Recently Viewed

Red Desert (1964). Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni. I've seen this several times over the years, but never had the opportunity to watch it so carefully as now in this new Criterion release. Monica Vitti (who else?) is Giuliana, the mentally unstable wife of an Italian industrialist; with an emotionally challenging son, a caring but unperceptive husband, superficial friends, and a new lover in her life (Richard Harris), she's barely keeping it together. The strange industrial environment she inhabits is the perfect backdrop to communicate her alienation. Antonioni's cinematography, color palate, eerie sound effects, and location shooting are what's really on display here. He creates a film which often seems more interested in what the smokestacks are doing than the people standing next to them. Yet, that's part of the theme, I think, and one which is present in the other great films of the quartet--especially L'eclisse. He keeps the people and their environment in an uneasy balance, and often the background threatens to eclipse the characters. *****

Les Carabiniers (1963). Directed by Jean Luc Godard. Two hapless peasants go off to war to win the riches of the world. They come home to the women-folk after months of carnage with their earnings: a box full of postcards depicting the pyramids, the Statue of Liberty, and every other "wonder of the world". Godard's anti-war, anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, anti-movie movie is probably one of his lesser ones. Or perhaps it's just a bit dated. It's a thin fable, in my opinion, and the sort of thing that William Klein, among others, would do much better later in the decade. **1/2

Walkabout (1971). Directed by Nicolas Roeg. One of Roeg's best films (for me, just a click under Don't Look Now), it concerns a teenage girl (Jenny Agutter) and her little brother who end up lost in the Australian outback after their deranged father attempts to murder them. They struggle for survival until, by chance, they meet a young Aborigine (David Gulpilil) on his "walkabout"--a rite of passage not unlike a Native American "vision quest". They befriend each other and the boy assists them in finding food and water and, eventually, civilization again (although what that words means in this conext is difficult to know). This being a Roeg film, much more happens, of course, and all of it is brought to us in a visual feast. However, the location shooting in the outback is front and center here: its vibrancy, its mystery, its awesomeness, and its danger are all communicated beautifully. Roeg's semi-linear style, his use of jarring juxtapositions and powerful objective correlatives serve the story well. A great film. *****

~CD

Cue The Stranglers...

A couple weeks ago on a hot Saturday, we went peach picking on Sauvie Island (Sauvie Island Farms). We picked 30 lbs. of peaches which K and her mom canned the next day. Here are some pics to document the fun we had.

Luscious fruit:

G'ma with a good un. K in the background in classic pregnant lady pose:

Box of peaches at the edge of the orchard:


Ready for the pickin':

Glowing in the shadows:

Nothing better:

~CD

Now Spinning

As you know, I love soundtracks. Two more I've acquired recently are from the films Vampyros Lesbos and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. The former, a fun but somewhat sleazy Spanish exploitation flick directed by Jesus Franco and starring Soledad Miranda, has a surprisingly good funky/jazzy/psychedelic pop score composed by Manfred Hubler and Siegfried Schwab (the latter a quite prolific German film scorer and jazz musician). The Life Aquatic soundtrack is, for the most part, your usual Wes Anderson mixtape of British invasion, folk rock, punk, and new wave (Bowie, Stooges, Baez, Zombies, Devo, etc.) The real reason I got it was to hear the Bowie covers by Brazilian singer-guitarist Seu Jorge--you know, the guy who's constantly noodling on his guitar in the odd corners of Zissou's boat The Belafonte? I quite like Bowie unplugged and in Portuguese. Apparently, Seu Jorge has released a whole album of these covers, but about half are captured here on the soundtrack. The other good reasons for getting the CD are the pieces by Sven Libaek and Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh. Libaek is a Norwegian film composer living in Australia who, according to Anderson's liner notes, wrote the airy jazz pieces which appear on the CD for a real underwater documentary film called Innerspace. Mothersbaugh wrote original pieces for the film using what sounds like a Casio. They are light electronica with catchy melodies; my fave is "Ping Island/Lightning Strike Rescue Op"--it somehow brings me back to a simpler time of Atari video games, terry-cloth shirts, and fondue night.

~CD

Recently Viewed

Thank heavens for Turner Classic Movies who recently aired Roberto Rossellini's Stromboli (1950) and Europa '51 (1952), two famous Italian neo-realist films that are not easy to find on video. Both star Ingrid Bergman (Rossellini's lover at the time) and both are fables of spiritual redemption heavily laced with mid-century Marxism.

In Stromboli, Bergman plays a Lithuanian "displaced person" in a refugee camp in Italy who is released after she marries an Italian POW who has been courting her. He brings her back to his home--the island of Stromboli--where there is nothing but some ramshackle fishing villages, lots of lava rock, and a burbling volcano. Bergman is rightfully apalled at much of what she sees there--aggression, superstition, and narrow-mindedness--and is soon (as in minutes after arriving) plotting her escape. After months of clashes with nearly everyone in her village, and, finally, with her jealous husband who beats her "like a dog," she effects her escape to a village on the opposite side of the island; to get there, however, she needs to find a passage over the volcano. In doing so, she is frustrated by noxious fumes and rough terrain, and is reduced to tears and, finally, sleep. The film ends with her overwhelmed by the beauty of the stars and of the volcano itself, and in a quandary about what to do next. In the dawn, she calls out to a merciful God to show her a path. I loved the ambiguous finish--she says she won't go back to the village (she is pregnant, and deadset on not raising a child there) but she hardly seems capable of continuing. She is suddenly aware of both her husband's and her own deep deficiencies as human beings, and is filled with compassion and a longing for deeper understanding. What she requires and is asking God for is the strength to shed her old skin and be born anew.

In Europa '51, Bergman plays the wife of an English industrialist in Rome who is suddenly plunged into despair at the loss of her 12 year-old son, who, it appears, has committed suicide. As she and her husband work through their grief, she becomes involved in a charity through a Marxist friend, Andrea. Soon the charity work takes over her life, and her husband and family begin to think (wrongly) that she is having an affair with her friend. By the film's end, the deep reservoirs of compassion she has unlocked in her heart have made her family and friends believe she may even be mentally ill, and, after an examination, she is made a resident in an institution. At the finish, it is apparent from her interactions with the sad inmates that she will continue her charity work even if it means, ultimately, being marginalized and forgotten by the society she has been a part of. In this parable, Rossellini has essentially asked the question, What would happen if a saint actually appeared in our midst? Now, in Europe, in 1951? His answer: we might find her mad.

Both films can slide into heavy-handedness at times, and one longs for a little more narrative drive in spots, but the main attractions in the films, for me, are the splendid performances of Ingrid Bergman, the location shooting, the stark photography, the "slice-of-life" documentary stylings (the tuna fishing scene in Stromboli is as hardhitting a document of Italian working class life as there ever could be), and the simple fact that a filmmaker--well before the nouvelle vague and the rise of art-house cinema--would trust the audience enough to avoid easy answers.

~CD

Cue the Kinks...

When K and I need to touch foregn soil but we haven't got the time or cashola (or both) to spare for a major trip, you know what we do? That's right, we drive to Canada. Or in this case, drive four hours up Highway 101 across the Olympic Peninsula, leave our car in Port Angeles, and take a 90 minute ferry ride to Victoria, B.C. It's what we did this last weekend and, if you can do it, you should to.

We arrived on August 6th in the evening close to 7:00 pm, and walked with our rolling luggage along the pleasant waterfront to the fine old Edwardian hotel, the Fairmont Empress (built 1908). The Black Ball line docks, literally, 300 yards from the hotel. It was a nice sunny evening and in the upper 60's. We checked in and made a late dinner reservation at Aura, a restaurant in a hotel on Laurel Point that we'd read about in Fodor's. It was a mere 15 minute walk along the Inner Harbor. Strolling back after a pleasant dinner (J: duck, K: mussels) we passed in front of the Houses of Parliament, all lit up (the houses that is). The next morning, after breakfasting in the gorgeous Empress Room (English style sausages, yesss!), we booked our bus trip to the Butchart Gardens despite the steady rain (glad they had bushels of umbrellas located everywhere). We spent several hours enjoying the various features there, especially the Sunken Garden (developed out of an abandoned quarry), the Japanese Garden, and the Italian Garden. Back in town, we shopped a little before having afternoon tea at the Empress--a 100 year old tradition at the hotel. In the evening we went to dinner at Matisse, a small French restaurant on Yates Street that served wonderful Char for me and scallops for K. I would have called it a "quiet little French restaurant" if a table full of cruise-ship Texans hadn't been next to us. In the morning we breakfasted again in the Empress Room (can't get enough of those sausages, or the amazingly ornate interior--all carved wood, panels, and turn of the century oil paintings) then boarded our ferry at 10:30 for the easy crossing back. All in all, a delightful little jaunt that gave us that wonderful feeling of taking a big trip without having to go far at all.

Here are some pictures.

Saying farewell to the U.S. (Olympic Mts. in the background):


K, en route:

J, en route and doing some preparatory reading:


Our ferry:

Arrival:

Approaching the Empress:

Houses of Parliament to the right:

A window into the Sunken Garden at Butchart:

Sunken Garden:

K and I at the Sunken Garden:

Pond in the Sunken Garden:

A random gate, Butchart:

The Japanese Garden:

The Star Pond (Butchart):

Gate into the Italian Garden:

Totem Pole at the Fireworks Overlook, Butchart:

An alcove in the Empress lobby (all Goth'd up):

Farewell to the Empress:

Didn't I tell you it was about 300 yards away? An easy stroll for a pregnant lady:

~CD

Food Round-Up

Food round-up. Been to some of my favorite PDX restuarants of late. If you're visiting, here are a few recommendations:

For breakfast go to the Bijou Cafe on SW 3rd and order yourself up an oyster omelet. No, don't argue, just do it. Thank me later. For lunch, go to Kenny and Zuke's on 10th and Stark and order a reuben. Pastrami or corned beef--doesn't matter. If you're currently in danger of becoming a vegetarian, this will save you. If you'd like to do breakfast and lunch simultaneously (a thing we call blunch), you will go to Screen Door on NE Hawthorne. There you will order a breakfast corn-dog (with sorghum dip), fried chicken and waffle (they come impaled on a knife and stuck in the waffle), and a side of maple-pecan bacon. Yes, you may have a mimosa. And for dinner, get yourself to Toro Bravo on NE Russell. Just about anything on the tapas menu is worthwhile, but you will find the boquerones on toast, charcuterie plate (esp. the chicken liver pate), French kisses (prunes stuffed with foie gras), seared scallops, jamon and fava beans, North African sausages, and a glass of sherry just about perfect. Or you may just order the tasting menu. And a glass of sherry. Perfect.

K&Z's Reuben:

~CD