Happy Chinese New Year!!

Well TVCC by OMA, has been lit up like a tinderbox just a few months before its opening. These images and you could be forgiven for thinking it was part of some elaborate fireworks show, and theres still a doubt in my head that this is still a hoax as part of a competition to create a believable disaster and some pro-china sympathy. These things come across too comic and plastic to me and of a scale too vast to register with a tangible heartfelt response.9/11 - the comic was confidently apt way to tell the story, thats if i go out and read it.

The charred headstone is more blunt rather than a pile of post-cremation ashes and points a knife to the face of progress. Wonder what Rem Koolhaas has to say on the matter?

Sleeping on the job

Last night pick off the cellophane from a dvd that has been sitting in my room since my friend gifted me this before she flew from the nest to conquer teaching rich korean brats back in december 2007 (ouch). the film, heart of glass from ol' Werner Herzog, left so much of an impression on me i felt guilty it stayed in the plastic that long, and for spending time watching films like "Wanted" or "The day the earth stood still", but how was i to know.

The story originates from a collection of bavarian, german, swiss and czech locations and folklore, show a village crumble under the strain, when the keeper of the secret formula for their ruby glass dies. The glass factory; aimless and leaderless collapses and tugs the pockets and minds of the village into bewilderment, through the typical stages of denial, contempt, remorse and submission.

I can remember reading that the cast were hypnotised but in watching the film i had completely forgotten, and so wandered into the unsober events blind. the film starts with herzog mesmorising the eye with potent and stylised views of a Bavarian landscape, denial of zoning out is not an option. to have a film where the cast acted, and also sometimes wrote, towards the film under hypnosis, is clearly going beyond the call of duty, but what comes from that is a film that is so unwavering it is impossible not to get lost in it.

Hias plays the only sober unwavering voice in the film. His visions, predictions and actions of the future have a clarity and purpose which stays true amongst all the hazy chaos that blindly ensues.

The landscapes feature always put me in memory of casper david friedrich paintings.

(that one made a fellow painter friend drop his brush and train as an architect due to his disbelief in even approaching caspers unattainable greatness)

And the end of the film leaves a touch of hope that is also somewhat blind, especailly considering the ominous predictions of the local Nostradamus.