Easy Virtue

Freedom is a common theme in art, whether from the reigns of society or from our own personal bondage.

A woman's freedom is my story and two films speak to me on this; Subira (2008) a short film by Ravneet Chadha and Easy Virtue (2008) starring Jessica Biel, Ben Barnes, Kristin Scott Thomas and Colin Firth.

They label the heroine, naughty or avante-garde for being how men can freely be.

Easy Virtue however was able to explore more issues, being a full-feature film. It touched on the ghosts of soldier survivors, the loss or capture of youth in marriage, the absoluteness of love. I like these themes. They aren't so common. But they are just as pertinent.

On freedom, maybe it is the quest for it that allows us to find ourselves, allows us to taste in the end the satisfaction of our toil. The greater the struggle, the more glorious the triumph, they say. Maybe there could be no other way. Maybe there should have always been another way.

what it means to be free, one poet put it, what it really means to be free, is to be me.

But even freedom isn't absolute. And wars are won and lost. So if women are to triumph, pray, what would have been lost?

Dying Language

...as much as they analyse how vowels are spoken and sentences are put together, they are also looking for stories, dances, songs, a culture of a people, which will disappear when the language does. A language is more than vocabulary and grammar, it is a way of thinking about the world that ties people together. It is a currency they can exchange, an identity, a community and roots...

Crossroads on RFI today aired a story on the dying language of Kim and Bom in Sierra Leone. Tucker Childs, a field linguist attempts to preserve language by first documenting it and then turning it into material of interest and therefore of use.

But Childs, almost Don Quixote style, works to save a language its speakers aren't interested in saving.

Kim and Bom die as they become socio-economically irrelevant, stigmatised and to the children, what they like to call "the monkey language."

War and peace threaten the continuance of language and traditions, they say. War destroys and isolates communities and peace prioritises one language over another in the effort to unify people with a common tongue.

But we can only hope and carry on like Childs does to save that piece of history that will help us to understand (if later on) ourselves that little bit more. Even if it takes recording the last 20 speakers where the last of a language and culture live only in anecdotes or socialising.

Jakub Barua

The Goethe Institut screened all six of Barua's films yesterday. Described as being "defined by sophisticated aesthetics and the exploration of memory and history through narrative forms," the films were screened after a brief introduction and several acknowledgements to members of the audience.

The emcee made reference to Barua's "double or triple heritage," Barua being half Polish and half Kenyan, and questioned Barua about how being a global citizen allows him to give back, respond to or take a stand on issues in Kenya.

Barua answered with several thoughts;

- that as artists we try to create things that are very universal while being very particular,
- that in art every single observation, if it rings true for you is true, that there is no one interpretation of a piece of work.

I wasn't able to stay beyond the 15 min break and sadly I have already forgotten more of Barua's reflections on his films but indeed he takes a very a European slant in his filmmaking with undertones and the artistic courage reminiscent of his countrymate, Krzysztof Kieslowski's style.

Light & Form

There is harmony and order that is to be found in the inanimate structures that surround us in our daily lives. But how often do we stop to look at or think about them, having very often taken them for granted? In our homes, workplaces and public spaces there is a constant tension between balance and chaos, and much of our daily endeavours revolve around this contradiction. This is most readily apparent in the buildings and cities that we construct and inhabit. We concentrate on their functionality and pay only cursory attention to how they interact with our sense of perception and the resultant effect on our thoughts and feelings and our ability to relate to our surroundings. Photography is an incredibly dexterous medium when it comes to exploring this interrelation. Yet like all art, photography is a construct of the mind rather than an embodiment of any particular physical reality. Through its ability to extract, as it were, fragments of a larger and therefore less decipherable ‘reality’, and reducing it to the essence of almost abstract form, it opens us to a different way of evaluating the external world. There is beauty and order everywhere, and this is only determined by how we choose to direct our attention. Form, when combined with the ethereal quality of light, allows for the animation of every object. And this is just one more way of cherishing the little joys that the gift of life has is stow for us each day, where even concrete, stones, glass and metal, reaffirm the act of Creation.

Jacob Barua

Filmography:
Forgotten Places, 1994, documentary, 20 mins.
Shades of Poland, 1999, documentary, 53 mins.
Taking Action, 2002, documentary, 30 mins.
Valley of Shadows, 2004, film poem, 2 mins.
My Daddy was a Cavalryman, 2006, documentary, 25 mins.

don't cha...

sounds, not scents, take me back - to moments in time - when either their lyrics or their beats identified with me. so when they play again, they play pregnant with memories.

and when another song is created and when we identify again, i think on how much has changed between songs; the lovers, the places, our belongings and lives...

and i miss them. not so much the items themselves (because there is always a reason for change), but the feelings, the freedoms, the innocence.

Petina Gappah

My second encounter of Petina Gappah (after the Storymoja Hay Festival last year) came by RFI's show, Voices, tonight, where she talked about her Guardian First Book Award collection of short stories; An Elegy for Easterly.

I haven't read it. I chose Vikram Seth's, Two Lives at the festival simply because it was cheaper and I'd heard of him before. But after having heard snippets of her short stories on air, being curious about 'African writing' and LOVING short story collections, it should be the very next book I buy :) Watch this space for a review.

Paris Je T'aime selections

On the subject of short films, I'd like to recommend three short films from the Paris Je T'aime collection:

Quais de Seine (Ve arrondissement) — A meet-cute involving a young man (Cyril Descours) and a young Muslim woman (Leïla Bekhti) that begins while hanging out with his wannabe-debonair friends.
Screenwriter: Paul Mayeda Berges
Director: Gurinder Chadha

Quais de Seine succeeds in the innocence of the encounter, the excitement of the chance-meeting and the hope for more. In the hope for a continued friendship, it is put to us to question how open we are to new relationships, ideas and perceptions.


Faubourg Saint-Denis (Xe arrondissement) — As a young blind man (Melchior Beslon) mistakenly believes that his girlfriend, a struggling actress (Natalie Portman), has broken up with him, he reflects on the growth and seeming decline of their relationship.
Writer/Director: Tom Tykwer

Like Quais de Seine, Fauborg Saint-Denis touches on the fragility of relationships. Tykwer differentiates his film by making clever use of the ambiguity of language, repeating it with a different visual narrative.


14e arrondissement (XIVe arrondissement) — Carol (Margo Martindale), a letter carrier from Denver, Colorado, reads out-loud for her French class, an account of her trip to Paris.
Writer/Director: Alexander Payne.

14e arrondissement succeeds in its honesty. Carol's character is developed in full with the expression of her thoughts and hopes, her fears and actions. As Carol experiences her epiphany so too does the audience, in the end we are as much like her as we decline to admit.

doorpost blessings

There is more good to come out of being called a doorpost! Because on looking for a doorpost image for the previous blog entry, I came across The Doorpost Film Project and have been watching their short films all weekend :p (God bless nudgers ;)

My top picks:

- The Boy Who Stole'd Christmas
A child's misunderstanding of Christmas, well encapsulated by the actions he takes

- Table 7
An unexpected twist of fate by unexpected means

- Lest we Forget
A remembrance of evils and a sacrifice then

engrish

resurrection

I think I died sometime last year. And then I just kept on drifting...

I am often described as "quiet" and people are always surprised the first time they see me dance or the first time they have a real conversation with me...

But this death I talk of, my death marked the difference between dead and "quiet". Because I said Nothing. I said Nothing because I thought Nothing. I thought Nothing because I read Nothing and did Nothing and almost began to want Nothing and so I became Nothing. I was Nothing and so contributed Nothing to conferences and socials...

until today.

This one woman snapped me out of it (albeit rudely); why don't you say something instead of sitting there like a doorpost. Or don't you have an opinion?

Or was it I that had been rude for not saying anything? Is Apathy a sin?

She broke all barriers this woman by questioning why we even thought that there were any boundaries. Why we were satisfied by not asking more questions. Why we spoke of intentions and not experiences.

She (now referred to as A) believed we were all responsible. He (now referred to as B) believed that those with more advantage were more responsible. That a man was guilty for his intent not to act especially if he had an advantage (intelligence, wealth, position of power). A thinks that, that expectation is not fair, "facile" even. And then she ended the debate, before I get agitated, she said (euphemism for violent, I think).

Whether A or B is right or fair, she had a point and she woke me up. And I am encouraged to be the activist that I was. And to think as bravely as I have. And so I hereby announce that I have officially been Resurrected :)

film review - Precious (2009)

Precious, based on the novel 'Push' by Sapphire, quasi-follows the narrative of the subject, Claireece "Precious" Jones (Gabourey Sidibe), an overweight 16-year-old negotiating her future in a future-less environment.

The story is not a new one in Hollywood dramas; a teacher inevitably gives her the break that saves her. But the unpretentious dialogue and the unexpected fantasies are part of what grounds what would be a cliche movie and allow it to hit home.

The film does not fail to remind us that Precious is indeed sixteen with outbursts such as;

he keep sayin he gonna marry me but how he gonna do that when it's illegal to have sex with me?

And most poignantly, the (script)writer allows us to delve into the character of Mary, Precious' mother with her desperate justifications;

Who... who... who else was going to love me? WHO else was going to touch me? WHO else was going to make me feel good about myself?

Precious is an exploration of the weak as characterised by Precious, a young black woman in Harlem contending with all kinds of abuse, not sure herself whether she wants or is worth more. It could be anyone's story. And performance, dialogue and all montage included, this is why it triumphs.

Director: Lee Daniels
Screenwriter: Geoffrey Fletcher
Actors: Gabourey Sidibe, Mo'Nique, Paula Patton, Mariah Carey
Genre: drama

i prefer the median wavelength -
but he continues in his extremes -
at once a tyrant and a lover -
i wonder whether i have found or lost -
with each pitch or frequency -
a greater me