Film festivals are a fantastic forum to see films that normally don't get distributed. This past weekend, as R and I discuss which films to go to at the Montreal International Film Fest, I'm cautious about choosing whereas he, more optimistic, claims we've never seen a real stinker. Ah no? What about that Turkish film where we sat through ten minutes of a camera closeup on a woman screaming? Or that Portuguese film that bored us to nausea?
Reading the write-ups is a lesson in good and bad advertising. The Finnish film I chose Saturday only barely resembled the blurb for content and not at all for tone. Believe me, I would not knowingly pick a feel-good, fluffy movie. I was reluctant to see the German film R wanted to see Sunday because the photo was so over-the-top melodramatic--a grief-stricken man, hugging a young woman to his chest as a young man stood by, red-faced and weeping. But it was a quirky funny-sad film.
In Montreal you get the chance to read both the English and the French blurbs which are sometimes so different, you wonder if they're even describing the same film. So that's neat--the different angles.
On the whole, my rule when choosing is to pick films I don't expect to have the chance to see again. Those small budget films from the Netherlands, Morocco, Argentina, South Korea. See them now or see them never.
Normally I'm allergic to crowds, but I understand perfectly that at a film festival--a good film festival--there will be lineups to buy tickets and lineups to get into the cinema. I accept the conditions.
I don't even mind when we see a movie that disappoints. You pick a film. You go. The 106 minutes that follow are the luck of the draw.
My BIG GRIPE is with the asshole ignoramuses who FRICKIN TALK THROUGH THE MOVIE. Can't they wait until they leave to start discussing it? Are they so mentally challenged that they constantly have to ask each other who the characters are and what's going on? If they ask what he just said, then they won't hear what she's saying now. NOR WILL I. They are not in their own living room. They are in a public cinema.
Some people don't get it. (Granted, they can't follow a simple plot. Why should they understand the difference between public and private behaviour?) I turn around and tell them to be quiet and they still whisper. R turns around and hisses and they stop for a few moments only to start again. There is never a cinema where someone in the audience isn't whispering, convinced that whatever insight or question they compulsively have to share is worth disturbing those who sit nearby.
One day there will be a story in the news about a woman throttling an innocent stranger in a cinema. The victim won't be innocent. The victim was TALKING.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
salty doors
We stole a few days away from Montreal to head out to the Gaspé. Seagulls and hot peach sunsets. Beach shacks selling shrimp poutines.
Even on a warm sunny day, the air is damp. The wildflowers—Goldenrod, Chicory, Purple Loosestrife—are hyper-brilliant. The grass around the house is tender and rich as butter lettuce, the pile thick and luxuriant as a carpet. When I walk to the shed, my footprints leave a diagonal trail.
R and I have been discussing the door on Madonne’s house, which is now ours. The ugly metal door faces the water—ie the wind off the water. When we were here last March, the wind whipped snow in horizontal swathes of punishing white. That day the car was completely buried in snow three times. Three times we dug it out to start the engine. The door of this house has withstood many such storms. Gale force winds, battering rain, a higher concentration of salt than people put on their fries.
Originally the door was factory grey. At some point it was painted red to match the trim around the windows. Maybe ten years ago the trim and the door were painted yellow.
I used to wonder about the bright colours of Maritime houses—hot mustard, carnation pink, aquamarine. Last winter when we drove down the coast--with white snow, grey rock and black trees on one side, and snow and a grey horizon of ice on the other--I was glad for these shouts of colour along the road.
We haven’t decided yet what colour we’ll paint our house which is a dirty white now with yellow trim, flaking here and there. The house should be painted, but the upstairs is still a construction zone of roughly sawn boards. Downstairs, a small unit of kitchen cupboards have only just been installed. What to do next is a constant game of priorities, especially since we only come every few months.
Of course, the neighbours want the house painted. Thérèse, especially, feels entitled to an opinion because her brother, Madonne's father, built the house 70-odd yrs ago. Thérèse lives down the road in a two-story saltbox with ten dozen cats. When R brought her the old doors from our house (broken, some only 5 feet high) that she asked to have for firewood, she gave him a pair of wool socks she’d knit. The socks are so thick that they don’t fit inside shoes or boots. Basically they are boots. As I'm writing, I see Thérèse on the side of the road with her large turquoise purse, thumb out whenever a car drives by.
I spent Saturday going through Madonne’s old dishes, deciding what to keep. There were thirty soup spoons but only two forks. Cut-glass pickle dishes. Parfait glasses. I don’t do parfait. Pickles... only occasionally. Straight from the jar is fine with me. What did Madonne do with so many carving knives and serving forks? How much roast did she eat? (A car just stopped to pick up Thérèse.) I filled two boxes with soup spoons, tin Expo 67 platters, church-bazaar flowered plates, teacups and saucers. We’ll take the boxes back to Montreal where we’ll put them on the sidewalk. They’ll be emptied—every last cookie cutter and snail fork—in no time. We live in a neighbourhood of garbage aficionados.
We’ll paint the house eventually. We thought we’d change the door too. The latest coat of yellow has blistered, exposing the weathered red—equally corroded—beneath. Rusty fissures gape on grey metal. The effects of salt and wind and rain and cold. But the door itself is solid. I wish our door in Montreal fit so well in the frame. It's a good door. We’ve decided to keep it.
I wish R luck trying to explain environmental art to Thérèse.
Even on a warm sunny day, the air is damp. The wildflowers—Goldenrod, Chicory, Purple Loosestrife—are hyper-brilliant. The grass around the house is tender and rich as butter lettuce, the pile thick and luxuriant as a carpet. When I walk to the shed, my footprints leave a diagonal trail.
R and I have been discussing the door on Madonne’s house, which is now ours. The ugly metal door faces the water—ie the wind off the water. When we were here last March, the wind whipped snow in horizontal swathes of punishing white. That day the car was completely buried in snow three times. Three times we dug it out to start the engine. The door of this house has withstood many such storms. Gale force winds, battering rain, a higher concentration of salt than people put on their fries.
Originally the door was factory grey. At some point it was painted red to match the trim around the windows. Maybe ten years ago the trim and the door were painted yellow.
I used to wonder about the bright colours of Maritime houses—hot mustard, carnation pink, aquamarine. Last winter when we drove down the coast--with white snow, grey rock and black trees on one side, and snow and a grey horizon of ice on the other--I was glad for these shouts of colour along the road.
We haven’t decided yet what colour we’ll paint our house which is a dirty white now with yellow trim, flaking here and there. The house should be painted, but the upstairs is still a construction zone of roughly sawn boards. Downstairs, a small unit of kitchen cupboards have only just been installed. What to do next is a constant game of priorities, especially since we only come every few months.
Of course, the neighbours want the house painted. Thérèse, especially, feels entitled to an opinion because her brother, Madonne's father, built the house 70-odd yrs ago. Thérèse lives down the road in a two-story saltbox with ten dozen cats. When R brought her the old doors from our house (broken, some only 5 feet high) that she asked to have for firewood, she gave him a pair of wool socks she’d knit. The socks are so thick that they don’t fit inside shoes or boots. Basically they are boots. As I'm writing, I see Thérèse on the side of the road with her large turquoise purse, thumb out whenever a car drives by.
I spent Saturday going through Madonne’s old dishes, deciding what to keep. There were thirty soup spoons but only two forks. Cut-glass pickle dishes. Parfait glasses. I don’t do parfait. Pickles... only occasionally. Straight from the jar is fine with me. What did Madonne do with so many carving knives and serving forks? How much roast did she eat? (A car just stopped to pick up Thérèse.) I filled two boxes with soup spoons, tin Expo 67 platters, church-bazaar flowered plates, teacups and saucers. We’ll take the boxes back to Montreal where we’ll put them on the sidewalk. They’ll be emptied—every last cookie cutter and snail fork—in no time. We live in a neighbourhood of garbage aficionados.
We’ll paint the house eventually. We thought we’d change the door too. The latest coat of yellow has blistered, exposing the weathered red—equally corroded—beneath. Rusty fissures gape on grey metal. The effects of salt and wind and rain and cold. But the door itself is solid. I wish our door in Montreal fit so well in the frame. It's a good door. We’ve decided to keep it.
I wish R luck trying to explain environmental art to Thérèse.
Monday, August 8, 2011
the group home experience
Some months back I wrote about R's sister Sue who has Down's Syndrome. She lives 3 hrs away in Quebec City. Since R is her tutor, it would make sense for Sue to be in Montreal where R can keep a closer eye on her, but she doesn't want to leave Quebec. Being intellectually deficient has never stopped Sue from saying what she wants.
Recently, it became obvious that she could no longer stay in an apartment by herself. Even with Social Services buying her groceries and doing her cleaning and checking in on her, she was making a nuisance of herself in the building. She began stealing the weekly circulars, leaving her garbage in the hallway, shouting at the neighbours. Social Services found her a place in a supervised group home.
We were concerned how the move would go. Sue had been living alone in her apartment for 25 yrs. She was accustomed to a constant television ambiance and eccentric hours. She rose at noon for breakfast, skipped lunch, had supper at five, stayed up until 1 am. Many days she never changed from her pyjamas. She had long refused to participate in social activities--whether with other intellectually deficient adults or with a volunteer who offered to take her shopping or swimming. She protested at any interruption to her sacred routines--for example, when she went to the bank on Tues to withdraw the $30 R deposited, and from there to the dollar store.
At the group home she would have her own bedroom, but share a bathroom and meals. She would have to eat at regular mealtimes. She could have a TV in her room, but she wouldn't be able to blast it as she had in her apartment. She would have to go to a new bank. There was no dollar store near the group home.
R took the firm line of persistently telling Sue that she would have to get used to the new arrangements. She had to wake at 7 for breakfast or not have breakfast at all. She had to eat in the dining room with the others. If she waited until Saturday, she could join the group who were taken to the nearby shopping mall where there was a dollar store. That's right, change her dollar store trip from Tues to Sat.
A few months passed. We waited to hear about disasters--Sue breaking things as was her wont when she decided to raise a protest; Sue fighting with the other members of the group home; Sue not cooperating; Sue being stubborn.
We were surprised and cautiously pleased to hear that Sue was actually having breakfast in the morning. Increasingly, when R called her in the evening, she wasn't in her room. She was in the common room playing Poche which I think is called Bean Bag or Toss in English. The contestants try to throw bags of beans into a hole. Or she watched TV with the group. A certain Martin figured often in her stories. R asked if she had a new boyfriend. (There's a whole long story about Sue's amorous interests and sexual experiences from when she was younger, including a brief foray when she said she was "aux femmes"--into women.) She said no, Martin was a friend, not a boyfriend. She knows the difference.
This past weekend we went to Quebec to take her out for her 53rd birthday. Her room has just about attained the clutter of her apartment where she lived for so many years. Every flat surface is crowded with embroidery thread, scissors, clippings from circulars, bottles of hand cream, picture frames. Most of the clippings are of bar refrigerators because she wants to have cold soft drinks in her room. She collects the clippings as a ritual which will eventually make the desired object appear. She shows everyone who comes to her room the clippings--mostly importantly R, who controls the money, and the social worker who might talk to R. The picture frames are stuffed with photos of her family and her new friends at the group home. She showed us where she sits in the dining room--a retro 1950s beige arborite table with heavy chrome legs. Next to the dining room is the common room with fake leather armchairs around a fake fireplace. At the home they don't call her Sue but Susie. I wonder if renaming helped with easing her into new habits.
She was very glad to see us and to go out for supper but this time, instead of looking lonely and abandoned when we left to return to Montreal, she pulled up a lawn chair to sit with the other group homies outside. She wanted to tell them what she'd had at the Chinese buffet (her choice of restaurant). General Tao chicken, onion rings, blue jello and pink ice cream.
She's very excited about her birthday on Tuesday because there will be a cake and the gang are going to celebrate.
Recently, it became obvious that she could no longer stay in an apartment by herself. Even with Social Services buying her groceries and doing her cleaning and checking in on her, she was making a nuisance of herself in the building. She began stealing the weekly circulars, leaving her garbage in the hallway, shouting at the neighbours. Social Services found her a place in a supervised group home.
We were concerned how the move would go. Sue had been living alone in her apartment for 25 yrs. She was accustomed to a constant television ambiance and eccentric hours. She rose at noon for breakfast, skipped lunch, had supper at five, stayed up until 1 am. Many days she never changed from her pyjamas. She had long refused to participate in social activities--whether with other intellectually deficient adults or with a volunteer who offered to take her shopping or swimming. She protested at any interruption to her sacred routines--for example, when she went to the bank on Tues to withdraw the $30 R deposited, and from there to the dollar store.
At the group home she would have her own bedroom, but share a bathroom and meals. She would have to eat at regular mealtimes. She could have a TV in her room, but she wouldn't be able to blast it as she had in her apartment. She would have to go to a new bank. There was no dollar store near the group home.
R took the firm line of persistently telling Sue that she would have to get used to the new arrangements. She had to wake at 7 for breakfast or not have breakfast at all. She had to eat in the dining room with the others. If she waited until Saturday, she could join the group who were taken to the nearby shopping mall where there was a dollar store. That's right, change her dollar store trip from Tues to Sat.
A few months passed. We waited to hear about disasters--Sue breaking things as was her wont when she decided to raise a protest; Sue fighting with the other members of the group home; Sue not cooperating; Sue being stubborn.
We were surprised and cautiously pleased to hear that Sue was actually having breakfast in the morning. Increasingly, when R called her in the evening, she wasn't in her room. She was in the common room playing Poche which I think is called Bean Bag or Toss in English. The contestants try to throw bags of beans into a hole. Or she watched TV with the group. A certain Martin figured often in her stories. R asked if she had a new boyfriend. (There's a whole long story about Sue's amorous interests and sexual experiences from when she was younger, including a brief foray when she said she was "aux femmes"--into women.) She said no, Martin was a friend, not a boyfriend. She knows the difference.
This past weekend we went to Quebec to take her out for her 53rd birthday. Her room has just about attained the clutter of her apartment where she lived for so many years. Every flat surface is crowded with embroidery thread, scissors, clippings from circulars, bottles of hand cream, picture frames. Most of the clippings are of bar refrigerators because she wants to have cold soft drinks in her room. She collects the clippings as a ritual which will eventually make the desired object appear. She shows everyone who comes to her room the clippings--mostly importantly R, who controls the money, and the social worker who might talk to R. The picture frames are stuffed with photos of her family and her new friends at the group home. She showed us where she sits in the dining room--a retro 1950s beige arborite table with heavy chrome legs. Next to the dining room is the common room with fake leather armchairs around a fake fireplace. At the home they don't call her Sue but Susie. I wonder if renaming helped with easing her into new habits.
She was very glad to see us and to go out for supper but this time, instead of looking lonely and abandoned when we left to return to Montreal, she pulled up a lawn chair to sit with the other group homies outside. She wanted to tell them what she'd had at the Chinese buffet (her choice of restaurant). General Tao chicken, onion rings, blue jello and pink ice cream.
She's very excited about her birthday on Tuesday because there will be a cake and the gang are going to celebrate.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
organizing junk
Perhaps not everyone, but most people like to arrange things. Books in alphabetical order; spices on one shelf; canned goods on another; screwdrivers by size; a flowerbed of red geraniums bordered with blue lobelia; bridesmaids from taller to shorter. You go here, you go here. The arrangements aren’t always neat, but objects (and ideas) get grouped.
What is that arranging impulse? It follows us even into death. When I went to the Anthropology Museum in Mexico City this past spring, I took pictures of burial arrangements.
Everything in its place with the idols out front. Presumably there was food, which has since decomposed, in the bowls. Each object here has meaning—or we assume it does because it’s here. Arranging gives value, even if it’s only subjective.
A couple of months ago I noticed that someone has been collecting junk and arranging it under the overpass east of the Maxi on Wellington St. heading into Verdun. At first the junk was literally bags of garbage. Old clothes I suspect he rifled from the donations box in the Maxi parking lot. Overstretched sweatpants and T-shirts scattered in heaps. Then he added a discarded chair. Some empty detergent bottles he could have scooped from a recycling box.
I know it’s a “he” because R has seen him when he jogs by in the early evening. There’s no one when I cycle past in the morning. The site is in permanent shadow because of the overpass. The concrete backdrop has arches, lending the suggestive air of an ancient temple. Garbage as artifacts from a consumer civilization. Every two or three weeks, the city clears the space.
He begins again. Each new exhibition grows more inventive. He’s got the passion for junk, he does. The messy heaps have been replaced by strategic arrangements. Here, a women’s pink bikini bottoms—which might have fallen from a bag after she changed when leaving the pool, or been a discard after sex. Here, a twisted length of glittery wrapping paper from a birthday party. A long-sleeved shirt with one arm stretched, the other folded: flagman on the ground.
This past weekend all the smaller objects were rearranged around an intact car bumper. A blue beret propped on top. A defunct printer. A red platform shoe with a bow on an open magazine. A pink thermos.
Each new arrangement of garbage looks less like junk and more like a cultural event. Which makes me wonder if the arranging impulse that prompts people to stack their bowls in one cupboard and their mugs in another isn’t the rationalistic impulse it seems, but some nascent desire for artistry. ??
Quick, someone fund a SPECT scan to see which side of the brain has more blood flow during organizing.
What is that arranging impulse? It follows us even into death. When I went to the Anthropology Museum in Mexico City this past spring, I took pictures of burial arrangements.
Everything in its place with the idols out front. Presumably there was food, which has since decomposed, in the bowls. Each object here has meaning—or we assume it does because it’s here. Arranging gives value, even if it’s only subjective.
A couple of months ago I noticed that someone has been collecting junk and arranging it under the overpass east of the Maxi on Wellington St. heading into Verdun. At first the junk was literally bags of garbage. Old clothes I suspect he rifled from the donations box in the Maxi parking lot. Overstretched sweatpants and T-shirts scattered in heaps. Then he added a discarded chair. Some empty detergent bottles he could have scooped from a recycling box.
I know it’s a “he” because R has seen him when he jogs by in the early evening. There’s no one when I cycle past in the morning. The site is in permanent shadow because of the overpass. The concrete backdrop has arches, lending the suggestive air of an ancient temple. Garbage as artifacts from a consumer civilization. Every two or three weeks, the city clears the space.
He begins again. Each new exhibition grows more inventive. He’s got the passion for junk, he does. The messy heaps have been replaced by strategic arrangements. Here, a women’s pink bikini bottoms—which might have fallen from a bag after she changed when leaving the pool, or been a discard after sex. Here, a twisted length of glittery wrapping paper from a birthday party. A long-sleeved shirt with one arm stretched, the other folded: flagman on the ground.
This past weekend all the smaller objects were rearranged around an intact car bumper. A blue beret propped on top. A defunct printer. A red platform shoe with a bow on an open magazine. A pink thermos.
Each new arrangement of garbage looks less like junk and more like a cultural event. Which makes me wonder if the arranging impulse that prompts people to stack their bowls in one cupboard and their mugs in another isn’t the rationalistic impulse it seems, but some nascent desire for artistry. ??
Quick, someone fund a SPECT scan to see which side of the brain has more blood flow during organizing.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)