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February 28, 2007
Silence is underrated
"Don't talk unless you can improve the silence." -- Jorge Luis Borges
*****
"Nestled deep in the postcard-perfect French Alps, the Grande Chartreuse is considered one of the world’s most ascetic monasteries. In 1984, German filmmaker Philip Gröning wrote to the Carthusian order for permission to make a documentary about them. They said they would get back to him. Sixteen years later, they were ready. Gröning, sans crew or artificial lighting, lived in the monks’ quarters for six months—filming their daily prayers, tasks, rituals and rare outdoor excursions. This transcendent, closely observed film seeks to embody a monastery, rather than simply depict one—it has no score, no voice over and no archival footage. What remains is stunningly elemental: time, space and light. One of the most mesmerizing and poetic chronicles of spirituality ever created, INTO GREAT SILENCE dissolves the border between screen and audience with a total immersion into the hush of monastic life. More meditation than documentary, it’s a rare, transformative theatrical experience for all."
A lover of silence myself, I enjoyed this documentary immensely. I'm not sure if its even a documentary: there's no soundtrack or voice over, just a succession of short clips and beautiful images of the french Alps. But what made it truly remarkable was that it was the first time in my life where there was almost complete silence in a room ful of people for nearly three hours.
I understand the need for solitude and withdrawal but I frankly don't understand it as a way of life. Especially to be closer to God as one monk admitted. A life of ascetism in a high peak in the Alps is nothing to brag about. What else is there to do? Try to find God while waking up every day to go to work, be underpaid, try to raise a family and make ends meet, resist the temptation of getting yurself into debt to buy symbols of status, find what makes you happy even if it's not what is socially prescribed, be good unto others although they don't really seem to care, be immune to marketing strategies and, if you're a believer, still have faith in God despite all the difficulties. Now THAT is a challenge. Withdrawing from society is plain cowardice.
Silence is the key to find solitude in the middle of others. Silence allows us to think deeper and, if you're a believer, it's the way to listen to God. I've been thinking how it's getting increasingly more difficult to find silent places in cities. My favourites were museums but somehow the old rule of keeping silent doesn't seem to apply anymore. I find catholic churches too grim. I can't get any peace of mind staring at the sight of a crucified man. There isn't one shop, cafe or public place in general that doesn't have some background sound, the dreaded muzak most times. Most of my friends and family can't arrive home without immediately turning on the TV or the stereo even if they're not paying attention. I have my own pet theory that all this is related to fear. Fear of thinking. It's easier to limit your interaction with the world to hearing and seeing and not giving it much thought. If you are constantly bombed with sounds and images, there's a relief from not having to think, from not having to face the probable emptiness.
You know when you eat something that tastes so good that you have to close your eyes so that nothing else can interfere with that sensual pleasure? The same goes for a beautiful work of art; I want to enjoy it in silence, the needed silence of contemplation which allows beauty to be perceived as a religious experience.
*****
Amused by the huge line of people at the Gulbenkian Foundation. There's an exhibition of jewelry by Cartier and I was doing my usual anthropological stunt by observing all these well dressed middle aged couples and groups of women. By the way they looked completely lost as where to buy tickets or how they spoke loudly on their cellphones giving directions to friends on the best places to park around there, I'm sure they had never set foot on the museum before. A strange setting. Reminded me of Bianca Castafiore. I may be a bit prejudiced but I can swear I saw a glitter of greediness on those eyes or whatever it is that makes people appreciate gems and gold. A woman who started mindlessly chatting with me about how she was anxious to see the Cartier exhibition was startled when I said I was not going there but to the museum instead. And even more startled when I said that no Cartier jewelry can beat the Lalique collection which is in the permanent exhibition.
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February 26, 2007
Lame
Seen "No sos vos, soy yo". My life - entertainment wise - just got more uncertain. Portugal is a small country where only blockbusters and a few strikingly good independent movies are shown. Argentina isn't, as far as I know, a big movie exporter. So, statistically speaking, if an Argentinian movie is shown in Portugal it's got to be good. But this one was terribly lame. It's one of those romantic drama/comedies where Hugh Grant could easily be the star. The cinematic version of those mushrooming novels in the genre "screwed relationships and finding real love for thirtysomethings". As I said, lame. The only interesting bits are the ones the main character's appointments with his shrink. And the credit goes all to the shrink who even quotes Borges which I'm sure is mandatory on any Argentinian production - there must be a law. If only the movie had some good shots of my beloved Buenos Aires, I'd be willing to forgive all those cliches and awkward plot reminiscent of a mediocre Woody Allen's "Play it again Sam". But not even that.
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February 23, 2007
Notes to self
“As a matter of fact, he almost never takes the liberty of being himself unless someone builds up his confidence and leaves him alone in an empty room,” Jean-Paul Sartre wrote in a 1957 essay, “The Venetian Pariah.” For Sartre, Tintoretto is an avatar of existential anguish, who was both behind his time—as the last native-born master on a scene ruled by a cosmopolitan élite—and ahead of it, as the ideal artist for a rising bourgeoisie that was too intimidated by the pomp of the ducal republic to recognize itself in his demotic trashings of aristocratic decorum. Intellectuals of the era, while in awe of Tintoretto’s gifts, scolded him for being too fast, careless, and insolent; when Vasari credited him with “the most extraordinary brain that the art of painting has ever produced,” it wasn’t meant as unalloyed praise. (Vasari also called him the medium’s “worst madcap.”) --- PETER SCHJELDAHL in the New Yorker
Go see the Tintoretto exhibition at the Prado and the Portraiture in the age of Picasso at the Thyssen. Go, go, go to Madrid.
*****
Go visit Venice despite your long standing prejudice against a city that can only stink with that much canals. The biennale starts in June.
*****
Graffiti on a wall, an ejaculation, spatters of bird droppings and chewing gum flattened on the pavement, inarticulate curses - "every body has prombles woste then mine" reads one hopeless message they found scrawled on the street and incorporated in a picture. Gilbert & George's London is more than a backdrop. It teems with life and dirt, shock, surprise, boredom and beauty. Their retrospective is as relentless, cumulative and varied as anyone could ask for. You exit winded - you've seen too much. Like the city itself, the show is uneven and sprawling, and goes from dark to garish, sexy to monstrous. Their best and worst are here - and which is which, one keeps on asking, and what do we mean by best and worst? Good filthy or bad filthy, raving mad or just raving? Are they brave or are they bores? They provoke ambivalence. The contrariness and contradictions are essential to their art, and to our responses to it. --- Adrian Searle on The Guardian
Go visit the Gilbert & George exhibition at Tate Modern. It ends in May! Go, go, go to London.
*****
"Hay is a tiny market town in the Brecon Beacons National Park, It has 1500 people and 41 bookshops."
Go to Hay-on-Wye! Someday.
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February 22, 2007
Random belated posts
It's been a while.
******
I wanted to write something clever about a Milan Kundera article that was published on the New Yorker but I'm feeling sick. I derived much pleasure from it and had R. reading it out loud from the book "The Curtain" where it's originally from. Very apt too, since it speaks of the provincialism of both small and large nations.
******
Hated Scorcese's "The Departed". No one who has seen the fantastic Hong Kong "Infernal Affairs" trilogy - of which the Scorcese movie is a remake - can think this silly movie deserves an Oscar. I was deeply irritated by the use of foul language that seemed completely out of context. It seemed like a teenager wrote the script. Argh.
The only fun thing was seeing one of the characters sitting at Boston Commons looking up at the golden State House dome and a few hours later I was getting out at Park Street Station and having exactly the same sight. And also from a corner of the hotel room :)
******
Saw "The Lives of Others". So brilliant. One of the best movies I've seen in years. Made me prompt my parents to go look for their secret police files at the National Archives. If this one doesn't win the Oscar for best foreign movie, the little respect I have for that Hollywood event will never even have a tiny chance of being restored.
*******
Saw "Little Children". The ending can be frustrating in two ways. The characters don't break up with the status quo and do not pursue their passions nor there is the edifying ending which would be something along the way of finding that it's not their lives that are wrong but themselves, hence the solution would not be trading a partner for another but finding out how to be happy regardless of relationships. That's why I said to Rui that I hadn't learned anything from it since I don't see how the problem posed has been solved. He seems to think otherwise.
The only fun part was when Kate Winslett appears naked and automatically me and Monica look at each other and whisper simultaneoulsy "She's got stretch marks on her thighs!". And we both sighed at that strange frivolous consolation.
*******
Read "The Accidental Masterpiece", got Siri Hutsvedt's "Mysteries of the Rectangle" and Julien Levy's Diary at the excellent Museum of Fine Arts bookshop in Boston. The Museum in itself is chaotic. I couldn't follow a logical path to the exhibition rooms and found hilarious that they should hang a Tagore portrait in the India section, amidst the hindu gods statues, for no apparent reason other than he was from India.
******
And since it's been a long time I've insulted anyone through stereotyping (at least online), I can say that in Boston:
- people smoke a lot more than in any other place i've visited in the US
- everything, from a school, to a park, to a subway station, to a pebble in the street seems to be "the first in America"
- too many bricks.
Had a great time at L'Espalier but also at Ten Tables. Yum. No Boston baked beans, though.
It was freezing.
Had a fun sentimental tour of Harvard Campus and Adams House.
Enjoyed Piotr's Smurf Explosion and Lisa's Jesus Line up. And also the cheese fondue, reminiscent of Astérix in Switzerland childhood reading days.
********
Fascinated by cultural differences. The same game show - with a few modified rules - is on TV in the US and in Portugal at the same time. The portuguese version relies on the presenter's jokes and anedoctes to keep it alive otherwise the public is so passive that it could be a popular cure for insomnia. In the US version everyone seems to be on cocaine. Or speeds. Or something - I'm not very savvy when it comes to recreational drugs, I'm afraid. Also, the difficulty level of the questions is....very different.
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