Does RRR’s sophomore effort suffer from the dreaded Difficult Second Album Syndrome? Personally, I didn’t find it as compelling as Más Vale Lola. OK it has no story to talk about, but neiter did her first book. ¿Qué Pacha, Mama? has got some fine illustrations, it just doesn’t glue together. Which is a shame really.
The last film of the Czech cinema cycle as well as the most strange and beautifully poignant one. Also, the least Czech of them all. It focuses on a few weeks from the life of Petr (Jirí Mádl), a young-ish theatre director in a small Czech town (could have been any small town anywhere) staging Fedra by Unamuno (could have been any play). The lead-up to the casting of Karolina (Elizaveta Maximová) is probably the best part of the movie. While Petr’s affair with Karolina is very much predictable, the rest of the film is not. Now I can’t say that Petr is any more machista than the male protagonists of, say, Tiger Theory or National Street: all fail to understand that women — o horror — can have plans on their own. Nevertheless, for a theatre director, or a human being, Petr’s complete lack of sense of humour is simply unforgivable.
Black and white cinematography by Inti Briones makes the story both credible and universal. Thoughtful direction by Alejandro Fernández and music score by Pablo Vergara makes me wish to watch the other films of this team.
According to her creator, Lola Vendetta was born by accident. And what a happy accident was that! Now when I’m putting people (mostly politicians) on my list, I’m also thinking of ways of contracting Lola to do the honours. That cheers me up sometimes.
Then again, I don’t believe much can be solved with violence. Violence is not nice. I wouldn’t even enjoy it outside of the comic universe. In the very same interview, Raquel Riba Rossy says that she has a katana but does not run around with it. It’s good to know.
Till the very end I was hoping for a miracle. The miracle of me starting to like the protagonist (Hynek Čermák), nicknamed “Vandam” (after Jean-Claude Van Damme). Nope. Never happened. I might sympathise with the cause — to save the pub where the local lumpenproletariat spends all their time, how noble of him — but it’s really difficult to like such an utterly obnoxious thug. Lucka (Kateřina Janečková), the owner of said pub and Vandam’s romantic interest, is probably the only likeable character in the whole movie. To be fair, the film has enough black humour and violence to keep you interested for 90 minutes, after which you’ll probably want to forget it as soon as possible.
Vladimir Kachan (Владимир Качан), a Russian theatre and film actor and a singer-songwriter, died on 7 May.
One of his best-known songs is Оранжевый кот (Orange Cat) with the lyrics by Leonid Filatov. Until today, it was the only song I knew for sure to be written by Kachan.
I think everybody from my generation (and at least ±1 generation) knew the song from Звезда пленительного счастья, but I learned only now that it was Kachan singing.
What I do remember very well was his appearance in the Soviet TV programme Вокруг смеха in a duo with Lyudmila Cherepanova (Людмила Черепанова).
Practically dialogue-free, this heart-warming graphic novel deals with themes of breast cancer, loss, recovery and self-acceptance with rare sensitivity and humour.
I wish I went to more live music events this month but hey, three is already an improvement.
Looking forward to May and return to normality in general.
