041 – The Assassin (2015)

spacetime coordinate: 8th century China during last years of the Tang Dynasty / the distant province/circuit of Weibo in the north

he Assassin (Chinese: 刺客聶隱娘; pinyin: Cìkè Niè Yǐnniáng; or: The Assassin Niè Yǐnniáng) is a 2015 martial arts film directed by Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-Hsien. A Taiwan/China/Hong Kong co-production, loosely based on the late 9th century martial arts story “Nie Yinniang” by Pei Xing, a core text in Chinese swordsmanship and wuxia fiction.

landscapes

“The King of Kophen’s bluebird failed to sing for three years.
One day the Queen remarked : Birds sing only to their own kind, set the bird before a mirror!
The King heeded her advice.
The bluebird saw its own image, it sang of its sadness, it danced, until it expired.”

(trivia:  In the film, the actors speak classical Chinese which was mostly used for literary texts and almost never spoken. The final version henceforth includes Chinese subtitles.)

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0032 – the wonderful adventures of Nils (TV Series 1980–1981)

spacetime coordinate:  the historical provinces of Sweden 1900’s

The Wonderful Adventures of Nils (ニルスのふしぎな旅 Nirusu no Fushigi na Tabi) is an anime adaptation of the novel The Wonderful Adventures of Nils by the Swedish author Selma Lagerlöf ( She devoted three years to Nature study and to familiarizing herself with animal and bird life. She has sought out hitherto unpublished folklore and legends of the different provinces. These she has ingeniously woven into her story.). The 52 episode series was mostly fairly true to the original, apart from the appearance of Nils’ pet hamster, and the greater role allowed to the fox Smirre.

watch on youtube (german)

Nils Holgersson is a 14-year-old farm boy, the son of poor farmers. He is lazy and disrespectful to his fellowman. In his spare time he enjoys abusing the animals in his family farm. One day Nils captures a tomte in a net while his family is at church and have left him home to memorize chapters from the Bible. The tomte proposes to Nils that if Nils frees him, the tomte will give him a huge gold coin. Nils rejects the offer and the tomte turns Nils into a tomte, which leaves him shrunken and able to talk with animals, who are thrilled to see the boy reduced to their size and are angry and hungry for revenge. While this is happening, wild geese are flying over the farm on one of their migrations, and a white farm goose called Morten attempts to join the wild ones. Nils manages to flee on Morten’s back together with his new hamster friend Carrot, and they join a flock of wild geese flying towards Lapland for summer.

The music was written by Czech composer Karel Svoboda. (OST on youtube)

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0026 – Proteus: A Nineteenth Century Vision 2004

The animated documentary Proteus explores the nineteenth century’s engagement with the undersea world through science, technology, painting, poetry and myth. The central figure of the film is biologist and artist Ernst Haeckel, who found in the depths of the sea an ecstatic and visionary fusion of science and art.

Selections from the the film Proteus:

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0013 – dear esther 2012 (video game)

“A deserted island… a lost man… memories of a fatal crash… a book written by a dying explorer.”

Dear Esther is a first-person video game developed by The Chinese Room for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. Spurning traditional game design, Dear Esther features virtually no puzzles or tasks. The player’s only objective is to explore an unnamed island in the Hebrides

system requirements: (minimum)

• OS:Microsoft Windows XP / Vista / Vista64.
• Processor:Intel core 2 duo 2.4GHz or higher.
• Memory:1GB XP / 2GB Vista.
• Graphics:DirectX 9 compliant video card with Shader model 3.0 support. …
• DirectX®:9.0c.
• Hard Drive:2 GB HD space.
• Sound:DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card.

“Dear Esther is a ghost story, told using first-person gaming technologies. Rather than traditional game-play the focus here is on exploration, uncovering the mystery of the island, of who you are and why you are here. Fragments of story are randomly uncovered when exploring the various locations of the island, making every each journey a unique experience. Dear Esther features a stunning, specially commissioned soundtrack from Jessica Curry.”   http://dear-esther.com/   steam

009 – Kingdom of Heaven 2005 (director’s cut)

spacetime coordinate: 1184 France,  the Holy Land

The story is set during the Crusades of the 12th century. A French village blacksmith goes to aid the Kingdom of Jerusalem in its defence against the Ayyubid Muslim sultan Saladin, who is battling to claim the city from the Christians leading to the Battle of Hattin. The film script is a heavily fictionalised portrayal of the life of Balian of Ibelin (ca. 1143–93).

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