Thursday, March 25, 2004
Well, it was 3D modelling and animation class again last night and it was dull. I just wish that the teacher were better and then the students wouldn't need to ask ME for advice. If I don't get a "merit" for this, I will probably cry or something.
On Tuesday night, I watched Bela Tarr's "Damnation" which is brilliant. The miserable party scene is breathtaking. Where did he find such ugly people? (No Ursula Andress or Eva Herzigova here! He must have a talent scout in glasgow.) Everyone I know has been at that party at some point. It also has the only heterosexual sex scene that I have ever seen which doesn't make me laugh. And not because it is nasty in any way; more just that it is actually realistic and human.
I was very surprised to get an email from Georges Szirtes, the translator of Krasznahorkai's "Melancholy of Resistance" (see previous entry) after I wrote to ask him if he was translating any more of Krasznahorkai's work: by return came the charming reply that he is. Which is exciting.
Tuesday, March 23, 2004
It seems that the israelis want to plunge the world into chaos and darkness by provoking world war three. Suddenly all those ranting anti-semitic "theories" about global zionist conspiracies don't seem so far-fetched.
The fact of the matter remains that the zionists (note I do NOT say "Jews") have no right to that land other than as reparation for some collective guilt over the second world war and should behave with the deference of guests or visitors instead of encroaching further into other peoples' land and picking fights with them.
Ariel Sharon is up there with Hussein, Amin and Ceaucescu as the bloodiest and most corrupt of modern "leaders".
And on a completely different tack, I watched Bela Tarr's "Werckmeister Harmonies" (based on László Krasznahorkai's brilliant "The Melancholy Of Resistance") last night, and quite brilliant it is too. The surface of the film is about a carnival that comes to a small, depressed Magyar town, bringing a huge stuffed whale and overseen by the deformed dwarf "The Prince"... crowds of mysterious men gather in the city square and violence erupts.
I will say no more. See it. Such is the genius of Tarr that a 4 minute shot of two people walking is not boring but claustrophobic and oppressive. This film gave me nightmares of the sort that cause you to wake up with a start.
The DVD comes with a bonus DVD of Tarr's "Damnation" which I shall watch tonight.