have been really STRESSED. thesis and all. too complicated and vexing to explain. but it's largely to do with 2 supervisors, time-constraints, different perspectives. i am trapped in the middle...
thank goodness, i got a wee stress-relief... Ratatouille!
it's gastronomically fun! do go... and watch the rat spice up a wee bit of your life... and fall in love with food...
quel est amour? et, quelle est votre interprétation de l'amour? indeed that was just what 18 directors and sets of actresses and actors tried to define in their version of "Paris, je t'aime"... a lovely (albeit a few quirky and strange ones within the) potpourri of SHORTS about love, and in particular, the essence or flavour of love that one might discover in the different arrondissements of Paris...
no doubt the cast and crew will impress you... but it is what i would describe as the "RAW" everyday emotional expressions and the provocative-yet-almost-incidental-observational-style of looking at a few snippets of others' lives... which may or may not reflect some of our own experiences that makes this film a wonderful quilt about definitions of love. and love in all its various ironic, frustrating, indulging, addictive, and simplistic forms... love across cultures, beyond mortality, and indeed, in any language...
hope you will come across it at a cinema near you... je pense que vous pourriez l'aimer aussi !
whatever the controversies... i'd say the da vinci code movie is worth the watch even if it may not appeal to you, or that it might be just for the locational settings... rosslyn chapel is spectacular without the scaffolding that is currently shielding it from further weathering damage... and of course, it was a heart-breaking reminder of the good times i had wandering alone on my bike (which i brought over from germany) to find it in the glen... and how much i miss europe...and at least the effigy features of Sir Isaac Newton's Monument were duplicated...
i enjoyed the film and thought the characters, Silas, and Fache, were particularly well-portrayed... the movie followed the novel closely, spare a few missing details... i might be bias... because, i am more nostalgic about the locations and settings and for the fact that the theories spun in the novel seem plausible and i could allow myself to be entertained by such postulations and mysteries... it makes me go wondering about a lot of things i have no answers to... and i ask ppl to tell me what they know or understand from their experience or knowledge and there's more speculation and discussion... i think amicable debate is good...
in any case, this bbc-magazine article has an interesting and growing trail of comments... which are quite amusing... here are some of my favourites for whatever reasons... :
"This entire thing highlights a huge snobbery inherent to British society. How can you possibly not have finished the first page? Are the sentences so offensive to your little eyes that you had to stop? It's like the princess and the pea. The reason Hollywood baddies are always English is because everyone sees you as dislikeable class snobs which, rather delightfully, this discussion goes to prove.
Paul , Edinburgh"
""Badly written" One word to all who say this. Sheep. I have read a great many books in my 38 years and I even have a English Lit. Diploma, so the sometimes torturous writings of the "best" have been read, discussed, praised and slated. The last novel I heaped praise upon was "Johnathon Strange and Mr Norrel". Possibly one of the best works of literature I have read in a long time. I like to think this shows me as someone that doesn't read "pulp" however according to the experts I do, because I love Dan Brown's writing. May I suggest to those who slate Mr Brown that they first attempt to write a novel, and then attempt to write one with the adrenalin Dan manages to inject into his fiction.
Vaughan Jackson, Vartdal, Norway"
"I find it hard to believe the level of snobbery about what is essentially a good, if simple, romp. In my view any book that gets people reading and talking about big issues rather than whose in the gossip mags cannot be a bad thing and you cannot deny people are talking about it! If people are stupid enough to take it as fact - then it's a pretty sad state of affairs, but give the average man some credit! I have a good classical education, know my Gospels and thought the theories were interesting food for thought.
Barbie, Hertfordshire"
"Yes, it's a harmless, disposable, page-turner - but one thing really does annoy me: that American pulp-fiction tic of cliched 'Briddish' typecasting. The baddie, is sexually repressed, upper-class, evil, two-faced, decrepit - and, inevitably, English!
Rob Ainsley, London, UK"
"I loved this book, its just a story, no-one dissects Indiana Jones for its factual inaccuracies about the Ark. The "facts" at the start are a blatant literary device, and the story is fantastic. Gutted to people like John Mortimer for not thinking of it first
Andy Wells, Romford, UK"
i can't seem to work or focus today... do you guys feel like that sometimes?!
i blame it on the stupid talk i had to give that made me lose my sleep fretting over it... it was the longest talk i ever gave in my wee life... i don't know how they let me do that... anyone in their right minds would have said... ENOUGH! perhaps the wacky things i talked about (colliding into things, gannets, pigeons, monkeys, humans... bats?! intercepting objects... ) might have strange effects... perhaps they just needed an excuse not to get back to their work...
needless to say i was delirious after 2 hours... extremely famished... and it was pouring like it sometimes does in edinburgh... so i headed home from the uni instead of going back to the lab... ate some left-over curry and crashed into bed... woke up some 4 hours later... bright-eyed and bored but didn't want to do anything related to work... so i watched a DVD called "the Dish" about the satellite dish in Parkes, in australia, and how it captured the moon-walk of Neil Armstrong in 1969 despite random ghastly winds of over 60kmph that could have swept the whole dish away... and the funny cultural clash between the americans and australians...
... if you believe... they put a man on the moon.... man on the moon!!
c'mon tiggie... programme that script!!! ................... eeeks!
i was mopey yesterday with the remnants of a flu-like bug i was still fighting... and i decided i had to do better than that today... but my heffalumps-neighbours upstairs were game on setting me up in a moody morning with me trying desperately to steal more sleep but obviously loosing the battle... crap. i resorted to blasting my world-receiver (which my brother kindly retrieved from my bedroom at home) and then after a while got bored with the selection of classical pieces on the classical radio channel and started randomly pressing some buttons i've made to store the frequencies of some channels that happen not to have too unpleasant things on air...
frequency-modulated (FM) channel 88.5 suddenly aired the voice of a very british accent... and i thought, how weird... i turned up the volume and much to my amusement... it was BBC world on culture and movies... i got to hear a review of Chronicles of Narnia, Everything Is Illuminated and Ang Lee's new movie Brokeback Mountain, which sounds like a good one to catch... how delightful... and i thought my attempts in trying to find the BBC channels were futile... i really was quite upset not finding any for weeks... now i know at least one channel in the mornings might be dedicated to BBC world news!
yippeee...
a memoir like fictional Nitta Sayuri's is one which i wish i could have the talent to pen... it is utterly captivating... lyrical and heartfelt. ...little wonder that Arthur Golden has been critically praised for rendering this remarkable voice of the legendary Geisha, a skilled courtesan who entertains the men that frequent the tea-houses of pre-war Gion, in his debut novel. i am most intrigued by the myriad of life-complexities and rivalries hidden behind the glorious facade, the perfect demure smiles, graceful movements and social banter that these artisans carry in the presence of their patrons which Golden delicately exposes to the reader.
training to become a top-grade courtesan can be what seems like an arduous and tormentous journey... one is expected to become skilled in music, dance, social etiquette as well as the art of enticing and yet not jeopardizing your worth... this is particularly challenging if you are sold to a household so devoid of appreciation, encouragement and trust... and if you have in addition a tyrannical Hatsumomo (the top geisha of the Nitta household who is a reincarnation of a devil camouflaged beneath her inconceivably divine beauty) bent on crushing you, life is the epitome of misery...
young Chiyo, nonetheless, emerges to become the legendary Sayuri under the tutelage of the renowed Mameha and the generosity bestowed (unbeknownst to her) by the Chairman... whose kindness to the young girl one afternoon lingered in her memory for years since and inspired her to work towards her dream...
yet, i will probably never be able to fully appreciate the life of a geisha for the world in which a geisha lives seems really quite bizarre to me... or perhaps i should say that the kind of sexual muse and fantasies of (some?) men in japan and many places elsewhere are quite... warped?! and i wonder if Golden had the intention of making a mockery of this aspect of humanity in his novel...
in any case, what rings through in the spell-binding story is that if adversaries (as predominantly portrayed by Hatsumomo and the Nitta household and possibly even the archaic practices) could be overcomed, our dreams (life, love, freedom and perhaps even happiness) may not be totally out of reach... no body ever said that life isn't a struggle and the reward as you will discover at the end of the memoir is bittersweet.
i am certainly looking forward to the movie, which should be out for x'mas... the trailers are simply mesmerising... what with a cast of shinning stars, such exquisite kimonos... and the promise of beautiful music (by John Williams) and dance (performed by dance-graduates Zhang Ziyi and Michelle Yeoh)!
... gosh... i do wish i owned a pair of luminous grey-blue eyes...
if any one knows me well enough they'd know that sometimes i wish things would happen "like NOW!"... f teases me a lot with it... as he did this morning in his self-imposed morning call from across the atlantic. i was still thickly encapsulated in sleep's cobwebs, dreamy with lizzy and darcy in my own concoctions of Hertfordshire, Netherfield etc. ... utterly pleasant. but i have to wait till Wed. before the film's released in a cinema that i could reasonably get to without whimpering for a ride in someone's car...
then he continued to torture me with details of an un-warranted extended ending in the US-version that seems not to do justice to the novel in its original form... a kiss... champagne... sunset... how kitschy is that?!... and so the divide between the anglo-saxons and their yankee cousins remains.
ahh... but Matthew MacFadyen, who plays Darcy, is a lot more palatable to the eye than Colin Firth (sorry Mr Firth)... in fact, if i could have had it my way, i'd engage Ralph Fiennes in the role, oh yes! oh, i can't wait... and while i am re-reading the novel... and enjoying every pomposity of Jane Austen's verbose use of the language... i am hoping that wednesday will arrive sooner...
like NOW!
i've grown to adore Jane Austen's works since many years ago when we read Pride & Prejudice for literature in school, then we went to visit her home on a school-trip to England, then i found myself in that part of the world living and studying for quite some many years... then again, i am a sucker for period movies and everything quaint and british, medieval and ancient... good scenery, tasteful music and dramatic landscapes easily cause me to melt...
i sure hope this film-adaptation of the wonderful novel will not disappoint!
for all the typical british-humour and wicked-gadgety-fun....
it is hard not to find it personal when the actor of the protagonist in "The Constant Gardener" has a name that is pronounced the same way as that of a dear friend who was killed in a most unneccesary way almost a year ago and his (Ralph Fiennes) and his co-protagonist's (Rachel Weisz) roles in the film share some similarities with the kind of work R was involved in...
i never really understood how and what life is like working for aid agencies in Africa (and other parts of the world) despite hearing first-hand the kind of dangers, frustrations and incomprehensible bureaucracies that exist and are highlighted in the film... i could never really fully appreciate R's experiences... it seemed and still does, utterly remote and horrifying... i could, but then again i guess i couldn't, understand the passion that drives these aid-workers... and in comparison, my everyday struggles seem insignificant...
it's hard to describe it all succinctly and adequately... but the film gives a vivid dichotomy of the beauty of the african land and the misery of the people; their helpless yet changeable situations; the pharmaceutical powers that rule their lives and are yet dependent on these lives they 'sacrifice' and also the ruthlessness that is present in both the locals and the foreigners... do try to catch the film when it comes to a theatre/cinema near you... the issues raised are real and concern us all.
i used to sing and hum to myself a lot... i sometimes do it subconsciously and often land myself in rather embarrassing situations... in any case, some of my favourite tunes come from The Sound of Music... and here's one of my favourites... the theme song, no less.
The hills are alive with the sound of music
With songs they have sung for a thousand years
The hills fill my heart with the sound of music
My heart wants to sing every song it hears
My heart wants to beat like the wings of a bird
That rise from the lake to the trees
My heart wants to sigh like a chime that flies
From a church on a breeze
To laugh like a brook when it trips and falls
Over stones on its way
To sing through the night
Like a lark who is learning to pray
I go to the hills when my heart is lonely
I know I will hear what I heard before
My heart will be blessed
With the sound of music
And I'll sing once more
~~~The Sound of Music~~~
you'd probably recognise the face of the Afghan girl with piercing green eyes that once covered an issue of the National Georgraphic magazine, even if you didn't realise that the photographer who captured the face is Steve McCurry, one of the world's best photographers who tries to bring the connectedness of humans through his pictures. as least, that was the case for me... i'd seen the face on his collection of portraits published by Phaidon but i couldn't remember who the photographer was until i was reminded of his name at the "Face of Asia: Steve McCurry photographs" exhibited at Edinburgh's City Art Gallery.
it is a wonderful collection of portraits and scenes... and often the intensity of the facial expressions could really tell you so much of the person's life. what skill, sensitivity and patience it must require to attain the quality of expressivity in his subjects, whether descriptively or metaphorically... what i find so amazing about photographs is how much they tell you about the subject and the photographer and in some other ways, the audience. this inter-connected-ness renders a beautiful role for well-captured photographs.
as i wandered about the gallery filled with his signature pieces, i found myself wondering perhaps what makes Steve McCurry's photographs powerful is because they capture more than the person or the places in which they live or flee... they capture the ironies of life too and the formidable human strength to overcome some of life's harshest conditions... they are themselves, life stories. it is life stories that touch... and this is how his photographs have connected people and how people reached out to those they do not know, to help.
i found myself taken to a photograph of an indian man wading through the flood left by a monsoon, water to his chin, him carrying his livelihood, an old sewing machine slightly submerged, to higher grounds... on his face, a resilient but distant smile. when i finished reading the caption that accompanied it, i turned my head not knowing that another lady was also there... and we both just happened to look at each other at the same time.
"It's so amazing!" she exclaimed with a beautiful smile.
"i am so happy he got a new sewing machine!" i told her...
"Me too!"
that made my day. the happiness is quite indescribable...
Steve McCurry's work can also be viewed at the pdn gallery and is definitely worth catching if it comes to a place near you.
"Fear is the path to the dark side: fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering"
i can't help but think Lucas has been influenced by Buddhistic teachings... all the wonderful bits of the light vs dark sides are captured in the apparently simple yet profound lines that Yoda 'enigmatically' spews... absolutely wonderful philosophical stuff.
ever since i was introduced to Star Wars and all the amazing fun... i've always wanted a lightsaber (NB: not the toy but the real thing)... i also want to get hold of a copy of the story in text... and i wouldn't mind having DVDs of the original trilogy and the new as future pressies in case you ever think of getting me something i'd like... but sharing it with me if you do have a copy would be just as nice!!! i also wanted to have my hair long so i could plait it like princess leia and become a jedi... i also wondered if George Lucas published his stories at all? does anyone know? i'd really like to get a copy...
... so many wants... it's terrible i know... "learn to let go, [i] must".
i still like the classics better... however, this last of the first part kind of made up for the two rather disappointing earlier episodes...
but beware... the dark side is strong... "learn to let go, you must"
another movie i watched recently was Turtles Can Fly, which i found terribly haunting... undertones aside, this is a fine production, beautifully subtle and provocative... it is definitely worth the watch if you can take watching people suffer rather harsh circumstances... the mental and physical torments etc. ... i say so for i left the movie feeling mentally drained... sombre and carrying a heavier heart...
when f was here last weekend, we managed (apart from attending my old flatmate, Hannah's Wedding) to watch the one film i had been wanting to catch for ages... i was really glad that the FilmHouse was screening it too as i thought the screenings at Cameo would have ended by then. A Very Long Engagement was worth the 'long' wait... i really enjoyed it... and am glad f did too. and Audrey Tautou played a lovely strong-willed Mathilde whose quest to find the fate of her beloved Manech (played by Gaspard Ulliel) saw her learning about some of the horrific experiences of those who went through the war and the psychological scars left on those whose lives intertwined. those who loved Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Am?lie would find traces of his stylistic filmography rekindled in this production... particularly his sense of humor... mostly peppered by quirky characters e.g. Benedicte and her obsession with Chickpea's (The Dog) silly tendencies... The Postman (Jean-Paul Rouve), etc. and each their distinct idiosyncracies...
i'd love to watch it again... not only to be able to etch the storyline in my mind... to tell myself that i should learn to be more like Mathilde... who remained stubbornly cheerful despite all the challenges... but also to be reminded of the companionship i enjoyed last weekend...
i am awe-struck by the cinematography of Zhang Yimou's latest film: "House of Flying Daggers" or more aptly titled in Chinese as 十面埋伏 and perhaps more accurately translated* as facades hiding ambushes... which the director presented at the Cannes. i was slightly hesitant to go, having heard mixed reviews from different people and also by the fact that people i often go movie-watching with aren't free to come along with me... or aren't here for that matter... so i contemplated for a few days...
however unlike those (e.g. DSD) who have expressed their unfavourable views about the film -- whose script incorporated various familiar themes of "Robin-Hood", "Romeo and Juliet", and the Chinese Martial Arts genre -- i do like it... despite a few qualms which i have pertaining to the passionate scenes, which i feel, were perhaps a little contrived and too drawn-out... and perhaps the Title Song, "Lovers", sang by Kathleen Battle, would have been more appropriate if it had been in Mandarin... however, the setting and play of colour themes that ran parallel to the subtle plots and the choreographed movements (both minute and subtle as well as grand and epic) were beautifully done...
i guess you might say i am biased, for i do like Zhang Yimou's films alot and i notice how his style has slowly changed with the years... becoming more fairy-tale like in the modern productions... i also i think Zhang Ziyi is a great actress with a lot of potential... and now i am beginning to understand what people say about Andy Lau's sensitivity in his acting as well as why everyone's so smitten by Takeshi Kaneshiro... yet i guess it is our great loss that we will never see this film starring Anita Mui as the Peony Pavilion's Yee -- whose role was eventually played by Song DanDan. and it is in memory of Anita that the film is dedicated.
[a selection of various trailers is available from here]
* a note on the observed discrepancies of the translated subtitles in the movie -- for example, the (repeated) lines uttered by Jin to Mei: "I came back for you" was actually "I came back for the one I love" in the original Mandarin... which can be seen as either cheesier or more poetic...
Cameo's double bill screening of "Before Sunrise" and "Before Sunset" was a sheer delight... it got me into tears... because so many bits of it are so true in my life... the journeys on the trains (both inter-railing through Vienna, and stopping in the city too -- although i've probably never seen all those places they wandered through... -- and through europe on the train...), the people i've met, come to know... bade goodbyes and wondered if i will ever meet again... the conversations about growing up, idealism, love, life, struggles within ourselves etc.... and ooh so many many wonderful little things... all encapsulated in those conversations... mannerisms, everything... one could describe it as fictionalised reality... but realistically so.
? Warner Independent Pictures. All rights reserved.
A waltz for a Night... Before Sunset... why aren't there more movies like that?
simply beautiful...
i have been lazy. or perhaps more appropriately said, unmotivated, which annoys me lots. but the looming departure date is kicking me into a state of slight panic which is good.... i must finish my silly programming and a few reading and some writing before i leave for my 2-weeks or so vacation. c'mon may!!!
anyways... so much for my determination.... i took out 2 dvds over the weekend (actually 3 --- the nice sympathetic guy at the Alphabet video store said that it was 3 for the price of 2 so i ought to look for another ... i did but i didn't manage to watch it ... so much for "3 for 2") and apart from trying to do some shopping for the things i set myself to find (of which i only succeeded in getting 1) i didn't do very much. i wonder if this is bad?!
anyways, i watched Dune (a David Flynch production based on the sci-fi novel by Frank Herbert -- for a link to the genesis of Dune click here) after some 20 years of catching a glimpse of it ( the tv broadcast which my uncle had taped) behind the sofa at grandparents' place trying to hide from all the scary-looking sandworms, not able to comprehend the strange evil Harkonnians with their odd vampire-like habits, not fully appreciating how remarkable this piece of work is... while my brothers were totally enjoying the film and trying to convince me that the monstrous-sized sandworms aren't evil.... today, i can say they are right... and i am glad i have been introduced to it. many themes injected into Herbert's epic tale still remain relevant today... i see many parallels to the recent and prolonged war on Iraq etc., the politics of 'empires' and the idea of a messiah... moreover, the cast was rather amazing... i was quite taken by Kyle MacLachlan's portrayal of Paul Atreides... (partly because he looks like someone i know!) and the little girl who acted Alia's role. i won't attempt a film review today... because i feel inept. this story is remarkable in ways and i should perhaps read the book first before sharing my view on it. suffice to say, i found the movie spectacular... and would recommend it to anyone who is interested in sci-fi sort-of movies.
i also watched Good Bye Lenin! (the german site is here) which i should have seen when it first appeared on the big screens but i didn't manage to....it is really beautiful and touching... and gosh... yes i did understand a whole lot more Deutsch than i believe i could! wahnsinn! go grab a dvd/video of it if you haven't seen it... it's just wunderbar.....
apart from that, i went shopping... (horrors!).... i have a knack to leave too little time for shopping and end up inquiring every other shop's sales assistant if they were about to close for the day.... quite obviously, i didn't quite managed to find all i wanted to ... (hey Vanny and Joan -- will get the Whiskies soon, i hope!) and got distracted by other things i probably don't need or deserve... i very naughtily purchased a pair of stripy linen trousers from Jackport, a Scandinavian clothes store... whose vibrant and flowery themes caught my attention years ago... the sales are usually great but i am not always fortunate to find something small enough... and at times it's probably not worth waiting till the sales appear... *hee* .... think i should keep finding 'happy' clothes... like my happee-shoes! (which has gone out of production apparently.... i wrote to Dr. Martens to inquire if they might have a pair of identical ones.... but the reply was heartwrenching. sob.)... i also bought more books than i really should... Waterstones was doing a "3 for 2"... i ended up getting Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" for free... hmm. although i probably only really wanted one: Soul Mountain by Nobel Laureate Gao Xingjian... and it wasn't one of the "3 for 2" books.... such is the power of sales tactics to which i inevitably succumb. yikes. (horrors!)
i also went down to Portobello to say hello to Ruth and Anna.... i must make more of an effort to go down more frequently... especially now that the weather is actually quite warm.....
such is a rather lazy weekend... and i shall endeavour to work lots this week... a cycle-trip to Roslin (near the Roslin institute where Dolly the sheep was cloned) this weekend is in sight..... meanwhile... a sunny, enjoyable week to all!
i just walked home from watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind with Lucy and i am not quite sure if i really like it in terms of the way it was filmed -- those online-brain-scanning technology is rather annoyingly crude; Elijah Wood was behaving like a twat; and somehow the interleaving scenes did not seem to be held together enough.... yet, i do quite like the underlying themes....
Jim Carrey Joel wakes up to a new world erased of Clem... just as Clem has forgotten who he is.... they meet again, by coincidence on the same beach where they met for the very first time and fall in love with each other.... could it be that there is something basic that attracts them despite their supposedly 'erased' memories of each other? what triggered the desire to erase each from the other's memory in the first place?
the whole 'forgetting' process began when Clem returned late one night, drunk and looking pathetic and an annoyed Joel thoughtlessly said something regrettable igniting what was a slowly degenerating relationship into flames. the kind of incidents that provoked people's 'realisation' that they didn't really understand each other as they thought they did and decided that maybe they weren't suitable for each other.... so, perhaps it is better to erase the whole experience altogether. that's probably what many of us feel like when something awful happens... when we feel ashamed or when life didn't turn out the way we had imagined it should....no? wouldn't it be just great if we could wipe away all the mess and icky things about our lives so we can just live with the clean, happy, spotless history of our existence?.... perhaps... but simply erasing these specks of dirt from our memory do not seem to suffice.... Joel and Clem meet again and fall in love with each other, with the same people they supposedly wanted to forget.
script-writer Charlie Kaufman tries to suggest that the idea of having a 'spotless' mind could be a far cry...and perhaps there is something more basal. you do not just forget.... even if you really could... he plays with that idea of 'mind-maps'; that a lot of our memory is linked to an infinite number of things in infinite ways. it is the mind-map of associations involving Clem that we need to erase from Joel's memories. but in the process of such map-association deletion, Joel rediscovers his love for Clem and tries to hang on to those gradually diminishing Clem-related memories. in his desperate awareness, he realised that these 'mind-maps' are not made of 'fixed' mindless Pavlovian-bell-rings-dog-salivate-like associations. they are fluid and very malleable. how often do we find ourselves trying to recall incidents that we 'fill-in' bits that we aren't too sure of....or link it with other plausible events that may or may not have actually happened? Joel somehow discovers this loop-hole in the underlying Lacuna Inc. 'trade-craft' while he desperately tries to save Clem from being erased in his 'conscious' 'remembering' ... meanwhile Dr Howard Mierzwiak's team of 'memory-erasers' are getting distracted and loses Joel's Clem-associated-memory-map. a desperate situation develops which necessitates the master-minder's involvement in completing the whole 'forgetting' procedure.... Dr Howard Meirzwiak's appearance once again rekindled the adoration from his secretary, Mary, whom Stan, one of the eraser-team-member, fancied. Mary's (after being stoned) disinhibited revelation of her infatuation for Howard opened up a can of worms and multiple revelations unfold; for herself whose infatuation had once undergone a similar process of 'deletion', for Stan who had no knowledge of this past history, and subsequently for Clem and Joel, who were unwittingly made to face their once-discarded memories.
in the given second-chance, Joel realises that there is something that is so emotionally strong about his experiences with Clem which he didn't want to lose. his poignant utterance of "it's ok" to the Kate-Winslet-Clementine attempting yet another escape from being frustrated with the inevitable mundane-ness that surfaces in a relationship every-so-often, the ugliness in each of us, the boring hermit we sometimes become etc. was what struck a chord. it is when we confront these different sides of ourselves and others that we come to terms with those spots of specks that make us who we are.... perhaps the very essence we can't erase....
Charlie Kaufman could very well also have been inspired by LeDoux's 'Emotional Brain' (or similar ideas by other Emotion-researchers e.g. Damasio)... and got to the last pages where an 'ancient brain map' laid bare in words from one of the researchers in the field....see, much of what we now appreciate as the spongey blob of white-matter called the cerebral cortex is actually quite 'new' and anatomically termed the neo-cortex (it is what very much distinguishes us from other non-human primates apparently).... what lies beneath is the primitive brain and its circuitry that is also shared, in very similar ways, by many mammalian species. there are basal pathways through which some memories are believed to be resistant to 'forgetting'. ..... the 'mind-maps' metaphors can be appreciated as synonymous for the 'neo-cortically-linked-cognitive' memories -- memories that one is usually quite conscious of and can be quite easily describe or even manipulate, while those indescribable memories which tug your emotional heart-strings are proposed to be linked to the more primitive part of the human brain... these are memories likely to be more strongly formed for an ancient survival need.
could this be what Kaufman tried to convey between the lines and beneath the surface of the love story..... these unforgettable basal feelings.... and hence the recurrent love experiences...?
perhaps it is just a satirical take on our desire for that perceived Eternal Sunshine of a spotless mind (Alexander Pope)....the world does not really forget, by the world forgotton...memories do not reside merely in ones 'mind-maps'.... they are shared, intersubjectively constructed and chronicled in various forms...
(i am sorry for this rather sketchy review that is potentially full of shit... it's 3:30am here and i'm hitting the sack... kindly tolerate any typos/agrammatical nonsense spewed...i just had to write it down before i forget...)
[some after-thoughts]
F suggested, with reference to my qualms about the apparent 'crude' brain-technology used in the film, that the very features of the 'props/tools' could be part of the whole 'feeling/idea' about this Lacuna Inc. -- that it is some form of illicit 'drug', spliff etc.... that induces a different state of consciousness...that somehow appeases my prejudices a little.... hmmm.
ahhh.... i hope i haven't missed this yet.... Brian Keenan's story of survival is remarkable... and his recount of his experiences in "An Evil Cradling" is something worth the read... i'd love to read it again, properly (i had it on loan for a wee while...).... some of the words are just so beautiful i could just cry.
[UPDATE]
and cry i should....i just discovered ( just picked up a booklet of all the screenings in the next weeks at the Filmhouse while fossicking for lunch) won't be around when they screen it (6th-8th july) here at the Filmhouse...sob...:C(
Arrrgh! and to add to this misery... i can't catch the "Threepenny Opera" by Bertolt Brecht either.... please stop this conspiracy!
Sylvia could well be Gwyneth's best acting performance. this is a biography richly imbued with many of the complex human psyche, insecurities, as well as highlighting the social roles expected of a woman in the late 50s (still expected in modern day!) and lends insights into the feelings of helplessness and hopelessness that drives one to the brink. what is interesting if not peculiar, perhaps, is that much of her poetry which chronicles her life experiences is not read or versed, but acted out in the various scenes. and the dialogues are often brusque although witty at times; slightly uncanny for a film involving two poets' lives. turbulent it was and indeed very melancholic. this darkness is eminent and vividly encapsulated in Plath's later poems. the film directed by Christine Jeffs depicts the parallels of her life and poetry; both inextricably intertwined.
i have never really felt inclined to explore Plath's poems but did so today, partly curious of what they are like, and partly inspired by her life experiences. many recount her frustrations with the various unhappy experiences in her life , e.g. Daddy, Burning the Letters, and the intense feelings of despair e.g. Stillborn, The Moon and the Yew Tree and flirtations with death. but some were about happier times e.g. Two Lovers and a Beachcomber by the Real Sea.....and indeed others which we could readily identify with at times:
Insomniac
The night is only a sort of carbon paper,
Blueblack, with the much-poked periods of stars
Letting in the light, peephole after peephole ---
A bonewhite light, like death, behind all things.
Under the eyes of the stars and the moon's rictus
He suffers his desert pillow, sleeplessness
Stretching its fine, irritating sand in all directions.
Over and over the old, granular movie
Exposes embarrassments--the mizzling days
Of childhood and adolescence, sticky with dreams,
Parental faces on tall stalks, alternately stern and tearful,
A garden of buggy rose that made him cry.
His forehead is bumpy as a sack of rocks.
Memories jostle each other for face-room like obsolete film stars.
He is immune to pills: red, purple, blue ---
How they lit the tedium of the protracted evening!
Those sugary planets whose influence won for him
A life baptized in no-life for a while,
And the sweet, drugged waking of a forgetful baby.
Now the pills are worn-out and silly, like classical gods.
Their poppy-sleepy colors do him no good.
His head is a little interior of grey mirrors.
Each gesture flees immediately down an alley
Of diminishing perspectives, and its significance
Drains like water out the hole at the far end.
He lives without privacy in a lidless room,
The bald slots of his eyes stiffened wide-open
On the incessant heat-lightning flicker of situations.
Nightlong, in the granite yard, invisible cats
Have been howling like women, or damaged instruments.
Already he can feel daylight, his white disease,
Creeping up with her hatful of trivial repetitions.
The city is a map of cheerful twitters now,
And everywhere people, eyes mica-silver and blank,
Are riding to work in rows, as if recently brainwashed.
------- by Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) -------
is a beautiful film which sent my tears rolling and they just woudn't stop....directed by Chen Kaige, it tells a story of a cook who single-handedly brought up the little boy, XiaoChun, whom he found as a baby being left at the train station along with a violin. XiaoChun, turned out to be a musical prodigy....and in his hope to find a proper teacher to nurture XiaoChun's talent, he brought them from the suburbs to BeiJing to compete for a place in a prestigious music school.....sadly....they were to realise that talent is insufficient to secure a place....and that the differing perceptions, and desires of both father and son, as well as the aim of the whole expedition are confronted in the city that is experiencing a growing dichotomy of traditional and western values...
what is truly touching is the discovery of one's real past, and the realisation of the love that the stepfather has for XiaoChun and his aspirations for him to be successful as a musician as part of a self-asserted obligation to the unknown parents....but what XiaoChun really wanted was something more basic, to be loved and to love someone back, and quite simply, to be able to play music with all his heart.
Isabella, is the name of the butterfly, one of the most beautiful in Europe, that Julien (Michel Serrault) has been seeking for years as a promise to his son who irrecoverably passed away with chronic depression....Elsa (Claire Bouanich) is the little girl who's mother 'fell in love' and 'got pregnant' when she was only sixteen...and who works as a nurse assistant with long and odd working hours....often unable to pick Elsa up from school....Elsa, a sweet and inquisitive 8-yr old who is often left on her own, manages to worm her way into her neighbour Julien's company... and persuades him to take her along to look for Isabella.....up in the mountains, on a sloping hill where they might be able to find this rare specie that lives only for three days and three nights in summer...such as the life of a butterfly might be.
it became a wonderful learning experience for both, the moody pensioner who has long forgotten what it is like to be a child, and the neglected girl who has never seen cows, nor hay, nor what it is like to be listening to the sounds of nature.....they also learnt to love each other despite obvious frustrations at times....and it is also during the short period when Elsa was 'missing from the city for days' that her desperate mother began to question her role in bringing her up....
this film (directed by Philippe Muyl) is a simple story of struggles in 'imperfect' lives, of keeping promises, of being true to oneself....of the different sacrifices we all have to make and of the seemingly simple but often the most difficult thing to do: telling those whom you care so much about that you really do love them.
there are also subtle cynicisms relating to the decadence of societal values, and sparks of beautiful moments when Elsa probes Julien with simple yet profound questions about life and love..... it is little wonder that i find myself identifying most with little Elsa (as i have also found myself on my own a lot when i was little....) and the fact that she found a 'mentor' in Julien....because i myself have been very fortunate to have found Julien-like mentors....and one day, i'll tell you about uncle Albert and auntie Helena....with whom i have had wonderful correspondences for over some 10 years....and how they have enriched my thinking and perspectives in life....and how they unwittingly enabled and encouraged me to open up and be inquisitive about things via the space created by pen and paper and the importance of meaningful human interaction.....
does any one remember how you were once tiny...wanting the attention (and perhaps you still do!)... struggling with mathematics.....wondering who your friends are....being upset about people insulting you and not knowing how to stop it and ending up in a nasty fight?....or not really knowing why you did something awful at the time you did it....or wondering why there's no end to counting.....or how many words you may fit into a sentence......or why we have to go to school....?!? the list is endless...
French documentarist Nicolas Philibert documents all these and more through the daily class-room encounters of Monsieur Lopez, the teacher of a tiny village school in Auvergne, while he grooms the little ones (from toddlers to children ready to attend Middle school all in the same and only classroom) for the world beyond the village school, how he deals with their various problems (fights, difficulties in communication, worries, curriculum) with sensitivity and reason. and how he treats them as individuals with their own needs, interests, and personality. the film is a wonderful portrayal of the joys, challenges, and satisfaction one gets from teaching...and for getting to know the people you teach,....because many of the problems that children face while growing up are not going to be told directly....they surface in ways which affects the child, either in his or her work, attitude, or behaviour and these issues need to be addressed. Monsieur Lopez observantly notices and brings to the student's attention and invites the individual (and sometimes their parent) to try to talk about it, offering a form of 'cartharsis', and to show that he cares.
there are characters you will find yourself identifying with, and others you will simply adore....my favourite is a little boy of perhaps four years old, nicknamed Jojo....eager and absolutely fascinated by everything around him and hence easily distracted... that somewhat rings a bell....hee.
what is so beautiful, like most French films, is how such complex psyche of each being is being portrayed, and their hidden thoughts through their expressions are vividly captured.....here without the scripts that you would normally associate with large-screen movies.... is a real-life documentary of life in the country, of what it is like going to school, of what it is like being a teacher, of the fun one has learning to make pancakes (as a school!) and flip them in a pan, of going sledging on a winter's day with your classmates, of getting lost in the field of barley, of being angry with someone, of trying to see the consequences of what you have done, of learning that you can do things to hurt others...of realising that someone is in need of help.....of having crayon colours all over your hands and face, of trying to focus really hard at what you are doing, of trying very hard not to disturb the person next to you even when you really want to tell him something completely irrelevant....or of day-dreaming and falling asleep in class....
it is truly about what one is "to be and to have".....to be human and to gain/have the experiences that will enable one to cope with his/her life journey....and it makes one (hopefully) appreciate the lengths which some academics go to, in order to groom the young into mature (thinking and feeling) beings....and it echos what i firmly believe....that what you do best at is usually what you enjoy doing most...and Monsieur Lopez certainly has a passion to teach.
(i am quite aware that this review may be truly awful...so go here for a more in-depth review if you like and the official site of the movie is a click away!)
i can't express how chuff i am over the fact that Hannah, her colleague Niel and i managed to get the 'returned' tickets to the film which have been all sold out on all the evenings i had tried to watch it....and it has been showing for at least two weeks running now (including last week when it was shown in the Cameo instead)....the French Film Festival at the FilmHouse is indeed an annual event not to be missed because the selected films (not just in the festivals) are not only quite different from the usual Hollywood fanfare but are usually internationally acclaimed and give refreshing insights to other countries and their film-making 'philosophy'/style ....and i have learnt from my lesson as i have already purchased a ticket to watch 'Le Papillon' which will only be screened this Saturday.... i am really looking forward to another dose of heart-warming French film!