Derik Badman's Journal

Two movies in the past few weeks by Carlos Saura, Peppermint Frappe and Cousin Angelica, both about (the former more subtly) fascism in Spain, the latter touching more on the war specifically. He made them both during Franco's reign so they are allegorical, but apparently the latter was overt enough to cause right wing protests. The former is maybe a riff on Vertigo, with 1 actress playing 2 parts, and the protagonist sort of making the second woman into an image of the first woman when she rejects him (and then he kills her and her husband). The latter movie is about a man who returns to his Aunt's home where he spend time during the civil war. Throughout his memories are evoked and the film slips from the present into the past, but leaving the adult actor playing himself as a child, which can get a little weird in the scenes with the cousin he is in love with, but also really maintains the sense of the present man looking back on past events. At times it's almost hard to tell when the memory comes into play, and the scenes never return from the revery back to the same scene in the present, they always end and then there is a cut to another scene further along in time. Most of the other actors of the present day characters play characters from the past but in age appropriate roles (so the daughter of his cousin, plays the cousin as a child, the cousin as an adult plays the aunt in the past). This is particularly effective with the daughter and esp. the cousin's husband who plays the cousin's father (a nationalist soldier). The family is strongly Catholic and nationalist, while the protagonist's father (who we barely see) is on the republican side. I'm going to watch more from Saura (there's a whole program on Criterion right now), as I've found both of these films really interesting and well made.

Gave in last week to... lack of knowing what to do with myself, and bought the Lego Star Wars game on Playstation. It's mostly mindless fun, but not so engaging that I find myself playing too much. Playing the part for the the third of the latest movie trilogy, I realized I got so fed up with the second movie that I never even saw the third one. The whole plot (filtered into Lego game) was new to me, but predictably (and the reason I gave up at the second one) just felt like a rehash of the older movies.

Construction continues in our house, which has been low key stressful, more so when Buddy decides he has to freak out about being locked up in the office with me.