Posted on: August 20, 2008
I am not a reader of graphic novels and know next to nothing about them. But I heard good things about this movie version of one such series (Persepolis and Persepolis2, by Marjane Satrapi) and thought it would be worth a look. More than a pleasant surprise, the film actually knocked me out.
Persepolis movie trailor
It’s the largely autobiographical story of Marjane Satrapi, her time in Iran before and after the revolution of 1979, her family, and her flight to France. I did not think that a cartoon would be moving in this way, nor as thought provoking. But it is. The DVD adds excellent special features, takes us behind the scenes and includes interviews with cast and crew. The work involved in making the film is stunning, laborious, time consuming and admirable.
Marjane Satrapi strove to make this a universal story, a coming of age story, albeit one with extreme circumstances.…
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Posted on: August 18, 2008
The Aurora Borealis.
I finished Philip Pullman’s wonderful The Golden Compass last night, and can’t wait to read the rest of the trilogy. It’s very well written and surprisingly thought provoking. A page turner, to be sure. Also hoping that the sequels will be filmed, even though mixed messages abound about that. I’ve read on the Net that the next movie is in the bag for 2009, and, that it won’t be filmed at all. The two major reasons given for not filming are the lack of box office success for the first movie and opposition from church groups.
The novel is set in parallel universe to our own, with many similarities, but some striking differences. The most striking being that humans have personal daemons – animals that remain with them at all times and are something like an external soul. These daemons have the ability to change into other animals, at least while their humans are children.…
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Posted on: August 15, 2008
Reading three books at once right now. Multi-tasking in a sense. But concentrating mostly on just one: Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass. Still reading Doctor Zhivago, and Zamyatin’s We, but am having a great time with Pullman’s book. Enjoyed the movie as well.
Outside of the Potter books, I’ve read no other kids’ books since I was a kid. This current reading is a serious departure for me. But I think I’ve discovered something very interesting in the process. Something about the way books are written in general, and for their respective audiences in particular.
Books for kids are more visual, descriptive, and are driven more by the visual and the descriptive. As in, the plot is moved by those descriptions. There is also greater control over time and space. Meaning, they don’t waste much time trying to create gaps and irony and meta-commentary, nor do they circle back on themselves very often.…
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Posted on: August 14, 2008
The Lady of Shalott, by John William Waterhouse. 1888.
I love this painting. It’s mystical, edgy, sharp, ethereal, and the stuff of dreams. Tennyson’s Elaine of Astolat. Elaine of the curse, something out of Plato’s cave, mixed strangely with the myth of Medusa, as if in reverse. Obliquely. Tangentially.
She could never look at reality directly. Only through a mirror. Doomed to see reflections, doomed to observe others in love while locked away. An allegory for artists and writers and anyone who separates themselves from life, remains severed from it, looking at life from afar.
King Arthur and Lancelot and Elaine. The Pre-Raphaelites and their obsessive nostalgia for another world, another time. Camelot. Astolat. Plato’s cave. Who hasn’t dreamed of knights and the Round Table and the Sword in the Stone? And the trail leads all the way back to the 5th century, not the 11th or the 12th or the 13th.…
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