"Stella: One Woman's True Tale of Evil, Betrayal and Survival in Hitler's Germany" by Peter Wyden (1992)

 

I saw this book in a souvenir shop of the Berlin's Jewish Museum - it attracted me instantly and I made a mental note to find it later. It took me forever to actually put my hands on the book that is out of print and difficult to find but once I started reading it, I could not put it down. It was very gripping and the last few chapters were particularly interesting as they discuss various psychological aspects and post-traumatic behaviour of not only war survivors but their children as well. I should probably go back and re-read them again. 

The unusual subject of the story - a Jewish woman collaborating with Nazis and hunting other Jews in a wartime Berlin - combined with clumsy but earnest writing (the author is bursting with a desire to tell this story, so it might appear unpolished) made for a gripping read. It is a very serious subject, documented with a real-life characters and places - on top of this, there is quite a lot of soul-searching as Wyden constantly goes back to his idealised school crush Stella who has in the meantime became a symbol of evil. Or survival? Wyden is aware that nothing is black-and-white and often asks himself what would HE do if he was in the same situation. And there is a very the thin line between being simply a opportunist (like a nurse Elly who had a relationship with Nazi Dobberke, but had not hurt anyone) and a full-blown collaborator (like Stella who had actually hunting people and sending them to Auschwitz). 

Wyden twists himself in a pretzel trying to understand how can someone like Stella send people to their deaths and still continue to live, apparently satisfied with herself - there is this monumental discussion of guilt and survival - but here I must put my own five cents in: I went trough a war myself. And with all the darkness and fear around me, I have never ever lost the sight of my moral compass and never hurt anybody, in fact I was always perfectly polite to civilians because this is who I am and forever will be. I understand there will always be some who will protect their own skin, but this is how the world turns, I am not one of them and refuse to accept something that is morally wrong and offensive. There were others, also arrested and tortured like Stella, who refused to collaborate with Gestapo and rather went to Auschwitz - so she is more of a crooked exception than a example. 

"Poor Things" by Yorgos Lanthimos (2023)

 

In retrospective, I should just not even bother.

When my original cinema partner suddenly cancelled what was the perfect Sunday plan, I found myself stuck with cinema tickets and restaurant reservation. And since Virgo's love to plan everything in advance, this was extremely frustrating because I had this outing in mind the whole week before that. When person B started requesting different screening time, it became even more problematic. At the end I end up dragging my poor other half (who has all sorts of stomach problems at the moment and is not a good cinema company), cancelling the restaurant and basically changing the whole damn plan. And the cinema was full of obnoxious people who could not find their seats, talked loud amongst themselves and basically were just a nuisance. 

And the film - oh the film was so hyped as the best thing ever and judging by some critics, even best film of the year. Fear not, it is not. It is luxuriously wrapped (in spectacular cinematography) overblown saga that combines elements of Frankenstein with Kaspar Hauser with some pro-feministic philosophy added as a spice. It boasts well known and bankable talents of Willem Dafoe, Emma Stone and Mark Ruffalo plus some beautiful cameos by Hanna Schygulla (random passenger on a cruise ship) and Kathryn Hunter ( a bordello madame). It follows Stone as some sort of Frankenstein-creature who escapes the confinement of her maker's elegant home and goes to experience the adventures with horny Mark Ruffalo in tow. It starts quite good (all black & white) than turns into full MGM cinemascope fantasy once Stone enters the world but after a while you realise that the movie just meanders without any effective purpose expect to shock the audiences with never ending visual gimmicks and insistence on perpetual upsetting of the audience with more nudity, more cunnilingus, etc. 

The movie would honestly gain from shorter screening time and better editing - if the director Yorgos Lanthimos focused more on a straightforward story instead of piling up special effects and more sex jokes, perhaps it would be more bearable - I found myself constantly looking at the watch, feeling bad for my sick partner (and his rumbling stomach) and it was annoying to realise that all this mega-hype resulted in a stone faced audience and the only people in the cinema who were actually entertained were some teenagers who probably thought all this sex jokes were so cool and funny. I just did not find it funny at all - the character of Emma Stone is basically a revived zombie who finds herself learning how to walk, talk and behave, in the process she also discovers the joys of sex & masturbation and most of the jokes come from her bluntness about it (usually in the public places). As she grabs every fruit and vegetable from the dinner table and stuff it inside herself, the audience is initially shocked but it gets tiresome after a while and I just did not find it nor funny nor entertaining. I apologised to my cinema partner (suffering in silence and not laughing once) as we left the cinema. critics loved it, I did not. Not the first time it happens. 

Books, books and more books!

Thanks to a website Goodreads where occasionally I check out the recommendations and keep my own list of how much I read, the self-imposed number of 12 books per year was accomplished in 2023. To be honest, that was not even particularly large number but it seemed reasonable, after giving myself much higher numbers previously and than it made me feel disappointed when it did not happen. The success of last year, inspired me to lift it up slightly and instead of 12 this year I gave myself 24 books to read. I don't think its difficult and in fact, I am doing perfectly well so far, in fact I am on the track and its not even half of February. Streisand 1000-page autobiography took a while but I continued and added a few more titles.

"The Postman Always Rings Twice" (1934) is now known more as a classic film noir but once upon a time it was a book. And not just any book, but a scandalous and shocking bestseller that people bought because it was all about sex and deviant behaviour and lovers who not only plot how to kill the husband but also enjoy sort of brutal sex that reflects how violent they were (in minds of the audience). I don't remember the movie but the book was not bad, except that naturally today is not so scandalous anymore - there is still some interesting atmosphere and chilling coldheartedness about the lovers plan, in fact both of them are nasty piece of work, by far the nicest person in the book is actually a husband who is purposely made to be annoying but actually he is a sweetheart. I mean, his only sin is that he is Greek and sweet-natured. 

"Childhood's End" (1953) is a very highly regarded book by SF master Arthur C. Clarke - with Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein he is celebrated as genius of science fiction genre. Which made him intimidating to me and I always expected his books might be too technical for me - you know, when they go into elaborate description of the space ships and you feel like an idiot for not understanding any of it - this one was a safe bet because it grew out of the popular short story he wrote in 1950 and than enlarged into a book version several years later. Its about the arrival of alien space ships on Earth and how their seemingly friendly, peaceful and harmless intentions eventually turn much darker than initially perceived. It was actually quite gripping because this is more or less how I always imagined aliens to be - benevolent at first but in reality still totally alien to us. Quite excellent, this one.

"From the Dust Returned" (2001) was incidental choice because I decided to read a horror for a change - completely coincidentally it was by another SF genius Ray Bradbury and he also created it out of previously published short story.  Also it was not horror at all but a very, very beautiful dark fantasy collection, tailored for a Halloween reading - dark but not disturbing, simply beautiful. Its about a old house inhabited by all sorts of magic creatures and how they live in a complete harmony, hidden from the outside world - there is a real Egyptian mummy ("“A Thousand Times Great Grandmère"), her husband, a magic spider, a magic cat, winged Uncle Einar, perpetually sleeping visionary Cecy who can enter other people's bodies in her sleep, etc, etc - and a little human boy Timothy. Its just a beautiful book, written in a style that is just breathtaking. I didn't mind it being a collection of obviously short stories because they were all beautiful and somehow connected. I thought it was interesting that magic creatures feared that their powers will diminish since humans refuse to believe in them any longer, this was kind of idea that Neil Gaiman used for his excellent "American Gods".

"The Zone of Interest" by Jonathan Glazer (2023)

 

Well, this was unusual. And heavy enough to put you in a coma.

Because my other half loves to read and watch everything about the Holocaust, it was inevitable that eventually we will go to cinema to see this - I made a point of not reading anything about it so I will have no preconceptions or expectations, I was totally tabula rasa and even prepared to suffer trough German movie with Dutch subtitles (at this point I am fluent enough in Dutch to actually follow the subtitles without problem). We went on a afternoon projection and apparently this movie is so successful that there was much more audience than I expected, evening projections must be packed.

First we encounter a family picnicking along the river - cleverly, we see them only in a swimwear and witness their bickering, family like any family in the world. Boys are splashing in the water, girls are screaming, mother says follow me this way. Its when the clothes are on, that you realise this is a family of Nazi officer and his household is served by some shadowy, terrified staff. Everything about the house is otherwise neat - there is a beautiful garden, rooms are spacious, everything is very clean and polished, there is even a happy dog barking around. The mother-in-law arrives for a visit and here we find out that this is not originally house of this family, because she is very surprised and delighted with such an opulence - if the family lived here before, she would not be so surprised. Eventually she cannot help but notice the big chimneys and smoke just across the barbed wire fence - there are sounds of shots, people screaming, there are fires and smokes on the other side. Slowly in dawns on bot her and the audience that there is a concentration camp just across the wall - in fact this is Auschwitz and the head of this family is no other but Rudolf Höss (real-life commandant of Auschwitz) - the mother in law is so horrified with what she witnesses, that she leaves the house without even saying goodbye and the note she left behind is unceremoniously tossed in the fire - her daughter has no such scruples and all she cares about it staying in this beautiful house, even when her husband is promoted and sent elsewhere. 

The strongest twist in this movie is that it looks at Auschwitz from a completely new perspective - focusing on a Nazi commandant and his family, not showing anything from a concentration camp but we can hear the sounds - shots, yelling, people screaming in pain, we can see the smoke and fire coming out of the enormous chimneys just above the walls surrounding the house where family lives. Somehow not seeing it but only hearing it makes it even more oppressive, even more ominous. Does the family feels anything about their role? The wife is clearly besotted with the house and the luxury, she has no doubts. Children are curious but learned to hide behind the curtains. And the commandant himself is focused, ambitious and strong - but there is occasional sign that he is perfectly aware of everything, even when he repeatedly retches and is disturbed to find human remains in the river where family swims. Everything about this movie is so haunting.