Oeconomia

a film by Carmen Losmann

This film does not develop fast. A lot of time is apparently wasted as we are shown faceless cityscapes, or (presumably) bank building interiors, or just a PC screen where somebody (the film director?) types the questions. For a documentary, the amount of “documentary” material is rather modest. Some of the interviews are actually reconstructions played by actors, and Ms Losmann makes no secret of it: there were the “experts” who just refused to be filmed. Paradoxically, or maybe not, this works better for me. Nothing is more convincing than honesty, and the “wasted” time is given to the viewer to think over the deceptively simple question: How is money generated? That money that makes the world go round. When you take a loan, does this money, together with your debt, just appear from vacuum, like a particle-antiparticle pair? Will the world stop going round when everybody pays off their debts?

It is one of these films that probably won’t make it to the TV; or, in case they do, I’d ignore; or fall asleep watching. So I’m grateful to Filmoteca Canaria for an opportunity to see it on the big screen. The theatre was full — as in “new normal” full, that is, one-third full. The audience paid attention, and there was a round of applause when it finished.

Todo esto existe

by Íñigo Redondo

So, where were you when the Chernobyl’s reactor no. 4 exploded? Why, I was busy studying and looking forward to a May Day break, blissfully unaware, together with 99.99% of the country’s population, of the events of the early hours of Saturday, 26 April 1986. Yes, we used to go to the uni on Saturdays. It wouldn’t be until Monday that we’d hear an official announcement on the telly. It lasted less than a minute.

Now this book has transported me back in time, perhaps against my will. Welcome to mid-1980s Pripyat, still pre-disaster and already as bleak as you’d think. This is how it looked:

Forget the nuclear plant for a moment — nothing happened yet. And life is not exactly hopeless, if you think about it. Gorby is in, ending the run of gensek funerals of diminishing pomposity; Kasparov finally beats Karpov; the USSR launches the Mir space station. The author sure did his homework.

But this is only the background. More important is the story of Alexei and Irina. The story that is both incredible and believable. The story that could have taken place anywhere else, in any of the millions of apartment blocks around the world. So why not in Pripyat then.

Alexéi, ¿a ti no te gustaría vivir en la estación espacial MIR? No sé, me parece un poco claustrofóbico. ¿Por qué? Porque no se puede salir. Pues igual que esta casa.

What actually made Irina to leave home? How come that a 16-year old girl does not know much about the WWII, never heard about Titanic and never have read Treasure Island but is familiar with Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3, I wondered as a reader — only to discover that this is also what Alexei asked himself. Many things are left unexplained, and I prefer that to the array of smoking Chekhov’s guns. Then there are what ifs you can ponder long after the reading is finished. Like: what if Irina became a world chess champion?

Íñigo Redondo (Bilbao, 1975) wrote his first novel in 2015; however, it did not see the light of day until 2020. He says that at least 60 publishers rejected the manuscript. If so, I applaud his tenacity. I’d give up after three “noes” and go for self-publish.

Los entusiastas

by Brecht Evens
translated by María Rosich Andreu

There is a beautiful polysemy in the Dutch word liefhebber (from lief “beloved” and hebben “to have”, i.e. “to have love”). It could stand for “connoisseur”, “enthusiast” or “fan”, i.e. lover, as in kunstliefhebber “art lover”. Or it could mean “amateur” or “dilettante”, as in liefhebbersvoetbal, “non-professional football”. Yet another meaning, if archaic, is that of “lover” in a romantic sense. And so De Liefhebbers was translated to Spanish as Los entusiastas, to French as Les amateurs, and to English as, wait for it, The Making Of. What is that all about?

The thing is, all these meanings are there. There are art lovers, and also amateur artists, and “just” lovers, although their romance lasts less than a night. Even “The Making Of” is not completely made up by the English translators. A great gift for any liefhebber.

Zlatý podraz

a film by Radim Špaček

I am not a big fan of sport dramas. The last that I watched was Battle of the Sexes, some three years ago. Actually I quite enjoyed it. Maybe I should pay more attention to films like that.

Compared to the first two features of the Czech cinema cycle, Golden Sting (or Golden Betrayal; neither translation makes much sense) is a much darker affair. Like Battle of the Sexes, it is “based on true events”, viz. Czechoslovakia winning EuroBasket 1946, participating in the London Olympics and narrowly losing to the Soviet Union in Paris. But the movie has so much more than sporty stuff: war, friendship, romance, jazz, travel, politics... Maybe a bit too much of the latter.

I honestly can’t blame the creators for their dislike of both communist regime and the big bully of the East. Even so, certain moments made me cringe. Did they really have to make the Soviet basketball team to look like a bunch of thugs? The big guy responsible for the winning free throw in the 1951 final game — a stereotypical Russian mafioso — in reality was the Lithuanian Stepas Butautas, although Wikipedia attributes it to the Estonian player Ilmar Kullam. Nor do I believe there ever was an obligation on the Czechoslovak side not to win against USSR. (Indeed, Czechoslovak athletes did beat Soviets on a number of occasions, nobody more spectacularly than their national ice hockey team.) Then again, who expects the drama to be completely (or even remotely, for that matter) historically accurate?

The brightest part of the film takes place in Geneva. The team’s manager finds the cheapest hotel that turns out to be a brothel. Some of the girls even go to the games to watch the boys. Ah, to be young. To be abroad for the first time. To fall in love. To win.

Eternity and a Day

by Eleni Karaindrou

The last time my parents came to visit us in England was in 2007. One day, we went to the seaside — to Sandbanks, to be precise — and on the way there we listened to this soundtrack in the car. My mum asked what it was and said that it was the most beautiful music she heard in her life. That means something, no?

So here it is, the most beautiful music she heard in her life.

Just as is the case with The Weeping Meadow, I did not watch the film yet. One day, I keep saying to myself, or one eternity, I’m going to.

Viral Discourse

edited by Rodney H. Jones

Are discourse analysts ‘essential workers’ [1]? (And who are they?) Is the war rhetoric around CoVID-19 an Anglo-American thing [5]? Could social semioticians (another profession I wasn’t aware of before) ever be of any use in the midst of a global emergency [10]?

I got this e-book as a freebie thanks to the British Council Spain. I tend to delete their newsletters without reading; I can’t explain why I didn’t do the same with the latest one. Given that all ten chapters are present, in some form, on the (no longer updated, I’m afraid) Viral Discourse blog, I wonder how many people would actually buy the book. Or read it. But I ended up finishing it in a couple of weeks, consuming it in small doses while queueing to the Ayuntamiento, or waiting for the bus to arrive, or the movie to start.

As one would expect from most of publications like that, Viral Discourse is quite a mixed bag. The chapters I enjoyed the most deal with comparative discourse analysis of pandemic coverage by the American, British and “don’t mention the war” German press [5], urban public signs in Golders Green, London [6], and the UK government’s notorious three-part slogans [9].

1. Rodney H. Jones. Introduction: Are Discourse Analysts ‘Essential Workers’?
2. Rodney H. Jones. The Veil of Civilization and the Semiotics of the Mask
3. Christoph A. Hafner. Communicating Expertise in the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Genre Analytical Perspective
4. Wing Yee Jenifer Ho. Face Masks and Cultural Identity on YouTube
5. Sylvia Jaworska. Investigating Media Representations of the Coronavirus in the UK, USA and Germany: What Can a Comparative Corpus-Based Discourse Analysis Contribute to Our Understanding of the COVID-19 Pandemic?
6. Zhu Hua. Sense and Sensibility: Urban Public Signs during a Pandemic
7. Erhan Aslan. When the Internet Gets ‘Coronafied’: Pandemic Creativity and Humour in Internet Memes
8. Carmen Lee. #HateIsAVirus: Talking about COVID-19 ‘Hate’
9. Rodney H. Jones. Order out of Chaos: Coronavirus Communication and the Construction of Competence
10. Elisabetta Adami. How to Make Sense of Communication and Interaction in a Pandemic

Všechno bude

a film by Olmo Omerzu

Ain’t road movies brilliant? Except they don’t tend to end well, do they. I mean, the good ones, like Easy Rider, Thelma & Louise, or Y tu mamá también. So I was a bit apprehensive about Winter Flies.

Mind you, pretty early we learn that this one is not gonna end well either. Most of the story is told in flashback when Mára, one of teenage protagonists, is already arrested. But wait. There’s a twist and a hope and enough humour to make your day or, as it happened, my evening. By the way, the original title has nothing to do with winter flies; it means “Everything will be”, as in “Everything will be OK”.

The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs

by Alexander McCall Smith
read by Hugh Laurie

Long time ago, before the United Kingdom became a laughing stock to the rest of the world, its inhabitants were famous for their sense of humour. To the degree they themselves seriously believed that their sense of humour was more subtle, more refined and in general far superior to any other nation’s sense of humour. And a fundamental feature of British humour, together with understatement, is self-deprecation. It allowed the humorous Brits, among other things, to gently poke fun at the Americans, French or, indeed, Germans, without sounding patronising or xenophobic. Not without exceptions, of course. Take the late Prince Philip: he sure could afford to be blunt — or downright rude — which certainly contributed to his reputation of someone who speaks his mind as well as, in his own words, “a cantankerous old sod”. Here you go, endearing self-deprecation again. Those were the days.

Fortunately, Alexander McCall Smith CBE is still around. Well, I didn’t read his latest books^*, but I am confident that they are of the same high standard as those that I did read — or, as is the case with The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs, listened to. I bought this 4-CD box years ago in Oxfam, together with another audiobook, At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances, for a ridiculous sum of £4. First time we attempted to listen to it was while driving somewhere on holidays. We had to stop when the sausage dog business got gory as not to upset the kids too much. Later I finished listening to it on my CD Walkman when travelling on train.

Earlier this month, I re-listened to it on MP3 player. It’s lost none of its charm, and the famous British humour still works, as Professor Dr Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld, the author of Portuguese Irregular Verbs, goes to America, operates a sausage dog, is entrusted with Santa Claus’s bones, tells off the Pope, and is presumed dead. Hugh Laurie’s masterful delivery makes the whole experience a pure delight, from Chapter Eins to Chapter Fünf. Wunderbar.

*	I just read an extract from Your Inner Hedgehog, “the long-awaited return to the von Igelfled series”, and it fills me with hope.

‘The sausage dog,’ he began, ‘is a remarkable dog. It differs from other dogs in respect of its shape, which is similar to that of a sausage. It belongs to that genus of dogs marked out by their proximity to the ground. In most cases this is because of the shortness of the legs. If a dog has short legs, we have found that the body is almost invariably close to the ground. Yet this does not prevent the sausage dog from making its way about its business with considerable despatch.’

🦔

‘I see,’ said the priest. ‘And now you are feeling guilty?’
‘Yes,’ said von Igelfeld.
‘Guilt is natural,’ said the priest quietly. ‘It is a way in which the Super-ego asserts itself in the face of the primitive, anarchic urges of the Id. Guilt acts as a way of establishing psychic balance between the various parts of the personality. But we should not let it consume us.’
‘No?’ asked von Igelfeld.
‘No,’ said the priest. ‘Guilt fuels neurosis. A small measure of guilt is healthy — it affirms the intuitive sense of what is right or wrong. But if you become too focused on what you have done wrong, then you can become an obsessive neurotic.’

🦔 🦔 🦔

‘You are an extremely insolent man,’ said von Igelfeld. ‘I am very surprised that anybody comes to this appalling restaurant.’
‘Very few do,’ said the waiter.

🦔 🦔 🦔 🦔 🦔

‘Good morning,’ said the Pope warmly. ‘Good morning, and blessings. Please sit down and I’ll pour the coffee.’
Von Igelfeld sat down.
‘I’ve come to say how sorry I am about that regrettable incident yesterday,’ he said. ‘I had no idea it was Your Holiness.’
The Pope laughed. ‘Oh that! Think no more of that. It’s good of you to come and apologise. You know, there are so many who expect us to apologise to them. They ask us to apologise for the Inquisition, to apologise for the over-enthusiasms of missionaries of the past, to apologise for all sorts of terrible things that happened a long time ago. And nobody ever comes to apologise to me! Except you. It’s really quite refreshing.’

🦔 🦔 🦔

‘The Patriarch Angelos Evangelis?’ asked von Igelfeld. ‘A tall patriarch with a beard?’
‘They all look like that,’ said the Cardinal. ‘I can never tell them apart.’

🦔

By the end of dinner, von Igelfeld was exhausted. He had spent the entire meal dealing with the ladies’ questions. What were his hobbies? Did he have relatives in Münster, by any chance? There had been a Professor Igelfold there, had there not, and the Igelfolds could be a branch of the same family, could they not? Did he enjoy walking? The hills above Freiburg were very suitable for that purpose! Was he ever in Freiburg? Did he know the von Kersell family? There had been a Professor von Kersell once, but something had happened to him. Did he know, by any chance, what that was?

Teorie tygra

a film by Radek Bajgar

My first classical guitar (technically, it belonged to my brother, but it was me who played it) was a Czech-built^* Cremona (the company has changed name, hands and sadly doesn’t make guitars any longer). My first electric bass was Galaxis by now-defunct Jolana. I used to have quite a collection of classics and jazz vinyls by Supraphon and Opus. So... I can say that I know infinitely more about Czech music than Czech film (all Miloš Forman movies I’ve seen are American-made, so they don’t count). Now, thanks to the new Czech cinema cycle by Filmoteca Canaria, I have a chance to change that.

Co-produced by Czech Television and Rozhlas a televízia Slovenska, Tiger Theory (what’s the theory?) cannot be called anything else but Czechoslovak film. Good acting, a few funny jokes, a pleasant soundtrack — in short, I quite liked it. If not for not-so-mildly misogynistic premise (that the men of the movie and in general are controlled and oppressed by their wives — come on, give me a break), I would truly enjoy it. I’ll say no more: watch it and judge for yourself.

__________________________________________________

*

When I grew up, we used the word “Czech” as short for “Czechoslovak”: there was no such thing as Czech Republic then but Czechoslovakia and we had no idea from which part of the country the sought-after goods came, if they came. In fact most of them indeed came from Czechia: JAWA motorbikes, Plzeň beer, Bohemian glass, and the aforementioned musical instruments.

Valentina: Tomo 1

by Guido Crepax
translated by Carlos Sampayo, Marcelo Raboni and María Fernández

I came across this book in our library a few weeks ago. How come I wasn’t aware of this artist before?

Crepax’s wild imagination, encyclopaedic influences/cultural references and exquisite Beardsleyesque drawings had won me over from the first few pages. In Valentina’s world, the boundaries between reality and dream are blurred or non-existent; in any case, her “reality” hardly makes more sense than her dreams. Considering the dreams she has, who should care about reality? Not me.

Philip Willan wrote in the obituary of Guido Crepax:

Inspired by the silent movie actor Louise Brooks, and by Crepax’s own wife, Luisa, Valentina presented something of a dilemma for Italian feminists. They approved of her sexual emancipation and Trotskyite politics, but were less taken by her fantasies and the speed with which she peeled off her clothes.

Is that so? Oh well. Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with either Valentina’s fantasies or speedy undressing. She may have angered some feminists while encouraging others. American painter and photographer Jude Harzer said:

I was always impressed by the rawness and forwardness of a woman as a dominant character. I was inspired by the sensuality of Crepax’s work and in particular the sexuality and force of Valentina as a protagonist. Her strength as a heroine lay in her intellect, femininity, eroticism and talent rather than in a contrived super heroic ability.

Speaking of dreams: Luisa Mandelli, who died in November 2020, not just “inspired” Crepax, her spouse for 40 years: she told him her dreams that became the Valentina’s adventures. Also, she invented the language of The Subterraneans.

Apart from creating Valentina, Guido Crepax illustrated works of Marquis de Sade, Edgar Allan Poe, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, Emmanuelle Arsan and Anne Desclos. He designed vinyl covers for Italian releases of jazz musicians such as Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, Xavier Cugat, Fletcher Henderson, Lee Konitz, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Jelly Roll Morton, Gerry Mulligan, Fats Navarro, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Sarah Vaughan, Fats Waller, Paul Whiteman and Cootie Williams, to name a few. Poking around, I’ve discovered Italian prog-rockers Garybaldi (Crepax designed the cover art for their debut album Nuda) and La curva di Lesmo, clearly named after the Valentina story of same name.

But let’s go back to the book.