Vancouver to LA

It was cloudy when we got up Saturday morning in Vancouver, after almost a week of mostly sunshine.  And it was sunny again when our plane was ready to take off. 

This picture is for Donal who lives in Nanaimo on Vancouver Island and has been following the trip to Vancouver.  We've just cleared 10,000 feet here and we're headed over the southern tip of Vancouver Island.  You can't be too far away. 

On the left is Washington State, USA.    On the right is British Columbia, Canada. 

The Olympic Mountains in Washington State.

 

 

I think this is the  Sacramento - San Joaquin River Delta.

 A sometime reader from the Oxnard area confirmed on another trip to LA that these were the Channel Islands.

Fog is starting to roll in over the LA beaches as we bank inland.

The Goodyear blimp.  I think it was at the Coliseum where a USC - U Washington football game was soon to start.  And to end with a last minute come-from-behind victory for the UW Huskies. 

VIFF 2: Pink Saris and The Arrivals (Les Arrivants)

Photo from VIFF website

I felt like I was just dumped into rural India when the film started Thursday.  I remember (as opposed to what actually happened first) a woman yelling, and there's another, young woman who's boyfriend is in jail because he abandoned her after she became pregnant.  It seemed that was the reason he was in jail anyway. The movie goes on like this as the very outspoken Sampat Pal takes no crap from anyone as she fights for a series of young women who seek her out.  These highly confrontational scenes are interspersed with views of cityscapes or rural landscapes that allow us catch our breath.  Most of the problems stem from untouchable class women being involved with men of higher castes.

Just as I was starting to think of Sampat Pal as a rather pushy and righteous woman, on screen her companion accuses her being arrogant and overly concerned about publicity. (This companion is a higher caste man, though she never divorced the husband her parents married her off to when she was about 12.)

[Video from Women Making Movies at Youtube.]

When I left the theater I started thinking - how can you tell a story like this?  India is too big, there is so much the rest of the world doesn't know that needs to be filled in.  Why not do what Kim Longinotto, the director, did?  Just jump in almost ethnographically and let the viewer sample first hand, Sampat Pal at work?  


There is a story there - Indian woman, married out as a child and abused by her in-laws, grows up and works to protect other girls/young women facing the same situation.  That story tells itself.   Being there as she fights for justice is probably better than an 'even-handed' movie that might interview various people who have had dealings with Sampat Pal.  You just fall right into the middle of things that would lead any reasonably intelligent person to want to know a lot more. 

This is a woman with no real formal education who  says, "This is unjust and I'm going to do what I can to help some of the victims."  She's flawed, but no more than any of the rest of us.  What makes her stand out is that she isn't willing to put up with the injustice she sees around her.  

The movie should make everyone look at themselves and ask, "What suffering around me can I alleviate?" 

You can listen to a CBC interview with Pink Saris director Kim Longinotto here.  Scroll down to the Pink Sari segment.


This is an issue affecting women of all classes in India.  The book Ancient Promises by Jaishree Misra  tells the story of an educated middle class New Dehli girl's marriage to a man from her family's home state in Kerala which tells a similar story.  

In the afternoon we saw the French movie, The Arrivals.  It takes place in the Paris office that processes immigrants seeking asylum.  It follows an Ethiopian couple, an Eritrean woman, a Mongolian couple, a Sri Lankan family, and the French officials that cope with their problems and the limits of the bureaucracy they work for.  This film is not as raw as Pink Saris and we see the social workers' perspectives too. 

photo from VIFF website

There's so much mindless debate about immigration in the US and Europe today that seeing real people caught up in the red tape surely would help remind people that these are human beings, usually fleeing from difficult if not dangerous situations, trying to have a better life - like most people who now live in the US.  


These aren't necessarily easy movies to watch - though they aren't dry and certainly are as absorbing to watch as most reality shows.  If people watched just one movie of this type for every ten Hollywood films or two hours of video games they pay, we all be a much more informed world.  I'm not saying these films tell the whole stories - they couldn't.  But watching films like these, rich in detail that we normally don't see, on a regular basis will raise questions in people's minds and help replace some of the ignorance based prejudices we all have about things we know so little about.  








[Video from HAPPINESSDISTRI. The copy at the festival had English subtitles.]

NOTE:  The Vancouver International Film Festival has a great grid of all the movies by date, time, and place with links to more info about the movies.  I found it somehow, but can't find it again from the main website.  It's probably right there and easy to find, but if anyone else has trouble finding it, it's here.

VIFF 1: Vancouver International Film Festival Day 1

It just happened that the VIFF started yesterday and so we took advantage to go see a couple of films since we're here.  Get my juices flowing for the Anchorage International Film Festival in December.  Coincidentally I got the a message  this morning that the Anchorage Festival submissions are in and the official selections will be announced before too long.

This post will be mainly pictures and I'll try to get up some comments on the two movies we saw yesterday - Pink Saris and The Arrivals. 


This is the 11 am line at the Granville Venue for one of the first films to show in the festival - Pink Saris.

 

The theater was, maybe 1/3 full for this Thursday morning offering.

 

Since it was such a spectacular day, we picked at 4:15 movie as our next event and walked over the bridge to Granville Island.  That gave us 3 hours outside walking around.

Our tickets for The Arrivals - a French film that follows asylum seekers in the Paris office - were definitely low tech.

And as we made our way to the SkyTrain, we passed the main theater again which had a long line for the evening shows.

 

Burnaby Mountain 4: Wet Roses Part 2

Happy Birthday J!!!

This is my favorite birthday rose surrounded by all the lesser flowers.

Eating Vancouver

Burnaby Mountain 3: Wet Roses Part 1

I decided I had to do these roses in two parts so you can take your time with these knowing there are more coming.  These are especially for Catherine who's getting well. 

Burnaby Mountain 2: Around the Park

My Dad would be 99 years old today.  I know he would have loved to have been in the park with me.  Happy Birthday wherever you are Dad.  

The sky is pretty much clear and the weather in the 60s, so it seemed like a good day for a run. There's a park down the hill from where we're staying. This post is pictures of the park and the trails I took. The last post of the park will be from the rose garden.

The park is around the P and ? just left of the "You Are Here" sign on the map.

Here's from an April 15, 2010 CTV report:

Fire has ravaged an acclaimed restaurant on Burnaby Mountain just weeks before wedding season.

The blaze was discovered at about 7:15 a.m. Thursday by a cook at Horizons Restaurant, located at 100 Centennial Way.

"He opened the door and heard a crackling sound, and he called the fire department immediately," restaurant operator Geoffrey Howes told ctvbc.ca.
Eight fire trucks arrived on scene, and the fire was extinguished about an hour later. No one was injured in the blaze, but the restaurant's kitchen was destroyed.
Howes said the damage is extensive and will take about three months to fix. About six planned parties and wedding celebrations will be disrupted.

 It's now going on six months later and you can see from the picture, there's still work to do before  the Horizons Restaurant is open again.  

Then I continued my run down Pandora's trail. (On the map - this goes up and left from the park along the boundary with the 'danger' area.  It's marked, and you might be able to see it clearer if you double click the map.)

Then to the Gnome's Home Trail

The Gnomes were sitting all over this tree, but didn't come out in the picture at all.

I think this stump (about six feet tall) may be their home.

And then up the Ridgeview trail back to the park.

And then back up to the campus past this great swing scene.

Burnaby Mountain 1: Night and Day

Simon Fraser sits on top of Burnaby Mountain surrounded by forest.  Here are two comparison views - taken last night at dusk and this morning.

This one's looking west toward Vancouver. Not exactly the same shot, but close.

This one's looking north.  This time it's pretty much the same shot.