105. Limburg &...

Lyrics

't is een kwestie van geduld
rustig wachten op de dag
dat heel Holland Limburgs lult

Ik heb mien ganse lange leave gewacht
op d'n daag di mos koome en op de 
nacht
op alles wat ik woj mar wat ik noeit
kreeg
't waas te deur of te vroeg of te laat 
vur meej
wachte op succes en op de moeijen daag 
dat ik in de zon miene zeilboet laag
riek woj ik weare beroemd en gevierd
mar tot nou toe heb ik allien mar gelierd

Refrein

zoveul tied en zoveul energie
en amper iemand di meej kent zeg nou
wie
soms heb ik gedocht 't keumt dor aal dat beer
en met een vies gezicht zat ik mien glaas wir neer
of 't keumt dor 't eate ik leaf verkiert
haj ik voeger mar door gelierd
denke denke denke ik begreep 't neet mar ik wiet nou woar a leet

Refrein

want d'r keumt ennen daag dan loep ik dor Maastricht
dan zidde minse denke ik ken dat gezicht
dan loep ik over stroat en wer noa gerend
doar hedde di broemde ik bin herkend

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I am not translating these lyrics, because Rowwen Heze is band from the Southern Dutch province of Limburg, and they sing in dialect. That's all that matters. The movie I linked it to has nothing to do with the content of the song. It's just probably the most heralded Dutch movie set in Limburg. 

The Movie: Godforsaken (Van God Los) (Pieter Kuijpers, 2003)

The international title of this movie is probably better than its Dutch title. Van God Los does not translate literally to godforsaken. Rather it means 'detached from God', or 'separated from God'. That title was probably chosen because this film aims to be something of a Dutch Scorsese movie. More specifically, it wants to be a Dutch Goodfellas. It certainly has the right setting for it. While most of the Netherlands is protestant, Limburg is catholic, just like Scorsese's protagonists. Thus the movie is filled with catholic imagery. Unfortunately that's pretty much the extent to which the movie wants to engage with religion. We never see how Catholicism affects the character's lives. We don't see how they would act if they weren't separated from God.This is just a very straightforward film about the rise and fall of a bunch of gangsters, who don't even rise that highly.  

10 years ago this film was touted as one of the high points of contemporary Dutch cinema. Looking back at it, that's quite amazing, especially now that Dutch film is (slowly) experiencing something of a new wave. The masterpiece status of this film does not hold up, but it's not surprising that such an energetically directed movie was so highly regarded around 2003. The Dutch cinema was not in very good shape around the turn of the century. While this film tells a rather banal story, in a rather banal way, it cannot be denied that it is made with urgency, passion and care. Therefore it's not boring, even though you can pretty much guess every plot development. A major reason for that is Tygo Gernandt's performance. That is one thing that does hold up about this film. Gernandt became a star for playing a desperate, frighteningly uncontrolled gangster, and he is a joy to watch. It's an incredibly charismatic performance. That, and some colorful dialogue, is the main reason to see this movie.

104. Eagle &...

Lyrics

They came flying from far away, now I'm under their spell
I love hearing the stories that they tell
They've seen places beyond my land and they've found new horizons
They speak strangely but I understand

And I dream I'm an eagle
And I dream I can spread my wings
Flying high, high, I'm a bird in the sky
I'm an eagle that rides on the breeze
High, high, what a feeling to fly
Over mountains and forests and seas
And to go anywhere that I please

As all good friends we talk all night, and we fly wing to wing
I have questions and they know everything
There's no limit to what I feel, we climb higher and higher
Am I dreaming or is it all real?

Is it true I'm an eagle?
Is it true I can spread my wings?
Flying high, high, I'm a bird in the sky (I'm an eagle)
I'm an eagle that rides on the breeze
High, high, what a feeling to fly (What a feeling)
Over mountains and forests and seas
And to go anywhere that I please

If someone had to decide what he/she thinks of ABBA based on one song, this would probably I'd let them hear. This is to me the quintessential ABBA song. A simple, but effective and pleasant feel-good song, that's quietly quite melancholic. The movie I linked it to is practically the opposite of that, but it involves someone flying like an eagle, or rather a sparrow. 


The Movie: Bird People (Pascale Ferran, 2014)

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu would have called this movie Bird People or (Living in the Networked Economy). Bird People is a film that was both loved and hated last year. I loved it (more even than Birdman!), but I can certainly understand why people would hate this movie. It is perhaps more of an essay in film form than a classical narrative film.  I can imagine that if you haven't followed a college course on modern capitalist globalization, this film can be more obtuse than your average French art film. I don't know much about Pascale Ferran, but she has apparently studied at a famous French film school, whose alumni include Alain Resnais, Claire Denis and Costa Gavras. So it is not very surprising, to say the least, that she is interested in looking critically at modern capitalist globalization, which is what she does with Bird People. So I understand why people may not find this movie to their liking, just don't call it bad or pretentious. Ferran knows exactly what she's doing, at least until the final five minutes in which she tries to find some sort of narrative closure. That does not work, nor can it. There is not really a narrative to close.

The movie consists of two halves. In the first one we follow Gary Newman (Josh Charles), some business engineer staying in a hotel at a Paris airport. He has a meeting in Paris, and has to fly the next day to Dubai. The night after the meeting though he has an anxiety attack and decides he will leave everything behind, literally. He does not go to Dubai, quits his job, and leaves his wife during a brilliantly written Skype session, which is the best conventional scene in the movie. You can see why some critics found the name Newman kind of on the nose. It's a fair point. In the second half we follow Audrey Camuzet (Anais Demoustier), a chamber maid at the hotel. She is a bored teen/twenty-something, frustrated with her job. One night the electricity goes of in the hotel mysteriously and, even more mysteriously, for that night she turns into a bird who can fly around the (outskirts of the) hotel. Ferran wisely does not offer any explanation for this occurrence. It just happens. Even more impressive is the CGI. This is some of the most impressive low-key visual effects work you'll ever see.The sparrow is entirely computer-generated yet can not be distinguished at all from a real one. And its movements are perfectly executed, to the tiniest detail.    

Now, I'll get a bit more academical than usual. The fact that nearly the entire movie takes place at/near an airport matters. The airport is the most famous example of what the influential French philosopher Marc Augé calls a non-place. A non-place is a space or an institution that is "formed in relation to certain ends (like transit, commerce, transport or leisure)". It is "a space which cannot be defined as relational, historical, or concerned with identity, as opposed to a traditional place". Furthermore "a person entering the space of non-place is relieved of his usual determinants. He becomes no more than what he does or experiences in the role of passenger, customer or driver. The space of non-place creates neither singular identity nor relations, only solitude and similitude. There is no room for history, unless it has been transformed into an element of spectacle". So non-places are quite alienating, they are places where no one feels at home. This is why there is absolutely nothing wrong with what is probably the most criticized scene in the movie. At one point Audrey the sparrow is flying above the airport, and we see the airport from her point of view. Which means that we see a lot of buildings from above, and notice that most of them are quite similar and quite odd looking. Also we cannot distinguish what building is meant for what. During these scene, on the soundtrack we hear David Bowie singing Space Oddity. Many found this tacky, but it is not. It is simply the simplest, and most effective, way to convey a rather complicated message.

The points regarding the absence of history and identity also become very clear in both halves of the movie. While at the hotel there is indeed no room for history for Gary. He decides to shred his entire past life and live only in the present. Interestingly enough there doesn't seem to be any future for Gary either.After he leaves both his job and his wife, he is free to do whatever he wants. He can leave the hotel, and do whatever he wants. Yet as the film progresses, we sometimes lose sight of him, but he never gets much further than the airport, and we always find him back at his hotel room eventually. He can't seem to go either forward or backward. As for Audrey, well she literally loses her entire identity in the second half, and becomes nothing more than she experiences as a sparrow. Her romantic and financial problems are entirely forgotten.

Now, for Augé, non-place is not a derogatory term, just a descriptive one. For many modern (critical) globalization scholars though, it is a term which has negative connotations. After all, if in a non-place you only experience stuff as customer, that means that you only matter as a consumer. Which means that it are spaces where capitalism can exert its full power. Considering many modern globalization scholars are Marxist scholars, they consequently believe these non-places suck. Ferran clearly believes so too. In nearly ever shot we see famous corporate brands, their logos and their slogans. Ferran also constantly underlines the irony between these slogans and the people around them. Most slogans convey a message about going forward, or about movement, while most people we meet seem to be stuck.

The power of capitalism is also visible around airports, because at airports class differences are emphasized as the following quote by scholar Matthew Sparke exemplifies: "Club-class passengers still move with significant speed in the comfy cosmopolitan circuits created by international conference trips, international tourism and international family get-togethers. For the world's working classes and for those subject to security risk codification, by contrast, being in the kinetic underclass has altogether more oppressive and more unpredictable outcomes, including, not least of all, much more volatile mixes of movement and immobility. The experience of immobility in these cases means something entirely different to the petty class resentments that come with seeing business suits and Lexus cars speed by in NEXUS lanes". This is by the way a quote from my master thesis, so you can see why I go on about this so much. I wish I saw Bird People when I was writing it, because the film is basically a visual version of one of my chapters. And yes, Ferran does also 'visualize' Sparke's quote. From the beginning of the film on she clearly differentiates between the luxurious lives of the hotel/airport consumers and the tough conditions in which the personnel lives and works. In one of the more ironic scenes of the movie we see that the well-groomed hotel receptionist doesn't have a home. He lives in his car. And it's certainly not a coincidence that he is not of French ethnicity. 

Ferran is lastly also interested in how modern technology is affecting our lives and how it compresses time and space. This can be seen in the context of Manuel Castells' ideas on the network economy and his concepts of timeless time and the space of flows. Ferran's use of clocks, and how she constantly reminds of how much time has passed between scenes is very interesting in this regard. She does all this in a very clever way. If nothing else this film shows that Ferran has a very great eye for framing shots. You don't necessarily need to care/know much about globalization theory to enjoy it. It can also be enjoyed simply because it is a great achievement in visual storytelling.