Three movies

I highly recommend The Iceberg (2005), Rumba (2008), and The Fairy (2011). I discovered The Fairy at the library and quickly became hooked, having to see the other two movies. I was not disappointed. These are nearly silent slapstick French-Belgian dramas that have a unique artistic perspective. All three films have the same three actors/writers/directors (Fiona Gordon, Dominique Abel, and Bruno Romy) and it works as if the three have one unique voice. Think Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin, but these three have a direction and humor that is uniquely their own. In The Iceberg a woman accidentally locks herself in the walk-in freezer...to later discover she likes the cold! Rumba has a dance couple and a suicidal character who lands the couple in the hospital, but somehow their love of the rumba fuels this oddly delightful drama. The Fairy is about a depressed hotel clerk who meets a woman who declares she is a fairy and grants him three wishes. Two of them seem to work, but then she disappears, and he falls in love with her. The plots don't do these films justice. The sight gags, physicality of the actors, and odd poetic charm are the chief pleasures. It's not for everyone, but check these out from the library. These movies were a very welcome surprise.

'Mr Left Boot'

Another William Mayne quote, with the quirky English sense of humour.

'There's a lot put in our way,' said Katherine. 'Among
them is your feet. How you fill the house, you gurt thing.'
'Then I'm bound to move my feet,' said Profound. 'I get
them trodden on plenty, oh, Lord. Come up, you boots, out
of the lady's way. There they are, putting out their tongues
at you, lady. You ain't polite boots, you two, especially you,
Mr Left Boot. You got a saucy look.'
'Stop your nonsense,' said Katherine, and tapped him on
the head with a spoon, as if he were a hard boiled egg. 'You find
water tomorrow, and don't laze about under my feet all day
through like an old dog. You and father be space-eaters,
there en't never no room about you.'

page 124, The Rolling Season, William Mayne, Oxford Press, 1960.

Ignores know

Shrinking by moon afternoon
Dawn slips its shoulders
Dusting its wings
Slipping to jungle
Shipwrecked in shine
Over lemonade blossoms
In blinds of change
Testing the bottoms
Lights out
Floors perfume
Cedars wander
Weeds wine
Shingles shatter
Wide bottom loads
Sugar daddy
Logs of lung
Shaking sideways
Wrongside up
Tipside down
Tapping oceans
Ship shallow
Drawers center
Subterfuge
Penning the stage
Fusing the curtain
Tunes that groan
Shows shack time
Pines that grind
Picks that pine
Oceans swallow
Beady back
Pins that prime
Ribs that clip
Star crossed shadows
Tars explore
Shipping ways
Shipwrecked in shine
Lemonade blossoms
Ignores know

Denis Streeter 7/17/14

The Rolling Season

Set in 1950's Yorkshire district of England in what I like to call William Mayne country. William Mayne wrote about 100 children's books between 1957 and 2007 averaging 2 books a year. I've written about him in previous posts because I like his writing.
Here's another sample that's just one sentence:

There were lizards instead of butlers,
spiders instead of housemaids,
mice instead of horses in stables,
and the owners were now poor,
sweet butterflies and not rich Londoners.

page 67, from The Rolling Season, William Mayne, 1960

Drunkfish

The roof drank sideways
Before laughing in prime
Dressing in codfish
Lifting their floor driven eyes
Capturing bolts to nail removers
In a sank sideways snore
Water waffling wiffle waff
Washing codfish from its suit
Laughably liftably bolting its primes
Noom nafting niftally
Watching noom naftals nift their naft
Normally nameled niflemen niffted their knees
For a contrite reunion
Nafted before the nibbles were removed
Waffling nib nab before each nobbish numb
Ribbling each sleeve niffernaff
Gom as gum removal
Slipslaff in niffnaff
Tang taffled driven eyes
Blifted before bleating blivels
Blanked blyordally sideways
Drink dranking drufting drunk
Kiff caffing codfish in a kigger
Blink blanking blogger blunk
Drift draft as dribble
Drivle
Drunkfish

Denis Streeter 7/12/14

Only normal

Disconsulate waiting and weeding in bed
The octopus rolled and threw up his head
The clownfish laughed to raise octopus ire
The octopus tenticled clownfish in fire.

The clownfish just laughed it was finally warm
Breathing in fire and naming it norm
The normans were miffed justifiable grieved
And threw up an apple by gripping a sleeve.

In jesting ingestible sleeving awake
The apple threw up by insleeving a cake
The cake sleeving octopus clowned by a head
Already confetti or so it had said.

Confetti retenticled clownfish a clone
Waiting and weeding in octopus bone
Twas only normal in octopus wake
Sieving receiving no normal can take.

Denis Streeter 7/12/14

Songs of the long green shadows

The subterranean barks bent the moonshine in two
Just to find the subtracter got cold feet
And addition had the moon splayed
Spanning the Pacific
Two nights over the Amorites and Hittites
Spelling the roosters to rafters
Among the spillgrass roots and their onionskin bottoms
Long morose to moonrope molecules
Splitting sunlit moonshine
Spilling while the dogfish explained marshmallows
And trilobites left without explanation
The dogfish roared in the catfish wake
Exploring corridors for cogfish wine
And the whimsy bent shadow shrank ghettoes
Leading to train drivin snores
In the bottom of night
As stars began to stitch
Songs of long green shadows
And togs began to spin
Clogging doors of moonshores
Sinking sand sifting songs
Trilobites left no explanation
Just out the door ingrained
Sifting songs of the long green shadows
The rest of us left behind.

Denis Streeter 7/5/14