Kontroll: Hungarian film/extra blog

I wanted to put out one last blog before the semester closed, and I thought the easiest way would be to go to the FLMS in the Humanities Building. The folks there were not loaning out any more movies because today was the last day for students to return films. I asked one of my roommates if he had any suggestions and he told me about this movie called Kontroll and I figured I would search for it on the internet and give it a try.
Kontroll is a Hungarian movie directed by Nimród Antal about ticket inspectors that work on the Budapest Metro. The movie is meant to be funny and suspenseful at the same time as the main characters find themselves dealing with awkward and ridiculous situations yet come face to face with deadly scenarios. In one instance, a passenger gets fed up with a ticket inspector and they get into a fight that spirals out of control, and the ticket inspector kills the passenger. Immediately following that, the department officials order a psychiatric evaluation of the employees and everyone has something bizarre to say. One does not even say anything; he just starts playing with things on the psychiatrist’s desk. Another person starts a small fire during his meeting.
One of the immediate features I recognized about the movie’s cultural relativity was the kind of music that played in the background. There was a significant amount of the stereotypical European rock music that comes from the German-Slavic area that had me thinking Ramstein, but not nearly that heavy. The movie had a disclaimer at the beginning about the way that the real ticket inspectors work because they do not get very positive representations in the movie. Another unique part to the movie is that in Hungary people can ride on the subway for free if they are family of drivers. The main female character, the love interest, is the daughter of one of the drivers who turns out to be good friends with the main character.
An interesting thought on the movie is how it is about the metro system in Hungary, which is a subculture of its own. The movie showed a little bit about the perspective, not only of people in Hungary, but also people familiar with the subway. I never spent too much time in a large city with a subway and never had the opportunity to ride on one, and it is funny how I can come up with preconceived notions about the metro. Even in the US people have goofy subway stories. Mass transportation in developed countries has lead to some kind of global culture that was previously unheard of in human history.

Nochnoy Dozor: Russian film/extra blog

My roommate had a DVD copy of a Russian movie called Nochnoy Dozor, which means Night Watch. I knew very little about it other than it was part of a series. I figured it would have some kind of illumination of Russian entertainment; I thought I might find something unique that would make it different from American movies.

I knew it was a sci/fi action kind of movie that dealt with the struggle of good and evil, but I did not know much else about the plot or the setting. After watching the movie, I went and looked it up and found that it was based on the book written by Sergei Lukyanenko and it was part of a tetralogy. The premise for the series is that these supernatural humans called "others" fight for light or dark. The generals of the good and evil armies settled on a truce that prevented them from wiping eachother off the face of the earth. The the protectors of the truce guard each side. The guardians that make sure the light others follow the rules are called the Day Watch and the guardians that monitor the dark others are called the Night Watch.

The movie's plot was complex and moved forward at a good pace, and it ended with a huge cliffhanger. The confusing part concerning the movie and the book is that the sequel film is named for the second book Day Watch but it is the second half of the first book. The movie has world-wide fame and is supposed to be for Russia what The Matrix was for the US. The movie grossed highest in Russian history with $16.7 million in its native land. The movie also has been compared to the Lord of the Rings films.

The movie felt very similar to what someone might see in a film made in the US, but that just makes me think about the Russian Formalism, a type of literary criticism that believes that the nature of literature and story telling is to take familiar things and make them strange and new. The movie accomplished that for sure. Russia has spoken with great authority in the realm of art and the impact can be seen as I just stated. I believe the movie itself tries to convey the theme that people are good or evil by the choices they make and the actions that follow. Even though the movie takes place in Moscow, it does not lend itself to direct representation of Russian culture because the people run around in shadows avoiding normal people and life situations. However, it definately shows Russia off as a developed nation with similar values of other countries like it. All in all, the movie says great things for the Russian movie industry and has great literary significance.

St. Elias Lebanese Food and Cultural Festival Pt 2

I attended the St. Elias Church’s Lebanese Food & Cultural Festival on Friday, April 9th. I bought a meal and ate in the main dining room while waiting to watch the Lebanese dancing to begin.
Around 7:00 pm the youth Sunday school groups performed traditional Lebanese dancing. They broke the groups down from 5 and 6 year-olds all the way to college students. It reminded me of watching elementary school presentations, but I felt at ease despite the difference in cultural representation. Watching the small children perform and try to one-up eachother made me smile. By the time the high school aged dancers performed, the show got a little more serious as the kids focused more on looking good and making it the best they could. The final group, the college students, did a routine that had me thinking of what someone might see at a wedding.
Afterward, I went to a display room where the church had set up displays that told about the history. I learned that St. Elias was a Maronite church, which means that long ago a clergyman named Maron was responsible for leading several churches. Now if a church calls itself a Maronite church, that means it can trace its history to a church lead by Maron. I also went into the sanctuary to look around. Between the towering stain-glass windows hung plaques of the 14 Stations of the Cross. The well decorated altar sat in front on the stage and someone had it taped off so no one could get up there. The minister’s robes were on display and a key stood next to it telling the significance of each part of the garment. Considering that, I think of the differences between the Catholic Church and other Christian communities; it is a subculture within the greater group. Catholics pay careful attention to minute details with a sacred reverence to them that many other groups of Christians do not see as important, but the focus is on giving God the utmost respect. Being in a Lebanese Catholic church put into perspective for me that religion does not limit itself to a single culture or group. It is unfairly stereotypical to assume that the Middle East is all Muslim and that Catholicism and Christianity as a whole is a western trend, especially when Christianity started in the Middle East. What makes the situation so fascinating is the multiple facets of the event: Roman Catholicism, the broad culture of Lebanon, and Birmingham, Alabama, US.

Twelfth Annual Lebanese Food and Cultural Festival Pt 1

The Saint Elias Maronite Catholic Church in Birmingham hosted the Twelfth Annual Lebanese Food & Cultural Festival on April 9th and 10th from 10:00 am to 9:00 pm. It surprised me to hear that Lebanon has a significant Christian population and that Birmingham had a significant number of people descended from Lebanese immigrants.

I went to the event on Friday, April 9th around 5:30 pm for dinner. I selected the DJAJ MISHWI (Grilled Chicken) meal for $13.00, and it consisted of one-half a lemon grilled chicken, rice, loobia (a specially prepared green beans), a Lebanese salad, and pita bread. The chicken had lemon juice soaked through it with various herbs added. The green beans had some sort of thing added to them that had a reddish color. I don't know what it was but it tasted great. The serving of Lebanese salad was drowned in vinegar and had something that may have been mint or aregano added. I don't know what it was but it tasted good too. All the food tasted excellent and it gave me a much needed break from campus food. Later that evening, I met a friend from UAB who came to the event with his girlfriend. We exchanged eager greetings and went our ways.

I thought about how the US and Lebanon take different approaches to food preparation to accomadate different tastes. I am not a culinary expert, but I appreciate the effort that went into the event and the communal and intercultural spirit of it.