Florence, Kristeva's patient

I dreamed about Florence, a depressive woman. She is Kristeva's analysand. She appears in New Maladies of the Soul. I identified with her in my dream, I identified with Kristeva as Florence's psychoanalyst and I identified with me, a close friend of Florence.

Florence takes photos with a sophisticated camera (very sci-fi, a sort of robotic extended eye.)

Kristeva is getting bored with this case, she looks at her watch quite often. She drinks coffee. She has a strong red lipstick.

Florence gets in her dreams (and I can see them as Florence):

first dream: She (I) talks about her parents' wedding. I imagine an old photo (looks from the 50s, black and white, fancy dressed people.) The photo becomes alive, a scratched black and white movie, no sound. They are at a table, plates are empty, they are waiting, they become hungry. She start to cut each other with knives and eat them, I can see them yell, still no sound, I can see them biting flesh, legs, hands, bones on the big table. Party continues. I wake up. still as Florence. Kristeva asks for something more. I try to go back to the dream. There is a new one:

second dream: Florence masturbates, she gets sick. I feel sick, I feel like throwing up. Florence goes to my bathroom, she pukes in the basin. She pukes Kristeva's head. The head starts talking. Then i switch right away to Kristeva's seat in the session. She explains what's going on. Switch back to Florence. She doesn't hear anything Kristeva says. She has only one thought: Kristeva represents my mother.
That's all I remember.

I went back to the book. Kristeva explains the two dreams (they are pretty close to what I dreamed): a tragic, grotesque poetics that give meaning to Florence's drives. They are related to her anxieties, to her desire of killing her daughter. Kristeva connects the two dreams by telling that Florence absorbs the head and body parts of her mother in order to spit them in the basin in order to make a place for her own child (to occupy her own basin). By remembering quite well this oniric mise-en-abyme, I guess I have to spit Kristeva's theories and writing in order to make a place for my own stuff. That would be a small possible reading based on Kristeva's text. But does it mean my friendship with Florence, to the level that I become her and her analyst?

Forbidden Milk

I was about to write a post about Gus van Sant's movie. I thought it was kind of softish, but a good initiative of mainstreaming alternative heroes. A sort of low-fat Milk in a genre framework of melodrama. Nancy Goldstein wrote an article on it: highly informative for those who are not so familiar with Harvey Milk and the struggles in Castro district, supporting my suspicions on the cleaninng up of the story but keeping the movie close to the genre specific. And not to mention how Sean Penn could fit the sympathetic direction of a straightened movie about a gay politician. A good-old Holywood style movie for everyone to watch.

I didn't write this post only to see today while reading some Romanian news that a Romanian commission for classifying movies, part of National Centre of Cinematography (CNC) rated Milk with R (or forbidden under 18 in Romania). Andreea Tanase, Cristina Corciovescu, Tudorel Butoi, Oana Stroe and Vladimir Marin, the members of the commission, took this decision because there are some images with a hanged man, fellatio and, most of all, it's propaganda for a specific sexual orientation. I would love to see how they forbid all movies that fit the framework of propaganda for specific sexual orientations, all those lovely romantic comedies and so on (but of course the only sexual orientations that are forbidden are the non-heterosexual one) . We should not forget that we are talking of a state institution here that shows right-in-your-face homophobia with an obscene nonchalance.

The only reaction came from the movie distributor, RoImage: they contested the decision. Fucking great. Goodnight, Romania! I hope I'll never see your ugly face again! The only place where Milk is forbidden for kids under 18.

Extremely scarry! Romanian values

European Values Survey from 2008 came out with some interesting data concerning Romanian values:

86% of Romanians think that religion is very important, this time more than Polish people. These values are higher outside Europe only in Iraq, Morocco, Indonesia or Rwanda. The religious element goes hand in hand with a wild capitalist individualist framework, last European values for voluntary work. A sort of metaphysical determinism fits the framework with a focus on a higher entity that decides, there are no social viable connections, each for its own, God can help me first, then the others, but it’s not my business anyway. A sociologist comments it in this article (only in Romanian), as a sort of social autism: a majority sociological syndrome designed for survival.

6% of the 1.488 interviewees consider politics important, while 74% consider it unimportant at all. These numbers go hand in hand with the 73% of desires for a strong leader, one that is not concerned with elections or the Parliament. “Only” 20% are convinced that a military regime means a better life for them. All these numbers are higher than any other European country can give.

16% Romanians trust people, much lower than in other European countries

75% are against abortion

63% are against divorce

91% think that homosexuality is not right

Family is seen as highly important by most of the interviewees in contrast to friendship. Actually, only in the Netherlands friends are more important than family but Romanians have one of the worst opinions on friendship in Europe and that makes me think… Why shouldn't we start changing thinks from here? Support Friendship! Subvert Romanian patriarchy, make a friend today!

Julia Frey about Toulouse-Lautrec

Sergiu Nicolaescu vs Edward D Wood jr.

First of all, who the fuck is S.Nicolaescu? Considered the worst or the best Romanian director of all times, he begin his career as an engineer so much in love with cheap American gangster movies that he started to make them. You can still observe in his old movies from 1960s and 1970s the good-old-engineer eye for perfect imitation. He loved moral stories and also big Hollywood epics. He found his way to support his projects by the Communist Party in charge, of course with some compromises, which are better seen in his later nationalist movies, following the political lines of the dominant discourse. This is enough for introduction, I am sure there is a lot of stuff on Sergiu online, if you want to get into his plastic universe. What I want to write more about is his last movie, from 2008, The Survivor. He manages to resurrect one of his dear characters from the 1970s, a leftist police officer that fights the interwar gangsters. Now the setting is changed, the police officer escapes the communist hell from the 1970s and ends up in Prague where he plays Russian roulette for survival. All the good-old characters are there, a wonderful occasion for our ragged hero to remember: Sergiu brings in all the possible clichés of an afternoon action American movie to support some local bias, anti-Semitism (the evil Jew that hunts his memories, the Jew that has no consciousness when he destroys lives, it’s all for the money, get it, right?), racism (the musicians are toys in the hand of the evil Jew, they are “the sentimental gypsies”, the one “good” and faithful Roma is a small thief, a motif for friendly plain racist jokes with no motivation in the script, just for Sergiu’s own racist pleasure I guess), sexism (women have no lines, they are undressed and killed, insisting on cock-teasing details) and direct assholism. Sergiu’s success at the box office is given by a nostalgia for state socialist symbols that lead the way for some contemporary bigotism. One last thing to mention: the script for The Survivor won the money from the Romanian state institution for cinema when the script for 4,3,2 by Mungiu was only on the 4^th place.

Nicolaescu and Wood share same hysterical obsession for their self representation in their movies: it is all about them, their current age when the movie is made, their bodily portrait, their small obsessions and fetishes. Ed Wood became a cult hero in the eyes of contemporary yuppies as something extreme: “he is the worst”, a source for humor, without paying attention at his extreme subversion of Hollywood cinematography, narrations and characters. By comparing the worst Romanian director to the worst director of all times, there are some significant differences to point out: while Edward D. Wood jr. brings forth nonlinear scripts that sound crazy, his Angora fetish, his homosocial buddies and personal drags, Sergiu comes with a strong reiteration of the most conservative version of the status quo with all its deadly elements. They are both sincere and they both talk about themselves with ridiculous cinematic poetics: that marks the whole distinction.

But more about Eddie in future posts, his book Hollywood Rat Race is on my very short list to be read.

My favs for 2008

I was thinking a lot lately for the highlights of last year, what happened and what changed. A lot of stuff but here are just some personal favorite items:

Favorite movie: Mein liebster Feind - Klaus Kinski by Werner Herzog - even if it was made in 1999, I watched it so many times in 2008 that i've learned most of the lines and had favourite parts for special moments. I anticipate that it will be a well-watched movie this year also.








Favorite performance: The Funeral by Péter Nádas, directed by László Bocsárdi, Comedy Theatre Bucharest, I've already wrote about this show here









Favorite album: Beirut – Gulag Orkestar from 2006 - happy to discover Beirut in 2008, it can change my mood in a second (maybe that's why I've listened it so many times) and then you cannot stop listening to it, you have to go for the whole album on and on.



Favorite art exhibit: Love, Erotica, Passion Exhibition in Prague - erotic themes in 15th to 19th century at the Clam Gallas Pallace in Husova Street. I hope they still have this exhibition. Well organized, wonderful possible explorations. The art pieces were taken from Prague City Archives, National Gallery and the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague. Amazing expressions of sexuality in so many twisted ways.

Favorite book: Mad Men and Medusas: Reclaiming Hysteria by Juliet Mitchell, from 2001 - this book made my life easier and gave me a lot of exciting ideas for my work and being-in-the-world (not only the academic one)









Favorite live show: CocoRosie at Trafo - a complete show: music, performing, costumes, images, interaction and Sierra and Bianca, I had it in my mind for so long.





Favorite moment of 2008: open rehearsal of Jehanne Complex, the idea that we actually did it, and there were people there to close the performing circle. A great experience all in all, it gave me a great feeling concerning theatre, my projects and what you can do with amazing people that you can meet in so many contexts but never like in a performing situation.

Insecurities Increase

by Antonette*

Insecurities increase,

with daily verbal abuse

and death threats,

All because of the way I dress.

Aging tranny bitch queen,

tattooed masculine lines,

some ‘bull-dyke’ on steroids.

Nice figure,

but face like Freddie Krueger,

the serial killer.

Why can’t people let me be?

Constantly judging

by first appearances.

You can’t judge

by looking at the wrapping.

The woman in me,

dying to be accepted.

The public forces the Queen

to put the dresses away

after a certain age.

The abuse and constant danger,

Forces the she-male

to only come out at night,

if at all.

Imprisoned by letting the forces

of the shallow general public,

To intimidate the feminine side,

so she must fade away

and hide.

The tranny bitch submissive Queen,

Too old to be seen as anything other

than a sexual deviant,

Fallen so far.

Starting over again

at the bottom,

Can’t get much lower

than a tranny working the stroll.

Shit on from all sides,

an abnormality.

Can I keep going,

dressing daily for my femininity?

Old memories,

sadden the heart,

vacant loneliness,

Stress upon stress.

Afraid I might kill

some ignorant young fuck,

For his ill timed,

homophobic foul mouth.

Don’t look 30,

but awesome for 50-something.

Strong masculine lines

and tattoos,

Constantly reinforce

the fitting handle

of,

Miss Understood.

* I found this wonderful poem at the Queer History Project website. You can find the story of the poem and other amazing queer stories there.

Tu Ridi (1998)

Directors: Paolo & Vittorio Taviani

based on two short stories by Pirandello, the challenge of this tough Taviani feature is the construction and how it works for the viewer. I've seen it twice because for the first time it really puzzled me in the sense of "what the fuck was that?!?!" Some people say it was just some Taviani pretentious bullshit, badly picking some shitty stories or oh! it was so poetic, it was such an exquisite image blah blah blah. You can avoid this movie in so many ways because it is so goddamn uncanny. But here is my long-thought-analysis: its difficulty or beauty stays in its technique. What they do here is quite classic: deconstruction in two. The brothers are splitting everything into two, the movie, the stories, the characters, reality, time, location and so on. The splitting goes to the level of a spiraling infinite and can make you dizzy at some point. But it's a fascinating exercise and so damn simple after all. Of course, being used with some narrative styles that follow strict rules and conventions, being realism or hardcore experimental, this uncanny diversion explodes in your face and you don't know what hits you. Highly recommended.