Today is Friday, November 1, 2024, All Saints’ Day and Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Lights, with variations celebrated in other Indian religions such as Jainism and Sikhism. This holiday symbolizes the spiritual victory of Dharma over Adharma, light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance. The celebrations generally last five or six days. Hmm, you could extrapolate this festival to the two choices we face as a nation on Tuesday, Election Day, November 5, in which we have it in our power to choose light over darkness, to choose knowledge over brutish ignorance. Let us hope we choose wisely in just four days!

Today I took myself downtown to view a strange film called Rumours after attending a lovely 90th-birthday party for my Austin House Diner pal, “Arlene” at the Diner Bar, right here on Queens Boulevard. The party was called for 12 o’clock, so Elliot and I decided to exercise our tootsies by walking there around 11:30. The weather was not as warm as yesterday, but it was still very clement at that time. When we arrived, we were told the party was in the back. There we were greeted by around a dozen friends of the birthday girl. The celebration was organized by Arlene’s friend, “Rachel.” Everything went off without a hitch. We were provided with plenty of coffee and water. One server took our orders and she did not make any mistakes. For conversation topics, Elliot and I regaled everyone with stories of our latest Italian trip, including Elliot’s leaving his backpack in Sorrento and my leaving a pair of jeans in a hotel in Naples. The afternoon was topped off with the servers singing “Happy Birthday” to Arlene over a delicious-looking angel food cake.

When the party broke up, I said goodbye to Elliot who walked home, while I took the F to West 4th Street. There I bought one ticket to the 6:25 showing of this Canadian madcap film which I feel defied any traditional label: Was it a political satire, a sci-fi entry, or even a horror film, I couldn’t tell you?

The plot of the film, as it were, is that it takes place during a G7 conference at a castle in Saxony, where it features the heads of the seven leading democracies – German Chancellor Hilda Ortmann (Cate Blanchett), American President Edison Walcott (who is portrayed by British actor Charles Dance), British Prime Minister Cardosa Dewindt (Nikki Amuka-Bird), French President Sylvain Broulez (Denis Menochet), Canadian Prime Minister Maxime Laplace (Roy Dupuis), Japanese Prime Minister Tatsuro Iwaskai ( Takehiro Hira), and Italian Prime Minister Antonio Lamorte (Rolando Ravello) – who are tasked with drafting a joint statement on an unspecified world crisis.

Before the seven world leaders can get down to brass tacks, it is Hilda, being from the host country, who suggests a surprise detour. It seems that archaeological excavators have turned up the corpse of a 2,000-year-old bog person, a murder victim who has been perfectly preserved, except that the bones have been dissolved. Here the researcher digging him up reveals that the corpse’s penis has been cut off and tied around his neck, which prompts the pedantic French President to state he’s writing a book about ancient burial customs, observing that it was customary in those days to ritualistically murder leaders. Then pictures of the G7 leaders are taken by the pit where the bog person has been excavated. Hmm, could this be seen as a sign of what is to come for these present-day leaders? After this ominous and unappetizing excursion, the group heads to the gazebo to have lunch and perform their duty.

As night time falls and the wine flows, and personal issues like the Canadian PM’s extramarital liaisons with almost every female member of the G7, including both the German Chancellor and the British PM, overtake political ones, the seven leaders learn that they have been left to fend for themselves, after calling for service and getting no reply. Are they under attack? Or is there something more sinister at play?

Soon the leaders find themselves walking into the mist-enshrouded woods, wondering where the hell everyone is. They have been abandoned to their own devices and before you can say “weird,” strange things happen: like the Canadian PM’s finding a huge brain in a clearing with another G7 attendee (Alicia Vikander) who is found near the cerebrum talking in a novel language about a new world order. This is the most surreal element in the film, along with the appearance of more walking bog people discovered in the woods. How did they get there? Were they birthed by the dead bog man in the pit? There is even a nod to the darker side of Artificial Intelligence, with some talk about a Chatbot that ensnares pedophiles. To me, this was all confusing and not as entertaining as I had expected. I thought this was an intelligent horror film, but it wasn’t. I dare anyone to see it to tell me what it was actually about.

The film was directed by Guy Maddin who is known for The Saddest Music in the World that showcased Isabella Rossellini sporting glass prosthetic legs filled with beer (which I haven’t seen). Two co-directors on this film are Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson. That must be some quite extraordinary sight to see in a film.

Have a good weekend, everyone.

And so it went!

Here’s a great pic of Atticus, taken by our cat sitter, “Laura.”