chroma (jarman)

All colour smells of turpentine and rich linseed oil pressed 

from the pale blue flax fields. Local colour from coloured

fields. The cricket bat dupped with the brush. Death hangs

around the brush - pigs' bristle, squirre, sable, and the can-

vas prepared with rabbit skin glue. (p. 4)

chroma 2

My book is dedicated to Harlequin, Tatterdemalion, Rag,

Tag and Bobtail, in his red, blue and green patches. Mercurial

trickster, black-maskcd. Chameleon who takes on

cvery colour. Aerial acrobat, jumping, dancing, turning

somersaults. Child of chaos.

Many hued and wily

Changing his skin

Laughing to his fingertips

Prince of thieves and cheats

Breath of fresh air.

Doctor: And how did you manage to reach the moon?

Harlequin: Well ... it was like this ...

(Louis Duchartre, The Italian Comedy)

chroma

Brilliant, gorgeous, painted, gay,

Vivid, flaunting, tearaway,

Glowing, flaring, lurid, loud,

Screaming, shrieking, marching, proud,

Mellow, matching, deep and sombre,

Pastel, sober, dead and dull,

Constant, colourful, chromatic,

Party-coloured and prismatic,

Kaleidoscopic, variegated,

Tattooed, dyed, illuminated,

Daub and scumble, dip and dye,

High-keyed colour, colour lie.

Derek Jarman

Best DVDs of the Year (2008)

1) Bruce Baillie Volume I. (Tung, Mass for the Dakota Sioux, Valentin de las Sierras, Castro Street, All My Life released by Canyon Cinema as limited edition)

1) Sharunas Bartas- Korridorus (Moskwood Media)

2) Avant que j'oublie (Blaq Out)

3) La France (Editions Pelléas)

4) Jose Luis Guerin- Pack José Luis Guerín

5) The Wire Complete Series (HBO)

6) Valerie and her Week of Wonders (Second Run)

7) Red Desert (BFI)

8) Bill Douglas Trilogy (BFI)

9) Vampyr (Criterion)

10) La vie de Jesus (Eureka) 

friendship

"I am over forty years old. Is that old? It was, but now that you're here, Jacob, it means youth, all green and budding, this being forty. With you, you heart of a boy, fresh life, life itself for the first time, came over me and into me. Here in this office, you see, I was desperate, I was dying up, I had positively buried myself. I hated the world, hated it, hated it. All this being and moving and living, I hated it unspeakably and avoided it. Then you came in, fresh, silly, impolite, cheeky, and blossoming, fragrant with unspoilt feelings, and quite naturally I gave you a mighty ticking-off, but I knew, the moment I saw you, that you were a magnificient fellow, flown down, I felt, from heaven for me, sent to me and given to me by an all-knowing God. Yes, it was you I needed, and I always smiled secretly when you came in from time to time to pester with your delightful cheek and clumsiness, which looked to me like successful works of art. Oh, no, not to pester, but to infatuate me. Stop it, Benjamenta, stop it. -Tell me didn't you ever notice that we two were friends? Don't say anything." (Robert Walser, Jacob von Gunten, p.167)

Cop(e)ying

The power of a country road when one is walking along it is different from the power from the power it has when one is flying over it by airplane. In the same way, the power of a text when it is read is different from the power it has when it is copied out. The airplane passanger sees only how the road pushes through the landscape, how it unfolds according to the same laws as the terrain surrounding it. Only he who walks the road on foot learns of the power it commands, and of how, from the very scenery that for the flier is only the unfurled plain, it calls forth distances, belvederes, cleaings, prospects at each of its turns like a commander deploying soldiers at a front. Only the copied text thus commands the sould of him who is occupied with it, whereas the mere reader never discovers the new aspects of his inner self that are opened by the text, that road cut through the interior jungle forever closing behind it: because the reader follows the movement of his mind in the free flight of daydreaming, whereas the copier submits it to command. The Chinese practice of copying books was this an incomparable guarantee of literary culture, and the transcript a key to China's enigmas. (Walter Benjamin, One Way Street, p. 447-448)

The ways of literary being

"As a final observation, I should like to add that if it is impossible today for anyone to feel innocent, if in whatever we do or say we can discover a hidden motive -that of a white man, or a male, or the possession of a certain income, or a member of a given economic system, or a sufferer of a certain neurosis -this should not induce in us either a universal sense of guilt or an attitude of universal accusation.

When we become aware of our disease or of our hidden motives, we have already begun to get the better of them. What matter is the way in which accept our motives and live through the ensuing crisis. This is the only chance we have of becoming different from the way we are- that is, the only way of starting to invent a new way of being." (Italo Calvino, The Uses of Literature, p. 100)

lower regions

How fortunate I am, not to be able to see in myself anything worth respecting and watching! To be small and stay small. And if a hand, a situation, a wave were ever to raise me up and carry me to where I could command power and influence, I would destroy the circumstances that had favored me, and I would hurl myself down into the humble, speechless, insignificant darkness. I can only breathe in the lower regions. [Robert Walser, Jacob von Gunten, p. 155)

Best of 2008

I got to see lots of films this year. Basically, I have been to 3-4 major festivals all over Canada (TIFF, FNC, FNN  along with lots of minor theme oriented festival) and managed to catch up with the majority of the I have been curious about since Cannes and Berlinale. There are still films I am looking to see but this is the list I can come up with for the moment. I am planning to write more detailed capsules about the films later on -as soon as I have more free time.

1) José Luis Guerín- En la ciudad de Sylvia

2) Jaimie Rosales- La soledad

3) Arnaud Desplechin- Un conte de Noël

4) Bakur Bakuradze- Shultes

5) Thanos Anastopoulos- Diarthosi

6) So Yong Kim- Treeless Mountain

7) Sergei Dvortsevoy- Tulpan

8) Heng Yang- Bingleng

9) Steve McQueen- Hunger

10) Ozcan Alper- Sonbahar

Honorable Mentions:

Ramin Bahrani- Chop shop

Don Hertzfeldt- I Am So Proud of You 

Carlos Reydegas- Silent Light

Rodrigo Moreno- El Custodio

Hou hsiao-hsien- Flight of the Red Balloon

Antonio Campos- Afterschool

Darren Aranofsky- The Wrestler

Ulrich Seidl- Import/Export

Kelly Reichardt-Wendy&Lucy

Rafa Cortes- Yo

Claire Denis- 35 Rhums

Gustavo Spolidoro- Still Orangutans

Rodrique Jean- Lost Song

Philippe Grandrieux- Un Lac

Nuri Bilge Ceylan- Three Monkeys

Oliver Assayas- Summer Hours

Nathaniel Dorsky- Saraband

Sam Taylor Wood- Love you no more

François-Jacques Ossang- Ciel éteint! 

Danny Boyle- Slumdog Millionaire

Lucrecia Martel- Headless Woman

Ari Folman- Waltz with Bashir

Martin McDonagh- In Bruges

Jonathan Demme- Rachel Getting Married

Mike Leigh- Happy go Lucky

Very much looking to see:

Lisandro Alonso- Liverpool

Clint Eastwood- Gran Torino

Luc Bourdon- Memories of Angels

Terence Davies- Of Times and City

Yesim Ustaoglu- Pandora's Box