The crisis seems to have passed early in the week, though I have experienced pain today, the first since last Monday. It would seem that there were three stones: a big one and two smaller ones. Or the main stone broke into 3 pieces. Whatever, I hope it is over, though there may be another small stone to come. It all comes down to drinking more water. Simple, isn't it? There is no way to describe pain like that. It is off the chart. I am back to piano practice and exercising, and all normal duties. In two weeks I begin the mountain hiking training program, designed for flatlanders who have little recourse to higher elevations. And the new astronomy session begins in about three days time. We had to cancel our visit to Sudbury last week, so it is now postponed indefinitely.
We have begun watching a newer series called The Peripheral, based on a novel by William Gibson. After two episodes it seems promising, and isn't any more violent or sadistic than Star Trek Discovery. It is showing on Prime. More later.
In film news there are four to report. Cairo Station is a hard hitting Egyptian film from 1958, directed by Youssef Chahine. The film is centred around a vast train station in Cairo, with several stories intertwining, along with the mostly lowlife characters. A newspaper agent takes pity on a crippled man and gives him a job selling papers. But the man is obsessed with girly mags and is in love with one of the girls that sells pop (without a license) on trains. The story seems to follow the old trope of bad body/bad mind. Another story concerns a man trying to organize the porters into a union. The men are run by a tyrant now, who takes most of their income for allowing them to work there. The film becomes increasingly tense as the crippled man really goes off the rails, becoming violent and totally insane. Quite a good film, the first to make the director well known outside of his home country.
Deb then picked a silly movie, a Chines kung fu comedy called Dirty Ho, from 1979. As much a modern dance film as it is kung fu, many of the routines are totally amazing. In one of them, the hero (Prince #11), manipulates a young female musician against an enemy, making it seem like she knows kung fu. He manipulates her arms, legs, head, and feet against an opponent in an astonishing sequence worth many viewings. It must have taken hours of rehearsal! In another he fights on one leg, as he has been wounded. More jaw-dropping routines! The film is quite funny, too, but as usual the final fight scene just goes on way too long. As a result, the film ends very abruptly, and we never get to see the real villain (Prince #4) punished. We can assume it is coming, however. Fun and very colourful. Quite a high budget film.
Next came Breaking the Waves, a very strange film from Lars von Trier from 1996. In many ways it is a terrific film, and the actress Emily Watson is absolutely riveting in her role as a child-like young woman who marries a rugged man that works on oil rigs. Filmed in Scotland, the photography and landscapes are most impressive. She lives in an isolated community, and the religious elders hold sway over much of the doings. Women have no say in religious matters, and are not allowed to speak in church or to attend funerals. Bess, the young woman, talks to God out loud, and he answers her in her voice, lowered in pitch. After a week together after marriage, he has to return to the rig, and will be gone two months. This sets off a breakdown in Bess, who loves her man dearly. When she tells God that she wants him home, he obliges. Her husband returns with a serious head injury incurred on the rig, and is a paraplegic. Essentially a bizarre soap opera, Bess becomes more and more unhinged as the story progresses. The most bizarre part of the film is the ending, where we find out (spoiler alert) that yes, God really was listening to her and replying. The ending turns the film into a religious fantasy that must have sent pleasurable shivers to everyone who talks to God. After all, observing the world as it is we know that prayer works just fine, doesn't it? And of course sympathetic magic. Or maybe for you but not for someone else? An unsettling film that is very well done, though the ending is just too ridiculous to take seriously.
Lastly comes a fairy tale called Innocence, a French film from 2004 directed by Lucile Hadžihalilović. This is a highly unusual, very poetic, and very special treat. Though vastly different from Spirit of the Beehive and Picnic At Hanging Rock, they share some kind of common ground with Innocents. A secluded and walled boarding school for young girls aged about 5 or 6 to 10 or 11 becomes one of the most fascinating experiments in education that this viewer has ever seen. Part idyllic and part prison, the girls are well cared for. Their method of arriving at the school at the youngest age, and departing it when at their oldest, is as mysterious and secretive as their program of learning. All of the children (25 of them in five houses, surrounding the central building) study ballet, and presumably core subjects. They have free time, mostly spent outdoors and they are largely unsupervised on the vast grounds. The photography is stunning, and some twilight and evening shots are among the most effective I have ever seen. The girls mostly get along, and wear hair ribbons denoting their Year (RoyGBiv, with red being the youngest and violet the oldest). The two hour film is paced slowly. The opening scene is a minor miracle of openings, and the ending is a perfect one. The film is based on a novella from 1903 called Mine-Haha, Or The Bodily Education of Young Girls, by Frank Wedekind. The film is unforgettable, and it's amazing that the director could pull it off so masterfully. Not to be missed.
Mapman Mike
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