El Ardor - You Blew It With That Sex Scene

Last night I went to see El Ardor at the Vancouver Latin American Film Festival.  The festival has been great - good films that would otherwise be hard to see and really well organised.  El Ardor was the first film I have seen that I did not like.

Gael García Bernal, who I generally think is awesome, stars as a sort of shamanistic mystery man. Through most of the film, he happens to look like a Billabong model who just finished a sweaty hike. In the film he takes on a group of brutal men trying to evict poor farmers (through violence and intimidation) from their rainforest lands.  The movie is reminiscent in many ways of an early Clint Eastwood western - handsome stranger, villains, a woman in distress, and terse dialogue.  It just happens to have an element of mysticism and bit of a message about protecting the environment as well.

In general, the film was silly, but it truly fell apart for me about midway through.  The thugs evicting the farmers show up on the land of Gael García Bernal's friend.  They shoot (and seemingly kill) one man and then force the father/father-in-law to sign over his title to the land.  Meanwhile, García Bernal and Alice Braga (the female lead) are hiding in the house.  She emerges, gets captured, and has to watch while they murder her father (after he has signed the land over).

The three thugs then drag her off into the forest.  García Bernal uses his 'special skills' to save the husband/partner from the gunshot wound and then heads out into the forest to save the woman.  He rescues her (of course) just as she is about to be raped (of course).  They get away and spend the night in the forest, and in the morning Alice Braga's character wakes up feeling frisky (of course).

As is so common in situations like this (when you have just seen your partner seemingly murdered, watched your father hacked to death by machete, been kidnapped, and then almost raped), she just had to have sex with Gael García Bernal.  As I mentioned, he did look like a Billabong model, so that was probably what made him so irresistible.  I guess she felt like she was kind reclaiming her life by mounting García Bernal while he was still half asleep.  Sex is often the first thing people think about after surviving horrific violence and tragedy.

Right?

NOT!!!  What had been a slightly plodding Western had now lost me completely.  Pablo Fendrik (director), you blew it, buddy.  I sat through the rest, but let's just saw that el ardor no ardió.  Aguanté hasta el final.

Exciting Times at the VPL (seriously)

Last night I went to the library (the Vancouver Public Library to be precise) and had one of the best nights out I have had in years.

The Library hosted the type of event that I have not been able to attend in ages and it thrilled me.  No joke.  They held a free screening of Just Eat It: A Food Waste Movie with a Q&A period with the film's producer afterwards.  The movie itself was a great documentary of the amount of food wasted in North America, showing the producer and director embarking on a six month journey of living off food that is discarded or about to be.

The British Columbia pair created an informative and inspiring film that was often quite funny.  It avoided the 'world-is-ending' tone, which, though likely true, usually turns off so many people.  With students, for example, they feel so much like the problem is beyond them that there is no point in changing behaviour.  Just Eat It, however, makes it clear that there are really simple things we can do to reduce the vast amounts of food wasted each year.

Back to my main point though...the thrill of the evening was not the film itself, but the fact that a large auditorium was filled with people who turned out to see an issue-related documentary.  The host was a government funded, people supported institution with the primary function of lending people things for free to increase learning.  After years overseas, I had forgotten how much events and institutions like this matter to me.

Part of it is, of course, related to language.  In Thailand, though I speak Thai quite well, a full length film with Q&A would have been difficult.  But more importantly, this type of event doesn't really happen in most countries.  And this type of institution - based on lending people things for free - doesn't really exist in many parts of the world.

So last night, I felt lucky.  I felt excited, and I felt committed to supporting my community institutions and the issues they face.

Thanks again, VPL.

Water, Rivers, Boats, Thailand...Songkran

I love this documentary.  I watched it first to practice my Thai, but I loved it because it's beautiful. Love you always, dear Thailand.

The boat lady of Bangkok - Winner Vimeo WEC from Benjamin Parrot on Vimeo.