Clair-obscur

Yesterday I watched Francis Ford Coppola's Tetro. Now that's a real movie and a very good one!

I wouldn't call it a masterpiece for it has a few little flaws, but it's definitely a film worth watching and one of the best Coppola ever made. I highly recommend it. This is a personal work, fed with private stuff, but this is mostly the film wherein Coppola shows his love for the movies and how he's mastered the art.

The black and white photo(the flashbacks or the "quotations" only are showed in colour, colours that look quaint compared to the timeless w&b) is gorgeous and conveys the right intimacy and modesty the story required; the cinematography is beautiful (hey people no need to have fancy special effects, 3-D and Pandora's ecosystem to provide lovely visuals, creativity and style !!!!); there's a real scenario, smart writing; there's imagination, and the cast is really good.
I wish people would see films like this rather than just watch Summer blockbusters or hyped movies supported by Internet buzz.

"Tetro" means either sad or dark in Italian...wich perfectly defines Vincent Gallo's character who goes by that name. In the movie Tetro is also short for Tetrocini which is actually the character's last name or rather his patronymic name.

In Buenos Aires, a young sailor (still a boy since his 18th birthday happens during the film), Benjamin Tetrocini, turns up at his long lost brother's place. The 20-year-older brother is a broken man/artist who has given up his literary ambitions and now lives with a woman who used to be his doctor in the asylum he had ended up. He has cut all the family bounds, changed his name (Angelo became Tetro), works as a mere electrician (he is dark but he is the one providing the light!) and doesn't seem happy to see his baby brother. But Bennie needs answers and takes roots. Slowly the past unfolds and the truth is unveiled, glaring like a dangerous dazzling light in the dark ...

In Tetro, Coppola deals with his favourite theme–– that is family, and shapes the storylines and characters after personal stuff(relationships between his father and uncle, between his own brother and him). Some things were already there in his previous films (The Godfather of course, but also Rusty James) but it was less obvious. Looks like that being in his 70's now he's free to tell the story he has always wanted to tell, and he does it in a brilliant and very modern way. Bravo maestro!

I loved the Buenos Aires atmosphere, the way American, Spanish and Italian influences merged. I loved the play on mirrors, the reflections and parallels (Argentina is Borges' homeland after all!)and how Coppola eventually avoided a mere reproduction, how he twisted certain parallels; I loved how the filmaker confused the audience, about the time the action takes place, about certain characters who look alike: I loved how, while he was telling intimate stuff, he indulged in using operatic pieces and mise en abîme, either extracts from old movies (paying a tribute to Michael Powell by mentioning The Red Shoes and showing bits from The Tales of Hoffman) or ludicrous play scenes and dancing moments that were nothing but a meta commentary. Sometimes the film reminded me of Almodovar's work, sometimes it called to my mind Tennesse Williams or Rocco and his brothers.

Tetro is a men's film. A film about brothers, about fathers and sons, about male artists that struggle to assert themselves. The women are there, of course, but there are mostly dolls, like the broken Coppelia (even though Coppelia is also a metaphor for Gallo's character) or the women in Greek tragedies, doomed to love.

Newcomer Alden Ehrenreich is touching and does sort of look like young Leonardo DiCaprio under certain angles yet he's tougher (actually he embodies Dalida's famous song: "Il venait d'avoir dix huit ans, il était beau comme un enfant, fort come un homme"...) . Klaus Maria Brandauer is perfect as the Great One, the tyrannic patriarch and charming ogre (an avatar of some of Coppola's relatives but also of Coppola's himself!). And Vincent Gallo is very good as Tetro. Apart from his performance he is too handsome for words. Damn he's aged well! The camera loves his face and so do I.

He is simply entrancing.

L' Affaire

J'étais pourtant bien décidée à ne pas me prononcer ici sur l'affaire qui défraye la chronique, qui personnellement ne me passionne pas particulièrement, et javoue même que je suis un peu choquée de voir tant de gens se répandre sur le net, se focaliser là dessus et ignorer, entre autres horreurs actuelles, la tragédie des Samoa et de l'Indonésie. J' étais donc résolue à garder un silence éloquent, mais après avoir retourné mes doigts sept fois sur mon clavier, j'ai quand même envie de consigner quelques reflexions ici.


Il y a une humaniste en moi qui croit que les hommes peuvent évoluer, et que surtout toute personne peut à un moment donné, dans des circonstances particulières, commettre l'irréparable, un délit, une faute grave, un meurtre même. Je ne crois pas qu'il y ait des bons et des méchants, je crois en la faiblesse et en la force des hommes, et surtout je crois en une forme d'espoir sans laquelle toute vie en société est condamnée. C'est pourquoi je comprends la notion de prescription en justice.

Quelque soit le crime(si on met à part celui contre l'humanité, car il faut bien toujours une exception à la règle), il doit pouvoir être "oublié", on doit pouvoir tourner la page et aller de l'avant, et pas seulement quand le criminel "a été puni pour sa faute", "a fait son temps" ou autrement dit "a payé sa dette à la société", car il arrive que la justice soit imparfaite, que des accords soient conclus(parfois j'imagine à juste titre, d'autre fois moins sans doûte), que des procédures soient trop lentes, que des justiciables fuient. Le temps passe ensuite, les hommes refont leur vie, et même une meilleure vie que celle qu'ils auraient eue, et par meilleure j'entends meilleure pour eux et pour les autres.

Bien sûr il arrive que ceux qui s'en sont sortis si vite, retombent dans les mêmes schémas et se révèlent des criminels en série, incapables de résister à certaines pulsions destructrices. Il s'agit à mon avis d'une toute autre catégorie d'individus, des malades, dangereux pour la société, et dans un monde parfait ils seraient assez tôt identifiés et mis hors d'état de nuire(internement, soins, suivi). Notre monde hélas n'est pas parfait.

Il n'empêche que je crois en la prescription, ce qui j'imagine est une manière de croire à une forme non religieuse de rédemption pour ceux qui ont dérapé.

Ainsi, contrairement à tant de gens, je comprends la réaction des artistes et des intellectuels dans l'affaire Polanski, et celle de notre ministre de la culture Frédéric Mitterrand (même si je la considère très maladroite, mais à mon avis il n'a pas l'étoffe d'un ministre). Je la comprends et je ne la condamne pas. Ils sont touchés de voir un homme de plus de soixante dix ans, un homme qu'ils connaissent et apprécient (bien sûr s'il n'était pas l'un des leurs ils s'en ficheraient et se seraient bien gardés d'intervenir mais c'est notre lot à tous de nous sentir concernés davantage quand un membre de la "famille" est touché), un homme qui s'est reconstruit après de nombreux drames, qui a une vie de famille stable depuis 20 ans, être ainsi rattrappé pas le passé, par une affaire de plus de 32 ans, qui n'a pas cessé de le poursuivre mais qu'il croyait peut-être enfin terminée puisque la plaignante avait cessé ses poursuites depuis longtemps et avait même pardonné.
Ils sont choqués par le traquenard dont Polanski a été la victime en Suisse, un pays où il séjourne régulièrement, où il a une maison, et où avait passé trois mois quelques jours auparavant! Une Suisse qui jusque là ne semblait pas gênée de l'accueillir malgré l'existence d'un mandat international mais qui, malheureusement pour lui, est aujourd'hui en indélicatesse avec les Etats-Unis pour des questions bancaires...

Je trouve leur émoi compréhensible. Mais je comprends aussi que cette mobilisation affole les avocats de Polanski, qui font tout pour calmer le jeu, car ils savent bien qu'elle peut s'avérer contreproductive et même préjudicable à leur client. Il n'y a qu'à voir les réactions qu'elle suscite chez les gens! Cette levée de bouclier ne peut qu'entraîner le zèle de juges qui préparent éventuellement leur élection (quelque chose qui nous dépasse ici en France, mais nous avons aussi nos propres défauts en matière de justice)et connaissent l'indignation habituelle de leur clientèle électorale quand il s'agit des "Puissants". "Se faire" un acteur, ou une célébrité, il paraît que c'est bon pour une carrière judiciaire.

Personne n'est au dessus des lois, l'argent ne peut pas acheter la justice, l'art n'absout pas les crimes! Voilà ce qu'on entend, et ce n'est pas faux d'ailleurs, la justice doit être la même pour tous, mais je crois aussi qu'il faut éviter les simplications, les passions, et savoir preuve de détachement tout en restant humain.

Le problème n'est pas que Polanski doit être libéré par ce qu'il serait un génie du cinéma (c'est un argument stupide!), le problème est que les circonstances qui entourent son arrestation en 2009 sont assez doûteuses et odieuses.

Quant aux faits, je me garderais bien de prononcer des vérités sur la nature exacte du crime (viol ou pas), tant les versions des deux protagonistes divergent (dans ses mémoires publiées il y a quelques années, Polanski raconte précisément ce qui s'est passé selon lui, parle d'une jeune fille assez paumée et déjà sexuellement active, continue de nier tout viol etc) et nous savons que dans ces affaires là le mensonge est possible des deux côtés. Tout ce qu'on sait avec certitude est que Polanski a eu des relations sexuelles avec une adolescente de 13 ans (près de 14 en fait) en 1977 dans des circonstances qui rappellent bien la "promotion canapé" en vogue depuis toujours dans ce milieu là (et je parie que c'est toujours le cas), avec l'aide d'alcool et de drogues. C'est un délit, une faute grave, Polanski a été inculpé, a fait plus de quarante jours de prison, des experts médicaux ont considéré qu'il n'était pourtant ni un pervers ni un pédophile, il est sorti de prison, puis un "deal" a eu lieu avec un juge et la famille de la victime. Ensuite le juge aurait changé d'avis, et Polanski effrayé a fui. Il a par la suite trouvé encore un arrangement avec la jeune femme, lui versant de nouveau des dommages et interêts, et elle a fini par laissé tomber la plainte et a réclamé plusieurs fois que les media cessent de la harceler. Pour elle aussi il y avait prescription. Elle a droit elle aussi à l'oubli.

Quoiqu'il en soit je crois qu'il ne faut pas seulement juger les faits, mais aussi les gens, sinon la justice perd tout aspect humain et pourrait aussi bien être rendu par des machines.

Polanski a toujours refusé de remettre les pieds aux Etats-Unis pour éviter d'être arrêté mais il ne s'est jamais caché, il n'a jamais dissimulé cette histoire (d'ailleurs je suis assez surprise de voir que certains semblent seulement découvrir ce passé qui lui colle à la peau alors que c'était de notoriété publique), il n'a plus jamais été compromis dans une affaire de moeurs (pourtant avec un passé pareil, on ne l'aurait pas raté s'il y avait eu la moindre plainte, et les journalistes s'en seraient donné à coeur joie), et il vit avec Emmanuelle Seigner depuis 20 ans (elle était jeunette quand il l'a séduite mais majeure) dont il a eu deux enfants aujourd'hui adolescents. Personnellement je ne crois pas que ce soit un dangereux criminel. Je le vois comme un homme plutôt résilient mais qui était sûrement bien paumé après l'assassinat de Sharon Tate, à une époque de libération sexuelle, un homme immature qui comme beaucoup d'autre mâles (beaucoup plus qu'on ne voudrait l'admettre à mon avis) était attiré par les jeunes filles en fleurs, et qui de part sa profession se retrouvait en situation de plus facilement franchir la ligne rouge. Il avait d'ailleurs eu une courte liaison avec Nastassja Kinski quand elle jouait Tess et elle n'avait que 15 ans (Chaplin couchait avec ses jeunes actrices, dont certaines avaient 13-14 ans mais tenaient des rôle de femmes à l'écran...mais il avait tendance à les épouser ensuite, ce qui empêchait J. Edgard Hoover d'avoir sa tête). L'époque était bien différente de la nôtre, et les relations sexuelles avec les mineurs n'étaient pas du tout perçues de la même façon. Il semble donc assez injuste de juger avec les critères d'aujourdhui.
Et puis nous ne parlons pas d'un type qui faisait la sortie des écoles ou caressait les petites filles prépubères de son entourage!

Je n' excuse pas Polanski, il a commis une faute peut-être même un crime si la jeune fille a été forcée, et cette culpabilité connue de tous ne le lâchera jamais, mais je ne pense pas que le Polanski de 2009 est le même Polanski que l'enfant du ghetto de Cracovie, ou que celui dont la femme enceinte fut massacrée par la bande de Charlie Manson, et ce n'est bien entendu pas le même que celui qui profita de sa position pour avoir des relations sexuelles (consensuelles ou pas) avec une adolescente en 1977. Le seul point commun c'est que sa vie reste faite de rebondissements. Les forces du destin semblent vraiment à l'oeuvre.

La justice américaine a hésité à l'époque et il en profité pour fuir, estimant qu'il n'aurait pas eu un procès équitable car le juge avait un "hidden agenda". Peut-être est-ce vrai, peut-être pas...En tout cas maintenant pour beaucoup d'artistes et quelques autres, tout ça ressemble à de l'acharnement inutile (il n'y a plus de plaignante), et à la volonté d'une Amérique procédurière (et d'un nouveau juge ambitieux) de punir Polanski parce qu'il a fui, de l'obliger à rentrer, à plier.

Il me semble que l'affaire aujourd'hui fait plus de mal qu'autre chose, faisant souffrir les deux principaux portagonistes de cette sordide histoire et avec eux toute leur famille. Par ailleurs j'avoue avoir du mal à comprendre l'émotion populaire sur nombre d'interfaces et le fait que tant d'internautes vouent les défenseurs de Polanski aux gémonies. Je crois moi que leur motivations sont respectables et qu'il savoir raison gardée.

Bizarrement cette indignation passionnée me rappelle un peu l'émotion massive et irrationnelle suscitée par la mort de Michael Jackson, autre célébrité épinglée pour des affaires de moeurs, dont la pédophilie au sens étymologique du terme ne fait aucun doûte même s'il n'a pas été condamné pour les crimes de pédophilie qu'on lui a reprochés, mais sur qui tant de personnes ont pleuré naguère.

Personnellement si je peux être radicale quand il s'agit des idées, je préfère la mesure quand il s'agit des hommes, et je pense qu'il vaut mieux être humain avec les gens de leur vivant.

Little women

Yesterday I saw another of the Cannes films that won a prize. It's the British Fish Tank, and again its Prix du Jury is well deserved. That portrait of a teenage girl won't be forgotten.

Mia is a rebellious British teenager whose life isn't a piece of cake. Actually it sucks a lot. You wouldn't want to live in that Essex housing estate that is her fish tank. As for her family, it sucks too, her mother (the wonderful actress that starred in Loach's Its a Free World) wouldn't get a prize in parenting, and her little sister has a filthy mouth(yes the film is filled by bad language from all the female characters but the little sister delivers a very creative coarse language and is hilarious). The three females basically keep insulting each other all the time. Mia doesn't go to school anymore and she doesn't have any friends left. The 15 year old Mia is alone, feeling awful –she hides her body beneath shapeless sportswear just like she hides her softer side–reckless and restless.

The fish tank is the metaphor of the many cages Mia wants to escape. One of the them is her own body, hence her drinking booze (something her mother must have passed on her), her practicing hip-hop dance when nobody watches, and her trying to free a white horse who's chained up by some gypsies in a wasteground. One day a man shows up in the flat and sees her; Connor a hunk whom Mia's mother has brought back. His arrival leads to new possibilies, hope and, perhaps, disappointments.When I read that Mia had a secret passion for dancing and dreamed of becoming a hip-hop dancer, I was afraid that Fish Tank might be some sort of female Billy Eliott, a politicaly correct feel-good movie that would turn into a fairy tale, but it is not. The music has a role to play but Mia's passion isn't the stuff the film is made on. Also even though the film obviously belongs to the "social realism" family like the ones by Ken Loach or Mike Leigh(the plot takes place in a dirty and hopeless neighbourhood), it has its own style. It doesn't shy away from the ugly truth but it doesn't convey a political message, doesn't make a social statement. It's definitely a woman film, not only because the lead character is a 15 year old girl or the director is a woman(Andrea Arnold), but also because it's about the birth of a woman and about female desire.

There's such a sensuality in the way the camera films everything. It makes the audience feels what Mira feels, the breath she tries to catch, the fragrants she inhales, the skin that is touched, whatever Mia smells or tastes.

Michael Fassenber, who plays Connor, is again terrific (that actor never ceases to amaze me) and he's quite perfect as the male object of desire, so nice a guy but oh so disturbing. In the first scene he appears in, you can't help feeling like Mia and staring at that half-naked body. The sexual tension between Mia and Connor is really well done, not in the usual cliched way. Not many films have been made on female desire and even fewer have been made on a teenage girl's sexual awakening (I can think of Splendor in the Grass but Nathalie Wood's character was older, I guess), on the burgeoning female sexuality. Because in this film, even though it's obvious that the attraction and feelings are mutual(Mia and Connor do like each other) to the point of their crossing the line one night(while the pastered mother has passed out), it isn't much about a forbidden love nor about a man falling for his mistress' daughter, it's about Mia becoming a woman, about her leaving the fish tank.

Of course things aren't that simple and Connor isn't the key of her freeing for he isn't as nice as she(we)'d like him to be; he is just a tool in her metamorphosis, of her moving on past her chrysalis state. What I enjoyed in the movie is the lack of over-simplification. We get to see the dirty and the beautiful, the light and the dark side of every character, their strength and weaknesses. Anyway the film always avoids the easy route.So definitely not a fairy tale but not a depressing movie either, there's tenderness still and some sort of moral code remains, even there, even then.

Cet acteur que j'aime

La nouvelle du trépas de David Carradine,retrouvé mort en Thaïlande, m'a sincèrement attristée. Je ne manquais aucun épisode de la série "Kung Fu" lorsque j'étais gamine, et je dois avouer que j'avais le béguin pour Kwai Chang Caine. David Carradine avait su donner à son personnage ce mélange étonnant de détachement très bouddhiste et de charisme incontestable. Il était tour à tour, mendiant et roi des arts martiaux, d'ici et d'ailleurs, indifférent aux contingences terrestres et palpitant d'amour, éthéré et sensuel. Je lui dois peut-être après tout d'avoir pris des cours de Kung Fu bien des années après...

C'est assez troublant et déconcertant, ces sentiments que nous inspirent les acteurs, des gens que nous ne connaissons pas et que nous ne connaîtrons probablement jamais dans la vraie vie. Ils nous attachent à eux alors qu'ils restent inaccessibles, ils nous séduisent par le biais d'artifices, mais sans nous voir – en nous rêvant peut-être?– et la relation qui en résulte relève bien de la fiction. Pourtant l'émotion est là, les liens se jouent de l'absence, font fi de la non-réciprocité, résistent même au temps. Ils s'installent en nous, au gré des représentations, des séances ou des diffusions télé, et n'en repartent jamais tout à fait. Nos meubles invisibles ont un jour épousé leur être et dès lors portent leur empreinte.

Et ils n'ont pas besoin d'être devenus nos idoles pour habiter ainsi nos vies. Ce sont plutôt des esprits familiers qui nous accompagnent, petits dieux lares issus des postes de télévision, creusant leur niche sans y paraître, au fil des des films et des années. Alors, quand l'un d'entre eux quitte le monde des vivants, il laisse un petit vide impossible à combler. Cependant la magie de l'écran et la force de l'image, font que leur reflet reste avec nous, imprimé dans les choses; leur écho ne disparaît pas tout à fait. L'amour passionné que l'on porte à une idole, quelque soit l'art qui nous l'a fait connaître (pour certain le cinéma ou la télévision, pour d'autres la littérature, la musique, le football...) relève du monothéisme le plus fervent et flirte souvent avec le fanatisme; la simple religion des acteurs, elle, est proche de l'animisme. J'ai cette religion-là, je crois.

Je lis en ce moment le roman d'un acteur que j'aime. Il s'agit d'un homme que je ne rencontrerai sans doûte jamais, mais que j'ai connu acteur d'abord, puis cinéaste, que j'ai apprécié grandement dans ces deux registres, et que je découvre aujourd'hui écrivain. Bernard Giraudeau avait déjà publié plusieurs livres, mais il aura fallu que la vie lui réserve deux cancers, et des critiques littéraires dithyrambiques pour que je me décide enfin à le lire. Et c'est vrai, ma foi, qu'il écrit bien le bougre!

Cher Amour est un livre qui vaut le détour, parce que Bernard Giraudeau sait faire partager ses voyages à l'autre bout du monde et sait se faire conteur; parce qu'il a du style et que ça change de tant de gens célèbres qui prétendent publier des livres mais écrivent comme des pieds ou font écrire par des nègres sans talent des ouvrages sans intérêt; parce qu'il utilise un procédé ingénieux et troublant, en s'adressant à une femme anonyme, tantôt muse, tantôt fantôme, tantôt déesse, une femme qui est tour à tour un stéreotype de Parisienne et toutes les femmes, celles qu'il a aimées, désirées, possédées ou rêvées, et moi peut-être. C'est une inviation au voyage et à l'amour. C'est surtout un curieux et judicieux mélange de lettre sans fin et sans réponse– telle une bouteille jetée à la mer vers une terre improbable, une analogie que le marin en lui aura peut-être imaginée et pourrait apprécier– et d'autobiographie, de récit de voyages, entremêlé de digressions historiques, de contes rapportés ou inventés pour le plaisir de la belle et de l'auteur, et de réflexions sur le métier d'acteur. Ces passages où Giraudeau reste à quai et revient vers les planches du théâtre m'ont troublée car j'étais présente dans la salle pour deux des pièces qu'il évoque: Le libertin et Becket ou l'amour de Dieu. Oui j'étais de ceux qui l'ont applaudi dans les rôles de Diderot et du roi Henri, j'ai aimé la richesse de son jeu, son charme, sa présence et sa sensibilité alors; je goûte aujourd'hui d'autres facettes de son talent, et je jouis de ce joli privilège: revisiter des instants révolus, en passant de l'autre côté du miroir, en revoyant les scènes par les yeux de l'acteur, ressuscitées et sans doûte déformées aussi, au moment où il les reconstitue en écrivant pour nous.

Tous les arts sont en fait convoqués dans ce roman, tous les visages de l'artiste, puisque Giraudeau le cinéaste ne cesse pas de filmer pendant ces voyages. Parfois ces arts, pareils aux dieux antiques ou aux sorcières de Shakespeare, complotent ensemble pour entraîner l'auteur sur d'autres rives et faire avancer le roman: ainsi lors d' un tournage aux Philippines, un rôle offre un voyage en Asie, permet de capturer des images et les rencontres fictives ou réelles nourrissent le récit.

Le "roman" court ainsi sur plusieurs années, entre Amérique latine, Afrique, et Extrême Orient, tel une odyssée entrecoupée de rôles qui sont encore d'autres voyages où les écueils existent et les naufrages sont également possibles.

En fait il y a quelque chose de très malin et de tout à fait grec dans ce livre, ce qui me plait beaucoup. Odysseus aussi racontait des histoires. Bernard Giraudeau a très bien compris qu' Ulysse le marin au fond fut un acteur, seigneur des métamorphoses, se masquant et se déguisant sans cesse, un habile conteur qui brodait souvent pour captiver son auditoire à la cour des Phéaciens ou mentait allègrement devant "les prétendants" de son épouse en Ithaque. Ulysse fut un fabuleux narrateur qui se mettait en scène à travers ses récits, mais il était aussi littéralement mis en scène par les autres comme dans le chant de l'aède sur le fameux cheval, un épisode troyen que tant de gens croient à tord pouvoir trouver dans L'Iliade. Comme Ulysse, Bernard Giraudeau peut être heureux d'avoir fait de si beaux voyages; comme lui il revient souvent vers la terre (Mme T. ?)et se laisse souvent charmer; comme lui, il s'adresse à Nausicaa tout en invoquant Circé, en désirant Calypso, et sans doûte en regrettant un peu Pénélope.

Au fond son livre me rappelle ce que dit Pietro Citati dans un essai sur l'Odyssée: "Le monde sur lequel Ulysse règne comme un souverain tout-puissant est celui du récit, aussi compliqué, illimité que le tracé de ses voyages sur la carte du monde. Personne dans l’Odyssée, où tous trompent, font semblant et racontent, ne possède ses qualités de narrateur ; personne n’a cette mémoire si constante, cet esprit équivoque comme le destin, inextricable comme les nœuds de Circé, coloré comme l’esprit d’Hermès, multiforme comme Protée, aussi menteur que les bonimenteurs de rue. Agamemnon, puis les Sirènes, l’appellent "celui qui connaît beaucoup d’histoires". En quelques vers mémorables, l’Iliade avait défini les lois de la poésie ; l’Odyssée glose ces vers, révélant pour la première fois dans la littérature occidentale les lois de l’art de raconter. Alors que la poésie est inspirée par les Muses, le récit jaillit de l’expérience du narrateur, qui peut réunir à son tour, dans sa propre voix, les témoignages des autres. À la cour des Phéaciens triomphe ainsi, pour la première fois en Occident, le récit autobiographique."

Cet acteur que j'aime est donc aussi un auteur qui me plait. Il me reste quelques pages avant d'arriver au terme de ce Cher Amour. Le récit m'appelle, réclame ma lecture, mais j'ai préféré écrire ceci, répugnant à embarquer de nouveau si tôt sous le commandement du capitaine Giraudeau car la dernière ligne est trop proche, l'horizon sera hélas vite atteint et je ne veux pas que le voyage finisse.

De Kwai Chang Caine, le Shaolin errant, à Giraudeau l'écrivain de marine, en passant par l'avisé Ulysse...il y a une étrange logique dans ce billet, n'est-ce pas?

From despair to hope

At first glance, Ken Loach and Eric Cantona make an unlikley pairing. Yet Loach is a football lover and Cantona, who has always been a peculiar footballer and has re-invented himself as actor/painter/photographer/poet, says he admires the British film-maker.

I am not a football watcher but ironically I watched Looking for Eric at the end of the week that saw Barcelona beat Manchester United. To all the MU supporters I say, go and watch Loach's movie you may recover from grief.

In Cannes Ken Loach said "at the game you go from despair to hope to triumph to sadness to elation within an hour and three quarters. If a film could achieve that, it'd be some film". So Looking for Eric may have more to do with cinema than with footbal, fan attitude or Eric Cantona at the end of the day. It is said that Cantona himself ordered it. He wanted a film to pay a tribute to a former fan of his, a postman from Manchester. Loach obliged but he somehow managed to make a film that isn't that far from his usual world.

Our main protagonist is called Eric Bishop, a postman, a good man who has very little self-esteem left, whose whole life is a mess. The first scene shows him driving like a mad man, backwards around the same roundabout, over and over, ready to end his misery and himself. In one scene later, Eric reveals he screwed up his life a long time ago and has been pretending for years. Eric is lost; his friends/colleagues are worried, they think he needs laughter. But he is not alone and he's going to find himself again eventually. From despair to hope indeed. Meanwhile the audience will be entertained and will even laugh.

Yes Looking for Eric is an enjoyable moment, a comedy rather than a tragedy, and for once in Ken Loach's work there's a good amount of light — in every sense of the word–despite some dark powerful moments, but it isn't just a feel-good movie and the Trotskyist film maker doesn't forget his social preoccupations and his political statements.

Yes Cantona has charisma and provides many smiles thanks to all the "cantonaisms"(those aphorisms he became famous for) Paul Laverty wrote for him. It's a lot of fun to watch him play with his public image, uttering "his proverbs and fucking philosophy" as Eric Bishop says – asking his revered hero to stop that bullshit for he already needed years to recover from the bloody seagulls!– and, in the end, laugh of himself. By the way the seagulls stuff– which is showed at the end of the film during the credits– wasn't that cryptic, the metaphor was quite obvious, it's the moment that felt quirky and made it sound like a nonsense. Cantona suddenly became a character from Lewis Carroll.

Movie-buff people make reference to Capra, but I guess that Ken Loach may have thought of Alice when he made the film because, following the unusual fantasy road, he takes both Eric Bishop and us for a "through the looking-glass" journey, backwards-style, in Cantonaland, with Eric Cantona showing up in Eric's room to become his existential guru. There's a Cheshire cat in that Eric!

Don't worry Ken Loach hasn't been damaged by the Twilight fever, he didn't swap social realism for fantastic; the trick is explained early enough at the beginning of the film when one of Eric's mates, who's fond of psychological and self-coaching books, suggests a group session. Everyone is supposed to think of an imaginary mirror and must focus on someone who loves them before looking at themselves through the eyes of someone they love and admire above all. For Eric Bishop it's Cantona!
Later, as Eric is smoking a joint and having a solitary self-pity session, the life-sized poster of Eric The King starts working as said mirror...and there he appears, bigger than life, the genie from the pot!

The film has flaws, the pace isn't perfect, some scenes lack subtlety, and the key metaphor of "the pass" being more important than the goal is a bit heavy, but I like the idea of the mirror, its mischievousness, and the dummy move it represents. The Cantona/Bishop scenes are basically an inner dialogue, Eric borrowing his idol's appearance to deal with everything he goes through, but there's more. Behind the ghost-idol who plays the charismatic and convenient life coach, there's Lily, Eric's first wife, the one whom he left but never stopped loving, the one who loved him more than anything and whom he hasn't faced for years despite their having a daughter.

The film is about love, about family, about solidarity, about trusting your partners, your team mates. Of course Loach can't help delivering a few kicks at football market, sponsors and fucking Murdoch, pointing out that postmen can't afford tickets and can only watch games on tv, but this isn't really a film about football per se.

The film surpises because it seems like a parenthèse ensoleillée in Loach's career, but I think it is nothing that the reverse side of the same coin. Heads or tails, the Death kept asking in the Coens' movie, No Country for Old Men, and once only the toss allowed a happy ending. Most of the time, it's hopeless and ends tragically because of the forces of F (Fate or Free Market), but this time, despite the personal pains and the general crisis (perhaps thanks to it actually), for once, it came down smiling heads for Ken Loach's characters. I won't blame him for indulging in a moment of optimism. Even the most realist ones among us need it from time to time.

In Loach's previous film, the brilliant and depressing It's A Free World – clearly not as uplifting but a better film than Looking for Eric– Ken Loach exposed a system based on the triumph of individualism, on the poor exploiting the poorer, leaving the audience with only their eyes to cry; here he celebrates the collective which makes the most vulnerable suddenly stronger. The "Operation Cantona" scene, besides being very funny("I will find you...because I'm a postman!"), says it all. Eric had to wear a mask before he could find himself again and put his blue shoes on; safety is possible provided that you're stay together; true glory is revealed in taking the risk of supporting the others; victory comes from the pass; brotherhood may overcome; salvation lies in the collective; lost love can be found again.

Looks like that, despite his ability to face this free world and tell it as he sees it, Ken Loach is hopeful yet.

Do it classic-style

I don't drive, I don't own a mobile phone and I am not on Facebook. Yet I seem to enjoy the web so I must not be a complete loser in terms of modern pop-culture.

No really, I don't see the appeal of Facebook. Besides all the students are on it!

Social networks have their charm and interest. Posting on a forum, being part of a community is a bit like gathering around the fire, sometimes it may even be like discussing in a Salon from the Enlightenment.

By the way thanks to such sites, I came across this fake Facebook profile and it made my day. The Greeks delete the group Troy made me laugh, and Aeneas and Dido changing their status and then his writing on Dido's wall...it was priceless.

I know, I'm a nerd.

Où subsiste encore ton écho

Alain Bashung est mort hier soir mais combien d'autres –moins connus, moins chantés ou simplement ignorés– ont disparu de la surface du globe au même instant, ne laissant même pas le moindre écho?

Arise, arise, ye subterranean winds

Hurry up, planes, the winds are getting insane!


Both Orly and Roissy Charles de Gaulle airports will be closing at 20:00, because of the upcoming tempest. Paris will become an island on which no ship shall land.

Next the Seine will be coloured in blood and it will rain frogs and locusts.

No movie going then, it's a stay-at-home night. I'm debating with myself whether to watch Dial M for Murder on Paris Première or to start reading Henning Mankell's last novel, Kennedy's brain.

I have vague memories of Dial M and as I really enjoyed watching Shadow of a Doubt that was showed weeks ago this might be a fitting evening for some tense Hitchcock flick .

Hopefully soon, following Ariel, we'll sing along


Dry those eyes which are o'erflowing,
All your storms are overblowing.
While you in this isle are biding,
You shall feast without providing,
Ev'ry dainty you can think of,
Ev'ry wine that you can drink of,
Shall be yours and want shall shun you,
Cere's blessing too is on you.

Botox movie

The strange case of Benjamin Button is...boring. No, I don't think it's a masterpiece at all. The idea of the man born old and aging backwards was an interesting premise but the film doesn't deliver. The actors do their best but all those special effects and heavy makeup that disrupt time, and distort flesh and bodies, actually make the film as expressionless as a lifted face. It was often pointless and obvious.

Besides there was something I didn't like at all but I can't really put my finger on it. I have yet to read Fitzgerald 's short story but I think that David Fincher indulged in a soppy fantasy fable, a sentimental movie borrowing from too many genres at once, but eventually he missed the true tragedy that lies in living à rebours.

I found much more poignant the story of the girl suffering from the Merlin syndrome that Dan Simmons told in his Hyperion Cantos. I even cried reading it.

Slumdog Millionaire and Milk are next on my to-see list.

Mi-temps 10-13

Ireland is leading but Sébastien Chabal was this close to score a try !

He looks really elegant when he's running. Must be the hair...and the long legs.

So far it's a good match but they all must be very tired.

Now no more mistakes and let's have some French flair! Really I should coach the team...

Addicted

I could blog about the opera I saw yesterday evening at Bastille, Lady Macbeth de Mzensk, and how Shostakovich composed in 1934 a musical work about a russian desperate housewife decades before American tv writers thought that housewives might be desperate; how Stalin hated the work and thought it was both impenetrable and pornographic (the association of those words sounds weird, doesn't it?) while some American critics talked at the time of "pornophony". I could write about how good the soprano and the chef d'orchestre were yesterday; that the tenor flashed his bare buttocks; that the mise en scène was interesting...and that the line "make the icons fall down kissing me" was spot-on and kind of cool, but hard to reuse in a non-Ortodox context.

I could blog about it, sure, but frankly, all I want to say at the moment is that I need the next episode of Battlestar Galactica and I want it NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ETA: Composer Bear McCreary(I wonder if Bear is his real frist name) has updated his blog about his work for the last episode, "The Oath".

PS: In case you don't know, the picture above was the promo poster for season 4, Last Supper-style. Battlestar Galactica is television at its best. A must see!

La république de la vertu

A dear friend of mine often says that he's an atheist because he can't believe, implying that he wishes he could. I'm not appalled by supernatural, I could even say that I have a soft spot for mythologies and fantastic elements in literature. I am an atheist because I don't need any god.

Also, I don't think that human beings made up religions and gods for they feared death or wanted an explanation of the mysteries of the universe.

I think they created them so they'd have something sacred and untouchable, and thus, according to some bizarre cosmic balance, they could do anything, touch anything else, destroy anything including their kind.

In a way, venerating gods allows vices and the worst behaviours, not because gods in question permit so– sometimes they do but most of the time they are supposed to forbid crimes and sins–no it's because it reinsures men about their finiteness. It gives mankind bounds. The most destructive and violent people are often the most devout, whatever their religion is. We can indulge in harm and wicked ways provided we still have something that is beyond us, above us, unattainable. The sacred.

Such gods used to be ancient principles, immortal entities, revered spirit of the dead, then came the time of the omnipotent demiurge who moved in mysterious ways, and ruled over three religions. Calvin even put it farther, out of reach, with the theory of predestination. That god still works nowadays under various masks (sorry Nietzsche), but other religions appeared in modern times. Some, like Nazism, have failed; others expanded undercover.
Lately the gods of free market messed up– those are really flawed like Greek gods used to be and just as unchanging and unrivalled. People are greedy, selfish and self-destructive, but the gods, as imperfect as they are, keep on ruling the world and they can't die, can they?

I've come to the conclusion that, basically, religion and morality are mutually exclusive. So my atheism has nothing to do with materialism, and everything to do with ethics, and probably with a little bit of ego.

Voix de femmes

Le Théâtre de l'Ile St Louis is a lovely tiny venue (about 30 seats)you may not see at all if you walk on the Quai d'Anjou by the river for it's located inside of an old builiding, in the depth of an alley.

A musical was showed in there yesterday, Hildegarde de Bingen ou le divin féminin. I knew that, as musicals go, this was not the Broadway-type or the dreadful Canadian style (I have nothing against Canadians but I can't bear the Luc Plamandon's musicals...and most musicals actually). On the small stage there were only a woman and a man, and many weird instruments. The woman, Catherine Braslavski, performed as Hildegard of Bingen; she was singing while sometimes playing drums and dulcimer. At first I wasn't impressed, but her voice slowly raised, filled the room and took me. I forgot all the religious stuff and enjoyed the musical journey.

Joseph Rowe, like many American artists, does everything. He's a musician, a composer, a writer, a translator and an actor. He played various instruments(Oud, Tibetan bowls, darbuka, mbira, tampura) and, between the songs, read or recited texts– extract from Hildegard's books, a letter she received from another abbess, letters she sent to advise and admonish either Frederik Barbarossa or the Pope.

There are extracts from the show on youtube. It is the same show as the one I saw yesterday evening, except that Joseph Rowe spoke in French yesterday. I wish I knew how to get the video embedded here.

Hildegard of Bingen had been forgotten for centuries until she became trendy at the end of the XXth, mostly for her music. I can't say that I care about her spirituality and philosophy much–although it's interesting to see how she managed to avoid being called a heretic at the time and how a few nowadays environmentalists take over Hildegard's veriditas–yes she was a mystic who thought she had visions, but she was also a creative person and a remarkable woman. She and another abbess of the XIIth century, the famous Heloïse, led the way for women like Christine de Pizan; she had balls!

PS: the picture is a scan of her famous Scivias that I got via the Heidelberg University website to which the title is linked.

PPS: I'd like to own a dulcimer, it's so pretty!

His Vampire Art

I should have known better, exibits at Le Grand Palais always draw loads of people, besides there was a lot of hype about "Picasso et les Maîtres"that started in October and ends on the 2nd of February.

I was bound to queue up outside for a while before entering the galleries, but brave enough to try. I don't usually run to the must-see exhibits everyone talks about, and I sensed the marketing behind the venture(because almost all the most famous painters were there) but still the idea of showing Picasso's paintings along with other works from famous painters he drew inspiration from was interesting.

Despite the cold feet and the crowd, I did enjoy it...a lot. Sometimes the method was a bit too systematic and convenient and the parallels were forced on us, but most of the time it was relevant and intriguing. The genius used to be a student and fed on art that went before him. Picasso called himself a Minotaur, and admitted to the predation existing in his portraits El Greco-style, in his tributes to Poussain, Goya, Ingres, Delacroix, le Nain, or obviously in all his variations on various famous paintings.

Of course, the confrontation leads to comparisons, not necessarily to Picasso's advantage. For instance his numerous (40!)variations on Velazquez ' Meninas are interesting; Picasso parses, dissects and eventually pieces the puzzle together, but Velasquez remains the Master and it's his painting we admire. However the series of Tarots, as Mallraux called them, Picasso's paintings inspired by gentlemen from El Siglo del Oro (by Velazquez again but also Rembrandt and Shakespeare even), often musketeer-like, were fabulous. I also loved his Chat et Homard which I had never seen until yesterday.

The exhibit is worth seeing if only for the numerous masterpieces on display. It exposes Picasso's artistic cannibalism but also reveals his ideal museum, or at least part of that one that lay in his imagination, and above all, his idea of meta-painting, when the painting becomes the subject of his painting. It shows us that canvas can be models just like any living person or any still life.

PS: Le déjeuner sur l'herbe de Manet et une des variations de cette toile(la plus réussie à mon avis) par Picasso.

A Christmas Tale

As debut movies go, Frozen River isn't a bad one. Some would say that it is a thriller, others that it is a social drama, and it is not untrue on both accounts, but I prefer to say that it is a women movie – written and directed by a woman, telling the story of two women (the actresses are terrific)and, I guess, most likely to move women at the end of the day– and it is also an American movie. Not just American as being an Indie film from the U.S.A taking place in America and starring American actors, but as dealing with typically American themes.

The Frozen River of the title is the St Lawrence river between The U.S and Canada. Ray Eddy is a "mère courage", a middle-aged woman who's struggling to make a living with a part-time retail job, raising two sons (one is 15, the other is 5) in a squalid modular home while dreaming of a new doublewide...except that we find out at the beginning of the movie that her husband took off with the down payment for the new "house". One day, she comes across Lila, a Mohawk girl from the reservation that straddles the US-Canadian border. Lila lives in a caravan and gets Ray involved, against her will, in smuggling illegal immigrants. Christmas approaches, Ray can barely feed her kids (they subsist on pop-corn and drink Tang!), let alone pay the doublewide of her dreams or even a Christmas gift for her youngest son; her eldest tries to be the man of the house but worries that without money they might lose their rent-to-own television. Reluctantly first Ray teams up with Lila and the two of them begin to make runs across the frozen river carrying illegal Chinese and Pakistani immigrants, doomed to be slaves, in the trunk of Ray's Dodge Spirit.

For a little while I thought that this movie was the American equivalent of Ken Loach's It's a Free World (one of the first films I saw last year), for it also shows precarious situations, vulnerable women, and how the poor make money on exploiting the poorer, but it's actually quite different. Ken Loach exposed a general situation, a system of exploitation, through the storyline of a woman, Angie, who was the product of such system. He did it compassionately but the movie was utterly depressing. Angie was not a bad person per se, she was just a human being who mirrored the society in which she lived, the individualistic generation she belonged to. While being a formerly-exploited exploiter, while being a bit greedy to say the truth, while being ready to do anything in regards to morality, she was also vulnerable, because there were much bigger fishes, people higher than her in the chain food, who could crush her any time; she was vulnerable also because she belonged to the weaker gender in a men's world and because she was a mother who had to care for her son first. And it's precisely her vulnerability, the fact that she could be treated badly (beaten even) and was insecure in life, that made her become a ruthless buisness woman who would give herself all the means to have her share of the loot in this Free World.

In Frozen River Courtney Hunt doesn't expose any economic system, she just shows how hard life can be for the outcast (either white or Indian) and how quickly things can go downhill. The husband who deserted his family was a gambler. He deprived wife and sons of the money they desperately needed, because of his addiction.

He was a sinner and kind of forced his wife into criminal activities, if only because he left behind him, with the keys inside, the Dodge Spirit that Lila needed and found after he took a bus to Atlantic City; the car that Ray didn't want to lose; the car that brought the two women together and led them on the river. We're told that young Lila got in trouble with the tribe's chiefs, possibly after she caused her husband's death, and that her mother-in-law stole her newborn baby, hence her living alone in a caravan. Human smuggling is the way she's found to help caring for the child she can't raise, a way to be a mother nonetheless. As she voluntarily crosses the river for the third time, during Christmas night, Ray almost commits the sin of sins. There's punishment yet redemption is possible through sacrifice, miracles happen, and there's still a place for hope beneath the ice. Humanity may overcome...Halleluja.

Frozen River is my first movie of the year. Not many films take place in the harsh, bleak climate of upstate New York, near the Canadian border. I liked the idea of dealing with that border instead of the US-Mexican one for once and I liked the title; the film doesn't only provide a refreshing glimpse into illegal immigration, it also deals with the communities issue, hostility and prejudices natives and whites have for each others. It shows that the Mohawk nation has a real sovereignty it protects fiercely. And it shows the American wilderness, those wide spaces we, Europeans, can't really grasp. Above all I liked the fact that the smuggling happens through a frozen river that turns into an ice desert wherein it's easy to get lost, a true no-man's land(both women are sans homme)– although it's part of the Mohawk Land–because deserts are often the best metaphorical places to tell a journey; I enjoyed the performances of the lead actresses and was touched by Ray and Lila's final interaction (yes I cried). Frozen River is definitely worth watching.

However, I can't help thinking that there's something much more daring and cutting, darker and much more necessary, and eventually stronger, in Ken Loach's not-feel-good movie.

No ice, thanks

Lewis Carroll made up portmanteau words like "slithy"; Boris Vian, who was a poet (and also a writer, jazz musician and songwriter), loved to make des mots-valise too. For example "Pianocktail" is a famous false synesthesia from L'Ecume des jours. Poetical licence, that allows the most fantastic literary instruments, created there a surrealistic item providing various musical nectars, liqueurs that were musically flavoured, according to the piece being played.

I am not a poet but today– is it the influence of that Siberian weather that has been freezing Western Europe for a few days or because of the news about Russia and the Gazprom issue?- I indulged in a Vian-like unintentional creativity, and talked to my students about vodkabulary instead of vocabulary (well, actually I said "vodkabulaire" in lieu of "vocabulaire").

There must be either a sleeping surrealist artist or a should have been drunkar in me.