Under Milk Wood, Fakorizo, and Pedro Páramo [March 24]
Recommendations from Me
This month I wanted to highlight some ambitious projects that try to describe a population, all through a different medium.
Dylan Thomas is perhaps Wales’ most prolific poet. One of his richest works, the 1954 radio play Under Milk Wood drifts between the dreams and waking conversations of the eccentric inhabitants of a fictional Welsh fishing village. His language is witty, boisterous, and radiant. A version, crisply orated by Richard Burton, is available online, including on Spotify.
August Sander’s photobook People of the 20th Century contains 800+ pages of portraits of people living in Germany, mostly during the Weimar Republic years of 1918-1933. Although Sander conceived of the project as a neutral account of ‘all the characteristics of the universally human,’ his values are reflected in his choice of archetypes: The Farmer, The Skilled Tradesman, Classes and Professions, The Artists, The City, The Last People, and (most strangely) The Woman. Towards the end of the book there are a moving series of portraits of Sander’s son Elrich, who died in prison after protesting Nazi rule. The project is available in most medium/large photobook libraries, and online.
I read Dante’s 14th century poem Inferno in 2022, and though I was familiar with the general theme (man travels through nine circles of Hell), there was much I found surprising in it. Beneath the kaleidoscope of sin and bizarre torture, there is a strangely personal account of Florentine society, and Dante’s position within it. He goes as far as writing his (often living) personal rivals into each of the circles of hell — it’s kind of catty.
In Juan Rulfo’s 1955 novel Pedro Páramo, our protagonist descends not into hell, but into the fictionalised ghostly rendering of a Mexican town named Comala in the state of Colima. Through a series of murmurs, we parse together the lives of inhabitants, webbed around the titular character, Pedro Páramo, a powerful land barron (hacendado) whose malice, scheming, and neglect bring the town to ruin. In this rewarding work, Rulfo tells a general story of the chaos brought to the Colima’s countryside by the 1910-1920 Mexican Revolution and 1926-1929 Cristero Rebellion, and gives a personal account of the violence which claimed the lives of many of his family members. The opening lines: ‘I came to Comala because I had been told that my father, a man named Pedro Páramo, lived there. It was my mother who told me. And I had promised her that after she died, I would see him. I squeezed her hand as a sign I would do it. She was near death, and I would have promised her anything’.
Agnes Varda’s 2000 film The Gleaners and I playfully explores the practice of gleaning (gathering produce left after a harvest), embarking on a journey spanning from Jean-François Millet’s painting ‘Des glaneuses’, through the potato fields and market towns of France, to meet the eclectic gleaners of her time. This film is a very warm place for me.
Recommendations from Others
Michelle 2024
‘Kenyan and Nigerian music: Lisa Oduor-Noah, The Cavemen, Ciano Maimba, Sauti Sol, Aṣa, Ayra Starr.’
Luis 2024
'Mexico City films: Bardo, dir. Iñárritu; Güeros, dir. Ruizpalacios; Roma, dir. Cuarón.’
Echo 2022
‘Lemon juice, olive oil, mint, chillies, salt, and pepper can make almost every salad tasty.’
Dora 2022
‘Cypriot Fakorizo recipe. Ingredients: 1 cup lentils, 1 cup onion (chopped), 2 cups veg broth, ½ cup tomato juice, 1 cup rice - 2 cups water, ½ cup olive oil. Method: 1) saute the onions in the olive oil, 2) add the lentils, broth, and tomato juice, and let it boil under tender, 3) in a different pan cook the rice in the water, 4) combine the lentils and rice together, 5) top with caramelised onions.’
Wil 2022
‘1) Everyone should get counselling (this is not a personal attack), 2) running is good for clearing your head; I hate it a lot, but it makes you feel *smiley face*, 3) learn your genome (AAAAA).'
