SERENITY...

“Surely we have a responsibility to leave for future generations a planet that is healthy and habitable by all species” - Sir David Attenborough

The prompt from “Poets and Storytellers United” this week is to write something about “something with both spooky and summery themes”. I am watching with horror the terrible Summer wildfires in Europe, the worsening situation in Israel/Gaza, the ongoing war in Ukraine. I see the world leaders of many countries blithely following a path of totalitarianism and self-interest, ignoring a looming climate catastrophe and a path leading to more warfare… I look at the increasing destruction of world wilderness areas, the effects of our pollution, and our thoughtless use of natural resources, and yes, I am spooked by all this…

Serenity...

The news is bleak, the world is marred,
We live in fear, our lives are scarred.
Our leaders crazy, and the people crazed
Crime, greed and murder, society’s razed.

The planet’s suffering, the climate’s changed
Animals dying, nature’s deranged.
Fires are raging, floods drowning each city,
While nature’s turned on us with no pity.

All that I wish for is peace, serenity,
And all I get is conflict, obscenity.
All that I need is a home and love,
And what I get is bombs from above.
Oh, please, give me serenity!

Oceans are poisoned, rivers polluted,
Species extinct, resources looted;
The air is toxic, our water’s blighted
The people uncaring, deeply benighted.

The threat of war, total destruction,
The earth beset by an evil fluxion;
We dread the worse but choose inaction
It’s time to shake off vapid abstraction.

All that I wish for is peace and quiet,
And all I get is conflict, evil, riot.
All that I need is care, affection
And what I get is scorn, rejection.
Oh, please, no more disquiet!

All that I wish for is peace, serenity,
Give me true justice, give me lenity…
Oh, please, give me serenity!

This poem is set to music, and you can find all references to my music in my “Otidorchestre” channel, or listen to it on YouTube,  Spotify,  Amazon, Deezer, Flo, Pandora, and other music sharing sites.

Please note that the song has been submitted to music sharing sites, but there is a variable period of delay until the song is publicly released. YouTube is generally the most prompt.

MOVIE MONDAY - ORPHAN BLACK

“Twins have a special bond. They feel safer with each other than with their peers.” - Jeanne Phillips

We are watching the 2013 TV Series “Orphan Black” created by John Fawcett and Graeme Manson, and starring Tatiana Maslany, Dylan Bruce and Jordan Gavaris. It is a Canadian science fiction thriller and focusses on human cloning. The series raises issues about the moral and ethical implications of human cloning, and its effect on issues of personal identity.

The plot centres on Sarah Manning (Maslany), who is an orphan, an outsider and street-wise grifter. After witnessing the suicide of a woman who seems to be her twin, Sarah assumes the stranger’s identity. Sarah wants to clean out the dead woman’s savings, but instead Sarah is thrust into a deadly mystery as she realises the unbelievable truth: She and the dead woman are clones. Sarah searches for answers that will help her survive, and she discovers that there are plenty more women like her out there – all genetically identical individuals who were planted in unsuspecting birth parents and nurtured in completely different circumstances. With no idea who created the clones, she’ll need to discover the reason in a hurry as an assassin is killing them one by one. Her foster brother Felix Dawkins (Gavaris), an eccentric, gay, over-the-top, artist helps Sarah in her quest for the truth.

After watching the first few episodes we were hooked. The series is well-written, well-produced, with extremely good acting and direction and a perfect blend of mystery, comedy, drama, science fiction and poignancy. Tatiana Maslany is amazing in her depiction of the clones, each of which has her own personality, quirks and mannerisms. Jordan Gavaris does a great job in depicting the unconventional Felix, but so often provides comic relief, making the sometimes “heavy” plot roll along. Maria Doyle Kennedy who plays Sarah’s foster mother does a great job with a character that hides many surprises.

We are up to Season 3 at the moment and still enjoying it immensely. The series received generally favourable reviews, with the first season scoring a 73 out of 100 on Metacritic; season 2 scoring a 79 out of 100; season 3 scoring 70 out of 100; and season 4 has a score of 80 out of 100. The fifth and final season will be aired in 2017 and I look forward to watching this series to the end. I am sure it will not disappoint.

POETS UNITED - NEUTRALITY

“The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.” - Dante Alighieri

The mid-week motif at Poets United this week is “Neutrality/Objectivity”. The challenge is to: “Create a new poem that explores one instance of neutrality or objectivity. Try NOT to be either neutral or objective.”

Here is mine:

The Sick Planet

No sense in sitting on the fence,

On this issue, nobody should be neutral.

The earth has need of us, now – 

There’s no time left to postpone decisions

That already should have been made.

No point in talking of superficial changes,

Shallow beautification is not the target;

Applying stop-gap measures, blindly

Will only cause problems to escalate.

Rebirth needs effort, pain and many sacrifices.

Let our inspiration be a new world

Rid of its poisons by audacious strategies.

Let the cathartic processes be drastic, let us renew,

Revive nature, rejuvenate the ailing planet,

Let’s give our children back their future.

POETS UNITED - ORGANIC

“Why, for example, should a group of simple, stable compounds of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen struggle for billions of years to organise themselves into a professor of chemistry? What’s the motive?” - Robert M. Pirsig

The theme for this week’s Poets United midweek motif is “Organic”. I have chosen the original chemical meaning of the term:
Organic: Chemistry - Relating to or denoting compounds containing carbon (other than simple binary compounds and salts) and chiefly or ultimately of biological origin [compare with inorganic].

Organic

Carbon is the backbone

Onto which latches ample hydrogen,

With oxygen here and there,

Scant nitrogen, sulphur, phosphorus.

Organic – the chemistry of life,

Its complex macromolecules

Aggregating with endless variety,

Forming viscid globules, chains, nets…

Organic is so weak, so vulnerable,

Compared to say, silica:

Quartz crystal tough, transparent, sharp

And so simply inorganic.

And as the atoms whirl in space

And collide and exchange energies

Forming bonds, cohering, sharing electrons,

And reach more stable states,

How does the fragile organic

Form such perilous unions

And dangerous aggregations

As the murderous human?

   More toxic than arsenic,

   More harmful than uranium,

   More caustic than hydrofluoric acid,

   More damaging than inorganic mercury?

POETS UNITED - CLIMATE

“Climate change is happening, humans are causing it, and I think this is perhaps the most serious environmental issue facing us.” - Bill Nye

For its Midweek Motif, Poets United has set the theme of “Climate”. My poem below:

Climate

The Earth shakes, shudders, sick

Covered in dark pall of smoke

Lost in hopeless contemplation

Of an uncertain future.

The moon looks on

And mirrors her sister’s fate

As stars impassively

Witness the decadence.

The Earth dejected, weeps

Black tears; coughs up polluted phlegm

Regurgitates poisoned food

And dies an ever-quickening death.

The oceans froth and spew up

Choking fish, dead algae,

Mercury-tainted jellyfish,

Suicidal whales by the score.

The Earth despairs, breeding

Sterile offspring, mutated monsters,

Dead plants, addled eggs,

Species driven to extinction.

The air is charred, ice melts,

Cyclones, bushfires, earthquakes

Vie with Tsunamis and errant climate

As to which will seal our fate.

The Earth remembers, wistful,

Past springs, all green and flowery;

Summers golden with ripening grain,

Autumns replete with bountiful harvest.

The Earth recalls, regretful,

A million birdsongs, playful fish,

Pure rain and limpid waters, 

With winters when snow was still white.

HIROSHIMA DAY 2015

“Japan learned from the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that the tragedy wrought by nuclear weapons must never be repeated and that humanity and nuclear weapons cannot coexist.” - Daisaku Ikeda

In August 1945, during the final stage of the Second World War, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The two bombings, which killed at least 129,000 people, remain the only use of nuclear weapons for warfare in history. As the war entered its sixth and final year, the Allies had begun to prepare for what was anticipated to be a very costly invasion of the Japanese mainland. This was preceded by an immensely destructive firebombing campaign that obliterated many Japanese cities.

The war in Europe had concluded when Nazi Germany signed its instrument of surrender on May 8, 1945, but with the Japanese refusal to accept the Allies’ demands for unconditional surrender, the Pacific War dragged on. Together with the United Kingdom and China, the United States called for the unconditional surrender of the Japanese armed forces in the Potsdam Declaration on July 26, 1945; this was buttressed with the threat of “prompt and utter destruction”.

By August 1945, the Allied “Manhattan Project” had successfully detonated an atomic device in the New Mexico desert and subsequently produced atomic weapons based on two alternate designs. The 509th Composite Group of the U.S. Army Air Forces was equipped with the specialised Silverplate version of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress, that could deliver them from Tinian in the Mariana Islands. A uranium gun-type atomic bomb (Little Boy) was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, followed by a plutonium implosion-type bomb (Fat Man) on the city of Nagasaki on August 9.

Little Boy exploded 2,000 feet above Hiroshima in a blast equal to 12-15,000 tons of TNT, destroying five square miles of the city. Within the first two to four months of the bombings, the acute effects of the atomic bombings killed 90,000–166,000 people in Hiroshima and 39,000–80,000 in Nagasaki; roughly half of the deaths in each city occurred on the first day. During the following months, large numbers died from the effect of burns, radiation sickness, and other injuries, compounded by illness and malnutrition. In both cities, most of the dead were civilians, although Hiroshima had a sizable military garrison. On August 15, just days after the bombing of Nagasaki and the Soviet Union's declaration of war, Japan announced its surrender to the Allies. On September 2, it signed the instrument of surrender, effectively ending World War II. The role of the bombings in Japan’s surrender and their ethical justification are still debated.

In Japan, the survivors of the bombings are called hibakusha (“explosion-affected people”). The shock and great suffering in the wake of the bombings caused Japan to seek the abolition of nuclear weapons from the world ever since, putting in place one of the world’s most committed and extensive non-nuclear policies. More than 400,000 hibakusha (258,310 in Hiroshima and 145,984 in Nagasaki) are recorded in Japan.

This is a day to:

• Remember those who died and were wounded by the bombing of Hiroshima

• Remember all people of every nation who died and were wounded during World War II

• Assert the right of everyone on earth to live a life free from the fear of war

• Work for a world free from nuclear weapons

• Work to adopt peaceful use of nuclear power.

MUSIC SATURDAY - GREEK ELEGY

Μοναχή το δρόμο επήρες,

εξανάλθες μοναχή.

δεν είν’ εύκολες οι θύρες,

εάν η χρεία τες κουρταλεί.

Άλλος σου έκλαψε εις τα στήθια,

Αλλ’ ανάσαση καμιά.

Άλλος σου έταξε βοήθεια

και σε γέλασε φριχτά.

Alone you went on the road,

And you came back alone.

Doors don’t open easily

When need knocks on them.

Someone cried on your breast

But no relief was forthcoming.

Someone else promised to help you

But betrayed you terribly.

                  From “Hymn to Liberty” by Dionysios Solomós

Alexis Tsipras, Greece’s left wing prime minister has called a referendum on the 5th of July for Greek voters to decide whether to accept a bailout deal offered by international creditors. The PM made it clear he was against the “unbearable” bailout plan, which would further demoralise the already wretched populace and worsen the economic crisis faced by the country.

Greek Parliament is debating whether to ratify the vote, and internal bickering divides further the destabilised political scene. Eurozone finance ministers are meeting to discuss the crisis, and to decide whether to give Greece an extension of the bailout until after the vote. The current bailout expires on Tuesday, the same day Greece’s IMF debt is due. It is unclear what would happen if Greece does not get a temporary extension. Without a deal on the bailout, there are fears Greece’s economy could collapse.

Iceland’s debt default and financial crisis of 2008-11 comes to mind. The country faced difficulties after it defaulted its debts, but the world did not end and recovery occurred. Greece can perhaps do the same, if only all Greeks united and presented a strong, single voice of opposition to untenable and harsh economic conditions imposed by the external bodies (both European and International).

Aptly then today for Music Saturday, some music by a Greek Woman composer, Eleni Karaindrou. Eleni Karaindrou (Greek: Ελένη Καραΐνδρου; born 1941) is a Greek composer, born in the village of Teichio in Phocis, Central Greece, on November 25, 1941. She is best known for scoring the films of Greek director Theo Angelopoulos.

When she was eight, Karaindrou moved with her family to Athens, and she subsequently studied piano and theory at the Hellenic Conservatory. She also attended history and archaeology classes at the university. With the advent of the Greek military junta (in power 1967–1974) she moved to Paris in 1967, where she studied Ethnomusicology and Orchestration, and improvised with Jazz musicians. Then she began to compose popular songs.

In 1974 she returned to Athens where she established a laboratory for traditional instruments and collaborated with the department of Ethnomusicology of the National Radio. In 1976 she collaborated with ECM Records, and appreciated the creative freedom offered by the label. This was a period of high productivity for her; she was also introduced to music for the theatre and the cinema.

Karaindrou has stated that her own personal style emerged in working on soundtracks, and that the relationship between images and movements created a new space for her to express emotions. Her first soundtrack album was released in 1979 for the movie “Periplanisi” by Hristoforos Hristofis. In 1982 she won an award at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival and was noticed by Theo Angelopoulos, who was serving as president of the jury. Karaindrou collaborated with Angelopoulos on his last eight films, over the period 1984 to 2008.

Karaindrou is very prolific. By 2008 she had composed music for 18 full-length movies, 35 theatrical productions and 11 TV series and television movies. Among the screen directors she has worked with are Chris Marker, Jules Dassin and Margarethe von Trotta. In 1992 she received the Premio Fellini award.

POETS UNITED - EARTH DAY

“We owe it to ourselves and to the next generation to conserve the environment so that we can bequeath our children a sustainable world that benefits all.” - Wangari Maathai

This is the first time I am joining Poets United upon Mary’s invitation (thank you, Mary!). The theme this Wednesday is very aptly, Earth Day, which we have just marked off our calendar on April 22.

The destruction of the environment, increasing pollution, nuclear leaks, fallout, mutants and destruction of our planet are all issues that are now commonplace. This poem echoes what is illustrated: A nightmare where in the grey-blue skies and sea hang over the smoking cooling towers of the nuclear power plant and the metal derricks of rampant technological progress. The low-hanging deleterious smog makes of the winged elephant an evil portent of what is to come unless we change…

When Elephants will Fly

My genome hurts,

The water burns,

And air corrodes my tissues.

My body shrieks,

Each cell distraught,

As sea turns to acid, biting into bony beach.

My flesh creeps,

And cancers rage,

The wars within diminishing me.

My eyes extinguished,

My touch long-lost,

With oily residue polluting my pores.

Plutonium coats the sand, and cobalt paints the sky;

Iodine seas scintillate and thorium pebbles glow.

Each rasping breath begins a murderous clone of cells within me,

Rampant mutations that make me a freak in a sideshow.

My back sprouts wings,

My bones dissolve,

And thick skin turns to mush.

My life shortens,

My brain is porous

As radioactivity punctures me.

My world is ending,

My dreams defiled

The downfall of my species imminent.

My tribe extinct,

My peers unrecognisable

In monstrous transformations.

Uranium stars and curium moon that poisonously glow,

A rapidly burning palladium sun that turns all to ash.

Each step a torture, each touch an agony,

Liberation only in death, when elephants will fly.

LITERARY TUESDAY - THE DREAM OF SCIPIO

“Do not applaud me. It is not I who speaks to you, but history which speaks through my mouth.” - Fustel de Coulanges

Do you ever feel as though the whole world is crumbling around you? Do you see the news on TV and wonder how long this current situation can last before we all perish? That we are at point in history where something momentous and disastrous is waiting to happen? A crisis, a turning point where the slightest ill-considered action of our leaders will bring upon us a doom worse than that experienced before by our forebears? If so, you are not alone, there are others around the world who are watching the current state of the world and feel the same way.

What must have been the thoughts of the last civilised Romans as the hordes of the Barbarians were clamouring outside the gates of Rome? How did the Florentines feel when the plague was upon their city and decimated their friends and relatives? The images in the mind of the soldier in the trenches of WWI as the flashes of the bombs and deafening sounds crashed around him, and the first whiff of poison gas was smelt? The emotions of the beautiful dark-eyed woman as she was shuffled on the train bound for Mauthausen? Can they have been so different from the thoughts of the terrified people of Baghdad as the bombs exploded around them daily? The businessman who is travelling on the London underground as the special operations squad men barge in looking for suspicious packages on the train? The woman in the US hearing the report on the radio of gunmen having opened fire in a school – her own children’s school?

“Things have never been more like they are today in history.” - Dwight D. Eisenhower said and he was restating the old dictum “History repeats itself” rather prettily. I read a novel lately that takes as its premise this endless spiral of history repeating itself as it corkscrews through time. The novel is “The Dream of Scipio” (2002) by Iain Pears. It is a historical novel, but it is set in three different time periods. Periods of crisis and doom and the stories the author weaves share a common theme, and are all set in Avignon in France. There are three protagonists: A Roman nobleman, Manlius, owner of a villa in the Gaulish provinces of the Roman Empire as the barbarians are about to descend upon it; Olivier de Noyes, a poet, in the fourteenth century plague; and Julien Barneuve, a historian, under the Vichy government and the German occupation of France in the WWII. The title of the novel “The Dream of Scipio” is taken from a Neoplatonic philosophical work by Manlius (based on that by Cicero), which is read by the other two heroes later in time.

The author tells three interwoven stories that any reader knows from the start cannot have a “happy end”. All three of Pears’ heroes are doomed – they know it, we know it. That is the tragedy of their existence and as we continue to read, we come to dread our own future, as Lamartine says: “History teaches everything including the future.” The novel has as one of its major themes that of intolerance, more specifically, anti-Semitism. In all three cases, the heroes’ abstract interest in maintaining the culture around them is counterpointed by a personal desire to protect a Jewish woman close to their hearts.

“Culture and civilisation,” Pears says, “is equivalent to breadth of knowledge, tolerance and understanding of others, dissimilar to oneself.” This is a novel that despite its obvious literary merit, historical allusions, philosophical questioning about what is culture and how we maintain our civilised state in the midst of adversity, is also one that is easy to read and enjoyable as a work of fiction should be. It is a novel of ideas, philosophical ponderings, a treatise on history but also a moving love story that repeats itself three times in the span of the 1500 years that the novel encompasses.

“Are you civilised if you read the right books,” Manlius asks himself, “yet stand by while your neighbours are massacred?”  This sentence in the book touched me greatly – as I felt it was addressed to me personally. It is not enough to think rightly, be well read and be civilised by reading the “right” books. One’s moral obligation is to also align oneself on the side of right as dictated by ethical benchmarks drawn by one’s ideas and ideals, and make a stand, act – whatever the price may be… A fascinating book that makes one think and feel, a book of great poignancy and an extended deliberation of how one resolves ethical conflicts, emotional commitments, and the quest for the true meaning of human life. A complex but lucid book by a highly civilised and literate author.

MOVIE MONDAY - NOAH

“Often it does seem such a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat.” - Mark Twain

We watched Darren Aronofsky’s 2014 film “Noah” at the weekend. It was based on a screenplay by Darren Aronofsky and Ari Handel, and starred Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Anthony Hopkins, Ray Winstone, Emma Watson, and Logan Lerman. Aronofsky is no novice to film-making, he has directed a good lot of movies, just to remind you: “Black Swan” (2010); “The Wrestler” (2008); “The Fountain” (2006); “Requiem for a Dream” (2000) and “Pi” (1998). Some of these were very good, however, I am afraid “Noah” falls into the dud category…

The film was controversial and many people became furious as it was not in line with Biblical teaching and there were numerous discussions on religious grounds, with many objections raised to the film bandying about with the word of God. For me more objectionable was the terrible mish-mash of the story with fragments all strewn together to try and make of it something that would succeed at the box-office. There was something there regarding the environment and vegetarianism, violence and pacifism, religion and obeying God, but there was also a lot about fanaticism and downright madness…

Noah is portrayed as a religious nut who is dooming a world of men to death because of something he believes God communicated to him in a dream. Noah becomes obsessed with saving all of the animals and of ending man’s time on Earth. He sits and watches many terrible things happen and then he also commits terrible acts simply because he wants mankind’s time to end on earth. This is surely something that must have rankled greatly with the believers of biblical teachings as divine truth.

The script is loaded with ridiculous baggage, not the least of which is the bad guy Tubal-Cain and the action-hero petrified disobedient giant angels turned into good guys. There were battle and action sequences to please the young crowd who expects them and there was populist environmental messages that were thought would please the greenie organic crowd that loves animals and thinks “meat is murder”.

The acting is annoyingly “straight” and it’s not only Ham that hams his part up (sorry, pun intended!). The CGI special effects look fake and the direction is turgid. Did I mention that we did not like this film? However, the movie had a budget of $125 million and made $359 million. I guess that means there was a profit. If it were a better film, I am sure that the profit would have been double or triple that. Noah’s story is a vivid episode of the Old Testament and most cultures have a deluge myth, beginning with the Mesopotamians, the Ancient Greeks and Native Americans. This indicates the universal appeal such a story has and how much more popular a well-made such modern film would have been.

This was a portmanteau movie designed to cash in on as much as possible of the public’s irrational viewing demands. It lacked humour, although it scored high on the ridiculometer. It lacked piety although it abounded on religiosity. It lacked good acting and good direction, although it had good actors and a competent director. It wasted a couple of our hours and entertainment it certainly wasn’t…

POETRY JAM - THE SEA

“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide.” - Albert Camus

‘The Sea’ is this week’s prompt at Poetry Jam and all who take up the challenge offer a poem. Here is mine:

*************************

Evening Promenade

Twilight: Shadows lengthen,

While sunset dyes all in orange mellowness.

Whispers of night advancing –

Illusions rustling by,

Taking advantage of the failing light.

The usual sounds of evening

Quietly merge with the silence

Which more befits the mystery of night.

Cheated even by hope, and disillusioned

You walk slowly towards the sea.

The sun vanishes and only a faint afterglow

Reflects itself on shifting waters

Of a duplicitous sea.

Dreams, fantasies, visions,

Distortions of reality, pass you by…

And then it is all so easy:

It’s all a dream, all so unreal in any case –

But then what’s real you ask?

You walk into the sea

And let the waves take you into their embrace.

You breathe in, but cool, fresh, living

Salty water suffocates your scream,

Filling your lungs with saline

Giving you joy, confusion, pain,

And then, thankfully, oblivion.

The illustration is an underwater sculpture by artist JasondeCaires Taylor.

MOVIE MONDAY - CLAUDE LELOUCH

“Am I a man dreaming I am a butterfly, or am I butterfly dreaming I am a man?” – Zhuangzi (Chuang-tzu)

I am considering the films of French Director Claude Lelouch for this Movie Monday. This was sparked off by watching two of his movies lately. One I had not seen before “And Now Ladies and Gentlemen” (2002), which was a rather tame romantic/adventure story a pleasant enough, inoffensive, hodge-podge potboiler that I wouldn’t recommend too highly; and “Viva La Vie!” (Long Live Life! 1984) that I had watched in 1984 and then again yesterday afternoon on DVD. It is the latter film that I shall review, although with caution…

Claude Lelouch was born on October 30th, 1937 in Paris, France, the son of an Algerian-Jewish confectioner. He began his career in the mid-1950s, making his first short documentary films and billing himself as a “cinereporter”. In 1960, he formed “Les Films 13 Productions”, where he produced over two hundred “Scopiotones” (short musical films designed for jukebox use), much like the “Soundies” made in the USA in the 1940s and 1950s.

Lelouch produced, directed, wrote and acted in his first full length film, “The Right of Man”, in 1960. However, his fame was assured with his first international hit, “Un Homme et Une Femme” (A Man and a Woman, 1966), which captivated audiences with its simple plot, its warmth and sympathetic treatment of a contemporary topic. The film caused the critics dismay as they tried to find hidden meaning in this rather simple, old-fashioned romance. When for example, Lelouch was asked for the subtextual purpose of shifting between black-and-white and colour in some scenes of the film, he explained that he’d run out of money towards the end of production and couldn’t afford colour film stock…

When “A Man and a Woman” won a Palm d'Or at Cannes and a Grand Prix award, Lelouch was briefly the most popular and influential director in Europe. His subsequent films dealt often with the relationship between sex and crime, or sex and politics, or crime and politics. This made him a perfect commercial filmmaker and his box office successes attested to the fact. In the 1970s and 1980s, Lelouch seemed to run out of ideas and attempted to repeat his past successes. Films like “And Now My Love” (1974), “Another Man, Another Chance” (1977), “Live for Life” (1984) and “A Man and a Woman 10 Years Later” (1986) were variations of “A Man and a Woman”.

And now to the film “Viva La Vie!” (1984). This is very much an 80s film with an emphasis on the threat of nuclear war. The commencing sequence shows people running panic-stricken towards nuclear fallout shelters in a generic megalopolis. Claude Lelouch is then being interviewed on radio, the director of the film pleads with viewers not to disclose the plot of the movie after leaving the projection room. This is a very lame device calculated to increase controversy surrounding the movie and get more people to go watch it, hopefully increasing takings at the box-office.

The film is uncharacteristic of Lelouch, best classed as belonging to the thriller/science fiction genre. Lelouch himself claims that the movie is essentially a story revolving around the relationship of a man and a woman, thus making even this film quite lelouchian, according to the director himself. I’ll try not to give too much away, in my outline of the plot (succumbing to M. Lelouch’s plea), even though this would suggest that the film has more substance than it does – it hasn’t.

During a period of international tension and crisis amongst the nuclear powers of the world, a very rich, successful businessman and a budding actress vanish at precisely the same time and in similar circumstances. Three days later they reappear, remembering nothing of their experience, but apparently traumatised. After they are admitted to hospital, they vanish again, only to reappear in the Sahara Desert a few days later with identical curious wounds and stitches on their head and with a message of peace and tolerance. Who is sending the message? What is it all about? What is real and what is a dream? Who is who and what is the relationship between the people we are shown?

SIGNS OF THE TIMES

“Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind.” - John F. Kennedy

I must say that current events lately have put me in rather pessimistic mood. The continuing bizarre events and announcements from North Korea regarding bombing the White House with a nuclear bomb, the continuing problems in Iraq and the declaration of a Caliphate, the situation in Syria, with decapitations and hundreds of dead daily, the unrelenting and mounting open warfare and increasing instability in Israel between Palestinians and the Jews, the Ukrainian civil war, etc, etc…

No wonder that my poor addled brain gave up trying to come up with some explanation for all this. Some attempt at looking at the past, divining the future and seeing why all this is happening in the here and now, proved fruitless. Like Helen Keller, “I do not want the peace which passeth understanding, I want the understanding which bringeth peace.”  A poem was all I could come up with...

Explanation

It’s all because:

There is no grain of truth

From which to grind the flour of concord,

No meal of happiness from which to bake a loaf of peace.

The water’s brackish so the thirst of knowledge won’t be quenched,

The mind athirst shall drink of bile, vinegar and blood,

The soul will sour, the heart will parch.

There is no freedom

From which to mould our dreams,

No images of hope to take delight in.

The food of love is lacking, for the birds are long now silent,

The music of the singing blood hushed long ago.

Spleen is with bitterness replete, brain rots,

And only teeth and nails still function faultlessly,

Ready to slash and bite ideals,

Poised to shred beliefs and gouge out seeds of dreams.