Cultured Shock

This past weekend I tried to get cultured. Everyone keeps telling us to be cultured, so I guess it was a homework assignment. “Amusez-vous bien! Vous êtes à Paris!” they tell us. So I decided to “amuse myself well.” I began on Thursday morning with a guided visit to a former Nazi extermination camp with a group from BU. Mont-Valérian is located just outside of the city in a peaceful, green town which creates a highly ironic contrast to the function that it held during the second World War. The victims of the camp were French resistants who were tied up and shot one by one for defending France against tyranny. We were able to read their letters before their executions, and see the chapel where they were held before being led off into the clearing in the woods. One prisoner wrote that he felt no hate towards those who were going to shoot him. His last words to his family were “Immense joy. God is good.”

On Friday, I went to an “Expo” (the hip, cultured French term for exhibition) of Edvard Munch at the George Pompidou. I have not seen too much of his work other than his most famous piece, “The Scream,” so I was eager to learn more. He paints with such feeling, hence the fact that he was an expressionist. His style was so controversial during his period that the Nazis considered it to be entartete kunst, or degenerate art, even though he was not a Jewish painter. First off, the views from the top of a see-through building are spectacular. Secondly, the expo was well-curated and captured the tortured and expressive nature of the artist (obviously). 

I then went to an African Film Festival and saw a short film from Tunisia and a long feature from Niger. They were spoken in Arabic and Hausa, and subtitled in French. On Saturday, I experienced the joys of a open air market (far more chaotic than it sounds - men yelling in French with Arabic accents and trying to get you to sample their avocados and fresh dates...yes, fresh dates exist, even though I thought the fruit only existed in its driest form). 

I also saw a “spectacle” of Le Petit Prince. The children’s story appeared in an abridged narration with a fantastic soundtrack of classical music, lights, fire, and, of course, pyrotechnics. The fireworks literally made every Fourth of July show that I have ever seen look like an appetizer. It was so beautiful that I’m sure there would be a fire/disturbance law against it in the US. 

After a lovely day at church on Sunday (we meet at 10:30 am for breakfast and coffee, have a service, and eat lunch together until 3 or 4 pm), I saw three more features from the African Film Festival. One was a documentary from Benin, another was a short film from Mali, and the third was a Moroccan film, which almost killed me. It won the highest prize in African cinema this year. The title translates into Pegasus, and it is the confusing, frightening, and highly-overwhelming story of a young girl who is raised as a boy and abused by her father. The plot doesn’t become clear until the end, and most of the plot could have been a hallucination/dream to begin with. Hence, mental somersaults to keep up with the story, read the subtitles in French, and enjoy the cadence of the Arabic speech. I was so exhausted at the end. I literally started to laugh and cry at once probably four times during the credits (not happy laugh, but the “I’m so confused that I can’t express my sorrow/anger” laugh). So good. 

We topped it off with dinner at a Mediterranean, Jewish restuarant in the cute Jewish/gay neighborhood which is a blessing on Sundays, because that is the only place where anything is open. Although France is highly secularist, they do not work on Sundays, hence, one must rely on kosher bakeries in neighborhoods where one must dodge hordes of French bulldogs. Becoming cultured is exhausting and highly enjoyable.