Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress

I don't know if its this apartment, the pace at which I've been living my life or just some general disagreement within myself but I've really been slipping where the kitchen is concerned. I haven't cooked in a steady manner for a while now and its really starting to bug me. I had layed out my night, something I needed to do, house chores and then cook a bean soup and some white corn on the cob. I did the laundry, picked up a bit, took out the trash, did the dishes (and I'm not saying how long they sat in the sink) and a little work here and there. Somehwere in the middle of folding laundry I decided I needed to see a movie.

The best years of my life always revolved around a movie theatre. From the first neighborhood I can remember, I was walkind distance from a cinematic temple. Here's me dating myself, when I was a wee pup and had just arrived, a double feature cost us $.50. My mother could get rid of all three of us for a measly three dollars. Not a huge amount of money, but to an immigrant who could buy a half liter of kvas for five kopeks just a couple years before then and kilos of meet for just a couple rubles, this was something. I'm glad I don't remember quite that far back. Still, its always near a glowing, silken, silver screen where I find myself feeling at home.

I've been living in this neighborhood for over 8 months now and have never once walked up to the movie theatre. I decided a film, a la oh solo mio, was exactly what the doctor had ordered. I brought the laundry back in, set the basket down still overflowing with my its freshly cleaned cargo, slipped on a pair of shoes, grabbed a jacket and ran off to see an unexpected film.

If you have a chance, and its playing in your neighborhood, go watch it: "Balzac et la petite tailleuse chinoise", (the original french title), a truly beautiful piece of cinema set in the Phoenix mountains against the Yangtze river and what I think today is called Three Gorges Damn. The film grips you with a certain humble simplicity. The story isn't terribly unique, nor does it strike you with a profound message, but its the kind of film that you can't quite put down even when the credits roll.

I stepped outside feeling as if a part of me was walking just a step behind. I cursed the fact that I've quit smoking. A long draught of tobacco seemed the only way to humble myself into pausing long enough to breathe in the smell of fresh mountain mist that seemed to leap off the screen. Had I had one on me, I would've definately lit up and stood under the glowing marque reading the posters over and over until the smoke was through and I was lighting another one for the stroll home. The path from the theatre to my flat leads down hill, but I would've imagined I was walking up the same ancient stone steps amidst the lush green, yeah, that's what I would've done, that's what I did.

A humble modesty exits in this film that reminds me of two other chinese movies: Ju Dou & Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, Spring. Both of these films rely on an inate ability to tap the visual, auditory and tactile senses in a way that you are a part of the fabric of that passing reality. Real or not, you are in the film and it keeps your attention in subtle ways. The story isn't told in the sense of first or third person narration, but rather the setting and echo of good film making tell the story in the simplest ways: as if you're a voyuer and an integral part of the setting at the same time. Go watch Balzac, you'll dig it...

That's what I kept telling myself as I sauntered home and the wind blasted me off the ocean. I wrote this as I walked, thinking, yeah, a little bloggin and then sleep, but I don't think I'll be sleeping any time soon. I had plotted out an early rise and a bike ride for myself tomorrow morning before I took on the bean soup and corn on the cob, all the while prepping for my Tuesday night class. Not sure what tomorrow ill bring, aside for the Michael Penn concert at Cafe Du Nord. This film is going to stay with me for a little while, I have a similar drunken sensation like the night my brother and I watched "The Summer of 42" and each drank a beer on an empty stomach. Back in the early days when you needed more than your body wanted to get drunk, but on this one night, I remember the buzz of a single beer, it was the first time I can honestly say that I knew the buzz of but a single beer. There've been other one beer buzzes since then, but this one seems the most profound mixing with the black and white celluloid waters of that unrequited love, the alkaline taste of which reminds me of my own youth. I can smile on all of it now, but at the time I think I hung a dire frown on my face and made sure that I was as removed from everyone I knew as I could possibly be. I still need a kind of removal from time to time, a distance in which I can hear my thoughts and the dialgoue of so many borrowed voices. The only difference now is that I'm seldom sad during these brief stints solitude, and sometimes I wish they could be just a tad bit longer, like good cinema...