VPRO Interview - Hans Achterhuis

"De meeste Franse filosofen, ook al bewonder ik hun denken, zijn vaak heel snorkend rethorisch bezig."

"Er is een beroemde spreuk van Camus die me, hoe naar het ook is, aan het hart ligt. Dat is dat ieder mens in zijn of haar leven maar twee of drie originele ideëen heeft en daar mag je dan blij mee zijn, en dat je hele leven bestaat uit het uitwerken van die ideëen en ik zie dat helaas bij mezelf ook steeds meer gebeuren."

Rousseau: bwonderde de vrouw en belemmerde haar: ze moest zich laten bewonderen, maar wel binnen de vier muren. Vader van de "Loi de l'homme"; maar homme betekende in de Franse Revolutie áltijd "man", nooit "mens"!

Mooi stuk als ze wat muziek opzetten en gewoon door blijven praten. "En wat dus niet in mijn boek naar voren komt...[AANZWELLEND MOZART CONCERT]" met kraak en al. Prachtig. Tussendoor; "Waar je me ook mee verraste, was de vraag.."

Shigeru Umebayashi - "No Way Out" ("House Of Flying Daggers" (2004) OST)

"Ghost in the Shell" & "Ghost in the Shell 2 - Innocence" - OST

Nice, theatrical music, flying you through a busy yet desolate world. "Kugutsuuta kagirohi ha yomi ni" is epic.

I Monster - "A Dense Swarm Of Ancient Stars"

Same wonderful craziness. "A pod is waiting", an old man, waiting for time. Echos of loneliness, sadness. and craziness, always the craziness

"Dear John", money-counter, Madness-ish. Residents. Chord-schemes of Babyon circ us?

"Sucker for your sound", with a female voice that reminds you of the Knife or Emiliana Torrini

Kôkaku kidôtai (Ghost in the Shell) (1995)

Good. Less philosophical as I thought. That might've been the second film, "Innocence".

Impressive drawings. Some breast-happy people there, but it never gets too corny. Can't compare to "Wonderful Days" though.

David Arnold - "Shaken and Stirred"

(James Bond reinterpreted)

Diamonds are forever - catchy rhythm

Aimee Mann does not do a bad job at "Nobody does it better"

Pulp - "All time high", love his rendering, but it's a love-it-or-hate-it version

"Thunderball" by Martin Fry is good... but kind of very much like the original. Oye, he does this "phrasing" though... not good!

Natacha Atlas (who?) does a fairly ok version of "From Russia with Love" which looses a certain amount of Bond-ness, but adds... Oriental influences. Tiny ones.

Propellerheads bounce off with a techno-ish "On Her Majesty's Secret Service". It has its good points, it has some boring parts.

I Monster - "Neveroddoreven"

Curiously triphopy music. Vocoders.

Daydream in Blue sounds familiar. Remix?
It's all very much like "Heaven". In a good way.

"Who is She", grand.

"The Blue Wrath", happy, muppet-like

Randy Newman - "Short People"

They got little baby legs
That stand so low
You got to pick em up
Just to say hello
They got little cars
That go beep, beep, beep
They got little voices
Goin' peep, peep, peep
They got grubby little fingers
And dirty little minds
They're gonna get you every time
Well, I don't want no short people
Don't want no short people
Don't want no short people
'Round here

"The Incredibles" (2004)

Always a wonderful film, well-executed.

According to IMDB, they recorded the score, based on Henry Mancini (Pink Panther theme) and John Barry (many James Bond scores), the old-fashioned way: with an orchestra and about 3 microphones.

Shi mian mai fu (House of Flying Daggers) (2004)

"Oh, that movie with the bamboo-forest?" is how everybody always replies when you ask them whether they saw this film.

Again, so impressed. Pure beauty, the fighting, which is dancing. The story, which is a fairytale. The backgrounds, which are heaven.

Chinese films; do they take things more to the extreme, or on the contrary simplify everything so much that it becomes much easier to relate to the subjects?

Love it. Miss China. Miss Chinese music, their poetry (though I don't understand), its people (though I don't comprehend), its everything

Feist - “Let It Die”

not bad, not impressive. it saunders on, a little stream

Ennio Morricone - "Fateless”

Recognizable, lonely flutes, a single woman's voice. Nice, and typically Morricone

Wonderful Days (2003)

It's been six years since I've seen this film for the first time, screened at B2 of Cinerama during the Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival. It still does not cease to amaze me.

First of all, the visuals are simply astonishing. The feeling of depth, space, the details of the textures, they are amazing. One shot, about two-third into the film, of falling rain, simply -must- be 'real', that good.

All in all, there are 'bad details'. Certain quite unbelievable coincedences, a man who disappears under a truck and never is his body seen again. 

But watch the end and you either completely agree or completely disagree: this film and its story, it is not about exact, believable storylines and plots. It is an opera or a Shakespeare play: everybody knows the story, nobody doesn't mind the little tricks they tried to pull off, it doesn't matter. It is -how- they do it, -how- they show and tell the story.

Again and again, amazing.

John Bennet - "Much Ado About Nothing"

Sometimes I feel like a motherless child. The obsession with uniqueness is the one relentless constant in human evolution. We set ourselves apart and then corrode with loneliness. We invent a machine to spank our champion chessplayer and then fret ourselves into a frenzy. Waht does it mean to be human, we cry out, and being humna, we're left without an answer.
   Pure laughter is the highest form of intelligence. A computer will never laugh. Program one to do it and see how it makes you feel when the thing starts making its noise. Technology is how we mock ourselves.
   Wanting to know yourself is the worst form of schizophrenia. You can't know what you are. You can only be what you are. Wishing to be God, we become nothing It is, after all, as plain as the nose on your face.

Paprika

Skipped this one over a couple of times, but I can not remember why. Too chaotic, while life itself was already busy and I wanted something "simple"?

Nevertheless, the story about the ability to enter and change dreams, the kidnapping of this by an evil mind and the subsequent merging of reality and dreams, is well told. Such a story could easily collaps in a chaotic mix of real-vs-dream, and it does happen in the end that you have no idea "where" you are, but all in all, they keep a tight grip on their story and through that, the internal logic.

Some nice visual images, characters interesting enough.

Wandâfuru raifu (Afterlife) (1998)

When people die, they have to find the happiest moment of their life. It will be recreated on film and from that moment on, they "relive" that life forever.

An elegant story and some intriguing moments. Some people find it easy, some people do not want to choose. Almost no-one chooses the moment they originally thought they would choose.

In many ways, the story is told in a simple way. The re-enactments are very simple, very basic, almost to the point that you can't imagine that it looks anywhere near their original experience. But thinking back, that does not matter. It is probably no more than a catalyst that helps them to enter 'heaven'.

One character, a youth, seems almost bitter that there is no good or evil. There simply is 'heaven'. "So everyone comes here?" he asks, "No matter what they've done?" They don't explore moral questions like these much, and personally I think that it would've been interesting. But there are some personal issues involving the people who work there (who turn out to be unable to choose) and one of them, after working there for decades, finally decides upon his moment. He leaves behind a very sad and distraught co-worker but the viewer realises: everyone will find their 'perfect moment', sooner or later.

Every time I watch Japanese (/Asian) films with old characters, I can hardly believe they are actors. Perhaps because physically they really seem so old, perhaps they act simply much better, or in a way foreign enough to me that I simply accept they are 'real'.

Willem van Toorn - "In Memoriam"

Ik droomde dat je naast me lag vannacht.
Je was al ziek. Je zei: tot in mijn merg
ben ik van dood. Vind je het erg
dat je niet in me kunt? Hou me maar zacht

tegen je aan. Ik zei: je was zo wit
en moe toen ik je zag en dan onzicht-
baar in een kist waar ik het pad af ging,
de regen en het dorp in. Wachtend gras
lag naast de kuil in zoden opgetast.
Hoe ben je dan weer hier. Je zei: ik wou
nog doen wat ik waarom had nagelaten:
praten met je in bed hoe levens praten.
Maar wat ik nu ben heeft geen taal bij jou.

Er was geen lamp. Hoe ik je dan toch zag.
'k Viel in de droom in slaap. Je hield me vast.
Koud bleef de kamer tot ver in de dag.

Ode to Un-Googling

I was restless.

I forgot the name of the writer. Fortunately this collection has not been indexed by any search engine, and the title was too general anyway. The index started at page 2097, and browsing, I encountered gems and nonsense while the snow outside turned from grey to white. Until, page 2234, I saw a familiar title that I had read just before I happened to come across the part that had now become the goal of my search.

I continue, quiet now, content. Without a goal, but with an immense landscape of letters before me.

Wintergasten: Rory Stewart

Intrigerend interview met Brits "diplomaat/politicus/avonturier" Rory Stewart, die aangeeft dat op de mooiste momenten in zijn leven, hij alleen was. "With someone besides me... it wouldn't be the same." 

Deels oude stempel, zat bij de Schotse Black Watch, geeft adviezen aan Hillary Clinton en Barack Obama, en was op zijn 30e vice-gouverneur van een Afghaanse provincie.

Zeer scherp intellect

Nick Cave / Roy Orbinson - "Running Scared"

On "Rarities", Nick Cave plays a wonderful slightly slower version of "Running Scared". Crazy about it.

Big difference; Orbinson's last line reads "You turned around and walked away with me".

Nick Cave: "You turned around and walked away from me"