There’s more to Barcelona architecture than Gaudi, Domenech and Puig. The streets above were just outside our rooms (El Born within Barri Gotic). I don’t remember where all the following buildings were (should have taken notes I suppose) but most were within an hour’s walk.
Barcelona is more than grand structures. These apartments were in a neighborhood about five blocks from where we were staying. Nice to see people who aren’t afraid of a little colour.
This may have been the entrance to the building housing the Roman columns in the next picture.
Like how this building looks as if someone just twisted the top half 20 degrees.
I’m glad that Javier Bardem received recognition for No Country for Old Men even if I thought it was one of his weaker roles, and would go so far as to say he was miscast. That being said, after seeing a few more of his films, few actors could match his range. I say this on the basis of having seen not only his most recent Vicky Christina Barcelona but also Goya’s Ghosts, The Sea Inside and Before Night Falls.
(My appreciation comes late and was not particularly twigged with his role in Jamon Jamon: A Tale of Ham and Passion, though the title is almost worth the admission…had to see that having just come back from Madrid and various ham emporia, and the first hand knowledge of the Iberian love of the pig on the plate).
Goya’s Ghosts
In Goya’s Ghosts, Bardem plays a priest who under duress abandons the Spanish Inquisition, running off to France and returning with the French invaders. It gets much more complicated than that. He plays someone who comes to enlightment but attains amorality in the bargain. He’s good but a real pleasure here is the oddity of Stellan Skarsgaard as Goya (I think he does well but its kind of like Sean Connery where he is always Sean Connery; I do have a great deal of respect for Skarsgaard and found him to be astonishingly visceral and brutally charismatic in King Arthur). And Nathalie Portman.
The intriguing thing about Portman’s role as as a young girl taken by the Inquisition and imprisoned for years is that when she is finally out, wandering destitute, her family slaughtered by the same forces that liberated her, is that she remains somewhat disfigured by her time there.
In near any Hollywood film she would have been cleaned up, her teeth fixed, but she wanders the rest of the film, a slovenly shamble.
The Sea Inside
The Sea Inside is similar to Diving Bell and Butterfly with a bedridden main character. Bardem plays a man who has been paralyzed for decades and petitions the state for the right to die. Its a true story and the rendition is both moving and unsentimental. This is a man who was loved, who entertained those around him, who was essentially cheerful but never lost the desire to lose the burden of his life.
If you get the dvd, check the extras for interviews with Bardem on his preparation for the role, and the details of the filming process, the work to keep dynamic a film about someone lying around in bed. They succeeded in creating a lively film which did not shut out the world.
Before Night Falls
In Before Night Falls, Bardem plays the Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas. Its based on his memoir of the same title, and this film together with these others is what for me cemented my feeling that Bardem is one of the great actors of our time.
The story is about a gay artist in revolutionary Cuba who finally makes his way to New York City. Its a film about the losing and gaining of liberties, of life under oppression, of unfairness yet interwoven with moments of true joy. But Bardem does seem to get more than his share of death scenes; there are more than a few correspondences between this and Sea Inside. I wouldn’t recommend watching them on the same night.
Julian Schnabel who also directed Diving Bell and Butterfly helmed this film and its incredible that an American director could have made that film and this. This film, which is one of the most beautiful and authentic films I have ever seen, is also utterly Latin American. It has occasional elements of the documentary, and just seems to revel in the scenes of Cuba in a way that feels indigenous. This film is, as they say, a revelation.
Now I have to go back and see Bardem in Collateral again (and I do not mind that at all), as well as hunting down the Schnabels I haven’t seen yet.
And finally, I had the sudden thought that Bardem would be perfect to play Buster Keaton. Why has there not been a biopic of this man?
I would also like to put in my vote for Bardem to play the next Bond villain. Now that Bond has become the rational and cold part of the equation, the villains can be the lively ones, ergo Bardem. (My first choice was Juan Valdez but I understand that he has retired from acting).
Via OddityCentral comes this most remarkable thing. The people above are listening to the sounds of their city, Dresden, during World War 2. Developed by Markus Kison, the sound is not produced by speakers, it does not make its way through the air but is transmitted through metal. Placing your elbows on the railing and palms over your ears will bring the sound to you.
I can only imagine this to be surreal but deeply moving. To hear the past superimposed over the present.
Found via TickleBooth, this was recorded last year but sound like last week. Two British comedians explaining the subprime mortgage situation in the States…astute and funny.
Via Archiblog: the projected Walter Towers to be built in Prague. Like I needed another reason to go back there.
Food
Another sort of tower discovered through OddityCentral but you can straight to the Heart Attack Grill for more of the same. This is the quadruple bypass burger (two pounds of meat).
The following are unadulterated and were taken within ten minutes of each other, at about 7:20 p.m. the first looking due north, and the other due west. Edmonton Alberta Canada.
and
I never cease to be amazed at the variability in the skies.
I was going a little crazy during the afternoon trying to capture some great cotton batton like clouds with the sun hidden behind but drive as I might I couldn’t seem to find a place without power lines or billboards ruining the shot. Those lines feed my own energy needs but I can’t help but feel annoyed at how they muck up the beauty in a way that even the scraggliest tree cannot.
The election is about a week away. This video ended up in my box via The Canadian Harm Reduction Network. There are many different reasons why to or not to vote for someone but this little bit highlights a few things that matter to me. I prefer a government with compassion, that sees drug use as a health and also a human rights issue rather than a crime issue. I do not like governments who not only manipulate statistics but outright deny reality to push their own agenda, in this case an agenda of fear.
Canada has had decreasing levels of crime for some time but Stephen Harper wants to charge more people, put more people behind bars, and for longer times, and basically create an atmosphere that makes us fear walking down the streets when we really should fear the government that is currently in power.
Discovered via JM Colberg, its worth a visit to her site to browse other variations on this theme (see here). Having the figure observing the landscape puts me in mind of Casper David Friedrich.
Lives of Others is one of the best if not one of the most affecting films I’ve seen in some time. It takes place in East Germany before the fall of the wall, at the time when the Stasi (the East German internal surveillance agency, the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, or roughly the Ministry for State Security, spied on much of the population. As many as one out of every 50 Germans was a collaborator (this does not mean willingly) or one informer to every seven citizens (sourced from Wikipedia).
Its the sort of film that makes me sad and angry, like when I’ve read other accounts where governments declare war or unreasonably repress their own citizens such as in Stalin’s Russia or Mao’s China. It also touches on that theme which crops up from time to time of the interrogation of the true believer, and the turning of the believer into a dissident when they see the professed ideals of the state being treated as garbage by the state itself. Or recently in Goya’s Ghosts with the Spanish Inquisition. The oppressors do not believe their own demands of belief.
The performances, the plot, the writing and the production are close to perfect. Beautifully photographed and narratively nuanced. And a great ending.
It has one moment that really separated it from the usual where after the fall, where one of our protagonists bumps into one of the major villains which in near every other film would have resulted in a deserved execution, or at the very least a pummelling of the man, and though we long for the just desserts to be delivered, the film stays true to how life works, and it just doesn’t happen. He walks on to the rest of his life and the bill is never paid. Frustrating but realistically satisfying.
