Up in the Air

I finally got around to watching Up in the Air, one of last year's Oscar nominees.  Coming into it, I'd heard mixed reviews, chiefly disagreements with the message and criticism of Anna Kendrick's acting, so it was difficult not to look for those exact things as I watched.  Nonetheless, the movie moved me as a movie should.

I'll dispense at the onset with my impressions of the actors' performances.  Clooney and Farmiga were great, with great chemistry and, save Clooney's star recognizability, believability.  Kendrick's performance was at times overdone and forced, but considering her character was supposed to be overdone and forced, I'd say she did her job well.

As for the message, by the time Ryan (Clooney) is telling his cold-footed brother-in-law-to-be about how every pilot needs a co-pilot to get through a flight, I'd started feeling very sentimental.  It had been just over a week since I broke off my last attempt at dating and deleted my Facebook account, so in many ways, I was making the same choices that Ryan made throughout.  By the time he decided he wanted to have emotional attachments to people, he had been detached so long that there was no one to go back to.  It forced me to consider the human need for companionship to the point that even the hermits of old had God as a companion.  Yet, invisible friends and fantasy only go so far.  I will be reconsidering much because of this film.

In summation, this is officially a comedy, and it does bring some excellent laughs.  The pace is quick, the dialogue excellent, and the acting largely terrific.  It deserved its Oscar nomination and, to a degree, some of its criticism.  Nonetheless, check it out.

Kindle

I decided to buy a Kindle off Amazon.com.  I'd been resisting it for a good long while, because honestly, I love my pages, but a few things changed my mind:

1. Personal files can be transferred directly from a laptop to a Kindle.  In other words, I no longer have to stay by my computer to read scripts and articles.
2. Since it isn't backlit, the Kindle will be easier on my eyes than my computer screen.
3. All texts in the public domain, even obscure and out-of-print ones are available for free on Kindle.  Greek classics, here we come!
4. I will be able to switch between books with ease anywhere I go; I just hope I will be able to take it on an airplane.

It arrives in the mail tomorrow.  I'm anxious to try it out; I've already stocked my Amazon library with Greek tragedies and books of mythology.  To be sure, I am stoked.

Beyond Good and Evil (Part 9)

Having concluded reading Beyond Good and Evil, I here present the final excerpts and shall proceed with a wrap-up in the subsequent post:

260: "There are master morality and slave morality... It is the powerful who understand how to honor; this is their art, their realm of invention.  The profound reverence for age and tradition—all law rests on this double reverence—the faith and prejudice in favor of ancestors and disfavor of those yet to come are typical of the morality of the powerful; and when the men of 'modern ideas,' conversely, believe almost instinctively in 'progress' and 'the future' and more and more lack respect for age, this in itself would sufficiently betray the ignoble origin of these 'ideas'... A slave's eye is not favorable to the virtues of the powerful: he is skeptical and suspicious, subtly suspicious, of all the 'good' that is honored there—he would like to persuade himself that even their happiness is not genuine...here pity the complaisant and obliging hand, the warm heart, patience, industry, humility, and friendliness are honored—for here these are the most useful qualities and almost the only means for enduring the pressure of existence.

"According to slave morality, those who are 'evil' thus inspire fear; according to master morality it is precisely those who are 'good' that inspire, and wish to inspire, fear, while the 'bad' are felt to be contemptible... Wherever slave morality becomes preponderant, language tends to bring the words 'good' and 'stupid' closer together."

261: "It may be understood as the consequence of an immense atavism that even now the ordinary man still always waits for an opinion about himself and then instinctively submits to that—but by no means only a 'good' opinion; also a bad and unfair one (consider, for example, the great majority of the self-estimates and self-underestimates that believing women accept from their father-confessors, and believing Christians quite generally from their church.)"

262: "...nothing will stand the day after tomorrow, except one type of man, the incurably mediocre.  The mediocre alone have a chance of continuing their type and propagating—they are the men of the future, the only survivors: "Be like them!  Become mediocre!" is now the only morality that still makes sense, that still gets a hearing."

263: "Much has been gained once the feeling has finally been cultivated in the masses...that they are not to touch everything; that there are holy experiences before which they have to take off their shoes and keep away their unclean hands—this is almost their greatest advance toward humanity."

270: "It is possible that underneath the holy fable and disguise of Jesus' life there lies concealed one of the most painful cases of the martyrdom of knowledge about love: the martyrdom of the most innocent and desirous heart, never sated by any human love; demanding love, to be loved and nothing else, with hardness, with insanity, with terrible eruptions against those who denied him love; the story of a poor fellow, unsated and insatiable in love, who had to invent hell in order to send to it those who did not want to love him—and who finally, having gained knowledge about human love, had to invent a god who is all love, all ability to love—who has mercy on human love because it is so utterly wretched and unknowing.  Anyone who feels that way, who knows this about love—seeks death."

273: "A human being who strikes for something great considers everyone he meets on his way either as a means or as a delay and obstacle—or as a temporary resting place."

274: "...in nooks all over the earth sit men who are waiting, scarcely knowing in what way they are waiting, much less that they are waiting in vain.  Occasionally the call that awakens—that accident which gives the 'permission' to act—comes too late, when the best youth and strength for action has already been used up by sitting still; and many have found to their horror when they 'leaped up' that their limbs had gone to sleep and their spirit had become too heavy."

282: "Probably all of us have sat at tables where we did not belong; and precisely the most spiritual among us, being hardest to nourish, know that dangerous dyspepsia which comes of a sudden insight and disappointment about our food and our neighbors at the table—the after-dinner nausea."


290: "Every profound thinker is more afraid of being understood than of being misunderstood.  The latter may hurt his vanity, but the former his heart, his sympathy, which always says: 'Alas, why do you want to have as hard a time as I did?"

Absurdistan

The title pretty much says it all. This is a rather absurd movie; in fact, it's almost entirely absurd. I went into it expecting more of a comedy, but in reality, it was just... strange. The atmosphere was a strange tongue-in-cheek mix of Fiddler on the Roof, Calamity Jane, and Urinetown, and while it served as a charming fable about pride and power, it didn't really hit the funny bone, at all.

Basically, the premise is that this forgotten town in modern Russia (babushkas et all) survives on the water from one pipe. When the pipe stops flowing, the men are too lazy to fix it, so the women go on a sex strike until they do. This happens to coincide with the one night when the stars are aligned perfectly for the two protagonists to lose their virginity to each other.

***Spoiler Alert***

What ensues is a collection of shenanigans from the men trying to sneak out of the village to hiring in some sexual support to dressing up a "Judas goat" as a woman (why, we never find out). The women suddenly become gun-toting cowgirls, and the men mostly just stand around as ineffectual lumps. The young man, Temelko, is the only one who really does anything, and considering he married Aya at age eight, the story is really about the length to which a man will go for some nookie.

Basically, I enjoyed some of the moments, and despite the excess voice-over (note: as anyone in my screenwriting classes can attest, me saying anything about too much voice-over is a pretty big deal), I'd still give this three stars. Why not?

آواز گنجشک‌ها (The Song of Sparrows)

There is truly something magical in the works of Iranian filmmaker, Majid Majidi, in the way he can capture the beauty of both the natural and the industrial, the comedy in poverty, and the innocence of childhood. His rich worlds and memorable characters have consistently stood out for me from the moment I was dazzled by the mountain villages of رنگ خدا (The Color of Paradise) and moved by the affection between brother and sister in بچههای آسمان (Children of Heaven). The Song of Sparrows serves as a third marker of the man's genius as a filmmaker who consistently captures the essence of Iranian life and serves it as a fine dish for international palates.

The Song of Sparrows takes us into the more familiar desert climate of Iran, where Karim works on an ostrich farm. However, the desert portrayed here is hardly bleak, its silky, tufted grass swaying to an unearthly rhythm as the characters pass through. The homes are simple, poor, yet never for a moment lack warmth, even as Karim's junk pile builds in his courtyard. There is something in the way Majidi portrays this country that makes it feel inviting, even when he transitions into the big city of Tehran. Here, among the slums and traffic, he still finds a rhythm, brings out the color, and sees the humor in the way people interact with each other in a such a place. So enriched are these worlds that a mere blink feels like a disrespectful act.

The Song of Sparrows follows its predecessors in a warm sense of humor. His characters are, without exception, very poor and struggling to make ends meet yet never fail to find the humor in their situations. Karim in particular is hilarious in his mistakes, starting when he disciplines a group of boys for climbing into a dirty well because it's unsafe; then when one of the boys spots a snake, Karim pushes one of them into the muddy water to get out of the way. He prances through the desert wearing an ostrich disguise, walks into his neighbor's house to grab a spare door and walks out again, and picks up the most bizarre bunch of passengers on his motorcycle. (It really is a marvel how many oddly shaped devices a person can carry on the back of a motorcycle; I recommend watching it just to see them.) Yet, above all of Karim's quirks and his occasional bouts of temper, his caring relationship with his family makes him all the more endearing.

Finally, Majidi's portrayal of children is inspired. He has a tendency to give at least one child character a handicap, be it blindness or deafness. Their fathers try to shape them as best as they can, but in the end, the child who knows what (s)he wants cannot be molded. I found the story of the boys cleaning out the well to fill it with fish to be enchanting. No matter how much resistance Karim put forth, how he stormed and raged, the kids really did a marvelous job of renewing a filthy eyesore. The child actors are adorable in their innocence, and they, like every other of Majidi's characters, are so convincing that the viewer cannot imagine that they could have lives outside of these stories. They become such a part of these villages, these terrains, these stories, that the films themselves are truly alive.

A warning to film students and snobs: this is not a rapid film, nor does it stick to 8-sequence structure. It is a slice of life, a meditation on a character, but every second of it is enchanting, and in the few points where it slows down noticeably, one can be assured that it is only a preparation for a new surprise. Should you get a chance to rent this gem of Iranian cinema, or indeed any work by Majid Majidi, take it and enjoy.

Beyond Good and Evil (Part 8)

I took a bit of a break from Nietzsche, but since I'm so close, I'd say it's about time I picked up the pace. Not a lot of quotes that stood out this time, since the chapter is mostly directed toward Germany, but what I most enjoyed was Nietzsche's views on passion, how there was a time when passion used to be celebrated in people, whereas now it is considered indecent or insane to express one's passions in the public forum. He rails against society for reading alone, for failing to hear the rhythm of words, for lacking appreciation of worldly artistry. It makes me want to start exploring more open-mic nights. Anyone interested?

Also, I enjoyed how Nietzsche bad-mouthed 19th-century anti-Semitism. The fact that his work was misquoted in Nazi propaganda only serves to highlight the dangers of selective quoting. That said, I only leave quotes below for personal memory and hopefully to encourage readers to check out the book in its entirety.

243: “I hear with pleasure that our sun is swiftly moving toward the constellation of Hercules—and I hope that man on this earth will in this respect follow the sun’s example.”

246: “How many Germans know, and demand of themselves that they should know that there is art in every good sentence—art that must be figured out if the sentence is to be understood! A misunderstanding about its tempo, for example—and the sentence itself is misunderstood.”

248: “There are two types of genius: one which above all begets and wants to beget, and another which prefers being fertilized and giving birth.”

The Linguistics of The Little Prince

I set a goal a few years back that I want to be able to communicate in at least seven languages. On my list are French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Mandarin, Polish, and Spanish, and since I've never really had the time and resources for an official education in all of them, I'm using whatever means I have at my disposal, in this case, one of my favorite books of all time, The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, which, if you haven't read it yet, please do.

So, thanks to the public library system, I'm transcribing the story in different languages and compiling them into an Excel spreadsheet, something like this:

English	Italian	Polish
"It’s the time you spent on your rose that makes your rose so important."	« È il tempo che tu hai perduto per la tua rosa che ha fatto la tua rosa cosí importante ».	– Poświęcileś swojej róży wiele czasu i dlatego jest dla ciebie aż tak ważna.

The nice thing about this format is that each phrase is in an adjoining cell, which makes context and vocabulary interpretation much easier. With external lessons in pronunciation and other vocabulary, it's actually been very effective at improving my written understanding of these languages. Now if only I could figure out the same for speaking them.

In any case, the project smitten in this category is the scanning of the next round. Le Petit Prince and Der Kleine Prinz are due back at the library today after renewing them twice. I probably won't get around to actually transcribing them for another year or so, because of other projects, but at least it's ready to go.