Sydney French Films Festival

I like movies. Because of the company I keep in the recent times, I see movies quite often, at least once a week. In Sydney there is a natural preference to screen English speaking films. Typically they are American and less often English. Of course we get films of any nation but they need to be exceptionally good, often awarded with some international prize. However, once a year there is the French Films Festival in Sydney. Selected movie theatres show selected French speaking films. They are typically French but they can be also Canadian or Belgian.  Like the one film I saw this year – The Tokyo Fiancé.

For some years I ignored the festival remembering my Polish experience. Going to film festivals was such a hard work. You had to buy tickets for the whole festival and that meant all films, over 30 of them. The films were typically heavy, meaningful and very good.  Too much happiness, as for me, especially that there were five screenings per day and the festival lasted a week.  No rest for the wicked. I was a student then and could take one week break from the studies, no problem. However, this was serious overdosing on culture and after one experience I stayed clear of encores. Until now. The film festivals in Sydney differ. You can choose as many films as you wish and the duration of the festival is much longer. Three weeks or so. There are many films on the festival menu. I picked 9 of them expecting that were selected appropriately. I was very disappointed with the first film. It was The Gazelles, a romp of frustrated thirty something single women. On reflection I came to a conclusion that even if I did not like the form of the film the subject of relationships and friendship is always current. It was not my way to analyze it or show. The message was not that revealing in my opinion – relationships are difficult and messy, women friendships are supportive.

I was disappointed that selection of the films was not done better. I had to admit that it was me who chose the film not doing sufficient research. I could not blame anyone but I was disappointed and wondered what will the next films be like.

Fortunately it got better and better. The next film was In the courtyard. The story was moderately interesting or believable but it had a lot of humour of the kind I respond to.  A bit nonsensical, almost surrealistic and finesse was its strong point. Catherine Denevue  played a major role and she is always draws me to see film swith her. The action of the film takes place in a courtyard of a typical Parisian old buildings. Such buildings have a janitor, I prefer the word concierge, who lives in a flat close to the entrance and keeps and eye on what is going on in the buildings under his care and at times takes part in lives of the people living there.

During my year in Paris I lived in one of such buildings and the yard looked exactly the same as the one on the film. This reminded me of a story with a very French flavour. I am very tempted to write about it in one of my posts even if it should be rated 15+. Life in Paris is sometimes very saucy even for observers.

This is a bit shabby, neglected Parisian courtyard, similar to the one I knew so well. The one from the film was also more like this one. 

Exclusive versions look more like this one. Ah... it would be so great to go flaneuring in Paris again....Nostalgia kicked in.

Gemma Bovery was my definite favourite so far. A pastiche on Madame Bovary, again very funny.  Gemma Bovery was played by an epitome of sexiness. It was enough to see her just walk to have naughty thoughts. And this is a woman saying, I wonder what men would. Knowledge of the story of Madam Bovary, and generally knowledge literature was helping to get the finer points of the story and its humour.

Tokyo Fiancé  is a charming story, nicely played and apparently based on experience of the author of the book on which the film was based.

3 Hearts a great melodrama again with Catherine Denevue, this time in her elegant edition in contrast to her role In the Courtyard where she was positively dowdy but still beautiful in my eyes. I do not think this woman can help but to look beautiful even if she is over 70. The film was about 3 confused hearts that had problems with living with their romantic urges and choices. Two sisters and a rather uninteresting man are heroes of the story. The three women were played by three fascinating actresses – Catherine Denevue, Ciara Mastroianni and Charlotte Gainsbourg.  Ciara Mastroianni is a daughter of Catherine Denevue and Marcello Mastroianni and Charlotte Gainsbourg has also famous parents – Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg. Those two sang (or whispered?) song that was once well known - Je T’aime. The gossipy part is fun but I really enjoyed the film. It kept my attention and interest and if someone likes melodramas this is a well played and executed film.

I still have three more films to go and I am looking forward to it.

Catherine Denevue as she is today. Beautiful 71.

Two fim daughters of Catherine Denevue Ciara Masrtoianni who is a real daughter as well and Charlotte Gainsbourg only the film daughter 

                                            

Serendipity - Fortunate Happenstance

                                        

I am a left brain type of a person, quite rational, loving logic, type A. Enough for confessions or excuses for what is to follow. I just want to gain credibility as I am going to write about things that are difficult to explain logically, a bit woo woo. Events that are not causally related but are connected meaningfully are called Synchronicity. Synchronicity seems to be more mystical than serendipity.

Having time to observe events of my life and paying attention to links between some of them, I notice, sometimes almost miraculous connection among events. Serendipity happens. Even its stronger form Synchronicity happens.

A recent very happy event brought this subject and I feel that I want to tell the story.

Some years ago, I think it has been 6 or 7 years ago, I studied coaching and as a part of the course I was supposed to be a client of 12 coaching sessions. One of the options was to be coached by a fellow student. I took this option and found a person I liked the profile of and so I met Victoria. Victoria is a Brazilian girl who lived in Germany. I lived at that time in Gdansk and we both had some problems we wanted to solve with a help of a coach. Victoria was my coach and the sessions with her brought a lot of clarity on what I wanted and needed to be doing next to solve my problems. After a while I became Victoria’s coach and so our friendship was formed. Life went on; we graduated from our coaching academy, got our diplomas and moved on. Victoria to Shanghai of all places a Brazilian girl may want to live in and I back home to Sydney, as if home for a Pole was naturally in Australia.

In Shanghai Victoria met a man. She was looking for coaching assignments and experience. She met her career goals and the man turned out to be the One. This is a beautiful story with a happy end. What I find unusual is that when I first contacted Victoria, she lived in Frankfurt, I lived in Gdansk. We worked together but did not expect to ever meet. It was a cyber space part episode of life. Now, some years later I am invited to her wedding in Sydney where we both live. The world is definitely shrinking. I consider that at least a serendipity.

Where are my books now?

My obsession with books continued for many years and I accumulated a lot of them. Actually, I have not counted them and maybe there are not that many but after my last move from Gdansk to Sydney I was not able to unpack all of them. I could not find space on available shelves. My old bookcases disappeared in my travels; they did not seem to be good enough to travel the world with them. I saw them being crashed. This happens sometimes to our treasures. They stop to be treasures.

 I used any possible space to store my books - wardrobe, build in shelves in one of the rooms and unused fire place. Strange places for books? Yes, but in desperation this seemed to be good enough. I could at least see them. Some of the books stayed in boxes waiting for a bookcases or bookshelves to arrive one day. As it was difficult to organize quickly, I covered the boxes with a cloth and placed some ornaments on top of the covered pile. I decided that it looked good enough and forgot about it. Nobody commented looking at the boxes pretending to be a corner table. I myself forgot about them. And so time passed. Now and then I had some ideas how to solve the problem but they seemed to be difficult to put into practice. Those days it is very difficult if not impossible to find bookcases in furniture shops. There are display units with spacing between shelves not suitable for books. I decided that I will need to have something made to order and explored this possibility for some time. I either did not like quality of potential bookshelves or prices quoted. And time was passing.

The situation would have lasted for a long time yet if it was not for one helpful friend who rightly thought that I postponed the issue for much too long. I talked to her about my bookshelves projects too many times not making any progress. She was clearly fed up with hearing the story too many times and I realized that eventually I need to make a move or stop talking about it. Suddenly I had a brain wave. Why not buy an old bookcase. Antiques are at the moment completely out of fashion and this makes their prices really affordable. I did some internet searches and found something that looked acceptable. Old definition classifies an item over 100 years old as an antique. According to this definition selected by me bookcases are antique, beginning of the XXth century. Times moved on. It took one visit to an antique center in Sydney and my new-old bookcases were on their way to solve my problem. There were piles of books everywhere at my place for few days. I did a lot of dusting, polishing and vacuuming but I was happy amidst this horrible mess. I was re-discovering my old books, many of them I did not remember at all. Out of sight, out of mind.

Sorting the books I reminisced on periods in my life. There were times when I focused on positive thinking, management and leadership, spirituality, coaching, philosophy, psychology, antique and art. Not many novels amongst it all. Some from my younger years. Hmm… Does that make me a very boring Jack? Luckily, I found quite a few humorous books which I loved to read in my twenties. I hope that they had some positive influence on my psyche. I typically read more than one book at a time so I added a newly found fun book to the currently read ones. It balances my reading very nicely.

Now, most of my books are again on shelves and accessible and I have the feeling of succeeding with
one of my long postponed project. Ufff...

  There they are!