Cineuropa coming back to Santiago

Just a quick note to advertise Cineuropa, the annual film festival here in Santiago which shows a great array of recent world cinema (all undubbed which is unusual for Spanish cinemas). The program doesn't seem to be up yet but the festival starts on the fourth of November and goes on all month.

Three years ago I went to no films, two years ago I saw one and last year I saw two. If the most obvious sequence holds I should see 720! films this year which means I definitely won't get to finish the papers I've been promising for so many months already. I heated few hours on google chat this week has cleared up a few issues with one paper and muddied a few others. I enjoy the challange of individual problem solving but for me the greatest pleasure of what I do is to discuss with other people and together evolve a coherent picture of a problem and a solution. This has been happening a goodly amount this week on a number of problems which has been a lot of fun!

Monte Pindo and the end of the Earth

It's been a ridiculously busy week this week, though some things never change. We finally got our paper out on Monday, though I have another two somewhere near the end of the pipeline and hope to have them out before Christmas. The rest of the week was busy with getting these a little closer to completion, though Monday night I went out to another film at Cine Europa to see Breath (Soom) by Kim Ki Duk, one of my favourite Korean directors.

Breath is not a film of clear logic and linearity, but it is a beautiful film of deep sentiments and powerful imagery. Kim Ki Duk manages always to lighten his dark subjects with the absurd, and wonderful scenes of a women in a seemingly continual battle with the past singing a love song to an unknown, suicidal man on death row are so full of confusing feelings that you can't help but laugh. The film is going to leave you with questions, which probably don't have answers, but for me I'm happy with this. I would recommend this film if you want some answers to the questions that Herzog was contemplating.

Today has also been a long day as 12 of us, mostly from Couchsurfing, headed out to the coast of Galicia for a day of hiking to the top of Monte Pindo, a rocky hill, some 600m high (11 mile round trip) right on the coast, overlooking Fisterre to the North and the Atlantic to the West. It took us some four hours, including breaks, to make it to the top of this very rocky mountain, but the view was well worth it. In fact this is without a doubt the most stunning view I've seen in Galicia. I have a lot of photos to go through today but I've put together a panorama from the top for now. The large size is pretty huge, and there are still some artifacts from the large contrast in light that can be seen in the sky. Still, click through to see the whole thing in full detail.


In fact, coming down we watched the sunset from half way and the last quarter of an hour was in almost complete darkness. We were exceedingly lucky that we left without a single twisted ankle!

Anyway, tomorrow I have to get on with some work for my trip to Dublin next week and will be cooking in the evening for a bunch of Korean friends. If my kimchi dumplings aren't just like their mothers' I'm going to be in some trouble!

I am legend alternative ending + our alternative ending

Update 19th March: The video can still be found here. It's been taken down most other places.

Phil at The Bad Astronomy blog has posted a link to the alternative ending for I Am Legend, which has to be a good thing, as the ending spoilt what was actually a pretty reasonable Hollywood movie (something which is pretty rare these days). There were religious elements to the ending which were simply unnecessary and you were left wondering why they'd bothered. The new ending replaces religion with love, which makes it cheesy but substantially better than the original. Note that the movie is a zombie movie, so watch it if you're into this kind of thing.


Something which is far, far more terrifying than any zombie movie is the idea of the galactic police having itchy trigger fingers and their taser pointed directly at us. Well this may be the case and if the gamma ray burster were to let loose on us, we'd be in a whole lot of trouble. Could be quite a fireworks display! Again, a link from BAblog

Reflections, endings and beginnings

This blog is two years old today, and I believe this is the 369th post.

-----------

Work finally calmed down late on Tuesday evening. Over 40 hours of intensive calculation in 3 days left me utterly exhausted. I've never needed to work with quite such fevered intensity as this. I've never been a crammer, exams at undergraduate level were a relatively relaxed affair in terms of timing as the revision was usually well planned. So, the task of pulling a series of very late-nights and early mornings was not something I envisioned enjoying. However, the hours did go between complete fatigue and a strange, work fueled euphoria which was actually rather empowering at times.

Yesterday I was too drained to do anything of any use, so I had a relaxed day in a cafe and then went to see Bergman's Wild Strawberries at D22. An early road trip movie, concerning the realisition of an elderly man about the path his life has taken and what he has lost, both physically an emotionally through the years. It's a reflection not just of the individual, but a look at how we sometimes ignore the mirror of those around us, forming our own crooked picture of the way we appear, and our own moral absolutes. This is perfect Bergman material and well worth a watch. Having seen Through a Glass Darkly, earlier in the year I now realise how adept Bergman was at capturing troubled emotions through simple images - sometimes cliched, but always powerful.

-------------

I wanted to add an extra note about the Kabuki, which I watched twice last week. I'd been pondering the use of the onnagata, the men who specialise in playing women's roles (there are no women in kabuki performances, though there used to be).

As I watched the second performance on Wednesday evening I wondered what it was about a 76 year old man (Kabuki legend Nakamura Senjaki III) playing the role of a young woman, a teenager, dancing on stage, that was so captivating to watch. This sounds strange, I'm sure, but in fact it comes off as absolutely natural and beautiful to watch.

I was trying to work out why one would have men playing female roles, other than through simple discrimination, but I think I have a clue now, after my fourth viewing of Kabuki. The vision of a man playing a woman's role is an entirely de-sexualised one. There is no thought of the player on stage having anything to do with sexual allure, as it might do if it were a beautiful woman playing the role. What you are left with is a neutered form but still retaining all the elegance and grace which may have been masked by any erotic distractions. The stripping of one aspect of attraction to reveal in much more clear contrast another. It may sound strange, but it really is fantastic to watch.

OK, I think that's probably my input on Kabuki for now, but I'm sure it will crop up again in the future.

-----------

I'm still feeling pretty drained but have plenty of work to be getting on with now. Just three full weeks left in Beijing is a fairly terrifying thought - two years have gone very very quickly - thoughts of Bergman resurface!

This month in Beijing

For reasons which I'm not going to go into now I'm working like crazy at the moment. I will probably be up all night at least for tonight, tomorrow we'll just have to see.

I'm taking a five minute break and so will put up a post I wrote a few days ago about the current goings on in Beijing. If work continues like this I'm not going to get to any of it, but I can always hope.

With less than two months left in Beijing I'm keeping a close eye on the things that I haven't done yet which I would like to. There aren't many places that I haven't explored in Beijing that I'm aware of but I'm sure there are many interesting hidden treasures to be found. The ancient observatory I would like to check out when I've time and the underground tunnels which are rumoured to go for hundreds of miles under the city sound intriguing.

There's plenty on over the next month too. There will be a couple of weeks of movies commemorating Bergman on at D22. This week there was The Seventh Seal, which is excellent and I'll definitely see it for a second time when I have a chance. The Bergman season continues with Wild Strawberries and The Magician on the 12th and 13th and finishes with The Virgin Spring on the 19th. Michaelangelo Antonioni's death is not going unnoticed with L'avventura, La Notte and L'eclisse on the 20th, 26th and 27th. Sadly Blowup is not being screened.

At the Box Cafe on the 25th is Au Hassard Balthazar, a very moving story about the life of a donkey, named Balthazar, directed by Bresson. Very very sad but a fine film.

Director Diao Yinan will be talking at Cherry Lane movies before his film Uniform, which I haven't seen but is promoted in That's Beijing.

Cory, from BoingBoing will be in Beijing next week at the Beijing Bookworm, so go early if you're around Sanlitun on Wednesday.

On the music front there's the Beijing Pop Festival in Chaoyang park this weekend, with a truly bizarre line up of Nine Inch Nails, Public Enemy, Brett Anderson, New York Dolls, Marky Ramone and a few decent Beijing bands (Joyside and the Scoff being the two who I've seen and enjoyed). Carsick Cars, Beijing's favourite band to make it outside China (currently on tour with Sonic Youth in Europe) will be back in D22 on the 29th which is bound to draw a big crowd.

I'll definitely be heading to the Beijing Jazz Festival (beijingjazz.com). For jazz in the meantime the Red Hand Jazz band every Sunday at D22 are well worth coming to listen to. I was very pleasantly surprised when I saw them for the first time a few weeks ago, though with D22's reputation and a manager who used to own a bar in New York, I shouldn't be.

Beginning of next month sees Faithless and Talib Kweli with Ozomatli on two consecutive nights at the Star Live. Ozomatli are supposed to be superb live.

For big nights out Armin Van Buuren is coming to Ba Hao at Chaoyang park on the 30th of September. The Tuesday night experimental electronica also continues at Dos Kolegas which is well worth a trip if you're feeling like something a little more interesting.

Beijing is getting in on the molecular gastronomy game with a relatively new restaurant, the Blue Lobster, which has superb reviews though is very very expensive. Depending on how work and cash flow goes it may be a treat for myself later in the month.

A friend and I have vowed to go to a new restaurant every week. Next week I have been promised by a friend that I will be taken to eat san nak ji (산낙지). (Only click on this link if you're not feeling squeemish - I really really mean it. - no, really!)

ok, that will do, but with many hours ahead I will need a break later...