Headquarters

This is De Doelen, the HQ of the Int'l Film Festival Rotterdam. It's an enormous performing arts center with one gigantic amphitheater and two smaller theaters. It opened every day at 9am during the festival, at which time there was always a queue of people waiting for entry. Box office, festival merch, info desk, full bar and a small cafe were all on the first floor. There were two box offices, one for guests/press/etc. and one for the public. On the second floor was another bar and a bunch of couches and a dining area where the Director's dinner was held. The third floor was check-in, the film office, a press desk, an accreditation desk, a bank of computers with interwebs, a small office with print, fax, and copy capabilities for producers and filmmakers on the go. I had my own mailbox for the festival, which they give all guests. And every night on the third floor, they catered dinner for the volunteers. So nice. I only saw a couple films here but one was a masterpiece - The Voyage of the Red Balloon.

Below is the bar on the first floor. Looks like a nightclub, doesn't it?

Wearing The Thing in Rotterdam the board game

At the tourist office in Rotterdam, where I stopped to pick up a map and use the internet for free for fifteen minutes, I saw this on the top shelf of a merchandising display. I picked out a street map to buy, but then the kindly woman at the desk told me about the free maps and gave me one. It was very handy.

I wore this the entire time I was in Europe(and to infinity and beyond). It uses velcro. It is from John Carpenter's The Thing. It's not as cool as the fork bracelet that kid wears in Elephant, but it's damn close.

Rear Window

So, I arrived in Rotterdam unscathed and after checking in to the Stayokay Hostel near the Erasmus Medical College, I found my view comforting and ordinary. Seconds later, the bus featured in this picture crashed into that 2nd car obscured by the branches of this dormant tree. Seconds later than that, an envoy of eager medical students converged on the scene prior to all other authorities and proceeded to pry the victim from the stricken vehicle and revive an elder Dutch matron, who suffered a cardiac arrest while on the bus. You might wonder why I didn't snap any pictures of that. Very curious.














This was my bed for the first few days. I took a nap immediately. Each bed has a sleeping bag in it and they provide you with fresh linens whenever you need them. On the third or fourth night, I arrived late to find a young German in this bunk, so I was forced to relocate to the top bunk. Luckily, there was a ladder. There were four beds total, a table with three chairs and a shelving unit, a sink, and a bathroom with a toilet and shower. This young German was soon replaced by Alexander, a charming middle-aged Dutch man with little glasses who was attending the Rotterdam film festival. He was very nice, spoke English, and one day, went to see a 9-hour film by Lav Diaz called Death From the Land of Encantos. There were four intermissions of 20 minutes each and I've seen the film make several best lists in the newest issue of Film Comment. Sorry I missed it. I've still yet to do one of those single film marathons. I'm itching to.

This is the hostel.

Time for a picture over the ocean that seperates the US from Europe

So, since I was either too lazy or too technologically inhibited to post any pictures overseas, then I'll repent with a daily slideshow here.


1.21.08
This first picture was taken in the belly of a Delta Airlines plane in the bathroom somewhere over Nova Scotia. It's a little fuzzy because as you know, I refuse to use a flash. I was very happy and excited when this was taken. I think at the time I was also thinking about how easy it was to leave the country. All you have to do is buy a plane ticket and go. It helps if you have a destination and some plans, but I'm still amazed at how simple the whole process is.



2.18.08
This picture was taken at Atlanta's Hartsfield Jackson Airport on the day of my return to American soil. I was waiting for my bags at the carousel. Notice the growth of facial hair and limp haircut. I'm not smiling with teeth because they all fell out in Paris. I have no teeth.

More to come tomorrow.

Tirez/Poussez; or, a few days at the cinema in Paris, France near La Sorbonne

Our trip to Mont. St. Michel fell through for yesterday and today and so the French coastline will have to do its best to resist erosion and remain intact for me the next time around. I'll plan better next time and buy train tickets in advance. To replace the experience, I didn't have to look very much further than La Rue Champollion right on the Sorbonne's cheek. Paris streets are very narrow and this one is no exception, but very few cars travel down this road leaving it free for we pedestrians who like to stretch our legs and arms. La Rue Champollion has another characteristic that is unlike anything I've ever seen before in my life. Anything. In. My. Life. On this street, which is shorter than an American city block, are 3 cinemas right next door to each other. Three independent French cinemas! When I say right next to each other, I don't mean that there is an office in between one and a brasserie in between another. I mean RIGHT NEXT DOOR TO EACH OTHER. You walk out one door and take fifteen steps and walk right into the next one. It is astonishing and I'll put money on it that in this world we live in, I could count all similar places on two hands.

If your gums are bleeding now, than listen to this. Playing at Le Champo, the cinema on the corner, was a selection of Tim Burton films. They called it a 'cycle'. How fresh. But that is hardly the kicker. Also screening was a cycle of Antonioni, including Blow-Up, La Nuit, and others. I'm not finished! Showing five times a day all week long was Antonioni's Zabriskie Point, a pretty obscure film that WB buried back in the 70s that I just adore. I'm still not finished! Zabriskie Point played at this movie theater for two consecutive weeks, five times a day. Need I remind you it is 2008, not 1970. I think I can safely guarantee you that this has not happened ever in history and it would certainly never happen in the United States of America. I'm not bad mouthing. Just saying. I mean if you've seen this picture, then you know it's not a money maker. Exhibitors don't clog up phone lines trying to score prints of this movie. I'm serious. I really don't think this has ever happened before, notwithstanding my being famously naive. Never happen in the US. Never anywhere. Who's in charge over here? Dear lord.

A little more about moviegoing in France which I admit is limited to only a few tiny theaters and the Cinematheque Francaise, but honestly, what more evidence do you need, Counselor? The theaters are tiny(except the Salle Langlois at CF) and they make you wait outside until they open the screening room, which is about five or ten minutes before showtime. No concessions anywhere except maybe a vending machine. Bathrooms are unisex and an afterthought. No trailers or commercials. The lights dim and the movie just starts. If you stand outside La Filmotheque Latin Quartier, you can hear the sound of the projector clipping away through a vent, mixing with the sound of Parisian traffic. It's delightful. Finally, an air raid siren I can endure. The theaters are also very warm so remember to peel off any extra layers so you don't cook.

For St. Valentine's Day, I spent my afternoon with Zabriskie at Le Champo and a glorious masterpiece that is better than 90% of everything made nowadays called Les Chaussons Rouge, The Red Shoes at La Filmotheque. According to Powell & Pressburger, a bullseye. It is about how and why people die for art and much much more. When Lermontov says, "Put on the red shoes, Vicky, and dance for us.", you just want to stand up and scream, DO IT VICKY! No one has ever danced The Red Shoes since Victoria Page and no one will again. Hot damn. That's the ticket. I think this movie perfectly encapsulates the drive and ambition people have toward les beaux arts. Craster, Page and Lermontov are so ambitious, with the latter the apex of it all. He has nothing else but this drive to create the greatest dancer and ballet and art. It is insatiable and calculated and monstrous, but it is real and I have no doubt in my mind, and neither does Victoria, that Lermontov could indeed create the greatest dancer out of her. Holy moly. Holy crap. If there is any doubt in anyone's mind that the cinema is not worth preserving, then watch this movie and you'll be writing checks faster than you can say Scorsese.

Who's in charge over here? Mon Dieu.

Coming home on Monday. I'll miss many things, but Europe does not have everything. Yes, I mean great fish tacos and root beer.

In the mood and in the metro; in the streets and in the parks

When I was sick this past weekend and laying in bed, I wondered why I always get sick when I go on long vacations, i.e. ones longer than a week. A combination of poor diet, little sleep, a toussled routine and general travel stress all came to head at the Louvre on Friday afternoon, of all places. Though I was able to enjoy the armies of great art, I walked around like a zombie and had to sit down about every fifteen minutes to keep from falling over. On the one hand, I didn't take a single flash photograph of any piece of art (unlike many people), I was more than generous in doling out my germs to masterpieces like Rembrandt's St. Matthew and the Angel, Michelangelo's The Dying Slave, the Venus de Milo, a half dozen Delacroix, and countless others. The fact that the Mona Lisa is behind glass and you cannot get within 8 feet of it because of a barrier might have saved this darling muse from catching a 21st century cold. We'll follow the headlines in the coming weeks.
I spent all of Saturday in bed reading Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, which at times for me was tantamount to staring into a mirror even though I've never been to Pamplona or a fiesta or drunk for seven days straight. My gracious host Juliana took care of me with her mother's soup recipe, cough medicine and the French Alka-Seltzer. Prior to waking up on Saturday, I think I spent about 14 hours sleeping.

On Sunday, I was starting to feel better so I went for a walk on the metro two stops down and visited Pere LaChaise cemetery; where Morrison, Wilde and Melies are buried, amongst others. Morrison's grave isn't nearly as rock n roll as Oscar Wilde's, and Melies' is by far the saddest, tucked away in the shadows of a few family crypts with nary a single visitor except myself (And I was there for fifteen or twenty minutes.); he might as well have been selling toys again in the Gare Montparnasse. Sunday was also the auspicious occasion of L'avventura at the Cinematheque Francaise, for which Juliana would have been my guest if she had not been infected by whatever germs had nested in my immune system and spread throughout the tiny Parisian apartment. Something else to feel guilty about...but where better to work off guilt than the city with Notre Dame. Lighting a candle has a suggested donation of 2 euros. I put in a .20 euro piece and took two candles.

I was not in tip-top shape for the mother of all cinema experiences and I had a great deal more trouble with the French subtitles than I imagined, but I've seen it enough times to know the words beneath the words and I just watched the gorgeous black and white, Godzilla-sized faces of Sandro and Claudia waltz around the screen for 137 minutes. Vitti is just perfect. Every move and flutter and step is nuanced like a sonnet. She does not miss a beat. After the rushes, Antonioni must have been biting his fist to not implode with joy at what lay in front of his camera, and later on of course, on his bed. He is Italian and a director, mind you. A nice audience as well - very sizable.

I so enjoyed the moviegoing, I stayed for another film called TAPS, starring George C. Scott and Timothy Hutton, Tom Cruise and Sean Penn. It is an absolutely absurd premise, a mix of Corman and the Simpsons but rendered as the soberest drama. I was quite entertained despite many laughable scenes and George C. Scott has some greatly written speeches he delivers that are reminiscent of Buck Turgidson(sic). It felt a little like being in a porn theater because before the movie began, I looked around and saw nothing but a handful of men, each one alone, various ages, at the movies on a Sunday night. It may be my past, but hopefully not my future. HAHA.

That's all for now. Planning on heading to the coast of France thursday with Juliana and Jean-Michel to Mont. St. Michel and seeing the ocean. Should
be fun.

I wish Paris was a prison and I a convicted double murderer who will never be cited for good behavior

I am staying in a small apartment near the Metro station Parmentier in the Arabic part of Paris, though I haven't seen all that many Arabs. Juliana and Jean-Michel are my hosts thanks to Andrea and they are as kind as Mother Theresa. She is an artist and he is a schoolteacher of physics and chemistry. They include me in everything they do. Today, I went to table tennis practice with Jean-Michel and then to dinner at a friend of theirs' home in Montmarte. His name is Sylvan and he is a math teacher. We ate fondue, drank a seemingly unending amount of wine and I tried my best to understand their conversations in French. It was like being in a New Yorker article.

I do the tourist things during the day and at night, I hang out with my gracious hosts. I could talk about the Eiffel Tower for an hour and I will say the best part is being underneath it. I love it so.

Tomorrow, I am Louvre-ing. Paris is huge and abstract and real. It is not just a place on a map anymore.

On Sunday, the reason I am here, indirectly, is playing at the Cinematheque Francaise and Juliana and Jean-Michel are going with me. It is Antonioni's L'avventura in Italian with French subtitles on 35mm in a movie theater designed by Frank Gehry.

mike

I've seen Peter Lorre smoke more cigarettes than the Marlboro Man; or I'm going to have nightmares about ants tonight

So, I have more one film to see at the Int'l Film Festival Rotterdam and that will conclude my studies here. I did alright for a first time. Near-somnabulism put a dent in my numbers, but I was defenseless. Sleeping pills are evil and I'll never take another one again.

Feature Count: 26
Shorts Programmes Count: 15

I've told you about several of the short films and a feature or two of note that I saw here. A few more include:

Wonderful Town - This film is from Thailand and I saw it at 10am this morning and it is fantastic! There is a big difference between a 10am movie and a 930am movie. That half an hour makes all the difference. I was like a bird at a feeder for this film. It's going on to play Berlin. One writer once said there are only two kinds of stories; 1) A stranger comes into town. 2)I don't remember what this one is. Sorry. This was the first one. It's set in a small town in Southern Thailand that was destroyed by the 2004 tsunami. A love story and much more. Fabulous!

Trumbo - A documentary about the screenwriter and man of letters. Craig Zobel was the production manager. How about that? Kudos, Craig. If you like to write, you'll want to imitate DT and change your name to a much cooler one. He was blacklisted and went to prison for a year for contempt because he refused to answer the immortal question, "Are you or have you ever been a member of the Communist a Party?"

Limite - This is the Brazilian silent film with 3 intertitles, all of which are in Portugeuse and not subtitled. I was waiting for them the entire film. Wonderful movie. Feels like something that inspired Terrence Malick and was inspired by Murnau and the surrealists.

Der Verlorene - German for "The Lost One". Peter Lorre directed and stars in this. He went back to Germany to direct it. I once heard someone refer to his eyes as 'heavy-lidded'. It's true. He carries this film with the help of 1000 packs of cigarettes. Seriously, he puts one out, he lights one up. There is never a second when he is not smoking...or drinking. And he plays a doctor. I loved it because it's old and Peter Lorre isn't playing a sniveling little weasel, at least not throughout the whole movie. Very talkative.

Film - Samuel Beckett's only film. Buster Keaton is in it. Boris Kaufman shot it. It's quite funny, especially if you like Beckett. I loved it. It's a short.

Fujian Blue - A Chinese film. Great. Original in conception and execution.

Momma's Man - I really enjoyed it, but I take issue with the film not revealing that one nugget of information.

I did not get to see Paranoid Park, which made me sad, but I'll see it back home, I'm sure. I waited until the last screening and could not get tickets. Distribution is a funny business. Many films open in their home countries after playing all over the world.

Those are the notables, I believe. There were some other great shorts, but I won't tell you about them right now. I only saw two pieces of trash. Two of them had ejaculating penises in them. What does this say about me? That is not the only reason I didn't like them. Actually, I saw a few other trash shorts, too, but the good always outweigh the bad by a long shot.

Rotterdam is all about this film festival. At the hostel, I met two Dutchmen who had traveled from home to stay in a hostel and go see movies all week. I'm serious. I spoke with one Dutch architect and he said every year he takes off work most of the week to go see movies, as do many of his friends. Can you believe that? Nearly every feature screening I attended was packed. Lines at the box office at 9am every morning every day like Cher was coming to town. Posters for IFFR in the windows of cheese shops, shoe stores, art galleries and nearly everywhere else. Billowing blue tiger banners in the streets, on rooftops. Extraordinary support for the cinema and the film festival. I was amazed. Well financed. Incredibly well organized. Good messenger bag though it's taken a beating. They put my posters up everywhere for me. In the festival HQ, in the venue itself, in prime spots. The staff was so nice. You walk in a door and they ask you, "What do you need? Who may I introduce you to?" It was the tops!

Tomorrow, I'm going to rent a bike and travel around. Monday - Amsterdam. Tuesday-Paris.

Oh, damn. I forgot to talk about Phase IV. Later. It's the awesome ant movie I saw. Fabbo!

mike b.

Now at the Pax Hotel on Schiekade Next to an Old Vacuum Cleaner Store Like in Once on the 2nd to Last Day of the International Film Festival Rotterdam

Yesterday, Dinderdag, was the coldest, windiest, rainiest day it has been in Rotterdam thusfar and it completely justified my bringing of this oversized ski jacket I toted along. It feels like I'm carrying around a bearskin rug. You couldn't stand perpindicular to the ground if you were driven into it like a spike.

I've compiled a list of comments people have made to me about The Adventure to give you an idea of how it was received.

"That opening shot was radical. I thought it was going to go on for the whole film. Not that I would mind." - Shalimar, short filmmaker (She seemed to be using the word 'radical' in the political/social sense rather than the breakdancing sense. I could be wrong.)

"I loved your film." - Peter, Shorts Programmer

"It was very funny." - Arthur, short filmmaker

"It looked like this film was shot in 35mm." - Bartosz, short filmmaker

"You captured what some Americans are like." - I forget the speaker's name. She went on to explain that I captured an unsavory side of Americans very well, or a stereotype that is held about them. We went on to hypothesize that no matter what country you are from, if a couple happened upon a mime in the woods, the reaction would probably be the same.

The most interesting story I have about the film comes from the other head shorts programmer, Juliette. We begin in South Holland, where the programmers rented a house for a weekend to watch and make the first round of selections. A couple of the programmers had watched the film and told the others, "Oh, you have to watch this movie with the mime." There was a chorus of "Oh, no! We don't want to see that. We hate mimes!" They watched the film and the rest is history.

This reminds me of something Bartosz said to me after our screening. He told me when he read about the film online before the festival, he was a little worried about screening alongside a movie with a mime because in his film school class there is a girl who always makes films with mimes in them and they're dependably terrible. Ironic, yes?

I thought I might also share some of the practicalities of being at the Film Festival Rotterdam and just being in a foreign country, though most of you have beat me to the punch and know these things already. First of all, I keep everything of value in my front two pockets even though I don't think there is much cause for worry. Back in the States, I keep my wallet in my back right pocket. Here, I've dispensed with a wallet altogether and just keep my paper and plastic money in my front pocket with a rubber band around it. Passport, room key and phone are in my left front pocket. That's it. For good luck, I keep a shell from the Sea of Azov in Russia in my shirt pocket that my very dear friend Andrea gave me.

Nearly everyone here does speak English, though I haven't found it true that they speak it better than native tonguers, which I heard from a few people before I left. Maybe they were joking. Some Dutch sound faintly British when speaking English so perhaps that is what they meant. Most people assume you speak Dutch and will start talking to you in Dutch until you look baffled, or say, paradoxically, "I don't speak Dutch" in Dutch. After that, you can hold a conversation in Engels. You can also just start speaking in English to people and they'll pick up on it, but usually this is only appropriate with festival staff. With strangers and store proprietors, I just ask, in Dutch, if they speak English. The answer is usually yes.

Most Europeans I've encountered here do not know where Georgia is or have even heard of it. For reference, I say it's in the South, and Martin Luther King, Jr. was born there. This doesn't usually help. If they've been to America, it's either New York or California. No one has asked me if I own a gun or an SUV, but I hardly look like the type that could lift a gun or an SUV, so I'm not surprised. No one has mentioned the war in Iraq or how much they hate George Bush. This will probably change when I travel to France.

If there's not a traffic light, you can basically just walk out in front of automobiles and they must yield to pedestrians. But you never walk out in front of a bicycle. Pedestrians yield to bikes. I guess it's harder to stop a bike than a car, which sounds counter-intuitive, but it makes sense after brief observation.

The Dutch can still smoke indoors, so if you walk into any building, restaurant(even McDonalds), or movie theater, people are smoking. This will change come July, when the indoor smoking ban takes effect. A short filmmaker from the UK made a tactless comment about how surprising this was that it's taken so long for the Dutch to institute this policy. He was accepting an award and E2000 for a short film he directed at the time, so that's why I say tactless. It was like an inappropriate political speech at the Oscars.

To come, a festival wrap up...