edinburgh 2018

The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh / Scottish National Gallery

Went to Scotland for the first time and stayed with family in Edinburgh during Fringe Festival. I tried to go to a show or two every day either by myself, with family or with friends from home who happened to be in city around the same time. I saw Six and Hot Brown Honey (rec'd to me by KT through twitter, probably) and enjoyed those a lot. I also went to see slew of comedians and most of them were unfunny in ways I truly cannot articulate. Save for one: I might be biased, but the Amsterdam Underground Comedy Collective were by far the funniest people I saw there! Turns out you truly take yourself, wherever you go, eh. The AUCC only drew crowds of about 15 people for each show, which is an unfortunate and incredibly low turn-out. I hope they'll have more of an audience if they decide to come back this year, though I don't see why they should.

I was on the ground for this photo and only realized later that I had likely stamped through someone's kitchen garden... apologies!

National museum of Scotland - standing on this balcony waiting (and not rushing) for the right moment to click the shutter made me finally "get" what people watching is all about & how comforting it is to just watch people be & go about their day

Read A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of the Four (the little red-gold pocketbook) here in honor of ACD. I bought it at 221b Baker Street when I was 11 years old and visiting London for the first time. Fitting, I thought, since I would take a train from Edinburgh to London later that week.

There was a exhibition on Dutch artists on at the Scottish National gallery when I was there. You come all this way...

Alright, final thoughts: I was mesmerized by how brown this city is. Not even just how it appears in photos, you would also kinda notice it walking around and paying a minimum amount of attention to the shape of the streets. I even thought about it when I left by train, like, am I ever going to be in a city as brown as Edinburgh again? I don't think so! Another thing that struck me is that Edinburgh is built on hills, which is probably something I should've known about before I got there. I borrowed a bicycle from my family (and left their helmet in the hallway) with the intention of getting around like that all week, because I'm Dutch and that's what I'm used to. I lasted about a day. It's too steep. Not impossible, but it's just - I'm on a holiday! If I wanted to get lean and work out every day, I probably should've just stayed at home.

berlinale log

2 February: A Portugesa/The Portugese Woman (dir. Rita Azevedo Gomes) is a perfect film for no one to see. Visually impressive, technically very sound, aloof, void of any emotion, too long. This film is over 2 hours when it has no reason not to be only 90 minutes... I think a skilled editor could have a field day with this, because it was exhausting to watch as is. European premiere, stacked, I might've just been the youngest person there. We left early and missed the Q&A so we could cue for Flatland. Alicia described it to Chris as "Medieval Boredom: the film" when we went out for burgers later that day (I had the organic jalapenos burger with "funky" fries, which I've been told is a Berlin euphemism for "a bucketload of garlic sauce.") I like the idea of film being a living Renaissance painting, with people just walking in and out of frame. Like it when you can go, "No cuts!" when the camera just pans along with the scene for a long time. But, you know, I don't think anything can and should go; I don't think that everyone can pull of this style AS substance thing. I'm glad I saw this here, so I never have to watch it again.

2 February: Flatland (dir. Jenna Bass) can and should be picked up by Netflix. It's exactly the sort of "hidden gem" art house film that would thrive on there. It's funny and a bit raw and, more importantly, it absolutely owns. When the credits rolled I was pleasantly surprised by the number of women listed as crew (writer/director Jenna Bass and cinematographer Sarah Cunningham, among others). Of all the movies I saw I would be the most disappointed if this one doesn't get picked up.

9 february: Το Θαύμα της Θάλασσας των Σαργασσών/The Miracle of the Sargasso Sea (dir. Syllas Tzoumerkas) exists. Like, it's definitely out there. I was also definitely there when it premiered. From where I was sitting I thought that the director looked like a younger Patrick Oswalt... It's kind of telling that I have so little to say about a film that does so much. Because of some inane inside-joke (prompted by a tweet exclaiming "Eels! Eels! Eels!" that crossed my timeline the day I left for Berlin and a movie description that sold this as a movie about eels) this will forever be affectionaly known as "the eels movie," even if, I'm sad to report, it actually doesn't have a whole lot to do with eels.

February 3: Olanda (dir. Bernd Schoch) is a masterpiece. It's also never gonna get picked up. It's very long, but I think something cool happens when a film is this light on plot, actually just atmospheric, and that long. Olanda drops its title card about two hours into the film, and I can't stop thinking about it. Bravo to the cameramen and the cinematographer, they're onto something. 

 February 3: Celle Que Vous Croyez/Who You Think I Am (dir. Safy Nebbou) premiere with Juliette Binoche present. I was planning on taking her seat name card with me after it was finished, but someone beat me to it. Alicia didn't like this film. I did. Binoche is a literature professor teaching "Les liaisons dangereuses" throughout the film to contrast with the rest of the plot, so yeah, sure, it's on the nose and not very deep. But isn't it enough for a film to just be satisfying to watch sometime?   [Note from future Laurel: journal entry goes off the rails after this...]

 February 4: Vice (dir. Adam Mckay) is a film designed to piss you off. I didn't like it! I think it's a very strange way to go about making movies! But I do enjoy seeing Jesse Plemons in things. There's a moment about 1/4th in where the film fakes rolling the credits (to signify an alternate course of history in which there would be no story left to tell, it's clearly played as a joke) and everyone around me - film critics, legit journalists - start clapping. Pretty surreal moment, if you ask me. I can't imagine being paid to professionally write about film, and really think a film with a stacked cast like this one would be about 30 minutes long and allowed to enter the competition. I know this is going to be nominated for a bunch of stuff, but there's only one prize it really deserves to win: that of trailer of the year. Phenomal use of 'The Man' by The Killers.