Flore's Thoughts

I’ve been wanting to see Dancer in the Dark for a long time and I must say I wasn’t at all disappointed. Lars von Trier, Björk, Catherine Deneuve, good music and a heart breaking story – a pretty good combination. Also, the documentary-style appearance makes you feel more close to the characters, which is something I really like in movies.

The story follows an European woman – Salma (Björk) who moved in the United States hoping to raise money for an operation that could save her son from a life of darkness. Between her jobs, taking care of her son and the illness that would eventually make her blind, she finds time for drama classes and daydreaming. Unfortunately, all her struggle is about to be destroyed by the man who is renting her a trailer near his family’s house.

It’s actually kind of an ordinary story, if you stop to think about it for a moment – a poor woman trying to save up money for her son, someone trying to steal that money and death. But Lars von Trier managed to turn that into an amazing musical drama. You can actually almost feel the poor woman’s pain and despair, especially in the end. It was quite a nice end really, not nice in a happy ending kind of way, but more in a theatrical way.

Selma: You like the movies, don’t you?
Bill Houston: I love the movies. I just love the musicals.
Selma: But isn’t it annoying when they do the last song in the films?
Bill Houston: Why?
Selma: Because you just know when it goes really big… and the camera goes like out of the roof… and you just know it’s going to end. I hate that. I would leave just after the next to last song… and the film would just go on forever.

I finally managed to get my film developed. These were the first photos made with my new film camera, so they were mainly tests. But since I like how most of the photos came out I will try to make more of them on film from now on .

For those of you who care, the camera is a Canon EOS 500.

The series is entitled home.

directed by Steven Shainberg

Since the book I am reading now has more than 700 pages and my reading time is limited and I felt like writing something here, I thought I’d try to write about one of my favorite movies.

Secretary is a story about an unconventional love between Lee Holloway (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and her boss, E. Edward Grey (James Spader). After being released from a mental institution, Lee gets back to her dysfunctional family and starts trying to have a normal life. After a difficult beginning caused by her alcoholic father, she manages to get a job as a secretary at Mr Grey’s law firm. At first, her lack of experience and social awkwardness seems to bother Mr Grey, but after a while we realize that he is attracted by her submissive behavior.

We witness the start of a relationship between the two characters. Many would describe it as weird or way out there, but who are we to decide what’s weird and what’s not. People act the best way they can at any given moment. I think I wrote about “normal” before, but even if I didn’t, I don’t really feel like blabbering about some things most people wouldn’t care about. So, back to our story. I really like a phrase used to describe the synopsis on the movie’s official site :

The tender beauty of two people coming slowly together in a mutually quirky and unconventional harmony is captured perfectly.

I’m not going to try to put that in any different way.

After a while, Lee gets fired because of Edward’s shame in what he was feeling and doing. Pressured by her family and boyfriend she accepts the latter’s marriage proposal. But, just before the wedding, she runs away to Mr Grey’s office and declares her love to him by sitting on his desk chair for three days without moving. That’s quite a love declaration, right?

He finally comes after her and they live happily ever after. The End

directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet

Sometimes I like watching a movie I’ve seen years back because I am curious to find out if I still like it. So, today I decided to watch Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain. And yes, I still like it

Amélie grew up in a rather cold family environment. Her mother died when she was little and her father touched her only for the monthly check-ups. She didn’t have friends and her only dream was to make enough money so she could leave their home and live by herself.

After many years, we find her working as a waitress and living alone in the city. One day, after finding an old box filled with memories she decides to find the owner and return the mystery box. That was the day when Amélie found her destiny. From that day on she started planning and scheming to help people around her. It would be nice if more people would do nice things for others, try to help them in any way they can, wouldn’t it?

In the middle of her adventure she falls in love with a guy named Nino (Mathieu Kassovitz), who is working at a sex shop/video store and a ghost train in the amusement park. She decides to play a little “hide-and-seek” game with Nino instead of just meeting face to face, but they end up together eventually

You know, I wonder, are there people who actually do that? Play little games like that to get someone’s attention? Maybe they are, who knows.

It’s funny, romantic and a bit weird. I love the colors and images. I like Amelie’s character, though I really like the actress that plays her too – Audrey Tatou. She has this pretty, innocent face that makes her look adorable. I also like Nino’s hobby – collecting thrown away photos from photo boots and putting them all together in a catalog. I always found observing people as interesting – looking at their faces, gestures, listening to their voice and looking at their photos.

Memorable scenes:

Narrator: Amélie still seeks solitude. She amuses herself with silly questions about the world below, such as “How many people are having an orgasm right now?”
[scenes of various orgasms taking place]
Amélie: Fifteen.

Well, here are some photos from Camufi, the national books, music and film festival. It was nice, though they had a rather small selection of books and an even smaller selection of movies and music. They did have a presentation of the coffee roasting process, but except for the nice smell and interesting machine, it wasn’t all that exciting. I bought only 4 books:

Isabelle Robinet - Taoism: Growth of a Religion
Kaiten Nukariya - The Religion of the Samurai: A Study of Zen Philosophy and Discipline in China and Japan
Ian McEwan - The Comfort of Strangers
Italo Calvino - The Nonexistent Knight

I did buy a really nice pair of earrings on the way back though, from a sweet girl named Iuliana. You can find some really nice hand made accessories on her blog – Eoliana.

Enough talking, here are the photos.

Some condiments

Chest with children's books

Music

Coffee roasting thingy

Checking on the coffee

The result : Roasted coffee

                                 directed by Quentin Tarantino

No, I didn’t spell it wrong, this is how Tarantino chose to name his latest movie.

Inglourious Basterds is a bloody parody of World War II. A team of American Jews, lead by Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), are on a killing spree in a Nazi occupied France. They are killing and scalping German soldiers and, together with an actress, Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger), they plan the murder of all the head German officers, including Hitler, at a movie premiere. Their plan gets intersected with the actions of a Jewish woman, named Shosanna (Melanie Laurent). She owns the cinema where the premiere is going to take place and has planned on burning everything to the ground during the movie as a revenge for her family, who was killed by Germans soldiers.

Col. Hand Landa(Christoph Waltz), the Jew Hunter, is the most interesting character of the movie. The dialogues he takes part of are always filled with a subtle humor and intelligent remarks and reflections. He ends up helping with the mass murder of all the important German personalities and officers in exchange for American citizenship.

I didn’t quite like Brad Pitt with that really thick southern american accent and the hillbilly personality is not something that fits him all that well. But i can’t say his character wasn’t a bit funny, especially when trying to speak italian with that accent.

Overall this is what you would expect from Tarantino… explicit violence, a lot of blood, sarcastic remarks, parody, a bit of dark humor, though I wasn’t all that impressed. I thought he dragged some parts of the story way too much and at times i found it slightly boring. I did like the subject and some of the subtle sarcastic remarks, mostly made by Hans Landa.

And one more thing i liked is that, at the end, everybody dies, well almost everyone, but still, you’d think that at least Hitler would escape.

A few quotes:

Lt. Aldo Raine: You probably heard we ain’t in the prisoner-takin’ business; we in the killin’ Nazi business. And cousin, Business is a-boomin’.

Col. Hans Landa: What a tremendously hostile world that a rat must endure. Yet not only does he survive, he thrives. Because our little foe has an instinct for survival and preservation second to none… And that Monsieur is what a Jew shares with a rat.

                                         directed by Noah Baumbach

A semi-autobiographical story about divorce and the effect it has on children. We are in Brooklyn, in the 1980s, where Bernard Berkman (Jeff Daniels), once a great writer, and his wife Joan (Laura Linney ) are going through a divorce. They have two sons, Frank (Owen Kline) and Walt (Jesse Eisenberg) who are having a hard time dealing with the separation and joint custody. The youngest, Frank, takes his mother’s side while Walt is being influenced by his father. Focused mostly on teaching, Bernard starts a romance – if you can call it that – with one of his students when she moves in to his new place because her lease has expired.

I’ve always said that parents can mess up their children and this movie is a very good example. Walt starts becoming more and more like his father, thinking he is superior to the “philistines” and Frank starts developing language and behavior not suited for a 12 year old.

Bernard’s behavior really gets to me. Ok, you have been a successful writer and yes you are smarter than most people and you are able to do and understand things the majority of people can’t, but that doesn’t give you the right to judge others and treat them like they are inferior to you. And I won’t even get started with the example he gives to his sons. I’m not saying the divorce and behavior of the two boys are all his fault, the mother did have several affairs during the years and she is not being a good example for the kids either.

It is sad to see how a child’s life is being modeled after his parents’ actions and behavior. That’s why they call it drama i guess.

Quote:

Walt Berkman: It’s like… we were pals then… we’d do things together… we’d look at the knight armor at the Met. The scary fish at the Natural History Museum. I was always afraid of the squid and whale fighting. I can only look at it with my hands in front of my face.

              directed by Yann Samuell

Julien (Guillaume Canet) and Sophie (Marion Cotillard) meet as children, while Julien’s mother is ill, and start playing a game based on a present from his mom – a brightly colored candy box. Their game starts as a kids’ adventure where they dare each other to do silly little things, but as they grow older, their game becomes more serious and they start getting in trouble and having to pay for their actions.

After not seeing each other for 4 years, Julien and Sophie meet again as adults and start playing the game again, a game that only seems to be hiding the love between these two people that are meant for each other.Even if they hurt themselves and the people around them, they can’t stop playing the game, it becomes an obsession they cannot live without.

I saw this film a while back, I’ve seen it two times actually and i liked it because it is a mixture of love, games, life and it keeps surprising the viewer with its unexpected turnarounds and intense moments.

Quote from the film:

Julien: Il y a que trois choses que tu ne m’as pas demandé de faire, que je regrette et j’aurais été cap…
Sophie: Genre ?
Julien: Manger des fourmis, insulter les chômeurs qui sortent de l’ANPE… t’aimer comme un fou.

I was saying a while back that I would post some photos i took with a film camera, so here they are. Most of them didn’t come out right, they’re out of focus or way under exposed to be able to process them, but it was the first time i used a film camera so I’m not really used to that. I am glad some of them came out alright though.

                directed by Lisa Cholodenko

A story about love and art, photography to be more specific. Syd (Radha Mitchell) is what you might call a normal 24 year old woman, working as an assistant editor at a successful photography magazine and living with her boyfriend James (Gabriel Mann). But all that will change when a leak through the ceiling brings her to the door of neighbor Lucy(Ally Sheedy ), a retired photographer and drug addict, living with her german girlfriend Greta(Patricia Clarkson).
Slowly, Syd becomes part of Lucy’s life and they fall in love with each other while working on an feature for the magazine.
It’s easy to imagine what’s going to happen next, Syd’s boyfriends leaves, Lucy breaks up with Greta, the photos come out great and they’re being published in the magazine… all is great except for one thing.

What, did you think I’ll give away the ending?

Quote:

Lucy: They wanted me to examine my life. I mean, this is it. It’s about you right now. I’m thinking about you.