The Hôtel de Sully - Le Marais is currently host to a courageous photographic exhibition. The link contains images from the exhibition. We didn't know it was on, but came across it as we were wandering around the area this afternoon. The hôtel is elaborate in appearance, as per Louis Xlll style, with amazing decoration and fabulous proportions. The building is actually a private mansion or a hôtel particulier, built between 1625 and 1630. It had various owners, before being classified as a historic monument in 1862. The hôtel transferred from private to state ownership in 1944 and for the last forty six years has been the home of the Centre for Historic Monuments.
I suppose one of the reasons the hôtel served the exhibition so well is because of the contrast between the venue with its excessive swirls and curls, and the stark uncluttered reality that the individuals in the photos and their families are having to face. This was an outdoor exhibition, with the photos enlarged to at least A1, and then carefully fixed to the walls. Poignant and humourous, the images reflected all those qualities that are uniquely human. They are to be published in Marie Claire, although I'm not sure when or if this has already happened.
The origin of the pink ribbon is contained in this link. It's in French, but essentially the idea was co-created by Evelyn Lauder in 1992. She was also a passionate photographer . She died of ovarian cancer in 2011.
Well Tuesday 15th was definitely an odd day. That's the best way to describe it. Everything started off really well. Beautiful day. Lovely sunshine and quite mild. So off we went, beginning with a walk around, before getting on to the metro to head towards Le Marais. Somewhere on the metro, someone managed to steal my camera - my small point and shoot, which started me off on photography and my wallet, taking cash, bank cards, driving licence etc. It was so quick. Retraced our steps, even checked at the lost property, but knowing everything was zipped up, there was no way these things had disappeared by accident. So the police were notified, phonecalls made to my bank, which means that everything on the account is at least blocked. There'll be some things to sort out when we get back. I really loathe this sort of thing. Never stolen anything from anyone. However I'm not the first and sadly I won't be the last. And also sorry that I won't be able to post any photos.
Anyway after all the upheaval we tried to resurrect what was left of the day. Stopped off at a place for lunch, near to where we are staying. Terrific - L'Assiette à Carreaux. Not a big space but absolutely packed. Wonderful buzzy atmosphere with a really nice menu, either individual dishes off La Carte or there were a couple of options as Plat du Jour. After that we headed off to Le Marais an historically important district in the third and fourth arrondissements.
Paris was largely remodelled and modernised in the 19th century by architect Georges-Eugène Haussmann. Le Marais escaped. As a result you gain a very clear idea of what Paris was like before Haussmann arrived on the scene. Le Marais is a joy with its narrow streets and squares and residencies from the medieval and the Renaissance periods. These days it represents Paris at its contemporary best. A lot of the up and coming, galleries, restaurants and boutiques are found there, making Le Marais one of the most fascinating districts in the capital. It is home to a number of communities - arty types, gay and Jewish. Originally Le Marais was the aristocratic capital of Paris, but gradually they moved out and the area became actively commercial, attracting many Eastern Europeans from the Jewish community who helped build up Le Marais's reputation as a clothing centre. The synagogue was designed by Hector Guimard who also designed several Paris Metro stations.
Today we visited the Café Suedoise at the Swedish Institute, for afternoon tea. What a find! We tried two of their cakes - pear and walnut and courgette and ginger which was just out of this world. It was also surprisingly inexpensive. Then we wandered into other parts of the institute to look at an exhibition called Sens Dessus Dessous (Upside Down), an exhibition of illustration by some of Sweden's best. Some of Eva Lindström's work was on display. The link gives more information about her and the type of work she does. She has by all accounts been a reference point for younger illustrators, a number of whom were part of the same exhibition. One in particular intrigued. Emelie Östergren some of whose work had the heavy power associated with Paul Rega. Fascinating exhibition, which comes to an end very soon. We were lucky to find it.
So a good end to a strange start. Fingers crossed it stays that way.
Travel day to one of our favourite cities. We've found a studio apartment on the second floor (with lift) in the second arondissement. It's viewed as an up and coming district and really buzzes. Everything ran smoothly from the moment the village taxi picked us up at 8.45. Travel to Tours on time, TGV on time. Got to the apartment for 3pm. Mike had booked a 4-day Paris pass on line, which we picked up before we went to our digs. Discovered the local collection point was just up the road from where we're staying. We'd texted the agent to say we'd arrived and they were at the studio to meet us. Ideal for two people. Compact, but kitted out well.
The metro is 5 minutes away. As for what's around locally. Foodie place, so loads of restaurants - French, Lebanese, Japanese, Chinese, French/Indian combo, Thai, Italian, Greek and that's just up one street. Not that we're eating out all the time. Loads of provision shops and delis and bread shops - so we'll have some fun with that lot. We were just going back to the studio having got some basic provisions and thought we'd look in at the Salle des Saveurs, which is literally next door to the apartment block. All sorts of top quality food items - surprisingly not that expensive. Started chatting to the owner. Then having had a look round in the front part, we walked through to the back to find it was laid out as a tiny apèro bar, which serves plates of delicious patés et saucissons. So we stayed for a platter. We asked for a white wine and he came up with a couple of glasses of delicious Sauvignon. €10 per head. Not bad and so yummy.
Dropped the shopping back at the apartment then a bit later went out to have a look around. Definitely picked a good spot - Les Petits Carreaux - and definitely off to a good start. All we need now is for the weather just to lighten up a bit, but as long as it doesn't rain, we're fine.
Saturday 5 October is well and truly noted in the Shearing household. Our first vendange. It was set up by friends of ours in Bournand who have been helping a particular wine producer with the vendange every year for some time. We felt really honoured to be allowed in. Vendange teams are made up of very close friends and family and it's difficult to get into one. Up until now having asked locally a few times, we've not been able to do it. But yesterday that all changed. What we'd been told was that it would be hard work and a lot of fun. Sounded pretty good.
We got to Bournand for 8am. It's a hamlet about thirty minutes from us. Met up with our friends and then walked to the wine producer's house which was five minutes away down the lane. We were introduced to the family and then to all the other helpers. This was not a big commercial harvest as found in Cravant, but rather a vendange familiale. It's a known expression for something on a smaller scale. Four generations have owned and run the family business. Grandfather died last year. Grandma is still around and amazingly sprightly for an over ninety year old. The head of the family is her son Gérard and wife Janette, their son Pascal and daughter in law Mireille. Absolutely lovely people. We were given such a warm welcome.
So to work. We jumped on some trailers and were towed along by tractor to the vines. By now it was 8.30am. All hand picking. There is a technique to it. Working in pairs on either side of the vines, you have to ferret around in the foliage. Vines are very leafy and compact. Some grapes grow upwards, other manage to grow round the wire supports, others hang naturally. The vines were relatively low, so you're permanently bent down, clipping away. You are given a bucket to put the grapes in and secateurs, also gloves to stop your hands getting stained. Eventually you get into a rhythm and can pick up some speed.
We'd just got started when a hot air balloon floated by. Everyone stopped and looked, including the cows in the nearby field. It was flying quite low and for a moment we thought it was going to land. Probably came down to have a look at what we and the other gangs working nearby were doing. We were surrounded by vines, sunflowers - which were waiting to be harvested and maize. But these crops are going to be done in two weeks time. The weather forecast for the coming week was very good, so promised some additional drying-out time. Recent rainfall meant everything was just too damp.
We worked for about three hours and then around 11am we stopped for a break.Supplies had been brought out on the tractors, so a choice of rosé and/or coffee, with biscuits. The boys had both. I had a sip of Mike's wine, which was lovely - off dry - but stuck to the coffee - from huge flasks. Just hit the spot. Didn't have too much as we were quite a way from anywhere and there wasn't an obvious place to go for a wee. So buckets down and gloves off for about ten minutes.
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| Gérard with his 'hotte' |
The weather was a perfect mix of slightly overcast followed by a bit of sun. Everyone was wearing layers. By mid morning, my anorak was off along with layer number one. Did about another hour and a half. We'd made very good time and got the first parcelle of grapes completed quickly. Sometimes there was total silence, but every now and again, there'd be a burst of conversation, laughter and the occasional song. Having got everything finished for the morning, we packed up - people, grapes and equipment - and headed back to the house for lunch. I'd been trying to take photos and did get some, but it wasn't easy with sticky, grape stained rubber gloves on. However, the process of the morning was simple and went very well. Most of us were picking. Two men were carrying the hotte, which is a metal panier with straps worn on the back ( photo above). They'd walk up and down the rows and as we filled up our buckets we would empty them into the hotte as it went by.
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| Pascal and the fouloir |
When the hottes were full the men went back to the trailer with the grape crusher/fouloir and emptied the grapes, which wasn't easy to do - climbing up a ladder, getting your balance right, then angling yourself over the fouloir so that the grapes, with a bit of help could fall in. There was another newbie along with Mike and I. Our fellow newbie (in the photo) and I, had to meet the challenge of carrying a hotte and emptying it. Mireille was busy taking photos, so somewhere there is one of me doing the same thing. Both of us girls were of similar diminutive stature, so just getting up the ladder and on to the trailer was slightly tricky. This was the first, we discovered, of several traditional challenges for new members of the crew. Everyone else there had done the same thing. Our friends had been sworn to secrecy, so we had no idea what was coming.
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| Lunch in the garage |
Lunch was back at Gérard and Janette's house in the garage. We had two ladies called Pierette and one of them had prepared boudin (sausage) for lunch. When we first came here, there was no way I wanted to eat it. I'm never been keen on the British equivalent either - black pudding. But then one time we were out for Sunday lunch and a little glass was served as an amuse-bouche containing warm boudin and apple purée. Quite delicious and I've been quite happy to eat it since. Pierette had a tried and tested recipe. Her boudins were fantastic. The process however is lengthy - five hours alone for the cooking which has to be done at a specific temperature. There was also cheese, rillettes, paté and desserts - all home made and just wonderful, wine if you wanted it, coffee, water. We had more work to get done in the afternoon, so I kept away from the wine and had a light lunch. No way was I going to fall totally comatosed into the vines on my first vendange. Bottom right hand corner of the photo is the French equivalent of Jim Trott from the Vicar of Dibley. Yvon was as funny but without the stutter.
Lunch over, it was back on to the trailer and off to another parcelle of vines. This time Pierette (Yvon's wife) and Mireille looked after the fouloir, while the rest of us worked our way up and down the vines. It's very easy to understand why so many vignerons have back problems and have to wear a back support. The constant lifting and bending - it's relentless day after day. Doing it for one day, no problem.
We got everything done very quickly so we were asked to help harvest some betterave or beetroot. At least that's what they were called. But in fact they were mangelwurzels. The technique is to kick them out and then chuck them into the trailer that is being towed up each row very slowly by tractor. Kicking them out is the easy bit but throwing them into the trailer is something else. They can be big and heavy.
Pascal had helped with the harvest since he was a boy, so was able to get into a regular rhythm, pull the betterave out of the ground very quickly and lob them into the trailer two at a time, in more or less a continuous action. Both he and Mireille drive tractors, so if one was driving the other was helping with the harvest, and vice versa. We had such a satisfying day. By the end of the afternoon we were mildly stiff, but we felt we'd been really useful and had a great time meeting and working with the others.
Not sure what time we finished - but about 6pm. Then we all made our way back to Gérard and Janette's place to get everything tidied up, meaning unhitching the trailer, off-loading the equipment, the vegetables and the grapes, cleaning off all the secateurs, and washing up the buckets. Grandma came out to see everyone then we all wandered up to the back of the yard towards a big barn where all the grapes had been put into five large circular containers about 1.10m high. Mireille was filling washing up bowls with water and brought them over the the barn along with a bag of towels. Then she said that to bring everything to a close for the day, there was just one more thing that the newbies on the team had to do. Another tradition! Each of us had to climb into each of the containers, one at a time and tread the grapes, or rather wade in the grapes because apart from the fifth one, all the others were full to about 2 inches from the rim (0.50).
Basically we had to get our trousers off in order to do it. Hilarious. Thank goodness I had a decent pair of M&S knickers on. Mike was fine being so tall, but us girls having completed the task, walked away with pink pants. Got most of the grape coloured water off ourselves by having a mini shower with the water that Mireille had so kindly provided. Very weird sensation and a bit cold, but afterwards, strangely refreshing, Fortunately we'd bought some clean underwear just in case the weather was horrible and we got drenched. Then after the ritual we went back to our friend's house, had a shower and got changed. It was one of those things where just have to go with the flow. Once you were in a container unless you were tall it was really difficult to get out. Trying to get your leg over - I knew how daft it must look and we just couldn't stop laughing. Mireille has got some photos, which hopefully she'll be emailing and which hopefully I'll be brave enough to post.
After getting cleaned up we had an apéro together, and then ended up back in the garage for a wonderful dinner. Such a fun evening, delicious good with loads of singing. A mixture of French harvest songs and French chansons to begin with. But then Mike and I did some stuff. He'd brought his ukulele and we did about six songs together, some in English and others in French - mostly Beatles music which is very popular over here. Later there were questions for the newbies to answer and prizes - another tradition. It all went so well, that we got invited back for the second harvest in two weeks time. We'd love to have gone, but in fact we're in Paris so can't. Anyway a great experience and fingers crossed we'll get invited again next year.
We've seen some cracking films over the last few days. We've met some interesting fellow film buffs, shared food together, a few glasses of wine, coffee and cakes, in between sessions - just to keep us going - and in total have spent just over 22 hours watching films. We missed four in all. Those we saw proved a terrific experience. An extra film had been slotted in yesterday, Monday - the final day, starting at 4pm. We couldn't get to it. Too much on. Don't know the name or what it was about. Some hardy types did get to see it, and what little they had to say about it mentioned sex and money. Who knows if we missed something special or not. What we do know is that the last film, was for us the best contemporary film at the festival, and one of the best films we've seen in the last few years.
Shokuzai/Penance was developed from a book, similarly titled. Directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa it was originally made as a TV series in Japan but in that format attracted very average audience ratings. In film format the project blossomed, and what we saw yesterday was a mysterious, captivating and immensely complex work, handled with extraordinary skill and pitch perfect tuning. It was four and a half hours in all, with an interval and totally riveting. The quality of Shokuzai for a moment led us to think the director was related to Akira Kurosawa (Seven Samurai) but no. There just happens to be two directors with the same surname.
The film contains six stories which are presented in two parts. The first shows the main event from which everything else develops. It concerns the murder of a young girl, Emili, newly arrived at primary school. She makes good friends with four other girls in her class. They play together at school and outside of school. They visit each others houses. One day while playing around on open land, they accidentally kick their ball in the same direction as a man is walking - away from them - although the audience knows he has been sitting watching the girls for a little while. At first only his legs are seen as he picks up the ball. Then his back, as he meets with the girls and tells them he's doing some work nearby in the school and would like one of them to help him. The man picks Emili. They go into the school gymnasium. The friends hang around. They worry because Emili hasn't returned. The friends go into the gym and find Emili dead on the floor. After extensive interviews by the police, the girls remain in such shock they cannot remember the man's face or anything about him. The remaining four girls visit Emili's mother Asako at home, with flowers. They are invited in. Asako tells them she cannot forgive them for failing to watch out for Emili or to tell what they know. She says the girls must do penance for her daughter's death and will do so until they remember. The film then continues with the individual stories of the girls, as young women. By the time we see them as young women, fifteen years have passed since the murder. The remainder of the first half contains the stories of three of the girls. The second half has the story from the last girl, but also that of the mother Asako, who herself has been doing penance for the death of her daughter. She has by now a son, who at this point is the same age as Emili was when she was murdered.
All the girls have been mentally affected by their experience at school. Their lives or personalities have become almost dysfunctional. The first is terrified to go out and marries a control freak, who ultimately she kills. The second is a school teacher, so hard on herself, so strict with the pupils, and seemingly without personality or humour, that no one understands her. She nearly kills a man, who has entered the school with a knife and terrorises her class while they are having a swimming lesson. She attends Kendo classes. One day she hallucinates and sees the man she's almost killed standing in front of her, who she attacks, whereas it is really another student of the class. The third girl has major psychological problems and lives at home with her parents. She has an older brother. She and the audience see him behaving strangely towards a young girl. His step-daughter is also clearly afraid of him. One day the girl is asked to visit her brother by her mother. She gets there to find her brother in an inappropriate situation with his step-daughter and strangles him to protect the child.
By this time Asako realises that she has put a hex on all the girls. She has managed to keep track of them over the years, and has remained in touch in a menacing way, reminding them of their duty to fulfill the penance they owe her. However Asako writes to the fourth girl, saying she wants to pardon her. It's all gone too far. The attitude and behaviour of the girl in the final story is very different from the rest. This is a young woman, scheming and uncompromising, controlling and selfish in her treatment of men. She has affairs with married men and is obsessed with police officers. To the extent that she sleeps with her own sister's husband, a police officer, becomes pregnant and ultimately kills him by pushing him downstairs, when he refuses to leave his wife. One day the girl hears a voice in an interview and recognises that of Emili's murderer. She phones Asako, who decides to visit the man at a school he is has set-up in another province. There is a struggle. Asako escapes. But the man now knows where to find her.
Asako's story is the final one and the final piece of the circle. At university Asako was in love with a man. But he was in love with Asako's best friend, who commits suicide. She leaves a suicide note. Asako finds her and the note while the friend is still alive, but doesn't do anything to help save her. Asako keeps the note hidden for years. She is offered marriage and an engagement ring by this same man, but ultimately agrees to an arranged marriage with another, the heir of a family dynasty. She keeps the engagement ring with the letter.
Moving forward, one day while playing in the family house, Emili finds a sealed letter - the suicide note - and a very pretty ring - the engagement ring. In a dare, all the young girls take prized objects from their homes to a ruined house they've discovered, and hide everything in an old safe in an upstairs room. Emili takes the letter and the ring. The man (who will ultimately kill Emili) visits the ruined house shortly after as a prospective buyer. He finds the ring and the suicide note, which he didn't know existed, and confirms with the agent that the wife of the owner of the property is Asako. He then kills Emili in revenge for the death of the woman he really loved. In Asako's story, they meet at the man's request in this same house. They both have secrets to tell. The man explains how he found the letter and ring, and admits to the murder of Emili. Asako explains that Emili was in fact his own child from their one night together and that he'd murdered his own daughter. The man commits suicide in front of Asako by throwing himself under a train on a nearby railway track. Asako must now spend the rest of her life paying penance for the lives she has helped to destroy.
There were times in this film where I almost couldn't breathe. Masterful and compelling.
Fascinating day planned, with films from Singapore, India, China and South Korea and brunch at Café Français. It all kicked off at 11am with Ilo Ilo directed by Anthony Chen - his debut work, which was released this year at Cannes as part of the Directors Fortnight and came away with the Camera d'Or award - the first time a film from Singapore has won anything at the Cannes Film Festival - an amazing achievement and an absolute gem. Pitch perfect performances from everyone. The film rolls out effortlessly and is just wonderful to watch - a poignant story about a Singaporean family who employ a maid from the Philippines amid the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis.
A general stampede then round to Café Français. A beautiful Chinese buffet. Absolutely gorgeous, with wines as usual generously supplied by local producers. Café Français is our local live gig venue. It's just great. Small but perfectly formed. So a bit of a scrum inside but it worked superbly well, everyone sharing tables and chatting together often for the first time.
Back into the cinema for The Lunchbox - an Indian film directed by Ritesh Batra. Just superb. A simple concept, but with a complexity of outcomes, class conflicts and the loneliness that comes from an unhappy marriage, as well as after the loss of a partner. All these threads are linked to a lunchbox service. Bombay/Mumbai - thousands of lunchboxes (dabbas ) either prepared by wives at home or ordered from an eaterie somewhere in the city are delivered to workers at their offices. The charm of the film also came from the imagery - the bustling life and sound of Mumbai. The lunchboxes are collected by men on bicycles, either from the home or the eaterie. Each man collects at least thirty boxes (see photo left) which are a series of circular metal containers, staked on top of each other and held in place by what is effectively a metal strap, inside an individual covering and marked up with its destination. The boxes are taken to the station, loaded on to large metal containers, the deliverers go as well. Everyone and thing is put on to a train, then offloaded and taken to their various destinations. The film develops the story around what happens when a lunchbox is delivered to the wrong person. It's a bit like 84 Charing Cross road, except this time the link is food rather than books. The young married woman cooking the lunchbox contents and the man it is mistakenly delivered to, who is on the point of retiring, start writing to each other. A very gentle film, but superbly done.
A Touch of Sin - a Chinese crime drama directed by Jia Zhangke - had some terrific performances. It was an indictment of contemporary Chinese society - brutal, ruthlessly corrupt, increasingly violent - and allegedly based on true events from the recent past. Grim and very very graphic. The idea was an interesting one. Four different stories, of four different individuals, from different social backgrounds and regions in modern-day China. We were left wondering how it ever got passed the government censors. Somehow it did and was also nominated for the Palm D'or at this year's Cannes Film Festival. By the end of it, we'd had enough films for the day, so decided to skip the fourth one.
The fourth film The Host from South Korea, directed by Bong Joon-ho was a blockbluster plot mixed with political commentary, with some reference by all accounts of the American presence in Korea. Set in Seoul, American military types are seen dumping chemicals in the river at the beginning of the film, then some years later a monster arrives out of the river and attacks the local community. A huge success in S.K. it also won a series of top Asian film awards. A really interesting day of programming and like all the best festivals, gave us a chance to see stuff, liked or not, which would otherwise be unavailable.
The Seven Samurai - this time the long version, which at three hours thirty is a reasonable description - including an interval. It was followed by a discussion led by Charles Tesson, a French cinema specialist involved with the Cannes Film Festival. The idea had been to go the two films showing yesterday, but in the end the brain had had enough, so decided not to stay. Instead we spent time thinking and chatting about this fifty-nine year old wonder, that we'd once again been totally absorbed by. We do have it on DVD - the short version obviously - but hadn't watched it for some time.
The film we missed Tel Père, Tel Fils (Like Father Like Son), is a Japanese film - by all accounts superb - about a very successful architect, his wife and their six year old son Keita. They discover that after the birth, their baby was somehow swapped with another and that Keita isn't really theirs. The other couple involved live in vastly different circumstances - a very poor suburb - with three children, including six year old Ryusei. The couples meet, get to know each other and try to find a way to repare the situation. It's a film about family life in Japan, blood ties but also where love lies. We'll see if it's available on DVD.
As for The Seven Samurai - we've seen it at the most three or four times and always on TV - not the best place really, but usually the only option. Yesterday we saw it on the big screen for the first time. Fabulous. We were reminded just what a clever decision someone made to develop the idea as a western, and how much the success of The Magnificent Seven/Les Sept Mercenaires owes to director Akira Kurosawa. It's obviously not an exact copy, but it contains many ideas that appear in the original version. I love them both.
There was lots to discuss afterward. However not being overly familiar with the names of the Japanese characters, the conversation was simplified by calling them by their American counterparts. Outrageous behaviour may be, but it was practical. Mind you not all the characters are the same. For example, in The Seven Samurai, 'Kikuchiyo' played by Toshiro Mifune combines many of the traits found in 'Chico'/Horst Buckholz and 'Bernardo'/Charles Bronson. But he also brings a lot of Kabuki into the role, so it's very big character in sound as well as action. 'Kyuzo' played by Seiji Miyaguchi provides a blue print for James Coburn's Britt. Superb performances from both. Physically they look very similar, they each achieve the inner quiet that the character demands and move with ruthless elegance. 'Kanbe Shimada' (Chris), is played to perfection by Takashi Simura. A truly fabulous film actor. He was one of Kurosawa's favourite actors to work with as was Toshiro Mifune. They appeared in a lot of his films.
There's so much to admire in this film - direction and camera work, script, settings, lighting, all the performances. Ultimately, The Seven Samurai says plenty about our society and world, albeit nearly 6 decades on. The medium on this occasion is truly the message.
