Hei-de ter sempre no meu peito coisas tuas...

Goodbye Miss Taylor!

Dirk Braeckman

“Perhaps I want to create things that are elusive. And for me photography is the only way to do it. You’ve got an image in front of you: it’s not simply formal, but you can’t immediately describe it in any other way. At most you can say what’s there, but that’s not what it’s about. What I want, in fact, is to take to the point where there is nothing but that image.”

Dirk Braeckman

In each of his photographs, Dirk Braeckman creates a closed reality, one that, though derived from his personal environment, manifests itself as a whole isolated in itself. The core material of his pictures are places and spaces, preferably interiors, which he does not systematically explore, but rather documents in chance encounters on a more intuitive level. His pictures circle around what cannot be rendered in the manner of a portrait or likeness, but rather in a manner in which the artist’s personal existence is made emotionally perceptible as a dream or mood image. The situations involved are quite easily and directly identifiable. The reflection of the flash on varying surfaces indicates the presence of the artist, and at the same time disrupts the illusionary character of the picture. To temper the link to the motif, Dirk Braeckman generally prefers black-and white photography and a photo paper that gives the picture a surface with – so rare in photography – a tactile effect. On other occasions the pixel structure of the pictures enhances the impression of two-dimensionality. The frontal flashes, blurring, extreme cutting and obscuring of the perspective make for an atmosphere of uncertainty and indeterminacy, sometimes even evolving into the realm of complete abstraction.

“By keeping it dark and grey and printing it out of focus, I eliminate part of the information which detracts from the essence. In this way I aim for a purified situation, into which you are thrown as a viewer. I investigate things that seem insignificant. These are all places that somehow look as though they’ve been lived in, where the space has withstood a great deal or where people have gone through a lot, though you’ll never know what that was.”

 Dirk Braeckman

Oh, my love!

Oh my love for the first time in my life, 
My eyes are wide open, 
Oh my lover for the first time in my life, 
My eyes can see, 

I see the wind, 
Oh I see the trees, 
Everything is clear in my heart, 
I see the clouds, 
Oh I see the sky, 
Everything is clear in our world, 

Oh my love for the first time in my life, 
My mind is wide open, 
oh my lover for the first time in my life, 
My mind can feel, 

I feel the sorrow, 
Oh I feel dreams, 
Everything is clear in my heart, 
Everything is clear in our world, 
I feel the life, 
Oh I feel love. 

Charles Laughton: Night of the Hunter

'Nothing could be more remarkable than the fact that an actor known for his vanity and his brilliance was capable of making a film like Night of the Hunter. But Charles Laughton's film is a classic, containing one of the very best performances of Robert Mitchum's career as the murderous Preacher Powell.

A commercial, if not a critical failure, the film got such a poor public reception that Laughton was never asked to direct again. Now, however, this 1955 movie looks better and better, and much more than the "nightmarish sort of Mother Goose tale" that Laughton called it. It's also a complex study of good and evil, innocence and betrayal, with the strength and power of the best of E T A Hoffmann's tales.

The protagonists are children remorselessly pursued by an evil, hymn-spouting stranger who, having murdered their mother (Shelley Winters), seeks to steal from and kill them too. One of them at least knows that the word "hate", written on the fingers of the preacher's left hand, is more appropriate than the word "love" tattoed on his right.

But we, like the adults, are less certain that they are right to run away down the river into the Mississippi swamplands. This is, after all, Robert Mitchum and he can't be all that bad, can he? In the end he is, and they are saved only by the appearance of the fairy godmother figure of the spinster Rachel, played by Lillian Gish, the Christian protector of strays, whether children or animals.

This is a moral film that nevertheless gives us a tantalising glimpse of something akin to purgatory. It's far more frightening than most horror films, though it defies the genre tag, whether as thriller, horror or allegory. Laughton, a superb actor himself, was able to draw such a devastating performance out of Mitchum, and to create such a satisfying whole only with the help of a good team. Stanley Cortez, who shot Welles's The Magnificent Ambersons, was one of the last great black and white cinematographers. Here, he sought and achieved an extraordinary atmosphere of menace, mixed with the naked beauty of the Deep South during the Depression. Walter Schumann's music was exceptional, too. But Laughton had to make the choices, and he did so with unerring skill.

He was generous about Mitchum, despite the star's celebrated put-down of himself - "Paint my eyes on my eyelids, man, and I'll walk through it". Laughton called him "one of the best actors in the world, a tender man and a great gentleman".

The only thing that really troubled Laughton were the children. He didn't like them, and Mitchum was left to help with their performances. Perhaps this is why their scenes look a little as if they come from another film. But even this works since they come from a totally different emotional world from the adults.

The script for the film was more Laughton's than that of James Agee, whose last film this was always thought to be. In fact, Laughton did turn to him for help but the two could not agree, with Laughton complaining that Agee's version was "as big as a telephone book".

Night Of The Hunter, though not without its faults - chiefly when it becomes a little too obviously arty - is one of those films that seems totally right from beginning to end.

As the title suggests, most of it was shot at night, and thus the hymn that forms the film's ironic refrain becomes that much more chilling: "Leaning, leaning! Safe and secure from all alarms! Leaning, leaning! Leaning on the everlasting arms!".'

Miss Afrodita Karambolo, a.k.a. Lady bird, e senhor Grga!!!

A segunda história de amor mais bela do mundo, a primeira, é a nossa meu Pandalote maravilhoso!!!!

Desejo...

...de te ouvir a cantar desafinado bem perto da minha orelha.

Você e eu

...and love...

...for you!!!

Desire...

Devolvo-ta....

Your love is most definitely king, ruler of my heart!

Love is a many splendored thing!!!!

"Love is a many splendored thing

It's the April rose, 

That only grows 

In the early spring

Love is nature's way of giving, 

A reason to be living, 

The golden crown 

That makes a man a king..."

Somewhere a queen is weeping. Somewhere a king has no wife. and the wind it cries...

Missing you...

"Within you I lose myself...
Without you I find myself wanting to be lost again."

Para hoje te fazer sorrir...

...subia a montanha mais alta, vestia um fato de tirolês, pintava um bigode ranhoso na cara, dava uns patéticos passinhos de dança e cantava a plenos pulmões o amor que te tenho no meio das cabras montesas!!!

Falta-me o fato e a montanha... mas pelo menos encontrei um bug, que se calhar até vais gostar...

The Elvis Bug!!!!

"Well, it's one for the money,
Two for the show,
Three to get ready,
Now go, cat, go.

But don't you step on my Elvis Bug.
You can do anything but lay off of my Elvis bug."

Biutiful is not beautiful

Belo tem de estar mal escrito, belo aqui é cinzento e azul brilhante mas muito escuro, belo aqui é um papel de parede velho e com humidade, é gelado derretido que se come com as mãos, é um frigorífico que pode dar choque, belo aqui é bipolar, um santo que peca, belo é renegado, belo foge, belo sofre e morre, belo dói... Senhor Iñárritu obrigada por não ser beautiful!

"Can't take my mind off of you"

“My eyes are an ocean in which my dreams are reflected.”