Jiangxi Soviet

Xiao Fan looked up as the words were severed in the air. The scythe was no longer in his hand. Instead it was arcing downwards automatically, except not automatically, because it had been taken deftly from his grip by his elderly father who now slashed at their assailant in blind fury.

Moka, a Film by Frédéric Mermoud

Films about obsession usually start in the before, the halcyon days of family and friends and home. A little background that helps explain the protagonist’s turn once it’s all shattered. Not in Moka, the new film by Frédéric Mermoud and adapted from the eponymous novel by Tatiana de Rosnay. We enter this one at full tilt with Diane Kramer (Emmanuelle Devos), a woman already consumed.

Suicide Note

They all pretend to be free spirits, terrorists,
Not by the book just by the letter,
But hey, don’t they all write poetry,
Don’t we all write poetry, these days,