Jelena - My favourite scene: INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

Note: for those of you who have not seen the film yet, I should warn you this entry contains a serious spoiler, as it reveals the movie's final scene. 

One of my favourite movies is Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, named after Enzo G. Castellari's 1978 macaroni combat film, The Inglorious Bastards.

Set in World War II, the plot is divided into two parallel stories, one about young French Jewish cinema proprietor Shosanna, who seeks revenge for the murder of her family, the other about a group of Jewish American soldiers led by first lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt). Their objective is the same: to kill the Nazi high command. 

My favorite scene is the very last one. Hitler is assassinated along with his generals, but unscrupulous SS colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) is alive and on his way to freedom, as he managed to broker a deal with US intelligence agency. Aldo Raine and his companion, Utivich, are in charge of escorting Landa with his radio operator, but Raine can’t stand the fact that the astute general will escape unpunished. He could easily kill him, but he has to respect the agreement. However, we witness an unexpected turnaround. Raine shoots the radio operator and has Utivich collect his scalp. Finally, Raine asks Landa the well-known question if he is going to take off his uniform after all. The German officer doesn’t say a word, as he knows what is going to happen. Raine, guessing what the answer is, takes out his knife as he tells Landa that he’s going to give him some uniform he will never be able to take off. As he did to all the German soldiers whom he spared lives before, he carves the symbol of the swastika on the colonel’s forehead, claiming that "it just might be my masterpiece".

Throughout the film, Colonel Landa shows an extreme intelligence and ability of adapting to any situation, but in the end he makes a fatal mistake by underestimating his opponents. 

Besides the fantastic characterization made by the excellent cast led by Pitt and Waltz, I have to highlight the wonderful soundtrack, which includes eight tracks composed by the great Ennio Morricone. To give you a taste of Morricone's fabulous music in the film, this is just one small sample:

Thanks Jelena! I think I told you guys in class how much I loved "Basterds", which made me change my dubious, as it were, mind about Tarantino's film-making and his always controversial flicks.

You know, if I had to choose one particular moment from the movie, I'd rather go for the "glorious" Nazi cinema scene. You know, to me it's so so visually (and sonically - at least it was in the movie theatre!) STUNNING! However gory and graphically violent it may look to the weaker-minded, I just can't help loving it! 

Jelena: food in Serbia

As I am a foreigner, people I meet are curious to know something more about my country, Serbia. One of the usual questions they have about my homeland is related to food. 

Everybody wants to know what the typical Serbian dish is, but it’s impossible to give an accurate answer. Why is that? Well, it may sound strange, but apparently there’s nothing we could call a fully-fledged Serbian dish. What we usually tend to eat is a mixture of different cuisines – Hungarian, French, Italian, but mostly Turkish, as I expect people to know that Serbia was under the rule of the Ottoman Empire for almost five centuries. Comparing with Spain, I can freely say that we have the same appetite, although there is a slight difference in the timetable. 

Cheese pie

To understand it better, you have to know that in Serbia the sun rises and sets two hours earlier than in Spain, so we have our meals before Spaniards, despite the fact that a new, faster style of life is changing our habits. Breakfast is a must, from eight to ten in the morning, and it has to be strong, so there’s normally a big greasy sandwich, bacon or sausage with eggs, a pie (filled with meat, cheese, potatoes, spinach, or the sweet version, with apples, cherries, nuts or pumpkin) or, if you prefer a healthy meal, cereals with milk or yoghurt. I have to mention that in Serbia we more often drink the natural yoghurt, without sugar, and it’s something I really miss here. Lunch is between one and four in the afternoon, and dinner from six to eight in the evening. Our everyday menu is based on meat, vegetables and potatoes. The soup is consumed quite a lot as well, and weekends are marked with some home-made desserts like pancakes, sweet pies, tarts and other delicacies. 

The typical Rakija

I grew up in a village and I can’t think of any visit to friends or relatives when we didn’t have to eat. Offering food to a visitor is a sign of hospitality, and if you have the chance to go to Serbia and stay in someone’s house, especially in the rural environment, you should know that you won’t be able to refuse anything. First you’ll be served a cup of coffee and a drink. We usually have a black coffee, but if you’re lucky, your host may offer Nescafé too. Talking about drinks, there is always some kind of alcohol, whether a bottle of beer, a glass of home-made wine or rakija (aguardiente), commonly made of plums, apricots or grapes. It’s not something I’m proud of, but the Serbs drink a lot, and they will certainly watch you while you’re drinking, just to see what kind of person you are, depending on how much alcohol you can stand. 

Sarma (meaning "a wrapped thing")

Then comes the food. Fortunately for the shy ones, in Serbia it is customary to keep offering food, to insist that you have to eat, if it is necessary for half an hour, or somebody will just put a plate in front of you so there’s no point in saying that you’re not hungry, because it is just impossible, everybody is ready to eat anytime, for God’s sake! There is a proverb you can hear frequently in Serbia saying that health is gained through your mouth, so a good nutrition is something you have to take care of. In the winter they’ll serve you at least some smoked meat, local cheese and a salad, but if your host knows in advance that you are coming, then you should be prepared for some soup, a cooked chicken or veal, baked meat (pork, chicken or veal) or even sarma, a dish of grape, cabbage or chard leaves rolled around a filling mainly based on minced meat. And at the end of the meal, a dessert, which you can’t refuse either, because it is made especially for you, ha! 

Baklava, a sweet pastry

Slava, the typical bread

Not only do we like to eat, but food takes a very important place in our culture too. On New Year’s day, at Christmas, Easter, on a birthday, wedding day, baptism day, the day of slava (the saint’s day), or even when somebody dies, we cook enormous quantities of food. During the fast, for example before Christmas or Easter, we don’t eat any animal products (meat that is, except fish, eggs, milk, etc.) so the central role is taken by fish, beans and vegetables. For Christmas we bake pigs (not piglets ☺), and I compare Christmas in Serbia with any other day here in Salamanca, when the whole town smells of roast chicken. 

From my point of view, when it comes to food, I have been quite lucky, as the Spanish cuisine is not much different than Serbian, but I have to admit that the Spanish products have a better quality, and the offer is significantly bigger. I have made some changes in my diet, introducing chickpeas and lentils, and what indeed brought joy to my life, turrón, 300 grams of pure pleasure, so I can’t understand its sudden disappearance after Christmas. If you ask me, there should be turrón in the supermarkets all year long. In Serbia we have halva, a type of hard confection we adopted from the East, of course, but turrón takes a special place in my heart, I think you can understand my affection. Then, there’s the famous ham, Spanish tortilla, churros with hot chocolate and other tasty specialties I can’t help eating. 

To conclude, we Serbs might not have a representative national dish, but that doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy eating. 

Jelena: DIAN FOSSEY - Thanks to her there are still "gorillas in the mist"

“When you realize the value of all forms of life, you dwell less on what is past and concentrate more on the preservation of the future”. This was the last entry in the diary of Dian Fossey, one of the most prominent primatologists in the world, who spent a period of 18 years studying gorillas in the mountain forests of Rwanda. She wrote these words shortly before she was murdered in the bedroom of her cabin in Virunga Mountains, Rwanda, in late December 1985. 

Her parents had divorced when she was six. Shortly afterwards, she lost touch with her father and had a stepfather who never treated her as his own child. As a result of her difficult childhood, plagued with family problems, she suffered from personal insecurity and, in order to gain acceptance, she turned to animals, especially horses. Her idea of a professional life working with animals clashed with her stepfather’s expectations that she would finish business school, so she was left without financial support. Nevertheless, she managed to find enough money for her studies by working as either a clerk in a department store or a machinist in a factory. However, she failed her second year of pre-veterinary course in biology, so she got a bachelor’s degree in occupational therapy and started to work in a hospital. Later she stated that it was her work with autistic children what helped her to bond with gorillas.

Her first encounter with wild life in Africa and gorillas was during her seven-week visit in 1963. During this journey, she met eminent British paleoanthropologist and archaeologist Louis Leakey, who did a great job in creating organizations for future research in Africa and for the protection of wildlife there. Three years later, she left her job as she got funding from Louis for her research with the mountain gorillas. She had to learn Swahili and primatology for eight months, and then, in December 1966, she went to Congo, where she spent some time with other researchers in order to observe their methods with chimpanzees and learn basic gorilla tracking. While she was doing her field study in Kabara, she learned a lot about the gorillas’ behavior and communication, which allowed her to get closer to them. Because of the complicated political situation in Congo, she was forced to go back to Rwanda and continue her study on the great apes. There she founded Karisoke Research Center, a remote camp near the Virunga volcanoes, where she spent most of her time researching and protecting endangered gorillas from extinction. 

Apart from her research work, she is well-known for her tireless fight against poaching. Poachers sell gorilla hands as delicacies, magic charms or simply to make ashtrays. Her battle grew bigger after the death of some of her favorite gorillas, which made her found Digit Fund, named in memory of Digit, her beloved gorilla, who was killed by poachers. She made the effort to raise money for anti-poaching patrols, in which she participated as well, also destroying traps, arresting poachers, burning their camps and putting pressure on government and local officials to enforce the law. She was against keeping animals in zoos just for the entertainment of the people and she criticized tourism for disturbing the natural environment of gorillas and spreading human diseases, to which the animals don´t have immunity. 

She faced many problems because Rwandan national park conservators often helped poachers; some organizations received a lot of public donations to help Fossey, but all the funds were invested in touristic projects. Officials also tried to diminish her achievements and show her as a mentally unstable and dangerous person.

Her death is a mystery. The case is still open, and there are two theories about the possible murderer. The first one is that she was killed by one of the poachers as revenge, and the other one is that some officials saw her as an obstacle to the touristic and financial exploitation of the gorillas, so somebody who was familiar with her activities was implicated, because of the way she was murdered in her house. There is also a lot of controversy around her work, which was criticized for the way she was dealing with poachers, often described as ruthless and racist. Nevertheless, her contribution to the animal world, especially the gorilla, is enormous. The resort she built is still active and continues the work she started. Gorillas in the Mist, dealing with both her scientific job and personal life, is the best-selling book about gorillas even today, 28 years after her death. 

I remember how sad I was after seeing a movie named after her book, which deals with her life and work with gorillas. I think I was 10 years old and I couldn't understand how people can be so cruel to animals and how somebody killed a woman who unselfishly dedicated her life to protecting a piece of wilderness and raising awareness about the importance of keeping the wildlife’s natural habitat untouched.

A couple of days ago, on January 16 2014 the world celebrated Dian Fossey’s 82nd birthday, and Google paid a tribute by dedicating to her its search homepage, which made me write about this incredible woman, also known by the locals as Nyirmachabelli (or "The woman who lives alone on the mountain")

Thanks Jelena for yet another fantastic post. Indeed Dian Fossey was a remarkable woman an a truly devoted naturalist, who, like some other wildlife lovers, had an untimely death. 

I asked Jelena if she would like me to embed this beautiful, enlightening National Geographic documentary I came across on YouTube, called "The Lost Film of Dian Fossey" and she agreed. Worth seeing!

Jelena: A short trip to the imagination with Silvia Peréz Cruz

When my classmate Maite suggested going to the concert by Silvia Peréz Cruz, I was delighted, as I saw a great opportunity to experience and learn something new. I had no previous knowledge of this singer, and although jazz, which was the main theme, is not my favourite music style, the fact that the young Spanish vocalist is moving within different music genres, including fado and flamenco, actually the ones I prefer, I felt quite curious. 

The concert was held in the “Juan del Enzina” theatre, and to my mind it was just the perfect place for that kind of music, the space that gave us the sensation of a more intimate, warmer atmosphere and one which enabled a better connection between the musicians and the audience. The simplicity of the stage and the casual look of the artists, as if they were just rehearsing for the concert, made us feel more relaxed and ready to absorb the immense quantity of positive energy and strong emotions.

The songs we could hear were from Silvia’s only CD so far, named “En la imaginacion”, the fruit of the collaboration with the famous Javier Colina trio, whose founder, the magnificent double bass player Javier Colina, made a selection of some classics of Cuban music, Latin jazz to be precise, arranged and found on the album. Each song was telling us a story of love, passion, sadness, longing and hope, and we wouldn’t have enjoyed them if it wasn’t for Silvia’s radiant, warm and versatile voice. She performed each song as if it was her own story, her own emotion, her personal experience, and it wasn’t just her voice, but her eyes, her face, her entire body that was involved in the task of conveying every single feeling, so in a way there was no need to understand all the words. 

It was a unique experience in which we enjoyed ourselves together, the artists as much as the audience. What impressed me greatly was the degree of improvisation made by the musicians, which made the concert unique and, to some extent, amusing. For two short (at least to me) hours sequenced wonderful songs were played one after another, like “Debí llorar”, “Qué dirías de mi”, “Ella y yo” and “Veinte años”, but Silvia didn’t want to make us feel too sad or melancholic, so from time to time she performed some faster, more entertaining songs like “Belen” and “El panquelero”.

The most touching moment of the concert was at the very end, when Silvia and Javier sang together a beautiful song named “Si te contara”, which she dedicated to either a friend or a relative - who apparently passed away the same day they held the concert - while telling us that there was no reason to feel sad or disappointed. With a great smile on her face, looking to the sky, she paid homage to somebody she really cared for and who obviously must have loved the song. 

Silvia truly made her way to my heart, so I have started to listen to her music, and I’m deeply grateful to my friend Maite for sharing an extraordinary musical experience with me.

Thanks, dear Jelena, a riveting post indeed. I mean, sure you can write a Spanish artist - or from any other nationality for that matter - as long as it is in English!

I am just sorry I missed the gig as I find Silvia a fascinating singer, with a beautiful voice and oozing on-stage charisma. Hopefully I'll see her perform live soon. I hope you approve of the photos and clip I've embedded!

Jelena: Magical autumn in Japan

The custom of watching autumn leaves (kōyō, literally “red leaves”) is deeply weaved into Japanese culture. Thus, besides the rich literary corpus dealing with this motive, there are thousands of publications like collections of art photography and tourist guides that represent woods, temples and parks with the most beautiful deciduous trees.

Every year, usually in late September, a wave of red leaves is formed on the island of Hokkaido, getting almost to Kamchatka, and for the next two months it gradually spreads toward the south.

In November, all parks, temples and university campuses blaze, and the mountains, hillsides and valleys glow for a couple of weeks in all shades of yellow, red, purple and brown, thanks to the mantle of colorful autumn leaves.

That’s when hundreds of thousands of Japanese people will visit parks and temples, go for a weekend picnic to the woods and mountains, or to warm mountain baths in order to enjoy the bright colour of autumn leaves and do something beneficial for their health.

The practice of going to nature only to see autumn leaves comes from the early Middle Ages when both the members of the imperial court and the aristocracy used to go to the mountains and hills near Kyoto, at the time the capital of Japan, to sing about the beauty, but also the transient nature of leaves, comparing them with love and human life.

Japan is probably unique for its weather forecast, which, apart from the facts about the temperature, wind strength, precipitation, and the height of the sea waves, gives also the information about when and where the explosion of autumn colours is going to occur.

Japanese priests and horticulturists carefully choose and arrange particular kinds of trees, like maple and oak, combining them with moss and other plants so as to create the special ambience during autumn.

Autumn leaves are also used like a decoration to arrange meals in some restaurants serving traditional Japanese food.

Chilly yet sunny weather with a lot of bright days, some of which are as warm as those in the early spring, is very specific for November in central Japan. Nice weather and breathtaking landscapes make this month, together with April, the most pleasant to visit Japan, so now is the right moment to pack your bags and spend an unforgettable holiday in the land of the rising sun.