Feeling Quite Mature
Yesterday, I feel like I departed from my usual existence and elevated on a slightly loftier plane. (Granted I spent Friday night staying up incredibly late and then going to the terrible all-night Mexican restaurant I pledged never to patronize again - and yes, I paid the price the following day, I digress). Anyway, yesterday I started my day of adulthood going with my friend Patrick to see
My Architect, a film I've been anxiously awaiting for some time now. It's a personal documentary about Nathaniel Kahn, the bastard son of American's architectural tour de force, Louis Kahn. I will preface everything by saying that architects are such fascinating people, the world will be a better place when more people start making movies about them. Secondly, because architecture has this time / space component, if you have to experience a building second hand, it is a natural choice to do on film rather than the more customary substitutes of still photography and sketches. I like Kahn's buildings and because I am an architecture buff, I thought the movie was very good. But because I am overly cynical about sentimentality and because I didn't feel very much sympathy for the film's narrator, I thought it could have been better. The son he is a bumbling-type, and while is was Lou's son, he otherwise didn't seem to have the qualifications to make the film - both stylistically and content decisions. He used a lot of time-lapse stuff was reeked of Kyonnostasi and MTV, at one point there is a long sequence of him "rollerblading" around the Salk Institute while baby-boomer Neil Young played on the background. The most unforgivable of his many sins - he brought his Bolex to the Wailing Wall in Israel and filmed pilgrims praying, which seemed in very poor taste. That being said, I wanted more buildings, more architects, and less Nathaniel and his family's baggage
I was feeling kind of mature anyway, because I was easily the youngest person in the audience by 25 years, because architecture, for some reason, isn't sexy enough to grab the attention of most kids. Afterward, we went to get dinner at the high-end Nepali-fusion restaurant (this is next door to a dirtier, authentic Nepali restaurant). My fish was excellent and I enjoyed the company. Patrick's finishing his dissertation and currently applying for his first job as a professor. This forced me to realize the scary prospect of an academic future - how you are really up for four or five jobs, max, and how some of these are just destined to be a poor fit, but you might be stuck there anyway. I've always had the mentality of a buyer, especially with education - a school should want me and put up some nice offers and such - but it's really lousy to be forced to negotiate a seller's market. In general, it's very nice when you have the choice and the power and the leverage, it is another to pick from a very restricted set of options, compromising all the way.
We left dinner and went to see another silent Talmadge film,
Within the Law. It was a revenge drama, and aside from being too long (two hours) it had some good moments. This might be the fourth film I've seen in the series, and she's starting to grow on me - she has wonderfully expressive eyes and she's a great performer. The live pianist was also good. It wasn't very well attended, by the film students or the public at large. Although I should have been home reading Eisenstein, it was a nice distraction.
After the second movie in our double feature, we went out for desert at L'Etoile, regarded by most as "the best restaurant in town," and for obvious reasons, I've never been. We managed to get there with just enough time to catch the desert chef - and it was decadent and incredible. A greatly crafted desert with phenomenal presentation, a glass of good port, and a very nice view of the Capital - it was the perfectly civilized way to end a Saturday night. By contrast, it made most of my other social pursuits seem kind of childish - and I am not completely ready to go over to the grown-up side, but it's a nice place to vacation to on the occasional Saturday night.
I came home and watched more of Bergman's
Scenes from a Marriage. It's a 1973 television mini-series (6 parts, I think) that rather honestly, and sometimes brutally, takes you through some of the highs and lows of a marriage. It's filmed like TV (lots of close-ups) and almost all scenes are shot in a home, but I think it's very good. I just joined Netflix and this was one of my first titles to come (the first three installments). So far so good with Netflix, and I'd recommend this title to anyone who feels like loss of
Sex and the City and
Six Feet Under. Granted HBO seems to substitute the absurd for Bergman's dramatic realism, but it fills the ever-present void in my life for this kind of mini-series drama. Plus, ever since seeing
Dogville and
The Five Obstructions, I am really digging Lars von Trier, dogme films, and seeing anything else from Sweden.
Today will be spent having admittedly less fun - finally picking up those long readings (now that my script is finished) and maybe eating some of the jelly beans my mother mailed me yesterday. Ah yes, Happy Easter.
posted by lmjasinski at 11:53 AM
