Category: europe

paris, brûle t’il?

paris-brule-t-il.jpg

un soir à la maison de mes parents, au Luxembourg, devant la télé. ARTE passe “Paris, brûle-t-il?” En voyant les images, y inclus des images originaux de la liberation de Paris, je me rends compte que je n’ai pas l’habitude de regarder des films sur la deuxième guerre mondiale. ce soir mon regard reste fixé à l’écran.

cette histoire que Hitler aurait téléphoné au général von Choltitz au Faubourg Saint-Honoré en lui hurlant “Paris, brûle-t-il?” Ce général qui aimait Paris et avait du mal à obéir l’orde de détruire la ville.

détruire autant de l’infrastructure – les ponts, les monuments, les hopitaux – que possible avant que les forces de l’occupation doivent se retirer. le mot que les forces de l’occupation utilisent pour la résistance: les terroristes.

un petit espoir qu’on pourrait trouver un moyen de parler des guerres d’aujourd’hui, nous qui faisons parti des générations différentes avec leurs guerres différentes. un espoir qui se noie vite, un sentiment et des images de guerre m’accompagnent au lit.

zorro

c’est dans mon lit dans la paix de ma chambre au coenraetsstraat que je termine Isabelle Allende’s Zorro – ou elle re-invente la légende de Zorro d’une façon magnifique. L’histoire commence en Alta California et ses missions espagnoles.

“Let us begin at the beginning, at an event without which Diego de la Vega would not have been born. It happened in Alta California, in the San Gabriel mission in the year 1790 of Our Lord. At that time the mission was under the charge of Padre Mendoza, a Fanciscan who had the shoulders of a woodcutter and a much younger appearance than his forty well-lived years warranted. […] The natives of the coast of California had a network of trade and commerce that had functioned for thousands of years. Their surroundings were very rich in natural resources, and the tribes developed different specialties. The Spanish were impressed iwth the Chumash economy, so complex that it could be compared to that of China. The Indians had a monetary system based on shells, and they regularly organizes fairs that served as an opportunity to exchange goods as well as contract marriages.

Those native peoples were confounded by the mystery of the crucified man the whites workshipped, and they could not understand the advantage of living contrary to their inclinations in this world in order to enjoy a hypothetical well-being in another. In the paradise of the Christians, they might take their ease on a could and strum a harp with the angels, but the truth was that in the afterworld most would rather hunts bears with their ancestors in the land of the Great Spirit. Another thing they could not understand was why the foreigners planted a flag in the ground, marked off imaginary lines, claimed that area as theirs, and then took offense if anyone came onto it in pursuit of a deer. The concept that you could posses land was unfanthomable to them as that of dividing up the sea.

In their letters to the director of missions in Mexico, the friars complained, “The Indians prefer to live unclothed, in straw huts, armed with bow and arrow, with no education, goverment, religion or respect for authority, and dedicated entirely to satisfying their shameless appetites, as if the miraculous waters of baptism had never washed away their sins.” The Indians’ insistence on clingign to the their customs had to be the work of Satan – their was no other explanation – which is why the friars went out to hunt down and lasso the deserters and then whipped their doctrine of love and forgiveness into them.”

But then Padre Mendoza receives news that several tribes led by a warrior wearing a wolf’s head had risen up against the whites…

bxl

il fait gris
il pleut (comme c’est marrant)
il y a la foire du midi
ils sont encore en train de détruire la zone autour la gare
et moi j’aime le bas de saint-gilles…

yes

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A movie which Rutvica insisted we should see
and since we had spend all our time in Oxford talking
she suggested to take her laptop on the bus to London
and as the green English landscape passed by us
we were absorbed in the poetry,
the dazzling, sharp and beautiful verse (!),
the pounding rhythm of the lyrics, images and music
of this gem, this song of love and politics.

Words from the director, Sally Potter:
“I began by writing an argument between two lovers,
one a man from the Middle East (the Lebanon), the
other a woman from the West (an Irish-American) at a
point where their love affair has become an explosive
war-zone, with the differences in their backgrounds
starting to cast a long shadow over their intimacy.
He has decided to end the affair, for he finds he can
no longer tolerate the imbalance of worldly power in
their relationship; nor the challenge that the affair
poses to his identity. His belief in God, and in the
world he left behind, begins to surface once more,
and now seems a higher calling than the call of love
and sex. All that first attracted him to this blonde
American professional woman now reminds him only
of his humiliation and loss.

He pushes her away at the very moment that her
marriage seems to have broken down irretrievably,
increasing her sense of isolation. For the first time in
their relationship he seems to have all the power in his
hands – the power to say ‘no’. But as he rejects her,
the deeper reasons for his anger and anguish gradually
emerge; the pain and humiliation he experiences every
day as a man from the Middle East living in the West.

These two characters, each trying to listen to the other,
and each wanting to be heard, formed the basis of the
story, which developed to include other characters, each
of whom is wrestling with his or her beliefs; whether
religious, political, or – in the case of the cleaner who
is a sort of one woman comic Greek chorus – about
the true nature of dirt.”

Oh dear friends, you must see this movie. yes the movie