Love is the answer

The whole world doesn’t know such wonderful specialists in the field of falling in love as French people. In the catholic countries the conception of love is really practical: you met somebody, you have crash on this person, you got married, you have some kids and despite crisis and changing the feelings you are still with your spouse. Most people are conscious that "times change, and we change with them"  as well. 

As a consequence we – adults – accept that our partner is getting old/bold/fat/whatever and we try to tolerate the fact that the passion, which used to be the foundation of relationship, is gone. Some of us want find some solution and keep their familiar life going. But on the other hand there are French people who constantly are in their egoistic pursuit of happiness.

Or maybe they are right? You have only one life so there is no time to waste?

“Mon roi” (my king) is one of the best film I recently watched. Only the true about being in couple are looking for happiness. 

King of the Jews (but not this one you think)

One day this city will be mine – thought Jakub Szapir, commonly known Jewish boxer and member of the Warsaw mafia. Everyone knows his name in 1937, because he symbolise everything that a normal Jew can’t achieve in his whole life: inappropriate amount of money, wonderful life, beloved wife and (the most important) respect of Polish VIP.

When he is fighting on the ring, smashing the head of a Polish boxer- he fells unpunished. When he sleeps with the most beautiful women in the capital city – he knows that the very next day this woman will tell it to all of her female friends … and everybody will be jealous.  When he chooses to battle “Falanga” – he is certain that he can afford it. So he decides to become a king of a Warsaw.

“Król” of Szczepan Twardoch tells us a story about two cities: the Jewish and the Polish Warsow. Especially now, we are in need of this type of books to show all so-called-patriots that history is not black and white. During the interwar period, there was a deep hatred between these two worlds.

It was a consequence of stupidity, lack of the integration but also really often: the provocation approved by both sides of the conflict.

So this is not another criminal book. This is an interesting analyse of our society.



*****

And this is an other commonly know "King" of our culture.

How aliens look like?

In (almost) every science fiction movie there are some aliens from other planets or galaxies. Their proposes are different: some of them want to destroy/conquer our world and make us their slaves, on the contrary, some of them want to support our planet and let us develop the technology.

Every time we attribute to the aliens a bunch of human features as envy, lust, generosity, magnanimity, etc. The physical features of aliens are as well very human/ animal. They have hands, legs, eyes. Maybe sometimes they are green or have tentacles but essentially they are similar to things that we know.

What if the aliens aren’t like this? What if they do not resemble anything you are familiar with?

For Stanisław Lem it was so significant question that he decided to transfer his idea to the book. In “Solaris” the scientists find a new form life on the recently discovered planet. However, an alien looks like an ocean…

It turns out that even a basic form of communication will not be available. Consequently, in spite of finding another form of life, we will be still lonely in the universe.

Worst movie ever

About „the room” many reviews have been written, many words have been said and many opinions have been shared.  My favourite one describes this movie as “a holly grail – nirvana of bad acting”.  So you can ask a question: is it really that bad? (Yes, it is)

Let’s be honest – the film is such a disaster. Actors can’t play, the story doesn’t exist, logic neither.  You can have an impression that the creation of this movie is a bad joke. And even if it is, why do you care? The director had a dream – he wanted to make a film to tell people about his problems. He found enough money and will to achieve his aim. I really admire that attitude. Even if the product is bad, there are some people who enjoy it and keep it doing. I’m sure that everyone knows somebody who has big/wild/amazing dream but hasn’t got enough motivation to execute it. Shame.

If you like taking creepy photos – do it.
If you like direct shitty movie – do it.

If you wanna be a model but you friends think that you are too fat – do it anyway.

The most important is to follow your dreams.

Do you always like book charcters?

The last time, during our English lessons, girls established the fact that “a good story has characters you can empathise with”. A bestseller called “The girls on the train” is in absolutely contradiction to this statement.

Firstly, you really hate all of characters in this book and the main character is the most antipathetic one. Sometimes you just ask yourself: do they have to be so annoying and irritating? However, it doesn’t really bother a reader, you just keep reading to know what will happen next. You want to solve a crime! Personally, I have finished this book in five hours, because I couldn’t put it down.
The story is not really complicated: there are a murder, a drunken witness and a lot of questions. It is not as sophisticated as the works of Agatha Christie but it is still a good entertainment. If you don’t have any plans for Sunday, you should buy it!

Coming back to the topic, there are some books, like these written by Joyce or Woolf, when you cannot empathise with a character. Because of the narrative mode called stream of consciousness, which show you exactly what is going on in the head of a person, you can understand their world but it will still be their world. In this case, it is not possible for reader to become somebody else and indentify completly with this character.

Moreover, Nabokov - a great writer and the professor of literature - said that strong feeling of identification with characters is just childish.

The Japanese notion of „égalité”

The confrontation of our dreams with the reality is always painful. The young, beauty and smart Belgian woman returns to the country of her sweet childhood – Japan, in order to work in an international company as a translator. Trilled and enthusiastic as kids waiting in line to the roller-coaster, she comes to work……… and here are journey begins.

For the European woman the Japanese attitude, the establish rules how to act in a workplace, and the overwhelming etiquette are just ridiculous. In particular for a French-speaker (we all know what are: French Revolution, Bill of rights, May 1968, etc) the notion of rigorous hierarchy really sounds just like a very bad joke.

An example the most hilarious for me concerns the usage of the foreigner language. She can’t use the Japanese language in front of the people from other companies. Why? The white woman, who understands everything they say, may cause their discomfort. The Nippon staffs stay with the Nippon people. Not with the white one.

“Stupeur et tremblements” (ang. Fear and Trembling) by Amélie Nothomb shares with us another look into Japanese culture. This is not an advertisement, but critical analyse of the modern Nippon society where people overrated their career and aren’t familiar with the notion of “mind’s independence”.

Hippy in the XXI century

In “Captain fantastic” the main character decided to live in a forest with his wife and kids in order to escape excessive consumerism and be close to nature. He made his own utopia. As a matter of facts, he is so happy with his wife, children are very athletic, smart, resourceful: they enjoy sports and sophisticated lectures. They do love their parents. And of course, they are wiser than their contemporaries.

In my opinion, the director is trying to convince us that living, just with the family in the middle of nowhere, has no impact on children at all. He creates his idyllic world which consists on avoiding the civilization, dwelling in a hut, reading mind-expanding books about the philosophy and hunting.

This is just ridicules. Nowadays you can’t run away from a contemporary world and live in your way. Or maybe you can as long as your kid is healthy and doesn’t need a modern medicine…

The notion of the independence doesn’t work anymore. Firstly as citizens, we are involved in a public life even against us. Secondly, the world is giving us a lot of possibilities but all of them are elements of the system. Thanks to the system and development of civilization we have education, healthcare, fast transport – everything. 

The vision in the film is just a dream.