A Few Stories From Paris

We have done a great deal since the last time I wrote. Museum visits, a trip out to Versailles, a creepy tour of the catacombs, and a hike up Montmarte. At the bottom, I will give some highlights in my quick thoughts portion of the post, but for now, I wanted to tell a few short stories of human interest.

A couple of days ago, while we were touring the Louvre, The Husband and I happened upon an elderly gentleman who was taking a breather in the Dutch Masters' rooms. Twin Son wanted to view some Rembrandt paintings, so after we had pretty much exhausted our initial tour with Carinne, she took us to the other side of the museum to see the great man's work. While we were there, The Husband nudged me as he wanted me to look at the older gentleman sitting next to him. The man had to be in his eighties with a face that looked like it had seen a lot. Upon a closer look, it was evident to both of us that he wasn't in very good shape. He was slightly stooped, and while he was making a concerted effort to look his best, his jacket had definitely seen better days. There were tears under both sleeves and across his shoulders. He sat quietly in the Dutch room, dozing. None of the docents bothered him as he took his afternoon siesta, and I wondered if he was a regular visitor to the museum. As Carinne explained some of Rembrandt's work to us, I was captivated by the old man and wondered aloud to The Husband what his story might be. This old man's face stuck with me as we departed from The Louvre. 

Yesterday afternoon, we met up with Carinne again for our private tour of Musée D'Orsay. We were terribly excited to get up close and personal with The Impressionists and Post-Impressionists. Honestly, this tour has been circled on my calendar for months. The brushstrokes and vibrant colours simply jumped off the canvases and did happy dances on my retinas. I absolutely love this period of artwork. The great works of Manet, Monet, Cezanne, Pisarro, Degas, Renoir, Van Gogh, Gaughin, and Toulouse-Lautrec are so plentiful here that I was experiencing a type of sensory overload. I honestly didn't know where to look first. I was like the proverbial kid in the candy store. I was recounting a story about my grandfather and a Degas copy (I'll tell you that story below) when I looked up and saw him again, the same gentleman in the same torn jacket. The coincidence was striking. Once again, he was just sitting in Impressionist Room, taking in the art and the people, and nobody bothered him. As we were leaving the museum, The Husband pointed him out to me for the final time. I have made up a dozen stories about this old dude in my mind. Does he spend all of his days in the museums? Who pays for him? Is he a senior art historian? Maybe he is a retired professor? Perhaps he is a widower and remembers happy days spent in the museums with his dear wife? I honestly have no idea, but I cannot get this gent out of my mind. The odd thing is that I believe that if I went back to one of those two museums today, I think we could find him. A small story from our time in Paris.

A few random thoughts.

* I promised you the story of my grandfather and the Degas. My grandparents had a large painting in their living room that looked like a copy of one of Degas' ballet scenes. It was a recreation of a ballet master holding court during a rehearsal. It was over their sofa, and the memory of it was embedded in my cerebral cortex. Many years later, when The Husband visited my grandfather for the first time, he saw the painting and noted it was done by a cousin of his who had survived the concentration camps. He must have been influenced by Monsieur Degas. I would have loved to have been able to keep that painting, but a surly aunt descended on my grandparents' house after their deaths and absconded with it. I have no idea where it is today. Seeing Degas' paintings of the ballet school in Musée D'Orsay left a large lump in my throat. 

* I forgot this little tale of our visit to Monet's Water Lilies. As we sat in the room breathing and taking in the atmosphere in silent contemplation, a guy sitting next to The Husband was scrolling through his phone, watching cat videos. I have nothing else to add to that atrocity.

* The Palace at Versailles is the definition of opulence. Every room is more garish than the last. I wonder if Agent Orange got his sense of style from Louis XIV. The gardens, on the other hand, are breathtaking. I could spend weeks there.

* We took a jaunt over to the catacombs, and I will admit to being more than a bit freaked out. I don't do bones well. Over six million souls are entombed down there; honestly, it is a really cool place to visit. I just felt like a voyeur disturbing the dead. As we made our way to the surface, one of the security people checked my backpack for any bones that might have been absconded. Why would anyone think to do that?

* The Pantheon was a bit more my speed. Death with dignity. The tombs of great French writers, thinkers, scientists, and politicians are laid to rest here. I got more than a little excited seeing the graves of Marie and Phillipe Curie and Josephine Baker. 

* We have had excellent guides on this trip. Carinne, who The Professional Volunteer encountered during an online experience, was truly incredible for the art museums. If anybody is coming this way and would like a private tour through any of the many art museums of Paris, contact me offline for her information. Today, we arranged a private tour of Versailles and Bertrand, our guide, was funny, knowledgeable, and a real character. I have taken tours worldwide, but I think doing it privately is the way to go if you can make it work. We have learned and seen so much.

* The Professional Volunteer spent part of her youth in France and has many warm memories. Thanks to The Divine Spirit for her and Twin Son's Better Half's ability to speak French. Things would be far more difficult without the two of them and their language skills. While she was here many years ago, The Professional Volunteer had a portrait of herself done in Montmarte. With a photograph of that picture in hand, she found another sketch artist in the same area to draw her today. It was a charming nod to a memory of her parents.

* I am not usually a sweets eater, but eating French macarons in Paris is a must. The shop windows at the boulangeries are art. 

A few more days to come with a couple more posts to enjoy. 

The old gentleman

Van Gogh Self Portrait

Degas' dancers

Paris at night

Versailles

Some of the 100,000 acres of gardens at Versailles

Retrieving a memory

A Hot Mess From France and Love and Loss From Britain

Editor's Note: For the fifth consecutive year, Dawn and The Husband will be spending a few nights attending the Toronto International Film Festival, known to the locals as TIFF. While they can now proudly call themselves seasoned veterans at this madness, CoVid-19 has altered how films will be screened this year. While TIFF is offering in-person and drive-in experiences all over the downtown core, neither one of them is yet ready to sit in a theatre with other potential Delta vectors, even though every patron is masked and vaxxed. The roster, while not nearly as robust as in previous years, still offers some wonderful choices so they have increased their number of films to view to six.  Because they are old and, as previously stated congregating in a movie theatre is anathema in this still raging pandemic time, all films will be screened from the comfort of their living room complete with popcorn, a few homemade treats, and lights appropriately dimmed. The only phone calls that will be answered during the viewing of these world premieres are from Molly or Talia because grandchildren rule. TIFF still serves as a tremendous distraction from the world's ills and allows for some much-needed escapism during these tumultuous times. The next several posts will focus exclusively on TIFF and will offer very quick bullet point reviews for the movies seen. You've all been warned.

It was double feature day. We built in a hiatus for Yom Kippur and, as a result, had some trouble fitting in the movies we wanted to see. We have done doubleheaders before at TIFF. Usually, it means sprinting from one cinema to another and arriving breathless and sweaty for the second film. When one does TIFF digitally, a two-film day merely requires a ten-minute break to pee and gather snacks. In all honesty, we would have been happier with one movie because the first one was a hot mess.

We have entered into the world cinema phase of our TIFF '21 experience. We always like to choose films from the foreign language repertoire for several reasons. Filmmaking is a worldwide art form. In our experience, films that are made outside of the North American (read: American) lens are usually fresher, more original, and with stories that we have never before seen. They are more often than not independent and outside of the studio system. American filmmakers will often snatch up the best of these and remake them in watered-down English language copies. For my money, it is always important to check in on the world cinema selections at TIFF. That said, our first foray this season into this genre was a bomb. France is the story of a narcissistic, fame-loving television news reporter/anchor who cannot seem to ever get enough adoration from her fawning fans. She puts her work over family, is egged on by her social media-obsessed assistant, and is an empty vessel for anything other than her own narratives. She stage directs her reports, re-positions her interview subjects to manipulate the stories, and is more of a celebrity than a journalist. How many times can the audience watch her take selfies with fans? It grows mouldy very quickly. There is a real opportunity here for director/writer Bruno Dumont to create a real satire on the problems of modern television journalism but unfortunately, he veers off into so many tangents and subplots that the movie loses its centre. New characters pop up without explanation and crappy things happen for no reason. Bond girl Léa Seydoux is dour and miserable as the leading lady and she changes her clothes so often, it felt more like I was watching a fashion show than a film. (I counted at least 12 different coats. Who in the world has 12 different coats?) The movie is a morose morass that left us wondering why we wasted over two hours watching it. If we didn't have to read the subtitles, we both would have been sound asleep. 

Dawn and The Husband give France two hot and deep NOPES.

We fared far better with our second film of the day. I generally love a good British period piece and Mothering Sunday checks off all of the boxes. Featuring wonderful performances by promising young actors Odessa Young and Josh O'Connor (The Crown), Mothering Sunday is a steamy adaptation of Graham Swift's novella set in inter-war Britain. The film follows Jane, a young maid in service, through three generations as she navigates life, love, and loss all while developing her inner artist. This film is one of the most sensual and frankly hottest movies I've seen in a long time and yet, every scene was directed with sensitivity and purpose by Eva Husson. She literally strips her characters naked and it gives their conversations and movements a tinge of ache and realism. But above all, Mothering Sunday is about loss and how we cope with grief. In one extraordinary scene, Jane's boss, played masterfully by Olivia Colman, is recalling her own heartache at the loss of her son during the war. She comments on Jane's upbringing in an orphanage and tells her to be grateful for it. "You are totally bereaved from birth. You have nothing to lose and never shall,” she tells Jane during this poignant exchange. Of course, that is a simplistic view of one woman's anguish and the film's future tragedies prove that grief is never definable. While we see Jane mature as both a woman and an artist, we never really see her art but we know that it is superb. Mothering Sunday isn't a perfect movie but it is a really good one and I loved that such accomplished actors like Colman, Colin Firth, and Glenda Jackson took small supporting roles simply to be a part of it. I urge you to see this film. It is well worth your time.

Dawn and The Husband give Mothering Sunday two very enthusiastic YUPS. We both loved it. 

**Our last film is this evening. The final review will be published tomorrow. Thanks, TIFF.**

It is So Much More Than a Beach

There are times when less is more. 

There are times when listening is better than talking.

There are times when silence is better than words.

I will offer only a few soundbites from our day trip to Normandy with stops at Juno Beach, site of the Canadian Forces’ landing on D-Day, Gold Beach, and Beny-Sur-Mer. It seems more appropriate that way.

*The Centre at Juno Beach is a must visit. It is stunning in its depth and breadth and is staffed by dedicated young Canadians working towards university degrees. The explanations, films, artifacts, and even the building itself are extensive and chilling.

*I loved that all of the people on our tour were Canadian. It made the journey to Juno all the more poignant. There was no having to explain Canadian history or roles in the conflict. My guess is that the Americans touring Omaha or Utah Beaches felt a similar kinship.

*The walk along the beaches themselves was mind-altering. We arrived at low tide, about the same time as the Allied Forces did, and were stunned by the amount of distance needed to travel from water up the sand to higher ground. There was a quiet stillness everywhere and even while some kids were laughing and splashing in the water taking kayak and paddleboard lessons, there was an understanding that we were walking on sacred soil.

*We spent a long while just walking Juno Beach. It just seemed like the right thing to do.

*I hated the gift shop. I realize that much of the continued funding for the centre relies on tourist purchases but the silk scarf festooned with poppies or the onesie adorned with “D-Day, June 6, 1944” was far too much for my taste. I loathe the commercialization of war and death.

*We visited the Canadian cemetery at Beny-Sur-Mer. It is an immaculate place that overlooks Juno. I had gathered some stones from our walk on the beach and placed them on the Jewish headstones. I’m not sure how many of those soldiers still have any family but I wanted somebody to know we were there.

*It was a day well-spent in France. I honestly can’t think of a better way.

They shall grow not old
As we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them
Nor the years condemn;
At the going down of the sun
And in the morning 
We will remember them.

We will remember them.

~Laurence Binyon