Susanna's Sketchbook

May 21, 2008

Time seems to be flying by this week. I've been carefully cutting shapes of wings from paper and roughly painting feathers in grey, white and black on each of them. Old issues of Travel + Leisure and Elle Decor magazines hold them down to prevent curling from occurring. Soon messages will be written and attached and my winged messengers will finally fly to their destinations.

In the meantime, I am spending my evenings reading a really good book, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby. I saw Julian Schnabel's film adaptation of the book over the weekend and absolutely loved it!

Both the movie and the film are based on the real life experiences of the former Editor-in-Chief of French Elle magazine, Jean-Dominique Bauby, after a massive stroke left him with the rare "locked in" syndrome; that is, he could only communicate by blinking his left eye. Sounds depressing, huh? I can't imagine living like that either. But Bauby decided that he would not feel sorry for himself and with the help of the amazing hospital staff and a personal assistant, he wrote the charming, eloquent, heart-breaking, spirit-soaring book, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Two days after his book was pubished, Bauby died. His book went on to become a number-one bestseller across Europe.

Julian Schabel's film adaptation of the book is smart and witty. He had me laughing out loud and crying out loud. It's impossible not to fall in love with the character of Jean-Dominique Bauby in this film. And the cinematography is inspiring! Just as Bauby writes in his book of "capturing the moment, these small slices in life, these gusts of happiness", Julian Schnabel captures those precious little moments on film perfectly. I love the scene of Bauby's children on the beach, when he cries (and I cried), of the beautiful close up faces of the women who assist and visit him in the hospital (and I laughed out loud, hearing his thoughts) and of the long hair of a woman blowing in the wind (God! Where is my camera?!). Beautiful!

photo: my sister, M.

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Typepad has recently made changes which will be good in the long run but right now my links are not working - argh! - so here are the URL's to the above sites:

The book on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Diving-Bell-Butterfly-Memoir-Death/dp/0375701214/ref=pd_bbs_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1211405427&sr=8-2

Julian Schnabel's film adaptation of the same name: http://video.movies.go.com/thedivingbellandthebutterfly/main.html

March 10, 2008

I am the eggman, they are the eggman, I am the waaalrusss! Coocookeeechoo coocookeeechoo! Okay, I have no idea what The Beatles were thinking of when they wrote that song but I have been singing the first two lines all weekend - so much so that my cat must be thinking that his name has suddenly been changed to cookookeechoo.

I finally watched Julie Taymor's film, Across the Universe, and I absolutely loved it! Have you seen it yet? J found it for me at our local library and I watched it at home on Saturday night. Julie Taymor is a brilliant visionary. What that woman visualizes and then actually creates - wow. The groovy costumes, the psychedelic supereffects, the music and then the voices of the talented actors in this film - I was blown away by it all. The special features dvd is fascinating. To hear and see Julie Taymor describe her creative process while making Across the Universe was a real treat. To see Eddie Izzard perform as Mr.Kite, surrounded by tall blue people and giant heads - hah! and what?!

Early the next morning, I had the strangest most exhilarating dream. I dreamt that I was a parkour runner, jumping from one building to another, bouncing down a tall flight of stairs, floating up into the air weightless. Maybe I was a balloon... Anyway, there's no doubt where that dream trip came from. Thank you, Julie Taymor!

Becoming Jane

Yesterday, I met up with Michelle to see an afternoon showing of Becoming Jane. How was it? Siiiiiiigh...! It's one of those films that require an ample supply of kleenex and chocolate. The entire cast of the film are just so good in their roles.

The actress, Anne Hathaway, was perfect as Jane Austen. Besides being a classic beauty with spunk and talent, she's a breath of fresh air and calm after how many years of the media promoting spoiled heiresses and bratty 20-something actresses on entertainment television and on the front covers of magazines.

And then there are the men in the film. James McAvoy's character, Tom Lefroy, is the love interest of Hathaway's Jane Austen. I remember seeing him in Narnia a couple years ago and thinking that I wanted to see him in more films. And apparently he's also in The Last King of Scotland which is on my list of movies to see once I ready myself for a couple hours of viewing tyranny and madness based on real life events. Joe Anderson plays Henry Austen, Jane Austen's brother, and, well, Michelle and I gave each other side glances when he appeared on the screen.

The film's cast also includes top British actors as Dame Maggie Smith and Julie Walters but I noticed that the actress who plays Jane Austen's sister, Cassandra, in the film, Anna Maxwell Martin, isn't even on the website's credits and she was very good. Do I recommend seeing Becoming Jane? Yes! I'm thinking of seeing it again.

This Just In...

       

This just in...clackity, clack, clack, clack! (telegraph sound)... The short film I wrote about here and the one that my friend Laurie worked on...just won two awards at the 46th International Critic's Week in Cannes! Madame Tutli-Putli won the Canal + Award for Best Short Film and the Petit Rail D'Or for Best Short Film. Whoo hoo! Congratulations to everyone involved in making the film. To see the trailer look here and to see where Madame Tutli-Putli will be premiering in the next little while, look here. To read another blogger's take on the film, look here. I can't wait to see it. Wonder if it will be premiering in NYC...?

Photo: Madame Tutli-Putli, photo taken from production, directed by Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski, produced by Marcy Page, copyright 2007 National Film Board of Canada

Madame Tutli-Putli

Well, the day is finally here! What began with the dream of two young Canadian filmmakers led to the gathering of a handful of incredibly-talented individuals and has resulted in a special little film premiering today at the Cannes Film Festival.

Four years ago, my good friend Laurie Maher was walking down a street in Toronto, Canada, when she saw an odd poster stapled onto a wall. It was a sketch of woman with the words, "Do you look like this woman? If so, call this telephone number...." Well, she did look like the sketch on the poster (I know, I saw it with my very own eyes) and she did call the telephone number.

As it turns out, two young Canadian directors, Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski, had received a grant from the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) and were about to create a short stop-motion film (3-D figures that are recorded moving, one frame at a time, on film). They needed a real woman that looked like their character to help them with expressions and movement. Well, out of all the applicants, some of whom had actually cut and styled their hair and dressed the part of Lavis and Szczerbowski's character for the role, Laurie walked through the doors as herself and got the part.

 

For the next four years, Laurie worked for the young directors as they, along with special effects artist, Jason Walker, created the amazing world of their heroine, Madame Tutli-Putli. Everything in the film was created by hand and filmed pain-stakingly one frame at a time. Laurie became the character of Madame Tutli-Putli. She moved like Madame Tutli-Putli, expressed her face as Madame Tutli-Putli. And then something surprising happened. Somewhere along the way, the directors realized that their little doll had become something else.  Like Pinocchio, Madame Tutli-Putli had been given Life. It could be seen in her eyes. They were real.

After years of hard work, the film Madame Tutli-Putli, was completed. And it's premiering today at the Cannes Film Festival! How cool is that?! Just goes to show you that with a dream and hard work, anything is possible. To see the trailer for Madame Tutli-Putli and to see and hear how the film was made, look here. To see more still images from the movie and learn more on the process of filming Madame Tutli-Putli, look here.

Images courtesy of the Madame Tutli-Putli website, copyright belongs to the directors Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski and the National Film Board of Canada.

Pan's Labyrinth - a film review

This afternoon, J and I finally saw the film Pan's Labyrinth. For the past month it had been playing in "select cities" in the States, meaning New York for us. We were sure that we wouldn't have the opportunity to see this award-winning film until it landed in a dvd case at our local Blockbuster. To our delight, however, Pan's Labyrinth opened today at a small revue theatre about half an hour from where we live. J and I planned our entire Saturday around seeing this film.

Pan's Labyrinth is a magical, heartbreaking Spanish film about a young girl by the name of Ofelia who travels with her pregnant mother to their new home in turbulent post-war Franco's Spain. There she meets her new stepfather, Captain Vidal, a psychopath bent on destroying every last member of the Resistance within his assigned area. Ofelia escapes the horror of her reality by imagining a place of "fantastical creatures and powerful talismans", where she is the lost princess in the fable. It is a fairytale for adults. Some of the scenes in her reality are horrifying because it is possible to believe that such evil exists in our world.

The actors are very good. Ivana Baquero gives a believable performance as a quietly desperate Ofelia . Sergi Lopez plays the cruel Captain so well that I often found myself holding my breath, hoping that he would not notice the innocent townfolk or the Resistance fighter or most of all, little Ofelia. His performance equals that of Ralph Feinne's sadistic Nazi camp commander in Schindler's List. All the actors give excellent performances.

The cinematography is stunning. The director, Guillermo Del Torro, says that he was inspired by paintings and illustrations rather than by films. He writes, " I love the fairy tale illustrations of Arthur Rackham, Edmund Dulac and Kay Nielsen and remain entranced by the way they made fairy tales sensual and dark. Rackham, in particular, was key in this film. There is a perverse undercurrent in his work. His vision was plagued by knotty, twisted things that had a perverse will to live." The magical creatures in Pan's Labyrinth are incredible and the setting is so gorgeously rich.

After the movie ended, the audience was quiet. I saw one woman wiping her tears away and I'll admit that I had a lump in my throat. Pan's Labyrinth is one of those films that had me wondering, Why aren't more films in theatres so fulfilling?