THE ROOM NEXT DOOR

THE ROOM NEXT DOOR

Dec 21, 2024 | ART, ART, MOVIES, CULTURE, CULTURE, MOVIES

The Room Next Door is Pedro Almodòvar’s film that won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.

I went to the cinema with Monica thinking I would be moved but actually I got angry.

You can find the review on the blog Matavitatau and incredibly this time Nick was more lenient than me.

Of course: The room next door has a lovely part.

Everything concerned to the visual sphere represents perfection, starting with the colours used in a sublime as well as communicative way

In an interview, set designer Carlota Casado  mentioned Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings among the references.

If you look at her paintings:
Oriental poppies
Ladder to the moon
Jiimson weed white flower

you can get a clear idea of the range of greens that I particularly admired.

The costumes, which we could call outfits, by Bina Daigeler are a riot of colour, style and quality.

Every single detail is meticulous, even I quote: ‘the coffee machines.’

The settings are fabulous: New York at its most magical and a house that represents the perfect blend of architecture and nature.

The set is Casa Szoke, designed by the Aranguren+Gallegos Arquitectos studio  near Madrid, in San Lorenzo de El Escorial, and located on the slopes of Mount Abantos in the forest of La Herrería. 

As if that were not enough, the furniture elements are well-known design pieces and the painting People in the sun by Edward Hopper becomes an integral part of the narrative as well as the visual.

And Almodòvar completes the representation of beauty by quoting James Joyce: The Dead from Dubliners

The snow falling faintly through the universe, and faintly falling, upon all the living and the dead.

The Room Next Door is Pedro Almodòvar’s first English-language film and his intention, I would say successful, was to make it as American as possible.

But then there is the verbose part, let me use the term, the dialogues in my opinion are that much excessive that they break the balance of everything else.

And there are a number of unfinished elements.

I will not go into the profile of the protagonist, nor into the euthanasia issue, because everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

But remaining on the mere portrayal of the illness and the physical and psychological suffering, perhaps because I have unfortunately experienced it from my side, I could not help but get nervous.

An exclusive death.

Real life, however, is quite different.

Did you enjoy it? Did you find the ending unsettling or inspiring?

TELL ME A STORY

TELL ME A STORY

Oct 19, 2024 | STORIES

Raccontami una storia – Tell me a story is an initiative by Maria Guidi, La tana di Aloiz  and Sandra Giannetto. 

Raccontami una storia is a game that consists of writing a story following certain directions and a theme.

The theme of the second edition: ‘drawing inspiration from a painting!’

I suggest you follow the organisers to discover interviews with the three winners.

Then, if you feel like it, you can read my story: 

Even this morning, I am watching the sun rise beyond the skeleton of the building opposite: since the soft orangey pink has begun to contrast with the grey illuminating the sky and hope, I don’t want to miss the colours because they are proof that it is not over yet.

I thought I would never see them again, I thought my punishment for not having exploded yet was to become a useless part of a single inexorable leaden gloom.

I regret that I was unable to count the days accurately, that I succumbed to confusion, that I did not even take care of my memory.

Had I done so, I might now know how much time had passed.

But I didn’t want to think any more, I just wanted it all to end. Each new day was just another skipped meal, another interminable darkness strewn with anguish, another series of exhausting yet unsuccessful efforts in search of an impossible solution.

Instead, the light has begun to mark time again and I now believe it, it is not just a dream, nor a coincidence, nor even my illusion: the sun still exists.

One enemy lurks, however: fear.

I have not been hit, I have not been crushed, I have not been asphyxiated, and I have even managed to hide from the incursions of the human jackals, but I still cannot free myself from the grip that presses on my brain and paralyses me.

I tell myself it makes no sense.

Then I relive everything.

The gigantic ball igniting the sky and suddenly bouncing upwards, and immediately the shockwave.

A macabre, accelerated domino that shatters everything.

Without my eyes having time to see, the heat was already on me.

Pain is not food.

But I must eat more of it if I am to find real nourishment.

And then Frances is at the end of her tether, and I want to do everything I can, just as she did from the moment she dragged me by weight into the cistern until she taught me how to climb down the shaft to the warehouse.

She held the rope and sang U2 to give me courage

You’r in the mud
In the maze of her imagination
You love this town
Even if that doesn’t ring true…

The first time I wanted it to stop but I didn’t dare shout it out for fear that some of the marauding Huns would hear me. Yet if it hadn’t been for those sung words ‘sky falls, you feel like … it’s a beautiful day …’ I wouldn’t have been able to find enough strength to climb back up.

The more things I could carry, the longer I could rest in hiding again.

And to think that on the various occasions when I had more or less tried, I had never managed to climb up a rope: my hands burned within minutes and the non-existent muscles in my arms didn’t even pretend to contract.

Survival.

A huge challenge to overcome in order to stay alive, even when staying alive seems like the worst of ideas.

Adrenaline, instinct, terror, mixing in a closed circle of pulsations bouncing between heart and brain at uncontrollable speed.

Survival.

Force that becomes flesh split between two heads: hope and despair. Like a Cerberus whose paws rest on the breath with all their agonising weight.

Survival.

Thinking that there can never be anything worse until existence turns into waiting.

Waiting for respite, waiting for food, waiting for mercy. Waiting for a miracle, for help, for a new day.

Like today.

The painting is Light and Colour (Goethe’s Theory) by William Turner.

A CURTAIN OF PURPLE WISTERIA

A CURTAIN OF PURPLE WISTERIA

Apr 22, 2023 | ENVIRONMENT, WHO CARES

A curtain of purple Wisteria …

Do you recognize which quote this line belongs to?

The wisteria I am telling you about, however, is not located on an avenue, and for that very reason it struck me very much.

The wisteria I want to tell you about sat along a country lane, expanding in its natural, wild architecture, without being an embellishment to anyone.

I like the idea that it has done well here in Lomellina, a place with characteristics quite different from its homeland.

In China wisteria is called Zǐténg 紫藤 i.e. blue vine, even the German name: Blauregen is inspired by the color.

Wisteria, on the other hand, comes from the Greek glýkis γλύκης meaning sweetness.

Name inspired by scent therefore, rather than color. Curious, isn’t it?

What strikes you most about wisteria?

Personally, I would say the color. In particular I have the memory of the arbor at the mill where my grandparents lived.

And in general what strikes you about flowers: the scent?

What is your favorite flower? 

What do you associate the thought of flowers with?

I found myself thinking that, just like this wisteria, I would love for other kinds of beauty to take over space, we would need it so much, wouldn’t we?

Maybe mine is tiredness, but sometimes I feel crushed by all the ugliness that surrounds us in our daily lives, after all, little would be enough to improve each other’s lives, and instead the common trend is heading exactly the opposite.

It is said that Wisteria for Japanese culture represents love and longevity, I ask for confirmation from those who are very knowledgeable on the subject, but in the meantime I would like to take it as a wish, adding my personal interpretation of this wisteria: freedom.

Shard by shard we are released from the tyranny of so-called time. A curtain of purple wisteria partially conceals the entrance to a familiar garden… In a wink, a lifetime, we pass through the infinite movements of a silent overture.

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