Pirates of the Caribbean 4

Saw it with those glasses in 3D in our top modern 'Old Cow House' cinema theatre last saturday eve. Didn't go on wednesday when they had the world premier because 'Game of Thrones' - three episodes - came from Canals and I wanted to see that, too. I have spectacles and the other glasses on top of them are inconvenient, but  not unbearable. They should have a model developed for spectacled customers.

The 3D was not so impressive as I had heard: swords strike straight out of the canvas and ships sail to the auditorium! No. It was quite usual and the only really titillating feature was how mist and smoke drifted out of the picture. Wonder how it would work in a snowstorm...

The movie was full of everything: different places, crowds of people in different groups, all happening in chaotic way... In the beginning - London - it was interesting. The audience with the king and Sparrows escape with finally landing on Judy Dench's bosom in a carriage got me laughing out loud. Sparrow meeting his father was even conversational, a slower  moment in between, but then it got to running and jumping... The dark interiors and steadily same kind of camera-work are not so interesting... With a quite expensive picture like this one might expect some ambition - other than 3D - in cinematography and lighting, but no - same movements and same cuts follow and give the same stuffy impression of everything. F ex by lighting the faces differently in different pictures due to fire or some explosion or just swinging lamp would give depth and insight to the characters... Now everything is up to make-up and clothes! And acting of course - but even that seems to be somehow monotonous and recurrent. And this is of Jack Sparrow and the girl Angelica, Penelope Cruz and Johnny Depp - one might expect nuances, not just large scale...

And then the fighting with swords in hand - they are not sword-fights, no. They are messy bits and pieces with no real choreography - and that is needed if a fight is supposed to work like a fight. It is the same as with space -  how do you perceive a space containing different rooms and floors? It is easy only when you know how to do it, otherwise it is just making a mess...

Well a deck of a ship is a deck of a ship. Blackbeard is a new character - with some strange powers -  and daughter Angelica. B needs the fountain of youth as do many others, too many. It might be interesting to follow one or two parties galloping to the fountain, but three... Everything is kind of rhythmless rampage from one complex surrounding to another - must have given work to many, really, if one tries to find good points!

Of course they find the fountain, all parties find it, and then there is fight and destruction and spectacular stuff... but sadly it is not interesting... except the old lighthouse...  There are the nicely made mermaids that have vicious appetite, and there is the pure, innocent priest, and the love between the priest and Syrena mermaid who'll cry of joy and thus provide the tear needed for the ritual...

I truly like Johnny Depp - he has an expressive face and a lot of energy. I like Penelope Cruz - she is passionate and soft at the same time. And Ian McShane is wonderfully exhilarating! But it is just too much...

I don't think I want to see the next Pirates.... neither normal nor 3D...

passing

I don't really like flying.   I like stenches and scents,  train stations and trains, places where people are forced to stay and wait.

All stations have the same smell: old cold piss and detergents. Before there also was the scent of diesel, metallic and strong, but no more. Electricity is kind of faceless. No character. Just some oil and vaseline.

And the voices, sounds, all of it: people, machines, echoes, pigeons. You sit there somewhere with a coffee and close your eyes. Somewhere. Anywhere. A woman laughing. Some boys heating each other. A fay man screaming and a child running away after a sparrow.  Everywhere, too, there are the birds inside the buildings, station halls.

And the announcements echo... You can just and just figure out the message, half guessing: departure of a train is due in...  People are rushing to the platform and others rush out of the train towards the station and taxis, underground and trams. Or just to get an ice cream from a kiosk.

Thousands of people. Every day. Each with a life, coming from somewhere and going somewhere, with a goal or just aimlessly wandering - amazing puzzle of life... never ending kaleidoscope...

Getting something done...

Abstract does not exist without concrete - or does it? Maybe it does but the concrete is the ultimate test: is it functional or not! Like a prototype: years and years of work and then - crashing difficulties because of some minor shit... but shit happens and if it doesn't I'll make it happen. Yeah, it is an old superstition, that if something is perfect it is also dead! So a crack, a flaw is essential, somehow it is always the way ahead to the next flaw. And you can't deny that flawless is also inhuman, not touching, dead...

No, that was not the subject... I always get carried to different direction by random thought... It is kind of fun because you'll never know where you'll end up... but it is also annoying because you won't get where you were bound to... so it is the effect of imagination to the world of reason. The reason being one big killer... but I'll get to that another time.

Love at first sight - huh...  Define love - I believe that desire can awaken at first sight. The first sight kind of builds a bridge between two people and there is a chance to go on. Some people can not look straight in the eye. So it is obvious that there is no next, or maybe with someone who has not noticed... Oh, I'm not going to that stray, no. The first sight in 'Fifth Night Moon' between Lore and Wawa is not crucial, no. It is just a chance to have another glance. The first sight is wondering: Wawa sees this western woman lightly dressed sitting on a bed with a laptop - I imagine that Lore has an orange coloured shirt and she sits with her legs crossed light falling from her left, morning light essentially, and Wawa standing in the opening of the door just stepping on but only just. He sees her first, the golden girl in flow of light.. and then she rises her gaze to see him, dark figure with soft and friendly eyes, sad eyes...

He goes on and the next time they meet is some time later in the same morning. Lore comes to the kitchen while Wawa is preparing his breakfast. She stands in the doorway and watches him. He touches everything with gentleness that attracts Lore. He takes an egg and feels its shape in his hand. And the structure of the surface. He breaks the egg and she feels something crush, like she was the egg. And she thinks how it would feel to accept his touch, to yield to it, to want it...  He does not know her thoughts but concentrates in cooking and just later on when they are eating and chatting he gets attracted at her way to smile very quickly and momentarily. Nothing lingering in it.... And he yarns to see it again.

So they both feel the attraction. To change it concrete is the next step. Huge step. And there the coincidence comes to rescue: the table is not so big and their feet happen to collide... It is confusing but nice. And the next touche is intentional - whatever it is... and so they are led, step by step, to her bed like they would be just two last people in the world.

La belle noiseuse, 1991

(236 min.)   dir Jaques Rivette with 

Michel Piccoli - Edouard Frenhofer

Jane Birkin - Liz

Emmanuelle Beart - Marianne

What is art? Cinema or painting? What is the artist doing when painting a picture or writing a book? How something becomes a masterpiece and something else not? For art there are many definitions, but maybe it after all could have something to do with some relative aspect of truth. Absolute truth as the artist has it purified. Fine slice with the TASTE. You know the thing: a street in a city and a warm night and you are not alone... for the rest of your life it is there: the scent of the street. sweat, lust... absolute moment, and that is what art is about - creating that absolute moment. Maybe it is like the absolute point zero - never achieved but nearing it.

Having seen part of this film some time ago it was a happy surprise to find it coming from Silver in the middle of an ordinary day - not so ordinary  any more. It is a long movie - almost four hours, and almost nothing happens, nothing concrete, just an old man painting and some people wandering around... and these four hours are gently building the journey to absolute, subtle nuances, moments, empty moments, hues of colours, simple and vanishing: was it there or was it not. and at the same time there is the cruelty that lies inside all true art. it is not human but absolute. 

They live in a country residence in France, Edouard Frenhofer, his wife Liz and Lis' daughter Magali. Liz stuffs birds and animals. Frenhofer is a painter, has really done something but now only portraits. Exquisite old house with stairs and rooms, windows and doors painted in faint shades of red, turqoise, ocre.   Not so much furniture. Yard with gnarled trees and atelier, lot of space and some large canvases. The slow camera wandering in rooms and corridores after people or with people, sweeping doors and windowpanes, locks and handles, paintings and drawings on the walls, and books...

In the nearby village there is a hotel and a young painter Nicolas and his girlfriend Marianne reside there. They are visiting Frenhofer and also an old friend Porbus is there. Frehno, Porbus and Nicolas are discussing art, and somehow the talk drifts to a painting Frenho once tried to paint but did not succeed: la belle noiseuse. Porbus asks if he might not try again - he would buy the painting at a suitable price. Frenhofer is doubting. The first time he did it with Liz but had not courage to go to the end - he loved Liz and finishing the painting would have killed the love. Maybe. Nicolas offers Marianne as a model, and yes, Frenho shall try.

The girl gets frantic: what is Nicolas to promise on her behalf! And they are leaving for Paris tomorrow! But in the morning she is there asking for Frenhofer very early. They go to the atelier, and he shuffles with bottles and brushes and pens, and then he makes some sketches with ink to an old sketchbook. Marianne is in positions that tire her and finally when Frenho is dissatisfied with everything she is disappointed. She says goodbye intending to leave to Paris, but Frenho says 'till the morning'.

And she is there in the morning, and they continue. Step by step Frenho moves to bigger papers and finally to canvas and oils. He twists and wrenches her naked body and limbs to strange and cruel positions achieving nothing to satisfy  him. Marianne gets cramps and he says that before it was a custom to tie a model to the wanted position so they could not move! 

The house and garden breath all around. At times Liz comes to see the work sitting on the steps in the atelier.She also tries to warn the girl of how tough it might get and that she might suffer. But the girl is self-confident and just shrugs. But Frenho is afraid. He knows how hard is the price he has to pay to get at the final point and is reluctant to pursue the goal. With his wife he first loved to paint her, then loved her too much to paint her and finally chose to paint portraits, i. e. gave up. And now Liz is hurt when Frenho paints over an old canvas with her face on it replacing the face with a behind.

He is also afraid of himself or for his self esteem, not only of his revelations. He is an old man and death of depression and final silence loom ahead. Liz also is worried because of the process, worried for both of them. The girl is soft and submissive, and doesn't understand what Frenho is after. She feels the painter to slow down and give up, and she provokes him, challenges him to go further, to seek more. She chooses her poses, but when Frenho tries to capture them she curls to a nut. Frenho is disappointed but they are going on. And finally Frenho has a canvas (that is never shown to us). Marianne asks if it is ready and he says that it is for her to decide. So she looks at the picture and runs away shaken and shuts herself in a lavatory.

At night Liz comes to see the painting. And she draws a cross on the backside. The next day Frenho asks Magali to help and they brick the painting in a wall so that no-one shall ever look at it. And Frenho paints another picture, quickly and with ease, a white and light blue nude. This painting is for Porbus.   

Marianne tells Liz that she understands now that there was real danger. This is the core, process fini. The soul of a woman delivered and  then destroyed. The Death. As Liz said in their nightly discussions he was barren... nothing left but death. 

Serene end with fruit and subtle conversations in the garden. And what is left is the memory of the sensitive camera slowly moving in the rooms and atelier and garden picking up lights and dusty colours, people moving like shadows in the midst... chasing other shadows... 

motto: noblesse oblige

I don't care about money - it comes and goes; I don't care about winning - everyone is worth the same...

 I just want to hit the target!

Three girl-movies, in a way...

Devil Wears Prada

Made some years ago and wonderfully cut - short 1-3 sec pictures, music rhythmically  dancing with visuals - small film about a girl, career and fashion. I  like fashion and I have been a girl, still am  in some ways. I'm a proud bitch and as such a bit different from this little woman. To be a proud bitch doesn't mean that I would not be thoughtful and considerate - I am, but submissive I'm not! And I serve only the truth, whatever that may be.

Female icons: high heels, make up, lacy underwear, clothes on the whole - a nice quick cut collage of pictures, yezzz. Characters:  Boss and the others,, rough cut. Then on close-ups there are the dedicated and ambitious Emily, the suave male editor Nigel,  whose ambition is for the magazine, and a punch of other staff and editors that remain shadow like stereotypes. And the private sector: Nate, cooking boyfriend, Lily, an old friend and Lily's boyfriend who knows about fashion more than the others together, This foursome has dinners with wine in cozy restaurants, and keeps the spirit up -  until Andy begins to stand on her own.

Andy gets the job by chance and keeps it by taking challenges and solving problems with admirable determination. Her original ambition was for serious journalism, and fashion is just a side step on her way, but she takes it seriously and listens to her surroundings, takes winks and hints and is developing. The circle of friends condemns her change and she breaks up with Nate, the boyfriend, - funny though that Nate can have his potatoes but Andy not her clothes. The movie seems to imply that potatoes have more in them than clothes but clothes and fabrics also have to be made, they too have processes and have deep knowledge behind each item. Their relationship is not under special scrutiny so it is hard to say how things have been, but they seem in many ways childish, for example Nate's birthday -  who above 15 years gets mad if someone misses a birth day party? Certainly Nate is not supporting Andy in her struggle. On the whole it seems to be meaning that Andy shall be as she has always been... make the safe choices and follow the path marked for her ages ago...

After Andy decides to part with Miranda (Boss) she demurely returns home, asks Nate to forgive her all...  Nate has got a new job in Boston but it is ok  for him to go - because of... I don't know what!

Now someone might say that loyalty to friends and loved ones is admirable and ambition is selfish. Might be but loyalty that asks for sacrifice from the other is too often just for women. When did you see a picture where a guy would give up everything for a woman? I don't seem to recall any such...

The visual appearance is lively, fresh and fascinating, and I like it a lot as well as the music. The clothes are partly great partly ordinary. Paris is lovely, NY is lively - and what else? Don't know...  Yes, Ann Hathaway is working well as Andy, delicate smiles and moods.

****  with  - for hierarchies and submissive thinking... but this is not a critic, no - this is just my subjective thoughts about this movie today - tomorrow might bring other thoughts...

Burlesque

'Burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects.The word derives from the Italian burlesco, which itself derives from the Italian burla – a joke, ridicule or mockery.

A later use of the term, particularly in the United States, refers to performances in a variety show format. These were popular from the 1860s to the 1940s, often in cabarets and clubs, as well as theatres, and featured bawdy comedy and female  striptease.  Some Hollywood films attempted to recreate the spirit of these performances from the 1930s to the 1960s. There has been a resurgence of interest in this format since the 1990s.(wikipedia)'

A-girl-and-career -story with straightforward and a bit old fashioned plot: bar waitress Ali/Christina runs from a rural hellhole in Iowa to LA with a bit of money and a lot of attitude. She tries to find a job - no luck, and walking streets in the evening sees a dark girl up a staircase in striped socks and fancy clothes smiling to her. A man comes to get the girl inside...  Burlesque Lounge says the sign. Ali enters this club of  funny dimensions: a small building hides quite a space... Entering the club she asks the man behind the counter if the place was a strip club...

In the stage Cher is performing with the dancers - these numbers containing singing and dancing are the best part of this not-so-cinematic movie. Both Cher and Christina Aguilera are good in their own ways and Cher's 'Last of me' song got Golden Globe 2011.  And Ali is hooked! She wants to dance on stage too and asks Tess/Cher, but Tess refuses outright. So Ali goes to the bar and takes a tray - she starts to serve. And she comes back the next night looking ever better...

Eventually Ali's hotel room is robbed and that leaves her without both lodging and money. She goes to the bar boy Jack and gets to sleep on his couch. Ali classified Jack as gay but he is not. He has a fiancee in NY and sharing apartment stays innocent. 

At Lounge B one of the dancers, Georgia, gets pregnant and a substitute is needed. Tess and Sean audition several dancers, and Ali comes and wants to be considered. She says she can do everything Tess wants to wich Tess's reply is that she has to convince, to take her place on stage. So Ali dances... and gets the job. 

In B the dancers dance and lip sync to the great singers singing in the background - Marilyn Monroe with 'Diamonds...' etc. Ali wants them to sing REALLY. And Tess laughs to her until... One night the star dancer Nikki is drunk and Tess relieves her in favor of Ali. Nikki is raging and cuts off the music in the middle of their dance. It is 'Tough Lover' and after a moments shrill silence Ali starts to sing and after a moment the band follows. It is a huge success! Tess is overwhelmed and starts to build a new show around Ali.

This is the nutshell. Of course there  is the trouble about money. Real estate agent wants to buy the club to tear it down and after many coincidences Ali manages to get an idea and solves the problem: Tess has to sell the air rights above the club to another builder and the club is saved. Also Jack and fiancee enter to an crash course and half of the big bed is suddenly free.  So Happy End!

Naive story, not much of characters... but the movie is entertaining and the dance-and-sing numbers are good in an innocent  way that makes one smile, and that is a lot. Also the way the space inside the club takes shape and changes is intriguing with different staging for each song - kind of theatre without intermissions! The back stage rooms with mirrors for make up and clothes rails build the atmosphere. And the man, who takes care of both Tess and the stage, Sean, is calm, sympathetic and gay - he'll find a caring relationship before the end...

Yes, entertaining, a bit theatrical, good singing, nice clothes, suitable shooting and lighting... No, it is not a great movie but still I like it! 

*** with + for the spirit!

Black Swan

Tchaikovsky's ballet  is a story of prince Siegfried and swans that turn to maidens in the night time. The prince finds the swans and falls in love with Odette, beautiful white swan. Odette tells him of the evil wizard Rothbart who did cast a spell on the girls. Only someone who shall love Odette forever can remove the curse. And Siegfried promises to save her...

Next evening in the ball Siegfried meets Rothbart's daughter Odile, who looks like Odette, and Siegfried is deceived: He asks Odile to marry him. Too late he seeks Odette, who forgives him but has to die. When Rothbart comes to the pond she throws herself in the water and Siegfried follows her to death. This act of love destroys Rothbart.

The double role of Odette/Odile, innocence and seduction, is a chance for a female dancer to show virtuosity: Odette as lyrical and Odile as temperamental with the famous 32 fouettèts, round and round on tip toe...

The movie Black Swan has as background  this ballet, but it is by no means a film about ballet, no. I might even say that it is a story a narcistic male tells of a woman's mind... it is suffocating and adolescent, and as such can only be a product of a male imagination. Maybe that is the way a male mind work, but they just don't have the courage to say so. Instead they do a projection... 

Apart this fundamental flaw Black Swan is an enjoyable movie. It is cinematic in sketching the environment and the characters. Camera flows carefree images and then again images restricted and full of angst. The light and colours in the rehearsal space are neutral and airy. The clothes have been designed by Rodarte and depict finely the young women in their intriguing simplicity. And Natalie Portman fairly deserved her Oscar as Nina, the neurotic and troubled girl. 

The main character Nina is to dance the double role of Odette/Odile as her first solo performance. She is young, very highly strung, brought up by an ambitious mother whose own career Nina's birth possibly broke. And Nina is a very good girl. The ballet company's choreographer and leader is Thomas Leroy, absorbingly played by Vincent Cassel, who tries to get some flame to Nina and her performance. The ex-prima ballerina succumbs under a car and portrays a warning example of a successful career when lying like a broken doll in her hospital bed.

Nina's trials to gain passion to her performance are booze, dope and lesbian fantasies... How does that sound? To me it reminds of boy's initial rites when trying to become a man. It is told that the first intercourse for a boy is mainly a rewarding experience meaning that getting an ejaculation is the main thing, but for a woman it is mainly a disappointment - for her it is only the first in a series of exploring experiences, which at some point may lead to the  mastery of orgastic relaxation.  So the story just doesn't sound plausible, it sounds unbelievable, like a broken plate.   Boys can be so brittle, but girls are made of tougher material. So it is a boy movie in decoy. 

The subject of Nina's lesbian fantasy is a new comer in the ballet company, Lily, who sketches as a bad girl and takes Nina out to a disco, offers dope and promotes free, confidential dancing. Thomas Leroy puts her as an example to Nina and maybe it is meaning that Nina by imagining Lily kind of pleases Thomas...? As well as the finale this part is very hazy and inexplicable. Also the delusions and hallucinations  of Nina are weird and inexplicable: is this the way a mind deteriorates? I have known some neurotics and schizophrenics, and somehow my idea is different - but that is just the point: Aronofsky is allowed to his view! And the whole movie is a respectable achievement. 

In the mother-daughter -relationship I don't want to interfere... she is far too old not to have rebelled...  Natalie Portman does an excellent job in  portraying the moods and feelings of this young woman without questioning them. I wonder what kind of ideas she may herself have had about this character - she has in her time gone through the same process as Nina in this fiction.

On the whole, as I already said,  an enjoyable cinematic experience, even if I disagree of the contents. And the music crowns the experience!

**** 

These three movies tell stories of girls - Burlesque is an old fashioned story with a modern attitude - Devil's attitude towards women is conservative in comparison. And the Swan is a fantasy. I wonder weather serious mental disorders are more common in male population than female? Is there a study about this? I know that women eat more medication but that is because they believe in symptoms and medication more than men, who use more drugs... 

Yes, I might have an opinion or at least something to say

About some movies, like I had of 'Unthinkable'. I would not call them critiques or reviews, no. I'd just say they are my personal thoughts and reflections of something I have seen. I'm not a critic, no, but a fellow artist, who has experienced something watching these random films... I'm not academic and my thinking and views are totally subjective mixing in my feelings and ideas in a probably quite anarchic way. My way. The only I can have...
There are movies I like, and then there are movies I consider weird like 'Never let me go' - the book was weird, too.  There are older movies and some new ones... During last two weeks I have seen again after years 'The English Patient' and 'Out of Africa', and did still like both. There are movies I have tried to look through, but not succeeded, like '127 hours', 'Buried' and 'Somewhere' - just can't find anything cinematographic in them...
And I don't like long, continuing shoots, no, even if most think them as 'very highly cinematic' as I don't like 'Citizen Kane'  even if I understand why it is promoted and held as the best in the world. I disagree: it is not much of a movie... Orson Welles was clever in a witty way, not in a passionate way, which might have produced better movies... in my opinion. I like sentimentality in movies more than cynicism - and being on the same level with the characters, not above them.

I might want to write about t hose two, and new ones, yes, 'Black Swan', because I did dance ballet as a girl and I don't like Aronofsky's way of thinking... and the same theme - young woman and her ambition - in 'Devil Wears Prada' and 'Burlesque', which I found exhilaratingly funny and sentimental. And yes, in a stupid and everyday way, but I still liked it!

And then the love of years, 'Constant Gardener' - I do so like it! It, too, is sentimental and people in it are very much in loss, but it is an extremely good movie in many ways. And there are others... many others...  Maybe some days if there is nothing else... thinking is so easy and fluent compared to writing - writing is like walking with sticks!

comments on a movie

Unthinkable

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0914863/

(read only if you have seen the movie - a lot of spoilers...)

Just a movie to see - no expectations or such. At first nothing special, actually a bit messy with the unnatural intertwining of H to the terrorism-case by a file - clumsy, but suppose one has to try a bit too much... but then it got going with the special command center and the captured bombman.

- My name is Steven Arthur Younger, and I am an American citizen.

- My name is Yusuf Atta Muhammed.

Now before we get tangled in all this present moment jargon like islam and nuclear material and fbi and such I must make a point of something that got me intrigued and hooked: in this movie there are just two people who smile and smile so that their teeth show. There are only two people who have families - the same that smile. Of course I knew this just after watching this movie, but it did strike me so that I saw the movie again next day and then again, some five or six times all. And it became just more important, the smiles.

All the other people are just agents and administrators and soldiers, kind of professional bureaucratic lot with no life of any kind, no emotions or such... just as H says to agent Helen Brody (Carrie-Ann Moss): ' Harward law... antiterrorism, good choice.. no husband.. no children... they'll say you are lesbian.'  She is a carrier woman with precise words and set features. And she has a conscience.  Very serious, academic, 'no contact' person, who at the end has to decide how far it is possible to carry on the interrogation of one man when in scales with 10 million people and a  nuclear bomb.

- Let it happen without your consent. Then you are safe.

- If you want to leave, go.

- You could make a deal, Yusuf. They have nothing.

- Tell the names of your partners and where the bombs are, so we get you on a flight to Pakistan.

- Give us the bombs so you'll be free.

- He does not want to be free. - Everyone wants to be free.

- Americans have falsely assumed so everywhere.

- Don't you understand that, Brody? He got himself here.

- He knew what we'd do to him.

- You have proved, that we are just such people we deny to be.

The central figure is H - the man who has to do the job. He is married with two children. Married to a bosnian woman, who was raped and her family killed and who did revenge by murdering her tormentors and their families. But under the circumstances the family is happy. H has been to army, a special unit and is now protected by government, the special interrogator. Nice father, gentle husband... played by Jackson. He is the torturer, but, as he says, he is just doing what anyone would do to find out the locations of three nuclear bombs Yusuf has hidden. And agent Helen is his measure: as long as Helen allows him to torture he goes on... until finally she denies him and he lets Yusuf go.  Yes, she is horrified all the time but sees the necessity to break one man to save millions until Yusuf's children are threatened. H needs her moral support: if you can do  it anyone could! H knows his position: he is a prisoner of a kind and has to do what is demanded. He gets to know the man Yusuf while cutting his fingers and giving him electric shocks. They get to know each other, Yusuf and H. Yes, and agent Helen, who is 'the good cop'. H and Yusuf, Yusuf and H - H knows that Yusuf controls the situation: he has planned everything, each step, each piece of knowledge, each move, and Yusuf keeps the control to the bitter end. The price is high, though: H cuts the throat of Yusuf's wife and she bleeds to death in his feet. Finally he surrenders the three bombs when H threatens to kill his children. Everyone is happy: they succeeded! accept H. He knows Yusuf all too well by now and understands that there is a fourth bomb too. Helen denies the further use of children and H frees Yusuf who grabs a gun and kills himself sealing his 'victory'.

- There are no innocent children! At least not his children.

- No! Stop him, please!

To do the job, to do unthinkable things... to torture and break another man... Torture is forbidden by Geneva convention and other international agreements, but words are just words and can be circumnavigated by other words. Mental cruelty such as throat cutting in front of someone in order to shake him is also forbidden - but if the circumstances are so special, so severe... can it be allowed? As the last chance?  It is done says this film, and accepted, covered and buried.

- That man killed 53 people.

- Some of them women and children, and yet I am the villain?

- You won. They are on your side.

- 'Oh God! Get the children back here. Shoot those resisting. This is an order!

To do the job, to do the unthinkable!  When H starts the interrogation, his protector says: 'Now it starts, no-one knows what shall happen, not even he himself! And yes, it is a conversation between the torturer and the tortured, a road to the soul of the other by revealing his own, slow process that breaks a man or doesn't, as it happens in this case. Yusuf even enjoys their intimacy: he winks an eye and smiles broadly when H returns to torment him. Their dance macabre proceeds with him in lead...

- 'Congratulations, major.'

The cinematography is placid. Pictures are steady and cool, the rhythm almost serene: no hasty cuts, quick elopements. Main colours are different greys  both in surroundings and clothes, and the places are scruffy, industrial spaces. Clothes are dark suits or military desert pattern - only H wears a faded blue workman's coat. So the visual look is nondescript and gives space to the people. H is big and black and has an expressive bald head with an expressive face - Samuel L Jackson is doing a good job! Yusuf is a bit like  mad einstein in his turmoil but the character holds together and is believable, even sympathetic. However, he is a bit soft physically for a delta force soldier and his teeth - after a few days in torture - are so white! Little things matter a lot... Tied to a chair or a bunk Martin Sheen has somewhat restricted possibilities but uses them well to express the emotions of this doomed man, doomed by himself.

We are very civilised people, or as Brody puts it, normal, and in comparison H is not normal, but violent and bad. But quite normal people are capable to horrible deeds, as referred by Rina, H's wife, to Bosnia, - or equally the nazis or Ruandas  citizens:  A crowd can behave like no limits in cruelty ever existed. Physical torture is an ancient method of extracting information, still used and perhaps not because of it's ineffectiveness. Yet it poses a problem to us, human and civilised  as we are, in these situation when time is the deciding factor...
 

- 'He might not brake.' - 'There are only three hours left.'

'If you ask me to stop, I will.*  H wants her to support or to stop him, to share the responsibility...

She does not answer thus giving her consent.

Nice, clean and analytical one might say about this movie, and emotionally involving - if not emotional... well worth watching!!!

A woman loves to nurture...

It is ever so surprising that this once again - hundreds of times this has happened! - surfaces: The woman is more emphatic, she loves to nurture, she is emotional... she is different from a man, who is mathematical, strong and rational!!! In my 56 years I have come accross this phenomenal hoax all the time. It is depressing and plain stupid!!! An instrument of subjection!!!

So as a woman you should be the second in command, at most... Your capability to independent thinking and action is ... well, if not nonexistent at least limited. How come? But these opinions need no reasons or justification: they are the objective thruth!!! At best you are serving and nurturing others... and that makes you partial in deciding...

It is so refreshing and profitable, this kind of oppression. As a woman you are suitable for supporting and decorative jobs, not independent or leading... but I'm not supporting or decorative, I am independent and  quite able to make decicions... even if I lika more democracy that tyranny - I have tried that too and  even if it was working it was not lasting....

All  my life I have been listening... listening other people, but that doesn't mean I haven't been thinking. Mostly I have been alone, alone with my boys, my children - no man ever came near the measure... And we had it well, working system in this house for the good of all, and boys grew, became men and went their own ways. So I am alone with my thoughts and ideas. It is funny how little we change by the years: I am the same as I was years and years ago: not so certain about anything, exploring and experimenting, not so very civilized but frank, and ever loving beauty...

My paintings are awesome to some people but because I'm not a member of unions or properly schooled I am not a real professional artist. I'm glad someone has finally defined art and artist... As a moviemaker the problem is the same: Those who were social and made their compromise are the ones with economical means to do something but likes of me... fuck off!!! Students the age of 16 get laptops if they choose a certain school - when I was in the same situation you paid for your studies and got nothing material. Even now I think that the most important things in my life have not been material - materia and wealth are just excess and the core of life is something else.

Back to the children: because I have children I must be a nurturing woman! So it has been said. BUT... I have children because getting children - being pregnant and giving birth - is the greatest sexual and erotic experience. Yes, I have heard the thousand stories of births gone bonkers and the pain and suffering, but to my opinion it was hard work rather than pain, didn't last long and the euphoric symbiose for two-three weeks after the birth with the baby was like a prolonged orgasm, exquisitive and joyable. And all from a very selfish point of view...  as also the baby suckling, a very sexual experience...  Poor men, never such... must be frustrating and so it is natural to underrate the experience!!! Or maybe it is jelousy?

And nurturing later... I gladly admit that my boys have been my companions rather than something to nurture. I have helped and explaned when needed but they have not been subject to any special dicipline and everyone has had to work, do his share of the common shit like washing the dishes or vacuuming. And no harm done there as far as I can see... We had fun with the boat and the dogs and the cars that always broke! Yes, we had fun and though we were not rich or even well-to-do we were content: not fat or starving but ok! And even the house I got to some sort of condition!

So never am I going to nurture, but my fair share of play... where is it???

the first day

This is the first day of the rest of my life, and this is 13th and friday, but a beautiful and warm summerday in spite of that. The first day... beginning of something, maybe not so different and spectacular but hopeful and peaceful. Why do they - all other people - want to force me to stay put? Why? Do they not understand that to me the fourtieth wedding anniversary means absolutely nothing, or maybe a chain? Do they not understand that a continuing work in or with some same persons and surroundings is a deathblow? Why do they not understand? Why do they not accept me as I am - a wanderer? It is not considered normal here, not worth doing, just flying from a flower to another.
But that is how I'm made! That is how I'm on my best and how I thrive! A dog can not become a cat or a dragonfly. A dog is a dog and a dragonfly is a dragonfly.

the storm asta

The night between thursday and friday last week... I woke at about two oclock to the sound of rain, heavy constant patter of drops, and flashing of lightnings and black roaring darkness. I lied quite still and dreamed of a thunderous fuck, warm weight on my body and the mixing of different sensory perceptions, the movement, the water pouring and the thunder... ecstatic!

The wind rattled steelsheets on the roof of old cowhouse and beat branches of trees on the roof, and howled in the corners of outhouses and open windows. I had to get up to close the windows. The rooms on the southside had water flooding on the floor. Pluck sockets flashed sparkles causing the cat  to panick and run round the house. The dog couched under the sofa. And the boy slept on the sofa. Finally I stood with the cat on the treshold in the middle of the house and followed the divine spectacle for half an hour. Then I gave up and scrambled back to bed to listen to the patter of rain already more serene...

It is now the fifth day without electricity. One can survive without fridge! and without water from the tap - luckily we have a well on the yard and a composting toilet! Without electric cooker - keep the campfires burning!!! And without television, computer, cellphone! The roads are however already open! On friday I did sweat with the dog on a fitness track made by some fifty fallen heavy and bushy spruce.

solidarity - chinagirl

Saltzburg was busted! I don't remember what festival or happening it was in April -74 but every hostel and hotel was booked full and so I seemed to be facing a night on the street. Not that it was so very cold any more, but not necessarily very tempting either. And I was hungry after walking through the city in my vain search, that had brought me to the square of the old town.
Many restaurants, taverns and bierstube on the square. I chose neither the most expensive nor the cheapest but a cosy tavern with a lot of young people inside. Food and good company were the rescue of my falling spirits!

The table had five ruff canadians eating their meal with a beer, and soon we had a conversation going. They were travelling with backpack as I was too and we talked of the places we had been to and places still to go. And ate and drank beer. In the next table was an asian girl at first with some other people but then alone. She had not been a part of that group and joined now our conversation. She was on her way to London, but had wanted to take a look to the central european life, too. So after landing to Frankfurt some days earlier she had continued to Heidelberg, Munchen and now Saltzburg, then to Wien and flight to Rome, Paris and finally London. She was lively and funny and good company. And she was chinese - Taiwan, I supposed, or Hong Kong.

The canadians were booked in a hostel outside the town and left well before midnight to be there in time. I stayed with the chinese girl until she said she too was ready to go to sleep. So I smiled to her and said ok, u go. She seemed puzzled and I explained that I had no accommodation for the night and intended to stay in the tavern as long as possible. In the morning i'd take a train or a bus to Paris and sleep through the journey. She looked at me with wide eyes and smiled and said, that she had a room in the hotel Xxx  and it was big enough to sleep two. I did smile and wonder how was I to sneak in, and she said that we'd figure out something. And off we go. Her room is in an old and grand hotel by the square, and I'm quite intimitated... but she goes in and talks in the reception so I can slip to the stairs, and then we continue to her room. A large room with a wonderful window and a  bathroom with a window, too. And so I had a warm bath and a drink and a nice chat with a friendly person curious about my wiews. Her room was  cozy and had a splendid wiew over the old town. By the window was a divan and a desk, and there was a comfortable bed on the other side of the room. I slept on the divan and I slept really soundly. She slept in the bed.

I woke rather early in the morning and she woke when I packed my backpack. We laughed together and she gave me a wide smile with her best wishes. And I sneaked out of the room, tiptoed down the stairs and said a friendly hello to the cleaninglady!!!  And I was on the street fresh and ready for the day...

We never knew each others names but that is something I might call... solidarity?

What has it got to do with religion???

I have been writing this story set in northern Pakistan. Or associating this story... It has been an interesting process for a few months and surprisingly easy in some ways, difficult in others though. The skeleton is ready now. It has not so many pages of text, just some 22  or so plus some pages of characterprofiles, because I think that if you know the background of a person you can predict or imagine or deduct how this person will act. I don't say 'behave', because I don't like the word behave. I do not understand it's meaning. 'Behave' has been so badly missused in my lifetime that it means just a kind of forced random pattern. Action, function, yes, but what about acting?A doctor is acting according the situation when coming to the scene of an accident. And an actor may be acting a doctor... or whatever. The words are so susceptible, or can one say so? Maybe not... But about the manuscript: After I wrote the skeleton of 'Requiem' I thought that there would be no such misstreatment - on state level anyway - as apartheid was in South-Africa. Not so legal and organized, and accepted as apartheid. Of course people have not full human rights neither here nor anywhere else, and all kind of shit happens inside the system, but not officially on statelevel. Yes, there are China and Libya and some others and their practices, but officially they are aknowledging the basic human rights.
The time of Taleban rule in Afghanistan was something else: women in this country had no human rights. Women. Babygirls are killed in China, and maybe in India a practice concerning young widows is still alive, but the sharia-rule - It has been hard, very hard, sad and depressing to dive in this sea of suffering. Depressing because nothing seems to change. Same violence, random and stupid, fascistic ... It seems almost unbelievable how dazzling the power over others can be! How can it be? How rigid and blind can human mind be not to see...
And it has nothing to do with the religion, or as much as national socialism had with christianity, or communism.
Pakistan is a country with a violent political history - as by the way most countries have. Zulfigar Ali Bhutto was hanged and a military rule followed, and finally a new attempt to democracy: Benazir Bhutto was elected and soon after assassinated, so... Now in the mountain region in north near Afghan border the Taleban movement is rising its head also in Pakistan. The region is poor, isolated and it's inhabitants not educated. And instead of schools they choose oppression and violence. Why? Well, USA chose Guantanamo...

This 'Fifth Night Moon' is a row of free associations. The characters have their origins in my knowledge of human beings and  their behaviour (I'm using the word!). It is skeletal and formal because that is how it happens - cause and consequence. Those that lived throught the war and sharia are listening rather than acting, but the independent and 'no-one will tell me what to do' - european woman Lore takes the gun. And she is an atheist.
I think that rigid hierarchy and violence are typical to individuals, who have had no need to adapt and develope different strategies for survival. Or maybe they have had no chance because of violence aimed at them. During my 56 years I have met and known people from various different countries, black and white, yellow and grey, men and women, young and old, and I think that most of them would accept violence as the last chance to survive... you know: even a rat attacks if cornered. But Lore is not threatened that way, so why? And Wasim is not a rat either, so why? Both Lore and Wasim are primarily enraged because of what happens to other people. Lore sees the suffering of Saima and Wasim saw the way Pakistanis were treated in Britain. Both react to individual cases, and while Wasim's way is to organize and arrange, Lore takes the ancient path of revenge.
Thrue hope, future and possibilities are with Saima and Kalim, who in spite of dissappointing reality can still play and laugh. And even Shahzana and Wawa, a lot endured and tired, still have strength to listen and exchange conversation. Lore returns to her old world unable to give up he ways and unable to change.

I do not  know if there is anything substantial in this skeleton, but I'm ready to go on with it and help it to develope to a full scale movie. Yes.

memory and light

Light, light and colour. Night, stars in the darkness.
Long, long years ago - a lifetime actually - I had
the experience of understanding another intelligence,
sharing a moment of absolute and clear thinking,
an idea.
Long, long time ago, walking beneath the pines:
'As long as you remember I am alive.'
'As long as I remember you are alive.'
Light and colour, and darkness. And the brighter
the light, the darker the shadows get. The shadows.
In the mind. But the colours were for life.
Sensual intelligence. Light and shadow for intelligence.
Colours for sensual being. The crumbling fringes of
shadows, when light is eating them away...
or vice versa.'
Sensual - all that need to believe in feelings and
impulses ones senses produce, and no way of even
knowing weather it is just an illusion or something
called 'real'. No way of ever knowing. But still necessary,
inevitable.
The remembrance can't be denied, or forgotten.
It exists, the moment and it's vision, endlessly
stretching from the actual moment in time to eternity:
As long as you remember, I am.
And what is there to remember? Sincerity, the aim
for momentary clarity, infinite tolerance, especially
in thinking, ability to give up everything and share.


Colours.Those of land in spring and autumn,
ochres, greens and umbras of the nature, and
those surrounding the mind: bright and clean reds,
blues and yellows. White and black are not colours
but rather amounts of light, and what is light?
Nobody knows, again. Anyway light is something
we can sense, partly at least, an essential part of
sensual intelligence, of human life.
Light is one of the basic ingredients of physical
reality. When we talk of existence, of relativity, of
universe and it's formation, the theory of universal
structure, we talk about light - whatever it is.
Light in it's many forms: The warm sunlight - basic
creator of life on earth, or the artificial light and it's
various ways to enhance human life from laserbeams
to infrared and all their everyday adaptations.
Fascinating both scientifically and imaginatively
is the light of the stars, the same sight seen by
ancient egyptians and those long before them.
They did not know, what they saw. I do know of ligt
and the speed it travels, of dark material and the
expanding universe. Still we share the vision:
nightsky is the same to the human eye...

jassu

ettei sit onnistunut... miksiköhän? no uudelleen vaan...

let's try again and with better luck!

To import a video, I mean...

kokeilen...

http://www.blogger.com/posts.g?blogID=27817121laittaa videopätkän... IT*S MY LIFE!

stilisoi elämäsi!

jeah, sellaista se on aina ollut ja tulee aina olemaan - mutta se ei ole mikään puolustus.
Stilisointi on aina ollut osa elämää - joskus sitä sanottiin Potemkinin kulisseiksi, nyt se on vain stailaamista ja puhdistuksia: kuinka puhdistat facebook wallisi ei-toivotuista aineksista. niistä kommenteista, joita kukaan ei halua kuulla, niistä tuttavuuksista, joita ei pitäisi olla, mutta joille ei oikeastaan uskalla sanoa 'ei'.
On kiva, että on tuttuja ja kavereita, mutta toisaalta kaikkien kanssa ei oikeastaan haluaisi olla tekemisissä. Kuitenkaan ei kehtaa suoralta kädeltä torjua toisten lähestymisyrityksiä, vaikka tekisi mieli lähettää äidinkielenkurssille tai tyylikouluun... sillä kaikkihan me tiedämme, että on asioita, joista ei puhuta, ei ainakaan julkisilla palstoilla, jollaiseksi fb:kin on jo luokiteltava jos ei muuten niin laajentumisvauhtinsa perusteella.
Kaverit, suhteet, verkostot - kaksipiippuinen juttu: ilman et tule toimeen ja sit olet 'hyvä veli' muiden veljien joukossa. Ei siinäkään mitään, jos siitä olisi jotain hyötyä, mutta turhaan, niin turhaan levittelet liepeitäsi, kaunis tyttö. Veli et ole eikä sinusta veljeä tule - huora korkeintaannnnnn!!!!! Huorat ovat ihania, parasta mitä on: rahalla saa ja hevosella pääsee, sanoivat. Ja niinhän se on.
mitä siis pitäisi tehdä?? Ei mitään, sillä tyylin ja stilisoinnin kausi on lyhyt: todellisuus vaatii nytkin muuta kuin vain tähdenlentoa, ja sellaiseen on kykyä vain harvalla - se heille sallittakoon stilisoimattakin!!!

below zero

Yes, bloody fucking cold! -5*C in the morning some three hours ago. And so unearthly beautiful with some fog and white crisp icing covering all trees and weeds. I know, that it just feels cold because one has not got used to it: in the spring -5 is moderately warm after the winters freezing -40's. So we start to adapt...
I should be clearing the ateljee for the evening for some fotoshooting to take place. But since I'm lazy I'll leave it to the last moment. Such job certainly won't run away.