Dissociative Females vs. Cats

Couldn’t resist this “Murakami Breakdown” from paperbackgirl.com. No argument here! (ok, maybe “dissociative females” by a whisker over “cats”). This site goes right to my blogroll. Good stuff

Best of, Sort of

It’s that time of year again, right? The obligatory lists are due. I admit I kind of like lists. I’ve already visited several sites, including a lot of music lists which I do every year to get some fresh sounds. I’m already enjoying some of those. My book and film lists I keep all year round, so nothing new really. I read 65 books this year (not including the current Iliad Marathon),  and watched a total of 164 films mostly DVD’s – I did actually go to the movies sometimes, about once a month, and attended two film festivals (44 films).

Clean up day at the old blog: I’ll be getting the books and film pages ready for the new year and moving what’s there now to the sidebar. Isn’t this interesting?

So, instead of a straight 10 best or something, I’ll just mention a few that deserve special mention because they are still memorable.

IN BOOKS:

Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84 is a masterful piece of fiction. With the theory that has been in the news lately – that earth originally had two moons, well what can you say about that? If you’ve read the novel or have heard something about it, you’ll know what I mean. Back to the future, what an odd turn of events.

Maybe half of the books I read this year were newly published, and several were those that were filling in the gaps (a never ending battle) in my reading. The other book that really stands out which I had never read (although I’ve read most everything else of his) was Richard Flanagan’s Death of a River Guide. I found this book especially brilliant in its execution and its scope. Reminded me very much of the great J. M. Coetzee.

IN MOVIES:

At the film festivals, there were a few standouts that still come back to me. At the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival I was very much looking forward to Xiaolu Guo’s latest film and it did not disappoint me. For cinematic commentary about the state of the world we live in there is no better film maker working today. Too bad most people will never get a chance to see and really think about her art. UFO in Her Eyes.

From the same film festival I watched this really beautiful, haunting film from Turkey: Once Upon a Time in Anatolia. This clip really does capture the mood and flavor of the film.

At this year’s Tribeca Film Festival there were really no films that stood out above the rest, although there were several good films. I loved the look of Artificial Paradises (Paraísos Artificiales) and the feel of Stuck Between Stations, a film I fell in love with when I saw it but had sort of forgotten about until looking back here.

At the theaters Hugo was a kick – a love poem to film. I loved it, but not sure what the audience is for it. Because of its subject matter, I’m sure there will be some Oscar nods. Both The Tree of Life and Biutiful were great films. Honestly though, my personality gravitates to the grittier Biutiful and a little less so to the ethereal Tree of Life. Toss-up here for best film of the year.

106 films on DVD (or streaming on-Line) is a lot no? How to sort through them? With that many films, although I do have them ‘in order’, that’s misleading. As I placed a newly watched film in the queue, I confess I couldn’t necessarily remember the film I was placing next to. I have to figure out how to do a better job this year. My DVD of the year goes all the way back to a 1977′s Cassavetes film Opening Night, with Cassavetes playing opposite a young and crackingly attractive Gena Rowlands. Loved it. Incendies gave the viewer a lot, a visceral horror of a war movie and a family mystery. Great film as well,. Finally inspired by the reading of Helen DeWitt’s The Last Samurai, I viewed Seven Samurai for maybe the fourth time. Still as good as ever and watched it from a different perspective this time, always a good thing. Cassavetes 1977 film and Kurosawa’s 1954 film. See what I mean?

So that’s My List – or what passes for a list.

Hope everyone has a very Happy New Year. Stay safe. And wishes for some great books and films to entertain and make you think in the coming year. Chazz.

More…of The Things You Learn in Books

Books entertain me and sometimes inspire and hopefully get me thinking about subjects that are important to me. I have a few of those: the nature of time and memory; history and its rewriting by the powerful; the concept of self and our perceptions of the relationships with the world beyond our skin. But I also love to stumble across corners of learning that are just fascinating in and of themselves, though they may not be too important beyond the fact of their uniqueness, their ability to shine a light on the corners of our souls.

In Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84, just before two of the major (second-tier) characters meet, and one is about to assassinate the other, one of them asks the other what he knows about Carl Jung (I’m doing this without spoilers, so it’s awkward). The character who has been asked knows the basics, but beyond that not much. He is then told a story about Jung: that he lived in Zurich with his family on a lakeside residential area. Jung however, needed a quieter place, a place where he could really think. He built a small house on a different parcel of land on the lake called Bollingen. Jung built the house himself out of stones. In order to do this, Jung had to become a stone mason – get a license and join the guild. The house Jung built with his own hand is called the “Tower”.

The house took twelve years to build. It’s still there, though not open to the public. Murakami’s character goes on to explain further:

…at the entrance to the original tower there is a stone into which Jung carved some words with his own hand. ‘Cold or Not, God is Present.’

The man asks his soon to be victim if he knows what that might mean. The other replies that he does not. The assassin admits that he is not sure either, but he knows that it had deep meaning to Jung, having found it necessary to chisel these words into the stone himself.

I don’t know why, but I’ve been drawn to these words for a long time. I find them hard to understand, but the difficulty in understanding makes it all the more profound. I don’t know much about God. I was raised in a Catholic orphanage and had some awful experiences there so I don’t have a good impression of God. And it was always cold there, even in the summer. It was either really cold or outrageously cold. One or the other. If there is a God, I can’t say he treated me very well. Despite all this, those words of Jung’s quietly sank deep into the folds of my soul. Sometimes I close my eyes and repeat them over and over, and they make me strangely calm. ‘Cold or Not, God is Present.’

Then he proceeds to suffocate his victim to death.

It’s possible that the character has this quote wrong. He may have misheard it. Something similar is on Carl Jung’s gravestone:

VOCATUS ATQUE
NON VOCATUS
DEUS ADERIT

This can be translated as {Invoked or not invoked, the god is present.}. Or “called or not called” – instead of cold. Hmmm.

TIFF ’10: Day 4 ~ Norwegian Wood (Noruwei no mori)

I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that this much anticipated film was adapted  from the wonderful Haruki Murakami novel. But I just told you anyway! And it was directed by the talented Tran An Hung (Cyclo). The film is lush and beautiful, gorgeously filmed. The acting is superb. There are at least five performances that really stand out (just fell in love with Kinko Mizuhara’s Midori). And as I recall -  it wasn’t that long ago that I read it -  the film is a reverential and faithful adaptation of the book.

But you know what? Some books should not be made into cinema. Apparently Norwegian Wood is one of those novels. When not showing off it’s flawless cinematography, much of the film is shot in profile dialogue scenes. There were two women sitting next to me that  obviously had difficulty controlling their giggling. At first I was pissed, until they finally left, and I settled back into the film. But upon reflection they were not ‘wrong’.

On the page what had come across as a sensitive portrait of young love, awakening sexuality seems to be sexuality that’s stunted and never awakes. What was written as introspection shows on the wide screen – in close up – as solipsism. Intimacy and the big screen are not a good fir. It takes special handling to make it work. Anh Hung Tran’s effort has to be classified as a failure of execution.

Loved the book. The movie left me cold as the snow falling on Naoko’s hair.