Under French spell

A simple Aussie girl, as one of my friends and myself would like to see me, is going through another period of foreign fascination. After Poland and Italy the time came for France and French.

Coincidentally two things happened at the same time. I went returned to reading the autobiography of Simone Signoret  and saw the film My Old Lady. The book and the film made me think fondly and warmly about France and my French memories flooded my feelings.  Finesse and sophistication of French ways of expressing themselves, dressing and thinking has been alluring to me in my years of youth. Looks that there is still some of the fondness left.

Polish people looked up to French ways for many years. I was brought up on French books and French films. English literature was not that widely read by comparison to French and Italian. Now I see how much France was oriented towards communism, most of French intellectuals were communists or at least charmed by it. Their thoughts and ideology supported official Polish believes and propaganda. I guess availability of French literature was one of very few benefits of being in the Soviet bloc.

My first film with Simone Signoret  was Casque d’Or – Golden Helmet. It made a very big impression on me and I remember many details of this remarkable movie evening. It was in the beautiful Jurata, small holiday place on a peninsula that narrow that in places one can see the Baltic sea and the Bay of Puck across. Memories are back and I feel dreamy. But today I am not writing about Jurata, it is about French influence. So ad rem (I am showing of my non existing Latin).

Once in a while a movable cinema came to show films in open air on a wall of one of the pensions.  Most of the holidaying people brought their collapsible chairs to place them in the forest facing the wall where the film magic was going to happen. Such happy times! Casque d’Or is a love story about a prostitute and two Apache gang leaders. A tragic story telling about love that lasted four days and finished with a guillotine execution of the hero. I was in tears for at least half of the film that did not seem appropriate for a fourteen years old girl, I was at the time. But if I was not allowed to see the film then, I wonder if it would move me that much today or leave such strong memories. Thank you my understanding and romantic mother for letting me to see the film!

                                                       

Simone Signoret was married to Yves Montand a famous French actor and a singer. While reading the bigraphy, I almost heard his voice singing romantically and sadly in the background. I selected for my potential readers the song and the clip of Autumn Leaves which symbolically shows the story of the love triangle Simone Signoret, Yves Montand and Marilyn Monroe.  It is a bit ambiguous who he sings about as his love who will stay in his memory for ever. The marriage and friendship between Signoret and Montand lasted to the end of her life. The love of Simone Signoret changed into a sad disappointment when she realised the romance between her husband and the most desirable woman of her times. This was very French, in my opinion, acceptance of infidelity. Something got broken in her though and changed their relationship for ever and that actually contradicts acceptance.

The My Old Lady is also about a ménage a trios which gave a start to the story. This has a happy end though. Ah, this French acceptance of superiority of romance over loyalty... The film has bad reviews and I agree that the plot is predictable and it is not played brilliantly, but quite well. How it cannot be if the main characters are played by Maggie Smith, Kristin Scott  Thomas and Kevin Klein?

"To good health" - she says  provocatively

 What I liked most about the film, as I did like it a lot, were disjointed scenes with French flavour and its very subtle, wicked  humour. I loved the brocanteur (flea market dealer) – most likely Polish origin as he mentions speaking Polish among other languages – avoiding buying antiques of older age in favour of more modern twenties century chairs. Better business, I guess. I loved the doctor who exchanges her skill for English lessons. And I loved the  real estate agent explaining the astonishing viager  system and saying that he himself lives in the blood of Paris. This turned out to be a bark on Seine. He cordially invites the hero for a drink at his place when he sees him passing. I love the scenes which those characters but my favourite is the aria La ci darem la mano form Don Giovanni so unexpected and out of context. I loved it and built my own context to fit it. 

Little Italy in Mosman

The last Saturday was a  good and fun day. It tasted especially well as it was my first outing after some difficult days of recuperating at home. I live in a suburb that I do not automatically identify with considering its style, interests and values. It is, still,  a convenient and beautiful place. I like living in Mosman for many reasons. However, I do not feel that I belong and this is my job and challenge to change. My new resolution is to start participating in some of the Mosman activities, find out more on how I could make a contribution and start participating in the life of the village I live in. I think I will start form the bridge club visit.

I have already written so much about my holidays in Florence that I may even have earned a label of a firm lover of Italy and things Italian. It shouldn't come as an surprise to those who know me that one of my favourite places in Mosman is the Fourth Village Providore. It is my favourite for food shopping and having lunch. The place is positively decadent and its rather high prices make it exclusive. This is turn does not allow for getting bored with it. Once savours the place and much as its food. 

One feels hungry looking the food selection

                                        

One of my friends and my, at times, companion in The Fourth Village lunches  moved recently to Melbourne. I have been missing our occasional lunches but this Saturday my friend was in Sydney and we again had lunch in our favourite place.  It is nice go back to the familiar place that one likes. We both were happy to order the same as  we knew and liked from the past experience : Calamari Fritti Zucchini Fiammifero e Mayonese al Limoncello, pizza Capricciosa and two glasses of Sangiovese.  

How wonderfully Italian!

                                      

 In Australia one often shares dishes and we did. It was a lot of food, perhaps too much but I decided to enjoy it to fully experience the great company and food. I decided that it was rather nice and effective therapy.  Sangiovese is one of my favourite wines as well. It was blissful indulgence!

Lately, I have heard so much about superiority of Melbourne over Sydney that maybe it is time to see for myself what is so special about the place. Architecture and food are supposed to be Melbourne particular strength. I have not been to the Melbourne Art Gallery yet and galleries are always places to visit, so I will put it on my list to see. It is not likely I will make a trip in time for the Polish Food Festival, but early next year should be a right time to make the trip.

Musings on belonging

 We all need to belong. The first link we experience is belonging to our family. While this may be problematic at times and not always a happy dependency, nevertheless our family is our first tribe. The subject of belonging came to my mind whith the book I am reading – The Art of Belonging by Hugh Mackay an Australian social researcher and an author of many books with a psychological slant. The second trigger was a recent post on Personal Reflections concerning internet community, the author refers to as an internet village. Nice label, I like it.

Belonging is obviously important to all of us and I have been reflecting on it for quite some time.  Hugh Mackay subtitled his book – It’s not important where you live, it’s how you live. It  indicates to me that we have at least some influence on belonging or not belonging to a tribe. When I was a small girl, I did not have any siblings and my mother kept away from me children who did not behave up to her standards. As the result I did not have mates to play with exception for the times with my grandparents. The frequent time in solitude made me an avid reader rather early, my friendships were imaginary ones.  I developed a bad habit of being somewhat reserved and a loner until later on when I went to school. I must have been rather popular then as I found some pictures from my school years showing me being engaged in school group activities like folk dancing. I even performed in the school play at my grammar school times. It was not all that bad with me after all, I am glad to realise.

I belonged to this group of young people for four years - my high school class. I still remember some names. 

Personal Reflections praise the value of internet belonging telling the readers that at times blogging may lead to a friendship. Jim Belshaw calls the group of regular readers who exchange blog comments on mutually interesting subjects – his village. I find the concept very attractive and I like to visit the Jim's village. With familiarity of covered subjects and personalities of the regular readers, one develops a nice feeling of understanding the village and even belonging.   I can see that such blogs may lead to “real” friendships.

If one wants to be philosophical and complicate the issue a bit one could ask what makes a friendship or belonging to a group of people with common interests “real”. Is it that they meet in person at some stage? Or is it that they are genuine in expressing their views? What makes such belonging real?

Hugh Mackay in the chapter Online Communities sees some advantages of online friendships and believes that they may lead to having a comfortable feeling of belonging. He is critical of mobiles used as a “life line” that takes priority over life situations, even intimate ones. I agree with this view but I have not found  in the book convincingly strong arguments against internet communities like blogging or FaceBook friends. They obviously have their merits. I have formed friendships via internet, participatd in activities of support groups and studied online. For me internet plays an important role in my “real” life. If I ask myself a question – is this enough to stop at internet friendships, communities and villages forgetting about physical contact with people, the answer is of course NO. I would miss smiles, tone of voice, touch... 

We know about verbal and nonverbal messages and the rule 7%-38%-55%. It has been taught in public speaking courses for many years. Only 7% of the message we send when speaking is verbal. 38% - is tone of voice and 55% - body language. Sure we could use video. Still, this would not be  enough for a full message.

Considering these points I could not live without internet and my internet friendships but they cannot replace my “real” friendships and “real” belonging.