Bekas

Bekas is a Kurdish word that's variously translated as orphans, complete loneliness, parentless. It's all of those things. It's also the title of a slightly odd but quite engaging movie about two brothers who, after seeing part of the film Superman in their home village, decide to go to America and meet Superman. Perhaps even ask him to come back to their home country and kill Saddam Hussein (who at the time of the movie's story, was causing havoc in Kurdistan).

The orphaned brothers are not very old. Ten-year-old Dana (Sarwar Fazil) has a bit of a romance going on with a girl who is somewhat ambivalent towards him (it's never going to work, but he doesn't know that), and is the ideas man. The younger one, Zana (Zamand Taha), is six or seven, strident, energetic, optimistic, seldom put down for more than a moment - a considerable feat in Kurdistan, where any adult male (in fact, any older male, including your brother) is likely to beat you at the drop of a hat, often with the least provocation. It's not a place for wimps.

The boys shine shoes for a living, and naturally struggle to make ends meet. In their attempts to walk or ride to America (which in their minds is only a few inches across the map and therefore can't be far away) they run into various troubles, are separated, joined up again and nearly killed. It's a grim life made bearable only by keeping your own spirits up. No one else will do it for you.

The film has some humour, but in general there's little understatement of the stark poverty the boys live in. They wear the same clothes day in and out, don't appear to eat very often, and even have to berate customers to get them to pay the proper price for their shoeshining. A few older people help them at times, but for the most part they're on their own. And at journey's end, things don't seem to have made a lot of progress, though at least they're out of Saddam's clutches, for the time being.

The cast is mostly amateur, which means that people turn up here who would never appear on screen otherwise, their faces marked in many cases with the sheer difficulties of life. The two boys are good-looking, and convey all the emotion needed in their roles. Taha has a voice that would kill a goat a twenty paces - some viewers have felt he has only one vocal mode: full-bore shouting. He may be excused in this because of the sheer need his character has to be heard when so many ears around him are deaf to his cries.

The film was written and directed by Karzan Kader, and is based on his own story of escape from Kurdistan. He had previously made a short film version of it; this full-length one has no feeling of being expanded for the sake of it.

Made in Dagenham

We watched Made in Dagenham last night (thankfully, they didn't go all clever and call it Maid in Dagenham, which must have been a temptation, I'm sure.)   Even though it's based on a real-life event, a strike by the women workers at Ford's car factory in Dagenham, the story arc is as traditional as a thousand other movies that involve someone who doesn't think they've got much going for them deciding to stand up for their rights (Mr Deeds Goes to Washington, to name just one famous example).   So you know that once Sally Hawkins (playing Rita O'Grady - the real O'Grady appears in the film clips during the credits) gets her mettle up, it'll be click/click/click and all the nasty blokes holding the women back will go toppling like ninepins.  You know that there'll be a scene where her husband finally breaks down from being tolerant and gets mad, and then has to be told he has no reason to get mad, and that he's not a saint, and that a few scenes later he'll be apologising for being a twat and will be backing her to the hilt.  You know that one of the women will try to use the situation for her own ends, and will be brought back into the fold.  And you know that it'll all end happily ever after (this isn't Italian neo-realist moviemaking, after all).

If I sound cynical, it's only because there is a degree of predictability in the movie, and there were times when you wish the filmmakers had given the thing a bit more edge.   Seeing the real-life participants in those final clips, you wonder what they thought of what had been done to their story, which is treated fairly light-heartedly throughout (even given the situation, and a suicide late in the piece).   Having to strip down to your underwear in the factory because it was so hot in the summertime, or putting up umbrellas in the winter because of the leaking roof has a certain humour, but the reality would have been much less pleasant.  And that horrible moment (it happens two or three times) when there's a loud switching-on noise, and all the sewing machines suddenly come to life and expect the women to get on, like it or not, is something that's just accepted.  The feeling of being chained to those sewing-machines is never explored.  Perhaps there's a different movie - a neo-realist one - waiting to be made.  In the meantime, we have The Full Monty version (which also had a suicide, as I recall, but still managed to remain a comedy) and on its own merits this is an enjoyable movie.  After all, every one of us likes to see the underdog biting the heels of the bullies and overlords (including, here, Richard Schiff as Ford's American pit bull terrier - sans his usual beard, and with a wig covering his normal baldness).  The fact that those nasty overlords can be really vicious is only hinted at.  The winners here - we know it all along - are the 187 women who went on strike.  (The only time they don't win - at least initially - is in relation to a bullying school teacher played by Andrew Lincoln; he has one scene and leaves the otherwise garrulous Sally Hawkins speechless.)

Hawkins isn't my favourite actress.  There's no doubt she has bundles of talent, and uses her oddly-shaped face to considerable advantage.   However, when I twigged where I'd seen her before, as Poppy in Mike Leigh's Happy-go-Lucky, and remembered how we nearly went mad watching the manic performance she gave there, it was hard to see her objectively in this movie.  Some of Poppy's endless twitches, giggles and wriggles appear in this role too, though they're toned down considerably.  This is a problem when an actor appears in a role that you dislike; it can be hard to see them clearly in any other part.  Danny de Vito is a case in point, for me; I don't know what film it was that I first saw him in, but it put me off him almost completely - plus the fact that he does tend to play obnoxious little men.  And yet when he appeared briefly in an interview recently (he'd been voicing the Spanish version of The Lorax), he came across as a genuine, humble man, one who's been married happily to his wife of many years.  A complete opposite to the (often venal) characters he usually plays.   When I think about what I've just said, my comments are further undercut by the part Bob Hoskins plays in Made in Dagenham: he's another actor who's played some roles that have set my teeth on edge; here he's just wonderful.  Redeems himself!  LOL.

There's a wonderful moment towards the end of the movie, when Miranda Richardson, playing the inimitable Barbara Castle (no mean promoter of women's rights herself) comments to Hawkins about the dress she's wearing, which the latter admits she has to return from on loan when she gets back.   Richardson mentions the 'label' - it's been commented on a couple of times before in the movie - and Hawkins says about Richardson's dress: Isn't that a C&A? C&A is the equivalent of Marks and Spencer's: good, solid workaday clothing, but hardly fashionable.  Richardson says it is: she gets all her clothes from there.

Which brings me in a roundabout way to DC shoes.  The only connection here is that they're an item of clothing.  I wondered when I first saw the name whether they were shoes that you wore if you were travelling to Washington DC, or were the kind of thing politicians would favour when trotting through the Capitol Building.  In fact the DC stands for Droors Clothing, a label that's no longer in existence, I'm told.

As you can see from the picture, you'd have to be a fairly unconventional US politician to wear these around the Senate, though they might be comfortable enough.

Shoes, boots, lines and Shadowlands

At the beginning of March I wrote about buying a pair of shoes online and the peculiarities of some websites in terms of what they will allow and what they won't. The shoes are fine, though they're taking a bit more wearing in than I expected. Still they should also last a good deal longer than shoes that wear in within days. And there's a slight squeak to the right one, which I can't see any good reason for. Still, people know I'm coming! Just saw the boot in the picture advertised online - it costs a good deal more than my shoes cost, and I really don't have a use for such a boot (or even a pair of them); at least I haven't so far planned on going tramping in my retirement... The boot is something called a Lowa Banff Pro (I thought it was Iowa until I looked properly); apparently they're made in Germany, although the site I found them on is in Vermont. These boots will stand up to pretty much everything, although the site notes that they haven't been tested for 'wildlands firefighting.' Well, there you go, you can't have everything. 

 Anyway, I actually began this post with the intention of mentioning the little digital dictaphone we bought a couple of weeks back, mainly because we wanted to have something that would record accompaniments for the singers who come for lessons at my house (I don't give them the lessons - I just play for them). The singing teacher (and also another one for whom I record accompaniments) have for years used increasingly doddery cassette players for this purpose, but these are giving up the ghost, and it's also getting hard to find new cassettes. The dictaphone records beautifully, though it doesn't play back music quite so well (speech is fine). However, when you play the music through the computer, the sound is good. My aim was to record the accompaniments here at home and send them to the people needing them. They could then play them off the computer or burn them to a CD. Slightly to my surprise this has caused a little frazzlement amongst the teachers and singers. I would have thought digital recorders were pretty old hat by now, but seemingly not amongst this group (except one, who already has his own). Anyway, it's a matter of training the people in the 'new' technology, and seeing how it works. It must be superior to a creaky cassette player that tends to make everything sound under pitch because it's running slightly slow. I've found another purpose for the digital recorder too: I've recorded my lines and cues for the play I'm rehearsing at the moment, and, while it makes me work hard and stretches my poor brain, it's effective. The cues keep coming and I have to keep being ready! I've mentioned before that the play is Shadowlands. It's the story of C S Lewis' meeting with Joy Gresham, how they fell in love, and how she died before their marriage was more than a few years old. Anthony Hopkins starred in a (to my mind, inferior) movie version of the play, but prior to that there was a superb TV version starring Josh Ackland and Claire Bloom. I've got the latter on videotape, but the video player dislikes our TV set (or perhaps it's the DVD player it dislikes) and has refused to come to the party in the last year or so. One of these days, before videos vanish completely from civilisation, I'll try and get the copy transferred to disc. By which time, no doubt, some other technology will have come along and made both of them redundant!

Buying online

Is it safe to buy life insurance online asks someone. The question might better be: is it safe to buy anything online?

If the law of averages is anything to go by, I'd say, Yes, of course it's safe. But then I've never had anything really serious go wrong with an online purchase. Occasionally I've received a book that wasn't the one I ordered, but the supplier has then turned round and given me the right one free of any further cost.

Dell Computers can be a bit difficult to deal with - for instance I'm waiting on an order I requested back at the beginning of last month. Dell usually comes through - even though they may take some time and a number of calls to people who speak English in such a way that it's hard to understand. I wouldn't buy from them again, (I've had to order printer cartridges because no one else can supply them) but to be fair, everything has eventually resolved itself with them.

I once ordered a DVD on Trade Me, and the seller turned out to be a bit dodgy, I think. He was basically waiting for the sale before he ordered the DVD from his supplier, which meant there were much longer times of waiting for goods to arrive than would be normal for a Trade Me transaction. His dodgy behaviour eventually bit him in the bum...he had so many people complaining that he stopped selling stuff altogether. It didn't help that he tended to accuse the buyer of causing problems (having a letterbox next to a shop, or across the road from a school??) rather than accepting that he was the problem.

Hmmm. I started off saying that on average it was okay to buy online. My stories are pretty mild by comparison with some I've heard. It's always worth dealing with a company that's reputable (Trade Me itself is far more reputable than the odd seller on there and they will sort out problems if needed) - I guess Dell is reputable, but their service aspect leaves something to be desired, and their speed of delivery is poor by comparison with most online companies. They also make it more difficult to get back to them than necessary.

As for life insurance, buying it online will be safe as long as you're sure the company you're dealing with is a legitimate life insurance company. There's the rub. If you don't know the company, check it out first - in some way or other. Don't rush in and take up a deal before you've got some further information. Pretty simple, really, but not everyone is patient enough to do it....

Incidentally, I've just remembered something that I did find odd when trying to buy some shoes online recently. Shoes? Yup. When we were in England in 2007, my shoes were wearing thin, and water was getting in. When we were passing through a town called Oswestry we came across an op shop (charity shop in the UK), and my wife spied a pair of Clark's shoes with Gore-tex waterproofing - the kind that are slightly more like a boot than a shoe. They'd been worn in, but that was all, and they were only £7.99. And they fitted like a glove.

I've worn these shoes ever since, and they're still going strong, except that they're starting to feel as though they're letting a little water in when it rainds. I'm not sure if they're actually doing it or whether it's just that my feet sometimes feel cold in them. (Not helped by the fact that during the Christmas holidays we went walking after a heavy shower and the water off the tall grass we were pushing through soaked my trousers and then drained off into my shoes. It took a couple of days to get them dry.)

Anyway, we decided that since we had a bit of cash in an English account, we'd buy another pair of these shoes before I finished work at the end of March. We found an equivalent pair online, Gore-tex and all, and went to buy them. Here's the rub: firstly Clark's wouldn't send shoes overseas. Okay, that was a bit of a pain, but we decided we could send them to one of our English rellies and they could forward them on. Went through the process of ordering them only to find that they didn't accept credit cards unless your home address was in the UK! That is extraordinary, particularly as we have a credit card that comes from a bank located in London.

Finally we had to direct credit money to our rellies so they could order and pay for the shoes. That seemed ridiculous, since Clark's is a well-established company, is very visible on the Internet, and advertises to all and sundry. Except that 'all and sundry' only includes citizens of the British Isles.

Occasionally I've come across American companies that are like this - although they're becoming a dying breed, thank goodness - but I've never found an English one supplying only to those inside its borders. Anyway, the shoes are here, they fit very well, and I'm gradually wearing them in. Hopefully they'll last as long as they last pair...!

Thinks he's the last suck of the mango!

I'm always interested in stuff to do with language, and how we use it, so was pleased when a friend sent me a link to a blog post in the Guardian called The Idiotic Joys of Idiom. The writer is Jag Bhalla who is apparently an amateur idiomologist and author of I'm Not Hanging Noodles on your Ears, a collection of over 1,000 idioms from 10 languages, published by National Geographic Books. Did you know there was such a thing as an idiomologist? My spellchecker certainly doesn't.

Anyway, the post lists a number of various curious sayings, pointing out that making idiomatic phrases is by no means limited to the English, but is common to all languages. In the recent posts in which I briefly discussed David Tammet's Embracing the Wide Sky, I didn't mention his discussion about the peculiarities in language being common everywhere; think of something odd you say in English, and there will be equal odd things said in other languages. Language is far more amazing than we think, not just because almost everyone learns it with relative ease, but because the sheer brainpower required to do it is inbuilt. Evolutionists claim of course we developed language for various reasons (one of them being because our brains got bigger, which seems a bit of pseudo-science, if you ask me), but however it 'developed' it's quite phenomenal when you sit down and consider its complexity.

Back to Mr Bhalla. Here are some of the non-English idioms he quotes:
To seize the moon by the teeth: attempt the impossible (French).
To reheat cabbage: to rekindle an old flame (Italian).
When the crayfish sings in the mountain: never (Russian).
Cleaner than a frog's armpit: to be poor, broke (Spanish).
To think one is the last suck of the mango: to be conceited (South American Spanish).

I'm considering using some of these in my own conversations. 'That Brian, he thinks he's the last suck of the mango!' It almost works without needing translation. And somewhere, I'm sure, there's an idiom about womens shoes, but a quick search on the Net failed to bring anything likely up.

As an adjunct to the post, there's a quiz in which genuine idioms are included with pseud ones. Quite honestly, it's hard to tell the difference. Check it out and have a good laugh! And don't forget to look at the comments section below the blog post itself. There are some superb and hilarious examples of both English and foreign idioms.

Two movies

I mentioned the movie, Serenity, in my previous post. Some guys from our church get together about once a month to watch a DVD together, and this was the choice for last night’s event. Not my choice, but that of the young fellow in the group who’s a keen sci-fi fan.
Apart from the fact that it borrowed from every other sci-fi movie under the sun, particularly the first Star Wars, it wasn’t too bad, with a few twists in the tail, (including allowing the baddie to live!), and some semblance of a plot. (Some of which had to be explained by the sci-fi buff, as the rest of us had no idea of the background to the thing – it pays to have watched Firefly, the series it was based on.)
There were some crazy moments in it: the cannibalistic nasties and the Alliance (yup, one of those, and megalomaniac with it) had a space battle at one point, while the heroes escaped between them. All this was done in spaceships so cluttered together in space that the collision level should have been extraordinarily high. Somehow they managed to battle it out without everything in sight blowing up.
The girl, River, was far superior at taekwondo than the two girls in the Olympics: she could take on fifty men at the drop of a hat and defeat them all. Yeah, right. Even being the mean war machine she was supposed to be, the sheer improbability was just a bit much.
And then the heroes only strapped themselves into seats in their space ship when they thought they were going to crash. Prior to that they’d been walking happily about the thing in spite of the fact that it was doing frequent somersaults in space and corkscrews and you name it.
Still, the spaceship designs were cool throughout: the baddies had nasty kinds of designs, like sharks, and the goodies had something like a bird, or a large insect.
For some reason, after this, I came home and watched The Red Shoes, while my wife slept in the lazy boy chair. The acting is old school – clear enunciation and rather mannered movements (but only at times) – and the story is a bit dragged out, and the ballet people are all a bit over the top, but there are some great things in it still. The photography is superb, moving seamlessly from atmospheric studio stuff to location work, much of it in a brilliantly sunny Monte Carlo. And the colour throughout is imaginatively used: Moira Shearer’s ginger hair shines, the red shoes glisten menacingly, the arty ballet sets contrast wonderfully with the clean location colours, the warm interiors and much more. Even the men’s dark suits and tuxedos shine.
And while the ‘real’ story of two men in love with the same woman is a bit clumsily handled, it parallels nicely with the Red Shoes ballet itself, which is based round a similar idea. The ballet is superbly done, not just from a dancing point of view, where the choreography is imaginative and detailed, but from a cinematic point of view. Like the best Hollywood musical ballets, it doesn’t stint on using cinematic tricks (the usual shift from a real stage and audience to vast sets is handled with ease). Shearer leaps into the red shoes almost in one take; a newspaper gets up and dances with her and then transforms within the same shot into Robert Helpmann, and back again; a huge, rolling ocean behind the conductor (who appears randomly throughout the ballet – he’s one of the lovers) turns into the audience; and other seamless moments show the marvellous control that the directors, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, and DOP Jack Cardiff have over their material.

These ain't flip flops!

I don't normally talk about footwear on this blog, at least not intentionally, but in line with its random nature, I'm going to take the opportunity to do so.
So be warned: this post has nothing to do with music. Well, not at this point, anyway. (Except that I'm still listening to The Wandering Gyre - sorry, the Widening Gyre (!) It's that Anthony Ritchie symphony I mentioned a couple of posts ago.
Anyway, back to footwear. I've just come across a site on the Net where they claim to be advertising flip flops. Flip flops, as any genuine Kiwi of a little vintage will know, are the Kiwi equivalent of jandals (or thongs, as they were also called - except that thongs are now what they call those dreadful skimpy bits of underwear that people who like to expose their rear-ends when they bend over always seem to wear).
I mean, does the thing in the picture in the upper left look anything like a flip flop to you? Well, it might if you're under 25, but to real people this ain't a flip flop. This is a scuff - even the site the picture comes from says it's a scuff. And it's used for climbing around bits of rock - if you're into that sort of thing. A genuine flip flop would give you absolutely no protection when climbing rocks. You'd bash your toe (s) within the first couple of minutes.
I should know about flip flops. My wife wore them constantly for years - hardly even wore anything else. (Although she, being English, called them jandals - and they were quite good for threatening recalcitrant children who wouldn't go to bed(!))

While we're on the subject of feet and their adjoining legs, I thought I might as well add this delightful picture of my legs encased in slippers. Slippers with paint on them, to show that I actually do other things beside blogging, sometimes!