Japanese versions...(5/12)

Located a very nice music tower at the Shinjuku area last month and it was a 6-storey artform-like building compiling of CDs of different kinds and versions. The Shinjuju Disc Union was opened in 2001 and I was amused by its systematic classifications of CDs, especially its soundtrack department and the collection of its 60's albums and bootlegs...

Very certainly, I got a selection of highly value-for-money soundtracks of composers like Michel Legrand, Francis Lai and Ennio Morricone into my return suitcase. Among of the new collectables, I added the latest release from Rhino of The Doors' live at Boston in 1970. Psychedelically irritating...wake up, Morrison!

post-blogging note...embracing the winter breeze can partly be accomplished by the coma condition dosed into the rhythm of the world of moving images. This December I simply put myself into the drawer of the cinematic music projected by michel legrand, francis lai & ennio morricone. You sense the age of a year...

Colours of Nantes...(18/5)

Glad that the French May has chosen Jacques Demy as the highlight of the year's cinematique world...The director is one of my very favorites. His cinema world is usually affluent and picturesque. I picked Lola and Peau d'ane as the two movies to watch this time. Lola was a black and white film. This was the first long film made by Demy. Without the colourful pastoral of images, Lola was an expression of Demy's belief of the meaning of movie under the French new wave era. The script was beautifully written and the editing was impressive. The film was taken in Nantes, the hometown of Demy. The passage in the Arcade was an eternity in Demy's film world. When I saw the scenes in the movie, I was amused by the classic pick of the setting for a Lola-istic devotion of first love. I visited the Arcade last year and unlike the much development and regeneration of Nantes, the passage lived in its gorgeous materialistic being of the last century. The long shot of Roland walking by the side of port was a prelude to Demy’s parapluies love in Cherbourg. The movie simply outlined the speech of Demy in his film making life. Peau d'ane, on the other hand, is a post-musical work of his great stories in Cherbourg and Rochefort. Colours remained a winning formula in this work. Truly get away from the realistic world when men devoted their attention to space exploration and development after landing on the Moon, Demy made a tribute to the fairy tale story. The film was also a golden demonstration of his value of the moving images in his greatest times of creation.

Rochefort Vs Cherbourg...(30/4)

Cherbourg is always a shortlisted destination that I would much like to visit during my stay in France...From my imagination, the port should be a pleasant seafront where the story of les parapluies de Cherbourg took place. This kind of romanticism creates inevitably a poetic mirage for a visitor like me. However, out of my plan, I visited Rochefort instead of Cherbourg last weekend. Being two of the most classic films of Jacques Remy in the sixties, I always consider Cherbourg a more classic one than Rochefort. Les demoiselles de Rochefort is more a work of stylism or symbolism. I found that the director simply wanted to double his success by producing another musical film in his new wave series and this gave birth to the story at Rochefort. The form of expression in the film was too much 'calculated' and 'artificial' for me and this demotivates my appetite to the film. Of course, the beauty of colour and the costume used in the film were simply magnificent...
The visit to the city did not really recall me much about the moment in the film. Rochefort is a neat and quiet city, and walking along the riverside, I felt much relieved from the hectic moment we have in other part of the world. The Corderie Royale is a nice building with a pleasant garden area. Apparently, Demy was tactic choosing the place for his world of film. Anyway, Cherbourg misses me.

The Weight of Life...(12/9)

Finally, I got a chance to pay a visit to the "Cimetière du Montparnasse" last Sunday. It was a quiet Sunday morning, and after an overnight rain, it tracked back to a vividing sunny moment with birds waking up after the storm. The cemetary lies numerous graves of different shapes. Yes, they are really of different colours, design, structure, historic and symbolic meaning...I walked in between for about two hours. It was a feeling of reading old-styled poems rather than frightening in the unknown wierd ground. Along the "trail", I met the past of writers, sculptors, singers, engineers, aviators, directors, merchants, booksellers, publishers, auto makers etc...everyone has had one's role and identity to present in the time of life, at least this is significant to a few other people. Something just like what Mitch Albom suggests in his five persons to meet in heaven perhaps...when there is a grave accompanied by an angel with tears, you know how the life thinks about the death. Seeing the modern sculpture erected on top of the place to rest peace, one can see there was a life with passion and aspiration. The symbol constructed on the grave is like an identity, a last phrase to conclude a life, or a last moment of the once-upon-a-time that is to be memorised by the rest who live on. So what would we want to keep on our grave? How would we identify ourselves to have been? Recalling the film "the Jacket" which I saw recently, Jack Starks in the film said that it would only be after death that we see life. Somewhat true. Have paid a worship during my visit to a number of "celebrities" including the director Jacques Demy, the automaker André Citroën, the founder of Cinémathèque Française Henri Langlois as well as the philosphers Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. I hope they would not mind letting me to take some photos of this peaceland.
For more sculptures in the area, check: -
http://www.kodakgallery.fr/I.jsp?c=jiw1j59.f1pi2mp&x=0&y=tke1si

Les Parapluies de Cherbourg...(26/6)

Had a re-view of the 1964-film "Les Parapluies de Cherbourg" again yesterday after long time. This is as always one of the greatest films to me. An all-time classic. I think this should be the climax of Jacques Remy's film. Passionate, elegant, nicely-constructed, and tragically romantic, this is our consent to love, perhaps...

Having a count, the film has been made for over 40 years, and this is incredible. The film, when watched again in 2005, can still be so fresh and so fascinated! Remy produced his world of film with rhythm and colours. It's so astonishing in 1998 when we had the remastered version of the film, with the fading colours on the negative of the film being recaptured. Frankly, it would be a sin not to see the colours in every scene of the film. The extreme demonstration of the French New Wave in colours. Catherine Devenue is an angel in the film. Her bleached blond hair is an all-time chic. Her visage of sorrow in the film tells the romance. I share the view of LOVE with Demy, and that love is sour. After love, only the snow shall leave behind.

The musical play concept for the film is an avant-garde but classic attempt. The conversation and dialogue of the film are adequately written. Beautiful and passionate moments.

Something I picked up again from the film is the moody and touching music and sound by Michel Legrand. He should be a music composer/agglomerator to be noted. He gives the film another dimension of life! And what's more: -

- the landscape of the port and the train station of Cherbourg, I shall go and visit it again soon;
- the gas station of Aubin, not sure if it exists now in the city or not;
- the war between France and Algeria...this is a part of history that I did not really realise much when I watched the film in the past;
- the construction of conservation...the prononication like "reflichir" and "difficile"; the name of "Genelève" VS "je vous aime"; "bonsoir, mon garçon"; "bonsoir, monsieur garçon" are nice picks of the poetic script in the film.
- scene design and coulour matching: in one word, "magnifique"!! In almost every scene, you can find the contrasting 3 colours of RED, BLUE and GREEN! When you look at the dressing of the character in every scene, you will easily find the matching wallpapers or installation in the room.

Well, this is a kind of film to be watched every 10 years, perhaps...