La Última Cena

a film by María Sánchez Torregrosa and Toni Agustí

I can’t pretend I understood everything in this film — in the best Spanish tradition, “todos hablan a la vez”. And I mean, todos y todas. So not a fiction then. A group of friends (at least, some of them appear to be friends) come together in an apartment to have a dinner. Just a dinner. Well aware that they are filmed — the cameramen are walking among them — but acting as if they were not. So not a documentary either. What is it?

It is an experiment. The actors were given some minimal description of their characters. No script and full freedom to improvise. It could have gone worse or better, more or less funny, more or less believable. (The awkward silence at the beginning of the third part, La Fiesta, seems to be genuine.) What’s important, it can’t be repeated. Ever.

Watching La Última Cena, you become acutely aware that it couldn’t have been filmed now. In the end it is revealed that the film was shot in December 2019, just three months before the lockdown started. And, while I personally don’t miss all these hello-goodbye kisses, I do appreciate the movie’s (probably unintentional at the time of making) nostalgic vibe.

Siete Breves Lecciones de Fisica

by Carlo Rovelli
translated by Francisco J. Ramos Mena

It’s the story of my life. I first saw this book in the library, at the new books stand by the entrance. Even browsed through it, thinking that I might fancy to read it. Then went to another floor briefly. Sure enough, when I came back, it was gone.

I never saw it again at the new books stand (well, that was a couple of years ago, so it’s not new anymore) and I forgot the name of the author. So, one day I waded into the physics section and... found it. Now that I know the name, I can tell you: it was next to other books by Rovelli.

I could have swallowed it in one evening but I somehow managed to prolong the pleasure for almost a week. Even if you hated physics in school — especially if you hated physics in school — I promise, you’ll enjoy this book. And if you are still in school: the same. Till now, I had no clue who Rovelli the scientist is — one of the founders of loop quantum gravity theory, of which he talks in Grains of space, that’s who, but this fact is almost tangential to the way Rovelli tells the story. To write about complex stuff in such an easy language is a gift, and the author is not afraid to use it. According to Wikipedia, Seven Brief Lessons on Physics was translated into 42 languages, which makes it the most translated Italian book after Pinocchio. I read it in Spanish. I suppose the original is as a joy to read.

La teoría más hermosa (The most beautiful of theories) Los cuantos (The quanta) La arquitectura del cosmos (The architecture of the cosmos) Partículas (Particles) Granos de espacio (Grains of space) La probabilidad, el tiempo y el calor de los agujeros negros (Probability, time and the heat of black holes) Nosotros (Ourselves)

Leonard Bernstein en Gran Canaria

a film by Pedro Schlueter

There is precious little material on the subject that one can actually show. No footage. Some photographs. Old newspapers. Some anecodotes told by Justus Frantz. Still, thanks to this film produced by Espacio Digital — it’s a bit of a stretch to call it a documentary — I learned a few things. Why, I didn’t even know that Bernstein visited Gran Canaria. But apparently, starting mid-1970s, he lived here for extended periods and even was considering buying a house in the south of the island. Now if he did, we would see much more than drone photography of the hills.

Jon Lord’s 80th

by Timur Kulikov

Happy belated 80^th birthday, Jon Lord.

Video Blues

a film by Emma Tusell

Filmoteca Canaria kicks off the new cycle of films that, um, won something at the Rizoma festival — we’ll see what it’s all about. I was not particularly impressed with the opening feature. I mean, there is a limit how much bad quality home video and equally bad sound one could (let alone should) endure. To misquote a quote misattributed to one Bill Gates, ten minutes ought to be enough for anybody. Instead, we have 74 minutes of poorly edited footage that might, or might not, be of sentimental value for the director’s family. For the rest of humankind, it’s not funny, not touching, and not so interesting.

Bezimena

by Nina Bunjevac
translated by Montse Meneses Vilar

Exquisitely illustrated, dark and pretty disturbing tale, found by chance in our public library. It’s said to be a modern take on the myth of Artemis and Siproites, although it appears to be fused with that of Artemis and Actaeon. I found the frame story featuring the titular Bezimena (“nameless” in Serbian) superfluous and, consequently, the graphic novel as a whole lacking a closure. Well worth reading and maybe re-reading nonetheless; just don’t give it as a gift without reading it yourself first.

The afterword relates the author’s own experience of attempted sexual assault and, in part, explains why the book was created.

Una Habitación Propia con WiFi

by Raquel Riba Rossy

The first and the last time I’ve been to the Gran Canaria Espacio Digital was 12 March 2020, to see Mujeres al alba. Immediately after that I received the message that all activities in this centre were suspended until... well, much later than they (and everybody else) expected. The nationwide state of alarm was declared on 14 March. So no Lola Vendetta workshop for us, and no Amparo Sánchez talk either.

One year later, RRR published one more Lola Vendetta comic. To my joy, Lola dumps the cuddly boy acquired in the previous book and adopts a dog instead. Which, we know by now, is a wise move in times of pandemic. Oh, right: in between these events, pandemic starts and goes on; Lola moves to the titular own room (a nod to that essay by Virginia Woolf) and leaves her katana behind... Surprisingly, the new, katana-less Lola continues to be cool. To the degree that God finally engages in conversation with her (confessing that the internet connection is not that good up there). For me, Lola’s witty and touching chats with Death (a woman) are the best.