A Redemptive Friendship (Midnight Cowboy)

The film "Midnight Cowboy" is still resonating with me after watching it. It was a movie that I remembered hearing about long ago, when I was a child, but had never actually seen. It details the unlikely friendship of two misfits, and how this leads to a moment of redemption.

It was astonishing to see a young Jon Voight. He plays a hustler from Texas who has a desperate desire to escape what would promise to be a very limited life in a small backwater in Texas. The theme of escape from rural and provincial settings is a long-running theme in literature, and it can't help but offer a contrast to what has been another enduring and contrary theme, that of rural life as an antidote for the ills of modernity.

The Texan character is charming in his own way, brimming with self-confidence that is tempered at the same time by innocence and good cheer. The character has decided to pursue a career as a gigolo in New York, and he undertakes a long and exhausting bus trip to the capital of the East Coast. It is perhaps due to this mission, as well as a few select scenes of nudity and sex that seem very tame in comparison with the norms that exist today, that garnered the film an X rating. This seems thoroughly unjustified after viewing the film. Were we that prudish a culture back in the 60s?

It is inevitable that the character would prove lost in the urban landscapes of Manhattan. He is unable to find any clients, and is instead swindled by the people he meets so that he quickly lapses into penury. In the course of his wanderings he meets the character of Rico (Enrico), a many who is a small-time hood and who is limited by a limp that was apparently due to a bout with Polio. He is played with a certain grace by Dustin Hoffmann.

Rico (known as "Ratso" as well) joins the group of people who take advantage of the Texan (Buck), but it is difficult to see him as anything other than a graceful charmer. He is quite a vulnerable character as well, and what sticks to me is the way he smiles at Buck when he is found in a cafe, disarming him and steering him away from his murderous intent to punish him for the loss of all his illusions.

Buck will join Ratso in his place of abode, a derelict, abandoned building, and together they will undertake a partnership to ensure their survival. This is one of the most enduring and appealing aspects to this film, the way in which this unlikely pair come to trust and rely on each other. They are a mismatched pair, one the paragon of health and wide-brimmed optimism, the other a small knot of despair and jealosy that is tempered by a genuine wish for friendship and fellowship. They bicker with each other but they also become mutually dependent, and this becomes all the more evident as the Rico character becomes progressively more and more sick during the cold winter they spend in the building.

The new focus of their obsession becomes Florida. The difference in clime, the tropical airs, the "coconut-milk" that Ratso feels is so necessary for good health, the relaxed ambiance and the available of women, throngs and throngs of young and healthy bikini-clad women. This feeds the fantasies of Ratso, and he communicates his Florida fever to his friend Buck in an understated fashion, forcing the issue of their eventually uprooting themselves to venture south. (One suspects that Buck was initially resistant precisely because he already had a Southern background and a history of abandonement and solitude from which he was fleeing, as revealed in flashbacks.)

In the end, Buck commits a desperate act in order to acquire money for the bus trip south, and this culminates in the most poignant aspect of the film. Their friendship is solidified by the care which Buck lavishes on the ailing Ratso, a friend who is dying even as Florida looms ever nearer.

The final scene, in which Buck wraps his arms around a dead friend, with palm trees evident outside the windows and their final destination just minutes away, is one that is profoundly affecting, and demonstrates to what extent the Ratso character provided the emotional heart for this film. We are like Buck, and our innocence has been similary stripped. But we have been uplifted as well by the beauty of this friendship.

Idyllic Easter Moments

Today is Easter. I have so many memories of this holiday from my childhood, and all of them seem to revolve around our trips to see our cousins in Carlsbad, where we would gather and spend the day at Mission San Luis Rey.

Elsa, Tili, Rafa, Tony, Sixto, we would all gather and romp around the landmark. Well, perhaps not Tony and Sixto, who were older and who eschewed behaving like children. Tony always chuckled as he saw us running to look for Easter eggs. Maybe it was a form of criticism, but I didn't want to miss the pleasures of this holiday. And Sixto was already courting his future wife, who he would soon marry, producing a niece who joined us during the last few ocassions when we would still gather at this locale.

I remember my parents joining in conversation with my aunt and uncle as they prepared the barbeque. In hindsight, it is amazing that they had these grills located about the landmark. Fires of any kind would pose an understandable threat to the locale, especially given the fact that this was a historical site. If I recall correctly, these grills have since been removed.

Surprisingly, it was not crowded at all, although they would hold Easter church services which I never attended. It seemed as if we had the place to ourselves, and it offered, as always, wonderful vistas. It was sedate and sunny, with brown hills surrounding it, and we would run around the buildings as well as venturing into the interior gardens. Rafa's silly laugh still rings in my ears.

There is a special sheen to these memories from decades past. I associate it with a special light and a feeling of warmth. Those were exciting times back in the seventies, and we always looked forward to them. It has been at least a decade since we have gathered on this holiday.

Tha past, as with any wave, submerges us in memories that come crashing down but that also, from time to time, lift us up as well.

Eternal Observer -- ORomero (c) 2011
Copyrights ORomero 2011

Supernatural Connections

Earlier today I saw Clint Eastwood's film "Hereafter". It was an unusual movie, and one might be tempted to speculate that its genesis arises out of the director's growing awareness of his mortality. Perhaps it would be too trite and simplistic to do so, because the movie is defined by many of the same themes that have characterized his films. Hereafter isn't about conclusions but about denoument. There isn't the sense of finality and of summing up but instead one of preparing to proceed to the next stage after a fateful turn of events.

When one reflects about it, Eastwood's films have to do with the way in which outsiders form bonds with their communities. They may appear to be singular, arriving with no name and no history as was the case with the seminal westerns of the 50s and 60s, and morphing into characters who seek to preserve a sense of integrity in the face of immense pressures and incompetence. They are, indeed, iconoclasts, but they may be termed as such only with regards to their methods, and not necessarily out of a deep philosophical stance. The vigilante gave way to more nuanced characters as Eastwood aged, and while he will always be identified with the iconic action figure, he has directed thoughtful and meditative films that reflect on the ways in which we all delude ourselves with our obsessions and ambitions. They search for integrity, as was the case with the Marines in the movie "Flag of our Fathers", and are haunted by the ways in which their institutions, with their accompanying cultural component, seem to impose impossible roles that diminish them. Their ideological landscape is not absence nor isolation, but one of protagonists trying to protect against the pressures that seek to explode the social network.

In this case, we have several outcasts. One if the psychic played by Matt Damon, another is a boy by the name of Marcos who has lost his twin brother in an accident, and the third is a damaged French woman who has has a near-death experience. Their lives will intersect and they will come to a new accommodation, one that is pregnant with possibilities.

The music is, as with most of his latter films, graceful and understated. It is the music of meditation, and the pacing settles into a languid pace after the beginning sequence of a tsunami causing havoc. This sequence is particularly disturbing in light of the recent events in Japan a few weeks ago.

Overall, the movie was evocative but it somehow did not affect me as deeply as other recent Eastwood films such as "Letters from Iwo Jima", "Mystic River" and "Gran Torino".  Perhaps it is as the actor Damon exclaimed, Eastwood's "French" film, by which he meant an intellectual and, in its pejorative sense, pretentious exercise. I suppose that in the end it seemed too contrived. It didn't convince me in the same way that the other films did with their inexorable logic. It was resolved in too neat a fashion, and this didn't satisfy me. The other films have elements of conflict but also of loss, and this one somehow seemed to supercede the pathos that might have accompanied this subject matter.

I'm still an admirer of Eastwood's films.

Eternal Observer -- ORomero (c) 2011
Copyrights ORomero 2011

This is Academia?

I've had two miserable teaching days this week. The students seem to have become surlier than ever, and seem to relish complaining more than participating in the class activities. There is very much a sense of apathy and resistance that I have not experienced in other institutions.

Yesterday I had to spend almost an hour hearning the students complain about a computer program we are using. They didn't like the fact that they couldn't find the assignments that I had indicated, and furthermore, they seemed to be angry at me. One student who had otherwise seemed to be in a good mood walked out as soon as I entered the class. I don't understand why he bothered to show up in the first place if he intended to do this.

In my other class I have students walking out in the middle of class. This seems extraordinarily rude, and I had to confront them as they were leaving. It seems I will have to read the rules of conduct to them the next time. Things in general seem to have taken an evil turn.

It all began so promisingly at this university. Now, things are worse than ever. It just goes to highlight than I need to consider my options once again. They may pay relatively well, but if the students are going to be rude and insolent, this will be small compensation. I feel as if I am on the front lines again, and I'm not happy about this.

The Polytechnic is not fulfilling the promise of higher education. If these students lack motivation and discipline, then I have to question how it is that they could have been granted entrance.

This may be the time-worn lament of all teachers and professors, but these experiences seem different as well. I'm beginning to dread returning to class, although I recall something that a fellow graduate student named Maribel had said almost a dozen years ago. To wit, that each class begins with a honeymoon of a few weeks and quickly degenerates until both sides, both students and professor, mutually loathe each other.

I hate to think, first of all, that this could be the case (it hasn't been for so many of the classes I have taught), and second, that it could have happened so quickly in these two instances. Are these isolated experiences? Is it me?

This is why people become alcoholics.

Parables of Alienation and Emergence

The film "Tokyo" consists of three vignettes with stories situated in the sprawling megalapolis. These stories were directed by Michel Gondry (Interior Design), Leos Carax (Merde), and Bong Joon-ho (Shaking Tokyo).

What seems to unite the vignettes is the sense of alienation that seems to pervade life in this modern capital. The emotional bonds that would seem to connect people are torn asunder under the pressures of modern life, pressures that manifest themselves frequently in destructive forms.

In the first story we have a young couple who arrives for the first time in Tokyo, in search of new opportunities. The young man is an aspiring film maker, while his girlfriend lends him emotional support. However, their relationship is not stable (an ongoing theme in the film), and the cracks become evident as this couple struggles to find an apartment and gain an audience for the film they have produced. Incidentally, the film is a vaguely futuristic fable which is couched in gimmicks (smoke billowing around the audience), and visual tricks that quite frankly stress the ridiculous as well as the vaguely menacing.

This first vignette takes a sudden turn into fantasy, one that leads to a vaguely unsettling ending. The girlfriend, who has come to feel more threatened and undervalued while in the city, seems to suffer a nervous breakdown and becomes, quite literally, a chair. There are humorous scenes in which her character dashes around the city naked, only to assume the form of an inanimate object when people approach too closely. She is finally taken in by another man, and she learns to accomodate herself to his needs, having abandoned her previous relationship.

The irony is, she no longer has a relationship with anyone. She has retreated into solitude, acting as a passive observer, taking the guise of a chair which lends support but does little else. The city has served, in this case, to dehumanize her, robbing her of any vitality other than as a woman who is reduced to a sense of yearning rather than realization and participation in an active lifestyle. What might have been meant as whimsical becomes unsettling, and this quality is transmuted necessarily to the city, one in which people are similarly transformed into cogs who assume their places. The creative types (her former boyfriend) will readily assume a new guise, and it is speculated that he will gain the recognition that he desires, filming perhaps commercials and thus, perhaps, sacrificing his creative vision in the interest of a career. She, however, has been swallowed up entirely.

In the second vignette we have the story of Mr. Merde, an unusual man who emerges from the sewers to threaten bourgeois society. He will walk along the sidewalks with a curious stride, grabbing flowers which he stuffs in his mouth. He also eats cash.

Mr. Merde has also secluded himself in the sewers, and he also seems to lead a very solitary life. He is hidden, and seems unable as well as unwilling to communicate with others. Perhaps we are supposed to view him as the embodiment of the isolation that defines all of modern and urban life, in which we all seclude ourselves in our private caccoons, unwilling to engage in a vibrant community life.

Much has been said about urban life, and about the way in which our cities dehumanize us, with an architecture that overwhelms us with scale, and that frustrates any attempt at intimacy. Perhaps this is a stretch for communities emerge in cities as well, and isolation is perhaps more pervasive in the wide and open landscapes of our rural regions. However, the thesis seems to be that Mr. Merde stands for the energy of repression, of urges that are never expressed, and of a sense of self-loathing that is irrational. This quality is especially evident in his communication of the idea of obeying the "God" who has created him and demands that he carry out a mission.

Mr. Merde hates people. He will ultimately engage in an episode where he throws grenades at the crowds of observers, killing them mercilessly. As a zealot, he claims to obey impulses that derive from a hidden entity, and professes to be religious. If so, it is certainly a mocking portrayal of the zealotry and the literalism that characterides so many of the fundamentalist groups, from the Islamic groups that are so much in the news and that engage in terrorism in the name of religion to the fundamentalist Christians who murder abortion doctors.

However, the religious aspect does not seem to be especially noteworthy. If anything, the tone seems to suggest a wry take on the traditional monster movies that Japan has produced since the 1950s. Indeed, the terrifying cry of Godzilla is echoes from time to time, as if to suggest that these impulses emerge from a cultural substrate that reflects on the irrationality of man's destructive capacities. This tone makes for a vignette that is uneven and seems, at times, to be somewhat amateurish. The characters are too extreme, as was the case with the old characters in the monster movies, who reveal no subtlety but are instead subordinated to spectacle. In the end, it is suggested that Mr. Merde will proceed to haunt all major metropolitan areas.

And finally, the last film deals with a phenomenon that is receiving more attention both in Japan as well as in South Korea. This has to do with the Hikiko-mori, the adults who have withdrawn from modern life and who refuse to emerge from their houses or their rooms.

Their situation is one that has received more attention during the past years, and is held to be symptomatic of a new form of psychosis that is rooted in a deep sense of alienation. As such, this urge to withdraw is part of the trend we see in the three stories, where withdrawal is made manifest in all the characters.

We have a man who has lived in a small house for ten years, and who spends his time reading as well as organizing the detritus that enters into his life. He will gather the debris of his life and organize it, making evident a supreme obsession with orderliness. He seems to live outside of time, watching as he does the light and the movement of the hands of his clock. If not for the money he receives from his father in envelopes that are sent to him (his lifestyle is subsidized by this man, with whom he would seem to have a conflictive relationship), he would not have been able to engage in this movement of retreat.

The mood and the slow, languid pace suggest meditation but also melancholy. He is unhappy, and would seem to be stuck in a prison, however much he may couch it as a refuge. But one day, when he is receiving his weekly order of a delivered pizza, he makes eye contact with the person who delivers it, a young woman with select tattoos. He gazes at her, and remarks that this is the first eye contact he has had with someone else in ten years. The earth then proceeds to shake, and she faints in his apartment.

The man is helpless, and doesn't know how to react. There has been a disruption in the social bonds that define all human relationship, and the codes are inscrutable. Luckily, she has tattoos which consist of button, and which would seem to suggest reset buttons or ways in which to communicate messages. He presses the one that is labeled "coma", and she wakes up.

This is another parable of difficult communication, as was evident in the other vignettes in which the characters seem unable to reach out to others. These are all stories that have to do with distancing and alienation, and in this case, the hikko-mori suffers a change of heart, as if this touch has energized something within him. He takes the momentous step of emerging from his cave (as Mr. Merde had emerged from the sewer, but with less destructive tendencies) and looking for this girl.

And he comes to the surprising realization that he is not alone. The whole city seems abandoned, and everyone seems to recoil from contact with others. He sees an empty city in which everyone has secluded themselves, and thus, we have these haunting vistas of streets and avenues and people behind windows, passively looking out. This image would seem to reflect something about the modern human condition and the way in which intimacy has become an impossible prospect. We lead vicarious lifes, in which we observe others, too afraid to participate.

The temblors serve to impel people to consider their situation. These temblors seem to reflect the energies of the psyche, and the way in which emotions and deep internal processes need to find tangible expression. The man finds the woman and, after another episode of shaking, he manages to touch her again. This time he touches the button that is labeled "love", and the story ends with her gazing back at him with a fixed expression. Have we all become emotional automatons?

All in all, I enjoyed the emotional resonance of the last story the best. I look forward to seeing more films by the South Korean director of this vignette, Bong Joon-ho.

Eternal Observer -- ORomero (c) 2011
Copyrights ORomero 2011

Cool Museum on a Hot Tin Roof (or Festival)

While at the Pasadena Earth Day festival on Saturday, I visiting the nearby art museum located next to Memorial Park. They were very accomodating with regards to taking photos and filming, much more so than other institutions such as MOLAA.

Here are a few photos from the Pasadena museum. They had music groups playing, as well as many activities for children. I felt like a child while there. It is all about vigor and creativity.

 

 

Eternal Observer -- ORomero (c) 2011
Copyrights ORomero 2011

 

The "Other" Desert Festival (Who needs Coachella?)

I had a chance to drive up to Lancaster in northern Los Angeles county to attend the Poppy Festival. It was an uneventful drive, with wide scenic vistas of the San Gabriel mountains as well as of the scrub that surrounds that area. This was a lonely landscape, and much of the road consisted of a two-lane highway where signs admonished us not to pass and to turn our headlights on. It reminded me of many of the long and open landscapes of the Midwest, except that this was the desert, bounded by mountains to one side.

This was perhaps the second time I had ever driven up to this area. It must have been in the early 90s when I first made the trip to Palmdale, to attend a Christmas event. Back then, in early December, I remembered bracingly cold temperatures and a forlorn look. Now, the temperatures were very mild, despite the recent heatwave, and the forlorn look actually looks accomodating to me.

The fair offered a chance to experience what we could best describe as a small-town atmosphere. I was perhaps hoping to encounter nearby poppy fields (after the eponymous title of the fair), but only saw a few flowers on the fairgrounds. It offered no substitute for the wide carpet of color I was hoping to encounter, but I did enjoy the entertainment. Where else could I see a singer offering a Selena tribute, a folklorico, a dance fitness group that gave us salsa as well as bellydancing, a Japanese duo formed of two elderly ladies who performed slow ceremonial dances and two energetic belly-dancing groups? As I remarked to a colleague at work, I was particularly taken by the latter, and felt myself energized at the dancers who didn't fear to bear their midriffs. (I am speaking completely in earnest; our culture, lamentally, tends to assume irony even when it is not meant.)

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1. A blurry photo of sculptures in the shape of turtles and alligators, on display at the fair. They were too expensive for me, and thus, I limited myself to appreciating their artistry. Yes, they may be kitschy, reminding me of the scorpion ashtrays available throughout northern Mexico, but in this case, no real animals or insects were used, and I can easily imagine these items suitably placed in a lanscape garden.

2. There was a small car show on the field. I know next to nothing about cars, but I can appreciate the care and skill that is necessary for restoring and maintaining these classic cars.

 3.  Folklorico Divas del Desierto dancing to music from Veracruz.

4.  The "Friends of Faizeh" dance troup, gyrating on stage. I have to admire the exhibitionism of these dances. A woman in a light-blue hijab was sitting in front throughout the entire day. Well, perhaps it wasn't a complete hijab, because her face was visible.

5. A trio called "Firefly". They sang some wonderful melodies, most of them original songs. I found myself listening and thinking about yearning. It reminds me of the heartfelt quality of Suzanne Vega, a singer who had a brief burst of fame back in the 80s.

6.  A series of photos of the Lotus Tribal Dance group. They gave an energetic, sustained performance, and they were one of the larger groups. They were billed as the foremost "belly-dancing" group in Lancaster.

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The crowds arrived en masse to witness the bellydancing groups, and to express their appreciation. Somehow this seems like an uninhibited form of dance, at once chaste as well as libidinous, and I appreciate these contradictions. I could leave the cynicism and the purblind denunciation of the lack of consistency to the jaded inhabitants of the cities, at least for this day. Part of being human is learning to live with contradictions.

Attending this event helped to occupy my mind. In particular, I'm depressed about the death this past Thursday of a family cat, one that had been taken to be spayed by the veteranarian. The pet never woke up from anesthesia and had to be "terminated" or "let go", in the callous terminology that is far from euphemistic when it comes to animals. I do feel a sense of guilt, even though I did not perform the operation nor did I take the animal to the vet.

It was windy by the time I left Lancaster. However, there were no problems on the drive back. In the future, I will have to return to visit some of the mountain resorts, especially during the hot summer months when I am looking for any relief possible.

Lundi, lunes, Montag, any way you say it, it doesn't sound pleasant.

Eternal Observer -- ORomero (c) 2011
Copyrights ORomero 2011