Cinematicness

Today has, without doubt, been cinematically full, albeit somewhat lacking in vegan cake. Which isn't necessarily related but for the fact one option for today had been to pootle down to Manchester to a vegan fayre which would have had much vegan cake and, more importantly, the folk from Dandelion & Burdock who I miss. Both in the sense of not being able to drop in on them so easily these days and in the sense that when I am in the area, it tends to be on a day when they're not open. Alas. Anyway, no vegan delights for me today which possibly means baking tomorrow, but we'll see...

The plan for the day went through many iterations in a short space of time but ended up with a morning at home doing homey stuff (including filing! Get me!) before heading into Lancaster on The Bike With No Name for films being shown as part of the Transition City Lancaster Film Festival at The Dukes. There were three scheduled today so given how many millions of miles Lancaster is from Morecambe (psychologically, if nothing else) I decided to settle in for the long haul. And, if I were to say nothing else (which is unlikely) I have to say they made up a very varied programme - in many, many senses. So - to the films.

It all kicked off with Chasing Ice - this was the one film I had some expectations of as the write up had mentioned Nat Geo photographic delights and indeed they were there. I do love National Geographic. But Chasing Ice was more than that - it's the story of one photographer's aim to capture the retreat of glaciers in a very visual way over several years. And boy, was the retreat dramatic. Paraphrasing the film, there's nothing quite like seeing a 30,000 year old glacier retreat miles in mere years. My overwhelming feeling at the end of the film was of wanting to slow it all down - especially the stills and the time-lapse of the series of photos showing the glacier retreats. And my key deeper understanding from it was about this incredibly rapid change that is going on.

No cake, but this morning I did make myself some soup. Which was fine except I managed to jump the knife I was using while chopping up an onion. Which means I now have a rather interesting cut through one of my finger nails and some of the surrounding skin. It's fine and is now merrily getting on with life without even a plaster but it is rather odd having a cut in my nail from an angle other than top down...

Next up was Trashed. Of the three, this felt the most explicitly "this is bad, we must stop doing it" - a sentiment I entirely agree with, but I do value films that can present such information without being evangelical. Evangelical would be too strong a word for this film, but it's closer to that feeling that my "optimum". It had a great case study of San Francisco as a "Zero Waste" city, and provided me with a lot of information around the problems with incineration I wasn't aware of - and pushed home the issue of plastics and other non-biodegradable waste. I think the "solution" proposed was recycling 90% of all waste we produce, but it may have been something else.

Two films in and I was beginning to flag - but Even The Rain was captivating. A "story" film with a sense of fictitious documentary within it (does that make sense? As in it was not a documentary but was based on a lot of real events) it was particularly striking as it was set in Bolivia around the same time I was there. I confess I am somewhat ashamed I did not take more direct interest in the water issues that were going on - it was very easy to bury my head in the sand and that was what I did. But there was a real sense of familiarity, particularly as the film progressed and my mind went back to two occasions when I was in Bolivia and there was active civil unrest on the streets (once in La Paz, once in Santa Cruz). And also to the very middle-class world I mainly inhabited while I was there. Fascinating and saddening film in terms of repeated patterns of behaviour within society.

And then the cycle home. Lots of food for thought.