A packed Starbucks’.
Hardly surprising. Everyone was desperate to find a spot in any air-conditioned place in this heat. And as today’s a holiday, students flocked to the nearest cafe to study, chat or simply for a nice cup of Frappuccino.
Cafes, they have become a kind of unconventional study parlors these days. Does anyone still go to public study rooms now, I wonder, where you can’t eat, can’t drink and will find yourself duly woken up by the ‘patrolling librarian’ the moment you doze off? Calls to mind the unpleasant memories of my public study room days. We had to take turns to steal a quick nap cos there was a librarian who sneaked up on anyone happened to have their eyes closed – ‘sleeping not allowed!’ she used to bark. Hey, nobody’s sleeping, Ms Nosy. Just resting my eyes. There, Starbuckses and Pacific Coffees do have their appeal.
Rain finally came in the evening. Shame she paid too short a visit. Will you pull the temperature down, and the sun too? Wishful thinking.
It never ceases to puzzle me that some people are in love with sunny days and warm weather; I honestly don’t see the fun of going about sweating, and risk being roasted alive. That’s why visiting Greece never crossed my mind I suppose. But one man has changed my mind – Theo Angelopolous. The Traveling Players, an epic of Greek history (1939-52), filmed entirely in Angelopolous’s home country, depicts a grey, cold and scarred Greece, not exactly the place flooded with sunshine that most people have in mind. Angelopolous admitted that he deliberately painted this picture of his country, both for thematic and aesthetic sakes. The nearly 4-hour movie was not as difficult to comprehend as I had thought, and Angelopolous does have a way to deliver powerful political statements effectively, the one that makes the strongest impression is the hero’s, a Communist, funeral under a bleak sky. A painfully small group of friends and family alone are present when the coffin is lowered to be buried. But Angelopolous does not have in mind a sad scene. The hero’s sister starts clapping, then a whole round of applause follows and echoes in the forest. It’s profound, powerful, and leaves you in no doubt where the director’s sympathy rests. Plus, I never expected applause here. They are burying a dissident, such indiscretion was the last thing that crossed my mind, a less creative director may have everyone raising fists and chanting slogans rather than the restrained scene we now have.
Why did I let myself be talked out of going to Ulysses’ Gaze and Weeping Meadow?
Written on 21/5/10
