Why make a film like "Love in the Time of Cholera"?

Javier Bardem has the leading role in the film.

I just watched the movie "Love in the Time of Cholera", released in 2007, directed by Mike Newell, starring Javier Bardem, Giovanna Mezzogiorno and Benjamin Bratt, and based on Gabriel Garcia Márques bestselling book from 1985.

And though competently told, I see no point whatsoever to the film. After first declaring her love when they are young, Fermina rejects Florentino for no apparent reason, and marries a man she later claims to despise. Well no-one understands women, right? They're not rational, right?


Florentino on his part claims he is saving himself for Fermina, yet keeps a record of the (at least) 622 women he beds while waiting for her. His current mistress when Fermina's husband finally passes away, is so young that no-one suspects them for being lovers, he claims. So officially he's a saint, while at the same time being a Lothario. So who doesn't want to have it both ways, to have the cake and eat it as well? And all the time being able to blame it on the woman who spurned him.


No relationship in the long film (over 2 hrs) looks particularly genuine. Why anyone gets involved with anyone is a mystery, and no, I don't understand why the couple (Florentino and Fermina) gets involved in the first case, but perhaps I'm too crass to believe in love at first sight. The film claims to be about love, but the only love scenes that have any inkling of warmth is toward the end, when the lovers finally gets together in their 70's. Love and sex among septuagenarians are rare on film, indeed!

The pace of the film is slow, the jumps in time are not motivated, the relationships are dull, the acting sincere but pedestrian, the faked spanish accents are hilarious (and excellent actor Liev Schreiber is wasted in a minor part), and the view on male as well as female sexuality is dim, to put it gently. So I just don't get it: WHY make this film?

I suspect it wants to ride on the success of the book, that it for some reason gives someone (the production company?) credits for being "serious" and "artistic"?

The film credits contain a long list of thanks to the government of Colombia, starting with the Vice President, so perhaps it is also sponsored by the Colombian tourist industry? Rightly so, as the film's greatest assets is indeed the excellent photography, including grand views of a great river delta.

But while the so-called production value is immense, I just can't see anyone get excited about the film. It is, as I said, competent, but oh how dull!

A waste of talent, it is.

The same old (cowboy) story in "Undercover Boss"

I just watched the first episode of the CBS "reality-narrative" called "Undercover Boss". (Available here until August 8, but also on CBS' website.) There the Chief Operating Officer Larry O'Donnell (see image right) goes to work "undercover" in his own company with a film crew.

Yes the story is full of touching episodes and wonderful people, but I totally agree with the sceptics at The Washington Post in their rather critical review.

However - even the Post misses what I think is the program's biggest flaw - the underlying assumption that the only person who can fix the problem is a high-ranking boss.

It is the American fable from the old cowboy movies all over again - the only one who can set things right is the town's sheriff. Yes, it is kinda touching when the COO realizes what effects his decisions in the boardroom have on the workers on the floor, but if I was O'Donnell, I would be more concerned with that the information does not travel through the organization. I don't know if the analogy of "trickle-down effect" works upward (percolate?), but there seems to be no real communication through the corporate layers in his organization, it resembles rather thick walls. But perhaps this is more typical of "the American way"? Scandinavian companies purportedly have much "flatter" organizations. (I should add that I don't expect ALL information to reach and be handled by top management - but that's why you have the so-called middle-management for!)

Every service company relies on the quality of it "front line". That the COO is unaware of the actual conditions of said front is remarkable. Is he surrounded only by yea-sayers? Not a good way to run a business. Whatever line of business (or activity) you're in, to make good decisions you need realistic facts to base them on. You need information to flow not only top-down, but also from the bottom-up.

(Read this article, even if it is an unashamed puff-piece for the so-called Scandinavian style of corporate management, it still describes a bit about what I mean.)

You can't rely on the sheriff riding into town every time to save the day.

A cynic is a failed romantic

I tried to explain the expression "a cynic is a failed romantic" to a friend. I don't recall where I first heard it, and could not find a definite source when searching the internet.

But I really like this saying, so I'll try to explain what it means in my view:

A cynic is a "non-believer" according to the online dictionary Thesaurus.com. I see a cynic as wearing a protective armour of doubt and pessimism, clad (sometimes, hopefully) in witticisms, but nevertheless with an exaggerated negative outlook on life.

Now a romantic is his (or her) opposite: this person has an overly optimistic view of persons or events. Everything is seen through rose-tinted glasses, as they say.

My point is - both of them are wrong. The metaphor of wearing tinted glasses (whether in pink or black) is appropriate: it distorts the view into a predisposed, favoured, interpretation. But nothing is so simple in real life. Nothing is all bad or all wonderful.

This thing we call life is a giant mesh of the terrible, the

wonderful, the boring and everything in between. Resorting to simplified templates and trying to squeeze them onto our experiences distances us further from the world rather than brings us into it. It judges the world into a dichotomy of good or bad. All nuances go out the window.

And yes, I think it is quite likely that a disappointed romantic will easily swing to the other end of the emotional spectrum and become a cynic.

This is why I have found Buddhism such a relief: it teaches mindfulness over judging and sorting; presence over distancing; and equanimity over emotional upheavals.

"What IS this?" asks one of my favourite buddhist writers Ezra Bayda when he meditates. What IS this life when we manage to remove our tinted glasses?

There is no "sick" art

I just came across a sentence in a book that I got completely stuck on - so I have to sort it out a bit before I continue reading it:

"We are sometimes tired, too, of the arts within our [Western] civilization when they express the sick mind and the diseased imagination."*

Can art really be sick? NO: it can be provoking, irritating, annoying, and so on: but no, not sick.

Can an artist have a sick mind or a diseased imagination?

An artist may have a mental illness, sure. I think I heard somewhere that mental illness is overrepresented in artists, compared to the general population. But most people suffering mental illnesses are not able to create at all, so I still think it must be a sign of something healthy when you can transform inner agony into an exterior expression.

One example: I once saw a documentary of Terence Koh, also known as "Kohbunny" or "asianpunkboy". He didn't look like a happy, well-adjusted individual (whatever THAT is!), but there is no doubt that he is very creative! Many are provoked by his goldplated turds. And while I personally would NOT cough up the money required to purchase one of these items, I am intrigued by the antithesis of putting what we value most (pure gold) with what we value least (shit!).

Another contemporary artist that has caused a lot of upset is Damien Hirst. He got a lot of publicity - and angry public reactions - for displaying dead animals in formaldehyde, and for decorating a skull with billions worth of diamonds and platinum ("For the love of God", see photo above). He also created a stir when Sotheby's sold a collection of his art directly from the artist to the public -becoming the highest paid artist today. (And curiously, this took place in September 2008, when the financial markets seemed to be in freefall!)

Perhaps what people find most upsetting is that he is able to charge such incredible amounts of money for his art! There seem to be a strong remnance of the 18th century romantic movement, where the view of the solitary genius artist was elevated to new heights. I guess we still have a notion of this lonely genius, only interested in his oevre, not bothered about material matters like money... Preferrably a misunderstood loner, who dies before his talent is acknowledged. (OK, I'm exaggerating, but you get the picture! ;-)

I guess each age has it's own preoccupations: today - especially in the current global recession - it seems to be MONEY. So it is rather amusing how upset people get when Damien Hirst rakes it in...

But no, I don't get upset at the artists for holding up these mirrors to our society. Our reactions to their art shows us who we are, what we believe. Suddenly we define ourselves, we see the outlines of our own beliefs in clear relief.

So when a piece of art upsets us - how about taking a deep breath and ponder for a while: what in me triggers this reaction? Where lie my borders?

And no, I don't like ALL art - but I am thrilled to find someone who challenges me to react, and thus to learn more about myself!

PS. I have to add, that in a way you could call it "sick art" when an artists mental illness manifests in the work itself. I've heard fascinating accounts of art created by the Swedish artists Ernst Josephson (schizophrenic) and Carl Fredrik Hill (hallucinations, paranoia - also schizophrenic?). As I mentioned, I think creating art must have been some form of outlet for them, and thus a sign of health in the middle of their madness, but for us viewers, it offers a remarkable insight into a diseased mind. And why should we condemn these artists for their illness?

PPS. Even though I like Damien Hirst, I also like graffiti artist Cartrain, who made his own comments on Hirst's work! It's kind of like having a set of pins around to prick inflated egos, however creative :-)

Now you may ask - but what about beauty? But that is too big a question for this blog entry...

Long live art!

/KrisC

Post-post-whatever: Is Damien Hirst doing it again? I recently heard the news that he is currently - painting. Regular, square canvas paintings. He considered that would REALLY be controversial in today's modern art world! Go Damien!

*I am not going to name the title of the book, as I don't think this sentence is true to the actual message of it. Just a phrase I wish could have been more carefully formulated.

What pain has taught me

In a freak accident on 15 december 2005, I slipped on a piece of paper while passing through the central station area in Stockholm, and dropped straight down on my right knee so that the hipbone banged into the hipjoint with a terrible jolt. While the knee was swollen and sore it healed quickly, but after the accident I developed sciatica in my right hip.

This caused a pain that has been more or less incapacitating since then. At times, I couldn't even walk! I've seen orthopedists, been x-rayed, worked over by a physiotherapist, and met with doctors, but no-one could do anything but prescribe anti-inflammatory medication.

The consequences were that I could not practice yoga any more - certainly not the quite taxing Ashtanga Yoga. I tried Anusara Yoga, but it just triggered a really bad attack instead.

You could say that I hated the pain - sincerely! However, last autumn I bought four sessions with a personal trainer, the hip behaving fairly well for a change, and eager to get ideas on how to exercise withouth triggering further pain. And lo! My super PT Conny Andersson somehow fixed the hip! The exercises and the super-stretches (where he added his full weight on the stretch!) somehow fixed what the physiotherapist could not!

Anyway, my point is, I realized I am after all grateful for the pain! It got me started experimenting with different types of yoga, and even though Anusara didn't work for me, I discovered variations of "gentle yoga" through a book by Louise Grime, and through YogaJournal's magazine and web site. I discovered the therapeutic side of yoga, with for instance the passive restorative yoga, where you lie down in specific positions and let gravity and breathing do the work, like "legs up the wall-pose", one of my favourites.

Even though the sciatica is gone, my back still hurts sometimes, mostly the lower back, but recently I have added other sources for help: Anusara teacher Desirée Rumbaugh's dvd "Yoga to the rescue for back pain", (a bit more vigourous) and Gary Kraftsow's "Viniyogatherapy for the low back, sacrum and hips" (more gentle, when the pain is more acute).

Conclusion: no matter what your condition is, there is a form of yoga that is right for you! Keep experimenting, while listening carefully to your own body!

Of course, I would prefer to be completely free of pain, but still, the pain opened up a whole new world of yoga that I don't think I would have discovered otherwise - thus making my life richer. I know now that I can practice yoga for the rest of my life!

Om mani padme hum -

KrisC

To blog, or not to blog...

I started this blog with two goals: to keep up my English, and of course to reach friends. But the response from my friends was weak, and I got really depressed when one friend claimed that she couldn't be bothered to get another password (you need a password to comment on the blog - however, not to read it. And she could always comment in some other way: e-mail, Facebook...)

Anyway. I lost the impetus, and thus have not written since May.

But now I promise this: to keep up the writing even to an audience of one (me)!

SO here are some good reasons to keep up a blog (even if your friends ignore it):

1. Regular writing improves your writing skills
   


2. Writing in your second language will keep up your skills in that language
   


3. To learn to write regularly is a good way to develop discipline (not my best skill!)



4. Even though there are millions of bloggers out there, sending your thoughts out into cyberspace will still invite the surprise external contact!



5. Making your texts public forces you to strive for a certain quality, something you might not be bothered about when just scribbling in a notebook.



6. It's fun!

At least, this is what I'm trying to convince myself of... So welcome to the re-launch of my blog "Advanced Banter"!!

All the best,

Kris

Guruji Sri K. Pattabhi Jois died today

It was announced today on the official website of the Ashtanga Yoga Reasearch Institute, http://www.ayri.org/ that Guruji died today, on May 18. My deepest condolences to his family, but also to all of us, his students, who lost an inspiring teacher today.

I have tried different types of yoga, and even though I find it physically challenging and I am far from a stellar student, Ashtanga yoga remains my favourite. I had the honour and joy to participate in a week-long work shop in Helsinki, 2006, held by Guruji and assisted by his daughter Saraswati and her son, Guruji's grandson Sharat, who now runs the institute in Mysore, India.

It was a challenging but very inspiring week, I worked better than ever under their guidance! We must have been at least 100 persons in the large hall, but great concentration and energy filled the room - amazing!

And I will of course always be grateful for making two new great friends that week, Tanja from Finland, and Yvonne, who had come all the way from Beijing to practice for Guruji!

Let me finish with one of my favourite sayings of Guruji:

"Do your practice, and all will follow."

Thank you, Guruji, for your inspiration!

/Kris C.