film and booklist
Dec. 31st, 2002 05:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nibotThis year I've seen about thirty-six films and read approximately seventeen books.
I managed to see quite a few films this year, largely though the fantastic program at FilmStudion. FilmStudion arranges a film series every term in Lund with about 50 films organised into subseries. They're great films, and you can buy one ticket that lets you in to all of them. I found it a great way to become exposed to all kinds of great films from all over the world. Sydskånska Nation's Sunday evening "Film Café" was also a nice institution -- hot chocolate, goodies, and a (free) film on Sundays. Here at Berkeley we have the SUPERB friday film series, presenting about ten films every term, mostly `cult' films and big releases.
[The Pacific Film Archive arranges a continuing film series at Berkeley similar in character to FilmStudion's, although the PFA series is a bit more escoteric, and also more expensive (as you pay for each film individually). I'd also like to mention the Jerusalem Film Festival -- I wish I'd managed to go!]
The complete list: Almost Famous, Vanilla Sky, Les Rivières pourpres (Crimson Rivers), Code Inconnu, The Tailor of Panama, 71 Fragmente einer Chronologie des Zufalls, 101 Reykjavík, Hurlyburly, The Gift, Heftig og begeistret, Moulin Rouge, Englar alheimsins (Angels of the Universe), Luna Papa, Shooting Fish, Funny Games, Benny's Video, La Stanza del figlio (Ett rum i våra hjärtan), Memento, Carlito's Way, Dead Man Walking, Boys Don't Cry, Lawrence of Arabia, Abre los ojos (Open Your Eyes), Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Rocky Horror Picture Show, Never ending story, Secretary, Svenska hjältar (Swedish heroes/ Expectations), Italiensk for begyndere, Kissing Jessica Stein, Spirited Away, Tilsammans, Underground, No Such Thing, Harold and Maude.
My reading this year consisted largely of travelogues, out of both a general interest in the world and a specific interest in the places to which I'd be traveling. I started with Kerouac's classic On The Road, which I took with me to Estonia and finished reading while snug in my bunk on the ferry back to Sweden. I re-read Thomas Friedman's From Beirut to Jerusalem before going to Israel and I think it's a great introduction to the situation there. Shimon Peres' For the Future of Israel was also good for background and insight but the tone is almost one of self-aggrandizement. Cairo: City Victorious is a wonderful and thorough account of that city's history through the ages.
I found Nick Middleton's The Last Disco in Outer Mongolia an quick and enjoyable read, one which introduced me to a part of the world with which I was not familiar. He describes the tradition of hospitality:
Hospitality from the gers [yurts] was always forthcoming, although some of the social rules of engagement often jarred with my Western way of doing things. It amazed me for example that complete strangers could freely walk in on a family home without even knocking, which we may consider a thoughtless act, and be treated with the utmost courtesy. Yet at the same time our hosts were cool and reserved compared to people in other parts of the world I have visited. Only at Batsagaan's ger below the blue lake was there any handshaking, and that only I suspect because I started it. Otehrwise a host never made an effort to stand and welcome us as guests but remained squatting on one boot and motioned us to sit. The driver and the gentleman never removed their caps on entering a ger as they would have done in an English home, because if a guest takes his hat off it means he is intending to stay the night. The herdsmen shared freely their food and drink and always provided us with a small bundle of provisions wrapped in newspaper for our journey. There was never any thought of payment; every Mongolian knows that he will ask for hospitality many times during the year, so he is ready to offer what he can to other travellers. There is also an understanding throughout the countryside that should a traveler come upon an unoccupied ger, the door of which will never be locked, he can freely enter to brew some tea and eat a meal before continuing his journey.
I read Antonie Saint-Exupery's Wind, Sand, Stars without any idea that he also wrote The Little Prince. In the former he recounts his adventures in carrying the mails from France down into Northern Africa in a small plane, back when this was a fairly perilous endeavor. At one point he crashes in the Sahara and is eventually rescued by a bedouin. The descriptions of aviation at that time and of the Arab cultures he encounters are quite interesting. [quotes?]
In contrast to these other travelogues, I'm not certain how Bill Bryson got anyone to publish his Lost Continent. It consists of him driving around the U.S., writing sarcastic comments about each town he visits, in a wannabe-Dave-Barry sort of style. (For a good book with a similar premise, see William Least Heat Moon's Blue Highways.)
Interested in travel by sea (or at least water), I picked up John McPhee's Looking for a Ship and William Least Heat Moon's River-Horse.
While some of John McPhee's works sink into tedium, Looking for a Ship mostly avoids this fate and is a good glimpse into the modern day merchant-marine. True, he does resort at times to simply listing the cargo they take on or offload, but it generally works as a sort of refrain to glue the chapters together. It has Stowaways, pirate attacks, the panama canal, an old seacaptain -- all true and contemporary -- and ends elegantly.
Heat Moon's River-horse, on the other hand, is not really worth the effort of slugging through its 600-some-odd pages. The guy (his real name is William Trogden) sets out from Manhattan with the very deliberate scheme of crossing the United States by an all-water route. This in itself is interesting -- consider, is it even possible? and what adventures might occur along the way? -- but the author's determination to convey the sheer boredom of some stretches of the trip is not at all rewarding. At several points he resorts to transcribing his logbook -- verbatim -- when he can't think of any other commentary. As if this weren't bad enough, the rest of the book is filled with a general holier-than-thou contempt for anyone and anything at odds with Trogden's peculiar ideas about the way the American landmass should be managed. This is all very strange in light of his previous Blue Highways which is dense with captivating tales of small-town America -- tales that are almost totally lacking from this more recent book.
Continuing the theme of "unconventional means of travel" I checked out Rolling Nowhere by Ted Conover after a recommendation by someone on the train-hopping mailing list. As a student of Anthropology at Amhearst University, Ted Conover and a bit disenchanted by the theoretical nature of his studies, Ted decided to become a hobo for an indefinite period of time. Meeting up with real hobos along the way he learns the ropes of their culture, traveling by freight train across the Western U.S., sleeping in hobo "jungles," and eating at missions and from dumpsters. I've also started Whiteout: Lost in Aspen in which Ted infiltrates Aspen, Colorado, starting as a taxi driver there...On Maya's recommendation I looked up Frank Rose's Into the Heart of the Mind when I got back to Berkeley. It tied in nicely with P.C. Jersild's A Living Soul, which I read for Scandinavian R5B. Into the Heart of the Mind is an enjoyable account of the work in Artificial Intelligence at Berkeley some decades ago.
The other reading for Scan R5B consisted of Klaus Rifbjerg's Anna (I) Anna; Women and Appletrees (author forgotten); and a few plays by Ibsen and Strindberg. Rifbjerg's book is an entertaining read, and extremely well-written. It's an epic psychodrama tumbling across Europe, from Rome up to Copenhagen.
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