Mittwoch, 7. Oktober 2009
Interview with Daniel Rotman - Social activist in L.A.
http://www.theworldly.org/ArticlesPages/Articles2006/August06Articles/HomelessLA.html
London/China - Beijing Olympics
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http://www.common-talk.com/Common_Talk_Material/CommonTalk/08-9-2/opinions.htm
Olympic baton passed to LondonArticle and photo by Simone Kussatz Translated by Xu Ming
Thousands of people gathered around Trafalgar Square on August 24, 2008 to watch the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. Inclement weather that varied between heavy rain and bright sunshine could not dampen the spirit of viewers seated around the giant screen in the center of the square.
The crowd was a colorful and enthusiastic mix of people from all over the world, including some of London's 60,000 Chinese residents.
Mr. Miao from Shenyang city in Liaoning province has been living in London with his wife and daughter for the past four years and said: “I feel better now. For a century, we were waiting for the Olympics to come to China. Now it has finally happened.” Chinese fans were delighted that the country garnered 51 gold medals. However, Mr. Miao conceded that Chinese athletes had an advantage over competitors from other nations: "They don't have as much of a support system." A female student from Hong Kong who studies at the University of Southampton, said: “The Beijing Olympics were well organized and I feel proud of my motherland.” A Beijing expatriate was particularly pleased about London’s effort to bring the Beijing Olympics to Trafalgar Square: “I’m glad I could see everything here and celebrate with all these fans.”
The crowds roared when the screen showed Beijing mayor Guo Jinlong at the side of IOC president Jacques Rogge handing over the Olympic flag to his London counterpart Boris Johnson. Perhaps the biggest applause came when soccer superstar David Beckham kicked a soccer ball from atop a red London double-decker bus.
伦敦庆祝北京奥运会闭幕2008年8月24晚，成千上万的人们挤在特拉法尔加广场观看北京奥运会的闭幕式。尽管天气状况很不稳定，一会儿大雨倾盆一会儿阳光明媚，还时不时下着小雨，但也没挡住人们坐在为这次奥运会特设的广场大屏幕前观看闭幕式。这些来自世界各地的人都热情洋溢，其中有一些是华人，代表着居住在伦敦的六万中华儿女。他们当中有许多人看到精彩处不禁欢呼雀跃。苗先生来自中国辽宁省沈阳市，与妻女在伦敦已经生活四年了。他说：“现在感觉好多了，我们等奥运会来中国等了一百年了，现在它终于来了。”这些华人为自己国家能获得51枚金牌兴奋不已。不过，苗先生也承认，比起远道而来的外国运动员，中国运动员更有优势。“相比而言，他们没有那么强大的后方支持”，苗先生说。一名来自香港在南安普顿大学求学的女生说：“北京奥运会组织得非常到位，他们为此付出了很大努力。我为我的祖国感到自豪。”一个来自北京的华人表示，伦敦把北京奥运会搬到特拉法尔加广场让人尤其感到欣慰。“在这里什么都能看到，而且还能跟这么多人一起庆祝，真让我开心极了。”当大屏幕上显示站在国际奥委会主席罗格一侧的北京市市长郭金龙把奥运会会旗交给伦敦市市长鲍里斯·约翰逊的时候，全场欢呼。当足球巨星贝克汉姆从红色的伦敦双层巴士车顶上把一只足球踢下去的时候，欢呼声达到了高潮。
Olympic baton passed to LondonArticle and photo by Simone Kussatz Translated by Xu Ming
Thousands of people gathered around Trafalgar Square on August 24, 2008 to watch the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. Inclement weather that varied between heavy rain and bright sunshine could not dampen the spirit of viewers seated around the giant screen in the center of the square.
The crowd was a colorful and enthusiastic mix of people from all over the world, including some of London's 60,000 Chinese residents.
Mr. Miao from Shenyang city in Liaoning province has been living in London with his wife and daughter for the past four years and said: “I feel better now. For a century, we were waiting for the Olympics to come to China. Now it has finally happened.” Chinese fans were delighted that the country garnered 51 gold medals. However, Mr. Miao conceded that Chinese athletes had an advantage over competitors from other nations: "They don't have as much of a support system." A female student from Hong Kong who studies at the University of Southampton, said: “The Beijing Olympics were well organized and I feel proud of my motherland.” A Beijing expatriate was particularly pleased about London’s effort to bring the Beijing Olympics to Trafalgar Square: “I’m glad I could see everything here and celebrate with all these fans.”
The crowds roared when the screen showed Beijing mayor Guo Jinlong at the side of IOC president Jacques Rogge handing over the Olympic flag to his London counterpart Boris Johnson. Perhaps the biggest applause came when soccer superstar David Beckham kicked a soccer ball from atop a red London double-decker bus.
伦敦庆祝北京奥运会闭幕2008年8月24晚，成千上万的人们挤在特拉法尔加广场观看北京奥运会的闭幕式。尽管天气状况很不稳定，一会儿大雨倾盆一会儿阳光明媚，还时不时下着小雨，但也没挡住人们坐在为这次奥运会特设的广场大屏幕前观看闭幕式。这些来自世界各地的人都热情洋溢，其中有一些是华人，代表着居住在伦敦的六万中华儿女。他们当中有许多人看到精彩处不禁欢呼雀跃。苗先生来自中国辽宁省沈阳市，与妻女在伦敦已经生活四年了。他说：“现在感觉好多了，我们等奥运会来中国等了一百年了，现在它终于来了。”这些华人为自己国家能获得51枚金牌兴奋不已。不过，苗先生也承认，比起远道而来的外国运动员，中国运动员更有优势。“相比而言，他们没有那么强大的后方支持”，苗先生说。一名来自香港在南安普顿大学求学的女生说：“北京奥运会组织得非常到位，他们为此付出了很大努力。我为我的祖国感到自豪。”一个来自北京的华人表示，伦敦把北京奥运会搬到特拉法尔加广场让人尤其感到欣慰。“在这里什么都能看到，而且还能跟这么多人一起庆祝，真让我开心极了。”当大屏幕上显示站在国际奥委会主席罗格一侧的北京市市长郭金龙把奥运会会旗交给伦敦市市长鲍里斯·约翰逊的时候，全场欢呼。当足球巨星贝克汉姆从红色的伦敦双层巴士车顶上把一只足球踢下去的时候，欢呼声达到了高潮。
Dienstag, 29. September 2009
Film review: Seraphine
Séraphinehttp://www.break.com/movie-trailers/seraphine-trailer.html
by Simone Kussatz
Movie biographies can be tricky. We only get to see a fictionalized version of what has once actually been. To please the majority’s tastes, biopics often focus too much on the external, instead of getting down to a character’s core. Undaunted by such constraints, “Séraphine”, a film directed and written by Martin Provost in 2008, which is an homage to French artist Séraphine de Senlis (Yolande Moreau), won multiple Césars (France’s version of the Oscar), although sobriety and discretion are its dominant tones. In her César winning role as the former shepherdess and housekeeper turned painter, Belgian actress Yolanda Moreau slowly blurs the tenuous gap between artistic genius and madness.
The film concentrates on the later years of devoutly catholic Séraphine’s life in Senlis, France, where she works as a servant in the temporary home of German avant-garde art dealer Wilhelm Uhde (Ulrich Tukur), who is impressed by her artistic ability. With Uhde’s encouragement and financial help, Séraphine receives her first group show exhibit with her work being displayed alongside Henri Rousseau’s.
Provost’s nuanced portrait leads us gently into the inner worlds of Séraphine. With her eagerness to evolve, her sensuality and authenticity, her need for artistic expression and love for nature, which is her source for comfort and inspiration, we learn to understand how Séraphine’s vulnerability will also soon break her.
Séraphine sheds light on a unique friendship between two people, who exist on the fringes of society. Uhde, because of his closeted homosexuality and Séraphine, because her social class does not allow her eccentric behavior. She hugs trees and swims nude in the rivers other women wash their clothes in. Their friendship is broken, however, when Uhde can’t keep up with his promise to exhibit her work again. Distressed about the news, Séraphine meanders deliriously through the streets, where people see her dressed in a wedding gown. Diagnosed with a mental illness, she’s locked up in the Clermont-de-l'Oise psychiatric hospital, where she dies alone after numerous straight jacket treatments.
This aspect of the film is particularly interesting and disturbing at the same time, considering that Europe had not only been overshadowed by the depression, but faced with Hitler’s gradual rise to power with the understanding that the mentally ill and homosexuals were the first groups he wanted to exterminate.
Provost’s mise-en-scène seems slightly withdrawn. Costumes, upholstery and all other objects are kept in subtle colors, mostly pastels, except for Séraphine’s canvases, which are covered with warm and radiant colors. Most scenes are shot outdoors in the natural light of a lush European summer landscape. Film music is kept to a minimum; instead natural sounds prevail. For example, one hears birds chirping, wind rustling through trees and church bells ringing. This choice in mise-en-scène adds vast dimension to the overall tenor of the film, a complex depiction of a simple woman, who was also an artist.
(Edited by Aparna Bakhle-Ellis)
Managing editor of FABRIK Magazine Los Angeles
Film review - Sandra Vaghe Stelle Dell' Orsa
SANDRA
by SIMONE KUSSATZ
After a brief scene of a party given by SANDRA and her husband ANDREW with an international crowd of people, conversing in different languages and mingling in front of a grand-piano played by a classic pianist, the viewer witnesses a long scene of a fast ride in a convertible going through Geneva, the Alps in Northern Italy to Florence and Toscana to the small city of Volterra. During the scene of the ride the camera is positioned inside of the car, so that we don't see the occupants, but just their view, passing freeway signs, bridges, facades of buildings and everything that surrounds them.
Volterra is where Sandra grew up. There is the house of her childhood, the place where her mother betrayed her father and turned mentally ill, where her father was picked up by the Nazis and sent to Auschwitz where he died, where Sandra's husband Andrew finds out about her and her brother Gianni's incestuous games, it is Gianni's final destination, where he commits suicide, and the place where Sandra wishes to pay homage to her father through a bust of her father placed in the garden. As much as the incidents in SANDRA are gloomy and mysterious, so is the aesthetic of the film. Shot in black and white many scenes play at night, or in dimly lit rooms. In one scene, for instance, Sandra walks alone through a completely dark garden at a windy night towards the bust of her father covered with a white piece of cloth. As she is embracing the bust, and the white piece of cloth is lifting up in the air, one thinks she is embracing a ghost. The fast ride in the car towards Volterra seems symbolic. It is a journey from the present into the past, a dive into the subconsciousness where the tragedy is imprinted in Sandra's mind. The reference to Sophocles' Electra is obvious, although slightly modified. There is Sandra, Electra and Gianni, Orestes and their dead father epitomizing Sophocles' Agamemnon who was killed by his wife's lover. Although Gianni becomes mad as Orestes does, in Visconti's film he doesn't kill his mother but himself. In Visconti's version of Electra, The Trojan War is World War II and the city of Delphi Volterra. The film does not go into detail about World War II and Auschwitz. Therefore it doesn't serve, as many war films do, as a tool to overcome a traumatic past, but to provide the film with more complexity and an interesting perspective.
The interaction between the characters is more visual than verbal. The characters' eyes and body language tell us more than their words. Although furnished with antiques, Sandra's home leaves a void. Large rooms that have stayed unused for a long time express feelings of loneliness. The monotone sound of a ticking clock, only once in a while interrupted by classical piano music such as a nocturne by Cesar Franck adds to the sadness that accompanies the characters' lives.
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