'Poulet Aux Prunes' ('Chicken with plums') : a breathtaking experience

This morning my alarm clock rang insanely early.
9:45 definitely is insanely early. But sometime you have to fight against the withered mummy your body turned into during the night and be brave enough to get up. Eyes open, shower taken, it's now time for the hit.
A long queue is meandering in the hall of the UGC Rouen (yes, there are cinemas outside Paris. And even in Normandy) as I come in. Loads of people are not working today as tomorrow is a day off. But fortunately the 20th century is the Machines' Century so I don't have to queue with that lazy crowd. In the blink of an eye I've got my ticket in my pocket and begin to move toward my destiny : 'Poulets Aux Prunes'.

The film was released on October 26 and was directed by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud, starring Mathieu Amalric, Edouard Baer and Maria de Medeiros. The story is quite simple to tell : a very famous Iranian violonist, Nasser Ali Khan (played by Mathieu Amalric) sees his violin being broken. He then tries to reach the satisfaction with new violins. But soon he'll have to face the situation : he can't play on any other instruments. This is the time he decides he'll let himself die.

The film is not the long waiting of his death as we see him dying very early. It is rather the story of hopes, love, passion, sadness and laughter. So Nasser Ali being dead we can focus on every single particles composing life. The man sometime shows an evident selfishness or even brutality with his wife (Maria de Medeiros) but this feeling always is contrasted with our understanding for his passion for music and his sensitivity to love.

The images are absolutely brillant and mix comedy with reality with cleverness and skill. If you add it to the terrific performance of all the actors you end up with a magical universe where philosophy, love, beauty and regrets live altogether in a natural peace.
Let's not forget Edouard Baer playing Azrael, the Angel of Death visiting Nasser Ali a few days before he takes him. He also is the voice over telling the story.

'Poulet Aux Prunes' is a simple story in a simple world but affecting complicated souls in their quest for the ultimate achievement. It is also the story of a man dying of love. What could be stronger and deeper in our world of surface?

Financial crisis : the Internet as a paired equilibrium

The question we're asking ourselves here is : How does the Interent contribute to the crisis and how could it be a source of a solution? Let's first see why we could say the Internet is responsible and secondly how it's not.

The Internet does carry responsibilities in the fiancial crisis because it contributes to maintain and nourish the debate and the fear. A massive amount information travels on the Web everyday and the reliability is not always  checked (read more about reliability in an other article I posted here).

But does the Internet have to be responsible for the mistakes of the Banks? Does the Internet lend the money to indebted people? Does the Internet grant golden parachutes?

Madonna's dead! I saw it on the Internet!

Truth is the supreme reality and has the ultimate meaning and value of existence, Free Dictionary says. From this definition we easily see how full of power truth is. And one of the Internet's job is to reveal what before was hidden. The Internet turns on the light of truth on our world. What is best way to get information on an organisation we are about to join or about someone we are about to employ? What is best way to know what really happened last week with Gaddafi and the rebels?

But "the power of the Internet, Vince G. Cerf says, is like a two-edged sword. It can also deliver misinformation and uncorroborated opinion with equal ease. The thoughtful and the thoughtless co-exist side by side in the Internet's electronic universe."

So we have to get educated to tell the difference between truth and wrong information. We have to stay aware of the risk taken on the Internet in our quest of truth. Let's have a cross-media habit to get informed. This is the best way to detect the wrong that hides everywhere.

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Mobility : my brain's the fastest plane

Well, mobility. What's that mobility? Walking down the street, going to school with the metro, flying to Barcelona? Surfing on the Internet with my iPhone anywhere at anytime?No. Let's forget digital, electronic devices and all this crap.

Mobility is the quality or state of being mobile. Physically mobile? Not necessarily. Mobility is also the quality or state of traveling in your mind.

What's the best way to visit Wonderland with no money? Dreams. Luc Besson, the famous french film director said he started thinking of 'Arthur and the Invisibles' and he was a child. Fantasy and tales were his only way to escape his boring everyday life. No computer, no video games. But still thoughts.

Tunisia, Egypt and Libya : the learning of democracy

The Arab Spring and all its events that occured since December 2010 led to a totaly new situation in Tunisia, Egypt and more recently Libya. From now on these three countries and their citizens have the possibility to vote for their President. Tunisia voted last Sunday and seem to have elected moderate Islamists party Ennahdha.

Gaddafi's fall last week also opened the way to democracy. We hear and listen in every single media that these countries will have to do the learning of democracy. And this is what it's all about : democracy is not innate. This is the result of centuries of (r)evolution and fights.

So tyrants being defeated doesn't mean the emergence of democracy. This is the new governments duty to work altogether toward freedom, liberty, equality and justice. In Tunisia, Ben Ali's fall didn't erase terror, exactions and relative liberty to think different. Some former Ben Ali's Ministers are still engaged in the Tunisian political field and won't give up.

It really is interesting to observe how democracy is seen by the citizens of these new free countries. This is the silent after the storm, the sun showing up again. But democracy is not the answer in itself. Democracy is an everyday fight. And if Tunisia, Egypt and Libya want to have justice and liberty they have not to be to impatient but to slowly and surely build a new Nation.

About the Internet Addiction

Internet Addiction by EtiennesCloud