Egypt and Beehives

It is sunny and heading towards 72 F today.  Soon bars will be crowded with people drinking green beer.  What fun.  Way back in 1976 on this day, I asked Deb to marry me.  I was in college and she was still in high school.  It seemed to work out okay, so far.

The word is out--testing at the border returning to Canada will be dropped April 1st.  Hopefully soon afterwards I will make my way over to Detroit for the day, the first time in over two years.  Deb is still unable to go.  If she leaves the country she can't visit her mom for two weeks.  Not much else planned for the near future.  A visit to Sudbury in May.  Hopefully some autumn hiking in NM.

Now on to the Egypt part of the blog title for today.  We finally finished watching Cleopatra, the 1963 Hollywood blockbuster film starring Elizabeth (Cleavage) Taylor, Richard Burton, and a whole bunch of other people.  Lots and lots of other people.  The opening scene of a Roman battlefield reminded me of similar scenes in Russia's War and Peace, which we saw several months ago.  Only the director here did not have the Russian army at his disposal.  There are many truly magnificent scenes, many of them shot in Rome and Egypt.  Cleopatra's lavish entrance into Rome has to be one of the highlights of movie making.  Beautiful set design, camera work, lighting, outstanding costumes, and a decent story make this a must see film.  It looked totally amazing on our 40" widescreen TV, but how much better it would look on a really big screen.

Following a jaw dropping Las Vegas show, Cleopatra arrives in Rome.

 

Now showing on Criterion, until March 31st.

Costumes and headgear were astounding, as were sets, lighting, etc. 

The film clocks in at four hours and eleven minutes, including Overture, Intermission, and musical epilogue.  Unfortunately the music was mostly bad Hollywood schmaltz.  The visuals made up for it.

Turning now to the beehives of the blog title, we arrive at a little Spanish film from 1973 called Spirit of the Beehive.  This truly wonderful movie concerns a small family living in a tiny village on the outskirts of Franco's last years.  Two sisters, ages about 6 and 8, attend a local showing of the 1931 Frankenstein movie in 1940s rural Spain.  The little one, Ana, becomes transfixed by the monster, especially after her sister tells her that it is possible to talk to him if she closes her eyes and whispers to him.  She leads her little sister to an abandoned farm building and water well where she says he lives.  The film is not easy to describe, as it really doesn't have much story.  What it does have is an insight into childhood rare in book or film, and a way of expressing emotion in a most subtle fashion.  The visuals are nothing less than haunting, and the acting by the children is perfectly directed.  This is one of Guillermo del Toro's favourite films, in his top three, and it's not hard to see many of his ideas coming from here.  We still have a ton of film extras to watch about this film, adding up to more minutes than the 98 minute film itself.  The film is unforgettable.

Spirit of the Beehive, on Criterion. 

Mom plays piano, in a Vermeer inspired shot.

Ana (left) and sister Isabel overlook an abandoned farm building and well, where the monster is said (by Isabel) to live.

And I'll finish with a few more early family slide scans.  The project is now complete, and soon I will move on to the slides of our earlier European journeys, and the earlier Valley of Mexico ones.  Still lots of work ahead.

Our front yard in Sudbury, looking towards the Copper cliff smokestacks of INCO.  Those bare mountains at the end of our street are now forested.  That mountain was also a local ski and toboggan hill.

 

  Me holding younger brother Stephen, alias the burrito boy.

Winters were endless in Sudbury (and still are).  We briefly lived in a different house, the upstairs of a duplex.  I had a ski hill in our backyard! 

Today also happens to be a full moon.  The party commences soon.

Mapman Mike