Faya Dayi - My comment - More Reivews and Critique - on Beshir's Film - At Film Comment

Posted at Film Comment:

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Dear Mr. Taylor

You set the tone of your review of Faya Dayi with this phrase, in the first paragraph:

"In cahoots with the editing and sound design, the heavy monochromatic images cloak Ethiopia

in a hazy, dreamlike aura that's foundational to the film's tone and point of view."

And in the following paragraph, you ask:

"Does the gorgeousness of the imagery actually serve the film, or is it too loaded down to carry its

 own weight? How much movie truly lies underneath all this black and silver? Well..."

I believe you are asking about form and content, the perennial choice that all artists must make with their work,

and which they must decide takes precedence, or whether to weigh them both equally.

Beshir chose form over content. Or more precisely, she chose to camouflage content with form.

The "hazy, dreamlike aura" hides this content, which you adroitly describe: "There isn't much structure

connecting one scene or testimony of Faya Dayi to the next..." And "...Beshir's style doesn't really facilitate the

sort of portraiture she's aiming for..."

Beshir uses khat as a subject, a protagonist, that leads and guides the direction of the film, but whose "haze"

hides the truth of these Oromo youth. For example, the young man who wants to go to Egypt has no game plan,

and khat becomes his crutch, his "co-actor," as the drug he takes to avoid the reality, the content, of his life.

And Beshir also uses this khat as a stylistic, cinematic metaphor, to hide from us, the viewers, the content and

reality behind her film. She films as though she herself is under the chewable spell of this drug, and it is likely

that she took khat as part of her filming process.

Khat causes devastation, but it also produces the spiritual Sufi high, and it provided her (literally, possibly, but

certainly cinematically) the form with which she can shoot and produce this film, whose main protagonist, as

I said earlier is khat, but perhaps khat's merkhanna might be more precise.

She cannot full-on discuss the devastation that the khat crop produces for this Harari-Oromo Ethiopians,

since khat is after all part of the merkhanna, the spiritual high, that is sought after by the regional Sufi-Harari

Muslims. This film should have centred directly on this agricultural devastation, rather than weave through

"spirituality" and mekhanna, through khat.

Khat thus becomes the distinguishing object, the"Sufiness," and the merkhanna upon which this film rest

it laurels.

But what is Beshir hiding, what is she camouflaging?

Of course, more directly, it it the devastating, life-destroying drug that has become the life of these

Harari-Oromo youth.

But Beshir is also projecting a political angle, and a strong one. The Harari-Oromo youth,

through oppression, governmental neglect, and poverty, are forced to give up other cash crops like coffee

in order to grow this substance for their livelihood, and their energy-inducing chanting calls

(mimicking religious chants) gives them the rhythmic, and spell-binding, strength to harvest their currency.

And of course, through the haze of her cinematography, it is not clear which government, which export route,

 and what kind of neglect.

Once Beshir starts to clearly answer, or present, these issues, then her khat thesis of the oppressed, neglected,

and devastated Oromo youth falls apart.

Beshir is talking about the governments previous to this one, whose current leader is Abiy Ahmed Ali,

a 2020 Nobel Peace Prize winner, whose father is Oromo-Muslim (and mother an Orthodox Christian Amhara -

and he himself grew up a Christian, and married an Amhara Christian wife), and who was born in the Jimma

region of the Oromo province.

Previous to PM Abiy Amhed Ali, Ethiopia was run by two successive, vicious, Marxist governments.

The first was installed after massacres of hundreds of thousands of Ethiopian, of all ethnicities, as the

Emperor Haile Selassie, the emperor who stood his ground against fascist Mussolini's invasion, was deposed

in the early 1970s. Decades of rule under Mengistu Haile Mariam, the Communist head of state of Ethiopia

until he was removed by another group of hard-core Marxists in 1991. This second group also spared

no lives to further their totalitarian regime.

PM Abiy was a young man when he became an officer and joined forces to oust this second regime.

He eventually went on to become a re-elected leader of Ethiopia (Ethiopian elections were completed

just last year).

During both these eras of Communist rule, through manufactured famines, mass executions, perpetual states

of emergency, and innumerable non-trial arrests, Ethiopians still endured. But, these totalitarians saved no

person, had mercy on no-one. Oromo, Amhara, Tigray, and a host of smaller ethnic groups received the same

harsh treatment under the self-installed "judicial" system of these post-Haile Selassie, and pre-Abiy Ahmed,

leaders.

This is the back story Beshir's camera cannot tell you, which Beshir will not tell you.

She theretofore picks up a pet project - khat - which she remembers her grandmother harvesting in her garden

as she practiced her Sufi incantations - and projects it into the lives of these Oromo youth, upon whose poverty,

and whose backs, she builds her cinematographically hazy images, from her smart, Brooklyn apartment,

gathering monies and grants from a host of "sympathetic" agencies, and screening her films in

art-house film festivals, who profess support for oppressed peoples of the world, in the pop-corn outfitted

theatres, in air-conditions auditoriums.

And, here is, I believe, her end goal. Her film, and her picking at these sores and frustrations, could instigate

enough anger in her "oppressed" Oromo youth, that they may be ready to pick up whatever sticks, stones

and few gunpowder, to start their own "revolution" for "freedom." And these Western audiences would shower

their support, their concern, and their editorial opinions. Faya Dayi becomes/is a reference manual.

Beshir is evasively active in numerous Oromo liberation groups - through Facebook, Twitter, and through her

meetings/screenings of her film Faya Dayi, and other films she's done to date, namely one titled Hariat on the

hyena in Harar, in the US and now in Canada. She will never openly present this, since there would be too much

negative reaction, especially from her funders, and especially from her viewing public.

Her film gives her some validity in the eyes of those who publicly pronounce this liberation movement, and acts

as a documented reference for future activities, and actions. They can cut through the form in Faya Dayi, andget at its content.

One other thing Beshir won't dwell upon is her use of "Ethiopian" as she describes her identity. She calls

herself Mexican-Ethiopian.

She shows no love for Ethiopia, and uses that word opportunistically, as she uses those devastated youth of

Harar, to gain access into world view, and to be recognized (and noticed). Mexican-Oromo doesn't cut it.

And if she were really sincere, she would simply call herself "Oromo" and return to the land which she

left as a teen-ager, and make amends. Opening up a drug rehabilitation centre would be one way.  

And PM Abiy, through his Ethiopian First commitment, has already started khat-rehabilitation projects for

these youth. Beshir already has the place to go, where her Faya Dayi prize money might stand a chance.

I will be watching her next subversive, elusive, moves, as I suggest you do too.

I commend you for understanding the elusive nature of this documentary.

Sincerely,

Kidist Paulos Asrat

Art and Commentary by Kidist Paulos Asrat

https://artandcommentarybykidist.blogspot.com/p/ethiopias-elections-strong-and-united.html

Bowing to the Ancestors And Killing Eve

I tuned into the Golden Globes yesterday, not for the awards but for what the awardees would do and say. At one time, I would tune in to watch the fashion, but it is no longer so interesting. What has happened is that all these "equality now" "feminists" are hypocrites. They parade around in ten-thousand-dollar ball gowns by star designers as they mouth out their #MeToo proclamations. I can learn about fashion by going to my local department store and reading my monthly Elle.

I wasn't disappointed.

The most fascinating was Sandra Oh.


Sandra Oh in Killing Eve

She is currently starring in a television production called Killing Eve. Just the name of the series alone is disconcerting. Everyone, even the non-Christians, know that Eve is the name given to Adam's mate in the Genesis account. Eve of course betrays Adam and disobeys God with her complicity with the serpent.

God never killed Eve, but rather he banished her, along wth her foolish conspirator Adam, to life outside of paradise, a life of hardship, nothing like the life they led in His Holy Garden.

What exactly is Killing Eve and what is Oh doing in it?

Killing Eve follows the intertwining lives of two women – Eve (Sandra Oh), a quick-witted but bored MI5 security services operative whose desk job conflicts with her ambitions of being a spy, and Villanelle (Jodie Comer), a polished, highly skilled killer-for-hire, who enjoys the rich benefits that come from her violent career. As the two fiercely intelligent women go head to head, they become equally obsessed and entangled with one another in a combination of brutal mischief making, sharp humour, and high-stakes action. [Source: Bravo.ca]

Since I haven't watched nor plan to watch this latest installment in evil TV programming, I will reference a viewer who wrote:

Not dramatic or thrilling. I thought after Sandra Oh was nominated for an Emmy that this show would be worth watching. Not the case. The plot started out Ok but quickly went downhill. The production was awful. Comedic for no good reason. Horrible soundtrack of hip and rock music for no good reason. Lesbian love scenes for no good reason. Sandra Oh as a sorta-spy in non-Asian countries-totally stupid. The script was just horrible. Every character is over the top for no good reason. The only things good about this show were the location scenes. Otherwise. It's a dud and a total waste of time waiting for it to "get good." And the ending?? Ugh. Just a ploy to make another boring season. I think this show must have been created to find a way to use Sandra Oh. Keep looking! She's a very tired looking spy. Not at all compelling or interesting in this genre. Seems that only France, Israel, the Uk, and the Nordic Noir folks can make dramatic and thrilling spy/crime/political shows that keep you on the edge of your seat. [From: bjnordin-828-626007 commenting on IMBD]

And another:

There is no message, no meaning this a l'art pour l'art thing. Except romanticizing senseless human suffering and bloodshed is in no way an original, exciting or even acceptable form or art. If this were a satire, some black comedy that would be entirely different but the show is just too serious to be perceived as such. Humour here is just part of the makers' plot to try and manipulate the viewers' sense of ethics and decency into seeing monstrosity when mixed with aesthetics as something cool. Well it's not. [From: gabor_nb]

And another:

People wake up screaming at the top of their lungs. Targets of low budget assassinations ask "Why me?" and the star of the show says "I don't know." Shock for the sake of shock.

This show is about vapid, soul-less, sickening characters, and the cynical concept that if there is nothing to show, the audience will try to figure out the mystery. The joke here is that there is nothing behind the curtain. The characters have no human values. Pointless cruelty and death are the focus of this show. Killing Eve is degrading to the human spirit. This is just crass and trash.

The main writer for this show said that they do not do backgrounds for each character. That is lazy writing. This is an incredibly awful series about characters that nobody should care about, and stupid situations that end badly.[From: Johnny_West]

And another:

Men begging for their lives. men brutally murdered. men are stupid and amount to nothing. this series is a feminist wetdream. btw, the assassin isnt psychotic, she is a mary sue [From battever]

And what is a "mary sue?"

Mary Sue is a negative term used in fanfiction and literary criticism to describe an original character that is often overly idealized or assumed to be a projection of the author. When used by a male author, the character is referred to as a Gary Stu or Marty Stu. [From: Know Your Meme]

And another definition of a "mary sue:"

‘Mary Sue’ protagonist are hotly debated. What can be agreed is that it started its life in fan fiction circles, where it was used to suggest that a protagonist was a thinly veiled version of the author, allowing them to insert an idealized self into the story. [From: Standout Books]

That captures Oh perfectly, and especially her performance at the Globes last night.

Firstly Oh is the one "killing Eve," the Western, Christian Biblical female. She usurps God's role to do it for Him, but with a particular reference to her own non-Christian, non-Western background.

All non-Westerners are now openly antagonistic towards Western culture, and whites. They of course are led by the traitorous whites themselves who hate their own people, their own culture, and their own country. The parasites are from within. And non-Western immigrants and the children of these non-Western immigrants born within these Western shores are simply following this lead. If whites were not so intent on destroying themselves, these others wouldn't have the cracks in the system to enter and continue with the havoc (or the agenda).

One powerful and fundamental way to destroy destroy Western Civilization is by destroying Christianity.

"We (non-Christians, non-Westerners) will destroy the myths and stories that built Western society, and lets start with the first female herself.

We like Eve because she disobeyed God. But she didn't go far enough. She is still part of that legend. We have to remove her entirely, by showcasing her violent nature which we can use to our advantage for her to wreck more havoc.

We will kill her off and install our own gods and goddesses, but with her spirit in mind, her betrayal.

We will kill Eve to resurrect her with our own image."

Forget Oh's "#MeToo" moment, and her "look at us now in all these hues and colors" rhetoric while receiving the golden award. She doesn't really care about feminism (that western-produced ideology), nor about multiculturalism, nor really about other cultures other than their usefulness to her agenda. She was married to white man after all, that race she purports to disdain. But marrying white still pays dividends for an immigrant's offspring, and she seems to date only white men. She has bigger agenda, a bigger mission, a bigger world to conquer. She wants to rid of the whites, the true enemy.


Divorced from director Alexander Payne (m.2003, d. 2006)


Boyfriend, Indie Musician Andrew Featherston in 2007


Current boyfriend, Russian immigrant (came as a child to the US) artist Lev Rukhin

And finally, she can establish her own Korea-Away-Form-Korea land, where she can bow to her parents and her gods with impunity. And where she can be more Korean than even her own Catholic parents, which is exactly what her parents desired, and subtly instilled in her when they packed their bags and came to Canada: "Our Children will not forget our ancestors, our ways."

Welcome to a glimpse at the Brave New World of America and Canada.


Invocation of the gods

What happened?


Image Source: From Article: "Why Sandra Oh Meditates on Mindful.Org

[Oh] practices Vipassana, a Buddhist form of meditation that’s interpreted as “seeing deeply.”
And Oh sees all of it — acting, meditating, waiting, even this very conversation between us
— as an extension of the same practice, an attempt to operate from a place
where you’re fully grounded within yourself, of “finding that authentic kernel.” [Source: "The Protagonist After decades in supporting parts, Emmy nominee Sandra Oh plays the hero in Killing Eve." Vulture Magazine]

Out of The Spell of R. Bruce Elder's Films

The last time I ever saw R. Bruce Elder, or communicated with him, was about three years after I left (quit) my program in Ryerson University.

After my departure, I still went to Elder's "soirees," monthly events where he would bring together the artistic community in Toronto that had befriended him or followed his work. Sometimes we would have American or European visitors. I met Stan Brakhage there, although by then I was ready to ask questions, and I asked Brakhage why he never showed us clear and articulate images, to which he gave me no answer, or some reply that really don't remember.

I...criticized the big and formidable Stan [Brakhage] during one of his visits to Toronto, in Bruce's home, where I was a member of his "round table" group of students, faculty and artists (we met about once a week for drinks and discussions). My question to Stan [Brakhage] was similar in stance to the one I asked Bruce [Elder], of why he was destroying the image. Stan [Brakhage], for a few brief moments, didn't know what to say. I think he deflected the question and talked about something else.
[Source:Reclaiming Beauty: Destroying the Image]

I heard about this from Elder, since by then I was one of his prime "former" students, who said in a somewhat disappointed tone: "So you were asking Stan some questions."

All in all, the new Twin Peaks reminded me of the experience of watching Stan Brakhage’s experimental films projected in a small Brooklyn cinema a few years ago as they were meant to be seen: in silent 16mm, with two projectors going at once and no music, unless you counted the rhythmic, faintly Lynchian industrial noise created by the projectors running in tandem. Brakhage was a filmmaker who did in-camera superimpositions, scratched and drew on the film, and did all sorts of other things to create ribbons of abstraction that told implied stories (sometimes about his own life, sometimes about the life of the species) through mythological and hallucinatory imagery. The turnout was quite good: 50, maybe 60 people. Half the audience walked out at the first intermission, and by the end there were maybe a dozen of us left. It was one of the most profound moviegoing experiences I’ve ever had, though whether I would’ve been able to sit through all four hours of it without assistance from pot brownies is an open question. I bet Stan Brakhage would have liked the new Twin Peaks. I also bet that the majority of people tuning into the new Twin Peaks don’t want the 2017 equivalent of a Stan Brakhage film for TV. The joke’s on them, or on me, or maybe it’s on Lynch; I don’t know. The owls are not what they seem. [Source: Twin Peaks: The Return Is Riveting, Horrifying, and Patience-Taxing

Much later on about a year later, I attended a community program which had invited Elder to speak about his films. there I asked the very same question that I had asked Brakhage and for which I had received no answer. I actually didn't expect an answer this time. I just wanted to present that "concept" in a group of people who clearly were enamoured with Elder.

The answer?

"Let me just finish this point."

Elder finished his point but never got to mine.

I left the lecture as things were wrapping up but before the moderator called it over.

I saw (or heard) Elder once after that at a Toronto Film Festival screening. I still think fim is an art, and there are some beautiful works to watch.

I could hear Elder talking behind me.

I watched the film and never turned back.

I left as the credits were rolling.

Under The Spell With R. Bruce Elder's Films

Lamentations: A Monument to the Dead World
Film still
Canada 1985
Dir: Bruce Elder
437 min.

Part of 5-hour film cycle, The Book of All the Dead, made from 1975 to 1994.

---

I was first introduced to the Satanic forces behind the arts while studying film, and later producing my own films and videos.

I went through a semester's courses in photography, video production and digital courses before I "found" Bruce Elder the esteemed filmmaker in the department. I was enrolled as a New Media student in the Image Arts Department of Ryerson University, which was one of three programs, the other two being Film and Photography.

Elder had then a prolific film repertoire, as well as international recognition as an "experimental" filmmaker. Since then, he has won the prestigious Govern General's award for filmmaking.

But it is no accident that I "found" Elder. All dedicated students cannot but notice his controversial persona and his antagonistic position in the department. And some of us (those with a little of the rebel - or independent - spirit in us) edge close to find out why. But there is also the deadening mediocrity of the Marxist-led "instructors" who teach in the New Media stream of the department. New Media was so undefined and "new" that a hodge-podge of non-artists managed to string each other along to form a faculty. I was a "New Media" student - a revolutionary right there! And I never went to "theory" classes the second semester, only attending the practical hands-on courses in filmmaking and photography, mostly taught by technical staff. And even those I stopped by to pick up the semester's assignments and only periodically (once every few weeks) attended the class, and near the end of the semester to hand in my assignment and have it "critiqued" during a grueling two-week session (grueling because of the stupidity and non-artistic nature of the "feedbacks" which I never paid any attention to) because I had to be there.

Word gets out that Elder teaches interesting courses. So my second semester I registered for a film class which he taught.

The films he showed us were mesmerizing. His teaching manner, which he "performs" in dramatic fashion , were bewitching. We fell under his spell (well some of us did - others fled as though fearing for their lives!) .

And we watched enchanting early modern films, glittering black and white streaming celluloid by directors (film poets Elder would call them) who were just beginning to discover this new medium, as was I.

We watched rebellious sixties films by vocal and articulate filmmakers who could speak as well as they could film. We watched films by homosexual filmmakers of pederasts in all their nudity. Elder had no qualms about showing us footage of all kinds of fornitcators, sex in all its artistic glory (and gore). But these later films were messy and often ugly, a slimy disappointment after the early shimmering days of film. But by then we (well some of us) were hooked.

And Elder would show us "mature" students, those that passed the test of slime and grime and coition, his own films where he would camouflage genitals through film making devices, many of which he invented himself. We accepted all this as "art." There is a precedence of the "nude" in western art, after all!. But these were no nudes, rather flabby stomachs and drooping breasts, and other ungainly appendages protruding out at us from the giant film screen, quick and rapid, then camouflaged with props and limbs.

Perhaps all these covers were to avoid government censorship around pornnography. But it was more a complicit, hidden strategy to subliminally affect the psyche of the viewer; to mesmerize him with these reeling images, and sharp intrusions, so that he is subsumed by what he was watching, not to induce him to go out and perform the sexual act, but rather to put him in a vulnerable "aroused" state of mind, and being. He becomes open to other feelings that way, and less in control of his own. And to other forces.

Elder has written much about the occult in film. And he would introduce us to occult-creating artists and filmmakers, one, Kenneth Anger, who is an outright Satanist, and homosexual which this writer says go "hand n hand."

At first I thought that Elder was showing us what is "out there" as a responsible film professor. And that his prolific writing about such films (and art traditions) was to give us the necessary information and background as students (and artists): part art/film history, part a morality education on what to expect, part critique of a seasoned filmmaker.

But now I believe that like all modern artists who espouse modernism and its implicit rejection of God, he has delved into "the other side." With us, he was carefully cultivating followers.

Truth in Images

From an unpublished post in January 2012:

The indomitable Kristor, frequent correspondent at the View From the Right, and now at Laura Wood's The Thinking Housewife, makes the no-nonsense response to her post Would Protectionism Have Saved Kodak?:

Film is like buggy whips. Let’s just move on, shall we?

To this comment by Roger G.:

Donald Trump said on the Sean Hannity Show yesterday that the once mighty Kodak has gone bankrupt because they didn’t get the U.S. government to protect them from Fuji. Trump argued that Fuji destroyed Kodak by selling below manufacturing costs.

I studied photography and film for four years (about 1/3 of those years were part-time, while I worked in a completely unrelated job to fund for my school).

The program was wonderfully technical. I avoided the Leftist/Marxist/Third World/Anti-Art/Anti-Beauty/Anti-west bias of many of the "art" teachers (well it was more like a bulldozer-level bias) by disappearing into the photography dark rooms, and the film editing suites, where no-one bothered me, and I could simply work on those machines (which surprisingly, few students used until the marathon rush of due assignments). This "experimentation" was vital for my education, since most of the teachers wanted us to produce some self-expression drivel, screw technique and art!

Part of the wonder for me in the dark room and while editing was the tactile aspect of working with the celluloid (film or photography). Another was seeing the chemicals magically produce an image from nothing (a blank, white piece of paper). And yet another was the challenge of fitting a puzzle, trying to put a coherent set of images together in the editing room.

Of course, some of these pleasures are possible in digital media since the digital images are is still a puzzle to fit together, but here, we are several steps away from the original images. In film, we see them viscerally on the film strip. We can touch the strip, turn it upside down, pass it through the editing board, cut it here or there, and attache various sections together to make a coherent piece. This visceral experience was especially clear around my work area, where film strips were flying everywhere, pieces were misplaced, then found, cutting boards were sometime faulty, sometimes ruining a special frame, for which I would have to improvise another. And it took time to physically maneuver all those strips around.

In the photography dark room, it was liquid (and the smell of the chemicals) that were the messy components.

Near the end of my studies, I actually developed my own films, after having learned to do the same in photography. One more step closer to the "images."

Film editing used to remind me of sewing, or embroidery, which is probably why I went into the archaic field of textile design.

So, this is what Kodak is forfeiting (well, its been going on for a while now). I don't think it is just cheap Fuji films which destroyed photography, but the attitude that the intricate, time-consuming, artistic endeavor of making films can be replaced by fast, impersonal digital technology.

I am not completely against digital technology. I think the internet, blogs, online sources, have provided incredible services. Yet, at the same time, this digital world needs to come second to the real world. What good is a "digital" relationship unless we've given up on the real one?

Fitting Puzzles
The mage in the background is a print of this

"Be Bold and Shine With Melted Metals"

Below are the promotional posters (giant ones) posted right outside the Holt Renfrew store at the main entrance of the Square One Shopping Centre in Mississauga.

From a distance they look benign enough. In fact, since the photographs are relatively dark, it is hard to distinguish what the images are. But as you walk closer, what you see are these detached faces with unfocused expressions, either looking "internally" or out onto some distant horizon.

Since the glass that covers these posters reflects light and the surrounding objects, I got some interesting juxtapositions. For example: the top photo elongates the face and upward focus through the reflection of the highrise building. The middle photo which looks like the face is marked with tribal stripes (part of the actual photo) has the Canadian flags fluttering beneath the giant face. And the third appears to be looking sleepily (and creepily) into the superimposed buildings.

Each is advertising an eyeshadow color by Tom Ford for a new line called "Extreme" with the tag: "Be Bold and Shine With Melted Metals."

Top: Silver
Middle: Sapphire Blue
Bottom: Gold

Extreme for what? Towards what?

This is the now frequent, ambiguously worded language that is used to present nefarious elements into ordinary, everyday life. We have it in films like A Wrinkle in Time (which passes itself off as a children's fantasy tale), television series such as Lucifer, and dark and macabre streetwear highlighted with tattoos and metallic eyeshadow from cheap knock-offs of Tom Ford's metalica makeup.

And Ford is not to be outdone in the film department either, where he has directed two "luciferan" films: Nocturnal Animals and A Single Man.

And where else but in film does he have carte blanche to project transitions of man to beast to Lucifer into a Hadean world and onto the giant silver screens, using his transferable skills as fashion's extreme creative director?








Promotional Posters Outside Holt Renfrew, at Square One Mississauga
For: Tom Ford's Spring/Summer 2018 collection "Extreme"

[Photos By: KPA]

And this s not Ford's foray into the netherworld, as I wrote here.

Paris à Tout Prix

Paris à Tout Prix (Paris At All Costs or the official translation Paris or Perish) started off as a charming film about an up and coming Parisian fashion designer. But appearances can be deceiving.

Reem Kherici has the dark hair/dark eyes looks of a French woman possibly with that Mediterranean heritage. But I soon learn that she is Arab.

Fine. There are many Arabs in France now who have appeared to have assimilated and become French.

But Reem's papers are not in order. In fact she is in France illegally. The deportation police come to her workplace and chaperone her out and eventually to Orly airport. She lands in Morocco, a country she barely knows.

As it happens, her father was very ill, which she didn't know, and she managed to be with him during his last days. At this point, I switched off the t.v. and resumed a book I was reading. But curiosity got the better of me, and I turned on the show near the very end with about a half hour to go.

Reem was still in Morocco enjoying the company of her family and old friends. We had a brief tour of Marrakech with happy and content Arabs interacting with each other. There is no multiculturalism (or whites) in Marrakech. People are amongst their own and there is an air of freedom around despite the obvious economic difficulties.

Reem decides she should return to Paris and to her job. She had put together a leather and lace "gown" to show her design team during her time in Morocco with local items (especially the leather). Her stay has not been in vain after all! Here she is, an Arab girl promoting her land.

But she has no passport and she has been banned from entering France.



So she does what any Arab girl would do. She borrows her cousin's passport and goes to the airport anyway.

The cousin looks nothing like her. Reem has a longer face with prominent cheekbones and large eyes. The cousin has a rounder smaller face, is lighter skinned and has slightly oriental eyes. The agent at the airport customs, who looks Arab and should have known better, spends a good deal of time cross checking the passport photo against the real-life traveler before him. Finally he lets her through.

Reem enters Paris illegally. She arrives just in time to present her dress to her fashion house as a runway was in progress. Her leather gown with lace trimmings is chosen as the "final" dress, a big honor in the runway world. It is a success.

Reem has made a contribution to French art and culture. Who cares about the slight aberration that she is neither French nor a legal resident. She is PARISIAN!



Above is the runway dress. I couldn't find a full length picture of it. Perhaps it has to do with some copyright issue that it cannot be posted publicly. The costume designer for the film is Aurore Pierre.

The gothic dark S&M alluding leather strap of a dress is further indication of the decline of the classic French culture. Reem may be "Parisian" but she adds no grandeur to Paris, and in fact degrades it.

"To shake the hand of the Universe"

The extraordinary movie A Wrinkle In Time is Oprah Winfrey's chef d'oeuvre, in all its filmic mediocrity. Through it she is able to project her spiritual beliefs through clumsy and inarticulate language, yet powerful in its simplicity. The movie is supposedly made for children; it is a Disney film with a PG (Parental Guidance) rating.

PG: Some material may not be suitable for children. Parents urged to give "parental guidance". May contain some material parents might not like for their young children.

Here is the rating for G:

G – General Audiences
All ages admitted. Nothing that would offend parents for viewing by children.

The movie is a really a story made for adults who can come with their children. In effect, through simplistic child language, and a "fairy tale" ambiance, Oprah has lured the adult population to watch her path. And she is willing to sacrifice the innocence and psychopsychic safety of the young children to do so. She is using the children as a shield to cover up her intent.

I will go into depth about this movie which I have now watched three tims (well 2 1/2). I took as much notes as I could since the film script is not yet available online.

A main theme in the film is that it is a young child (the protagonist sure to win - initially at least - the attention of those six-year-olds) who guides a couple of older children (in their early teens) through a maze of nefarious landscapes. They are out to save the world before the dark force, The It, takes over. The adults meanwhile are scientists busy creating, or getting lost in, their latest astro-physics equation. They are outlying the world through which these young intergalaxy troopers navigate. As one of the scientist says: "I wanted to shake with the Universe." Oprah, one of three "Misses," is Mrs. Which (yes it is that obvious) who appears in her shimmering gown of sparkles (yes she is the light that should overpower the darkness ) along with the other two to guide these children to The It.

Getting "The Shape of Water" All Wrong

Below is a rambling article which I have cut down to its bare essentials by the rambling author at VDare, Steve Sailer.  I understand that VDare is concerned with issues and stories surrounding immigration, but Sailer completely glosses over the real story of this movie: alien/human copulation.

Sometimes race and immigration aren't everything. We have now filmmakers explicitly showing a completely different type of "invasion" with an open acceptance of nefarious and satanic themes.

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Trophy Wife
Steve Sailer
March 7, 2018
Taki Mag


The Shape of Water’s plot is: A Democratic Party Coalition of the Fringes (a disabled woman, a gay man, a black woman, a Jewish Communist Russian spy, and a fish) unites to defeat the GOP Core American cishet evilest evil white male of all time (besides Trump, of course). Square-jawed white man Michael Shannon plays the epitome of hateful hate-filled white whiteness who epitomizes his white male privilege by peeing on the floor.

[...]

Perhaps the pandering politics of this movie is just del Toro’s Safe Space for what he really cares about, which is colors. Nobody who matters is going to give del Toro trouble for his hate-whiteyness, and that frees him up to obsess over the colors he really cares about: not partisan red vs. blue, but red vs. green. The Shape of Water is constructed around a color scheme where red represents the beloved nostalgic past and green signifies the hideous technological future.

If genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains, then del Toro is a genius at imposing his childlike fanaticism about how red is his favorite color and green is his most hated color on every single frame in the movie.

On the other hand, I kind of like green. I’m trying to get my lawn to turn green now that it has finally started raining in Southern California.

Granted, I’m not as aesthetic or as stylish as del Toro.

[...]

...Guillermo del Toro (who is not to be confused with the very cool Puerto Rican actor Benicio Del Toro) is sort of the Mexican Tim Burton, if the Burbank-born Burton weren’t quite so swarthy. Del Toro looks about as pale as the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, an early fatality in the ongoing White Death.

[...]

At the Oscars, del Toro announced that he was an immigrant and that the purpose of art was to “erase the lines in the sand.” Yet del Toro seems to value being able to secure his daughters north of the line in the sand between the Lovecraftian madness of Mexico and the sane safety of suburban America.

It’s almost as if del Toro finding refuge north of the border...is what Trump meant by implying that our immigration system should be reformed so that Mexico is sending their best.

Sex With Creatures: Getting Closer to the Luciferian Agenda

Forget all the hypocrisy of the Oscars with stars wearing million-dollar dazzling jewellry as they stand on stage talking for the underdog in the movement de l'epoque: "equality."

Forget motherly Meryl who points her index finger with a "you can do better" over-her-reading-glasses look at her proteges.

Forget jovial Owen, standing as clueless as his "alright, alright, alright" moment when things were clearly not all right, especially for his blonde and not-so-rosy future.

Forget black directors and actors (and actresses, to revive a discarded word) who pump their black fists at racist Hollywood as they spend their days (and nights) with white "partners."

Forget the gothic stage looking like Satan's boudoir shimmering from the sparkles of a million Swarovski crystals.

What everyone missed is how a movie about intercourse between a human female and an alien creature made it with "Best Picture" Oscar.

This is not a "first" of course. Others have done it and with some popular success. But none have won a "Best Actor" Oscar, and most have an element of comedy in their theme.

Del Toro is dead serious.

I scoured the internet to see what commentators had to say about this epic first in popular movie history, but no-one, nowhere, in the Main Stream Media™ mentions it.

But that is because Del Toro camouflages this collaboration with Satan with the "equality now," "Time's Up," "Me Too" and all those other slogans that have been circulating through the elite crowd for a couple of years now.

Says Del Toro about his move:

"Much like fairy tales, there are two facets of horror. One is pro-institution, which is the most reprehensible type of fairy tale: Don't wander into the woods, and always obey your parents. The other type of fairy tale is completely anarchic and antiestablishment."

So there you have it.

Intercourse with a monster is a "Me Too" moment.

Here is commentary on the film by Paul Bois:

The values governing "The Shape of Water" are best summed up as follows: have sex with anything you want, even if that "thing" is not of your species, and kill innocent people to do it . . . Fin!

That the film presents this in the guise of a tale about how love conquers all in the face of white male patriarchal oppression makes it all the more insidious.

The whole article is succinctly written. Still there is an element of awe and ominousness that is missing. Bois thinks this is just another Disney movie as his article's title The Shape Of Water’ Review: An Adult Disney Movie With A Wickedly Perverse Heart "warns" us.

Bois could have written a similar commentary for E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (remember that one?), the true Disney alien movie, although without a wickedly perverse heart, which won four Oscars, the same number as The Shape of Water:

E.T.'s four Academy Awards:
- Best Original Score
- Best Sound
- Best Sound Effects Editing
- Best Visual Effects

One would think that The Shape of Water would have the Best Sound Effects Editing and Best Visual Effects prizes. After all it was a sci-fi film, at least the copulation part.

The Shape of Water's four Academy Awards:
Best Picture
Best Director
Best Production Design
Best Original Score

What is Production Design?

Production Design...focuses on the creative process of visually and physically developing an environment that becomes an essential component of the storytelling process. Production Designers must possess a keen understanding of the story in order to create a believable and realistic world on screen.[Source]

Yes, recreating that monster, and his copulation scenes, must have taken a lot of creative talent! Although to be fair, it is also creating the environment where such a story can be plausible. Well the Hollywood/Oscar crowd certainly bought it.

This Hollywood style pornographic horror film is rated "R" (Restricted): Under 17 Requires Accompanying Parent Or Adult Guardian, - imagine an "under 17" watching this in the dark theatre! - whereas it should should have received an "NC-17" (Adults Only) - No One 17 and Under Admitted.

E.T. on the other hand, with its benign alien befriending a young girl (although I wouldn't put it past its team for infusing barely detectable scenes of sexual allusion) was given a PG and fairly so, rather the G (General Audiences):

PG - Parental Guidance Suggested
Some material may not be suitable for children. Parents urged to give "parental guidance". May contain some material parents might not like for their young children.

We have come a long way from (or closer to the luciferian agenda) a 1982 "alien befriends a young girl" to the 2018 "alien fornicates with a young woman."

And I'm not the only one to think so. See here and here.

Canada 150 Special Edition: Thank You Sandra Oh

Sandra Oh
From the poster for the film Catfight (2016)


Thank you Sandra Oh for your multicultural/artist's presence at the Parliament Hill Canada 150 Celebration. But you don't even live in Canada so I don't know how you got onto that stage.

Thank you Sandra, for giving us such wonderful films, the only one which anyone might remembers being Under the Tuscan Sun where she played a lesbian (thank you for giving Canadians the chance to say: "Oh yes she's Canadian!"). This was surely a career move since her Grey's Anatomy role was leaving her stuck on television as someone who acts in a night-time soap opera.

And her entrance into the film world was in an "Indie" playing the daughter of Chinese immigrants whom she leaves for a white boyfriend (no matter that Oh herself is Korean but the Chinese screen writer couldn't find a suitable Chinese-Canadian actress to play her autobiographical character, I guess).

Oh's back again with another film. This time a "fight club" for housewives, and with at Turkish American as director (although he was born in Taylorsville, North Carolina).

Says Onur Tukel about his flm Catfight - starring Oh:

I wrote [a script ] in 2013 called Catfight. It was about women in their twenties fighting over a guy.

[...]

When I reread my original script, I hated it. I didn’t want to make a movie about young women fighting over a guy. The culture has shifted. I wanted to make something more relevant. I rewrote the script with more experienced actresses in mind, fighting over something radically different than a guy.[Source]

And more:

...a rivalry is revived, old wounds are torn open, and a Manhattan stairwell becomes home to a woman-on-woman brawl the likes of which are seldom seen outside of martial-arts epics. And now the gloves are off. Over the course of five years and three bloody, bone-crushing rounds, Catfight's formidable adversaries will lose everything they cherish, and rail furiously as their fortunes are subject to wild reversals.

"The culture has shifted." Says Tukel. "I wanted to make something more relevant."

Yes. Women bashing each other up in a movie which even men would walk out on.

I have been cited in three books...

Nicole Kidman, as Lady Ashley in Australia
Arriving in Darwin

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I have been cited in three books:

1. Little Mosque on the Prairie and the Paradoxes of Cultural Translation
By: Kyle Conway
University of Toronto Press, Feb 10, 2017

(From my article in American Thinker: How Canada's Little Mosque on the Prairie is Aiming for our Souls)

In Chapter 1 : Sitcoms, Cultural Translation and the Paradox of Saleable Diversity

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2. Women and Comedy: History, Theory, Practice
Ed. Peter Dickinson et al.
Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, Mar 27, 2014

I am referenced in Chapter 16 in an essay by Regina Barreca: Layla Siddiqui as Holy Fool in Little Mosque on the Prairie:

Baber and his continual critique of Canadian morality no doubt inspired the claim of columnist Kidist Paulos Asrat that the show's intention is to convert North Americans to Islam.

This is once again based on my article How Canada's Little Mosque on the Prairie is Aiming for our Souls, but it is an incorrect interpretation of what I wrote. This is the usual hyperbole of multiculturalists who wish to find a demon in any critic of multiculturalism.

What I wished to communicate was that the show's intent was to make North Americans sympathetic towards Islam, and not to convert them. Little Mosque on the Prairie was still an exotic sitcom then. The show came out in January 2007 as Canadians were learning about it, and was cancelled in April 2012 as the novelty wore off, and not because of "Islamophobia."

Barreca is a feminist academician (no oxymoron there) who also wants to be funny. She quips:

“I used to assume my students were feminists,” she says. “It seemed like everyone got my jokes and laughed. Now I have to explain myself.”

For more on Baber (and his daughter Layla) see their character descriptions on Wikipedia

Layla Siddiqui (Aliza Vellani) is... a portrait of an average teenage Muslim girl struggling to find the right balance between her desire to be a good Muslim and her desire for the lifestyle of a regular Canadian teenager who's into music, clothes and boys. She can be rebellious and sarcastic, especially at her father's foibles (she refers to their home as "Baberistan"), but is also very perceptive and insightful. [

The book is a compilation of lectures at symposium at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia in 2011. The essays collected in Women and Comedy: History, Theory, and Practice, originally presented and discussed at a 2011 symposium held at Simon Fraser University.

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3. Baz Luhrmann
By: Pam Cook
British Film Institute; 2010 edition (July 6 2010)

I am cited in the end notes (104) of Baz Luhrmann, which I presume is in reference to my article: Australia: Whose Land is it Anyway, by Austral filmmaker Baz Luhrmann, in American Thinker. I write about the difficult integration of aboriginal mysticism with British pragmatic colonialism. I come in favor of Nicole Kidman's austere but brave femininity, and her kindly adoption of an aboriginal orphan, rescuing him from being interned in a mission school.

Pam Cook tells us in her "welcome page":

I have been thinking, writing and teaching about moving image culture since the 1970s, and these pages are a record of my work up to the present. Since 2006 I’ve been Professor Emerita in Film at the University of Southampton [UK].