Là-bas (The Damned)

The Damned/Là-bas (1891)

Author: Joris-Karl Huysmans

Publisher: Penguin Classic

Pages: 320 pages

I had this book on my Amazon wish list for a long time even though I didn’t know much about it except for it to be about Gilles de Rais and satanism. When I visited the fascinating Gustave Moreau Museum in Paris and saw the interesting show on author J.K. Huysmans’s fin de siècle (turn-of-the-century) writings in relation to Moreau’s fin de siècle paintings, I finally picked it up.

There’s not much of a plot to this book, in fact it reads more like nonfiction sometimes. But the subject matter is interesting and shocking for its time, hence quite a page turner. The novel starts with the author’s rambling on his dislike for Naturalism through the main character Durtal, a 19th century man bored with unromantic modern life and delved into writing a biography on Gilles de Rais, who’s also known as the “Blue Beard,” the world first known “serial killer” who tortured, raped and killed more than five hundred young boys during the Middle ages. A large part of the novel devoted to Durtal’s biography on Gilles, chronicling his role in aiding Joan of Arc to the very horrific atrocities he committed for Satanism. Dural also attempted to explain “how an honest soldiers and a decent Christian, could suddenly turn into an evil, cowardly, sacrilegious sadist.” These parts are the most captivating parts of the novel. It’s a good source to learn about Gilles de Rais and the medieval time. The author offered some interesting views on the matter through the characters.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch @ The Roxy

Rain was pouring nonstop Friday night and we were lining outside soaking wet sans umbrella at The Roxy Theater to get into the Hedwig and the Antry Inch show. On top of the pricey ticket, The Roxy forced everyone to buy $15 drink tickets when we get in. -_-;;; But it’s all worthwhile. To see Hedwig live is a much different but more fitting (the way it ought to be) experience from watching the film version; it is both a small livehouse rock concert + standup comic. Hedwig’s story is still as hilarious and emotional. Playing Hedwig was the incredible Donovan Leitch, and the one playing the female-as-male bandmate was not Bijou Phillipes as saids on flyer. The tall, dark and handsome Donovan Jr. is amazing, even though he seems lot taller and bigger than the original creator/performer James Cameron Mitchell, he still looks divine as Hedwig. Better yet, at the end when Hedwig striped his drag queen attair and transformed to a rock star, god he was so HOT! *O* His voice is more waspy and deep, making songs like “Wig in a Box” and “Wicked Little Town” very Bowiesque….*LOVE*!!! The audience was great, they were way more animated than a lot of the crowd from the actual rock concerts I’ve been to. Some of the audience were such crazy fans, this one girl can’t stop crying out loud “this song is SO FUCKING GOOD!” after “Wicked little Town” was played. ^^;; The show is just awesome…though Yitzhak’s transformation at the end isn’t as powerful as the film version because her dim entrance was drown in the finale.

Les Yeux sans Visage (1959)

Les Yeux sans Visage (Eyes Without a Face)
Directed by: Georges Franju
Release: 1959
Cast: Pierre Brasseur, Edith Scob

More gothic gems~ Finally saw this legendary French arthouse horror classics Eyes Without a Face. The premise: a doctor’s beautiful daughter was disfigured in a car accident caused by himself. The title of the film refers to the iconic image of the blank, expressionless white mask wore by the disfigure daughter, whose pair of eyes shine through the holes of the mask. The guilt ridden doctor is determined to reconstruct his daughter’s face by kidnapping girls in Paris, then cut off their facial skins for skin grafting surgery.

Peau d’âne (1970)

Donkey Skin (1970)

Directed by: Jacques Demy
Written by: Jacques Demy, Charles Perrault
Starring: Catherine Deneuve, Jean Marais

Finally get to see the 2004 digital restored version of the 1970 French film on DVD. Directed by The Umbrella of Cherbourg’s Jacques Demy, it also starred the impossibly beautiful and elegant Catherine Deneuve~ It is a lovely, magical, innocent yet slightly wacky adaptation to the Charles Perrault version of Fairytale story “Donkey Skin”. It’s one of my favorite stories, particularly memorable because of the disturbing incest premise (errr…a much needed moral lesson for little girls back in the days?). There were about 4-5 song numbers, mostly fluffy love songs. The humor, the painterly floral set and the outrageous costumes just made it so much fun to watch.

Picnic at Hanging Rock (1974)

Picnic at Hanging Rock is a hauntingly beautiful, ethereal, atmospheric film directed by Peter Weir, it left me desperately intrigued and mystified.

The premise: Valentine’s day, 1900 - A group of students and teachers from an upper-class all-girl boarding school went picnic at the Hanging Rock, a landscape attraction in Australia. Four girls and one teacher went up and never returned. The search party’s efforts were fruitless, until days later they found one of the girls unconscious at the top of the rocks, who later recovered but seems to have lost her memory of the incident. The disappearance haunted those remained: fellow students, headmistress, police, strangers. They mourned, speculated and questioned…what happened to the other girls? what really happened up there?

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)

Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (1964)
An absolutely lovely and eye-candy French musical by Jacques Demy. Music by Michel Legrand and starring the very young Catherine Deneuve. My god she’s so classically beautiful and full of graceful, innocent, youthful charm. Her perfect doll-like golden curls, pink overcoat, rosy cardigan, peach one piece dresses clothes, golden clutch, pastel purple poncho…it’s every vintage girl’s fantasy comes true. The entire movie is just the perfect romantic vintage-fashioned French dream. Everything is so stylized with very fashionable color palette: the wallpaper, the cute little teapot set, furnitures, little boutiques, miniature planes, umbrellas…etc. It could very well be called ‘Anthropologie: the movie.’ ^^;;

Les Quatre Cents Coups / The 400 Blows (1959)

François Truffaut’s Nouvelle Vague classics. I Love it~

Story: 14 year old boy Antoine Doinel is neglected and unloved at home and undermined at school. He skipped school with his best friend to have fun and engaged in petty crimes. When Antoine was caught stealing his father’s typewriter, he was sent to delinquent correction center…

The boys wanted to live their own life, but their striving for freedom only led to more constrains and confinement …bounded by responsibility, consequences and social labeling. This is classic teen angst masterfully done with class and honesty that just feel so personal and touching. The child actor Jean-Pierre Léaud is so wonderful~~ the anger, emotions and rebellion spirit are very subtly conveyed on his poker but solemn face, so rare to see such maturity and depth in a boy.

The Piano Teacher

The Piano Teacher

Author: Elfriede Jelinek
Release Date: May 3 2005
Publisher: Serpent’s Tail
Pages: 288

Austrian author Elfriede Jelinek won the 2004 Nobel prize for literature. The Piano Teacher was her classic from early 80s. Between the book and the acclaimed 2001 film version, I’m glad that I read the book first because…I don’t think I can stomach the visualization, especially of several horrible scenes involving self-multilation and rape. Also I wouldn’t be in a tantalizing hell pondering about characters’ underlying motives and feelings from the film, as these were all stated clearly like a psychoanalytical profile in the book. If interested read about the story here.

Howl’s Moving Castle (2005)

Howl’s Moving Castle
Directed by: Hayao Miyazaki
Written by: Hayao Miyazaki, Diana Wynne Jones
US Release: June 2005

Finally it’s released in US theaters. I love the book by Diana Wynne Jones, though it was a long time ago since I read it and my memory is failing me on the details. But my impression was still strong, hence I was very disappointed with the Miyazaki adaptation. He took too much artistic liberties yet didn’t do a good job, particularly with the characterization and changes of the story, both plot and theme-wise. First of all the entire part about the ongoing machinery and war destruction was entirely Miyazaki’s own insertion as a ‘war is senseless and stupid’ commentary that wasn’t even concluded in a satisfactory way.

Masculin, Féminin (1966)

Cute new poster illustrated by Keiko Kimura.

Riotto pictures is rereleasing Jean-Luc Godard’s 1966 French New Wave classic Masculine Feminine at theater (watch the awesome trailer on the website) and we watch it at NuArt last weekend (showing from Feb 11 - 17 only). This rerelease has new print and new subtitle but sadly the sound is still very poor. But it’s cool to experience it on big screen. This is the first Godard film I watched and I love the The film starred the eternal boyish icon of French new wave Jean-Pierre Léaud (who was barely grown up here) and yé-yé girl Chantal Goya. The film is a zeitgeist about 60s Paris youth and their musing on politics (ranging from half-ass consciousness, complete indifference or feeble protest in form of prank), love, sex and pop culture…as if they are the only things that matter in lifes, which is pretty much the universally spirit for most youth in any generation.