cycling with cellos

Some thoughts on
Highway cello
by Kenneth Wilson
City Village Books 2023

This book found me because I am known for cycling around Oxford with a cello on my back, and this author cycled from Hadrian's Wall to Rome with a cello on the back of his bike, which he used for busking in various places along the way. I haven't done that yet, but yes we do seem to have a lot in common in the cycling and cello departments:

• Once upon a time I cycled a similar distance in a similar time (3500 km in 35 days), from Germany around five of the six sides of France's hexagon, and back into Germany, carrying camping equipment but no cello. In my defence, I was learning to play the double bass back then, and Heinrich, our family cello, hadn't been restored yet.
• Since ca. 2004, I have been cycling with cellos around Oxford on a regular basis, first carrying them for the young cellist in the family, and more recently for my own musical adventures. I reckon that those short journeys taken roughly once a week over 20 years must add up to a similar distance as Hadrian's Wall to Rome.
• I have played a very similar kind of repertoire on the cello, including obviously the easier ones of the Bach suites, as well as the Swan and some folk tunes such as Sally gardens. Haven't done busking as such but played some of that outdoors eg in Florence Park during the Plague years.
• I was travelling in France at the same time as he was, but sadly missed him. I went to Nimes and then to the Drome region (see my photos here), must have crossed his route travelling by train from Avignon to Strasbourg.

However, these aren't necessary qualifications for reading the book. As far as I can tell (despite being too close to the subject matter) it is a really charming travelogue and manages to convey aspects of cello and cycling cultures to a lay audience, with other bits like old churches thrown in as well. The author used to be a vicar before he lost his faith, so there are bits about religion and philosophy too. I am surprised that it is self published (with the publisher's name obviously made up for the occasion), as I would have thought that there are quite a few travel publishers out there that would have happily taken it on.

I was pleased to learn about things like warmshowers, crazyguyonabike, and the street performance festival at Chalon sur Saone, which happens annually in July (Chalon dans la rue). Although I had been aware of carbon fibre cellos, it was interesting to read the background story of how they were invented.

Given my parallel experience, there are bound to be things I disagree with. I would never put the cello directly on the bike. I like to think that using my soft body as a shock absorber, the instrument is quite safe on my back, and it's not nearly as heavy as it looks. I also like the fact that it makes me look like a giant on the bike, so hopefully drivers will stay clear of me. And the contraption the author used looks downright dangerous to me.

Also, being a lazy kind of person, I would have avoided all those mountains he's so keen on climbing. I would find myself a nice river and follow its course - there are suitable cycle paths along the Rhine and the Danube, for instance. I find it much more civilised to go with the flow than to sweat on the serpentines. On that note, if he had stayed with the river Saone beyond Chalon and then followed the Rhone, I might have seen him busking in Avignon. (Considering his interest in church history, he really should have gone via Avignon.) Too bad.

PS here's my little library of cello-related memoirs and biographies (listed alphabetically by the last name of the relevant cellist):

• Mercedes Cebrián: Cocido y violonchelo
• Jetta Marie Vasak: My bohemian heritage (about the family of Zdeňka Černý, portrayed as "the greatest Bohemian violoncellist" in a famous Mucha poster).
• Hilary and Piers DuPre: A genius in the family
• John Holt: Never too late
• Anita Lasker-Wallfisch: Inherit the truth / Die Wahrheit erben
• Gregor Piatigorsky: Cellist
• Eric Siblin: The cello suites: In search of a baroque masterpiece
• Kenneth Wilson: Highway cello

UPDATE 9.6.2025 Here's another carbon fibre cello going places, this time to the Arctic pack ice, with cellist Sarah Smout.

a pioneer of sado-populism

Some thoughts on

The first emperor – Caesar Augustus and the triumph of Rome
Anthony Everitt
John Murry Publishers 2006

Half way into the series Domina (about Augustus’ longest-serving wife, Livia Drusilla), I realised I needed some help to find my way through the imperial family clan, so started reading Everitt’s book in the middle, matching the historic events I had reached in the series, around 30BCE, after he had seen off Mark Antony. And after finishing both, I went back and started from just after the murder of Julius Caesar, seeing that I read Robert Harris’s excellent trilogy on Cicero not too long ago and had a reasonably good idea of what happened before 44 (looks like I haven't reviewed Harris's trilogy, but I mentioned it here).

From 44 BCE to 14 CE, the story is how a republic ruling over much of the known world is overthrown and replaced by an autocratic regime that was to last several centuries. Funny how my school books portrayed this as an entirely positive event and somehow didn’t dwell much on the mass murder of all supporters of the republic, including, most famously, Cicero. Everett doesn’t spare us the details of the “proscription” based on incentivising slaves, family members and everybody else to murder the blacklisted individuals. Strangely, he still uses the word barbarians for the populations beyond the boundaries of the empire without pausing to reflect on the barbaric things the Romans did to their own fellow citizens.

So, basically, let’s imagine the January 6 storm on the Capitol (in Washington, not Rome) had been led a bit more efficiently, and the invaders had murdered all Democrats in the House and put rewards out for the heads of all Democrat politicians in the rest of the country. The Trump clan would rule by default over several generations and get to write the history of events. In analogy to the Augustus story, people two millennia down the line would be led to believe that this was entirely a good thing. Because, you know, the old republic was corrupt, and you can’t run an empire efficiently if you have to debate everything in the Senate first. Also, all those people who didn’t look like the dear leader’s family were just barbarians. Scary thought.

Everitt wrote and published this biography at a time when the Trump presidency was just a joke in the Simpsons, and western democracies still appeared much more stable than they look now. For our more troubled times, there are many warnings in the book. For instance, it is worth noticing how carefully Augustus avoided the impression that he might want to install a dictatorship – although effectively he did. Learning from the mistakes of his adoptive father Julius Caesar, who had pardoned his enemies and flagged up his role as a dictator, Augustus took no prisoners, but otherwise operated within the legal framework of the republic, drawing his real power from the legions who were loyal to him and the military talents of his friend Agrippa. Today, as ruthless populists again threaten democratic rule, it is worth looking out for the subtle ways in which they can hoover up power that they may never give up again.

I’ve recently seen the term “sado-populism” being used on twitter (in the context of Johnson ending England’s covid measures regardless of the suffering that will cause). That could be discussed as a thread linking Augustus to the present day.

reading the world

I was very impressed when I read that the author Ann Morgan had managed to read one book from each of the 196 countries represented at the 2012 Olympics in London. Her list of books read and others that were recommended to her is here, and the book she wrote about the experience is reviewed here.

Thinking about how embarrassingly far I would fall short of that figure I estimated I would be lucky to make it to 50 countries (in my life so far, not in a year) and started my own list to prove it. If and when I've reviewed a book on this list, I've included a link to the review. If I can't remember whether I've actually read it (even though it's on my shelf), I've marked it with CR. NFY means not finished yet. Still struggling to get to 50 though.

1. Algeria – Mehdi Charef: Thé au harem d’Archi Ahmed (CR - saw the movie though)
2. Argentina – Federico Andahazi: El anatomista (The anatomist)
3. Austria – Daniel Kehlmann: Die Vermessung der Welt (Measuring the world)
4. Belgium – Amélie Nothomb – L’hygiène de l’assassin
5. Brazil – Paulo Coelho: Der Alchemist (The alchemist)
6. Canada - L. M. Montgomery: Anne of Green Gables
7. Chile – Isabel Allende: La casa de los espiritus (The house of the spirits)
8. China – Hong Ying: K – the art of love
9. Colombia – Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Cien años de soledad
10. Congo, Republic of the – Alain Mabanckou: Verre Cassé (Broken Glass)
11. Cote d'Ivoire – Fatou Keita: La rebelle
12. Cuba – Zoe Valdes: La nada cotidiana
13. Ecuador – Alicia Yanez Cossio: El cristo feo
14. Equatorial Guinea – Guillermina Mekuy: El llanto del perro
15. France – Anna Gavalda: Ensemble, c’est tout (Hunting and gathering)
16. Germany – Charlotte Roche: Feuchtgebiete (Wetlands)
17. Guatemala – Miguel Angel Asturias: Leyendas de Guatemala (CR)
18. India – Ruth Prawer Jhabvala: Heat and dust
19. Iraq - Weam Namou: The feminine art
20. Israel – Ephraim Kishon: Oh, oh, Juliet
21. Italy – Umberto Eco: Der Name der Rose (The name of the rose)
22. Kyrgyzstan – Chinghiz Aitmatov: Jamila
23. Lebanon - Vénus Khoury-Ghata: Les fiancés du Cap-Ténès (CR)
24. Madagascar – Michele Rakotoson: Dadabé
25. Mexico – Laura Esquivel: Como agua para chocolate
26. Mongolia – Galsan Tschinag: Die Karawane (NFY)
27. Morocco – Tahar Ben Jelloun: Harrouda (CR)
28. Netherlands – Anne Frank: Das Tagebuch der Anne Frank (Diary of a young girl)
29. New Zealand - Katherine Mansfield: Stories
30. Nicaragua – Gioconda Belli: El pergamino de la seduccion (The scroll of seduction)
31. Nigeria – Sefi Atta: Swallow
32. Peru – Mario Vargas Llosa: El sueño del Celta (The dream of the Celt)
33. Poland – Stanislaw Lem: Stories
34. Russia – Mikhail Bulgakov: Master and Margerita
35. Senegal – Ousmane Sembene: Guelwaar
36. Sierra Leone - Aminatta Forna: The memory of love (NFY)
37. Spain – Almudena Grandes: Castillos de carton
38. Sweden – Astrid Lindgren: Pippi Longstocking
39. Switzerland – Max Frisch: Homo faber
40. Syria - Rafik Schami: Die dunkle Seite der Liebe (NFY)
41. United Kingdom – Esther Freud: Lucky break
42. United States – Megan Clark: Seduce me
43. Vietnam - Kim Thuy: ru (NFY)

Own photo of my reading pile some time in early 2014.

PS: I'll keep updating this with any further reading adventures, hoping that one day I can travel around the world in 80 books ... So this post will also serve as a directory to my reviews of world fiction.

sound machines

Stradivarius by Toby Faber

Macmillan 2004 / Pan 2005

(US title: Stradivari’s genius)

The man we now know as the most famous luthier* of all times, Antonio Stradivari, was born in obscurity, probably in 1644. I find it astounding that the earliest record we have of his existence is a violin he built in 1666. He went on to create around 1200 instruments, roughly half of which are known to be still in existence. Many more trees have died to print theories about what made his instruments so special than for the production of the instruments themselves. So do we need another book about him?

Toby Faber takes the detached view of the amateur enthusiast who gave up on the violin when he left school – he doesn’t have a new theory to propose or a particular axe to grind. He simply follows the “lives” of six of Stradivari’s instruments, the Davidov cello today in the hands of Yo Yo Ma, and five violins, and uses them as a thread for the story of Stradivari’s fairly ordinary (though very long) life and his extraordinary afterlife.

It took his instruments a century of maturation time, as well as innovations in bow building and neck attachment, before they could emerge as the powerful sound machines that came to be considered superior to those of all others. It is a fascinating story, very clearly written and accessible – no previous knowledge of string instruments required.

Faber’s main interest here is the cultural construct of an instrument’s worth and appreciation, so luthiers, musicians, and instrument traders all get equal parts. He doesn’t pay as much attention to another group, the scientists who analysed everything from the acoustics of the wooden construction to the chemistry of the varnish. Maybe there is a popular science book about Stradivari’s instruments still waiting to be written.

* Microsoft Word doesn’t appear to know the word luthier – it’s a maker and repairer of string instruments.

ecce homo

When I was 18, there was some kind of party involving my dad’s work colleagues in our garden. Observing from the sidelines, I noted that one of the secretaries wasn’t much older than me. She was polished to perfection, all fake smiles, polite phrases, small talk and social graces. As a grumpy teenager who had none of these attributes and gloriously failed to see their point, I probably wondered how much voltage you need to convert a human being into this kind of robot.

Later that night, it fell to me to drive this very same robot home, and during a half-hour drive I was surprised to find that there was a human being behind that robot façade. I don’t recall what we talked about, but I was so impressed I might have fancied her if I hadn’t seen her other side earlier in the evening, the memory of which still scared me. (I wrote a poem about this, called ecce homo, which you’ll find below – in German.)

Now I had a similar revelation from the infamous topless photos of the woman formerly known as Kate Middleton (easy to find on tumblr). I hated the whole wedding shebang with a passion and found every one of the officially approved fake-smile photos revolting, but on seeing those paparazzi shots I got, for the very first time, the impression that there may actually be a human being behind that robotic façade.

As the editor of the Italian magazine Chi said, they show two normal human beings in love. Maybe that’s why we (here in the UK) are not allowed to see them. The monarchists don’t want us to know that there are normal human beings underneath all the fancy clothes. In that case, there actually is a very strong public interest case to be made for publication of the photos, in order to break through the deception we’re getting all the time.

It is also noteworthy that, on the travels during this affair, she put on a headscarf when visiting muslim countries where women are expected to do so, but when visiting Pacific island nations where women go topless, she didn't adopt the native dress code. Very puzzling all this.

Still, why a lively human female in her 20s would choose to live a robot’s life, remains a mystery to me, in both cases.

PS: I tend to agree with Jonathan Jones's recent comment on all this.

---

I have found a lovely photo I would like to use here, just asked the photographer for permission and am awaiting response. In the meantime, enjoy the cover of Chi magazine and Steve Bell's topless royal family, and please check back tomorrow.

OK, giving up on that photo, here is plan B:

Spare a thought for poor old Kate Topping, she will have a lot of unexplained traffic on her linked-in profile this week! But seriously, while Google Germany categorically refused to censor the autocomplete algorithm just last week, when the ex-president's wife asked them to stop the auto-propagation of rumours, it looks like Google UK has decided to lend the royals a hand. Another scandal within the scandal.

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ecce homo

vorgestellt

als funktion
von erwartung
und leistung

als apparat
mit optimalem
wirkungsgrad

als kommunikations
element geölt
mit höflichkeit

doch dann
aus dem
rahmen getrennt

sieh da
ein mensch

a Belgian in the family

As I’ve mentioned before, my ancestors, who appeared to be German through and through in the 19th and 18th century, suddenly turned out to be a load of immigrants when we reached the 17th century. So far, we have found one move from Hungary, one from Italy, several from France and seven from Switzerland. I've now discovered the 16th immigration event in my family tree, which is the first one from today’s Belgium.

Linard Jacque, who later called himself Leonhard Jacob in Germany, arrived in Fachbach on the river Lahn in the 1670s. (This is very close to where the Lahn meets the river Rhine, and just a little bit upstream of Koblenz, where the Mosel joins the Rhine from the other side.) New ironworks were built there from 1671 onwards by the Mariotte family from Liege, Wallonia. That area was leading the world in metal processing technology at the time and had developed blast furnaces long before the industrial revolution came along with its steam engines. Expanding into other European countries, the Walloons brought skilled workers to the site, maybe from places in Wallonia where they had other ironworks. This also happened in Fachbach, where there is a marked influx of people with French names including also Jacquemot, Grisar, Permantier (from France, though), and others.

Historic painting of the Nieverner Hütte, from Wikipedia.

One family that seems to have been closely linked with my ancestors, judging by the mutual services as godparents and marriage witnesses, is the Grisar (Grisard, Grysar, Krisar) lineage, coming from Yvoir near Namur, and in previous generations from Sauheid near Liege. One might speculate that the Jacque family came from the same place and the families knew each other before they arrived in Germany, but I also found a source saying that recruiters working for the Mariotte family came to the town of Theux near Liege, so they may have just scoured the region for skilled workers in which case it would be quite hopeless to try and find the departure region of my Belgian ancestor.

Under the name of Jacob, his descendents did reasonably well in Fachbach, to the extent that in the mid 18th century there are two males called Johann Jacob who are the same generation but I’m not sure which belongs to my branch of the family (Leonhard Jacob junior) and which to Leonhard’s brother Wericus Jacob.

In any case, my lineage only stayed there for four generations, as Leonhard junior’s grandson, Philipp de la Strada, moved to Krefeld to work in the textile industry there and left lots of descendants.

Additional sources:

L'évolution des sciences et des techniques en Wallonie - (1995) by Robert Halleux et al. (Intriguingly, this source mentions that Ottavio Strada was involved in the Wallonian ironworks industries, he was granted a patent in Liege.)

genealogy of the Grisar family by Gerhard Hufnagel

Patrimoine - Les industries sidérurgiques de la basse ourthe (about ironworks in Sauheid near Liege)

one hundred strokes of the brush

review of

Melissa P

film by Luca Guadagnino, 2005

Based on the book “One hundred strokes of the brush before bed” by Melissa Panarello (which I haven’t read), this Italian / Spanish production describes the descent of a young girl into a series of increasingly unwise sexual encounters. It is far less explicit than the UK’s 18 certificate might suggest (unless nipples on display are nowadays sufficient reason to slap the red badge on), and it is far better than any of the comments I have read would give it credit for.

As parents we do need to be aware that for vulnerable girls, who may be low on self-esteem, there are very real dangers arising from their sexuality and from its ruthless exploitation by men of all ages. The recent phenomenon of the “loverboys” in the Netherlands, who coax schoolgirls into prostitution, shows that this is not as rare as we might have hoped.

The film handles this difficult subject tactfully. For instance, the nudity is only on display when Melissa is ensconced in the comfort of her home, either alone in her room, or in the bathroom with her beloved grandmother (whose nipples are also revealed in an old photograph – maybe that pushed the censors over the edge?). On the other hand, the more dangerous her encounters with men become, the less we get to see of them, and the more is left to the viewer’s imagination.

The film only makes limited use of language – as I understood most of the Italian without ever having learned that language, it can’t have involved any sophisticated phrases. I‘m guessing this may be on purpose, as the body and visual languages are more important to the protagonists and the movie, and lead actress Maria Velverde can express herself very eloquently without saying a word.

On the visual side, I loved the locations chosen with a great sense of place and visual effect, such as the descent into the improbably cavernous historic basement which ends up being a descent in more than one way.

Here’s another film condemned to the trash bin by people who can’t see past a bare chest, and that’s a shame.

IMDB page

amazon.co.uk




PS From the same director comes the more recent I am love, one of the few continental films that have managed to cross the English Channel recently (UK release April 2010).

Room in Rome reviewed

I was a huge fan of Julio Medem’s small but exquisite oeuvre already, but Room in Rome easily made it into the top five of my all-time favourite films (where it competes with Medem’s Sex and Lucia). What, you may ask, makes it so special?

First the set-up – a one-night encounter in a hotel room, which the camera never leaves except to peep out onto the balcony or through the entrance of the room into the corridor. This would work brilliantly in a very small theatre as well. The basic idea is borrowed from a Chilean movie (En la cama) with a couple of very important tweaks. Medem turned the man of the first movie into a woman, and he moved the room to Rome, and embedded it in Italian art history. There are paintings on every wall and even on the ceilings, which play an important part in the movie.

Alternatively, to relate it to a better known movie, one could call it an all-female “Before sunrise” set indoors and in a different city. In one rollercoaster night the protagonists get to know each other and learn to trust and love each other.

So in that room, we have two women, not too many clothes, lots of art, and modern IT equipment enabling them to show each other their outside lives via Google Earth. Oh, and a splendid view from the balcony over the roofs of Rome. (One could have called it Room with a view, had the title not been taken by some other movie.)


(still from official site)

Let’s get the clothes issue out of the way first, as it seems to have scared UK distributors to an extent that they didn’t give the film a chance in the cinemas. Yes, both women are undressed for most of the length of the movie, but after about two minutes that appears completely normal and one stops noticing it. In a sense, considering their respective vulnerabilities and difficult path towards mutual trust and truthfulness, one could argue that most of their nakedness is psychological rather than physical. Seen this way, the cosy white bath robes they put on for breakfast in the end seem to represent the comfort and protection of a trusting (if time-limited) relationship.

More interestingly, the art, chosen by Medem’s wife and art director Montse Sanz, tells us something not only about the story and its possible interpretations, it also offers insights into Medem’s philosophy when Natasha cites the Renaissance artist Leon Battista Alberti, seen in one of the paintings, as saying: “The artist must know at all times what he is representing.”

I would argue that the film contains more classical art than we see on the walls. Many of the poses of the women remind me of paintings – most of them reclining nudes, obviously. Towards the end, Medem acknowledges artworks as a source of inspiration explicitly when he makes Natasha copy the pose of the Venus de Milo, which is present in the room as a small scale model. Come to think of it, with all the gorgeous lighting and colours, many of the frames would make nice paintings.

Ironically, the state of the art IT equipment including a smartphone and a laptop running Google Earth (or the Microsoft equivalent) almost seamlessly becomes as important as the Renaissance paintings, as it’s the only connection to the previous and outside life of the protagonists. Talking of technology, I also love the fact that Alba turns out to be an engineer who came to Rome to plug an invention she made. While she failed to score a contract on this occasion, her business seems to be going ok, judging by the quality of the hotel room she booked. And as Natasha is an art historian, the story could be read as a “two cultures” dialogue as well.

The five languages – some of the most touching moments involve each character speaking their native language (Spanish / Russian), assuming the other won’t understand. But the English dialogue, with just enough of an accent to identify the origin of each character worked surprisingly well for me (I do like my Spanish films and am not necessarily happy if people switch to English). It’s sad and ironic, however, that Medem’s first film to feature dialogue mostly in English wasn’t actually shown in UK or US cinemas. We also get some Italian (via the singing room service waiter) and some Basque via a video, reminding us of Medem’s cultural background (I understand that, genetically, he is as much German as Basque, namely 1/4 each).

The music of Spanish (but English singing) singer-songwriter Lourdes Hernandes, aka Russian Red (a pseudonym she borrowed from her favourite lipstick, apparently) is perfect for the movie, not only because her accent matches Alba’s.

So in summary, buy the DVD, you can’t borrow mine, as I need to watch the movie another five times.






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movies we're not allowed to see

-- last updated 25.06.2015 --

NB: for more recent updates see my new blog post on this issue.

I've been catching up on some European movies from the last years that for some reason or another didn't get a cinema release in the UK (criteria: no release date listed on IMDB and film didn't show up here). There is a growing collection of recent films that I really liked and that didn't get shown in this country, so I'm compiling a commented list here:

Mädchen Mädchen (Girls on top) - Germany 2001, Dennis Gansel.

Juana la loca - Spain 2001, Vicente Aranda - it's just a straightforward period drama based on the same events as Gioconda Belli's more ambitious novel El pergamino de la seducción (which I reviewed here) but I love the story so it doesn't harm to have a second view on it. It's nicely done and should interest people outside Spain too. (It has in fact been released in the US as "Mad Love", but not here.)

800 balas (800 bullets) - Spain 2002, Alex de la Iglesia - surprisingly brilliant film, see my review.

El otro lado de la cama (The other side of the bed) - Spain 2002, Emilio Martínez Lázaro - starring Paz Vega, Natalia Verbeke.

Suite Habana (Havana Suite) - Cuba 2003, Fernando Pérez - not European, but still interesting.

L'esquive (Games of love and chance) - France 2003, Abdellatif Kechiche - only shown at the London film festival.

Dot the i - UK 2003, Matthew Parkhill - this one puzzles me, actually, it's made in Britain, with funding from UK film council, in English (though with stars better known in Spanish speaking countries), all nipples carefully covered up, and it still went straight to DVD (more here).

Tout le plaisir est pour moi (The pleasure is all mine) - France 2004, Isabelle Broué, starring Marie Gillain - comedy around libido lost and found, a bit painting by numbers and too americanised for my taste, but apparently not enough to get a UK release.

En la cama - Germany / Chile 2005, Matías Bize starring Blanca Lewin, Gonzalo Valenzuela - the film that inspired Julio Medem's "Room in Rome" (2010, see below). See my review.

Melissa P - Italy / Spain 2005, Luca Guadagnino - a difficult topic handled tactfully, see my review.

Ensemble c'est tout - France 2007, Claude Berri - ok, I wasn't really overwhelmed by this one, see my review of the book (by Anna Gavalda) with post-script on the film here. The film was only shown at a festival here and hasn't even seen a DVD release (my DVD is from Germany).

Caótica Ana - Spain 2007, Julio Medem - maybe not his best work but still worth watching, see my review here.

Les anges exterminateurs - France 2006, Jean-Claude Brisseau - although part one of the trilogy, Les choses secretes, was shown in UK cinemas, this second part and the final one, A l'aventure, weren't.

Tangerine - Germany 2008, Irene von Alberti - German musicians try and fail to connect with the culture of Morocco ...

A l'aventure - France 2008, Jean-Claude Brisseau - third part of the trilogy, of which only the beginning, Les choses secretes made it to UK cinemas.

LOL (Laughing out Loud) - France 2008, Lisa Azuelos - a teenage comedy with a twist, as Sophie Marceau, who shot to fame with La Boum in the 80s, plays the mother of the lead girl this time round. Looking this up on IMDB, I found out that a US remake starring Miley Cyrus and Demi Moore is due to be released on 1.6.2012. Oh, and there hasn't even been a DVD release in the UK, another movie I had to import from Germany.

Française -France 2008, Souad El-Bouhati - shortish film about being a foreigner and choosing your country, starring Hafsia Herzi from Couscous (La graine et le mulet), review to follow.

Soul kitchen - Germany 2009, Fatih Akin - review to follow.

Castillos de cartón - Spain 2009, Salvador García Ruiz - charming film based on novel by Almudena Grandes, about three art students in 1980s Madrid who find their ways in art, love, and life. See my review of the UK DVD edition trying to mis-sell it as porn.

Je te mangerais - France 2009, - girl-on-girl obsession complete with harrassment and a background of classical music. Love the setting (in Lyon) and the views, but there are some disturbing things going on that aren't really addressed. Also, the link between emotions and their musical expression wasn't easy to catch for mere mortal non-pianists like me. Went straight to DVD in the UK in 2010 (title: Highly Strung, cert. 15).

Now & later - USA 2009, Philippe Diaz - free love vs. the power of military and financial oppression, heart-warming stuff, read my review here.

Mentiras y gordas (Sex, party & lies) - Spain 2009, Alfonso Albacete - superficially, this is sex and drugs and techno all the way through, so don't be surprised at the knee-jerk reaction from some quarters and the 18 certificate on the DVD. If you can look beyond that, however, there are interesting subtleties (the lies are in the title for a reason), characters likeable with all their flaws, and a cautionary tale about the dangers of drugs and falling in love.
UPDATE December 2023: rewatched this after realising that it features a young Ana de Armas (who since then moved on to Hollywood and played Marilyn Monroe). Hadn't remembered much after 14 years, so I had great pleasure in rediscovering it.

Happy Few - France 2010, Antony Cordier - starring Elodie Bouchez - I missed La vie rêvée des anges when it came out, and generally hadn't seen a movie with Bouchez since Les roseaux sauvages (1994), so I made a note regarding this one when I heard about it in France. Needless to say, it didn't get a UK release (not even as DVD) so I imported the DVD from Germany. One might question whether the news that two couples have merged into a foursome is material enough to fill two hours, but I really liked the general feel and atmosphere of it.

L'âge de raison - France 2010, Yann Samuell - starring Sophie Marceau - what happens if the letters a clever 7-year-old girl writes to her future, 40-year-old self actually get delivered? Good question, slightly muddled in the answer but still interesting and moving to a degree. Further proof that de-frenching French films by bringing in a bit of English dialogue and leaving out all nipples doesn't guarantee cinematic release in the English-speaking world. Neither does the presence of a huge star like Marceau ... It was shown in cinemas in Germany, where a DVD is available under the title Vergissmichnicht.

Balada triste de trompeta - Spain 2010, Alex de la Iglesia - shown at Edinburgh Film Festival only.
A complex and difficult movie on the trauma caused by the Spanish civil war, read my review here

Vénus noire - France 2010, Abdellatif Kechiche - epic and profound biopic of an African woman shown around as "Hottentot Venus" in European cities in the 19th century. See my review here

Mes chères études - France 2010, Emmanuelle Bercot - now this alternative approach to student finance might have caused scandal around here, so better not show it.

678 / Les femmes du bus 678 - Egypt 2010, Mohamed Diab, starring Nahed El Sebai, Boushra, Nelly Karim - very timely and relevant film on the everyday harassment of women, see my review here.

still from "Habitación en Roma": official site.

Habitación en Roma (Room in Rome) - Spain 2010, Julio Medem - read my review here.

I love Périgord - France 2011, Charles Nemes – it’s a cliché-laden comedy about an Anglo-French culture clash and I wouldn’t normally make a fuss about it, but given the topic, a no-show in UK cinemas might of course be read as censoring the opinion of the other side in this age-old cultural conflict.

Q - France 2011, Laurent Bouhnik – What if relationships between people were driven by rampant female desire, what might this alternative to the testosterone-soaked world we live in look like? The (male) writer/director seems to think that it would be a better world, as the desire of the female protagonist, although a bit disconcerting at first, ends up being a force for good, fixing troubled relationships and strengthening the community. Sadly, censors and marketing people are unable to ignore the bare chests for long enough to work out what a film is actually about, so we have another interesting film that didn’t get a UK release and went straight to DVD with a blurb that essentially tries to sell it as posh porn. When will they ever learn?

Memoria de mis putas tristes - Mexico/Denmark 2011, Henning Carlsen - lovely adaptation of Gabriel Garcia Marquez' eponymous short novel from 2004. Review to follow.

Camille redouble (Camille rewinds) - France 2012, Noémie Lvovsky - Charming if slightly illogical time travel story featuring the director in the lead role. It was - released in around a dozen countries but no UK date in sight.

La fille de nulle part - France 2012, Jean-Claude Brisseau - this low-budget ghost story looks like poor old Brisseau is now reduced to filming in his own flat and playing the lead himself, but it is still interesting.

Mapa para conversar (A map for love) - Chile 2012, Constanza Fernandez, starring Andrea Moro, Mariana Prat, Francisca Bernardi - three women in a cute little chamber piece mostly set on a small boat. Restrictions clear the mind, as one of the characters says. Available on DVD from the lovely peccadillo pictures.

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PS: I am, of course, a bit biased in favour of Spanish and French cinema, but I'm sure there are similarly neglected films from other European countries, and indeed from around the world as well. I'll also acknowledge bias towards vaguely intelligent films, which excludes some German comedies that were extremely successful on the domestic market but didn't get exported.

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"Endangered List" of films that may or may not end up on the list above (as I haven't seen them yet, and/or they may still turn up):


Flores raras (Reaching for the Moon) - Brazil 2013, Bruno Barreto
Landes - France 2013, François-Xavier Vives, starring Marie Gillain
Ayer no termina nunca (Yesterday never ends) - Spain 2013, Isabel Coixet - shown at the Berlin International Film Festival 2013, and at the London Spanish Film Festival 2013

Una pistola en cada mano - Spain 2012, Cesc Gay - Shown in Germany (Ein Freitag in Barcelona), and at the London Spanish Film Festival 2013.

Die Vermessung der Welt (Measuring the world) Germany 2012, Detlev Buck.
Klip (Clip) - Serbia 2012, Maja Milos
Weil ich schöner bin - Germany 2012, Frieder Schlaich
El amigo aleman (The German friend) - Germany, Argentina 2012, Jeanine Meerapfel
3 - Uruguay, Argentina, Germany 2012 - Pablo Stoll - oops, there are too many movies called 3, I was looking for this one and first found the one below, and got all confused.
Tres - Ecuador, Argentina, Germany 2012
3 Zimmer/Küche/Bad (Move) - Germany 2012
Baad el Mawkeaa (After the Battle) - France / Egypt 2012
Después de Lucía - Mexico / France 2012
A perdre la raison - Belgium 2012, Joachim Lafosse, starring Emilie Dequenne
Buscando a Eimish - Spain 2012, Ana Rodríguez Rosell, starring Manuela Vellés, Emma Suárez - shown at the London Spanish Film Festival 2012
Joven y alocada - Chile 2012, Marialy Rivas

Lo mejor de Eva - Spain 2011, Mariano Barroso - starring Leonor Watling, Adriana Ugarte
Un été brûlant - France 2011, Philippe Garrel - starring Monica Bellucci
Violeta se fue a los cielos (Violeta went to heaven) - Chile 2011, Andrés Wood - a biopic of the Chilean folk singer, song writer Violeta Parra
Graba - Argentina 2011
Lo contrario al amor - Spain 2011 - shown at the London Spanish Film Festival 2012
Verbo - Spain 2011 - shown at the London Spanish Film Festival 2012
Karen llora en un bus - Colombia 2011
Abrir puertas y ventanas (Back to stay) - Argentina 2011, Milagros Mumenthaler
La chispa de la vida (As luck would have it) - Spain 2011, Alex de la Iglesia
Poulet aux prunes (Chicken with plums) - France 2011, Marjane Satrapi
3 - Germany 2011, Tom Tykwer
I phone you - Germany 2011, Dan Tang
Almanya - Willkommen in Deutschland - Germany 2011, Nesrin Samdereli, Yasemin Samdereli

Amador - Spain 2010, Fernando Leon Aranoa, starring Magaly Solier
Le sentiment de la chair - France 2010 - (slightly scared of this, plot summary sounds like it may be taking "anatomical detail" a little bit too literally?)
Marieke, Marieke - Belgium 2010, Sophie Schoukens
Die Fremde (When we leave) - Germany 2010, Feo Aladag - starring Sibel Kekilli
Le nom des gens - France 2010, Michel Leclerc
Flamenco, flamenco - Spain 2010, Carlos Saura -
Un homme qui crie - France/Belgium/Chad 2010, Mahamat-Saleh Haroun -
Joseph et la fille - France 2010, Xavier de Choudens - starring Hafsia Herzi, Jacques Dutronc


La fille du RER (The girl on the train) - France 2009, André Téchiné, starring Emilie Dequenne
Eloise - Spain 2009, Jesús Garay
Io, Don Giovanni - Spain / Italy 2009, Carlos Saura
Anonymes (Buried secrets) - France 2009, Raja Amari - starring Hafsia Herzi
El último verano de la Boyita - Argentina 2009, Julia Solomonoff - shown at the Viva Festival, Manchester only.
La Yuma - Nicaragua 2009, Florence Jaugey -

El juego del ahorcado - Spain 2008, Manuel Gómez Pereira - starring Adriana Ugarte
La journeé de la jupe (Skirt day) - France 2008, Jean-Paul Lilienfeld - starring Isabelle Adjani, who won a César for this role
L'aube du monde (Dawn of the world) - Iraq, France, Germany 2008, Abbas Fahdel - starring Hafsia Herzi
Le premier venu (Just anybody) - France 2008, Jacques Doillon -
Arráncame la vida (Tear this heart out) - Mexico 2008, Roberto Sneider - Adaptation of Angeles Mastretta's novel, shown at the Viva Festival, Manchester only.

Les filles du botaniste - France / Canada (2006) but dialogue in Mandarin
Short order (Life is a buffet) - Ireland, Germany, UK 2005 - starring Emma de Caunes

Perder es cuestión de método - Colombia 2004, Sergio Cabrera - an adaptation of Santiago Gamboa's eponymous novel

Petite Lili - France 2003 - starring Ludivine Sagnier; an adaptation of Chekhov's The Seagull, apparently

Solino Germany 2002, Fatih Akin

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Finally, films from the watch list that did get a UK release after all, hooray:

Alceste a bicyclette (Bicycling with Moliere) - France 2013, Philippe Le Guay - Note the predictable replacement of the name of Alceste (the lead character in Le misanthrope) with the author's name in the international title. UK release on July 6th, 2014.
El artista y la modelo - Spain 2012, Fernando Trueba, starring Claudia Cardinale - one-off showing at the London Spanish Film Festival's Spring Weekend, April 2013, then release of around a dozen copies in September 2013, details here
La vie d'Adèle (Blue is the warmest colour) - France 2013, Abdellatif Kechiche - winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes 2013, and I was still worried it might not get a release here. That's how bad things have become. It was released in November 2013.

Paris-Manhattan - France 2012, Sophie Lellouche - French reflections on Woodie Allen - UK release 5.7.2013, apparently, although it hasn't shown up in our local cinemas. Got DVD via Germany and really liked it.
Les femmes du 6ème étage (The women on the 6th floor) - France 2010 - UK release in July 2012
Elle s'appellait Sarah - France 2010, Gilles Paquet-Brenner - starring Kristin Scott-Thomas
UK release 5.8.2011 as "Sarah's Key"

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Further reading:

1. An interesting piece from a movie professional who had a few fights with the UK censors appeared in the Guardian film section on 1.10.2010.
2. 100 years of film censorship (slash classification): Kira Cochrane in the Guardian on the BBFC's anniversary, 27.7.2012.
3. BFI statistical yearbook 2013: According to the country of origin stats on page 17, 151 (23%) of the movies released in the UK in 2012 came from other European countries. Also see the chapter 5, "Specialised Films", which includes stats on foreign language films. Apparently, 230 films in 32 foreign languages were released in 2012, accounting for 35.5% of all releases but taking only 2% of the box-office. I'll prepare a separate blog entry on these stats.

Julio Medem's room in Rome

UPDATE 24.10.2010 Just posted my review of the movie here.

UPDATE 9.9.2010 Amazon.co.uk lists room in rome DVD with a release date of Oct. 18, at a reasonable price of 11.99. Pre-order now before they change their mind.
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I’ve started reading a little book about my favourite film maker, Julio Medem, which just appeared this spring (by the gloriously basque-named author Zigor Etxebeste Gómez, Ediciones Cátedra 2010). I found out that he has a new film out in Spain, called Habitación en Roma (Room in Rome), which had its premiere at the Málaga Film Festival in April, and full release in May.

I’ve checked the IMDB entry and found out that there isn’t a release date for the UK (or any other country) at this point. Reading what Etxebeste writes about the new film, however, I am getting extremely worried that it may not get a UK release at all. It appears that it is a love story between two women who are undressed most of the time, and the DP uses lots of macro lenses to show the physical geography of each woman as the other would see it from very close up. Now something is telling me that the UK censors will not be looking very kindly at this approach. (Yes, I know that the C in BBFC stands for classification these days, but it still amounts to censorship, as it stops people from getting to see the films.)

So, I guess I’ll have to chase around Barcelona when I get there in October for some little backyard cinema that still shows films months after their release. Watch out for the resounding silence with which the British press will meet this film, even if it gets a UK release. Medem’s previous film, Caótica Ana, didn’t get released here (in that case it’s more likely due to the political aspects of the movie) and I don’t think it ever got mentioned anywhere, which is good for me, in a way, because my blog entry about the film emerges as the highest ranking google result in English.

Meanwhile, I looked on YouTube and found a completely marvellous “musical trailer” which is essentially a music video for the wonderful song “Loving Strangers” by Madrid folk singer song-writer Russian Red (aka Lourdes Hernández) furnished with scenes from the movie:



There is also a proper trailer, but that one is really too hot to handle for the English-speaking parts of the world.

PS One intriguing detail that I didn’t know about Medem is that his paternal grandfather, and thus the palindromic name which inspired the structures of some of his movies, came from a German family. The family history of the Medems, going back to Caspar von Medem (* 1560) is here. Note the frequency of the palindromic names Otto and Ana, which Medem used in Los amantes del circulo polar.

teenage troubles in tuscany

Love Falls
Esther Freud
2007

Some time in the 1990s, I compiled a list of people from my birth year plus/minus one who had achieved something significant already. Don’t laugh, turning 30 can do this to your brain! One of my more famous contemporaries on that list (which also featured on the early editions of my website from summer 1997 onwards) was writer Esther Freud (daughter of painter Lucian Freud, and great-granddaughter of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, since you ask).

By that time, Freud had only published two novels, Hideous Kinky (1991) and Peerless Flats (1994), of which I read the latter – the former was soon after turned into the eponymous film featuring Kate Winslet, at which point Freud’s writing career seemed assured. Of her subsequent novels I greatly admired Gaglow (1997), which uses her German/British intercultural heritage to great effect, but didn’t quite know what to make of The sea house (2003).

With Love Falls she returns to the mind world of the teenage girl, which I suppose is what she does best. Of course I can’t really tell, as I don’t know it from the inside, but it looks convincing to the bystander. It is July 1981 (as readers are supposed to know due to the references to the wedding of Charles Windsor and Diana Spencer, but I had to look it up!), and our protagonist, Lara, 17 (born in spring 1964, she also qualifies for my list!), embarks on a trip to Italy with her father, which means she’s going to spend more time with him than she has in the past 17 years put together. That’s probably already true by the end of the epic train journey that takes them to Siena.

She is thrown into the strange world of wealthy British expats in Tuscany, which in fact feels quite similar to the world described in the Bertolucci movie Stealing Beauty, except that the rather likable heap of artists lounging round the pool in that movie is replaced with a not quite so sympathetic gang who are there to save their inherited wealth from the UK tax authorities.

Lara’s summer in Tuscany includes a wide and interesting range of experiences and emotions, and trying to make sense of them she reflects back to memories of her previous foreign adventure, an overland trip to India with her mother (which reminds us of the exotic flavours of Hideous Kinky although that one was set in Morocco).

Parts of the novel are disturbing enough to ensure it doesn’t end up on the “light summer reading” shelf, but still, the Tuscan sun does add to the reading pleasure, and teenage angst and confusion looks much more photogenic by the Love Falls (as in waterfalls) than in the dreary backyards of Peerless Flats, so I reckon for anybody who doesn’t know Freud’s work yet, Love Falls might be a good place to start.

PS: Other contemporaries on my list included writers Naomi Wolf and Federico Andahazi, actresses Juliette Binoche, Jane Horrocks and Jodie Foster, singer Tori Amos … actually, the list ist still online at my old website, untouched for nearly a decade.

orient meets occident

The enchantress of Florence
Salman Rushdie
Jonathan Cape 2008


First up, I have to admit that this, Rushdie’s 10th novel, is the first one I’ve read, so I may end up saying things that are blatantly obvious to people more familiar with his work. I’m also quite happily ignorant of the work of most of his male, British-based contemporaries. So I’m in the fortunate position of reading the book purely on the merits of its contents.

What attracted me to the novel was the fact that it makes surprising connections between Orient and Occident, weaving history and magic realism into a very colourful pattern, which, I think, tells us something about our shared cultural heritage. The enchantress of the title is Qara Köz, (supposedly) an aunt of the Mughal emperor Akbar the great. While reading the book, I wasn’t sure whether she was among the historic or the fictional characters, but just now a google search for her name brought up only references to the novel, so I guess she’s an imaginary person (just like Akbar’s favourite wife is imaginary within the novel).

At the court of Akbar arrives a European traveller who claims to be her son, although he is obviously too young for this to be true. The stranger tells an elaborate story to back up his claim, leading Qara Köz from the Mughal empire to Persia, then to Florence, where she meets historical figures including Niccolo Machiavelli, Andrea Doria, and the Medici princes, then to the New World, where the story-teller is born, who completes her circumnavigation of the globe.

Orient and Occident in Rushdie’s historical fantasy are equally violent and Machiavellian places, where nobody can trust anybody else. Celebrated military leaders typically die from treason within their own ranks. Everybody has to watch their back constantly, and the “enchantress” has to switch her allegiance repeatedly and walk the very fine line between being enchanting and being persecuted as a witch.

It is fascinating to see a synopsis of the histories that are normally treated as though they had happened on different planets, even though there definitely were trade connections, and thus must have been people who moved between the different cultures flowering in distant parts of the world.

I generally think that Europeans tend to be in denial about the influence that oriental culture, promoted by the Arabs in Spain and by the Turks at the Eastern borders of Christian Europe, had on our cultural evolution. Too keen to define itself as the Christian Occident against the Islamic Orient, Europe failed to appreciate the good things the Islamic world had to offer, e.g. Islamic science in the Dark Ages, when there was not much European science happening at all.

Therefore, this tale of two cultures projects a very interesting light on renaissance history (familiar in the European part, and new to me in the Indian part). Of course one could also read it as a fable reflecting modern cultural conflicts.

happy centenary

Neurologist Rita Levi-Montalcini turns 100 today, and I understand she's fighting fit and still working. According to a profile published in Nature a few weeks ago, she is the first Nobel laureate ever to live to 100 (which of course is partially due to the fact that there are so few women getting the prizes!)

Her autobiography In praise of imperfection sounds interesting and is available from various Amazon marketplace sellers in the US and the UK. Somebody could have thought of reprinting it on the occasion of this special birthday?!

Strada family

Among my ancestors in the lower Rhine area there is a lineage of people with the Italian sounding name of “de la Strada”, sometimes also written Delastrata, de la Strather, etc. As the name is extremely rare north of the Alps, I am suspecting there may be connections to historic Strada families, such as those at the court of emperor Rudolf II. I'm not trying to bask in reflected glory here, just following an ancient scientific tradition -- the drunkard's method of searching the key underneath the street light, where one can see it better than in the dark alley where one probably lost it!

Here are the pieces of the jigsaw which don’t fit together yet:

Johannes Baptista de la Strada, born Diez, oo 7.1.1728 to Anna Katharina Jacob at Nievern. Their son Philipp, (1742-1802) eventually moved to Krefeld, where there have been quite a few de la Stradas in the 19th century.

We believe Johannes Baptista de la Strada is the son of Johann de la Strada (estimated time of birth around 1680) who was employed as a gardener at Schloss Oranienstein, Diez from 1712 – 1724. Word of mouth passed down the generations suggests that one of the de la Strada ancestors working as a gardener came from the island of Capri originally, which belonged to the kingdom of Naples (under Spanish rule 1504-1707, except for a very short-lived republic 1647-48).

Find a MISSING LINK (or 3) here ?!

We suspect there may be a link to the Strada family that served the Habsburg emperors Ferdinand, Maximilian II and Rudolf II over generations (see, for instance: R.J. W. Evans, Rudolf II. and his world, and numerous articles by Dirk Jacob Jansen).

The main representatives are:

Jacopo Strada, born Mantua 1507, died Prague 1588. Art buyer for the Habsburgs and the Bavarian court, artist, architect, writer, numismatist. Subject of a famous portrait by Titian, below and in his Wikipedia entry.

Jacopo’s children: Paulo, Octavio, Martino, Lavina, Sicilia, Tobias. Octavio Strada (1550-1606) followed in his father’s footsteps and served as art buyer to Rudolf II. Also subject of a portrait, by Tintoretto (below). However, Jacopo’s testament (available on http://documenta.rudolphina.org/ disinherits Octavio in favour of the much younger illegitimate son Tobias Strada.

Portrait of Octavio by Tintoretto (Wikipedia).

Octavio’s children (Jacopo’s grandchildren): Anna Maria, also known as Katharina Strada (1579-1629), mistress to Rudolf II., Carolus, Octavianus Junior.

Octavio Junior ended up in France where he married Catherine Hoeufft, daughter of Dutch engineer Christophe Hoeufft and became wealthy through his involvement in wetland drainage programmes. Their descendants became quite successful in France , where the male line were later known as the "Marquis de Strada d'Arosberg".

Another MISSING LINK … Oh, and if we want to go really crazy we can try to incorporate

Giovanni da Strada, from the village of Strada, near Florence, who was young Boccaccio’s tutor, and Giovanni’s son:

Zanobi da Strada (1312/15 – 1361/64) poet laureate, professor of grammar at Florence, moved to Naples, then to Avignon in the service of the Pope during their exile.

and / or:

Filippo della Strada, a writer and calligrapher in Venice at the end of the 15th century, famous for being very rude about this new-fangled printing technology.

I'm also wondering where the jesuit and historian Famiano Strada (1572-1649) fits in.

Which is to say, if anybody has any information about Strada people living in the 17th century or earlier, I’d be very grateful for a hint.

Updated 6.11.2023 to remove broken links, add the portrait and the Wikipedia link that didn't exist yet in 2009.

canal grande

Did I mention that Venice's vaporetti (water buses) are the best public transport ever? OK, they may be as crowded as the London underground or any other busy transport system. But the sights are so much nicer. We did an (almost) complete round on one of the circular lines, which takes 2 hours (imagine going round London on the circle line!) and have been up and down the grand canal countless times, discovering new sights each time. Oh, and very reassuringly they actually stop people from boarding when the boat is packed. I expected them to just keep pushing ...

so here's to the hours spent on board:



(image borrowed from Wikipedia while the digital camera containing our pix is still travelling elsewhere ... )

Oh, and while we were there, the newspapers reported that Stonehenge, Eiffel Tower, and the pyramids were among the most disappointing tourist attractions, according to polls on site. Canal Grande was mentioned among those that did not disappoint.

protein architecture

I'm back home, trying to adapt to the real world and the British "summer".

One of many things that struck me about venice is that it is one of the very few "parallel universe" experiences available in this universe. As the whole infrastructure depends on water transport, there is an endless supply of "mutant" functionalities to observe, from the speed-boat ambulance through to the waterborne fruit stalls and the rather obscenely big yachts of the finance administration. It feels like Philipp Pullman's parallel Universe in "Northern Lights" where zeppelins ruled the air transport business. I kept looking out for zeppelins in venice, but there weren't any.

one of the venetian sights I knew about for many years but now had the chance to see first hand is the Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo. My PhD supervisor once gave or sent me a picture postcard with this famous staircase:



Which of course will leave any protein scientist scratching their head in disbelief. I mean how could the Renaissance architects know exactly what an alpha helix and a beta sheet looks like ? This looks so much like a small protein set in stone that it's downright spooky. (It was built in 1499, 4.5 centuries before alpha helix and beta sheet were discovered!)

When we dropped by, the beta sheet was hidden by scaffolding though.

There are more pix on the

italian wiki site