Trekkies and the Force

I think it was 1977 when my daughter, her father and myself saw the first Star wars. It was in Leicester square in London. I have at least seen one or two more of the early period. Last night I was invited by the the young folks for The force awakens. Still the struggle between the dark side and the light side is going on. Some of the protagonists have aged and matured, but Han Solo's, the outsider with a gift of talking himself out of all situations, is the ultimate outsider and a fallible hero, yet his Millennium Falcon still in good shape. The dark side and the light, is a never ending sage with John Boyega turning into Finn after having been a storm trooper. I realized during certain heavy bombardment scenes that the first movies came out in more innocent times. Nowadays we see the bombardments and the fighting daily on our newscasts. Some scenes so vivid that one bombardment looked the bombing of Aleppo or Gaza...
So enjoying action was one thing, and being reminded of the sad state of affairs in the world was another. Yet I'll be there for the next installment, the sounds of the light swords, and the music score and the aging characters, as I age just as them and children growing up with all that...

La Tierra Roja

I was lucky enough to be invited by a friend to go to the avant-premiere of La Tierra Roja, directed by Argentinian Diego Marinez Vignatti. The male lead was Geert Van Rampelberg and the female lead Eugenia Ramirez. Geert Van Rampelberg is Belgian. He was invited for the role for which he had to learn Spanish which he did in a relatively short time and although he told  the audience at the end that he was worried about playing in Spanish, since it felt foreign to him, just a different feeling as if some one else was mouthing what he said. I understand the lure of this movie. The main theme is how the paper industry. Ouch! As a writer I use a lot of it, printing out drafts; no I can't do it right on the screen alone:-(. The deforestation, the devastation of the tropical forests mainly done by fumigating, spraying agrotoxic substances and insecticides which make people and animals sick. The peaceful protest by locals is violently squashed, killing. This in order to be able to plant miles and miles pine trees, a softer, fast growing "crop" for which the century old trees like sequoias have to go. Having walked an a Sequoia forest, having felt the presence of history and impressed by their beauty, the subject was close to my heart. The performances are absolutely fabulous. Go see this film: La Tierra Roja is strong, it is true, it will move you.

See the trailer here

Selma, Martin Luther King, the movie and memories

The movie 'Selma' is moving and very well conceived. I love how Martin Luther King keeps making the case for continuous non-violent action against all odds. The film brought tears to my eyes and made me proud of what the people, often at high personal cost acchieved. The cast is sublime, the humanity of the main characters shines through.

My late husband Tony Mafia once mentioned to me that at the first march to Selma he went along with some friends in an old Volkswagen bus. He lived in Los Angeles at that time. What he told me was indeed that on the bridge the local sheriff and the cops really went out of their way with their batons to hurt as many people as possible. He even mentioned that German shepherds were send in against the marchers. Many black people and lots of young hippies were injured. He didn't go to the other marches not liking the violence, not liking to see how people around him got shot or killed in other ways.

I was a young teacher in an interpreting school when all this happened. I was the teacher for English interpreting and spoke also about all things American. Sadly, the message today still needs to heard. Sadly black children still live all too often in dire circumstances and shamefully black boys still are killed by white cops and vigilantes who all too often go unpunished.

We are one race: the human race and we are all born equal.

 Here you can see the trailer of the movie.

Clouds of Sils Maria

Clouds of Sils Maria is a wonderful movie which I happened to see because Andras Laszlo won some tickets from Radio Klara ( the classical and culture radio) for a special viewing in Antwerp. Juliet Binoche and actually all the other actors gave us their very best performance. I loved the movie because of ts layers of meaning and how to read them. The story is about an aging actress who is offered the role of an older woman Helena in the play she starred in as the younger actress Sigrid. She has to accept an award for the author of the play who on that very night commits suicide. A new production is planned and with her PA, Kristen Steward, the content and the way of performing the roles are discussed and different interpretations, aging, resiting the passing of time, reading in a totally different way what the play is about, kind of being stuck in the past interpretation of the younger actress she was.. Different options come to surface. For the older actress it is a harsh confrontation. So you have the 'real life' dialogs and the dialogs of the play she is studying. Both elements sharpening the relationship between  the actress and the PA. During a walk wanting to see the snake of clouds coming flowing through the pass the PA disappears... No clue whether she just turns back, commits suicide, falls, or is murdered... This is good, leaves open different readings of the interactions between the two women. The brilliant PA shows the actress how differently one can read the story. So reality, the play, different visions about acting and personal relations, it all becomes a heady mix. I loved the movie, I enjoyed the spectacular views of the swiss alps which also perform their role to perfection as all the actors did.

Blood on the moon and Cormac Mc Carthy and the rest of the West

I was tired, so I switched on the TV and fell in a western black and white movie: Blood on the moon. I watch in fascination. The type casting and what to show and what not  was a pleasant surprise and also the bar fight, or the more serious encounters of fists and guns. The beauty was that it was all shadowy, so the violence was mostly unseen, yet the "bruiteur", the person responsible for the sound, did a wonderful job, making us hear the punches rather than seeing them. Also the women were smart, had common sense and were strong willed. Of course falling for the drifter who gets involved in the local dispute between an Arizona cattle rancher and local homesteaders. These disputes till go on, less violently but about water there are still issue between ranchers and the local population. In this psychological western Robert Michum is doing a great job being the good guy with dubious principles, just as Robert Preston. It truly is a film noir, where Michum from starting as a hired gun against a cattleman, falls for his strong willed, intelligent, brave yet maligned daughter and so Michum turns out to be the good guy after all. Yet that was not all on my lazy day. I turned also to Cormac McCarthy's All the pretty horses. I am always impressed by his precise writing, circle the words I don't know in his text, his language being rich and wonderful. More about that when I have finished the book...

Day of the writers in prison

The action of PEN-Flanders for November 15th is creative and beautiful. The poem by Liu Xiaobo: You wait for me with dusts- a poem dedicated to his wife- has been split up in its thirty one lines. 31 Flemish authors have each read one of the lines: the famous and infamous, the revered and the up and coming, the young, the old, all in a great mix to do something useful for colleagues in prison all over the world.

The poem by Liu Xiaobo has two versions: one with English subtitles which you find here.
For the Dutch version only without subtitles click here.

Je wacht op mij met ’t stof

  - voor mijn vrouw, die elke dag wacht

                                                           

                                                        door Liu Xiaobo

niets rest je in jouw naam, niets

dan op me te wachten, samen met het stof van ons thuis

al die lagen

bijeen, overlopend, in geen hoek        

wil je de overgordijnen open trekken

de roerloosheid van het licht verstoren     

boven de boekenplank is het met de hand

geschreven etiket verstoft

op het tapijt ademt het patroon het stof in

als je de pen graag een stofpunt wilt geven

wanneer je me een brief schrijft

worden mijn ogen door pijn gestoken

je zit daar de hele dag lang

durft niet te bewegen

uit angst dat je voetstappen het stof zullen vertrappen

je probeert je adem in te houden

en gebruikt de stilte om een verhaal te schrijven.

In ogenblikken als deze

is het verstikkende stof

de enige bondgenoot

jouw visie, adem en tijd

doordringen het stof

in de diepte van je ziel

wordt de tombe centimeter na centimeter

vanaf de voeten opgestapeld

komt tot aan de borst

staat tot aan de keel

jij weet dat de tombe

je beste rustplaats is

waar je op me wacht

zonder bron van angst of paniek

daarom verkies je stof

in het donker, in kalm verstikken

wachtend, wachtend op me

je wacht op me met stof

en weigert zon en werveling van lucht

laat het stof je maar helemaal begraven

laat jezelf maar inslapen in ’t stof

tot ik terugkom

en jij wakker wordt

en het stof afveegt van je huid en je ziel.

Een wonder – ontwaakt uit de dood.

April 9, 1999

*

Dutch Job Degenaar /Annmarie Sauer

WIPC Nederland/WIPC Vlaanderen

februari 2011

Friesland /Amberes  from the English translation:

-->

Here at PEN, we believe that keeping Liu Xiaobo’s words alive is the best tribute to our imprisoned colleague.

You Wait for Me with Dust

for my wife, who waits every day

Nothing remains in your name, nothing
but to wait for me, together with the dust of our home
those layers
amassed, overflowing, in every corner
you’re unwilling to pull apart the curtains
and let the light disturb their stillness

over the bookshelf, the handwritten label is covered in dust
on the carpet the pattern inhales the dust
when you are writing a letter to me
and love that the nib’s tipped with dust
my eyes are stabbed with pain

you sit there all day long
not daring to move
for fear that your footsteps will trample the dust
you try to control your breathing
using silence to write a story.
At times like this
the suffocating dust
offers the only loyalty

your vision, breath and time
permeate the dust
in the depth of your soul
the tomb inch by inch is
piled up from the feet
reaching the chest
reaching the throat

you know that the tomb
is your best resting place
waiting for me there
with no source of fear or alarm
this is why you prefer dust
in the dark, in calm suffocation
waiting, waiting for me
you wait for me with dust

refusing the sunlight and movement of air
just let the dust bury you altogether
just let yourself fall asleep in the dust
until I return
and you come awake
wiping the dust from your skin and your soul.

What a miracle--back from the dead.

April 9, 1999

Translated by Zheng Danyi, Shirley Lee and Martin Alexander

- See more at: http://www.pen.org/you-wait-me-dust-worldwide-reading-liu-xiaobo#sthash.7KKJ1muG.dpuf

Bones: one wonders...

Last night's episode of Bones raised a few questions. Near Seattle in the woods a piece of an arm is found and thus Bones and Booth go and investigate. They meet the Native American Forest Ranger, called Sherman. After General Sherman? After the tank named after the aforementioned general? After the best known wonderful poet and prose writer Sherman Alexie who lives in Seattle and hails from the Spokane Reservation... and is part of a milti-lingual project 'Harbors of the West' third part of the trilogy 'Sounds of Harbor'. Of course the ranger is immediately the prime suspect. It turns out there are marks on an arm that was found pointing to cannibalism. A dash of witchcraft is added to the mix of the script for good measure. When the ranger sees the FBI agent and his special expert 'Bones', he runs away. When caught and asked for the reason his reply is: "I don't want to be another Leonard Peltier. FBI and Indians don't mix well. Remember Wounded Knee?" Of course the ranger didn't kill anyone, nor eat anyone besides a black bear whose meat is in his deep freezer; a felony for which he is immediately handcuffed and put in jail. The series wouldn't be called 'Bones' if remains of victims weren't a full part of the script: thus a hand and more human bones are found in a killed bear. The interesting thing is that in different parts of the USA, e.g. in the Appalachian mountains a few years ago the remains of a young girl were found dating back to the 16th century, a girl who had been cannibalized, probably during a big famine. So I wonder: Are the contemporary Hollywood scripts based on a lot of research or are they kind of inside jokes and chuckles for the in crowd.

Of course we know that many Hollywood actors have been staunch supporters of Native American causes and especially of Leonard Peltier. May he be freed.

German TV: June 12.

Futures (yes, plural!)

Maya Van Leemput is a futures researcher who got her PhD 10 years ago and since then has been collecting with her partner Bram Goots (Camera and DoP) images of the future people hold. Their latest project is in Molenbeek in Brussels commissioned by ‘The House of Cultures’ of St Johns-Molenbeek. They interviewed and filmed about 30 people. Next Friday, December 21, the day the world is predicted to end, she is showing the film ‘Reel Molenbeek Futures’, starting at  8pm. Why plural? Well there are no future facts, are there? So there is not only one possible future, but many possible futures that we co-create by our action, non-action, by what we can imagine, by how we would like those futures to be. For that you need clear images, maybe even universal values... As one of her futurist friends said: With fuzzy images of the future, you get a fuzzy future. Think about it, if you see clearly what you would like in let’s say 18 years, then you can do things to make it happen. If you have never thought about it, the film might just help you realize it is a fun and useful exercise in our life to think and dream and discover our expectations about our different possible futures.

Address & time:
8 PM

House of Cultures and Social Cohesion:

Chaussee de/Steenweg op Merchtem 67

1080- Sint –Jans- Molenbeek- Saint-Jean

Brussels-Belgium

You're all invited... French or Dutch subtitles...

Cinema Inch'Allah

There are good day’s to be taken out of one’s own world and to be introduced to another. On such a day an invitation  from my daughter to join her and go and view a documentary by Vincent  Coen  & Guillaume Vandenberghe was welcome, also because mu curiosity was peaked by the title of the documentary. The film team followed over a couple of years four Belgo-Moroccan filmmakers living in Brussels. They started as teenagers with a small handheld camera, filching it every time the father, rightful owner of it, wasn’t around. In the course of the documentaries we see the evolution in the camera’s they acquired. It is a generous movie: we gain an insight in the otherwise closed world of Moroccan families. We see the difference in treatment of a daughter and the wife of the same man. We see the longing of a mother to become a grandma and admonishing her son the get on with it. Doing it in a a formalized way so that it looks almost like she acted her request with typical ways of moving and of looking. We also see Brussels, to many Flemish people an extraneous entity from where the country is governed and where the royal family lives. We also witness the personal crises of Farid: from the bad relationship with his family when filming and starting to question whether it is ‘halal’ to film at all since Islam forbids the portrayal of anything living. So he radicalizes and this is a bit too prominent in the documentary. For instance the success of the actor Reda is all but lost. The four friends have several films under their belt, projecting their fears and hopes. The wonderful thing is that they show the prejudices which are held against the Moroccan community and by making their films, they claim the right to define themselves.Worth while!

Amour - Michael Haneke

Amour was in the Cannes competition of 2012. My film companion José discovered it in the Cartoons and invited me to go and see it. It is a honest, moving treatment of aging, illness and death. George and Anne are two retired music teachers living in Paris. One day Anne suffers a stroke which leaves her paralyzed on one side. Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva play the intimate and terrifying process of aging and decline. The vivacious, loving and tender relationship from the beginning is under pressure when Anne looses more and more of herself in a always deeper dementia. What is left of us in the end? What dignity, what control? How to love and live through that. I was very moved when Anne refuses to eat or drink. I saw a while ago the same facial expression in my mother's face. The strain on George of caring for Anne is insupportable, yet he promised never to put her in a hospital or home. The relationship with their daughter Eva who lives abroad gets very strained. Eva is performed by Isabelle Huppert .The performance of Trintignant and Riva. The setting is a beautiful book lined apartment in Paris where the world seems beautiful and safe. The fun loving gentleness between the protagonists at the beginning of the film is sublime, making the grief to follow harder. I won't tell the plot. Just if you have a chance go and see the movie.

Marc Neys makes video poems, and how beautiful they are. Here it is the poem Faites Vos Jeux by Marleen De Crée in Dutch and English.

International Leonard Peltier day

Leonard Peltier wrote for this occasion:

Greetings to my relations, my friends, and to my many supporters the world over.

It is that time again. Another year has passed, and on February 6th I will be marking 36 years since my arrest. During all this time, my family and allies have discovered just how far the government will go to wrongfully convict and imprison someone they know is innocent. They do this as a message— first to Indians, and further to anyone who might stand up to injustice—as if to say, “We will do as we please”.

From the day of my arrest until now, through you my supporters, I have been honored with many activist and humanitarian awards. I thank you for keeping awareness of me and my case alive. Your commitment has really been a special experience for me.

In addition many celebrities, political figures, and organizations have called for my release, including 55 members of Congress. This last November, the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) passed a permanent resolution calling for my release. Well let’s hope its not that permanent. The NCAI has committed to being directly involved with my case so that the message from Washington to Indian people does not remain, “We will do as we please”.

Still, despite all this attention and with all the leaders and people of conscience calling for my release, I have been kept in this iron cage. They have even kept me longer than their own laws say they can. With evidence corroborating that I did not receive a fair trial, with proof of government misconduct, with admissions by government officials that they do not know who killed those two agents that day at the Jumping Bull property, here I sit. “We will do as we please.”

Recently, as many of you know, an act was passed and signed into law that allows for indefinite detention of American citizens without charge or trial. This is perhaps the final straw, the final nail in the coffin of American freedom, the end of habeas corpus and due process. “We will do as we please.”

We Indians said it for generations: If they can kill us indiscriminately, they will do it to anyone. If they can take our land, they will do it to anyone. If they can kidnap our children and take them to prison schools, they will do it to anyone. If they can starve us and lie to us, they will do it to anyone. If they can wrongfully imprison us, they will do it to anyone. Now, sadly, this is another Indian prophecy fulfilled. “We will do as we please.”

Our ancestors and tribal people all over the world prophesized a time of upheaval and great change. I believe that time is fast approaching. I believe a part of this is the government’s ongoing overreach of its authority—until the people rise up and tell Washington, “You will NOT do as you please! We are NOT your slaves! We will NOT be subjugated! We will NOT be ruled by an iron fist! We will NOT allow you to steal our liberty or our justice!"

My friends, my relatives, my supporters—Be a part of this latest, perhaps the last "Indian uprising". Make your voice heard! Be a part of the brave Movement to come, the Movement that will change the course of human history. Make change and hope and peace and justice a part of your personal legacy. Be the change that you envision and know in your heart must take place.

Do this, and on the day you take your last breath and prepare to meet Creator, you will know your life on this Earth was well spent. Close your eyes knowing you used your breath and energy to Creator’s good purpose. Smile as you cross over knowing you changed the world so that the next seven generations can know a good life. Do these things and know that I am with you.  I will embrace you as my relations—in this life or the next.

Mitakuye Oyasin.

In the Spirit of Crazy Horse,
Leonard Peltier

The Heart of Darkness - Dark Heart - Duister Hart

 I love the theater, I love monologues and Josse De Pauw is one of the real good ones. Guy Cassiers is a formidable director who with seemingly meager means visible on the stage manages to evoque an array of moods and situations. If you have a chance to go and listen and watch and feel, don't miss 'Duister Hart'.

 I also love this particular theater, the Bourla, with its ornate interior: the sciences and the continents are represented on the ceiling. This monologue is written by De Pauw based on the excellent Dutch translation by Bas Heijne of the novel Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and deals with the Congo and a trading post where Kurtz gathers the most ivory of all the agents. The language is rich and at times chilling.

 A good crowd showed up to listen to this monologue dealing with colonialism and the effects of greed and loneliness, the loss of a moral compass when one has nobody to talk to and the horror, the horror when looking inward at the state of ones soul. One will recognize the final scene as used by Francis Ford Coppola in Apocalypse now. 

Kurtz has plundered the region, has been a violent and cruel representative of the firm, yet he is remarkable, intriguing, imposing, awe inspiring violent and even lovable man. The story is told by Marlow the Captain of a ship sailing up the Congo River in Africa for a Belgian Company. His goal is meeting Kurtz, who has been member of an international society to abolish rude manners and customs. Yet in Kurtz he meets a dark heart, without moral references or control. Josse De Pauw plays all roles thanks to a state of the arts technical approach, projecting the roles that have been  'taped' before and sometimes in the dialog, the actor on the stage is filmed and projected on the projected screen. Thus the meeting with Kurtz, becomes also explicitly a meeting with himself. One wonders why the company never intervened when they knew about about the plunder of the land and the violence against the indigenous inhabitants. The only reason would be greed, in other words capitalism and colonialism. Yet the play leaves one wondering whether one could lose one's own compass.  Great art is food for the soul and food for thought. When the thin gilded layer of civilization is scratched away all that remains is a dark heart.

Gran Torino

Since 'Unforgiven' I have been a fan of Clint Eastwood, not withstanding his stand on the Iraq war. Although in 'Gran Torino' he and the two young Chinese/American actors do a wonderful job, the real protagonist in this movie is language. From the rude and angry to the rude and jovial to tenderness, the whole range of emotions is expressed by scores of racial slurs and other epithets. The strength of the movie is showing the code switching and and through that expressing the growth of the characters. In my desert hide-away the guys in the bar definitely talk like Walt. In private some talk like that but then it sometimes takes on a different meaning, rolling their eyes and saying: oh you're such a feminist, pacifist, liberal... I'll have to stop talking to you. In 'Unforgiven' I loved the scene where the protagonist, bathes and shaves, puts on clean clothes before going on a killing spree to settle old scores. Here Eastwood reenacts a similar clean up scene with confession, close shave, new clothes and all and works out a interesting non-violent path for himself. He never cleans up his language nor outward attitude, but by now he knows something about life and death... He also has learned as a Korean War Vet about the results of conflicts years later... Is the language offensive? Yes. Does it convey the change in attitude in the main characters? Yes. Is it funny? Moving? Yes and Yes. Does it teach about the weight of killing and how not to go about conflict resolution? Sure... I had to think of Lenny Bruce who during a performance used all the racial slurs asking 'Are there any niggers in the here tonight? Spics? Wops, Polaks...' and all the others and then goes on to explain: 'The suppression of the word gives it the power, the violence, the viciousness...'

Mataharis

Spooky choose the Spanish film by Iciar Bollain who was also responsible for the movie Te doy mis ojos, (Take my eyes). It is a wonderful story of three women, Inès, Eva and Carmen, private detectives in Madrid. By spying on the lives of others they have learned to accept and not to judge the secrets of others. Through the problems posed by their clients they find the courage to work out their own situations. It is a moving, quit film with very talented actors. Problems of conscience and love are shown almost as a miniature, here there is no major drama, just the daily drama's of life: can one love and survive betrayal, can one go against one conscious at high personal cost, can one accept the end of love- when no more words are spoken, when one doesn't matter any more- and move on and be stronger in quiet way... Yes! without it being syrupy.

ExpO58 - Futures

The festivities to commemorate the mi-centennial of the world fair in Brussels 'ExpO58' have officially started. Saturday night brought fever and joy. A well made documentary by Farfetched Productions premiered. Maya Van Leemput concept, research and direction, Bram Goots, camera, light, sound and grip and Simone Rau co-editing wizard form quite a team. For the Cultural heritage cell of Antwerp they produced this original, relevant, beautiful, insightful documentary. At the opening the respondents who had been involved with the Expo in 1958 in different capacities, - a volunteer interpreter, a butcher boy demonstrating how to cut meet, visitors, hostesses... and their contemporary shadows - were present and seemed extremely pleased with the end result. Since it is also scientific futures research, the sum comes out way above the individual statements. In fact the documentary is presented as research material for a colleague futurist who will hopefully look at this material in 2058. Images of the future is the guiding principle. 50 years ago optimism reigned, with just a few critical voices: The war was over, technology would improve life for everyone. Now, since the dreams of 50 years ago had at the same time not been fulfilled (there still isn't a base on the moon and there is still hunger and disease in the world) and had developed much faster than anticipated, people's images for the futures of 2058 are a bit grim. Most think that their grandchildren will have a harder life than they had. This was packaged in a fast, professional and warm view with lots of beautiful, nostalgic images from 1958. Remember: All our experiences are in the past and all our decisions are about the future. Well done!

Genocide

'One Life', was the event a friend and I attended in the Genocide Memorial in Kigali. The introduction made by the British NGO working for the prevention of genocide, Aegis Trust - meaning protection - was exemplary: using the local drama to show the working of intolerance in the world. It always starts with words and ideas and once it starts, genocide respects no one. It kills those who cannot fight back. How can one be sheltered From the prejudice of racism. Ives was little, just 5 years old. He should be 18 today, but there was nobody to protect him. And then all the broken lives of the survivors, raped, maimed, lost everything. Michel then 15, now 28, spoke about what happened to him: He lost 20 family members, couldn't bury his mother, the dogs ate part of her... He and two young sisters survived the events that started April 7, 1994. Now he feels he needs to testify. He studies sociology, works for the memorial and helps his sisters... After his sober words 'Sometime in April' a film by Raoul Peck was shown. Bone chilling, amazing, also in the little gestures of kindness that leaves one a bit of hope. What always starts all this killing everywhere is greed, arrogance and power and stupidity. Afterwards I was raw, filled, empty, overflowing and found myself in the dark tropical night on one of the thousand hills. Any mechanical repetitive sound flashed back to gunfire... The taxi driver was untypically silent with vacant eyes. We cannot imagine, never know what survivors go through. Yet we should not forget, we are all children of survivors, we are all survivors... So lets be gentle with each other...

Ousmane Sembène

Rockcastle loves Africa, even lived for a period of time in Dakar, renting her own apartment and volunteering for several NGO’s. She started working for the Talibé (street children) and later assisted a few other projects with her linguistic skills. She is knowledgeable about non-fiction concerning the Dark Continent and reads its literature. She introduced me when I was to go to Nigeria to Ebony, a book by the incredible Polish journalist Ryzard Kapucinsky. Ebony influenced my way of looking and understanding Africa. Great Writing. In the literature department my favorites would be Towards the decolonization of African Literature. African novels: Anthills of the Savannah by Chinua Achebe and the painfully beautiful book The famished road by Ben Okri.
One day she took me to a film by Senegalese movie maker Ousmane Sembène, the pioneer of African cinema. He directed about ten movies, the first one in 1966. Twice he received an award at the Venice film festival. Unforgettable is his movie Moolade, a deeply moving story about female circumcision. He is progressive, so he advocates the eradication of this custom that is nowhere in the scriptures. What I liked was the incredible change in attitude in the characters when they were speaking in public, with a shift in tone and voice and attitude. When they were among themselves at home, they spoke with a natural voice and rhythm. It made me understand the importance of form and symbolism in cultures based on oral traditions. The landscape in this movie too became sign and symbol, fascinating that was. Last Saturday, at the age of 84, he passed away in Dakar. He did what he wanted to do and according to Dr Scarpone that brings happiness...

Free Leonard Peltier

It is Sunday, a day that requires a bit of spirituality. So I will defend with a prayer, a bit of sage the plea for freeing Leonard Peltier. His saga started in Wounded Knee 1890 when women and children were slaughtered. The wounds are still felt today. On 27 February 1973, supporters of AIM became active at the request of elders and tribal leaders because despair and strife brought the nation to the brink of total collapse. The Counterinsurgence War lead to the shoot out between the FBI, aided by goons and the local chapter of AIM lead by Peltier. Watch the movie Thunderheart, with Val Kilmer and you’ll have a feel for the going ons, also Incident at Oglala by Robert Redford. Peltier has been in prison 11412 days and 14 hours 47 minutes while I write these words. Too long. He allegedly shot two FBI agents: the false testimonies, the tampering with his file alone would warrant his release now. But he maintains his innocence. He wrote My Life is my Sundance which recently has been turned into a theater production which got very good revues in the news papers willing to print them. Members of American Pen Writers in Prison Committee Kurt Vonnegut, Alan Ginsberg, E.L. Doctorow, Rose Styron en William Styron (Sofie’s Choice) have together with Nobelprizewinners Bishop Tutu, Rigoberta Minchù, Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama and one of the two judges leading his case signed the petition to President Clinton for a Presidential clemency for Leonard Peltier. The FBI leaned so hard on the President that he gave in. From his prison cell he tries to organize food drives to help his people. He is know as a humanitarian, a spiritual person believing in non-violence. And he is a writer: My Life is my Sundance, an autobiography, lyrics for cds that are being released, poetry. He also paints. He also suffers of ill health. Let him see his grandchildren… Free Leonard Peltier.
In Leonard’s own words:
I acknowledge my inadequacies as a spokesman, my many imperfections as a human being. And yet, as the Elders taught me, speaking out is my first duty, my first obligation to myself and to my people. To speak your mind and heart is Indian Way. In Indian Way, the political and the spiritual are one and the same. You can't believe one thing and do another. What you believe and what you do are the same thing. In Indian Way, if you see your people suffering, helping them is an absolute necessity. It's not a social act of charity or welfare assistance; it's a spiritual act, a holy deed. I know who and what I am. I am an Indian--an Indian who dared to stand up to defend his people. I am an innocent man who never murdered anyone nor wanted to. And, yes, I am a Sun Dancer. That, too, is my identity. If I am to suffer as a symbol of my people, then I suffer proudly. I will never yield. I swear to you, I am guilty only of being an Indian. That's why I'm here…
Posted in the Spirit of Crazy Horse.

Das Leben der Anderen

Rockcastle, my oldest (no not in years), my longest (no not tallest) friend invited me to go catch a movie. She is more attuned to the joys in life, lives more in her body, whereas I live more in my head… She has a discerning taste in movies. Das Leben der Anderen is a film by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, the 3 main actors are Martha Gedeck as the famous actress Christa Maria Sieland, Ulrich Mühe as the Stasi official Gerd Wiesler (magnificent!), Sebastian Koch as the writer Greorg Dreymann. The movie starts in 1984 a few years before the fall of the wall in Berlin at the end of the DDR period - the German Democratic Republic, aka Eastern Germany known for spying on their civilians, dissidents and of course as always on artists. The analogy between what is going in the USA today is flagrant in the fact that civil rights are trampled, that the rule of law is compromised all under the guise of protection, safety and anti-terrorism. In the GDR the tune was different, there the reason given was not to compromise the revolution - in reality it was about consolidating power and privileges. Whatever the reason, the rights of innocent citizens were non existent so they would confess to whatever the ‘Staatssicherheit’ wanted to hear. Real betrayals between friends, lovers were not uncommon. The hero is the dull, hardened prototype of a strict interrogator. The character seems bloodless, cold, efficient. In surveying a famous writer, he slowly develops feelings, respect and pays the price for it. The film takes you by surprise, makes you think and must give us hope, because when our mails are read, our phones listened too (all foreign calls?, incoming and outgoing?) that somewhere in that whole mess, there is a real human being who could not listen to the ‘Sonata of a Good Man’ and not be moved. So, go! Go, run to your car, drive an hour, two, three and go watch the movie or go look for it in the foreign section. You might find Das Leben der Anderen. La Vie des Autres because it won 4 prizes and had an Oscar nomination. 'The Life of Others' watch it and be moved by this smart, clean, perfectionist film with wonderful music.