Almodovar's Gaze at Life & Death

Death is part of life and death can be gorgeous. These paradoxical aphorisms could have been written by Teresa of Ávila, but they have been painted by Pedro Almodóvar in his latest film, "The Room Next Door". 

"The Room Next Door" (01:42':23") is a La Mancha cinematographic work of art, only that it was shot in New York City, in Echo Lake Park & Westfield, New Jersey..., and in the "lush pine woods of San Lorenzo de El Escorial", Madrid, the capital of Spain (located in geographical La Mancha). Tilda Swinton (Martha) and Julianne Moore (Ingrid) walk and talk together, like Don Quixote and a fruit-loving Ingrid, through their lives and Martha's upcoming death while Ingrid helps her along the increasingly arduous trail. But this Shakespearean tragedy is regarded in Almodóvar's eyes as a festival of colours, sounds and literary references, which make it .... just beautiful! The film was awarded the Golden Lion at Venice International Film Festival, 2024.

Based on the novel "What Are You Going Through" by Sigrid Nunez, the film version is inspired by Edward Hopper's paintings, with references to Astrology Angel Number 1614, Fred Flintstones, Dora Carrington, Lytton Strachey, Virginia Wolf, James Joyce, the Film Society at Lincoln Center ("Journey to Italy" issue), "Erotic Vagrancy", Martha Gellhorn, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Buster Keaton, Stefan Zweig, John Huston etc. The movie frames are accompanied by a delicate score of chirping birds, violins, celloes, violas, oboes, harps and the odd piano or horn, and Ingrid often relishes delicious meals with fruit, wine, herbal teas, tender kisses and sex table talk in the city or in the "Green World", with a gentle breeze, flowers blooming and "the snow falling faintly through the universe, and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead" (a quote from James Joyce's The Dead). But Almodóvar is also an actively engaged filmmaker who drops occasional political statements in the movie about climate change, doom mongers, euthanasia, the rise of the far right and religious fanaticism, which contrasts sharply with the joyful sacrifice of the gay Carmelite priest, Bernardo, when he refuses to abandon his flock in his Baghdad mission, during the Iraq war.

"The room next door" has just been released in Movistar Plus, Apple TV, Filmin, etc. in Spain and it opened in cinemas the U.S. last December 20. The dialogues are slow and clear and the vocabulary is colloquial, full of phrasal verbs and interesting collocations, so, it can be recommended for C1 students and above with subtitles.  Some of the expressions that come up in the dialogues are: to make out to [somebody], to draw [a crowd], to run into [somebody], a guinea pig, in [good] spirits, to give up, to forgo [treatment], to get along, to swap, to take over, [to be] over, to be high [on drugs], to carve out [an abyss], rehab, to ease [his conscience], to track down, to be trapped, to pass out, a nuisance, to stop by, to be [right] over, to feel obliged, to be infatuated, to devote [time to somebody], an alley, to let [somebody] down, to keep [somebody] company, an opioid, to settle in, to impose [something on somebody], defeatist, bullshit, [what's the] point [in doing something?], a terrible fear of [death], to be confused, to be in touch, to flirt, a blood count, to fill [somebody] in with [information], a caretaker, to misplace [something], the skyline, hassle, [I] got it, a chemo brain, to be spared [something], to budge [from something], to waste away, unacceptable [behaviour], unbearable, [to be] one of a kind, to be winded, a lawsuit, the life of the party, to rush [in], to fend off, looming [thoughts of death], spell, a rehearsal, to act out [all things], here you go, a will, chilly, a downer, [a topic] to come up [in a conversation], to mutter, a coward, blitzed, appalled, a miscarriage, death throes, a scavenger, teethering, to fade away, a patch, the specifics, faith, to aid, to abide [in], the charges, an attorney, an asshole, a [religious] fanatic, sorry for your loss, to pack up, here you go, an estranged [child], to be hard on yourself, dawn.

If you want further information, you can listen to the Fresh Air interview Tilda Swinton thinks about death and says you should too, by Terry Gross, where Tilda talks about her own real life experience as a carer of her friend Derek Jarman and her terminally-ill mother and how tough -and eventually rewarding- it was to accept her own powerlessness. She also talks about her film career, her sexual orientation, and about her wonderful experience working with Pedro Almodóvar and Alberto Iglesias (composer of the score). This long interview (44') has a transcript, so it can be recommend to C1+, or C2 students.

Telepathy? A Brain Implant Lets Impaired Patients Do Incredible Things with their Thoughts

Mark, a patient with ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis), can send health notifications and text messages using his thoughts and a Brain Computer Interface (BCI) called Synchron BCI, which was developed by Australian neurosurgeon Dr. Thomas Oxley, and was implanted without major brain surgery by Dr. Raul G. Nogueira, according to the CNN Business video report "An implant in his brain lets him do incredible things with his thoughts".  I would like to thank my colleague Nuria G. for the information about this CNN Business report.

The 5:37 video with subtitles is suitable for B2 students and above, who will come across interesting words like: to send out, a pretty involved [process], [I don't take] lightly, ALS, to sign up to a clinical trial, a stentrode,

 

[brain computer] interface, [to play] pong, FDA [approval], a caregiver, paralysis, [motor] impairment, a wired mesh, [electrode] sensors, a stent, to sit in a [major] vein, deployed in a blood vessel, [minimally] invasive, a device, to fire impulses, an [electrical] signature, [electrical] patterns, [to take] a snapshot, a domain [of function], skull, garbled, [in the patient's] setting, tournament.

If you want further information, you can listen to Dr. Thomas Oxley talking about how close neurosurgery is to telepathy, that is, to a brain-computer interface for people who have lost the capacity to move or speak. This Sydney TED-Talk lasts 15:50, and can be watched with subtitles by B2 students and above.

Walking Fast for 30 Minutes Can Reduce Dementia and Mortality

 

A recent study has proved that the intensity of exercise matters to reduce the risk of dementia and mortality caused by cancer or heart disease, according to CNBC reports. The article is suitable for B2 students, but there are links to JAMA Neurology and JAMA Internal Medicine leading to the scientific paper, Ahmadi et al, European Heart Journal, 2022, which is more suitable for C2 students and Medicine professionals.

In the CNBC article you can find some interesting words like: a step, to go about [walking], to keep up with a pace, to lower, to be committed to [a daily walk], burst, early death, to peak at [10,000 steps each day], to drop [risk of dementia], purposeful, to review the data, [to walk] briskly, [it] proved to be beneficial, a condition, a device, to monitor [phisical activity].

Time magazine also reports on a second study by Dempsey et al, European Heart Journal 2022, which also studied the intensity of the effort and the time spent. Tara Law explains in her report that "people who walked quickly for seven minutes instead of slowly for 14 minutes during that week had a lower rist of cardiovascular disease later on".  

Rejuvenation of Human Skin Cells to Reverse Ageing

Professor Wolf Reik from the Babraham Institute in Cambridge, has led a group of scientists to find a technique that rejuvenates skin cells by 30 years. BBC News recently reported about this breakthrough, a step forward in regenerative medicine research, which eventually might help in the treatment of diabetes, heart disease or neurological disorders, although there is still a great deal of work to be done, because some of the chemicals involved in the process of cell reprogramming can cause cancer, and clinical application are still "a long way off", according to Prof. Robin Lovell-Badge of the Francis Crick Institute in London.  

The BBC News article and the video below are suitable for C1 students and above.  You will find interesting words like: to tackle, ageing, tissues, age-related disease, disorders, to build on [a technique], to clone, super [exciting], to stress that, [scientific] issues to overcome, a critical step forward, to stem from, embryo, [human embryonic] stem cells, worn-out [body parts], to be regrown, to prove difficult, to cut short, a chemical bath, to be confident that, the [human] health span, the lifespan, to speed up [healing], to [part-]fund [the research], the long-stalled [benefits], immune cells, [immune cells become less] responsive, to boost [people's response to vaccination], [a method] of whole-body regeneration, an elixir of youth, an anti-ageing pill, fart-fetched, [scientific] hurdles, a trivial [process], chemicals, a long way off.

You can also watch this short BBC News video with subtitles (2':20"), which tells the story in, perhaps, slightly more colloquial terms:

Finally, if you are an expert in Biology, you might enjoy watching this 4':49" video from Golahura You Tube Channel, which is more technical, and could be assessed as beyond C2 level, that is ("Level Ex" for experts) in the classification of this blog.

The Teenage Inventor Who Wants to Help his Great Aunt

Freddie is a 14-year-old inventor who has developed two machines to help his 89-year-old great aunt, Pat, who has demetia. In this short BBC World Service video (4':46") you will hear him explaining his inventions.  The video can be seen with automatic subtitles, so it is accessible to B2 students and above.

Some of the new words you will find in the video are: an award-winning inventor, a facial recognition door entry system, random strangers, to scan my ID tag for authentification, a code club, a wearable sensor, to dispatch [a robot], to rope in [his family], to trigger [a false positive], thoroughly, to be over, for a second year running, to set him up, a former [winner], to showcase [your skills].

Future Boyfriend (2016): a Sci-Fi, Romantic Film

Future Boyfriend is a short (11 minute), romantic film with a clever sci-fi twist in the plot. I would like to thank my student May L. for sharing this video with me.

The film was first written as a one-act play by A. Vincent Ularich and it was accepted in the Sci-Fest festival in Los Angeles in 2014,  Subsequently the actors raised $12,645 in donations to fund the production and the shooting of the film, David Alayón reports for Medium. The dialogues are fast, but they can be subtitled, so the movie should be accessible to B2 students.  

Some of the new, colloquial language you may find is: I should come clear about something, disrupting the fabric of time, to take in, to have a lot to handle, weird, gross!, grisly, a better shot, a creep, to work out, to get this straight, deal?

If you want to know more about the film, you can watch this 5 minute video, Behind the Scenes of Future Boyfriend, where the main actors, Ron Morehouse and Emily Bell talk to some of the movie technicians and relatives the day the movie was shot.  You will find lots of technical and colloquial words related to movie-making, like  sneak peek, prepping, shoot, clips, behind the scenes footage, crew, picture lock, premiere, make-up and costume person, on set, cameo, to steal the show, being background, a stern look, handled, appreciative, I'm drained, stills (Watch out! The subtitles are not always perfect!). This sneak peek view of the film is also suitable for B2 students.

All the World is a Stage

William Shakespeare can be fun!  This lesson, which starts with a listening, vocabulary and speaking task from Headway Upper-Intermediate, Oxford Univerty Press, 1987, continues with a discussion about the seven ages of man and aging, a topic that has changed very little since Elisabethian times. Then you can find two videos that explain the plot of the play "As You Like It", one from Shmoop and the other one by a teacher, Ian Finley. Finally, you can find four renditions of Jaques' classic monologue "All the World is Stage" performed by Digital Theatre Plus, Morgan Freeman, Tom O'Bedlam and Beth Kennedy in Troubadour Theatre Company. The picture in this post shows Orlando and Rosalind, the two main characters in "As You Like It". 

Shakespeare still has something to say 500 years later, you only have to decide whose performance you prefer.

Japan's Elderly Crime Wave

The number of crimes committed by people over 65 in Japan is on the rise.  Meagre state pensions that do not pay bills and loneliness are pushing a growing number of elderly Japanese to commit petty crimes, reoffend and serve long terms in prison, where they can find food, accommodation and healthcare for free... and company too!  If you want to find out more, you can read this BBC News Stories article, which includes a short video (in Japanese and English with subtitles) and a link to a radio report from BBC radio 4 and the BBC World Service programme "Assignment". Both the text and the video can be classified as B2 level.

Here you can find a direct link to the BBC Radio 4 report (and the BBC World Service Assignment programme) on Japan's Elderly Crime Wave, which lasts 28 minutes. The narrator speaks slowly and very clearly, but there is  no transcript, so the documentary is classified as C2.