Anna Karenina

I started Tolstoy's masterpiece about three months ago, and just finished with it yesterday. I loved it, but it is a bit overwhelming. All of the characters get confusing, until you're about one hundred pages in. I do enjoy a good Russian family drama, though!

My one point of concern is the ending. Neither the "original" ending of Anna's train "misadventure" (don't want to ruin it for those who have not read the book) nor the musings of Levin really did it for me. I would say the ending is Anna Karenina's weakness. It actually makes me feel better about my writing that even a master like Tolstoy had trouble with his endings! And, actually that might be the greatest critique of all, and why his tomes are dangerously large.

Anna is so wonderfully characterized that I can see her, touch her, even smell her perfume as she wafts from room to room. The same with Vronsky, Oblonsky, Levin, Kitty, Dolly and the rest. I felt like I was a part of the family by the time I put the book down, satisfied but still in doubt. I wanted more.

Needless to say, the new film with Keira Knightly was not my cup of tea. I found it horrible and pretentious and should have left the theater when Tom Stoppard's name appeared as the screen writer. It was so self-conscious, and so British that I just couldn't stomach it. I don't even feel the movie deserves its own review, to be honest. Keira is too much of an acting lightweight to do justice to the role of ANNA but at least he costumes were fabulous!

If you really want to see a good screen version of Anna Karenina, I suggest the 1935 one with Greta Garbo. Now there is a femme fatale! Otherwise the 1948 Vivien Leigh version is also good, but a little melodramatic, as is par for the course with Leigh.

Les Femmes du Bus 678

I went to see this film on International Women's Day with my fellow teaching assistants. The film is Egyptian and quite a good one. Maria suggested it, and seeing as she is such a film buff (and our tastes are so similar) I have a hard time ignoring her suggestions!

The film revolves around three women, one who keeps getting harassed on the bus on her way to work, another who was assaulted just outside her home by a man in a car, and a third who was gang raped during protests in Cairo. They all meet randomly and decide to take revenge on the male population of Cairo who has made them feel bad--dirty--worthless--second-class citizens. 

It may or may not matter that the director is a man. It matters somewhat that the film is fictional, not a documentary. It matters a great deal that the story is fresh, that it tackles an insidious problem that  plagues Egypt today. Sexual harassment in Cairo is not only accepted, it is encouraged by the state, by a "boys will be boys" cultural mentality, and most importantly by women who say nothing about it.

The film was laugh out loud funny at some points, melancholy at others and even painful to watch during certain scenes, but I recommend everyone go see it: it will change the way you see Egypt, public transport, and even what looks back at you in the mirror.

Les Contes d'Hoffmann

In September, the Opéra National de Paris put on one of my favorite operas, Les Contes d'Hoffmann by Jacques Offenbach. It "came" to La Ciotat recently as live-filmed version at the Cinéma Lumière.

I also saw a live performance last year in Vienna and another televised version at home on PBS (Great Performances at the Met, anyone?); after seeing three different versions, I have to say that seeing an opera live is the best of all possible worlds. Even if some of the characters are miscast and annoying at the theater, if you're watching a "filmed live" version from the comfort of your living room or an overpriced cinema seat (the freaking Paris version cost me 12€), it just isn't the same!

That said, there were a number of things I really enjoyed about the Opéra Bastille's version. The opera was directed by a Canadian, Robert Carsen, who did not have quite the grandiosity of mise en scène as Mr. Friedkin, the director in Vienna, nor the penchant for puppets; in the beginning, the stage is set bare-bones, with the eponymous character lying in a drunken stupor stage right--his muse arrives in Greek habit and sings to him. 

The muse, played by Kate Aldrich, was wonderful: a great combination of comedic and soulful, with a beautiful voice. Hoffmann, on the other hand, was horrifically miscast as a dumpy little Italian whose trilling "R"s got in the way of his singing. The imposing Franck Ferrari, cast as Lindorf, Hoffman's doppelgänger and evil side, was much more convincing--and one of the few times I didn't feel bad rooting for the villain rather than the hero.

The bare-bones set continued on through the opera--the Keller scene transformed into intermission at the opera, where Hoffmann awaits a glimpse of his beloved Stella. The Teutonic charm of the student pub Stammtisch was ruined for me by this posh, Franco-centric rive droite version. Blech. It was OK...but it lacked charm and an element of Faustian suspense that was certainly present in the dark, damp, Punsch-filled scene of Friedkin's direction.

The bare-bones set design annoyed me at first, but I've since forgiven, considering that Mr. Carsen got his start in Shakespeare, where less is more and more is silly. The Olympia act is the only one that deviated from this scheme, transforming the stage into a mad scientist's laboratory fit for Frankenstein. The coquettish Olympia, well-voiced by Jane Archibald, was a little too coquette for my tastes--at one point she mounts Hoffmann on a hay barrel--a little obvious, if you want my opinion. Oh, the French and their obsession with sex!

The Antoina act is one I always find a little tedious. I guess I have a hard time figuring out how singing would kill a woman with a weak heart, when singing is supposed to heal the body--yes, certain studies have come out showing that music has the power to heal!--however difficult I find the premise, I enjoyed the beautiful Ana María Martínez as Antonia. In fact, I think she was the best-cast and most talented of them all, considering the Antonia act is always too long, too boring, and smack in the middle (typically right before the intermission, when I'm trying to keep my bladder from bursting). As mentioned, the muse was great, too, but their roles are so utterly different, and the muse is almost, if not always, a role that's hard to turn sour.

As for Giulietta, interpreted by Sophie Koch: talk about a prima donna! She completely overshadowed poor Hoffmann, belting out her lines and then stood on the stage looking bored when she wasn't singing. There was very little finesse to her performance--I know Giulietta is supposed to be a femme fatale and a bit of a bitch, but it didn't seem like there was much acting going on.

The ending was all right, pretty standard. Hoffmann and the muse go off into the sunset with a bottle of wine under each arm (I thought maybe the muse should enroll him in AA). I love the message of the opera: that an artist will always have inspiration, which is just as good, if not better, than love. Makes me feel good about being a writer with no social life. 

Dans La Maison

Around about a week ago, I went to the movies with Maria, the Spanish assistant, who is quite "cinematically" inclined. We've been sharing notes on out favorite silent-era stars. Mine, hands down, is Buster Keaton.

In the great French tradition of Maupassant, Balzac, Proust and horny teenage boys who fantasize about sleeping with their best friend's mother, Dans la maison is the new film from director François Ozon. The story of a high school French teacher encouraging a gifted writing student to explore his abilities in - rather than a novel - a mock exposé of la famille de la classe moyenne which become all too real when the feelings he wants to explore are those of his best friend's mom!

From Catherine Deneuve's role as creepy stalker-mom in Après lui to basically anything starring Isabelle Huppert, the French have a long cinematic history - and literary, but that's a different subject - of dealing with  older women and younger men, or quasi-incestuous relationships. I find those sorts of things to be ridiculous after a while.I mean, really, the 20-year-old guy is going to pursue a 50-year-old woman when he'd have an easier time sticking to girls his own age? Suuuuure. That's not to say older women are not sexy. Mesdemoiselles Deneuve and Huppert prove the contrary. But what sort of relationship potential do you have with a woman old enough to be your mother? And what does she see in you anyway? A hot bod can only do so much for rapport.

The point of Dans la maison, of course, is to parody all this by reducing the scenario to the absurd. The young boy, having finished his story with the family of his best friend (by bedding the mother, of course), moves on to his teacher's family, i.e. his wife (they have no children together). This slap in the face from a person the teacher had wished to inspire, and had so diligently mentored, is the height of the farce. And the craziest thing - the most Proustian thing - is that we never get to know whether this was all going on in the student's head, or if it really happened. French film at its finest!