June, like many months before it, has swooshed past. If I didn't write these posts occasionally I would never remember a single thing I did. We finally got a good soaking this morning (Saturday), which was badly needed. This was our first major rain in many weeks, However, we paid for it with a very warm and extremely humid day. Tomorrow comes actual chilly air, and with it (hopefully!) clear skies. I plan to head out tomorrow night with the scope if it is clear. I am doing some summer observing in Hercules and Ophiuchus this year.
I have decided to finally attempt to perform my year-old piano program, which I began learning last July 10th. My right ear impairment put things off a while, as did our travelling to New Orleans for a week, and then twice to Sudbury for two weeks. Getting back into shape after several absences is very hard work. I wish my piano technique matched my self discipline. I've just finished Week One of three to put final touches on the pieces. A few of them actually improved, while others actually got worse (practicing them too fast--must slow down).
In movie news, it's my festival weekend. After my usual two choices I get three festival picks. We've watched one of mine, but before discussing that we'll have a quick look at Deb's two choices, and an earlier one of mine. French Cancan is a Jean Renoir film from 1955. It is a nearly perfect 'entertainment' film, in bright colour and filled with music, dancing, comedy, and motion. If one is ever to use a lighter film for having great examples of mise en scene, this would be my choice. The staging is wonderful, with the director having to handle so many complex scenes is smaller spaces. There are many tender scenes, but the film will likely be remembered for its flamboyant style, especially the grand finale musical Cancan number. Great fun, and highly recommended. Gabin is a joy to watch, and he can dance, too!
Deb's leaving choice was from Mubi, and Indian film called Trijya from 2019. Many recent Indian films deal with individuals struggling within their meagre means to achieve some form of quality of life, though their lives are mostly pure labour with small reward, both financial and spiritual. This film is quite different. We follow a young man trained as a journalist languishing and wasted at a silly newspaper job in Pune. We see him at a cafe table with a fellow worker. He has to write the paper's horoscope column that week, as the normal guy is off. The column becomes very popular, even though he dictated it off the top of his head. His boss wants him to continue in the role, but he wants no such nonsense. He ends up leaving Pune, going back and forth to visit his family, and then finally just going walkabout through rural India. This is an extraordinary fine film, very different in its outlook from nearly every other Indian film I have seen. Highly recommended.
Before that I had one more film chosen that has not been discussed here. Ken Russell's Salome's Last Dance from 1988 is a fun-filled over the top version of Oscar Wilde's play, showing the author attending a private performance. We first saw it in Detroit at the short-lived Tele Arts Theatre downtown. Like Jean Renoir's film, above, this one is very colourful, quite funny, and unlike the Renoir, seriously demented. Not for every taste, but if you like Ken Russel (we mostly do) and Oscar Wilde (for sure!), then this film will be found to be most enjoyable. Lust as you've never seen it before! And it's right from the Bible. So it must be okay for families, right?
Now we turn to our most recently watched film, a SF directed by Claire Denis. High Life is from 2018, a French/German production. If it wasn't for all the violence, the film would be worth watching more than once. A crew consisting of death row inmates is sent on a suicidal mission to the nearest black hole, in an experiment to see if its energy can in any way be harnessed (I would submit that solar energy would be far more feasible and much cheaper). Despite the stupid premise (would a government really spend billions on a space mission and then send out death row inmates to fulfill it? I mean, there would be more than enough volunteers from society, would there not? The hero of the tale was doing time for killing a friend who killed his dog. Juliette Binoche plays a doctor who murdered her two children and her husband. When the film opens the only survivors are our hero and his baby daughter. The story of how the other crew members perished is told in flashback. By the end of the film the baby has grown up to become a teenager who looks a lot like Juliette. The film contains a plethora of shots of bodily fluids, another drawback to repeated viewing. I liked the concept of the film, a man trying to raise a baby on an empty starship, heading towards a black hole. Rather unique in my experience. Recommended for SF fans, but watch out for the violence, which includes rape.
I'll be back very soon with the June reading summary. I am just finishing up a novel.
Mapman Mike
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