Movies and first week in Lima

Revisiting Lima - an epic 48 hour trip. Leaving qingdao - SFO directly, 6 hours layover, SFO-LAX, 6 hour layover, meeting George, LAX-MEX, 6 hour layover, MEX-LIMA.

Now I got over the jetlag but the jetlag was strange - I didn't have that common deep sleep - the one that you woke up and had no idea where you are... All sleep is very shallow, too shallow to feel that I SLEPT. It might due to Mom's sickness stress + my impulsive cough from my cold and maybe smog + jetlag. I started taking half a pill of sleeping medicine for two nights.

Watched two movies this week.

Aleksandr Sokurov's Mother and Son (1997): 

His portrait of Mom and son is more or less like a couple/lover, which is fine with me. And the most impressive film language are:
1. Character(s) not necessarily in the middle/or 0.618 of the frame - constantly at the edge of the frame even if they look awkward, slightly reminding me Ida
2. twist the character to look like the landscape - i.e. in the wide shot of protagonist and the landscape that is filled with a few cypress/pine trees, the shape of cypress was bending towards one direction due to long time wind, the protagonist is bending to this direction as well (not sure from lens or from post production)
3. make full use of framing, half/half, i.e. after mother is dead, son's hand with mother's hand

Dorota Kedzierzawska's Wrony (Crow) (1994)
Reminded me Rosellini's German Year Zero (1948), Bresson's Mochette (1967) and Carlos Saura's Cria cuervos (1976)...
After I talked to George, it also reminded us Truffaut's The 400 Blows (1959) , Dardenne brother's Rosetta (1999), and Ken Loach's Kes (1969).
These are all classics.
One of impressive film language use is sihouette - the girl's two skinny legs in sihouette are so thin and fragile.
The great two actresses - maybe I shouldn't call them actress, maybe they are themselves.

Movies

On the plane from TAO to SFO, I watched three movies.

1. Gone with the bullets (JIANG Wen). Ambitious movie, but with voiceover of Beijing dialect, and not-so-clear what this movie is trying to tell, I was a bit disappointed.

2. Caught in the web (CHEN Kaige) - interesting story. Perfect example for a movie who tried too hard to tell too much, it feels like a running account.

3. It's only the end of the world (Xavier Dolan) - it is always good to have a slightly gay themed story won big award at Cannes. But... sometimes, i feel the inner push to keep the story going - can it be so consistent that really, it works this way? It could be other way. It is a good topic. A bit like "secrets and lies"

Unforgettable Chinese new year

On Chinese new year's day, my mom fell accidentally by herself and had a bone fracture.

Everybody is in a panic. Mom's blood pressure went to 225. Called a doctor and he came, said need to get ambulance to hospital. On the way to hospital, my mom started to pray. I felt sick from sitting sideways. Fortunately it is not too far.

The X-ray and CT scan were painful to do and unbearable to watch as every move of my mom caused sharp pain.

Soon, she is having problem to pee on strecher. It is dangerous not being able to pee for long hours.

Soon, she is accepted by the hospital and got a VIP room. A catheter was used, and very soon, collected 800 ml urine.

I was on duty on watch of her with the sitter - in the evening of new year's day, watching firework from hospital window - what a new year...

Brother is involved and there were multiple meeting from doctors from jimo and qingdao. Mom had surgery successfully on Feb. 4th and returned home on Feb 10th.

Hope Mom will recover soon!

Mom always has strong desire to live/survive and live well. I believe she will recover soon.

But be very careful from now on.

Movie and Chinese new year

On the way back to China for chinese new year, I have watched a few movies on the planes.
United airlines' screen is not great, neither is the movie selection, i managed to watch half of Robert Redford's ordinary people
The flight from Frankfurt to Qingdao on Lufthansa has higher resolution screen, I watched The eternal sunsine of spotless mind, Erase the memory... sigh
Dallas buyer's club: interesting topic but very so-so
Hitchcock: Well it is always good to know that Hitchcock has to pay his own money to make psycho...One of the few talented filmmakers in history
Cafe Society: never a woody allen fan. It is decent acting, dialog, per si. But I will remember the ending of the movie at this very moment of my life. 

Now I am in China watching movie from blibli
watched Graduate  by Cristian Mungiu
Well before I realized it is his movie, I thought it was a first work of a director - because sometimes they put very stiff lines in the dialogue - i.e. protagonist and police chair about other side's view is better...
It won best director in Cannes 2016
I was impressed: using hand held camera and still very careful/thoughtful in framing, I also like the face to face framing a lot
The stones broke the window etc - reminds me Michael Haneke - who is nowadays the best director of the world, although imho, still way behind of antonioni fellini bergman
I like that it is a critic of CONTEMPORARY romanian society
There are many un-resolved issues in the movie - i guess this is the style now - again reminds me the white ribbon from Haneke - but there are so many and I am not sure if it is necessary

I also finished reading Huxley's Brave new world revisited
The novel is predicting what could happen in the future of the world
a very worrying opinion, now when looking back after more than half a century passed, things are not as bad as he predicted; In another words, in his prediction, the cause of his worries has happened, but the consequence is not that serious yet - maybe human beings already evoluted?
his chapters aka worries are:

I Over-Population
II Quantity, Quality, Morality
III Over-Organization
IV Propaganda in a Democratic Society V Propaganda Under a Dictatorship
VI The Arts of Selling
VII Brainwashing
VIII Chemical Persuasion
IX Subconscious Persuasion
X Hypnopaedia
XI Education for Freedom
XII What Can Be Done? 

movies

Secluded, near woods (1976) Jiri Menzel - cute little story.

George said it reminded him 1970s (as golden times) the trend of going to nature etc.

East european movies do have something in common, outdoor music, laughing about things, not taking so seriously, etc etc.

Ekstase (ecstacy) 1933 Gustav Machaty
Finally got to see this movie. Truly classical.
Wonder antonioni's Eclipse (L'eclisse) was inspired by this movie.
I never saw an earlier art films like Ekstase (1933) and Erotikon (1929) (aka seduction aka conflicto dos sexos).
Such a tender expression of things. And no rush.

Erotikon (Seduction) 1929

What a delightful surprise to watch a black white silent movie Erotikon (seduction) 1929 by Czech director Gustav Machaty.

Many modern cinema elements in the movie:

The framing,
editing,
camera movement,
montage

Need to study more about this movie, but it is quite impressive in
framing the woman at the edge, to make the man dominate the frame
cut of more closer shot of one person VS less close shot
Dissolving from one person's eye to another person's eye that the first person is looking at - it gives very direct sensation, much more efficient than cutting to it.
when woman's father looks at his wife's pic, the picture is dissolved into his head, very impressive

Gustave's another movie Ecstacy (ekstase) is very controversial - hope I can find where to watch it.

狼奔豕突

This chinese word "狼奔豕突 (Lang Ben Shi Tu)" is describing the scenes rascals running all over the places, either molesting people or running away.

I use this word to describe people's (mostly pedestrians') status in Guatemala.

There are no good sidewalks in a lot of roads, sometimes there are walking bridges but faraway. So when people have to cross the streets where there are no traffic lights and walking bridges, they run - when a lot of people doing this at the same time towards different directions: it is 狼奔豕突.

George and I 狼奔豕突 all the time in Guatemala, just as everybody else. YOU HAVE TO.

Movies and Guatemala view 1

This week, we watched a few new good movies:

Fassbinder's The bitter tears of Petra von Kant, reminding me Bergman,  theater play, and is it reflection of his own life experience (of course yes i would say). Rich film language. Incredible blocking/lighting

Hitchcock's Rope

You have to say, Hitchcock Sabe Americanos!

Orlson Welles's The immortal story - rather short, but you can see his trademark style 

Karel Kachyna's The Ear  - a very enjoyable movie - not in a very deep way, but well done dark humor, reminded me Milos Forman, who is also from Czech

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A few days ago we visited Terminal area in Centro (south of centro Guatemala city). Many vendors, whole sale people with trucks, rough looking homeless people, sex workers, drunkards laying on the streets, strong pee smells, all over the place. 

Guatemala is like everywhere else - straight men got all the privilege and pleasures - open and permitted prostitution, every-so-often football games, and of course, liquor. Women are not allowed to have legal abortion, so they will cook and have kids. There are many single mother families, just as in Mexico, if not more. It appears this bad cycle is quite common in Guatemala AND Mexico: deserted woman - single mom bringing up the kidS (many) - Mom became religious and more controlling the kids - kids grow up to be another conservative man.

Gays in guatemala are incredibly different from any other countries I visited. On grindr, the most common words are "discreto, no obvios". There are incredible amounts of profiles that have no face pictures (reminding me Asia), with intentional-incorrect information in the profile (I suppose that so nobody will find out who they are), incredible amount of flake-ness, unfinished dialogue, weirdly disappearing people. Very seldom to see gay men are looking for a boyfriend, a relationship, love. 

Incredible amount of extreme religious force were observed in Guatemala and El Savaldor, mostly the evangelical and mormon preachers all over the place, especially in regular poor people's house. In San Salvador, there is this covenant church from this family's garage having preaching going on and on all nights, with very loud speaker, going to after 11pm in the weekends, and it scared all the wild dogs away too, which is the only plus side...

The 10 day driving trip in Guatemala is unforgettable: Lake atitlan (Pana), the natural reserve hiking trail (coffee bean trees and rope bridges), the avocado tree in the hotel garden, Xela, the first gay bar in history, the driving south from Xela along the river, the fancy highway from Gautemala city to the south beach VS many bumps on other highways (mostly built by local village men to slow the cars so they will have some business, in our case mostly watermelon sellers), village men fixing the road holes by filling in dirts asking for donations, the pineapple vendor, and rain forest views in Izabal, and the weird airbnb in a restaurant - george and I went inside the restaurant at night - it is open but nobody there, no lights, no other people, with two short piers going into the lake/bay. Ahhh the firecrackers!!! all over the place, the castle (good for hide and seek game i guess), I couldn't barely walk in the bay area as so many stones in the waterbed, TIKAL, is really something... Grande grande grande...Puerto barrios, such a running down city, remembering crossing street of loud evangelical church, are the sex workers, they waved to us and everybody cheered when I waved back..the trip to Livingston, the black tourist guide, the beach, and very bumping boat ride!

Can't forget how badly people drive in Guatemala, they are worse than Chinese! Finally...