My Inspiration for July 2018

I’ve read two really amazing books this month: Kate Chopin’s “The Awakening”: it is rather short, the plot develops slowly only to stir your soul suddenly like a thunder in the sky the moment when Edna, drunken from the taste of candour on her lips, realises that the life she is living isn’t what she wanted, that her marriage is an illusion, she is awaken to herself as an individual. The writing is unpretentious and lyrical with many wonderful descriptions. I am also nearly finished with Gabriel García Márquez’s “Love in the Time of Cholera” which is as amazing as I expected from Márquez, the dazzling world of the Caribbean, the realism mingled with idealism, romance with nostalgia. I also watched the same named film with Javier Bardem from 2007 and I thought it was great, and brought many scenes from words to life.

“She felt as if a mist had been lifted from her eyes, enabling her to look upon and comprehend the significance of life, that monster made up of beauty and brutality.” (The Awakening)

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Picture found here.

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Kilchurn Castle, Scotland (by Stevie Smith)

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Photo found here.

Picture found here.

Shattered Dreams  by Krista Kruger

Photo found here.

Photo found here.

5 Dreamy, Romantic, Coming of Age Films

I have been thinking recently about a few films that I love and I’ve noticed that a similar mood, theme and aesthetic connects them all. They’re all about young girls, all five have a romantic dreamy mood with a touch of mystery, a coming of age theme, and they are all aesthetically pleasing. If a film awakens my imagination, if it gives me delightful daydreams, then I will watch it. If I love a film, I will probably watch it many times because I love to soak all the details, gaze at the costumes and surroundings, and be a part of that dreamy world at least for an hour or two.

Faustine and the beautiful summer (1971)

Now, I already wrote a review for Faustine here, and that shows just how much I loved it! The film follows Faustine’s summer stay at her grandparents countryside house. She is a dreamy sixteen year old girl who loves nature and there are many beautiful shots of her hugging the wheat, kissing a tree, swimming nude, that mingle the love for nature with sensuality. She mostly spends time in her head, but also spies on her neighbours and eventually befriends them, and falls in love with one of them. Through a beautiful and dreamy aesthetic, the film shows Faustine’s growth and explorations, and touches topics that a girl her age could understand, such as the conflicts between daydreaming and living life, innocence and awakening sensuality etc. Chopin’s music is often in the background and there are many lovely and delicate scenes with a sensuous touch; Faustine indolently lying on the bed wrapped in nothing but white lace and eating cherries and strawberries, or Faustine running through the field of golden wheat and poppies which not only brings to mind the beautiful paintings of the Impressionists, but also the verses of young Arthur Rimbaud’s poem “Sensation”:

On the blue summer evenings, I shall go down the paths,
Getting pricked by the corn, crushing the short grass:
In a dream I shall feel its coolness on my feet.
I shall let the wind bathe my bare head.

I shall not speak, I shall think about nothing:
But endless love will mount in my soul;
And I shall travel far, very far, like a gipsy,
Through the countryside – as happy as if I were with a woman.

Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)

The latest dreamy-romantic-coming of age film I watched about a month ago and found it amazing to say the least! The film is based on the novel by Joan Lindsay and is set in girls school in Australia in 1900. A seemingly idyllic world of white lace, smiles, pressed flowers, and yellow haired girls goes horribly wrong one day in February, Valentine’s Day to be precise, when girls go to a picnic with their teachers. A mysterious mood and a gorgeous Edwardian aesthetic are not the only interesting aspects about the film, the soundtrack with some classical music pieces and the title music with panflute played by Gheorghe Zamfir is so so dreamy and really fits the mood of the wild Australian nature, hot burning sun and those red rocks, you can listen to it here. The intro, which you can watch here, is in my view the most beautiful part of the film, skip to 01:23 and you will see the dream begin. Oh how I love their white gowns, them lacing their corsets, washing their faces in water with roses, reading Valentine’s day cards, oh so romantic!

Virgin Suicides (1999)

A film based on a book by Jeffrey Eugenides, and both are really good in my view. It’s about five sisters living with strict and pious parents in a nice, clean, safe and boring suburb of Detroit in the 1970s. Their home life is sheltered and claustrophobic, plenty of things are forbidden; boys, rock music, nice clothes, and it gets stricter as the story goes on. Shielding them from the world has created numbness, decaying mood and a desire for death. Both the novel and the film are told from the point of view of a few adolescent boys who observe and admire the girls from afar. Just like us, they couldn’t unravel the mystery behind their death nor know for sure what was in their hearts, and this is the aspect that creates a lot of intrigue.

The Beguiled (2017)

Another film by Sophia Coppola . When I started watching it, I thought it’s too slow and unadventurous, but the atmosphere of secrets and claustrophobia, and the gorgeous costumes kept me intrigued. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Thomas P. Cullinan and the story is set in a turbulent era of Civil War, in 1864, and revolves around pupils of a girls school in Virginia. Only five girls are left, with one teacher and headmistress, and so the atmosphere is a bit eerie. Their isolated existence is what gives the story its flair, similar as in “Virgin Suicides”, and I loved how the theme was explored. One girl saves a wounded soldier and everything intensifies from there because those pretty angelic faces and impeccable white gowns hide a lot of secrets and desires. The film beautifully captures their isolation, the are shown dreamily conjugating French verbs, clad in their white cotton dresses, alone in that big white mansion, completely unaware of what is going on in the outside world.

Valerie and her Week of Wonders (1970)

I put this film last on the list although it should be the first chronologically, because it is more strange than dreamy, and more surrealistic and romantic and that makes it a bit different from the previous ones. “Valerie and her Weeks of Wonders” is a Czech film based on the same-named novel written in 1935 by a Czech avant-garden writer Vítězslav Nezval, first published in 1945, and described as “part fairy-tale, part Gothic”. The film is bursting with strangeness and plenty of things don’t make sense, so you needn’t seek logic, just embrace the dream. The main character is a girl named Valerie who is thirteen years old and we follow her life in the countryside with her grandmother who looks frighteningly pale. She has a friend named Orlík and often looses her earrings, her grandma disappears and another woman comes, a local priest is a vampire-like creature with a white fan… Everything is twisted and intriguing and very dream, but I have to add that this film is a bit different, a bit more weird, to the ones I’ve talked about before so that’s why I decided to put it last in this list. Also, I have already written a review on this film here.

 

I hope you decide to watch one of these films, and if you have any to add on the list of especially dreamy films with flowers, maidens and secrets, feel free to do so in the comments.

Pablo Neruda – If You Forget Me

Chilean poet Pablo Neruda was born on this day in 1904. I fell in love with his poetry recently and this poem in particular, “If You Forget Me”, struck me the most with the hope of love that rises from the ashes of memory like a phoenix. The last stanza is especially beautiful.

Photo by Francesca Woodman (1958 – 1981)

I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.

Story Inspiration: Wind, Oranges, Love and Guitars

Photo by Pedro Gabriel.

Photo found here.

Gerard ter Borch – Love Letters and Glistening Satin Gowns

In this post we’ll take a look at some pretty women dressed in splendid white gowns by a Dutch Baroque painter Gerard ter Borch.

Gerard ter Borch, Woman Reading a Letter, 1660-62

Out of the darkness that lures in the background, a genre scene full of intrigues and turmoil arises. A table, two chairs and three figures hold a story. A pretty young lady is reading a letter, most likely a love letter. Her raised eyebrows and slightly parted pink lips reveal her thoughts and feelings; she’s surprised, confused, a bit saddened by the words of the letter. An older female figure dressed in a fur-lined dress is sitting at the table, above an unfinished letter, she’s resting her head on one hand, and holding a quill in the other. Her gaze tells us about the seriousness of the situation. Even the young long haired servant boy glances at her worryingly! Meanwhile, a little dog is sleeping on the other chair.

Let us take a moment to appreciate her gorgeous satin gown. It is painted so beautifully and so skilfully that it looks, to me, as if it was a ball gown woven from moonlight and dandelion seeds for a forest fairy and by some magical mistake it ended up in the wardrobe of a seventeenth century lady. By painting the dress so shining and white, Ter Borch not only emphasised the rich status of the lady wearing it, and showed the elegance and sophistication of the latest fashions, but he also used it as a dazzling contrast of light and darkness. The background and the other figures are painted in dark sombre tones, and the spotlight is on her, the lady reading a letter whose words and emotions will remain forever mysterious to us. In that splendid whiteness the woman looks like a fragrant white lily blooming in the darkness of her beautiful cage.

Gerard ter Borch, Lady at her Toilette, 1660

In “Lady at the Toilette”, we have a somewhat similar scene. Again a woman dressed in a gorgeous white satin gown with details in gold and blue takes the central position. Our eyes are on her, but where is she looking? Both her clothes and the interior signify her high status, and are surely more sophisticated than Vermeer’s are. The interior with a fireplace, Oriental carpet, a mirror, and candlesticks shows luxury. The mirror shows the woman’s profile, but it doesn’t quite make sense. A figure behind the woman is perhaps a maid helping her with her gown, or a seamstress taking a measure or putting finishing touches to the dress. There is a richly dressed servant boy again. A little dog is present as well, not sleeping this time, but stretching with curiosity on the chair.

Ter Borch always lets the long skirt touch the floor and stay there in movement, creating shadows and depths, and you can almost hear its rustle, imagine its softness and shine. With his emphasis on elegance and splendour, Ter Borch partly announced the art of the eighteenth century.

Gerard ter Borch, Woman Writing a Letter, 1655

And now a lady not reading a letter but writing one. Take a look at her pearl earring, and look how concentrated she looks, as if she doesn’t know we are gazing at her. And what is she writing, I am bursting with curiosity to find out!

These days, Jan Vermeer is perhaps the most well-known out of the genre-scene painters from the Dutch Golden Age of painting but Gerard ter Borch has painted his fair share of everyday people in everyday situations and he went even further than Vermeer and Jan Steen by adding the glamour and stylishness to everyday life; he transformed middle class ladies into belles of the ball. There is a simple reason why genre painting flourished in the Dutch Republic in the seventeenth century: there was a free art market and painters weren’t restricted by the demands of the church as they were in the neighbouring Flanders or Southern Netherlands, then controlled by Spain. The artists naturally shifted their focus from the pompous religious subjects full of pathos and flair, which dominated the Spanish and Flemish Baroque, to humble beauties of everyday life. Genre-scenes were a popular option, but still lives and landscapes were common too. This shift seems all to natural to me, for, if a king or a court lady deserves to have her portrait painted, if she is worthy of being captured on canvas for eternity, why wouldn’t a middle-class lady from Utrecht or Amsterdam be a worthy subject for a painting?

Gerrit ter Borch, Messenger, 1650

Painting “The Messanger” is very interesting because the mood of mystery that lingers throughout Ter Borch’s paintings reaches its peak here. A lady in a shining white satin is reading a letter brought by a messenger merely a moment ago. But she turned her back on us, so not only are the words of a love letter concealed from us, so is her face expression. Is she smiling sweetly and trying to prevent herself from giggling, or is she standing in that dark room with a furrowed brow, trying to prevent tears from obscuring her vision, in case the messenger had brought sad news and is waiting for a quick reply. We will never know.

In all these paintings, Ter Borch presents us with a gentler, more intimate, softer side of Baroque; a world of silence and stillness, eloquent glances and glistening fabrics, letters being written and letters being read, letters full of secrets; a world we can relate to and which intrigues us. Jan Vermeer’s genre scenes have a similar mood, and the emphasis is, in both artists, on intimacy and silent drama that takes place behind closed doors.

Gerard ter Borch, An Officer Making His Bow to a Courtesan, 1660s

I decided to add the painting you see above just because of the ethereally beautiful white fabric. It looks so light and airy as it touches the floor. Also, I recently wrote a short post about Victorian photography where girls are dressed in splendid gowns and reside in chambers of silences and dreams, and looking at Gerard ter Borch’s paintings now reminds me of those photographs.

Also, I already wrote about Jan Vermeer’s similar genre scenes here.