samedi 27 décembre 2008

Cet obscur objet du désir


I should know it. Christmas time rarely makes for good cinema.
Do you remember Alfred Hitchcock's Marnie? The main character, Marnie, was a thief but, above all, she was frigid. To make his point, Hitchcock gave her Sean Connery as husband and showed her throwing herself into a swimming pool after he imposed conjugal duty. She'd rather drown than touch Sean Connery or be touched by him. That woman obviously had a huge problem!


Well, Australia is a sort of libido test for heterosexual women too. If you're capable of watching that almost 3 hour film until the end, chuckling instead of sighing over it, your libido is just fine...


I wish I could say something kind about the film, but as films go it sucks. It's nothing like Gone With The Wind and Kidman's character is nothing like Scarlett O'Hara. I don't have any problem with genre and entertainment per se, I have a problem with bad writing and bad cinematography. In that regard, Australia does everything that should be forbidden in a cinema class. All the movie cliches are there. All of them! The postcard-like shots, the ridiculous slow-motions, the slushy music to emphasize emotional moments, the stereotyped situations, the laughable camera angles, the overused lines. Some movies do that on purpose, selling themselves as parodies–like that western starring Sharon Stone and Russel Crowe that was a tribute to Spaghetti westerns, or even like Van Helsing, two movies that were a lot of fun– but Australia isn't supposed to be a parody. It's a wannabe-saga-epic-romance film. As such, it failed completely.
Wanna see a good Australian movie on the issue of stolen mixed-blood children? Watch The Rabbit Proof Fence ! Now that's epic, inspired, moving, heartbreaking yet uplifting and beautiful. I know that Baz Luhrmann's idea wasn't to show reality but to portray a mythologised Australia: fine! but mythology doesn't necessarily mean artificial cinema, kitsch and clichés. The boy was cute but I wasn't moved by his story, and the romance did nothing to me.
However, I watched Australia until the final credits, because while one half of my brain–the thinking one, was processing the commonplaces and mocking the bad stuff, the other half–the basic one that is obviously ruled by urges, kept telling the former"Oh shut up and enjoy the pretty! Look at these arms, look at his arse, look at this hairy torso! Wow...Oh dimples!".
Hugh Jackman is the embodiment of the handsome manly man here. His character doesn't even need a name for he isn't really a character but an archetype. He's the Drover; the drool-inducing drover. I already found him very attractive, we all already knew he had an incredible body– his good looks had been used on screen before – but this film goes beyond the usual stuff. Anything Jackman does here, either he sits or stands up or walks or rides a horse or lies down, or just stands against a tree, he does it in a sexy way that makes you wish to become that seat, that pair of trousers, that ground, that horse or that tree. Actually he keeps posing and showing off his perfect body during the whole movie; whether he's filmed from the front or from the back or from the side, or from below, he exudes confident manliness, oozes sex-appeal; whether he's dressed or shirtless, bearded or shaved clean, wet or dry, he's handsome and just hot; actually anything Jackman-related is testosterony, sensual, pure rowrrrrrrrrrr, shot to make us swoon and fan ourselves. He is the eternal man, the Man of the Dreaming–note that this is my only attempt to connect the silly writing to actual Aboriginal culture.

I know movies whose main goal was to flatter an actress whom the filmmaker was usually in love with, but it's probably the first time I see a film that is a nearly 3 hour advert for a sort of manly perfection, a male sex object. And the villain is played by David Wenham, the wonderful Faramir from The Lord of The Ring, who isn't hard on the eyes either...

So yes, I'm guilty of putting aside my cinema expectations and switching onto lust-mode. Sometimes, because it's Christmas, you just want to forget the poor stuff, focus on the pleasant things, lie back half-satisfied, and purr.

mardi 23 décembre 2008

Apocalyptic time

ARTE, the French-German channel, is often considered boring– Americans would say "high-brow"–by the crowd, or, at best, educational. Actually it's the way people, who never watch it, see it. They miss many interesting varied programmes and good old films, or more recent films that weren't necessarily blockbusters, I admit, but usually worth seeing. And once every 5 years there's a terrific programme that constitutes a true revelation and goes straight in the history of television. It often happens this time of the year, and it's often provided by Gérard Mordillat and Jérôme Prieur.

This year it was a documentary series whose title L'Apocalypse could be seen as a mislead, but is actually relevant.

Several researchers (historians and theologians, Jewish, Catholics, Protestants, believers and atheists, whatever) from all over the world have contributed to that inquiry/explanation/exegesis in front of the camera, on the origins of Christian Church in the Roman Empire. The debate unfolds through the montage of the various speeches, but they basically talk to the camera, alone. There's a female voice-over to introduce a theme, a question, or make a transition but nothing else. The writers-directors never appear on screen. The approach is quite similar to the Corpus Christi series that aired 11 years ago (same writers-directors), which means it's scholastic and sober, severe even, but it's simply engrossing and fascinating. Corpus Christi was a success at the time and I'm sure that the dvds of L'Apocalypse already sell well. My point is that the audience can enjoy smart when you give them smart even when it doesn't look attractive nor entertaining.

Books talk to each others, so our researchers use several other sources to throw light on the Christian literature and articulate the demonstration; it isn't only a matter of exegesis for historical events are also examined to explain the beginning of Christianity.

The series begins with a study of the Book of Revelation, hence the title, and opens with the idea–actually it's a quote from Alfred Loisy and a leitmotiv throughout the series–that early Christians waited for the impending return of Christ but it's the Church that came. The writers of the series are no historians, their work isn't flawless, they may even be trapped in their own certainty and obsessions, unable to think "out of the box"for they don't see the box they are stuck in, but they make good and refreshing television; they do have a thesis since they built L'Apocalypse from the basic premise of a hiatus between the Jewish sect of Jesus followers and the institution that overcame in the Empire, and that thesis is conveyed by the voice-over, sometimes a bit heavily, but they let the scientists talk as they wish, which is the best part and makes the series gripping.

I've just seen the first episode, "La Synagogue de Satan"; I bought the dvds as my personal Christmas gift to myself; I loved it. It suggested very well how divided the first Christians were and that the New Testament is an unlikely collection of books that reveal the controversies of the time, the Canon having covered them up. I liked the idea that the Book of Revelation, written by John, followed a tendry Apocalyptic genre in Jewish literature, echoed the frustrations of many Jews after 70, and among them the frustration of those who believed in Jesus as the messiah and might have considered the others to be false jews(hence the phrase "synagogue of Satan"), but also gave away the competition between Jewish-Christians and Gentile-Christians, and might be, at the end of the day, a mere blistering attack against Paul and his followers.

The second isntallment goes back over the fire in Rome and the first persecution but I'm saving it for later, there's Doctor Who on the cable.

PS: Enluminure du commentaire de l'Apocalypse, Béatus El Escorial, 1ère moitié du Xème siècle, parce que la sans-dieu que je suis n'a pas oublié qu'elle était aussi médiéviste.

samedi 20 décembre 2008

Defeated gods

A student asked me, two days ago, what happened to Roman gods after Theodosius put a ban on them and the Roman Empire became Christian. I said they took a break in the country–I had just explained the etymology of the word "paganism" and thought I was being funny.

Nobody asked whether there was a necropolis for dead gods.

vendredi 19 décembre 2008

Shoe planning


The good thing about the Internet buzz concerning the Shoe Attack against Bush in Iraq is that now everybody seems to recall Khrushchev banging his shoe on the table at the UN in 1960.

Some people said that the shoe event was an example of Khrushchev's terrible temper and primal reactions but I have been told–I haven't seen the pictures myself– that he was actually still wearing both shoes on his feet at the time so he would have brought an extra shoe as a mere prop, cunningly premeditating the whole thing.

8 years before, Adlai Stevenson was running for the White House. He believed in the power of words but was caught with a hole in the sole of his shoe, and Eisenhower won the elections.




The Iraqi journalist that aimed at Bush, is said to have practised throwing shoes for weeks.






Morale de l'histoire? The political shoe must be at hand but requires planning.

lundi 15 décembre 2008

Sunset in Tarangire

Two years ago, I took the picture that is now the header of this blog, in Tarangire, my first and favourite park in Tanzania. But I hadn't realized how much I liked this photograph, until it found its place here.

samedi 13 décembre 2008

C'est Mozart qu'on assassine ?


To tell the truth, I don't like Mozart's music very much. I listen to the Requiem (perhaps it's Salieri I like actually)from time to time, and I don't hate the Clarinet Concerto in A major, but Mozart usually doesn't make it to my play list. Most of the time I find his music...annoying. As opera works go, I much prefer Puccini's or Wagner's, or Purcell's mini operas. So far my favourite memories in l'Opéra Bastille are Robert Wilson's Madame Butterfly, and the wonderful production of Tannhaüser I saw last year.


Yet I really enjoyed Die Zauberflöte,The Magic Flute, I saw on Sunday. The voices weren't great although Pamina was really good (The Queen of the Night missed a note in the famous aria and Jose Van Dam is really getting old)but I did love the extravagant and controversial production.


When it was showed first in 2005, the reactions were visceral and many conservative operagoers called it an outrage, a sacrilege. Minor changed have been made since then so the show I saw was still very original, unorthodox, daring, smart and funny. However there was no boos and no screams of horror this time. The audience may be used to Gérard Mortier's avant-guard choices now(I wonder if the Tristan and Isolde by Peter Sellars, that uses Bill Viola's videos, is still controversial, for I remember the boos it received years ago). Personally I think that Alex Ollé and Carlos Padrissa from the Catalan theatre group, La Fura dels Baus, did a great job with The Flute.


It was as if Lewis Carroll met Pedro Almadovar, with Mozart playing in the background...I guess that Amadeus would have agreed.

Modern productions with bizarre mise en scène and videos aren't always relevant; sometimes the interpretations are far-fetched and a stroke of inspiration may have only a shocking value; this one fits in the story and is quite meaningful. Papageno comes out as a sort of convincing drag-queen (see the picture above), the video was cleverly used, and the idea of using machinery(the Queen of the Night is brought on stage sitting at the end of a camera crane and is held aloft over the orchestra) and huge air-filled plastic mattresses—that either call to the mind the world of dreams and the world of madness(the stage then becoming a padded room in which those crazy characters are stuck!), or are turned into walls, doors, labyrinths and even a cocoon for chrysalis-Tamino –was simply spot-on, even though the shifting was sometimes a bit noisy.


I also loved the two parodies of magic acts, when the Speaker shows up, inside of a box, to be split a few minutes later, or when Sarastro is pierced by Pamina's swords; the chess game was also a brilliant idea, very well thought up.


The masonic allegory that Mozart imagined is replaced here by something more modern, or maybe more universal. The first video projection says it all in the first scene, as we can make up the shape of a brain on the central mattress. Everything happens in the brain...What's in a brain?–yes I'm stubborn when it comes to correspondances. Fantasy of course!


At the end of the day, the production kind of stole the show and the music could have almost been forgotten, which I didn't mind a bit.

mardi 2 décembre 2008

Unforgettable


On Sunday I saw Hunger. It was grey and cold, I was moody so it sounded like a good idea at the time.


What a movie! It's both gruesome and stunning. Steve McQueen never made a film before but he definitely knows his way around a camera! He teaches a lesson of cinema here and didn't win the camera d'or (the prize rewarding a debut film) in Cannes for nothing! I tell you, a talented film maker is born.


The actor who plays Bobby Sands, Michael Fassbender, has an incredible screen presence that gets more and more palpable as he loses more and more weight, but to me it's all about the scenario, the mise en scène and the cinematography.
They made some almost unbearable scenes watchable. I know that some people think it's too arty given the topic, but I was glad for that artistry, especially since it doesn't soften the horror, the raw violence displayed on screen. I don't like films whose only goal is to shock and hurt the audience (Here I'm thinking of Hanecke and his La Pianiste). Hunger is intense and hard to take for it doesn't spare the viewers the most awful details about the way IRA prisoners were treated by the guards in the Maze, about the dirty strike and the hunger strike, and about Bobby's final death, yet it remains a beautiful work of art. Even shit and piss end up looking beautiful. Can you imagine that? Some contemporary so-called artists make utter crap and call it art, this film maker turns supposed shit into art. McQueen is an alchemist!

However, the central piece is neither about prisoners being regularly beaten up and living among feces and worms, nor about Bobby starving himself to death, it's a 15 minutes conversation between Michael Fassbender and Liam Cunnigham who plays someone working in "the business of soul", that is the prison's priest(see the picture above). It's dialectical but it could be an interior monologue as well. That scene is a purple passage, almost a sequence shot. Brilliant! There's even humour in the scene, as Bobby, who's used to smoking the Bible pages, nicks the priest's cigarettes to spare the Book of John!
I guess it's easier to see and enjoy the film for what it is, when you don't have any personal baggage concerning IRA; some British people already resent Hunger, accusing Steve McQueen of propaganda, but I didn't take it that way. The film maker doesn't support Bobby's cause or actions. Yes there's the scene I mentioned above, in which he shows him arguing and justifying his choices, including the hunger strike, and I guess we could call it apologetic, but Bobby is confronted with the priest's rhetoric then, so it's pretty balanced. We mostly see a desperate man trying to give a meaning to his life.

I admit that "the magic of cinema" tends to turn any lead character into a sort of hero, especially when such character is played by a handsome guy who ends up looking Christ-like because of the hunger strike. But it isn't a biopic, and symbolism matters more than who Bobby Sands really was, more than his agony. By the way, the film doesn't begin with Bobby, whose introduction happens much later, but with other characters, first and foremost a guard with injured knuckles.
To me it doesn't say "look at this man who is a true martyr", it's a film showing tormented souls, showing what human beings are capable to do to themselves–and with "themselves" I mean their own person but also their close relations and their kind– and the horrible situations they can find themselves stuck in, for various reasons that they all might find right at the time. And that's a reflection that we need nowadays more than ever.

One scene that truly moves me shows a young guard finally breaking down as his colleagues unleash violence and go wild on the prisoners. It points out that crimes against humanity destroy the torturers too. It goes well with the symbolism of Bobby Sands destroying his body through hunger strike.
The film maker tells a story that obviously left a mark on him as a British man, but he doesn't really take sides and he doesn't shy away from the violence of the IRA militia when he shows one of the guards being killed by a bullet in the head, while he is visiting his senile mother in an old people's home, his blood splashing on her forgetful face, his head falling dead onto her still lap. A shocking scene too.

Eventually if McQueen had an agenda, it isn't about glorifying Bobby Sands, but it might be about putting recent events into perspective(Abu Graib, Gunatanamo...), and it's pretty much about addressing to She whose voice is heard several times during the film, but who is never there of course.
As for me, I wouldn't mind if Margaret Thatcher were forced into watching Hunger...