Anyway, we finally saw Polanski's The Pianist. I've got to say I was really disappointed. It seemed awfully conventional; even if it's a true story, the German's letting Szpilman escape because he was an artist seemed awfully contrived, and at the same time, didn't really express the extent of the horror of the holocaust for me. So the other six million jews could have survived if they were decent artists, and if the Nazis had properly appreciated art? Speaking of which, we also just saw Balzac et la petite tailleuse chinoise, directed by Dai Sijie, based on his autobiographical novel. Same kind of thing, where art--this time literature--opens up a new perspective for someone, although this time the movie was about half an hour too long. Still, Zhou Xun is a pleasure to watch.

I'm not saying art (including music & literature) can't enrich our lives, but I'm afraid the arty types who think they can effect major changes on life are a little naive.

We also saw Steven Shainberg's Secretary, which I liked a good deal more, although I wonder if self-mutilators can really substitute submission. But the movie was so silly, I was able to suspend my disbelief. Maggie Gyllenhaal was really something. Again, I found the movie about a half-hour too long, though. Another thing is that my mother, while not exactly what I'd call a submissive, has always craved to be told what to do by my father. That's all very well, but it wasn't a good environment to grow up in, for either of us kids, so there's something that makes me a little uneasy about it. Still, any one of these movies is a pleasure compared to Jia Zhangke's Xiao Wu (1997). The more artsy critics seem to like his movies, maybe because you can hear a snatch from John Woo's 1989 The Killer, but here the non-professional actors were too, well, unprofessional, and the movie meandered for much too long.

Speaking of Nazis, I never got around to posting about Andrzej Wajda's Eine Liebe in Deutschland (1983), about a love affair between a German woman and a Polish POW during the war ,with Hanna Schygulla as the woman. I liked it, in that it put a more human face on the Germans, but again it kind of fell apart towards the end.