all gone their separate ways and Wong is back at university, not a happy bunny, not least because they make her learn Japanese, which she finds marginally better than moping around at her aunt's house. Then: surprise! Along comes Kuang who admits that their earlier forays into resistance fighting were a bit naive and childish but that he's now hooked up with some bigger fish and even though he hasn't seen her in three years, he wants to drag her back to the political intrigue, stress and drama of that summer...
She agrees and before long is able to become Mr Yee's mistress. The promised lust had been building up for so long, by this point that it certainly was a real release when they got down to business (earlier in the film, one of the gang (who'd had lots of practice with whores) taught Wong how to please a man, although those scenes were far more comic and awkward than erotic and lustful). The sex was very graphic but tasteful rather than trashy and absolutely fitted the mood of the film. Perhaps I am just desensitised to sex and violence at this point. The actress, Tei Wang, did really well anyway in the scene where Wong and Mr Yee hook up. There is none of the earlier (or later) tenderness between the two. It is clear who is in charge. She is just his mistress, his whore. Except, she tries to take control and he punishes her by ripping off her dress, pushing her around, whipping her with his belt and taking her very, very violently. And she enjoys it, although is also clearly very shocked that she does. It's only then that he yields a small segment of the power back to her and allows her to be in charge of his pleasure, albeit briefly.
You know this can't end well, though, because she absolutely can't fall in lust or in love. She is just supposed to do her job, except given how the film begins in the present and then jumps back three years before working back to the opening scene, you know what choice she will have to make. Except, she can't really help herself. At first, she was just playing a role - doing her bit for her country and her friends, and maybe even to impress Kuan. She was such a convincing actress, though, that she even fooled herself and then she couldn't believe it was just a role, any more, or at least, she couldn't distinguish between the role and her real self.
It's always dangerous being a honeytrap. You think that you are infallible - that your heart is stone cold and completely closed to every emotion, that you can resist the temptation to fall...no one is infallible, though. Even falling in lust isn't acceptable on the job when you're a spy, although this film interchanges the words lust and love in the opposite way to normal, hypercorrecting and saying lust when it means love. When the operation goes wrong, you lose out doubly: your heart is broken and your job, aspirations or even your life are taken away. And, of course, if the operation is a success and you destroy the object of your lust, how can that be considered a victory? How can you reconcile that?
Some interesting questions to ponder, anyway. Wei Tang is absolutely stunning - more so as herself, the young, (increasingly less) innocent student, than as the well-off, mah jong playing, society mistress - and does portray her dilemma and conflict exquisitely. The movie also went a small way to educating me about World War II outside Europe, as my knowledge is practically non-existent. I have been to Hong Kong (parts of which looked very similar to the HK shown in the movie, although now there is a lot more neon) and to the national history museum there but for obvious reasons, they didn't focus too much on the Japanese occupation. Yes, it was a long film (I read somewhere that the pace was too languorous for it to be classed as a thriller but it did keep me nervous and agitated throughout, which, I think, is the sign of a thriller for me, even if the action was somewhat sporadic).
Thumbs up, overall, and also, two films in two weeks; I'm doing pretty well, so far. Of course, given that my sleep was so intermittent last night, I probably should just have gone to bed but my mind is so awash at the moment, I tend to forget things within hours (minutes, sometimes). Also, I'm too pissed off with Firefox, which has deleted all my bookmark toolbar folder bookmarks again! Why, Firefox, why? My browser looks naked and I'm seriously annoyed...
E quella a me: "Nessun maggior dolore
che ricordarsi del tempo felice
ne la miseria; e ciò sa 'l tuo dottore.
And she said to me: "There is no greater sorrow
than thinking back upon a happy time
in misery - and this, your teacher knows.
06 January 2008
Homesick for Some Place I'll Never Be and for Some Place I Already Am
With a Christmas gift voucher, I treated myself to a print copy of the January edition of Wired. In this month's issue, as well as an interview with Thom Yorke (another former patron of the Sandwich Shop of Dreams), the confessions of a Scrabulous cheat and instructions for surviving on two hours of sleep per night (TLDR: take a short nap every four hours), there was an article on climate change in which one paragraph in particular caught my eye:
[Glenn] Albrecht has given this syndrome an evocative name: solastalgia. It's a mashup of the roots solacium (comfort) and algia (pain), which together aptly conjure the world nostalgia. In essence, it's pining for a lost environment. "Solastalgia," as he wrote in a scientific paper describing his theory, "is a form of homesickness one gets when one is still at home."
What struck me was the Pynchon-like oxymoron of being homesick while still at home. I spent much of last year trying to find a quotation about nostalgia from Gravity's Rainbow, which I eventually discovered was, "For this crew, nostalgia is like seasickness: only the hope of dying from it is keeping them alive." With hindsight, I actually prefer Ian McEwan's nostalgia quotation from Atonement: "her improbable nostalgia for a time barely concluded."
The concept of nostalgia consists of two basic subconcepts: the idea of having good or comforting thoughts about the past or about home and the idea that the happiness associated with these thoughts is no longer available and so looking back upon them makes one sad. (The etymology being the Greek nostos (homeward journey) and algia (pain), nostos being first applied to Odysseus on his journey from Troy. Like bittersweet, it is an oxymoron and I rather like both words.
Ian McEwan's play on words is clever because nostalgia by definition applies to the feelings one has for a time in the past (although, obviously there is no limit on how far in the past this must be) and Albrecht's solastalgia is clever because the word implies that the feelings one has are for a place where one is not and yet it is the place itself that is changing over time rather than the thinker. Ah, I remember when nostalgia was a simple concept...those were the days!
05 January 2008
More WoTYs
So, further to Merriam Webster's bigging up of w00t as its word of the year for 2007, the American Dialect Society and the OED have also announced their own WoTYs; I don't like either of these as much as w00t.
The ADS picked subprime, "an adjective used to describe a risky or less than ideal loan, mortgage, or investment. Subprime was also winner of a brand-new 2007 category for real estate words, a category which reflects the preoccupation of the press and public for the past year with a deepening mortgage crisis."
Wow, that's such an exciting new word! The formation is boring, the etymology is boring and the meaning is boring. An all-round lexical loser, to my mind. I like one of the runners up better, which also won the "most creative" category: Googlegänger ("a person with your name who shows up when you google yourself.")
One of the runners up in the "most creative" category was lolcat. Fine, but hardly new, although I suppose 2007 was the year of the degeekification of the lolcat and the orly owl and the rest of the lolmenagerie.
Looking at some of the previous winners of the ADS's WoTY, I don't think they're very good at predicting words that are likely to remain in the lexicon, which are usually those that score highly on the FUDGE factor. This stands for: "Frequency of use" (broadly its popularity), "Unobtrusiveness" (disguised as something we already know about), "Diversity of users and situations" (whether it is used by people in lots of different situations), "Generation of other forms and meanings" (how fertile it is in creating derived forms), and "Endurance of the concept" (whether the thing it describes stays around so you need the word to describe it)."
In 1990, for example, the first WoTY of the ADS was the now obscure bushlips ("insincere political rhetoric"), although the most amazing (bungee jumping) and the most outrageous (politically correct) fared better. I liked 1996's most original prebuttal ("a preemptive rebuttal") but that appears not to have gone anywhere.
2002's prediction for the word most likely to succeed was pretty accurate too: blog. Not so much with 2006's WoTY: to be plutoed, to pluto ("to be demoted or devalued"). I like the idea here but to my knowledge, it hasn't really caught on (Google only turns up 19,000 hits, most of them probably relating to the word being WoTY).
Meanwhile, at the OED, locavore was proclaimed WoTY for 2007. According to the OUP blog, "[t]he “locavore” movement encourages consumers to buy from farmers’ markets or even to grow or pick their own food, arguing that fresh, local products are more nutritious and taste better. Locavores also shun supermarket offerings as an environmentally friendly measure, since shipping food over long distances often requires more fuel for transportation."
Hmm... None of the runners up were particularly inspired either - the backformation, to tase, for example, which Grammar Girl parodies nicely with her "Don't verbify me, bro!" t-shirts. As for cougar ("an older woman who romantically pursues younger men"), I've never heard of it but it sounds like a terrible idea.
The Oxford WoTY for 2006 was carbon neutral, which is still doing well and will probably only continue to spread as global climate change becomes an increasingly serious issue.
It's amazing how much attention these annual awards get each year. I guess that most of the nominees have particular cultural significance for the year in which they are nominated and as such, people relish the opportunity to hear a bit more about the history and formation of the words themselves as well as the concepts they embody.
The ADS picked subprime, "an adjective used to describe a risky or less than ideal loan, mortgage, or investment. Subprime was also winner of a brand-new 2007 category for real estate words, a category which reflects the preoccupation of the press and public for the past year with a deepening mortgage crisis."
Wow, that's such an exciting new word! The formation is boring, the etymology is boring and the meaning is boring. An all-round lexical loser, to my mind. I like one of the runners up better, which also won the "most creative" category: Googlegänger ("a person with your name who shows up when you google yourself.")
One of the runners up in the "most creative" category was lolcat. Fine, but hardly new, although I suppose 2007 was the year of the degeekification of the lolcat and the orly owl and the rest of the lolmenagerie.
Looking at some of the previous winners of the ADS's WoTY, I don't think they're very good at predicting words that are likely to remain in the lexicon, which are usually those that score highly on the FUDGE factor. This stands for: "Frequency of use" (broadly its popularity), "Unobtrusiveness" (disguised as something we already know about), "Diversity of users and situations" (whether it is used by people in lots of different situations), "Generation of other forms and meanings" (how fertile it is in creating derived forms), and "Endurance of the concept" (whether the thing it describes stays around so you need the word to describe it)."
In 1990, for example, the first WoTY of the ADS was the now obscure bushlips ("insincere political rhetoric"), although the most amazing (bungee jumping) and the most outrageous (politically correct) fared better. I liked 1996's most original prebuttal ("a preemptive rebuttal") but that appears not to have gone anywhere.
2002's prediction for the word most likely to succeed was pretty accurate too: blog. Not so much with 2006's WoTY: to be plutoed, to pluto ("to be demoted or devalued"). I like the idea here but to my knowledge, it hasn't really caught on (Google only turns up 19,000 hits, most of them probably relating to the word being WoTY).
Meanwhile, at the OED, locavore was proclaimed WoTY for 2007. According to the OUP blog, "[t]he “locavore” movement encourages consumers to buy from farmers’ markets or even to grow or pick their own food, arguing that fresh, local products are more nutritious and taste better. Locavores also shun supermarket offerings as an environmentally friendly measure, since shipping food over long distances often requires more fuel for transportation."
Hmm... None of the runners up were particularly inspired either - the backformation, to tase, for example, which Grammar Girl parodies nicely with her "Don't verbify me, bro!" t-shirts. As for cougar ("an older woman who romantically pursues younger men"), I've never heard of it but it sounds like a terrible idea.
The Oxford WoTY for 2006 was carbon neutral, which is still doing well and will probably only continue to spread as global climate change becomes an increasingly serious issue.
It's amazing how much attention these annual awards get each year. I guess that most of the nominees have particular cultural significance for the year in which they are nominated and as such, people relish the opportunity to hear a bit more about the history and formation of the words themselves as well as the concepts they embody.
03 January 2008
But that Your Royal Pleasure Must Be Done
I don't watch TV. Not ever. Except when I do (although even then, it is really "watching computer" rather than the phat widescreen TV of which Doktor Landlord is so proud). I am currently watching two series: The Tudors and Gossip Girl. The former is, of course, the "real" story of Henry VIII and why he turned out to be the man he did (or, better, didn't) by focusing on the early years of his reign (i.e. when he fancied the French knickers off Anne Boleyn but she wouldn't put out, hence Le Divorce or "Our Great Matter" as they called it), albeit with an irritating title sequence with Jonathan Rhys Meyers telling us that if we want to understand the story, we have to go back to the start and giving us piercing blue-eyed gazes (in fact, so does all of the cast, including Anne Boleyn who was famous for her dark eyes; relatively, this historical accuracy barely matters). The latter is "your one and only guide to the lives of Manhattan's elite."
They might be separated by 500 years but the two programmes are basically about the same thing: gossip, scandal, bitchiness, betrayal and great dresses among the ruling classes. The skirts are shorter and the hair is straighter in GG but otherwise the shows have a lot in common. Truces are made and broken. Affairs commence and vaporise. Punches are exchanged. Oh, and the alpha male always comes out on top, even (and especially) when he has been outwitted.
The Tudors is of the Elizabeth: The Golden Age with regards to historical accuracy: dates are moved to fit the plot, characters (particularly the seemingly infinite line of Thomas Howards, Dukes of Norfolk, with their very noble blood and their tendency to hover just on the opposing side to the crown in any argument) merge. They also get a lot hotter when played by modern actors. Charles Brandon, one of the king's favourites who was made Duke of Suffolk and who is most famous for being Mary, Queen of Scots' grandfather, was definitely as hot as his actor,Henry Cavill, in my history textbook.
Everyone is hot, in fact; if the show gets as far as wifey number four, I'm sure even the Mare of Cleeves would be hot. I suppose this is the fault of Rome, which sexed up the Roman period big time (not that it really needed much help in that area), and set the example. The Tudors opens in about 1517 (the timing is not exact given that crucial events are often shown in the wrong order; for example, Henry's sister Margaret (a combination of Henry's real sisters Margaret and Mary) is married off to the King of Portugal on the condition that she can marry who she chooses (Brandon) next); in reality, Mary married the ageing King of France, Louis XII, who was long since dead at this point in The Tudors).
Henry is devastated because he has no heir and it's clearly all Catherine's fault because she only gave him a daughter and lots of stillborn children. Except, he only starts panicking about the lack of male heir after he falls for Anne Boleyn, the beautiful, dark fox brought up in the French court and so "well versed in those Frenchwomen's trickeries" (not so much as her sister Mary who became the mistress of the King of France and the King of England, though presumably not at the same time (brings a new meaning to détente, I guess)). Henry wants Anne. Anne (and her aspiring father and grasping uncle (Norfolk)) wants Henry but she knows of his habit to grow bored once he's got what he wants (some things never change). So she tells him no nookie until they are married, at which point, he knows he has to have this divorce and that god demands it; so much so that Henry won't feel pure and at ease until he has it. At least, that's what he tells Catherine, Wolsey, the Pope and the whole damn country. No one really supported the divorce except Anne but of course what everyone else thought mattered very little because Henry always got what he wanted.
I've reached episode five, where Anne finally gives in to Henry's marriage proposals, on New Year's Day, 1527. She sends a ship pendant with a maiden and a diamond on as her message of acceptance; Henry, of course, being the ship and Anne the diamond. The incident is also reported in David Starkey's Six Wives, which I am currently reading; in fact, most of the historical details of The Tudors are taken from this or from Wikipedia, presumably by someone who is numerically dyslexic with regards to dates.
Being TV, though, it's not enough for Henry to work his way through a whole menagerie of mistresses or for Princess Margaret to kill her old husband so she can marry the hottie or for your average 16th century scandal, so they also introduce a gay sub-plot: one of the king's favourites, William Compton, has a thing for the (frankly weird-looking) court musician, Thomas Tallis, who won't kiss him because he doesn't love Compton, although eventually they do, in a dark alley.
More shocking still is how old Sam Neill looks as Cardinal Wolsey; I almost didn't recognise him from his Jurassic Park days, although I suppose even that was 15 years ago. Of course, he's bound to be made a head shorter (how dare they steal Keanu's joke in Speed?) before too long (perhaps even this season, which was actually shown last year) even though in real life he died before he could be executed for treason. His crime? Despite everything he had done for Henry (scheming, sneaky bastard though he was), he came down on the wrong side of Our Great Matter and when push came to shove, Henry picked Anne.
Gossip Girl would have a lot to say about that. She knows all too well the power of factions and politics and choosing sides carefully. She would never be caught on the wrong side of any argument. Few powerful people in the 16th century were so lucky; even Henry's secretary, Richard Pace, who was driven to the point of repeated nervous breakdowns on account of dishing Henry's gossip to Wolsey. And vice-versa. It seems that gossip transcends all ages.
Surely, though, the only thing worse than being talked about...is not being talked about.
They might be separated by 500 years but the two programmes are basically about the same thing: gossip, scandal, bitchiness, betrayal and great dresses among the ruling classes. The skirts are shorter and the hair is straighter in GG but otherwise the shows have a lot in common. Truces are made and broken. Affairs commence and vaporise. Punches are exchanged. Oh, and the alpha male always comes out on top, even (and especially) when he has been outwitted.
The Tudors is of the Elizabeth: The Golden Age with regards to historical accuracy: dates are moved to fit the plot, characters (particularly the seemingly infinite line of Thomas Howards, Dukes of Norfolk, with their very noble blood and their tendency to hover just on the opposing side to the crown in any argument) merge. They also get a lot hotter when played by modern actors. Charles Brandon, one of the king's favourites who was made Duke of Suffolk and who is most famous for being Mary, Queen of Scots' grandfather, was definitely as hot as his actor,Henry Cavill, in my history textbook.
Everyone is hot, in fact; if the show gets as far as wifey number four, I'm sure even the Mare of Cleeves would be hot. I suppose this is the fault of Rome, which sexed up the Roman period big time (not that it really needed much help in that area), and set the example. The Tudors opens in about 1517 (the timing is not exact given that crucial events are often shown in the wrong order; for example, Henry's sister Margaret (a combination of Henry's real sisters Margaret and Mary) is married off to the King of Portugal on the condition that she can marry who she chooses (Brandon) next); in reality, Mary married the ageing King of France, Louis XII, who was long since dead at this point in The Tudors).
Henry is devastated because he has no heir and it's clearly all Catherine's fault because she only gave him a daughter and lots of stillborn children. Except, he only starts panicking about the lack of male heir after he falls for Anne Boleyn, the beautiful, dark fox brought up in the French court and so "well versed in those Frenchwomen's trickeries" (not so much as her sister Mary who became the mistress of the King of France and the King of England, though presumably not at the same time (brings a new meaning to détente, I guess)). Henry wants Anne. Anne (and her aspiring father and grasping uncle (Norfolk)) wants Henry but she knows of his habit to grow bored once he's got what he wants (some things never change). So she tells him no nookie until they are married, at which point, he knows he has to have this divorce and that god demands it; so much so that Henry won't feel pure and at ease until he has it. At least, that's what he tells Catherine, Wolsey, the Pope and the whole damn country. No one really supported the divorce except Anne but of course what everyone else thought mattered very little because Henry always got what he wanted.
I've reached episode five, where Anne finally gives in to Henry's marriage proposals, on New Year's Day, 1527. She sends a ship pendant with a maiden and a diamond on as her message of acceptance; Henry, of course, being the ship and Anne the diamond. The incident is also reported in David Starkey's Six Wives, which I am currently reading; in fact, most of the historical details of The Tudors are taken from this or from Wikipedia, presumably by someone who is numerically dyslexic with regards to dates.
Being TV, though, it's not enough for Henry to work his way through a whole menagerie of mistresses or for Princess Margaret to kill her old husband so she can marry the hottie or for your average 16th century scandal, so they also introduce a gay sub-plot: one of the king's favourites, William Compton, has a thing for the (frankly weird-looking) court musician, Thomas Tallis, who won't kiss him because he doesn't love Compton, although eventually they do, in a dark alley.
More shocking still is how old Sam Neill looks as Cardinal Wolsey; I almost didn't recognise him from his Jurassic Park days, although I suppose even that was 15 years ago. Of course, he's bound to be made a head shorter (how dare they steal Keanu's joke in Speed?) before too long (perhaps even this season, which was actually shown last year) even though in real life he died before he could be executed for treason. His crime? Despite everything he had done for Henry (scheming, sneaky bastard though he was), he came down on the wrong side of Our Great Matter and when push came to shove, Henry picked Anne.
Gossip Girl would have a lot to say about that. She knows all too well the power of factions and politics and choosing sides carefully. She would never be caught on the wrong side of any argument. Few powerful people in the 16th century were so lucky; even Henry's secretary, Richard Pace, who was driven to the point of repeated nervous breakdowns on account of dishing Henry's gossip to Wolsey. And vice-versa. It seems that gossip transcends all ages.
Surely, though, the only thing worse than being talked about...is not being talked about.
01 January 2008
Chansons d'Amour
2007 was an appalling year for Bex-friendly movies and I only went to the cinema a handful of times, which is a shame, given how much I love going and how frequently I used to go. However, things are looking up this year with several films I want to see coming soon (Lust, Caution, for example), and Les Chansons d'Amour, which I saw today and which was pretty good.
"Love Songs," as the English translation goes (I'm sure there must be a better, if less literal translation), was released in France last May and Monsieur E spoke very highly of it. "It's like Cruel Intentions but set in Paris," he said. So Dangerous Liaisons then... Actually, that's not quite true. It's a light, dreamy combination of Les Parapluies de Cherbourg, The Dreamers and Cruel Intentions, with a dab of La Stanza del Figlio thrown in for good measure.
The basic plot is thus: attractive young couple Julie and Ismaël have been together for eight years but something isn't quite right (that would be the tragedy of eternal monogamy then) so they bring Ismaël's workmate Alice into the bedroom and into the relationship to spice things up a bit. Obviously, this only complicates matters further and despite Ismaël's claims to Julie that "je n'aime que toi" she worries this isn't true. Anyway, things become an awful lot more complicated and the whole mood of the movie shifts dramatically after Big Plot Twist and what was fun and game-like suddenly becomes dark and serious as Ismaël desperately tries to find himself and to accept himself through the medium of shagging an assortment of people (the Random Hookup, the Teenage Guy, etc.), but it's not really much use as he ends the film as ennui-ridden as at the beginning. Basically, he's a bit of a self-centred, childish bastard, although he does it in such a sneeringly sexy and yet also butter-wouldn't-melt kind of way, that you can't really hate him so much as pity him.
The whole movie is punctuated by the characters bursting into song at regular intervals. I don't really like musicals but here, it seemed completely natural and, I realised, had it not been a musical, the thoughts sung by the characters would only have been voiced by some cool, indie singer on the soundtrack anyway. My favourite song is the aforementioned Je n'aime que toi, a trio between the three lovers in which Julie sings, "You bastard! Who do you like best? Her or me? You have to choose, damnit!" and Ismaël sings, "Look, you bitch! You know it's you I love; you're the only one I love! In any case, that other chick touches you too and you love it!" and Alice sings, "I'm the bridge between you both; if it weren't for me, there's no way you'd be together any more but I'm not sure I can be arsed with this bullshit for much longer."
The last film I saw starring Louis Garrel was The Dreamers, which also involved a Parisian menage à trois; he ought to be careful if he doesn't want to be typecast! Much as I enjoyed this film, I'm not sure it was dark enough to satisfy my tastes and I much preferred The Dreamers, not least because of the smoking hot Eva Green in the latter. Besides, The Dreamers had incest and who doesn't love a taboo? Oh, and it was set in '68 and is therefore automatically cool.
Maybe the characters are just a lot more interesting in The Dreamers: you have these twins who love each other and sleep naked together and have this incredibly complicated relationship that no outsider can possibly understand, and yet try to understand does the American outsider whose greatest wish is to be accepted into their messed up world. Les Chansons d'Amour, on the other hand, has this couple who aren't really very interesting - what 20-something couple doesn't go through the whole existentialist-what-are-we-doing? crisis? Of course they are confused and don't know whether they are meant to be together or why they are still together! Perhaps their only defining characteristics, though, seem to be their confusion and lack of self-understanding. Meanwhile, the all-knowing Alice is happy, confident and wise - she is Inès to Julie's Estelle and Ismaël's Garcin and on some levels, the complex relationship between the three of them becomes their hell.
In all, not a bad cinematographic start to the year; as for my translation of the title, I'll have to sleep on it.
"Love Songs," as the English translation goes (I'm sure there must be a better, if less literal translation), was released in France last May and Monsieur E spoke very highly of it. "It's like Cruel Intentions but set in Paris," he said. So Dangerous Liaisons then... Actually, that's not quite true. It's a light, dreamy combination of Les Parapluies de Cherbourg, The Dreamers and Cruel Intentions, with a dab of La Stanza del Figlio thrown in for good measure.
The basic plot is thus: attractive young couple Julie and Ismaël have been together for eight years but something isn't quite right (that would be the tragedy of eternal monogamy then) so they bring Ismaël's workmate Alice into the bedroom and into the relationship to spice things up a bit. Obviously, this only complicates matters further and despite Ismaël's claims to Julie that "je n'aime que toi" she worries this isn't true. Anyway, things become an awful lot more complicated and the whole mood of the movie shifts dramatically after Big Plot Twist and what was fun and game-like suddenly becomes dark and serious as Ismaël desperately tries to find himself and to accept himself through the medium of shagging an assortment of people (the Random Hookup, the Teenage Guy, etc.), but it's not really much use as he ends the film as ennui-ridden as at the beginning. Basically, he's a bit of a self-centred, childish bastard, although he does it in such a sneeringly sexy and yet also butter-wouldn't-melt kind of way, that you can't really hate him so much as pity him.
The whole movie is punctuated by the characters bursting into song at regular intervals. I don't really like musicals but here, it seemed completely natural and, I realised, had it not been a musical, the thoughts sung by the characters would only have been voiced by some cool, indie singer on the soundtrack anyway. My favourite song is the aforementioned Je n'aime que toi, a trio between the three lovers in which Julie sings, "You bastard! Who do you like best? Her or me? You have to choose, damnit!" and Ismaël sings, "Look, you bitch! You know it's you I love; you're the only one I love! In any case, that other chick touches you too and you love it!" and Alice sings, "I'm the bridge between you both; if it weren't for me, there's no way you'd be together any more but I'm not sure I can be arsed with this bullshit for much longer."
The last film I saw starring Louis Garrel was The Dreamers, which also involved a Parisian menage à trois; he ought to be careful if he doesn't want to be typecast! Much as I enjoyed this film, I'm not sure it was dark enough to satisfy my tastes and I much preferred The Dreamers, not least because of the smoking hot Eva Green in the latter. Besides, The Dreamers had incest and who doesn't love a taboo? Oh, and it was set in '68 and is therefore automatically cool.
Maybe the characters are just a lot more interesting in The Dreamers: you have these twins who love each other and sleep naked together and have this incredibly complicated relationship that no outsider can possibly understand, and yet try to understand does the American outsider whose greatest wish is to be accepted into their messed up world. Les Chansons d'Amour, on the other hand, has this couple who aren't really very interesting - what 20-something couple doesn't go through the whole existentialist-what-are-we-doing? crisis? Of course they are confused and don't know whether they are meant to be together or why they are still together! Perhaps their only defining characteristics, though, seem to be their confusion and lack of self-understanding. Meanwhile, the all-knowing Alice is happy, confident and wise - she is Inès to Julie's Estelle and Ismaël's Garcin and on some levels, the complex relationship between the three of them becomes their hell.
In all, not a bad cinematographic start to the year; as for my translation of the title, I'll have to sleep on it.