29 October 2006

Paris et La Châtre!

We are in France and to be more specific Paris and La Châtre.

We will be back in Stockholm the 7th of November.

We have not completed our story from the first trip to France in July but we will do so in November and also write about this trip!

There are more to be told about events in Stockholm.
There will be more pictures from our journey to France in July and this journey I promise!

Hope to hear from you all!

Gunnar & Aurore!!!!!

22 October 2006

I've Heard the Mermaids singing


Malacca by Vilgot Sjöman is one of the movies at Cinemateket today.

A movie about a Swedish woman who tries to find herself and explore the depths of her soul and maybe above all her sexuality.

This she does during a journey to Thailand and Malacca.
She meets drugdealers - among which their is a Swedish man who she falls in love with - prostitutes, childabuse and so forth.

Unfortunately people in Thailand and nearby countries are depicted as clichées and function only as 'props' to people from the Western world.
It seems as if it's only the latter who can feel morally indignant and being able to reflect on the consequences of their way of life - af way of life supported by the same European people.

The acting were not impressive, especially not the lead female character.

Patricia Rozema is the director of I've Heard the Mermaids singing a film supposed to be 'queer'.

As often before in this series at the Cinematek in Stockholm on can't see why it's specifically 'queer' at all.

Polly - played by Sheila McCarthy - gets a job as a secretary in an art gallery. The owner of the gallery, Gabrielle - Paule Baillargeon - has a romantic relationship with painter Mary - Ann-Marie MacDonald.
Polly is somewhat jealous at Mary as she looks up to Gabrielle and almost worships her.

Polly helps Gabrielle in a hanging and finds a painting she thinks Gabrielle has made. She has not though. Polly's image of Gabrielle is gradually changing.





(Photo poster 'Mermaids' taken from: http://www.moviegoods.com/Assets/product_images/1020/204047.1020.A.jpg)

20 October 2006

The Grissomgang


The Grissom Gang by Robert Aldrich is a film about a family among people characterized as 'white trash' and how they by chance get a chance to blackmail a rich man by kidnapping his daughter.

This family consists of a mother who is tougher and more ruthless than her sons, a father who is under her thumb and four sons, among them 'Slim', a psychopath who falls in love with the rich young woman they kidnap.

Slim's mother wants to kill the young woman after receiving the ransom.
It's just because of 'Slim' that she survives as the others, due to his psychopathic character, dare not touch her as she now has become his 'wife'. She plays along with him to survive.

Gradually though she is in someway attracted by him or rather feel sorry for him.

Her father engage a private eye and the police to catch the kidnapers but the feelings for his daughter gradually changes when he get's to know that she live together with 'Slim'.

A lot of violence but the overall impression is a positive one.

A better film than some of the others we have seen by Aldrich this autumn.

In the principal roles we see: Kim Darby, Scott Wilson, Tony Musante and Robert Lansing.

19 October 2006

The Killing of Sister George & Milkymee & Fabula Storytelling Festival


The Killing of Sister George by Robert Aldrich is one of the films at Cinemateket, being a part of the 'queer'-theme this autumn.

Aurore and I found it somewhat hard to detect a thematic core in many of the films we've seen but in this case you could say that it was more obvious.

An elderly woman lives with a young woman in a lesbian relationship, though not being open about it in relation to the heterosociety, neighbours and so forth.
The elderly woman is a very popular actor in a TV series about a nurse - 'Sister George' - who is a woman with a kind and compassinate disposition.
This is quite opposite to how she is in reality where she wants to rule the younger woman and her life and watch over her in every way, afraid of loosing her.

Alcoholic problems is also something that causes 'sister George' problems.
She is fired from the series due to decreasing popularity and her alcoholic problems.
The latter causes her to do things less appropriate according to those responsible for the production of the TV series.

She harasses two nuns in a taxi for example and this does not correspond to the way her rôle character is depicted.
In the end she looses both her love Alice and the job.

A rather mediocre film with a prudent approach to the issue, I think.

In the evening we were invited by Milkymee - who is still working at the French Institute in Stockholm - to something called 'Fabula Storytelling Festival'.

The event takes place in Stockholm between the 20-22 of Oktober.

At the Institute we listened to Abbi Patrix who told storys that also engaged the listeners.
We participated to some extent by filling in words and sentences in long storys told with lots of 'esprit' and wit.

The storys combine old elements from classical 'sagas' combined with modern and ethnically rich ingredients.


Abbi Patrix conteur
envoyé par langues_en_fete. - L'actualité du moment en vidéo.










(Photo Milkymee taken from: http://www.volubilis.net/festivals/les_femmes_s_en_melent_2006/milkymee/jpg/milkymee_02.jpg)

18 October 2006

The Emperor of the North (Pole) & Amazon Women..


The first film today is Emperor of the North Pole by Robert Aldrich with Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine and Keith Carradine in the leading rôles.

Lee Marvin is a bum but not any ordinary bum but a 'hobo' (from the word 'hoe boy' - a boy with a pickaxe).
A 'hobo' was sometimes a farmer who under the Great Depression in the 1930:s was out of work or had lost his farm and now wandered around trying to survive day by day.



They went from town to town and state to state by jumping on to train as stowaways.


In this film Marvin is called 'number one' and he is the top among the top bums.
Borgnine is responsible for a legendary train - number 19. He is extremely tough against the free passengers, controlling the train during the ride and throwing off or even killing those free passengers he finds.
Marvin is now challenging him but he is accompanied by a big-talking young lier (Carradine) who he tries to help.

Instead of a story about the hard life during the Great Depression and the conflicts between people this becomes a contest and a fight between the two main characters in the movie.
It's also about some kind of male friendship. Not a single woman in the film.

The charm stems from the three actors and their characters, not least Carradines.


Film number two is not worth writing about (and yet I do):


Catfight "Gold Of the Amazon Women" par goodcatfights
(Bad quality video)

Gold of the Amazon Women by Mark L. Lester with Bo Svenson, Anita Ekberg and Donald Pleasence in the 'starring rôles' if one can call it 'starring' in a film like this?

Svensson is an adventurer looking for the hidden gold among the 'Golden Cities of Eldorado' and he must find it before Donald Pleasence, who is a drugdealer, does.
Ekberg plays a queen in a Amazontribe!!

Need I say more? We laughed a lot Aurore and I.

(Coppyright photo poster 'Emperor of the North Pole' taken from: http://100grana.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/emperor-of-the-north-pole-poster.jpg)
(Photo Lee Marvin taken from: http://www.blogcdn.com/www.cinematical.com/media/2009/06/emperor-of-the-north-med-2.jpg)
(Photo Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine taken from: http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/images/reviews/190/1171129587.jpg)

17 October 2006

Älvmaggedon


Kengo Kuma is an internationally recognised Japanese architect.

At the Swedish Museum of Architecture there is an exhibition with some of Kuma's works focusing on the relations between idea and construction, material and form, aspects intimately linked in his architecture.
The materials are plastic, bamboo and paper.

I found some of his works interesting but they were - as Aurore pointed out - very much related to the architecture of the 1930:s.
We found traces from the Swedish architect Gunnar Asplund among others.


'Älvmaggedon' is a word were one combine the word and meaning of 'Armageddon' ('Harmageddon') - mentioned in Revelations 16:16 as the last battlefield when Jesus and his angels and Satan and his demons meet for the last settlement - and the Swedish word Älv wich means (small) river.

This exhibition deals with the global climate problems and what architecture and social planning possibly can do to help up the situation. There were lots of information around global warming, for example the fact that there are more than 50 million environmental refugees in the world. As always when one discuss problems from a statistic point of view, like in this example, there are different figures presented, depending on who you ask. This was a small exhibition concerning a wast subject.

After this we continued taking a more detailed look at 'Africa Remix' but this exhibition is something I've written about before why I don't give you a detailed revue.

Aurore missed some of her favourite pieces of art, displayed at Centre Georges Pompidou but not here.
She saw 'Africa Remix' two years ago in Paris.






(Copyright photo great bamboo taken from: http://dudye.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/greatbamboo.jpg)
(Foto 'Älvmageddon' kopierat från: http://www.arkitekturmuseet.se/utstallningar/alvmageddon/INDEXcapybar.jpg)

16 October 2006

Two for the Road and Pillow Talk

Stanley Donen directed the first film today:


Two for the Road. This is a film with Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney as a couple who incidentally meet. She is a singer in a choir and he is a struggling architect.
They meet on the road when the bus with choirsingers crash and Finney's rôle character is trying to help them.

The film wanders back and forth in time and it begins when the two main characters, being married for a couple of years, are engaged in one of many quarrels, discussing divorce.

During the film we follow the history around their relationship from the first meeting, displaying why Finney chosed Hepburns character instead of one of her friends in the choir with whom he first started flirting; problems with unfaithfulness; discussions around relations; life in general; other people's marriages and so forth.

The idea is interesting but after a while you find that it's the same situation on the beach or at a party and it feels like a déja vu- experience.
It has its comic points but to repetitive and to long. The story is not sufficiently interesting.

Film number two is:

Pillow Talk by Michael Gordon with Rock Hudson and Doris Day in the two main rôles as Brad Allen ('Rex Stetson') and Jan Morrow.
They share the same telephone-connection and she can overhear his conversations with all the women he dates. He sings them a song with the same lyrics but changes the name in the song depending on who he is talking to.

Day's character - Jan - finds Brad intolerable and she contacts the Telephone company to see if she can get a connection of her own.

By chance at a restaurant Brad overhears a conversation between Jan and a man and he realises that this is the angry woman on the other end of the telephone.
He is immediately attracted by her but dare not approach her as himself. He pretends being a man from Texas and begin his moves to get her interested in him. He playes a double rôle.

It turns out that his best friend also is in love with Jan.

This makes it complicated and in the end Brad is revealed as an imposter.

In the end they become a couple of course. Predictable - yes - but somewhat entertaining.

15 October 2006

Jesus, En folkefiende and The Living End

The activities today:

'Culture Center' ('Kulturhuset') in Stockholm and the exhibition Uppenbarat about one of the most famous men in the World and how he is and has been depicted in photographic works: JESUS! See more about this exhibition on the blog 10 November (2006).


The Cinematek:

Satyajit Ray: Ganashatru, an adaptation for the screen of Henrik Ibsens play En folkefiende (An Enemy of the People).

This is a story about a doctor (physician) who in this case finds out that there are dangerous germs in the water causing jaundice (hepathitis).
The water is - among other places - used at the Holy Temple in the city and the lives of thousands of people are now at risk.

His discovery causes worry on different levels.
First of all the newspaper wants to write about this in order to help people become aware of the problem but the religious leaders oppose this. This not least since the doctor suggests that one should close down the temple during the period when examination of the water is carried out.

He and his family is drawn into a conflict between religious beliefs and science.

I liked this adaptation even if the end does not correspond to the original play but Aurore thought she had seen better adaptations, among other a Norwegian one she saw at the Stockholm Film Festival one or two years ago.

Film number two at Cinemateket:

The Living End by Gregg Araki. This is a film about two homosexual men - Luke (Mike Dytri) and Jon (Craig Gilmore) and their relationship, a road movie reminding us a little about Thelma & Louise.

Jon finds out that he is HIV-positive and get's in a shock by this message, informed by a physician in a rather cold and unsensitive way.
This man has a good female friend who he turns to for comfort.

He then by chance meets Luke who has killed three men wanting to beat him up because of his homosexuality.
They embark on a journey through USA where the latter tends to use violence as soon as he is criticized or attacked by someone for his homosexuality.

Jon finds Luke more and more intolerable in a way but is at the same time to attracted by him to break loose.

It's a film that is said to be very open about homosexual love but I would like to say that it's a rather prudish film cementing the image of gay persons being violent and living unresponsably and cynical.

It tends to increase homophobia instead of decreasing it.

Maybe this was the purpose?

14 October 2006

Qin and Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte

At the Academy Bookstore today Cecilia Lindqvist talks about her latest book - 'Qin'.
For those of you not knowing who Lindqvist is: She is a sinologist and one of Swedens foremost connoisseurs of the Chinese history and culture.

Qin is the name of a string instrument played in ancient China by the wealthy classes.
As with most wealthy classes around the world, before WWII, they were educated and brought up reading poetry, playing different kinds of instruments and so forth.
The instrument was never used in any other context than within a small circle of highly educated and wealthy people.
When they were trained to become masters of others and lead a province for example, they were left very much on their own and the instrument functioned in making their everyday life less lonely.

The music was not only therapeutic but became a substitute for human relations and they also composed their one music.

When the educated leaders in different societal functions came together they performed their music for one another and discussed it.
They also discussed the instruments, how old and well preserved they were and so on and so forth.

After this I visited the gallery Åmells in Stockholm and took a brief look at Swedish contemporary art by mostly well established painters like Jockum Nordström, Ernst Billgren, Ola Billgren, Lars Englund, Jan Håfström and many more.

Cinemateket next: Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte by Robert Aldrich with among others Bette Davis and Olivia de Havilland (se video below).

This movie begins in the late 1920:s in a big mansion at a party where a man get's killed and Bette Davies rôle figure is accused of the murder after a fight with the murdered man.

Many years later we find her living alone with a female 'servant' hidden to the world because of the accusations towards her, even if one never could prove her guilty.

The town now wants to expropriate her ground in order to build a road and they try to make her move out of the house but she refuses.
Her cousine (Olivia de Havilland) arrives for a visit. They haven't seen each other for years, not since the murder. Her cousine was also among the guests at the time of the above mentioned party.
She wants to help Davies but this leads to a conflict with other people involved and a doctor treating Davies cooperates with the cousine but maybe not in benefit of her interests?









(Bild/foto 'Qin' kopierat från: http://melodyrain.blogg.se/images/2010/cimg7288_108427520.jpg)

13 October 2006

Egymásra nézve & Vilgot Sjöman & Africa Remix


The first film at Cinemateket is: Egymásra nézve ('Another way') by Károly Makk.

This is a film about the events after the 1956 'Oktoberevents' when the former Soviet Union came into power in Hungary.

Made in 1982 one couldn't at that time talk, write or make a film about the events during the actual occupation but one could make a film about what followed.

This film about the problems for a newspaper to write as truthfully as possible but at the same time not in a way that could cause them problems with the authorities, more becomes a lovestory between two women at the newspaper.
One of them is married and this causes of course problems in her relationship with her husband. The film also depicts how the society handled the question on homosexuality in Hungary in those days.

Film no. two is Linus eller Tegelhusets hemlighet by Vilgot Sjöman. The film takes place in the 1930:s in Stockholm. The conflicts between the poor and the rich is of course depicted but also how everyone - poor as rich - tries to benefit and become rich (richer) or less poor through more or less criminal activities.

The double-standards of morality among all people in society is fully described through peoples behaviour.
The rich and the poor sometimes form an 'unholy' alliance and those who have Social Democratic sympathies among the workers with all the means at their disposal, try to oppose other in their struggle for freedom and civil rights.
This incluedes murder. In the middle of all this we find a young man who is betrayed by his father, hunted by political activists from the Social Democratic wing when he tries to reveal a murder they have committed but in spite of this try to realize his dreams of becoming an author.


After this it's the vernissage at The Museum of Modern Art: 'Africa Remix'.
Simon Njami
talks about this exhibition but as we heard him Wednesday at the French Institute we wander around the exhibition instead.

This gave us an opportunity to look at the pieces of art before all the visitors rush around like confused ants.
There was a huge amount of people at this vernissage. More than I ever seen at the museum before, at occasions like this. We decided to come back another day to look at the exhibition more thouroughly.

We then went to Fotografins Hus (The Gallery of Photography) for an afterparty.
There we looked at some photos from the exhibition, photo's not exhibited at The Museum of Modern Art. We ate samosa and bananas(!) and drank wine!

Our dinner this night! Wonderful!

12 October 2006

Gillo Pontecorvo dead

The director Gillo Pontecorvo is dead, 86 years old. R.I.P.

He was above all famous for his film La battaglia di Algeri, telling the story about the struggle for independence in Algeria made in 1966.

This film is unusually unbiased showing the cruelties and assaults from both sides, the French and the Algerians. By most cinephiles regarded as a 'classic' (this hard to define word) within the war film genre.







(Photo Gillo Pontecorvo take from: http://www.gossipnews.it/images5/ponteco2.jpg)

11 October 2006

Orhan Pamuk Nobelprize winner litterature 2006


Orhan Pamuk (Orhan Pamuk) has received the Nobel Prize in litterature.

This was not particularly surprising as he was one of the candidates most often mentioned this year - and previous years.

Horace Engdahl, the secretary of the Nobel committee, also admits that this is a well-known author and the surprise this year was that their choice did not surprise anyone! A lot of cheering! A political choise? According to the Nobel committee, it is not.

If we retrospectively look at the last ten years laureates though, we find authors who in their authorship clearly take a political stand, if not explicit: Harold Pinter, Elfriede Jelinek, J. M. Coetzee, Imre Kertész, V. S. Naipaul, Günter Grass among others.

This year it happens to coincide with France initiating a legislation against the denial of the genocide of Armenians in Turkey in 1915, an issue Pamuk openely has confronted the Turkish governement with.

Much more could be said but has already been said.




(Photo Orhan Pamuk taken from: http://evan.vnexpress.net/News/Tin-tuc/the-gioi/2009/03/3B9AE3BE/pamuk_pressconf3_photo.jpg)

Tabu

Continued and ended my visit at the Stockholm City Museum and the exhibition 'Stockholm 750 years', an exposé over how Stockholm came to be what it is today.
Stockholm was for the first time mentioned in text in 1252 when Birger Jarl was king.

I also saw a photoexhibition made out of photo's from Gunnar Smoliansky, a famous Swedish photographer, rewarded with the 'Lennart af Petersen'-prize.

Met with Aurore at Cinema Sture for the film 'Tabu' by Vilgot Sjöman.

This is a film about people we today call HBT (homo-, bi-, and transsexuals).
Sjöman calls them 'frontier'-people in the film.

A young attorney, Kristoffer, tries to help people with sexual preferences others than heterosexual woman-man relationship.
The attorney himself is trying to hide the fact that he also have other sexual preferences than the heterosexual 'norm'.


Despite this he engages in a relationship with a young, unexperienced woman from a religious nonconformist family. She is not aware of him not being strictly heterosexual.

They marry but she soon finds out that he needs something more exciting than ordinary sex.

The film deals with a lot of different aspects of relationship, the lacking acceptance from society, the inner and external struggle for freedom, the fact that this question is not merely - as it initially have been described - a question of sex per se.

Kristoffer never succeeds in helping this people in their struggle, partly because he is a fraud and not the radical reformer he probably, himself, think he is.

There is a risk that the people depicted in the film becomes somewhat ridiculed though, depending on the way they are described and I don't think this was Sjöman's intentions.


Aurore and I end the day at the French Institute (Institut Français) in Stockholm with a lecture by Simon Njami, the Curator (Commissaire général) of the big exhibition 'Africa Remix' at the Museum of Modern Art.

We had been invited by Milkymee (Emilie Hanak), Aurore's friend who works at the French Institute.

Simon Njami talked about how the Western World looks upon Africa and in what way this affects what we see, our preconceived notions about what we think Africa is and who the people(s) living there are.

First of all a lot of people in the west speak of Africa in the terms of one single country.
This is of course totally wrong as it is a continent, as we know, with many different contries, cultures, languages, history, ways of living, beliefs and so forth. It's probably a much more differentiated continent than Europe.

Njami also talked about how journalists and their way of reporting from Africa affects the way we look at this wast continent.
Njami said something like "most people in the World know a lot about how African people die but scarcely how they live" and this is unfortunately true.

We know a lot about the conflicts, poverty, diseases but very little about the daily life and positive development in different African countries.

Can this exhibition in some way change these prejudices?








(Foto Vilgot Sjöman kopierat från: http://hd.se/multimedia/dynamic/00318/Bild_22_318816d.jpg)
(Bild poster 'Tabu' kopierat från:
http://images.filmtipset.se/posters/6787528.JPG)
(Picture of the catalogue 'Africa Remix' taken from: http://multimedia.fnac.com/multimedia/images_produits/ZoomPE/6/0/8/9782844262806.jpg)

10 October 2006

Boudu sauvé des eaux and Arabesque

(A very poor quality in this trailer)

The first film at Cinemateket today: 'Boudu sauvé des eaux' ('Boudu Saved from Drowning') by Jean Renoir, a film about a bum who after his dog disappears, want's to kill himself.

Boudu (Michel Simon) jumps into the Seine but is saved by the owner of a book store.
His 'saviour' is a compassionate person and the bum is allowed to move in with the family and partly becomes a family member with all the problems involved in an arrangement like this.
His manners are - to say the least - unpolished.

This in combination with him having a relationship with the wife and female 'assistant' causes a turbulent situation.

He finally marries the assistant but his new and organized bourgeois life becomes a burden to him. Michel Simon is fantastic in the rôle as Boudu.


Film two: 'Arabesque' by Stanley Donen with Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren in the two leading rôles.

Peck as a scientist specialized in old Mediterranean cultures, is approached by a high government official from some Arab country who need his help in deciphering an old scripture.
Other people are also interested in the same text and a confusing 'who is who'-game begins.

Even if one of Donen's ambitions is to make a Hitchcock-like movie, he doesn't succeed and the jokes are quite predictable. Not a bad movie but.....

08 October 2006

Cruising; The Boys in the Band; Screaming Mimi

Three movies at Cinemateket:



'Cruising'
by William Friedkin with Al Pacino as a policeman who works under cover in gay circles, like gay bars etc.
There has been a series of murders on gay men and he tries to find the murderer.
Gradually this assignment changes him as a person and the relationship with his girlfriend becomes somewhat strained.

He also becomes more and more ambivalent concerning his own sexuality and feels more and more inclined to use violence.

Gay people and organisations in the USA protested when the film was released in 1980.
They found the description of gay people with S & M preferences and a lot of violent and promiscuous behavior to biased.

I'm (Gunnar) inclined to agree as gay people in this movie are described in a very one-sided way, arranging people's behaviour after their sexual preferences.
Of course people with this kind of preferences exist, both among homo-hetero- and bisexuals and there is nothing strange about this, as long as you enjoy 'the game' but just focusing on one distinct behaviour tend to increase the prejudices against non-heterosexuals, not least in a country as USA.

Sometimes we find the opposite. In order to defend the rights of homo- bi- and transsexuals (among others), some people tend to define - not least homosexual men - not as individuals with individual traits but as a group of persons, all with a higher moral, being kinder and more gentle than e.g. heterosexal men and this is of course not true and also counterproductive.
In short: This film was a bit to tendentious.


'The Boys in the Band' (Friedkin) is also a movie about gay men.

If 'Cruising' was biased in direction towards the violent aspects, this film takes on a - for certain heterosexuals - more acceptable portrayal of gay men.

A birthday party becomes the scene for settlements between the different pairs and as one part in this film we see the main character's - Michael - friend from school who all of a sudden visits Michael and the ongoing party.
He is conservative concerning sexual behavior and life and is not aware of that Michael is gay.

Michael first wants to hide it but this doesn't work out well. He then tries to show that the 'straight' friend underneath the surface also is gay but that he not yet has 'come out from the closet'.

Michael is also on a personnel level wrestling with his own sexuality as it contradicts his catholic belief.

In this film we find a lot of clichés too: The pantywaist gay men swirling around, flirting constantly.
It's obviously hard to depict homosexual men without these clichés.


'Screaming Mimi' by Gerd Oswald is Anita Ekbergs irst leading rôle and judging from her acting it should maybe have been her last. However, if so, she had never been given the chance to act in La Dolce Vita!

Her character is thrown in to a deep trauma after her dog is killed by a patient from a psychiatric ward.
She is taken to a psychiatric hospital and a psychologist takes care of her in a way that goes beyond his obligations towards patients.
He is in love with her and he gradually takes advantage of her vulnerable situation and makes her more and more dependant on him.

She starts to work as a dancer with the psychologist as her 'manager'.
A journalist becomes interested in her and the relationship with the 'manager' after a murder on a young woman and an attempt to murder Ekbergs rôle character.

It's not only Anita Ekbergs acting that leaves a lot to be desired. The actor creating the role as a psychiatric patient, killing the dog of Ekbergs character, is also exaggerated, creating a plagiary, corresponding to some people's idea's of a patient in a psychiatric ward.

A lot have to be blamed on the director.

Aurore laughed a great deal during the film and this was probably not intended by the director.

His aim was to make a thriller. He didn't quite succeed.

07 October 2006

Åmells & Charade & The Garage


Vernissage at Gallery Åmells:

Contemporary artists like Ola Billgren, Ernst Billgren, Jan Håfström, Lars Englund, Lena Cronqvist, Jockum Nordström and many more.





































In addition to this there were other artists of whom I've never heard.
Aurore didn't visit this exhibition today.

After this we both went to the Academy Bookstore to listen to the author Alexander Ahndoril talking about his book 'The Director' ('Regissören').

This is a novel about a director by the name of Ingmar Bergman and other characters in this book are for example Sven Nykvist, Harriet Andersson, Käbi Laretei, (one of Bergmans wives and a concert pianist), Max von Sydow and so forth.

In spite of this Ahndoril does not want to characterize this book as a biography but rather a novel.

Bergman first became extremely angry and furious "wanting to kill me..." as Ahndoril puts it.
After reading it, one of his first reactions was: "How the hell could you know this. I haven't told anyone about it....". Whether this is true or not is of course hard to determine.

Creating a pseudo biography about one of the most famous Swedish personalities, has of course lead to a great interest in this book, something I pointed out to Ahndoril during the part when we had the opportunity asking him questions about his œuvre.

Unfortunately Ahndoril himself was not a good lecturer, as often is the case with authors.
He didn't seem to be particularly well prepared, either.


Cinema Sture and the film Charade by Stanley Donen with Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Walter Matthau, James Coburn and many more.

This is a movie about a woman whose husband dies in a violent way, not being the person she thought him to be and now confronted with five men who wants money her husband is said to have hidden, thinking she knows where they are.
She meets a mysterious man (Grant) who constantly changes his name and identity but says he wants to help her against the other three men whose only interest is forcing her to give away information she is not in possession of.

A french policeman and a CIA-agent (Matthau) is also involved.
Noone seems to be telling her the truth and she gets more and more confused, not being able to trust anyone.

A most entertaining thriller-comedy. I recommend it for those of you who haven't seen it.

After this 'Garaget ' by Vilgot Sjöman.

A thriller about two men, a principal and a teacher in the same school.
The principal is a man married to a wealthy woman with whom he tries to escape taxation in Sweden by depositing money in a Swiss bank.

This is done with a great deal of assistance from his father-in-law who helps them out economically.

The principal is not happy in his marriage and is engaged in a relation with his friend, the teacher's wife.
She tries to take her life in the beginning of the film but
is rescued by the two men.
Moreover, the teacher has a relationship with a young student though he is a Christian and believer, talking a lot about moral both in his teaching and in his private life. In the latter he is a victim - if I may say so - of deep moral pondering.


The story includes two murder attempts at the woman who is saved in the beginning and these murder attempts are carried out by her husband and the principal. One of them succeeds but the wrong person is convicted.

Moral questions are being presented and discussed and as in real life the ones you think is morally 'chaste and pure' is not.






(Photo painting at the top taken form: The artist and http://www.galleryengstroem.se/gallery/jpggalry/backlnsk.jpg)
(Photo art work by Billgren taken from: The artist and http://www.omkonst.com/Bilder06/billgren1.jpg)
(Photo art work by Englund taken from: The artist and http://www.blaskan.nu/Bilder/lars_englund_i3538.jpg)
(Photo art work by Cronqvist taken from: The artist and http://images.artnet.com/artwork_images_117962_247813_lena-cronqvist.jpg)

06 October 2006

Fukushu suru wa ware ni ari


La vengeance est à moi - Shohei Imamura - Trailer
envoyé par k-chan. - Regardez des web séries et des films.

The film at Cinema Sture/(Cinemateket) was Shohei Imamura's
Vengeance is mine ('Hämnden är min'), a film about a massmurderer who kills people for no obvious reason.

Imamura doesn't try to explain anything concerning the murderer's behaviour.
He is not interested in discussing what is wrong and what is right. He leaves the moral aspects to the viewer.

In one scene, the murderer states that he has killed 'innocent' people but as we all know it's quite hard to decide whether someone is 'innocent' and if so in what sense.

It's obvious that many of the victims have a vast conscience and lead lives that are morally questionable. If this gives the main character the right to kill, that is also a question about moral and what moral you embrace.

It's an interesting film about guilt, genetic and social factors forming a person's life and the enigmatic question of the human nature as such.

I recommend it!

05 October 2006

Stockholm 750 years - War and Peace


Chopped part of Vädersoltavlan ("The Sun Dog Painting")
(Storkyrkan/The Cathedral, Stockholm)

Stockholm City Museum again!

'A Journey in Time - Stockholm's 750th anniversary' - an exhibition guiding the visitors through the history of Stockholm.

The journey starts in 1252 (when Stockholm first was mentioned as a town) on the small island sited between Lake Mälaren and the Baltic Sea where Birger Jarl (a jarl were at the time the second most important person in a region or in the country after the king. Jarl and the English earl have similar etymological background) built a small citadel.
Then the exhibition continues through the winding alleys of the little town to the fine streets and splendid palaces of Sweden's European prosperity.

Stockholm during the Middle Ages
Different tableaus depict the different centuries and decades with important events illuminated.

The city of industry where trams, buses and motor-cars demanded space and new roads to travel on.

In the 1950s one can take to the air from Bromma; Stockholm had become part of a wider world with the subway, after international patterns but much later than in other big cities, in Stockholm being built step by step.

FILM:

After this: 'War and Peace' by King Vidor with among others Henry Fonda, Audrey Hepburn and Anita Ekberg.
A costume-film with a somewhat theatrical way of acting. It is as if the director Vidor thought that people in the upper-classes in those days spoke and acted as if they were actors in a play.
Another 'problem' in the movies of the time is that all people speak English, both the Russian general and Napoleon Bonaparte but of course with a small accent indicating from where they originate.

In the end, a quite fascinating movie in spite of all my critic remarks. A classic 'grand-film'.









(Bild på Jubileumsmynten i guld kopierat från: http://www.falcoin.se/media/Moderna%20jubileumsmynt/2000%20KR%202002%20Stockholm%20750%20%C3%A5r%20%283%29.jpg)
(Photo 'Vädersolstavlan'/'The Sun Dog Painting' taken from:
 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a/V%C3%A4dersoltavlan_cropped.JPG)
(Picture medieval Stockholm taken from:http://www.jernkontoret.se/globalassets/stalindustrin/stalindustrins-historia/stockholm-1574b.jpg/HugeThumbnailh)
(Bild på 'Staden på vattnet' kopierat från: http://img.tradera.net/images/154/251740154_46597dc1-2882-4b09-a5da-5d43d2814282.jpg)

04 October 2006

Stockholm 1956



The Stockholm City Museum:

Photo exhibition about Stockholm in the year 1956.
The museum displays photos from one of the big newspapers in Sweden - Svenska Dagbladet - taken by their photographers during their work in the capital.
Hamngatan
Many similarities with the current situation: A great number of unemployed people, the winter of 1956 was unusually cold and the ice was so thick that, sometimes, boat traffic in Stockholm came to a standstill.
Stureplan

Motor traffic was one of the big questions. Forecasts suggested that traffic in Stockholm would increase almost astronomically. There were serious parking problems and a municipal tax on cars was discussed!
The housing queue comprised 280.000 people (today 250 000?), with priority given to families with children.


After this:

'Svensk Form' and the exhibition 'Design S'.
The Advertising Association of Sweden, the Swedish Industrial Design Foundation and Svensk Form (the Swedish Society of Crafts and Design) have jointly created Swedish Design Award to reward Sweden's best design solutions with a 'Design S'.

Swedish Design Award aims to demonstrate that good design can lead to better communication, better business, better functionality and better sustainability.

Some of it interesting, some of it makes you wonder why they have been rewarded. But this is natural when the concern is not always the best design but the designer you know and like.

After this a lecture about design in different areas and how one shall protect it - the question about immaterial rights, copyrights and so forth.

Interesting and a good lecturing from Albihns International IP & Law Offices - Sara Pers-Krause.




(Photo 1956 taken from: https://stockholmskallan.stockholm.se/skblobs/bb/bb3c5d09-8d2a-4a3e-9821-9de8455e741a.jpg?preset=pp-432)
(Photo, Hamngatan taken from: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/dd/Hamngatan_1956a.jpg/360px-Hamngatan_1956a.jpg)
(Photo Stureplan taken from: http://www.fastighetsvarlden.se/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/sturekvarteren-old.jpg)

03 October 2006

A Handful of Love and Bled number one

"A Handful of Love(En handfull kärlek) by Vilgot Sjöman is a movie about the problems with poverty and unemployment in Sweden during the initial years of the 1900:s and especially 1909 with the big General Strike in Sweden.
Allt this happened during the years of consolidation of the Social Democratic Party prior to the times when they became really influential.

We are also displayed the great conflicts between the military and the workers and how wealthy businessmen became even richer thanks to these social problems.
Gradually we become aware of a change in the workers loyalties and the development of political pragmatism:
They become more and more 'bourgeois' and connections between the 'upper class' and the working class on individual level was legio, though not officially recognized of course, as this would perturb the official historical writing as both 'sides' have depicted it.

I liked the movie and especially the acting with no exaggerations making it quite realistic. IMDb only gives it 5,2 out of 10 but I rank it higher.

CineFrançais and the movie Bled number One by Rabah Ameur Zaïmeche.

A film about Algeria and the conflicts between old traditions, culturally, religiously and socially as they are exposed in the life in a little village and the 'modern' way of life without the historical connotations.

A man and a woman living in Paris for many years for different reasons individually and with no special connection between them, one day turns back to their home village.
There they confront the problems with narrowmindedness and intolerance.
The man having spent some years in prison in France and the woman having left her husband with whom she lives without loving him.

The movie tries to tell the story in a more documentary way with long parts with no dialogue and 'small talk' between people.
A group of young men depicting themselves as 'true muslims' have created a civil citizen movement group teaching the 'right understanding' of the Koran and punishing them who do not live after the rules they have decided is the correct teaching.

The movie lacks originality - a fresh approach. We have seen this way of making a movie before and the theme is dated.


Bled number one - Bande Annonce - Vost FR
envoyé par _Caprice_. - Les dernières bandes annonces en ligne.



(Photo poster 'En handfull kärlek' taken from: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51AVPrLnybL.jpg)

02 October 2006

Vera Cruz


At Cinema Sture they show Vera Cruz by Robert Aldrich.

A classical western movie with strong, tough, fast shooting men and beautiful and shrewd women.

Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster in the male leading roles and Denise Darcel and Sara Montiel as their female counterparts.

What is there to say?
An old school western with "bad guys" and "good guys"' and likewise gals.

Entertaining if one disregard all the clichés.

01 October 2006

Nordic landscape painting 1840-1910

We started out with Nordic landscape painting 1840-1910 at the National Museum of Art (in Stockholm), an exhibition with painters from Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark and Island.

Some of the paintings from the museum's own collections, some from other museums in Scandinavia.

The paintings were organised in five different themes, 'mood'/'atmospheric'-painting, 'the inner landscape' and so forth.

From this exhibition we went on to Kulturhuset ("the Cultural Center"/"The Culture House") to see the artist Jin-Sook So, a textile-artist working in different materials and forms. She was born in South Korea but lives in Sweden since 1978, having studying both in Sweden and in her native country.

'The first at Moderna' is the recurring exhibitions the first day of every month at Moderna museet (Museum of Modern Art) where a new artist is introduced, showing some of the works in the presence of the artist her- or himself.

This time it is the Canadian artist Janice Kerbel. For a description of her work, take a look at the link to the museum above.







(Photo painting at the top taken from: http://www.artsmia.org/mirror-of-nature/images/e/cat_024_cd.jpg)

(Photo piece of art, Jin-Sook So, right above taken from: http://www.browngrotta.com/Media/30jss.jpg)
(Photo piece of art Janice Kerbel above taken from: http://www.canadianart.ca/online/see-it/2008/09/25/kerbel2_448.jpg)