Lazy Sunday

Lazy Sunday. After a hot beginning to the weekend, it rained all morning. Further proof that Sydney is inching towards the Melburnian “four seasons in a single day”. Consequently, apart from the grocery shopping, I haven’t been out today and have been entertaining myself with magazines. And a book gifted to me by my cousin as part of a Mad Men themed present, The Golden Age of Couture. Expectedly, the book had plenty of stunning women in stunning clothes. As also brief write ups on designers I was not aware of like Jacques Fath.

Only one picture really captured the behind the scenes toil to create these dresses and here it is below:
Though it may not necessarily be toil. One of the few movies I watch on and off is Brodeuses. As far as the story and the film goes, it is slight, lovely yet nothing out of the ordinary. But it is slow and contemplative and captures the rhythms and joys of women’s work, which for some reason makes for hypnotic viewing (at least to this viewer). In the movie, the work happens to be embroidery for the haute couture houses. Trailer which is kind of ordinary, here.
And now onto something even slower, contemplative and silent. The DVD lined up for tonight is Into Great Silence.

Scent of the Green Papaya

Scent of the Green Papaya is a languid film that immerses the viewer in the sights and mores of what seems like 1950s Vietnam.
Its story is pretty simple; a young girl comes to work as a servant in a household. She is quiet, observant and diligent. The wife treats the girl like the daughter she has lost, not so the rest of the house. The family falls on hard times, the girl – now grown up – goes to work at another place. She falls in love with her employer and has his child. And learns to read. It’s a quiet film, some people would call it a film that is imbued with Buddhist philosophy. Surprisingly it has a fair few nasty undertones (also found in Cyclo and Vertical Ray), maybe all the better to underline the proverbial lotus in the mud. Some of its scenes are also reminiscent of old Hindi films i.e. the dutiful, unhappy wife, the wastrel husband, the cruel mother-in-law, the goodness of a servant, a sort of vanished way of life. It is not a perfect movie, nevertheless it is such a tranquil, calming film that I watch bits and pieces now and then, particularly its scenes of water in domestic life. Part of its appeal is that it so expertly recreates the natural world with which the young girl has an affinity – even more astonishing if you think that it’s not shot on location but on a set in France.