Film Festival Time

We are running a bit behind n our viewing schedule, as we tackle several mini-series outside our normal weekly movie watching.  A normal week will see us watch 4 films.  But at the end of each month, a 3-film film festival gets thrown into the works, in addition to the regular schedule.  We are currently watching the June film festival offerings, chosen by yours truly.  I selected six short documentary films from Senegal, by director Paulin Soumanou Vieyra.  They begin with the 1955 short called Africa on the Seine, which takes us to Paris to see how blacks are faring at that time.  Next came the 1961 short called A Nation Is Born, detailing the history of Senegal.  Mol is from 1966, and is in colour.  A fisherman from a small village needs to purchase a motor, so he can go out further to find a richer catch of fish. The film details his efforts to find, fund, and transport his motor back to his home village from Dakar.  Birago Diop, Conteur, is a 1982 film about a Senegalese writer and poet, one who still influences the country's schools and thinkers today.  From 1981 comes his film about Ousmane Sembene's film Creddo.  The documentary is called Behind The Scenes: The Making of Creddo, and includes interviews with Sembene, his wife, his cameraman, and his editor, as well as many scenes of filming.  The hardships of African filmmakers are highlighted, including the 4 week wait for the rushes to be sent to Paris and returned to Dakar.  Eye opening stuff!  Lastly we watched Iba N'Diaye, about the Senegalese painter, a film from 1982.  The director died in 1987.  The films we saw give a glimpse into things African from an African perspective, and there is no better way to gain insight into that continent.

Before the above festival, I suffered through a 2nd viewing of Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth.  My views have not changed much; it is still one of the most sadistic films I have ever seen.  Though the fantasy elements are off the scale for their incredible effects and atmospheric renderings, the film is ruined for me by the violence.  Many viewers eem able to overlook this aspect of the film and move on.  I cannot.  Welcome back to modern films.  One of the main characters, who is the reason the other characters end up together in the film, is a fascist captain of the Spanish army, in 1944.  He is there to fight and eliminate the rebels.  Fine, whatever.  But del Toro goes way overboard with the character, making him a masochistic and ultra sadistic bully.  His portrayal and way over the top actions basically ruin the film for me.  No matter what eventually happens to him, he cannot ever be made to pay for what he has done (including shooting a doctor in the back and killing him, teasing and torturing a captured rebel, a stutterer, in a very long and extremely painful sequence, and shooting to death a little girl, another main character of the film).  Del Toro was a big fan of Dickens, and it shows, but now severely updated.  This film is not really entertainment, except perhaps for an ultra sadistic viewer.  But it is a reminder (if anyone actually needs one) of how cruel some people can be.  And if you really believe that this film has a happy ending, then go back to watching the Disney Channel.

Now showing on AMC. 

 

Pierre Etaix is a French director, kind of in the same category as Jacques Tati, a favourite of ours.  We watched 4 short comic films by Etaix, under the umbrella title of As Long As You've Got Your Health, from 1966, which was one of the shorts.  In it a stressed out doctor tries to deal with his stressed out patients.  The other three are Insommnia, about a man unable to sleep who picks up a bedside vampire novel and reads it; Cinema, about trying to find a good seat in a crowded theatre; and In The Country, about a picnicking couple, a farmer trying to put up fencing, and a hunter, all interacting in a hilarious way.  We are looking into more by this director.

 

Scene from Cinema, one of the shorts by Etaix showing on Criterion. 

 

In local news, the heat and humidity are back.  At least we had a few days of relief, though the sun is merciless this time of year, even on "cooler" days.  We are once again making progress on installing a second railing segment on the new stairs.  There are problems trying to match it to the first segment, but those are being overcome with new tools and lots of patience.  Concrete hole drilling should resume tomorrow afternoon.

I did a run through of my piano pieces when Amanda visited last weekend.  Next Monday I will perform them for three friends, and possibly for Jenn if I see her this weekend.  Even though we are now entering our 7th wave of Co-vid, this will be the first time we have had three people inside our house since before the pandemic.  The next day Deb and I will go to Windsor to receive our 2nd booster shot.  After that I will think about making my way north to Sudbury, possibly later that same week.  My brother Stephan retired from his job last week, a service manager at the local Ford dealer.  He should be in a good mood!  Meanwhile, tomorrow I report to my ear specialist for another hearing test and check up.  My hearing has fully returned again, so I anticipate a quick visit.  Dr. Ling is also a pianist, and we usually chat more about music than about ears.  And Thursday Deb returns to see her oral surgeon, probably for stitches removal and a final check on how things are healing.

 

Mapman Mike