Disciplinarian fathers

I just finished  the first book of Knausgaard life story – The Struggle. It was about his father. The book  is  brilliantly and painfully honestly written.  At least that is how the first book – Death in the Family - came across to me. Reading it I could find my own, old feelings about my father. About his heavy steps on the staircase, that immediately changed my mood from playful and light-hearted to watchful, scared and almost resentful. My father was a good hard working man who was a great role model for me and I am still thankful for some of my characteristics that I gained by osmosis observing him and his approach to life. So, why such a negative reaction when he  appeared in my peaceful and happy place. He loved me but I did not see it and did not understand that his love was not about kisses, hugs, smiles, softness or encouragement. He was responsible for the family and he took it very seriously. It seemed that it he never felt that he had done enough for us to relax and rest on his laurels.  He was straight to the point, a no nonsense person. A self made man, a bit rough at the edges but deep down sensitive. As a child I did not see the sensitive, loving side of his, I only saw that when he patted me on the shoulder I almost sat down on the floor, his caressing touch was so heavy. It almost hurt. I was afraid of him and tuned in to the sounds of home and its surrounding to recognise when he will be coming and I will have to change and present a protective and at the same time good girl demeanour.

When I think back to the times, I wish I could have a second round of my childhood. I would see my father in a different light and I would spend more time with him. Even if I remember him as a disciplinarian father, he never punished me. But I was still afraid of him and avoided his company. Sad and silly, really. So many missed opportunities for both of us.

Reading The Death in the Family I understood feelings of young Karl Ove. They were similar to my old feelings. The whole book is about the father and different chapters of his life. Many complexities and contradictions of the person are masterfully described. Still reading some reviews of the book there is typically a reference to a cruel and distant father. I read more into the father character. I saw a sensitive person as well as disciplinarian and indifferent father. There were times when he wanted to get close to his young son, share experiences with him. It did not work out. My father also wanted to spend time with me and we did have good times together. Like when he first taught me to ride a bicycle and some years later to ride his Russian huge and heavy motorbike IŻ. 

The motorbike looked something like this one. I get all mushy looking at it now and reminiscing my past a bike rider.

My father was  a very ingenious and dedicated teacher setting up motorbike on bricks in such a way that I could learn changing gears and operate most of the buttons with wheels spinning harmlessly in the air. In  the second stage of my “driving course”,  the motorbike was taken off the bricks. Father found a save place for me to practice and he let me loose. But he also held the motor bike to stop it with his force if I did something really silly.  It must have been physically demanding to run behind the motorbike holding it  in with me making all typical mistakes of uncontrollably speeding up or braking. Why didn’t I see that it was love he was giving me? On the strength of this education I got my driving licence at the age of 16 which was very unusual at the time in Poland. Thank you father.

My musing about disciplinarian fathers brought me to the point  that it is sometimes difficult to see beyond their harshness. Not a revelation? To me it is in a way.

There is going to be a sequel to this post. Or two. I want to explore my thought and feeling more.

Clouds of Sils Maria

Yesterday I saw Clouds of Sils Maria. Interesting and confusing experience. It was my selection of the movie, I suggested it to a friend believing that the film will tell us a conventional  story about actresses. There was nothing conventional about the film, it was not even American which, for some reason, I had expected. Instead it was French-German-Swiss co-production directed by Olivier Assayas, a French director  unknown to me until yesterday. There are definitely too few French films shown in Sydney or I have missed too many of good films in recent years.

During the film I felt very uncomfortable for a couple of reasons. There was so much I found confusing, the story seemed disjointed, events did not follow logical sequence and some mysteries were left without any explanation. I simply did not understand what it was all about. The second reason was that I felt responsible for suggesting such a weird film. And strangely, I was fascinated by the rapid changes of languages spoken, jumps of the action from one stream of thought to another, captivating, wonderful performances of Juliette Binoche and Kristen  Stewart. The third  actress Chloe Grace Moretz did not make much of an impression on me.

                         

The story is about Maria Enders, an acclaimed actress at the peak of her career played by Juliette Binoche. She is offered a role in a play that propelled her career twenty years earlier. Only this time she is to play an older woman. Her old role will be played by a very young actress. To rehearse the role Maria goes to the Alps with her personal assistant Valentine. The interplay between the two actresses is unbelievable and whimsical, the reality is mixed with scenes from the play in such a way that it is not clear what we are watching. This ambiguity has been intended. The personas of the two women intermingle at times. No wonder that at first I was unsettled and no wonder that I was fascinated without being prepared to watch this type of the film. It reminded me of Ingmar Bergman’s films and some scenes between Maria and Valentine of his Persona. Not a light stuff I had expected.

Sils Maria lies in Switzerland, it is absolutely beautiful and I would love to be able to go there one day and see the snake formed by clouds moving between high mountains. I found out that  my recent object of fascination, Herman Hesse, used to spend some of his time there. I did know that he lived in Switzerland for most of his life and that he loved mountain hikes. The film shows the Alps so beautifully and many times that now, I know what he saw during his mountain walks. Apparently Carl Jung and Einstein visited the place as well.

                                   

While, originally, I wanted to see the film as I love Juliette Binoche as an actress, Kristen Stewart was the main attraction for me. When she first appeared in the film, I thought that she is very much like my niece Martyna. The same mannerisms, similar tone of voice, speed of talking and age. That make me perhaps less objective, but I am not sure about it. She got a Cesar for this role and this is France’s highest ac    

This my niece

        

and this is Kristen Stewart, I see similarities. Am I biased?

I was puzzled by the film,  taken somewhere where I did not expect to be and I am so glad that I saw the film. Shall I go and see it again, fully knowing what kind of a film I will be watching?

 I agree with Vanity Fair  that this is “A thoughtful and intelligent meditation on acting, fame and age” .

A sad, sad post

After my previous frivolous post there is time for serious reflections. I have been recently reading serious books, thinking serious thoughts, saying internally good bye to somebody departed who had been important in my life. Consequently, my reflections and thoughts have been a bit morose. Then, I saw a post  with a cheerful title Are Europeans sadder? I decided that this is something very appropriate for my current mood.  With each year passing, I feel more and more European, the post content caught my attention and interest. What do I think about it? What is my experience? Maybe Europeans are sadder, but in relation to whom? My observations tell me that the south Europeans are a cheerful lot but Scandinavians and Germans not so much. Poles are somewhere in-between, perhaps. I would place French and Spanish, on my personal happiness scale between Poland and Southern Europe. It makes me think that maybe weather and sunshine have some influence here. In addition to reasons given in the mentioned post, I wonder what influence European literature has on emotional predispositions of people. I have just finished biography of Herman Hesse and I would not call it a happy story. Deep and meaningful but not happy. Hesse was a strange, complicated man and a brilliant writer who influenced thinking of many generations of Germans in particular. Sure, his books are read in all countries of the world but I would risk an assumption that Europeans are in majority of his followers. His books do not cheer the readers up.

When I was at school, I had a great teacher of literature. At some stage of my education the time has come to read and study one of famous Polish writers of an unpronounceable name, Żeromski. He was called a conscience of Polish literature and his books were a mandatory reading at high schools. They cover serious, difficult subjects and I can not remember any funny parts in his novels. My teacher used to say : Be careful reading Żeromski. One novel – will not do you any damage, but if you read two in a row depression will follow, three books in a row may lead to a suicide. Perhaps the jurors of Nobel price committee in 1924 were aware of the danger and selected another Polish writer who was also on a short list this year – Reymont.

Żeromski - Looking at the man one can see that he wrote about serious matters

                                                

One of my Polish friends who is a literature teacher recently suggested that I read a new international bestseller – The Struggle by Karl Ove Knaussgaard. The first one of the six parts of The Struggle is called – A Death in the Family. This is the book that I just finished. Great book, full of meaningful reflections. The story is also very good and based on the life of the author. Being under influence of the dark wisdom of the book I feel sad. I am waiting for the next two parts to arrive by post. Was is a wise move to order more? Perhaps not, my literature teacher would most likely object and worry about my well-being.

The picture on the cover is of the author

Since I decided to unburden myself by damping all my current sadness in this post, I have to mention my recent visit to the local nursing home. Nursing homes are generally sad places, but I decided to volunteer my time to spend it with people who live there. I know that they have caring families but maybe sometimes the families are too busy to visit and I could make a positive difference, however small.

I must confess I expected a warm welcome but instead I was coldly and briefly informed that my enthusiasm to help can not be used in this establishment and that I should turn to the local council. When I wanted to find out if the council could potentially direct me to the nursing home I was told that they are very busy, too busy to chat with me and that they have paid qualified staff and families to support the patients. Wow, that made me sad! Sad for failing to help, but most of all sad for the patients who may be deprived of company they might want to have.

I did go to the local council to offer my help and this was a very happy story with a promising outcome and as such does not belong to my sad, very sad post.

French are amazing!

This s my long promised and long postponed an almost X-rated post. I am not a frivolous person, some would call me even prude, but my sense of humour does not allow me to keep such am amazing story untold. You may find the story unbelievable and even I have difficulties to believe myself and my memory. All of it is true though and my memory serves me right. I have even a witness of the events. So here it goes…

One Sunday afternoon, my partner and I were coming home after a golf game and to our surprise there was a police van parked in front of this respectable building we thought we lived in. There must have been about ten policemen in front of the gate to Rue Tronchet 27. Some were walking around the van, some were sitting inside. I felt really worried and scared.. The building did not seem to be safe to enter. However the policemen looked happy and even amused. Maybe the danger was not that great after all so we decided to try to sneak into safety of our apartment. As we entered the gate, we met a very angry man shouting and gesturing angrily. Alas, in French! Walking along the man there was a policeman, judging from his very elegant uniform, of a high rank who tried to settle the man down. It did not seem to help and the man was still shouting while leaving the parameters of the building. Things were really not to his liking.

It is difficult to blame us for being curious what the story was all about. Through the windows we could observe the policemen. They seemed really amused. There was a lot of laughter and shrugging shoulders French way. The high ranked policeman went back through the gate and walked into one of the courtyard staircases. In the past it must have been a kitchen staircase of the house. Our kitchen door opened to this staircase but at the time of the events, I was not aware of who might have lived there and why our apartment had a second staircase at all.

The police van was still in the street and the men seemed to have a really good time. After some time the commandant appeared in the street again in the company of a young woman I often thought in the courtyard before. She looked like a schoolgirl. White, starched blouse, black pants and a pony tail of long black hair. Very neat. 

She looked a little like this. You must agree that it was something schoolgirlish about her.

Now everybody was smiling and looked friendly. The girl gave the whole squad a friendly wave and walked away down the street. All policemen got into the van and the street looked normal again. Hardly anybody there, till Monday morning.

We were very puzzled by the whole event and could not even start guessing what it was all about.

Next morning I met in the courtyard our concierge who was Polish and we had a common language. I was still curious about what the Sunday afternoon story was all about. I asked her. She looked a bit embarrassed, waved her hand dismissively saying “Ah… it was nothing. The girl apparently promised the client deux fois pour 200 Franks and did not quite delivered as per agreement”.

Modesty does not allow me to translate it to English. I thought that it was a strange and rather minor offence. If it was an offence at all. That the client called the police is difficult to comprehend, at least to me, I am not French after all. What he really expected? 100 Franks back? Or delivering the service as promised?

Another point is that my observation made me believe that Parisian police typically ignores calls. Opposite our building was a Cacharel shop with either many bakes in or a faulty alarm system. We were woken up many times in the middle of the night with a very loud alarm system that was set off. I never saw any police coming to check up what was the matter.

Isn’t France wonderful? Aren’t values a bit different to the rest of the world?

 I am not sure what the readers may be reading into the story but just for the less experienced in life, the shy school girl was actually a person working in the oldest profession. 

Samba - I had to see this film after all

Quite often we form opinions without having sufficient data. Sometimes we even make decisions not having good enough basis for it. Recently, I experienced a life illustration that assuming without good reasons for it may prevent good experiences or positive things to happen. Then we need coincidences to help us to get on the right track.

My story is about a coincidence that helped me to so I got to see a great film – Samba.

I have written lately quite a bit about the Sydney French Film Festival. I thought I finished the subject at least for some time. The festival is a yearly event and I am sure I will not stop liking French films so there is big probability that I will be impressed, amused, fascinated by some of them and write about my observations.  It happened earlier than I had expected. Samba, a film of illegal immigrants in France was not on my list of films to see, I was not interested in the subject and I did not see the film the festival time. However, it became popular with Sydneysiders and has been screened in my local cinema for quite some time now. I was firm in my decision of not seeing it. The prolonged screening even annoyed me as few times I wanted to see a movie at a particular time and instead it was Samba shown then.

Yesterday my friend and I were going to see a movie. We selected Boychoir with Dustin Hoffman and Kathy Bates and were very much looking forward to see the film. We bought the tickets and put ourselves in the queue to the cinema number 2 as we were instructed by a cashier. We were chatting waiting for the cinema to open for our 3:30 screening. When the time came we went in, showing our tickets to the usher.

After long and boring ads the film eventually started. It started with a wedding reception held in a fancy restaurant. It did not fit in with my idea of the start to the film Boychoir. Something was not right here. Was it the right film? No it was not. It was Samba! 

We decided to stay and watch it to the bitter end. This did not happen as it was nothing bitter about the film. Life of illegal immigrants is not fun, but the film was. It was a comedy with a good story line, charismatic actors and a lot of warmth. I greatly enjoyed it and was grateful to the mishap of landing up in the wrong cinema. Yes, we went to a wrong cinema, our intended film screen 5 minutes earlier and the cinema was just around the corner.

I am so glad I have not missed the film after all. It is a funny, warm and well acted film.

One of my favourite actresses ugly in a beautiful way, Charlotte Gainsbourg, plays an executive suffering from a burnout and doing social work while recovering from her problems. This way she meets a group of immigrants and social workers of different social background to herself. The main character Samba is played by handsome Omar Sy, a man with a warm, shy smile and great physique. Finesse of the film’s sense of humour is wonderful, plenty of sharp one liners make one watch for what is coming next not to miss any funnies. My favourive scene is a party of the illegal immigrants and social workers. There is a lot of camaraderie between the lot of them, after initial reserve in behaviour. An older social worker dances to a Bob Marley song. Surprisingly, she is skillful at this type of dancing, she obviously loves the moves, so does the audience of the party and the film. There is also some great dancing from Charlotte Gainsbourg. This comes as a surprise to a viewer, but there are many angles to the character of Alice. A complex woman, the type I like.

                                     

That I have seen Samba in spite of my initial reluctance was a gift of coincidence. I am grateful and hope that I will not miss too many great experiences due to my bad judgment. Of course I am bound to miss some but I promise myself not to be too stubborn and set in my ways.

By the way, I recommend Samba to all who like French films and finesse of French sense of humour. It has 8 out of 10 in my book.

Musing on the Anzac Day

Today is the Anzac Day and I am in Sydney. It is very difficult to avoid the hype of the day in Australia and I never liked that aspect of the commemoration. I must confess that my Polish ego compared the numbers of people cruelly affected by the wars. In numbers, Poland suffered by comparison much more than Australia. Has Poland won? Nonsens. I  know that numbers do not mean much when people lives are concerned. One life lost unnecessarily is one too many. But why do we and especially media pay more attention to events that include higher numbers of people who suffer or loose lives? This is a different issue though. This statistical approach to suffering and giving lives is  wrong in my mind.

Sometimes, I think that Gallipoli was really about young boys who wanted an adventure and ran enthusiastically to enlist as a fulfillment of their heroic dreams. They did not know that it was going to be that horrible, that they will most likely die and that to be a dead hero is not that glamorous. Once crossing the line, they did not have any choice, there was no way back.

Was it an act of patriotism on their part? Here Ray from Mummulgum and our discussion of patriotism come to mind (http://acobserves.blogspot.com.au/2013/05/about-patriotism-and-ray-from-mummulgum.html). He would not like Anzac day all that much, I suppose. Ray convinced me, after all, about the futility and danger of patriotism, even if it took me some years to see his point of view. Thank you for the lesson, Ray, werever you are.

On reflection, the most commendable part of Australians’ involvement was an aspect of service. Service not directly to Australia but to the Allies – people of the United Kingdom, France and the Russian Empire.

Next year I, a grateful new Australian, will participate in a morning Anzac service to pay my tribute to the war heroes and their families. 

Parisian memories

I have been flaneuring through my memories. For some reason my thoughts often went to Paris. Maybe it was a result of the French Films Festival?  Or maybe it is because they were really good times, that I spent in Paris. It was so much to discover and absorb and I was so young. Hmmm….Whatever the reason, my Parisian memories suddenly became vivid and I enjoy recollecting the times. Sometimes, I stop and think about something I experienced there, the details flood my memory. It seems to be a little like flaneuring. I look around the pictures that pop up to my mind and then go a bit further in the recollection process. New pictures and new memories... It is quite fun, I want to capture my thoughts. At one stage I thought of writing about a very French event, almost X-rated and quite unbelievable.  I know it was true and I also know that not many will believe me. This post is to set the scene; the next one will be a juicy one. How about that for building up expectations? I wonder if it will work.

I lived in Paris only one year. It was going to be a three year assignment of my husband who worked for IBM. My first foreign country, I moved to a completely different life style from that I was used to. In Poland I had a very interesting job that I loved, friends, family and familiar surroundings. I had a good life in Warsaw even if my Western friends did not quite believe me.

At that time, I loved France and all French things. My love became more realistic with time, like one may experience in a good long lasting relationships. With time illusions fade, one is not infatuated any more, we see imperfections and get sometimes irritated with the object of our affection but the fondness is there even if the eyes are wide open. This is how I now feel about France; love it but not blindly.

So, some years ago I landed up in Paris without knowing the language, no friends and husband working IMB hours. These mean very, very long hours. I had a lot of time on my hands. Even if I had qualifications and a will to work as a programmer, I was not granted a French work permit.  It was my first disappointment with French ways. But it was not all bad, far from it. Paris is Paris. It has Louvre, parks, rue St Honore, Monmartre, many museums and streets to flaneur along. I was very lucky which I forgot to appreciate at times and sometimes let myself feel miserable in this foreign country that was interesting but sooo foreign after all.

This is Rue Tronchet in the XIX century, a busy street even then. La Madeleine in its full splendor at the end of the street. We lived in one of the buildings on the right side of the street.

                         

 We lived at rue Tronchet 27. Not exactly a place people live in Paris but since the assignment was only one year my wise husband thought that living in a very centre of Paris would be a good thing for us. And it was. The place was next to the big department stores Printemps and Galeries Lafayette. I could see La  Madeleine church if I leaned out of the window a bit. It was about 5 minutes walk to the Opera. Boulevard Haussmann about 100 meters from the gate of our building. The Louvre and Tuileries Gardens in a walking distance. It was a fantastic shopping and cultural location.

Window shopping started just when I left the gate of the building.

Being so centrally located, the place was noisy! To open the windows was almost out of the question. Even when the windows were closed it was difficult to hear sound of television in business hours. It became quiet when shops and offices closed. Then the place was deserted.

Sundays were quiet days, hardly any traffic or people walking the street. Spooky.

My next story is about a Sunday afternoon at Rue Trochet 27.