"Cowboy Carter" by Beyoncé (2024)

 

Until now I was amongst the handful of the people on the planet who managed to live my life completely unperturbed by either Beyoncé or Taylor Swift. I knew they are both big pop superstars du jour but even with the publicity industry in the full blast, it eluded me to see what was original or interesting about them. As I am nearing my mid-fifties now, I have a lifetime of listening various music genres behind me and it was always idiosyncrasy that would attract me, something that I found particularly memorable - out of curiosity I gave them both a listen and it was frustrating experience because it made me feel like alien from another planet, I ached to go back to anything else but this. 

I was vaguely familiar with Beyoncé as a modern-day Diana Ross who flew solo out of the pop trio and who was somewhat annoyingly always ready to ham it up if occasion called for tribute to any music legend - Etta James, Tina Turner, Barbra Streisand, you name it - what was unsaid was her suggestion that she belongs to the same Olympus, because "look, I can do it too!" Suffice to say, I was never convinced and was even baffled that so many people were buying into what I felt was completely modest and perhaps even mediocre music talent. 

The big hoopla was created around her latest album "Cowboy Carter" and its supposed seismic statement, because now everybody focused on Beyoncé being something of a modern day Joan of Arc as its all about black musicians breaking into country music, etc. The articles everywhere proclaim that notoriously close-gated country music was actually inspired by black musicians who were its originators and everywhere you look, they are literary quoting two black musicians who actually left any mark in country music (Ray Charles and Charley Pride) - going so far to dig up other black artists who occasionally tried and make A-HA point, like "look, they also did country!" but to me its just a modern-day rewriting of history and as it is, too many of us are still alive and remember that country never was high on the priority lists of black musicians who were focused elsewhere. So the selling point of "Cowboy Carter" is a black pop superstar turning country and while artist herself claims she hopes for some better, future times when skin colour won't matter, she doesn't mind being touted as the first black woman charting nr.1 album on country charts. 

I was curious enough to give it a listen. To my surprise, it was actually the best thing I have heard from her EVER - it is not a country album by any stretch, because occasional banjo and a guitar don't make it country. She is still Beyoncé but only plays with country influences and out of this had created something quite original. She immediately got my attention with fantastic into "Ameriican Requiem" that owns a bit to "Love's In Need Of Love Today" from a classic "Songs In The Key Of Life" by Stevie Wonder but it quickly turns into something interesting, she is menacing, strong and powerful while asking "Can you see me? Can you stand me?" - it was a long time since I heard any new music that moved me so much and I must admit I have listened this album quite often. The highlights are playful "Texas Hold 'Em", very 1980s sounding "Bodyguard" and anthemic duet with Miley Cyrus "II Most Wanted" that i genuinely loved from the first listening. Not everything works: her takes on other people's material is uninspired - she doesn't bring anything really new to either "Blackbiird" by The Beatles or "Jolene" (clearly, she is no Whitney Houston), "16 Carriages" is a bit laughable attempt to claim working-class roots necessary for country credibility ("Had to leave home at an early age, underpaid and overwhelmed, only God knows, only God knows") where she makes it sounds like she suffered greatly and paid her dues all the time while she toured and lived protected as a star of Destiny's Child - it just don't ring true, its not like she was unwed young single mother breaking into Nashville, fresh from the hills and barefoot. But ok, no doubt she sees herself as a hard-working, wronged and unrecognised. The sheer length of the album is perhaps a mistake because everything would sound much more impressive if edited to one LP, instead of two - however, it also makes for satisfactory music experience because with time you might discover less obvious gems like "Oh Louisiana" or "Ya Ya". I honestly like this and returning to it quite frequently. 

“Lost City” ("Verdwenen Stad") documentary by Willy Lindwer

 

I saw a very interesting documentary recently, something that I bet lot of visitors (and probably locals) are probably completely unaware of. Amsterdam was always known as place of freedom, tolerance and whatnot but from my point of view this is true only on a surface - it is and always was a cosmopolitan haven for all sorts of refugees from other places but truth to be told, foreigners are just tolerated, not really welcomed - scratch under that surface and there is a cold calculation that knows how to tax, charge and profit from the foreigners - most obvious in housing, where expats accept and pay astronomic rents just to live in the centre, while locals go elsewhere. If you talk to any local (including foreigners who live here) you would hear them bitterly complaining about "tourists" and my overall impression is that they would prefer if there is no tourism at all. I have remembered this during lockdown, when the streets were totally empty and apocalyptic & I was thinking "now you got what you always wanted, is this fun?"

“Lost City” is about Amsterdam during WW2. Than, just like now, the bureaucracy was responsible that all the wheels were turning orderly. That also means that arrested Jews were orderly waiting for the local city tram to collect them from the tram stops directly to Central Station, from where they were sent to camp Westerbork. GVB tram company (very same company that still operates today and we are all using it) was responsible for this rides and naturally everybody knew what was happening, the documentary makes no excuses about it - survivors tell their stories how their neighbours and other Amsterdammers were even gleefully watching them trough binoculars as they were standing with their belongings on the tram station, waiting to be sent somewhere (most of them expecting they will be sent to some German camps). According to the researchers, both the GVB and the tram drivers are complicit. Houwink ten Cate: "The drivers saw with their own eyes that the trams they drove were guarded by German police officers carrying guns. They therefore understood that they were transporting people against their will, who were in the power of their mortal enemies. They understood that those people went to transit camps after which you almost never heard from them again. If you add this up, you end up with collaboration." 

For a film and book about the persecution of Jews in Amsterdam, Luijters investigated the system of Jewish transports with filmmaker Willy Lindwer. The invoices turned up in the archives of the NIOD war institute. During the Second World War, 63,000 Jews were deported from Amsterdam. The Germans used trams to transport the prisoners to train stations, from where they were sent to concentration camps. The invoices contain many new details. The Germans ran a total of 900 trams. “The Municipal Transport Company sent invoices every month for all the services they provided to the occupier and therefore made money from that,” says Lindwer. "The trams were specially hired by the Germans, they were not just regular tram rides." During their research, Lindwer and Luijters came across the bill for the last tram ride on August 8, 1944. They also discovered the names of Anne Frank and her family on lists of the people who were deported from Central Station to Westerbork transit camp that same day. "They were first transferred from the former prison at Weteringschans to Central Station by tram," says Lindwer. The invoice makes it clear that the GVB tried to recover the costs until after the war. 

These old trams are still in use for a occasional Sunday ride and today completely unexpectedly I jumped into one and had a nice ride trough the city centre. 

Flashback nr.1: "The Muppet Show Album" (1977)

 

My generation - as the countless generations before - lived almost our entire lives with buying, collecting and treasuring albums as certain ritual. In the long-gone, pre-digital days you would hear something on the radio than walk to a shop to purchase a specific piece of music you liked - the format didn't matter, this was all down to the specific time you happened to be, it could have been a vinyl, a cassette tape or CD. I even remember an occasional encounter with reel-to-reel tape that worked very much like a bigger relative of the smaller cassette and needed a clumsy big recorder. We collected, treasured and loved our collections - just like books, it was who you were, reflection of your interests, tastes and perspectives. I have managed to built, lose and re-built several collections of my favourite music trough the years, but recently I started to really focus on music that was around when I first started discovering it, looking out for what was there when I was still very young and impressionable brings back the memories and sometimes even the excitement that was there.

Digital music online changed everything - the fact that almost everything that was ever recorded is now available on the top of our fingers makes music listening almost a daunting task. Along with some old favourites and whatever Spotify recommends to you, there is always a mountain of new releases and re-mixes of known recordings. Even a voracious music omnivore as I am gets tired and confused sometimes so its no wonder that recently I started to research what exactly were my very first recordings, what was the music that left a deep impression on a little me. When I didn't know anything about the charts, producers, the industry, advertising, controversies, etc - I listened, glued to the speakers and often the very same LP played day after day, as kids do. 

One of these LPs was beautiful, sunny, funny and poignant "The Muppet Show Album" released in 1977 as companion to a famous TV show. Unlike many other popular albums that waited years to be released behind the Iron Curtain, this beauty was released by Belgrade's PGP RTB the very next year and kids like me were treated with simultaneous double treat of having The Muppets both on TV and on the gatefold sleeve album. With a distance of more than four decades, today I have re-discovered this album on youtube - it was never officially released on either CD or digitally, probably because of some copyright issues - I listened the whole thing with greatest joy and delight, to find not only that music was indeed marvellous, imaginative and even better than I remember, but also that somehow every note here is carved in my DNA - even though I was too young to understand English lyrics completely, I remember almost everything of it. I chuckled when I heard wonderfully zany version of "Mississippi Mud", sung along with "Mahna Mahna", "Mr. Bassman" and "Lydia the Tattooed Lady"  ("Lydia, oh! Lydia, that "Encyclopedia") and cried when I heard "Halfway Down the Stairs".

"Halfway Down the Stairs" is a genuine beauty - placed as a little breather between two manic Muppet songs, it is a gentle little lullaby sung from a point of view of Kermit's little frog cousin Robin and its basically a kid singing his little song to himself. It is a lovely diamond of a song that any lonely kid might sing in his own little bubble - you know when you were small and everything was big and your little world is limited by warm comfort and safety of your home. It moved me unexpectedly to tears and I am listening it the whole day today. 

"Halfway down the stairs

Is a stair

Where I sit.

There isn't any

Other stair

Quite like

It.

I'm not at the bottom,

I'm not at the top;

So this is the stair

Where

I always

Stop." 

"House of Troy" in International Theater Amsterdam

My previous experience in DeLaMar Theatre with badly staged "Murder on the Orient Express" was so upsetting that I started to doubt do I even like live stage plays at all - to correct this, I found something that appealed to me and tried to see it & perhaps new experience will erase the bad taste in my mouth. From what I read online, this play was inspired by ancient Greek play "Trojan Women" by Euripides and that was a good sign - at least this will not be the same audience that was going on "Mamma Mia" in DeLaMar Theatre. So I was ready to try something else. 

First I watched 1971. movie filmed in Spain with all-star international cast that included Katharine Hepburn, Vanessa Redgrave and Geneviève Bujold - I quite enjoyed it, even though I don't care much for Hepburn and was delighted with great Greek actress Irene Papas as Helen of Troy, I thought she was magnificent and had a true presence. The movie gave me some idea what to expect in the theatre, obviously it is happening after fall of Troy and each of these famous characters represents part of the myth - we can also see them as any female victims of any war, it is quite a timeless piece. 

This time I went with a friend who insisted on having a dinner with dessert & wine before the theatre so we enjoyed our dinner and rolled into a theatre ready to explode (perhaps some self-discipline might be welcome next time around). Even though I had full belly, I was surprisingly awake and alert, because it turned out it was completely in Dutch (I was expecting some subtitles somewhere, after all this is International Theater - luckily I was able to follow it fairly well - it might be that this kept me focused. I enjoyed it very much and thought it was excellent!

First - it was cleverly staged and directed. You don't just bring ancient play in a famous theatre stage and make it another moth-eaten piece: director Mateusz Staniak has everybody in modern clothes and there are just a few props that works perfectly well. To the right are few chairs, these are thrones where main characters sit. To the left is some water with paper ships that represent Greek ships invading Troy - at some point, Cassandra (who nobody listens to) will pour some red liquid into it and make the sea full of blood. In the middle is a pile of ash - these are ashes of everybody who died in the war and during the stage it gets scattered around, a very clever way of explaining the huge number of deaths without actually showing anything. Best of all, there is a large sign that explains when the story unfolds and it is not a linear, start-to-finish play but cleverly it goes from the end to the start, playing with time and showing "5 days before the fall", "2 days before the fall", etc - some scenes are extremely short, other much longer. It is all about how the characters perceived the war and what could have been done to prevent it. Each step back in time, as a flashback, is indicated by a flash of darkness accompanied by heavy electronic music.

As expected, female roles are excellent - for me, the best was Elsie de Brauw as Queen Hecuba - when Greeks suddenly retreat and leave a strange wooden horse behind, it is Hecuba almost giddy with relief, who insist to open the city gates and bring the horse inside, break the gates if you must. She ends wearing black coat and scarf, while carrying the urn with the ashes of her son Hector. There is also a strong-headed Cassandra (Laura De Geest) with her unruly teenaged sister Polyxena (Mona Lahousse) who is tired of everybody always talking about the war. A pregnant Andromache (Nadia Amin) is widow of Hector and after the fall will be just another slave. There are also two young actors playing Paris and his brother Polydoros, neither of them fascinating as female characters as mother hen Hecuba basically pushed them around. The interesting aspect of the story was someone that everybody was talking about but the characters was nowhere to be seen - Helen of Troy, the reason for the war itself - eventually Hecuba admits that she never even existed and that Helen was just a story. I left the theatre giddy with excitement and impressions. 

My aquarium

 

Did you know that fishes LOVE green peas? If you only give them dry food they will get constipated, so from time to time its good for them to eat something fresh. Green peas must be cooked/steamed and you must peel the skin that fishes can't eat. The mushy part is like de luxe dinner for fishes and it will help their digestion.

This is how my fishes greet me every morning. They are very excited because they expect food from me. So yes, there is definitely some kind of communication/recognition. This is my large aquarium at home.

A Fish Called Ray

 

Inspired by a friend whose apartment I usually take care for when he is on vacation and who has several most beautiful aquariums, at certain point last year i decided to have my own aquarium. It serves as a fulfilment of the need for the pet but without necessary mess of ether dog or cat. Initially I bought a small, 30 litre aquarium that made me very happy but eventually moved my fishes to much bigger, new home that gives them proper space. The old, small aquarium is now at my work where I still fuss over it, with new fishes there. 

I am naturally most attached to the first fishies that I got. At this point I have a dozen fishes and each of them was carefully selected by their gender and colour - so I can easily tell them apart and recognise who is who. Some, like my namesake, even grew and changed their colouring. My all-time favourite is the prettiest little bright orange boy whom I called Ray and who had his own, lovely personality. When Ray and his two buddies were transferred into a new, big aquarium, they were initially always swimming together in their little group because they were scared of this large new space - later I bought them several female "wives" and watched with amusement when Ray would follow them and puff himself up to look bigger, he is just the most adorable little fish boy. He would also always react when I would come near the tank and beg for the food. I always made sure that fishes are well fed, the water changed and was constantly fussing over the plants, decorations, etc. It would make me very happy to see my aquarium pretty and fishes inside swimming up and down, playing with each other.

Sadly, Ray has died yesterday. He was perfectly fine in the morning but was lying on the bottom of aquarium in the evening when the automatic light comes on and I usually give them food. I was affected much more than I expected and even cried - I am still crying as I write this - I placed him gently in a paper tissue and buried him on the bottom of a flower pot, I think this was nicest thing i could have done. I have no idea why exactly he has died, since all the other fishes are perfectly fine and the quality of the water is regularly tested, perhaps it was just his time (they apparently live just a short little lives). 

To some, the grief I feel for my little fish friend might seem exaggerated - but it made me think that this is exactly why as a species we are so unique. We are not just going trough life hunting for food and shelter, we react and the way we react on things around us is what makes our lives so rich and unique. It is because we are moved by the joy of love, friendship and company that we are humans. I always cried when my pets would die and little Ray deserves my affections since he gave me lots of joy and beauty, on my side I am satisfied that I gave him a beautiful home with enough space and plants, so surely he was a lucky little guy. Come to think fo it, my fishes have nobody else but me so yes, I do care about them and love them. We might be just a tiny ripple in time but its because we share this love and affection, it makes it all worth and special. One day my time will also come and I hope that someone will  miss me. 

"The Year 1000" exhibition in National Museum of Antiquities, Leiden

Far more than badly directed (and played) comic twist on Agatha Christie, I enjoyed an exhibition titled "The Year 1000" and presented in Leiden's glorious National Museum of Antiquities - probably the most exciting archeological museum I have ever seen anywhere in the world. I do have some authority here since I sailed around the world for 15 years and have visited many museums in different countries, this one in Leiden is by far the best. 

The exhibition was titled "The Year 1000" and it was meant to cover The Netherlands but it soon became obvious that its scope was much bigger - perhaps there were simply not so many saved artefacts from Medieval lowlands - so eventually we got little stories from many different parts of the world and some explanations what kind of world it was around year 1 000. What left the biggest impression on me was a screen with a movie of night sky - full of comets and stars, constantly moving but somehow always the same, almost immortal - combined with the contemporary writings of monks excitedly mentioning strange, mysterious things in the skies and what it could possibly mean (for many of them now we understand they were comets or Northern Lights, not a harbinger of Divine's wrath). It was a world totally different from ours (for one thing, religion was a big part of daily life in many aspects) but we as a humans have hardly changed at all. So it was like a peek into a time machine, where this same night sky is constantly same but our perception of it changed a lot.  

"Murder on the Orient Express" in DeLaMar Theatre

It seemed like a good idea - the poster was instantly identifiable and we both agreed it might be cool to actually get out of the house and do what real people do, visit a theatre. The fact that it was all in Dutch did not scare me, I thought at this point my command of Dutch should be sufficient and in fact we both excitedly waited Saturday as a day when we will treat ourselves.

Instead, we found ourselves squeezed in a packed auditorium and surrounded by fairly provincial audience who did not even bothered to dress up just a little differently from their casual shopping in a supermarket. I knew Dutch can be very casual but this was just annoying, it takes away from the whole experience. We felt like we are the only ones who actually made an effort. My friend disliked the minimalistic stage but I didn't mind, having just a few props (moved around by actors themselves) worked for me and it forced the production to be more creative. Unfortunately, the director obviously insisted on some sort of forced comedy so Agatha Christie's famous whodunit was presented as a over-indulgent salon comedy where everything was exaggerated to the point of almost parody. Everybody (starting from Remko Vrijdag as Hercule Poirot ) over-acted very badly in order to get some laugh from the audience but we were not amused. These things can not be forced. And it suddenly reminded me on a few occasions when I visited local theatre, just to notice how everything was over-baked for my taste.

It might be a cultural difference. I always found a stage acting a bit too much to take (even in my own country, it was insufferable) and preferred a natural, relaxed, non-acting style much more than what I perceive Kabuki style that projects to the balcony. Perhaps this naturalistic style works very well for the camera but theatre has its own rules and most of the time I think its exaggerated. I can accept it in music performance but it kills my enjoyment of the theatre. All this clowning done to appeal to the totally non-demanding audiences, its not for me. We just couldn't wait to return home. 

"Stella: One Woman's True Tale of Evil, Betrayal and Survival in Hitler's Germany" by Peter Wyden (1992)

 

I saw this book in a souvenir shop of the Berlin's Jewish Museum - it attracted me instantly and I made a mental note to find it later. It took me forever to actually put my hands on the book that is out of print and difficult to find but once I started reading it, I could not put it down. It was very gripping and the last few chapters were particularly interesting as they discuss various psychological aspects and post-traumatic behaviour of not only war survivors but their children as well. I should probably go back and re-read them again. 

The unusual subject of the story - a Jewish woman collaborating with Nazis and hunting other Jews in a wartime Berlin - combined with clumsy but earnest writing (the author is bursting with a desire to tell this story, so it might appear unpolished) made for a gripping read. It is a very serious subject, documented with a real-life characters and places - on top of this, there is quite a lot of soul-searching as Wyden constantly goes back to his idealised school crush Stella who has in the meantime became a symbol of evil. Or survival? Wyden is aware that nothing is black-and-white and often asks himself what would HE do if he was in the same situation. And there is a very the thin line between being simply a opportunist (like a nurse Elly who had a relationship with Nazi Dobberke, but had not hurt anyone) and a full-blown collaborator (like Stella who had actually hunting people and sending them to Auschwitz). 

Wyden twists himself in a pretzel trying to understand how can someone like Stella send people to their deaths and still continue to live, apparently satisfied with herself - there is this monumental discussion of guilt and survival - but here I must put my own five cents in: I went trough a war myself. And with all the darkness and fear around me, I have never ever lost the sight of my moral compass and never hurt anybody, in fact I was always perfectly polite to civilians because this is who I am and forever will be. I understand there will always be some who will protect their own skin, but this is how the world turns, I am not one of them and refuse to accept something that is morally wrong and offensive. There were others, also arrested and tortured like Stella, who refused to collaborate with Gestapo and rather went to Auschwitz - so she is more of a crooked exception than a example. 

"Poor Things" by Yorgos Lanthimos (2023)

 

In retrospective, I should just not even bother.

When my original cinema partner suddenly cancelled what was the perfect Sunday plan, I found myself stuck with cinema tickets and restaurant reservation. And since Virgo's love to plan everything in advance, this was extremely frustrating because I had this outing in mind the whole week before that. When person B started requesting different screening time, it became even more problematic. At the end I end up dragging my poor other half (who has all sorts of stomach problems at the moment and is not a good cinema company), cancelling the restaurant and basically changing the whole damn plan. And the cinema was full of obnoxious people who could not find their seats, talked loud amongst themselves and basically were just a nuisance. 

And the film - oh the film was so hyped as the best thing ever and judging by some critics, even best film of the year. Fear not, it is not. It is luxuriously wrapped (in spectacular cinematography) overblown saga that combines elements of Frankenstein with Kaspar Hauser with some pro-feministic philosophy added as a spice. It boasts well known and bankable talents of Willem Dafoe, Emma Stone and Mark Ruffalo plus some beautiful cameos by Hanna Schygulla (random passenger on a cruise ship) and Kathryn Hunter ( a bordello madame). It follows Stone as some sort of Frankenstein-creature who escapes the confinement of her maker's elegant home and goes to experience the adventures with horny Mark Ruffalo in tow. It starts quite good (all black & white) than turns into full MGM cinemascope fantasy once Stone enters the world but after a while you realise that the movie just meanders without any effective purpose expect to shock the audiences with never ending visual gimmicks and insistence on perpetual upsetting of the audience with more nudity, more cunnilingus, etc. 

The movie would honestly gain from shorter screening time and better editing - if the director Yorgos Lanthimos focused more on a straightforward story instead of piling up special effects and more sex jokes, perhaps it would be more bearable - I found myself constantly looking at the watch, feeling bad for my sick partner (and his rumbling stomach) and it was annoying to realise that all this mega-hype resulted in a stone faced audience and the only people in the cinema who were actually entertained were some teenagers who probably thought all this sex jokes were so cool and funny. I just did not find it funny at all - the character of Emma Stone is basically a revived zombie who finds herself learning how to walk, talk and behave, in the process she also discovers the joys of sex & masturbation and most of the jokes come from her bluntness about it (usually in the public places). As she grabs every fruit and vegetable from the dinner table and stuff it inside herself, the audience is initially shocked but it gets tiresome after a while and I just did not find it nor funny nor entertaining. I apologised to my cinema partner (suffering in silence and not laughing once) as we left the cinema. critics loved it, I did not. Not the first time it happens. 

Books, books and more books!

Thanks to a website Goodreads where occasionally I check out the recommendations and keep my own list of how much I read, the self-imposed number of 12 books per year was accomplished in 2023. To be honest, that was not even particularly large number but it seemed reasonable, after giving myself much higher numbers previously and than it made me feel disappointed when it did not happen. The success of last year, inspired me to lift it up slightly and instead of 12 this year I gave myself 24 books to read. I don't think its difficult and in fact, I am doing perfectly well so far, in fact I am on the track and its not even half of February. Streisand 1000-page autobiography took a while but I continued and added a few more titles.

"The Postman Always Rings Twice" (1934) is now known more as a classic film noir but once upon a time it was a book. And not just any book, but a scandalous and shocking bestseller that people bought because it was all about sex and deviant behaviour and lovers who not only plot how to kill the husband but also enjoy sort of brutal sex that reflects how violent they were (in minds of the audience). I don't remember the movie but the book was not bad, except that naturally today is not so scandalous anymore - there is still some interesting atmosphere and chilling coldheartedness about the lovers plan, in fact both of them are nasty piece of work, by far the nicest person in the book is actually a husband who is purposely made to be annoying but actually he is a sweetheart. I mean, his only sin is that he is Greek and sweet-natured. 

"Childhood's End" (1953) is a very highly regarded book by SF master Arthur C. Clarke - with Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein he is celebrated as genius of science fiction genre. Which made him intimidating to me and I always expected his books might be too technical for me - you know, when they go into elaborate description of the space ships and you feel like an idiot for not understanding any of it - this one was a safe bet because it grew out of the popular short story he wrote in 1950 and than enlarged into a book version several years later. Its about the arrival of alien space ships on Earth and how their seemingly friendly, peaceful and harmless intentions eventually turn much darker than initially perceived. It was actually quite gripping because this is more or less how I always imagined aliens to be - benevolent at first but in reality still totally alien to us. Quite excellent, this one.

"From the Dust Returned" (2001) was incidental choice because I decided to read a horror for a change - completely coincidentally it was by another SF genius Ray Bradbury and he also created it out of previously published short story.  Also it was not horror at all but a very, very beautiful dark fantasy collection, tailored for a Halloween reading - dark but not disturbing, simply beautiful. Its about a old house inhabited by all sorts of magic creatures and how they live in a complete harmony, hidden from the outside world - there is a real Egyptian mummy ("“A Thousand Times Great Grandmère"), her husband, a magic spider, a magic cat, winged Uncle Einar, perpetually sleeping visionary Cecy who can enter other people's bodies in her sleep, etc, etc - and a little human boy Timothy. Its just a beautiful book, written in a style that is just breathtaking. I didn't mind it being a collection of obviously short stories because they were all beautiful and somehow connected. I thought it was interesting that magic creatures feared that their powers will diminish since humans refuse to believe in them any longer, this was kind of idea that Neil Gaiman used for his excellent "American Gods".

"The Zone of Interest" by Jonathan Glazer (2023)

 

Well, this was unusual. And heavy enough to put you in a coma.

Because my other half loves to read and watch everything about the Holocaust, it was inevitable that eventually we will go to cinema to see this - I made a point of not reading anything about it so I will have no preconceptions or expectations, I was totally tabula rasa and even prepared to suffer trough German movie with Dutch subtitles (at this point I am fluent enough in Dutch to actually follow the subtitles without problem). We went on a afternoon projection and apparently this movie is so successful that there was much more audience than I expected, evening projections must be packed.

First we encounter a family picnicking along the river - cleverly, we see them only in a swimwear and witness their bickering, family like any family in the world. Boys are splashing in the water, girls are screaming, mother says follow me this way. Its when the clothes are on, that you realise this is a family of Nazi officer and his household is served by some shadowy, terrified staff. Everything about the house is otherwise neat - there is a beautiful garden, rooms are spacious, everything is very clean and polished, there is even a happy dog barking around. The mother-in-law arrives for a visit and here we find out that this is not originally house of this family, because she is very surprised and delighted with such an opulence - if the family lived here before, she would not be so surprised. Eventually she cannot help but notice the big chimneys and smoke just across the barbed wire fence - there are sounds of shots, people screaming, there are fires and smokes on the other side. Slowly in dawns on bot her and the audience that there is a concentration camp just across the wall - in fact this is Auschwitz and the head of this family is no other but Rudolf Höss (real-life commandant of Auschwitz) - the mother in law is so horrified with what she witnesses, that she leaves the house without even saying goodbye and the note she left behind is unceremoniously tossed in the fire - her daughter has no such scruples and all she cares about it staying in this beautiful house, even when her husband is promoted and sent elsewhere. 

The strongest twist in this movie is that it looks at Auschwitz from a completely new perspective - focusing on a Nazi commandant and his family, not showing anything from a concentration camp but we can hear the sounds - shots, yelling, people screaming in pain, we can see the smoke and fire coming out of the enormous chimneys just above the walls surrounding the house where family lives. Somehow not seeing it but only hearing it makes it even more oppressive, even more ominous. Does the family feels anything about their role? The wife is clearly besotted with the house and the luxury, she has no doubts. Children are curious but learned to hide behind the curtains. And the commandant himself is focused, ambitious and strong - but there is occasional sign that he is perfectly aware of everything, even when he repeatedly retches and is disturbed to find human remains in the river where family swims. Everything about this movie is so haunting. 

Photo of the day

Children listening radio programme "Toddlers listen" (1946-1975)

In the broadcast, which lasted 10 minutes, stories were told and songs were sung with children.

Lily Petersen's famous opening line was: "Hello children from all over the country".