Watched Monty Python's "And Now for Something Completely Different" last night. Friends a log in comparison, but the Matrixrerubbish is a pile of rotting compost beside Friends. Shall watch "Emma" with deah Gwyneth tonight. Or "Juliet of the Spirits" by Fellini, the only reason for moi choosing it being "Roma"'s, and all his other works', unavailable-for-general-borrowing status in the library, which really defeats the purpose of a Library doesn't it. Ah well... |

Movie du jour: "Son of the Bride", a Spanish-Argentinian(?) Best Foreign-Language Oscar-nominated understated gem of a film that had me (for shame!) on the brink of salty tears... tsk tsk eet is not good to mention such things, but I feel I Must do this really very very delightful film justice, and to cast in proper perspective such trash as "The Matrix Re-blahblah". The story revolves around the son of a restaurateur and his wife (who suffers from Alzheimer's disease). A series of events follow, with not so many revelatory moments as snatches of genuine emotion unsullied by cheap Hollywood-Hallmark sentiment or any taint of spuriousness. Methinks it the best of the three Spanish-language films I've watched recently (the other two "Y Tu Mama Tambien" and "Talk to Her"), but anyhow all surpass most of the drivel churned out of American bowels these days, exceptions being LOTR, Finding Nemo and a few rare singularitiess.

Performance: "The Fall of the House of Usher", presented by the Ballett Nurnberg and Oper Nurnberg. A spare set held the dark action, where dancers and opera singers writhed, agonized and tremulously sampled salvation only to be sucked into eternal despair. Three main singers propelled the tragedy with powerfully mournful voices. Dancers jerked shaky geometry, then swooped with trembling limbs graceful arabesques that collapsed into cowering foetal lumps. Costumes were eerily effective... deviously simple ballooned tunics suggested medieval peasants and crawling insects; pale dancers of both sexes wrapped in scarlet gowns that signified the protagonist's incestuous transexualism personified... as his "sister", who wailed long notes of ululation that infused the other singers' frequent duets with urgent lunacy. A ship's mast, set into the sail-shaped elevated floor, represented the fragile sanity that was dramatically drowned when sister broke it with her demonic energy, abetted by the already-damned last Usher. The final scene, brief and potent, saw him suspended, as if by dread and ghoulish intent, from a cartwheel that turned not, while he spun to a gothic omega. |

Weather finally letting up, and a nice wind blows from the... well I am simply bad at directions. Ask J. We were walking around Zurich, rather bored really, looking for the Grossmonster (ehehe) and I had no inkling that stolid hulk of a church was on This side of the river. Dear old Charlemange poked J as I grasped the ancient sword. Also we saw a sex shop nestled in a nook at the end of a row of really quite respectable establishments, and a terribly overpriced florist's or eatery, and a modernist bookstore with all sorts of art, arty and architecture tomes, luring repressed tourists to some really naughty books masquerading under an innocent label. There was cold Germanic stock in cold air striding up and down coldly drawn streets, only to ride up tiny department store escalators to eat at glorified foodcourts reminiscent of Marche's. I had poulet schnitzel... and J lamented his inadequate salad. |

What am I to think of this? Ehehe...


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Managed to get the archives working... attended a performance today, "Alladeen", by the motiroti company (or whatever it is they baptize themselves). It's supposed to be a hip, funny, sharp look at globalisation and its victims, victors and victor-victims, but the post-MTV liquid graphics, witty-esque sets and tolerable actors could only crank the novelty up that far, and push the flagging jokes in the audience's jaded faces that many times. Not that the performance was draggy, which was something to its credit, and if anything the folks who forked out more than $20 could very well demand recompense for an exceedingly short gig. "Gig" rings injurious right now in the thick of the Singapore Arts Festival, but when the last act, or second act, or epilogue (it was not very clear which, but then we're presumed to be urbane oxygen-bar-disdaining denizens of a rich brave new world here) comprised valiant "dancing", clamorous belting of two songs (not too bad, but still) and a piquant re,deconstruction of Karen Carpenter's "Superstar", the mainly angloindian team should not be afraid of how that pithy, colourful, mildly interesting and yet flawed blue mango of their labours is described. |