Strange, beautiful, confusing and compelling, Daughters of the Dust is quite unlike of any film I’ve seen. I have to confess that I wasn’t quite able to follow its meandering in circles plot, dozing off on acouple of occasions — or maybe more, as on waking up to another déjà vu made me unsure if I was really awake. So more reasons to watch it again.
How come I never watched Cries and Whispers before? This almost unbearably stylish film centers on four women, gorgeously portrayed by Harriet Andersson, Kari Sylwan, Ingrid Thulin and, of course, Liv Ullmann. On the contary, the men, even David (the great Erland Josephson), are entirely disposable.
Kids nowadays.
No, not really. They ain’t any different from us when we were their age. And from our parents, etc. You’ve got your whole life in front of you, and you’re dead bored. Epecially when you are growing up in a rural village in the middle of nowhere, no matter how beautiful. As Neves, for example. So, alcohol, drugs, and sex, if you’re lucky.
Not that the events of this film would be much different if the protagonists were adults. As if grown-ups don’t consume magic mushrooms or engage in revenge porn.
Still, I think that Sonia Méndez was right to shoot a teen drama. The young non-professional actors are utterly convincing and As Neves is worth watching for them alone.
This is what I’ve seen in October:
Goodbye Las Palmas, hello, Santander!
This year, I managed to see all (four) plays of the XIV Festival de Teatro Amateur organised by Federación de Grupos de Teatro Aficionado de Cantabria (FETEACAN). As in other years, it took place at Paraninfo de Las Llamas de la Universidad Internacional Menéndez Pelayo (Avenida de los Castros, 42).
More exhibitions in Santander:
And that was it for October.
This powerful and touching drama was shown in Filmoteca de Cantabria Mario Camus as a part of III Jornada de Cine y Enfermedad Avanzada organised by the Hospital Santa Clotilde. I loved most of it, bar the predictably embarrassing finale of Chekhov’s Three Sisters (really, why?!). Starring Julianne Moore in her Oscar-winning role, Alec Baldwin and Kristen Stewart.
This woefully underrated 1963 masterpiece, inexplicably rendered in Spanish as Ángeles sin paraíso, was screened as a part of the cycle Puntos de fuga. Starring Burt Lancaster, Judy Garland, Gena Rowlands, Steven Hill and Bruce Ritchey as Reuben.
We spent the first week of September in Basque Country. Here are some exhibitions we’ve seen in Azkuna Zentroa / Alhóndiga Bilbao, Plaza Arriquibar, 4, Bilbao:
...and in Artium Museoa, Francia Kalea, 24, Vitoria-Gasteiz:
Back to Las Palmas — and to live music.
Llibre Vermell de Montserrat: Mariam matrem virginem (encore)
Menuetto from Divertimento No. 4 (encore)
And that was it for September.
Ricardo wants to die. He lost his beloved wife, Carmen, he suffered two strokes and is depressed. Before dying, however, he wants to speak to his two sons — one of them is the film’s director — whom he didn’t see for more than 20 years. The reason for their separation is never adequately explained. Maybe it shouldn’t be.
I do sympathise with the protagonist although at no point did he strike me as a particularly nice person. He clearly needs to be the centre of attention, now that the family unites around him. While he wallows in nostalgia and self-pity, Adrián’s mother, who’s been caring for her ex-husband for years, feels abandoned. (We’ll probably never know how did Ricardo treat Carmen.) When Adrián accompanies him to start a request process for euthanasia (this is the only scene in the film spoken in Valencian), Ricardo seems to be taken aback by apparent simplicity of the whole thing. Is it that easy?
In the beginning I thought, here comes another “let’s make a documentary about my parent” project in the vein of Une vie comme une autre or Muchos hijos, un mono y un castillo. (Indeed, in an interview, Adrián Silvestre quotes the latter film as an inspiration). It turned out to be a completely different affair. No more spoilers, just let me say that Hágase tu voluntad is worth watching for the final scene alone.
Now it’s hard to understand why in 1936 this unthrilling thriller won four Oscars. Probably the weakest of John Ford movies I’ve seen so far but hey, those were the early days of awarding. Victor McLaglen is good enough as a leading man, for a while, and there are some comic moments in this otherwise pathetically predictable feast of over-acting.
The Informer was screened at the Aula de Cine of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria as a part of the John Ford cycle (September—December 2024).
This 1931 classic was shown as a part of the cycle Tiempo de memoria, memoria en el tiempo, organised by Instituto Canario de Desarrollo Cultural (ICDC). The picture quality of this restored version, in almost square aspect ratio, is surprisingly good, given that the original negative was lost.
Tabu was the last film by Murnau: a week before its première, he died as a result of a car accident, at the age of 42.
These are a few things that we’ve seen in August. Sketches by Tamara.
And exhibitions, all of them seen in CAAM before «Iberia»:
Looking forward to September already.
I truly wanted to love Todo eso. Starting with the title and the phrase in its very beginning [1, p. 11]:
Si «cisgénero» te suena a chino, «poliamor» a orgías de pervertidos o eres mi madre, consulta el glosario que encontrarás al final de este libro.
I was looking forward to a blast of a book.
“But,” interrupts the perspicacious reader. “I can distinctly hear ‘but’. You wanted to love it but.”
The thing is, during the past few years, I read and enjoyed a number of books on the topic [2—6], some of them good and some others pretty damn good. Perhaps inevitably, I judge Todo eso against a rather high standard. So let me continue, and you’ll see if there’s a ‘but’.
We read for different reasons. One of them is to increase our knowledge. In this sense, there was little new for me to be learned from this book. (This is not the author’s fault.) For sure, there were new names, new books, a couple of concepts that I never read about in Spanish before, etc. etc. However, talking about genuinely new (for me) ideas, I would name one, coming from Luce Irigaray [1, p. 64 and clarified in the footnote 54]: Amo a te / J’aime à toi / Amo a ti, awkwardly translated to English as “I Love to You”.
Another reason is to see the author’s perspective and check how much (or how little) we have in common. I found myself agreeing with many of Sandra’s opinions — say, on homonormativity or sex work — and was glad to encounter references to familiar works, e.g. Yes, we fuck! [1, p. 115].
Yet one more reason to read is simply to take pleasure in it. Todo eso, in part, fulfilled the promise to be a fun read. Of course, it could be that this promise was imagined by me. I enjoyed the Chapter 2, Confesiones a la Virgen de una desvirgada, the most.
It’s OK to cherrypick. This is not a novel, not a prog-rock album, not a “take it or leave it” menú del día.
Now what could have been done better?*
He tenido sexo con centenares de hombres cis, y no muchos me han sorprendido. En cambio, mujeres sexualmente desinhibidas, aunque inferiores in cifra, eran mucho más abiertas, creativas y libres de complejos.Hundreds of men, what a perseverance! I guess most would give up after the first half dozen of them. Still, at least some of those cis men must have surprised the author, why not to tell us? And what about those “lower in quantity”, higher quality women? Alas, she doesn’t go much beyond generalisations like above.
See? There are problems; I suggest solutions. And did I use the word “but” (apart from right now, that is)?
I doubt that the author, in the unlikely event of reading this post, would heed my free and disinterested advice. Which is a bloomin’ shame really.
| * | Everybody has their own criteria of what is “good” (and, by extension, “better”). Some readers might have liked the bits that bothered me the most. As this is my blog, I express here my opinions what is better for the reader. |
| † | I wonder if the author is conscious that the sheer length of these citations is stretching the right to quote a tad too far. |
| ‡ | Clara Serra explains this brilliantly in her Manual ultravioleta [5, chapter 16]. |
I enjoyed The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet and A Closed and Common Orbit. With this sidequel of sorts, though, I was up to disappointment.
Like CCO, the novel is written as a series of short unnumbered chapters named after their (recurring) protagonists. So all of them are called either Eyas or Isabel or Kip or Sawyer or Tessa. Great for navigating. In the first half of the book, there is practically no connection between the five plotlines; also, no plotlines to speak about. It doesn’t help that all five characters are dull as ditchwater.
The language irritates me no end. The use of politically correct “xe/xyr” pronouns started grating on my sensory organs in the first two books already. Here, the abuse of monosyllabic vocabulary (cred, hex, hud, kick, mek, scrib, sim, vid, vox, etc.) makes the text ridiculously reminiscent of Joey’s “sup with the whack” classic — except it is meant to be serious. Every time a character says “stars” (Exodan equivalent of “heavens to Murgatroyd”), which happens roughly every other page, you’ll want to roll your eyes. As if this wasn’t enough, RSF will drain the life out of you with its endless moralising.
Let’s be fair: it is not all bad. The best bit is a chapter called Eyas where — guess who? — a woman called Eyas goes to one of the tryst clubs, which apparently are part of Exodan welfare system. I liked it. I think everybody would be better off if the author wrote a whole book just about that.
I bought this pair of vintage wooden rackets (palas cántabras) last year on a flea market in Santander for €3. It took me a good while but I’ve finally decorated them with acrylic paints.
Starfish
Seashell
Brittle star
Sea urchins
Wood, acrylic paint. More photos of rackets @ Shutterstock.
A follow-up to the 2018 Sci-Fi Shorts. This time I actually paid for a Kindle book so, I thought, it better be good. And it indeed was. As I was reading it during the Euro 2024, I found the footie references (Magi-water, Intuition, Spy Human) especially timely, while Quick Sale provides a simple yet efficient solution to all problems of humankind. I leave it up to you to discover why it’s a bad idea — always was — to keep Harry Potter books in the house. Nuff said: you can read the first story, Tunnel Vision, on a preview in its entirety, and decide if you really want more of this stuff. I bet you do.
While I was at it, I also downloaded Sci-Fi Shorts and, upon finishing the sequel, I decided to re-read the first book. My I was for a surprise: there was a number of stories I didn’t recall at all. Most likely because they were not in at the time. Here they are: Kerr Blompty; The Last Man of Earth; The Mind Field; The Knowledge Drain; Flies, Damned Flies, and Stacked Biscuits; Tree Hugger; The Jinx. Now I am in two minds about the extras. I liked most of them*. However, they made the formerly short collection of shorts, well, not-so-short. Hmmm. Hmmm.
Mark Roman’s Sci-Fi Shorts II
|
| * | In fact, all of them bar the hideously revolting The Knowledge Drain, what with its ugly characters and generally disgusterous content, set in the Foul Universe, etc. etc. It would make me sick forever if I didn’t read it before as a repugnant appendix to The Ultimate Inferior Beings and survived, probably thanks to the mnemic neglect effect. I don’t remember. Read it at your own risk. |
This is what we’ve seen in July. Sketches and photos by Tamara.
Three double bills from 33rd Canary Islands Jazz Festival:
And an exhibition:
All the events listed here were free of charge apart from «Invitación a la danza» which cost €15 a ticket.
In my previous post on Alice Munro’s book (7 February 2024), I called her “arguably the greatest living short story master”.
Munro died on 13 May.
Dear Life, published in 2012, was her last book. Most of the stories there were published before. Yet I’ve noticed that the author changed them for this collection. For example, In Sight of the Lake differs significantly from the Granta version.
There are common threads: loss (Gravel, Leaving Maverley, Train), betrayal — real or imagined — by a lover (Amundsen, Corrie, Dolly), aging (Dolly, In Sight of the Lake, Pride), echoes of the WW2 (many). Several stories feature trains: Amundsen, To Reach Japan and, as could have been expected, Train. Too Much Happiness had them too. I like that. Trains are cool.
I love the way Munro’s humour shines through even in the saddest and darkest of the stories here. Such as In Sight of the Lake, a frightening premonition of the author’s own slippage into dementia.
The final four stories, according to Munro, “are not quite stories”:
I believe they are the first and the last — and the closest — things I have to say about my own life.
Autobiographical or not, they still are stories. Beautiful stories. Thank you, Alice, for telling them.
There was a burst of shouting from across the street and the doors of a dark-shingled flat roofed building opened, letting loose several men who were jamming caps on their heads and banging lunch buckets against their thighs. By the noise they were making you would think the car was going to run away from them at any minute. But when they settled on board nothing happened. The car sat while they counted each other and said who was missing and told the driver he couldn’t go yet. Then somebody remembered that it was the missing man’s day off. The car started, though you couldn’t tell if the driver had been listening to any of this, or cared.
I’m not sure about the order in which they were mentioned except that her husband was the final one and he was dead.
“Last year. Except he wasn’t my husband officially. You know.”
“Mine wasn’t either,” I said. “Isn’t, I mean.”
“Is that right? There’s so many doing that now, isn’t there? It used to be, oh my, isn’t it awful, and now it’s just, what the hell? And then there’s the ones that live together year after year and finally it’s, oh, we’re getting married. You think then, whatever for? For the presents, is it, or just the thought of getting dolled up in the white dress. Makes you laugh, I could die.”
She said she had a daughter who went through the whole fancy-dancy that way and much good it did her because she was now in jail for trafficking. Stupid.
Then one day, on the street in Toronto, he ran into a friend who was on his way to try out for a summer job with a new small-town theater company. He went along, having nothing better to do, and ended up getting the job, while the other fellow didn’t. He would play Banquo. Sometimes they make Banquo’s Ghost visible, sometimes not. This time they wanted a visible version and Neal was the right size.
My uncle started off by teasing me about grace. About not saying grace. I was thirteen years old, living with him and my aunt for the year that my parents were in Africa. I had never bowed my head over a plate of food in my life.
“Lord bless this food to our use and us to thy service,” Uncle Jasper said, while I held my fork in midair and refrained from chewing the meat and potatoes that were already in my mouth.
“Surprised?” he said, after “for Jesus’ sake. Amen.” He wanted to know if my parents said a different prayer, perhaps at the end of the meal.
“They don’t say anything,” I told him.
Another idea. Isn’t it quite possible that this person — the crazy-doctor, as she has chosen to call him in her head — isn’t it quite possible that he (or she — like most people of her age she does not automatically allow for that possibility) that he or she does operate out of a house? It would make sense and be cheaper. You don’t need a lot of apparatus for the crazy doctoring.
Ray had joined up for the war as soon as he was eighteen. He chose the Air Force, which promised, as was said, the most adventure and the quickest death. He had been a mid-upper gunner — a position that Isabel could never get straight in her head — and he had survived. Close to the end of the war, he’d been transferred to a new crew, and within a couple of weeks his old crew, the men he’d flown with so many times, were shot down and lost. He came home with a vague idea that he had to do something meaningful with the life that had so inexplicably been left to him, but he didn’t know what.
So I lay, minus my appendix, for some days, looking out a hospital window at the snow sifting in a somber way through some evergreens.
When I was five years old my parents all of a sudden produced a baby boy, which my mother said was what I had always wanted. Where she got this idea I did not know. She did quite a bit of elaborating on it, all fictitious but hard to counter.
She looked for the more important man to help her, but he wasn’t there. Now she remembered what he’d written. A play about Doukhobors that had caused a big row because the Doukhobors were going to have to be naked. Of course they weren’t real Doukhobors, they were actors. And they were not allowed to be naked after all.
An exception was the young couple named Candace and Quincy, who never settled their rent and skipped out in the middle of the night. The owner happened to have been in charge when they came looking for a room, and he excused himself for his bad choice by saying that a fresh face was needed around the place. Candace’s face, not the boyfriend’s. The boyfriend was a jerk.
A curious 1921 silent film said to be in part based on Gorky’s На дне (The Lower Depths) although I failed to see that part. At 91 minutes, Rojō no Reikon is way too long for the message but it has its lovely and even comic moments.
Souls on the Road was an opening feature of this year’s Week of Japanese Cinema in Casa de Colón and the only one I’ve seen this time.
