The Culture Enthusiast

"You are exactly
where you are meant to be"

Art 7:31 PM

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Home is home:
Review of the film Brooklyn

Movies 6:26 PM

via BFI

I first watched Brooklyn in April because it was Easter, you want to watch something light and heart-warming; it was also recommended by Duc from the blog 14 Shades of Grey. Normally, I would stay away from a movie deemed last year's "best love story", but I couldn't resist the 50's fashions and the fact that the protagonist is basically me.

The trailer describes quite well what you'll see in the movie: Eilis, played by the talented and very Irish-sounding Saoirse Ronan, moves from a small town in Ireland to the exciting neighborhood of Brooklyn. Just when she is starting to adjust to her new life, a crisis in the family takes her back to Ireland and there she'll have to decide between two men and two completely different futures.

I’m not sure how most audiences reacted to Eilis' story but, as a person who moved to the US four years ago, it felt very true to me.

Actually, I watched this movie as some people watch the Super Bowl. Will she stay in Ireland or come back to New York? It was as if my life depended on it. As if her choice would validate mine.

More than being a very sweet love story and elegant period piece, Brooklyn accurately describes (part of) the immigrant experience. Characters like Miss Kelly who try to play the guilt card mostly out of jealousy and pettiness, or like Georgina, the experienced immigrant, who gives Eilis several tips on how to act and "think like an American", or like Tony, an immigrant from a different country, who actually likes Irish girls or like his little brother Frankie who openly admits "we don't like Irish people"; all these characters are all too familiar.

But most real of all are people like Jim who come to you partly with good intentions, partly with their own agenda saying "your life here could be just as good".

Eilis, however, is the most interesting character. Her character goes through a physical and emotional journey that teaches her that being an immigrant isn't really a choice you make once - it's one you make every day. The desire to go back to Ireland may fade but it will always be in the back of her mind.

There's a lot to love about Brooklyn: the gorgeous cinematography, the 50's fashions, the poignant performances (I dare you not to cry during the Irish Christmas scene).

But I think it will personally touch those living abroad. At a time when it's not easy to be an immigrant (being an immigrant is by definition hard, but it's scary to watch the rise of xenophobic sentiment both in the US and in Europe not knowing what the next chapter of History will be) Brooklyn sends the reassuring message that the immigrant life, with all its hardships and challenges, is worth it.

The idea that Eilis could be just as happy in Ireland is, a priori, true. There are tons of happy people in Ireland and tons of unhappy people in Brooklyn. But the problem with staying in Ireland is, as she points out, "I'd imagined a different life for myself". Eilis didn't just change countries, she changed herself. The character who makes a more accurate, though simplistic, assessment, is Tony when he says that "home is home".

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Big Pile of Books

Books 12:37 PM

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Oedipus Rex paintings

Art 4:59 PM

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We are all Castaways:
Review of the film Moon

Books 2:12 PM

via Stuff Point

In the last couple of years lots of big blockbuster movies came out that were set in space: Gravity, Interstellar, The Martian. I don't mean to be controversial, but as a fan of realistic sci-fi movies, I thought these movies were all flash and little substance. Even Interstellar, which I liked, was a bit hard to sit through.

As this trend seems to be alive and well (with Passengers, the Independence Day sequel and the Star Trek and Star Wars franchises) I thought we could talk about one underrated sci-fi that I love: Moon.

Moon was directed by Duncan Jones and stars Sam Rockwell and Kevin Spacey (as the voice of GERTY, the Artificial Intelligence who lives with Sam in the moon’s space station).

As you can tell from the trailer, Sam is an engineer working by himself on a space station. Except, unlike Matt Damon's character in The Martian or George Clooney's character in Gravity, we actually sympathize with Sam because he looks and sounds like a real person; not a charming wise guy with instant answers to every single problem. No, Sam is a jaded, raggedy guy who wants nothing more than to come back to Earth to his wife and daughter.

The problem is that two weeks before his return date, he suffers an accident and ends up finding another guy who looks just like him. Is he inevitably losing his mind after three years of isolation or is there something else going on? Can he trust the AI GERTY and his polite passive-aggressiveness or the dismissive people from his company (heads up fans of The IT Crowd: two great cameos here)

Again, sci-fi movies that try to look and feel realistic are the best to me (see Primer and Puzzlehead, also underrated gems). Moon accomplishes that and more. Sam Rockwell is amazing, I need to see more of his movies.

I don't want to spoil too much, but the cherry on the cake: the last lines of the movie so accurately describe the current zeitgest, it's as if the movie hasn't aged a bit.

Now, let's overanalyse this, shall we?

After watching the movie, I went to IMDB and found this very interesting thread about the saddest, most moving scene in the movie, when Sam, in tears, says "I want to go home".

That scene resonates with viewers because the desire to leave an inhospitable place and come back to a loving home is universal. From Odysseus to Mad Max we are all trying to return home, at least in one point in our lives.

The thread on IMDB (which was an old one so I assume it got deleted at this point, unfortunately) became very depressing as one commenter pointed out that the saddest thing is not being stuck on a foreign, hostile land alone but to never being able to come back home, because you have no home. The commenter pointed out that because Earth as a whole is this awful place filled with wars, hate, poverty and misery it is impossible to ever feel at home.

That's exactly what Moon gets right: (spoilers) it shows that coming back to Earth isn't coming back home; it is not an end to loneliness and isolation, but an introduction to hate and ignorance.

It touches into a feeling of alienation that is so present nowadays. You turn on the news and you see people everywhere feeling misunderstood, unrepresented, disenfranchised. Communication, understanding and finding common ground seems, if not impossible, a Quixotean task. It's easy to feel discouraged and adopting this worldview that we are all alone and there's no place we can call home.

Even though I don't fully agree with this worldview, I think it is one step towards enlightenment. It sounds depressing, but dissatisfaction with the status quo, might be a step towards realizing we are not supposed to feel as if we belonged anyways.

It's like what C. S. Lewis said about how all the things we love about our world (family, friends, our hobbies, our favorite books) that all these things are connected by "secret thread", they are all longings not for this world but for God¹.

Here, we would have to turn to another character lost in an inhospitable place: Robinson Crusoe. All these characters, Robinson Crusoe, Sam and Matt Damon's character in The Martian are all castaways. All these stories seem to be portraying the same conflict: not only man x hostile environment, or man x man/machine but man x himself.

These stories show characters looking around and realizing they have no control over their environment or their fellow men. (Tangent: this is what I disliked about The Martian, how the main character acts as if he had control over everything and instead of being punished by his hubris, he gets rewarded by it)

All three characters spend their stories trying to find ways to come back home but only one prays. Only Robinson Crusoe realizes that the only thing we have control over is ourselves. He is the only one who realizes that peace of mind can only be found within, not without.

What are your favorite sci-fi movies, what do you love about them?

Massive thanks to my sister for recommending this film to me. Peters Sisters for the win.

1 Here's the full C. S. Lewis quote which is beautiful but too big for me to add here. It's from the book The Problem of Pain.

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All about Audio
Top 10 Audio books and Podcasts

Books 8:00 AM

photo by Corey Blaz

Top 10 Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

I started listening to audio books on my freshman year in college. I had a long commute and an even longer reading list. Between work and classes, I had very little time and knew I had to step up my game if I wanted to cross off every single title on my courses’ required reading list.

That's when I discovered Librivox. I can’t tell you how grateful I am this site exists. They produce audio recordings of books in the public domain. That is, all the old books I love reading. The readers are so talented and I wouldn’t be surprised if they were either professional readers or actors.

Below are some of my favorite titles:

The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot

The Waste Land is possibly the most difficult poem ever written. When we were studying it in college, I listened to this recording several times. Even today I can't read this poem without hearing this reader's voice in my head.

Poetry Speaks

Since we are talking about poetry, let me add an audio book that is not an online recording. Poetry Speaks is a poetry anthology that comes with 3 CDs of authors reading their poems. This was a Christmas present I got from my mom years ago and it has helped me not only to appreciate poetry even more but also to discover great poets (looking at you, Ogden Nash)

Edgar Allan Poe’s shortstories

I’m not as big a fan of Poe as I used to be, but his short stories are very entertaining and worth revisiting. My absolute favorite is The Cask of Amontillado. Ooh, no. The Tell-Tale Heart. Ok, it's a tie.

photo by Oscar Nilsson

A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen

Drama is another genre that translates very well to audio. I try as much as I can to see plays but that can be difficult for a number of reasons. My solution has always been audio books.

The man who wasThursday by G. K. Chesterton

So far I spoke only about poetry, drama and short stories for a reason. I believe these are the best genres for audio books. I usually listen to audio books while doing something else (driving or doing chores) so for me a long novel wouldn’t really work. With that being said, I listened to The Man Who was Thursday during a road trip to D.C. It is a fairly short novel and so captivating that I listened to it during the trip and while I was commuting in the city. This was the only novel I ever heard on audio, but novels can be a good option for people with long commutes and good focus.

Shakespeare's plays (and poems)

Back to plays! I'm sad to say I've never seen a Shakespeare play on stage. I try to make up for it with audio books and my imagination. My favorite recording from Librivox is Much ado about Nothing.

Chekhov’s plays (and short stories)

Oh, Chekhov. You’re so good I had to put two of your plays on my list. The recordings of The Cherry Orchard and Ivanov were made by the same group of talented readers and they do a great job of helping us understand the characters’ personalities and emotions.

Now, podcasts belong to my post-college years. I usually listen to them while doing chores and sometimes even at work. Boredom is real when you live and (mostly) work by yourself.

photo by Felipe Belluco

Dead Authors

First I got hooked on this podcast, then I was sad to discover that it ended in 2015. I love the premise: each episode, the host H. G. Wells (comedian Paul F. Tompkins) travels in time and talks to a famous dead author about their lives and books. The episodes are definitely NSFW and two that made me laugh out loud are the ones with Albert Camus (Steve Agee) and Gore Vidal (Marc Evan Jackson)

Bookworm

Bookworm is an LA radio program more on the highbrow spectrum. Host Michael Silverblatt has very intellectual conversations with contemporary authors about their latest books. I don't listen to this show as much as I wanted because I don't read that many contemporary books. But Bookworm has been on the air for 17 years so you are bound to find an interview with an author you like. The interview with David Foster Wallace about Infinite Jest is worth checking out.

In Our Time: Culture

This BBC Radio 4 show is on the very highbrow spectrum but it's possibly my favorite. Readers from the UK know the format: host Melvyn Bragg and three guests discuss a range of topics in culture. Their archive is impressive and the shows are always very informative. My favorite episodes about books are the ones talking about Jane Austen's Emma, Kafka's The Trial, Alexander Pope, Chekhov, Camus and Taste.

I hope this list offers some interesting listening material. I know I read twice as much since I discovered audio books. Why not wash the dishes while learning about the druids?

Do you listen to audio books and book podcasts? What are your favorites? I’m always looking for recommendations!

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The Culture Enthusiast

"You are exactly
where you are meant to be"

Home is home:
Review of the film Brooklyn

Big Pile of Books

Oedipus Rex paintings

We are all Castaways:
Review of the film Moon

All about Audio
Top 10 Audio books and Podcasts

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The Culture Enthusiast

"You are exactly where you are meant to be"

Home is home: Review of the film Brooklyn

Big Pile of Books

Oedipus Rex paintings

We are all Castaways: Review of the film Moon

All about Audio Top 10 Audio books and Podcasts

About

Follow Us

Pinterest

Reading

Currently reading

Labels

recent posts

Blog Archive

Quiz time

Visit my teashop!

Popular Posts

Most popular

"You are exactly
where you are meant to be"

Home is home:
Review of the film Brooklyn

We are all Castaways:
Review of the film Moon

All about Audio
Top 10 Audio books and Podcasts