Stepmom 1998

Watched Stepmom last night with Susan Sarandon and Julia Roberts about dying mom passing her children over to the new woman of her ex-husband. Ed Harris plays the dad. Quite sentimental and maybe slightly dull in places, the movie drives one or two tears. All three actors are perfect, almost immaculate, each plays its character to the depth - Sarandon is very convincing showing the imbalance and depression of a woman who received a death sentence. She is imbalanced while overprotecting her children from Isabel (Roberts) and being jealous of her at the time. Isabel presents the most ideal figure to replace Sarandon both as wife and mom. But what I really enjoyed is the skill of Ed Harris, he barely appears though, but all his lines and moves are deeply pre-thought and natural. His character shows no sign of guilt about what is unfolding, he seems content and happy, but who knows what feeling are brewing there under the neutral mask. There is particularly strong scene when he arrives to Sarandon with Christmas tree and struggles for words to express himself. I loved it. Quite intricate and deep movie.

Thoughts about the ART

To study and learn the Poetry one needs to study and learn the art, the history, the religion, the sculpture and the architecture. It is constant work full of challenges and questions. Constant flow of the perpetual knowledge.
I  strongly believe that all great poets learned from the great art and artists. It is inevitable.

After the Apocalypse

Somewhere 60 years ago, Kazakh steppes witnessed the phenomenon it never encountered before. The tests of nuclear weapon which took place in the wide and open steppes of Saryarka will reverberate throughout the generations for many years to come. The sacred land where Abay and Shakarim, two brightest geniuses of Kazakh poetry were born and lived has become a polygon for ambitious Soviet Union to test its potential to wage the war. The war, which never happened and yet huge layers of Kazakh population were sacrificed. Though too few could predict at that time what tragedy it would bring upon people in the future. Somewhere 60 years and over 460 explosions after, a historic decision has been taken by the President of independent Kazakhstan to close the polygon.
 Then, some ordinary day a British guy came to one of the remote villages located around the polygon to explore the lives of its inhabitants. That’s where the real story begins.Sarzhal is fairly unknown for wider public both within and outside of Kazakhstan. It is pretty small village located 300 km away from Semipalatinsk. Once it was famous for its production of kumis (mare’s milk), it is no longer. It has now other things to be famous for. The village is well known for being the closest to the actual polygon site. There are more than enough evidences to that, some inhabitants of the village still bear the physical proof of the radiation on their bodies. It can be no more explicit than that. The British guy hit the jackpot, when he discovered an extraordinary family as such, who could tell him more about the decease that hit them and still continues doing so. He stayed with them, lived with them, befriended the local farmers and shepherds, shared food with them, took their pictures...and filmed. That’s how After the Apocalypse was born. The film turned out to be complicated and challenging. Before leaving he made a promise to those people in Sarzhal that film will never be broadcasted in Kazakhstan, the very land the entire tragedy took place. The story is pretty simple and short.
A woman wants to give birth to a child who is suspected to be born with Down’s syndrome and genetically deceased. The entire documentary revolves around the debate about whether Bibigul should have her second child or not. But this simple argument between the nature’s power and grim medical diagnosis turns into something indeed apocalyptical. It is not only the question about life and death, but carries much more sinister message for the future generations to be born in those contaminated steppes.
 What man can deny life? If the baby could have its say would he or she choose the normal life or that of disabled? What mother can deny life? So many questions to which humankind is yet to find the answers. Bibigul has not much of a life except the wilderness of the steppes, small household and few horses. She and her husband work for village officials in kystak (a temporary place to spend the winter) which does not even belong to them, about 6 km away from Sarzhal. The road is bad and muddy, not every car can pass through. Ancient nomadic way of life rules here. They are being paid, of course, but only to sustain their current way of life. They are afraid of every coming visitor, believing it might be someone of a higher hierarchy who came to check up on them. They do not go frequently neither to Sarzhal, nor to Semipalatinsk. Basically they are isolated from the rest of the world.
 However Bibigul’s world is not too small to accommodate and welcome another future member of the family. Her heart is open so far. She and her mother have been haunted by the ghosts of the nuclear deformation since they can remember themselves. Those courageous women have their own dignity and are fully capable of protecting their privacy. The family cannot afford the most basic things, such as medicine for Bibigul and the newborn baby, clothes, proper food and vitamins, medical care, let alone anything else. That is the reason why she could have never made it to Almaty to do the prenatal check up to figure out whether it is worth giving birth to... That is the reason, she speaks so harshly and bitterly about her own and baby’s health. That is the reason, why she would never go out of her kystak and find out that there is so much fuss going on about her and her baby. She barely knows what an internet is. She probably does not know where the United Kingdom is located. She has her own kingdom of small simple things and tasks such as tending to horses, taking care after her family and all the rest of household chores. Ersayin is now one year and a half. He cannot walk, he cannot crawl, and yet he seems to be taller than normal child of his age. He has almost all of his teeth in place. He cannot speak too. In Kazakh, Ersayin means a strong warrior or brave hero. It is very beautiful and rare name.
 The film poses the question in the end: after 6 months Bibigul’s baby...is supposed to be normal as everyone who watched it hope. But what is normal? Is it normal at all to live in conditions described above? Is it normal to live in a constant fear of...indeed...what? Is it normal that state allows something like this to happen? The story of Bibigul transcends all possible boundaries of human misery and humiliation. She is there. Her Ersayin is there as well. They are both full-fledged members of Kazakh society and yet they are somehow out of it. The discussion may lead us further into the depths unknown. It is highly contested whether the documentary highlighted all the aspects of it.
 The most importantly after a year and a half nothing had ever changed for Bibigul and her little family. Should it have changed? Was it most importantly the purpose of the After the Apocalypse?
 British media got actively involved into the debate about what should we all do with letting unhealthy mothers to give birth to disabled children. Many talks focused upon an evil legacy left by Soviet Union and its nuclear tests. Was it the film’s purpose? Kazakhstan has learned its lesson, and declared itself to be the first ever nation, to renounce nuclear weapon. Was it enough? The film points out not only to the long vanished Soviet Union, it has its own message also to those nations who posess, retain and expand their nuclear storages. It contains the message to the entire free world to think twice before going there where Kazakhstan once found itself. Would you like to know what it might feel like to be Bibigul? 

LINKS

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/may/12/after-the-apocalypse-review 
 http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/News/2011/News/WTVM051193.htm     

Translation of "Old Chef" by Konstantin Paustovsky

"Old Chef"

One winter evening in 1786 on the outskirts of Vienna in a small wooden house the blind old man was dying, he was a former chef of Countess Thun. It was not even a house, more like a dilapidated lodge standing in the back of the garden. The garden was littered with rotten branches, whipped by the wind. At the each step the branches crackled, and then the watchdog started to grumble quietly in his booth. He was also dying from an old age as his master, and could not bark.

Several years ago, the chef was blinded by the heat of the stoves (furnaces). The manager of the Countess let him stay ever since in the lodge and provided from time to time a few florins.

He had an eighteen year old daughter Mary, who lived with him. The small lodge had only the bed, the rickety (lame) chairs, the rough table, the crockery full of cracks, and finally, the harpsichord - the only valuable of Mary.

The harpsichord was so old that its strings were singing long and quietly in response to all emerging sounds around. The chef jokingly called the harpsichord as the guardian of the place. No one could enter the house without the harpsichord’s greeting with its trembling old clatter.

When Mary washed her dying father and dressed him in a cold clean shirt, the old man said:

- I never liked the priests and monks. I shouldn’t  call the confessor, however I need to clear my conscience before the death.

- What shall I do? – asked Mary with concern.

- Go outside - said the old man - and ask the very first passer to come and hear my confession. There shall be no refusal.

- But our street looks so deserted ... - whispered Mary, put on a scarf and went out.

She ran through the garden, barely opened the rusty gate and stopped. The street was empty.

Mary had been waiting and listening for a long time. At last, she thought she heard someone passing along the hedge and humming. She took a few steps towards the person. Running into him she screamed. The man stopped:

- Who's there?

Mary grabbed his hand and with a shaking voice conveyed the request of her father.

- Very well, - said the man gently. - Although I am not a priest, it shouldn’t matter. Let’s go.

They entered the house. With the help of candle lights Mary saw a small lean man. He dropped his wet raincoat on the chair. He was dressed plainly but with elegance. The fire light glistened on his black vest, the crystal buttons and lace jabot.

He was still very young, this stranger. Trippingly he shook his head, adjusted his powdered wig, quickly pulled up a stool to the bed, sat and leaning closer piercingly looked into the face of the dying man.

- Please speak! - He said. – Perhaps with the power given to me not by God, but by art, which I serve, I could ease your last moments, and lift the weight off your mind.

- I worked all my life until getting blind - the old man whispered and pulled the stranger's hand closer to him. – And those who work don’t have a time to sin. When my wife became ill with consumption - her name was Martha - and the doctor prescribed her various expensive drugs, and ordered to feed her with cream and wine berries and drink hot red wine, I stole from the Countess Thun little golden plate, broke it into pieces and sold. It is hard for me now to reflect on it and hide from my daughter. I taught her not to touch a speck of dust from someone else's table.

- Were any of the Countess servants punished for that? - Asked the stranger.

-I swear, sir, no, - said the old man, and wept.

- If only I knew that the gold will not help my poor Martha, I would have never done it!

- What is your name? - Asked the stranger.

- Johann Meyer, sir.

- Dear Johann Meyer - the man said, and put his hand on the old man’s blind eyes - you are innocent. What you committed is not a sin, but on the contrary, can be credited to you as an act of love.

 

- Amen! - The old man whispered.

- Amen! - Repeated the stranger. - Now tell me your last will.

- I want someone to take care of Mary.

- I'll do it. What else you wish?

Then the old man suddenly smiled and said aloud:

- I would like to see Martha again same as in her youth. I want to see the Sun and this old garden when it blossoms in the spring. I know it is not possible sir. Do not be angry with me for this foolishness. The disease must have taken its toll on me.  

    

-Very well - said the stranger, and stood up. – Very well, - he repeated again, approached the harpsichord, and sat on a chair next to it. – Very well! - He said loudly for the third time, and suddenly the swift sound broke the lodge, as if the hundreds of crystal beads got scattered on the floor.

- Listen, - said the stranger. – Listen and watch.

He started to play. Mary could never forget the face of the stranger when he pressed the first key. His forehead became unusually pale and the darkened eyes reflected the candle lights. 

The harpsichord was singing in full voice for the first time in many years. He filled with sounds not only the lodge, but the entire garden. Old dog crawled out of the booth and sat tilting his head on one side, wary, slowly waving his tail. The wet snow began to fall, but the dog just shook his ears.    

- I see, sir! - exclaimed the old man propping himself up in bed. - I can see the day when I met Martha and she became so shy that broke the jug with milk. It was winter day in the mountains. The sky stood clear like the blue glass, and Martha laughed. Laughed - he repeated, listening to the strings ringing. 

The stranger played looking into the black window.

- And now - he asked, do you see anything?

- The old man was silent.

- Don’t you see - quickly said the stranger still playing  - that the night from black turned into blue, then azure, and warm light is falling from somewhere above, and the old branches of your trees bloom with white flowers. I think those are apple flowers though from this room they look like the big tulips.  Don’t you see how the first ray of sunshine touched the stone wall, heated it, and the steam is rising already. It must be the moss drying up, filled with melted snow. The sky is rising higher and higher, turning into deep blue, ever more magnificent and flocks of birds already heading North over our old Vienna.   

- Yes! I see it all! - The old man cried.

The pedal quietly creaked and the harpsichord continued its solemn song, as if it wasn’t the instrument but a hundred elated voices performing. 

- No, sir, - said Mary to stranger - the flowers don’t look like tulips at all. Those are the apple trees which blossomed in a single night. 

- Yes, - answered the stranger – those are the apple trees, but they have very large petals.

- Open the window, Mary - requested the old man.

She did. Cold air rushed into the room. The man was playing very softly and slowly.

The old man fell on his pillows, greedily breathing and fumbling around the blanket with his hands. Mary rushed to him. The stranger stopped playing. He sat at the harpsichord, unmoved as if enchanted by his own music.

Mary screamed. The stranger raised and walked over to the bed. The old man said, breathlessly:

- I saw it all so clearly, like many years ago. But I don’t want to die without knowing ... name. Your name!

- My name is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, - replied the stranger.

Mary stepped back from the bed and almost touching the floor with her knee, bowed low before the great musician.

When she straightened up, the old man was dead. The dawn was flaring up outside the windows and within its light the garden engulfed with the flowers of wet snow stood still.