Free live music in Las Palmas, February 2022

During this month the obligatory COVID passports for cultural events got scrapped. And there was a lot of events.

• 2 February: «Si tú me dices ven» @ Palacete Rodríguez Quegles, Calle Benito Pérez Galdós, 4, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
  Los Tres Aries are Salvador Delgado (vocals, guitar), José Julio Aguilar (vocals, guitar) and Paco José Falcón (requinto guitar, vocals), named so because all three of them share the same Zodiac sign. The trio covered such bolero standards as Cucurrucucú paloma, Quizás, quizás, quizás, El Reloj and, of course, Si tú me dices ven, in addition to the original songs.

  

• 3 February: Cubakan «Viaje de ida y vuelta» @ Museo Castillo de Mata, Calle Domingo Guerra del Río, 147
  Afro-Cuban jazz with Canarian flavour. José Alberto Medina (piano), Kervin Barreto (trumpet, flugelhorn, percussion, vocals), Dayron Álvarez (percussion, vocals), Felix López (percussion, vocals) and Jose Angel Campoalegre Valdes (vocals, guitar, cuatro Cubano).

  

• 4 February: Skinny Soul @ Museo Castillo de Mata
  Intriguing nu jazz-pop fusion from Alba Vega Leiras (vocal, keyboards), José Carlos Cejudo (electric bass), Luis Sánchez Guerra (keyboards) and Eduardo Fernández-Villamil Menéndez (drums). A rare occasion here when I liked the (original) Anglophone songs more than the (also original) Spanish-lyrics ones.

  

• 5 February: «A través del bolero» @ Auditorio José Antonio Ramos, Parque Doramas
  Another good helping of boleros, this time from Gabriel Domínguez (vocals, bassoon) with Osvaldo Hernández (drums), Rayko León (piano), Fofi Lusson (double bass, guitar) and Fernando Rodríguez (percussion).

  

• 10 February: Rayko León Quartet @ Museo Castillo de Mata
  Rayko León (piano, compositions and arrangements) with Renato D’Aiello (tenor sax), Carlos Meneses (double bass) and Alberto García (drums).

  

• 11 February: Alba Gil Aceytuno @ Museo Castillo de Mata
  21^st century prog-rock from incredibly versatile Alba Gil Aceytuno (sax, flute, keys, vocals) with José Carlos Cejudo (electric bass), Alexandre Coulon (drums), Alberto Díaz (trombone) and Luis Merino (guitar), presenting (mostly) music from Alba’s 2021 album Aguayro.

  

• 16 February: Raquel Amegashie @ Palacete Rodríguez Quegles
  With Luis Merino (guitar) and Lucas Arencibia (cajon).

  

• 17 February: Midnight Soul @ Museo Castillo de Mata
  If you like The Commitments you’d thoroghly enjoy tonight’s electrifying renditions of hits like Chain of Fools, Hit the Road Jack, Treat Her Right and even Satisfaction. Midnight Soul are: Lorena Román, Esther Suárez, Bentejui de Vera (vocals), David Alamo (guitar), Echedey Angulo (sax), Samuel Medina (drums), Dani Morales (bass), Neftalí Ojeda (trumpet) and Emilio Tabraue (keys).

  

• 18 February: JazzAire Originals @ Museo Castillo de Mata
  Modern jazz with flamenco overtones. With Sara Brito (flute), Carlos Meneses (double bass), Cristóbal Montesdeoca (piano) and Takeo Takahashi (drums).

  

• 24 February: João Frade @ Teatro Guiniguada, Plaza F. Mesa de León
  The first masterclass of 2022 organised by Mousikê.

• 24 February: Javi Montero Jazz Band «Surgere» @ Museo Castillo de Mata
  Powerful vintage jazz-rock. Featuring Javi Montero (drums), José Carlos Cejudo (electric bass), Santiago Miranda (guitar) and David Quevedo (keyboards), with special guest Kervin Barreto (trumpet). Unfortunately, the concert had to be cut short because of the rain.

  

• 25 February: «Conversaciones» @ Museo Castillo de Mata
  This evening, the concert was moved under the roof. The duo of violinist Pablo Rodríguez (La Palma) and pianist Humberto Ríos (Cuba) played extended versions of some of their conversaciones, fusing folk, jazz and modern classical music. A beautiful coda to the great series of concerts Cultura en acción organised by LPA Cultura.

  

And that was it for February.

Espíritus y criaturas de Japón

by Lafcadio Hearn
preface by Matthias Hayek
translated by Alejandro Tobar and Isabel Soto
illustrated by Benjamin Lacombe

Another lavishly edited book by Benjamin Lacombe (the illustrator of Carmen, you may recall). The stories, as one might expect, are pretty weird. Only the first one, La gratitud del Samébito (The Gratitude of the Samebito), has something of a happy ending. Juegos de Yōkai (Yōkai Games) is not a story but a brief description of some Edo-period games that use yōkai as characters.

The longest part, Kitsune, taken from Hearn’s 1894 book Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan (full text here), is a not particularly coherent collection of myths and anecdotes about foxes, with a rather disheartening conclusion along the lines that the modern (of course, Western) education will eventually rid the Japanese of supersition.

Year by year fewer victims of fox-possession are taken to the hospitals to be treated according to the best scientific methods by Japanese physicians who speak German.

How could he (or anyone) know back then that amabie (アマビエ), a three-legged yōkai that was first mentioned in 1846, would resurface in 2020 as “a new coronavirus countermeasure”?!

Солдаты группы «Центр»

a song by Vladimir Vysotsky

I first heard this song in the mid-1970s. It gave me goosebumps. I never thought it will be relevant ever again. But here we are: another führer, another Army Group Centre, another Blitzkrieg. «Не надо думать — с нами тот, кто всё за нас решит.»

Солдат всегда здоров, Солдат на всё готов, И пыль, как из ковров, Мы выбиваем из дорог, И не остановиться, И не сменить ноги, Сияют наши лица, Сверкают сапоги! По выжженной равнине, За метром метр, Идут по Украине Солдаты группы «Центр». На «первый-второй» рассчитайсь — Первый-второй! Первый, шаг вперёд! — и в рай Первый-второй... А каждый второй — Тоже герой, В рай попадёт Вслед за тобой — Первый-второй, первый-второй, первый-второй... А перед нами всё цветёт, За нами всё горит. Не надо думать — с нами тот, Кто всё за нас решит. Весёлые, не хмурые, Вернёмся по домам, Невесты белокурые Наградой будут нам! Всё впереди, а ныне — За метром метр, Идут по Украине Солдаты группы «Центр». На «первый-второй» рассчитайсь — Первый-второй! Первый, шаг вперёд! — и в рай Первый-второй... А каждый второй — Тоже герой, В рай попадёт Вслед за тобой — Первый-второй, первый-второй, первый-второй.

Limiar

a film by Coraci Ruiz

An unexpectedly touching documentary dealing with gender transitioning of the director’s teenage child — and much more. Coraci’s respect for Violeta Andy Noah’s decision, in spite of all her reservations, and her continuous support are truly admirable. I have to admit that I wouldn’t be as supportive in her place; at the very least I would wait till Andy comes of age. I loved the best the interviews with Coraci’s mum, Lena Bartman.

Me habría encantado ser etnóloga...

by Margaux Motin
translated by Diego Álvarez

An entertaining collection of charming, if not particularly deep, comics, in the same vein as Ajo y agua and, by extension, Problemas del primer mundo. Unfortunately, the Spanish translation, faithful to the French original, kept the author’s favourite “unintelligible scribbling” font which I find quite annoying.

Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius

by Jorge Luis Borges
English translation by James E. Irby
Russian translation by Eugenia Lysenko

One day, at lunchtime, I mentioned that “The Close”, a fifteenth century timber-framed cottage at the corner of Castle Street and High Street, was in fact only a half of the house built elsewhere, say in Kent but don’t quote me on that, and brought to Saffron Walden with the second half left behind. I distinctly remember reading about that somewhere. After the lunch, I decided to look it up in the definitive, or so I thought, guide The Buildings of Saffron Walden by Martyn Everett and Donald Stewart. Nope. No mention of The Close, although the drawing of its oval “spider” window is there (p. v, under the table of contents). Then I realised that actually I read about it in the third volume of Down Your Street in Saffron Walden by Jean Gumbrell, a book that I have no recollection of bringing to Spain or, for that matter, disposing of. The subsequent web search neither confirmed nor refuted the alien origin of The Close.

A few weeks later, we were looking for another book that I am absulutely sure is still with us, even though the results of our hunt might suggest otherwise. Tamara proposed to put on hold the excavations in a hope that the offending book materialises at some random moment. It was at this point that the concept of hrönir came back from memory. Not that it was buried too deep, but still.

I discovered Borges in the 1980s, in the form of a book Хорхе Луис Борхес. Проза разных лет (according to Wikipedia, the first ever Russian edition of Borges). Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius was a short story that impressed me the most. It was mentioned there that in Tlön the lost objects could be duplicated — and “found” — by the sheer power of memory or imagination. These duplicates are called hrönir (plural of hrön). Now I needed to refresh my memory.

I opted for the Spanish original this time. As we don’t have a physical book, I found the story on the web and revisited the corresponding passage. It appeared to be funnier than I remember it in Russian. Why?

Hecho curioso: los hrönir de segundo y de tercer grado — los hrönir derivados de otro hrön, los hrönir derivados del hrön de un hrön — exageran las aberraciones del inicial; los de quinto son casi uniformes; los de noveno se confunden con los de segundo; en los de undécimo hay una pureza de líneas que los originales no tienen.

Curiously, the hrönir of second and third degree — the hrönir derived from another hron, those derived from the hrön of a hrön — exaggerate the aberrations of the initial one; those of fifth degree are almost uniform; those of ninth degree become confused with those of the second; in those of the eleventh there is a purity of line not found in the original.

Любопытный факт: в «хрёнирах» второй и третьей степени — то есть «хрёнирах», производных от другого «хрёна», и «хрёнирах», производных от «хрёна» «хрёна», — отмечается усиление искажений исходного «хрёна»; «хрёниры» пятой степени почти подобны ему: «хрёниры» девятой степени можно спутать со второй; а в «хрёнирах» одиннадцатой степени наблюдается чистота линий, которой нет у оригиналов.

Could it be that the “original” sourced on internet is a (higher degree and better) hrön of that half-forgotten Russian translation? Or was it brought by the omniscient Google in the same fashion that it brings info about whatever we were talking about an hour ago? What’s the difference anyway?

I decided to re-read the whole story from the beginning to the end. Turned out I forgot almost everything, save the hrönir and a description of Tlönic nounless languages (this latter bit demonstrates Borges’s bilingualism which is completely lost in translation).

If in Tlön they can materialise things remembered, the reverse is also true:

propenden asimismo a borrarse y a perder los detalles cuando los olvida la gente. Es clásico el ejemplo de un umbral que perduró mientras lo visitaba un mendigo y que se perdió de vista a su muerte.

they also tend to become effaced and lose their details when they are forgotten. A classic example is the doorway which survived so long as it was visited by a beggar and disappeared at his death.

у них также есть тенденция меркнуть и утрачивать детали, когда люди про них забывают. Классический пример — порог, существовавший, пока на него ступал некий нищий, и исчезнувший из виду, когда тот умер.

Do we live in Tlön already? (The world will be Tlön, wrote Borges in 1940.) Do the things we can’t find anymore dwell among other decaying hrönir? Can we use forgetting for declutter our living spaces?

As mentioned before, the non-existence of The New York Times Lola Flores quote did not prevent any Spanish periodical to reproduce it. If they keep repeating it for another 50 years, they may force the NYT to publish a clarification by virtue of which the famous phrase will indeed appear in this newspaper. Q.E.D.

What about The Close? The same thing really. Somebody will read this blog post and repeat the theory about the second half of the house; or maybe go as far as, say, Kent and build there the (improved) replica of the Saffron Walden original. Subject to planning permission, of course.

Back to the missing book. (It was right here, on this shelf. Or maybe it fell behind it?) On the face of it, the fact that we do remember it well and still can’t find it disproves the hypothesis that hrönir exist. But honestly, how well do we remember it? For one, we were not sure of its precise location or when was the last time we saw it. Not that well then. If I remembered literally everything that was written in the book, I wouldn’t need it in the first place. If I were looking for it to give it away as a gift, I would already mentally say goodbye to it. And so on and so forth, the possibilities are endless.

Isn’t the memory amazing? I can spend hours trying to recall a line from a song to no avail. I give up; half an hour later the line comes back, complete with full lyrics and a numbered list of variations which I didn’t ask for. One day, I hope, an unexpected cue will force the book back into existence.

Two short Polish films

Continuing with Universo Lem: this week, a double bill of two short-ish Polish films.

Przekładaniec (1968)

a film by Andrzej Wajda

Wajda’s genius is evident in this black (and white) comedy based on a short story Are you there, Mr. Jones? by Stanisław Lem, with a jazzy score by Andrzej Markowski. What makes the film even more hilarious today is that it’s almost not a science fiction anymore.

Polacy Polacy (2003)

a film by Borys Lankosz

This documentary focuses (if you can call it that) on the work of photographer Krzysztof Gierałtowski who, in his turn, portrays the famous citizens of Kraków: Stanisław Lem, Krzysztof Penderecki and Wisława Szymborska. A bit odd choice for the Lem cycle as Mr Lem himself does not say much here. The film would do better without Gierałtowski’s bizarre sermon on Polish identity (yawn).

Arctic

a film by Joe Penna

Probably a polar survival epic isn’t everybody’s choice to watch on a Saturday night in. But there was nothing exciting on the telly last Saturday. I watched the opening scene and somehow stayed glued to the screen for the next 90 minutes or so.

It’s bleak, it’s slow, it has very little dialogue monologue in it, although at times I wished it had even less of it. To stay alive, Mads “the sexiest man in Denmark” Mikkelsen’s character should have paid more attention to his clothing; the polar bear was too well-fed to be plausibly found in the wild; but all in all, a well-crafted film. Also, a good reminder why I don’t want to live in a place that is covered in snow most of the year, or, come to think about it, any part of the year.

Cabaret

a musical by John Kander and Fred Ebb
a film by Bob Fosse

According to Wikipedia, the music video for ABBA 1976 hit Money, Money, Money “was inspired by the film Cabaret, showing Frida wearing a hat typical of the 1920s”. I didn’t know that until today, which happens to be the 50^th anniversary of the film’s release. Back in 1976, I had no idea that this film even existed. One day, I was rummaging through the box of LPs at home and came across one that I’d never listened to before. I suppose the vinyl, unassumingly called «Мелодии Зарубежного Экрана», “Foreign Screen Melodies” (!), was brought by my cousin who at the time was the main provider of the music we listened to. And so there, under the subtitle Фрагменты из к/ф «Кабаре» (“Fragments from the movie Cabaret”), I spied the name «Деньги, деньги» (Money, Money) which I thought was a slightly abbreviated version of ABBA’s title «Деньги, деньги, деньги».

I promptly listened to the song (side A, track 5). What a disappointment and what a discovery at the same time! And the rest of the tracks too! It sounded like a good fun of a movie, it was.

Curiously, the title Mein Herr was translated as «Мой любимый», i.e. “My beloved”; Helmut Griem (as Хельмут Грим), who indeed appears in the movie but does not sing, was credited on tracks 1 and 5 instead of Joel Grey. At least Liza Minnelli was mentioned. No such luck for the performers of assorted “foreign screen melodies” on the side B, like Mambo from West Side Story or Theme from Shaft.

It was not until 1988 that I watched the film. (Suddenly, somebody somewhere up there realised that a bisexual protagonist — a goodie! — and a treesome were not too much for Soviet viewers. I’d like to express my gratitude to that person.) Thankfully it was not a dub but a voice over by the great Victor Tatarsky. In my view, some parts of that translation are superior to the original — cf. «Моё тело не пробуждает в тебе дикую страсть? Не пробуждает?» and “Doesn’t my body drive you wild with desire? Doesn’t?”.

The film has aged surprisingly well. The songs are fantastic. The choreography is stunning. Young Liza is beautiful. The girls are beautiful. Even the orchestra is beautiful. And the anti-fascist message is as actual now as it was fifty years ago, or even more so.

hlör u fang axaxaxas mlö

First published 12 February 2022 @ sólo algunas palabras

	☽
No hay sustantivos en la conjetural Ursprache de Tlön, de la que proceden los idiomas «actuales» y los dialectos: hay verbos impersonales, calificados por sufijos (o prefijos) monosilábicos de valor adverbial. Por ejemplo: no hay palabra que corresponda a la palabra luna, pero hay un verbo que sería en español lunecer o lunar. Surgió la luna sobre el río se dice hlör u fang axaxaxas mlö o sea en su orden: hacia arriba (upward) detrás duradero-fluir luneció. (Xul Solar traduce con brevedad: upa tras perfluyue lunó. Upward, behind the onstreaming it mooned.)	There are no nouns in Tlön’s conjectural Ursprache, from which the “present” languages and the dialects are derived: there are impersonal verbs, modified by monosyllabic suffixes (or prefixes) with an adverbial value. For example: there is no word corresponding to the word “moon”, but there is a verb which in English would be “to moon” or “to moonate”. “The moon rose above the river” is hlör u fang axaxaxas mlö, or literally: “upward behind the onstreaming it mooned”.	В предполагаемом Ursprache Тлёна, от которого происходят «современные» языки и диалекты, нет существительных, в нем есть безличные глаголы с определениями в виде односложных суффиксов (или префиксов) с адвербиальным значением. Например: нет слова, соответствующего слову «луна», но есть глагол, который можно было бы перевести «лунить» или «лунарить». «Луна поднялась над рекой» звучит «хлёр у фанг аксаксаксас млё» или, переводя слово за словом, «вверх над постоянным течь залунело».
☽		☽
Lo anterior se refiere a los idiomas del hemisferio austral. En los del hemisferio boreal (de cuya Ursprache hay muy pocos datos en el Onceno Tomo) la célula primordial no es el verbo, sino el adjetivo monosilábico. El sustantivo se forma por acumulación de adjetivos. No se dice luna: se dice aéreo-claro sobre oscuro-redondo o anaranjado-tenue-del cielo o cualquier otra agregación. En el caso elegido la masa de adjetivos corresponde a un objeto real; el hecho es puramente fortuito. En la literatura de este hemisferio (como en el mundo subsistente de Meinong) abundan los objetos ideales, convocados y disueltos en un momento, según las necesidades poéticas. Los determina, a veces, la mera simultaneidad. Hay objetos compuestos de dos términos, uno de carácter visual y otro auditivo: el color del naciente y el remoto grito de un pájaro. Los hay de muchos: el sol y el agua contra el pecho del nadador, el vago rosa trémulo que se ve con los ojos cerrados, la sensación de quien se deja llevar por un río y también por el sueño. Esos objetos de segundo grado pueden combinarse con otros; el proceso, mediante ciertas abreviaturas, es prácticamente infinito. Hay poemas famosos compuestos de una sola enorme palabra. Esta palabra integra un objeto poético creado por el autor. El hecho de que nadie crea en la realidad de los sustantivos hace, paradójicamente, que sea interminable su número. Los idiomas del hemisferio boreal de Tlön poseen todos los nombres de las lenguas indoeuropeas y otros muchos más.	The preceding applies to the languages of the southern hemisphere. In those of the northern hemisphere (on whose Ursprache there is very little data in the Eleventh Volume) the prime unit is not the verb, but the monosyllabic adjective. The noun is formed by an accumulation of adjectives. They do not say “moon”, but rather “round airy-light on dark” or “pale-orange-of-the-sky” or any other such combination. In the example selected the mass of adjectives refers to a real object, but this is purely fortuitous. The literature of this hemisphere (like Meinong’s subsistent world) abounds in ideal objects, which are convoked and dissolved in a moment, according to poetic needs. At times they are determined by mere simultaneity. There are objects composed of two terms, one of visual and another of auditory character: the color of the rising sun and the faraway cry of a bird. There are objects of many terms: the sun and the water on a swimmer’s chest, the vague tremulous rose color we see with our eyes closed, the sensation of being carried along by a river and also by sleep. These second-degree objects can be combined with others; through the use of certain abbreviations, the process is practically infinite. There are famous poems made up of one enormous word. This word forms a poetic object created by the author. The fact that no one believes in the reality of nouns paradoxically causes their number to be unending. The languages of Tlön’s northern hemisphere contain all the nouns of the Indo-European languages — and many others as well.	Вышесказанное относится к языкам южного полушария. В языках полушария северного (о праязыке которых в Одиннадцатом Томе данных очень мало) первичной клеткой является не глагол, а односложное прилагательное. Существительное образуется путем накопления прилагательных. Не говорят «луна», но «воздушное-светлое на тёмном-круглом» или «нежном-оранжевом» вместо «неба», или берут любое другое сочетание. В избранном нами примере сочетания прилагательных соответствуют реальному объекту — но это совершенно не обязательно. В литературе данного полушария (как в реальности Мейнонга) царят предметы идеальные, возникающие и исчезающие в единый миг по требованию поэтического замысла. Иногда их определяет только одновременность. Есть предметы, состоящие из двух качеств — видимого и слышимого: цвет восхода и отдалённый крик птицы. Есть состоящие из многих: солнце и вода против груди пловца; смутное розовое свечение за закрытыми веками, ощущения человека, отдающегося течению реки или объятиям сна. Эти объекты второй степени могут сочетаться с другими; с помощью некоторых аббревиатур весь процесс практически может быть бесконечен. Существуют знаменитые поэмы из одного огромнейшего слова. В этом слове интегрирован созданный автором «поэтический объект». Тот факт, что никто не верит в реальность существительных, парадоксальным образом приводит к тому, что их число бесконечно. В языках северного полушария Тлёна есть все имена существительные индоевропейских языков — и ещё много сверх того.
Jorge Luis Borges Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius	Jorge Luis Borges Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius (translated by James E. Irby)	Хорхе Луис Борхес Тлён, Укбар, Orbis tertius (перевод Евгении Лысенко)

Test pilota Pirxa

a film by Marek Piestrak

Yes, I do remember this movie being screened in Soviet cinemas, as «Дознание пилота Пиркса». I never went to see it though, don’t know why. Now, fortysomething years later (it takes as long for light from υ Andromedae to reach us), I watched it with a mixture of nostalgia, mild embarrassment and surprise.

I did not expect any Soviet actors — not only Sergei Desnitsky in the title role, but also tremendously popular Vladimir Ivashov and Alexander Kaidanovsky (of Stalker fame). Nor did I expect the screenplay by Vladimir Valutsky (the author of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, Dog in Boots, Winter Cherry and many more), or the music by Arvo Pärt. And I certainly did not expect a slow-burn Blade Runner-esque sci-fi thriller preceding the Blade Runner by a few years.

The story is really cool. (As it was the case with Hospital of the Transfiguration, I didn’t read the book, so can’t compare.) The space-related special effects are so bad they are actually good. The question that Pirx asked the second pilot Brown, “Do you believe in God?”, in the Russian-dubbed version was replaced, no doubt by ideological considerations, by a rather weak “Do you believe that conscience exists?”. I wonder if the topless dancer in a bar where Brown drinks whisky while pondering about that question ever did it to the Soviet screens.

Lola Flores: El arte de vivir

by Sete González
introduction by Elena Furiase

On occasion of her performance in the Big Apple, a nameless critic of The New York Times famously wrote that Lola Flores “doesn’t sing or dance, but don’t miss her”. Well, not only nameless: also non-existent, as this phrase was never ever published by NYT. When did that never happen? In 1953? In 1979? Never mind that. The myth has persisted for all those years, most likely because “La Faraona” herself was happy enough with it.

I can’t blame the author of El arte de vivir for repeating this urban legend. After all, Lola Flores is a legend, and a legend that is still very much alive. In RTVE program Caminos del flamenco: Origen Jerez, the presenters Soleá Morente and Miguel Poveda keep exclaiming “¡Viva Lola!”. When Ara Malikian or Vinila Von Bismark perform ¡Ay, pena, penita, pena!, they pay a modern-day homage to Lola. So did Google with that Doodle.

So did Sete González with El arte de vivir. The illustrations are striking; you can well imagine them as murals in whatever Spanish (and not just Spanish) city.

Fragmentos de feminidad

by Olivier Pont
coloured by Laurence Croix
translated by Ana Isabel Pérez Ocaña

Not exactly a graphic novel but rather a collection of seven graphic short stories, each named after its protagonist: Chloe, Mathilde, Alison, Sylvia, Faith, Elikya and Fleur. The story of Faith touched me the most; and Fleur provided the well-needed happy end for the whole book.

Boriya

a film by Min Sung-Ah

There does not happen much in the film. “Little Boriya is bored” (probably no pun was intended), begins the synopsis. Nothing wrong with that, I say. If she wasn’t bored, she probably wouldn’t discover the beauty of the countryside around her.

Find a quarter of an hour when you won’t be disturbed and watch it.

Szpital Przemienienia

a film by Edward Zebrowski

Hospital of the Transfiguration, based on the novel of the same name by Stanisław Lem, opens the cycle Cine Polska: Universo Lem (“Polish cinema: The Lem Universe”) organised by Instituto Polaco de Cultura and Filmoteca Canaria.

I did not read the book, so the film came as a bit of a shock. Science fiction it ain’t. The movie is powerful and brutal. Be warned.