In which life is a Russian novel, only funny
It occurred to us after our sixth viewing of Norte, Hangganan Ng Kasaysayan (for a total of one day and one hour spent watching the movie) that our life had begun to resemble a remake of Annie Hall, in which we were Alvy Singer (Woody Allen).
In Annie Hall, Alvy and Annie meet at the cinema where he plans to see The Sorrow and the Pity for the nth time. The guy behind them in the queue starts holding forth about cinema and literature, and when he brings up Marshall McLuhan, Alvy produces McLuhan himself to correct him.
The Sorrow and The Pity, Marcel Ophuls’s documentary on French collaboration with the Nazis in WWII, has about the same running time as Norte, but even fewer laughs. It leaves you with the impression of having spent several years in Vichy. Norte gives you the impression of having spent several years in Ilocos Norte.
In our real-life remake, we’re waiting to see Norte for the nth time when the guy behind us starts holding forth about cinema and literature, and when he brings up Lav Diaz we produce Lav Diaz himself to say, “You know nothing of my work.”
Then we point out that Lav was named after Lavrentiy Beria, the head of Stalin’s secret police, and we all crack up.
It hasn’t happened yet, but it could.
By the way, Woody Allen’s Love and Death is a spoof of Russian literature. Our involvement in Norte is a direct consequence of our fixation on Russian novels. We heard that our friends were adapting Dostoevsky and we said, “Game!”
Tina saw Norte today and she says there should be another Dostoevsky adaptation centered on the character of Hoda Viduya (Angelina Kanapi), Fabian’s sister: The Idiot. She can be Myshkina.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
September 12th, 2014 at 09:51
I just wanted to opine in relation to the title of the blog entry, which implies that Russian novels aren’t funny (and I have nothing against that, since that is very much my impression of Russian literature, like the titular character of Garbo in “Ninotchka” early into the film).
But I’m currently reading “The Master and Margarita” by Mikhail Bulgakov, which is a Russian novel about Russia written by a Russian in the 1930’s. It’s as Russian as you can get… but it’s surprisingly quite hilarious, witty, satirical, and enjoyably absurd — all descriptions that I never thought one could attribute to Russian literature… especially Stalin-era Russian writings.
September 12th, 2014 at 13:45
lastdodobird: Yeah Bulgakov’s hilarious, and Gogol, Leskov and Petrushevskaya (and even Gary Shteyngart is Russian), but we’re not talking about them, are we? We’re talking about Dostoevsky. CONTEXT.
September 13th, 2014 at 18:24
Hahaha! That scene was hilarious! My wife and I are waiting for the 7pm screening now here in Robinsons Metro East! We missed it yesterday.