Short review of everything

Waiting for Godot

I´ll start this list of reviews of recent culture activities with one of my favourite plays! I went to see Samuel Beckett´s Waiting for Godot at the Kansallisteatteri (in Helsinki) and my expectations were pretty high. Fortunately this managed to satisfy me almost on every level! I was a little worried in advance since one of the main parts was played by Esko Salminen who, in my opinion, is one of the most over appreciated actors in Finland. He however fit quite well to his part and his, yet again in my opinion, mannerism worked ok as Vladimir´s role. What lifted the play to really excellent level was Hannu-Pekka Björkman who made astonshing job as Pozzo! Every single time he opened his mouth, everything flowed towards more coherent conclusion! The setup was very traditional and I remember seeing quite similar background use in one of the television versions shown in Teema few years ago. It´s good but I think there should have been some modifications for more intense experience, specially in parts when audience was supposed to feel the "boredom" of the cast waiting for something to happen. Over all, this version was very well made and hopefully we´ll see some more Beckett in the future!

Le Havre

Aki Kaurismäki´s latest film is called Le Havre and it is really nice one! Kaurismäki has done lot´s of good films but the quality has been swinging from excellent to annoying. This time he is presenting much more positive future visions! This movie is very much a triumph of humanism and trust and caring of other people. The charachters that are naturally in tight position (ie. the police officer) are shown as people with social consciousness, though there is a distinct line between generations (contemporary world is shown in a bit ugly light). Kaurismäki´s greatest ability is to show us very beautifull scenes of the cities he is using as background, he definitely is fond of urban atmosphere! All the actors do excellent job and the soundtrack suits well to the over all feel. The theme is obviously quite hot topic and his message is clear! I would love to see a little more surreal elements in his future films, since they were the reasons why some of his works are so good!

Crazy Clown Time

Now this was unexpected! Though I knew David Lynch has had his fingers involved in the music production earlier, it was still very odd to hear the first single Good Day Today earlier this autumn. Crazy Clown Time is the first real artist album Lynch has ever made and if you are fond of his soundtracks you will not be disappointed. Some of the songs are in more typical vein, dark rockish atmospheres, but others have strange space disco, or balearic feel to them. Lynch sings himself in most of the tracks, if you can call this kind of vocal performance singing. His voice is esoteric and haunting and it does give the important impact to the end product! The album is also very long, but I think it is essential to get the hypnotic feel he seems to be chasing! I feel that he does achieve the correct vibe and in the end I will give this solid *****! It´s also note worthy that Lynch has opened a club in Paris that is trying to simulate the effect of Club Silencio in his movie Mullholland Drive. Unfortunately you can visit the club only by becoming a member and since I´m not living in Paris it would be somewhat pointless effort.

Religion & Magic in ancient Egypt

Last august I visited the British Museum to see the Egyptian section. After checking all the mummies and hieroglyphs I bought a book from the shop called Religion and Magic in ancient Egypt by Rosalie David. There was plenty of other choices available but this felt most coherent but at the same time enjoiable enough to keep my interest up. Now that I have read it I must say that the amount of information is almost overwhelming. The book is trying to cover the whole spectrum of Egyptian culture from the earliest known examples (some 5000 bce) until the demise of the ancient culture around 500 ace. It´s exhausting task even for the 400 pages it has space to show it´s contents. The book has been critizised of being mixed and incoherent in places, and I must admit that in some cases this is true. But I still think that it gains advantage with sheer volume of knowledge it can offer. Troughout the book you can get yourself sucked into the ordinary life of egyptian inhabitant and lot´s of customs are written open very well. It also works really well as a source material! One point is that some conclusions are controversial and reader must bear in mind that researchers are trying to interpret scattered writings and sources from thousands of years ago. Therefore everything you read is, in the end, only speculation. Anyway, this book is very much worth to read!

Corto Maltese - Theatrical adaptation

Yesterday I went to see a theatrical adaptation of one of my favourite comics - the adventures of Corto Maltese, written and drawn by Hugo Pratt. This was something I had been looking forward since the first time I heard Q-Theater @ Töölö, Helsinki, was going to make the effort!

Yes, well... Corto Maltese truely belongs to top ten of greatest comics ever along side with several legendary creations such as George Herriman´s Krazy Kat. I have been enjoing these since my childhood when I found the lot first time from the local library. It´s funny how the first readings were so strong events since the books are far from being easy to being understood. Corto Maltese has always had such multiple and parallel levels of ingredients that every single reading has opened new views to the experinece. As a youngster it was the adventurous elements that got my interest (and also the sophisticated drawing that is so simple and comlex at the same time), but later on when re-reading the classic albums I noticed the deep and intellectual side that was so inadvertently embedded inside the story with such a strong emotional content that yet again I was astonished of the sheer quality of Pratt´s work!

But about the play itself - It is again good to notice that when done with love and care it is possible to make very good adaptations from very difficult material. It´s important to realise that the play presents only a part of Corto Malteses saga and some parts may be a bit hard to understand if you are not familiar with the original material but these things have been fixed effectively by importing parts from quite a lot of books to make clear some of motives of Corto! There is parts from at least six adventures total and the whole does work well. For a random watcher the greatest problem propably is the amount of sideactors that play important roles in different era´s of Cortos life and therefore some events may seem a little bit strange (most notable the appearance of Pandora). But it doesn´t matter as long as everything seems to support the needs to move and dream on... My only true critique considers the somewhat hectic events during the first half as I think the comics most important factor always was the serenity and slow philosophical thinking. Fortunately there is some excellent slower moments in the play that downshift the movement!

The Acting and the use of space is yet again excellent! Tommi Korpela as Corto Maltese is just so real and like a mirror image of Corto that the dobbelganger theme is inevitable (and suits part of the play wonderfully). Jani Volanen does really strong role as Rasputin and the rest of the crew doesn´t crumble behind! Kreeta Salminen as Venexiana has so romantic and hot aproach that you just can´t keep your eyes of her!

Oh, two things that buggered me a little were the use of music and smoke. I personally think that some parts with Hard Rock and Techno just didn´t fit in that well, but overall the soundscapes were good. There was also quite a lot of theatrical smoke and smoking of cigars that almost made me cough at times. Even though it belongs to the world of Corto Maltese it seemed a bit too much some times.

Anyway this is highly recommended!