Idole

On m'a dit que j'ai trois idoles: le Christ, Marx et Freud. Ce ne sont que des formules. En fait, ma seule idole est la réalité. Si j'ai choisi d'être cinéaste, en même temps qu'un écrivain, c'est que plutôt que d'exprimer cette réalité par les symboles que sont les mots, j'ai préféré le moyen d'expression qu'est le cinéma, exprimer la réalité par la réalité.

Pier Paolo Pasolini   

می گویند که من سه بت دارم : مسیح، مارکس و فروید. این حرفها مشتی شعارند. حقیقت آن است که تنها بت من واقعیت است . در کنار نویسندگی برگزید ه ام سینماگرباشم، تا به جای بیان این واقعیت به واسطه ی نشانه هایی که بدانها کلمات گویند آن را به طریق دیگری بیان کنم، که بدان سینما گویند، بیان واقعیت بوسیله ی واقعیت. 

پیرپاﺌولو پاسولینی

Luce Irigaray

 

Of course, it's impossible for each individual to create the whole of History. But I do think that any individual, a woman or a man, can and must recreate her or his personal and collective history. For this to be accomplished, everyone's body and opinions must be respected. Everyone should be able to be aware of her or his obligations, the judge of his or her own decisions. No one ought to believe. The psychic and psychological phenomenon generates dangerous artificial powers. Belief destroys identity and responsibility and goes against what experience teaches. It often further reinforces those historical gaps or oversights, whether these are exercised in the economy of discourses or in the systems of images that go with them. (April, 1987)

The issue, then, is one of whether our civilizations are still prepared to consider sex as pathological, a flaw, a residue of animality, or if they are finally mature enough to give it its human cultural status. (June, 1987)

From Je, Tu, Nous

All the Single People

I. A piece of news: 

The Iranian government has passed a law which says that single people can't rent any houses or apartments.

Now I know you're probably bending over backwards to find a meaning of the word 'single' which accounts for the above-mentioned law. Need some help? The Concise Oxford Dictionary (2004) may give us some clues:

adj.  

1.     only one; not one of several  

2.     regarded as distinct from others in a group  

3.     designed or suitable for one person  

4.     not involved in a stable romantic sexual relationship  

5.     consisting of one part  

6.     archaic free from duplicity or deceit

n.  

1.     a single person or thing  

2.     a short record with one song on each side  

3.     US informal a one-dollar note  

and some other baseball and cricket meanings which could be ruled out.

Other dictionaries give pretty much the same meanings, too. You might think among the adjectives numbers 4 and 6, and among the nouns number 1 can somehow manage to make sense here. But the truth is the Iranian government means 'unmarried' people. One of the top-rank Iranian police chiefs has recently said, loud and clear, that homes of the single people are places for corruption.

II. A perpetual question:

You have your different reactions, but this piece of news reminds me of a scene in Bergman's 'The Seventh Seal' where a girl is going to be burned at stake because she is thought to have been possessed by the Devil himself. I know! You can say that you have seen this a million times in different movies, but the difference, here, is that the girl in Bergman's movie seems to have accepted it. She is calm. She probably wouldn't even run for it even if she could.

I sometimes wonder if this is not the case with us. Is it really not?

Shiva, the God of Death

 

I.

There are lawyers in Tony Gilroy's movie 'Michael Clayton' who are called Janitors. It's easy to guess why. People (rich folks that is) mess around and janitors/lawyers clean up the mess. But one of the janitors has had enough of it.

I like the way the movie starts. Right from the beginning, the director tells us what we see is not all, for it doesn't match what we hear (Arthur's voice-over). There is more to what we are looking at. The voice-over is a bit shaky, but certain and we see a law firm swarmed with people who seem to know what they're doing.

Following this we see George Clooney driving in a car, angry but trying to control himself. He pulls over and goes up a hill to get a closer look at some horses. And as you are about to think this isolated part of heaven is tranquillizing to Clooney (and you), his car explodes in the far bottom left side of the background.

Well, see the rest of the story in the movie, if you already haven't.

II.

a. I'm not one of Clooney's fans but he is brilliant here. Playing the role of a man, on the verge of breakdown (any kind you think of, economical, nervous, friend-wise, familial, job-related, you name it) is not that easy. For the entire movie, we hear about the bits and pieces of his life. He is definitely not a hero. All the good things he does in the movie encompass helping one and only one friend, and his great care for the one and only son he has who doesn't even live with him. He seems to have been on the wrong track for so long that nothing can be done to save him, and nothing actually does.

b. I am a big fan of 'Tilda swinton'. She is, and always has been, brilliant (watch War Zone or The Garden and you'll see). She has nothing to do with all those lawyers/bitches who are in Hollywood movies, killing themselves to show how bad/bitchy they are. Just for the sake of comparison recall 'Gina Gershon' in The Insider (she was the Achilles' hill of that nice movie, in my opinion).

Karen Crowder is not one of the 'ladies who lunch'. She's got discipline. She knows what she wants. She makes decisions about people's murder faster than she decides on her clothes. In the world we live in, Karen is a goddess.

III.

I already told you how the movie starts. Right after the explosion, there's a flashback to days before. Gilroy is in no hurry to tell us the whole story. We are shown the corruption of the whole law system. Not one person seems to care. Everybody is in for deceit and back-stabbing. The only good guy here (Arthur played by 'Tom Wilkinson' between madness and purgation) transforms from "Shiva, the god of death" to a loving, caring and battling warrior of the oppressed, for a million reasons other than morality or bad conscience. He should be under medication but refuses, he falls in love with one of 'the oppressed', he has recently lost his wife to a disease, and her daughter doesn't even talk to him; besides all this, everyone wants to lock him out. Clooney, in a beautiful monolog tells him, "janitor to janitor", that nobody is there to help him. The part in which they decide to kill him is shocking. If memory serves well, the good guys of all movies, the ones I remember right now, are decided to be murdered in closed half-lit rooms. Here the decision is made in the street, where almost any casual observer can hear. And the murder scene itself is so cold and quiet that, for a second, frightens you. Is it really so simple?

IV.

The ending is also good. The janitor becomes a warrior (Shiva becomes Vishnu) but not for ever, not even for any moral cause; other than taking revenge for his friend's death.

When Clayton tells Karen Crowder he is gonna blow the whistle on her, she is wordless, defenseless, and Clayton starts walking towards the exit, with the camera traveling back, showing us both his tired and disgusted face in the foreground and at the same time her collapse/disintegration in the background. You may think Clayton is coming toward us (salvation, redemption, catharsis and all that jazz) but he gets on an escalator and goes down while we stay up and watch him 'going down'.

Nobody is safe here.

P.S. I have seen the trailer of Gilroy's lastest movie, 'Duplicity' or something. I guess Hollywood is on her way to make another 'Soderberg', my term for wasted genius.  

La Plaisanterie

"Toute l'histoire de ma vie, a été conçue dans l'erreur, réalise Ludvik, avec la plaisanterie de la carte postale."

   La plaisanterie, est l'histoire de quatres personnages principals du roman, Ludvik, Jaroslav, Helena , Kostka et les autres secondaires au moment du régime communiste en Tchécoslovaquie. Le jeune étudiant révolté, Ludvik, voit son destin et son avenir troublé à la suite de la plaisanterie de la carte postale écrite à Marketa, une camarade de l'université et de la Partie, où il montre peu de respect pour certains principes de la Partie. Pas de narrateur omnisciant, les aventures sont racontées par les personnages leurs-mêmes. 

  Il ne faut pas considérer ce livre comme une œuvre philosophique ou socio-politique comme l'ont fait des lecteurs et critiques des premières années de l'apparition de La plaisanterie. Je n'ai jamais pu comprendre Monsieur Gautier et ses amis parnassiens de la théorie de "l'art pour l'art"; le but de l'art c'est l'art lui-même. C'est indéniable que le but de l'art c'est l'art lui-même mais est-ce que l'art et l'engagement ne sont pas complémentaire? Je parle ici du monde du roman. Le souci d'un romancier, c'est de créer un roman  dans son propre style et sa propre forme.Le roman n'est pas et ne doit pas être au service d'une idéologie mais ne peut pas être vidé de  la réalité qui l'entoure. Le monde du roman chez Kundera est un un monde debout sur lui- même  sans avoir besoin à un support extérieur mais touché par la réalité politique et idéologique où sont écrits ses livres. L'important c'est ne pas considérer une œuvre littéraire comme une manifeste politique, philosophique ou n'importe quoi, c'est ce qu'on a fait de l' œuvre de Kundera ou Kafka, mais comme une œuvre littéraire dans son monde du style et de la forme qui veut ouvrir une fenêtre de l'objectivité  sur le fait concret et par là le romancier s'inspire de la réalité de son monde non pour développer ses idées politiques ou philosophiques mais pour créer un monde littéraire.

  Ceux qui ont lu les livres de Kundera, ont bien compris que le thème sans cesse retenu dans tous les romans de Kundera, surtout dans La valse aux adieux, La vie est ailleurs et L'immortalité, est la déstruction du monde de sa signification. Cette dévastation commence par La plaisanterie et touche les livres suivants de Kundera. Dans La plaisanterie  les hommes ne se comprennent pas, les actes et paroles sont mal compris; la plaisanterie de Ludvik change pour jamais sa vie, ses explications pour faire comprendre cette plaisanterie  à ses compagnons de Partie  se perdent dans le vide. La fête organisée à l'honneur des nouveaux nés a lieu dans une atmosphère complètement religieuse comme-ci c'est la messe. Des tablettes prises par Helena pour se suicider, sans qu'elle le sache, sont des tablettes laxatives. Les personnages révoltés, emportés par l'esprit du temps à l'âge d'adolescence trouvent la vie vidée de toute signification  à l'âge de maturité, comme ci une main forte et invisible contrôle leur destin.

آنجا که یک...

رو آن ربابی را بگو، مستان سلامت می کنند

وان مرغ آبی را بگو، مستان سلامت می کنند

وان میر ساقی را بگو، مستان سلامت می کنند

وان عمر باقی را بگو، مستان سلامت می کنند

وان میر غوغا را بگو، مستان سلامت می کنند

وان شور و سودا را بگو، مستان سلامت می کنند

ای جان جان ای جان جان، مستان سلامت می کنند

یک مست اینجا بیش نیست، مستان سلامت می کنند

کلیات شمس

من مست جام باقیم، دارم هوای عاشقی

حیران روی ساقیم، دارم هوای عاشقی

ای جان و ای جانان من، دارم هوای عاشقی

ای وصل و ای هجران من، دارم هوای عاشقی

منسوب به ابوسعید ابوالخیر

در نظر بگیرید اگر در هر کدام از این دو قطعه شعر (و بیشمار مانند آنها) شاعر تصمیم می گرفت که به جای تکرار بخشی خاص از شعر، واژگان دیگری به کار بندد. شما را نمی دانم، ولی برای من این حس سحرانگیز دیگر تکرار نمی شد. یا برای مثال آوردن از میان بلاد کفر، شعر در" ساعت پنج عصر" از گارسیا لورکا را در نظر بگیرید. 

 این نکته و مثالها را آوردم تا به حرف میلان کوندرا برسم که می گوید:  

"What terror the words 'be' and 'have' strike in all the translators in the world! They'll do anything to replace them with words they consider less routine."  

(Testaments Betrayed, tr. Linda Asher)  

کوندرا این را در مورد مترجمان می گوید، به ویژه آنهایی که کتابهای کافکا را به فرانسه ترجمه کرده اند. این که چگونه مترجمان کافکا افعال معمولی و تکراری نویسنده را قابل ندانسته و آنها را به ترتیب به افعال گوناگون پرطمطراق ترجمه کرده اند.

می توان این مفهوم را به (شاید) همه ی هنرها مربوط دانست. دست کم در سینما، از تکرار "کلوس آپ" صورت و دست در سینمای برگمان تا تکرار رقص علوفه و برگ در آثار تارکوفسکی و تکرار جاده و درخت در کارهای کیارستمی و... مفهوم تکرار را می بینیم.

و شاید از همین سنخ باشد اهمیت طنین و بازگشت صدا.

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ادامه دارد (شاید)

دانایی

"Solo sé que nada sé

Pero  sé más que aquellos

Que dicen saber mucho

Y no saben nada."

Socrates  (407-339 BC)

تنها می دانم که هیچ نمی دانم."

اما بیش از آنانی می دانم،

 که می گویند می دانند و هیچ نمی دانند."

سقراط

2×5

Non-linear narration is becoming a kind of game for filmmakers to attract and amuse the movie fans who have seen it all; remember some of the late American movies in which the omniscient narrator tells you a lie, just to make you form false ideas and then jumps out of a corner to scare you and laugh at you by telling you that he - 'the omniscient' - has told you a 'lie'? One of the most ludicrous examples of this, in my opinion, is 'The Righteous Kill'.

  But this is not the case with all directors. You may have different choices, but one of my choices is definitely the French director 'Francoise Ozon'. The way he starts his movie 'Cinq Fois Deux' and gets to proceed and drag us back into the depths of a pool of life experiences between the two protagonists, doesn't seem much of a game to me.

  The film starts with the bitter scene of a divorce. The divorce lawyer is telling us all about the couple's properties which will be divided between them. One gets the feeling that he has come to see a real-life scene late enough to miss all the reasons why these two are getting divorced. From this moment on till after more than half of the movie is gone any spectator may form a million reasons in their mind (reasons more likely to have happened in their own life or fantasies) to justify the divorce. And Ozon is not very generous with clues, either. Then the director takes us back to see what went on between these two, step by step, backtracking in five stages of their life, hence five times two. To me it seems more like a psychoanalytic session than a mere try to attract attention with non-linear filmmaking.

  For most of the movie you may consider Marion (Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi) as somehow the victim here - like when she gives birth to a child while we see her husband Gilles (Stéphane Freiss) eating at a restaurant as if nothing is going on. But as the movie goes on -and the story goes back - we see a betrayal scene, right at the night of their marriage, which is something between sex and rape, which also reminds us of a scene between Marion and Gilles that starts like a break-up sex but soon turns into a rape, at the beginning of the film. Then you see it might not be as simple as you might have thought. There is more to a marriage than meets the eyes.

  The ending of the movie is a bit of a shock. That great moment and sensation of getting to like someone, together with the feeling that you have been chosen over someone else in a love contest, a quiet seaside at dusk, the thrill that a new relationship is forming and you -as the viewer - get the chance to watch it. But the paradox is you know where it all is going to go, because you have been there, seen the end. What an ending!

Thank gods Saint Ozon is not tempted to work in Hollywood.