The World of Apu

Cut out my heart. Satyajit Ray's The World of Apu is the third part of his Apu Trilogy, and I finally watched it this evening. (I watched Part Two on 2/11/06, i.e. a long-ass time ago.) Satyajit Ray is a brilliant man, I've decided. I mean, I guess the world doesn't really need me to add my praise to the loads of adulation he has received as a filmmaker, but this movie (and the trilogy as a whole) is so uncompromising and powerful. I'm too tired to really talk about this, and the movies are kind of draining because they are so effective and heartfelt, but I did finally finish this masterwork and I feel profoundly effected by Ray's storytelling and vision.

The films are in Bengali and have been restored through the efforts of The Merchant and Ivory Foundation as well as the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences. The picture on the DVD's is still quite grainy and the image sometimes jumps. The movies are totally worth the sub-par picture quality, and I gather getting images even this clear was quite the ordeal for the restoration team. If you haven't seen Part One of this trilogy (Pather Panchali) you ought to add it to your Netflix queue tout suite.

Kontroll / Aparajito / Yesterday

No movies tonight because the roommate is here and he is busy playing Final Fantasy. I painted yesterday. The color is awesome. It's called Saffron. It's from Restoration and looks a lot like saffron rice. I'm all about it. My house just looks so much warmer, you know? It makes me want to paint every room.

I had serious code red laundry tonight. I swear I run out of work clothes so much quicker since casual Friday was abolished last month.
So no movies, but I did my laundry and I fixed myself a gin and tonic (I'm on the second one now) and I made a blondie. I'm debating whether to take it to work and share it or not.

Kontroll is a Hungarian movie set entirely in the Hungarian underground subway system. It's darkly funny and the mystery is genuine and gripping. There's a lot of really weird and cool photography (no sunlight ever, as you can imagine) and some of the writing is great. Just typing this I'm remembering some of the really high-tension scenes in Kontroll. It's a movie with an electric current running through it and yet the director (Nimród Antal) has a singular vision and allows himself to slow down and speed up at will. Even the more slowly-paced scenes seem fast. He is a clever man, this Nimród Antal: expect more and exciting things from him. Recommended.

Aparajito is the second in Satyajit Ray's renowned Apu Trilogy. I watched the first part, Pather Panchali (Song of the Little Road) what seems like ages ago and I only got around to Part Two on Saturday morning. I am sorry I waited so long, and by the same token I also understand why I did. I was even going to watch Part Three the next day, but I just couldn't make myself. They're just so sad. Ray knows what he's doing and he carefully crafts his films, so Aparajito is undeniably brilliant in what it's doing and of course I was emotionally affected by his story, but I just couldn't stomach another of of his bleak films in the same weekend. Perhaps I'll watch it tomorrow as a part of National Single-Awareness Day. This film is the second in a trilogy. Do not watch it without having watched Pather Panchali first. If you haven't seen Pather Panchali, you ought to add it to your Netflix queue immediately. It's one of the world's great films.

So instead of a bleak film by Satyajit Ray, I watched Yesterday, by Darrell James Roodt (Cry, the Beloved Country). It's about AIDS in South Africa and it's in the native Zulu tongue. FUN! Yesterday is the name of the main character, a young mother and wife with the most positive attitude of anyone ever in the history of the world (the most unbelievable and most loveable part of the film). We first meet her walking four hours to visit a clinic in a nearby village. Her husband is away in Johannesburg working in the mines. She spends all of her time with her daughter and alone. The main actress's name is Leleti Khumalo and it would be quite impossible for anyone not to immediately fall in love with her. She has the loveliest smile I think I've ever seen on anyone. Yesterday has, of course, contracted HIV from her husband, unbeknownst to her, and must figure out how to tell her husband that he is also HIV positive and care for her daughter as she becomes sicker. I loved this movie and I know it's a bit Hollywood-hokum and sounds like sort of typical Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences fare (uplifting, serious, heartwarming Kolya/Life Is Beautiful/Three Men and a Cradle-style), but Yesterday works. It's moving and heartfelt if a tad sentimental and predictable.

Song of the Little Road

I don't know how y'all feel about Indian cinema, but I, being a sucker for the films of James Ivory and Ismail Merchant, had to check out one of their favorite films when I heard it was on DVD. Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali is the story of a Brahmin family living in Bengal. It was released in India in 1955. The photography (by Subrata Mitra, who later worked on all of Merchant-Ivory's Indian films) is incredible, the story is beautiful and haunting, the delicate score is by Ravi Shankar, and the direction is immaculate. It's unbelievable that this was anyone's first film. If you are into Indian cinema, check this one out.

So Productive!

There had been random speculation this week that, were Chief Justice Rehnquist to be forced into retirement by his health, Justice O'Connor could be persuaded back to the High Court in order to be the new Chief. Such speculation was started by a Democratic senator, naturally, but the Conservatives might have gone for it after all. At any rate, this evening, the Chief issued a statement saying that he is hale and hearty and has no intention whatsoever of retiring despite his recent bout with thyroid cancer. Ah well. I like the Chief a lot and I would be sorry to see him go in any case, but the person I really wish would stay on the court is J. O'Connor. Every time I think about her not being on the Court next year, I just get depressed. I will miss her.
Why couldn't Justice Thomas retire? Now there's an idea I could get behind.

In other news, Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince is being released on Saturday. Ok, I will shut up about that. If you care, you know and are excited, and if you don't give a shit about Harry, I'm sure you're damn sick of hearing about his scrawny little sixteen year-old ass.

I can't watch DVD's anymore when I get home from work. I always try but it never works out. This afternoon I came home and popped in Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali and sure enough, ten or fifteen minutes into the film I start falling asleep. Pather Panchali is thought by many (Akira Kurosawa, for one) to be one of the greatest films ever made, so I thought I might want to be awake when I watched it. It's not that the film was boring, it's just that I am so tired when I get home from work these days. I don't know what it is that tuckers me out so badly.
Anyway, I ended up baking tonight. I made popovers (which turned out only so-so) and then I made a cheesecake for work tomorrow. We need a little morale boost at work, lately. Yesterday, our boss was screaming at the top of her lungs at two of the girls in the office and for no good reason at all. We all find it frustrating and one of the girls is very seriously thinking about giving her notice. I am not quitting (no one would yell at me like that anyway) but I feel like I should cheer them up a little--or at least try to.

Oh yeah, and I got a new phone: it's really cute and the battery lasts longer than five minutes.