Woken up at 06:00 by call from front desk so sprung into action to board 07:00 bus to Lagos in front of Hotel Rex. It was an hour late or perhaps we were given the wrong time. Not the type of bus I was expecting as we had headphones and they served us coffee. It was a 5-hour trip and it kept getting drier as we approached the Algarve. We passed by many poor looking villages. The main activity is agriculture. We ended up in Lagos a small fishing village. The room in a pension was $7.50. Lunch was beef, beans and potatoes in a tomato sauce. Took a long walk after along the coast and there were many small beaches in coves surrounded by high rocky formations. A bit touristy but nothing like Greece or Yugoslavia. Stopped for an orange drink called Sumol. Out at 21:00 to a small restaurant for grilled sardines and a salad. The sardines are so delicious here. The salad was good aside from the green caterpillar in it. Some people watching at the main square. Had a coffee and pastry and home to bed.
“Travels to a Different Time” : 6July1978: Lisbon, Portugal: Dog Peeing and the Stoners
A rough night for sleeping. Probably too many naps and jet lag. The first few days are rough and at times surreal. Went downstairs for breakfast and my friendly waiter engaged in more political discourse. Had a long walk along the grand Avenida de Liberdade. Booked a bus to Lagos on the Algarve. Lunch was agua con gas and some cod cakes in a beautiful park. A dog had a long pee on the bench beside me. Back to Flamingo for a glass of orange juice and a nap. For dinner found a secluded area near the Flamingo. Calde Verde and grilled sardines with roast potatoes and a glass of white wine for $3.00. The food in Portugal is very good. There were two stoners beside me completely spaced out. One dropped his dinner plate on the ground while his friend clumsily tried to clean him up. One strange restaurant!
RKS Film: “Madeleine Collins”: Back to My Roots Mon! Demain Le Fin De Monde!
I owe a debt to Demain Le Fin De Monde! Growing up in Montreal as an anglophone I watched French television which meant nifty French cinema on late Friday and Saturday nights. Hollywood was banal while French cinema was compelling because unlike Hollywood trash it was more complicated and almost always tinged with a bit of absurdity and a compulsory sex scene! I loved “Demain Le Fin de Monde” a 70’s French film about a worker in a French cookie factory who slipped handwritten messages in cookie boxes saying “Demain Le Fin de Monde”. There was a series of reactions of those opening the cookie boxes that were priceless. Thanks to these French films I see a Hollywood film once every five years. Last one was “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”.
With “Madeleine Collins” I am going back to my roots mon! Nothing is easy in this film and I must be careful in describing it lest I ruin your film experience.
Judith or Margot (Virginie Efira) is a 40’ish woman leading a double life of a mother in Switzerland with a young daughter Ninon and partner Abdel (Quim Gutiérrez) and a husband Melvil (Bruno Salomone) with two older boys in France in an upper class bourgeoise bubble.
She is perhaps a classic bigamist which is the easy answer. Sorry I can’t answer that. But let’s say she has to juggle two identities. Melvil and Abdel have some idea about what is occurring so they are not blind but how much they really know about Judith/Margo is unclear for them and you the viewer.
Why not say there is a question of assumed and mistaken identities tolerated to some degree by Abdel and Melvil. Judith/Margo can’t balance the two as demands of her children (are they really her children) and she starts unravelling and unable to deal with reality.
Judith/Margot is a complicated character and by the end of the film you may conclude she is a woman incapable of an identity by circumstances out of her control.
If you are looking for a simplistic Hollywood film don’t bother with the film. If you like to be challenged and like to think Madeline Collins is the answer then the film may be for you.
Virginie Efira carries off the role with aplomb.
Directed by Antoine Barraud. A French/Swedish production.
RKS Film Rating 91/100.
This is opening in Canada on May 27 but I am sure in Europe it is in full bloom.
You can see the trailer here https://vimeo.com/657926553
Oh and what does Madeleine Collins have to do with this film. Everything. You will understand the opening scene near the conclusion of the film .Oh, check your cookie package before watching the film.
“Travels to a Different Time” :4July1978: Lisbon, Portugal: The Overwhelming Decadence of Lisbon
The flight from Montreal to Lisbon on TAP was uneventful. We stopped in the Azores for cleaning and refuelling. Fresh local pineapple was delicious. Arrived in Lisbon around 10:00. First impressions that Lisbon was once a grand city as after all Portugal was a colonial power at one point. But it seems falling apart in a wave of decay. Took a taxi to the Flamingo Hotel and after a shower crashed until 19:00. Had a walk and had some supper. An odd language and not Latin. It is very harsh sounding.
5July1978: Lisbon, Portugal: Political Slogans Everywhere!
Missed breakfast due to jet lag deep sleep. Had breakfast delivered to the door. Great café au lait, rolls, butter and jam. Slept again until 17:00 and began to feel human. Took subway which was cheap at 18 cents. Not modern but quiet. People in the area seem prosperous and well dressed but there was a beggar woman hanging out outside a subway station. Shrimp and salad for dinner. Picked up a bottle of mineral water at the front desk. Agua con gas means sparkling while Agua sin gas means still. Another sleep and will be fit as a fiddle. Man there are political slogans everywhere and many hammer and sickles.
RKS Wine: Douro’s Uniqo
A blend of Touriga Nacional (50%), Touriga Franca (30%) and Tinta Roriz (20%). It has spent 18 months in French oak.
On the nose this portrays itself as a very big wine with notes of Chambord, black cherry, fig jam and blackberry. On the palate the tannins are moderate with acids totally under control. The palate is laid back but it is a case of crouching tiger and hidden dragon. After 8 years I sense it is not fully developed and will need at least a couple of years to get out of its shell. What fruit there is would be blackberry, blueberry and cherry pie.
As this is an intense and developing wine best with food. In fact built for food! Mushroom Ragout with Parsnips over Polenta.
(Uniqo Reserva 2014, Douro DOC, Das Quintas, Portugal, $29.95, Liquor Control Board of Ontario # 14435, 750 mL, 14%, RKS Wine Rating 92/100)
RKS Film: “Perfecting the Art of Longing”: Locked in an Eternal Prison
Rabbi Ronnie Cahana suffered a brainstem stroke in 2011 rendering him a quadriplegic. For 9 years he has been bedridden with slow speech. Rabbi Cahana was a family man. He was a scholar, poet and community leader and then the stroke. Institutionalized requiring round the clock care in a Montreal long term care facility he discusses what longing is, how his memory frees his body and how he will perfect the art of longing. I will not give you my interpretation as drawing simple conclusions are simply not possible in this short and very complicated film.
The film was written and directed by his daughter Kitra Cahana and is crafted through security camera footage, video calls and home videos. The documentary is powerful and unforgettable. Rabbi Cahana is eloquent and poetic and while his power of speech is affected his storytelling ability is strong. Perhaps we need ask ourselves why the Rabbi wanted to tell his story and as this is not apparent perhaps that is his gift to us.
Winner of best Canadian short documentary at Toronto Hot Docs 2022.
RKS Film Rating 96/100.
You can watch the documentary here https://www.nfb.ca/film/perfecting-the-art-of-longing/ but only available in Canada.
“Travels to a Different Time” : 16August1975: Good-Bye 1975 Europe!
So exhausted. Four months of being a vagabond. Too many cold showers, continental breakfasts, crappy beer and food but so many fascinating sights that many will never see as they will not be able to go back into 1975 ever. Well on the plane to a super nice crew who were freaking out with the resemblance I have to my sister who works with Overseas National Airways. I think aside for a lunch break and cold Bud I slept all the way to Washington. As the plane was deadheading back to JFK they let me stay onboard. Imagine flying in an empty DC-10! I unexpectedly met sister at JFK. Had I any money or energy I could have flown to Paris, turned around and gone to Los Angeles where I could have met my friend Ron, the cameraman I hung out with in Amsterdam. Instead I dragged my sorry ass to Port Authority for an 8 hour trip back to Montreal. I was a babbling vegetable by the time I arrived. Eaten alive by Europe!
Photo Aldo Bindini
“Travels to a Different Time” : 14August1975: Strasbourg, France: Swindler of Canadian Taxpayers
A great sleep then a hot shower. A most unpleasant “stinking hot” day. Got a lift from a Frenchman who was working as a bartender at the Canadian armed forces base in Lahr. We stopped at his flat in Strasbourg which was littered with “hot merchandise” stolen from the base. Booze, cigarettes (cartons of them) and assorted contraband. Poor Canadian taxpayers. He dropped me off at a reservoir just out of town and I joined the swimmers there. Super refreshing! Headed into the city and picked up by a Frenchman and his wife who invited me to a steak dinner. At 21:00 he drove me into the train station for a late train to Karlsruhe in Germany.
15August1975: Karlshrue Germany: Total Exhaustion!
Arrived at 3 a.m. in Karlsruhe and slept at the train station most uncomfortably. I walked to the highway and I was so tired I just wanted to lay down in a field and sleep. Got a lift from a truck driver to Frankfurt Airport. I checked with Overseas National Airways and there seemed space on a flight to Washington leaving the next day. I had a big lunch from food bought at the airport supermarket. I slept for an hour on the grass and was woken up by someone wanting a swig of my orange juice. I could have slugged him. Stumbled into the airport and paid $2 for a hot bath. I just about passed out but when they find my body it will be clean. Sleep was difficult being woken up the cleaners then the police.
RKS Film: “Good Life”: Entrepreneurs Hustling Entrepreneurs!
Remember that famous phrase of P.T. Barnum, “There is a sucker born every minute.” In the documentary “Good Life” there are many youthful suckers born. Take your choice of treating the film as a serious look into the minds of young entrepreneurs or a comedy exploring the gullibility of Musk and Branson wannabes. Many call themselves “founders”. Salespeople become brand ambassadors directed in the wrong direction by these brilliant founders. In an hilarious scene a schoolboy looking brand ambassador with a juvenile bag on his back making him so different from an old school merchant he is hustling has no pen or paper nor any business cards. He is criticized by the merchant for not having these basic tools as that is the way “we do business around here.” The poor kid is so clueless he says that he will give the merchant his number by entering it on his phone. He strikes me as naïve as the brilliant “founder” who creates a “wonderful” app that assembles “brand ambassadors” known by primitive capitalists as “salespeople”. Little schoolboy has lost any credibility he had if any.
This documentary focuses on a “tech farm” in Stockholm that sells space to 40 entrepreneurs in a large house. Like animals in an old east German circus, they live in “pods” as a “community”. All jammed together they can dream and scheme on how to be the next Branson or Musk. This tech farm is a start up itself looking to make a profit. It encourages its “residents” to dream as after all its investors need to make a return on their investment. Looks like young “founders” hustling wannabe founders. These hustling entrepreneurs dream of founding a hundred tech farms throughout the world. A virtual McDonalds of commodified ideology.
These “residents” think they are a blazing group of capitalists seeking their own liberation by enslaving a lesser breed of humans than themselves. Their ideas are hardly innovative and many are exploitative and childish such as create a casual workforce of eternal giggers rewarding their performance with points and prizes. Work in a corporation and feel the distaste of employees for such brazen and stupid manipulative tactics. I’ll leave it up to you to see how innovative these “residents” really are. Could it be they are “inmates” in a prison of their own minds?
This documentary has no answers but hints of suggesting resident delusion. It is up to you to determine if they are the wave of the future or cannon fodder for tech farm start up by its “founders”.
The film had its premiere at Toronto Hot Docs 2022.
You can see the trailer here https://vimeo.com/686623961
RKS Film Rating 90/100.
Directed and produced by Marta Dauliūté and Viktorja Šaiulyte.
“Travels to a Different Time” : 13August1975: Lahr, Germany: Meeting up with Fritz
Up for a continental breakfast. Not sure how many more of those I can take. Off to the autobahn via a tram and stupid me forgot to buy a ticket. I thought the conductor would come and take payment. Well “control” came and bawled me out in a nasty voice and threatened to confiscate my passport. I’d fight him to the death over that. I paid and he stormed off. There were 8 people on the autobahn hitching. I have never seen so many! I phoned Fritz before getting a lift. I took a tram from Basel to the German border and he picked me up there and went to his home which was very nice. What really happened between my mother and Fritz I am not quite sure. He has aged and looks preoccupied and nervous. On edge. We had a beer and a light supper It was a tense reunion He insisted in driving me to camping at Lahr. His wife is in a psychiatric institution in Frieberg. Lahr was quiet until a convoy of Canadian tanks rolled by on its way to the Canadian army base.
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