#pushing through the art block and year end malaise

[digitaldoeslmk]

[yehet-me-up]

Playing Forward

Pairing: JB/Im Jaebum x Reader (female)

Word Count: 3,348

Rating: (F) for fluff

Summary: College!AU, Jock!AU. After a flying soccer ball knocks you over on your morning run, the player behind it aims for your heart as well.

Part 1 of the GOT7 colors series of oneshots! 🌈 Color: Green.

Music pounds in your ears as you sprint around the track, furiously swinging your arms. Legs straining, you round the turn, approaching the invisible spot on the track you’d marked as your starting place. The smooth sounds of James Blake carry through the headphones you wear, so incongruous with the frantic motion of your body as you run.

Ten more strides to the finish. Five. Three, two, one. You cross the imaginary finish line and stutter to a stop, breathing in deeply as you try to slow your heart rate and catch your breath. Quickly pulling your arm up to look at your Fitbit, you check the time.

One mile - nine minutes, seventeen seconds. You huff out a laugh, dropping your hand to your waist as you slowly start your cool down lap around the track. It’s not as fast as you like, but you’re pleased at the progress anyway. The endorphins flowing through you make you almost giddy with happiness, enjoying the exercise that’s slowly becoming a regular part of your morning routine.

Finally looking up from the track, you take in the scenery. The college’s sports field is lit by the early Friday morning sun. The dew on the track and the field it encircles is evaporating, creating little rainbows in the air. The rich green of the turf field shines, still damp from the heavy rain last night. The stadium, usually packed on busy game nights, is quiet save for a few athletes running up and down the stairs. At least, you assume it’s normally packed; you’ve never been inside for a game before. You’ve only heard the loud cheering from within on your way back to your dorm from late nights in the research lab.

Your breathing slows as you come around the second bend, sighing with pleasure at the satisfying feeling of exertion in your limbs. After a long first month of classes, labs, and hours spent at your internship, you began pushing yourself to get out in the mornings to run. Or at least, to jog. Anything to get your tired body moving, to give your mind a break from the busyness of your junior year and to ward off the malaise that inevitably came when fall made the sun rise later and set earlier.

After a lap of easy walking you pick up the pace, settling into an steady jog, planning to do a gentle mile and a half or so before heading back to the dorm to wash up before your first class. There’s a few other runners out on the track with you this morning. A pair of girls in sweatpants and messy buns, laughing together as they jog, and a few older runners, probably professors or grad students.

A group of men are making their way to the middle of the field, carrying mesh bags of soccer balls. They stretch and start doing warm up drills, you notice in your peripheral vision as you jog. They are all fit and good looking in that clean-cut, All-American way, joking with one another as they practice. They wear similar outfits; slim fitting track pants or purple and gold shorts, white tank tops or black sleeveless shirts with slits under the arms, revealing large swaths of toned muscle.

The song in your headphones switches up to an energetic techno track and you pick up your stride. A few minutes later as you’re winding down your workout, an electronic beep comes through the headphones and you pull out your phone, groaning when you see it only has 3% battery life left. You must have forgotten to charge it when you passed out after coming home last night from a study session.

You hear a muffled cry from the direction of the field, a raised voice above the music in your ears. You turn your head quickly to find the source of the commotion. In the seconds between noticing the soccer ball flying at you and it hitting you squarely in the chest you desperately try to turn out of the way. But it moves too fast for you to get very far and with a whoosh of air out of your lungs you fall towards the ground.

You wince as your butt hits the track, jarring you. Your headphones pop out of your ears as your phone falls out of your pocket and off to the side. You catch yourself on your elbows, thinking in a rush that you’re grateful you wore the long-sleeved exercise shirt today.

Dazed, you sit there for a moment, shaking your head. You bend forward, resting your arms on your knees, stretching the muscles, confirming that you’re unharmed. Bruised maybe, and you’re sure that your ass it going to hurt tomorrow, but thankfully not injured. Male voices are calling out from the field. A chorus of “dude, what was that aim?” and “you’re supposed to hit on girls, not actually hit them with stuff.”

Looking up you see one of the players sprinting toward you, the rest of the team paused in their scrimmage behind him. As he approaches, an apologetic look on his handsome face, you can’t help but notice his body. Toned muscles strain through the thin fabric of the exercise pants he wears. Long, lean sides and muscular arms exposed by the slits in his shirt. His black hair is heavy with sweat, brushing back and forth across his forehead as he runs toward you.

Even if you weren’t reeling from your fall, you think to yourself that you might be stunned just from how attractive he is.

He reaches you and crouches down next to you, eyes roaming your body, trying to assess the damage. “I am so sorry,” he starts emphatically, his dark eyes fixed on yours, his breathing still rapid from the game he’d been playing. “I blocked the ball to the side and it hit my foot at an odd angle. I swear it wasn’t intentional. Are you all right?” he asks anxiously.

You nod. “I’m fine. I just wasn’t prepared to encounter any flying objects on my morning run,” you say, teasing.  

“You sure you’re all right?” he presses, standing up and holding out his hands to help you up. 

You reassure him that you’re just fine, slipping your hands into his larger, rougher ones and letting him pull you up. You’re both still breathing deeply, and you can feel the heat radiating off his body at his close proximity. In the morning light his brown eyes take on an almost amber tone, striking as they meet yours.

After a moment he breaks the silence. “Let me make it up to you. Can I buy you coffee sometime?” he asks rapidly, looking hopeful. 

If he was just being polite, you would have waved him off, saying not to worry about it. But there’s an appraising look in his eyes as he takes in your body clad in your close-fitting workout clothes, pausing for a beat on your breasts, your legs. You can’t deny you’re attracted to him, and it has been forever since you made time to go on a date.

You nod. “All right, that sounds fair,” you say, smirking at him. He pats his pockets, as if trying to find his phone. With a look back at the distant end of the field you see a haphazard pile of bags and jackets. He looks down and finds your phone on the ground, and bends to pick it up. “How about I give you my number?” he says handing it to you.

“Sounds good,” you say and hit the button to unlock your phone, but it does nothing. Pursuing your lips you try again, confused that it’s not lighting up. For a moment you worry that the fall broke your phone, but then you remember that the battery was almost out a few minutes ago. “Shoot, my battery’s dead,” you say, groaning and shake your head.

“How about we pick a time and a place to meet,” he offers. “Let’s go old school,” he says with a lopsided, boyish grin.

“Hmm… how about Parnassus Café at ten on Sunday?” you suggest, naming your favorite little coffee shop on campus, hidden in the basement of the art building.

“Perfect. I’ll be there. What do you take?” he asks. His teammates start calling out from behind him, shouting sarcastic versions of Get a room already! and he turns and holds up a finger, telling them he needs another minute.

“Just a chai tea latte for me,” you say, turning to begin the walk back to your dorm room. “See you Sunday, champ.”

“See you then, gorgeous,” he says with a wink, and starts running back to the scrimmage.

You drag yourself out of bed Sunday morning, yawning as you go about your morning routine. The dorm is quiet as it only is on Sunday mornings, when everyone is wrapped up in bed, sleeping off the night’s activities or catching up on sleep. You stand in front of your closet, debating. Finally you settle on slim fitting jeans, a black v-neck shirt, and your favorite olive green jacket with a faux fur hood. Casual, yet flattering. You gather your hair up into a low ponytail and swipe on some light mascara.

As you approach Parnassus you see a man standing out front, holding two to-go cups. He’s wearing a cozy-looking blue sweater, his dark hair brushed back from his face; stylish black rimmed glasses perch on his nose. With a start you realize it’s the soccer stud. He looks so different off the field you hardly recognized him. He’s just as handsome as he was yesterday, only with a completely different vibe. When he notices you standing there his face cracks into a wide grin.

“Hey there, gorgeous,” he says and hands you the cup. You smile at the nickname.

“Hey there yourself, champ,” you reply, wrapping your hands around the warm cup.

“Well, thanks for the coffee. See you later,” you say brightly and turn to leave. A shocked expression comes across his face and you smother a giggle.

“Wait,” he says, reaching over to put a gentle hand on your arm. “You’re not going to even give me a chance?” he asks, his face light with suppressed laughter.

“Ohhh, you actually wanted to hang out?” you say, grinning, drawing out the words. He lets out a laugh, a pleasant tenor sound, and you laugh with him.

“Yes, I do,” he says, returning his gaze to yours, his expression turning intent.

You duck your head for a moment, pleasure coursing through your body at his obvious interest in you. You would have pegged him to be the “hit it and quit it” kind of jock, but you’re pleasantly surprised. 

“So, want to take a walk through the quad?” you ask, taking a sip of your delicious drink.

“Sound perfect,” he says, and he motions you forward ahead of him as you take the stairs back to ground level.

The campus is gorgeous in the fall, the plentiful trees on campus turning vibrant shades of red and yellow. When you exit the building he falls into step beside you, staying close. “So, I take it you’re on the soccer team?” you ask.

“Yeah, it’s my fourth year. I’m a senior,” he replies. “I play forward,” he says with a smirk.

“So I’ve noticed,” you joke with a wry grin.

He gives you a playful wink as you take the steps down into the quad, absent of it’s usual crowds of students this early in the morning. You fall into an easy back-and-forth of conversation with him. He tells you about the soccer team and you tell him about what motivated you to start running. He asks about your major and you tell him about what got you started on your Biology degree, and your desire to become a medical researcher.

“Going to save the world, huh?” he jokes, but his interest is obviously peaked. 

You turn the question back on him, and find out he’s a sustainable design major, interested in working in city planning to come up with affordable housing solutions. He speaks passionately about an internship he did freshman year that sparked his passion to create safe, accessible housing available to all. His soccer scholarship keeps him busy between classes and volunteering, but he says he loves the challenge.

“Who’s trying to save the world now?” you tease, even as you’re drawn in by his earnestness, and the cute way he uses his hands to emphasize his points.

As you walk laps around the large paved quad you learn that you share an interest in British comedy films and street tacos, and that he’s good friends with one of your labmates this semester. He launches off on a long story of the time that they almost got arrested together in high school, trying to figure out how to rig up a fireworks display for their friend’s sister who was stuck at home sick on the 4th of July. That in turn makes you recount a hilarious experiment a few weeks ago where the guy in question had slipped in a dissection and spilled squid samples all over the lab floor.

Eventually your rumbling stomach makes you realize it’s lunch time. Looking at your watch you’re bewildered by the fact that almost two hours have already passed; it hasn’t felt like more than fifteen minutes. You want to keep talking with him and venture a guess he’d like to as well. 

“So, how about we get lunch? This time it’s on me,” you ask, carefully watching his face for any sign that he wants to leave.

“Excellent idea,” he replies easily. “I know just the place.” 

You walk a winding route to the small Italian restaurant on campus. Cheap, big portions, and delicious baked lasagna; the perfect place for two college students. The two of you are so lost in conversation that you hardly break the flow as you get seated, quickly scan the menu, and place your orders.

Long after you’ve eaten and the waitress has cleared your plates and run your card, you’re still talking. His easy laugh, his obvious intelligence, and his warm eyes, appreciatively watching you from behind his glasses; everything about him is drawing you in. A while later a muted buzzing sounds from his pocket. He pulls out his phone.

“Sup?” he says into the phone once he sees who is calling, hitting the speaker phone button.

A loud, urgent male voice comes out. “Dude, where the frick are you? I’ve been texting you for like, half an hour.”

He wrinkles his brow in confusion. “What do you mean? Where am I supposed to be?”

“Umm, you idiot. It’s Sunday? The game starts in half an hour and no one has seen you. Get your ass over here,” the voice insists and he checks the time on the phone. It’s 4:30. His body goes rigid with shock.

“Oh, crap. I’ll be right there,” he says and rubs a hand over his face.

“I’ll keep Sully off you, just hurry up!” the voice says and the line goes dead.

“We’ve got a game at five tonight, I guess I lost track of time,” he says, giving you a rueful smile.

“Yeah, I can’t believe how late it is already. Don’t let me keep you,” you say, grabbing your purse and quickly signing the receipt. You’re acutely aware that this date, or whatever it is, is now at the point where one of you would make the executive decision of setting up another one. But he surprises you yet again.

“Have you been to a game before? I’d love to have you there,” he says with a sweet smile.

“No, I haven’t. Are you sure? I wouldn’t want to get in your way,” you reply.

“Not at all. Besides, with you there it will give me extra incentive to show off,” he says with a wink.

“All right, then. Let’s do it,” you say, beaming at him.

He reaches out to grab your hand, moving to the door of the restaurant. You hitch your purse higher on your shoulder as the two of you take off running across campus toward the stadium.

The stands are indeed packed, as you assumed they would be. The soccer team is ranked in the top ten in the nation, according to the girl next to you. Stephanie? Melanie? You can’t quite remember her name among the several girls you were introduced to in the “friends and family” section in the front row behind the team’s bench, where your date insisted you hang out.

She’s so sweet during the game, pointing out all the players, explaining their positions. She’s dating Daniel Sullivan, Sully, the captain of the team, “He’s a senior too, like JB,” she says. When you realize she’s referring to the guy you’ve been out with all day, you laugh to yourself. In all the talking you’d done, you’d never introduced yourselves.

It’s a close game, the rival team scores a point early after a miscommunication had two defenders both tied up on the other side of the goal. In the 38th minute of the game Sully manages to get the ball into the bottom corner of the goal off a corner kick. Caught up in the excitement, you scream right along with the girl next to you, hugging her back when she wraps an arm around you.

The minutes tick down and the team calls a timeout, running over to the sidelines to huddle up and discuss. JB looks incredibly hot, you think to yourself, his shirt damp with sweat, his broad chest on display as he stands his hands on his hips. When they break the huddle you call out, “Go get ‘em, JB!” He turns to you and blows you a dramatic kiss that makes you laugh.

Thirty seconds on the clock and the ball is in play. Sully breaks away and moves up the field toward the opposing team’s goal, JB tears down the field opposite him. A pass back to the midfielder. With a quick stop and turn, JB’s past his defender, breaking toward the goal. The midfielder heaves a huge kick, sending the ball into an arch. Leaping into the air, JB whips his head to meet the ball, sending it into the top corner of the goal, just out of reach of the goalie’s hands.

The buzzer announcing the end of the game sounds, but it’s hardly heard over the cheering of the crowd. You grin as you watch him get swept up into a hug by his teammates, everyone smacking him on the back and rubbing his head. You’re pulled into another joyful hug by Melanie, you clarified her name during a snack run at halftime. After a few minutes JB turns to look at you, smiling widely, and starts running over.

He reaches you in a rush, leaning against the low dividing wall. Your hands come out to hold onto his shoulders so he doesn’t fall forward, both grinning excitedly at each other.

“Congratulations, stud,” you say cheerfully. His gaze drops to your lips and then back up to your eyes, darkening as they seem to decide on something impulsively.

His hands slide up to cup your face as he leans down to you, his eyes searching yours for any sign of objection. Your hands tighten on his shoulders and you give him a broad smile. Satisfied, he closes the distance and kisses you in earnest. 

His passion catches you off guard but you catch up quickly, burying your hands in his sweaty hair to hold onto him. You taste the sweat on him as his lips work against yours. He smiles against your lips and his eyes are bright when he pulls back, keeping you close.

“So, can I buy you dinner? It’s on me,” he says with a grin.

You nod, smiling back, and grab his jersey in one hand to drag him in for another kiss.

[chicagoindiecritics]

New from Every Movie Has a Lesson by Don Shanahan: MOVIE REVIEW: Made in Italy

(Image courtesy of IFC Films)

MADE IN ITALY— 3 STARS

Actors are often asked by the many curious people fascinated by their work where they find the inspirations for the characters they play. Dropped by talk show hosts and adoring fans alike, it’s a common question, but a welcome open-ended one. The answers are almost always a fascinating blend of intentional craftsmanship and revealed individual quirks. If you know the personal history of Liam Neeson away from his tough and towering screen personas, you will know he, and his son Micheal Richardson, did not have to dig far for their characters in Made in Italy. 

LESSON #1: THERE ISN’T A TERM FOR EVERY FAMILY DYNAMIC— “Widower” is a ready-to-assign term for a man losing his spouse. Neeson himself is one. “Orphan” is the title of a child who has lost both their parents. There isn’t, however, a label in between for a child who has only lost one of them. Count Richardson among that lot. They are sorted into the same malaise as other single-parent-led children that come from divorce or other undesirable circumstances. People will resign themselves to some shallow “at least you still have your dad” sympathy when the pain and trauma couldn’t be graver for their situations.

Take that further. What if the one parent remaining pushes away or denies the steps of healing necessary for the child? With other and lesser external influences instilling limited resilience instead of the most important source in the home, how would that kid turn out? 

That’s Jack Foster (Richardson), a struggling art gallery manager at odds with his absentee father Robert (Neeson). They lost their matriarch Rapheala many years ago in an automobile accident. At the time, Robert was a well-regarded painter who passed Jack on to boarding school, beginning the split to their present contentious alienation. The rough-hewn artist is romantic where it counts and cynical where it doesn’t. Disdain fills Jack’s thinly-veiled pleasantries around him now.

Jack is about to lose half of his gallery ownership stake in a messy divorce from his wife Ruth (Yolanda Kettle). He has a month to sort out money issues. Impatience and desperation fuel Jack’s regrettable request for help from his prickish father. His plan is to fix up and sell his mother’s former Tuscan estate to gain the necessary funds. Robert is the other half-owner this time that needs to sign off on such an asset. 

LESSON #2: QUALITY TIME THROUGH ATTRITION— At the behest of a local realtor (a curt Lindsay Duncan of About Time), a great deal of work is needed to get the place into selling shape, spit and polish the two DIY-challenged Foster men think they can do themselves on top of the home’s “great bones.” Their forced and haphazard teamwork creates butted heads, vented aggression, overdue contrition, and the most shared time they’ve had in years. More than doors are going to be unlocked and more than floorboards are going to be hammered out between the two amid the idyllic Italian cypresses.

LESSON #3: THERE IS NO TIMELINE FOR GRIEF— “You can’t remember and I can’t forget.” That line shows the divide between Robert and Jack’s different approaches to the memory of Raphaela. The son who was removed from gaining catharsis at a young age fights to remember so much that was repressed or unaddressed. Meanwhile, the father and husband desperately seeks to remove his inescapable regret and guilt. Time has not helped either man in their differing directions. Yet it’s never too late to heal and the effect multiples when they align.

If you’re going to have sunlight cauterize wounds of the heartstrings and tan the skins of sadness, it might as well be in one of the most beautiful places on the planet. Cinematographer Mike Eley (My Cousin Rachel) had the enviable job of shooting the picturesque Montalcino in all its majesty. Parallel to the angles, production designer Stevie Herbert made just enough of the beautiful ugly for mock architectural rejuvenation alongside the human project. One could call this setting a little too easy, but the scars here are not entirely superficial.

This positive and emotional journey that seemed tailor-made for this father-and-son combination was written and directed by actor James D’Arcy, known to many for Dunkirk and Cloud Atlas. Made in Italy is his feature debut in the big chair and the culmination of a passion project twelve years in the making that he intended to star in himself. As fine an actor as D’Arcy is, the pairing of the two leads feels like special cinematic providence and witnessed therapy beyond the script or cameras.

Eight and a half years ago while reviewing The Grey, this writer wondered about Liam Neeson’s acting approach in a very similar fashion to the opening paragraph of this new film’s critique. There was a fear in regards to where the Irish star called upon the inner darkness, loss, and will it took to play the bitty and angry parts he had been playing. Time has softened that edge and added silvering wisdom.

Eager audiences may relish his current typecasting of violent gruff, but they need to marvel at Liam Neeson’s capacity for softness. With Made in Italy and its occasional dalliances into comedy, the shell that comprises Neeson’s defenses sheds layers of honesty and translucent prisms to his heart. Fear is no longer in the equation and that’s a remarkable and gratifying sight to behold.

That appeal is entirely aimed at lifting up his son. He may not have anywhere near the marquee cache of his father (yet, with crossed fingers of optimism), but Micheal Richardson is the leading soul of this movie. Jack’s arc may indeed be the simpler, more outward, and more predictable one of the two men, complete with forced contrivances here and there (like a romance with a local chef portrayed by TV actress Valeria Bilello) to ensure positively-tied ribbons and bows. Still, calls of nepotism be damned, the young actor comports himself admirably generating his own empathy.

LOGO DESIGNED BY MEENTS ILLUSTRATED (#900)

Permalink

from REVIEW BLOG – Every Movie Has a Lesson https://ift.tt/2PD9NfA via IFTTT

from WordPress https://ift.tt/3imTkbL via IFTTT

[newstfionline]

Headlines

Why it pays to hire people from nontraditional backgrounds (Business Insider) Cookson Adventures is a luxury travel company run by employees who have no experience in the travel industry. But that’s how CEO Adam Sebba planned it. Bringing in people with diverse and eclectic backgrounds helps the company stand out from competitors and attract new customers, he says. Sebba also discourages his employees from attending travel trade shows; instead, they attend science lectures, film screenings, archaeological seminars and art exhibitions. “If you want to truly do something new, there’s no cookie-cutter person you can hire ready to hit the ground running,” he writes. “Take calculated risks when you hire people. Prize transferable skills above industry experience.”

Rising costs, rising debt for middle class (LI) The rising costs associated with maintaining a middle-class lifestyle are pushing American middle-class families further in debt, says The Wall Street Journal. In the past three decades, the median household income has risen 14%--while average house prices soared 290%. With wage growth failing to keep up with the rising costs of college, cars, medical care and housing, people are increasingly turning to financing where other generations might have bought outright, notes the Journal.

Train Derails in Canada’s Alberta, Causes Evacuation (Reuters) A train derailed in Canada’s southern Alberta province on Friday, prompting an evacuation of nearby residents for fear of chemical exposure and disrupting road and highway access, the Alberta government said.

Puerto Rico Governor Resigns as Promised; Successor Sworn In (AP) Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló resigned Friday as promised, clearing the way for veteran politician Pedro Pierluisi to be sworn in as his replacement, a move that threw the U.S. territory into a period of fresh political uncertainty.

Mexico Gas Pipeline Leak Causes Evacuation of 2,000 (AP) A gas leak apparently caused by an illegal pipeline tap led authorities to evacuate about 2,000 people Friday in a rural community just north of Mexico City.

Maduro Says He ‘Repudiates’ Trump Statement on Possible Venezuela Blockade (Reuters) Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Friday said he rejected U.S. President Donald Trump’s statement about a possible blockade of the South American country, adding that its seas would remain “free and independent.”

Europe’s hottest month ever (Bloomberg) Heat scorched Western Europe this July in what will likely be confirmed as the hottest month in recorded history, according to the UN’s World Meteorological Organization. “This is not your grandfather’s summer,” United Nations Secretary General Antonio Gutierrez said. The Netherlands and Belgium exceeded 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) for the first time last month, and the U.K. set a new record of 38.7 Celsius (101.7 Fahrenheit). The blistering conditions have since moved north, melting parts of Greenland at rates faster than 2012, the worst year on record.

The Dutch burqa ban (FP) A ban on face coverings in public spaces in the Netherlands took effect on Thursday, but it appears that no one is observing it: Both police and transport authorities have been reluctant to enforce the rule, which requires wearers to remove the banned clothing or face a fine.

U.S. pulls out of Soviet-era nuclear missile pact with Russia (Reuters) The United States formally withdrew from a landmark nuclear missile pact with Russia on Friday after determining that Moscow was in violation of the treaty, something the Kremlin has repeatedly denied.

Moscow braces for another Saturday protest (FP) Another opposition rally is planned for Saturday in Moscow, where protesters are pushing authorities to hold a free and fair city council election after 16 candidates were blocked from running in the September vote. (One of the candidates has threatened weekly protests.) Ahead of the rally, at least five activists were arrested and Russian authorities have made clear that they intend to make more arrests. Meanwhile, the opposition leader Alexei Navalny has filed an official complaint alleging that he was poisoned in custody on Sunday. (The government hospital where he was treated for an allergic reaction maintains he tested negative for poison.)

Civil servants protest in Hong Kong (FP) Today, members of Hong Kong’s civil service will join the ongoing anti-government demonstrations in the city in what is expected to be a calm but significant act of protest. The protest by government workers follows a demonstration by finance workers on Thursday and comes as Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam faces pressure from the Chinese government to end the protests, which have become increasingly violent. Authorities also arrested Andy Chan, the leader of the pro-independence Hong Kong National Party on Thursday. Chan was defiant, telling his supporters, “Do not be afraid of being arrested. There is only the path forward, there is no turning back.”

Strong Earthquake Kills at Least One in Indonesia (Reuters) A powerful undersea earthquake that struck off the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Java has killed at least one person and briefly displaced more than 1,000 coastal-dwellers who feared a tsunami, Indonesia’s disaster agency said on Saturday.

Beijing Says Progress on China-Australia Ties ‘Unsatisfactory’ (Reuters) The progress of repairing China-Australia ties, strained over Canberra’s concerns about Chinese influence in its domestic affairs, has been “unsatisfactory,” said China’s top diplomat after meeting his Australian counterpart.

Aoun warns Lebanese of ‘tough’ measures unless economic sacrifices made (Reuters) President Michel Aoun warned Lebanese on Thursday of the risk of harsh financial measures from international institutions unless sacrifices are made to save the country from economic crisis. Lebanon is grappling with one of the world’s heaviest public debt burdens and years of low economic growth.

Western sanctions push war-weary Syrians deeper into poverty (AP) Mohammed Haji Abed drives his yellow taxi through the busy streets of the Syrian capital for about 12 hours a day, toiling in the sweltering summer heat but earning barely enough for his family of five to get by. It was easier for him to make ends meet at the height of his country’s civil war, when rebels regularly lobbed mortars into Damascus from their strongholds on the outskirts of the city. In the past year, as the Trump administration tightened sanctions on Syria and re-imposed sanctions on its chief regional ally, Iran, living conditions have become steadily worse, compounding the daily struggles of a worn-out population that has lived through eight years of conflict. Eight out of 10 Syrians live below the poverty line, making less than $100 a month, according to the U.N.

Saudi Arabia works to repair its reputation (CJR) Less than a year after agents working for the Saudi Arabian royal family reportedly killed and dismembered Jamal Khashoggi, a columnist for The Washington Post, the country says it will hold a media forum aimed at repairing its reputation. That will be difficult; according to the Post, the number of journalists in prison in Saudi Arabia has tripled in the two years since Mohammed bin Salman took power.

At Least 5 Dead in Flash Flooding in Sierra Leone’s Capital (AP) At least five people are dead after flash flooding hit Sierra Leone’s capital on Friday amid torrential rains, mortuary sources said. More rain was expected as some residents feared possible mudslides like ones that devastated parts of Freetown two years ago.

In Zimbabwe, the Water Taps Run Dry and Worsen ‘a Nightmare’ (NYT) Most residents in the country’s capital only get running water once a week, leading to serpentine queues at municipal boreholes across the city. Zimbabwe’s acute water shortage is a result of a particularly bad drought this year. Poor water management has wasted much of the water that remains. Two of Harare’s four reservoirs are empty from lack of rain, but between 45 and 60 percent of the water that’s left is lost through leakage and theft, said Herbert Gomba, the mayor of Harare. But the water crisis is only a microcosm of Zimbabwe’s malaise. Years of mismanagement under Robert Mugabe, who governed Zimbabwe for 37 years until he was finally ousted in 2017, have left the economy in tatters. Residents are battling daily blackouts that last between 15 and 18 hours; shortages of medicine, fuel and bank notes; and inflation of more than 175 percent.

[ratherhavetheblues]

INGMAR BERGMAN’S ‘CRIES AND WHISPERS’ “She’s already beginning to rot…”

© 2018 by James Clark

     We’re off and running with another breathtaking film by Ingmar Bergman, namely, Cries and Whispers (1972). The nature of this production entails, as usual, thrilling motivations most of us had never thought about. And here we must put into the mix, as never so emphatically before, that the uniqueness of that delivery entails being without any effective allies. We have encountered, in the films by Bergman so far, a species of more or less thriving upon that neglect, a warrior sensibility. But enfolded within that tang, we are also alerted to partaking of the powers implicit in cooperation, cooperation with those who don’t and never will, give a damn for what a figure like Bergman would live for, however chaotically.

Our film today attends remarkably to that estrangement, and, as a result, lingers with the personnel in such a way as to garner from (some of) them a direction to love. The film’s saga involves two protagonists; and we choose here to spotlight one, a woman, namely, Agnes, who has already died from cancer in the earlier part but conveys her golden moment at the film’s final seconds, by way of a diary, read by Anna, her long-time housemaid (though presented by the diarist’s voice-over). The event recorded involves desultory Agnes being paid a visit to the family manor (under her keeping) by her two sisters whom she has allowed to more or less overtly treat her as a non-entity, as she was treated by her mother. Braced, as the latter were, by her long-term illness, there is a moment of vision emanating from their ramble upon the palatial grounds, strewn with golden leaves. “It’s wonderful to be together again… Suddenly we began to laugh and run toward the old swing that we hadn’t seen since we were children [when kinetics were at least as favorable as frozenness]. We sat in it like three good little sisters, and Anna pushed us slowly and gently. All my aches and pains were gone. I could hear them chatting around me… I could  feel the presence of their bodies, the warmth of their hands. I wanted to hold the moment fast, and thought, ‘Come what may, this is happiness. I cannot wish for anything better. Now, for a few moments, I can experience perfection. And I feel profoundly grateful to my life which gives me so much…” (Those visiting angels having—along with Agnes’ skittishness—tossed divided but meritorious Anna to the sharks.)

The full-color composition (unique up until this time for Bergman) needs to be broached, along with the previous films, as a positioning of the urgency of fearlessness. With this particular vehicle, however, we’re on the hook to attending most closely to the apparatus required to fully show what’s ticking here. Therefore, as usual (but not quite the same), we posit, “How new is new?” You’d never have gotten from him anything explicit about the possibility that gigantic and unprecedented change has begun to make inroads and that that uprising (but tempered) is where art attains its stature. Apart from playing the movie game that the single work on tap must stand entirely on the basis of the screen being watched, there would be, however, the understandable discomfort that—unlike the folk reservoir of normal filmic presentation—matters of reflective complexity, generally assumed to be the purview of science and other academic disciplines, have become necessities. Just because the entrenched classical rational experts would utterly dismiss any validity not certified by their practices, does not disable a figure like Bergman to take matters into his own accomplished hands, in his own medium of communication. As such, his work being an extended research of sensibility, the various steps of his disclosures comprise, unlike the normal, disparate  entertainments, a constant, expanding investigation, very germane to earlier discoveries. Unlike conceptual building blocks of a technical nature, Bergman has at his disposal, not only a manifold of dramatic sensibility by way of his screenwriting and Sven Nykvist’s cinematography, but a cadre of performers the varying roles of which, from-film-to-film, increase a current of intent or temper a performer’s previous apparition, for the sake of comprehending the volatility of discernment and its creative capacities as a co-host of the cosmos.

Cries and Whispers carries along another cinematic power, namely, the efforts of other filmmakers the work of which being variously able to leverage the efforts of Bergman. Our film here devotes vast areas of a range of red walls and accessories for the interior of the palatial estate. In 1965, Michelangelo Antonioni launched a venture, namely, Red Desert, the redness of which speaking to widespread malignancy and malaise. In the Jacques Demy musical films, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967) and Donkey Skin (1970), the settings have been enhanced by pronounced color saturation, for the surrealistic sake of overcoming a profoundly inadequate mainstream. On such templates we’re treated to our guide’s “cyclotron,” the ingredients of which consisting of acrobatics and an impossible trick of juggling—as wild and wonderful in 1972 as it was when launched in the film, The Seventh Seal, in 1957. The first protagonist, Agnes, a spinster and amateur painter, nearing the end of a long struggle with cancer, at the end of the nineteenth century, has drawn to her family heights her two sisters and their spouses, but without their children. The gulf between her horror and their easy anticipations is not the main gulf in the picture. The actress playing Agnes, namely, Harriet Anderson, starred, in 1960, in a film called, Through a Glass Darkly, as Karin, whose husband, a medical doctor, so detests her unconventional physicality that he nudges her toward believing she is schizophrenic and belongs in a mental hospital. She loses her equilibrium during the stresses of a family reunion, comes to a default position in claiming to have seen God to be a giant spider; and infers, as a promising rally, that she should leave her family and do some independent thinking in that rather incongruous sickbay. One of the sisters, Maria, a decorative seductress, is played by Liv Ullmann, who, in 1966, six years before our current puzzle, played the part of a decorative, notable actress coming to a crisis and opting to enter a mental hospital in the guise of having lost her interest in speaking. This silent Elisabet, in face of annoyance from a presumptuous medic and also some street smarts and affection, climbs to a portal where the trick of juggling (making the best of a clumsy talent pool) rears its head. The oldest sister, Karin, is performed by actress, Ingrid Thulin, who, in the film, The Silence(1963), portrayed an overbearing nit-picking prig and prude who teeters close to emotional collapse but draws upon a reservoir of majoritarian dominance. In our current picture she has to be probed carefully, being in fact the other, and more important, protagonist. Though in a flash-back we see her slashing her vagina with a shard of smashed wine glass and rubbing the blood over her lips in annoyance with her insectile husband, billed as a “diplomat,” she does have what might not be an A-game but acrobatic skills to ponder.

We get to know a lot about Agnes during what seems a rare uptick in her palliative days. Maria, eliciting a measure of placid juggling in lieu of a preamble of gut-wrenching acrobatics (thereby being a pale shadow of Elisabet), proposes taking up her ongoing readings of Charles Dickens’ novel, The Pickwick Papers, to which the invalid replies, “Oh, I’d love it!” Though roughing up a doleful soul for her choice of pleasure would be pretty cheesy in most cases, here there is nothing short of dynamite in this disappointment, as the installment catches fire. “Chapter 34, in which Mr. Pickwick thinks he’d better go to Bath and goes accordingly” [that a sponge bath administered by the sisters has closely preceded this remark hopes to alert the viewer that they should read into the text something pertaining to Agnes’ stature]. “ ‘But surely, my dear, sir,’ said little Parkin, as he stood in Mr. Pickwick’s apartment… ‘Surely you don’t really mean, really and seriously now… and irritation apart… that you won’t pay these costs and damages?’ ” Pay the cost, or forever lost. Or: cover an ongoing acrobatic demand or commit a horror on the order of self-mutilation.

By way of reveries of her childhood, from out of confinement in that blood-red homestead, Agnes shows us that the singular life of paying the costs is not for her and that some of that redness is her contribution to that plague-ridden realm. (Along with the introduction of acrobatics, in The Seventh Seal, there is a plague in the land.) There is an omnibus flash-back, centering upon her mother, which constitutes a ground zero as to her remaining a wimp. Liv Ullmann, acting in double-duty here, becomes the Venus of the preceding generation, one of a series, no doubt, of spoiled, precious airheads. There she is, in elaborate apparel, with a tiny Agnes in thrall and kept at a distance, as if the less than pretty girl would reduce her heights. “I loved her at such a jealous extreme! I loved her because she was so gentle and beautiful and alive and so pervadingly present. But she could also be cold, playfully cruel… and rebuff me … [shades of Ullmann’s gorgeous Elisabet, in Persona, rebuffing her ugly little boy]. I wish I could see her again…” [That’s easier than she thinks.] That dotage being the linchpin of the action’s catastrophe. Thereby she misses the pertinence of a cut to a magic lantern party, at Twelfth Night, involving a “Wicked Witch,” and also the trickery (of the “Hansel and Gretel” saga on tap—an “impossible” trick being the bedrock of her best (and ignored) prospect. She does not, however, miss the constant attentions to Maria, played by Liv Ullmann’s young daughter, during the party, leaving our minor protagonist fretting from a distance. “I was the only one who couldn’t join in the merriment.” After a cut, Agnes, hoping to effect a more rounded picture of her home life, proceeds with, “Another time, I remember … I hid behind the curtain and in secret watched her arrange roses on her writing table. Suddenly, she saw me and, in a gentle voice called me. Uncertain, I went up to her, thinking that, as usual, she was going to scold me. But instead she gave me a look so full of sorrow that I nearly burst into tears. I raised my hand, put it against her cheek. And for that moment we were very close.” That was frail Agnes’ sense of the moment. The camera, on the other hand, does not lie in showing that, while the little girl felt to be loved at last, her vastly cheap mother was beholding her like a thorn in her side, a hopeless cause.

This latter vignette ends with a cut to the patient in her final stage. The intensity of the death throes tends to eclipse the real problematic that that was a pariah who was at the early stages of being under a gun that would never go away, necessitating extreme measures. Before leaving her to myopia and cries and whispers, we must appreciate those factors which might have been decisive. Anxious as Agnes remained, about her position in the scheme of her family, there was wanton neglect of the scheme of her more telling life. Raising a rather feeble gesture in the order of painterly beauty, our protagonist/ victim consistently fussed about her family, and lost the world. Her wild animal braying from a pain now killing, though hard to behold, opens a portal of sensuous energy buried way too long. The film begins with the grace and bounty of the grounds of that funerial confinement. First, as a calm dawn begins, we see hundred-years-stout tree trunks in silhouette, tracing to upper branches carrying our glance amidst those configurations, and presaging those compositions of innovative art which have nothing to do with deletant domesticity. The dashes of sharp sunlight playing over that initial scene carry their vivacity into the following stage, whereby the morning mists shower another prospect, this time steady rays of light alighting upon the greenery. Another cut shows a statue of Orpheus with his lyre being part of a sunny park where the positions of the trees and the dispositions of the leaves induce a deep breath. From there, another unseen region, namely, the interior of the mansion with all asleep, shows what it can do. To the beat of ticking sounds, we are given a tour of Age of Enlightenment clock faces, the textures of their grounds,  the variety and motions of their hands, along with bronze embellishments like a child angel looking through a telescope, and also a Medusa  as a pendulum; and mathematical mechanism. As if this offering, unseen by the players, were not enough to contemplate, we should hold on to something even more evanescent. Along with a red ground to begin, there is the almost inaudible chime of a triangle. As it strikes, sporadically, it brings along that motif of  synthesis on the grounds of acrobatics and juggling, that exigency Bergman is so right not to let go. That gunning forward toward advantage (an Age of Enlightenment key word) is a Mr. Pickwick outrage which Agnes subscribes to, and comes to a silent crescendo in that reverie of the three sisters on the swing. Maria and Karin flanking the protagonist going nowhere. Here was the geometry, but where was the music?

You’re not likely to believe this (before I explain), but a lady with a measure of mojo was on the swing, namely, Karin, the one being unreasonable with the broken glass. (You’ll see that she, like promiscuous and cruel, Anna, in the film, The Silence, would not be someone you’d want to meet; but someone worth studying. And sharing the name of the protagonist, in, Through a Glass Darkly, would also be bemusing, at least.) Whereas that “Twelfth Night” flow of jealousy was shown from Agnes’ perspective, there was a very brief moment showing a young Karin, also not in the holiday spirit. Whereas Agnes has rather frantically here become a student of her opulent family, there are ways of indicating that Karin opts for a very different response. In real time, she’s introduced as the unsmiling, taciturn foil to Maria’s “diplomatic” charms, “humanly” honed by a history of affection, and comfortable in her role as generous care-giver, along with Agnes’ needy appreciation. (Her diverting resumption of throwing herself at the doctor during a visit to Agnes may not have gone well; but the quantification of her maneuvers ensures lusty profits notwithstanding.  Here we must recognize that the Anna in, The Silence, looks pretty good, by comparison.)

She catches brief but quite remarkable fire from the deadly intensity of the closeness of death, and proposes giving Agnes a sponge bath, during a lull in the agony. Rather startlingly, Karin, too, is lifted by the occasion, producing smiles and a surprising level of serenity in her motions. Where did that come from, all of a sudden? Perhaps the quiet one has a sustaining history of her own. Earlier in the night, in a dark room where she was reading by a gaslight, possibly something more weighty than Dickens, she calls, Anna, “Do you hear?” The busy and faithful servant, whom we have come to regard as close to a saint, admits, “I only hear the wind and the clocks ticking.” “No! It’s something else!” Karin insists. “I don’t hear anything, why?” the usually acute stalwart maintains. So nonplussed is the odd-one out, she rather misses the mark in describing her confusion: “I’m freezing!” (In the aforementioned film, Thulin/ Ester is seized by chills,  fleeting, as compared with her sister’s sweltering in face of a totally inadequate dispensation.) Then there is Agnes complaining to Anna, “I’m freezing…”  Soon she is dead; and while Maria backs off and falls apart, Karin, along with Anna, composes the corpse on her deathbed, the three sets of hands upstaging all the sculptures in the building. Thereupon, a modest embrace of the freezing sisters. The triangle mingles with that workload, a feat of passion brooking no relentment but seeing much to celebrate. The flashback of cut-throat diplomacy surfaces there, with some cut-the-crap clarity going forward. As she ponders upon that instrument of pain, Karin tells herself, “It’s but a tissue of lies. It’s a monumental tissue of lies…” (recalling the unhelpful declaration of Tomas, which pushes a suicidal parishioner over the cliff, in the film Winter Light [1962]). Also noteworthy, there is stressed Karin slapping Anna (helping her with her bedclothes before the coup de grace), losing her nerve for a moment. Karin quickly apologizes; and the elite servant and companion does not accept the apology.

Back to the aftermath of the death, we see Karin going over the prosaic (but not necessarily prosaic) task of checking the costs. Her hands and the sensuous grey paper mean business, not as usual. She takes in hand her pince nez reading glasses and slightly flips it upward and downward to the bed of paper constituting but one type of nitty gritty. (The protagonist in First Man [2018] has been seen to be closer to pay dirt flipping a pince nez than hopping around the moon.)  Then she gives a spin to that shard of glass, beholding its ripple in the gentle light. At this juncture of rich destiny, Maria comes into the office, and her perception of the moment of vision ignites more mysteries. “Karin, I want us to be friends. I want us to talk to each other. You read much more than I do, you think much more than I do. Your experience is far greater… Couldn’t we devote these days to getting to know each other, finally?” Not wanting another brutal smash like the failing with Anna, she listens to that creature she knows only too well. “We could put our arms around each other… We could talk together for days and nights on end…” (Here we’ve been put to the test to compare how doubting Tomas, in Winter Light, came to put up with “togetherness” maven Marta.) Karin, feeling caught up in a dilemma that can’t work for her, gets up from her desk and heads for the door—an acrobat paying costs of depth which only begins her “thinking.” Holding her back in her exit, Maria—a diplomat of some efficacy—calls out, “It’s easy to do, but I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.” After a cut—accomplished, as always, by a blood-red cloud, that emblem of possible efficacy—there is Karin, confused and pensive. Maria comes in, again, finding her sister reading Agnes’ diary. Now a bit more forthcoming, she reads, “ ‘I received the gift anyone can receive in this life… a gift that is called many things…togetherness…companionship, relatedness, affection…’” [the visual is Anna, by Agnes’ bed]. “ ‘I think this is what is called grace…’” Maria, who was wandering about when the reading was given, moves to touch Karen’s shoulder, and finds the latter spinning away from her. “No, don’t touch me. Don’t come near me!” Togetherness becoming an outrage due to the effort of  paying the costs cheek-by-jowl with refusing to pay the costs. Maria, aka Elisabet, comes behind Karin, in a facsimile of the  Persona sisters. Maria touches Karin’s cheek and the latter, though backing off, does not repel the approach as before. Soon she is allowing herself to be caressed by that functionary of skin. However, she soon insists, “I don’t want you to do that… I don’t want you to be kind to me” [because I have no resources to be appreciative toward a coward like Maria]. “I can’t! I can’t stand it!” (The optics, particularly the lighting, preserves the uncanny tonal spike, in face of Karin’s melodramatic tailspin, for instance, “It’s like being in the greatest hell. I can’t breathe anymore. All of that guilt!”) After a battlefield fade, Karin apologizes for her “lost control,” and the prosaic “formalities” of selling the property occupy their conversation. No generous consideration for Maria occurs to the other one-note sibling in the room, a sibling unique in the film’s universe for possibly becoming a true aristocrat. Groping for that elusive stature, she tells disappointed sentimentalist Maria, “I’ve often thought about suicide.” (Here we have her less than compelling default stand, by comparison with the man frightened to suicide by the prospect of China gaining nuclear weapons, in, Winter Light.) Then she brings up her husband’s slight that she’s “clumsy”—“I fumble!” Now a glutton for the sensational that goes nowhere, she turns on her slack sister having, for once, had an inspiration. “You thought our talk would be different, didn’t you? Do you realize I hate you? And how foolish I find your insipid smiles and your idiotic flirtatiousness… You understand? Nothing can escape me… for I see it all… Now you learn how it sounds when Karin talks!” (This latter weakling flourish is exactly the one Alma the nurse directs upon Elisabet the silent goddess [Liv Ullmann], in Persona. Having reached an almost complete self-embarrassment, our protagonist cries out, and Maria, who had been reduced to tears, rushes to her; and hears from the “all-seeing,” “Forgive me!” Unlike Anna, Maria does forgive, and the togetherness/ grace catches fire; but not for very long. With a Bach cello composition evoking primordial relatedness, we behold the pair lovingly illuminating their kinetic best, the associated shut-down of sound endowing the tete-a-tete as similar to a Botticelli painting. They whisper in each other’s ears as if revelations of hidden forces had been released. In close-up, Maria seems pensive; in close-up Karin seems tentative and adventurous. This elevated effort comes to an end as colliding with Anna’s last-ditch enlistment of the sisters to steady her fears of poverty. She inhabits the cusp of Agnes’ being no more, and calls upon, first circumspect Karin and then sentimental Maria, to soothe the lost sister. Her prefatory fanfare—“Don’t you hear it?”—stands   in stark contrast to that, “Do you hear?” of Karin, which Anna can’t take seriously. Karin is the first one summoned, and her harsh reception to old-style mysticism quickly brings the interview to a halt. “I won’t accept involvement with your death. Perhaps if I loved you… but I do not love you… It’s pure morbidity, disgusting, meaningless. She’s already begun to rot…” The meeting with Maria becomes the latter’s running away in terror. The departure of the funeral party is notable for Karin hoping to sustain the confluence her acrobatics finds essential; and for acrobaticless Maria treating that fling as if it were only a fling. “Could we hold to all our resolutions?” Maria, perhaps a bit miffed by her sisters’ acceding to her deadened husband’s making Anna walk the plank; but transparently back to her mode of gyrating mush, makes a cardboard smile and lisps, “Dearest Karin, why on earth shouldn’t we do that?” Resuming the venomous treatment by Elisabet toward ardent Alma, in Persona, she carries on with, “It’s that everything seems different since that evening.” Karin quietly remonstrates, “I think we’ve become very much closer… What are you thinking about?” The lifetime baby doll, tries, “I’m thinking about the conversation…” “No, you’re not,” the friend in need asserts. Thereby the woman always on the go rephrases her thought, “I was thinking about how [her cuckold husband] Joakin hates it if I keep him waiting… I have no idea why you call me to account as if I were on trial for my thoughts, Karin. What do you want?” In close-up, Karin looks down in disarray. “Nothing,” is what she realizes she must expect—from Maria; but what about the world at large?

Popping up during the funeral formalities, we do get a little fizz from the world at large, surprisingly in the form of the local bishop. (Karin’s diplomat. in a post-mortem moment, counts them as lucky that the clergyman has the flu and therefore their being spared his presence at the dinner following the burial. Looking closely, we see he’s hale and hearty and floats a little white lie to avoid a party of ghouls.) You’ll recognize a fascinatingly tempered version of the rally of Tomas, in, Winter Light. As with Algot the sidekick, there are sextons and candles, here at the entryway to Agnes’s resting place. What you will notice, first and foremost, is that this first swing of the death ritual is light on the big powers and remarkably a weighty eulogy to rather underwhelming Agnes, as if she were on the hunt of something which very few  have hazard. “Could it be that you gathered up our suffering and agony into your body. Should it be that you leave with you this hardship through death. Should it be that you meet with God… [Algot slipping when he goes beyond the wonderment that venerable safety nets won’t do. Hence the overestimation of old-timey good news, somewhat upstaging a hard and nourishing magic.] … as you come to that other land… Should it be that you find his countenance turned toward you there [the nature of sensibility being not something to take for granted while sitting on a ruinous scenario]. Should it be that you know the language to speak… So this God may hear and understand… Should it be that you then talk with this God… [the conditional tense here, like that of Algot’s heresy, a weird and wonderful push-back upon millennia being stupefyingly inadequate, while spilling over to wooden humanitarianism and science!]… and he hear you out. Should it be so… pray for us… Agnes, dear child, please listen to what I have to tell you now. Pray for us who have been left in darkness… left behind on this miserable Earth, with the sky above us grim and empty…” [Agnes’ diary being on a very distant page from this dip to formalities]. The last word of this singularity dressed up to seem more of the same is an instance of great theatrical irony. “Her faith was stronger than mine.”