On Saturday I saw 1.5 films at the 31st Cleveland Film Festival. The first was called A Map for Saturday and was a self-doc about a guy who quit his job to spend a year backpacking around the world. It was interesting to see, since he is about my age, and it wasn’t really a documentary with the intent to Teach You Something. It did tend to glamorize the process a bit too much and sort of implied that anyone can do this if they want to. The $20k he spent on travel in that year says otherwise though.
The second film was called Bamako and it sucked. It would have been good as a magazine article or an in-depth piece of investigative journalism, but as a drama and film it was awful. The half-assed plot is completely subsumed by “ordinary citizen” witnesses who speak like expert economists and/or Marxists [not that they are Marxists, but it wouldn’t be surprising if they started tossing out terms like dialectic and utility.] to a court that represents the World Bank or IMF. What the film really is about is how the West has destroyed and continues to destroy Africa. About the only thing I got out of the film was that the ordinary people of Africa don’t have much of a voice in world affairs. Unfortunately they didn’t have it in this film either. Peppermint and I left after about an hour of the blah-bliddy-blah.
Also, the guy in A Map for Saturday didn’t visit Africa on his world tour.
we stayed a whole hour!?
Maybe you actually did fall asleep. Either way, it sure felt like an hour.
I saw both of those movies last Friday and also fell asleep during Bamako. I woke up during the “wild west” scene very very confused. The best part of that movie was my nap.
Yep — it’s not possible to do Europe on the cheap. We’ve spent about $20000 so far in 8 months. Most of the money is for rent and food and train tickets. I think I could do it for 10K if ’twas only me, tho.
We’re really excited about going to Morocco next week. For the first time we’ll be escaping what we perceive to be the “European” perspective.
The West is destroying the world and the world is destroying the world as well. Did you see Blood Diamond? I thought it did an excellent exploration of the differences in perspective between haves and have-nots.
I’m down to 2 t‑shirts now and a total of about 30 pounds of possessions. Smith lent me his and I’m feeling glamorous, like my wardrobe is greatly expanded.