Subtitles are for the weak

Pretty much every time we visit a new city, the ensuing blog post mentions the movie theaters we found and the films we saw therein. We enjoy the quirks of old movie theaters with bathrooms behind the screen, converted stages, adjoining cafes, sofas instead of seats, and the often strange movies they screen. And when the local movie theater (Dietrich and TAP) are showing movies we've seen, we'll rent movies. Indeed, one of the things we miss most about Champaign-Urbana is That's Rentertainment, possibly the greatest DVD rental location on the face of the earth, or perhaps just the best one we've ever seen.

That's Rentertainment in Champaign, Illinois

Their DVD selection rivals even Netflix. Their library of foreign films is truly astounding (to complement the University of Illinois' large international student (5,700)/faculty population). They have more movies from Germany than most stores have in their entire foreign film section. Besides movies from Africa, every country in (eastern and western) Europe, China, Russia, Korea, Japan, Thailand, and South America (I'm probably still missing a few),...

That's a bunch of movies.

...they also have PAL DVDs. In case you are unfamiliar with PAL, it is a DVD encoding format that is mostly unplayable by DVD players sold in the U.S. (of course we nerdily purchased a DVD player that plays both PAL and U.S. formats. And brought it with us to France. Ahem.)

Why would That's Rentertainment carry DVDs that only a handful of people in Champaign have the equipment to play? It's because many of the DVDs are not available in the U.S. in a non-PAL format, and some of them are really good. Like Black Cat, White Cat or Ebertfest selection L.627.

So imagine the frustration when we got to Poitiers and found that: 1. the DVDs available for rental are mostly American films, 2. For the most part, DVD's of French films lack subtitles (even French subtitles for the hearing impaired! So much for that fraternite, egalite, blahblah thing).

For example...this (below) is the DVD for La Haine, a black and white film released in 1995, which won numerous awards in France and Europe. It has sound in French, Spanish (mono), Italian and German, with subtitles in French, English, Portuguese, Hungarian, and Dutch. However, I haven't found a single other French movie with any sound or subtitles besides French and English.  Believe me, I wish they were all like this. 

What you are more likely to find are DVDs like this one:

De Battre mon coeur s'est arrete (The beat that my heart skipped), which also won numerous awards in France and Europe. So why is there only one audio track (in "V.F." which means French) and no subtitles?

For a background on the technical aspects of subtitling, you can read this comprehensive article. It mentions the space and time limitations of subtitling. People can only read so fast, and the subtitle must be gone by the time the next character speaks. Since French is a wordy language, they have to condense dialogue a lot while still conveying the important information, like the emotions, jokes, irony, and plot points.

Apparently this is just too much to ask for.

And so, while the French bemoan their struggling movie industry, they still don't choose to subtitle their films in English for release on DVD. Even if it meant that 6 times as many people could understand them (in Europe alone). They don't even bother to add French subtitles so that deaf and hard-of-hearing French folks can watch them, not to mention the foreigners (i.e. us) who can understand written French, but have trouble with the colloquial/slang French spoken in most movies (Coluche was a NIGHTMARE, and pretty much anything with a comedian in it is nearly impossible to understand).

Leaving aside the complications of distributing a movie in the U.S., I assure you that there are enough Swiss, Germans, Spanish, Dutch, etc. who understand English well enough to make subtitling a French movie in English cost-effective. The cost of subtitling a movie is around 1-2%  of the total cost of production.

(YES, TWO #@%$^* PERCENT!!!)

You know what? Maybe I'm way off base, maybe not enough people would rent the DVD to offset the cost of subtitling a movie in English. But even then, they could think of French movies that foreigners can understand as advertising for France tourism. Advertising that the target audience in PAYING FOR! Or perhaps it is part of the plan to drive down the number of tourists. This in addition to rectal sausage. Oh yeah, and massive, frequent transit strikes.

"What time tomorrow does the first train not leave?"
"It depends on where you would like to not go, Sir"

UPDATE

We rented the French-Canadian movie C.R.A.Z.Y. (which also won lots of awards) because the box said it had French subtitles. Well, turns out it only has French subtitles for the French-Canadian dialogue, and not for the French language narration. The pronunciation and syntax (and especially the profanity) of Quebecois is sufficiently different from the French spoken in France that French-Canadian movies are often subtitled in French for release in France. Apparently the narration in this movie is not difficult enough to understand to require subtitles. So, what did we learn? The French don't give a shit about the deaf and hard of hearing. Apparently, the entire French film audience is people people who are fluent in French,  younger than 60, and who have no hearing problems.

Toulouse, Part II: ROCK the boat

Are you ready to ROCK...with bunnies?!?!

So, about that boat. Turns out it's really a permanent music venue.

While a canal boat (Cri de la Mouette) is certainly an unusual location for a rock show featuring four bands (plus DJs), Jefe didn't think too much of it. Canal boats used as houses, restaurants, and bars are not so uncommon in certain places (Amsterdam especially, but also Paris). And while the outside looked a little grungy, the name matched, and the gangplank was sporting the same poster we'd seen, so it must be the place. Another reassuring sign (depending on how you look at it): the canal seemed pretty stagnant and shallow, so it didn't look like the boat was going anywhere.

Armed with this news, we rendez-vous'ed at the Cinema Utopia for Idiots and Angels, an animated film by George Plympton. It was without dialogue or embellishment, and was very well done. The underlying question to the audience is "What if you didn't get to choose whether you or not you do good?"

be good, dammit

Post-film and craving some spicy food, we were off to Baan Siam, a Thai restaurant Rebecca found on the internet (the guidebook, and even local publications, are completely devoid of information about Asian and Indian restaurants). While it was nearly empty when we got there, the waiter wanted to make sure we would finish in an hour as they were fully reserved starting at 9pm. I guess that's a good sign. We asked for our dishes très très piquant (very, very spicy) and were a little more than surprised to actually receive them that way. Jefe was sweating and blowing his nose from the hot peppers (just the way he likes it). We finished with some coffee ice cream to soothe our deliciously tortured tongues.

Leaving the restaurant, we were a little worried about being late for the start of the show and that the tiny canal boat would already be at capacity. Upon arriving, we learned that we couldn't board because the show wouldn't start for another hour (although we had some suspicions that we were turned away on the grounds of not being sufficiently hip). So we walked down the street (to a more upscale establishment) for a drink while we waited for the cool kids to decide that the magic hour had arrived and we could give them our money and come aboard. After the waiting-drink, we checked back, and saw there were still people loitering outside the boat. Since the show apparently still hadn't started, and since we had perhaps already been deemed not cool enough to enter when it did, we headed to a more distant bar to bide our time until the doormen were too stoned to care who they let in.

At some point while we were killing time, we found (to some surprise) our mysterious aquatic venue listed in not one but both guidebooks. Perhaps this was a legitimate operation after all, and not merely some squat turned music venue that required a certain haircut for entry. Reenergized, we turned around and made it inside in time to catch the first act, The Pumplies. Needless to say we were surprised. Not only was the music good (most of it awesome even), there was alcohol and bathrooms (that the awesome musicians occasionally puked in). So we ended up staying for all the bands. There was only one dud in the bunch (perhaps because, unlike the other bands, they lacked a female member), Wild Women and the Savages, which reminded us of the SNL spoof show Sprockets. However, the (male) guitar player was wearing a button-down suede mini dress, no underwear (steep stairs...you get the picture), and a lighted sign on his chest ("WW" for Wild Women), and the singer was wearing a Lucha Libre mask, so we tried to forgive them their musical shortcomings.

AWESOME BAND PICTURE

(Cristal Palace featuring singer reminiscent of 90's era Courtney Love and Ian Curtis)

NOT-SO AWESOME BAND PICTURE

(Wild Women and the Savages)

Edward Cullen+Samantha Ronson lookalike playing keyboards in Bogart and the Addictives

All in all, a great couple of days in Toulouse dodging some pretty nasty weather. Thanks to a combination of a guidebook or two, the internet, and a little luck.

Bordeaux, Part II: Vélo F***ing Sutra

To enrich our wanderings in the center of Bordeaux beyond shopping the thousands of post-holiday sales, we went in search of some contemporary art. There were a few spaces showing this kind of art in the center of Bordeaux, most notably the Espace St. Remi. Formerly a church, it has been converted into a space for showing contemporary paintings and sculptures

Jefe found it accidently while he was looking for a place to lock his bike near the hotel one afternoon. We passed the church/art gallery and immediately found ourselves in a quiet square, deserted except for a few middle aged women, each separated by 30 or 40 feet, sitting on chairs on the sidewalks with thigh-high, white, high-heeled boots (these are apparently the newest component of the national prostitute uniform this year, which we noticed in Poitiers). The art inside was almost as strange as the scene outside.

Apart from the Espace St. Remi, the center of Bordeaux is too expensive for emerging artists and they are forced to stay in nearby Eysine or the industrial area of Bègles. These side trips wouldn't be so bad, if it weren't for the ever-present rain. Oh well. So Jefe biked among semi-trailers and warehouses of Bègles to La Morue Noire for an exhibit by Frédéric Lucas. This sculpture garden was outside:
Inside the building were the paintings. Lucas uses an interesting technique; up close it looks like layers of peeling paint, but from a distance various forms are discernible among the chaos.

Sort of the urban/street version of a Monet.

Since this blog is about bikes and art, among other things, I have to mention a series of comics by Cami that were exhibited at the Maison du Vélo, Bordeaux's headquarters for bike rentals (only to residents, unfortunately), maps, and information.

Yes, that says Velo Sutra

Don't laugh too hard.  We did, until we actually saw some of these positions in action, at night, in the rain.  Pretty scary.

As anyone familiar with us should know, we visited all the local movie theaters. On the Place Camille Julian, there was Cinema Utopia, two screens and a cafe/bar in a converted church (a theme in Bordeaux?), where we saw Che: Part One. Also UGC Ciné Cité in the center of Bordeaux (where we saw Twilight and Slumdog Millionaire), and Cinema Festival in Bègles, kind of a hike, but worth it to see 20th Century Boys.

And while we like the combination of dinner and a movie more than the average couple, we have other interests too, notably live music. Champaign-Urbana has a very active music scene for a town its size (some of our favorite acts of recent years: The Beauty Shop, The Living Blue, Bellcaster, Animate Objects,  Headlights, Kate Hathaway, Darrin Drda's Theory of Everything, Triple Whip, and the list goes on). Needless to say, we jumped at the chance to see Calexico in Bordeaux at the Barbey Rock School. Apparently, so did a lot of other Bordelais, as the 700 seat venue was nearly full.

Pre-show, before most of the people finished their beers and coffees in the lobby.

Luckily, we got there early and were able to stand right near the stage.

They played for nearly two hours, and everyone (fans, band, us) was pretty exhausted by the end.  But Rebecca was sublimely happy.  She saw Calexico in a small outside venue in NYC a few years back, and this show brought back a lot of happy memories.

Berlin...Part II

Despite a forecast of wet and cold weather, Jefe decided to take his bike to Berlin. The transport system has good coverage and is efficient; one 2 € ticket gives you access to the S-Bahn (like the 'El' in Chicago), the U-Bahn (like the subway in London or New York), and the trams and buses for up to two hours. But taking the S-Bahn or U-Bahn only allows you to see things at one place or another, not in between. Since Berlin is spread out and relatively flat, a bike is the way to go, and Berliners seem to agree.

Even during our stay, with the lousy weather, the vast network of bike paths and bike lanes was consistently full of cyclists, who rode everything from older racing bikes to cargo bikes. Sometimes the bike paths are denoted only by differently colored bricks on the sidewalk, and so it quickly becomes second nature to look both ways before crossing a bike path.

On the bike, Jefe was able to explore places that were a little out-of-the-way, like the architectural neighborhood of Hansaviertel.
He also spent one afternoon checking into a few art galleries in the Mitte area of central Berlin. Most of these would be considered avant-garde, or just bizarre. The Zak Branicka gallery was showing a movie called A Summer's Tale, a fairy-tale by Katarzyna Kozyra about midget gardeners that begins idyllic and then turns ugly. The same building housed the Galerie Volker Diehl, showing work by Herbert Volkmann. The show was titled Die Morphinisten (The Morphine Addicts), and syringes featured heavily in most of the artwork.

For more entertaining entertainment, we went to see Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan (with opening band The Miserable Rich) at the Columbia Music Hall. They are from Glasgow and musically, they fall somewhere between Leonard Cohen and The Beauty Shop. They were very good, and we were surprised by the large Sunday night crowd. Maybe they have a cult following in Berlin. We were in a hurry to get home and didn't see any CD's for sale, but we will definitely look for something online.

Before the show, we stopped at Atame Tapas Bar for wine and finger food. One gem we found were these dates which were stuffed with almonds, wrapped in bacon, and then roasted. They were fantastic: salty, sweet, soft, and crunchy. The next night we returned to Nosh (where we ate twice while in Berlin in December 2007). The food is simple, but delicious, roast lamb shoulder with ratatouille and goose leg with mustard sauce and crispy potatoes. Also of note were the salmon brunch at Cream, the cold dahl salad and warm vegetarian paella at Saladette und Freunde, and the rum raisin Rittersport chocolate bars (not available in the US).

The Alexanderplatz was also buzzing with activity. The Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas Market) and carnival encompassed the area of three or four city blocks. For everyone, there were sausages, pretzels, crepes, candy and fries. For the kids, there were numerous rides: a ferris wheel, various carousels, and a rollercoaster. And for the adults there was Glühwein (mulled wine with rum and amaretto).

In Berlin, people drink on the street. They drink on the subway and on the metro. They drink on the bus and the tram. Bottle caps blanket the city, smashed empty bottles glint in the sun. And although Germans are most frequently associated with beer, glühwein is the beverage of choice from the beginning of November until the end of January. What? It's 4am, and you're out of glühwein? Try the pizza place next door. Chances are, they've got some.

Poitiers has mulled wine too, but here there is an issue of decorum, one which seems to have been resolved in Germany back when it was still called Prussia. This year Poitiers has banned the sale of vin chaud at the Christmas Market. This is has caused a small furor, and our friend William, the local Caviste, has started an informal petition (translation) to reverse this development. Du courage William!

Berlin...Part I

After Rebecca's students took the TOEIC, we decided to go to Berlin for a long weekend. We took the TGV from Poitiers directly to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris (very convenient) and flew into Berlin's Tegel airport. All in all, it took around 6 hours to get from our apartment to our hotel in Berlin.

We visited Berlin (among several other European cities) in late December of 2007 and really liked the undercurrent of chaos that permeates the city, especially the eastern side.
This chaotic energy is most notable through the pervasive graffiti and occasional trash in the streets. Poitiers, with its nightly trash collection and frequent sidewalk and street cleaning, seems anal in comparison. While we aren't particularly fascinated by the graffiti (or the trash), these seem to be manifestations of a ubiquitous creativity than can be hard to find in wealthier, more established cities like Paris or Boston. There always seems to be something going on, or something for sale, that you would be hard-pressed to see replicated anywhere else.

We stayed in the Fredreichshain area in the eastern part of the city. The area is more out of the way (and thus less frequented by tourists) than areas to the west, but with the all-encompassing S/U-Bahn system, this isn't much of a problem. The area is full of interesting cafes, used clothing stores, vintage record shops, streetwear outlets, and boutiques by independent designers.

Since we don't speak any German, we had to rely on websites like exberliner.com and berlin.unlike.com to give us a head start on food, movie and music happenings. Through these two sites, we were able to find Thai food that was as spicy as we're used to (a review mentioned dishes are "a tad too hot for the European palate," a good sign), as well as good movies in English with German subtitles (Moviemento and Babylon-Kreuzberg are two theaters that often have English-language films).

We also found a film festival titled "Around the World in 14 films" showing at the Babylon-Mitte Cinema. We were able to attend two of the films: Silent Light and Garage.


Part II coming soon...

Paris!

This weekend, Jefe and I went to Paris. Here is a list of all of the things we didn't do:

-go up to the top of the Eiffel Tower (or even go within sight of it)

-visit l'Arc de Triomphe (ditto)

-enter Notre Dame

-go inside the Moulin Rouge

-walk along the Champs-Elysees (not even close)

-eat at the Tour d'Argent (from Ratatouille)

-take a cruise down the river Seine

-admire paintings in the Louvre

-buy cheap souvenirs (this time we brought our own wine key)

-buy expensive souvenirs

-go to French Disneyland

The ostensible reason for our trip to the tourist-trap capital of the world was to attend the french leg of the Bicycle Film Festival. Due either to lack of funding, planning, or volunteers, (or perhaps some combination of these three), the festival was somewhat abbreviated; On Saturday afternoon, Jeff hunted for the bike polo players for a little while, but gave up when he didn't see anyone there, and later, we gathered with about 200 other people to watch a series of short bicycle-related films.

(Inside Le Cinema Racine)

The audience was boisterous and the films weren't bad... The stacks of bikes outside the theatre were kind of fun to look at.

(Everyone clearly brought their A-game...but only one fender in sight)

We went out to see a few other movies (at one movie theater we were ferried across a canal from the box office to the screens). We got to do a good amount of biking around the city (see below for details), but the best part of the trip was the FOOD. We went out to several really good restaurants, and a couple of excellent ones. The first night, Friday, we had dinner at Le Chansonnier (Classic french food: queue de boeuf, cassoulet, roast chicken aux cepes, gratinated potatoes with thyme). On Saturday, we had lunch at Le Potager du Marais (a tiny gluten-free and vegetarian restaurant: curried celery soup, vegetable gratin, cassoulet du mer, gateau aux noix). Saturday dinner was at the Bouillon des Colonies featuring food from the French colonies (hummus and eggplant caviar, lemongrass shrimp with basmati, lamb confit with cumin cous cous). Sunday brunch at Doudingue in Montmartre (tartelette provencal, salmon tartar, and lots of lovely looking glutenous treats such as pain au chocolat and mini croissants). Sunday dinner at the Saint-Germain Mandarin restaurant (lemongrass chicken soup, chicken with basil, and sweet and sour pork). And finally, a cute make-shift picnic in the Luxembourg gardens (goat cheese, yogurt, saucisson, baguette, rice cakes, and fruit). When we next go to Paris, we'll definitely return to Le Potager du Marais.

Now, back to bikes, or Velib'...

In case you don't follow foreign bike news and/or urban planning news as closely as the Jefe, in the last year Paris has introduced the "Velib", a revolution in urban transport. Basically, for a small subscription fee (5 euros for 7 days, or 29 euros a year) you are allowed access to any Velib bike parked at any of the automated Velib rental points (rental points are roughly 300 meters apart throughout most of the city, an incredible feat). The first 30 minutes of your rental are always free, and each subsequent half hour is one euro. Not bad, considering you can get pretty far in 30 minutes.

Rebecca quickly became a Velib' expert. Here she is returning a bike a few blocks from dinner.

Imagine, you walk out of a building to a nearby rental point, type in your information and ride off. You return the bike to a rental point near your destination, do some shopping, eat lunch and pick up a different bike from a different rental point to continue your errands. To us, this is truly astounding. The shear number of bikes available and the ease of use of the entire system seems utopian. And, in accordance with the Utopia Rule, there are a few kinks in the system: sometimes there are no bikes available at a rental point (for instance, right after a popular event, or late at night near bars and restaurants, or for the morning commute into central Paris), or sometimes the ones that are available aren't in very good shape (flat tires, wonky steering, missing baskets, stuck seatposts, bent chainguards; though they do replace and repair bikes frequently), and you have to have a European credit card with a chip (not a magnetic strip--but Ha-ha! Rebecca managed to get hers the day before we left for Paris). Though, if we consider the Velib' as merely one more mode of public transportation to supplement buses and subways, it succeeds admirably.

In order to get the most out of your Velib' rental, you have to know where to go (unless you enjoy dodging tourists around the Pompidou Center and Notre Dame). The best guide to Paris we found is called Pariscope and is often hidden behind the counter at newsstands. I'm not sure why they hide their guides to culture while filling valuable shelf space with pornography...maybe capitalism is taking hold?

Once you have your Pariscope in hand and a good map with a street index, you're ready to go. The Pariscope lists all the exhibitions in Paris, in both major and minor museums and galleries. It also has an index of locations, hours, and prices of museums and galleries. This is very important, there are so many museums and exhibition spaces not even the Parisiens can keep them straight (someone wanted to borrow our copy to look up some museum hours).

First, a trip to the Maison des Metallos for an exhibit titled 400ml. Hundreds of graffiti artists from around the world, made art out of cans of spray paint. Some had merely painted the cans, others went much further...

It says, in French, on the bottom of the can "why is my train always late?"

On Sunday, we went to the Carnavalet, the museum of the history of Paris. We were not so excited by 18th century paintings of Parisiens by other Parisiens, so we went for the exhibit of etchings of the Paris Metro by Akemi Noguchi.