Los viajes del viento

"... and then a miracle happened, as they usually happen in the south of the world", said Luis Sepúlveda.

Los viajes del viento, by colombian Ciro Guerra.

Partir

Silent holes

(...) a palavra de água se dissolve
na palavra sede, a boca cede
antes de falar, e não se ouve (...)

Os buracos do espelho, by Arnaldo Antunes

Intimacy

A man is getting ready to leave his wife and children. It begins like this:

"It is the saddest night, for I am leaving and not coming back."

Page 4:

"Soon we will be strangers. No, we can never be that. Hurting someone is an act of reluctant intimacy."

Page 80:

"It is my yearning for more life that has done this, and we are yearning creatures, a bag of insistent wants."

Page 94:

"No wonder everyone wants it [love] - as if they have known such love before and can barely remember it, yet are compelled ever after to seek it as the single thing worth living for. Without love, most of life remains concealed. Nothing is as fascinating as love, unfortunately.

I know love is dark work; you have to get your hands dirty. If you hold back, nothing interesting happens. At the same time, you have to find the right distance between people. Too close, and they overwhelm you; too far and they abandon you. How to hold them in the right relation? (...)"

Intimacy, by Hanif Kureishi

Metropolis

It´s a very special experience watching Metropolis at Gulbenkian Foundation´s open-air theatre. The story, the actors´ intense and exagerated interpretation, so typical of silent movies, and also the music (especially composed by argentine Martín Matalón), which becomes much more powerful when planes approaching for landing pass over us and enhance its intensity.

But it was cold, terribly cold... I couldn´t help thinking of warm summer nights in greek amphitheatres...

Marina of the Rocks

You have a taste of tempest on your lips—But where did you wander
All day long in the hard reverie of stone and sea?
An eagle-bearing wind stripped the hills
Stripped your longing to the bone
And the pupils of your eyes received the message of chimera
Spotting memory with foam!
Where is the familiar slope of short September
On the red earth where you played, looking down
At the broad rows of the other girls
The corners where your friends left armfuls of rosemary.

But where did you wander
All night long in the hard reverie of stone and sea?
I told you to count in the naked water its luminous days
On your back to rejoice in the dawn of things
Or again to wander on yellow plains
With a clover of light on you breast, iambic heroine.

You have a taste of tempest on your lips
And a dress red as blood
Deep in the gold of summer
And the perfume of hyacinths—But where did you wander
Descending toward the shores, the pebbled bays?

There was cold salty seaweed there
But deeper a human feeling that bled
And you opened your arms in astonishment naming it
Climbing lightly to the clearness of the depths
Where your own starfish shone.

Listen. Speech is the prudence of the aged
And time is a passionate sculptor of men
And the sun stands over it, a beast of hope
And you, closer to it, embrace a love
With a bitter taste of tempest on your lips.

It is not for you, blue to the bone, to think of another summer,
For the rivers to change their bed
And take you back to their mother
For you to kiss other cherry trees
Or ride on the northwest wind.

Propped on the rocks, without yesterday or tomorrow,
Facing the dangers of the rocks with a hurricane hairstyle
You will say farewell to the riddle that is yours.

From Orientations, by Odysseas Elytis

Going around in circles

I am going around in circles. And I hate going around in circles. And I keep thinking about it. That I am going around in circles. And that I hate it.

I´ve been trying to "fight courageously my defeat". When am I allowed to declare it though? So that I can stop going around in circles...

Do I hear someone whispering "acceptance" in my ear?

Nothing personal

"I won´t ask you anything and I won´t talk about myself." Now, that sounds just fine.

Nothing personal, by Urszula Antoniak.

Mother

She´s hiding in the closet, where she thinks she has found some evidence. From her hiding place, she has to assist her nephew´s lovemaking. When the two lovers finally fall asleep on the mattress on the floor, she quietly comes out, holding the evidence in her hand. The camera films from the top. We see her passing next to the two young people, we also look at them from her point of view. We are holding our breath... We gasp! She´s stumbled on a bottle of water. It falls and the water is spilling. The camera films it as it is slowly reaching the fingers of the nephew´s extended arm. It touches his fingertip and we are breathless once again. It doesn´t wake him up. And she´s out of there.

A brilliant south corean film, Mother, by Bong Joon-ho.

Warm nights

When the nights get warm, I start thinking of home. And of a beautiful holiday on the island of Spetses. It was the end of a warm day and we were sitting at Café Orlof. There was a very pleasant breeze - like only the greek summer breeze can be -, we could hear the sound of the waves - the way only the greek waves can sound - and we were enjoying the beautiful music of Evanthia Reboutsika.