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I saw a really wonderful movie tonight.
When my friend booked tickets in advance for Les Choristes I thought she was being overcautious, so I was pretty surprised to show up at the Filmhouse and find it had sold out. This was rather less surprising when it turned out that it was not only the official opening night of the French Film Festival, but also the film's British Premiere. This meant a certain amount of speechifying before we could get to the film, but the hilarious antics of the director of Belleville Rendez-Vous with a kilt and a microphone more than made up for that. That was kind of cool as I had no idea that Sylvain Chomet had moved over here - not that I never pretended to be a film buff. I'm going to miss Edinburgh when I leave...
Anyhow, I was expecting to enjoy the film, but I wasn't expecting it to move me. Yes, it's a feel-good movie with a plot every bit as improbable as something Hollywood might come up with, but its beauty and brutality are unsentimental, the characters are strong and the humour is understated. And the music... for me it would have been worth seeing for soundtrack and cinematography alone. For the most part I had tears streaming down my cheeks - especially at the end, which is utterly perfect.
Yeah, I know we're way behind the rest of Europe on this one, but if you haven't seen it yet I highly recommend it. It'll be on general release in the UK next February, and I hope it gets beyond the arts cinemas - it really deserves to.
On a rather less sublime level, a few folk have been asking me to update A Bitter Road to Hell. I do have Chapter 3 half-written, and I may well dust it off once I have the next Chapter of Invictus out of the way - perhaps a short change of focus might stop me getting stale. But to be honest, I doubt I'll be in a position to write Chapter 4 for a while. I'd have to revisit the carefully-worked out timeline that was thrown into disarray by OotP. It's always going to be AU, now, but I need to see what I can get my inner canon-censor to live with!
In the meantime, this weeks![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
malfoy100 challenge was to incorporate a foreign-language spell, which fit BRTH far too well to pass up. My thanks to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
keep_up for correcting and explaining the Russian. The drabble is here and the longer version is here:
I'm still not sure which I prefer...
Learning to Freeze (uncut version)
"Atkroisya."
Each carefully enunciated syllable hung frozen in the night air. Durmstrang’s heavy gates did not even deign to quiver in response.
Lucius’ fingers were numb from the bitter cold. He fumbled to aim his wand.
"Atkroisya!"
The heavy wood stood motionless, silently mocking him with its indifference. As if he counted for nothing…
Damned if he was doing to grovel to a stupid foreign door!
But the warming charm was definitely fading. He grit his teeth.
"Pazhalstatkroisya!"
Nothing.
He couldn’t panic. Malfoys didn’t panic! Especially not here.
To hell with it. He’d had enough of Durmstrang’s ‘courtesies’. And quite enough of Russian magic.
“Alohomora!"
"You should work on your pronunciation, Mr Malfoy."
Lucius spun round, wand at the ready. Dolohov’s dead eyes made his protest freeze in his throat.
He was so cold, he could hardly speak. "P-professor?"
"Are you so eager to get back to the light?"
Lucius said nothing. It had taken less than a week to learn that lesson. This one would end in Dolohov’s own time.
“You came here to learn, I believe. If you wish to explore the dark, you need to accept the cold.”
The winter night bit deep. The cold was unendurable.
But Lucius would endure. He’d survived three months in this place. He refused to fail now.
When my friend booked tickets in advance for Les Choristes I thought she was being overcautious, so I was pretty surprised to show up at the Filmhouse and find it had sold out. This was rather less surprising when it turned out that it was not only the official opening night of the French Film Festival, but also the film's British Premiere. This meant a certain amount of speechifying before we could get to the film, but the hilarious antics of the director of Belleville Rendez-Vous with a kilt and a microphone more than made up for that. That was kind of cool as I had no idea that Sylvain Chomet had moved over here - not that I never pretended to be a film buff. I'm going to miss Edinburgh when I leave...
Anyhow, I was expecting to enjoy the film, but I wasn't expecting it to move me. Yes, it's a feel-good movie with a plot every bit as improbable as something Hollywood might come up with, but its beauty and brutality are unsentimental, the characters are strong and the humour is understated. And the music... for me it would have been worth seeing for soundtrack and cinematography alone. For the most part I had tears streaming down my cheeks - especially at the end, which is utterly perfect.
Yeah, I know we're way behind the rest of Europe on this one, but if you haven't seen it yet I highly recommend it. It'll be on general release in the UK next February, and I hope it gets beyond the arts cinemas - it really deserves to.
On a rather less sublime level, a few folk have been asking me to update A Bitter Road to Hell. I do have Chapter 3 half-written, and I may well dust it off once I have the next Chapter of Invictus out of the way - perhaps a short change of focus might stop me getting stale. But to be honest, I doubt I'll be in a position to write Chapter 4 for a while. I'd have to revisit the carefully-worked out timeline that was thrown into disarray by OotP. It's always going to be AU, now, but I need to see what I can get my inner canon-censor to live with!
In the meantime, this weeks
malfoy100 challenge was to incorporate a foreign-language spell, which fit BRTH far too well to pass up. My thanks to keep_up for correcting and explaining the Russian. The drabble is here and the longer version is here:I'm still not sure which I prefer...
"Atkroisya."
Each carefully enunciated syllable hung frozen in the night air. Durmstrang’s heavy gates did not even deign to quiver in response.
Lucius’ fingers were numb from the bitter cold. He fumbled to aim his wand.
"Atkroisya!"
The heavy wood stood motionless, silently mocking him with its indifference. As if he counted for nothing…
Damned if he was doing to grovel to a stupid foreign door!
But the warming charm was definitely fading. He grit his teeth.
"Pazhalstatkroisya!"
Nothing.
He couldn’t panic. Malfoys didn’t panic! Especially not here.
To hell with it. He’d had enough of Durmstrang’s ‘courtesies’. And quite enough of Russian magic.
“Alohomora!"
"You should work on your pronunciation, Mr Malfoy."
Lucius spun round, wand at the ready. Dolohov’s dead eyes made his protest freeze in his throat.
He was so cold, he could hardly speak. "P-professor?"
"Are you so eager to get back to the light?"
Lucius said nothing. It had taken less than a week to learn that lesson. This one would end in Dolohov’s own time.
“You came here to learn, I believe. If you wish to explore the dark, you need to accept the cold.”
The winter night bit deep. The cold was unendurable.
But Lucius would endure. He’d survived three months in this place. He refused to fail now.
