The Atlanta Ballet's "The Nutcracker"

Image adapted from here.

I see "The Nutcracker" ballet every year,* and for 2019 I had the chance to see the Atlanta Ballet for the first time. While the story is clearly similar every time, this one had a twist that Marie, the little girl of the show, was dreaming of stories she had read in her beloved books.

The main difference I saw in this performance actually had nothing to do with dance or ballet at all. This show uses a lot more projected images, so much so that at points I felt like I was at the movie theater instead of the Kennedy Center. While it was interesting to see a bird's eye view of the town as if I were at an IMAX, that's not why I go to the ballet. Actually, the images were so bright and the movement so jarring that I felt a little motion-sick. And some of the images were just plain inaccurate: I liked the projected snowflakes, but we all know that snowflakes are hexagonal, or have six points, no more and no less; the show couldn't even follow that one scientific rule.

Speaking of rules, this show did not have a Sugarplum Fairy or Snow Queen. How is that possible?! Doesn't every ballerina dream of being the Sugarplum Fairy? That role was completely removed! I realize there are no "rules" for art, but I feel like the Number One rule of this show would be that a Sugarplum Fairy is there to guide us through the fantastical dreams. (Side bar: the Christmas tree that grows in size was also unimpressive.)

Creeper. Image found here.

Drosselmeier, the creepy uncle, instead plays a larger part in the story. Nikolas Gaifullin is so good looking, so pretty, that I honestly was questioning whether a woman was playing the part! He seems to be everywhere throughout the show that I began to grow sick of him. And he may have been creepier than the character usually is: he unties her dress earlier, and then he wraps up Marie in his large cape so you couldn't seen them together underneath this "tent." Who knows what he was doing to her under there!

Despite these errors that could have been easily avoided, I still enjoyed the show very much. Here were the highlights for me:

-Party scene: Before we even come into the house, we're out front watching a couple ice skate (on roller blades) and some people skiing and sledding. That part was fun and different, people rolling around on wheels. During the party, the adults play with a Christmas-themed maypole and get wildly tangled up in it from enjoying too much champagne.

-The mice: The Mouse King wore a crown of silverware, and his fellow mice crawled along the floor on skateboards.

-The international dances: This is always my favorite part of the show. The Arabian dance had three men and one woman, which was different. She played a cobra and wore a fishnet bodysuit with gold scales on it, and all three dancers mimicked snake-like movements. The Chinese dance was performed by one woman (Fuki Takahashi) who danced with fans, and two couples performed the Russian dance instead of the usual 3-4 men.

The French dance was very funny, with the rooster and hen couple and their baby chicks. Image found here.

-The flower waltz: Their version included three couples who are dragonflies (the women) and roses (the men), so that was new. I didn't love the use of green lighting (it made everyone on stage look like frogs), but I liked the creative touch.

The botanical set was really pretty Image found here.

-The stars: This was also unique to this performance (since there was no Sugarplum Fairy). The acrobats and light-up tutus were really cool!

Image found here.

I'm glad I went, but I've seen better performances of this beloved ballet. *Read my other Nutcracker posts here:
2013: Joffrey Ballet
2014: Ballet West
2015: Washington Ballet
2016: Cincinnati Ballet
2017: Pennsylvania Ballet
2018: Moscow Ballet

2019 Nature Walk with Melanie Choukas-Bradley

I was all decked out in my Dartmouth green for this event!

For yet another year in a row, Melanie Choukas-Bradley has led a nature walks in Rock Creek Park for the Women of Dartmouth Club of D.C. She is a local naturalist and author, and she leads nature walks not only in D.C. but also in places like the Badlands. She is amazing, and I honestly joke about wanting to be her when I grow up. (Here's my blog post about a previous walk she led for our group.)

I love plant identification, so I was very happy that we got plenty of that in our walk this weekend. Here are some fun facts I learned (I learn something new every time I go out on a walk with Melanie.):

The bitternut hickory has a velvety yellow bud, and the scar where the previous bud was looks like a monkey face.      Image found here.

Partridge Berry is identified by its red berries, and in the spring they have white or light pink flowers. Native Americans used to use the leaves as a wash or salve for women's sore nipples from breast feeding.

The mapleleaf viburnum has black berries. Image found here.

I know that Spicebush smells good, but we also smelled the Beefsteak plant, which is part of the mint family.                Image found here.

Eastern Hop-Hornbeam has flowers that look like hops. The tree has both flowers and catkins (i.e. tree sperm), so the tree is monoecious (as opposed to dioecious), having both male and female parts. Image found here.

AND there are 20 kinds of Oak trees in this region!

Melanie pointed out some good, go-to plant ID trees which I already knew about. But she did teach me a few new things:

She said the samaras on the tulip tree look like candles when the light hits them. And the trees can grow so big that Native Americans used to make canoes out of the trunks. Image found here.

The leaves of the American Beech have parallel veins, which can help with identification. Image found here.

The American Elm's shape at the top looks like a full vase, and I noticed that all the thin, tiny twigs seem to meet the main branches at 90 degree angles. Image found here.

The Spicebush, which is part of the laurel family, has tiny, round buds. They are brown or burgundy on the females (and sometimes more pointed) and greenish on the males. The males will bloom first, and then the females will bear fruit that goes from green to red.  Image found here.

 Just like the Sycamore, the Silver Maple likes to be near water. Its leaves have more teeth than the sugar maple, which can be a helpful way to tell the difference between the two trees. Image found here.

The Eastern Cottonwood is related to the Quaking Aspen, and both of these trees have leaves that flutter in the wind (the petiole, the stalk that connects the leaf blade to the stem, is flat, which allows for that movement). The tree has very chunky, block-like bark. Image found here.

The Boxelder is a type of maple tree, although it has a compound leaf that looks more like poison ivy leaves. Its samaras (winged seeds) grow on tails almost, and they make quite the shaking sound when the wind blows. Image found here.

White oaks have shaggier bark than other oaks, especially towards the top. Image found here.

When the Crane-fly orchid is in full bloom, the leaves die back and come back later. Image found here.

Even in the winter you can see the seed pods of the Eastern Redbud tree. Image found here.

Skunk cabbage is in the same family as the corpse flower. Image found here.

The Scarlet Oak, which is the tree of Washington, D.C., has leaves with very deep lobes, and the acorn looks like a child's top. The Red Oak (NJ's state tree) on the other hand has acorns that look like they are wearing little French berets. Images found here and here respectively.

We also saw a few non-native invasive plants, like the Japanese knotweed and Winged Euonymous (also known as Burning Bush), which are both pretty noticeable in the fall because of their leaves.

While we were walking, and Melanie quite poetically said, "Every day there is a new tapestry of leaves." Such a nice sentiment! It was kind of like how Pocahontas felt about rivers:

Melanie mixed in some forest bathing with our walk. She brought out a poem written by Poet Laureate Joy Harjo called "Remember." Here is the poem:

Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star’s stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away tonight.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother’s, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.

What a fun group! And yes, I am always the go-to "Sorority squat" person.

Looking forward to next time!

Amadeus at the Folger Theatre

Image found here

I really like the 1984 film Amadeus, which was based on the screen play by Peter Shaffer. So I was excited to see the live version of the play in person at the Folger Theatre. Since the movie is based on the screen play, the live performance and the film are very similar. So if you like the movie, you should definitely see this show! (Well, you should see the show even if you've never seen the movie!)

Image found here

The set was beautiful. The walls were created by the strings of instruments, like harps surrounding the stage to create space for the characters. And the costumes were amazing! They were so detailed and extravagant.

Look at this coat! This is Mozart conducting, and it was like we were the audience not only for the play but also for his opera.

I thought the actors did a fantastic job. Ian Merrill Peakes as Salieri was phenomenal. For most of the play, he is giving monologues of his thoughts and feelings; he had so many lines to memorize! He really embraced everything about the character. And I liked Samuel Adams as Mozart, although he played the character exactly like Tom Hulce did in the film. I liked how Hulce did it, so I liked this too, but it would have been more interesting to see how Adams interpreted the character instead of mimicking how someone else did it.

Here are two of my favorite scenes from both the play and the movie (from the film):

You can see how this photo from the play aligns with the scene from the movie very well. Image found here.

It's a serious story with lots of funny parts, and I really enjoyed it. But I will say that the play is very long. The show itself is more than two hours long, and there is an intermission. As much as I liked the play, I couldn't help but fall asleep during the second act. That's one nice thing about the film: it cuts out a lot of the unnecessary dialogue. Some of the scenes in the play last far too long, and the characters could say what they needed to say by getting to the point faster. But perhaps you may have a longer attention span than I do, or you are more of a night-owl.

Either way, I highly recommend you buy tickets for this show. It really is a wonderful production! Buy your tickets here.

Click here if you would like to read the DC Theatre Scene's review of the show.

Cocktails Competition at Republic Restoratives

One of my favorite Sunday activities is going to Ivy City in D.C. and checking out the distilleries in the area. There are several all quite close to each other, and I sort of create my own bar crawl (except classier). But yesterday I went specifically to visit Republic Restoratives, the only women-owned distillery in D.C. They were hosting a cocktail competition where five mixologists would each create their own signature cocktail using RR's Chapman's Apple Brandy. Guests could try mini-cocktails from each and then vote on their favorites. I immediately bought tickets. What a fun idea!

Inside Union Market. Image found here.

Since I knew we would be drinking (and that I'd be driving), a friend and I met up at Union Market first for lunch (okay, I'll admit I stopped by Cotton & Reed first for a tasting of their Allspice Dram. SO GOOD.). I enjoyed an acai bowl from South Block, which is one of my favorite things to get there. My friend got a meatball sub and soup from Cucina Al Volo, and bought me some focaccia bread to enjoy after our cocktails to soak up the alcohol (he said both the sandwich and soup were sub-par, but the bread was good). Once we were full, we made the 20-minute walk over to RR. Let the fun begin!

We all were given tickets at the door for both the tastings and the voting. Then we went station to station to try all the tastings. Here's what we enjoyed:

Zac Hoffman got bonus points for offering a snack of baguette with his homemade apple butter. And look at that flair!

1. The Washington Apple 2K19 - This was the first drink we tried, created by Zac Hoffman from La Jambe (above). Here's what he told RR about his cocktail:

"My cocktail is a reinvention of a trash classic, The Washington Apple. Beloved and feared in every college town, the simple and underrepresented apple flavored drink has been relegated to sorority sisters and chads who don’t know how to drink. But no longer, a truly pure and wholesome re-imagined “Washington Apple” has come to grace the lips of all who seek real apples, and damn good liquor. This cocktail is the final form of the original and it still puts you on your ass after a long night of dancing on tables and mirror selfies with the squad...but like, with real apples."

His cocktail contained two RR spirits (the Chapman's Apple Brandy and their Borough Bourbon), along with the apple butter, cranberry and lime juice, and bitters. I was a little confused by the lime juice: that along with the cranberry juice made the drink taste like it wanted to be a cosmopolitan. I think the lime made it taste more summery, like a margarita, and less like a fall drink, which this clearly is supposed to be. But it still was yummy!

We liked that Rachael Rosenbaum's drink was garnished with rosemary and star anise.

2. The Apple Blossom - This delicious cocktail was created by Rachael Rosenbaum, a bartender at Fat Tiger in Fells Point, Baltimore. Here's a little bit about this drink:

[The Apple Blossom is] inspired by the life cycle of an apple, the drink lends floral notes via lavender and fortified wine to represent its first stages as a blossom. Then comes the fresh, full, ripe fruit as the palate shifts to apple brandy and lemon. Finally we’re met with baking spice and sweet syrup, a nod to the apple’s ultimate end: baked homemade treats! This drink is an homage to the apple, a “thank you for your service” if you will, met with a touch of nostalgia for Mom’s apple pie.

The cocktail had a lot of ingredients, which meant a lot of flavors! Along with the Chapman's Apple Brandy, there was Calvados, the aforementioned Allspice Dram, lemon juice, dry vermouth, apple-lavender cordial, and a star anise tincture. We loved it!

3. The Chapman Double Apple - I wonder if this drink was supposed to be called "The Double Chapman Apple," since this bartender's name is Chris Chapman.

Chris considers this the perfect Fall/Winter beverage, where all of the ingredients highlight the star of the potion, Chapman's Apple Brandy. The Appleton rum brings a subtle spice and vanilla, the honey brings out more of that apple in the brandy, and the bitters blend it all together in an aromatic ballet.

This drink was stronger than the first two, perhaps because there was Appleton Rum along with orange and decanter bitters (and Chapman's, clearly). The honey in the drink was perhaps meant to cut the bitterness of the alcohol, but it didn't quite work. BUT I loved the gold flake he had in the drink; I had never tasted a sparkly cocktail before!

Glittery cocktail!

4. When Life Gives You Coconuts - Courtney Taylor-Daniels, the bar manager at Toki Underground, made this coconut cocktail for us.

When Life Gives you Coconuts was created because of a double case order of coconut cream. She found herself stuck trying to figure out what to do with an overabundance of one very specific mixer they previously only used for piña coldadas. Originally she made the cocktail with gin but then tried switching out the gin for Chapmans Apple Brandy, and was hooked. She strongly believes this cocktail can convert anyone who doesn’t like coconut to a fan!

She added Coco López, Calpico, and lime juice to the Chapman's Apple Brandy to make this concoction. Perhaps I was disappointed that the drink didn't taste like a piña colada even though it looked like one; it was the same feeling I get when I have frozen yogurt that I already know won't taste like ice cream. I wanted to like it, but even the little flower garnish couldn't save this drink for me.

His sweater says, "Leftovers are for quitters." It made up for the lack of décor on his table.

5. Johnny's Camaro - Sam Nellis from The Red Hen and All-Purpose Pizzerias created his own version of the Sidecar with this cocktail, using Pierre Ferrand Dry Curaçao and his own limon de Normandie to mix with the Chapman's Apple Brandy.

Sam's goal with his cocktails is always to create something that is inviting and delicious, that you can think deeply about if you want but that you could also lose yourself in and forget about the worries on your mind. "Johnny's Camaro" is one such example. Named after a song by one of Sam's mother's favorite artists, this is a drink one could throw back without a second thought, but if one digs in deeper, they'll find alluring apple, orange depth, and a sprinkle of nuttiness. Complex and simple at the same time.

While we had hoped that we had saved the best for last, this was actually our least favorite drink of the day. There were no mixers in it, just alcohol. He said something about using the ingredients to cut the acidity, but to me, that makes no sense: you can't add flavors of orange and lemon, both acidic fruits, to make something less acidic. Needless to say, he did not get our vote.

So who was the big winner? (Drum roll, please)... Rachael Rosenbaum from Fat Tiger! Her's was one of my favorites, so I'm glad she won!

This was such a fun idea. For $20, you could have a fun time tasting unique cocktails (and while we had already eaten, Call Your Mother deli was there serving bagel sandwiches for an additional cost). The event certainly drew a crowd. I hope Republic Restoratives does this again; it could be a seasonal thing! And honestly, I hope the other nearby distilleries decide to host similar events: it's so much fun and a great way to bring people into your establishment, have them try your spirits (and spend money!), and partner with other local restaurants and bartenders.

And wouldn't you know it: my prayers were answered! Crimson is hosting a similar contest on December 2, but with TWELVE cocktail tastings and food included! You can bet I'll be there!

My weekend in New York City

The iconic New York skyline

My grandmother has lived in New York City for decades, and I have had the amazing opportunity to visit her a couple of times every year (I even lived with her during my internships in college). I never make it up to NYC as often as I'd like. But this past weekend, my grandma wasn't the only thing bringing me to the Big Apple: Dartmouth was playing Princeton in a football game inside Yankee Stadium. I wasn't going to miss that!

I took the Vamoose Bus up to New York last Friday, a trip which took nearly six hours due to rush hour traffic (the Lincoln Tunnel is the worst!). But I took the LIRR for the first time to Flushing from Penn Station, and that was super-easy. Since I got in so late, I only got to hang out for a little with my grandma, as well as my dad and uncle (they went up for the game, too).

Billy's was packed with Dartmouth alumni! I've never seen so much green before!

Saturday was the big day: game day! Dartmouth (Alumni? Athletics? unsure) reserved the entire space at Billy's, a bar right across the street from Yankee Stadium. The place was huge, and good thing: there were probably 1,000 alumni there! I was disappointed that I didn't recognize anyone, but my dad and uncle found fellow classmates. The place was so packed; once we found a comfortable corner on the patio, we just stayed out there. I had forgotten how many beautiful people go to Dartmouth: all of the younger alumni at the event were gorgeous! Everyone was so excited, and that school spirit never dies for any of us who truly bleed Green. Even though I only knew my dad and uncle there, it was still a lot of fun to be around that happy energy.

The game celebrated 150 years of college football. Both teams were undefeated, so it was a big game!

We then headed over to the stadium. Of course Yankee Stadium can hold 54,000 people, and while a lot of alumni were there, the place still looked pretty empty, since there were only a couple thousand people there at most. But at least there was more green than orange in the audience!

My dad and me at the game. Pretty cool to see a football game inside a baseball stadium!

I haven't watched any football (college or pro) all season, so it was exciting to see a game live. There were some great plays (a few interceptions), and we won the game! I would have had a good time either way, but winning is so much more fun than losing! (*Want more details about the game? See the links at the bottom of this post.)

After that, my uncle and I went to an after-party of one of his classmates. I didn't know anyone there, but I was classmates with the hostess' son (he was in Mexico City at the time). It was fun chatting with people, but since they were older, we didn't have too much in common. I was ready to head home after the long day. But it's always nice to be invited to a party when they don't even know you!

Despite the late night, I headed into the city early the next morning. I caught a Statue Cruises ferry from Battery Park to visit Liberty Island. I wanted to see the new Statue of Liberty Museum, which only opened this past May (I learned about it when I was reading about Diane von Furstenberg in Harper's Bazaar magazine, since she helped do a lot of the fundraising; she herself is an immigrant, so it's a cause that is close to her heart.). I didn't know much about the Statue of Liberty, just that she was a gift from the French and that she's green because she's made of copper. So I learned a lot at the museum! I highly recommend the museum!

Here are some fun facts:

-While the Statue was given as a gift by the French, France fundraised for the statue's creation (in part to reinvigorate the ideals of democracy in France). In return, the US fundraised for the pedestal that she would stand upon.

Here are some models of the designs of the potential pedestal.

-The statue is made up of hundreds of pieces of copper that have been hammered out into really thin sheets of metal. They are all connected around a stainless-steel (originally iron) skeleton designed by the same man who created the Eiffel Tower. In the photo below you can see the seams between the multiple pieces of copper "skin."

-The Statue of Liberty stands for many things in our culture, many of them contradicting. On the one hand she stands for freedom, equality, and the American Dream (i.e. anyone who comes to America can make a better life for themselves). On the other hand, she was built when women still couldn't vote and slavery had only recently been abolished in America (and African Americans still didn't have equal rights), so a lot of people felt that the statue was a hypocrisy.

At one point her torch was made of stained glass, but the light never shown brightly from it. Now the torch is covered in gold leaf instead.

-This poem, written by Emma Lazarus, a Sephardic Jewish woman, sits at the base of the statue:

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Of course I got suckered into going into the gift shop. I bought a unicorn (who looks like a pig) and an ornament.

I took the ferry back to Battery Park and quickly looked around Castle Clinton. It was historically a fort, which then was transformed into a theater, and then was an immigration office, then an aquarium, before finally being restored to its original form.

After such a busy weekend, I was pretty exhausted by mid-day. So I was able to switch my return bus from 5:00pm to 1:30pm, which was so much better. I grabbed lunch at a street stand (as you do in New York), and the trip home was so much faster (I was home by 5:30pm). It was nice being able to get home early and do some laundry, make some dinner, and relax before the start of the work week.

Such a fun weekend! Now I'm even more pumped for my Dartmouth reunion in June!

*For you true sports fans out there, here are some articles with more details about the game:

• https://www.amny.com/sports/undefeated-dartmouth-ends-princetons-17-game-win-streak-at-yankee-stadium/
• https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2019/11/dartmouth-football-gets-key-win-over-princeton-at-yankee-stadium-27-10
• https://www.vnews.com/Dartmouth-football-vs-Princeton-30086337

ARRIVAL from Sweden at the Strathmore

They look like the real deal! Image found here

I grew up listening to ABBA's Gold album of greatest hits. My mom grew up with their music, and she shared it with me. I saw that ARRIVAL from Sweden was going to perform at the Strathmore, but I didn't buy tickets until just a few days before the show. I'm so glad that my mom could come with me!

The group was performing along with the National Philharmonic, so that was pretty cool (I especially liked seeing Piotr Gajewski in a light blue suit as opposed to his usual tux.). All of the musicians, both in the orchestra and the band, were very impressive. And Vicky Zetterberg and Jenny Gustafsson, who perform as Anni-Frid Lyngstad (Frida) and Agnetha Faltskog respectively, can certainly sing. I wasn't sure what to think about their costumes at first, but when they said they were based on real outfits ABBA wore in the 1970's, then it made sense. The energy was low in the venue at first (especially when they were talking about the divorces of the real ABBA couples), but once the band encouraged the audience to get up and dance, then it was more fun. And the crowd went wild when they came on stage wearing Nationals jerseys and sang Baby Shark!

Here are some of my favorite ABBA songs:

Dancing Queen

Mamma Mia

Gimme, Gimme, Gimme!

The Winner Takes It All

Super Trouper

SOS

Waterloo (They won a competition singing this song, and that's what put them on a the map.)

Take a Chance on Me

Fernando (This song was in Swedish on a solo album, but then the group covered it in English.)

Money, Money, Money

Thank You for the Music

Chiquitita

They were just so talented! I love this music!

Arabian Sights Film Festival [SPOILERS]

I was randomly looking up DC film festivals, and I happened upon the website for the Arabian Sights Film Festival. All of the film screenings took place at the AMC Mazza Gallerie in Friendship Heights; that's so close to me, so I had to go! A pass for 10 tickets is $100, which is only $10 per tickets, a pretty good deal. I knew I could find friends to go with me, so I wouldn't end up paying all of the $100 by myself. But I knew I was going to get my money's worth!

Here are the films I saw during the film festival:

Image found here

Womit haben wir das verdient? (What Have We Done to Deserve This?)

This was a funny German film that looks at a dysfunctional family as the teenage daughter decides to convert to Islam. Her liberal parents cannot understand why she would want to oppress herself in this way, and the film follows the parents' journey of trying to understand their daughter and come to terms with her decision.

Image found here

Rashid & Rajab

This film is based on a common theme of "rich man and poor man swap places and experience each other's lives." A food delivery man and a wealthy executive get into a car accident, and when they come-to, they realize that their minds have swapped bodies. Hilarity ensues as they pretend to be each other and try to convince their wives and daughters that everything is normal. Eventually the truth comes out, and they find a fortune teller gypsy woman to help break the spell (although she's not much help; being electrocuted a lá What Women Want does the trick).

Image found here

Jusqu'ici Tout Va Bien (New Biz in the Hood!)

While the French title more closely translates as "so far so good," the English title is more literal about the actual movie. A business owner has claimed that his HQ office is in a bad part of town to get a tax write-off, but the auditors figure it out. To escape from getting in legal trouble, he moves his office into the sketchy area as well as hires locals to join his business. The film focuses on the employees and how they help grow the business. The movie is a bit silly and doesn't have a great plot, but I was entertained.

Image found here

Advocate

I found this film to be a little like RBG or Seeing Allred, which are also documentaries about female lawyers fighting for justice. Lea Tsemel is a lawyer in Israel who represents Palestinian criminals in court. Of course the odds are already stacked against them because they have to go before an Israeli judge. The film focuses on a specific case of a 13-year-old boy who had wielded a knife, as had his 15-year-old friend. The elder boy was shot and killed by police. The younger one was hit by a car, and even though he was injured in the head, the police immediately took him into custody and started berating him during his interrogation. He himself had not killed anyone, nor was that ever his intention (he just wanted to scare people). The film never reveals what the boy looks like for his own safety; a cartoon is drawn over the footage instead (like in the photo above). In the end, he received nine years in prison and was charged as an adult rather than a juvenile. If we think the justice system in America is unfair, this film shows us that Israel's system is even worse. The police brutality shown in the movie is horrible. The work that Tsemel is doing is important, but she herself was not portrayed in the best light: she tells her interns to "eat shit" and calls her fellow lawyer a "motherfucker." So...not the nicest woman despite the good work she is doing.

Image found here

Exfiltrés (Escape from Raqqa)

This film was difficult to watch because I had zero sympathy for the female protagonist. She becomes brainwashed (I assume through the internet) and converts to Islam; she then wants to move to the Middle East with her son. BUT she doesn't tell husband any of this. Instead, she lies, saying that she's taking the boy to Turkey where they're meeting up with her friend. He soon learns this is a lie when he sees said friend in Paris. The film goes between the husband trying to find his wife and son (mainly through his boss' son, who somehow works in foreign relations in the Middle East), and then the wife realizing the horrible situation she's in and how she wants to get out. The film is exciting to watch, and you're always wondering what will happen next. But it's hard to care about someone who is so clearly self-absorbed; if she had died, I wouldn't have cared. But through quick thinking, connections, and lots of money, she and the boy safely return to France. She is immediately arrested for kidnapping and spends three months in jail. But get this: the husband takes her back! And this is a true story! That man must really love her, even though the feeling clearly isn't mutual. Poor (stupid) guy.

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Un Divan a Tunis (Arab Blues) [Won the festival's Jury Award]

I like both the French and English titles. The French one translates as "a divan to Tunis," which alludes to the couch that patients sit on when meeting with a psychologist; the blues are what the clients are feeling and why they turn to Selma (played by Golshifteh Farahani) in the first place. Selma is a licensed psychoanalyst in Paris, but she comes back to Tunis where she grew up to open her own practice. We mainly see the protagonist as she is meeting with clients and her continued run-ins with cop Naim (played by Majd Mastoura) as he tries to tell her she cannot practice without a local license. I was amused by the film, and I especially love Selma's effortless sense of style (I wanted all of her clothes).

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A common thread I saw in all of the movies was that European films are not nearly as politically correct as American movies are. There were certain jokes or instances that were supposed to be funny, but I was cringing instead of laughing. For example, in Arab Blues, one of her clients gets violent assuming she's a spy; another time the cop tells her to blow in his face because he doesn't have a breathalyzer. In both cases I was worried for the female character's safety, and that's never funny. I was actually surprised by how many audience members were laughing at moments like this. I'm not sure if this means that Americans are too sensitive, or that the rest of the world needs to follow our lead and realize that some things aren't funny. Ever.