Equal temperament

He said he was watching Ally McBeal on TV one night and thought that I look like Famke Janssen.

I said, "Who?"

"You remember Famke Janssen from GoldenEye?"

"Nooo."

"She was that evil Bond girl who used her power-thighs to try to strangle Pierce Brosnan."

"I hope you're not implying that I have power thighs."

(Truth being, I do have strong legs, but I wasn't going to tell him that.)

"No, it's your face - you both have very fine and expressive features."

Funny coming from a guy whom I haven't seen face to face for at least three years.

~~~~~

"Werckmeister Harmonies" ranked second on my short list of films to see during the film festival. I'm not quite sure what drew me to it; whether it was because it was in black and white, or because it made a curious reference to a pivotal period in music history by way of its title. I've never heard of Béla Tarr prior to reading the blurb on the film; well, I'm not exactly what you would call a movie enthusiast.

It is definitely not a film for the faint-hearted, demanding patience and attention from its audience, and also a blank slate of a mind with a certain amount backseat sharpness. Some twenty, thirty people walked out of the cinema after the first forty or so minutes. I guess they were expecting to be entertained; your passive kind of movie-goer.

I'd often thought a good measure of the effectiveness or quality of a film is by how you feel afterwards as you step out of the cinema and back into the real world. Shrugging off the make-believe reality and slowly readjusting to the way things apparently are.

And I experienced the queerest sensory shock upon walking out of the beautiful Forum Theatre into the freezing Tuesday night air after Werckmeister Harmonies. It was as if my senses have been re-calibrated: reality was sharper in sight, sound and feel; the passing, indifferent hum of what traffic there was at midnight, our footsteps thudding on the pavement as we made our way to the car.

I've never felt more real and surreal at the same time.

26 July 2001, Thursday, 8:13 AM

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Alter ego of dandruff

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