Anticipation is building for the brotherly duo, Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá, two of the comics world's biggest names, and their latest book, Two Brothers, which comes out later this fall. Their 2011 book, Daytripper, was one of the best graphic novels/serials I've ever read.
Now showing at Cinema du Parc, The Tribe is a 2014 Ukrainian film, written and directed by Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy. The film is set in a boarding school for deaf kids but a very violent and nearly adult-less school where a small time gang runs all kinds of scams or crimes, from pickpocketing to prostitution to mugging pensioners to running visa scams.
The intriguing thing about the movie is that there is no dialogue: the entire film is done in sign-language but that takes surprisingly little time to get adjusted to as an audience member. Yes, we miss details, but the story arc is clear and easy to follow. Filmed with entirely deaf actors, the complexity of the film shoot must have been overwhelming (see a really interesting Vice interview here with one of the stars of the film).
What a bleak, depressing and dog-eat-dog world. I've been thinking a lot about the notion of power, particularly in how we (as in The West) deal with Russia, and this notion of power, physical power, being the end all beat all of respectability is one that isn't prominent in our law-based society. This thought came about because of an article I read a while back about what we don't understand about dealing with Putin, that power and how he holds on to power, is of deadly importance to him and explains all this visual imagery that is so key for him to maintain this reputation for being a strong man. Obviously, the way we think about power is complex. But it seems to me that we approach power in a more subtle way in North America: power comes not just from brute strength but also from smarts, street smarts, intelligence and being one step ahead of one's enemy. But here power is open-faced, bloody, raw. There is no question that he who has the power is the one at the top and there is no room for things like diplomacy, intellectualism, or even just outmaneuvering one's enemy.
This is an almost operatic kind of tale, love, pain, betrayal, and murder. And there is no spoken dialogue. Quite an unusual cinematic experience on the whole. The critical reviews have been very solid, people comparing it to The Godfather and reacting to the fact that there are these long takes with very little cutting.
I have to say that this film is one that stays with you; I'm already replaying certain scenes in my mind, trying to work them out, wondering what the director was trying to do and, more importantly, how he did it.
Definitely worth seeing (I was surprised that there were so many people there) but don't see it if you're on the verge of feeling depressed or bleak. It's a dark and angry film though it's fascinating.
Toronto is in the midst of their massive rehaul of their waterfront. Lots of $$, lots of hassle, but I have to say that the last time I was in Toronto, I was really amazed and impressed at how lively the waterfront has become where before it was like a shiny, glittery ghost town. Montreal keeps talking about something along these lines but so far, nada.
Pieter Brueghel the Junior, Donna Tartt's a #fangirl
Disappointed readers of Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman are getting refunds. Fair enough. It was a travesty that this book was even published and speaks volumes about the desperate state of the publishing world in North America (or perhaps simply the cynical nature of the publishing world).
Really interesting interview at The Millions with the writer of one of this year's most buzzed about books, A Little Life. The work has been raved about, the writer seemingly coming from nowhere and creating a literary stir that has been praised almost universally. No, I haven't read it yet but the more I read about it, the more intrigued I am.
Moving piece in The Paris Review yesterday about Vermeer's evocative & haunting scenes and what they can teach us about love, inspiring Michael White's book Travels in Vermeer.
I'm really dying to see this exhibition on 18th century Japanese artist, Hokusai, now showing in Boston. Road Trip!
I saw this very interesting documentary last night, about the massive renovation of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
I knew very little about it so I went into it very vague about what the buzz was or even what the full scope of it was. I was almost immediately hooked.
It doesn't sound like it'd make that interesting a topic for a documentary: the ins and outs of city politics, planning officials, government officials, architects and museum staff as they go through a massive 10 year, 380 million Euro museum renovation. But the photography was so moving, the portraits of the individual staff members so compelling, the sense of the incredible bureaucracy of such a huge undertaking.
The love of the art is there, too: Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Japanese guard tower statues, Buddhas, Dutch Masters. You get a sense of Dutch society, too, the way people argue and negotiate work relationships, the varying personalities, the changes in staff (the Director quits halfway through the documentary and a new one is taken on, even though one of the other staff members hopes on camera that he'll be selected as the new Director).
Architecture takes front and centre stage and it really makes you see the complexity of creating public space for a specific public while still making other stakeholders happy (the head of the bicyclists' union is not portrayed particularly positively and this is a major them of the film, the battle against bicyclists).
It's a great film and plays the rest of the week at Cinema du Parc. By the end, when the museum opens anew, I almost teared up at the long effort and work that took place for all those years, getting the museum completed.
Salon explains why all the recent buzz around the work of Ta-Nehisi Coates would have been impossible without the work of his predecessor and literary ancestor, James Baldwin.
Heritage Montreal announces new walking tours of various historical neihghborhoods of the city including Griffintown, St-Henri, and the Plateau, among others. Tours take place on Saturdays and Sundays from August 1 until late September and last two hours. Register here.
The Guardian reports on Atlas Obscura and their US literary map which maps in space scenes from the work and the lives of many American writers including Jack Kerouac, Mark Twain, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and (one my favorite writers), William Least Heat-Moon and his book Blue Highways.
