ART IMPRESSIONS: GOOD OLD
Book: ‘Blue chrysanthemum’
Carol Chapek,
Film: ‘Vertigo’
Theatre play: ‘The
Bacchae’/’Bahantkinje’
Exhibition: ‘Long Live
Life’/’Ziveo zivot’
THEATRE PLAY ‘THE BACCHAE’
National Theatre
Director: Stafan Valdemar
Holm
Writer: Euripid
Mark: * * * * *
When I say ‘theatre’, this
is the kind of play which I have in mind. Classical Euripid’s tragedy, done in
spectacular style, with brilliant actors, costumes, script, and above all –
with brilliant director. Mr Holm took care about everything – the most visible
is his work with actors. Everything is perfectly said, every sentence is carefully
pronounced.
Slobodan Bestic is my
favorite actor (and a hotshot, I might say), and he is dominant on a scene,
even when he has a small role.
Radmila Zivkovic looks
really scary in a final scene, like the mother who butchered her child is supposed
to look, which makes the ending unforgettable.
On faculty, I loved to
read Greek tragedies and I was missing them in a theatre. The topics in them, passion, needs, urges… are
the real topics of life.
EXHIBITION ‘LONG LIVE LIFE’
In Robna kuca at Knez
Mihailova street
Mark: * * * * *
The theme is emotional atmosphere
of the old Yugoslavia.
The authors wanted to
transfer us into the old times, with this interactive art project. One has a possibility
to watch interesting documentaries, to smell apple pie, burned milk, famous perfumes
Pino Silvestre and Bulgarian rose… You also may guess what objects are in black
boxes (yo-yo, curlers, tern, marbles…), taste original C coffee, hear sounds
which remind us to the past… And many other things.
Dominant emotional tone of
the exhibition is Yugo-nostalgic.
I really am not one of
these people. I don’t appreciate any kind of nostalgia.
But, the exhibition is
worth to be seen. The authors put a lot of effort to show us bright side of the
past. Every generation will have different experience of the exhibition. I
enjoyed in recollecting some memories and in reading old erotic magazines ‘Chik’
and ‘Adam and Eve’, and especially while I was reading comic book ‘Mirko and
Slavko’. But, at the end of episode was the always unwanted remark – ‘to be continued’.
Some things are to be
continued and some belong to the past. And that’s how it should be.
FILM ‘VERTIGO’
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Leading roles: James
Stewart, Kim Novak
Mark: * * * * *
Psycho-thriller, with
elements of love story.
I saw some parts of this
movie before, but never saw it as a whole peace.
Hitchcock is a master,
even in a psychedelic love story. Kim Novak knows how to transform from classy
lady to simple small town actress. Her transformation is not only in different close
and hair. It is in whole appearance. James Stewart is often Hitchcock’s choice.
He looks ordinary and simple, but he perfectly fits into the role.
Elements of the mystery
are present: acrophobia, strange behavior, vertigo, obsession…
All the time you feel that
something is wrong, but you can’t figure it out what it is.
Good old Hitchcock. We
miss him, in the age of plastic-virtual-boring Hollywood.
BOOK ‘BLUE CHRYSANTHEMUM’
Story collection
Carol Chapek
Mark: * * * * *
This author is classical,
but I discovered him recently. I enjoyed in his short stories, which bring us
to the early 20th century.
World about we are reading
is naive and simple in a way, but on the other side – man is man, and he has
all strange and funny characteristics like a modern man. Stories contain the
elements of journalistic writing, criminal stories, fantasy, grotesque, humor…
The best quality of the
book is author’s sensitivity for the people and their strangeness. Writers who
have a gift of empathy give us more in their art pieces.
And, as one emphatic
reader, I appreciate it.
