14th of July in Paris

It's the middle of the summer... The quicksilver in the thermometer only climbs and climbs, and of course when a three day weekend shows up to celebrate some French national day or something like that ( ;-) ) people leave Paris like if the plague had broken loose in the city.

Surprisingly though, when we headed to the Champs de Mars, to enjoy the firework display that was about to be launched from the Eiffel Tower, we found out that everybody had come back to the city and was standing there, all 20 millions of them (and a few tourists as well, filling the spaces). In any case, the fireworks were really astonishing (as you can see in the picture), and the crowd not too annoying (Big thanks to Alexey for the excellent picture of he fireworks).

The other traditional event that marks the festivity is the usual military parade in the Champs Elisees on the morning of that same day. Of course I missed it, I had much more exciting and intellectually satisfying things to do, like helping a friend to move out from her flat, than waste my time watching a few infantry companies, tanks and jet fighters pass by, but I could not avoid hearing about it on the radio. And it made me start wondering...

I do sort of understand that in the middle ages, as may be a century ago, the influence and power of a nation was defined almost exclusively by its diplomatic influence, backed of course by military power, and therefore those parades were the perfect occasion to show (off) to everyone who would care to watch, how disciplined, powerful, and frightening, the armed forces of that country were. In fact, most of the times, the aim of the exercise would not only be to fill with pride the citizens of that proud and powerful nation, but also to fill with awe and respect (call it fear), the representatives, ambassadors and other visitors of foreign countries.

But nowadays, after two world wars and the cold war period, someone with a naive mind like mine would think that for most cases, in this globalised world of today, the influence that our nations are able to exert would not be a reflection of such imperialist and primitive ways, but based instead on economic prowess and human, technological and scientific development.

After reflecting on that, and on the obsolescence of those military parades for a few days, I can only think that the only reason to keep those parades is to justify the expenditure on defense but specially because they have become a tradition the logic of which no one has yet seriously dared to contest.

On the other hand, I do have to admit that a bunch of soldiers parading in their 'Sunday' uniforms, some rumbling tanks that are too heavy for the pavement of the city, and a few noisy jet fighters and helicopters, are surely more colorful to watch than the equivalent amount of scientists, businessmen and engineers.

Again at the Paris Jazz Festival

Again and again we keep going to the Paris Jazz Festival, but we cannot help it. Music is usually brilliant, and the surroundings gorgeous, and even if you are not interested at all in the music, you can always sit on the grass and enjoy the sunny and hot weather.




Highly enjoyable was the blues weekend, with the concerts of Patrick Verbeke Quintet and Jean Jacques Milteau Quintet, that included one of the best guitar players I've listened to recently. But not only that, at first all of us had the impression that the singer in the band of Jean Jacques Milteau had a rather soft voice for a blues singer.... until she stopped holding herself, stepped aside from the microphone and started singing with her full voice!! (and probably a few people at the end of the open concert hall were projected into the lake behind!!). Another CD to order from Amazon...




On the following weekend the concerts might not have been that interesting, but the weather and the park was, so... we had a nice picnic with pleasant jazz background music.

B-)

"Paris, je t'aime"...

"... le film evenement de la saison". Or, the film-event of the season, as the publicity of the film descrives it. And at least in terms of the people that have colaborated to the realisation of the film, it does seem to be a big event, or the cinematographic version of a jam session at least.

 

Over 20 directors and scriptwriters and scores of well known actors and actresses have colaborated to create this great jamboree of short stories, of all different sorts, shapes and colors. Well, not all shapes, they all had to fit in the two hours of film, which in the end made that some of the stories were overtly simple, a bit of a cliche. But well done cliches can still be very enjoyable, and many of these stories are. There are all sorts of situations, always revolving around love and Paris. Sometimes classic romantic love, sometimes the sadness of a lost chance, the longing for a deceased loved one, the pain of breaking, the memories of a past love, misunderstandings in the metro of paris, or even the lust for blood and ethernal love.

 

Not all the short films are of the same quality, or may be it will more accurate to say that not all short films will appeal equally to all audiences (I do personaly reckon that some of the stories could have been dropped and allow some others to be developed in more depth; but of course, i never liked mimes... ;-)). It would be very hard to choose one of the stories, but I specially enjoyed the situation devised by the Coen brothers in 'Tuileries', the interpretation of Juliette Binochein 'Place des Victoires', the story 'Faubourg Saint-Denis' with Nicole Portman and Melchior Beslon, and the story that closes the film, '14eme arrondissement'. I would say, that may be I might not have liked some of the stories on their own, but i did enjoy the film as a whole (even as I was a bit sceptic about it beforehand), and specially I found some of the stories specially moving, or hilarious, or sad... From my point of view, a good film.