Chatting With Jaana

This morning I had an unexpected conversation with my friend Jaana. Via that all-encompassing and time-consuming social network know as Facebook, I in Southern California was able to talk to Jaana in Southern France using written words on its online Chat.

Of course the technology of Chat is nothing new, but since I rarely use it, I feel it is worth noting. Jaana and her family recently moved to a new home in France, but they may move back to Belgium (where Jaana and I met) in a few years because her husband’s business is based there and I’m sure the constant travel between Belgium and France must be tough and tiring for him. Jaana is happy that she will be skiing on the French Alps this winter. I only Nordic skied once in my life and I’m amazed I completed the trail!

Agree with Jaana that living in France is wonderful and I hope to do so again someday. There is no place quite like Paris! Regret the lack of traveling since I’ve been back – only to San Francisco. As I have some free time lately, I’m doing more writing, especially for this blog. Perhaps I’m improving? Also I’m planning on gaining more technical knowledge by taking a website building course in January.

Alas technology is not always perfect and our Chat session abruptly ended before I was able to ask about the children; but at least we connected and I’m glad to know she’s happy and healthy. The chat was a nice surprise to start my day! I’ll have to do that more often. So who wants to chat?


Images:
Left: California map is from the website geology.com
Center: “Adrean chats, Jaana chats” graphic created by Adrean Darce Brent
Right: France map is from the website upload.wikimedia.org

Reel Rewind: “Pink Saris”

English title – “Pink Saris” / Hindi language title – “Gulābī Sāṛī” (“गुलाबी साड़ी”)

The setting of this documentary, “Pink Saris”, is a rural area of Uttar Pradesh, North India where one woman, Sampat Pal Devi, leads a group of women, known as the Gulābī Gang (Pink Gang) in creating change in the lives of India’s lower caste women. In this place females are forced into marriages when they are still children, suffer physical and sexual abuse at the hands of their husbands and in-laws, and have few recourses for justice. Enter Sampat and the women in pink.

Even if it is just one woman at a time, Sampat works to change their plight in life. For example, marriage for a pregnant untouchable woman (who would have been put to death) to her higher caste lover; justice for a woman raped by her father-in-law; and protection for a runaway wife beaten by her husband. These and several other women’s stories are put forth in the film. Direct confrontation with the offender and the legal system (i.e. police) is the style of this group of courageous women who fight (sometimes with the lathi) for the improvement of women in India.

We learn that Sampat was a child wife, who eventually left her husband and who now lives with a man from the highest caste. In addition to her social movement environment, we see Sampat in her domestic environment - sweeping the floor and comforting a violence refugee in her home. As part of her quest, Sampat does try to negotiate better conditions for the women who return to their husbands’ family. Success on this front is limited. But Sampat and the gang keep trying to bring a new way of being for women throughout India. Sampat may not be perfect (she returns the runaway the wife of one of her husband’s relatives in order to keep peace with her husband’s family), she is a strong voice for change in India and, with many others in pink, will have a definite impact as time progresses.

Film Facts: Director/Cinematogrpher: Kim Longinotto, Editor: Ollie Huddleston, Musician: Midival Punditz, Producers: Amber Latiff, Girjashanker Vohra, Production Company: Women Make Movies

Film Type: Documentary, Drama, Cast: Renu Devi, Sampat Pal Devi, Niranjan Pal, Rekha Paswan, Shiv Devi Patel, Rampataree Yadav, Length: 96’, Language: Hindi, Country: United Kingdom, Year: 2010
Film Trailer
No United States release date set as of this post.


Images:
Left: Sampat Pal Devi and members of the Gulābī Gang from the website blog.afi.com
Center: Graphic interpretation of “Pink Saris” created by Adrean Darce Brent
Right: Sampat Pal Devi from the website viceland.com

Reel Rewind: “Submarino”

For two brothers the road to redemption is paved with sorrow, alcoholism, drug abuse, jail, and a namesake. In “Submarino”, a film whose physical atmosphere is an overcast of grays and dinginess, the adult lives of two Danish brothers emotionally personify the atmosphere with their own overhanging cloud of despair. For Nick and his little brother (hereafter, LB), the road they traveled began in their childhood with a constantly drunk mother and a newborn baby brother. Though Nick had already begun drinking before the tragedy, it no doubt led him to becoming an alcoholic and LB to becoming a drug addict. The guilt they felt would overwhelm them throughout their lives.

But now their mother died and her funeral brings them together after years apart. It is after this event that we follow Nick’s current life – still drinking and living in a half-way house after serving a jail sentence for assault. – and then, over that same time range, from LB’s current life – still shooting up and living with his young son. Nick’s world consists of a stark apartment, a woman to whom he is sexually attached, but emotionally detached, and the very disturbed brother of the woman he loved (and still does) when he was sent to jail. For me the most unsettling aspect was Nick’s neglect of his self-inflicted injured hand – the deliberately unhealed wound to go along with the always raw emotional one. For LB, a social services worker and a daily fix control his life, with the nutritional needs of his son suffering as a consequence. LB loves his son, but trying to provide for him by becoming a drug dealer is such a bad decision that will take him from his son’s life forever.

I don’t have a problem viewing an alternatively presented film, if I know beforehand that it has a story structure of a different nature – makes the viewing easier. I’m not sure that “Submarno” benefits from a dual storyline – the brothers’ lives are not that divergent. Both are clearly suffering from their childhood demon, though they both have loved. But if the reasoning behind the structure is to present the brothers one at a time to the viewer for a better understanding of each brother, then that’s fine. There is very little in this film that is pleasant – most of it is disturbing and destructive – but I did say this was a road to redemption and so at the end there is the beginning of a second chance, though only for one brother.

Film Facts: Director/Writer: Thomas Vinterberg, Writer: Tobias Lindholm, Novelist: Jonas T. Bengtsson, Cinematographer: Charlotte Bruus Christensen, Editors: Valdis Óskarsdóttir, Andri Steinn, Musician: Kristian Eidnes Andersen, Producers: Birgitte Hald, Morten Kaufmann, Production Companies: Nimbus Film Production, TV2 Danmark, Sandrew Metronome Distribution Sverige AB, The Match Factory, Swedish Television, Canal+, Nordisk Film ShortCut, Kameraudlejningen, Lysudlejningen, Mainstream, Nordisk Film- & TV-Fond

Film Type: Drama, Cast: Jakob Cedergren (Nick Torp), Peter Plaugborg (Nicks lillebror), Gustav Fischer Kjaerulff (Martin Torp), Patricia Schumann (Sofie), Helene Reingaard Neumann (Mona), Morten Rose (Ivan), Kate Kjelbye (Ana), Lisbeth H. Pedersen (Sagsbehandler), Dar Salim (Goran), Henrik Strobe (Jimmy Gule), Elias Ehlers (Karsten), Sebastian Bull Sarning (Nick Torp som ung), Mads Broe Andersen (Nicks lillebror som ung), Finn Bergh (Fængselsbetjent), Length: 105’, Language: Danish, Countries: Denmark, Sweden, Year: 2010
Film Trailer
Denmark release date Thursday 25 March 2010
United States release date not set as of this post


Images:
Lest: Jakob Cedergren as Nick Torp and Peter Plaugborg as lillebror from the website outnow.ch
Center: Graphic interpretation of “Submarino” created by Adrean Darce Brent
Right: “Submarino” poster from the website kinobank.org

Patriots Can’t Catch In Cleveland: Browns Bring Win To And On CBS

The only interesting aspect of this NFL football game is the different scoring symmetries for the two teams – the alternating New England Patriots (0, 7, 0, 7) and the mirroring Cleveland Browns (10, 7, 7, 10). I suppose I should clarify and say it is the only interesting aspect this Patriots fan could find today; I’m sure a Browns fan has a different perspective. It’s Sunday morning and not surprisingly I’m at Sonny McLean’s along with a fair number of other people watching this disappointment of a game. Not as crowded as the last time I was here, but a nice number of people anyway. Once again, not really any familiar faces among the patrons this morning. It seems that only people I know are Andrew and Lauren, who actually are working. And Steve, who is working later tonight, is nice enough to come by and chat with me for a while. As for the game, the Patriots are displaying their fumble fingers and seemingly have forgotten how to catch a spiraling, oval-shaped sphere. This condition is being exhibited throughout the team – no one is immune. Such is the level of play today, that the Browns’ quarterback scores a touchdown – sigh. I’m sure the Pats are glad to leave Cleveland. Despite the morning’s loss, New England is tied for first place with the New York Jets in the AFC East – Yeah!


New England Patriots logo is from wikipedia.org

Reel Rewind: “Boy”

“Welcome to my interesting world!” From these introductory words in "Boy", we enter the life of a pre-adolescent male named Boy, who is a professed Michael Jackson (of “Thriller” fame) fan and is possessed of an out there imagination, especially when it comes to his father (of no fame). It’s Waihau Bay, New Zealand in November 1984 and Boy is about to face the reality of his not so well-known father, who is not quite the master carver, deep sea treasure diver, and soldier of Boy’s imaginings. Also included in Boy’s life are his “powerful” younger brother Rocky, the girl for whom he dances (a la Jackson), Chardonnay, and the inevitable older school bullies.

During the time Boy, Rocky, and several cousins are on their own while their grandmother attends a funeral miles away, Boy’s and Rocky’s father, Alamein appears one night in the company of two friends from jail looking for Alamein’s mother (the grandmother). Now the fun begins - from the serving of tea to the three men in the car, to the giving out of obviously stolen “presents”, to getting to know the father Boy barely remember and Rocky never did. Between Alamein’s stories, antics and playing as the Incredible Hulk and a Samurai Warrior, Boy and Rocky are entertained by their father before the real reason for Alamein’s homecoming come to the fore.

And what is that reason? To retrieve a stash of stolen money that Alamein buried in a field before going off to jail. He and his two friends are digging up the field and Boy joins in the game of “buried treasure” and bringing Alamein aromatic plants from a neighbor’s field. However Boy soon becomes disillusioned with Alamein when he doesn’t want Boy to call him Dad because “it’s weird”; the disastrous result of Boy’s finding the money, and the realization that Alamein won’t take Boy with him when he leaves. There is a confrontation and later a reconciliation between Boy, Rocky, and Alamein at the gravesite of Boy’s and Rocky’s mother, who had died giving birth to Rocky. In the end perhaps Boy realizes that Alamein is some version of the Samurai that Alamein wants to be and describes as “someone who lives outside the law, but they’re still cool”. Well this film is cool, funny, a joy to watch, and with a little growing up included.

Stayed for the Q&A session with the multi-functional (director, writer, actor), Taika Waititi. “Boy” was five years in the making – Taika wrote a first draft in 2005 and the second one in 2008. I think “Boy” is a reflection of Taika’s life in New Zealand in that era of Michael Jackson and Shõgun. Note: At the end of the AFI Fest, “Boy” won the Audience Award in the category of World Cinema. Excellent!

Film Facts: Director/Writer: Taika Waititi, Cinematographer: Adam Clark, Editors: Yana Gorskaya, Chris Plummer, Musician: The Phoenix Foundation, Producers: Georgina Allison, Cliff Curtis, Richard Fletcher, Ainsley Gardiner, Emanuel Michael, Merata Mita, Production Companies: New Zealand Film Commission, Unison Films, Whenua Films

Film Type: Comedy, Drama, Cast: James Rolleston (Boy), RickyLee Waipuka-Russell (Chardonnay), Te Aho Aho Eketone-Whitu (Rocky), Taika Waititi (Alamein – Boy’s and Rocky’s Father), Ei Kuro Albert (Chardonnay’s Friend), Maakariini Butler (Murray), Manaia Callaghan (Miria), Tainui Callaghan (Kiko), Ngapaki Emery (Mum), Rajvinder Eria (Tane), Darcy Ray Flavell-Hudson (Holden), Craig Hall (Mr. Langston), Pana Hema Taylor (Juju), Wairangi Herewini (Kingi’s Friend), Cohen Holloway (Chuppa), Waimihi Hotere (Teacher), Rachel House (Aunt Gracey), Cherilee Martin (Kelly), Length: 87’, Language: English, Country: New Zealand, Year: 2010
Film Trailer
New Zealand release date Thursday 25 March 2010
No United States release date set as of this post

Images:
Left: Te Aho Aho Eketone-Whitu as Rocky, James Rolleston as Boy, Taika Waititi as Alamein from the website thecia.com.au
Center: Graphic interpretation of “Boy” created by Adrean Darce Brent
Right: “Boy” poster from the website news.tangatawhenau.com