Well, I did not go to see Robert Plant and band. Instead I instructed EPI to call me on his cell if they played a) Stairway to Heaven, b) Immigrant Song. AAH and I then proceeded to have a girl’s night in, with DVD [In America] and popcorn.
The phone rang four times. The first time on our way to the video store [Black Dog] the second on our way back from the video store [Baby I’m Gonna Leave You] the third just as we had started to watch the film [couldn’t make out that song], the fourth about 45 minutes into the film [Whole Lotta Love].
No Stairway. No Immigrant. Which I thought was bizarre, particularly as Immigrant Song was penned after LZ’s first and only concert in this country and is of course about Iceland and so would have driven the Vikings wild [which is perhaps what old RP wished to avoid].
EPI’s take in a nutshell: He thought RP was great but the band not so great. He thought the guitarist and bass player lacked a boldness or confidence that would allow them to transcend the LZ legacy. And it was brought home to him how excellent those Led Zeppelin songs are and were, and how difficult it is to match them with the new stuff, which kind of pales in comparison.
MEANWHILE, ON THE FILM FEST FRONT…
We went to see Almodóvar’s latest, Bad Education, two nights ago. I’m an Almodóvar fan; I loved Talk to Her, and All About My Mother and I would definitely see any new film of his. However, I found this one slightly disappointing.
For those who don’t know, it centres around paedophilia and is supposed to be Almodóvar’s coming to terms with his past, since he attended an all-boys’ Catholic school where by his own admission the boys were sexually molested by the priests. However, as a settling of accounts it was all very vague. I don’t want to say too much simply because it’s not my place to judge whether Almodóvar as a person dealt with his past or not, but it sort of seemed to me like he skirted the issue, didn’t really get to the core of it emotionally. I know, because emotionally the film didn’t engage me. For me this is always the test, because I firmly believe that if the creator of the work is emotionally engaged, the viewer will also be, correspondingly. I watched the veneer: It had charm and charisma and was visually stunning [I love his use of colour and pattern, for example]. Also, he’s got this great knack for turning the tables on the viewer without warning so that suddenly your perception of the film and/or characters does a 180° turn and what you thought was real suddenly becomes false and there’s a whole new perspective to grapple with. All that was there and as such the film was good enough. And yet… I came away from it emotionally dissatisfied. Not to mention with a yucky sort of feeling from all the Fassbinder-esque gay sex scenes that seemed quite gratuitous and, to me at least, repelling.
And now there are only seven days left of the Icelandic Film Festival, which YT has been too busy to attend. So many films, so little time. Sigh.
THE WEATHER
Currently calm and lovely, if overcast. Temps are 6°C and I’m about to take my bicyclette out for a spin along the seashore. Daybreak today was at 04.27 and nightfall will be at 22.28.