my life must seam really sad now that i only speak about things i see on a screen.
but this one made me laugh, quite loud - very rare thing - and so i've seen the entire first season in three days. it's just very funny, crazy characters. looking forward to season 2! it's the second time i speak about dennis o'rourke here but this time i have to say this was one of the most impressive and well made documentaries i've seen. i think i have decided this is my favourite genre! after russia made the first tests with the h-bomb, our dear US of A were feeling pressured to evolve quicker then them communists. so nuclear tests begin in a little region in micronesia, in the bikini atoll.
they evacuated the atoll - the "savages" were very understandable - they say they analised the weather conditions and everything is set, ok, let's go and try the h-bomb in the pacific! operation bravo is launched! little detail: they evacuate the bikini atoll but don't evacuate two other islands very close to bikini. and oh wait! all of a sudden the winds change and they send all the radiation and fumes to these two islands! so, this day in march the bomb explodes, they look all surprised because of the wind change and science starts marching towards knowledge! the villagers from these two small islands (circa 300 inhabitants) start walking on radioactive ashes, eat the fish which all of a sudden turns sour, the coconuts taste funny...a few days later some people show up with burns in their feet, their throat, the air starts to fall...and only months after do the USA send doctors there. the levels of radioactivity are incredible but they always say it's not that bad. the villagers receive no explanation and they slowly turn ill. how convenient to know the effects of radiation on people, no? the story is so unbelieavable that it sounds fiction. but then you see the handicapped babies and the crying mothers who for three times in a row give birth to dead babies who look like monsters. i think everyone should see this, is just incredible. a little radioactive paradise. more information about the real story here this was an interesting documentary i've seen on my way back to braga. it's about the emerging and..."evil" tourism in bolívia.
i liked it a lot, although it's quite amateur, the way it's done and the subject is very interesting. it is about the tourists who visit the mines in potosi. every travel guidebook would mention it as an "amazing experience" or something like that, and the documentary starts to interview some tourists and kind of portraits them as a bit stupid. maybe they were not lucky finding the people to speak about why they chose to go to the mines or how they felt there. from what i understood, the miners don't have a good idea of the tourists either, and don't understand why they are the attraction. the thing is that these miners work in such horrible conditions that this is almost exotic. they work the same way as they did centuries ago. they interview the town mayor who wants to dress these miners as they did in the colonial times, just for the tourists. and they interview an ex-miner who now works at a company who organizes these tours through the mines. he feels sorry that tourism has been basically destroying the traditional culture. where women used to plant potatoes now they are knitting souvenirs...and he is quite sure that there'll be mines adapted for the tourists, just for them to see. the last scene shows some tourists all happy throwing dinamite and wanting to drink beer after being there. the miners say that the tourists are not good for these jobs because they only enjoy life. i don't know. i could easily be one of those tourists i think. as a tourist, people want to experience as much as possible, but after two long experiences abroad, i tend to value more and more the long stays and to feel more of an intruder in the short ones. my brother travelled through south america recently and he loved it, but this is true, some entire villages live of selling souvenirs. but who's to blame really? spring has arrived here a bit wet, but yesterday the sky was quite clean so me and luís went for a 10 km walk. i stopped calling the things i usually did "hikings" after i hiked in Dumbier. we were in sintra and made the "route of the capuchos". it was quite steep but that's just me maybe. i really needed to feel my body physically exhausted, i haven't moved much.
well, it was nice. on saturday we went to the museum of our best political cartoonist! you can see some of his great work in drawing and ceramics, we really liked it a lot! and it would be great if some reincarnation of him would come again. we need some witty cartoons! he was the inventor of the "zé povinho" character, supposed to represent the portuguese people: suffering but quiet, happy with a bit of food and wine.
he lived during monarchy and was a hard critic of the system, having been censored a lot. sad to think he died in 1905, just before the instauration of the portuguese republic in 1910! |
i don't understandnerozumiem ti means "i don't understand you" in slovak. a tradition, let's say. after not understanding anything in granada, now i don't understand anything in bratislava. Archives
May 2011
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