Last saturday, on all saints' day, i transformed my little apartment into a haunted house and gave a nice, intimate little belated halloween party. Me and my two co-hostesses served the guests quesadillas, beetroot cake with blood red icing and roman punch. Sadly i never had the time, energy, funds or imagination to put together any kind of costume. But it was a fun night all the same.
On the balcony i placed a banshee, or someting, i made of some cardboard, bamboo sticks and two yards of tulle.
I'm shocked, but mostly exhilarated! -this is exactly the kind of news i've been longing and pining for for so long; Marguerite Duras'"Un Barrage contre le pacifique" or "The Sea Wall" (1950) has been made into a movie! (another, based on the same novel, was made in the 1950s, but it's too awful!) -and with one of my favorite actresses of all time; Isabelle Huppert! But how on earth could I not know about this?!
Directed by the cambodian Rithy Panh and a collaboration between France, Cambodia and Belgium. "The Sea Wall" is set in 1930s Cambodia, then part of French Indochina -where A French widow, played by Huppert, lives with her son and daughter. They make a meager living from growing rice, but their paddies are just on the border of the sea and flooded each year and the crops ruined. So their only hope appears to be in constructing a sea wall. The mother persists and will not give up, fighting nature as well as colonial bureaucracy.
Her 20-year-old son Joseph (Gaspard Ulliel), an irascible young man, is equally determined, but it's the teenaged daughter Suzanne (Astrid Bergés-Frisbey) who proves to be most stubborn. One day, her willowy beauty catches the attention of a well-to-do, foppish Chinese man; Monsieur Jo. As his interest in Suzanne verges toward obsession, her mother and brother find themselves in a quandary: Monsieur Jo could provide the financial security they need, but he is Chinese, and racial prejudice is a fact of life in their society...
So now i can't wait to get to see this beauty-orgy! A pity though that it doesn't seem to have been up for theatrical release anywhere and that i's been released practically without fanfare, just shown at some festivals. I'm going to have to make do with the dvd, ...whenever it pleases to arrive!
Anyway; Here's the trailer:
Asia, and the southeast in particular, has been a long-standing fascination with me, and a favorite destination of escape -even though i've never been there. -except for in my dreams... through books, like "the Gentleman in the parlour" (1930) by W. Somerset Maugham, or films such as "The Scent of Green papaya" or "Indochine" with Catherine Deneuve, and "the Lover"-based on another novel by Duras; "l'Amant"...And through music, tea -naturally... countless travelling magazines... -the lush landscapes, the warmth, dense jungles, tribes and ancent civilizations, the old temples of the Khmers... All those places where i've always drifted away in my thoughts... -and of course; through food!
Delicious vietnamese dishes at Monsieur Vuong in Berlin. The famous Halong Bay, Vietnam - still from "Indochine"."The Gate of Humanity" in Huế. Buddhist nun at Angkor Wat, Cambodia. Photo by David Wilmot19th Century, french engraving of the Bayon Temple, Angkor Angkor Thom Photo: Marc Riboud - (c) Musée GuimetAngkor Thom - Photo by Émile Gsell - (c )Musée Guimet (above) Traditional Khmer dancers in front of Angkor Wat, Cambodia - 1920s.
And another favorite, as a bonus - the gorgeous trailer for Wong Kar Wai's equally gorgeous film "In the Mood For Love"(2001); -set to Bryan Ferry's beautiful version of the song that gave the film it's name.
"The Sea Wall" images; (c) Catherine Dussart ProductionsCDP
Hello again! I'm just going to start breaking the silence by wishing you a Happy New Year and by posting a series of photos from my own new year's eve celebrations. I and a couple of friends spent the evening in my apartment and cooked a delicious vietnamese dinner, -since i got Ghillie Basan's fantastic book "The food and cooking of Vietnam and Cambodia" i've become quite obsessed, also a longing for warm and exotic places...in spite of the fact that i've been pining for razor sharp cold and now gotten it -it's a staggering 5 degrees F outside and the cold has been staying for several weeks now...i can't stop myself from simply dreaming myself away to the far east. However...the day before i met my friend K downtown to go to the asian markets where we got all we needed -like two old ladies we had both brought our own little baskets, and then on the afternoon of new year's eve we all sat down around my dining table and made spring and summerrolls, wonton dumplings, and a crisp green papaya salad, everything took the whole evening to prepare as i only have a tiny kitchenette with little space for a good mise-en-place. At the stroke of midnight we crowded on my balcony to see the fireworks.
Hello loves! I just have to post this german documentary (in two parts) about Drottningholm that i just found on youtube. I can't stand how time just evaporates like this - i haven't made it to Drottningholm since i was there for Handel's Ariodante in the beginning of june, and i used to go there at least once a week! -but of course it's been a terrible start of this summer -after a lovely spring most of june just rained away and the temperature stayed around 13 Celsius...but now we've had several days of almost tropical heat with temperatures never sinking below 20 degrees even at night. So i hope to go soon! -and i really could be there within 30 minutes so i don't know what keeps keeping me!
1,
2,
Last week i was in Berlin for a couple of days, visiting my friend, who's currently doing an internship at an architecture firm there.
This was my first time abroad since my mother passed away in 2005 and god, i needed a holiday! My friend lives in Kreutzberg in the most beautiful apartment in a 19th century building with stucco ceilings and no less than three beautiful tiled stoves!
On the third day we got tickets for Mozart's "the abduction of the seraglio" at the Staatsoper Unter den linden, it was just third row seats and we scarcely saw the stage, but it was a great performance, with Christine Schäfer as Costanze, who also sings the part on the recording with William Christie. Annoyingly we didn't get to see her when she gloriously sang "Marter aller arten", so the operaglasses i found in a little antiques shop in our neighborhood earlier the same day weren't much use, but we heard perfectly: Unter den linden towards Alexanderplatz with the Staatsoper to the right.
One of my favorite things about Berlin is Dussmann -a huge and fabulous store on Friedrichstraße, open until midnight on weekdays, selling books, music, movies, games and more. -they have the most incredible classical section! Too good to be true! I bought Mondonville's "Titon et Aurore" and Mouret's "Les amours de Ragonde" (Erato/Warner) both with Marc Minkowski and a lovely new cd titled "Le salon de musique de Marie-Antoinette" (Naïve/Ambroisie" with Sandrine Chatron on Harp, playing beautiful pieces by Gluck, Grétry, Mozart and others including Marie-Antoinette's own composition "C'est mon ami" and other arias and duets sung by Isabelle Poulenard and Jean-François Lombard, and then to my pleasant surprise i found a sequal to Véronique Gens and Les Talens Lyriques with Christophe Rousset, terrific 2006 recital cd "Tragédiennes" (Emi/Virgin) simply titled "Tragédiennes 2".
The first one had music by Lully, Campra, Rameau, Mondonville, Leclair, Royer and Gluck and the second one Gluck, Sacchini, Piccinni, Rameau, Grétry, Cherubini, Arriàga and Berlioz. I also picked up Lully's "Atys" (Harmonia Mundi) with William Christie and Les Arts Florissants.
the view from the tv-tower
The classical section at Dussmann truly is fantastic, i discovered it the last time i was in Berlin in 2004 and i was like a kid in a candystore! They have absolutely everything! -and i was pleased to see nothing had changed in five years, what with all those superstores closing and downsizing allover the world. I also made it twice to my favorite eatery, Monsieur Vuong where i had delicious springrolls, noodlesalad Mekong and Phò. How i love that place...just like the rest of the world! Sadly i did not make it to Potsdam and Sanssouci or to revisit the Charlottenburg palace...but they're excellent reasons to go back to that lovely city.
The Sophienkirche in Mitte, a gorgeous little church
Again, i apologise for not being more active here but time has just been slipping through my fingers lately. But i'm pleased to see you're still with me. See you soon!
I just love this design! It's from the swedish factory of Marieberg and from the mid 1770s. I first saw one in the catalogue of an auction house, i use such catalogues for inspiration for objects to fill my drawn interiors with, that one missed it's top and had a little rabbit at the fot of the stairs that goes up the base of the vase, i just love the details - the little banister, the balustres, little knobs, the reeds and flowers, the decor in black and grey on white, with a little trophy-group with a bow, arrows and a quiver on the vase. Then i found another one, depicted below, just like it while browsing the photo library of the Réunion des Musées Nationaux, that's in the collections of le Palais des beaux arts - Lille, that one had a polychrome decor, also with a rabbit and a basket and barrel on the vase, so delightful!Then a couple of weeks ago i passed by one of the finest antiques dealers in town and there it was! This one also in black on white but with a dog sitting at the bottom of the stairs and its top crowned by a blackberry. Oh how you must think me deranged! It's the kind of shop where you have to ring a bell before they let you in, so i didn't dare to, to get a closer look until today. It's price was about fourteenhundred dollars, so, sadly as i am penniless i won't be getting it, but they were kind enough to let me take some photos so that you too, if you share my insanity, can drool over it and dream of it standing on your mantlepiece, just like i do in my desperately obsessive mind...
