Winter is taking a brief respite today and tomorrow. It's been cold. How cold? So far this season we have already had 16 days where the temp did not go above 0 C. Some years we don't get that many cold days in an entire winter! And it's still Autumn for another few days. Often we don't get any until early to mid-January. So it has been cold, though mostly snowless. We've had an inch here and a half inch there, but not enough to ski or toboggan. It's mostly gone now, and it will rain tomorrow.
Solstice preparations are made as we await the big event. Hopefully we will see a sunrise and a sunset, though it's a very cloudy time of year over here. Special food was brought in last night, and I only have one more small log to chop into firewood for the all day fire. Aside from food and drink there will be music, this year the opera "Gotterdammerung", Act 1. We'll here Act 2 New Years Eve, and Act 3 at the full moon just after that date. There might be some gaming, too. Deb bought a new board game recently, adding to our already vast collection. "Classic Art" is for 2-5 people. More about it after we've played it. We also have a Carcassonne tournament in progress, with Deb ahead 3 games to 2 in our best of 7 series.
With a lack of medical appointments of late we've been able to stay home a lot. As a result the piano pieces are nearly ready for prime time, and Deb has been progressing with her latest film. Tomorrow is actual filming day. Yours truly will be the camera man for some of it. My foot still bothers me, but slowly improves. I am walking about 4 miles per week on the treadie just now, increasing the distance ever so slowly. On soft ground I can walk for much longer, but on pavement I am still quite limited.
In film news there are three to report, before getting on to Foundation. We watched Bi Gan's 2nd feature film, called Long Days Journey Into Night. From 2018, here is the blurb from Criterion:
Bi Gan’s dazzling sophomore feature is a hallucinatory, noir-tinged
stunner about a lost soul (Huang Jue) on a quest to find a missing woman
from his past (Tang Wei). Following leads across Guizhou province, he
crosses paths with a series of colorful characters, among them a prickly
hairdresser played by Taiwanese superstar Sylvia Chang. When the search
leads him to a dingy movie theater, the film launches him—and us—into
an epic, gravity-defying sequence, an immersive, hour-long odyssey
through a labyrinthine dreamscape that ranks as one of the true marvels
of modern cinema. China’s biggest art-house hit of all time, LONG DAY’S
JOURNEY INTO NIGHT confirms Bi as one the most daring and exciting
auteurs working today.
Deb really took to the film, while I remain a bit cool towards it. The photography is amazing, as are the locations used. I liked his first film more than this one, though I would certainly watch this again. We are anxious to see his 3rd and latest film, now out in a few theatres, called Ressurection.
Only The River Flows is a Chinese film from 2023, directed by Wei Shujun. The Criterion caption:
When a woman’s body washes up on the shore in small-town China in the
1990s, the local chief of police, Ma Zhe (Zhu Yilong), is tasked with
leading the investigation. An obvious suspect leads to a hasty arrest,
though the mystery lingers in Ma Zhe’s mind. What kind of darkness is
truly at play here? As torrents of rain envelop the town, Ma Zhe will be
drawn to the edge of madness in pursuit of truth. Both a tantalizing
cinematic puzzle and a sharp-edged portrait of provincial paranoia, Wei
Shujun’s ultra-atmospheric, retro-stylized noir captures the pulpy
proceedings in gritty, textured film grain that goes beyond period
recreation to fully evoke the look and feel of a bygone era.
I liked the film for its portrayal of a cop who is psychologically damaged by the case he is on. With more bodies piling up then in an episode of Morse, each twist of the plot causes the detective to go a bit further off the deep end. By the finish he is hallucinating and having lucid dreams, in one of which he shoots the murderer four times. When he tells his superior that he has shot the criminal, he is asked to empty his gun. It is still full of bullets. He is also having some domestic issues, with he pregnant wife having a good chance of delivering a seriously damaged child. The scene with the cold and time pressed female doctor is only one unforgettable scene among many. Again situated far from the capital or well known Chinese city, the climate can only be described as horrendous, as heavy rains occur almost daily. Well worth catching for crime film fans.
Mariner of the Mountains is a Brazil/France film from 2021 by Karim Anouiz. His father came from a mountain village in Algeria and his mother from Brazil. He was born in Algeria, but left when very young with his mother to Brazil. Dad was supposed to follow but never did. He now lives in France. Karim travels from Marseilles to Algiers by boat, exploring the city for his first time. Then he moves on to his father's village where he meets some relatives. This is a very personal documentary about one man's search for his roots, and really doesn't involve us very much. Having said that, the photography of Algiers and the few villages we visit, including many of the people, is nothing less than transcending. Far from being a travelogue, many of the images are memorable and the people photogenic. We do for a time feel as if we are a silent partner on this journey, though we eventually get left behind. At its root it is a home movie of a man's search for part of himself, though of course it is much more than that. Well worth catching if you have wished to visit Algiers (my hand gets raised).
Lastly, we have watched 5 episodes of Apple TV's Foundation series, based on the 3 volumes of stories and novellas by Isaac Asimov. I read the series in late high school years, when I was devouring everything "trilogy". I remember practically nothing about the books except that I quite liked it. So a reread is obviously in order. There are three seasons worth of TV viewing a 4th is in the works), ten episodes per season, and about an hour per episode. We have traveled through 5 hours of 30 so far, being halfway through Season One. It is big budget stuff, having to match effects with Rings of Power and Game of Thrones. Of course it is all dead serious stuff, with some recreational sex thrown in, I suppose, to lighten the mood. It doesn't help much. Even the sex is too serious. The current Foundation (all humans--no aliens in the books) is ruled by clones of the original Emperor: one is older and has passed power over to the middle clone, with a young one on hand to watch things for when it is his turn. These clones have offered nothing new in hundreds of years and the society, especially in the outer regions of the planetary collective, is growing restless and resistive. So we have terrorists attacking the Empire, which rules mostly by fear and punishment. Watching the terrorists take down the Empire so easily makes one wonder how they have been able to have control for so long. Two bombs and the miles high sky bridge that leads into orbit is destroyed, and later one shot from a space canon takes down a massive Empire warship. Though the upcoming fall of the Empire has been mathematically proved, it is mostly disbelieved. However, a 2nd Foundation is being set up to try and help survivors when the first Foundation does crumble. So far its pretty good, especially in the looks department. As I don't recall the Asimov version I can't say right now how close the books are being followed. We will, at the very least, finish off Season One.
Mapman Mike
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