Adão, Eva e o fruto proibido & La uruguaya

Two South American films screened in Casa de Colón last week, with a surprise appearance of Ana García Blaya, the director of La uruguaya.

Adão, Eva e o fruto proibido

a film by R.B. Lima

A short starring Danny Barbosa, Lay Gonçalves, Manoa Vitorino, Margarida Santos and William Cabral.

La uruguaya

a film by Ana García Blaya

Lucas Pereyra is a moderately successful writer in his mid-forties, married, with a son, and right in the middle of a stereotypical mid-life crisis. He gets infatuated with a much younger woman, the titular “girl from Uruguay” named Guerra. A series of mildly comic mishaps ensue.

The main problem of this film for me is that I don’t find Lucas “mid is his middle name” either likeable or funny or intriguing — quite unlike his romantic interest. Now I didn’t read novel of the same name by Pedro Mairal on which the film is based. I don’t know whether Pereyra is supposed to be that mediocre. If the answer is yes, Sebastián Arzeno does a splendid job portraying him. Luckily, there is no judging or moralising of any sort in the film; still, I couldn’t care less about Pereyra. Which is a shame. Fiorella Bottaioli shines as Guerra: both down-to-earth and full of mystery.

My mum used to say — Part 4

A follow-up to the first, second and third parts.

• блин: any home-made cake or pie, especially the one she baked herself; see also коврижка
• вашим кошким задним местум хвостум эстум?: a question in pseudo-Latin that could be translated as “does your cat have a tail on its butt?”
• виризжать: визжать // to screech, to squeal; cf. свиристеть
• господа Морковкины: a way to address the rest of the company
• доконать: to destroy, to finish off, to kill, etc.; see also ухайдакать
• драндулет: старая расхлябанная повозка, машина, велосипед и т. д. // a clunker, decrepit vehicle
• ещё чего (не хватало): fat chance!
• котелок не варит: weak in the head
• локатор: ухо // ear (by similarity in shape with radar’s parabolic antenna) ♦ «прочисть локаторы»
• марафет: order, cleanliness
• марафетиться, намарафетиться: to make oneself up
• музыкальный суп / супец: гороховый суп // literally, “musical soup”; pea soup
• набивать себе цену: to push or bid up one’s price; typically said of somebody who refuses or hesitates to stay for dinner, take another helping, accept a gift and so on ♦ «бери ещё, не набивай себе цену»
• навести марафет, наводить марафет: put something or oneself in order
• не продохну́ть: can’t get a break, there’s no respite
• невпроворот: bags of (things to do) ♦ «у вас у самих небось дел невпроворот»
• ни в зуб ногой: utterly incompetent in a given field
• ОТС: short for одна тётка сказала, literally, “one aunt said”; said about unreliable source of gossip; see also по сводкам Гидрометцентра
• перед смертью не надышишься: literally, “you couldn’t breathe enough before death”; there’s no point in trying to finish something at the last moment
• посеять: to lose (some object) ♦ «где-то зонтик посеяла»
• прохлаждаться: to chill out ♦ «хорош прохлаждаться!»
• пукок: пупок // navel
• пупок: мускульный желудок // gizzard
• распускать нюни, распустить нюни: to snivel, to be a crybaby
• расхристанная, расхристанный: sloppily dressed; wearing unbuttoned clothes; see also лахудра, рассупониться
• ридикюль (from French réticule): a handbag deemed too small to be useful
• свиристеть: свистеть // to whistle, to chirrup; cf. виризжать
• сменить пластинку: literally, “to change the record”; to change the subject or tune
• смолотить: to wolf something down
• трапеза: (ironically) meal ♦ «ну что, господа Морковкины, закончили трапезу?»
• ухайдакать: убить, измучить, разбить, сломать // to kill, to exhaust, to break, to finish, etc.; see also доконать
• ухайдакаться: устать, замучиться, выбиться из сил // to get tired, exhausted, etc.
• чаёвничать: to indulge in tea-drinking; see also прохлаждаться
• ЧП: short for чрезвычайное происшествие // (jokingly) disaster, emergency ♦ «а у меня ЧП: блин перекосился»

Bushman

a film by David Schickele

Truth was not stranger than fiction, just a little faster. David Schickele

Is it a biopic? Docudrama? Docufiction? Mockumentary? That’s what I was thinking while watching this 1971 movie starring Paul Eyam Nzie Okpokam and Elaine Featherstone for whom, as for most of actors here, Bushman was their only cinematic appearance. I don’t want to give any spoilers. Please don’t read reviews beforehand; go and see this “lost and found”, newly restored feature and discover for yourself.

Darling

a film by Birgitte Stærmose

Didn’t I write years ago what I think about classical ballet? Yes, I did, and yes, it was years ago, so it’s time to reiterate. To say ballet isn’t pretty is an understatement. It’s a sadomasochistic art form we can live without. I almost wrote “we all can live without” but the tragic truth is that some people can not — or act as if they can not — live without ballet.

Which apparently is the case of the titular Darling (Danica Curcic, Lang historie kort). Not content with destroying her own body, she is bent on inflicting the same suffering on the others, primarily on her substitute Polly (Astrid Grarup Elbo, who is a real ballet dancer) but also, at least potentially, on her future students. And so, the abused becomes the abuser herself. As Darling’s partner Frans (Gustaf Skarsgård) tells her, “your hip is your least problem”.

Incidentally, Frans the choreographer seems to be a reasonable guy who is not buying all this “no pain, no gain”, “a dancer must suffer”, “in my days,” — in my flipping days, says the woman in her early 30s, but wait for it — “I danced the whole act with a broken leg” bullshit.

Another incidentally: I didn’t realise until now what a weird story that of Giselle is.

Elia

by Fermín Solís

After breaking up with her lover Olga (married, with two children), Elia escapes to a small village in Galicia. Which immediately reminded me of Un amor, and brought about the same thought: moving from the city to the arse end of nowhere in a hope to remake one’s life is the worst idea ever.

In this graphic novel Fermín Solís tackles difficult topics with sensitivity and — shall I say it? — love. The monochrome drawings are simple and expressive; just wait till the page where another colour appears! There are plenty of humourous episodes too. My favourite is the airplane game that Elia and her friend Luis play in the car: taking Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper off that fateful plane and shoving there instead all the singers and bands they hate.

Обломок империи

a film by Fridrikh Ermler

To the modern-day viewer, Fragment of an Empire should have a reverse Good Bye, Lenin! feel. Indeed, the whole sequence of Filimonov (Fyodor Nikitin) returning to unrecognisable St. Petersburg, rebranded as Leningrad, fully deserves to be named Hello, Lenin! The way Filimonov reacts and adapts to the new realities looks pretty comical now but it also must have been so to the Soviet viewers, albeit for different reasons. You’d think that Ermler was taking the mickey, and perhaps he was, for in 1929 it was still permitted. (Ilf and Petrov just started to work on The Little Golden Calf.) Ermler’s satire is at its sharpest in the portrayal of Natasha’s new husband, a “culture worker” and a petty tyrant (Valeri Solovtsov). More subtly and way more subversively, the film shows, through the eyes of Filimonov, the astounding emptiness and inhumanity of “brave new world”.

Some curiosities. Filimonov sees his ex-wife, Natasha (Lyudmila Semyonova), in the window of the express train «Одеса—Харків» (Odesa—Kharkiv). A tram in “Leningrad” carries a warning in Ukranian: «виходити під час руху заборонено», “it’s forbidden to get off while (the tram is) moving”. A constructivist skyscraper in “Leningrad” in fact is the freshly completed Derzhprom building in Kharkiv.

Another one: the page of Société des Amis d’Honoré de Balzac lists Fragment of an Empire as an adaptation of the novella Colonel Chabert. If so, the film draws an interesting parallel between French Restoration and developments in the Soviet Union at the time. The committed Bolshevik Ermler well could have viewed these latter as counter-revolutionary.

This film (a 2018 restored version) was screened as a part of the new cycle Cámara, acción, olvido. El cine, memoria viva of Filmoteca Canaria.

Lang historie kort

a film by May el-Toukhy

This not-too-romantic romantic comedy provides a refreshing alternative to En familie and its ilk. Long story short: there’s no story as such. Over several years, a group of friends in relationships of many shapes of pear meet at various festive events (eight parts = eight parties). Starring Mille Lehfeldt, Trine Dyrholm, Danica Curcic, Jens Albinus (The Boss of It All, Rosita), Peter Gantzler (Italiensk for begyndere, The Boss of It All), Ola Rapace and many others, including a very large dog.