Concrete Jungles
Oct. 24th, 2011 09:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
commonpeople1I went for a proper swim this morning for the first time in, I think, a year. 11am, the gym empty apart from a few kids on their half-term break, the fast lane all to myself. I did just over 1km before the plastic around one of my goggles ripped apart and I had to stop. I'd been daydreaming in Brasil of returning to the pool as a form of getting active again in London, and I'm proud I got my ass out of the house this morning and did it.
When I got home at lunch time, a good friend texted me to say she was heading to the British Film Institute to watch an Argentinian film and if I'd like to join her. She was sitting in Liverpool Street station reading We Need To Talk About Kevin when I found her. We took the Underground and drank coffee before the film in the BFI's cafeteria. I was surprised to notice how packed the cinema was. Monday, mid afternoon - don't these adults have a job to go to? It turned out to be the first screening of our film, Medianeras, in London, with the presence of the director for a Q&A (as part of the current 55th London Film Festival.)
The film is LOVELY: a sweet and funny homage to Woody Allen, with Buenos Aires standing for Allen's Manhattan. Very well written, well acted, well paced - a romantic comedy that will probably be remade in a few years time into a horrid mess by idiots in Hollywood. Go see it when you have a chance. It's the story of two solitary individuals in Buenos Aires, living in shoeboxes, searching for some meaning and love in their deeply neurotic lives.
There were two scenes in the film that caught my attention: the first one had to do with the two main characters loving to swim but always putting off a visit to their local pool. Finally they do it (just like me this morning.) The other involved a brief monologue from one of them about the electrical wires that criss cross Buenos Aires' skies, of what a mess they are and how they ironically misrepresent the connections people have in that city. It was something I was recently thinking about when traveling brasilian cities, which are very similar to argentinian ones. I mentioned to my mom how here in England (or at least in London), there are hardly any visible wires because it's all underground - I even took a photo of my street on my way to the cinema to show my mom (unaware that this would be a theme in the movie.) I do love synchronicities.
When I got home at lunch time, a good friend texted me to say she was heading to the British Film Institute to watch an Argentinian film and if I'd like to join her. She was sitting in Liverpool Street station reading We Need To Talk About Kevin when I found her. We took the Underground and drank coffee before the film in the BFI's cafeteria. I was surprised to notice how packed the cinema was. Monday, mid afternoon - don't these adults have a job to go to? It turned out to be the first screening of our film, Medianeras, in London, with the presence of the director for a Q&A (as part of the current 55th London Film Festival.)
The film is LOVELY: a sweet and funny homage to Woody Allen, with Buenos Aires standing for Allen's Manhattan. Very well written, well acted, well paced - a romantic comedy that will probably be remade in a few years time into a horrid mess by idiots in Hollywood. Go see it when you have a chance. It's the story of two solitary individuals in Buenos Aires, living in shoeboxes, searching for some meaning and love in their deeply neurotic lives.
There were two scenes in the film that caught my attention: the first one had to do with the two main characters loving to swim but always putting off a visit to their local pool. Finally they do it (just like me this morning.) The other involved a brief monologue from one of them about the electrical wires that criss cross Buenos Aires' skies, of what a mess they are and how they ironically misrepresent the connections people have in that city. It was something I was recently thinking about when traveling brasilian cities, which are very similar to argentinian ones. I mentioned to my mom how here in England (or at least in London), there are hardly any visible wires because it's all underground - I even took a photo of my street on my way to the cinema to show my mom (unaware that this would be a theme in the movie.) I do love synchronicities.
