Perhaps no fruit plays a greater role in ancient cultures than the noble fig. Subfossil figs have been found in Jordan that predate the domestication of even wheat and rye. The fruit also appears in many religious traditions, for instance the leaves of the fig tree were used, according to the Book of Genesis, as the first underwear.
No man may understand the fig like albertluk6043382973, a gentleman whose enjoyment of this fruit borders on the perverse. In his instructional video he shows the viewer exactly how to determine the fruit’s ripeness and how then to pluck it from the branches. Gently, he caresses the purplish skin, stretched taut by the bloated flesh within. With the intensity of an amateur pornographer he focuses our gaze on the ostiole, open and secreting a sugary dew.
Soon though, his movements become more daring. Grasping the fig with one hand he begins to twist the stem; splitting the skin with his fingers. Finally, released from the branch of its birth, he brings it towards us, tearing it open to reveal the sticky interior, flush and glistening. Only when we have drunk in this sight does the shirtless man bring the fig to his lips and devour it with an ardor tempered by months of desire and need. Here, truly, is a man whose love for the fig is unmatched. He is part of a long tradition, possessing a deep understanding of the natural eroticism of the Ficus carica — and in that knowledge he revels. Juice running down his face, he celebrates; for now is the time for figs.
Surreal video out of Russia where wildfires are ravaging central and western parts of the country following the hottest July on record. A car-full of volunteers helping residents of the Nizhny Novgorod Oblast village of Tamboles find themselves very nearly trapped on the road leading out of town. What follows is, as one of the participants notes, a tense car ride through a Dante-inspired landscape. Don’t be surprised if you breathe a little sigh of relief along with these gentleman as they burst through into the sunlight at the end.
A patchwork biography of Igor Oleynikov: Growing up in Lubertsy, Russia — a small town outside of Moscow — his entrance into the art world was at the Russian animation studio Soyuzmultfilm in 1979. Since 1986 he has been illustrating children’s books and has done 25 to date.
Children’s book illustration is a lot like veterinary school — the common misconception being that medical school has a much higher barrier of entry, and yet the opposite is true. Children’s book illustration is a notoriously difficult nut to crack.
Oleynikov’s work is testament to the talent involved in the field. His paintings are lush and yet his tones are muted just enough to give everything a dream-like quality. In addition, they possess that air of danger and foreboding so often found in literature for young readers. Really, I could look at these all day. See more after the jump and even more here, here, and here.
Inspired by the music we had the idea of making a decaying world. One single camera movement from left to right, showing a landscape, looping 9 times. Day becomes night and even the seasons go by. After we finished the production, we decided to reverse the whole video. This gives you a seemingly happy end, but you know what’s going to happen. There are no lyrics and we did not pay attention to the title of the song, we just felt this was the right thing to do.
A beautiful video from circa 2008, a lifetime ago on the internet. The song is from the album A Memory Stream which can be purchased here, among other places.
Felix Meyer and Pascal Monaco present 35mm, an animated short featuring minimalist representations of 35 films in 2 minutes. Think of it as an animated film quiz to perk up your afternoon.
A film for violin nerds on today’s FAM. Tom Slade directs 4, a film that follows four different violinists on four different continents playing one of the world’s most well known compositions, Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons.
4 begins in Spring in Tokyo, with violinist Sayaka Shoji, segueing into Summer in Australia and violinist Niki Vasilakis before moving on to New York in Autumn with Cho-Liang Lin and finally ending in Finland in Winter with Pekka Kuusisto. It’s a quite a journey, though I’ll admit to being partial to Autumn as there really is nothing like New York City in the fall. The show-stopper here, however, is Finland. The scenery on display in this last act is nothing short of stunning.
All of it is accompanied by a beautiful piece of music. Vivaldi was a mainstay for me growing up. My grandmother had studied the violin and graduated from Juilliard before marriage and WWII sidelined those dreams. She had inherited the love of the instrument from an uncle who was a member of the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra. She had, for a time, tried to pass this love and ability down to me, an endeavor she would abandoned in despair, her oldest grandchild seemingly devoid of any musical talent. Her violin, as it is for many who play I would assume, remains her most prized possession. She has, apparently, stipulated in her will that it must never be sold as doing so will, no doubt, bring down some ancient Hungarian curse upon our family.
The musical aspect, then, was what I found most intriguing about this film for while I love The Four Seasons the musicians here are in possession of a wealth of knowledge that I am completely ignorant of. They make for a fascinating lecture on just what is going on in each movement, what events transpire and what each instrument represents, all facets of the music I was never aware of.
It’s a meditative film, made slightly ominous by each musician noting how the weather seems to be changing. But regardless of such politically charged observations it remains delightfully calming — a soothing musical travelogue. The perfect film for a Friday afternoon.
For many there is nothing like the taste of an ice cold beer on a hot summer day. For others, there is nothing like the taste of a beer brewed by gnomes on some remote mountain in the Himalayas at a rate of twenty bottles a year. You have met these people, no doubt, and they have explained to you in great depth just why you have never truly tasted an ale until you have quaffed one which has had its ingredients massaged by the tiny, nimble hands of Himalayan gnomes.
For those people Scottish brewery BrewDog has created The End of History. At 55% alcohol by volume it is currently the world’s strongest beer. BrewDog is making 11 bottles of the stuff which will come in two editions: Stoat and Squirrel, priced at $763.00 and $1068.00 respectively, making them also the most expensive beer at the moment. Also, in case you haven’t noticed, the beer comes in bottles — bottles that have been inserted into nattily dressed stuffed stoats and gray squirrels like furry, taxidermy beer-cozies which, at that price, is really the least BrewDog could do for it’s customers. Much higher and I would expect something endangered impaled on my drink or, perhaps, a rhino’s horn bottle opener. Further details, instructions for proper consumption can be found at BrewDog’s website.
Donald Weber takes a heart wrenching look at the city of Zholtye Vody in Ukraine. Located near two nuclear waste sites and an enrichment factory in the hub of the Soviet Union’s uranium mining and enrichment area, the homes were built using highly contaminated materials. With a higher radiation level than Chernobyl, over half the population of 60,000 people suffer from some sort of radiation sickness.
Upon first viewing this slide-show I was immediately struck with the strangest memory. Specifically, a memory of being a child, sitting in the ophthalmologist’s office and leafing through a copy of National Geographic which contained a large article on the Chernobyl disaster. The same hollow and broken faces are here in Weber’s essay. There is some joy here too, but it never seems to truly outshine the pain.
The image below was especially affecting and I had mixed feelings posting the set. It struck me that my vision of these post Soviet states is largely informed by images like this — a collection of gnarled women in babushkas, all furrowed brows and vacant stares, and emaciated youths, bald and hurting. It’s a world where lives are lived entirely within tiny, cramped apartments in stark, concrete tenements whose facades and walkways are slowly succumbing to an inexorable army of vegetation. I find myself thinking that there must be more to these people’s lives than this and fearing that there isn’t. I worry that I am passing on a misconception; proliferating a stereotype. I suppose that if the purpose of art is to make us question then, at least in my case, Daniel Weber has succeeded.
Hot, steaming pantomime on order today for the FAM as we present The Triplets of Belleville (Les Triplettes de Belleville), the surreal animated adventure from 2003, written and directed by Sylvain Chomet.
Triplets tells the story of Madame Souza who is raising her son, Champion. Noticing his sadness one day, she purchases for him a dog named Bruno and though this does cheer him up, his joy is short-lived. It is only after she realizes his interest in bicycle racing and gives him a bicycle of his own that Champion finds real happiness. Fast forward and, years later, Champion has become a world-class cyclist, competing in the Tour de France. It is during this race that a mafia boss kidnaps Champion and two other cyclists, bringing them to the town of Belleville in North America and hooking them up to a virtual-reality cycling machine, allowing patrons to gamble on the races. Madame Souza and Bruno follow, of course, attempting to rescue him from the mafia’s nefarious clutches; meeting along the way the titular triplets, a trio of retired cabaret singers.
It’s a strange arc, then. Triplets starts off easily enough, slow and methodical, but upon the kidnapping of Champion things surge into overdrive, getting progressively weirder and the two don’t quite mesh as well as they perhaps should. It’s almost like they stitched together to different films. That said, this observation does little to detract from my enjoyment of the film. Chomet has created a beautifully realized world here with his characters barely uttering a single word. The version above features no English subtitles, an omission you will hardly notice. Every emotion and thought is spoken with subtle, expressive animation. In addition, the movie features an outstanding soundtrack inspired by the jazz of the 20s and 30s (the film even goes so far as to reference both Django Reinhardt and Josephine Baker in the first few minutes.)
In animation at least, I find myself drawn to pantomime. It strikes me as a testament to an animator’s talent, this ability to abandon the spoken word. In that way it’s interesting to note that Pixar, who’s Finding Nemo beat out The Triplets of Belleville for best picture has begun incorporating this aesthetic more in their recent films, most notably Wall-E (perhaps my favorite from them). Chomet’s new film, L’Illusionniste will see a release in the States in December and I find myself just as anxious as when I first saw a trailer for The Triplets of Belleville. I just can’t see his oeuvre losing its charm.
From Trevor Jimenez comes the story of a man’s deadly addiction to one sugary, citrus dessert. 2007’s Key Lime Pie features a heavy, film noir veneer, complete with a hardened narrator who sounds as though he’s smoked since birth or, perhaps, needs to eat more fiber. Also, consider this: Death in a trench-coat sporting a Thompson submachine gun scythe. How can you resist?
