Before 10th of November 1989 my country was headed by the communist leader named Todor Jivkov. Nowadays our prime minister is his bodyguard.
Do you sometimes just stop for a while and look around yourselves? Do you ask yourself the question – is it really worth it? I do. And as much as I am trying to convince myself that it is worth it, every once in a while even I doubt my arguments. You know why? Because as much as I look upon this world I realize that people never learn from their mistakes. We call it history for a reason – it is not there just to tell us some facts from the past, it is there to remind us where we went wrong and teach us to never repeat the same mistake twice.
When I look back I realize that nothing really changed – the only difference between today and a century ago is the technological evolution. Our minds, DNA, mentality is absolutely the same. We are still those irrational, cruel and greedy human beings. We never really got it, don’t we?
If all the money spent on weapons, military, wars and conflicts for the past 100 years were spent on science, medicine, education, health care, we would have speedup our evolution. Instead of propagandizing racism, fear and hate throughout the world, we were spreading love, compassion and cultural understanding, the world would be much more different in a better way, don’t you think? If instead of spending large amounts of money on advertising stupid and useless products, we were spending those money on feeding, clothing and educating the poor. Instead of killing each other we were loving each other and taking care of one another. Just try to imagine such world…
The vision of such nirvana gives me comfort. The hope that instead of hurting, we can help each other. The idea that instead of destroying our nature we can take care of it and live in harmony. This utopia is the one I wish I would live in…but if people can choose between war and peace, they choose war. If they are faced with the choice of harmony and destruction, they choose destruction.
There is some other thing that gives me comfort – that I live in very interesting times. I am looking forward to see what will happen next…
- What about love?
- Love? Overrated. Biochemically no different than consuming large quantities of wine and chocolate.
- Is this your conception for feelings? Consumption?
- Yes.
And this is how it ended. This is who we are – a bunch of mosquitoes sucking each others blood. Love? It’s a deception – a myth. Like Santa Claus – it gives you some comfort, it cheers you up, but then you grow up and you realize it’s fake.
You learn throughout the years, that love only leads to pain and hope to disappointment. You don’t love – you don’t get hurt. You don’t expect – you don’t get disappointed. Life is that simple.
Human beings will do anything, anything. I am convinced. That’s why when all those beheadings started in Iraq it didn’t bother me. A lot of people here were horrified, “Whaaaa, beheadings!” What, are you fucking surprised? Just one more form of extreme human behaviour. Besides, who cares about some mercenary civilian contractor from Oklahoma who gets his head cut off? Fuck ‘em. Hey Jack, you don’t want to get your head cut off? Stay the fuck in Oklahoma. They aint cuttin’ of heads in Oklahoma, far as I know. But I do know this: you strap on a gun and go struttin’ around some other mens country you better be ready for some action Jack. People are touchy about that sort of thing. And let me ask you this… this is a morale question, not retorical, I am looking for the answer: what is the morale difference between cuttin’ of one guys head, or two, or three, of five or ten – and dropping a big bomb on a hospital and killing a whole bunch of sick kids? Has anybody in authority given you an explanation of the difference? Now, in case you’re wondering why I have a certain interest, or fascination lets call it, with torture and beheadings and all of those things I have mentioned, is because each of these items reminds me in life over and over again what beasts we human beings really are. When you get right down to it human beings are nothing more than ordinary jungle beasts. Savages. No different from the Cro Magnon people who lived twenty five thousand years ago. No different. Our DNA hasn’t changed substantially in a houndred thousand years. We’re still operating out of the lower brain. The reptilian brain.Fight of flight. Kill or be killed. We like to think we’ve evolved and advanced because we can build a computer, fly an airplane, travel underwater, we can write a sonet, paint a painting, compose an opera. But you know something? We’re barely out of the jungle on this planet. Barely out of the fucking jungle. What we are, is semi-civilized beasts, with baseball caps and automatic weapons.
George Carlin, Life is worth losing (2005)
Have you ever though about this aspect of the human behaviour? Rape, torture, genocide, necrophilia (the list goes on and on). Only people are capable of doing something like that to each other. Animals don’t – the survival of the fittest – this is how animals survive in the wild – food chain.Nothing further than that – we are the only species on this Planet, that are capable of hurting and killing for pleasure.
Do you remember Jon Voight’s line in Runaway train? When Sara told him, that he is an animal, and he replied:
No, worse! Human! Human!
Throughout my life I read a lot of books, but only few of them are still so stuck in my mind, that even now I continue going back to the plot and thinking through what the author said. Here I am not going to talk about favorite books, because some of those books are not in my favorite list – this is a post of the most disturbing books I ever read in my life. The one that leave you with sick feeling in your stomach.
1.Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell
George Orwell’s novel Nineteen eighty-four is a perfect example of a disturbing novel. The story is set in a society, that nowadays is not that hard to imagine – a time when the totalitarian government is in absolute control of everything. The setting of the novel is Oceania – one of the three totalitarian superpowers that rule the world using censorship and pure terror. The interior of Oceania is way beyond terrifying – if you ever been to a socialistic country, imagine the average landscape and multiply it’s look more than ten times. The storyline follows the life of Winston Smith – a middle-aged, unhealthy character, who is an underling of the ruling oligarchy – The Party. The Party has taken totalitarianism to new a level, where each person is subjected to 24 hour surveillance, a new governmental system, where even people’s very thoughts are controlled to ensure purity of the oligarchical system in. Figurehead of the system is the omnipotent Big Brother – his face is a constant part of Oceania’s interior – his face is everywhere – billboards on the streets, the screen of the TV that you can never switch. What you know about the Big Brother is that he is ALWAYS watching you.
Intelligence comes from the Latin verb intellegere, which means “to understand”. There is a big difference between being intelligent and being educated.
Statistics can show you the percent of the educated people in a country, but there is no math equation that can define the intelligence of a nation. I can give you dozen for examples, but if I do, this article will end up being way to long.
Now let’s start the gossiping and talk about the last scandal that made more than 2/3 of the European Parliament to jump off their chairs and kept journalists all over Europe occupied. The scandal that embarrassed not only the fellow member of the right-wing national conservative party (the 3rd largest party in Denmark) Dansk Folkparti, Mogens Camre, but from what I read in the French press, embarrassed Denmark itself.
What happened?
Morgens Camres has triggered an outrage by asserting the superiority of Nordic nations over Balkan countries. The deputy leader of the Europe of the Nations group in the European Parliament told France 24 television that Romanians and Bulgarians did not deserve any say over countries that are “more healthy and viable”.
Under EU voting rules, which are calculated according to population size, Romania and Bulgaria’s 29.5 million people outvote the combined weight of 20 million Danes, Finns and Swedes.
“When I look at the voting rules, I see that countries like Romania and Bulgaria have many more votes than Denmark and Sweden and Finland, and I think – honestly speaking – that we are more clever than they are,” said Camre.
Reactions?
Hannes Swoboda, an Austrian Social-Democrat MEP, attacked his “unbelievable statement” that reminded him of the Nazis’ untermensch belief that some peoples are inferior.
“The next step is that only voters from Right-wing parties should decide because they are more clever than the rest. This was an attitude which led to fascist and Nazi positions,” he said.
Bulgarian MEP Marusya Lyubcheva called the statement “discriminating to say the least, if not also racist and anti-human”.
“Europe’s unity is based on its diversity. Bulgaria and its people have proved their extraordinary intellectual potential in every field of the human knowledge.”
Renate Weber, a Romanian MEP, dismissed the Dane’s comments as “childish”.
“I don’t think that Scandinavians are more intelligent and clever than any others. It is true that they do have a welfare state, and they have a long-functioning democracy. The truth is that they are in many respects doing better than many European member states, not only Romania and Bulgaria,” she said.
Now let’s go back to the whole “intelligent” part, shall we?
Nordic people have been more or less communal societies throughout history. That’s why they are the way they are today – welfare, education, health care etc. They sure are more educated – they speak at least three languages by the time they are out of high school. They have the resource (oil) and they knew how to put it in good use. Nordic countries are well-developed and educated societies. But that does not necessarily make them more intelligent. Dansk Folkparti is a political party promoting racism (when you peel the surface of it’s “good intentions”). And if they want to at least hide this hate towards foreigners, they might think of switching campaigns and posters that do not say Giv os Danmark tilbage! (Give us back Denmark!)
I will do my best not to be influenced by the media, considering it’s bad habit of being manipulative. What I hope that Mr. Camre wanted to say is that countries such as Denmark and Sweden should have more votes in the EP, because they are more experienced in establishing viable and healthy society. Here I agree – I would vote for more votes from countries like Denmark, Sweden, Finland and the Netherlands in the EP, simply because those countries have proven their ability of creating a functional and healthy societies. But I will not vote for people like Mogens Camre. Someone, who is a public political figure and MEP and dares to make such statements, should never be allowed in politics for the sake of united Europe. In politics there is no such thing as “wops! I didn’t mean it to sound that way” – in politics when you say something you actually mean it. So according to Mr. Camre, the Balkan countries are low-intelligent human beings – you get it now? We are the scum of Europe! Now let’s leave the EU…wops…we can’t, because EU needs us more than we need the EU. Because we are geographically comfortable. We are cheap labor. Throughout the years the aristocrats of Europe have shown us in many ways those “facts” about us, so please, you don’t have to make the effort of reminding us all that we are all doomed with an etiquette that says “low-intelligent” just because we are Balkans. The reason why Romania and Bulgaria are in such situation has nothing to do with intelligence – it is linked to our political culture which is influenced by many years of dictatorship.
I understand why is all this fuzz about – it’s because of the way that EP seats are divided. I am sorry, but I will disappoint the EP, by saying that the European Parliament members that Bulgaria is sending will probably shock you with their incompetence. I am sorry, but this is how it goes. But if you judge an entire society by their leaders, then you are not that far out from being a racist and closed-minded person. How can you judge a whole nation, just by few people? Shall we now judge the US, while they were having governor bush in office? (for me he will always be governor bush, because this was the only office the elected legally in that country). Or maybe I should judge Denmark by the persona of Mogens Camre? Or the Dansk Folkparti? Or maybe comments like that:
Lazarova, piss off! Dumb Bulgarian slut!
Danish people don’t want their country to be infiltrated with deadbeat Eastern Europeans and Muslims like the Netherlands. They don’t want you, people! Stay out of Denmark! What part of this don’t you understand? You are dumb indeed if you are trying to force yourself on Danish society where you are not wanted by trying to make Danes feel guilty. Stay in your squat toilet country and Denmark will have no problems with you.
And my all time favorite, from the same Danish guy who did not respected a single opinion in this thread and for him, we were all communists is:
My point is that Northern Europe has the highest standard of living and the happiest people in the world, therefore they are the cleverest. They are good at life. Bulgarians and Romanians and Balkan people in general suck at life. They all want to be IT specialists and no one wants to clean up after themselves. They are dirty, lazy, disorganized and if that’s not dumb, then it comes close.
….
Happiest people in the world? Since this is my blog I will afford some sarcasm – dude, happiest people in the world?! Oookay…then why you guys are known as “the suicide league” countries in sociology then? Norway counting the country with highest suicide rates in the world, followed by Denmark and Sweden. Too bad that guys didn’t kill himself – he could’ve free a valuable parking space.
Now…can I make a general conclusions of an entire nation? Of course not. This is what “low-intelligent” people do.
This is what is going to destroy this world – imperial arrogance and racism. People are programmed to hate each other – when we replace this hate with peace, tolerance and understanding, this is when we are going to proceed as a race. While statements like Mr. Camres’s and that guy from the comments of the publication are still around…well…good luck folks and peace out! I gave up upon this country, my country, this continent and this race long time ago.
Despite the fact that there is some tension between Bulgaria and Serbia, I always liked our neighbours. First of all, for me they are very united as a nation. And they have really twisted sense of humor + extraordinary dictionary of curse words. Some time ago I found this article (in Bulgarian) with some graffiti slogans in Belgrade – some of them are worth sharing to all the people who can’t understand Serbian. I know they might not sound as good as they sound in Serbian or any other Eastern European language, but still:
1. Columbus, fuck your curiosity!
2. Our air has only one privilege – we can see what we breath!
3. Only 12 million people are happy enough to live in Yugoslavia. The rest don’t have that happiness, but they have everything else.
4. Let someone else pay the bill, we didn’t order such life.
5. If you can’t live without each other, get married and you will.
6. Men are like toilets – they are either full of shit or occupied
7. What is civilization? The road of human kind from the caves to the nuclear weapon.
8. The great victories are never won in the first battle.
9. As high as we are able to fly, as small and insignificant we appear to those who can’t fly.
10. Every family should have at least three children – so if one of them ends up to be a genius, the other two could support him financially.*
11. This year there won’t be any Easter – they found the body.
*This is very true – we are three children: me, my older brother and older half-sister. The brother is the genius, my sister is the executive of a bank, I have stable CV with work experience and I will probably find my way through, but my poor brother is really SO smart and intelligent, but simply can’t go trough life as we do. Being genius is not easy 
Now I am going to talk about human behavior. Or more likely what pisses me off in some human beings and the way they behave in the society.
I will start with example number one. I am sure you know this person – he is in your office, university, he is your roommate, or next door neighbor. This is the person that 99,9% of the time talks about himself/herself. The one that thinks that the entire universe is spinning around him/her. Every single sentence coming out of his/her mouth is either “Me…” or “One of MY friends…”. Such people either have a very low self-esteem or too big of an ego to actually realize how boring they are with those long and uninteresting stories, which applies people and places you don’t know or even care about. But for the sake of day-to-day respectful human relations you simply stay and listen, because you are not left with much of a choice. You see in the eyes of the other participants of this social interaction, how bored they are too, but they – like you, don’t have any other choice, but to listen and laugh artificially. But let me make a point – every once in a while every one of us is telling a story that thinks it might be interesting to the other people, but it is a question of simple human intelligence to see that your interlocutors are actually bored. This is when you cut the crap and finish the story as soon as possible, without wasting anyone’s time. Yeah, but that kind of people either don’t see that or prefer not to see it. Those are the people that hate being interrupted, but love to interrupt. The once that are just waiting for you to finish your sentence in order to start talking the something that has nothing to do with the subject that you were discussing seconds ago. The people you know everything about – the names and occupation of their siblings, the age of their parents, you know 2/3 of the stories from their childhood etc., but they don’t know even how old are you, because they are so consumed to talk about themselves that they simply don’t notice the other people around them. I am sure that Freud might come up with less insulting words for such behavior, but I simply call it arrogant and pathetic. This is why I never go out drinking with people I don’t like, because the alcohol unlocks my senses of sincerity and I will probably end up like Doug Stanhope after half-case of beer and two packs of smokes, talking about Jews (the guy is hilarious, but I am a hypocrite – I tend to hide my aggression against annoying and openly dumb people):
p.s: and of course I can use the word f@^k in much more sexy way
Moving on to my second all time favorite inappropriate human behaviour. And here I am going to talk about those very complexed human beings that somehow ended up thinking that everybody else are allowed to have a point, but his/her own is the right one. The people who never accept different opinions and point of view. You know, the guy that sits to talk politics with you and thinks that just because he saw couple of Michael Moore movies and read two essays by Naom Chomsky (OK, he probably reads Alex Jones every once in a while) and he get’s it all. Those are the closed-minded people, they don’t accept criticism on their opinions, works etc. Yes, even some artists are like that. There was a point in my life, when I was really good in drawing and painting. Just for the record (in order not to mislead anyone) I am not a talented person, no no – but I got very good into drawing, because I practiced a lot. And as everything else I do in life, I don’t do it for the commercial benefit. Only once in my life I made a painting for an architect and this was because he put 100 euro in my pocket and said he wanted one. I don’t sell art and even if I was talented enough, I wouldn’t do it for the money. OK, maybe you got confused here, so I am going to clear it out. Take a typical Hollywood actor and an European one (say…French for example, or maybe even Scandinavian) – the Hollywood one is seeing a movie not as a form of art, but as money making business, while the majority of the European people involved in filmmaking are seeing it as an art, and the money aspect is way down on the list. So – my point was – the teacher that I was going from time to time for some tips was a very famous painter, but (unlike her husband) she was always painting this…you know – sellable stuff. Most of her paintings were pretty much the same – people like flowers, and oceans and boats, so if this is a good market decision, then why not? OK, but at least admit that you are not a real artist you are a good dealer – I only once (barely) criticized her style and she took it as a personal insult. This is the kind of behaviour that I am talking about. She thinks her paintings are masterpieces, but they weren’t – yeah, they were pretty good, but that’s it. If my writings get criticized I will be glad to hear it – maybe I can learn something from it, right? This is what pisses me off about some people – the idea that they are always right!
The other type of behaviour that I can’t stand and more likely do not understand is the behaviour of the so-called…nationalists. Now, in my entire life I never understood national or ethnic pride for the simple reason, that for me the word “pride” is more likely to go for something you actually achieved on your own, not something that comes down to simple genetics. It’s really weird for me when I hear this slogan “Proud to be (pick a nationality)” …may I ask…why? And I did. I am sorry that I will dig once again into the whole Denmark thing (there is no point involving my nationalistic American buddies here), but once I asked a guy who said “I am proud to be Danish” this simple question – why? And I received this long list of all the things that he was proud of – his country is reported to be the happiest country in the world, they have a well-developed working social system, good health care, education and bla-bla-bla…and yeah, they saved a lot of Jewish people back then. And of course my next question was as short as the previous one – so? So what? Yeah, your country is great, but you are 27-year old healthy male, who still haven’t worked a day in his life, never paid taxes, never even participated in charity and by far the only thing you did for this country is sucking money from the state under the form of SU or any other kind of financial support. And this is just one thing – what did you do to make this country the happiest in the world? What was you participation in developing social system, health care, educational institutions? Or even saving the Jews? That would be…none! Does that mean that you are proud of something that the generations before you, who shared the same nationality did? Well…this is selfish – I think that the credit should go to them, not to you. The problem I have with nationalists is that I can’t explain them the difference between being happy/glad or whatever and being proud to be a part of a particular country. I am happy to be Bulgarian, because a big part of my growing up was in raw shit and whatever happens to this world I know I am already well-trained to survive trough it. And yes, I am happy to be a Bulgarian for a lot other reasons. But I am not proud. I never did anything for this country (and neither did she) so why should I be proud? National pride, ethnic pride…it’s unhealthy and it’s bad for you. Instead of spreading around national pride, start smoking, try a new cocktail or go for some drugs that make you chilled, less agrressive and most of all – make you think!
Now, as much as I would like to proceed more and more into the depths of human behaviour I will stop here, before this article ends up much more hateful than it already is . Just for the record – I do like people, I enjoy being around them, in their company, listening, talking, interactig etc. But the problem is that I don’t particulary enjoy the existence of curtain types of people – I don’t hate them, I just…prefer not to be around them.
And as a closing statement, just think about what a wonderful place this world would’ve been without ego maniacs, racists, nationalists, religion (and religious fanatics) – wouldn’t it be great if we all just love and respect each other as a human beings, as individuals without any prejudice, hate and aggression? Hm?
I am a dreamer…but I am not the only one.
For me the art of film making can be categorized as the most complicated one. Mainly because it is a compilation of almost all arts known to mankind – and the hardest part is to manage to combine all those different arts into a visual production that can influence the viewer.
When we talk movies, we usually think of plot, good story, actors, movie directors and sometimes producers. But let me ask you something. When was the last time you asked yourself who is the person behind the brilliant production design of Tarkovsky’s “Solaris”? Or the special effects team for “The Matrix”? The make-up artist that tranformed Brad Pitt thourgh almost all ages in the last Fincher movie? Or perhaps the team behind the beautiful costume design of “Memoirs of a geisha”? Or the set-designer who creates the marvelous interiors that we admire? What about the very begining of the film process? The script? Do we often ask ourselves the question who was the brilliant minded writer who wrote those original stories? If you haven’t asked yourself those questions and you are someone who appreciate art in all of it’s forms, you could choose one of your favorite movies and simply watch carefully. Because it’s not only the director and the actors who create the magic of cinema – it’s every single detail. From the physical apperiance of the movie, to the costume design, make up, sound and visual effects, set design and decorations, music, lights…everyhing.
In the following blog posts, which will be under the name “The art of creating a movie” I will share my limited knowledge about the following aspects of creating a movie:
- Screen writing
- Production design
- Set design
- Make-up
- Costume design
- Music
As someone who was involved in Greenpeace activities for a while, I am doomed to receive newsletters in my e-mail to the rest of my life. So a day ago I received a reminder that the 22nd of April is Earth Day. So – Happy Earth Day, everyone! Let’s fight for oxygen – if it’s not for us to breathe then at least for our children (OK, your children, I am not making my parents mistake and bringing three kids to this fucked up world). They are people who are annoyed by Greenpeace extreme policy for such issues, but personally I think this is a very smart strategy. Here, my fellow friend and colleague Christian-Andrei will disagree, I know, but let me defend my thesis 
. Sit down for a while and think about social issues that you started caring about – or even noticed though out the years. Now remember how you found out about them. I am 95% sure it wasn’t from a boring 4 hour conference with world scientists, for which you need double in physics in order to understand what they are talking about. You most likely found out from an impressive and probably very bold documentary, journalistic report or something like that. This is a new wave of advertising social issues – by using the tools of shock, playing with the viewers sensibility, provoking different emotions, such as anger and fear. From my observations the majority of the people are simply too busy to care nowadays and one of the ways to make them do so is by using stress. This is how some NGO’s dealing with environmental issues, poverty, human right’s etc. work. And their methods are actually quite effective. Giving you a personal example. When I was in 8 grade I was trying to make some kind of environmental campaign in my school – me, my biology and physics teacher were making those “class-meeting” with people from all over the school, talking about climate and environmental issues. Our efforts were worthless – nobody wanted to listen, simply because this is how our minds work – we all think that we will not live the times to see world cataclysms, we think that it will be for our children to deal with it (which is also extremely wrong way of thinking). Few years after that (I think it was two) Al Gore and “An inconvenient truth” came along to help us. So here was the deal – the students were going to miss classes in biology and physics all week if they show to watch the movie. So I cut the movie, leaving only the most scary and disturbing parts. I was suppose to speak before and after the movie with each class more than 500 students – I remember I didn’t wanted to speak for the next 1 week. Anyway – at the beginning I was very angry with the students – they weren’t paying any attention to what I was saying, they were noisy and distracted, so I said to myself – fuck it. Let’s move on. After the movie was on the whole class was silent, watching terrified to the screen. After that they kept me for more than an hour talking about what they saw and what it can be done. So extremism works. I am someone who strongly believe in the quiet diplomacy, but sometimes it is not the most helpful tool to make people listen.
So, Happy Earth Day again, and let’s start to care for our Planet! Here is the video that I received in my newsletter.
I was quite depressed last week – as someone who watches at least one movie per day, I suddenly started missing my large DVD collection back home, which was at least full of movies worth watching again and again. There was simply nothing new worth watching those days – are they keeping all the good stuff for summertime? I don’t know. But I found myself a solution. After I watched Slavoj Zizek’s documentary The Pervert’s guide to cinema I decided that it is a good idea to watch again some of the forgotten classics in my collection. Which is actually a good idea, because when I first watch those movies I was in the age between 14-18 and since I widen my points of view each day, I usually see differently things that I saw even few months ago.
I started with a classic movie, that brings together some of my actors in preference (some of them actually quite favorite) – The Usual suspects. I thought of that movie after I saw a brilliant interview with Benicio Del Toro, at the Inside actor’s studio – it just reminded me what hell of a good actor that guy is.
Then I moved on, more North – I remember that years ago I watched the original movie, that has it’s…OK… American remake (I only say this because of Al Pacino, of course), called Insomnia – now you may remember the 2002 US remake, but I really remember the original Norwegian movie – hell of a good story, and on top of that I was in a mood for some thriller and crime, so it perfectly suited my mood. This movie is an example that Scandinavian cinema didn’t die with Bergman – probably one of the best written, directed and performed psychological thrillers I’ve ever seen so far.
There are at least two reasons why you should like (OK, maybe not you, but me) Naked lunch – reason number one: any movie upon William Burroughs’s books is worth seeing and reason numer two: David Cronenberg is an old school kick ass movie director, who barely has a bad movie in his filmography. A brilliant directed meeting of the minds movie…I don’t think that there is any other filmmaker rather than Cronenberg who can depict with such perfection Burroughs’s vision and put it in a motion picture.
Lars Von Trier – shall I stop here? As a co-founder of the Dogme 95, the Danish filmmaker is an example that you don’t need much in order to create a masterpiece. This is why I prefer European and Iranian cinema, unlike the American film industry, here (and there) the people making the movies are seeing film making as an art (like it should be) and not as a money making business. Their work with their very hearts and souls and I think this is how a cinema masterpiece is created. Lars Von Trier has shown us diring the years some very remarkable movies like “Dancer in the dark”, “The element of crime” and “Dogville” – one masterpiece after another. All movies created with a very low budget. “Europa” is another piece of Von Trier’s ginius – a game with black &white and color images, “Europa” the part three of the Danish filmmaker triology is for me one of his wierdest and most remarkable works.
“Taste of Cherry” is the second Iranian movie I saw and I think it was the one that really enchanted me with it’s complication within the simplicity. Kiarostami, who is recognized to be one of the best Iranian filmmaker’s creates this beutiful motion picture that raises questions to the viewer, leaving him to seek his own answers within the emotional depths of the movie. Every once in a while, when I see an Iranian movie I am so intrigued by the charecters, simply because they really seem so real and casual – it’s like walking on the streets of Teheran and actually meeting those people, hearing those conversations…no actors…just people. And in “Taste of Cherry” you can almost feel like touching those charecters. The Persian man, driving around Teheran, looking for someone to help him commit his own suicide and his three man of choice – the middle-aged Afghani seminarian, the young Kurdish soldier and the Turkish taxidermis. Simple and real. A movie that is and will stay in my top 100 best movies ever. Don’t uderestimate the Middle-East…they have stories to tell, even more enchanting and incredible that the one you could hear anywhere else.
So if you are looking for a good old movie to watch this weekend, check on this list – you should be keen to at least one of those movies. If you are not…well…I think that there are enough Hollywood excuses of a motion picture you could watch. Enjoy!
P.S: I have a question and I really hope that this blog post will be seen by someone who actually can answer it – what was the name of that movie (I think it was Scandinavian) that the guys from the Criterion collection were looking for years and I think they finally found it at a madhouse in Norway?
