Norther Exposure movie location in Roslyn, WA

 

A Beautiful Mind - movie and reflections

 I just finished watching movie “A Beautiful Mind” with Russel Crowe and Jennifer Connelly with tears running down my cheeks. Quite embarrassing, as I am sitting in the aisle seat of a busy airplane.

The movie is about Professor of Mathematics at Princeton University, Dr. John Forbes Nash, a 1994 Nobel Price winner, of the Game Theory fame.

The movie touches me deeply on many levels. 

I feel a deep loss of unfulfilled lifetime intellectual potential, sadness, as those, nearest, treat me for an old fool I probably am, and I am longing for kindness and love that was shown by Jennifer in that movie.

It is very well known, that inside, we all have an image of ourselves when we were young, but looking at my aged hand typing this note on a phone, I wonder, is this it? 

Let’s suppose, I do not kick the early bucket and live out my life, I hope to be mentally acute till 75, or longer, because after all, we do live healthier lifestyle than my parents and grandparents did. In next 25 years, will I accomplish anything that is above the mediocrity of comfortable middle class lifestyle?

I am burying myself in my hobby studies, deep dives in various areas of interest to escape this mediocrity, with no one to share or discuss, but I am also aware that all of that produces little progress. 

People asked retired Captain Joshua Slocum, “Will she pay?”, when he was restoring his free, but rotten, sailboat. He did sail her as the first solo circumnavigator and wrote the most famous book about it. She did pay, a thousand-fold.

I do not know who I will become when I finally grow up, but I know it is still a long ways from now. I hope my life will be worthwhile in the end.

Like Captain Slocum, I want to do something grand and write about it. 

“A man should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.” 

~ Robert A. Heinlein

Mr. Heinlein should have added “… and write a book about it”, but considering he was a famous author, I guess it is implied.

After all of that, what is left on the list, is to comfort the dying and to die gallantly. 

We talked about it the next day, it is far better to die in a volcano eruption (Hawai’i or Cascades) than on a bbq patio while watching a football game.

Irish Wish - romantic comedy

After all the Easter guests left, we decided to watch a movie. It is interesting how our opinions on it were so different.

The Philadelphia Story, Casablanca, at al.

A few days ago, thanks to a YouTube show on "transatlantic accent", and entirely by chance, I discovered a new passion.

I will never see Hollywood the same way. 

In 2014, we spend much of that year in Hollywood with Natalia, and honestly, we did not regard the place as impressive. I never thought about "Hollywood" movies as more than 1980 and 1990 cliche, movies I grew up on.

Today, I see Hollywood totally different, the way it is supposed to be seen.

I discovered 1940s movies and I absolutely love them.

"Casablanca"

"All about Eve"

"The Philadelphia Story"

They feel refreshing comparing to a lot of new, woke, stuff on Netflix. They are surprisingly current, as if people did not change in last 80 years. 

Heck, as an anthropologist, I knew people did not change much in last 80 thousand years, but I never felt it.

These movies are like time capsules that make us feel the life so long ago. We feel for the actors, we love them, we cry for them. They are real.

I am very surprised, how outspoken the women were, honestly, today's corporate conversations are more polite and sometimes more reserved.

The clouds of cigarette smoke and constant sessions of drink area not off-putting, but then that was my childhood, too.

The acting, I expected to be stuffy and theatrical, but, no, it is quite refined and often much superior to modern movies.

I sincerely recommend this genre, and I hope you would love it as much as I did.

Kon-Tiki

Based on the true events, this movie depicts a Norwegian anthropologist’s quest to prove the theory that the French Polynesia was populated from the South America and not from Asia.

Thru the chain of what I would call mistakes and errors, the team nearly gets themselves killed multiple times. 

The movie is well made, inspiring and exciting. 

I also have read the book.

Troy: my favorite scene and quote

The boy said: "I would never want to fight this man"
Achilles answered: "that's why no one will remember your name"

"Cherry Blossoms" hanami (はなみ)

Tonight, I watched "Cherry Blossoms," the most beautiful, romantic movie ever.

Cherry Blossoms, or Hanami, is a lovely German-Japanese film by Doris Dörrie.

It’s about a quiet couple, death, and an unexpected journey to Japan.

It captures the Japanese spirit of hanami (はなみ): fleeting blossoms, fleeting life.

I found it very moving.

"It is never too late to fulfill a dream."

sakura (桜, さくら)

Movie: Keith

Occasionally we come across people who show us how to embrace the meaning of life...

we may not be able to spend the rest of the life with them, but they become an unforgettable part of us.

Movie: Tehran Has No More Pomegranates (Tehran Anar Nadarad!)

"There are about 5 -15 million people living in Teheran. According to official polls 94% are poets!"

It was an unusual, but very valuable movie to me. Not really a documentary, but rather and artistic and romantic story showing the good, the bad and the ugly.

----

see: http://bakhshim.com

35mm. 68 mins. Color/B&W. Farsi With English Subtitles.

Tehran is a large village near the city of Rey, full of gardens and fruit trees.  Its inhabitants live in anthill-like underground holes.  The village’s several districts are constantly at war.  Tehranis’ main occupations are theft and crime, though the king pretends they are subject to him.  They grow excellent fruits, notably an excellent pomegranate, which is found only in Tehran.

- Asar-o-Lblab, 1241 A.D.

Festivals

• 36th Rotterdam International Film Festival, The Netherlands 
  
• 20th International Documentary Film Festival of Amsterdam IDFA 2007 
  
• 51st Cork International Film Festival, Ireland
  
• 30th Sao Paulo International Film Festival, Brazil
  
• 1001 Istanbul Documentary Film Festival, Turkey 2007 
  
• Drake International Film Festival, Italy 2007
  
• 13th Boston Festival of films from Iran, USA
  
• CINEMA-VERITE International documentary film festival, Iran 2007
  
• Cinema East Film Festival, NY, USA 2007
  
• Doc Point Helsinki International  Film Festival 2007
• Ecocinema International Film Festival, Greece 2008
  
• Human Rights International Film Festival, Switzerland 2008
  
• UCLA Iranian Film Festival, USA 2008
  
• Hot Docs International Documentary Festival, Canada 2008
  
• Planete Doc Review International Film Festival , Poland 2008
• "Jeu de pomme" International film festival,France 2007
• "Well-played" Iran-Arab Film Festival,Germany 2008
  
• Full Frame International Documentary Film Festival USA 2008
• "Flandres" International Film Festival Gent-Belgium 2008
• 15th Alt?nkoza Film, Culture and Art Festival, Turkey 2008
• Santiago International Film Festival SANFIC 2008 "Jewels of Middle- East," Chile
• Morelia International Film Festival 2008, Mexico.
• San Luis Cine International Festival Competition, Argentina, November 2008
• Move Media Right Festival. Thailand, December 2008
• Edinburgh: Filmhouse Cinema, January 2009
• Portland International Film Festival, Competition, 2009
• All Roads International Film Festival, USA, Competition, 2009

Awards

• Winner: Best Director, 11th House of Cinema Film Festival, 2007, Iran;
• Winner: Best Director, 25th Fajr Int. Film Festival, 2007, Iran;
• Winner: AVINI Prize for Best Documentary of the year 2007, Iran;
• Winner: Audience Award, CINEMA VERITE International Documentary Film Festival, 2007 Iran.
• Nominated for: Cinema Eye Award for Best Documentary Film, IFC 2009

Reviews

A testimony of the agitated life in the Iranian capital colored by subtle irony. Probably the only resource to explain its controversial reality, modernization attempts ,and the incorporation of western values. Tehran has no more Pomegranates is far from the type of film that comes to one’s mind when thinking of Iranian cinema.

Estado de São Paulo

An imaginative and engaging history of Tehran (formerly spelled Teheran), "Tehran Has No More Pomegranates!" uses a petulant, barbed humor to show how the city has undergone a sea change to become the capital of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Young documaker Massoud Bakhshi doesn't make any earth-shaking revelations, instead delivering a steady stream of irony about his drastically transformed society, where even such an apparently harmless topic as change is subject to state censorship. This is a tasty morsel for fests, expatriate Iranians and ands attuned to more experimental doc work.

Mockingly, as though following orders about how the film should be made, Bakhshi continually contrasts the bad old Teheran full of dirty illiterates with the marvelous modern city, while images suggest just the opposite.

Deborah Young, Variety

Considering how often it gets mentioned in the international press these days, Tehran may well have the lowest recognition value of any major city in the Middle East. "Egypt" may be synonymous with pyramids, but reportage from Cairo tends to trot out the Nile, maybe Tahrir Square, as visual filler. Now, armchair tourists can fall back on 'Tehran Has No More Pomegranates!' a profane portrait of the Iranian capital by writer-director and Tehran native Massoud Bakhshi.

The film is oddly successful on two, apparently mutual-exclusive, and fronts. On one hand it's an intimate representation of an idiosyncratic city. On the other, it captures strains of Tehran that will echo in the experiences of urbanites the world over, making this parochial film a good barometer of 21st-century urbanism.

Jim Quilty, Daily Star

Tehran Has No More Pomegranates by Massoud Bakhshi is a special and refreshing documentary. Not a real story, or an upgraded report, but a cleverly constructed portrait of a city.

Bakhshi made a smart movie which is dramatic and funny at the same time, which contains a healthy dose of mockery without being cynical and which is on top of that imaginative and informative.

Marrigje de Bok, Power off culture

The filmmaker, Massoud Bakhshi, reviews several centuries of the history of the Iranian capital Tehran from various economic, social, cultural, political, environmental, and architectural perspectives with an irony in terms of words, action and situations. The film is full of fresh ideas. It has taken the director six years to make and it is based on the activities of the film crew to collect evidence and documents to make a film.

Mehrzad Danesh, Film International

movie about love

Today, I have watched a movie. A beautiful, european, movie. The movie was about love and the struggle with real life issues, it was also incredibly romantic and sensual, just how the real life is. 

We all watch these movies. The romantic books seem to be ever-more popular with the women. Yet, we live in the world devoid of human feelings, in the all-too-proper, politically-correct, ice cubes chilled for the comfort of the fat, tie-sporting, sleazy salesman and the human resource vice presidents that long time ago forgot what it means to be a human. Or, worse, hypocritically screwing behind the closed doors with only the wrinkles of the dresses and untidy hairdo to tell the story. The real life is not the corporate, suburban, superficial notion of life we live here, in Prudeland. 

Let's face it; life is about the feelings of love and love is about people together, making love. Everything else is just food and shelter, and keeping yourself busy when you have no love.

The movie has stirred me inside, reminded me of who I am, and about my past, my memories and my love.

Auschwitz "Au Revoir Les Enfants" (Goodbye Children)

I watched the movie "Au Revoir Les Enfants" (Goodbye Children) set in the Catholic School in France during the German occupation.

The school was for the boys from the rich families to keep them away from the dangerous cities. The priest, the principal of the school, together with the staff took in a couple of Jewish boys. The story unfolds until the boys get arrested by the Gestapo and are carried away, we learn that they get killed, one of them eventually dies in Auschwitz.

Auschwitz was one of the biggest concentration camps set by the Nazi, during the war about 1.1 million people were killed in there, 90% of that were Jewish. 

Why do I write this? - because it strikes a personal note. 

Auschwitz (Oświęcim) is 88 km from my hometown, the distance you can drive in 1.5 hour. 

I visited the place when I was a child and I still bear a deep scar, some 20 years later. 

People please don't hate each other: black and white, Jewish and Arabs, Catholics and Protestants, Shi'a and Sunni - we are no different from each other and with a little soul-searching and mindfulness we can find the peace for each other.

I shall write about the experiences of my family during the war...

No, I did not forget to write.

The stress and worries suck out the life blood of me like mosquitoes, leaving only an etch and the desire to throw my hands in the air a run like a madman. I am at the wit's ends.

I watched tonight the movie "Girl with a Perl Earring" it is a masterpiece about the masterpiece. Life can be so beautifull, yet so sad.

Shine

I finally got to watch the movie Shine. It is a very good story based on the real life of a pianist struck by a mental illness, search for love and need to please ever-demanding father. His play make our efforts look small and insignificant. Definetely makes you reach out and want to touch the genius within us.

Last night I watched "Don't say a word" with Michael Douglas -- mediocre movie, not much a psychological pursuits, not a really good action (full of mistakes), not scary, not anything really. Michael Dougles (one of my favorites) had better times.

Personal Notes:
This morning we watched film "Hope Floats". There is no question that I am a lost-case of romantic. The movie makes me see even stronger how much I want to move to the country-side, close to the nature, and how much I want to live in a small community/town where people know each other, where people's lives unfold and intertwine. I hate the fact that in Chicago, the neighbours, the store-owners do not know my name, that a street that I have been leaving on for 3 years is as foreign and cold as the first time I moved in here. People have innate need for human contact and that will not change in next 5 million years.