Down Mexico way: watching Roma

I have to write about watching the Netflix film Roma last night, so I can get it out of my head.  On waking up this morning, I kept finding I was already half composing my take on it, and getting black and white imagery floating through my head, in the way a good film can infect your sleep.

It's quietly compelling:  a visually beautiful, fly-on-the-wall type of experience of an eccentric, troubled  country (and family) circa 1971.

My first observation (one I am often making these days, because I can't get over how production values on so many Netflix shows look like that of expensive cinema of old): the visual recreation of the era is completely convincing (admittedly, not that I am familiar with the streets of Mexico City then or now.)   I was often wondering if some street-scapes were digital or if the city is easy to dress up as looking 50 years older than it is.  It looks great and makes you feel you are in the era - it's almost worth watching for this alone.

As a drama, it doesn't have that much of a narrative arc:  it's a more of the European/Aussie film tradition in which merely showing a slice of life of unhappy, hopeless people, with no sense of anything much learned at the end,  is considered enough of a justification for a movie.  But the family and main character - their poor maid Cleo - in this case is more sympathetic than that, and the key tragic event in the film is upsetting to watch. 

It's also true that there is very little in the way of dialogue from Cleo that expresses her feelings and character:  that's why I described it as more "fly-on-the-wall" than your usual family drama story.  I see now that Richard Brody, writing in the New Yorker*, strongly criticised the film (one of the very critics to do so!) for making a cipher of the key character:

He not only fails to imagine who the character of Cleo is but fails to include the specifics of who Libo [the real life character writer and director Alfonso Curaron devoted the film to] was for him when he was a child.

In the process, he turns the character of Cleo into a stereotype that’s all too common in movies made by upper-middle-class and intellectual filmmakers about working people: a strong, silent, long-enduring, and all-tolerating type, deprived of discourse, a silent angel whose inability or unwillingness to express herself is held up as a mark of her stoic virtue. (It’s endemic to the cinema and even leaves its scars on better movies than “Roma,” including some others from this year, such as “Leave No Trace” and “The Rider.”) The silent nobility of the working poor takes its place in a demagogic circle of virtue sharing that links filmmakers (who, if they offer working people a chance to speak, do so only in order to look askance at them, as happens in “Roma” with one talkative but villainous poor man) with their art-house audiences, who are similarly pleased to share in the exaltation of heroes who do manual labor without having to look closely or deeply at elements of their heroes’ lives that don’t elicit either praise or pity.

That effacement of Cleo’s character, her reduction to a bland and blank trope that burnishes the director’s conscience while smothering her consciousness and his own, is the essential and crucial failure of “Roma.” It sets the tone for the movie’s aesthetic and hollows it out, reducing Cuarón’s worthwhile intentions and evident passions to vain gestures.

That's really harsh - but I guess as I don't have a history of watching art house films of the type he describes,  I don't find it all that compelling.  

Brody goes on to list all the things the film does not expand on, or explain properly. And he's right: you're not going to get any idea of what the student riots or general unrest in the city was about from the film.   But readers of this blog would know that I quite like the way a movie can prompt me to go reading about the era it depicts, and with Wikipedia it's never been easier.   Brody's criticism seems to be more about the film not being of a kind he thinks it should be, and while my generic criticism of European art house films noted above could be said to the same thing, I find it all forgiveable in the case of Roma.  It is what it is, I feel like saying to Brody.


There are some flashes of humour  - mostly based on eccentricity - and I can partly agree with Brody that it would have been possible to allow Cleo to open up more via dialogue.  It reminds me a little of The Tree of Life - without being as spectacular and affecting in direction (and certainly without the mystical edge) - but as a powerful visual experience based around family, it has similarities.  

It's a pretty great film that I recommend.


*  Please note:  I strongly recommend not reading his review before seeing the movie - he gives way too much of the plot away, and while it is well worth reading after seeing the film, I think it is important to see this film not knowing anything about the events it depicts.  

Some significant climate modelling

Here, at Real Climate, is some more modelling of past climate suggesting 3 degree climate sensitivity is very close to the mark.

It's hard to understand how people can think what happened to the globe in the past with higher CO2 won't happen again.

The backside of Art

I learn via Literary Review that someone has published an entire book centred on Renaissance art which heavily featured the male backside:   Seen from Behind: Perspectives on the Male Body and Renaissance Art

The review could be better, but this part, talking about one painting which does sound pretty ridiculously butt focussed - The Massacre of the Innocents by van Haarlem - is pretty amusing.   Here's the description:

Take The Massacre of the Innocents by Cornelis van Haarlem, which dominates one of the magnificently refurbished galleries of the Rijksmuseum. Painted in 1590, it is a scene of tumultuous violence, anchored formally by the massive nude figures of four soldiers in the foreground, one striding towards us from the right with a dead baby under his arm, one flat on his back on the left, overcome by a group of mothers, who gouge out his eyes. Counterpoised in the centre are two soldiers seen from behind, one standing, the other, biggest of all, down on one knee as he cuts a child’s throat, his colossal backside not only in the viewer’s face but also inches from the face of the child’s desperate mother. The heroic scale of the picture, some eight feet by twelve, adds to the interpretative puzzle for a modern eye: why make a vast male arse the focal point of a major religious painting? It’s impossible, too, not to wonder if the Dutch, whose art embraces the everyday, the suggestive and the downright lewd, kept a straight face about it, then and afterwards.

And here is the painting, which does, indeed, seem to comprise some very oddball composition:

Why, exactly, the rampaging soldiers are nude, and flesh coloured, while the mothers appear alien grey, must be another puzzling question for art historians.

I wonder how impolite it is for adults to giggle at this when viewing it in the art gallery?  Pity the school teacher taking groups of kids to see it, too. 

A new battery with some promise?

I heard about this on The Science Show a few weeks ago - Sydney University is apparently commercialising a new, safe, gel battery which (it is envisaged) is so safe and reliable it could be incorporated structurally within building walls.

Surely they don't last forever, though?   I would think it useful to still make them reasonably accessible for ultimate replacement.

Still, the University sounds very upbeat about it.

Read the Science Show story here, and the University's PR blurb here.  (I'll add an extract):

The zinc-bromide chemistry used by Gelion operates safely without the need for active cooling and uses 100 percent of the battery’s capacity. Further, its electrode surfaces can be rejuvenated remotely, using state-of-the-art battery management systems, without the need for on-site servicing – making it ideal for stationary energy storage applications in all areas, including remote sites.
About Gelion

Gelion Technologies Pty Ltd (‘Gelion’) was founded in April 2015 as a spin-out of the University of Sydney. The company’s novel battery technology provides a low-cost, safe and long-life energy storage solution. Gelion is owned by Gelion UK, a joint venture between management and Armstrong Energy, who oversee the corporate governance and funding of the business, as well as assisting in long-term strategic planning. Gelion is headquartered in Sydney, Australia.
For more information visit: www.gelion.com and www.gelion.com/video

America and pain

Oh.  NPR has a 44 min audio up about America having a long history of problematic use of opioids:

A record number of Americans have died from opioid overdoses in recent years. But how did we get here? And is this the first time Americans have faced this crisis? The short answer: no. Three stories of opioids that have plagued Americans for more than 150 years.

Sounds like something worth listening to...

Politics

*  Tim Wilson has no idea about how not to come across as trying too hard.  Have a look at heightened outrage acting in his twitter summary of his faked up inquiry into the franking credits reform proposed by Labor.  I think he and PM Morrison share a lot in common - more interested in PR imagery than sincerity, and people pick up on them being lightweights because of that.

* Look, I know that lots of people have an emotional reaction against Bill Shorten, and for reasons that they can't articulate and which I don't understand.   My feeling about him is "mostly harmless" - quite neutral, really.   But from the bits I saw of his budget in reply speech last night, I thought he seemed to striking exactly the right tone.   Positive, emphasis on fairness, not at all shrill.   I will be extremely surprised if he is not the next PM, and would not be surprised if his public approval improves when he is in the role.

* I've written plenty of strong criticism of Christopher Pyne over the years (use my side bar search to check), and I had forgotten how much he has behaved very, very badly in the past.  So yeah, it's funny to see now how journalists and other politicians have treated his departure with such apparent kind regard for him personally.   Look, I will give him credit for one thing - his comments in his speech yesterday about Australia being a great country because of politicians for all sides doing their best was at least a non-partisan acknowledgement that no one side of politics has all the good ideas, or is pure evil incarnate.   That is a good thing to hear, especially when the biggest worry in watching politics is how part of the Right has convinced itself over the lase decade that all evil has always come from any party to the Left of them.

Ooh. Now he's doing "Angry Panda"

Ok.  Angry reverse panda:

What is going on with women close to conservatives?

OK, so I am basing this on only two examples - Tony Abbott's daughter and now Barnaby Joyce's ex wife - but it still seems some kind of weird that both of these women who have been close to conservative, climate change denial politicians have turned to competitive body building for fun. 

Do such male politicians emit too much testosterone into the air around them?  

Is it an overreaction to the sort of conservatism that has a 1950's views of a woman's role in life? 

Or are they turning into wingnuts who have fantasies about physical power and domination - just like how Catallaxy has been headed for years now by Sinclair Davidson's selection of pictures showing battles and military power, or the wingnut titles to videos that read with umpteen variations on alleged victory - you know, like "D'Souza utterly destroys liberal student".     

It's weird whatever it is.   I suggest hormone treatment.  Especially for Catallaxy.

The past as a guide to the future

While small government/libertarian types spend all their time in fantasy land fretting about lowering taxes and government spending (seriously, why does the LDP keep putting out ridiculous "alternative" budgets that would be as revolutionary as a Communist re-ordering of Australian government and just as likely to happen?), scientists point out things that are of much greater importance:

Trees growing near the South Pole, sea levels 20 metres higher than now, and global temperatures 3C-4C warmer. That is the world scientists are uncovering as they look back in time to when the planet last had as much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as it does today.

Using sedimentary records and plant fossils, researchers have found that temperatures near the South Pole were about 20C higher than now in the Pliocene epoch, from 5.3m to 2.6m years ago.

Many scientists use sophisticated computer models to predict the impacts of human-caused climate change, but looking back in time for real-world examples can give new insights.

The Pliocene was a “proper analogy” and offered important lessons about the road ahead, said Martin Siegert, a geophysicist and climate-change scientist at Imperial College London. “The headline news is the temperatures are 3-4C higher and sea levels are 15-20 metres higher than they are today. The indication is that there is no Greenland ice sheet any more, no West Antarctic ice sheet and big chunks of East Antarctic [ice sheet] taken,” he said.

Vaping and seizures

Oh.  This isn't a good look for the pro-vaping side:

The Food and Drug Administration is investigating whether nicotine-induced seizures are a potential side effect of vaping.

In the past decade, the agency has received at least 35 reports of seizures — sudden and uncontrolled disturbances in the brain — following e-cigarette use. The cases were picked up by poison control centers across the country, and through the FDA’s adverse event reporting system, a database of voluntary reports from patients, product manufacturers, and health professionals. 

“While 35 cases may not seem like much compared to the total number of people using e-cigarettes, we are nonetheless concerned by these reported cases,” FDA head Scott Gottlieb said in a Wednesday press release. “We also recognize that not all of the cases may be reported.”

The FDA says it’s too early to know for sure if the seizures were caused by the e-cigarettes since there was no clear pattern among the cases. While some involved first-time users and just a few puffs, others were experienced users. A few of the cases were people with a history of seizure diagnosis, and marijuana and amphetamine use.

The agency did not give the ages of the people, but it noted that “some people who use e-cigarettes, especially youth and young adults, are experiencing seizures following their use.”

Tim Wilson: reverse panda

He's long had an issue with dark rings under his eyes, but in this screenshot I just took from a self promotion video (the only kind he knows how to do) on Twitter, he's now looking full on "reverse panda":

Mate, hire a make up person.  Or lighting person.  Or even better, keep your face off the internet for a change.

The bunker was weirder than I thought

Hey, here's an entertaining account of the work of Hugh Trevor-Roper, who was given the post WW2 task (as a young intelligence officer) of quickly sorting out the truth as to whether Hitler really had died.

The rumours of his survival at the time were more lurid than I knew:

In the months following the German surrender in May, rumors spread that Hitler was still alive. He had escaped from besieged Berlin and was living on a mist-enshrouded island in the Baltic; in a Rhineland rock fortress; in a Spanish monastery; on a South American ranch; he had been spotted living rough among the bandits of Albania. A Swiss journalist made a deposition to testify that, to her certain knowledge, Hitler was living with Eva Braun on an estate in Bavaria. The Soviet news agency Tass reported that Hitler had been spotted in Dublin, disguised in women’s clothing (perhaps his mustache had betrayed his identity). If anyone was in a position to know what had happened to him, it was the Russians, who had taken Berlin. But Stalin said that Hitler had escaped; and in the Soviet Union, what Stalin said outweighed evidence to the contrary.

The myth of Hitler remained potent. He had captured the imagination of the German people; so long as the possibility existed that he might still be alive, the stability and security of the occupied zones could not be guaranteed. This man had been responsible for the most destructive war in the history of the world, causing the deaths of tens of millions; the slightest chance that Hitler might return, as Napoleon had done, was too terrible to contemplate. The ghost haunting Europe had to be laid to rest. The uncertainty about Hitler’s fate was poisoning the fragile relations between the victorious Allies. The Russians were now accusing the British of secretly harboring him.

 As for what Hugh found about Hitler's last days:

The dramatic possibilities of a study of the last months of the Third Reich had occurred to Trevor-Roper the previous summer, when his interrogation of a captured German general had provided barely credible details of that disintegrating regime in all its exotic strangeness. Hess would only eat vegetables planted at full moon; Hitler was an insomniac, prone to such wild attacks of rage that he was known as Teppich-beisser, carpet-biter; at times he would lie on the floor and snap like a dog. Best of all was Göring, who now dressed completely in white silk: on his head he wore St Hubert’s stag, with a swastika of gleaming pearls set between the antlers.

Dogged optimism

Nature has a comment piece summarised in the headline:

Restoring natural forests is the best way to remove atmospheric carbon

Plans to triple the area of plantations will not meet 1.5 °C climate goals. New natural forests can, argue Simon L. Lewis, Charlotte E. Wheeler and colleagues.

They argue that there is a lot of potential for natural forest restoration.   It features a cute photo, that should make dog lovers go all "Aw":

A trained dog scatters tree seeds in a forest in Chile that was devastated by fire in 2017.

My dog, photographed recently, is more:

Aw.   She's not going to be saving the globe from climate change any time soon, though.

UFOs from the future

I like the idea but I don't think it has ever turned up in a movie or TV series (yet):

BUTTE – Many people believe UFOs visit Earth from other planets far, far away. A Montana Tech professor believes UFOs are much closer to home.

“The phenomenon may be our own distant descendants coming back through time to study us in their own evolutionary past,” said Michael P. Masters.

Masters writes about this theory in his newly released book, “Identified Flying Objects.” With a doctorate in anthropology from Ohio State University, Masters uses science to explain why people who report close encounters with aliens always describe them the same way.

“The extra-tempestrial are ubiquitously reported as being bipedal, upright-walking, five fingers on each hand and foot, bi-lateral symmetry that they have two eyes, a mouth a nose, they can communicate with us in our own languages,” said Masters.

"Extra-tempestrial"?   Kinda clumsy name, I reckon.

Wrapping up Umbrella Academy

I kept wanting to like it more than I could.  It was a big narrative mess that relied on eccentricity in characters and set up more than anything else.

Main problem:   the series was very stop/start and kept running out of any sense of urgency.  This is a  very strange thing for a show which set up a "only days away" coming crisis in the first episode.   What a weird decision it was in the penultimate episode, for example, to have a character whose death was meant to avert the apocalypse killed already, so no one then knows if the end of the world is still on or not.  

Other problems:  as I wrote before, the male characters were much more interesting and sympathetic than the female, yet one of the latter was crucial to the series plot.  And it had to be Ellen Page, didn't it?  She with the enormous forehead, mopey face and limited acting range.  Good thing she had those contact lens to tell us when she was going into an end-of-the-world-by-Goth-power fugue state.

I don't think the Hazel and Cha Cha characters were half as cool or interesting as they were meant to be, either.

And that ending - that was a really lazy opening to a second series, wasn't it?    "Can you do that Five?"   "I don't know, but I think I can."  Jeez, couldn't the writers at least try a bit of foreshadowing that it might be possible before then?  

It has been renewed for a second series.  I'll still watch it, to see if they can fix the obvious problems of the first series.