Once you start with
the tracks, one must recognize that his voice evolves you in this
traditional spirit of sadness and melancholy that feature so many
native bands in Finland. In any case, the guys from Hämeenlinnä
sound like a compact and talented band in their debut album Pelkuri,
that is also the name of the opening song, ideal to play in moments
of reflection and solitude, or just if you want to share a glass of
wine with your couple in an intimate atmosphere. Tales of love like
in the ballad Pauliina together with other songs with a
harder touch such as in Taikuri make this album a delightful
piece to be enjoyed. Highly recommended.
Having no boundaries
at all at expressing his personal opinions, convinced Communist until
the end, and atheist, Saramago has provoked polemic and
admiration towards his creativity and integrity, plus he was
unanimously considered a worthy winner of the Nobel Prize. During his
intervention in Helsinki, he pinpointed the fact of having a break in
his writing process for more than 20 years.
Actually, he did not
publish anything from 1947 to 1966, because, as he has repeated many
times, “I had nothing to say.” And he
also had time to defend the respect for the elderly, “When I
started to be published internationally, I was 60-years-old and I was
a beginner, when many others are retired. So I have a message for the
young people, and also for the ones who are not so young. That means
basically for everybody, and it is that life does not end when you
are 30…or 40 or 50. I have written my best books when I was old.
And I enjoy working, I do not believe in this thing called
retirement. So please, respect the older people because they still
have many things to offer.”
And
really, like with a good wine, the work of Saramago improved with the
passage of time. Since 1980 he has written many acclaimed titles such
as The Year of the Death of Ricardo
Reis, The
Gospel According to Jesus Christ, The
Cave and The
Double.
The author is quite
a talkative person who does not feel shy at all to analyze his works
or his previous experiences. He exhales an
aura of satisfaction about all the things achieved in his life, but,
at the same time, he is very humble and respectful in his comments
and answers. Although Saramago’s schedule was very hectic, he kindly
had some minutes to answer a couple of answers from FREE! Magazine:
{mosimage}Mr Saramago,
coming back to the topic of your book The
Double, how
would you feel if you went out to the street and met a duplicate of
yourself?
I think I would not
like it at all. As I said, I think that if you meet a person exactly
the same as you, the tendency would be to
eliminate that person. The topic goes very faraway in time; it was
treated already in old Greek Mythology, in the story of Zeus in the
role of Amphitrion to get Alcmena, his wife. And we could discuss a
long time about nowadays issues such as cloning, but well, I think we
have not enough time, and better things to do…
What was your
reaction when you received the Nobel
Prize?
Well, at the
beginning I was shocked, it was like if they had hit me with a hammer
in the head. But then, I took it more relaxed. Of course,
it was very nice to go to Stockholm and receive the prize and
everything…but you know… I was alone at an airport when I
received the phone call that gave me notice of being awarded with the
prize, and after a while, I just thought…well… I have won the
Nobel Prize… so what? Life goes on…
After renouncing to
take a taxi, preferring to take the arm of his wife, the Spanish
Pilar Del Río, who is also his translator, they walk off into
an exceptionally sunny day in Helsinki. Later, at the end of one
interview in a bookstore full of admirers and curious people, he
received a quick visit from a very special fan: the president of
Finland, Tarja Halonen.
Photos by Eduardo Alonso
This
year Eastern and Western Christianity are united with the occurrence of Easter
on April 8th allowing a joint observation of the festival by both camps. As
many of you are surely aware, Easter signifies the day that Jesus Christ died
for man’s sins, but as a non-Christian and lacking the skills of a theologian I
don’t understand why I am still paying for the sin of stealing my wife’s last
chocolate egg last year – she has already mentioned it twice this week.
Unfortunately
for her, my dad (more guilt), my brother (even more guilt) and others (combined
guilt), my religion is chocolate. I have less self-control than a baby’s
bladder, with my conscience drastically weakening in the presence of the cocoa
god and his sweet minions. As a child, my dad would joke that I would eat dog
poo if it had a chocolate coating, but I could never defend myself against this
allegation because I was salivating too much at the very thought.
My
chocoholic disease is particularly worse at Easter when the glorious
commercialization of another religious holiday means more chocolate than a
Willy Wonka wet dream could ever fantasize. In the UK there are supermarket
aisles stacked to the ceiling with chocolate Easter eggs from all the
individual brands and others featuring characters from children’s television
shows, such as Bob the Builder. The usual selection includes two bars of
chocolate and a chocolate egg about 10cms in diameter and 20cms in height.
{mosimage}However,
the true chocolate connoisseur does not care for these eggs at Easter because
there are two truly desirables. The first is a Cadbury’s Crème Egg, which is a
thick chocolate shell filled with a gooey centre and the second is already
making my mouth water. Cadbury Mini Eggs are, are, how can I do them justice
with mere adjectives? Simply, they are small chocolate eggs covered in a crispy
shell, but they are the most deliciously addictive sweets in the world. No
argument.
Easter
is not all fun and games. My nemesis is the so-called Easter Bunny, who,
inexplicably, hides decorated chocolate eggs around the house and garden for
children to try and find. I personally believe this to be a waste of energy and
time, not because my brother would always find far more than me, but because it
is inexcusable torture to a young chocoholic. I did once try to convince my
brother that the rabbit droppings in our garden were from the Easter Bunny and
would taste like raisins – he didn’t believe me for some reason.
Finland
has been a new experience for me at Easter with its delightful Fazer Mignon
eggs presented in real eggshells and the tradition of children dressing as
witches on Palm Sunday going door-to-door basically trick or treating. The
first time I experienced this tradition it was a little girl ready to say her
‘virvon varvon’, but was terrified by the sight of a confused hungover
Englishmen wearing a dressing gown in the afternoon. Sorry again, little girl!
This
year I shall be joining her in my hope of claiming some free sweets, so if a
grown man dressed as a witch knocks at your front door then throw him a bar of
chocolate and he will leave quietly after drooling a grateful thank you.
In 1953,
geologist Väinö Auer returned to Finland from Argentina, the land where he made
most of his expeditions and discoveries. At that time, he was already very
pessimistic about how technological progress and modern life were affecting
nature and climate. It was 25 years since his first trip to Tierra del Fuego.
Väinö Auer
was born in 1895 in
Helsinki, at that time still a part of the Russian Empire. Although his first
steps in the University were in botany, he ended up focusing on geology and
geography.
In swamp
research, Auer was the first to use pollen analysis in Finland as a relative
timing method, and also started to investigate the geohistorical periods of
Vanajavesi, a lake/river near Hämeenlinna, regarding the layout order of beach
swamps. This classic study from 1924 built the basics for Finland’s limn geologic
lake researches.
However, it
was very far from Finnish soil where Auer made his finest researches and
expeditions. On the 15th of August of 1928, he started his first trip to the
very remote places of South America: Tierra del Fuego (Tulimaa) and Patagonia.
Other members in the trips were Ernst Håkan Kranck, Heikki Roivanen and Esa Hyyppä. They arrived to
Punta Arenas, Chile, on the 16th of November.
The main
purpose of the trip was to practice studies of stratigraphy (the study of rock layers and layering) in the swamps and the connections between this and the climate changes
of the Holocene period. To its surprise the group discovered in the swamps of
Tulimaa three layers with sediments of ashes, results of volcanic action. This
finding helped to define the development of the swamp surface. It was possible,
then, to show the changes in vegetation over 9,000 years.
As Väinö
Auer advanced into Tierra del Fuego, the expedition got adventurous. On
February of 1929 he left from Punta Arenas to unknown waters. Sailing with a
small boat in troubled waters near the glaciers, the expedition managed to find
a couple of new fiords in the area of the Darwin Mountains. They were named
after famous Finnish people, such as former president Lauri Kristian Relander
or J.V. Snellman.
Later that
year, Auer returned to Finland where he started a career as professor at the
University of Helsinki. However, the call of fieldwork was strong and in 1937
he decided to get back in action. From Kotka he left for Buenos Aires and the
unexplored territories of Patagonia.
Wartime
During the Winter War (1939-40), Väinö Auer served as volunteer in the battlefield
against Russia. However, his major contribution to this period was in literature.
Along with Eino
Jutikkala, Auer received instructions to write a book about the historical and
geographical reasons why Eastern Karelia belonged to Finland. The result,
published in 1941, is Finnlands Lebensraum
(Finland’s living space). It was
written directly in German with the intention of convincing the Nazi German war
ministry of the necessity of returning Eastern Karelia to Finland once Germany
had invaded the Soviet Union.
The provocative
name of the book, though, was an invention of the German publisher. Auer and
Jutikkala’s original was Das Geographische und Geschichtliche Finnland (The
Historical and Geographical Finland).
Side by side with Perón
After the
war, Väinö Auer received the call of Argentina’s President Juan Domingo Perón.
He was called to resolve the problems of erosion and dryness in the farming
fields of Argentina. He referred to this problem as the “Desert devil” (Aavikkopaholainen). At that time his
whole family moved to Argentina.
In
Argentina, the Finnish geographer became a significant influence in the
community, which helping to breed a new generation of scientist, as well as
completing his official tasks in the Ministry of Agriculture. However, homesick
and disappointed with the scientific community and current technological
progress, which was harming the environment, Auer returned to Finland 1953.
There he took again his position as professor at the University of Helsinki. He
died in this city on the 20th of March,1981.
Documentaries, books and a street name
In spite of
his great achievements, Väinö Auer remained one of the less well-known
scientists in Finland, although a street in Kumpula is named after him (Väinö
Auerin katu). The main source of information about his thoughts is his diaries;
but, in the last years, two important works have brought a new perspective of
Auer’s life and work.
Pentti Alhonen and Antero Alhonen have recently published the book Vaakavarren ratsastaja, a comprehensive
study and biography of Väinö Auer. In 2001, film director Mikko Piela started
following the steps of Auer from Finland to Tierra del Fuego y Patagonia. The
result is a documentary based on the geologist’s diaries: Väinö Auer (1895-1981). “For filming the documentary”, recalls
Piela, “we did a couple of expeditions to Tierra del Fuego with our cameras. It
was a great adventure to sail on small boats and film in those remotes places”.
For the director, Auer was an ambiguous person. “He drifted from strong
nationalism to a major concern about global problems, which made him very pessimistic
in his latter days," Piela says.
There is more than just great wind and surfing on the island of Hispaniola. The Dominican Republic was the first European settlement in the New World, founded by Columbus in the early 1600s. Nowadays, the Caribbean is a popular destination for all kinds of travellers, including sailors from all over the world. And no wonder: turquoise water, islands with green hills and endless beaches make it a perfect destination for anyone seeking tranquillity.
First of all, relax: this is the Caribbean – it is not like there are important churches and statues on almost every corner, like in Europe. You even have to walk slower! If you really want to do some sightseeing, then visit the home of Columbus in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican
Republic. That's pretty much all the cultural stuff you can do. As regards the indigenous people, the Tainos, they were almost completely exterminated by the diseases from Europe and the hard work given to them by the Europeans in the 1600s. Sadly, all that is left of the old Dominican culture is some cave paintings created by the Tainos.
Today’s Dominican culture is mainly on the streets: the language, food, dance and colourful art. Like dancing? The music is either Bachata or Merengue and it's everywhere: in bars, taxis and beauty salons. And no one minds if you dance on the street – or anywhere for that matter!
Most of the Dominican are descent of European, African and Taino(pre-Columbian indigenous) people. Usually they have black hair, but skin colour varies from very pale to very dark. It is easy to get along with the locals, especially if you know a few words of Spanish. They are very friendly and
relaxed. In fact sometimes they are so relaxed that if they were any more laid back, they would be asleep!
After the siesta, it is time for some fiesta! Dominican rum is very good and excellent for Cuba Libres and Rum Punches! You can also make a drink called “Poco Loco”. Making it is easy: take
a coconut, drill a small hole in it and add some rum! Dominican cigars are also very well known around the world. Some people say that they are even better than Cuban ones.
The food is simple but very delicious in the Dominican Republic. The most famous dish is named after the white-red-blue coloured Dominican flag: it is one part rice, one part beans and one part
meat or chicken. I used to start my day with the “Plato de Frutas”, meaning a plate full of fresh fruit and a cup of Dominican coffee, which is one of the best coffees I have ever tasted!
The local money is called the Dominican Peso, and the locals don’t have much of it. The gap between rich and poor is enormous and corruption is blossoming. Everything is much cheaper than
in Europe, so tipping should play a big part when paying your bills at restaurants, clubs and cafes. If you are smart, you will tip every time you are getting service, as many Dominicans don't get
any salary besides tips!
Outside or inside of the walls
Depending on what you want your holiday to be you should consider where to stay. You can choose to stay at the many-starred all-inclusive resorts or at the smaller hotels. The resorts are for honeymooners and lazy tourists. Everything is made easy for your vacation: eat as much as you like and get smashed on the free drinks by the swimming pool – even the people you meet in the bar are selected for you as no outsiders are allowed within the resort’s walls! It doesn’t sound too tempting, does it? Happily I can report that there is another option: pick a normal hotel and try a different restaurant every night instead of having that same old buffet-dinner at the resort.
The weather in the Caribbean is either really nice or totally terrible. The hurricane season is in autumn followed by the wet season: after all, it is the tropics and the plants need their water, so it rains a lot! In April the skies clear and it’s the sunny Caribbean summer again!
Trippin’in the Caribbean
I used to work for a travel agency in the Dominican Republic, so I am an expert when it comes to excursions there. The most amazing is the whale watching trip. This is only available from mid-January to mid-March, when the giants come near to the shore to make love and give birth.
If you long for luxury, then the trip to Saona Island is for you. You can take a small plane from Puerto Plata to the South East coast of the country. From there the speedboat takes you to the beach, where the sand is whiter than snow! Food and drink is included and you won’t have any worries: just chill out on the hot beach holding an ice-cold drink in your hand!
Catamaran Sailing is another splendid way to spend the day. And so is a daytrip to Gayo Paraiso, which is a sand island with two sheds: one is a bar and the other is the place where you can rent snorkelling gear. You can take the speedboat to the island and on the way make a quick stop to find some massive orange starfish
If you want to see other sea life other than starfish, I recommend diving or snorkelling. There isn’t much in the way of big fish but what you will see is very cute: seahorses, rays and eels. You won’t find Nemo around there, but go and look for Emma: she is this tiny seahorse that I once rescued from the mouth of a fish!
If you want some action, you can always rent a four-wheeler, take a tour on a monster truck or ride a horse to the waterfalls, where you can dip into freezing cold but refreshing water. River rafting is also another way to get your daily dose of adrenaline.
Me and my friends used to have drinks on the beach every night and we always toasted the same thing: instead of saying “cheers”, we said “for another day in paradise!” – and that is what life in the Dominican Republic is all about!
Categories
The Jade groove
The four
members of the group started their musical careers more than ten years ago, but
the story of The Jade began in spring 2004. During their many years in London,
Pekko and Jann had played together in different projects, and once they landed
back in Helsinki they got to know Wille, who became a vocalist for the band.
Sirpa had also returned from London, and became the drummer once it was clear
that she could rock harder than a number of auditioned male candidates. "Very soon we noticed that this
line-up worked well, the four musicians describe their history together", they say.
Not Just Rock but Roll
The Jade
has its musical roots deep in hard rock, old rock'n'roll, punk and 1960s and
-70s pop and rock. The music on their promo record Slow Motions on the Fast Lanes, released in
November 2006, is melodic rock, played with a rather heavy sound at times.
“In order
to stay vital, the music has to be reinvented all the time, and our songs
change with us. We can offer our audience swing and groove – that is what makes
us different from many other Finnish rock bands that sing in English,” The Jade
explains.
According
to Pekko, hanging a glittery scarf on a microphone stand is not The Jade's
concept of rock'n'roll:
“As a rock band, one has to have a look that
corresponds to the sound. However, our choices of style are intuitive and have
taken place as a result of time and experiences. The Jade is not about looks
but about music that has been profoundly thought through”, The Jade points out.
True Stories Written with passion
The lyrics
of The Jade create an image of life with subtle shades. The members' colourful
life experiences are seen in their texts.
“We do not sit down writing and
thinking whether it would be cool to make a story of something: homelessness,
love, very bad life style, death – there is an unlimited number of things in
the world one can write about. Even death can be described as it is – not in a
goth-like manner – and loving your neighbour may be more interesting than a
story of love between a man and a woman,” Pekko says.
“All our songs have an element of
something that we have experienced ourselves, and the Northern darkness (what
is Northern Darkness?) plays its role in them,” Jann adds.
Promo Record in demand
The witty
combination of energy, groove and sombreness has appealed to audiences around
the globe. The Jade has found its American, British, French, German, Hungarian,
Italian and Spanish fans among others through Myspace.com. So far, fan sites
have been set up in Australia, Germany and Mexico.
The crowd
supporting The Jade has mixed musical preferences, and both pop and metal fans
have demonstrated their enthusiasm for the band. Many have received their
copies of Slow Motions on the Fast Lanes
-promo record and spread the word and music in their surroundings. The record
has been played on many web radio stations, and so far the reviews have been
excellent.
The Jade
will play gigs in Helsinki as well as in Western Finland during this spring.
They will keep looking for partners and a record deal, while their fans
volunteer to promote them.
“Our drive is constant, we work hard and our
goals are set high,” Wille says.
“We want to play our music to an audience as
wide as possible. We keep promoting Slow
Motions on the Fast Lanes and, hopefully,
we will find good contacts this year. Playing together is simply great, and we
will continue doing that even if nothing else happens,” The Jade assures.
You can hear The Jade's Slow Motions on the
Fast Lanes-promo record as an Mp3 at
http://www.myspace.com/thejadenet
http://www.thejadenet.com
Categories
The age of the animal in Ateneum
The works
are by almost two hundred artists, mostly Finnish ones. The pieces, from the
16th century up to the present, have mainly been provided by the Finnish
National Gallery.
The various
themes in the exhibition illustrate how the roles of animals have changed over
the centuries. Pay special attention to Gallen Kallela’s and Ferdinand
von Wright’s paintings.
{mosimage}There is
also a special display created for children by the students from the University of Art and Design, called In a Magical
Forest. Here parents can find many animal books as well, if they want to
tell stories to their children.
But the
exhibition has also a dark side, such as the sinister works of Juhani Harri:
in his Andalusian Dog, for example, dead animals and objects melt into a
unique and ambiguous new shape.
Pekka Jylhä, who made
his debut in Vaasa 1984, is one of the most important Finnish sculptors. In
addition to several exhibitions, he has become known through his many public
art works. One of them is Spring (Lähde), a monument built in memory of
the late president Urho Kekkonen, was unveiled in Hakasalmi park,
Helsinki in 2000.
The current exhibition
presents mainly works from the new millennium, but also some older pieces, and a
book on Jylhä's art has been recently published by Parvs Publishing.
For Jylhä himself, the exhibition is about looking back on what has been done.
"I am not sure
whether this is the end of something, or the start of something new",
Jylhä states. "My works are always taking me in unknown directions. It is
like I am in the middle of a stream and I just have to let it take me where it
wants to go."
One of the central
themes of the exhibition is the collision between human beings and nature. A
sadly literal example is the piece Revelation (Ilmestys, 2000),
which presents a golden deer situated on a cliff beside a motorway. Clear conscience (Puhdas omatunto,
2007) shows another way people today are used to confronting animals: as
objectified goods. This piece brings together an expensive looking crystal
chain and economically worthless bunny. The financially oriented world
suffocates the bunny, conquers its living environment.
The white bunny is a
recurrent element in Jylhä's art works and it seems to speak strongly to many
viewers. Perhaps it reminds us of the vulnerability of people as well.
“The only means for the
bunny to survive in this hard world, is being scared and staying on guard all
the time”, Jylhä says.
{mosimage}In many works the bunny
confronts big questions, but it always stays faithful to who it is: a timid
little creature, willing to understand and do its best. Perhaps the most
impressive piece with the white bunny, Lantern bearer (Lyhdyn kantaja,
1999-2000), occupies a whole room. The little bunny stands lit in the middle of
a dark room holding a mirror ball that reflects a rotating night sky. The
innocent little animal is holding an entire world on top of its nose, but it is
proud and confident.
Jylhä explains that
through his works he tries to tell stories that have touched him. The
autobiographical content has an important role in his work. The small rocking
chair, This side that side (Täällä puolen tuolla puolen,
1994), is based on a childhood experience: the nine-year-old Pekka Jylhä found
his mother dead in a similar chair.
“I was the first to
arrive and the chair was still gently rocking”, he states. “I wanted to make a
rocking chair that would never come to a halt.”
This side that side, with its everlasting movement, reminds us of
the preserving qualities of art, which become important in many artists' work.
For example, the most famous Shakespeare sonnet, Shall I compare thee to a
Summers day, is about the fading beauty of the beloved, which only the
eternal lines of a poem can preserve. Jylhä however, has a more humble view on
the matter:
"In this world,
nothing that was made by man is permanent, and that is probably for the
best", he concludes.
Jylhä continues by saying
that the autobiographical elements are a way of returning to experiences that
may have been forgotten, but are still present in him, and may even have been passed
on to his children.
Many of the works deal
with the big questions of life and in some instances, even give an impression
of a religious atmosphere. According to Jylhä, a lot of this experience is due
to the materials he uses:
“I try to use materials
that are pure and therefore naturally reveal a sacral impression. The symbolism
that comes with the materials is very central in my works.”
The choice of materials
such as water, crystal and stuffed animals; the use of light, living fire and the
colour white, create a very northern atmosphere. Walking in the museum feels
like walking in a wintry Finnish forest: ice and snow sparkling like diamonds
in the pale light of a frosty winter day. For a Finn the forest is like a
church: a peaceful and holy environment. Through Pekka Jylhä's work, the
peaceful harmony of the forest is passed on to the museum space.
French
artist Achdé has been responsible for the Lucky
Luke adventures since the death of Morris in 2001. Joakim Pirinen, from
Sweden, is an artist well known among hardcore comic lovers, who became popular
in 1985 with Sugar-Conny, a graphic
novel about an anarchistic borderline personality. Some of the Finnish names at
Kuplii are Kari Korhonen, the only Finnish artist drawing Donald Duck, and
Kristian Huitula, who has created the only graphic novel in English based on
the Kalevala.
Publisher
Antti Grönlund is the man behind the idea for the festival, although he quickly
admits that it is due to effort and cooperation of more than 10 people. “Why
Tampere? I realised that there are many people involved in comics there, even
more than in Helsinki. There is a lot of enthusiasm and creative potential”.
However, Grönlund is realistic about the difficult situation comic artists have
in Finland: “the market is very small here. Only Juba can make a living with
comics. For everybody else, this is a side job”. Nevertheless, in Antti’s
opinion the level and quality of Finnish artists is very high.
There will
also be the first event of the Cosplay Finland Tour 2007 during Tampere Kuplii: dress up as your
favourite character and be there.
More
information and full programme at: www.tamperekuplii.fi
The main
character in The First Book of Hope is
seemingly an ordinary Finnish middle-aged man: a little bit overweight and
slightly balding. His name is never mentioned and we do not know where this
story takes place. Clearly we are dealing with an allegory, and our main
character (actually the only person in this book) embodies the Finnish
Everyman. The comic resembles a mediaeval morality play since the main
character ponders about the life he has led and lost friendships. Throughout
the work a melancholic feeling permeates, as voiced in the monologues of our
Everyman: "you hope you become wiser as you try to avoid the bitterness
life so often offers. "
This book was the graduation work of Tommi
Musturi and was featured in the Masters
of Arts 05 exhibition at the University
of Art and Design in Helsinki. It is not,
however, a stand-alone-work: just recently The
Second Book of Hope was published (in English) and there will be 6 Books of Hope in total. Otava will
publish The First book of Hope in
Finnish; the English version is already available in well stocked comic stores.
{mosimage}
When
did you publish your first comic?
When
I was 13 years old, I self-published a 50-paged album. It was an adventure
influenced by Asterix, Corto Maltese and Indiana Jones.
Favourite
place to draw, meaning where do you feel more comfortable and concentrated to
work?
I
like to draw in cafés drinking coffee and smoking mini cigars. But I think the
place I can concentrate best and find my inspiration most easily is my own
drawing table in my workroom.
Finnish
artists you admire?
There
are a lot of excellent artists here! The poet Pentti Saarikoski is the most
important (called himself "The Poet of Finland" and translated
Joyce’s Ulysses into Finnish). In the comics I like Jyrki Heikkinen, Marko
Turunen, Terhi Ekebom…
International
artist you admire?
James
Joyce, Picasso, Keith Jarrett (jazz pianist), Ornette Coleman (jazz musician
also), the poets and writers of the Antique Greece and Rome like Petronius…
Frédéric Chopin…
{mosimage}What
was the last comic you read?
Jyrki
Heikkinen’s Tohtori Futuro that is about to be published by the small
publishing house Asema in Finland. I am one of the founders of Asema and do a
lot of work as editor. Otherwise, I think the last book was Joann Sfar’s latest
Chat du rabbin, Jérusalem d’Afrique (Dargaud).
What
was, in your opinion, the best comic of 2006?
Well!
You know, I haven’t read them all. I’m quite fond of Joann Sfar’s Chat du
rabbin albums. One appears every year and it’s almost every time the best comic
of the year, for me.
What
makes a Ville Ranta’s comic work different from the others?
I
rarely use panels in my stories, I improvise alot and find my influences a lot
from other art than comics, for example modern jazz music. As a comics artist,
the rhytm is the most important thing in storytelling.
Do
you like being polemic when drawing a comic?
Yeah,
I find contemporary subjects interesting and I comment things alot. When I get
furious about something, I draw a comic. A lot of this material is published in
my comics blog in http://www.villeranta.com but I also draw contemporary and
politic comic/cartoons in the on of the biggest newspaper in Finland,
Ilta-Sanomat.
Do
you like manga?
No.
Though I’ve get to know only the mass entertainment stuff which doesn’t
interest me at all.
What
can you tell about the censorship in Kaltio for the Mohammed cartoon?
Lot
of people in Finland (and in Europe) are afraid of the discussion of religion
and islamistic fundamentalism. Or even afraid of any discussion on muslims. A
group of people among the sponsors of Kaltio and the publisher of Kaltio got
extremely afraid of something when Kaltio published my comic on Mohammed. They
didn’t even read it. The comic ironizes the fundamentalism and the European
fear of Muslims and opposes the Iraq war. But they were totally ignorant of
what I had to say. They didn’t want that this discussion is done in Kaltio and
they censored my work in a brutal and illegal way. That’s all I have to say
about that.
What
do you think about so many comics adapted into films in last few years?
I’m
not very interested in those films more than the comics behind. Except The
Ghost World is a great book. I haven’t seen the film.
What
other activities do you do apart from drawing comics?
I
run this publishing house of alternative comics, Asema. I teach comics a little
in a art school near Oulu.
What
other hobbies do you have?
Cleaning
the house, listening to free jazz, watching films of Fellini.
You
have your own company. Is it hard to be an artist and business man at same
time?
I’m
not a business man. The publishing house is a hobby, it doesn’t produce money.
I only get paid of the rights if Asema publishes my book, the rest is hobby of
me and Mika Lietzén. We run this house for free.
What
are your future projects?
I’m
going to finish my next graphic novel in fall. I’ve worked a long time at it.
It will be probably published in France at the same time as in Finland.
Categories
Streching the limits
Pohjonen started his career at a very early
age: at 8 he was already playing folk music. After classical and folk music
studies at the Sibelius
Academy, he spent time in
Tanzania
and Argentina,
studying with local musicians. His musical history now spans over twenty years
and in genres as diverse as avant-garde, folk, improvisation, classical, and
dance music. Furthermore, he has collaborated with the likes of the Kronos
Quartet. He is currently touring Finland – and in March the States –
as a member of KTU: a group also comprising of Trey Gunn and Pat Mastelotto. As
almost any review of his performances states: Pohjonen is far from your typical
idea of an accordion player; from the most obvious of the details, his hair – a
sort of reinterpretation of the Mohawk – to his way of being on stage and
playing his instrument. He’s been named several times ‘musician of the year’ in
Finland
and won several awards: the Finnish Jussi award for best film score (for the
movie Jade Warrior) being the last.
Let’s start our talk with this Jussi award. Composing music for
movies – was it your first time with Jade Warrior?
Actually, I did have previous experience, but it was something
different: the score for a Russian movie called Majak (The Lighthouse). In the case of Jade
Warrior, when the director called in November 2005 and asked me if I was
interested in composing the score I was not so sure – at the beginning. Then, at home, I sort of
realized that a tune was already there. And in the end, it became the main
musical theme of the movie.
Already there? Meaning you didn’t have any ‘visual prompts’ – any
image or cut from the movie when composing the score – only the director’s
words?
Yeah. In that sense I can say that composing Jade Warrior’s score was not so different for me from my other
composing experiences. I don’t rely so much on images when I compose. And
anyway I was working with Samuli Kosminen…
{mosimage}Samuli Kosminen is one of the members of the KTU project: you’ve had
a number of different collaborators – all of them quite surprising and
interesting – how do you choose the musicians you’d like to work with?
Well, with Samuli, I just asked him. He’s a sort of a kindred soul:
he’s as experimentally inclined as I am. So it was quite natural to consider a
collaboration with him. In the case of the Kronos Quartet, I should say it was
not me who approached them… but rather, they approached my manager, Phillip
Page. You know, Phillip is definitely more than a manager and he’s been
instrumental in quite a lot of my collaborations with other artists: one of my
first projects was with Arto Järvelä, together we are the Pinnin Pojat; and one
of the main features of our collaboration is the freedom to improvise. The last
time we performed together, we rehearsed for a really short time and then just
went on stage: curious to see, and listen to, what would happen. And for
instance, the level of improvisation is 100% with Eric Echampard, the French
percussionist.
I understand that improvisation
is a keyword for you, but I’m just wondering how did it work with the Tapiola
Sinfonietta: you collaborated with them on your Kalmuk project some years ago.
I made it clear from the very beginning what I had in mind, so that
all those who were not at ease with the idea of playing without the score in
front of them or, say, having to run in circles while playing could quit before
the real thing got started. I wanted the musicians to play without the score so
that they could be more free to listen to each other: to move with the music…
of course at the beginning it was not easy: not even for those who had decided
to stay.
Freedom is another keyword for
you
My main concern is to explore – explore the sounds my instrument can
utter, with the support of sound machines, voice, etc. When I’m on stage, I
improvise and I usually go on playing without breaks – without pauses for the
clapping of hands. I definitely value the reaction of the audience, but on the
other hand I have this feeling that I need to keep myself free from an excess
of feedback: I’m on the stage to create something, an atmosphere, and I don’t
think I should be too much influenced by the reaction of the audience.
How have places influenced you?
You have spent time studying abroad…
I was in Tanzania for a
few months and in Argentina.
I guess that’s when I perceived my being a Finn. You know, my favourite time
for composing is winter: with the deep darkness, the snow. I come here to my
studio in the morning and it’s dark: I get out in the evening and it’s dark.
Then comes the spring and I just start feeling like doing something else:
spending time outside. Winter is my creative season.
One last question: in Italy there’s a
small town called Castelfidardo, which is known as the world capital of the
accordion industry. I was wondering if one of your accordions comes from there…
It might be. But by now I’ve made so many changes and modifications
that it hardly has any original part left. And look, the bellows are breaking
again.
Alfred
Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, Federico Fellini, Robert Altman and Cecil B.
DeMille are some of the film directors who never won the Best Director Academy
Award, and it seemed Martin Scorsese was to follow that black list after five nominations.
All of his generation mates had won the award: Coppola, Lucas, and Spielberg,
but in February Scorsese finally joined the club and was rewarded for his film The Departed.
The award
now feels more like an honorary Oscar before it is too late. Even though the
film is an outstanding effort, it pales into insignificance when compared to Scorsese’s
masterpieces, such as Raging Bull,
which is now being rerun in selected theatres across Finland.
Raging Bull (or Kuin
Raivo Härkä in Finnish) is a tragic biopic based on the life of the harsh
obsessive middle-weight boxing champion Jake LaMotta. The film is popular for Robert
De Niro’s extreme interpretation. He gained more than 25 kilos to play LaMotta
in his declining days in the '60s and he trained as a boxer entering three
matches in Brooklyn, winning two of them. It was actually De Niro who convinced
Scorsese to make the movie.
In spite of
his initial lack of interest, Scorsese took the movie to his own style. He
portrayed life in the Italian ghetto in New York, adding many elements of first
generation Italian-American subculture.
The drama
and the real punishment of LaMotta were outside the ring and his alienation
from his family and brother. Nevertheless, Scorsese put great effort into the
fighting scenes. The sequences were rigorously choreographed beforehand and
planned frame by frame in the storyboard.
The black
and white cinematography by Michael Chapman gives the film a tone that resembles
the boxing films from the 1940s and '50s, and it seems timeless. With the passage
of time, the praise for Raging Bull
has grown and it is now seen as a great American movie, plus one of Scorsese’s
best. In 1986, Aki Kaurismäki paid homage in his hilarious short film Rocky VI.
Raging Bull was the first Best Director nomination for
Martin Scorsese, which was one of eight nominations including Best Picture, and
won Robert De Niro a Best Actor award and Thelma Schoonmaker an award for Best
Film Editing. More than 25 years later, thanks to The Departed, Martin Scorsese is awarded with his well deserved
Academy Award.
Born in
Lithuania, but exiled to America in 1949 after spending some time in a
displaced persons camp, the life of Jonas Mekas is all about films. He is
considered the godfather of avant-garde and experimental filmmaking and he was
one of the founders of Film Culture
magazine, the American response to Cahiers
Du Cinema. In the 60s and 70s, he was one of the top names of the art world
as he worked and filmed with artists such
Andy Warhol, Salvador Dalí Allen Ginsberg and John Lennon.
Jonas Mekas
remembers that he decided to film his own movies after watching The Search (Fred Zinnemann, 1948), a
film about displaced persons made after the war. “I saw it with my brother and
we got very angry how little understanding of the real situation there was in
this film, about what it means to be displaced”. After that, Mekas bought a
camera and has been filming ever since.
Some of his
most representative films were showed in Tampere, where he was the guest of
honour. In his short films, he portrays people and places or he shows bits of
life, like a diary. He enjoys presenting the happy moments of life. He often
films himself and others dancing and celebrating: “I leave the depressed
moments for the modern artist”, he said during his visit to Finland.
There is no
better expression of this diary form than his current project: 365. Every day during 2007, Jonas Mekas
will release one short film that will be available to download from his
website. These are short films that include old and new material. He takes his
camera everywhere: “Some footage from Tampere might appear in 365 this month or the next one”.
Preserving
film was another duty for Jonas Mekas: in 1970, he was one of the co-founders
of the Anthology Film Archives in New York, a non-profit organization devoted
to the preservation and exhibition of experimental film. However, prefers to
look ahead than look back: “With the new technologies, the language of cinema
gets richer. Different forms are developed. Everything is changing and that is
beautiful!” he claims. The Lithuanian filmmaker understands cinema as a
constant evolution, in which current films cannot be understood without the
previous ones.
As 365 shows, Jonas Mekas is neither afraid
of that evolution nor of new technologies. Indeed, he welcomes the new forms of
expression without fear and does not plan to stop filming. As he says, “perhaps
after 365, the next project will be the 1001 nights”.
The 365 project and other films by Jonas
Mekas can be downloaded from www.jonasmekas.com
Casino
Royale is based on
the novel of the same name by the father
of Bond, Ian Fleming, and presents the first adventure of Bond just
after getting the status of 007: an agent with a license to kill. It combines
the best of the old Bond films with the use of the new technologies.
Daniel Craig
is convincing as the new Bond: virile, seductive, ironic and with a powerful
gaze not seen since Sean Connery himself. The “Bond girls”, Eva Green
and Caterina Murino, are sensual and wild; the action is brilliant; the
fights are vibrant; the baddies are perfect in their roles; Judi Dench
is superb as “M”; and the locations are astonishing.
The critics
loved the film and the audience loved Craig (especially the women), so why did
I not feel totally satisfied after watching the movie? Maybe I have become too
conservative or maybe I have started to get a bit tired of this continuous race
to show in the movies how the latest technologies are always available for
saving the world. Maybe since the last Mission:
Impossible trilogy, I have started to feel bored of so many games with
mobile phones, and so many satellites locating the “seed of the devil” in some
remote island in the middle of Pacific. I feel annoyed with this
“ultra-technological saturation” every time I try to watch a spy movie.
Nevertheless,
I liked the movie a lot. It is sometimes very explicit, even raw (like in James
Bond’s torture scene, which you can feel directly in your own testicles) but
you cannot deny that the film’s rhythm absorbs you for its 144 minutes.