MIAMI NO ES APTO PARA CARDIACOS

Acabo de encontrar este artículo en mi computadora. No sé ya ni por qué lo escribí, pero me pareció gracioso. Es sobre los sofocos que provoca la vida en Miami, Florida. Ojalá lo encuentren divertido.

Por Jorge Luis Arboleda

A todos aquellos que se quejan de los inconvenientes de vivir en Miami, yo tengo sólo una respuesta: Miami siempre será Miami. Para los residentes de origen latino, la ciudad tiene un saborcito muy nuestro. Y uno revive aquí las frustraciones y delicias de la vida en el terruño. Pero para quien recién llega –y eso lo recuerdo aún en carne propia– la ciudad mantiene al menos por un tiempo esa aura mágica que lo tiñe todo de… bueno, magia. 

Es curioso que cada vez que uno conversa con latinos que viven en otras ciudades de Estados Unidos, uno siente ese dejito de envidia que los corroe. Y saltan las referencias al maravilloso clima de Miami, las hermosas playas de Miami, la vida nocturna de Miami. En suma, la vida sabrosona, alegre y jacarandosa que se refleja en los programas de la cadena Univisión. No saben los pobres que para el habitante de Miami como el de cualquier otra ciudad estadounidense, lo más probable es que esa vida llena de glamour se quede en el televisor.

En el verano, cuando uno podría disfrutar de este único y esplendoroso clima, lo más probable es que te estés deshidratando y muriéndote de sofocos, cuando no estás aguantando los aguaceros o angustiándote por las tormentas tropicales o los huracanes que “ya vienen, ya se acercan… ya doblan hacia aquí… no, no, se van hacia el Atlántico.”  Las mejores épocas, el otoño y el invierno, donde los calores amainan y uno saborea un resquicio de frescura, este año exageraron la nota friolenta, haciendo que muchos tuvieran que arreglar las calefacciones de sus casas por primera vez y dormir con pijamitas de franela y pantalón largo.

Pero bueno, no seamos negativos, chico, vayámonos a la playa, ¿no? Claro, si aguantas los atracones del tráfico y tomas tu Valium antes de salir, para que no te dé un infarto cada vez que el conductor que viene detrás te asuste con su bocina si te demoraste más de cinco segundos en acelerar después de la luz verde.

Bueno, eso es parte del color local, digamos. Dejémonos de ser cascarrabias y vayamos a caminar por Miami Beach y cenar algo en las mesitas aireadas de Ocean Drive. Supongamos que después de dar una docena de vueltas por calles atiborradas de gente y tráfico en busca de estacionamiento, usted logra hallar un huequito que parece de ensueño – sin parquímetros ni letreros amenazadores – a diez cuadras del lugar. Una pequeña caminadita entre lindas chicas en pantaloncitos cortos y la piel bronceada no le hace daño a nadie. Y después de hallar un lugarcito acogedor, todo va de lo más bien hasta la hora de pagar la cuenta y empieza el consabido diálogo que no se en los shows de Univisión: Usted: “Un momentito, ¿no me dijo usted que eran dos copas por 8 dólares?” El mesero con una sonrisita imperturbable: “Por supuesto, pero eso si lo consume con el menú de 50 dólares como le dije. Mire, aquí está bien explicadito, en la letra chiquita.”

Minutos después, cuando ya te pasó la furia y luego de propinarle una pequeña rasguñadita al alicaído “available balance” de tu tarjeta de crédito, vas en busca de tu automóvil y no lo encuentras. Y entonces “pande el cúnico” como decía El Chavo del Ocho. Hasta que alguien que se apiada de verte subir y bajar por la calle “hablando en lenguas” y con cara de trance, te recomienda que mejor llames a información en busca del depósito más cercano al que llevan a los vehículos por mal estacionamiento. Ya te enterarás luego de que ahí no puedes pagar con tarjeta, claro, sino con cash. Efectivo rabioso, que le llaman algunos. Por algo será.

Miami, 10 de Marzo del 2010

Take Shelter (2011)

Maybe the real genius of Jeff Nichols, director of the absorbing, solid independent 2011 film Take Shelter, was in picking such a fine actor as Michael Shanon in the main role. He fits perfectly into the contemplative, enigmatic perspective of his movie. And in the meantime, Shannon provides it with a class and dignity that makes this humble parable even more resonant.

The plot is simple: a construction crewman starts having repeated nightmares where he and his family are threatened by a catastrophic storm. Even more scary, the dreams escalate in violence and soon he and his daughter get also attacked by his own dog, his friends and other townspeople in a sort of trance. The man is afraid to be losing his mind like his own mother, who was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia more or less at the same age. At the same time, though, the foreboding feeling gets so overwhelming that the man starts expanding a subterranean storm shelter to protect his family.

Maybe the resolution of this story does not match the growing expectations we develop throughout the film. The ending is kind of cryptic and, with some justice, some may find it unsatisfying. But if you are a real cinema lover, by then you are already sold. You are aware that you just watched a sample of first-class cinema, in an unpredictable, intelligent style that creates questions that remain with you long after the movie credits rolled up completely.

In the end, this is a movie about panic. Panic of something that is coming your way; panic of what your neighbor's real face will be; panic of this erratic weather; panic of this society that is hardly the same one in which we grew up. In these days of economic duress and growing political radicalism, fear is the trademark of the times. And Michael Shannon's character suggests that these fearful times we are living in, are pervading the deepest end of our minds. He might be right.

Ernest Borgnine, el temible

1917-2012

Cuando a Hollywood aún no se le ocurrían los Aliens ni los Freddy Krugger, Ernest Borgnine estaba ahí para infundirnos miedo. Con esa sonrisa maldita, su barba hirsuta a medio crecer, y esos ojos de lunático perverso, Borgnine se convirtió en un personaje de pesadilla con The Emperor of the North Pole (1973). A su lado, el mucho más alto, joven y fornido Lee Marvin parecía poco más que un muchachito valentón. La trama de la película es sólo creíble en el contexto de la Depresión americana, pero el drama que encarnaban ambos enemigos acérrimos es universal, sin fecha de expiración.

Cuando vi aquella película por primera vez yo era casi un chiquillo, pero todavía me estremezco recordando los martillazos con que el Emperador destrozaba el cráneo de sus víctimas mientras reía a carcajadas. Qué película. Pero Borgnine no se quedó nunca quieto, ni antes ni después de aquella cinta. Su listado de películas es imposiblemente largo. Y en su tiempo, probablemente muchos pensaron que no le quedaba mucho por hacer después de haber protagonizado Marty de 1955, una inusual cinta romántica de ambiente cuasi neorrealista, que demostró que este hombre-cocodrilo era capaz de una humanidad desgarradora.

Con esa dualidad imposible que lo caracterizaba, Ernest Borgnine se las arreglaba para estar siempre ocupado. Su carrera alternaba su lado maldito y el bondadoso con una facilidad impresionante. Encajaba perfecto entre los desalmados ladrones de The Wild Bunch (1969), pero ponía la nota compasiva en una cinta industrial como La aventura del Poseidón (1972).

No lo vi mucho últimamente, pero lo recuerdo manejando el taxi amarillo con el que recorría un Manhattan de pesadilla junto a Snake Plisken en Escape from New York (1981). Entre sus cintas más recientes, quizá su rol más sutil y entrañable – y casi desapercibido – lo tuvo en Gattaca (1997), personificando nada menos que a un trabajador de limpieza en una base espacial. Un rol pequeño, lleno de generosidad y comprensión, y casi simbólico de una dedicación encarnizada a la carrera de actor. Ese era Borgnine. Amante desmedido de la actuación. Rara vez protagonista, pero siempre inolvidable.

The Thin Red Line

Directed by Terrence Malick 


The first time that I saw "The Thin Red Line," the 1998 film directed by Terrence Malick, I kind of hated it. I barely understood what it was about and it seemed to me absurdly long and sentimental. But that was then. I just saw it again a few days ago and I came to understand a couple of things this time: first, my initial frustration of those days. Second, the deep conviction of the director that prevented him from making a more standard, cohesive movie and rather forced him to create a disjointed work or art. Imperfect but genuine. A jewel made for posterity.

It's hard to think of this movie as a war movie, in spite of the fact that it holds some of the most vivid war scenes I have ever seen. This is mostly because of the tone inserted at the beginning of the story, when some AWOL soldiers live in hiding from the war among some remote Islanders. Since then, Malick floods the movie with first person narrations of the characters reasoning their past and present, questioning life and God, thinking about the world they live in.

So many characters and renown actors come and go that it's hard to keep account of them, and at the end the spectator remembers just a few ones, who die or disappear just the same. Also, heroism, self-interest and pure generosity come and go from the screen, as a means to paint the absurdity of life without denouncing war as an intrusion or an anomaly in a perfect world, but rather assuming its futility as part of the futility of life itself.

All of this might be too much for the average moviegoer that, more or less expects going from A to Z. The whole plot --if we could talk about a plot in the whole movie-- is about the take of Guadalcanal by U.S. forces against the fiery resistance by the Japanese. We see how the Americans soldiers go from frightened little pups to develop a sense of entitlement to their superiority at the end. The Japanese, that start bringing fear with their accurate, massive, efficient attacks, crumble into insanity and bottomless desperation at the end.

But among all this nonsense and destruction paradoxically portrayed as such in the middle of the Second World War --the only "good war" in American history-- Malick proposes art as an escape. Beauty as salvation from our sins. Mankind's redeeming quality. We have the power to imagine, he seems to be saying. The power to create and enjoy and, most of all, the power to create beauty. We'll destroy it in the end of course. But it's good to remember.

Sueños

Hay periodos en la vida en que los sueños de uno se vuelven tan reales y vívidos, que se convierten en parte de nuestra experiencia. Sí, experiencias. Y en mi caso, y ello quizá sea un síntoma de vejez o de locura, ocurre que en sueños me encuentro con mi padre y, a veces, con tíos que murieron hace muchísimos años, cuando yo era apenas un adolescente. Y no una sino muchas veces, como remachando la idea de que, en el fondo de mi conciencia,  jamás voy a aceptar su muerte. Cuando en sueños me encuentro con mi padre, por ejemplo, estoy tan contento de verlo que no recuerdo por qué lo dejé de ver la última vez. Totalmente amnésico, me inunda una alegría contagiosa, hago bromas y chistes, y lo abrazo y a veces hasta lloro de emoción. Nunca me acuerdo de su muerte ni de la profunda tristeza que me causó su despedida. La presencia de mi padre lo inunda todo con su dulzura, y mi felicidad no tiene límites.

The Woman in Black

Directed by James Watkins 
Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Ciarán Hinds  

Finally I caught this film in a dollar-theater here in Greensboro, after it exhausted long ago the official premiere network rounds. But the wait was worthwhile. This movie is a creepy old-fashioned ghost story where in fact, voilá, there is a ghost. A real one. And scary as hell. So, what I am saying is, when you open a door like that in a script, well, anything can happen. As in fact it does. 

Daniel Radcliffe --who famously portrayed Harry Potter in the film series-- makes a good job as a frightened but brave lawyer who, during the early twentieth-century England is sent by his company --in the old Dracula's storyline tradition-- to a remote village to retrieve documents from an old estate haunted by the supernatural. Then he realizes that all the villagers are as scared of him as they are from the abandoned house he is visiting. And, of course, sooner than later he begins to understand why. He starts hearing strange noises and to see weird things --that the freaked-out spectator sees before him. Among the visions is included the hateful woman in black who lost her child in the past and, as revenge obliges in scary movies, is taking with her the children of the terrified villagers in the present. According to the town people, whenever the woman in black is seen by anybody, the next thing that happens is that a kid dies in a horrible manner.

But, let's stop talking about the plot. It does not make much sense to be honest. The strength of the movie resides in its horror crescendos and its artsy production --including malevolent monkey toys and trashed old dolls, no less-- that conjures up those fears that were breastfed to all human beings  from scary stories.

Unfortunately there is a couple of moments where the director exaggerates the gratuitous shocks --and the strident music that comes along with them, that are a staple in every horror film from the last decade. But, all in all, and including the very respectable presence of Ciarán Hinds in the cast, this is a good film that enjoyed a decent and well deserved box-office return. Warning: at times, it's really scary.

The moving landscape

I wrote this article as a Google Profile about two years ago and then I updated it a few months ago. I took it as a writing exercise but then I started to like it... maybe because, pretty much, it's about my father. 

I grew up in a noisy neighborhood in Lima, Peru, playing soccer on the streets with my pals when traffic was slow, hiding from adults to smoke guilty cigarettes and listening to portable AM radios at the doorsteps of our houses. It was during my high school years that I discovered movies, books, good music. What can I say? I am still hooked up. It seems that I have not changed much since then. 

I am the son of Alicia Segunda and Ezequiel Gilberto, immigrants both from the same northern part of the country who met for the first time in Lima, the country's capital, the big metropolis. Everybody knew my dad by the nickname “Chiki” (pronounced Cheekee) —except me, who called him “papá” until I became a teenager. My dad was a truck driver with a heart of gold who rarely allowed me to go with him during his travels, something that hurt me badly because I loved being in his company.
Maybe because it was so rare, hitting the road with my dad is one of my most precious memories of those days.

Truth be told, truck cabins were then such an uncomfortable place. The engine of my dad’s truck was so noisy that we could talk only if we yell at each other —forget about listening music on the road. Besides, in order to arrive as early as possible, my dad always pushed himself a little longer and drove farther and farther before even thinking about pulling out to eat. But no matter what, every single minute of those trips was precious to me, bringing to my eyes a moving landscape that was worthy of every nuisance: desolate deserts that seemed to extend until the end of the world, small dusty pueblos in the middle of green and luscious valleys, mountainous landscapes that looked from another distant planet… until you saw a barefoot little boy carrying his books to a school miles away from home. The best, though, was when we stopped to eat and relax, and we could savor the different accents and the stubborn smiles of the people, defying with humor the appalling poverty of their surroundings.

One day, after graduating from high school, a friend of mine came home with the idea of studying in one of the most “exclusive” universities in Lima. My dad heard that and since then he insisted that I should study there until I actually did it. In Peru there are no scholarships available, though, and we had some money issues at home. But throughout the time I was a student, I never had any problem paying my tuition on time.

After graduation I discovered the pleasure of writing when I was hired as a copy writer for a recently launched weekly magazine of El Comercio, “the” newspaper in Peru. I am very proud of my record there. In time I became an Editor —“Jefe de Redacción” was my job title — and my boss, Bernardo Roca Rey Miró-Quesada, a restless and visionary guy with the soul of a gypsy, got tired of getting cornered with my salary demands and put on my hands the responsibility of creating an entire magazine, so that I could have a superior pay-grade as an Editor. It was a stroke of genius. Those days felt as if the stars had finally aligned for me. I had my “own” magazine, my beloved son Alex was born and I got a new job title and a better salary. Best of all, I put my ideas to work everyday. And as an editor, I recruited and lead a group of talented young writers and we had lots of laughs together. Best of all, the financial numbers and the readership of the magazines under my supervision looked absolutely great and always improving. Did I mention that I was lucky?

Things changed in time, though, and I started to think that I could do even better. Marital problems at home, management decisions at the magazine that bothered me and left me with the feeling of being unappreciated at work lead me to leave everything behind for the promise of coming to the United States.  So, I quit and studied hard to pass my GRE test and finally I got a graduate student visa, coming to Miami to study International Relations.

Postgraduate school was so difficult, though. I had to struggle not only with a new country and a new language but I also had to deal with these highly abstract academic texts that I needed to read over and over. Providence came to my rescue. I met a nice woman in the university who sweeten my days with her love and dedication. We married as soon as I graduated and it was a beautiful period in my life, when money was tight but we did not really care. Financially we were down at the bottom, I guess, and we could only go up.

The problem is that a degree in International Relations is as useful in Miami as "an ashtray in a motorcycle". In a single week I had to work three or four jobs at the time: seasonal jobs, part-time jobs, freelance jobs. Finally, I decided to start moving. Unable to find any position in South Florida, I went to work for a Spanish newspaper in Houston. I started living there and in a few months I was hired by a publishing company in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to be the editor of a trucking magazine. I met great people there and, again, I felt better with myself . The magazine seemed to be successful enough and two years later I became an American citizen. The only sour note of these days was that, during my first year in Alabama, my father passed away in Lima. It was one of the most painful experiences of my life and I still can not honestly say, after almost six years, that I am over it.

Alabama is kind of slow but you may find really nice people. The weather is just lovely and, if you get over the addiction to college football that seems to permeate everybody and everywhere in Tuscaloosa, you easily enjoy its cozy, small-town flavor. Eventually though, my son grew up and enlisted in the Air Force; I got divorced in 2008 and my ex wife returned to her life in Miami. I stayed in Tuscaloosa until June 2011 when I moved to Greensboro, North Carolina, a perfect place for me, with a nice weather and friendly people and a social and cultural dynamism that you associate with larger cities. 

It was usual that, when my dad and I were riding the truck on a trip and we saw the roadside restaurants lined-up one after another just when it was time for lunch or dinner, he kind of read my mind and said: "Come on, let’s stay on the road a bit longer, we can always stop to eat later."

Sometimes, I feel that those words have come to lead the remaining years of my life. This need to keep on moving and to stay on the road longer than what I am supposed to, stretching the limits, forcing myself to go on though deep inside it's been a long time since I am starving, sleepy and exhausted.

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