Cache

We saw Michael Haneke's film Cache the other night. It is definitely the type of movie that lingers in your head for days after viewing it leaving more questions than answers in its wake.

Focussing on the deception and guilt that arises when the past of a well known TV intellectual comes back to haunt him, the movie takes for its backdrop the current unsettled divide between Paris' rich and poor giving the viewer a subtle but threatening sense that the tensions could boil over at any moment. Hanneke takes this further by linking the main plot line to an incident from 1961 in which Paris police officers attacked a passive demonstration by 30,000 Algerians, killing up to 200 people by drowning them in the Seine.

The film moves along in a slow, almost menacing manner, forcing the audience to immerse themselves completely in the emotional and complex interaction that is taking place on the screen. Within this calculated pace lie two very unsettling scenes of violence; so much so that the first prompted the couple in front of us to leave the theatre while the other extracted an ear piercing scream that had the rest of us jumping in our seats. It is not often that such genuine emotion is experienced at the movies these days especially without the aid of a sappy Hallmark-card musical score. Cache is strikingly devoid of any music whatsoever.

Cache was awarded Canne's Fipresci Prize and The Ecumenical Jury Prize while Haneke was acknowledged as Best Director. Go see it, let it linger for awhile and then let me know what you think...

 

Monday, May 22, 2006

Speaking up against
"boring logos"

I was recently interviewed for a short piece in the Globe & Mail by Nicholas Dinka on the importance of having a good logo. You can read my rather harsh take on some recent Canadian logo design here.

 

Seven Wonders of Architecture

Lisa Rochon of the Globe & Mail has just finished her Seven Wonders series for the newspaper with a focus on architecture "both historic and modern ... but only if the works are still intact and accessible to visitors." It is a great list, but one which immediately had me searching the net for more images and information on the celebrated structures.

So after reading Rochon's choices and her rationale behind each one, check out these links for further insight into what makes these seven so wonderful:


1. Casa de Barragan, Mexico City


2. Notre-Dame-du-Haut, Ronchamp, France


3. Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain


4. The Great Pyramid, Giza, Egypt


5.National Assembly, Dhaka, Bangladesh


6.Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, Turkey


7. Angkor Wat, Siem Reap, Cambodia
BONUS: Check out this sweet Angkor panorama.

 

Monday, May 15, 2006

Strange Connections

I would suspect that there are few people out there who would proudly post the entire laundry list of their Google search queries on any given day. Sometimes the wee midnight hours can inspire some twisted cyber journeys. Being on the receiving end of such quests can be quite amusing. I use tracksy to check this site's traffic records and every so often I get a very enlightening glimpse into the stranger habits of some of my visitors. For example, I take great pride in the fact that broome:ideas and executions is the number one search result for surfers looking for this. Such moments are such a positive affirmation that I am really connecting with "my people".

So with that in mind, I would like to take this opportunity to welcome - since my last post on the French film Renaissance- all of the searchers of "castration pics". They join the surprisingly large number of people looking for "photos of executions" in being so incredibly and completely blown off course. (But I hope you enjoy your visit here nonetheless ;)

 

Monday, May 08, 2006

Sin City of Lights

I hate to admit that I wasn't a huge fan of Sin City. It was a visually stunning and oh-so-cool piece of cinema to be sure. But I lament the moment when post-modern irony became synonymous with gratuitous ultra-violence and storyline fell sway to pure style. I love a good and bloody castration scene as much as anyone, but I want it to lead somewhere further than another good and bloody castration scene.

So perhaps I am setting myself up for a similar end with Christian Volckman's Renaissance. But with a setting of Paris in 2054 and a visual aesthetic that is even more stark than Sin City, this looks absolutely phenomenal, plot or no plot. The website alone is worth a good evening of exploration (especially if you understand a little French). I only hope that this doesn't take too long to get to Vancouver.

22.09.06 UPDATE: The english version of the Renaissance trailer is now up at Apple and the website can be found here. It does indeed appear to be "Coming Soon".

 

More New Work by Jeroen Witvliet

It seems Jeroen Witvliet has been busy with a new series called Text and more panels added to his Pan-orama series. Enjoy.

For more info, check out my interview with Jeroen here.

 

Friday, May 05, 2006

Droppin' Science

Sometimes it really does pay to look in the complete opposite direction to find what you are looking for. Case in point: after a solid half day of typing in search queries like "mathematical models" and "processing genetic animations", I took a break and followed a link from 3 Quarks Daily to Seed Magazine to read an article about Science and the Simpsons. In doing so, I discovered this flash experiment called Phylotaxis by Jonathan Harris, which is pretty much exactly what I was searching for in the first place. Harris' work in general is a really nice mix of scientific theory and clean design aesthetic. Very inspiring.

As for what I'm working on, it is still very much in the concept stage. But I hope to have a few new pieces up in my portfolio soon.