“Caroline” by Concrete Blonde

Song of the Week

By Patrick McKenzie

V V e’re getting close to

Halloween, so I suppose it’s time to
break out the creepy songs. Concrete
Blonde is a band I often think of when
the days get shorter and the night gets a
longer shelf life. The band formed in the
early 1980s, broke up in 1995, reunited
in 2001, and then officially disbanded
again in 2006. Despite all this, the
three-piece band led by dark-haired,

and darker-voiced, Johnette Napolitano
has decided to reunite for a single
Halloween show in
the fabled city of
night itself, New
Orleans. If this is a
precursor to a full

“Even though “Caroline”
sounds like it’s coming from are filled with
a deeply personal experience, specific and

soundscape where guitar, bass and
drums never seem to touch the ground.
Loomed over by Napolitano’s grave
(no pun intended) vocals, the rest of the
music seems to gather around her voice
like a funeral procession —that is, of
course, if we can presume she’s singing
from a coffin that’s already six feet
under. In apparent opposition, James
Mankey’s dexterous, metal-head guitar
work digs “Caroline” out of the cold
heaviness of Napolitano’s resting place,
and gives the song an almost lilting,
dream-like quality.

The lyrics on
the other hand,

: ‘. : everyday imagery.
panies there is something broadly Napuligisd: vat
post-punk band familiar about it.” simultaneously
will have to wait strong and

and see. Even if such an event doesn’t
take place, appreciators of Concrete
Blonde’s music still have the songs the
band recorded to keep them company
on those dark and lonely nights.
Speaking of dark and lonely,
“Caroline,” taken from 1990’s
Bloodletting, is a slow and atmospheric

vulnerable voice sings “well I hear
you’re driving someone else’s car now/
she said you came and took your stuff
away/ all the poetry and the trunk you
left your life in/ I knew it would come
to this some day.” Certainly the words
in isolation convey a kind of dreariness,
but the convergence between the

ethereal quality of the music and the
poignancy of the words creates a song
that is more haunting than ambient.
Even though “Caroline” sounds like
it’s coming from a deeply personal
experience, there is something broadly
familiar about it. With the words,
“like a memory in motion/ you were
only passing through/ but that’s all

you’ ve ever known of life/ that’s all
you'll ever do,” it seems that many
listeners can identify with the sentiment
being conveyed— specifically, the
disappointment or heartache incurred in
placing faith in a shallow friend or lover
and the inevitable unanswered questions
left in their absence.

Now that’s haunting.

 

 

Film Fest Full of

International Delights

Vancouver International Film Festival, September 27 to October 12

By Duncan DeLorenzi

   

This World of Ours, (Japan, 2007)
This powerfully expressed and moving
drama from first time filmmaker
Nakajima Ryo is about a group of
high school and university kids in
Tokyo struggling with their place in
society. Beginning with the upsetting
reality of bullying, the film quickly
evolves to depict very disturbing but
real events like attempted suicide
and sexual assault. The struggles of
everyday youth, reacting in various
ways to the violent incidents that
they become involved with makes
for some very intense drama. The
globally recognizable values of
education and gainful employment in
our contemporary world are rejected

by these unsettlingly nihilistic youth as
they desperately try to find increasingly
destructive ways to communicate their
rage. Despite the horrific incidents that
the main characters perpetrate upon
one another and themselves, it is their
undeniable honesty, revealed through
their own helplessness, which is most
memorable in the end. The film is a
disturbingly close look at the impact
that an unrepentant focus on profit has
on the psyche and outlook of sensitive
and troubled youth.

Empties, (Czech Republic, 2007)
Fiesty Prague school teacher Josef
decides —after a moment of frustration
in which he wrings out a wet sponge
over the head of a smart-aleck student —
that he is ready to leave the teaching
profession. However, retirement ends
up being much too sedate for him and
he soon takes a job as a bike courier.
This misadventure results in a short
and unfortunate, albeit humourous
experience. His next post-retirement
job finds him in the bottle return
section of a supermarket wherein he

is able to admire the form of lovely
female shoppers. In addition to his
duties he is able to play mischievous
matchmaker with his fellow workmates
and comrades. This new job not only
keeps him busy but also out of the

house—and more importantly away
from his wife. The film is charming and
honest and it explores the difficulties an
aging rebel faces in continuing to buck
society’s expectations. It also reveals
the frustrations of the pious and the
lonely when attempting to live in an
unsympathetic world. In the end, it is
Josef’s concern for his newly divorced
daughter which spurs him to plot a new
adventure which ultimately provides the
uplift that he and his wife desperately
need to cement their long life together.

&

SVERAK
EMPTIES

(VRATNE LAHVE)

iimswelike

  

Forever, (Holland, 2006)
Pere-Lachaise, the famed cemetery

in Paris, is the central location in this
touching and sensitive portrait of the
effect that art and artists have on our
society. While foreigners and tourists
make their way through the maze

of silent and powerful gravestones,
widows and local family members
make their daily or weekly rounds

to pay respects to loved ones, water
the flowers, and dust off familiar
gravesites. Dutch filmmaker Heddy
Honigmann is remarkable in her ability
to unobtrusively step into the intimate
universe of strangers during their most
vulnerable moments. Her sensitivity
towards the everyday people who
make the cemetery come alive with the
sincerity of their presence is touching
and heartfelt. Even a cemetery guide,
who has spent a great part of his life
trying to comprehend the silence and
meaning of death is not immune to

the revelations of far-off visitors. As
one illustrator explains so simply in
the film, life may be short, but art is
eternal. Sensitively drawn and without
pretense, this is a truly inspiring and
uplifting film for artists and lovers of art
everywhere, and, without a doubt, every
single one of us fits the description.

15