In my father's den (New Zealand 2004)... a serious film review point by me!!!

I have finally got serious about commenting on film and put a 'review' remark on IMDB, partly because I get tired of all the crass and ignorant remarks by people who expect everything to be like dumb Hollywood stuff, or only happy enough for 12 year olds etc. And I would not bother except I meet so many nice ordinary intelligent young university students who think that this site is the best way to find out about movies - and it does seem to have some kind of remark for most movies that have at least subtitles in English. So here is a link to my first effort:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0385017/usercomments?filter=chrono

and can I ask you to look at the comment by Marilou of New York on the same page - because I didn't know she had commented, and she is my husband's cousin who grew up next door to him in Green Island, Dunedin, New Zealand but has lived in New York for over 25 years. She is not a budding film academic like me, but does a lot to support New Zealanders in the arts (especially music) in the USA. So if you can help her to get the film distributed in the USA, please...

If you read my comment you will see I had personal reasons for finding the film particularly revealing, as I lived in the area in which it was set (Central Otago) as an educated British immigrant teenager, an interesting experience ! It is very beautiful, as a hot dry mountain desert place that also has cold frosts in winter...

this still from the film captures it perfectly.

I picked up on the migration issue really, because it is about a brother returning home from a journalistic career in the world's trouble spots on the death of his father, to confront the reasons why he left. It is a proper 'film noir' in plot, but the characterisation and issues discussed are what make it so good.

Anyway I am now going to do more of these for various films that I feel are not supported enough, on various sites. And I have some friends who do the same, so expect more links like this. But this blog is not going to be a mere 'stop' for passing the reader on to all sorts of other sites. I hate that. It is about growing in confidence to express my own views and some of my friends as considered and important. Gosh - v. serious !

Last point. I seem to be surrounded by people who spend a lot of time collecting and storing their own huge collections of videos, DVDs, itunes, even youtube clips, and passing them on and sorting them out, so they can then spend loads of time re-watching the same old re-runs and few films. Well I like to collect books, but at least it is easier to just dip into them and get the bit you want. And I still borrow them from the library, even if reading recent journal articles is easier if you can download them from Jstor or whatever. More serendipity and renewal that way.

I like to go to the cinema, maybe once a week, and then turn that film over in my mind and remember it.

This weeks film - Los Olividados (Luis Bunuel, Mexico, 1942??). Seen at Arts Cinema, Cambridge. Wonderful Black and White film about street kids in Mexico City. Precursor to Pixote(1989) and Cidade de Deus (2002) from Brazil and various other 'social' Latin American and European films. A newly restored print - but the English subtitles, probably the original are awful - listen to the Spanish, which is fairly 'standard' unlike the street language of Cidade de Deus.

It got a bit busy this week...

Barone 192 -193, Shoreditch High Street, London, E1 6HU. Tel 0207 729 8049

Not about the job, which is a step back in my life that I don't think I want to take just now, but afterwards when I thought I would try to drive across NE London around the congestion charge area heading towards St Katherines Dock which is a good place to park for a day and get a no 15 bus to my university. So nosing along Shoreditch High Street (don't ask, I have no sense of direction!), My beloved mercedes did what it often does in these circumstances - overheated and started to smoke from under the bonnet. I was loking to see where I could turn off, and a man rushed out from a nearby cafe to tell me to 'Stop - or your engine will explode!!!'

Any way he made me come out of the traffic and park on a bus stop right by his cafe, put a piece of old cardboard over my number plate so that the cameras on the intersection wouldn't read it and send me a traffic ticket, put up the bonnet so the car engine could cool down and had me (dressed in my interview suit and bag) in his coffee and lunch place with a lovely cup of Camomile tea while I waited and he organized water for the radiator (I didn't know how to tell him I had a bottle full in the car boot ready for this particular emergency!)

So, as I rang my daughter to tell her I would not be coming round to her place in South London, I enquired the nationality of my rescuer. He was, as I had guessed Latin American - from Chile. The other chap there was Portuguese, who made me a lovely tuna baguette for my lunch. And next door was a very interesting shop with Che Guevera t-shirts and Latin American flags and things for the trade. So another little Luso- Hispanic place to visit...

Its a long time since I was last in Shoreditch - I used to work in the area about 25 years ago, when it was very different!! So I was thrilled to find such lovely kind people, I have said my best thank-yous in Portuguese and Spanish, and have found a photo of the cafe for you all, because it is clean, smart, comfortable, lovely food, lovely people - you can sit and use your lap-top there and I can highly recommend it! Barone 192 - 193 Shoreditch High Street.

Updating my stupidity over perfectionism

Well I am facing defeat in the face over my dissertation. Spent most of the month writing and re-writing a review which turned into an essay over the second film of my director Claudio Assis which is called Baixio das Bestas (Bog of Beasts) which I saw at Rotterdam. Both are unfinished. I have seen my professor twice and handed nothing in and this is the last week of term. How weak is that?
So I think he will give up on me.
I have applied for various jobs, and only have an interview for one so badly paid and junior that I must be completely stir-crazy to even consider it - and the temporary relocation to London that it would involve.
I actually spent most of the month writing diary like entries of pure angst too terrible to put up here.
Question. What does a mental breakdown look like?
Positive notes. I have just signed up to take a course on Latin American Film taken at the lovely Arts Cinema here at Cambridge. It will be taught by Sarah who is writing a PhD on the Peruvian Film Industry. She is going to show some of the Brazilian Cinema Novo films that I need to see. Problem: It costs £60 which I do not have.
And I have been sent an invitation to a conference in Rio with the Brazilian Film Studies Students for October which is a huge incentive if only I had written anything worthwhile !
So I am going to go and have a cup of tea. Then I am going to look at my e-mails and send some off befor 5. And then I am going to do some work. And stop crying.
And then see if my nephew wants to go to his German lesson in Ely, which I usually spend talking to a wonderful retired Maths professor called Prof. Maude. And I will tell you about him another time.