Movie recommendation

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I recently enjoyed an interview with the great actorRichard Dreyfuss. And I remembered how much I loved watching him play.   

So I watched the movie ‘Goodbye girl’. A wonderful classic, with a wonderful script, amazing and funny lines and excellent cast. I truly recommend it.

Even though the entire movie has lines to remember, there are two that I found specifically funny and enlightening.  

Lucy: ‘No kiss?’

Paula: ‘No. I’m angry, I don’t wanna lose it.’

 

Elliot: ‘I spent 20 years building up an ego and when I needed it, it locked itself in the bathroom.’

Learn to take the Credit!

I was watching this wonderful interview with Richard Dreyfuss, an actor I simply adore. By all means, do watch it for your own enlightenment, too.

A particular moment that I liked in this interview was Richard Dreyfuss telling the story about him complimenting a friend about his acting. The friend replied that it was not him who succeeded in the performance, but the muse. And then, Richard replied: Fuck the muse! When you’re bad, is it the muse?

 

I never thought about it this way. When we succeed in any arts implementation, we tend to give credit to the muse. And I, as a writer, do that, too. Whenever somebody compliments me about my books or my writing, I tend to distribute the thanks to the muse.

So learn to take the credit no matter the art you are representing!

R.M.N., 2022

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Since I am very interested in watching all new Romanian movies, I could not have missed the new movie directed by Cristian Mungiu, R.M.N.

Until arriving to the movie theater, I thought that the name was a direct reference to the imaging of the characters to be presented. Sitting there, it came to my mind that it could also refer to the name of the country, Romania, but without vowels. After the movie ended, and left me with a couple of questions about certain symbols that I noticed, I started searching for opinions in other articles and got to other versions to the title, not at all uninteresting, among which ‚remain’, and ‚Romanian, Hungarian, German’.

Moving forward, to the body of the movie, Matthias impetuously returns to his home village in Transylvania and discovers that his son had suffered a trauma and ceased talking. Preoccupied with finding a solution to this and cure his son from the fear, Matthias’ story weaves with another, the one about some workers coming from Sri Lanka coming to work as bakers within a bread factory.

Things degenerate and the villages is soon divided into two parts – one that supports the Sri Lanka workers to leave and another that does not.

While searching for opinions about the ending of the movie, I found a comment saying that the movie would present Romanians as rasists and xenophobic. I say it does not. This movie is like a mirror and anyone can see themselves in it, be it European or from other parts of the world. Universal themes are in it, about life, death, discrimination, tolerance, love and fight for survival. And since I mentioned universalness, I enjoyed the moment where the Romanian ballad Mioritza (a popular ballad poem about two sheperds planning to kill the third and the sheep, Mioritza, overhearing them conniving informs the third sheperd) was sung by children in Hungarian, amplifying its significance.

I noticed some discrete notes of magical realism – I will not say more than pay attention to the little boy. Towards the end of the movie there was a moment that greatly moved me for it was a symbolical pyramid illustrated by boy-holding-father-holding-father.

As for the ending... well, I have a couple of interpretations, but I don’t want to spoil by mistake the magic of the movie.

 

Go watch the movie R.M.N directed by Cristian Mungiu. It is sublime, just like the song that embraces its ending.

How Often Do You Say Thank You?

Rarely, it’s true, I get the remark that I am exaggerating with giving thanks. I always welcome this with a smile because that means that my parents had done a great job raising me and that I am still a humble and grateful individual to those that take from their time and energy to give me a hand.

It’s not at all tedious to me to say thank you, and I believe it should not be for anyone. But I know for a fact that some consider it a weakness.

For example, I once had a manager that bragged about the fact that he did not say thank you but very rarely. Often, when we were in team meetings, he would remind us that he does not like to say thank you. The explanation was that he did not want to support infantile behavior. According to his opinion, only children needed encouragements and thank-yous in order to have the stimulus to perpetuate certain prosocial behaviors. Adults, he believed, received once a month a nice thank you with their salaries being paid. Why was there a need to also receive a thank you from their manager?!

As for colleagues … there are a lot that believe that colleagues within a team don’t need to say thank you. That we are all peers and there is no need for useless formality. Which reminds me of an episode from a famous TV series. One colleague tells the other that he had learned that he had intimate relations with one of their colleagues. The latter asked how he had figured this out and the reply was that when she had offered him something, he did not say thank you – thus, they were intimate because they were not following the social code.

 

Why Should We Say Thank You?

Firstly, because no matter the relationships we are in, work or other types, no one is required to offer their limitless help.

Secondly, because we all need to receive acknowledgement and gratitude for our work. For example, I recently received a thank you note for a project I had created a while back in a company I no longer work for. It was indeed very nice to receive acknowledgment that not only my work was good, but also after such a time it is still an epitome. Just think of what this would have done for the motivation and engagement of an active employee!

 

But what about you, how often do you say thank you?

Hinnish Rice

I think life is a Hinnish rice.

Let me explain. A couple of years back, my nephew came to visit us while we were located at Cluj-Napoca. As a good hostess, I wanted to prepare some food for my guests (my parents, my sister and nephew). Thus, I made some rice like the one I once ate in a Uzbek restaurant and which turned my opinion around about the fact that rice cannot be tasty.

I combined all ingredients as I should, I used the same type of rice. It was good, but not wow! (quoting here the people who work in corporations and use too much this term). Also, my parents had eaten a lot of rice before the visit so they could not have been very excited anyway. And the nephew … well, I do not remember what the nephew said about the rice. But I do remember what he called it while I was preparing it: Hey, Eme, what are you cooking there, Hinnish rice?

We laughed a lot about this invented word, and I cherish that memory. But I have been discovering, ever since, that life is a Hinnish rice. One tries and makes a lot of efforts, takes risks, and does everything by the book and one gets a Hinnish rice. And one cannot even blame oneself. One has tried everything, but the result is far from being perfect.

It’s hard for one not to give into despair. Humans tend to do that when the results are not equal to their efforts. But when one finds oneself in a situation when one feels defeated, one must remember that, in life, we all sometimes receive Hinnish rice. And we eat it. ... Because that's life. And the cooking.