“London as a modern-day Babylon”

Commenting on a comment piece - and then in turn inviting your comments - is perhaps taking things too far, but Madeleine Bunting’s piece on the Babylon myth in Wednesday’s Guardian caught my attention on several levels.

She tells us that the Babylon myths came about on the one hand from the Old Testament, which led to western cultures’ pessimistic associations with the idea, and on the other hand from Greek historians, who lauded the Babylonians’ engineering achievements. I like this opposition of ideas.

Similarly, she highlights a contrast between the Tower of Babel in the Bible representing a multiplicity of languages as a curse and the Qur’an where a verse says God gave many languages in order for human beings to enrich, not confuse, their understanding of each other.

And the thread running through the commentary is the British Museum’s exhibition, Babylon: Myth and Reality (runs until March 15, 2009) and the political debate about London as a modern-day Babylon, “a place of violence and social fragmentation.”

History, languages, ideas, cultures – and all captured in less than 1,000 words. Here’s the link to the article.

(Credit for image: Cornelisz Anthonisz. (Theunissen), The collapse of the Tower of Babel, 1547, Etching © SMB, Kupferstichkabinett, Photo: Volker-H. Schneider)

Flemish film beats James Bond

Loft is a new Flemish thriller that is having rather a lot of success here in Belgium, even getting larger audiences in Flanders than the latest James Bond film Quantum of Solace.

It’s the cinema equivalent of an intelligent page-turner, and I loved it. You’re completely absorbed by the film, it’s enjoyable, there’s great dialogue, the characters are interesting and you’re constantly trying to figure what makes them tick.

The film centres around five male friends, all married, who rent a loft where they can entertain their lovers in private. All’s well in their little world until one morning a dead woman is found in their loft.

It's essentially a “whodunnit” and as the action twists and turns we get more insight into the five men’s characters and discover how their lives are intertwined, for better or for worse.

The music, composed by Germany’s Wolfram de Marco, is performed by the London Metropolitan Orchestra and is suitably dark and atmospheric. The script was written by Bart de Pauw and the film directed by Erik Van Looy.

As far as I’m aware it has only been released in Flanders and Brussels so far. Hopefully it will be distributed further afield in the not too distant future. In the meantime there are trailers on the official website.

String quartets: putting a smile on my face

The Jerusalem string quartet and the Daedalus string quartet have both passed through Brussels in the last couple of weeks. Their performances contrasted sharply and got me thinking a little as to why.

The programme itself naturally plays a role and the better I know a work, the more I can enjoy it. However, given there were three works played at each concert and in each case I only really knew one of them – Smetana’s quartet no. 1 played by the Jerusalem quartet and Sibelius’s "Voces intimae" by the Daedalus quartet – then that doesn’t explain my different reactions.

Nor can it be put down to the venue or acoustic as both performances were at the Brussels conservatory. Nor the individual players’ abilities as at their level it isn’t a matter of notes or technique.

The difference was that the Jerusalem quartet had something special, that little extra, which prompted physical responses in me the listener. Their music made me smile, almost laugh, as they surprised me with how they played a passage, gave me goose bumps as they created a special atmosphere and made me close my eyes to listen to a quiet conversation between the four string voices.

The Brahms clarinet quintet was also a delight and was as if four string-playing brothers had invited a close clarinettist cousin to join them on stage: they had different personalities and yet together most definitely formed a rich whole.

In contrast, I just didn’t discover the Daedalus quartet’s personality. I didn’t get the sense that it was one family with a homogenous sound and quality. Mind you, at one point in their programme, that was clearly not their aim. In the second movement - entitled “Arguments” - of Ives’s quartet no. 2, the second violin made his point by standing up and stamping his foot. The audience simply looked bewildered.

Interestingly, the Daedalus quartet switched first and second violinists between the works. Somehow that just enhanced the feeling that the players hadn’t yet defined their roles in the quartet.

It’s always enjoyable to listen to live performances, but if I get a little extra, a little magic, then it quite literally puts a smile on my face.

Exploring Mozart with friends

I spent this weekend playing chamber music with friends as part of “Tutti Cambristi 2008” – what a wonderful experience. I played the violin all weekend, learnt lots and had a lot of fun with people whose company I enjoy. Perfect!

The weekend was organised by the chamber music association I Cambristi and held at the Brussels conservatory. It's basically an opportunity for chamber groups, be they trios, nonets or anything in between, to study a work with a coach and then have the opportunity to perform it.

We formed a string quintet (2 violins, 2 violas and cello) and chose to play Mozart’s string quintet in G minor K516. Our coach was fantastic, suggesting ways to achieve a different sound, commenting on the overall balance between the instruments and generally acting as an inspiring outside observer/listener.

Unfortunately other commitments mean we won’t be able to perform a movement at next Sunday’s mini-concert. Whether we perform the quintet at one of the I Cambristi’s regular soirées remains to be seen. If you're interested in finding out more about I Cambristi, do visit the website and/or come along to the Christmas musical get-together on December 11.

For those who want to hear what the Mozart quintet sounds like, here's the Salomon Quartet (plus extra viola of course) playing the first movement:

Binoche turns Brussels opera into cinema

La Monnaie opera house turned itself into a cinema for the first time on Monday evening, with a showing of Mauvais Sang, a film from 1986 starring Juliette Binoche. Before the film started, the French actress came on stage to give a half-hour interview about her work and life.

The main reason for her being in Brussels this week is a dance performance that she’s giving with Akram Khan, In-I. I didn’t know that Binoche was also a dancer. Apparently she isn’t, or at least wasn’t until last year. “You have to discover new things, push yourself,” Binoche told the audience. And that was one of the reasons why she accepted the opportunity to work with Khan.

It’s not only Binoche the dancer who is in the Brussels spotlight. The cinematheque is holding a retrospective of her films this month. Given that retrospectives are more often for the dead or those whose heyday is over, Binoche assured the audience that her acting career wasn’t over.

She did acknowledge, however, that on several occasions she had considered giving up acting and once went to her teacher to ask for a lesson in how to teach acting, thinking that could be an alternative career. She was met with the words “No way! Not yet.”

“Sometimes the desire to do something isn’t there any more. But you just have to be patient. It comes back,” Binoche said.

As for the film Mauvais Sang. I unfortunately felt like I was in a film studies class at university thinking I’m sure I’m supposed to find this intellectual and ground-breaking, but I don’t. Highlights: the aerial shots of three of the characters parachuting down to ground; the lines delivered by a sinister American female character who (intentionally) spoke French with an amusing Anglophone accent. Lowlights: the clever camera shots substituting for what it lacked in plot and character depth; too many occasions when I found myself simply thinking “what?”

Museums by night

Lots of Brussels museums are taking part in Nocturnes 08 and staying open late on Thursday evenings until the end of the year.

There's a choice of well-known museums such as the Museum of Musical Instruments, lesser-known ones including the Toy Museum (children and adults are allowed to play!) and the Schaerbeek Museum of Beer, and places you’ve heard of but weren’t sure if they were open to the public e.g. the Royal Library of Belgium.

If you want to visit a popular one, reserve early. I just tried to join the guided tour at the René Magritte museum in Jette this evening only to be told it was already sold out.

Information and schedules are on: http://nocturnes.brusselsmuseums.be

Oceania-mania: skulls and statues

Oceania is all the rage in Brussels at the moment. The Cinquantenaire museum (part of the Royal Museums of Art and History) has just opened its Mercator gallery, full of objects from Oceania - statues, jewellery, headdresses, weapons, tools, textiles, even skulls! And the ING Cultural Centre’s current exhibition is Oceania - Ritual Signs, Authority Symbols.

The centrepiece of the Mercator gallery is Pou Hakanononga, a 3-meter high stone statue from Easter Island. The statue was brought back on the Mercator, the ship that took the Franco-Belgian expedition of 1934-1935 to the island. A gift from the Chilean government to Belgium, it is one of only two complete Easter Island figures to be kept in Europe, according to the museum.

Other items to catch my attention were: 19th century Fijian textiles, known as tapa and made from tree bark; the tattooed faces of human heads that were “war trophies”; a ceremonial kava bowl from West Polynesia (kava is a plant whose root is used to make a drink known for relaxing muscles and inducing dreams); ivory and whalebone ear ornaments (ear-rings would not be the right term, given their size!) from the Marquesas Islands; and a headdress from the Austral Islands made of coconut fibres, tree bark, human hair, duck and albatross feathers (see photo).

One downside to the exhibition was the difficulty in finding where it started (signposts were few and far between...), but once there it was a fascinating journey through the islands of Polynesia and Micronesia. Oh and I learnt that the word tabu originates from Polynesian culture...

Life through Leibovitz's lens

The documentary film “Annie Leibovitz: life through a lens” (showing at Flagey, Brussels, and coinciding with an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, London) was 80 minutes of sheer enjoyment. Directed by her sister Barbara, the film captured her passion for photography, people and life.

The film bursts with energy: interviews with people Leibovitz has photographed, archive footage of her days at the Rolling Stone magazine, images of some of her most famous pictures.

We see the Queen being photographed at Buckingham Palace (yes, the shoot that caused the BBC to do some explaining after their editing made it look as if the queen had stormed out), Whoopi Goldberg telling us how the photo of her emerging from a bathtub full of milk had cats following her around for weeks and Yoko Ono talking about the picture that Leibovitz took of her and John Lennon just hours before the former Beatle was shot dead.

Leibovitz is seen from her own perspective as well as that of colleagues, family members, friends and people she has photographed. You get a real sense of what makes Leibovitz the photographer tick.