Santiago je t'aime
Finally saw that Paris je t'aime which is *NOW PLAYING!* in Santiago, Chile, at El Biógrafo. Not the only alternative movie theater in Santiago, but a decent one because they'll play "new" releases and leave them playing for months. I'd still say Cine Arte Normandie is unparalleled because they pummel their sexto-anually updated leaflet with a stunning list of obscure films, old films, foreign films, a different one every night, but due to a limited collection that they recycle, you know that if you don't make it the day they're playing that Almodóvar or Fellini or whatever, it'll come back eventually. Between Cine Arte Normandie with its selection and El Biógrafo with its reliability, you can cover a lot of cinematic ground.
Anyway, the movie was a nice puff piece for Paris and I don't resent it, Paris is one of my favorite cities in the world. I think I relate most to the middle age woman in the clip where the voice-over was her speaking about her lonely trip to Paris, and because she's a traveler tres independent, and doesn't want to do the group-tour thing, we see her walking alone to all the guide book destinations and not understanding them and it's pretty painful to watch until eventually she's sitting alone on a bench in a park, eating a sandwich and looks around and makes the realization that she loves Paris, and Paris loves her. I cried.
People talk about Evil cities, and Holy cities. Rome and Padua are blessed, Prague and London sinister. I suppose cities can be Greedy, like San Francisco or, like Santiago, just plain Fucked.
What does it mean when a prominent downtown skyscraper gets wrapped entirely in a colorful Visa advertisement featuring a picture of the Eiffel Tower? Last year I remember hearing an radio interview with the mayor of Santiago talking about the big Central Park a la NYC being planned. As I recall, he slobbered a little too much when praising the yanqui consultant, whose feet were no doubt firmly planted on the ground, for calling a spade a spade showing them how things have got to be done here.
The lady interviewing him went on to ask, more or less, when this project would be realized and the mayor said, you know, in about 15, maybe 20 years. Even the interviewer expressed astonishment at the timeframe, and I remember being taken aback by the casualness of that estimate. Sure, no one ever built a park overnight, but at the same time at one place I was staying in Santiago, I remember seeing a view of the Andes disappear in a month, and big banners unfurled on the sides of the soul-defying, cinder block structures, PAZ FROIMOVICH.
Livability in Santiago - does anyone really care?
Anyway, the movie was a nice puff piece for Paris and I don't resent it, Paris is one of my favorite cities in the world. I think I relate most to the middle age woman in the clip where the voice-over was her speaking about her lonely trip to Paris, and because she's a traveler tres independent, and doesn't want to do the group-tour thing, we see her walking alone to all the guide book destinations and not understanding them and it's pretty painful to watch until eventually she's sitting alone on a bench in a park, eating a sandwich and looks around and makes the realization that she loves Paris, and Paris loves her. I cried.
People talk about Evil cities, and Holy cities. Rome and Padua are blessed, Prague and London sinister. I suppose cities can be Greedy, like San Francisco or, like Santiago, just plain Fucked.
What does it mean when a prominent downtown skyscraper gets wrapped entirely in a colorful Visa advertisement featuring a picture of the Eiffel Tower? Last year I remember hearing an radio interview with the mayor of Santiago talking about the big Central Park a la NYC being planned. As I recall, he slobbered a little too much when praising the yanqui consultant, whose feet were no doubt firmly planted on the ground, for calling a spade a spade showing them how things have got to be done here.
The lady interviewing him went on to ask, more or less, when this project would be realized and the mayor said, you know, in about 15, maybe 20 years. Even the interviewer expressed astonishment at the timeframe, and I remember being taken aback by the casualness of that estimate. Sure, no one ever built a park overnight, but at the same time at one place I was staying in Santiago, I remember seeing a view of the Andes disappear in a month, and big banners unfurled on the sides of the soul-defying, cinder block structures, PAZ FROIMOVICH.
Livability in Santiago - does anyone really care?
posted by Chileno @ 2:22 PM
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12 Comments:
hey, did you like Paris? I found it almost boring except for my company there. On top of that it's dirty and stinks. But on the other hand it's not even the slightest bit the city of love. Is San Fran really so greety? (in comparison to other cities?)
What if you were to expand your blog and get people to write for you: movie reviews, locally cultural events, commentary, etc... Sometimes I read C.hileno in the morning before work. I don't read newspapers except if I find one on the seat of the bus.
Ramsey
A lot of people don't get Paris because they're thick, like you. Parisians have both class and depth. In fact, that whole French jackass thing always baffled me, I never understood what people were talking about. I was treated like royalty by complete strangers, and Parisians who I was introduced to in social settings were completely unpretentious and welcoming, even when they spoke in French and I was left out of the conversation I felt completely at home. A wonderful country, although the common dolt won't hesitate to astound you with his originality, "informing" you that the French are fuckheads and Paris is passé.
Both the goldrush and the late '90's dot com boom passed through SF. I'm sure many other cities are greedy as well. Santiago might well fall into that category, but I tend to associate greed with accumulation, and on account of wealth being so poorly distributed here, most of Santiago still seems desperate and broke.
Anyway, happy to be your morning paper. Email me if you want to write a guest post. I have a good topic in mind for you, Rams.
Sounds like a good idea of formally expanding your range.
still haven't got around to making a guest post. Wow, you are quick to pick up sabre and scream "en garde" as soon as anyone challenges your positiong. Re-read my commentary and see that I didn't say anything about the French people, but rather commented on the city.
Ramsey
Touché. Sorry for lumping you together with the French haters. Your denigration was directed toward Paris the object, not the people. Sorry. I take it back.
But let's talk about the object. I still don't get how you don't get the Seine, or Notre Dame, or the Latin Quarter or the Orangerie Museum, the Tarkovsky festival that packed the house at a random movie theater when I was in Paris, for example. I don't like the Paris Beach, that's stupid, but I'm not gonna judge the city based on one faux pas.
Where did you stay in Paris? I stayed for free at Shakespeare & Company and then with a friend in the neighborhood near Arch de Triumph.
I remember some of the more peripheral neighborhoods seemed a bit dull, superficially at least.
Would you prefer Wien?
Oh oh ... another SPORTS update !! Involving, sadly, Chile and Canada in a fight that has reached up from the football (OK, 'soccer') field to Prime Minister Harper and Presidente Bachelet!
This is a hard day for "Canada-Chilean relations" I guess - after the terrible events in
Toronto last night following the Argentina-Chile Under-20 FIFA football game. I see on the news
that even Presidente Bachelet is filing a formal complaint over the Toronto police's over-reaction
to the Chilean players' little riot.
What makes this whole mess worse is that the Chilean kids were the sentimental favorites
throughout the tournament - in Toronto, Edmonton and Montreal - where they had five undefeated
games - without a single goal scored against them. They received standing ovations even when they
beat Canada 3-0 in the opening game.
But I think the poor Chilean kids were tired out - as they
had to travel from Toronto, to Edmonton, to Toronto, to Edmonton, to Montreal - and back to
Toronto for their games over the past two weeks or so.
Add to that their upset with the terrible referee officiating at their semi-final game and their
disappointment in the loss to Argentina , and they went a bit crazy - both on the field - and with their fans after the game.
The police in Toronto over-reacted and used handcuffs on the upset
kids. But the reaction in the Chilean press is pretty unjustified too - accusing Toronto of 'racism' - that, of course, is nonsense. Canada is FAR more racially mixed than Chile - with
blacks, Asians, latinos, Europeans, Eskimos and Indians forming over 60 % of our poulation.
The only riots we ever had following soccer games in the past were with the fans from England !! Even our Governor-General is a black, Haitian woman!
I hope we try to make it up to those Chilean young footballers - they were great throughout the tournament - and I hope they beat Austria on Sunday.
I think that Sunday's bronze-medal game will see the Canadian fans give the Chilean team a
standing ovation and an apology from the Toronto crowd - I hope so anyway. It's hard to believe
that the favorite team of kids only a couple of days ago have become involved in all of this.
Especially after Prime Minister Harper was received so warmly in Chile last week - AND, more
importantly, after "Tio-Tom" was received so warmly in May. ;-)
Ok, I admit I didn't really get to know Paris so well. We hitchhiked out there with some friends from Poland and one from Latvia and we were also able to stay for free, but outside of Paris in St. Denis. There were 7 of us sleeping in about 10 m². These Polish friends of ours were great fun and we enjoyed many great moments that could have taken place in any city. No, I don't prefer Vienna, but in general I don't like big cities. I guess my first impression of Paris was big, stinky and not so romantic. Romantic for me is Venice at night when the tourists slip off to their buses, or the outskirts of San Pedro La Laguna (Lago Atitlan, Guatemala). I can't really say what I liked in Paris, and I guess I missed out on a lot because I let myself be guided by our Polish friends strenuous walking pace from one sight to the next. I guess that explains it, I did see Paris from a superficial point of view. What I didn't like was pints of beer for € 10 and dog doo on all the sidewalks. What I did like was sitting with our feet in the water behind some museum and drinking wine from some store and eating some antipasti out of the plastic container. What I also liked was the Chat Noire t-shirts Ljuba and I bought. What I didn't like was that with four years of high school french it took me some 15 minutes to get a woman in the subway to understand which ticket we wanted(which we had bought two days previously), & which she first claimed didn't exist. What I did like were the Croissants, and the wind mill in the middle of a neighborhood! So maybe I'll go back some day.
Ramsey
Oh, by the way, I've decided that I won't write a guest blog about the sexy Chileans in Klagenfurt. I realized I never really liked those that have been here. Those that were sexy, seemed two faced and very insulting, always eager to verbally spar with people. There was one that was hot as the devils hot iron and seemed really nice, but she was taken. Of the other Chileans (almost all from Valparaiso), including men, I never had the feeling I could be friends with them, even though I drank with some and enjoyed their Pisco sour. Oh yeah, there's a Chilean singer here (all covers) who has a regular radio program on a local station.So so much for the Chilean scene in Klagenfurt.
Those "puff" films are a good alternative when one becomes tired of seeing buildings, cars or people, explode. The other day me and my friend went to an arthouse cinema to see the directorial debut of Zoe Cassevetes' film Broken English.com starring Parker Posey and Melvin Poupaud. The first part of the film is set in Manhatthan, while the second half in Paris. A very touching film.
www.brokenenglishfilm.com
France and it's people have been capturing the attention of film auteurs for decades, even before the La Nouvelle Vague of the late 1950's and 1960's.
Woa, FL. Total chick flick there although I do drop my standards occasionally, especially since it takes days to download good movies and I'm nowhere near a good rental place these days. But I do get HBO so I've been catching up on the classics like "Cosa de Hombres" and "La Chica al Lado", although thankfully in the original English.
Anyway, nice to see a movie site with the trailer right on their entry page.
William, it is not one of those "feelgood" or " tearjerker chick flicks". Zoe Cassevetes is much way savvy to film something as tired as a typical chickflick. She is making a social commentary on the current state of interpersonal relationships within her peers, Generation X. How people (regardless of gender) are more demanding, impatient and bad at communicating with one another than previous generations. This film and "L' Ultimo Bacio" go depper and show the "mid-life crisis" many 20 and 30-somethings are experiencing.
Oh if you are ever in Paris again, you should check this out.
http://www.laduree.fr./
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