Spotlight on.....Karen Yasinsky

"I Choose Darkness," 2009, stop-motion puppet animation, 8.5 minutes

What projects are you currently working on?
I just finished a drawing animation based on a scene from Robert Bresson's film "Au Hasard Balthazar." It is a close-up profile of the character Marie speaking. She looks sad and earnest. Or rather blank. I rotoscoped it which involved saving the scene as a series of jpegs, 30 images per second and then drawing each image using a light box. There are several interruptions to her speaking when the image changes. It moves down and off the page then comes back from the top; it becomes an image made of small squares then changes colors; and finally the squares show the negative images. There are also series when every other image is a different color, moving through the spectrum, with the original black line on white in between. This creates a strobing effect. The sound, by Snacks (Tom Boram and Dan Breen) uses a piece by Brahms, static sounds; tremolo and other sounds to match these interruptions. Brahms plays while she calmly speaks but only partial sounds come out of her mouth. She doesn't communicate. My goal was to make something sweet, sincere and aggressive. I wanted the formal manipulations to work on the viewer in a physical way while the actual image spoke to the viewer in an emotional way. This is the first time I really put this into words, so, it's all a little green. Next I will begin a puppet animation with a character based on Elliott Gould from "California Split" by Robert Altman. But this character will be subject to my own version of Godardian influence.

Can you discuss the process of creating your work; is it a multi step process? Do you work in a studio?
First I have the idea and I don't really know what I will do with it until I start working. Animation is such a slow process that it allows for much rumination while in the process. With the puppet animation, I create the models, their clothing and simple sets. While doing this I am figuring out their personalities and what will begin the animation. This will involve gestures and maybe just one interaction. Then, when I'm animating, I can think of many outcomes to the scene I am working on. I can become the characters, get into their little heads and make decisions for them. I suppose it's like fiction writing. My studio is a room in my house that is totally private. I can work at any time which really suits me. I don't like to leave home to work.

"Marie," 2009, drawing animation, 3.5 minutes looped

How much research goes into your work and what form does the research take, (reading stories, looking at animation, looking at images, going to the library?)
For the past few years, my animations have been based on films I love which do something in my memory which makes me want to work with the characters and something that was very powerful in my reading of the film. So I will watch that film a lot, listen to it and collect stills from it. For my Elliott Gould character, I'm not so interested in the story told in the film but in his gestures and physical performance. I don't look at animation for my own work but the sound work in old cartoons is useful. Robert Breer's work inspired one drawing animation I did, but my pacing is so slow that it was my animation with Breerian hiccups. I read a lot of stories and novels and images and ideas from them find their way into my work but it's not purposeful research.

Do you collect source material? If so, what?
Film stills, old wallpaper and fabric patterns for drawings.

"Enough to Drive You Mad," 2009, Stop-motion drawing animation, 4 minutes

What inspires you?
Humans as seen through film and literature. Their gestures, oddities and the difficulty and self-consciousness of being human. Film language is a great inspiration and sounds-how they can manipulate an image. How a scene is framed; the movement and rhythm within the frame and within the sequence; light and color. I'm very interested in what we see and how we perceive at 24 frames per second-film time.

Do you have a daily ritual that gets you ready to go and do your work?
I have a 5-year-old son that makes me appreciate every free minute I have for my work.

What do you enjoy doing when you are not creating art?
I swim, read and cook.

How do you work through artist's block?
Since the animation process is so slow, I don't have any blocks. While I'm finishing an animation I already know what I want to do next. Often I will work on drawings at the same time so it's great to have a few things going on at the same time. There's also my 5 year old. He keeps me in the present tense, which is a great way to work and live.

How do you juggle exhibition scheduling, applying for grants, making new work, and typical life responsibilities- doing laundry, grocery shopping, etc.....
At times I don't sleep much. When I have a deadline for my work I will work nights when I have the longest stretch of uninterrupted time. I also don't often answer the phone and just prioritize. I don't apply for enough grants and regarding exhibitions, I just hope they keep materializing. I do need to make time to create a website. But stuff like this and cleaning fall by the wayside. I would always rather draw.

What artists or other people have inspired you along the way?
Bruce Nauman is huge. His work really cuts to the psychological discomfort of aspects of being human. But it hits you often in a sensory way so you have to translate the physical feeling. I saw a Bruce McClure show recently that floored me. It was aggressive and mesmerizing but filled me with joy. There was no emotional content so that was left to the viewer. My favorite filmmakers who inspire me are Yasujiro Ozu, Robert Bresson and David Lynch. Many of the great silent films inspire me. Silent Light by Carlos Reygadas was a recent strong buzzing light in my brain as were the stories of Robert Walser.

Marie and Magoo, 2008, Graphite, ink, gouache and colored pencil on paper, 18.25 x 14.25 inches

What words or philosophy do you live by?
I am a pleasure seeker and I take pleasure in my work and family-so I feel incredibly lucky. I feel like we humans are all tiny dots in the huge scheme of things and in this realization, there is freedom and beauty. I also like to think about the definition of beauty since it's important to me.
Thanks Karen!

Karen Yasinsky lives and works in Baltimore, MD. Karen is an internationally exhibited artist working in film, animation, puppetry and drawing. She received her MFA from Yale University in Painting, and studied at the NY Studio School.
For more information and to see more of her work, visit Mireille Mosler Ltd. or the Baker Artist Awards.

Spotlight on.....Mika Johnson

I'm pleased to present an interview with film-maker, Mika Johnson.

Mika is currently working on a feature film, Amerika: a notebook in three parts. We have never met, but I've heard great things about him and his creative work from our mutual friend and collaborator, Honey Lapcharoen.

Can you tell me about your interests?

I’m an avid fan of the cinema, devoted mainly to the poets and visionaries. I also have a strong interest in photography, mostly for works that blur the distinction between truth and illusion or fantasy and reality. I like real scenes that appear artificial or set ups that appear real. Other interests include miniatures, optical illusions, and collages, all of which relate to my love for Surrealism. I’m more interested in making music than in listening to it and I enjoy reading books, mainly fiction but also history, psychology, and spirituality. I’m very interested in ritual, synchronicity, dreams, and time.

Can you talk about your travels and living abroad? How did those experiences shape your vision as an artist/film person?
After college I spent five years living in Japan, Germany, and the Czech Republic. I left two days before 9/11, and this gave me an outsider’s perspective on America and everything that happened afterward. Were it not for that experience, I wouldn’t have written my first feature, which in the end was my attempt to both understand America and re-mythologize it from a foreigner’s perspective.

As an artist, living abroad was a struggle, but a fruitful one. I went from teaching English, to supporting myself in Tokyo, to completing two short films and landing a job at Barrandov Studios, Prague. I spent all my free time either scriptwriting or studying European Cinema, un-enrolled at FAMU - a film school where some of my favorite directors attended, including Milos Forman, Vera Chytilova, and Jan Nemec. Since European schools tend to treat film making as an art form, I saw in their cinema a mirror of my own desire to make films that tackle philosophical and spiritual questions. During the three years between Prague and Berlin, I also completed two music albums with the Berlin-based group VOCO. I sang and played guitar.

I want to make sophisticated films, with artistic integrity, in America rather than Europe, where even independent cinema is entrenched in the values of commercialism. Not wanting to compromise this vision, my solution was to create a production company, based on the model of non-profits, and to make films that could be self-distributed over the Internet. I started
Arcanum Productions with these goals in mind. In November Arcanum uploaded a 20-minute short film that I directed and photographed in the Czech Republic titled “Yonder,” which viewers can now watch for free on our site.

What is a typical week in your life like?
I work as a freelance photographer, videographer, and editor; everything depends on the work that comes my way. When I have free time, I’m always working on the promotional aspect of trying to launch a feature film. I also love to spend time at photo libraries, like the International Center for Photography, or the image library at the Mid-Manhattan library. In the evening, I watch films with my wife Kaori and our two cats. Or I play the guitar. If it’s Friday we go out to a museum.

You are currently in the midst of developing a feature film... Can you talk about it? How did it come into being? Where are you in the process, what happens next?
AMERIKA: a notebook in three parts begins with a young Japanese woman named Kat, who is trapped in her job as a hostess in Tokyo. To escape, she leaves for America. This character grew out of my wife’s experiences, and conversations I transcribed in 2004. Kaori temporarily worked as a hostess and had intimate knowledge of that world. Imagine a situation where a man pays $500 to $2,000 to sit down, drink alcohol, and talk to beautiful women. That would almost never happen in America, unless it included sex. Something very different was at play in these Tokyo clubs that combined wealth, fantasy, and a psychological exchange. It never occurred to me that a Japanese hostess would make an interesting protagonist until Kaori described how these women often lost their identities through decadence and self-destruction. I regarded this self-destruction as a mirror of the commentary I wanted to make on American identity, history, and culture.

(Kat in Ohio still from Part II of AMERIKA: a notebook in three parts. Photo: Mika Johnson)

After Kat leaves Japan, her journey begins to overlap with America’s historical evolution, as she heads west and finds herself on this multi-dimensional road-trip; all the archetypal energies of America’s history rapidly unfold like a bizarre dream spiraling toward an apocalyptic conclusion. Kat eventually makes a sacrifice that symbolically turns back the clock. It’s an event of rebirth and reversals. I refer to this as “re-mythologizing.”

All our principle actors are cast and we have a solid crew of international artists from America, China, Japan, Iceland, and Germany. We also have our locations scouted and recently sparked a collaboration with Colleen, a French composer whose music resonates with the dream-like quality of our story. Now we’re waiting for an angel to step in and say, “I’m here to fund your film.”

How did you become interested in film?
When I was 13, my father got me a job at a local store, which also rented movies. Besides my meager pay, I could borrow movies for free. In junior high, my brother bought a video camera and we started making short films. But it wasn’t until I started college, and saw the films of Andrei Tarkovsky, that I really felt the drive to be a filmmaker. From that moment on I wanted to be a filmmaker and create poetic films with spiritual themes. Ten years later, I still feel the same way.

What is your creative process?
It’s always different. AMERIKA began as a script, which I began writing in cafes in Berlin. I needed that social environment. When we moved to Prague, I began collecting hundreds of images from photo books at FAMU that I would copy, print out, and hang up on the wall, where they began to tell the story from a visual perspective. I began casting and recording actors. My goal was to integrate each person’s real identity with the character on the page. When I began collaborating with writer Honey Lapcharoen, we tightened the narrative by removing what didn’t need to be there and adding things that were missing. It was all very organic. By the time I began taking promotional photographs for our website’s gallery, the vision completed itself.

(Kat's notebook from Part I of AMERIKA: a notebook in three parts. Photo: Mika Johnson )

What books, mentors, teachers, films, etc. have had the most influence on your development as a creative person?
It all started with my father, who is a natural performer. I was more talented behind the camera. When I think of the people who’ve influenced my development as a creative person, there are really a few that stand out: my former professor, Tim Scholl, who continues to teach and inspire me; my friends Bonnie Huie and Peter Hlinka, who I made my first short films with; and then there are those people in my life right now, who continually support, inspire, and push me to develop. These include my friends Robbie Schneider, Honey Lapcharoen, and Kaori. I’ve taken most of my lessons from my favorite filmmakers, such as Andrei Tarkovsky, Ingmar Bergman, Luis Bunuel, Sergei Parajanov, Hiroshi Teshigahara, Federico Fellini, Aleksandr Sokurov, and Bela Tarr. These are the people I study.

What are you currently reading?
The Brothers Karamazov, by Dostoevsky. It’s good, especially in the bathtub.

What inspires you?
My wife’s drawings. Our cats. Recently, archival films. And for the last two years, the museums here in New York City, especially the Metropolitan Museum of Art. My favorite sections are the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas and a reconstructed room, in the American Wing, which I know to be haunted.

What is your dream project?
I am currently completing my second feature script, which combines the genres of classic noir and sci-fi, as it follows a detective who is attempting to solve a bizarre murder in a dystopic version of America, where pharmaceutical drug companies have come to control consciousness. My dream project would be to make this film interactive, so that viewers could choose their way through the story, like a narrative labyrinth. I can foresee multiple endings, hidden scenes or texts within scenes, etc.

What words do you live?
“A sincere belief that anything is so, will make it so.” William Blake

“Wishes are recollections coming from the future.” Rainer Maria Rilke

How do you get through artist's block?
I find that working on multiple projects helps. When one isn’t flowing, I turn my attention to another. In time they all grow up.

Ohio native Mika Johnson is an accomplished filmmaker/photographer and holds a B.A. in Film and Religious studies from Oberlin College. Having already directed a documentary (Lake Street USA) and two independent short films while living in Japan and the Czech Republic (The Mountain of Signs, Yonder), Mika anticipates directing his first feature length motion picture AMERIKA: a notebook in three parts, a film loosely based on his wife and collaborator Kaori Mitsushima. He currently lives and works in New York City as a photographer, videographer, and video editor.

Thanks Mika!

"tough times never last but tough people do"

Here are 3 of 8 brand new collages I am currently working on.

These are on the smaller side, approx. 8x11 inches. I have made a total mess- cutting up papers- and creating a huge pile of clippings and and scraps all over the futon and floor of my home studio.

I'm loving creating these because I don't think about it, I just do it. Tiny pieces emerge out of the mess and settle in to some kind of balance on the paper. It's a very meditative practice. These are going to go through a couple more stages of drawing and painting before being finished.

I watched 2 films this week that were polar opposites but equally inspiring:
How to Draw a Bunny, a documentary about the amazing collage artist who committed suicide in 1995, Ray Johnson, and Rivers and Tides, a documentary about artist/sculptor Andy Goldsworthy. Ray Johnson was very tuned in to pop culture- and created these really multi-layered, kooky collages, works on paper and correspondences, while Goldsworthy is all about the energy and flow of materials- he works with stones, ice, leaves, flowers to create site specific installations in nature. Part of their existence is the act of their destruction- the ice melts, the pile of stones caves in, the web of branches falls down. And he just gets up and starts all over again. He is a very mellow, solitary figure with his work.
I'm also nearing the end of season 2 of 6 feet under. I love seeing Claire trying out photography and her slow realization that it's something that fits her despite all the negativity coming from her teacher and brothers.

Here is a great story on NPR about Bob Raglan, a Denver artist who is recession proof and proud of it.

lastly:

(photo: collage with cutouts/ for sale on Friday)

I am getting excited for the girl's night out event at City Theatre on Friday night (1.30.09) where Laurie and I will have a table set up selling our wares. I have handmade scarves, art cards, and a couple of augmented books, and Laurie has handmade crocheted wire earrings and small drawings. If you are in the neighborhood- stop in and say hi, 7pm-8pm at:
City Theatre, 1300 Bingham St., Pittsburgh PA 15203.

seeing

We saw the Diving Bell and the Butterfly last night. It was incredible. I was transported into the experience of Jean-do, the main character. I saw through his one working eye. I understood what it felt like to be locked into his body, to hear his clear thoughts, his wry humor, his wants and needs clear within his own mind but not be able to express them to the outside world. I felt the disconnect he felt upon looking in a mirror and seeing a foreign face reflected back at him, not at all the image he had of himself in his mind. It is easy to see how lovingly and sensitively this film was crafted. It is so very compassionate and thoughtful. An absolute butterfly.

It's gonna be bright yellow

Above: Jeremy Blake, Reading Ossie Clark, 2003, digital animation with sound on DVD, stills from 9-minute continuous loop, courtesy Kinz, Tillou + Feigen, New York

Got back from a trip to DC where we saw friends, family and ART. Hello to friends and family-- thanks so much for your hospitality!!! We had a lovely time.

Out of all the Museums we went to and all the art we saw, the exhibit that left the most inspiring impression on me was Wild Choir-- 3 animations/video's with sound by the late Jeremy Blake.

Today, we started the giant project of priming and painting the dining room. It was a color akin to masking tape.....and it's going to be a color called Lemon Sorbet. We trekked out to Ikea and bought the Norrelbo shelving unit and sang songs using all the names of the Ikea furniture. I am very excited to have a newly designed dining room!

Movies we've seen in the last week:
Charlie Wilson's War
Knocked Up
The Assassination of Jesse James
Sweeney Todd
Atonement
Jeremy Blake, Sodium Fox, 2005, digital animation with sound on DVD, stills from 14-minute continuous loop, courtesy Kinz, Tillou + Feigen, New York

Bring in da new!

RRRRg- I just spent all this time rearranging the pictures I wanted to upload only to discover it didn't work. Anyway, the top pic is a view of the backyard. Off to the right is a view of the South Side and the Monongahela River. Along the left retention wall is a garden left by the previous owners where tulips and Irises are growing, and some other mystery bulbs. The fences along both sides are rotting and the one in the back is falling down-- I would love to replace them and put hedges along the back. I can't wait to plant a garden of veggies and herbs. The backyard seems like a big blank canvas to me-- we talked about making a small stage in the backyard for someone to stage plays and performances with a view of the river behind. It'll be so nice in the summer- when the weather warms up again! I have started some projects around the house-- tying all the newspapers Douglas has collected in prep for recycling them-- here is one of what will be 2 piles. I also organized some cabinets in the kitchen (this made a really boring picture). The pre- organized cabinet was full of packing materials, phone books, and paper plates/plastic utensils. Now, it's stocked up with some food! My other favorite project was purchasing a shower filter and installing it myself- When I did that though, I cracked the old showerhead! So I replaced it with a massaging shower head with different settings-- NICE! I love being handy around the house! Next we have one side of the living room-- notice the teeny tiny couch- it's more of a love seat-- that's my geisha collage above on the left- and Doug's friend Susannah's painting on the right. Here is a view from the dining room looking into the front of the house-- which is the living room on the other side from the love seat (the backyard is behind me from this angle). There's Douglas at the piano. We're thinking about painting the dining room light blue instead of yellow.

Meanwhile, I started my new part time job at the City Theatre box office. Everyone there has been very warm and welcoming. Last week was a good time to start since they're between productions and it was on the slow side. I take phone orders and will at the will call office on Thursdays and Sundays handing out tickets. It's pretty laid back and flexible. I will work there 4 days a week-- but some of the hours are a little odd.

D and I have gone to see 3 movies: The Lives of Others (Excellent), The Namesake (Good), and Hoax (Really great!!) The Lives of Others is the German film that won Best Foreign Film at the Academy Awards-- It is set in 1984 in East Germany, the Stasi (secret police) create a climate of distrust and stifle any criticism of the state-- The story focuses in on one particular Stasi officer who is staking out a playwrite under suspiscion of being an 'enemy of the state.' The officer is depicted as solely devoted to his job. He has no family, just a lonely apartment. He has no social outlet, or creative life. His scenes are filmed in a harsh gray, drained light. Meanwhile, the playwrite has friends and a creative circle of author, playwrite friends-- he collects books on all kinds of subjects, reads Brecht, plays piano, lives with his girlfriend who is also an actress in his play. The invisible relationship that forms between the Stasi officer and the playwrite holds just enough suspense and the actor who plays the officer handles his transformation -- from cold and removed to taking an interest in music, and reading Brecht-- to becoming emotionally involved in the lives of the playwrite and the actress --- delicately and with smooth transition...... Great movie!!
That's all for now!
see ya!

God Grew Tired of Us

Every once in a while, I see something that really inspires me and makes me want to help change the world. I saw this movie, God Grew Tired of Us, the other day with my Mom and it was so moving and so well done, it made me want to become a human rights worker or volunteer for one of the UN Aid programs in Africa or SouthEast Asia. It should be mandatory for every American kid to see this film, mandatory for a lot of adults too. I'm not going to write a summary of the film because you can read that here . Just go see it and be prepared to re-evaluate how the world works.

Dreams from Movieland

Ok-- Doug and I are on a movie role. In the past week we saw Notes on a Scandal and Babel. Before commentary on those, let me just say, I was so ridiculously sad and moved by the euthenization of Barbaro the horse. What a crazy story that this horse became a celebrity and there was this outpouring of love, well wishes and sympathy from the public on the level of Princess Di or JFK Jr. Well, maybe not quite to that level but yeah sorta.... this morning on CNN there was a 5 minute montage of Barbaro including all the cards and drawings people put up outside the animal hospital where he was treated. If only the people in Darfur or religious sects in Iraq treated each other with that kind of humanity and compassion-- the world might be in a better place than it is right now. I heard Tom Friedman in an interview the other day on Onpoint on NPR and among his interesting statements, the one that struck me the most was when he talked about how there is no MLK Jr., or Ghandi figure in all the violence-- There is no voice of non-violent reasoning with enough political clout, visibility, and resonating voice to rise up above the masses and create a ripple effect. Sometimes, I feel like the world is careening out of control and accelerating at a rate that is so fast- we are just going to implode. I have always been interested in being more "green" and doing my share to be environmentally friendly. In our society though, it is NOT easy. Of late, it seems more imperative to try to be more eco-conscious especially because I honestly don't see how the Earth can support all the people in the world if we continue using its resources thoughtlessly and greedily. I'm worried people, I AM WORRIED. In other news, why is it that the Italian fashion industry instituted health measures to be taken for anorexic models and then I read that Brazilian models are becoming more and more thin and anorexic when earlier standards of Brazilian bombshell beauty included a voluptuous figure and shapely bottom.....and then today I hear about how there is this big uproar that Tyra Banks gained some weight......huh? what? Oy
Anyway, all this ranting is making me hungry.
So, Babel-- after all the hype, we were expecting to walk out of the theatre totally depressed and nearly comatose, but we just weren' t that moved. I found the film trying to make a statement about crossing borders and understanding each other, living in a globalized world yet having no interconnection, but I felt like the movie was lacking a clear moral, political, ethical power punch. Plus the fact that all the story lines were wrapped up with a neat little bow at the end, and in essence everybody was going to be ok.....Hollywood ending. bada bing bada boom. It definitely wasn't a feel good movie- I just wasn't sure what the movie makers wanted me to feel. Also, D made a really good point about how the movie should have had fewer story lines and more character development. The most unique filmic moment happened when Chieko was in the nightclub and we saw an exterior view of flashing lights, pounding music, and everyone dancing, interspersed with Chieko's internal experience of no sound and understanding her surroundings. This movie left me with a lot of unanswered questions both about the characters, (what were Brad and Cate doing in Morrocco- besides the mysterious death of their kid, why was their marriage so strained?, what was Chieko's deal? did she kill her mother? or was she just so traumatized by her mother's death that she was in a deep depression and looking for love in all the wrong places?.....what happened to Mike and Debbie and the asshole, Santiago?
Overall-- I was disappointed.
Ok-- now I really have to go eat lunch-- back later!

So Gorgeous!

Hola! I am in Pittsburgh for 2 weeks and last night, we celebrated Douglas's birthday with Greek food and VOLVER! I really enjoyed it although I felt the pace was a bit slow towards the end. Before I start talking about plot and theme and such. Can I just say Penelope Cruz was gorgeous-- what a bod! She looked fantastic as a frazzled, hard working wife and mother with her hair always bed-headedly disheveled, sleeping in her kohl-ringed eyes (bedroom eyes) with the big gold hoop earrings. She wears these strange patterned outfits that don't quite go together but somehow totally work. She made me think of Italian movie stars in the 60s like Sophia Loren with the pencil skirts and the cleavage skimming little sweaters. Muy Caliente! I loved the whole look! Incredibly sexy!

Anyways, on a more serious, intellectual note.

The story line is really about relationships between mothers and daughters, and secrets..... as kept by Penelope Cruz and her Mother. The film feels like it can't quite decide between being heavy and sad or light yet suspenseful or some combination thereof. Some scenes were poignant in portraying women taking care of each other through illness, old age and adventure. I really thought all the actresses were great but I couldn't take my eyes off Penelope- she was luminous and in her native Spanish, so much more comfortable on screen than in American films she's been in. The end credits consisted of floral and linear patterns (like what you see in the poster above) animated and moving geometrically across the screen. I really liked the patterns- but it didn't seem to fit with the end of the film somehow-- it made me think of Marimekko patterns- and I'm not really sure how that fits in with the film?


The other film I saw, with another gorgeous woman in the opposite extreme, was The Curse of the Golden Flower starring Gong Li and Chow Yun Fat. Now, this movie was AMAZING for its opulence alone-- the costumes, the sets, the jewelery. It was a feast for the eyes!
Again, Gong Li is just so beautiful and in this film she is decked out in crazy jewels, head pieces, costumes, nail guards, shoes, and makeup-- gold and copper eye shadow and tangerine lipstick with gold. Supposedly, the film is set during the Tang Dynasty, a time that can be comparable to the the decadence of Versaille and French Aristocracy. Everything was over the top. All the women wear bust binding, cleavage revealing gowns. The entire palace courtyard is filled with pots of the cursed golden flower-- the Chrysanthemum.
Other films by this same director include Hero, and House of the Flying Daggers. I loved Hero for its color palette and beautiful cinematography. House of the Flying Daggers was a martial arts amazement. I don't think this film is exemplary of either of those things. Although there are several story lines bound together here-- the most memorable part of the film is the visual.
Again, I question the choice of end song which played during the credits. This music sounded contemporary and totally transported me out of the film setting and into the present...a bummer at the end of the movie.

Ok that's it for now!

Reviews on fire

A few nights ago, I went to see Casa de Areia, The House of Sand. A Brazilian movie starring the real life mother and daughter, Fernanda Montenegro and Fernanda Torres as Mother and Daughter in the film. Incidentally, the movie is directed by Fernanda Torres's husband, with the leads written especially for these two women. You might recognize Fernanda Montenegro as the actress nominated for an Oscar for Central Station in 1998 and who lost out to Gwyneth Paltrow, who won for Shakespeare in Love.
This movie was really amazing in a lot of different ways. The pace, unlike American movies, is slow and takes its time to allow the story to unfold. When the characters speak to eachother-- it is in clipped, boiled down questions and answers. There is not a lot of dialogue but much expression between the actresses as well as between the people and the land. The film was shot in the middle of the desert- but a desert as strange, changeable and moody as its new inhabitants. There are some breathtaking visuals in the film having to do with the changing landscape. I thought it was really great because the filmmakers assumed that the audience is fairly sophisticated and would understand a crucial jump in time based on the actresses. (I will say no more as I don't want to be a plot spoiler). The film's thematic threads are circular in nature, Mothers taking care of their daughters who then become mothers and begin again. I could go on about other themes-- but it would ruin the movie. I would recommend it though- if you are in the mood for a slow paced that requires some mental energy. I've been starting to see previews for Almodovar's new film, Volver, with a very sultry looking Penelope Cruz-- can't wait for that! I guess I'm on a Spanish film kick.
In the book dept., I'm currently reading 13 Moons by Charles Frazier. So far I really like it, it requires a lot of attention and focus. I am a slow reader and sometimes get lost in my own thoughts so that I have to reread a page a few times. Frazier writes with a very lovely- aromatic sense of description. I love the first paragraph of Chapter 8-- which is where I am currently:
That next summer in Valley River, I was not much of a business man. Nor did I crack a lawbook. Mostly I concerned myself with the weight of Claire's breast in my hand, the echo of a new poem,........., the mute colors of long sunsets,........

Ahhh, to be young and in love!

Otherwise, I just finished baking a batch of chocolate chip cookies.
Here is a preliminary photo of the studio. There is another window on that wall with the window you see and a storage nook behind where I was photographing. I don't like that light-- but you can't have everything!

Well, that's about all from Western NY for the moment. Happy Turkey Day!!!