"And Then We Danced" by Levan Akin (2019)

 

This is something I always wanted to see but postponed time and time again until now I had to because local movie online platform that screens it, is closing due to cinemas being completely re-opened again. (It worked as alternative, during lockdowns) And it might all worked out perfectly in my favour because the last night I was actually just in the right frame of mind to watch it and enjoyed it immensely. I do remember it vaguely as a 2019 hit in the art cinemas, but than epidemic came and swept everything away, its truly like B.C (before Covid) and A.C. (after Covid). 

Director Levan Akin is Swedish born and lives there but he has Georgian background, so for this movie he decided to create affectionate portrait of a (gasp!) gay love story in a deeply conservative and hard-core traditional Tbilisi. He actually had to lie about the movie story, to secure shooting locations. And afterwards there was a big deal about conservative protestors outside of the cinemas, troops guarding the peace and naturally a huge international celebration (it was the biggest hit on  2019 Cannes Film Festival). In discussing the movie I will try to explain what fascinated and impressed me without going on too much into details of the script itself - basically it is a forbidden and secret love story between two dancers in Georgian traditional dance school who also happened to be rivals for spot in the main ensemble. Merab (Levan Gelbakhiani) is sweet, young and fragile boy who carries the troubles of this whole family on his shoulders, while Irakli (Bachi Valishvili) comes out of nowhere as replacement dancer and he is basically charm personified. Now, I knew absolutely nothing about Georgia, I actually had to look on the map where is it - from my perspective it appears as a typical East European place (not unlike where I am from) with most of the people just surviving and living quite apocalyptic lives, youngsters smoking like chimneys and boasting about aunt bringing them fancy cigarettes from London. In all of this - divorced parents, bills unpaid, electricity cut off, nasty part-time job in a restaurant - Merab has his dreams about becoming a professional dancer and he has quite tunnel-vision until the arrival of the new dancer changes everything.

I must admit that I have never seen a movie (O.K. with the exception of "Nomadland" recently) where I felt as the actors were not acting at all and this is all real. Young dancer Levan Gelbakhiani is central here, not only because he is a main role but also because the whole movie depends on how believable he is - and he is astonishing. When first we see him, he is just a skinny boy sulking because someone else might eclipse his dancing success but along the way he falls in love and something magical happens - he becomes giddy with his first love, he blossoms, he somehow becomes beautiful. No one else in a movie (and basically everybody is doing great job) has such magnificent effect like Levian, compared to him everyone else is simple, one sided character but this boy simply explodes in defiance to authority, to criticism, to society. I mean, not for nothing he won tons of awards on the international film festivals. I also must mention that there is quite a lot of spectacular dancing and gorgeous music included, there is one scene where out of the blue some men sing A Capella and this is apparently traditional Georgian thing but my oh my was it breathtaking - kind of combination of ancient music I heard in places like Sardinia, Bulgaria and Byzantine chant. I am listening the soundtrack as I am writing this, its really special. It could be that last night I was in a specific mood when it really touched me, but it was just so perfect. One of the best movies I have seen. 

Downton Abbey

OK so I am really late with this one. I heard about it, saw the pictures and knew it was a huge TV phenomenon but the timing was bad - the celebrated British series started in 2010 but I sailed around the world until 2018 and there was just so much I could catch up on my vacations. Often I felt as I have returned from out of space, because so many things happened in the meantime - neighbours had died, new babies were born, there was a lot of new music and movies, new books ... - I would hoard as much as I could for my next ship assignment but eventually it became clear that one lifetime is not enough to soak everything in. 

Anyway - I had glanced at Netflix and there it was, Downton Abbey in all its glory. And I must say that I fell for it like a sucker. Like a silly fly right into a spider's web. I mean, after years of reading historical novels, I was conditioned to love anything that is British, costumed and has this kind of cast. Even the first 10 minutes - a unforgettable introduction to a huge mansion where servants are busy ants and aristocrats are lazying upstairs - already got me hooked, with servants ironing the newspapers (so the lord won't get dirty fingers from the print) that bring the news about sinking of Titanic. And this changes everything because with the ship went two heirs to this estate (the lord has only daughters and they don't count). This means that the new inheritor must be some distant cousin who (gasp) works as attorney and when he and his widowed mother move to a house nearby, the whole mansion is against them. It would eventually make more sense to get him married to one of the lord's daughters but they were brought as spoiled brats and would not lower themselves to marry someone who is attorney. So the saga goes on and on.

The sheer explosion of visual beauty - interiors, exteriors, costumes, hairstyles, jewellery - the attention to details, the poise of the butlers and the nonchalance of aristocrats, is hypnotising. It all reminded me on "Gosford Park" and that was not accidental as both share the same creator Julian Fellowes who had also decided that series must include Maggie Smith. And now we come to the cast - it feels like there is a cast of hundreds but actually the story really follows around sixteen characters (which is complicated enough, though it flows effortlessly). Hugh Bonneville and Elizabeth McGovern are Earl and his American wife (its wonderful to see her again after so many years) who have three daughters: Lady Mary, Lady Edith and Lady Sybil. The girls initially appear spoiled and bored but somehow trough the series we start feeling sympathy for them. Maggie Smith is delightful dowager grandmother who might be the quintessential British aristocrat, sarcastic and witty - she steals every single scene. Dan Stevens is a distant cousin who inherits the estate and excellent Penelope Wilton his strong willed mother who is the only one who can stand up to the old dowager. And these are just characters upstairs - servants downstairs are world in itself, with their own bosses, leaders, followers, good and bad guys, love affairs, etc. 

I have binged on the first season without doing anything else and loved it - was a little embarrassed that it took me so long to discover it and could not really share my enthusiasm with the world because basically everybody knew about it already. Last night I even moved into season two - at this point I can tell its turning into soap opera with never ending bubbles, but its so skilfully done that I don't mind. I am aware this is not a genuine historical fact but a TV entertainment - still, lots of attention was paid in creation of it. Irresistible and addictive, this is a top shelf costume soap opera. 

The National Museum of Antiquities, Leiden

Recently I wrote a post about visit to Amsterdam's archeological museum and at the back of my mind I always had friend's suggestion to check out the one on Leiden which is supposedly much bigger and more interesting. Now, you would expect that Amsterdam has much bigger collection than one in some small provincial town, but Leiden is apparently university town full of interesting things to see and only 30 minutes away, their archeological museum actually genuinely blew me away. 

The collection started as a private inheritance bequeathed to Leiden University. And then it just grew and grew until today we have a spectacular building in the centre of the old town, where on three floors you have archeological artifacts creating the stories about Ancient Egypt, Etruscans, Ancient Greece, Rome, Prehistoric Netherlands, etc. I must mention how cleverly they put a roof above the original old house, creating extra space on the very top - it is a marvellous and very intelligent design. I went there with two friends who live nearby and accordingly, never bothered to visit the place before - we had a great time and I loved that they both enjoyed it so much. The very first thing we saw on the entrance was magnificent ancient Egyptian temple called Temple of Taffeh and this is a real deal, Egyptian temple given as a gift from Egypt and transported here in 1971, rebuilt stone by stone. It was done as a gratitude because The Netherlands helped to save numerous archeological sites from floods with buildings of Aswan High Dam - here we have a real Egyptian temple from Roman times, built during the emperor Augustus.

I knew we made a mistake immediately when we spent too much time on the ground floor - it is a matter of pacing yourself, because if you get too carried away on the start, you will probably loose attention later. But Ancient Egypt was so fascinating that we just couldn't skip it. Than Greece, Rome, Stone Age Netherlands and on top of this, two more current exhibitions - one about mysterious stone temples in Malta and another about so called "Doggerland" that thousands of years ago connected continental Europe with England (in the period of low sea levels). We have spent four hours in the museum and it was fantastic - I am already making plans to visit again and explore the building from the different direction, perhaps from the top floor downwards. Or perhaps only a floor at the time. Brilliant. 

"Amsterdam: A History of the World's Most Liberal City" by Russell Shorto

I have read Shorto's wonderful "Island at the Center of the World" (about the beginnings of New Amsterdam that later grew into New York) some years ago and always loved it - its kind of non-fiction, historical book that I always gravitate towards, the books that are not stuffy or pretentious but great fun, filled with real characters, anecdotes and informations I can learn from. Shortly after writing that book, Shorto actually moved to Amsterdam, where he lived for a while and was inspired to describe his take on the city's history. And since I have moved in the very same town recently, it was just a matter of time before I will read this book.

It is a very ambitious task that Shorto took - after all, we are talking about the centuries after centuries - he valiantly tries to explain the socio-political atmosphere, while simultaneously talking about certain everyday characters or personalities connected to specific chapter. True, these two are intertwined but to be honest, he lost me every time he went on about philosophy, liberalism and generic themes - I could focus much, much better when he spoke about genuine names, someone I could identify with or at least connect the dots. I absolutely love his writing style and could probably just go on with Shorto right after this, but I feel as I might need a break from non fiction and get something lighter - it has been a while now that I have noticed that internet has completely killed my passion for reading and I have serious attention span problems now, making it very difficult to actually read the books - this one I enjoyed very much and took zillion of notes to discuss with my friends, but it took me forever to finish it. 

1001 Album Club: Podcast

 

A friend mentioned this to me and I gave it a listen - the idea was that a few casual friends meet every week and discuss the quintessential albums listed as 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. 

What was immediately obvious was that these are not educated (or even well read) music critics, these are completely regular guys meeting and discussing what they just heard. My initial reaction was very negative because they come across as children of their own times and completely unaware of anything that has ever been done before - obviously they are stuck in their own time frames and can't wrap their heads around something that was a product of previous era. Lots of giggling, guessing, absolute no knowledge or previous research about the artists and some quasi-serious, authoritative insights that most of the time just made me angry.

However, I found that later I actually go back to this Podcast when I'm in a tram on my way home from work or even as I walk in the street. It took me a few episodes to warm up to them and something strange happened: I realised they are good guys. Yes, they are totally naive and uninformed, they still giggle and say stupid things but what matters is they actually go and listen these old music albums and try to figure them out. Obviously, they are children of their times so its very difficult for them to understand the atmosphere of 1950s and 1960s, but at least they are trying: there is 0 insight or anything fresh they have to say about music itself, since all they do is read Wikipedia. On the positive side, because they are not professionals, the guys react to the music with a clean heart and open ears, so when they really enjoy something, they embrace it with open arms.

For example, they hated debut album by Joan Baez but were absolutely enamoured with Dave Brubeck (so much that one of the guys later went out and bought a record), they very passionately discuss why this particular album is listed as must hear, etc. There is a warm atmosphere around the table and each episode (annoying as they might be, when they talk about my favourite artists and have absolutely no clue) and a feeling that I am a fly on the wall where friends just chat about the music. 

Song of the Day

 

Native American of Kiowa tribe, 1894.

 

Old Amsterdam

 Yesterday I found a loads of beautiful old pictures of Amsterdam and was admiring them the whole afternoon - decided to post some of them here because they are stunning and I in fact know many of these places but naturally they look different now. 

When the worlds collide

 

The Rocky Horror Show

Out of the blue, I got invitation for the theatre - someone got sick, so my friends thought I might enjoy this particular show. It turned out to be a Dutch version of "The Rocky Horror Show" but I was so thrilled to be in live performance again that I would have gladly go on Swahili version. The doors were open only for the people with official proof of Corona vaccination and mine luckily was working for that particular day, since it was exactly two weeks from my second vaccination - I have actually vaccinated exactly for these kinds of situations, this was the logic behind my thinking, I didn't want to be excluded from anything that the rest of humanity can do. If this allows me to travel, to mingle and to check in theatres and cinemas, I'm fine with that.

I noticed already that people waiting in the line were extremely colourful - many of them came wearing all sorts of costumes (nurses, hot pants with net stockings, etc) and were obviously great fans of the show. I only vaguely remembered the 1975. movie with a very young Susan Sarandon and could name a song or two, but that was it. What mattered more to me was the fact that finally, after such a long time I am inside the theatre and watching live performance again - friends told me this is normally home for the very serious stage plays, but tonight it was out-and-out camp musical with fanatical cult following. 

To say that everybody was in a good mood would have been an understatement - people felt the importance of the situation, that we are all finally allowed to mingle mask-less inside the crowded, sold out theatre. The sensation was not exactly pleasant because it has been a long time since I was in such a crowd and it felt almost a little too crowded to me, almost as I forgot how it is to be in a room full of people, where every single seat was taken.

 

The show was fine - it was all in Dutch but they sang roughly half of the songs in English and naturally nothing made any sense to me because the plot is so ridiculous that later I had to go online to read what exactly happened and who was that killed with a chainsaw. There was a huge energy in the beginning, where each character had a solo spot and audience was going wild, repeating themselves exactly what they saw on stage (apparently they all came prepared and had all the gadgets with them) - I felt that curiously the energy dropped a bit towards the end of the show, like it was impossible to keep such a high level of frenzy all the time. Or maybe it was just the story itself that was turning darker and less celebratory. No matter, I was thrilled to be part of it, except that in such situations I am more a observer than participant - I never was someone who talks or sings or whoops during the performances - but maybe next time I would be better prepared and would put the newspaper on top of my head in exact right moment, who knows? 

Long walks and discoveries: Huis te Vraag

I had a day off yesterday and a sudden epiphany: instead of inviting a friend for a usual socialising, why not treating myself with a relaxed day completely on my own, enjoying long walks and museum (cinema?) without waiting , entertaining, listening or someone draining the energy from me. In the normal circumstances it is a pleasure and joy to hang out with people, but yesterday was one of those days when I thought why not just being in my own company and treating myself with some quality time. Even though it was cloudy and windy, I felt it would be great idea to take a walk to place that I have found locked already twice and it still invites me so strongly. 

"Huis te Vraag" (House of question) is a prettiest little forgotten park right in the middle of elegant Amsterdam's south - apparently it all started when Austrian emperor was here on his way to pilgrimage and he asked the directions for Amsterdam. That would have been in the 15th century and later there was a mansion built on this spot - centuries later it became a protestant cemetery. The cemetery itself closed at certain point but the park is still here and locals passionately refused any meddling by big moneyed companies who would love to erase the place and build apartments here (after all, it is a particularly attractive spot now - it used to be out of town but now its completely surrounded with the buildings everywhere). For many years the park was being taken care of by painter Leon van der Heijden and his wife, who had restored the neglected place and after Leon passed away (sadly, in 2020) it seems that volunteers take care of it. 

I walked there twice and twice found locked door - because it is not open all the time but from Tuesday to Friday. However, it looked spectacularly magical and beautiful from outside and I loved how secretive it is, so yesterday I went there for the third time. Hallelujah, I found it open! It is a beautiful little park with a lot of old tombstones (some of them relatively new, I saw burial date in the late 1960s?) and its been kept impeccably - it could have been a jungle but its actually extremely well clean, neat and organised, all the foliage trimmed nicely and paths are easy to follow, it actually looks much better than some much bigger and better known cemeteries. You can tell this is a place that people love. Yes it is a cemetery but it is not a sad place, I would say it is more meditative. There was a lady at the entrance who greeted me with a friendly smile and I felt that the place had a beautiful energy. I am not the one for protests and demonstrations but if this place is ever endangered, I would go on the barricades to fight for it. It is really a beautiful little corner. Still have not decided will I tell everyone about it or keep it for myself only.

"There is not much else to say about the Mood, it is a complete abstraction and yet a physical reality that can be experienced to the extent that whoever takes even one step inside the gate here, immediately realizes within himself that he is entering a special place. He literally steps into a Mood, which lifts him up and carries him further deeper into the Garden." (from its official web site)

Later I was walking trough Vondel park and in the quiet corner, not far from where I actually work, saw a cute little Tea house - I passed it, than returned back, thinking why not having a cup of tea and resting before I continue to a museum. This turned out another beautiful surprise of the day, because not only the place itself attract interesting clientele but it has a very pretty interior, glass dome and a spiritual bookshop. And apparently there are all sorts of healers and Tarot readers around. I was so thrilled to discover such a nice place in a quiet corner of Vondel park, seriously its like 5 minutes away from my work and I have never ever walked there before. Not only that i love the building (real 19th century villa) but the whole idea of special clientele, its like weirdos of Amsterdam united - obviously all kinds of people are attracted to this spot. All sorts of classes, from yoga to tantra. I really felt as I was meant to come here, to this particular spot and to discover it exactly at this moment, right after I have visited little secret cemetery, its like right time has come.  

Long walks and discoveries: Overtoom

I have just found some beautiful historical pictures of the street where I walk almost daily on my way to town - it is a beautiful, long avenue called Overtoom and its wide, classy, full of interesting houses and has a lot of history behind it. It runs parallel with famous Vondel park but I very rarely walk there, so far it was always more interesting to walk along Overtoom and just admire beautiful houses (and some truly cute little ones). I could never in a million years live on Overtoom because it must be one of the more expensive addresses in town, but love just daydreaming when I'm there.

In a present day, Overtoom is a beautiful long avenue full of stately houses that leads from centre (Leidseplein) to the new art of town (Nieuw West) - end of Overtoom is basically where the centre ends.

When I was recently changing the address, I kinds accepted it because my new place was walking distance from end of Overtoom, so although the area is completely new and modern, it was still not too far. At the end of the work, I often walk back home and it is a pleasant 30 minutes walk. 

Originally this was out-of-town area and in fact it was called "Heiligeweg" ("holy way") as it led pilgrims towards the centre and the Miracle of Amsterdam. Than you would arrive at Leidseplein and enter the city gate. Because this was area just before the town, all the smelly businesses like tanners and such were situated here. In 15th century there was a canal here, wide enough for the traffic, transport and shipping. This is when they name Overtoom came in use, as it was a wooden ramp used to pull the ships from one side to another. What was previously empty land, eventually became quite crowded not only with shoemakers, food sellers, carpenters, dairy farmers and all kinds of craftsmen but Amsterdamers themselves who would visit here on weekends to enjoy fairs and such. But because this was still area out of town, it was chosen a place for plague house - the plague house was a square building surrounded by a moat, with a courtyard intersected by a moat, so that the sick could easily be brought in by barge.

Trough the centuries this avenue has slowly completely changed the image, it became place for stately elegant houses and indeed if you look closely, some of the wealthiest people of Amsterdam used to live there. There is a still surprisingly large number of tiny houses visible along the way and they give street a completely unique charm, somehow untouched by the passing of time. A beautiful street and I always enjoy walking along there. 

Salinger and Gunda

It is probably realistic that after the first initial excitement over cinemas being open again and all these super-serious subjects I have seen, the rest will not be comparable to such heights. There are simply not enough quality new movies being promoted on the market. True, I could have turned to some tried old classics like "The Third Man" but I have seen most of them already and stupidly I made a mistake of going rather for something new. Well, I got what I deserve.

"My Salinger Year" had Sigourney Weaver and I thought, well I loved her previous roles, she wouldn't be in a bad movie. Wrong. It is a obvious re-hash of "Devil wears Prada" and its so derivative that I could hardly keep still in the cinema. Except that "Devil wears Prada" was witty, campy, sharp and funny - everything this one is not. It is so half-baked that after the movie one wonders, was that supposed to be a comedy or drama or what? And who is the main character here? It could be that the movie suffers simply because its made of a real-life memoirs so damn reverence might have spoil everything. Just like in "Devil wears Prada" here we have a young, frumpy provincial girl arriving in New York and following her dreams - in this case its not a fashion but literary agency and she has to answer the phones and tiptoe around famous writers, the biggest being J. D. Salinger who must never ever be disturbed with any communications or God forbid media - he famously despises journalists and does not do interviews. Joanna (Margaret Qualley) even has to read his fan letters and reply with a formulaic copy & paste answer - this is all quite silly as she has never read Salinger and has no emotional connection with the agency's biggest star. Salinger is never actually shown, which is a effective idea - unfortunately Joanna is and I find her immensely irritating because she basically mooches around imagining herself to be a real artist and authoress but she is not doing anything about it except being nasty to the other people (like her boyfriend) who actually write and at the end of the movie, just as Sigourney congratulates her on a good job, she victoriously quits and show them all. Since all this time she was not writing at all, I almost gleefully wanted her to be jobless and homeless. It was not funny, it was not dramatic, it was just touching the characters but not really going in any depth about them and the worst of all, I found young & fresh faced Margaret Qualley extremely irritating because her character does not really do anything except answering the phone and read other people's letters + most of the time she is just miserable, smoking and pretending to be serious artiste but there is absolutely zero proof she has any talent except imaginary. Its kind of silly girl's idea of how to be a writer - move to New York and annoy other people around you who have concrete life going on. 

"Gunda" was something else completely and still not exactly a success: I kinda knew what I am getting myself into because I saw a trailer, but still it came as a surprise. It is a black & white documentary (I guess) about life of the animals on the farm - it is completely without a narrative and no music, the only sounds we hear are the natural sounds of flies, wind rustling, cows mooing. It starts with a big sow (presumably the title character) gets new baby piglets, than they squeak and follow her around - than there are some chicken prancing around, cows going playfully out in the fields before camera returns back to the pigsty where the sound of the track signalise the farmer is here to collect the piglets - we never see this, only hear it, which makes it even more effective - Gunda don't understand where are the piglets and frantically searches all over for them, there is desperation and shock in her eyes. The End. 

It is extremely slow - yes, very artsy but if we decide to follow animals rhythm and present it as a movie for humans, it does not work because as a species we are in a completely different plane now. We move fast, we think fast, our entertainment is much faster so when chicken start walking gingerly around, both me and my cinema buddy fell asleep immediately. I mean there is nothing to stay awake for, because the flies are buzzing, the cows are mooing and everything is almost meditative. It is strangely moving and haunting because we knew the piglets from the very start to the end, so its horrible to think they are raised to be somebody's food. We desperately try to infuse them with a human characteristics but it does not really work because they don't really behave like humans - mother sow grunts and almost kill the piglets with her clumsiness  (she actually steps on one and kills him)  but there is a moment just before the truck comes, where we witness something like gentleness between mother and her piglets as she lies at the door of pigsty and her children are sniffing at her affectionately. As a movie it does not really work because its too slow and too unusual - it is more of an experiment , being black & white and scriptless - but it does work as a message that says "look, they are sentient beings who have their own feelings and what we do to them is horrible".