Music / Movie / Book
Jul. 22nd, 2008 05:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sub_dividedGypsy!
Sea Wolf - You're a Wolf
Firewater - Some Kind of Kindness
Gogol Bordello - Ultimate
Orguss ED - Gypsy
The Counterfeiters - Note to self: if it's a movie about a Nazi counterfeiting scheme, it is a Holocaust movie. Somehow I totally failed to make this connection. -_-; Great movie though. It reminded me of another Holocaust movie (argh, can't remember the name, will fill in later) set in Therendistadt, in that it takes place in a an unusual, less physically awful concentration camp, and is about the range of responses Jews adopted in the face of utterly twisted circumstances. In other words, different people react differently to coercion, intimidation, torture, and being constantly surrounded by death.
The main contrast in this movie is between the main character who doesn't care about the larger picture but who is strongly loyal to the people he knows personally, and the "revolutionary" character who is willing to sacrifice the people he knows for the greater good. Also, GREAT acting, especially by the main character. He's this master counterfeiter who arrives acting like he doesn't care and nothing can touch him, but who gradually shows different levels of concern and vulnerability.
In short, great movie, everyone should watch it -- even if it is a bit dark. (Sorry,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
uminohikari! Maybe next time we can see something lighter.)
Irene Nevrosky, Suite Francaise - A deeply felt, fictional account of the complacent selfishness of middle- and upper-class Parisians during the Nazi occupation, written by someone who was there. (Yes, this is the one that was locked in a suitcase for sixty years and only recently discovered.) It's a fantastically well-observedbook unfinished manuscript but the biography, working notes, and personal correspondence of Irene Nevrosky in the appendixes might be more gripping, because, well, they're true.
Something I thought was interesting: the "good" working-class family (the Michenauds) resemble Irene and her husband. It's as if the author couldn't imagine an actual compassionate French family (or an actual working-class family), so she made one up. I also thought it was interesting that the father of the disgustingly bourgeoisie family, the Pericauds, is a curator of the National museum -- I'm used to thinking of (NYC) museum curators as smart, (wealthy), forward-thinking liberals, not unimaginative upholders of the status quo.
***
Reactions to Avatar and The Dark Knight in the next post, I guess. Though I've been watching the live feed and I'm starting to think that the world does not need another LJ post on either of these two topics.
Sea Wolf - You're a Wolf
Firewater - Some Kind of Kindness
Gogol Bordello - Ultimate
Orguss ED - Gypsy
The Counterfeiters - Note to self: if it's a movie about a Nazi counterfeiting scheme, it is a Holocaust movie. Somehow I totally failed to make this connection. -_-; Great movie though. It reminded me of another Holocaust movie (argh, can't remember the name, will fill in later) set in Therendistadt, in that it takes place in a an unusual, less physically awful concentration camp, and is about the range of responses Jews adopted in the face of utterly twisted circumstances. In other words, different people react differently to coercion, intimidation, torture, and being constantly surrounded by death.
The main contrast in this movie is between the main character who doesn't care about the larger picture but who is strongly loyal to the people he knows personally, and the "revolutionary" character who is willing to sacrifice the people he knows for the greater good. Also, GREAT acting, especially by the main character. He's this master counterfeiter who arrives acting like he doesn't care and nothing can touch him, but who gradually shows different levels of concern and vulnerability.
In short, great movie, everyone should watch it -- even if it is a bit dark. (Sorry,
uminohikari! Maybe next time we can see something lighter.) Irene Nevrosky, Suite Francaise - A deeply felt, fictional account of the complacent selfishness of middle- and upper-class Parisians during the Nazi occupation, written by someone who was there. (Yes, this is the one that was locked in a suitcase for sixty years and only recently discovered.) It's a fantastically well-observed
Something I thought was interesting: the "good" working-class family (the Michenauds) resemble Irene and her husband. It's as if the author couldn't imagine an actual compassionate French family (or an actual working-class family), so she made one up. I also thought it was interesting that the father of the disgustingly bourgeoisie family, the Pericauds, is a curator of the National museum -- I'm used to thinking of (NYC) museum curators as smart, (wealthy), forward-thinking liberals, not unimaginative upholders of the status quo.
***
Reactions to Avatar and The Dark Knight in the next post, I guess. Though I've been watching the live feed and I'm starting to think that the world does not need another LJ post on either of these two topics.