Take Me Somewhere Nice [2019)

Sara Luna Zorić.

The world is fucked up.

For two years we fought against medical tyranny.

We fought against killer vaccines.

And suddenly the narrative changed.

Completely.

The plandemic/scamdemic wiped out.

Like chalk off a blackboard.

This is a flawed masterpiece.

Like the dent in Sara Luna Zorić’s forehead.

This film is a masterpiece.

This film is an utter masterpiece.

And it is carried by Sara Luna Zorić’s breasts.

And legs.

And scowl.

And sadness.

And dented forehead.

This film is a masterpiece.

It ends like Pierrot le fou, in some ways.

It ends like Contempt.

It ends like Ghost World.

So can I be in love with Sara Luna Zorić now?

Yes.

Because the world is shit.

We must pick sides.

I pick Russia.

Fuck Ukraine.

IMG_7667

There is not a more propagandistic website on Earth than Drudge Report.

Screen Shot 2022-03-05 at 4.32.23 AM

Do you know what propaganda looks like?

“Putin doesn’t want his people to see images of the war.”

“Russian Air Force incapable of complex military operations (invasion failing).”

“Zelensky is the reincarnation of Rasputin.”

“Russian soldiers raping Ukrainian women.”

“Russia [who secured both Chernobyl and Zaporizhzhia] are nuclear ‘terrorists'”. [For securing the facilities. All while the facilities are undamaged and not showing a rise in radiation leakage.]

“Russia is planning public executions.”

Might as well throw in some chestnut like “Russia shish-kebabbing Ukrainian infants on bayonets”.

Do you see where this is going?

“Two more top Russian commanders kiled.”

DO YOU BELIEVE ANY OF THIS BULLSHIT???

The same media that lied to you for two years about COVID and masks and vaccines and lab leaks now wants you to TRUST THEM and #StandWithUkraine .

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKKKKK THAT!

What are the possibilities that Putin is beholden to Klaus Schwab?

I’d say 1%.

What is the possibility that Putin is doing the right thing.

I’d say 99%.

But the only problem is this: it completely overshadows the exceedingly-successful “freedom convoys” of truckers and also makes it impossible for any news about COVID duplicity to make it on any mainstream news.

So the timing is, one may see, unfortunate.

The whole COVID narrative was rapidly collapsing.

The virus was burning out with Omicron.

Serious, serious questions about impropriety from Moderna and Pfizer were arising.

And they CONTINUE to arise.

But you won’t hear about them.

The Ukraine war is like a giant school shooting.

This will be THE ONLY STORY in the news for months.

Perhaps years.

There are two reasons that people do things.

The “good” reason and the real reason.

Why did Putin invade Ukraine?

Because Zelensky announced 11 months ago that his intention was to retake Crimea by force.

And why else did Putin invade?

Because Zelensky announced seven months ago that Ukraine’s desire and intention was to join NATO.

Any other possible reasons?

Zbigniew Brzezinski called Ukraine the “bread basket” of the former Soviet Union.

What is the only thing which could rival oil right now in terms of astronomical inflation and actual scarcity?

Food.

Wheat.

Food security.

Putin may be securing this bread basket for Russia.

And I don’t blame him.

But let’s look at some attack scenarios.

Ukraine –> Moldova.

No NATO territory crossed.

Finland –> Sweden.

No NATO territory crossed.

Azerbaijan/Georgia (or vice versa) –> Armenia –> Iran (joins Russian Federation?) –> Iraq –> Syria (joins Russian Federation?)

No NATO territory crossed.

Monaco invasion.

And finally:

Bosnia and Herzegovina –> Serbia –> Kosovo.

I save this one for last because it is the most germane to our film.

This film’s action largely takes place in Bosnia.

Language: Bosnian.

Invasion from the sea.

Order of battle as above.

If you like Romanian New Wave, you will love Take Me Somewhere Nice.

I cannot understate the importance of this film.

Ena Sendijarević did a phenomenal job directing this.

Shades of Kiarostami.

Sonic Youth.

Tu dors Nicole.

Taste of Cherry.

This is dark humor.

But there is no punchline.

That’s how dark it is.

Dark, deadpan humor.

Dark absurdity.

Banality.

Warts and all.

Balkans.

The forgotten parts of Europe.

Where it is a curse to grow up.

I always pray for the children and the elderly of Ukraine.

And the fucking Ukrainian morons who didn’t get involved in politics and prevent corrupt Joe Biden from becoming the U.S. President.

They bear some blame.

But we do not want civilian casualties.

Putin asked the Ukrainian military to overthrow Zelensky.

They have been very foolish to not heed Putin’s suggestion.

And Mark Milley was indeed at the Ukrainian border with 15+ wide-body planes full of Javelins and Stingers.

How exceedingly-foolish.

Russia has been unequivocal: provide weapons to Ukraine which are used against our troops and we will consider this an act of war.

Milley’s panties were wedged in his vagina over the “white rage” of Jan6, but here he is personally handing out missiles to Ukraine.

Why?

We have no defense treaty with Ukraine.

Our Congress has not declared war on Russia.

WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!?

It’s the same faggots: Mark Milley, Lloyd Austin, Michael Gilday, Bishop Garrison…

The military is not coming to save us.

And Trump became a moron ever since he uttered the words “I got the Pfizer”.

Putin is the best leader in the world.

And this film is magnificent.

-PD

The Girl in the Spider’s Web [2018)

EMERGENCY TRANSMISSION:

https://79days.news/watch?id=5fa480cc65f2d419a08b54e2

This has been planned for a long time.

The red hat.

Gate 45.

The chess piece is the watermark.

Sting operation.

Think it can’t happen?

Think ABSCAM times a million.

Sans FBI.

Every ballot watermarked with QFS blockchain encryption code.

Yes, it appears (from the testimony provided in the link above) that secret anti-fraud measures were put in place for this year’s election.

Watermarked ballots.

Trump has pulled back and is allowing the thoroughly-corrupt Democrats (who represent the globalists) and their pusillanimous media minions (99% of American mass media) to make fools of themselves.

It was a trap.

Sun Tzu, motherfuckers!

DHS (who will likely soon replace the FBI it its entirety) was in charge of printing ballots.

Non-radioactive isotope watermarks.

National guard called up in 12 states.

Washington [+D.C.?], Delaware, Texas, Arizona, Alabama…

The implication here is that the military will be used as law enforcement in some way.

That is how I’m reading it (by watching the above video).

Counter-coup II.

In 2016 it was Hillary (and family).

Now it is the corrupt Biden family.

Q:  “Are arrests coming down the road?”

A:  “Yes.  They’re coming…not just down the road.  They are being implemented.”

[…]

“People will be arrested as of tonight, tomorrow, and it will go on for quite awhile.”

Holy fuck.

“This is the biggest sting operation in our country…probably that we’ve ever had.”

Some sort of RFID (?) on the ballots for cyber tracking?

Some sort of radiation signature?

Enter the NSA.

Not exactly located in D.C. (as this movie would have you believe), but rather at Fort Meade in Maryland.

Firefall sounds (phonetically) like Skyfall (and, in substance, like The Hammer/Scorecare).

What happens when NSA tools escape?

Assange revealed some stuff in the Vault 7 drop.

For which the password was a riddle:

SplinterIntoAThousandPiecesAndScatterIntoTheWinds.

Ahhh, the good old days of Vault 7 (leading up to the 2016 election).

SÄPO (Swedish FBI) again show themselves to be corrupt (and inept).

[like the former leaders of the American FBI…Comey, McCabe, Strzok…]

The Spiders.

Organized crime.

Certain elements are trite (like the half-hearted, passing device of framing Salander for shooting Balder).

Double-cross the double-cross.

Or as Guy Debord wrote, “deceit deceives itself”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.50_BMG

Seeing through walls.

Tapping into “security” system.

Makes you sitting ducks.

Two technologies fused to create a sort of video game.

The mother of invention.

The absurdity of evil.

Beyond banality is the end scenario.

A rout.

Claire Foy is pretty damned good here.

So is LaKeith Stanfield.

Christopher Convery does a very fine job.

Cameron Britton makes a good Plague.

Quite a fine film from Fede Álvarez.

Even some very nice musical scoring from Roque Baños.

So get your popcorn ready.

-PD

Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain [2001)

Today is my 40th birthday.

And it gives me pause to reflect.

On the many wonderful things I have done and seen.

And on the mistakes I have made.

This film, in particular, brings to my heart a specific apology.

And yet, I know not how to find the wonderful young woman who first showed me this film.

I doubt she is reading.

But I pray that my thoughts will bounce off the moon…and find her happy in Paris…or Aix-en-Provence.

But Amélie, as we call it in America…is full of beaming positivity.

And so we shall push on.

As much as we wouldst remain in this quicksand, we push on.

Perhaps it’s loneliness.

And certainly an overactive imagination.

But some of it is the absurdity we found in that Québécois masterpiece Léolo (1992) by director Jean-Claude Lauzon.

We can stay at home.

Far from the maddening crowd.

The crowd.

Vidor.

Irving Thalberg.

Thomas Hardy.

But we yearn for excitement.

We yearn to feel the blood pulse in our veins.

To “lose the fear” as The Boo Radleys sang.

Best,

how many waitresses we have fallen in love with.

Hard-boiled eggs in the highlands.

Robert Burns.

Don’t close your heart.

Leave open.

Rube Goldberg might dislodge a wall tile.  And a world beyond…

Éclairs sur l’au-delà…

Do good things.

As if you were an angel.

A spy for God.

Making miracles.

Ellen Andrée…the girl drinking the water…in Renoir’s painting.

Pierre-Auguste.

Must clarify, not Jean…extolling Bazin.

Everything secretly.

One hand not knowing what the other is doing.

QWERTY.

X.

You have a mission to bring happiness to those around you.

Hippie bumper stickers call it “random acts of kindness”.

And I wholeheartedly approve.

Send the gnome to Nome.

Ponder jurassic orgasms from far afield or near (15+1).

And let out some steam for modesty’s sake.

Stratagems befitting Technical Services in thrall to love…forgery for romance.

Time machine.

Nothing some Twinings tea can’t age.

And the gaslighting which is currently being employed straight from Alinsky’s Rules against pizzagate researchers…turn the beat around.

Knowing John Podesta founded the Center for American Progress…under the aegis of which Mind Wars was written by Jonathan D. Moreno.

We have on good faith that US spec-ops use this very book.

So that Mr. Podesta should not be at all surprised by a little blowback.

Neuroscience neuroscience neuroscience.

And the funding and methodology of trolls suddenly makes sense.

Yes, Amélie is an expert in psychological warfare.

But only as a last resort.

AND, most importantly, she is sticking up for the undefended.

Jamel Debbouze.

It’s impressionist binoculars vs. covert telescope.

Good-natured.

But only she holds the key.

To Ellen Andrée.

And to the ghost.

Who seeks to repair the collective memory.

“Don’t forget my face”, she posits.

But love is the ultimate job.

The ultimate reward.

To find another like yourself.

To be accepted.

To find the lock for your key.

And vice versa.

It is cat and mouse.

And Zorro.

And Audrey Tautou is magnificent.

She is a jewel in a world created by director Jean-Pierre Jeunet.

So tender.

So halting.

We feel “the time-image” of which Deleuze wrote.

Love is too strong.

Like staring into the sun.

Too forceful.

Like a full moon.

But luckily Mathieu Kassovitz knows his proverbs.

And that “made all the difference”.

Early on one frosty morn’.

Simply put, Amélie is an undeniable masterpiece.

That only the hard-hearted could look down upon.

 

-PD

Burn After Reading [2008)

This film just goes to show that intelligence work might best be described in the terms of humor.

A very dark humor.

Half of U.S. intelligence agencies fall under the purview of the Department of Defense:

-Twenty-Fifth Air Force (25 AF) [Air Force intelligence]

-Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM) [Army intelligence]

-Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI)

-Marine Corps Intelligence Activity (MCIA)

-Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)

-National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA)

-National Reconnaissance Office (NRO)

and

-National Security Agency (NSA)/Central Security Service (CSS)

Then there are those executive departments which oversee two intel services apiece:

-Department of Homeland Security (Coast Guard Intelligence [CGI] and Office of Intelligence and Analysis [I&A])

and

-Department of Justice (Intelligence Branch [IB] of the Federal Bureau of Investigations [FBI] and Office of National Security Intelligence of the Drug Enforcement Administration [DEA])

In addition to these 12 agencies, there are four “peacocks”:

-Central Intelligence Agency (CIA [an independent entity])

-Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence (OICI [of the Department of Energy])

-Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR [of the Department of State])

and finally George Clooney’s armory in Burn After Reading:

-Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (TFI) [of the Department of Treasury]).

But we must remember that the U.S. Secret Service (USSS) was, until 2003, also part of the Department of Treasury.  Clooney’s character Harry Pfarrar speaks of his previous work protecting diplomats as a “PP”.  Personal protection?  Personnel protection?

Nevertheless, we learn something of which even the other D.C. “natives” in our film seem unaware:  that certain Treasury Department employees carry guns.

This, of course, ends up being a big detail in Burn After Reading.

And so the main thing is to understand the CIA analyst played adeptly here by John Malkovich.

The Balkans Desk.

-Joint Base San Antonio, Texas

-Fort Belvoir, Virginia

-Suitland, Maryland

-Suitland, Maryland?  Or Quantico, Virginia?

-Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling, Washington, D.C.

-Fort Belvoir, Virginia

-Chantilly Lace and a Pretty Face, Virginia (oh baby that’s 9/11!)

-and Fort Meade, Maryland

[continuing]

-Anacostia? [D.C.]

-DHS Nebraska Avenue Complex, Washington, D.C.

-J. Edgar Hoover Building [D.C.]

-Arlington County, Virginia? [DEA]

-Langley, Virginia

-James V. Forrestal Building (D.C.) [DoE]

-Foggy Bottom (Harry S. Truman Building) [D.C.]

and

-1500 [sic] Pennsylvania Avenue (USA)

All of this is to say that Osbourne Cox (Malkovich) is “a damned good analyst”.

But forget the “PP”.

Georege Clooney is a U.S. Marshal.  And thus under the Department of Justice umbrella.

Right?

All of this makes me sympathize with the witless Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand) and Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt).

But the funniest part is the repartee between David Rasche and J.K. Simmons over at Langley.

The implication is that a couple of athletic trainers and an alcoholic former analyst (plus a U.S. Marshal) have spun a web of inexplicable disaster even more boneheaded than the Bay of Pigs invasion.

And so it is priceless to hear these two gentlemen speak in tones of which Leo G. Carroll would no doubt have approved.

“We do nothing.”

When in doubt.

Ah, but Zugzwang?

Nein.

Nichts.

Nothing is scarier than a know-nothing.

Completely transparent.

Like water.

The most terrifying mask.

Princeton pulls the trigger in full-on mental illness.

And with a healthy buzz.

Maybe a bathrobe.

Can’t recall.

But felt very Harry Nilsson (if not Brian Wilson) sartorially speaking.

But the best thing is the CIA in the plastic surgery/philanthropy business.

Slushing the funds.  A little churn.

If only.

The absurdity of it all (for the CIA) most accurately can be explained by the Situationism of Guy Debord.

Like snowflakes.  Overlaid onto life views courtesy NRO.

Photo interpretation.

NGA.  Or even an NGO.

Who knows?

Clap on, clap off, the Clapper.  X X

 

-PD

 

Viaggio in Italia [1954)

We push ourselves so hard.

For what?

So that we may see beauty.

For me, it’s this.

Though I can barely hold my eyes open, I see it.

I see what Godard saw when he was just a lad.

A very mature film from Roberto Rossellini.

But by mature, we don’t mean sexual.

Actually, more nuanced than that.

A celebration of woman as human being.

A celebration of Ingrid Bergman as auteur.

Just as much as her husband, the director.

It’s there.

The collaboration.

And it’s unlike any other film I’ve ever seen.

Perhaps…

she fell in love with his genius.

The war trilogy.

We have talked about the great films.

Just after WWII.

Rome, Open City.

Germany, Year Zero.

And enfin…

Paisan.

[in not quite that order]

These are our English names.

But Journey to Italy is a weird feast of linguistic absurdity.

“…you shameless hussy”.

It’s like this, see…

George Sanders and Ingrid Bergman are British,

but they’re speaking Italian.

This was so the Italians didn’t have to read subtitles.

But then George says to a prosititute,

“I don’t speak Italian” (or something)

in English…WHEN HE’S BEEN SPEAKING ITALIAN FOR THE FIRST HOUR OF THE FILM!

And then there’s the Italian tradition of postproduction.

No live sound.

In this film, no ambient noises.

It’s like George and Ingrid are touring Italy in a fucking Tesla Model S!!

And a bit of dialogue.

And a clip-clop and a cloche.

Get out of the way, donkey cart!

Such that at a certain point, we wonder whether Roberto was exploding not only genre (to reference James Monaco), but the Italian version of “the tradition of quality” against which the French New Wave set themselves so polemically.

🙂

It’s possible.

“Do you think I’m insane,” asked Elon Musk.

No, of course not.

You’re South African like me.

But at the heart of this film (this is a film review, right?) are the same marital arts (!) which made Benatar sing love is a battlespace.  What?

Before Godard and Karina, it was Roberto and Ingrid.

And the tension rubs.

Gimme friction, said Tom Verlaine.

And Paul Verlaine said some stuff which was ignored.

And Rimbaud shot his hand.  Or ran guns.

Back when Abyssinia.

Main point is this is beautiful film.

Plain simple.

And it’s no accident Mr. and Ms. Joyce.

 

-PD

 

O slavnosti a hostech [1966)

This is one of the strangest films I’ve ever seen.

Rarely have I seen such uneasiness conveyed through cinema.

The really terrifying part is.

How mundane all of the symbols are.

Is/are.

Insane.

For a moment.

Like the Czech version of Deliverance.

We see “party” in English (in the context of Czechoslovakia), and we think.

Communist Party.

But the slavnosti in question translates to “feast”.

Google tells us.

And Google is never wrong.

Right?

Which is to say.

Hell is a party.

A party from which you wish to flee.

Beggar’s banquet.

There is no leaving communist Romania.

And Czechoslovakia?

I can’t tell you, dear friend.

But we know of the boy who swam the Danube.

Symbolic.

To nonaligned Yugoslavia.

And from there to Italy and Toblerone.

That’s Cum mi-am petrecut sfârşitul lumii.

But what we have here is A Report on the Party and the Guests.

Report.

Also sounds very bureaucratic.  Quintessentially communist.

Let’s take the popular notion that Kafka sums up bureaucracy.

In which work?

The Trial? With Josef K.?

Yes.  This is most applicable to O slavnosti a hostech.

We must learn to speak every language.

Like Pope John Paul II (slight exaggeration).

Because Kafka wrote in German.

Der Process.

It’s a process of ablaut-ish metamorphosis.

Prozess –> Proceß –> Prozeß

swimswamswum

Kafka died in 1924.  Age 40.  My age in six months.

1948/1949 Czechoslovakia becomes part of Soviet bloc.

Comecon.

Not to be confused with Comic-Con.

And never any Poto and Cabengo in San Diego.

Though they be in their own backyard.

Grace and Virginia were superheroes without costumes.

And they had their own language, by golly.

Brings tears to my eyes.

To see them playing potato.

“What are they saying?”

This is the absurdity of blogging about the absurdity of a film inspired by the absurdity of Kafka.

But likely unconscious.

This genius (director Jan Němec) died only a few months ago.

But he gave the world a belly laugh.

And an unnerving masterpiece.

It is not as obviously magnificent as Closely Watched Trains.

But it is supremely subversive.

In a totalitarian state (like Amerika)…which is completely ruled by commodity relations.

This is our last recourse.

England swings.

Like a pendulum.

From the gallows.

Frexit (France leaves NATO…again).

Hexit (Hungary curses continental Europe from Buddhapesht to Bookarrest)

Crexit (Croatia invents new correction fluid for computer screens)

Spexit (Spain certifies that said correction fluid meets ISO standards)

Esexit (Estonia doubles GDP overnight with racy dating service app)

Slexit (a dual rush for the doors by Slovakia and Slovenia)

Rexit (Holy Roman Emperor reestablished in Romania, confined to Bookarrest)

Fexit (Finland engages in creative destruction)

Pexit (Poland and Portugal [in that order] gobble seed with bobbing avian head motion)

Irexit (being both hungry and anorexic [morbidly hangry], Ireland joins the Brits in bolting)

Everyone else stays.

Until the Czexit.  [ooh la la]

Serbia accedes and secedes in same day simply to give the world the thrill of Sexit.

[I know I know]

This is the rearrangement of guests.

So many not at the world table.

In such times.

Only art can explain.

 

-PD

 

Playtime [1967)

This took a lot of watching.  Rewatching.

Last night…so tired.

Watched half.  Then rewind.  Dozed off.  Watch same half again.

First time I saw this (years ago) was on the big screen.

It really makes a difference.

That janitor at the beginning.  His strange pause and crouch.  His peering left and right.  His broom and dustpan.

Very little sweeping.  Just clanking.

Yes.  Sounds.  Sounds.  Sounds.  (Zounds!)

The vinyl chairs which return to their shape after you sit and dent.  The strange sound.  The strange quality.

“Quality”

Tradition of quality.

It might lead you to ask:  what was Jacques Tati trying to say with this film?

Answering that is no easy task.

Sure, this seems like a simple, lightweight film.  In some ways it is.

It’s enjoyable.  It’s lighthearted.  And yet…

There is more than a smidgen of Modern Times here.  And Tati, with his pipe…  More than a pipe-full of Sartre.  Sartre with his publication Les Temps modernes.  Even Sartre apparently thought highly enough of Chaplin to work under an homage headline.

And so, Tati…lost in the supermarket.  Lost in the buildings from 2 ou 3 choses que je sais d’elle.  Same year.  1967.  Paris.  In the banlieues.

And very few words.

As I said.

A movie of sounds.

Yes.

But images.

Reflections.

Illusions.

It appears.

Optical.

Illusion.

And its reflection.

Double.

Mirror image.

Flipped.

Paris.

It appears that the buttons have been switched.  Very nice, WordPress.  Now I am “publishing” every time I intend to merely “save” (and vice versa).

That is the theme of the film.

Thingamajigs.

No no no.  Take your time.  Uh uh uh…hold on.  [click click click click]  Ok, now rise.

We wait for the entire hallway to be traversed in an absurd observation of ritual.

And from above…the cubicles.

One needs must occupy higher ground to see the big picture.  All of these busy bees become lost in the fray.

Afraid.

True.

And so it is not farfetched to guess that Peter Sellers and Blake Edwards were influenced in their masterpiece The Party (1968) by Tati’s Playtime (1967).

But with Tati there is even more.  An industrial ballet.  The poise of the service industry (and its opposite).  [Both]

A constant counterpoint like a comic Górecki.

Perhaps I have been hitting the wrong button all along.

Have I been saying these things out loud?

Yes, we wonder.

Technology.

We grew up in a different time.

The chairs were different.

The doors were different.

And since we are quiet and meek we spend an eternity in the antechamber.  In the darkened hallway.

How do we get out?

Yes, Paris…even then, perhaps?  A drugstore?  Yes.  Too depressing for anyone to look each other in the eyes.

The hum.  The constant hum.  Like Alphaville.  Like Oskar Sala’s Trautonium.  The Birds.  Bernard Herrmann as musical consultant.  But those noises.  Mixtur.

And several waiters will salt the troutonium…and grind pepper…and spread the sauce…and the couple has moved.

The main course has stayed behind.

Heated.  Reheated.  Set on fire.  Jubilee.

Turbot.

And lobster boy just cares about his hair.

Nerval.  Hugo Ball.

But that humming…like Metal Machine Music way ahead of time.  But creepier.  Like Raymond Scott’s music for babies crossed with Erik Satie’s musique d’ameublement.

Waiting waiting.  That’s a theme.  And all the illustrious portraits of CEOs past.

Is it a job interview?

And that’s Orly?  It seems more like a hospital.  Little hummingbird nuns and swaddled kids.

But we shall always live in Barbara Dennek’s dimples.  It sounds weird to say.

But it is luck.  Bad luck.  And then good luck.

And random error.  Entropy.

Chaos.

Can anyone here play the piano?

Yes.  Yes I can!

And some half-rate Edith Piaf gets up to sing her long-forgotten hit.

Except no one has forgotten it.  Once a hit, always a hit.

More or less.

The new religion.

The hum of neon.

All the desserts look sickly.  Even to the “chef.”  Must hide his mystère.  An apple with some sputtery whip?  An upside-down coffee mug?

Mmmm…

William S. Burroughs would doubtless have approved.  The man in the gray flannel suit (book).  But taken to theatrical limits.  Choreography of male primping.  Like Cary Grant on hallucinogens.  A surreal ritual.

Ritual.

This is sociology.

Anthropology.

Paris.  The modern man.

See him in his natural habitat.

See her shop.  See her sell.

See him work.  See him drink.

If you travel, you will see the tourist side.

On a trip.

With a group.

Activities planned.

Like a cruise.

And God forbid you become separated from the group.

Yes.

That is our little romance.

And Tati is meek enough to barely suggest to suggest (x2).

That M. Hulot might find love.

It would be a random day.

He would get pulled this way and that.

And winding up in some crazy, unplanned situation he would become sweet on dimples.

See him in his fishbowl.

Before there was Mr. Bean, there was Monsieur Hulot.

Before there was Forrest Gump.

Tell me…where are the “fancy goods”?  Perhaps silk.  Hermès.

Always caught at the turnstiles of life…

-PD