Une demoiselle de Varsovie

I'm absolutely delighted by Les Demoiselles de Rochefort by Jacques Demy I've just seen today and will definitely post something around it in couple of days. What a Joy! What sheer, pure bliss of cinema!

Demy did some wonderful stuff with the musical genre, introducing his very own cinematic esthetics and being faithful to it ever since. A husband of equally arresting director, Agnes Varda, one of my favorite directors actually, together they created a one of its kind cineaste duo. She - more inclined to documentary and inventing a unique way of articulation - very literary and personal mode of filmmaking, him - seemingly with his head in the clouds, a fairy tale storyteller, of lighter-than-creme, completely disrupted from 'real life' sugary sweet colorful n'importe quois. Of course not entirely true and his inventiveness was probably never rightly understood. Just give you this fragment at the moment, a wonderfully amusing caricature of some vile "contemporary artist" juxtaposed with some "naive" daubster of "L'ideal feminines"; later will write sth at length about the incredible world of Demy. Enjooy!! as it is a keyword here.

Lust for truth

Okay, if you thought it's a "civilised", "cultural" blog, now it's the time you find out you're wrong! I knew that blogosphere includes all kind of stuff, and this is a wonderfully terryfying feature of the net: all kinds of abnormalities, which actually can teach us more about life, ethics and humanity that anything else. actually at the moment I can't imagine myself without this experience of a unbelievable variety of humanities if it wasn't invented. I'm fully aware how bluntly and naive it may sound, so to make more clear what I mean, let me introduce to you....Suzannah and her world of a rare quality

http://suzannahlust.com/

This is Suzannah (a pseudonyme naturally) who writes about her experience as a sex worker and a girl who simply likes sex. of course, you may say, that we had actually a lot of this kind of stuff, some tenth washings after singlegirl.com or pitiful careerists of the worst sort, with their kitschy nymphomania and whatever comes after it. but Suzannah is different. she's first of all, a good writer. At least since Sei Shonagon and her treatise The Pillow Book and tons of books of all sorts, from Bataille to Pauline Reage and Catherine Millet, we know that the pleasures of literature and the pleasures of sex can go together and that the letter is not the opposite of ectasy.

Actually sometimes I think "The Pillow Book" is Peter Greenaway's best film; of a rare beauty and great sense of aesthetics, even though rather shallowing the infinite possibilities of clashing writing with sex, when we think of it beyond its lush, sensual atmosphere and exquisite visual beauty.

But Suzannah. let's take the first accidental section:

It’s funny how people are labeled in society. People who work for charity are good, drug dealers are bad. People who cheat on their spouses are bad, single mothers raise eyebrows.
I was brought up to believe such righteous judgments and am still working to rid some of them from the far reaches of my subconscious.A few weeks ago I entered the subway, passing a homeless man who was trying to move his worldly possessions from the bottom of the stairs to the top. He was struggling and it crossed my mind that he needed help. I watched the struggle as I waited for my train, and I watched as another commuter came by and moved the bags for him.

There aren’t a lot of people who would have moved those bags. I’m trying to be one more often. I became friends with a bag-mover recently, someone quite selfless and truly empathetic, whose gift for appreciating the hidden good in others is unique. In theory, she should be bad, like me. We inhabit a questionable place on the fringes of society. I should add here that I am also good, when I work at a reputable and elitist corporation and have sex within the confines of a relationship. Sometimes I’m between good and bad–let’s say questionable–such as when my dog, who isn’t neutered, raises the ire of a fellow canine on the street. I was definitely bad last week when asked by a couple of missionaries whether I believe in Jesus.

What follows is usually a very lucid and true analyzis of - no, not sexual behaviours, but the society and the individual self in it. not to mention that this is a woman's experience. i admire the way Suzannah is dealing with her feelings, how she's totally open to the experience and the generosity of sharing it. it's a lesson of some type of humanity i'm equally fascinated with. so, do not ask, what is it, but read, read, read.

http://suzannahlust.com/

News from the Netland

A quick morning mindwipe in the net and here we are, a bunch of treasures, that only this culture enabled to come up, such as:

Bigozine 2 is a somewhat self-appointed watcher of some priceless lost&found bootlegs and radio registrations that there are.

here's the access to a Brian Eno's soundtrack for derek Jarman's Glitterbug, a combination that brings me some pleasant cramps in the heart

http://www.bigozine2.com/archive/ARrarities/ARbeglitter.html

sir George Martin in studio, tens or perhaps hundreds of hours to listen, a studio orgasmatorium for recordphiles

http://bigozine2.com/roio/?p=297

and The Who concert in 1969 Minneapolis

http://bigozine2.com/roio/?p=293

if it's not enough, here's some collection of Polish classic book cover design, from a great blog on books from a real bibliophile I've been following for some time

http://ajourneyroundmyskull.blogspot.com/2009/09/thirty-book-covers-from-poland.html

it's a quite great example of Polish design of posters also, proving that the esthetics of Cieslewicz and Tomaszewski was not an alone phenomenon and how splendidly design was developing during the communist years.

And on Quietus a very nice article on David Bowie's acting career, something I quite never decided about, since even Dame's failures tend to be quite splendid and interesting.

http://thequietus.com/articles/01850-cracked-actor-get-hooked-to-the-silver-screen-for-david-bowie-the-actor

on this last topic I may express myself at length in the future, as I just got access to some earlier unknown stuff and stare at Mr. Bowie ever since.

The all too human world of Kazuo Hara

Only about two years ago I've read for the first time about Hara Kazuo, one of the most important Japanese New Wave directors, together with the likes of Nagisa Oshima and Shohei Imamura. His films include the most extraordinary documentaries you would ever see, like The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On(1987) about the atrocities of the IIWW in Japan and the most outstanding rendering of cinema-verite docu-autobiography, and somewhat the strangest travelogue there is, Extreme Private Eros: Love Song 1974 (1974), centering on his ex-girlfriend Miyuki Takeda, not long after their breakup.

She leaves him and goes to Okinawa island with their child. He follows her as a somewhat the strangest and humiliating way to preserve their relationship. Miyuki is a militant feminist, a pioneer of women's liberation in patriarchal Japan: she lives exactly as she wants and nothing will stop her before realizing her decisions. the sado-masochistic drive is obvious; but behind that stands a non-deniable, authentic love, as he documents her relationships with other women, black American GI's and her work as a go-go dancer. not only his voyeristic masochism is totally moving; his extreme naturalism as well. we observe two births in nearly real time.

I couldn't find any fragment of his proper work as a video on the net, but here's a fragment of Barbara Hammer's documentary on artistic-productive collective of directors, called Ogawa

Devotion, A Film about Ogawa Productions by barbarahammer.com from barbara hammer on Vimeo.

here some biographical stuff:

Kazuo Hara born in 1945, Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan. Studied photography at the Tokyo Academy of Photography. Together with Kobayashi Sachiko, Hara founded Shisso Productions in 1972 for making documentaries. After debuting with Good-bye CP, Hara made Extremely Private Eros, Love Song 1974, a film featureing Takeda Miyuki. Takeda who had a child with Hara, took the baby and left him to live with a black American soldier in Okinawa. Later in Okinawa she gave birth to a racially mixed child. Hara and Kobayashi Sachiko ( Hara's present wife) documented this very private episode in a 110 minute, 16mm independently produced film. Besides receiving tremendous audience response, the film won an award at the International Independent Film Festival in Thonon les Bains, France. In 1975, hara directed a teledoc on women's liberation: Women Now…History Begins Here. The Emperor's Naked Army Marches on (1986) is hara's most sensational work till now. The film is about a Japanese Imperial Army soldier Okuzaki Kenzo, who appeased the death of his fellow soldiers at the end of the Pacific War. Inspite of the recognition the film received in Japan and abroad, major film distributors in Japan refused to show it because of its inherent criticism of the Japanese imperial system and cannibalism among Japanese troops.

and some useful links:

http://www.asiaarts.ucla.edu/090522/article.asp?parentID=108401

http://www.villagevoice.com/2007-01-23/film/kazuo-hara-crosses-the-line/

more on this later...

Collapse with China and Michel

Collapse Magaazine was so kind to share its out of print issue for free. and you get China Mieville with Michel Houellebecq in it. as the blurb of the publisher says:

'The fourth issue of Urbanomic's "journal of philosophical research and development," Collapse, focuses on the relationship between modern philosophy and horror fiction and features essays by and about authors such as Thomas Ligotti, China Miéville and Michael Houellebecq and of course H.P. Lovecraft. Having sold out its print edition, Urbanomic has made the issue available for download as a 200 + page PDF. Some disturbing images (and ideas) within the download.'

http://freeourbooks.wordpress.com/2009/07/31/collapse-iv-philosophy-and-science-sold-out-now-open-access/

[btw, I have a problem with giving clickable links on blogspot, any advice for a freshman like me is more than welcome!)

Happy Moscow?

Since two days I'm haunted by those photos. They were made by a Czech photographer around 1896 and some of them somehow managed to survive. I'm no expert on photography techniques, but apparently they are not really colorised, but they were in fact IN COLOR at the moment they were made, as my more learned friend-photographer is saying. this would be all very interesting to investigate anyway.

But looking at them I'm more excited about the image of, let's say, Dostoyevski's heroines, who still (the autor of Karamazov Brothers died in 1881) could've walked on the streets like this (though seldom, as their creator preferred his familial St Petersburg than Moscow). Nor could Moskva, the heroine of Andriey Platonov novel Happy Moscow, walk exactly the same streets, since she was a child of revolution, that took place 21 years later.

So still imperial Russia, a bleak place to live indeed, comes back to life on this by all means exquisite photographs, waiting for a great change to come..









http://englishrussia.com/?p=5167

and here some article on more contemporary Russia, a review of The Red Flag: Communism and the Making of the Modern World by David Priestland, an analyzis of ever-recurring Russian despotism, that seems unshakeable there. as it's also a 70th anniversary of Russian agression on Poland, that destroyed completely our hopes for winning with Germans after 17 days of war, and the absolutely loathsome behaviour of most of russian politicians towards Poland even nowadays, I guess it's somewhat worthwhile to give it some thoughts

http://www.newstatesman.com/books/2009/08/communism-communist-soviet