Shuarian’s Weblog

I’ve recently watched the movie V for Vendetta, and liked it well enough. The fragmentally mentioned backstory to the movie is a political meltdown of the United States, which caused global instability and led to the establishment of a fascist, ultraconservative christian regime in the United Kingdom, where the movie is set. The focus of the movie lies on the mysterious person of V, who seeks to oust the regime from power and who also leads his own personal vendetta, and Evey, a young woman who gets mixed up with V’s revolution.

The good:
* The dark visuals are nicely done and fit the theme of the movie.
* The depiction of the regimes contumelious misuse of power and its elitism, its control of mass media and society at large through the use of fear and force, works well.
* Some scenes show the story of a same-sex couple as they have to live through the increasingly oppressive nature of the new regime. The sympathy the movie offers them is a rare feat for a Hollywood production.
* Generally, I also liked the fighting sequences; also the occasional, highly eloquent social and historical commentary made by V mostly resonated with me.

The bad:
* Evey’s character development remains passive, and more or less consists of Natalie Portman (the actress of Evey) looking good with long hair and looking good with short hair. V’s motivation is unfathomable, despite the background we get on his character.
* There’s a sequence which strongly reinforces the notion of pain (in this case even inflicted through torture) revealing one’s true self and strengthening one’s will. While Nietzsche would like us to believe that that which does not kill me, makes me stronger, I put more trust in experience and thoughts understood through human qualities such as intellectual curiosity, doubt, reflection, and empathy. And as the Interwebs say, that which does not kill you only fucks you up for a really long time. Take that, Ueber-mensch.
* The movie is an adaption of a comic book series of the same name, which has Anarchism as one of its main themes. In the movie, this is still apparent by V’s emblem (graphic), which features the red and black colours of anarcho-syndicalism and rotates nicely to an A (another symbol of Anarchism). Other than that, however, Anarchism as a topic is absent in the movie - which is a missed opportunity, background and story wise. Yet, neither knowing the comic book nor being an adherent of Anarchism, isn’t that important to me overall.

In case you rely solely on my blog for news (and that’s about the only possible explanation if you haven’t heard of this already), the new trailer for the next Indiana Jones movie - the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - has been released.

I’m not one to fall for big Hollywood productions, but this one certainly looks gooood. Can’t wait to see the final product on the big screen!

Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated

I hadn’t much time to update this blog. But yes, I’m still alive, and yes, I’m fine. Thankyouverymuch. While I certainly would have liked to write more, the reason for the lack of updates is a positive one: As of June 8th, 2006, I started on a new job as assistant on call for Credit Suisse in Aarau. It’s a challenge I gladly accept, one which demands a lot but also returns a lot. One other positive factor are my terms of employment. I’m employed ‘on call’, which gives me a flexible working schedule - an important factor, given the fact that I’m also attending the Aargauische Maturitätsschule für Erwachsene (AME) on Wednesday and Saturday.

It’s only natural I don’t have all that much time for my blog anymore. I do, however, want to continue with it. I’ll probably write fewer, shorter and less polished entries. Another idea I’ve tossed around with recently is the introduction of some weekly features like photo of the week, link of the week, fact of the week and so on. This would allow me to update the blog frequently without any pressure of having to come up with all-creative, all-exclusive and all-interesting stuff by my own.

To reanimate my blog for now, I’ve quickly finished some of the stuff I’ve started over the last few weeks and merged them into one, big entry:

Movie Review I: American Dreamz

Paul Weitz is a director who has a mixed record with me. I absolutely love In Good Company and About A Boy, but loathe American Pie (I spare you the Wikipedia link). And so on a nice Thursday evening I was eager to see on what end of the scale his new movie, American Dreamz, would end.

The idea is promising although barely very originally. The President of the United States (an obvious parody on George W. Bush) has a special kind of mid-life crisis - after winning his bid for reelection, he starts reading books and newspapers, and loses sight of other important stuff like meeting the press and listening to his Chief of Staff (a Dick Cheney/Karl Rove type), who is shocked by this new development.

The solution for the low approval ratings of the President seems easy - putting him as a guest judge on the most popular TV show of all times, American Dreamz (a mockery of American Idol - Note: Reading through Wikipedia’s entry actually reveals quite a few interesting and rather precise parallels between these two shows I wasn’t aware of earlier). Things are getting complicated when a would-be terrorist enters the show in order to commit suicide during the President’s appearance.

From there on, the movie basically follows three narrative plot lines, centering around the process of the show and presenting the lives of its main characters: the President of the United States of America, the Arab terrorist, the cynical host of American Dreamz and a young and overambitious wanna-be music star girl.

Unfortunately, the wide scoop of the movie means it can’t focus on just one or two topics. Thus the satire touches many interesting points, but doesn’t really go into any details. Despite some good and witty scenes, the whole movie just has too many loose ends and remains too tame for a satire (this can be seen when, for about five to ten minutes, the movie shows clips of miserably singing and dancing aspirants for American Dreamz. That’s what the real American Idol is for, gosh).

All in all, the movie was… nice. Unfortunately, for a movie which should have been a snappy and witty satire on the media and politics, this is hardly a compliment.

Movie Review II: Stesti - Something Like Happiness

Stesti is a movie from the Czech Republic which tells the story of a life far away from the shiny and beautiful picture tourists see when visiting the Czech capital Prague. Instead, the movie presents the rural, agrarian-industrial area, where daily life is hard and people live a life of quiet desperation; yet still rave about moments of luck and future dreams, swapping between optimism and melancholy seemingly seamless.

I don’t want to go too much into the story, for this is a movie you should see for yourself. Let me just add that the movie features some incredible wonderful cinematic shots of the Czech Republic and that the cast does an awesome job.

Yeah, I’m a sucker for these kind of movies, and I probably should have written a more elaborate review. Mea culpa.

Summer vacations: Czech Republic & Adventures

Travelling is something I love to do, and I always look forward to the next place I can visit. For this summer vacations, my favourite destinations would have been Lybia, Morocco or Uzbekistan. For one reason or another, I had to rule out each one of them - at least for this summer. Oh well, thankfully our world isn’t really short of interesting countries to see.

And so I’ve come up with the following nominees: Norway/Sweden, Portugal, Czech Republic and Albania. As you surely already have guessed, the Czech Republic won in the end. Bernhard, who will travel with me yet again, and I have already decided for a nice route (Prague & Around - Ceske Budejovice & Ceske Krumlov - Brno - Olomouc - Prague), and I just hope we can avoid the mass tourism crowds once we are outside of Prague itself.

Apart from that, I’ve bought some old adventure games over Ebay recently. They were a real bargain, and here’s my list so far: Syberia I + II, Omikron - The Nomad Soul, Beyond Good & Evil and Sam & Max Hit the Road. I’ll also try to buy Dreamfall, which is the successor of my favourite adventure of all times, The Longest Journey. Unfortunately, I’m not sure if it will run on my laptop. I don’t have time to play more than one of them. First of all, I’ve bought them a few weeks back when I didn’t have a job, so I don’t have that much time anymore. Secondly, I don’t want to sit in front of the computer all the time, so one game really is enough. And last but not least, my very own first adventure (really, rather Interactive Fiction) game, All That Remains, is also due this summer, and I sure as hell will try to meet that deadline.

I also might visit the Montreux Jazz Festival (wikipedia entry). However, it’s held in early July, a time when I don’t have vacations, so I could only go during the weekends of 8th/9th or 14th/15th July. As it is, the only concert I’m somewhat interested in on that date are Iggy Pop & The Stooges. And as the entry price is rather high I’ll probably miss on that one.

Paulo Coelho: The Alchemist

Ever since I’ve attended the Open Forum at the World Economic Forum 2005 in Davos, I wanted to read a book by Paulo Coelho (he was a speaker at one of the debates). Now that I finally managed to do so, I can say I’m in no way disappointed. The book The Alchemist has a truly beautiful story. It revolves around Santiago, a shepherd from Spain, who goes on a journey to Egypt in order to find a hidden treasure he has seen in his dreams. On his trip, he has to find peace with himself and the world, and overcome many obstacles. Most of them are self-made, and a challenge to his commitment, belief and will.

However, this book isn’t only about personal fulfilment. It shows a world full of magic and symbolism. Even though I don’t believe in such a world, I was still able to enjoy the book. I don’t believe in fate, but I can agree that one should try to achieve their dreams.

Off-Topic: Fate Vs. Destiny

I draw a distinction between fate and destiny, and I think that’s one of the reasons I liked the book nevertheless. Fate is something which one cannot escape, a story which is already written and which has no alternative turns, and excludes free will. Destiny is more like a goal one can achieve if he decides to take the right steps, and thus does not rule out free will and different outcomes.

As I see it, Paulo Coelho’s idea of a ‘personal legend’ everyone has is more closer to my destiny than to my fate. At any point during the story, Santiago would have been able to give up and return home. But he didn’t choose to do so. Despite this, I do disagree with him on whether one can choose his destiny/personal legend or not. I’ll write more on that in another entry and just leave it at that for the moment.

Off-Topic, continued: The beauty of fate?

Judging from many books and movies on that topic, it appears many people are somewhat drawn to stories of fate. I guess fate adds grandness
and sense to life; fate is an escape from a world which many people perceive as small and cold; fate offers an explanation for the world, and gives everything a greater meaning. Or is it that fate takes away the burden of decision? That it eliminates all the haunting questions about past actions? If fate dictates everything, there can be no mistakes, no false decisions anymore. But is such a world really more beautiful?

Is a story more beautiful when two people come together because it was ‘meant to be’? Or when they choose so? Me, I certainly prefer the second variant. I find it more beautiful if two persons choose to be together, overcome obstacles by their own will, have to fight, and are ready to sacrifice part of themselves for the other person.

Raymond Carver: What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

The book is a collection of short stories, all written by Raymond Carver. His stories are well written, and it clearly shows that the author understands his craft. Unfortunately, he decides to stick to only one kind of people. While this makes his characters authentic and allows for a greater insight into their minds, the novelty of reading about ever so similar people wears out with time. I don’t questions his abilities as a writer and observer, but some diversity would have certainly helped. Because in the end, I can’t connect to all these characters who seem to consist of (*takes deep breath*) midlife crised, screwed-up and sex-obsessed drunkards who all have their hidden dreams and feelings but fail to express them and are now drugged, depressed, screwed-up, drunk or sex-obsessed. There, with this formula you too can construct your own Raymond Carver story!

Note: Reading through the above text again, I feel compelled to stress that I did, in fact, enjoy the book. But it could have been so much better.

Syriana

Syriana is a 2005 movie dealing with the Middle East politics of big oil companies and their influence in US foreign policy. While the story itself is fictional, the plot is based on the book See No Evil by former CIA operative Robert Baer. The movie’s tagline reads ‘Everything is connected’, and it does a fairly good job at showing how even small, local events can have a big influence. It’s also interesting to see the relation between the interest of oil companies and undemocratic and corrupt regimes in the Middle East, and the alleged part industrialised countries play in all this. Another thing which is done quite nicely is how the movie makes it clear that everyone just knows a small part of the ‘big picture’, yet has to act nevertheless.

On the bad side, some scenes were useless and only made the story more complicated without advancing the plot. These scenes also didn’t add any more background to the characters, even though I guess that was the reason for including them in the first place. Speaking about characters, their background felt rather thin, and their motives a bit superficial. This shows especially in the case of the young Pakistani man who becomes a terrorist.

To me, it feels as if the movie succeeds at making it clear what point the director wishes to express, yet fails to back up his message with more background and comprehensible information. Oh, and people in Iran speak Persian, not Arabic. Gosh!

From fiction to reality: Foreign Affairs

I’m a subscriber to Foreign Affairs, in my opinion one of the most insightful magazines out there. Its current issue (May/June 2006) features some excellent articles again. I haven’t read everything yet, but would like to use this opportunity to direct your attention to two outstanding contributions:

This issue’s main article - Saddam’s Delusions: The View From the Inside - by Kevin Woods, James Lacey, and Williamson Murray provides an interesting insight into the former Iraqi government. It shows how Saddam lived in a self-constructed world of lies and illusions, caused by his own delusion of grandeur and incompetence; most of his inner circle was only chosen by tribe and kinship, and the few competent people in the higher command staff were too afraid to speak their minds. Thus it comes as no surprise to learn that Saddam’s main goal was not to counter the US-led invasion, but rather to avoid them and be prepared to strike against inner unrest. The article can be read online at the Foreign Affairs website, and is available in its full length.

Another interesting article is The New Middle Ages by John Rapley. The 500 words preview over at Foreign Affairs’ website only gives an inadequate introduction to the article’s main thesis, which follows the development of the role of states and national sovereignty through the emergence of capitalism and trade to the current globalised economy. Two following two small excerpts do a good job at describing the main notion:

The shift toward knowledge-intensive products, reductions in the transport costs of both goods and labor, and the rapid acceleration of technological change have loosened the state’s hold on its traditional resource base.

Because neoliberal policies have done more to free the movement of capital and goods and services than to reduce barriers to human migration, the balance of negotiating power has shifted in favour of the managers of multinational or even global firms.

Source: ‘The New Middle Ages’ by John Rapley. Foreign Affairs, May/June 2006, Page 101.

While hardly saying anything new at frist glance, the article offers an interesting look at the history, causes and effects of the global world order, and its impact on the shift of power away from modern states.

I don’t watch much TV, on average about four to five hours a week. Regular programmes I watch include Mit offenen Karten on ARTE, Harald Schmidt on ARD, and The Daily Show Global Edition on CNNi. The rest of my TV viewing consists of several news programmes as well as some documentaries and/or good movies.

From time to time, I also end up watching TV to relax a bit. I then randomly switch through different stations until something catches my interest. Which hardly ever is the case, given the quality of your average TV show. Here’s a short, irrelevant and meaningless overview over the latest three shows I’ve randomly dug up:

SF 1: Sternstunde Philosophie

SF is the state-owned TV station of Switzerland. Yes, it imaginatively stands for Schweizer Fernsehen - Swiss Television. The weekly Sternstunde Philosophie show invites guests from different fields (such as politics, art, science and economy) for discussions covering philosophical and cultural issues. The program airs every Sunday at 11.00 AM on SF 1. Needless to say, such a programme slot is rather unlucky.

The programme I saw featured Bundesrat Pascal Couchepin, Councillor of the Swiss Federal Council. I’ve only catched the last few minutes, so I can’t discuss all that much. Instead, I present two comments which stroke me as being particularly interesting. They are translated freely and solely from memory. Don’t expect too much accuracy, and don’t use it for your diploma thesis :-)

From time to time, the state has to show his authority, his glamour. Even in democracies, people need traditions, ceremonies. The government, apart from its duty towards its citizens, has an own existence and an own agenda. Because a state is more than the sum of its citizens. And this difference (note: between the state’s will and the will of the state’s citizens) is the common welfare, which the state has to uphold against the self-interest of individual citizens.

A very interesting comment, which at first almost looks a bit socialistic (Pascal Couchepin is a member of the Free Democratic Party, a ‘free market liberal party’ [Quote Wikipedia]), but on a second thought, it might rather reveal a classic Leviathan-authoritarianism.

Today, politics is like photos, instead of cinema. It concerns itself only with temporary, isolated snap-shots (German: Momentaufnahmen) and doesn’t care about coherency and the big picture anymore.

Again, a very interesting point, and one I actually do support. However, it has become trendy to mourn about this, which makes it an easy and popular statement to say. Still, it’s a nice analogy. Many politicians appear to think too much about re-election; they seem to develop rather partial and cost-conscious views. The German word Tunnelblick fits quite nicely here. Where is their broader vision? To they pursue any bigger strategy?

MTV: Dating Shows

On to our next contestant, MTV. What can I say, I normally don’t watch MTV. I can’t stand its shows, nor do I like most of the music it plays. Still, at times I watch some of their shows for a short time - in German, you say ‘zapping’ for the fast and aimless switching between different TV stations. I had the fortune (…) to see a new show. The meaning of the word awful has now a whole new dimension. From what I’ve been able to gather during the five minutes I’ve seen, some guy apparently meets three mothers. He talks with them and then decides which of their daughters he wants to date. It’s rather ’special’ (read: embarrassing) to see how the mothers are trying to sell their daughters. However, the highlight definitely was the following question: ‘How does your daughter look? I mean, if she were a car, how would you describe her?’. Eek! I know, these shows are probably (well… hopefully, for the sake of the overall intelligence of the human race) heavily scripted, but please? Although, I guess it is a step away from that dating show in which they let people search through other people’s rooms. Unfortunately, that step isn’t necessarily in the right direction. Goodbye, MTV.

ZDF: Veronica Mars

And hello ZDF, a state-owned TV station from Germany. I mainly watch ZDF because of its fine documentaries and reportages, but as above, recently turned them on randomly. They were showing a new series, called Veronica Mars. It actually looks not all that bad. Some shots actually have a Twin Peakesque flair to them. Also, the female main character is not only clever (and even slightly geeky) but also strong without having to do any martial arts fights against bad guys (read: Buffy, a terrible show). It’s hard to judge from only one episode, but there seems to be some decent character development and background, too. However, the world somehow appears too slick and polished for my taste, and too much geared towards teenagers. Besides, I hardly follow TV series anyway. Thus, while I probably even would have time for watching the weekly episodes, it’s just too much effort for something not really worth it.

Conclusion

Wow, I’ve come to an end. Can you tell nothing much interesting has happened during the last few days? As far as conclusions go, I’ll try to read more books. He. I’ll also try to view ‘Sternstunde Philosophie’ frequently. It has a bad slot, but luckily, SF 1 offers some shows as online streams. MTV has lost it for me (nothing new there), while ZDF did neither bad nor good, so I’ll probably just stick to their documentaries.

Me and You and Everyone We Know

I’ve recently went to the cinema with Stefan and Bela to watch the movie ‘Me and You and Everyone We Know’ (imdb entry) by US artist/director Miranda July. The movie was actually released last summer, but has made it to the big screens in Switzerland only now. Because of its long name, the movie’s title usually gets abbreviated to ‘Me and You’. Even the official website is located at meandyoumovie.com. However, this does much wrong to the ‘everyone’ in this movie, so I’ll use the full title in any further reference.

The Me and You of this movie are Christine, a video performance artist played by Miranda July herself, and Richard, a shoe salesman who recently got divorced. The everyone includes - among others - an elderly client from Christine’s day job as a driver for old citizens, Richard’s two kids as well as some of their neighbours and co-workers. This movie could show us the boring day-to-day life of disenchanted and lost nobodies. Instead, it tells us about their fears and dreams, about failures, new discoveries and small wonders.

This adds a light-hearted theme to the movie, which makes watching the struggles and little fights of these people pleasant and fun. These are people so close and yet so far away from each other, people so different and yet all in search of happiness, comfort and understanding. These are (almost) ordinary people in an exceptional movie. I can’t possibly cover all tales and strings of the story without spoiling too much, but I’ll mention three of my favourite scenes:

• Michael, the elderly man Christine drives regularly, has recently fallen in love with Ellen. His first marriage hasn’t been about love, and he’s really happy now. At one point, he regrets not having met Ellen earlier, but then realises he maybe needed a life of struggle and hardship to be able to appreciate and love a women like her.
• In one wonderful scene, Christine tries to hand a sample of her artwork over to the museum director. When the two meet in the museum’s elevator, the director suggest she should send the sample video by post. Of course, that’s not the end of the sample video’s story.
• Robby, one of Richard’s sons, is in many ways like the adults in the movie. He feels alone, and doesn’t really know a great deal about life. But contrary to them, he feels no restraint about trying to understand and explore the world around him. And so, despite Richard’s claim that kids can’t control their lives, he may be closer to seeing and understanding all these little secret moments of life.

Unfortunately, these small excerpts can’t express the whole spectrum of brilliant and hearty scenes; but as you surely can tell, I’ve enjoyed watching this movie enormously. Thus, it gets a clear recommendation from me: silly, funny and brilliant.

Eating out

While waiting for the movie to start, we took the chance of having dinner at the nearby Lily’s. Lily’s (which you shouldn’t judge by its website!) is a quite popular and very tasty restaurant in Zurich, and serves what it calls ‘pan-Asiatic’ cuisine. Still, most of the menu appears to be Indian and Sri Lankan. Due to its popularity, it unfortunately is no place to stay and philosophise long after a good meal; yet the quality and freshness of the food makes this point an acceptable restriction, especially during summer when their take out becomes a good alternative.

Together with the Arthouse cinemas, the Riff Raff is my favourite cinema in Zurich. Since it is in direct neighbourship to Lily’s, a combined visit not only makes sense, but also adds another highlight to the evening. And watching a movie with a lassi (wikipedia entry) from Lily’s (sweet lassi, to be exact) makes so much more fun than ye olde popcorn.

And Now, For Something Completely Different

As I’ve finally managed to write a new blog entry, I thought I should use the opportunity for a short update to one of my last posts: I’ve recently started to read Paulo Coehlo’s The Alchemist. I’m about half-way through so far, and the story and writing are excellent and very intriguing. And yes, I had to throw a coin (my ‘lucky charm’ coin, a 10 Syrian pound piece) to decide which book to read. Turns out it was a good choice.

This Saturday, I went to cinema with Patrick and Stefan to see ‘We Feed The World’ (website), a documentary film by Austrian director Erwin Wagenhofer. The movie deals with the globalisation of the food industry and its mass market production

I have mixed feelings about the movie and would like to pin down some of my criticism:

- For one, it leaves Europe only for a short segment in Brazil, thus rendering a movie about the global food industry a tad too eurocentric.

- Second, the different parts of the movie are only loosely connected, hence failing at offering any further insight. More focus on a few exemplary aspects would have allowed for more depth while hardly lessen the presentation of the overall picture.

- Third, the movie lacks a strong narration. Most - if not all - statements made by the interviewed persons and the director himself don’t get challenged. While I can understand the need of documentary films to hold back with conclusions I’d favour a more ‘investigative journalism’ approach nevertheless.

Apart from these points, the movie delivers an interesting study about different branches of the food chain in our global age. Some of the strongest moments are achieved by displaying images of normal day to day processes we usually either don’t see or turn a blind eye to.

The two most memorable shots are from Austria. The first scene starts in Vienna where two days old breed is transported on trucks and ultimately thrown away (picture). Even though it still would be
perfectly fresh and save to eat it’s considered unsellable. The amount of breed wasted every day in Vienna (population of about 1.6 million) roughly equals the daily breed consumption of the second largest city in Austria, Graz (about 350,000 inhabitants).

Another part of the documentary takes the viewer to a poultry farm (picture). Everything from the birth to the mechanical ’slaughtering’ of chickens is shown. These pictures are certainly nothing for the faint hearted! The farmer states his opinion clearly: Mere natural production wouldn’t be enough to serve the huge demand. Plus, the blissful ignorance of consumers leaves him no choice.

An interesting side notes concern the dependency of farmers who are using genetically modified seed on the producers. Since the seeds can be used only for one planting cycle, the farmer has to buy new seeds every year. Additionally, he can only use pesticides from the same company and with every new seed, he has to buy a new, fitting pesticide, too.

Other topics of the movie are dealing with subjects such as the available amount of food and the uneven distribution of it, the plant production in Spain and the fishery in France, as well as the clearing of rain forest in Brazil. A few short interviews from different perspectives completes the documentary.

Final verdict: Most of my criticism probably can be attributed to the fact that this is a low budget, Austria-based documentary. Overall, Erwin Wagenhofer has made an interesting documentary, and can only be applauded for his effort to shed some light on the complex issue of our global food production. It certainly is a topic worth of more attention, and hopefully the viewers will not just put the question the movie raises aside
but dig a bit deeper.