Babel Babble....

Alejandro González Iñárritu (Dir), Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Gael García Bernal, Koji Yakusho

I put it to you that this is one of the most overrated movies of the year. Far from being the towering achievement that its title implies, this kinda crumbled to pieces like the proverbial tower. I regard Iñárritu as the natural heir to Krzysztof Kieslowski in his ability to weave together divergent stories across space and time into a coherent whole, as in his excellent Amores Perros. I've found his last two attempts, however, to be rather disappointing. 21 Grams had nothing very interesting to say and was kinda pretentious, while Babel, despite seemingly bearing an important message about cultural miscommunication, is far from an entertaining movie. I can't say that I found anything in it that was appealing - the characters aren't compelling, the story isn't that interesting, the acting is average, and the conclusion is highly unsatisfying. Why is it, for example, that the white American couple end up OK (Cate Blanchett doesn't even need an amputation), but everyone else gets screwed over? Is this a comment on the way of the world? In fact, I spent much of the movie trying to decide whether there was any point to any of it. The three settings (Morocco, California/Mexico, Japan) don't fit that well together, and the Japanese section is particularly tenuous, if not wholly bizarre. Not even Iñárritu's usually excellent cinematography makes the trip worthwhile. Perhaps the one redeeming quality is Gustavo Santaolalla's score.

I sense there was a reason why men were sent to the corners of the earth speaking in different tongues, but I suspect it wasn't so they could make a movie about it.....

Catchin' up...

OK, I don't really have time for this bloggin' sh*t these days... so here's a quick one to catch up on stuff I've been meaning to write about, but won't ever get the chance to. Ever.

El Laberinto del Fauno (Pan's Labyrinth) - Guillermo del Toro's latest fantasy film set during the Spanish Civil War, in which a young girl forced to live in the household of her tyrannical Nationalist General stepfather [wow, it's really hard to concentrate while watching The Magnificent Seven, and that great score by Elmer Bernstein blaring out of the TV...] becomes absorbed in her own fantasy world of fawns and fairies. You might think this sounds like a delightful children's story, but this is at times a seriously gross and violent movie. If you can bear the gore, it's a wonderfully inventive and imaginative film with some great acting. Despite this, del Toro's earlier film, El Espinazo del Diablo (The Devil's Backbone), also set during the Civil War, is a superior film.

Déjà Vu - I'm guessing this one will only appeal to fans of Star Trek and Denzel Washington (I happen to be both....). That said, this isn't much of a stretch for Denzel, who's probably played this character at least five times before. As an ATFB (that's Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Bureau) agent, he's called out to investigate an explosion on a ferry in New Orleans carrying soldiers returning from war (someone in the cabinet must have come up with that story line...). A new technology that enables a secretive new agency to construct a wormhole through spacetime to view events that happened exactly four days ago provides the novelty value. Then it all gets a bit silly as Denzel is sent back in time to try and stop the terrorists from blowing up the ferry. Lo and behold, he begins to realize that whatever he does, he can't really change the course of history. Unfortunately, Hollywood thinks differently and so in the end he gets his way. But dammit, why can't people die at the end of Hollywood movies? Anyway, it's entertaining enough, but I suspect Stephen Hawking didn't advise on the plot.

The Last King of Scotland - everyone go see this one. Forest Whitaker is great. Hurrah! Oscar please....

Apocalypto - jury's out on this one... this movie's weird. Some great cinematography and entertaining action. I'm told there's a lot of historical detail that's factually correct, as long as you don't care when stuff happened (the Maya Kingdom, for example, no longer existed by the time the Conquistadores arrived in Mexico, but hey...). The film's gotten a lot of criticism for being racist and portraying the Maya people as ruthless barbarians. Mind you, that's how Americans are portrayed in most films, and nobody seems to care much. So my question is, how much responsibility does a film maker have in accurately portraying a particular ethnic group/nationality? Discuss.....

Matsuri St James's, 15 Bury Street, London SW1Y 6AL - great Japanese restaurant with teppan-yaki tables. Fireball ice cream is quite an experience. Expensive, but chilled out.

OK, enough for now.

都江堰 - Du Jiang Yan Irrigation Project

The Du Jian Yan Irrigation Project is situated 56km northwest of Chengdu, a 50-minute bus ride from Cha Dian Zi bus station in western Chengdu (茶店子西门公共汽车站) (on a direct, "deluxe" bus, for 15RMB a go). The project was constructed by the Shu Governor, Li Bing, in the 3rd century B.C. It is the world's largest example of a damless irrigation system and classed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The irrigation system serves to control and divert the flow of water for irrigation of the Chengdu Plain and consists of three components: the Fish Mouth dike (鱼嘴), the Flying Sand Spillway (飞沙堰) and the Bottleneck (宝瓶口).


Pay attention now, here comes the science bit: if I've understood the principle correctly (which, not being an eco-engineer, is far from likely), the Fish Mouth divides the Minjiang river into an outer and inner canal. The outer canal follows the course of the river and is shallower than the riverbed, while the deeper inner canal diverts faster flowing water along the face of the surrounding mountain. The inner canal serves to remove silt; the outer canal acts as an overflow when water levels are high so as to prevent flooding. The long, deep Bottleneck guides water from the inner canal into the irrigated area and was carved out of the face of the mountain, even before explosives were in common use, by repeatedly heating and cooling the rock, causing it to crack. Barriers made from bamboo and rocks, held together by rope, were used to protect the river banks.

Several temples and ancillary features were subsequently built on the site, and the walk back up the mountainside through the Songmao Road (松茂故道) is well worth it, giving some great views of the river and Du Jiang village (and the city, although that's not so nice......).

满城尽带黄金甲 - The Curse of the Golden Flower

Zhang Yimou (Dir), Chow Yun Fat, Gong Li, Jay Chou

The Curse of the Golden Flower is set to be Zhang Yimou's latest bid for Best Foreign Film at this year's Oscars. A typically stylish, visually sumptuous period drama based telling the story of a Tang dynasty Emperor whose thirst for power results in the death of his three sons, Golden Flower has attracted a great deal of attention, much of it for its unusually revealing costumes (Critics Rip into Golden Flower's Bodices, Guardian Dec 20, 2006). Based on a play by Yu Cao, the film has all the ingredients that make imperial dramas so cinematically appealing: elaborate sets, visually stunning set pieces, beautiful costumes, internecine power struggles, decadence, love, incest, patricide, filicide, martial arts... But Golden Flower is more than just another period martial arts drama. In fact, unlike Zhang's previous films, House of Flying Daggers and Hero, there is much less focus on elaborately choreographed swordfights, in favour of emphasizing the ritual of imperial life, in a manner reminiscent of Raise the Red Lantern. As with many of Zhang's films, plot is far from everything and the plot is, at times, rather obtuse. The story focuses on Gong Li's empress, the emperor's second wife and mother of his two younger sons, who, upon realizing that she is slowly being poisoned at the behest of her husband, hatches a plot to kill the emperor on the night of the Chrysanthemum festival, pleading with her eldest son (played by Taiwanese actor/singer Jay Chou) to lead the assault and take over the reign.

The main characters are sadly not very fully developed; Chow Yun Fat's emperor is disappointingly two-dimensional, while his first son, subject of the illicit and unrequited affections of the empress, is more like a straight line, not helped by some pretty poor acting by Qin Junjie. But the film is all about Gong Li. After some pretty average Hollywood distractions in Memoirs of a Geisha and the absurd Miami Vice, she's back on form in a captivating performance that holds the film together. Empress Phoenix is a perfect blend of seductiveness, imperiousness, deceit and despair, all of which which Gong Li excels at. If you only need one reason to watch this movie, let it be Gong Li........

Giant pandas

The Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Research Base (成都大熊猫繁育研究基地) is located in the northeast part of the city, a short cab ride away from the city centre. The base holds the largest population of captively-bred giant pandas in the world (as well as some red pandas) and, as the name suggests, conducts research into panda breeding, including genetic typing to match potential mates. The site provides a simulated natural environment for artificially-bred pandas, with separate enclosures for cubs, and sub-adult and adult bears. Newborns are kept in a nursery (in cots - very cute.....).

The best time to visit is between 8.30am and 10am, when the animals feed. Being the outwardly lazy animals that they are, pandas seemingly do little other than eat and lounge around (secretly my ambition in life), so if you don't catch them while they're munching, you're unlikely to see them move. As the book implies, the giant panda eats shoots and leaves. Although there are some 90 different types of bamboo, the panda appears to be quite discerning, favouring only about 20 of these. Bizarrely, pandas appear to be rather stubborn eaters, eschewing an active, hunter-gatherer carnivorous lifestyle in favour of chowing down and munching on 15 to 20 kilos of bamboo a day instead, despite the fact that they lack enzymes to digest grasses efficiently. They're also fastidious breeders; females ovulate once a year, between March and May, leaving a period of only two or three days when fertilization can occur. Mothers give birth to twins, but usually abandon one of the babies, who dies after a few days. Giant pandas are indigenous to southwest China, namely the provinces of Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu, and Tibet, with an estimated 1600 specimens left in the wild.

The general appeal of pandas appears to be partly due to certain similarities with humans, both in their facial expression and anatomic function; unlike other bears, pandas possess a "pseudo-thumb", which I'm told involves a sesamoid bone. This thumb enables pandas to grasp objects much like humans, and they use this ability to grab bamboo shoots, using their mouths to strip off the leaves (see pictures below). It's really rather mesmerizing. They also appear to be designed to sit on their ass for extended periods of time, which humans are also known to do. All of this makes me think that humans must, at least in sentiment, be the direct descendants of pandoid ancestors.

The Chengdu Breeding Centre recently released Xiang Xiang, a tagged four-year old male, into the wild, at the nearby Wolong Reserve. Sadly, he doesn't seem to have fared very well, and it's reported that he's been bullied by wild males. Spare a thought for the poor guy....

A cautionary note: although getting to the Research Base by taxi is fairly straightforward (taxis in Chengdu are metered), getting a taxi back into the city doesn't seem to be. The drivers loitering around there seem to make a business out of conning tourists by not using their meters. Private drivers might give you a better deal. A ride into the city centre should cost your around 30RMB (15RMB=1GBP).