Friday 29 January 2021

La mujer rota

by Simone de Beauvoir
translated by Dolores Sierra and Neus Sánchez
illustrated by Sara Herranz

I’ve never read anything by Simone de Beauvoir, and I guess La Femme rompue (The Woman Destroyed) is not exactly the work one should start with. Still, I duly read the text, written in a form of a diary of a middle-aged lady named Monique. The protagonist couldn’t irritate me more. I’m pretty sure it’s done on purpose. So she has been married to her college sweetheart for twenty years; abandoned her career for marriage and children; now her two grown-up daughters live independently while her husband is involved with a younger and ambitious woman. Kind of “normal”. Even so, Monique is having a breakdown. You’d think the author could have been a bit more sympathetic to her creation. But no. Ms de Beauvoir singularly fails to give her — admiteddly flawed, and who isn’t? — heroine what this latter needs most: love. It’s a shame really, because the novella is well-written and masterfully translated.

The real (if not the only) reason I took this book from the library was the illustrations by Sara Herranz. (This time, just black and white, without her signature red.) They tell the story beautifully, without idealising or judging, and make us care about Monique like Simone de Beauvoir never managed to do. In fact, forget the text. It doesn’t add anything to what Sara’s drawings say.

Thursday 28 January 2021

Sans frapper

a film by Alexe Poukine

At the age of 19, Ada was raped. Not by a stranger: by her best friend’s boyfriend.

Nine years later, Ada approached Alexe Poukine and wrote about her experience.

As twelve women and two men tell the story of Ada in first person, they discover and re-live their own encounters with, and sometimes participation in, sexual abuse.

Not an easy viewing but a powerful film that calls things by their name.

The Spanish title Lo que no te mata as well as the English That Which Does Not Kill refers to the worn-out aphorism by Friedrich Nietzsche. One of the women argues that not all experience (that does not kill you, of course) makes you stronger, better or is otherwise worthwhile.

Monday 25 January 2021

John Barleycorn

by Robert Burns and Samuil Marshak
a song by Edison Denisov

I first heard this song in the mid-1970s performed by Lyudmila Maksakova (Людмила Максакова) in the Soviet television play «Театр Клары Газуль» based on Prosper Mérimée’s Théâtre de Clara Gazul. I had no clue what it was all about. Beer!

Of course, Burns poem is just one of the versions of the English folk song. (One of my favourite renditions is the one by The Imagined Village.) In order to “Scottify” it, Burns incorporated a clumsy rhyme “hand” / “Scotland” into the last stanza. To me, it sounds incredibly false. Good thing Marshak got rid of it.

Who are Burns’s “three kings into the east” (Marshak kept them)? No idea. In English version, “There were three men came out of the West”. Some foreigners, I imagine. Irishmen perhaps?

.
Robert Burns
John Barleycorn
Роберт Бёрнс, перевод С.Я. Маршака
Джон Ячменное Зерно
There were three kings into the east,
Three kings both great and high,
An’ they hae swore a solemn oath
John Barleycorn should die.
Трёх королей разгневал он
И было решено,
Что навсегда погибнет Джон
Ячменное Зерно.
They took a plough and plough’d him down,
Put clods upon his head,
And they hae swore a solemn oath
John Barleycorn was dead.
Велели выкопать сохой
Могилу короли,
Чтоб славный Джон, боец лихой,
Не вышел из земли.
But the cheerful Spring came kindly on,
And show’rs began to fall;
John Barleycorn got up again,
And sore surpris’d them all.
Травой покрылся горный склон,
В ручьях воды полно...
А из земли выходит Джон
Ячменное Зерно.
The sultry suns of Summer came,
And he grew thick and strong;
His head weel arm’d wi’ pointed spears,
That no one should him wrong.
Все так же буен и упрям
С пригорка в летний зной
Грозит он копьями врагам,
Качая головой.
The sober Autumn enter’d mild,
When he grew wan and pale;
His bending joints and drooping head
Show’d he began to fail.
Но осень трезвая идёт
И, тяжко нагружён,
Поник под бременем забот,
Согнулся старый Джон.
His colour sicken’d more and more,
He faded into age;
And then his enemies began
To show their deadly rage.
Настало время помирать —
Зима недалека.
И тут-то недруги опять
Взялись за старика.
They’ve ta’en a weapon, long and sharp,
And cut him by the knee;
Then tied him fast upon a cart,
Like a rogue for forgerie.
Его свалил горбатый нож
Одним ударом с ног,
И как бродягу на правёж,
Везут его на ток.
They laid him down upon his back,
And cudgell’d him full sore;
They hung him up before the storm,
And turn’d him o’er and o’er.
Дубасить Джона принялись
Злодеи поутру.
Потом, подбрасывая ввысь,
Кружили на ветру.
They filled up a darksome pit
With water to the brim;
They heaved in John Barleycorn,
There let him sink or swim.
Он был в колодец погружён,
На сумрачное дно.
Но и в воде не тонет Джон
Ячменное Зерно!
They laid him out upon the floor,
To work him farther woe;
And still, as signs of life appear’d,
They toss’d him to and fro.
They wasted o’er a scorching flame
The marrow of his bones;
But a miller us’d him worst of all —
He crush’d him ’tween two stones.
Не пощадив его костей,
Швырнули их в костёр.
А сердце мельник меж камней
Безжалостно растёр.
And they hae taen his very heart’s blood,
And drank it round and round;
And still the more and more they drank,
Their joy did more abound.
Бушует кровь его в котле,
Под обручем бурлит,
Вскипает в кружках на столе
И души веселит.
John Barleycorn was a hero bold,
Of noble enterprise;
For if you do but taste his blood,
’Twill make your courage rise.
Недаром был покойный Джон
При жизни молодец, —
Отвагу подымает он
Со дна людских сердец.
’Twill make a man forget his woe;
’Twill heighten all his joy;
’Twill make the widow’s heart to sing,
Tho’ the tear were in her eye.
Он гонит вон из головы
Докучный рой забот.
За кружкой сердце у вдовы
От радости поёт...
Then let us toast John Barleycorn,
Each man a glass in hand;
And may his great posterity
Ne’er fail in old Scotland!
Так пусть же до конца времён
Не высыхает дно
В бочонке, где клокочет Джон
Ячменное Зерно!

Thursday 21 January 2021

Twelve animated shorts

For a second day in a row, I went to Teatro Guiniguada, this time to watch a selection of winning animated shorts of Animayo Gran Canaria 2020. Some good, some not-as-good, and some strange. Like the Citizen Watch ad. Or much longer and much less palatable ad for Diablo IV. Or Cross Me by Ryan Staake, featuring the dancer Courtney Scarr — a very impressive music video for a godawful song of Ed “Is he ever off the air?” Sheeran.

My favourites were Maestro by Illogic, Mémorable by Bruno Collet and Узы by Dina Velikovskaya.

Animayo 2020: Proyección del Palmarés Internacional

Teatro Guiniguada, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
Wednesday, 20 January 2021, 19:00
  1. Blind Eye by Isabela Littger, Bruno Cohen, Rohit Kelkar, Yujia Wang, Germaine Colajanni, Rohan Deshchougule and Diego Porral (France) — Special Mention for Creativity and Humour
  2. Citizen, I’m late by Piotr Borowski (Poland) — The Best Advertising
  3. Cross Me (Ed Sheeran feat. Chance the Rapper and PnB Rock) by Ryan Staake (UK) — The Best Music Video
  4. Diablo IV: By Three They Come by Doug Gregory, Wendy Campbell, Mike Kelleher, Chris Thunig & Jason Fleming (USA) — The Best Video Game Cinematic
  5. Kapaemahu by Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu, Dean Hamer & Joe Wilson (USA) — The Grand Jury Award
  6. Maestro by Illogic (France) — The Best 3D
  7. Mémorable by Bruno Collet (France) — Special Mention
  8. Mind My Mind by Floor Adams (Belgium/The Netherlands) — The Best Comedy
  9. 400 MPH by Paul-Eugène Dannaud, Julia Chaix, Lorraine Desserre, Alice Lefort, Natacha Pianeti & Quentin Tireloque (France) — The Best Visual Effects
  10. The Office of Missing Children by Michael Schiller (USA) — The Social Awareness Award
  11. The Tomten and the Fox by Are Austnes and Yaprak Morali (Norway) — The Children’s Audience Award
  12. Узы (Ties) by Dina Velikovskaya (Germany/Russia) — The Best Stop Motion

Tuesday 19 January 2021

Sixteen very short films

Just like last year, and year before, I went to Teatro Guiniguada to see the 16 winning films (selected by public vote out of 111 entries) of the San Rafael en Corto festival. Once again and once again, it was a mixed bag. Some of the shorts were no more — although no less — than social issue ads. In any case, I think it was a small miracle that the festival took place at all. My favourite films were Casa Chano by Emilio González, Oficina de reencarnaciones by Darío López, Guiño, guiño, sonrisa by Isaí Escalada and Y yo by Nayra Ortega.

Proyección del palmarés de la XVI edición de SREC

Teatro Guiniguada, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
Tuesday, 19 January 2021, 19:30
  1. Oficina de reencarnaciones by Darío López
  2. Ápice by Cándido Pérez De Armas
  3. ¿Dónde acaban las carreteras? by Leticia Márquez
  4. Casa Chano by Emilio González
  5. Márcale un gol a la vida by Lila Domínguez & Ana Conejo
  6. ¿Pero cómo se os ocurre llevar tambores a África? by Gotzon Cañada & Erika Urquiola
  7. Sin cura by Bárbara Aguilera
  8. 52 by Daniel Mendoza
  9. Y yo by Nayra Ortega
  10. Cereza by Marta Fuenar, Jon Arráe & Aarón Hernández
  11. El monstruo del armario by Carlos Alberto Mejías
  12. Guiño, guiño, sonrisa by Isaí Escalada
  13. La cancha by Eva Sicilia & Ismael Cabrera
  14. Mayarí by Elisa Cano
  15. Storni by Agustín Domínguez
  16. El invitado by Víctor Hubara

Saturday 16 January 2021

Cuerpos sonoros

by Julie Maroh
translated by Fernando Ballesteros

An author and a fan meet at a book signing.
Before the funeral, his ex-wife and adult son find solace in browsing through the dead man’s collection of old tapes.
A middle-aged couple are arguing in bed who’s going to feed the cat.

Unlike Maroh’s first book, Cuerpos sonoros is not a graphic novel but rather a collection of apparently disconnected graphic short stories. The common thread is “love in the city” — in Montreal, more precisely. A journey through all shades of sex/gender/orientation, from monogamy to polyamory, from passionate encounters between total strangers to decades-long partnership, from hope to despair and back, from childhood to the grave and beyond. Some of the stories are more convincing than others, and not all endings are happy, or at least not happy in a conventional sense. All this rainbow of love is expressed with mostly monochrome pencil drawings, vividly demonstrating that, in words of Enrique Bordes, “grey is also a warm colour”.

Friday 8 January 2021

Juliette: Los fantasmas regresan en primavera

by Camille Jourdy
translated by Raoul Martínez Torres

Juliette, who suffers from anxiety attacks, arrives from Paris to the house of her father in her hometown. In the time she spends there, she reconnects with her family, visits her childhood home, co-adopts a duckling and acquires a friend — not too shabby, I say.

Although the book is focused on Juliette, it’s her older sister whom I find more interesting. Marylou is a somewhat frustrated mum of two who’s stuck in a cleaner’s job, put on a bit of weight lately, and has a mysterious lover whom she meets once a week in a greenhouse. She is just more three-dimensional, more believable, more real, and she’s got a sense of humour. The dialogues are often hilarious, especially when everybody talks at the same time. A charming story without a moral or happy end that nevertheless leaves hope for everybody, including Juliette.