On the April 8th, Tuesday, I went in Paris, I watched two movies (a Chinese and a Javanese), ate good food, and walked in the streets, like I often like to do when I go in Paris (I live in a town at one hour from Paris).
Physically, I didn't move a lot, but this was a strange short journey ; during that day the atmosphere was quite strange. The whole journey is on
Google maps.
The day before, the Olympic torch got into a lot of shameful problems on his road through Paris. On that Tuesday, the day after, Paris still wasn't quite at all, but for a completely different reason : a lot of secondary school students (15-18 years old) were "on strike" for severals weeks, against the fact that the french government decided to reduce drastically the number of teachers, to save money, and to reduce some parts of the diplomas available in France (but maybe I'm wrong, everything is not clear).
Part 1 : ChinaI first went to the cinema called "Sept Parnassiens", to see a chinese movie :
"Les larmes de Madame Wang" : in english
"Cry Woman" and in chinese
哭泣的女人. The film was at 11:30 AM (yes, AM, in the morning). I took the RER (suburb fast train) at Massy-Palaiseau, and step down at Denfert-Rochereau
(Google Maps).
I walked through the
cemetery of Montparnasse. I like to walk in that cemetery
(Google Maps). I feel nothing morbid at all in cemeteries, I feel instead a very peaceful atmosphere (residents are not noisy at all) and I enjoy all the beautiful or strange monuments raised to the memory of a beloved wife, a tender child or a happy grandfather. My favourites are romantic or lyric styles statues, and the quite rare classic stained-glass windows in family vaults.
The weather was chilly, and quite cloudy, but luminous. A fresh breeze was blewing. A perfect weather to visit a cemetery, isn't it ?
The cinema
"Sept Parnassiens" is one of the numerous "Art et essai" cinema settled in Paris. All those cinemas offer to see movies from all countries in the world, and focused on movies with small distributing rates, but with high quality in terms of art, experimentation or political engagement. Those cinemas receive grants from the french state, to support art and knowledge.
"Sept Parnassiens" is in a small shopping mall
(Google Maps). It was recently renovated, and it seems that everything isn't finished yet, because that day some workers were doing some unknown renovating stuff on left side of the cash desk.
The movie "Les larmes de madame Wang", by 刘冰鉴 Liú Bīngjiàn, is about a chinese women, a former chinese opera artist, that tries to make her life in modern chinese society. She finally become a Cry-woman for death ceremony, with no consideration to the persons, she's only focused on earning money. My little walk in the cemetery was a good introduction to the subject of the movie.
For me, this is not a very good movie ; the direction by M. Liú seems to be quite uncontrolled, and a lot of sequences are too slow or too long (but I must be fair : not as much than a Jia Zhang Ke movie, the master in Have-A-Rest-Movies). The actor are not too bad, but the characters there are playing are not strong enough, we can't believe in them (and one of that character, a child, disappears and reappears severals times with no reason). I was expecting much better, I was quite disappointed.
This movie is to add to the sadly long list of movies that french or european producers and Cannes film festival supports for several years, and that are often
uselessly very slow, with long "plan-sequences", with chinese or asiatic characters created with a lot of prejudices, with a scenario that takes probably only a sheet ; they are producing or distributing a 1h30 movie at the lower cost as possible (intellectual and financial), and no matter if it leads to a bad movie. European an national subventions are enough to make benefits, no need to have people watching it.
This movie is clearly not the worst in that list, in comparison it is quite good, but it failed to be a good movie.
Of course there's also very good movies :
"Le dernier voyage du juge feng" was very interesting and beautiful, with incredible actors.
Quite disappointed, I made the decision to boost my moral by having lunch in a Korean teahouse.
The part 2 is here.
My Opera
I certainly will see it once more...
