just like that river twisting through a dusty land

Recently my reading and viewing prefences seem to have been taken over by the Scandinavians. I thoroughly enjoyed the excellent TV series 'The Bridge' which was a joint Swedish/Danish production and I am currently watching the second series of 'The Killing'.Unfortunately I missed the Danish version of this so I have had to make do with the US version which has some interesting characters but seems to take an hour each week to tell you something that could have been covered in ten minutes.

I finally read 'The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo' trilogy and then watched the corresponding movies in Swedish. They were very good although they missed huge chunks out of the books and seemed to work to a complete reverse theory to the makers of 'The Killing', introducing characters and events with no back-up information whatsoever. It was intriguing to read about the author Stieg Larsson and the Conspiracy Theories surrounding his own untimely death

I then moved from Sweden to Norway and started reading Jo Nesbo and his collection of novels featuring Oslo detective Harry Hole, a complex and completely likeable character. I was surprised to discover, therefore, that a movie has been made of a Jo Nesbo novel and that this turned out to be ' Headhunters' which I believe is his only book not to feature Harry Hole. I read ' Headhunters' and was very disappointed. It was one of those books which seems to have been written with the sole purpose of being made into a movie, a bit like the later Hannibal Lecter related novels by Thomas Harris

I am not a huge fan of watching foreign language movies. Sometimes my eyes shut for a moment or two and I may miss a pivotal moment. Also if I  nip off to make a cup of tea, where normally I would still hear and understand what was going on, this does not work if they are speaking Swedish or Spanish or whatever

Notwithstanding I have seen some excellent sub-titled movies and here is a list of my favourite 10

1. City Of God (2002)...breathtaking epic tale of two boys growing up in a violent neighbourhood in Rio de Janeiro
2. Life is Beautiful (1997)...superb performance from Roberto Benigni as the Jewish romantic in 1930s Italy
3. Waltz With Bashir (2008)...powerful animated movie about the Israeli invasion of Lebanon
4. Mesrine (2008)....two part movie based on the real life French gangster. Vincent Cassel is mesmerising as the charismatic Jacques Mesrine
5. Ringu (Ring) (1998)....the 2002 English language version with Naomi Watts was spooky enough but the Japanese really know how to scare you
6. Amores Perros (2000)...three interconnected stories based around a car accident in Mexico City
7. The Lives of Others (2006)...the workings of the infamous Stasi in 1984 East Berlin
8. A Prophet (2009)...harrowing tale of a young Arab man sent to a French prison and his subsequent rise to power
9. Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001)...two teenage Mexican friends go on a road trip with an attractive older woman
10. Incendies (2010)..a bleak tale set with the backdrop of the Lebanese Civil War

C'est tout pour cette semaine!
Auf Wiedersehen mis Amigos!
Ciao!