Canberra

My cousin has been visiting and last week I took her to the nation's capital, Canberra. When we arrived, it appeared likely to fulfill its reputation for dullness. There were wide streets which were strangely depopulated, boring government architecture, spaces through only cold winds seemed to blow. It was as if nothing had been touched by imagination, even the houses seemed a uniform brick. Given that Canberra is government town, this you thought was what a safe, middle class world looked like. On the positive side, its very middle classness gives it the NGA, cycling rides around Lake Burley Griffin, decent book shops, a university feel and the like. In fact in the night we were surprised to find the city restaurants and cafes to be quite lively. I once had the idea of opening a chocolate bar (as one does inspite of not quite liking the stuff) - but they appear to be quite the thing given Sydney has Max Brenner and Melbourne TheoBroma and yes even Canberra has Koko Black.

Then again, I have lived in towns like Canberra and there is nothing to say that the internal worlds of Canberra residents are any less vivid than those of people elsewhere. Perhaps we have become too accustomed to wanting to live in "happening" cities, to wish every city to be tourist ready and can't appreciate those that adhere to neither.

As the above sampler of pictures shows, Canberra's natural setting is quite spectacular (the pictures are taken at the lake and in the city). Even this like the city is partly man made - the lake was created for the city and the tree plantings ensure a spectacular autumn and spring. But the backdrop of the straggly bush set on flat spaces and the cold clear air which in itself is akin to a relaxing massage is all Canberra's own.

Menswear

The web is cluttered with blogs relating to women's fashion so it was interesting to find a men's fashion blog - which also hosts links to other sites. It lacks colour and shoes/boots seem to turn up an inordinate number of times but it is nevertheless an interesting browse, particularly if you know men devoted to dressing well.

And via SMH and the blog, a menswear company, Engineered Garments, that specialises in reconstructing and adapting classic American workwear to modern times. I kind of like the loosely fitting fluid nature of the garments. It does seem to have a bit of a Japanese sensibility - or am I reading too much into it given the designer is Japanese-American?

Love in a Hot Climate

Last week we went to see Samson and Delilah, a tale of “true love” set in Central Australia. The near wordless film follows the two eponymous teens who live in a remote indigenous community where life is little else than ennui, petrol sniffing and poverty. The boy has a brutal, uncaring brother, the girl a loving but ill grandmother. Boy is given to petrol sniffing, girl to making “dot art’ with her grandmother. The initial scenes establish both the monotony and limited nature of the community and the timid, part hostile yet burgeoning relationship between the protagonists (memorably captured by a wide eyed Delilah observing Samson’s frenzied dance). Briefly Samson moves into Delilah’s place, the grandmother, much prone to humour, calls him Delilah’s husband. The grandmother dies and a few events later, the teens are on the run in a stolen car and in Alice Springs. Here things take a downward spiral with Samson taking with greater vigour to petrol sniffing, Delilah trying unsuccessfully to hawk her paintings and both teens living rough in the open. Their protector of sorts is a drunken indigenous man (Gonzo) who is as voluble as the teens are silent. More brutalisation later, an event puts Delilah in hospital from which she emerges to drag Samson off the street and to a remote outpost that offers some glimpse of a more hopeful future for the two.

The bare bones of the story are used to illustrate a number of themes by the director, Warwick Thornton. Primarily the film is concerned with the innocence and potential of young indigenous people and how they are systematically failed by adults at almost every level. Thornton also implicates indigenous adults – there is little love from the adults who surround the teens and many scenes bring this home to the viewer. The theme of indigenous teens on the run was touched on earlier, in Ivan Sen’s Beneath Clouds. Sen’s movie is a little more fatalistic – though in both the female protagonist holds more hope for an escape from a dysfunctional life. Sen’s film is also concerned with identity themes as one of the teens is part indigenous. Thornton is concerned purely with indigenous experience. Also his movie is about hope and grace – this allows him to infuse his film with humour and a few light touches even when things look exceedingly grim. In both movies, the outside world intrudes now and again. Beneath Clouds has more direct scenes of police assault. In Samson and Delilah, there are watchful mall workers, galleries where Delilah’s grandmother’s art is sold at exorbitant prices, the cafe society through which Delilah wanders trying to sell her paintings.

There is also a distinct Christian influence in the film, not least in its final message of the possibility of redemption and finding your own small Eden. This is not overt, I am not sure if the director is a practising Christian. At one point Delilah enters a church when at her lowest, then leaves when the priest arrives. The most overt suggestion (at least to this viewer) is perhaps in the ending scenes when Delilah appears bathed in light before Samson – we ourselves are not sure if she is dead or living. Delilah herself is representative of something pure, uncompromising and uncorrupted through whom Samson may well find grace and redemption. There is also plenty a reference to the cutting of hair – though this appears to be an indigenous custom and merely a faint nod, if at all, to the original Samson and Delilah legend.

The backdrop to the film is the Central Australian desert, which is both harsh and beautiful. It is probably difficult to get such a landscape wrong and Thornton doesn’t – the images are beautiful and tactile. Similarly Thornton uses his music well establishing separate mood pieces and themes for Samson, Delilah and Gonzo. His film is also helped along by its performances, in particular the two teens who carry the film. It is hard to say what future roles they will do; Australian cinema has little place for a full fledged film career for most indigenous actors.

Most movies made here on indigenous society play on themes of the noble wise savage or white-black politics (with the exception of Rolf de Heer’s charming film of an indigenous story, Ten Canoes). Thornton and Sen’s films are the only ones that I have seen that deal in a clear sighted way with the problems in indigenous communities today. Perhaps this is helped by the fact that both directors have roots in the indigenous community. Both therefore seem more vital than so much Australian film – along with its directors you too see the vulnerability and beauty of indigenous youth and hope for a better future for them.

Post Scripts

Samson and Delilah won the Camera D’Or at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival.

Interview with Warwick Thornton here.

Land Art

Once in a while I go across to Richard Shilling's site to look at its land art - the photographs make a welcome break when I am buried in text.

Dust Buster

"Did you know that Thoreau used to bring a bag of dirty laundry for his mother to wash when he'd go to visit her?"

Salon reviews "Dirt: The Quirks, Habits and Passions of Keeping House."

Thoreau did some housekeeping duties though. The link hosts the Emerson - Thoreau letters and one states: "Lidian [Mrs. Emerson] and I make very good housekeepers".

Autumn!

Pictures from let to right (I think) are maple, aspen (the catkins can be seen) and a decorative grape vine.

A trip to the Hunter Valley last weekend yielded these photographs. The day was perfect with a cool breeze and a mild honeyed light, in autumn the Valley was a bit like John Donne's lines:

No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace
as I have seen in one autumnal face

More famous autumn poems: Keats' ode to autumn, Jackson C. Frank's Milk and Honey (memorably covered by Nick Drake), Emily Dickinson's take and Du Fu's very many meditations on the season.

And Guardian link to many more as well as readers poems here.

Election!

Every now and then well meaning people of English origin will tell you that the British were “good colonisers” as opposed to the dull and brutal Dutch, the rascally French, the corrupt Belgians etc. The English, common wisdom goes, left behind some really good stuff. And the most important of course is the great English democratic tradition. To which one replies by pointing out the failed states (in the current parlance) they left behind. And adds the fact that India is unique in having taken on these good things and fashioning it to its own needs. In other words, the democratic tradition survives in the country, in whatever bastardised form, because we as a people have always understood it intellectually and are deeply invested in it. And each election in India only confirms this view. Usually I eschew the notion of taking pride in one’s nationality but in every election I can see the good common sense of the land of my birth. And also why its founding fathers are near iconic in so many developing nations. So for today, Vande Mataram! - yes, I know the term has a saffron tinge these days but I simply didn’t want to use a phrase in the language the rest of the post is in :-)

Guardian link on burlesque

Burlesque as misogynistic sham:

"Contemporary burlesque has ceased to be subversive; it is now just another part of our own modern, sexed-up "culture of consolation". Tired of fighting for equal pay, reproductive freedom and the right to walk down a dark street without fear, tired of being judged for what we look like rather than what we do, today's young women can be forgiven for wanting to play with the small amount of power we have. But stripping of any kind can only offer passive, cringing empowerment at best. The sexual power-play of burlesque strikes no great blows for feminism."

Avalon Beach + Dangar Island

Young surfers before jumping off the rock pool at Avalon Beach (one of Sydney's Northern Beaches).

View of Hawkesbury River from Dangar Island.

These pictures I took indicate the varied natural aspects of Sydney. Avalon has a surfing beach, and the suburb itself has a cultivated laid back, village charm. Here there is the air of something open and simple as people lounge on the beach or launch into the Pacific swell (strictly not the Pacific but the Tasman Sea), though the suburb itself is affluent. Behind the suburb lies bushland (not pictured) - as you venture in the topography and mood again changes. The Hawkesbury River on the other hand is a series of meandering inlets and small islands with the air of something secretive, people seem shaped by living on rivers. I haven't read The Secret River, but the name seems apt. Similarly the novel The River Baptists was inspired by a move to river living. Along the river are oyster farms (the film Oyster Farmer is set in the Hawkesbury and evokes the moody yet placid nature of the river).

More Cavafy

1/2 PAST TWELVE

Half past twelve. Time has gone by quickly
since nine o’clock when I lit the lamp

and sat down here. I’ve been sitting without reading,

without speaking. Completely alone in the house,

whom could I talk to?

Since nine o’clock when I lit the lamp

the shade of my young body

has come to haunt me, to remind me

of shut scented rooms,

of past sensual pleasure-what daring pleasure.

And it’s also brought back to me

streets now unrecognizable,

bustling night clubs now closed,

theatres and cafés no longer there.

The shade of my young body

also brought back the things that make us sad:

family, grief, separations,

the feelings of my own people, feelings

of the dead so little acknowledged.

Half past twelve. How the time has gone by.
Half past twelve. How the years have gone by.