Category: Culture

10 (very beautiful) French author films from the 2010s on Netflix

The life of Adèle

Three memories of my youth by Arnaud Desplechin (2015)

As Paul Dédalus leaves Tajikistan to return to Paris, memories of his childhood in Roubaix, of his trip to the USSR when he was a teenager and, above all, of his love for Esther, come back. Paul, whom we follow as a little boy, teenager and adult, never ceases in Three memories of my youth to remember his past, his three bodies – and the story – then becoming one.

His adventures, which oscillate from humor to tragedy, thrill the viewer, constantly brought back, by a game of mirror, to his own previous life. Rewarded at the Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes in 2015 as well as at the César the following year, Desplechin takes us through his art of dialogues and his staging, transfiguring our own memories to make it a labyrinth, between fascination and destruction.

Un amour de jeunesse by Mia Hansen-Løve (2011) and Eden (2014)

Still on the theme of torments of youth, Netflix offers two films by director Mia Hansen-Løve: Eden and Un amour de jeunesse . The second succeeds, through its delicacy and restraint, in telling a love affair, from adolescence to the edge of adulthood, all without ever falling into pompous emotional scenes. Eden , him, signs the virtuoso portrait of a DJ brought to the summit of success in the middle of the French Touch period, a musical movement which, for him, will only be fleeting.

>> Read also: Jean-Baptiste Morain’s criticism

The unknown from Alain Guiraudie’s lake (2013)

Considered a “masterpiece” by the Inrocks , L’inconnu du lac  by Alain Guiraudie is an open-air camera, surrounded by love, sex and death. It is therefore impossible to miss this jewel of French auteur cinema, which, beyond its brilliant staging, explores all possible themes, registers and metaphors.

The recipe is clear and modest: “A lake, a beach, groves, parking, an R25, a few nudist men and three characters” (including Pierre Deladonchamps, wonderful). And if that still does not seem convincing to you, here is the trailer below.

>> Read also: Serge Kaganski’s criticism

The life of Adèle by Abdellatif Kechiche (2013)

Palme d’Or at the Cannes Festival in 2013, La vie d’Adèle , adapted from the comic strip Blue is a warm color  by Julie Maroh. At 15, Adèle is a serious student who questions her sexuality when she first meets the eyes of Emma, ​​a mysterious young woman with blue hair.  A great work of the seventh art, bringing to life the idea that literature can lead to self-acceptance, La Vie d’Adèle , a sensual film which borrows all the codes of the learning novel, is part of it ( despite the controversies surrounding its shooting ) of the most beautiful films of French author cinema of the decade.

>> Read also: Jean-Marc Lalanne’s criticism

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Trending on Twitter: Republicans for Rule of Law

Ultracrepidarians – know any?

by Simon Leyland

I was in the pub having a quiet pint and as you do, caught the end of a most peculiar conversation. Man (a) was talking to man (b). Man (b) was attempting to reply but with some of the most bizarre replies possible. No offence to the fellow involved but it led me to consider the word ultracrepidarianism

Ultracrepidarianism is giving opinions on subjects that you know nothing about, and is thus a terribly useful word. Ultracrepidarian was introduced into English by the essayist William Hazlitt, but it goes back to an ancient story about the great Greek painter Apelles.

The story goes that Apelles used to leave his new paintings out on public display and then hide behind a pillar to hear people’s reactions. One day he overheard a cobbler pointing out that Apelles had painted a shoe all wrong. So he took the painting away, corrected the shoe and put it out on display again.

The cobbler came back, saw that Apelles had taken his advice and was so proud and puffed up with conceit that he had made the great painter change a detail that he started talking loudly about what was wrong with the leg; at which point Apelles jumped out from his hiding place and shouted: ne sutor ultra crepidam, which approximately translates as the cobbler should go no further than the shoe. Thus ultracrepidiarian is beyond-the-shoe.

Source: Ultracrepidarianism……. | Simon Leyland

Resurrection and Our Coronavirus Times

Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox

Recently, in response to my DM’s on resurrection, Easter, and our current coronavirus emergency, I received a tweet from a reader in the UK who asked  “Why the current situation does indeed bring a resurrection?”   I believe it brings resurrection if it wakes people up to:

Father and daughter washing hands. Photo by CDC on Unsplash

1) Our interdependence–which is much deeper than our apartness or differences;

2) Learning not to take basics for granted such as good health–and the health of our planet;

3) Honoring the good work that people do and can do when they get themselves trained to serve;

4) The holes in our so-called ‘safety-nets’ and how to remedy them;

5) Getting out of denial about climate change, which will make this pandemic seem like  a picnic compared to the changes to come if we don’t change deeply in the next 9 years;

6) How we can all live more simply on this planet;

7) How we ought to celebrate more deeply while we are healthy;

8) How we can–when we have to–take radical life-changing decisions as a group and must do re. climate change bearing down on us;

9) How much generosity and willingness to sacrifice resides in the human heart–a lot more than we are often aware of;

10) Lessons in how precious life and existence are for all of us born of the 13.8 billion years of the Universe’s unfolding;

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Revealed: leader of group peddling bleach as coronavirus ‘cure’ wrote to Trump this week

The leader of the most prominent group in the US peddling potentially lethal industrial bleach as a “miracle cure” for coronavirus wrote to Donald Trump at the White House this week.

Trump eating Kentucky Fried Chicken … without any bleach

THE GUARDIAN

The leader of the most prominent group in the US peddling potentially lethal industrial bleach as a “miracle cure” for coronavirus wrote to Donald Trump at the White House this week.

In his letter, Mark Grenon told Trump that chlorine dioxide – a powerful bleach used in industrial processes such as textile manufacturing that can have fatal side-effects when drunk – is “a wonderful detox that can kill 99% of the pathogens in the body”. He added that it “can rid the body of Covid-19”.

A few days after Grenon dispatched his letter, Trump went on national TV at his daily coronavirus briefing at the White House on Thursday and promoted the idea that disinfectant could be used as a treatment for the virus. To the astonishment of medical experts, the US president said that disinfectant “knocks it out in a minute. One minute!”

He went on to say: “Is there a way we can do something, by an injection inside or almost a cleaning? Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it’d be interesting to check that.”

Trump did not specify where the idea of using disinfectant as a possible remedy for Covid-19 came from, and the source for his notion remains obscure. But the Guardian has learned that peddlers of chlorine dioxide – industrial bleach – have been making direct approaches to the White House in recent days.

Grenon styles himself as “archbishop” of Genesis II – a Florida-based outfit that claims to be a church but which in fact is the largest producer and distributor of chlorine dioxide bleach as a “miracle cure” in the US. He brands the chemical as MMS, “miracle mineral solution”, and claims fraudulently that it can cure 99% of all illnesses including cancer, malaria, HIV/Aids as well as autism.

Since the start of the pandemic, Genesis II has been marketing MMS as a cure to coronavirus. It advises users, including children, to mix three to six drops of bleach in water and drink it.

In his weekly televised radio show, posted online on Sunday, Grenon read out the letter he wrote to Trump. He said it began: “Dear Mr President, I am praying you read this letter and intervene.”

Grenon said that 30 of his supporters have also written in the past few days to Trump at the White House urging him to take action to protect Genesis II in its bleach-peddling activities which they claim can cure coronavirus.

On Friday, hours after Trump talked about disinfectant on live TV, Grenon went further in a post on his Facebook page. He claimed that MMS had actually been sent to the White House. He wrote: “Trump has got the MMS and all the info!!! Things are happening folks! Lord help others to see the Truth!”

Paradoxically, Trump’s outburst about the possible value of an “injection” of disinfectant into the lungs of Covid-19 sufferers came just days after a leading agency within the president’s own administration took action to shut down the peddling of bleach as a coronavirus cure around the US.

Continue reading “Revealed: leader of group peddling bleach as coronavirus ‘cure’ wrote to Trump this week” →