Re: Free Download Mp3 Kim Bum Soo - Last Love
Sofia Gilcrease
On the heels of Halloween comes "Last Love," the zombie of elderly grief movies. For 116 long, long minutes, we watch retired philosophy professor Matthew Morgan (Michael Caine) puttering about Paris after the death of his beloved wife Joan (Jane Alexander). He shambles around his large apartment, flirts with the idea of stamp collecting, teaches a bit of French, and takes up with a comely young French girl named Pauline (Clemence Poesy). It turns out that Pauline is a dance teacher who specializes in the cha-cha, but if you think that this means she will be leading Matthew out of his shell, think again. Director Sandra Nettelbeck films Pauline's cha-cha class like it's some kind of purgatory where older people are forced against their will to do steps in time to music.
For a film that is supposedly about life going on after the death of someone you love, "Last Love" has an uncannily undead sort of feeling, and that is partly due to Caine, who still has some of his movie star charisma but holds himself entirely back and aloof from his character. Matthew has several centerpiece monologues about his feelings on love, life and his late wife, and most actors of any age would tear right into them, but Caine recites them in a laid back fashion that steps right up to the line of seeming frankly disinterested but never quite crosses it.
Lyle Ashton Harris: Our first and last love is co-organized by the Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University and Queens Museum, and is co-curated by Caitlin Julia Rubin, Associate Curator, Rose Art Museum, and Lauren Haynes, Director of Curatorial Affairs and Programs, Queens Museum.
The terminally ill Petrov passes the time reading love poems in his hammock; Marja takes up with the almost 100-year-old Sidorow; Baba Dunja whiles away her days writing letters to her daughter. Life is beautiful. That is until one day a stranger turns up in the village and once again the little idyllic settlement faces annihilation.
Lyle Ashton Harris: Our first and last love is co-organized by the Queens Museum and the Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, and is co-curated by Lauren Haynes, Director of Curatorial Affairs and Programs, Queens Museum and Caitlin Julia Rubin, Associate Curator, Rose Art Museum.
Baba Dunja lives in Tschernowo, Ukraine. The last to leave when the reactor exploded and first to return when she decided she wanted to go home. She grows her own fruit and vegetables and cooks fresh food every day.
Writer Rafaella Marcus, making her Big Finish debut with this release, said: There was so much that I enjoyed about writing this script. I love writing an impossible love story. I find that deeply compelling.
It has become abundantly clear to me again this week that goodbyes are always hard. But they're especially hard when you're parting as we are, having loved each other well for several years now. I've believed in you (and still do) from the first moment I met your pastoral search committee in that office in Reston Interfaith. I knew that if the rest of the church was as awesome as the search comittee then we were going to have a lot of fun. And, fun we've had! Over these years, I have always wanted to brag about you to my friends-- telling them that in Washington Plaza I found the church I dreamed to be a part of as pastor in seminary.
I love how you blessed me over four years ago now when you saw a 28 year old female with no solo pastoring experience and called me with an unanimous vote to be your preacher on the plaza. I love that you saw in me what I most felt true about myself-- that I was a pastor and that God had made me for a time to be your pastor. I love how you've followed my lead, taken chances with me to try new things and asked really good questions when we've faced crucial decisions together. I love how you've never told me "no" to my growing passion for writing and ministering to folks outside the church. It is you, dear Washington Plaza, who has given me a chance to hear my own voice clearly-- the voice I believe will be what I need most in the chapter that lies ahead of me. I have you to thank for gracing me with this great gift!
I love how kindly you have welcomed me in your community, just as I was (church baggage and all) and most especially I love how you've welcomed Kevin. It's a hard road being married to a pastor, but just as you help me to grow up over the past several years, you've done the same for Kevin. You've given him opportunities to serve in the kitchen and cook for a crowd (his favorite!). You've ordained him as a deacon-- a milestone in his own journey. You've given him the spiritual community he needed to be at the point in his life to say "Yes!" to God's ministry for him at Feed The Children this year. You've loved him and cheered him on as much as you have me-- and I know you'll continue to do this in all that lies ahead for us.
I love how you welcome those in whom other churches simply would not. You welcome so lovingly folks who may not come to church dressed just so. You welcome folks who call themselves gay and Christian-- who just need to know that God loves them too. You welcome those who have been hurt by the church and just need to have a place to come and take deep breaths for awhile. You welcome those who have deep burdens on their hearts who just need a place in corporate worship to unload them in prayer. You welcome those who aren't sure they believe in Jesus-- but really want to-- and a safe place to ask their questions as they figure it all out. You welcome those who often take more than they give without grumbling or complaining about doing more of your share of the work.
I will forever cherish this time in my life as the time when I was YOUR pastor. Know that I'm cheering you on in all that lies ahead and will forever think of you with gratitude for how you've altered the direction of my life and Kevin's life too in so many lovely ways. I know you'll be just as good to the next person who leads you too. And, they'll be a lucky pastor just as I have been for these four years.
Go with the one who loves you biblically.
The one whose love lifts its head to you
despite its broken neck. Whose body bursts
sixteen arms electric to carry you, gentle
the way old grief is gentle.
Love the love that is messy in all its too much,
The body that rides best your body, whose mouth
saddles the naked salt of your far gone hips,
whose tongue translates the rock language of
all your elegant scars.
Last Love, I wish to die so I may come back to you
new and never tasted by any other mouth but yours.
And I want to be the hands that pull your children
out of you and tuck them deep inside myself until they are
ready to be the children of such a royal and staggering love.
Or you will say:
Last love, I have let other men borrow your children. Forgive me.
Last love, I once vowed my heart to another. Forgive me.
Last Love, I have let my blind and anxious hands wander into a room
and come out empty. Forgive me.
The movie has a stilted, airless feel, as if Mr. Morgan had already succeeded at offing himself and we were now drifting alongside him through some odd limbo. The actors deliver their lines in a slow hush amid a conspicuous lack of ambient sound, even in crowded public spaces. But Paris looks indisputably lovely through the lens of cameraman Michael Bertl.
"An exquisitely heartbreaking emotional love story, packed with light, tender touches. I will be recommending this to everyone."
--Paige Toon, author of Only Love Can Hurt Like This
"Emma Grey weaves riotous romantic comedy through a journey from love to loss and back again with a raw honesty and intensity that is equalled only by her capacity to find humour and light in the darkest of moments."
--Nina Campbell, author of Daughters of Eve
"At its core, The Last Love Note is as heartwarming as it is heartbreaking. With vulnerability and honesty, Grey takes us through the entire spectrum of love. The novel is passionate and soulful, terrifying and devastating. The Last Love Note serves as a reminder that it really is better to have loved and lost than never loved at all."
--Bodhi Byles, Books & Publishing
"A moving portrait of love, loss and the messy emotions that live in between. And while Emma captures heart-wrenching scenes, the intimate prose is relatable, revealing and simply human. Yes, you will need tissues on hand--as well as a cuppa."
--HerCanberra
"The Last Love Note is a romcom both sparkling and heartbreaking in equal measure--we're invited into the story of Kate, grieving single parent, finds herself stranded with her boss in a sleepy hamlet, with only a trail of scribbled love notes to hold a secret from her past--that he's hiding."
--Dymocks Books
Baba Dunja's Last Love is narrated by Baba Dunja, a very old woman who makes her home in Tschernowo, deep inside: "what many call the death zone", the still-radioactive area around where the Chernobyl nuclear disaster took place. She was the first to venture back into the dangerous territory, but she isn't the only one there. It remains a very small community, however, that has come to live in the abandoned houses here. Still, they're not entirely isolated, occasionally making the trip to the nearest town, Malyschi, and also receiving visitors -- usually dressed in protective gear, often scientists who are studying the after-effects of the disaster.
One of her neighbors sums up Baba Dunja's position in this tiny community: "You are sort of like the mayor here."
"Nobody has ever insulted me like that before." Baba Dunja has two children: a son she barely is in contact with who lives in the United States, and a dutiful daughter, Irina, who is a doctor in Germany, whom she is in closer touch with (and who even comes to see her mother occasionally), even though she has never met Irina's husband, or their daughter, Laura.
Baba Dunja is a nicely realized character, a sensible realist who knows what she's doing -- even as she seems to have made the most un-sensible of decisions, in returning to a place that is (or should be) killing her (indeed, one reason she never traveled to Germany -- despite her daughter wanting to bring her there -- is because she herself is literally radioactive, down to her very bones). Her neighbors are a colorful cast of characters, most minding their own business, though there's at least some sense of community. Tellingly, however, the first time they all really get together -- to celebrate a wedding -- is also the moment when the fragile community falls apart.
For the most part, Baba Dunja putters along, tending to her garden and dealing with the odds and ends of day to day life. She doesn't really read, and though she's heard of the internet has never seen it. But then Tschernowo is essentially a no-man's-land, and out of cell phone- and even most TV-reception range.
Life is upended by two new arrivals, but it's a very short interruption. As Baba Dunja explains in a letter to her daughter:We gained two new residents, but they were unable to stay. Life in Tschernowo is very nice, but it's not suitable for everyone. Oddly, Bronsky doesn't mine this episode very deeply, rushing the characters in and then out without much explanation as to what exactly possessed them to come here. There are hints of who they are (apparently rich) and possible reasons for wanting to settle here (a very ugly family dispute), but they're used very much like pawns in a chess game, briefly sent to the fore, and then wiped from the board after they've served their purpose.
The ramifications of their brief sojourn -- and how the residents reacted to it -- are significant, and do lead to Baba Dunja experiencing something more than just life in Tschernowo and Malyschi, but this too is dealt with rather summarily.
Meanwhile, one thing that does preoccupy Baba Dunja is a letter she receives from her grand-daughter, whom she has never heard from -- written in a script and language she is unfamiliar with. She is desperate to find out what it says, but can't find anyone who could reveal its contents to her -- or rather, she doesn't trust anyone who might be able to reveal the contents.
Even as Bronsky gives Baba Dunja a great voice, the plot, despite all the potential she endows it with, tends towards the anti-climactic. In part that's fitting for a story told by Baba Dunja, an old woman who has seen it all and can't be shaken up by much any longer, but it still gives the novel an odd feel.
Baba Dunja's old-age wisdom contrasts some to her past, but the Chernobyl disaster obviously put a lot in perspective.She admits she was a bit hard on her own children:When I was young I put so much effort into being a good person that I was dangerous to others. I was very strict with my children so they'd be decent, hardworking citizens. Now I'm sorry I didn't indulge them more. She longs for the grand-daughter she has never known -- and can be non-judgmental in a way her daughter Irina can't -- but she has also found her home in Tschernowo, and knows that this is where she belongs.
Bronsky does a lot very nicely here; unlikely though it may seem, given the setting, Baba Dunja's Last Love is a surprisingly cheerful novel -- suggesting, too , that even somewhere where people are at their most isolated (and literally radioactive to the world (including their loved ones)) no man is entirely an island. But the handling of the plot as it veers to the sensational leaves more questions open than it should. At least it's tied up neatly enough, Baba Dunja knowing her place in the world and unwilling to entertain the other possibilities.
Baba Dunja's Last Love is a very good if ultimately not entirely satisfying read.
- M.A.Orthofer, 18 May 2016