Book review: The Girl in the Picture, by Denise Chong, ****

Kim Phuc and others after napalm bombing of Trang Bang. Photo by Nick Ut, AP

Kim Phuc

Today it is forty years since one of the most famous photographs of the Vietnam war was taken, by photographer Nick Ut of the Associated Press.

Synopsis

Kim Phuc was nine years old on 8 June 1972. Severely burned by napalm, she ran from her burning village and was captured on film. Denise Chong relates Kim's experience and recovery in this astonishing biography and history of America's shameful war. The photograph of Kim, seen around the world, was one of many to turn public opinion against the war in Vietnam. This is the story of how the picture came to be and also what happened to Kim after it was taken. It provides an insight into the country Vietnam became after the US army left, and explains why Kim finally had to flee to Canada, where she now lives.

You can also visit the site of the Kim Foundation.

Film review: Six Days, Seven Nights (1998), by Ivan Reitman, ****

Synopsis

Big-screen favorite Harrison Ford stars in this nonstop adventure hit about a dream vacation that turns into a hilarious tropical nightmare! A gruff, rough-hewn cargo pilot living in the islands, Quinn Harris (Ford) hates tourists ... though he's not above making a fast buck from a sharp-tongued New Yorker, Robin Monroe (sexy Anne Heche), when she's desperate for a quick flight to Tahiti! But this already uneasy relationship suddenly takes a nosedive when his weather-beaten old plane is forced down in a storm! Now, stranded together on a deserted isle, Quinn and Robin quickly discover all the perils of paradise.

Film review: I Not Stupid (2002), by Jack Neo, ****

Synopsis

Three kids in Singapore did not make it to the top of their class and attend EM3, the stream for the not best and not brightest. They have to contend with pressure from their teachers on the one hand and their parents on the other. They also get bullied by their peers. In the end, they prove to be smarter than expected...

You can read more in English and Chinese in the official website of the film and of its sequel, "I not stupid too".

Review
This highly successful film can be read at different levels. It may seem at first naive and the acting may look poor, artificial, unnatural. In fact the characters are caricatures of Singapore's people, government and business, and these are very well represented by the actor's sometimes exaggerated gestures and expressions.

Film Review: Eat Drink Man Woman (1994), by Ang Lee, ****

Synopsis

This is not a movie to see on an empty stomach. Writer-director Ang Lee's 1994 Oscar nominee tells a family story about a chef and his three daughters through the meals the chef prepares and serves his family. This touching, dryly funny story of a family coping with personal lives and the way those lives intersect with the family relationships captures a shift in generations in Taipei. The father, a famous chef who has lost his taste buds, still cooks, though he draws no pleasure from eating. His daughters, meanwhile, deal with both the disappointments and surprises of daily living and the way their adult lives compare to the expectations the widowed father had for them. A subtle, amusing--and mouth-watering--comedy of impeccable manners. --Marshall Fine

Review

I found this Taiwanese movie exhilarating. As a lover of food, I was enchanted with the preparations of elaborate Chinese dishes. This is a movie about food, about life in Taiwan and about human nature.

I also found the movie to be an interesting picture into the daily life of a family in Taiwan, a fascinating island with a profound Chinese culture but also a society that has developed in a much different way compared to the mainland.

Film review: The Wedding Banquet, (1993), by Ang Lee, ****

Synopsis
Dig in! This "funny and poignant comedy of manners" (The New York Times), directed and co-written by Oscar(r) nominee* Ang Lee (Sense and Sensibility), is an absolutely delicious feast! Winner of the Berlin Film Festival's prestigious Golden Bear, The Wedding Banquet is "top-notch comedy" (Leonard Maltin)! Successful New Yorker Wai Tung and his partner Simon are blissfully happy, except for one thing: Wai Tung's conservative Taiwanese parents are determined he find a nice girl to marry! To please them and get a tax break he arranges a sham marriage to Wei Wei, a sexy go-getter in need of a green card. But when his family swoops down for the extravaganza, Wai Tung would do well to remember that at a traditional Chinese wedding banquet, sexual repression takes the night off!

Film Review: M.A.S.H. (1970), by Robert Altman, *****

Synopsis

While set in the Korean War of 1950-1953, the movie clearly addresses the question of the Vietnam war, which at the time of production was an open wound in American society. A Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH) is the stage for a number of witty draftees to rebel and ridicule their strict superiors. Some are young docs just out of medical school, some are city girls who have to elbow their way in a clearly male dominated Army. Altman's black humor may seem a little dated forty years later, but it is still sharp. An iconic film of American countercolture that gave birth to an immensely successful TV series. Only one actor however, Gary Burghoff interpreting Radar, made it to the TV cast.

American Cemetery and Memorial in the Ardennes

Today I visited the American Cemetery and Memorial in the Ardennes. A quiet place where several thousand Americans who died during WW II are buried. K. and I are welcomed by the deputy director (or was it commander?), a retired American military himself. A few gardeners are meticulously clipping the grass around each cross. Stars of David mark the graves of Jewish soldiers. A sobering sight.

The Summer heat does not convey the idea of what these guys experienced during their last days on this earth, while fighting in the dead of Winter in the Battle of the Bulge, Hitler's last, futile and bloody offensive in December 1944. A small room displays a few paraphernalia from the war.

Definitely a recommended stop for anyone driving in the area, and absolutely worth a detour if you are not.

Film Review: Samsara (2001), by Pan Nalin, ****

Synopsis

The film was released in 2001 and remains a classic in its genre. A spiritual love-story set in the majestic landscape of Ladakh, Himalayas. Samsara is a quest; one man's struggle to find spiritual Enlightenment by renouncing the world. And one woman's struggle to keep her enlightened love and life in the world. But their destiny turns, twists and comes to a surprise ending... Written by Monsoon Films. Tashi has been raised as a Buddhist monk since age five. When he gets erotic phantasms as an adolescent, his spiritual master decides it's time to taste profane life, sending him on a journey in the real Himalayan world. Once he is told his hottest dream was real, Tashi decides to leave the monastery and marries Pema, the daughter of a rich farmer, who was actually engaged with local stone-mason Jamayang. The ex-lama soon becomes a rich land-owner himself, and makes a killing from his harvest by bringing it to the city instead of selling at half price to the local merchant Dewa, but half of his next harvest perishes in a fire, yet he comes trough and raises a bright son, Karma. After committing infidelity, contemplated for years, and as he later hears from the promiscuous Indian labourer girl, Tashi reconsiders his life... Written by KGF Vissers

Book Review: Russia in Original Photographs (1860-1920), edited by Marvin Lyons, ***

An interesting collections of photographs from pre-Communist Russia. Common people, ethnic minorities, military officers and the imperial family are all depicted here in the decades preceding the October Revolution. One can almost sense the blatant inequalities and an atmosphere of pending tragedy. All pictures are in black and white.

Some great color photos from Tsarist Russia online are visible here.

Book review: The Romanov Family Album (1982), edited by Robert Massie, ****

Review

A great book which will make you feel you are living in the imperial family of pre-revolutionary Russia. The photos are B&W, and come from the collection of a family friend of the Romanovs who took them to the United States.

Not all are good quality, the book was printed in 1982 and perhaps a better job could be done with new technology  thirty years on in digitalizing the old originals. However the grain of the pics contributes to recreate the atmosphere of the time.

The text accompanying the pictures presents a benevolent image of the imperial family. Too benevolent perhaps. But this is not the purpose of this book, which is about the photographs, and not about political interpretation of the Tsar's rule.


Buy your book here

Film Review: Lost City (2005), by Andy Garcia, ****

Synopsis
In 1958 Havana, nightclub owner Fico Fellove (Andy Garcia, who also directed) watches as political upheaval grips Batista-ruled Cuba. While his brothers join Castro's revolution, Fico refuses an offer from American gangster Meyer Lansky (Dustin Hoffman) to help turn his club into a casino and falls in love with his soon widowed sister-in-law (Ines Sastre).

The film was shot in the Dominican Republic, ironically the country batista fled to after his forces capitulated to Castro on new year's day, 1959.

Review
A good historical movie to show how right were many middle class Cubans to despise the Batista dictatorship and how wrong they were to believe that supporting Castro and Guevara would improve things much. Yet, the widespread criticism that Garcia does not show enough of the poor and destitute of pre-revolutionary Cuba is only partially mitigated by his ridicule of Batista in the first part of the movie. The title itself (translated "Adieu Cuba" in the French version) betrays a certain nostalgia by the author for the bygone days. But in the end the viewer is left with a strongly negative view of both Batista and Castro, as well as Guevara. Well deserved.

The movie is a bit long but well worth its time for it allows the viewer to savour the colors, music and atmosphere of Cuba 50 years ago. But this is perhaps due to the long script by Guillermo Cabrera Infante.

Book Review: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Written by Herself, by Louise Meriwether Harriet Jacobs, ****

Synopsis

Louise Meriwether Harriet Jacobs in her narrative reveals how she refused to be victimized within her own mind, but rather chose to act instead from a steadfast conviction of her own worth....Hers is an example worth emulating even in these modern times.

Published in 1861, this was one of the first personal narratives by a slave and one of the few written by a woman. Jacobs (1813-1897) was a slave in North Carolina and suffered terribly, along with her family, at the hands of a ruthless owner. She made several failed attempts to escape before successfully making her way to freedom in the North, though it took years of hiding and slow progress. Eventually, she was reunited with her children.

Stazione ferroviaria di Cittadella (PD)

Arrivo di buon mattino alla stazione di Cittadella, provincia di Padova, per prendere un treno per Treviso. La biglietteria è chiusa, PER SEMPRE, come avvisa perentoriamente il cartello posto sulla vetrata.

Però c'è in bella vista una modernissima macchina automatica per emissione di biglietti. Anzi di "Biglietti regionali veloci". Mi avvicino con mano al portafoglio.





Però anche la macchina automatica per emissione biglietti, che peraltro accetta tutte le principali carte di credito, è fuori uso, ma almeno, forse, non per sempre: il cartello però non si impegna ad una data precisa...








Meno male che c'è il bar! Cappuccino, cornetto, scatola di sigari Toscanelli al caffè, i miei preferiti, e biglietto del treno.

Film Review: Space Tourists (2009), by Christian Frei, ***

Synopsis
Frei's film takes a humorous and laconic view of the way billionaires depart our planet earth to travel into outer space for fun. Space Tourists succeeds in surprising its audience with images and situations that have very little to do with the futuristic fantasy of space-tourism. The Swiss filmmaker sets up encounters with the least likely people imaginable: places even stranger and more unknown than outer space itself. The film investigates the emotional oscillations of an expensive enterprise and questions the meaning and boundaries of the human spirit and our hunger for adventure and discovery.

Anousheh Ansari is a billionaire who allegedly spent some twenty million dollars (expensive but, as she puts it, how do you put a price on a dream?) for a 10 day flight to the International Space Station. She explains in her own words why she did this and what her Spiritual experience was. An interesting personality, an Iranian who left her country after the revolution and became American but never forgot her cultural roots. She specifically greeted the Iranian people from space, though she was not allowed to do so in Farsi. She also wore the Iranian flag, but significantly without the Islamic writings in the white part.

Review
This film is another Frei foray into the lives and vicissitudes of the most unusual of people. Ansari is a genuine enthusiast of space, her youthful and genuine passion transpires at all times in the film. She has a child-like naivete for looking at the earth from above, but at the same time a high degree of maturity when she speaks of her travel as a symbol for women's rights, especially in the region of the world where she comes from, where women often do not receive the same opportunities that men do. A spoiled girl's whim? Perhaps, but a great adventure nonetheless. And I can say I would have done what she has done if I had had the money! Go for it Anousheh and thanks Christian Frei for bringing her to us.

Buy your DVD here:



If you live in the US you can get your instant video here

Film review: The Dreamers (2003), by Bernardo Bertolucci, ****

Synopsis

Paris, spring 1968. While most students take the lead in the May 'revolution', a French poet's twin son Theo and daughter Isabelle enjoy the good life in his grand Paris home. As film buffs they meet and 'adopt' modest, conservatively educated Californian student Matthew.

With their parents away for a month, they drag him into an orgy of indulgence of all senses, losing all of his and the last of their innocence. A sexual threesome shakes their rapport, yet only the outside reality will break it up.