“The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover” concludes the series of films made by Peter Greenaway in the 80s and is probably the best of them all. None of the previous films written and directed by the painter-turned-filmmaker can be easily forgotten by most viewers who dared to watch them. “The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover” is, however, the one that can make us forget the others. Like most really good movies, this one can be watched and interpreted on many levels, and it can stick in the memory in many ways. It’s a bleak horror comedy about a cook, a thief, his wife and her lover. It is a sophisticated story in the baroque and decadent setting of a restaurant and its labyrinthine kitchen reminiscent of an alchemist’s workshop. It is an art film designed by multimedia artists with vast knowledge of art and music. It’s a political film about 1980s England. It’s a film about food and gluttony, sex and death. It’s close to pornography. It’s a decadent masterpiece by Peter Greenaway.
The film starts with a curtain opening and ends with another curtain closing to suggest to the audience that they are witnessing a performance in which it is not prudent to get involved. Mob boss Albert Spica has just purchased or perhaps violently taken over the luxury restaurant “La Hollandaise” run by French chef Richard. He comes every night with his band of thugs and his beautiful wife Georgina. Albert is a vulgar brat who behaves violently and bullies everyone including the staff and customers of the place and Georgina. The woman gets bored and starts exchanging languid glances with a man eating alone at another table with a stack of books he’s reading from. We will learn that the man’s name is Michael. One evening later, Michael and Georgina meet in the restaurant toilet for a party of passionate sex, followed by other similar encounters in the following evenings, in the kitchen, with Richard’s complicity. When Albert discovers what is going on, his reaction is terrible. So will be the reaction to the reaction.
As in all the films of that period in the creation of Peter Greenaway, the cinematography and the soundtrack play very important roles. The cinematography belongs to Sacha Vierny who composes real paintings with references to the works of the Flemish masters. There’s a lot of sex and food in this movie, constantly bordering on violence and death, and it’s all shot with much voluptuousness. As in other Greenaway films, there is a virtual instrument that marks time. In this case this role is played by the menus of the day at the high-class restaurant. The music is composed by Michael Nyman who incorporated, among other things, arrangements of Henry Purcell’s music and his own composition ‘Memorial’ from 1985, dedicated to the victims of the catastrophe at the stadium of the Liverpool football team. The quartet of leading roles is played by four actors who were already established names when they took the risk of acting in this film. Helen Mirren is the best known today, as her career continued to skyrocket in the decades that followed. Michael Gambon and Alan Howard were also well-known actors in England, including big roles in the most serious versions of Shakespeare’s plays, while Richard Bohringer was a rising actor in French cinema who had already worked with Truffaut and Lelouch. The viewing of “The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover” ends with the feeling that we have witnessed a wonderful, disturbing and complex creation, and that a second or more viewings are necessary to decipher and savor all its poisoned secrets.
A few films ago I shared some thoughts about that category of directors who have reached the age, maturity, celebrity and financial independence where they have nothing left to prove or conquer, and who can afford to make almost any film project they want. Ridley Scott also belongs to this category, along with Wim Wenders and Martin Scorsese, whose films I have seen recently. Like them, he doesn’t seem to have any thoughts of retiring or slowing down. ‘Napoleon‘ (2023) is a grand undertaking, and a sequel to ‘Gladiator’ is already in production. I confess that I came to the viewing with quite a few apprehensions inspired by the negative echoes of various kinds related to this film that reached me and that I hoped that they would be disproved. Unfortunately, for the most part, the fears turned out to be justified. ‘Napoleon‘ is a lavish production, in which a lot of money and talent have been invested, but which proves, for the most part, to lack coherence and emotion.
Napoleon may be too big a personality for one movie. Stanley Kubrick might have made the great Napoleon film, but death put an end to his plans, and his script is now being developed by Steven Spielberg into a multi-hour television series. Ridley Scott‘s ‘Napoleon‘ also has, by the way, in the streaming version, about four hours of duration. I viewed the version distributed in cinemas, cut to a little longer than two and a half hours, a duration which today is considered the ‘norm’. The story follows Napoleon from the Terror period after the French Revolution to his exile and death on the island of Saint Helena. We follow his political rise, greatness and fall, and follow him in some of the battles that established him as one of the greatest military leaders in history. However, all these are collateral narratives for the main thread which is the love story between Napoleon and Joséphine de Beauharnais, who became Joséphine Bonaparte, his first wife and his only great love, according to the script but also the accounts and documents of the era.
In my opinion, historical liberties are allowed in fiction films, including biopics. History is learned from books or museums, not from movies. Screenwriters can take whatever liberties they want and feel that serve the artistic truth of the film. For example, the opening scene of ‘Napoleon‘ shows Captain Bonaparte witnessing the execution of Queen Marie-Antoinette. It is not an authentically historical scene, but the idea of the Napoleonic demarcation from the tumultuous period of the French Revolution is well served. So I don’t mind the many other liberties that the script of this film allowed itself, abundantly signaled in the comments of connoisseurs in the details of French history. However, the general impression is one of superficiality and recourse to anecdotes, especially regarding the description of the other sovereigns of Europe from that period. The emperors of Austria and Russia are rather caricatures. Too many other characters appear for a scene and disappear, and even those with whom the script was more generous are sketchy. The writers apparently relied on viewers’ general cultural knowledge to fill in what the film doesn’t say about historical figures like Talleyrand or the Duke of Wellington. The scenes on the battlefields are the most successful in the film, in my opinion, from the bloody description of the victory at Toulon to the disaster (for Napoleon) at Waterloo – detailed, spectacular, clear, with an almost naturalistic realism, which reproduces the historical landscape as well as the pain and cruelty of the battles. The main line of the film – the love story between Napoleon and Joséphine is the one that disappointed me. Right here, for the first time in a while, it seemed to me that Joaquin Phoenix did not create an extraordinary role. The rough manners and impulsive nature attributed to Napoleon seemed to me exaggerated. After all, the character was not a sergeant but an army general and descended from a family of small Italian nobles. Vanessa Kirby is, on the other hand, a revelation. The actress manages to convince that she dominates the relationship from a sentimental point of view. The problem is again with the script. For example, I do not understand why, if she was presented in counterpoint to Napoleon, the role of patron of the arts played by Empress Joséphine was not mentioned. It was she who transformed many of the palaces of French power into artistic centers and future museums open to the public. At the end of the day, in short, the love between Napoleon and Joséphine which should have been the emotional axis of the film left me cold. History says that the name of the empress was the last word uttered by Napoleon on his deathbed. The fact is mentioned, in writing, after the last scene of the film. Uncinematic and too late to resuscitate the viewers’ emotion.
Helma Sanders-Brahms is one of the most important filmmakers of the New German Cinema of the 70-80s. Her name is lesser known than that of some of her generation colleagues such as Reiner Werner Fassbinder, Win Wenders, Werner Herzog or Margarethe von Trotta, but it would have been enough to have made only ‘Deutschland Bleiche Mutter‘ (1980 – distributed on the English language market as ‘Germany Pale Mother’) to recognize her value and contribution. It is one of the most lucid and critical of the films that looks back with anger at Germany’s Nazi past and the immediate post-war period. The personal involvement makes it even more authentic and human.
‘Deutschland Bleiche Mutter‘ is more than an auteur film. Helma Sanders-Brahms not only wrote the scrupt and directed the film, but also developed in it events and characters from the history of her own family, including the story of love, war and hatred of her own parents. The story begins in the year before the outbreak of the Second World War. Hans and Helene are two young Germans who, somehow, had not been drawn into the fanaticism that had contaminated most of the people around them. They meet and live a beautiful and banal love story. Immediately after the marriage, perhaps because he is not a member of the Nazi party, Hans is called to arms and sent to the front. He is sent first to Poland, then to France and at the end of the war to Greece. Hans and Helene will meet twice more before the end of the war, and on one of these occasions their baby girl is conceived. Hans is far away at the front, a witness and perhaps an accomplice to the horrors taking place there. Helene, like millions of German women, must fight to survive with her little girl. Their house is destroyed by bombings, they take refuge first in Berlin and then in the countryside, they wander through the devastation of an increasingly destroyed Germany, she is raped and ends up robbing corpses. Luck helps both Helene and Hans to survive, but life after the war is not easy either. The traumas changed both of them for good – physically but especially psychologically. Love died out, suspicions, mistrust, frustrations for the interrupted destinies took its place. A new Germany is reborn around, in which the former Nazis are forgiven and they are also the ones who advance socially and economically.
‘Deutschland Bleiche Mutter‘ is not a film about the Holocaust or the horrors of war. The perspective is that of the Germans who did not commit crimes but did not resist either. Hans and Helene are not heroes but rather passive witnesses to what is going on around them. In such times, however, their attempt to be indifferent and live their lives has no chance of success. Helene assists without intervening in the violent persecution of her Jewish neighbors, Hans is a witness and perhaps also an executor of war crimes. Their survival is physical, but the humanity in them is largely destroyed. Helene suffers facial paralysis, half of her cheek is deformed and hides it with a black veil. We can interpret this detail of the heroine’s biography as a metaphor for the divided Germany after the war, with part of the country remaining behind the Iron Curtain. The performance of the two actors in the lead roles – Eva Mattes and Ernst Jacobi – is exceptional. Director Helma Sanders-Brahms combines filmed scenes with sequences from film archives and audio recordings to accurately reproduce the atmosphere of Germany before, during and especially after the war. There is no lack of very hard, almost cruel scenes – but so was the fate of the heroes in the film. Bertold Brecht’s poem, read at the beginning and from which the film’s title is taken, puts the whole story in context. Powerful and impressive, ‘Deutschland Bleiche Mutter‘ is a blunt and somber cinematic retrospective of a tragic period in German history.
În articolul de astăzi al rubricii CHANGE.WORLD vom discuta despre Timp. Progresele recente și construcțiile intelectuale îndrăznețe propuse în ultimii ani de fizicieni și cosmologi par a face mai apropiată și mai reală posibilitatea călătoriilor în timp. Vom discuta despre acestea și despre paradoxurile științifice și filosofice pe care le creează transformarea unor asemenea ipoteze în realitate. Imaginația oamenilor de știință și a creatorilor de SF par să se afle într-o permanentă concurență inclusiv în acest domeniu, și voi povesti și despre un film văzut recent și care oferă – cu umor englezesc – un ‘FAQ (frequently asked questions) despre călătoria în timp’. Gândiți-vă: dacă într-adevăr călătoria în timp este posibilă, atunci este foarte plauzibil că deja am fost sau suntem acum vizitați din viitor. Adevăr sau fantezie?
Voi începe însă cu un omagiu. Pe 17 ianuarie 2024 a încetat din viață David Mills, profesor și cercetător la Universitatea din Delaware, unul dintre pionierii Internetului și cel care a pus bazele măsurării timpului și sincronizării calculatoarelor și aparatelor legate la Internet. În anii ’70, în timp ce contribuia la construcția rețelei ARPANET (precursorul Internetului), Mills a identificat pentru prima dată nevoia de sincronizare a timpului în rețelele de calculatoare. Mills a propus o soluție solidă și viabilă până astăzi, care reușește să rezolve problema sincronizării timpului pe aparate legate la segmente de rețea cu viteze de propagare variabile. Soluția sa a aliniat computerele din toată lumea la aceeași referință de timp, cu o deviere inițială de cel mult câteva zeci de milisecunde. Standardul creat de el se numește Network Time Protocol (NTP) și este în funcțiune din 1985, unul dintre cele mai vechi standarde operaționale ale Internetului. NTP – perfecționat de-a lungul anilor – operează acum pe miliarde de dispozitive din întreaga lume, coordonând timpul pe fiecare continent, și a devenit o piatră de temelie a infrastructurii digitale moderne. A fost o personalitate remarcabilă atât prin profunzimea gândirii tehnice, cât și prin calitatea umană. Fie-i amintirea binecuvântată!
Teoria relativității generalizate a lui Einstein este de un secol încoace structura de rezistență a edificiului fizicii moderne. Din 1905, experimente complexe și modele matematice sofisticate s-au străduit să o confirme sau să o conteste. Progresele spectaculoase ale mecanicii cuantice, domeniu al fizicii pentru care Albert Einstein manifesta o doză sănătoasă de scepticism, par și ele să se armonizeze cu viziunea lui Einstein. Cartea cosmologului belgian Thomas Hertog On the Origin of Time. Steven Hawking’s Final Theory, apărută în aprilie 2023, oferă o revizuire dramatică a teoriei lui Hawking despre originile Universului, propunând un model conform căruia legile fizicii nu sunt nici fixe și nici eterne, ci se nasc și evoluează pe măsură ce universul pe care îl guvernează prinde contur. Universul nostru poate fi unul dintre mulțimile de universuri paralele, cu legi ale fizicii similare sau diferite. Cel puțin aici însă, teoria relativității generalizate funcționează. Călătoria în timp, în special cea spre viitor, este perfect încadrată în acest univers. Einstein însuși a abordat această problemă în articolele, cursurile și discuțiile documentate de studenții și colaboratorii săi. În modelul propus în 1905, timpul și spațiul sunt unite ca o țesătură cu patru dimensiuni cunoscută sub numele de spațiu-timp. Contraintuitiv? Și mai ciudat este conceptul că atât spațiul, cât și timpul se deformează pe măsură ce masa sau viteza cresc. Pentru cel care călătorește repede, timpul se mișcă mai încet. Crescând masa într-un anumit punct (de exemplu, prin comprimare), se va obține un efect similar. Fenomenul a fost deja dovedit experimental, deși la scară mică. În 1975, Carol Allie de la Universitatea din Maryland a sincronizat două ceasuri atomice și l-a așezat pe unul pe un avion care a zburat timp de câteva ore, iar pe celălalt l-a lăsat pe Pământ. Când ceasul aeropurtat s-a întors pe Pământ, ea i-a comparat ora cu cea a ceasului care nu se mișcase și a constatat că timpul se mișcase cu o fracțiune de secundă mai încet pentru ceasul de la bordul avionului.
Dar călătoria în trecut? Conform celor mai acceptate ipoteze, călătoria înapoi în timp nu este posibilă. Și totuși, unele mașini ipotetice, cum ar fi cilindrii Tipler, ar putea permite fenomenul. Frank Jennings Tipler (născut pe 1 februarie 1947) este un fizician, matematician și cosmolog american, care deține o catedră dublă în Departamentele de Matematică și Fizică de la Universitatea Tulane din statul american Louisiana. Tipler a scris cărți și lucrări despre punctul Omega, bazate pe ideile religioase ale teologului Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, despre care el susține că este un mecanism pentru învierea morților. Criticii săi susțin că teoriile lui sunt în mare parte pseudoștiință. Ce sunt cilindrii Tipler? Este vorba despre cilindri care se rotesc cu viteze apropiate de cea a luminii, și care la suprafața lor produc un efect oarecum similar cu refracția, care ar putea arunca razele de lumină în trecut pe axa timpului. Există probleme majore cu această teorie, pe care Hawking o consideră ne-realizabilă practic într-un univers în care există doar energie finită și pozitivă. Într-un spațiu cu mai mult de patru dimensiuni, posibil cel puțin din punct de vedere matematic, sau în versiunea multiversurilor a cărei posibilitate a fost deschisă de fizica cuantică, lucrurile stau însă altfel. Dacă portalurile dintre multiversuri sunt posibile, atunci este posibilă și trecerea într-un univers paralel care să fie o versiune trecută a celui în care trăim. Călătoria în trecut este sursa celor mai interesante paradoxuri temporale – probleme care combină logica și fizica, punând sub semnul întrebării cauzalitatea, care este unul dintre principiile de baza ale sistemului nostru de gândire. Unul dintre exemplele cele mai populare este ‘paradoxul bunicului’: călătorind în trecut și intervenind în procrearea strămoșilor (cum ar fi prin provocarea morții unui strămoș direct înainte de conceperea urmașilor), un călător în timp modifică astfel evenimentul propriei sale nașteri. Dacă însă călătorul în timp nu s-ar fi născut, atunci nu ar fi posibil ca el să întreprindă această acțiune. O variantă a ‘paradoxului bunicului’ este cel al ‘paradoxului uciderii dictatorului’. Să zicem că un erou bine intenționat din viitor își folosește puterile pentru a călători în trecut și a-i asasina pe Hitler sau pe Stalin, încercând să prevină orori precum Holocaustul și Gulagul. Consecințele unui astfel de act pot fi diferite, dar nu în sensul dorit de erou. Într-un scenariu pesimist, genocidurile se întâmplă totuși, căci dictatorii au fost doar vârful unei structuri care, chiar decapitată, are puterea să se regenereze. Multe romane și filme SF dezvoltă principiul conform căruia ‘istoria nu poate fi schimbată’. În scenariul optimist, istoria este cruțată de aceste episoade întunecate, dar atunci acțiunea eroului se dovedește a nu mai fi necesară.
‘Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel’ este un film care se joacă exact cu ideea paradoxurilor temporale produse de călătoriile în timp. Filmul a fost produs în 2009 de BBC în colaborare cu studiourile americane HBO – o combinație între soliditatea tradițională britanică și industria de divertisment prin streaming care abia decola în acea perioadă. Filmul este scris de Jamie Mathieson, autor al scenariilor unor filme și seriale (majoritatea SF) de succes, iar regia îi aparține lui Gareth Carriwick, regizor de talent care, din păcate, avea să moară de leucemie un an mai târziu, acesta fiind ultimul său film. Acțiunea se petrece într-un pub englezesc. Eroii, lucrători într-un parc de distracții și fani pasionați de science-fiction, ieșiți la o bere (sau mai multe) după ce unul dintre ei fusese concediat, se trezesc implicați într-o enigmă de călătorie în timp. Povestea este declanșată de întâlnirea cu Cassie, o fată venită dintr-un viitor în care călătoria în timp este posibilă și care are ca profesie repararea scurgerilor de timp. Cassie îi previne de pericolul pe care îl prezintă pentru ei ‘editorii’, alți călători în timp care au obiceiul să-i ucidă pe scriitorii sau artiștii de talent, după ce aceștia au creat capodoperele vieților lor, pentru a preveni lucrările următoare, mai puțin reușite. Or unul dintre eroi, care visează să devină scriitor SF, chiar va deveni faimos în viitor, deci este o victimă potențială. Lucrurile nu se petrec exact după plan. Cassie, tehniciana care repară scurgerile de timp, este în perioada de probă și nu a avut timp să citească chiar tot manualul, iar portalul care face legătura dintre lumi se află în … toaleta bărbaților din pub. Câteva salturi în timp mai târziu, eroii vor avea ocazia să se fi confruntat cu paradoxurile temporale menționate mai sus și cu altele mai periculoase.
Tema este prelucrată cu umor tipic englezesc, una dintre metodele care compensează lipsa unui buget semnificativ, care să permită decoruri fastuoase sau efecte speciale spectaculoase. Cea mai mare parte din acțiune se petrece în două camere: pub-ul și toaleta acestuia. Echipa de actori englezi are o prestație simpatică, specifică multora dintre comediile TV englezești. Singura figură mai familiară din distribuție este actrița americană Anna Faris, cunoscută din câteva filme horror. De ce americană? Deoarece ‘în viitor toată lumea va vorbi engleza cu accent american’! Filmul, presărat cu aluzii și glume legate de istoria literaturii și filmelor SF, trebuie căutat astăzi pe platformele de streaming sau în retrospectivele festivalurilor dedicate acestui gen. Cei care vor reuși să-l găsească și să-l vadă nu vor regreta.
(Articolul a apărut iniţial în revista culturală ‘Literatura de Azi’ – http://literaturadeazi.ro/)
Todd Haynes‘ ‘Far from Heaven‘ (2002) is a bold and highly successful stylistic and thematic exercise. From the beginning of the film, from the opening credits, you have the impression as a viewer that you are watching an American film from the 50s that is either very well preserved or excellently restored. There were several sources of inspiration, but the main one is the social melodrama ‘All the Heaven Allows’ directed in 1955 by Douglas Sink. That film, which starred Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson, tackled one of the moral taboos of the era – relationships between mature women and much younger men. However, Todd Haynes, who is also the author of the screenplay, uses the style of narration and filming of that period to address two other taboos of the society of the 1950s, which American cinema had not yet dared to attack by that time: interracial love affairs and homosexual relationships. Not only does Haynes bring both themes into the same story, he does more – he brings them into the same marriage. He does not, however, do so from the perspective of the 45 years that have passed since the events described in the film, nor does he introduce any lessons learned from the civil rights revolution of the ’60s or the revolution of acceptance of homosexuality that would take place about a decade later. He films as if he were a 1950s director who dared approach the themes. The authenticity effect is overwhelming.
The story begins in the fall of 1957 and takes place in the city of Hartford, Connecticut. The couple Frank and Cathy Whitaker seem like model American success story in that decade of economic prosperity after World War II. Frank works as head of advertising at a prosperous firm and earns well enough to have a nice house with maids and for Cathy to be able to stay at home and devote her time to raising her two children and socializing with other women of the same bed well-off social. Behind the appearances, however, a secret is hidden. Frank is gay and he has a tough time hiding his preferences, starts risking visits to gay bars and even has an affair at work. The marriage goes into crisis when Cathy discovers the situation and Franl decides to resort to a ‘treatment’ to ‘fix’ what was still considered an illness at the time. The ‘treatment’ doesn’t quite work, Frank is confused and becomes violent. The desperate Cathy finds support and platonic solace in her friendship with Raymond, a widowed African-American gardener and father of a little girl. Inter-racial relations, even at social level, are a taboo at least as unaccepted by the mentality of those times as gay relations and a much more visible one. Both communities in the city – that of the whites and that of the blacks – reject them. Segregation is not only legal (laws that would change in the next decade), but also or especially in the mentality. Although Cathy and Raymond had committed no infidelity, the very fact that they were meeting and socializing in public condemns them to ostracism. Under this pressure of prejudice, neither the marriage nor the bond forged against the conventions have much chance of survival.
Todd Haynes carefully studied and brought back to work some of the tools in the arsenal of filmmakers from the decade in which the story takes place. To faithfully recreate the film colors of the era, Haynes, along with his faithful collaborator, cinematographer Edward Lachman, used the film and lighting from the studios of the period. The action begins in autumn and the foliage colors are combined with the red and green of the ladies’ dresses for an idyllic symphony of colors. As we progress through the story, the more garish colors and the darker corners of the city appear. The chill of winter is interrupted only by the heroes’ New Year’s vacation filmed under the warm Florida sun. In the ending, which takes place in the spring, flower buds appear on the trees, but the future is uncertain. For the film’s soundtrack, Haynes chose to collaborate with Elmer Bernstein, a composer with half a century of experience who had already been active writing film music during the period the story takes place. It would be his last collaboration on a feature film. The role of Cathy Whitaker is played by Julianne Moore. This is, I think, one of the best roles of her career, a complex role of a woman whose world collapses under the pressure of the events and prejudices around her, a woman who tries to cope with dignity with the situation and save her family while keeping her own integrity and who pays a huge price for this. Unfortunately, the roles of the two men in Cathy’s life are less well-defined, although each represents a complex and equally interesting case. Dennis Quaid and Dennis Haysbert both act well, but I was left with the impression that their two characters are not sufficiently explored. The final is far from a happy ending. For each of the three heroes, the fight is just beginning.
Some of the most interesting films I’ve seen lately come from directors who have nothing left to prove. Wim Wenders is one of them. He will be 79 this year and has made films like ‘Wings of Desire’ and ‘Paris, Texas’. He can probably get financing for whatever movies he wants, or maybe he even has enough resources to finance himself whatever dream or fantasy he wants to bring to the screen. Thoughts of retiring seem distant or non-existent to him. In the last 10 years he has added 18 titles to his filmography: short and feature films, fiction and documentaries, music videos of the music he loves and films about the visual artists he admires. Not only does Wenders seem like he has no intention of stopping, he’s always on the lookout, rejects clichés and the beaten path, and always has something interesting to say and something new to experience. ‘Perfect Days‘ is a tribute to Japan by an artist who deeply loves and respects this country, its people and its culture. It is a wonderful film about loneliness and about simple and sometimes invisible people, with a deeply human message: the world is made up of as many worlds as there are people, and everyone has their place under the sun and their life worth living. The film has already received several awards, but I think the most significant of them is the decision to be chosen to represent Japan at the Academy Awards this year. It is, I believe, a confirmation that the Japanese themselves had a great opinion about the quality and sensibility of the film according to their own criteria. It doesn’t even matter much whether the film wins the Oscar or not.
The original scriot is written by Wenders along with Takuma Takasaki. Hirayama, the main hero of the film, is an aging man who works in the cleaning service of public toilets in Tokyo. Anyone who has visited Japan knows how impressively clean Japanese toilets are. Their maintenance should therefore also be an honorable job. We follow Hirayama’s daily routine: he wakes up in his modest studio apartment in the big metropolis, rolls up his mattress that most Japanese people traditionally sleep on, brushes his teeth and trims his moustache, goes out into the street and looks up at the sky to see what the weather is like, buys an iced coffee from a vending machine, gets into his car old enough to be equipped with a tape player, and goes to work. The day’s work routine is interrupted by a break in which he rests in a park, eats a sandwich, looks at the people and especially at the trees that he photographs. He uses a film camera, seems to be a fan of decades-old devices, and listens to music on a cassette player, like the one I used to when I was a teenager many decades ago. His musical tastes are also retro – pop hits of the 60s and 70s. When he finishes work he goes to the public bath and then to a street restaurant. Always the same public bath, always the same restaurant. In the evenings, he reads novels by Faulkner or Patricia Highsmith in second-hand paperback editions bought for 100 yen. Life flows with small joys caused by details sought in nature or fleeting connections with those around, usually no more than glances or greetings. Events happen. A young co-worker asks for his help in winning over a girl, who in the end seems more interested in Hirayama’s music. His niece runs away from home and takes refuge with him for a few days, an opportunity to reunite after many years with his sister, a woman rich enough to afford a chauffeured limousine. In the bar where he drinks a glass of something stronger each weekend, the owner sings a Japanese version of ‘House of the Rising Sun’. Hirayama speaks little, but radiates empathy and a smile that will win all viewers towards the end.
One could say that ‘Perfect Days‘ is a film without a story, but how exciting it is for the viewers to watch what is happening on the screen! Every detail is studied and placed in its place, as happens in Japanese interiors or parks. The characters in ‘Perfect Days‘ are lonely people but their loneliness has a thousand shades, all rendered with discretion and thoroughness. Tokyo, the city that seems overwhelming to most tourists, is beautifully filmed and brought back to human dimensions. The music is great, but I’m being subjective here, as it’s the music of my generation. Wenders describes here that territory of intersection between Japanese and Anglo-American culture, which I observed in many Japanese colleagues when I visited Japan. About the acting creation of Koji Yakusho, I can only say that the fact that he is not nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor seems scandalous to me. Good thing at least he was recognized and awarded at Cannes! ‘Perfect Days‘ is for me, so far, the best film of the year. I think it’s also one of those movies that holds up well and really grows in time.
Am reușit să ajung, cu mare întârziere, la romanele lui Carlos Ruiz Zafón. Romancierul spaniol face parte dintre acei autori ale cărui cărți le-am cumpărat de-a lungul anilor, le-am găsit un colț bun în bibliotecile mele și le-am amânat lectura. Mereu au existat noutăți fierbinți, urgențe cauzate de dezbaterile internetice, obligații contractuale și evenimente de viață care au amânat lectura. Mai sunt câțiva scriitori și scriitoare în această categorie, numele lor celebre pot fi furnizate la cerere. Știam, din cele citite despre autor și despre cărțile sale, că atunci când ne vom întâlni nu mă va dezamăgi. Și așa a fost.
Scriitorul s-a născut la Barcelona în 1964, unde a trăit până în anii ’90, când și-a mutat reședința la Los Angeles. O moarte timpurie l-a răpit în 2020, nu înainte de a publica șase romane care l-au consacrat ca pe unul dintre cei mai importanți scriitori contemporani în spațiul literar de limba spaniolă și cel mai vândut dintre ei în primele două decenii ale mileniului. ‘La sombra del viento’, publicat în 2001, a fost romanul care l-a făcut celebru pe Zafón. S-a vândut în milioane de exemplare în întreaga lume, bucurându-se de succes la public și de elogii din partea majorității criticilor literari. Era capul de serie al ciclului ‘Cimitirul cărților uitate’ din care mai fac parte alte trei romane și o carte de povestiri. A fost tradus în limba română de Dragoș Cojocaru cu titlul ‘Umbra vîntului’ (ortografia editorilor) și publicat de Editura Polirom. Eu am citit o ediție tradusă în engleză în 2004 de Lucia Graves (fiica poetului Robert Graves) și publicată în Marea Britanie de Editura Phoenix cu titlul ‘The Shadows of the Wind’.
Romanul este un pasionant mister literar care se petrece în Barcelona într-o perioadă care acoperă peste jumătate de secol din istoria Spaniei și a orașului de pe malul Mediteranei. Eroul principal este Daniel, care în primul capitol al cărții are zece ani și este de nu multă vreme orfan de mamă. Tatăl, care este librar și anticar, proprietar al unui magazin de cărți, îl duce – pentru a-i mai alina melancolia și dorul de mama pierdută – într-un loc magic, o imensă bibliotecă în care sunt adunate toare cărțile rare, interzise, uitate sau pierdute. Câte un exemplar din fiecare este adus aici pentru a fi salvat de la ștergerea definitivă din memoria istoriei.
‘This is a place of mystery, Daniel, a sanctuary. Every book, every volume you see here, has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens. This place was already ancient when father brought me here for the first time, many years ago. Perhaps as old as the city itself. Nobody knows for certain how long it has existed, or who created it. I will tell what my father told me, though. When a library disappears, or a bookshop closes down, when a book is consigned to oblivion, those of us who know this place, its guardians, make sure that it gets here. In this place, books no longer remembered by anyone, books that are lost in time, live forever, waiting for the day when they will reach a new reader’s hands. In the shop we buy and sell them, but in truth books have no owner. Every book you see here has been somebody’s best friend. Now they only have us, Daniel. Do you think you’ll be able to keep such a secret?’ (pag. 3-4)
Fiecare vizitator poate alege din Cimitirul Cărților Uitate o singură carte, de care va avea grija tot restul vieții și care-i va marca destinul. Daniel alege un roman cu titlul ‘Umbra vântului’ scris de un scriitor necunoscut pe nume Julián Carax. Romanul îl pasionează și încearcă să afle mai multe despre autor. Acesta pare să fi dispărut împreună cu orice altă copie a ‘Umbrei vântului’ și cu majoritatea celorlalte cărti semnate de el. Daniel începe să investigheze pentru a afla ce s-a întâmplat cu autorul romanului și cu cărțile sale. Nu este singurul care pare interesant de Julián Carax. Un bogat colecționar de cărți rare, un malefic inspector de politie, un necunoscut desfigurat care cumpără și arde orice carte a lui Carax și un vagabond întâlnit pe străzile Barcelonei par toți fie interesați să pună mâna pe acest, poate, ultim exemplar al romanului sau să-l descurajeze și să-l intimideze pentru a-l determina să-și întrerupă cercetările. Investigațiile îi dezvăluie o poveste plină de secrete și mistere, iubiri nefericite și crime, prietenii și trădări, care începe cândva, pe la începutul secolului 20 și are ramificații până în anii în care se petrece acțiunea, poveste în care sunt implicate câteva dintre cele mai bogate familii ale orașului.
Nu altul decât Stephen King scria apreciativ despre ‘Umbra vântului’ și îl considera ca aparținând genului ficțiunii gotice, adică un amestec bine dozat de poveste de iubire cu mister și horror. Carlos Ruiz Zafón știe să țină permanent alert interesul cititorilor. Unul dintre secretele reușitei sale în această direcție este faptul că inventează un roman în roman. Nu doar titlurile cărții descoperite de Daniel și al romanului lui Zafón sunt identice, dar și destinele lui Daniel și al lui Julián Carax par să se oglindească unul în celalalt. Pe măsură ce adolescentul avansează în investigație, el descoperă secrete din trecut care par să aibă rezonanță în propria sa biografie – de exemplu este luat sub tutela unor patroni bine situați și binevoitori, cel puțin în aparență, până când se îndrăgostește de fiica acestora. Supraviețuitori ai trecutului lui Julián par să vadă în Daniel o reîncarnare a acestuia. ‘Umbra vântului’ pare a avea puteri magice și chiar malefice.
Atenția cititorilor fiind captată, autorul dezvoltă de-a lungul celor peste 500 de pagini ale cărții câteva dintre temele sale preferate. Pe una dintre ele am menționat-o deja, este vorba despre pasiunea pentru cărți și despre puterea magică a acestora. Daniel moștenește librăria tatălui sau și profesiunea de anticar, și niciodată nu pare să se gândească la un alt traseu în viață. O altă temă este însăși maturizarea eroului, pe care îl urmărim vreme de zece ani, trecând de la copilărie la adolescență și apoi la maturitate, trăind prima poveste de dragoste care nu are cum să fie altfel decât o nefericită dezamăgire, găsindu-și iubirea adevărată și luptând pentru ea când riscă să o piardă, tocmai pentru a nu repeta destinul nefericitului Julián. Zafón este excelent și în cele câteva pagini de erotică din roman, dar mai ales în redarea trăirilor tânărului îndrăgostit:
‘I waited until Bea had gone into the building and then set off briskly, turning to glance back at every step. Slowly I became possessed by the absurd conviction that anything was possible, and it seemed to me that even those deserted streets and that hostile wind smelled of hope. When 1 reached Plaza de Cataluña, I noticed that a flock of pigeons had congregated in the centre of the square, covering it with a blanket of white feathers that swayed silently. I thought of going round them, but at that moment I noticed that the pigeons were parting to let me pass, instead of flying off felt my way forward, as the pigeons broke ranks in front of me and reformed behind me. When I got to the middle of the square, I heard the peal of the cathedral bells ringing out midnight. I paused for a moment, stranded in an ocean of silvery birds, and thought how this had been the strangest and most marvellous day of my life.’ (pag. 187-188)
O altă temă recurentă este Barcelona. Zafón este evident îndrăgostit de orașul în care s-a născut, a copilărit și a trăit o mare parte a vieții. Străzile orașului, portul, dealul Montjuic și mai ales clădirile solide sau în ruină, blocurile de apartamente ale burgheziei sau acele faimoase ‘mansions’ (vile) construite de cei mai avuți la sfârșitul secolului 19 și începutul secolului 20, constituie mult mai mult decât un fundal pitoresc al poveștilor sale. Ele participă la legendă, impregnează povestea cu senzații și sentimente diverse, de la energia nevinovată a tinereții urmată de pasiunea iubirilor, la decăderea cauzată de ruinarea puterii și de prezența morții:
‘My notions of Victorian literature suggested that the most logical place to begin searching was the cellar, which must have once housed the ovens and a great coal bunker. With this idea in mind, I spent almost five minutes trying to find a door or staircase leading to the lower floor. I chose a large door made of carved wood at the end of a passage. It looked like a piece of exquisite cabinetmaking, with reliefs in the shape of angels and a large cross in the centre. The handle was in the middle of the door, under the cross. I tried unsuccessfully to turn it. The mechanism was probably jammed or simply ruined by rust. The only way that door would yield would be by forcing it open with a crowbar or knocking it down with an axe, alternatives I quickly ruled out. I studied the large piece of wood by candlelight and thought that somehow it looked more like a sarcophagus than a door. I wondered what was hidden behind it.’ (pag.313)
Cea mai mare parte din acțiunea cărții se întinde intre 1915 și 1955 – o perioadă de mare zbucium pentru Spania și pentru întreagă lume, care cuprinde în ea cele doua războaie mondiale și cumplitul război civil care a sfâșiat Spania și a fost un preludiu al celui de-al doilea război mondial. Istoria este tot timpul prezentă, chiar daca nu este vorba despre un roman în care politica reprezintă una dintre temele principale. Este evidentă antipatia autorului față de stagnarea, opresiunea și fățărnicia religioasă a regimului de dictatura al lui Franco, instaurat după victoria fascismului în războiul civil. Nici extremele comuniste și anarhiste nu par însă să-i stârnească entuziasmul, desi probabil că personajul care se apropie cel mai mult de ideile scriitorului este Fermin Romero de Torres, vagabondul cules de pe străzile Barcelonei, fost deținut politic, care devine cel mai bun prieten, confidentul și complicele lui Daniel în ancheta sa. Unul dintre detaliile comune ale biografiilor paralele ale lui Daniel și Julián este pericolul încorporării în armată, ocazie de a-și exprima opoziția față de orice atitudine care ar sugera militarismul. Ceea ce lipsește cu desăvârșire din acest roman este vreo referință la identitatea catalană distinctă a Barcelonei și a unei părți importante a populației orașului. Asta m-a mirat puțin, dar poate că aceste contradicții naționaliste nu erau la fel de acute în prima jumătate a secolului 20, sau poate că Zafón, care era etnic catalan, dar a ales să scrie în limba spaniolă, le-a abordat explicit în alte cărți ale ciclului.
‘Umbra vântului’ m-a pasionat. Combinația de mister, romantică și istorie este întotdeauna câștigătoare pentru mine, dar aici am întâlnit și un scriitor de calitate, care știe să construiască o intrigă de mister și să creeze personaje de care cititorului îi pasă, un scriitor care abordează teme majore și interesante și le înserează într-o poveste complexă, cu ritm și suspense. Lectură recomandată.
Those who ask about the point of traditional TV and its chances in the increasingly fierce competition to create content on various mediums can be answered with references like ‘Appropriate Adult‘. The two-episode miniseries produced by ITV, which premiered in 2011, is an excellent example of the specific value that can be created by independent television studios. It is a psychological drama, a police investigation story, and a horror movie without any violent scenes, based on a real and highly publicized case in England in the 90s. The script is written by Neil McKay and directed by Julian Jarrold.
The story starts in Gloucester in 1994. Fred and Rosemary West became murder suspects somewhat by accident, following a complaint of domestic violence. The man was initially arrested and, as communication with investigators was difficult, the police requested the services of an ‘appropriate adult’ – one of those specific functions in the British legal and police system. This is a social worker position that may be requested by investigators or suspects when there are communication issues. Janet Leach was a psychologist and social worker, mother of two, whose partner suffered from bipolar psychological disorders. She had just graduated from the ‘appropriate adult’ training when she was called to help with the investigation which seemed quite mundane at first. At the first interrogation she assists, Fred West confesses to a murder. In particular, knowing that Janet cannot share confidential information, he confesses to Janet that there have been multiple murders along the years. The police continue to investigate, the number of bodies is increasing, and so are the number of confessed crimes. Meanwhile, a strange connection develops between the serial killer and the psychologist called to assist him in the interrogations. Can anything be sincere about this relationship, or is it just psychological manipulation on the part of a villain who seeks to hide his crimes, and when that is not possible, to protect his complicit wife? Janet’s life, already complicated by the psychological problems of her life partner, begins to be influenced due to contact with the world of crime and the pressure of journalists reporting on this case that has become famous.
Much of the story takes place in the police interrogation rooms during Fred West’s interrogations and then in the courtroom where Rosemary West is on trial. The very special quality of the series is given by the performances of the actors. Emily Watson, a leading actress of British cinema, is formidable in the role of the dedicated woman who wants to do her professional and civic duty and whose personal life is invaded by the dimensions of the case in which she is involved. Dominic West, who starred in ‘The Wire’, one of the best series in television history, is impressive as the criminal with a dark personality and charisma, who plays his fate in a complicated game with his investigators. Last but not least, Monica Dolan plays the role of Rosemary West, with a glacial sobriety, building an aura of horror around her person just from silences and looks. ‘Appropriate Adult‘ is a gem among many TV mini-series of this kind, a film that deserves to be seen if you have the chance.
‘Chocolat‘ (2000) is one of those very successful films that I should have seen at their time and that somehow I missed, caught up in the whirlwind of my previous lives. I kept putting it off, but now its turn has come. It’s a film that I probably would have been much more enthusiastic about at the time, and I can understand why a lot of people liked it then, but watching it now I felt a little disappointed.
Swedish director Lasse Hallström had his first brush with fame in the 1970s, when he directed most of ABBA’s videos, including a feature-length one about a world tour of the then-most popular pop band known in the world outside England and the United States. A few feature films in his native country followed that were successful enough to attract the attention of critics and festival organizers. Invited to work in the United States, starting with the mid-80s, he made most of his films from there. ‘Chocolat‘ is one of his most famous films, an international success with an outstanding cast, a feel-good movie that exemplifies what was best in films of this kind produced by American studios (Miramax in this case) but with international themes, filming locations, actors and technical teams, but also draws attention to several weaknesses that made many of these films ‘pleasant’ but not exceptional productions.
The story takes place in 1959 in a picturesque French village, placed on a cliff by a river. On a blizzard night with the winds blowing from the north (the north wind will return at key moments of the story), a woman and her little girl, dressed in red hooded cloaks, arrive in the village to rent an abandoned shop in the square from the center of the town, opposite the church. In a few weeks, the woman, who goes by the name of Vianne, proves to be hardworking and skilled and manages to transform the place into an attractive chocolate shop, the likes of which had never existed before in the village. Vianne is also a good connoisseur of customers’ tastes and personalities, managing not only to guess what kind of candies or exotic chocolate-based drinks suit each one, but also to understand what their problems and pains are, offering to help The problem is that we are in the fasting period before Easter and the opening of a chocolate shop may tempt the parishioners of the Catholic town, and besides, Vianne doesn’t even go to church. Between the woman who had opened the chocolate shop and the mayor, who is the descendant of the counts who had ruled the village, a conflict arises and grows proportions that make it seem difficult to reconcile. The appearance on the outskirts of the village of a community of gypsies who came by boat on the river further complicates the situation, putting the conservative inhabitants of the village in contact with a foreign way of life, which seems to them a threat.
The story of the film can be seen as a variant of a social conflict between the traditional way of life (Catholic with feudal overtones) and secularism, between puritanism and the pleasures of life. A French film based on the same plot would probably have looked quite different. The Hollywood approach, however, seemed inauthentic and too Manichean from the beginning, which made the final twist seem forced, even for a ‘feel good’ film. However, many of these minuses are compensated by the acting interpretations and especially by the formidable creation of Juliette Binoche, who radiates beauty and kindness, in one of those roles of a woman you can’t help but fall in love with, roles that only a few great actresses can create: Audrey Hepburn or Audrey Tautou, the latter with her formidable role in ‘Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain’, a film similar in many respects, made a year later. A few more great actresses contribute with outstanding creations: Judi Dench, Carrie-Anne Moss, Lena Olin. We also get to see Johnny Depp as a character that predates the series of negative roles that would follow in his career. Alfred Molina plays the negative role of the count, a character that seems coming straight out of a Buñuel film, but drawn too thickly and unconvincing in the final conversion. Finally, the Irish actor Hugh O’Conor plays the role of a priest just out of adolescence, so far from the context that I was not sure if it was a brilliant creation or just mis-casting. The film is beautifully shot, the music adds charm (with manouche jazz tunes and some sequences with Johnny Depp on guitar), but I felt that the ending dilutes even more the sharpness of what we saw before. If Juliette Binoche and Audrey Tautou are on the same level, the film ‘Amélie’ far surpasses in emotion and authenticity what ‘Chocolat‘ offers. Too much chocolate consumption is risky, we all know that.
I believe that any fan of French cinema of the last 70 years would like to have witnessed in the studio the filming of ‘8 femmes‘ (‘8 Women‘) made in 2002 by François Ozon. It is a perfect exemplification of the concept of ‘all-stars movie’, with the added value that the entire cast is composed exclusively of women, most of them leading actresses of the French screen from the 30s to the beginning of our millennium. The meeting of these great stars who are each a reason enough to watch a film in which they appear in the credits resulted in an entertainment the likes of which are few in the history of cinema. All in a relaxed atmosphere, giving us the feeling that the director and his actresses had a great time during the filming.
If someone in Hollywood had decided in the 1930s or 1940s to make a period musical based on one of Agatha Christie’s detective novels, this is what the result would have looked like. However, the film adapts a French theater play, so some French hot sauce – that is, humor – can be added. The action takes place in a mansion in the country, it is snowing heavily outside, the telephone lines are cut, the roads are closed and in a short time the isolated building becomes the perfect stage for a ‘whodunit’ with a finite number of characters. The corpse belongs to the owner of the house, an industrialist and the only male in the cast. He had lived surrounded only by women: his mother-in-law, his wife, two daughters, a sister-in-law, a sister, a cook and a chambermaid. The dogs did not bark on the night of the murder, so the murderer is one of the eight women. Each of them carries with her a mountain of secrets, of those that include enough reasons to have been, each of them, the authors of the crime. There is no Hercule Poirot or any other detective, so the women must discover the identity of the murderer themselves by talking to each other. And singing.
The script is well written and the plot holds up well enough as a ‘whodunit’. The musical numbers are of good quality, the best belonging to Firmine Richard, who was perhaps the least known of the eight actresses. The presence on the same screen of Danielle Darrieux, Catherine Deneuve, Fanny Ardant, Isabelle Huppert and Emmanuelle Béart is of course a unique event and the main attraction. The female cream of French cinema gathers in a unique performance. Even Romy Schneider is present and honored with a still photo. The abundance of quotes and details, many alluding to the careers of the actresses and their previous roles, will delight knowledgeable viewers. There is, however, a danger that ‘8 femmes‘ will not hold up well over time, when the brilliance of the stars on the screen will begin to be forgotten. The theatrical style of the text and acting is also emphasized by the final scene where the actresses line up to greet their audience on an imaginary ramp. As spectators, we can only respond to them by bowing back to them with respect.
