Niceland (Population 1.000.002)

I go on explorind icelandic movies, this one was shot in 2004 by Friðrik Þór Friðriksson (actually it's co-production of Iceland, Denmark, Germany and the UK). The film is rather short but definitely nice and touching. Its plot revolves around love between two mentally retarded young people, as it is said in the synopsis. But I actually didn't mention their backwardness while watching the movie. They are naive, straightforward and a bit strange, but in this film everyone is strange. And the main hero, Jed, sometimes turnes out to be more perceptive, balanced and wise than, say, his father. His motives may be simple-hearted, but he's totally sincere, and that's the source for the power he needs. Power not to become desperate when something goes wrong, to face his fears and to find the answer to the main question - what is the purpose of life. And not to be scared.

Artificial intelligence (again) and a little bit of Star Trek

Another movie about a perfect robot looking like a real man, this one is by Spielberg.
I don't actually want to write a review on this film. I wouldn't say that its message is pioneering, the more films about supercomputers I watch the more I realize they are all alike. One of the special features of such movies is that a perfect computer has a strong resemblance to a human being. And that is the point I can't understand. I wouldn't like to live in a world where I couldn't tell a human from a machine. Even if it has an artificial intelligence, the machine is still just the machine, no matter how it looks like. The similarity to a living thing just makes it more difficult (sometimes even impossible) to make a decision and switch it off if necessary.

I'm here

It's about the 2010 short movie by Spike Jonze. Не is a weird guy known by the film "Being John Malkovich" and by the MTV show "Jackass".
The movie "I'm here" is also a bit strange. It's about the world inhabited by robots equally with people. At the same time, robots seem to have lower social status than people do. Maybe that's one of the reasons why they look like they were constructed from the parts of a very old PC. However, this makes them really cute, especially the facial expressions are very touching.
And that's the main reason for watching this film. If you want to spend half an hour seeing nice things, that would be a good choice. For the plot seems really poor to me. It's an ordinary melodramatic story of a modest guy falling in love with a cool girl and then getting her out of troubles almost at the cost of his life. It's so simple and you'll always know what's going to happen next. But it's so sweet nevertheless.

And there's only one thing I can't understand. Why on Earth should anybody create a robot that can't be repaired without causing a loss to another robot? Even if it's just an idea for a movie, it's so absurd that I can't accept it anyway. They are robots, aren't they? Then shouldn't legs and arms and other stuff be just spare parts?

On the air (by David Lynch) - part 2

Some time ago I wrote about a short TV series by Lynch that I had started watching. Now finally I've seen it all, and I can say that my first impression of it was correct. The mixture of absurdity introduced by Lynch and   more prosaic humour (by Mark Frost?) and the plot in whole is perfectly balanced and makes the TV series both charming and funny. There is a peculiar atmosphere of the made-up studio that forces you to watch episodes one by one non-stop. I think that if you loved "Twin Peaks", you would most likely love "On the air" as well.

Me and languages

In case if you want to know something about me.
The list of languages that I have ever started to learn is rather vast. Unfortunately, in most cases the initiative ended in nothing. I think that's because I couldn't find application for this knowledge in real life and so I lost the motivation gradually.
It all started with French which was expected to become my third language, after Russian and English. But it didn't work. I can hardly put two words together, despite having spent about 10 years learning this one.
Then there were several attempts to learn German, but every time I quit in a couple of months, for I didn't just like the sound of it.
After that came two years of Latin at school. That was great, and I still remember some poetry and sayings that we learned there. And we also translated a bit of Cicero speeches, which was a real challenge.
The next step was trying to learn Sindarin and Quenya, the languages created by Tolkien. But I was clever enough not to go deeply into these, because it would definitely have no use in real life.

Artificial intelligence

Yesterday I watched the movie "I, robot". I wouldn't say it's full of innovative ideas, but it resulted in my husband and I discussing the advantages and disadvantages of an artificial intelligence.

As for me, I would have switched all the machines off after such an accident as described in the movie. I can't say I'm a robot-hater, but the idea of an allmighty and omniscient computer does frighten me. If the machine obtains consciousness, humanity would be no rival to it.

There are two possible alternatives of what comes next, I suppose. On the one hand, the machine may try to find out the purport of life, discover its uselessness and commit a suicide. On the other hand, it may soon realize that carbon forms of life are inefficient, have low potential and therefore are destined to destruction.

My husband said it looks like a phobia, but I can't agree with him. The machines exist in our life for quite a short period of time, and we still don't know where the scientific progress can lead us. I think we should regard futuristic movies and books more as a caution than just as fiction.

World of glory

It's one of the most weird movies I've seen.
This Swedish short movie was shot in 1991 and tells us about an ordinary life of an average person. It's made in the best traditions of Scandinavian social cinema - the camera doesn't move, and even the main character himself stays still almost all the time. The other people on the screen seem not to be aware of the shooting process, and this collision of conditional and real worlds is really interesting. It is a sort of a counterpoint, together with the contradiction between the title of the movie and its content.
The general idea appears to be close to "The bothersome man", but in the "World of glory" it's shown in a more severe way. We can see what a person has to conceal living in a world that may seem to be perfect from an outsider's viewpoint. The film is said to be a comedy, but I'm far from agreeing with that. As for me, the things shown in the movie are too scary to laugh at.

On the air (by David Lynch)

I never knew Lynch had shot TV series except for "Twin Peaks". But he did.
"On the air" is a sitcom by this fabulous director, filmed in 1992 and telling about the 1950's.

Honestly, I couldn't have imagined a sitcom by Lynch. I've seen only the first episode so far, but I'm going to proceed.

The plot is rather simple - a TV company is trying to put on a live program "The Lester Guy Show", but everything that can go wrong does go wrong. So they have lots of comical troubles, but in the end it's a hit, as their chief tells them by phone.

Of course, the air is full with oddity so characteristic of Lynch. It can be felt mainly in the details, but they are the basis of the whole show. Traditional gags turn into illustrations of absurdity of our life.

So, I'm looking forward to seeing the rest episodes.

H is for House

This short film was the first movie directed by Peter Greenaway that I've ever seen. I heard a lot about his works, but I didn't dare to watch any of them for a long time.
As far as I know, Greenaway is fond of creating sort of visual vocabularies. We certainly won't look for any connection between the things and ideas, designated with words beginning from the same letter, but at the same time these things are inseparably linked in our mind by means of language. So the movie shows us the absolute illogicality of it by providing us with an absurd set of words beginning with H. Some things that should be connected begin from different letters, e. g. sun and heliocentric. And some opposite ideas both begin with H, e. g. heaven and hell.
The interesting thing is that the older we get, the less we notice this absurdity of words. We get captured by our language and don't even realise it.
What Greenaway also shows in this short film is that things that we say or do can have as little sence as this simple enumeration of words. The most hard and most important altogether is to single out the meaningful segments. And you have to do it in your real life as well as while watching the movie. Although the film was shot in 1973, I think the ideas that it reveals are still topical issues.

Noi the Albino (Nói albinói)

Finally I've watched it, and I liked the movie a lot. "Noi the Albino", filmed by Dagur Kári in 2003,  seemed very nice to me, and it contains a great number of interesting, original scenes that attract the viewer's attention.
It gave birth to many thoughts in my head, and I think it's one of the main tasks for a good movie. Some concerned the everyday life of people in Iceland. For example, I wonder if the scene of a cooking lesson in French was fictitious or not.

The other thing I'd like to mention is that the idea of a small remote village in Russia and in Iceland differs a lot. Actually, I wouldn't have called what I saw on the screen a village at all.

Two birds (Smáfuglar)

While I don't have enough free time to watch a full-length film, I try to content myself with short ones.
The movie "Smafuglar" was shot in Iceland in 2008 by Rúnar Rúnarsson and won lots of awards.
At first I didn't like it. Was it longer, I might even have switched it off after the outset of the plot. But I knew it would last only 15 minutes, so I kept watching.
The main theme is sex, as well as in "101 Reykjavik", and it seems to me that there are many more icelandic movies concerning it. The characters in "Two birds" are much younger, I'd call them kids. This makes it harder to watch the film.
But the upshot is so great, that every thing that caused any aversion just fades away in its radiance. It turnes the movie into a story of love and self-sacrifice, where a young boy has to make a mature decision. And I think the boy who played the main role did it great.
Surely the movie is oppressive. But you don't lose faith in people after watching it. At least in some of them.

Meyrink vs Kafka

Both these writers lived in Praha at the same time, in the beginning of the 20th century. It was a tough time, so it's not surprising that it affected the writers deeply.
But I had no idea of them being contemporaries or compatriots until I read their books. At first I noticed similar motives concerning the authorities in "Process" and "Golem". That's why I looked up in Wikipedia if the writers knew each other, and it turned out that they just lived in the same place.
Recently I've finished reading "The Walpurgis night" by Meyrink, and there I found an intersection with Kafka once more. The beginning of "The Walpurgis night" seems to be sort of reflection of Kafka's "The Castle". Kafka writes about life in the Village ruled by the Castle, which is in some way mythical, though it can be seen from the Village. And in the Meyrink's novel we see the world from the point of view of the Castle. For the people who live there crossing the bridge separating them from the lower part of the city seems to be very dangerous or even impossible.
It's no wonder that the writers described similar things, for they were under similar and rather strong circumstances, but that's really interesting and amusing to find these parallels while reading various books.

101 Reykjavik

I wanted to watch an Icelandic movie in order to learn something about the culture of this country. I hadn't heard much of their cinema before I decided to watch something, so it was a completely random choice, but I can't say it was a good one.
Not that it is a bad movie. It's not a masterpiece, but not a failure either. It's just an average Scandinavian movie, showing all there is to know about the society and its hidden problems. I would say it's too gloomy though. The film is said to be a comedy, but I didn't find anything to laugh at.
It seems that there is nothing but windy evenings and night bars in Reykjavik, and I hope that's not true. The main character is an ordinary jobless man living with his mother. He strives for nothing, and at the same time he complains about boring and meaningless life. He can't even commit a suicide, it's too much for him to do that.
The other theme of the movie is sex in any possible form. Other viewers praise the brilliance of the plot, but I don't see anything great in the story of a man having sex with his mother's lesbian lover and impregnanting her. It may be a way to attract attention to the real problems of the society, but it seems to be some sort of delirium nevertheless. As if people were so shallow that nothing else could be of any interest to them.
There were some good moments in the movie, but the overall impression is rather dreary. If life in Iceland is really like that, I wouldn't like to visit this country. I can only hope that watching this film was the same as watching a Russian movie, where everybody is an alcoholic with no future. The only difference is that we wouldn't call that a comedy.

Faust (by Sokurov)

I wanted to watch this movie for a long time, and finally I felt that I was ready to do that.
I decided to watch it with russian subtitles so that I was able to hear the genuine german speech.
When I asked other people what their opinion on the film was, they all agreed on one thing, that they wanted to review it. And I got the same feeling.

St. Patrick's parade

I used to celebrate St. Patrick's day a few years ago, and in Moscow there was always a parade, it took place since 1992, actually. They always blocked the traffic on one of the streets in the center of Moscow, and it never surprised me.
It was such fun participating in the parade, and I loved it. But after some time I became more passive and began to celebrate at home or with a couple of friends. And this year I've been disappointed to learn that our government doesn't allow to hold a parade on the street that has to be blocked any more. Last year there was no parade at all, and this year it was organised on a relatively small pedestrian street.
So people here, in Moscow, are no longer interested in this joyful holiday. That's a bit frustrating.

Model thinking quizes

I've been taking the Model Thinking class for some time, and it's a pity that the errors in the quizes and questions inside the video lectures are becoming more frequent.
Not a big deal, but I'd like not to choose between "option text" and "option text" instead of possible answers. The irony was that none of this "option texts" turned out to be correct))
The problem with quizes is mostly explained by the necessity of automated control, of course. But that's a little annoying to see that the right answer isn't correct after all.
I'm still loving the course and enjoying it, I just want it to be even better than it is.
Enough is as good as a feast, though =)

Chapiteau-show

Recently I've watched the new russian movie by Sergey Loban, "Chapiteau-show", which had huge success on the 33rd Moscow International Film Festival. Initially I wasn't interested in it, but the director in the theatre where I work told me it could be worth watching, and I trust his opinion.
I don't regret having spent almost 4 hours on this film. It is said to be a comedy with the elements of drama, but it seems to be vice versa. The air is oppressing and gloomy, though there are lots of absurd and funny situations.

Welcome

I used to have a livejournal some time ago. It was rather amusing to write down my thoughts about books I read and movies I saw, but it was also very important for me to post my hand made stuff so that other people could see what I do and maybe order something from me.
Unfortunately, that didn't work. I started a website, and I had no time and no motivation to write about movies or books any more. But now things seem to get back to normal, and I regret having given up blogging. However, resurrection of an old journal isn't the thing I really want. It seems better and more interesting to start a new page in my life.

The previous blog was in russian, and it can be found here, if anyone is interested in it.

Now I want to try to write in both russian and english, though it seems a challenge).

So my new russian blog is on yandex, and here I'll try to express my thoughts in english.

I hope my language is bearable for those who're gonna read this)