Anywhere I Lay My Head

An Interurban Musical Tour

The beautiful actress of Danish origin, Scarlett Johansson makes another striking move and sings Tom Waits songs accompanied by David Bowie in back vocals… The album, ‘Anywhere I Lay My Head’, was released on May 20.

This fame is something like a jelly, I guess. Once you are involved in it, you never get better of it. The singers become actresses, football players become singers; beautiful models become both singers and actresses. Some gums up the work, depressing us and herself/himself, while some become one spoon of a delicious dessert that is always to be remembered.
Albeit wealthy by birth, Paris Hilton, who is tempted by everything she sees or hears with a foolish arriviste is one of the most suitable and popular examples of gumming up the work. However, there are celebrities that can make anything they touch of gold even though their number is less then a few.
Well, how about Scarlett Johansson, one of the recent beauties of the silver screen, who has got a baby face with green eyes? This was the question on the minds when the successful actress, who hinted to the press two years ago that she would make record, finally released it.

Zombies out of Their Vaults
‘Anywhere I Lay My Head’ is an actual cover album. In this album, the Danish-origin actress sings 10 songs by Tom Waits, the living legend of Indie music, and an original composition.
Tom Waits has got an inimitable and legendary voice, granted by very few artists on the planet. His songs are sometimes like a rite and sometimes like a zombie attack coming from their vaults. Sometimes like a thunder, sometimes like a wildly babbling river; it sometimes gives peace like the affectionate arms of a father. In short, Johansson is swimming in dark waters for a debut album.
Rather than the solo album of Scarlett Johansson, ‘Anywhere I Lay My Head’ is more a project realized by Dave Sitek, the album producer. The songs are relatively colder than the originals, and sometimes even harsher, as they are transmitted to the audience from a further distance. And the beautiful actress comes round like a revue artist rather than a signer. She jumps from one role to another throughout the album. In a child dreaming childish dreams and out a coquette dame who has been through the mill...

Reflections of the Train Window
The album starts with an instrumental song called “Fawn”, borrowed from Tom Waits’s 2002 album “Alice”. The piano that occasionally accompanies a lyrical violin in the original version is replaced by an organ and a polyphonic, complex, and disordered comment including battery, guitar, and plenty of instruments in the cover version. ‘Town with no cheer’ coming after “Fawn” starts with all of the instruments heard throughout the album at the same time just like a sound check. Evidently, this sound check is a prelude needed to put the album artists on airs.
We are inside a train pulled by a locomotive, heading from Melbourne to Adelaide, the capital of Australia. While wandering the desert accompanied by the misty voice of Scarlett, we are passing through a ghost town once the trains used to have a break, hosting the passengers in its canteen. But the new trains with buffet cars do not stop here anymore. The sorrow, a reminiscent of the Victorian Era, and wronged by the modern age, is making our heath bleed. Sipping from our ice bourbon, we are listening to the next song.
‘Falling Down’ attracts attention as one of its heroines is called Scarlett. And of course, with the surprising contribution of another music legend – David Bowie accompanies Johannson in ‘Falling Down’ and ‘Fannin’ Street’.

An Interurban Tour
One of the songs offending the eye in the album is ‘Green Grass’, selected from Waits’s album called ‘Real Gone’ which was produced in 2004. The song, wrapped in a gay structure thanks to the percussions, is replaced by a deep blue again while moving along slowly.
As for ‘I wish I was in New Orleans’, which was borrowed from ‘Small Change’ album in 1976, is like a lullaby. As if we are swaddled in a bed and watching the toys rounding above us and listening to the melody coming out of it. Scarlett’s voice falls into a dreamy air just like a small child living in such a moony dream...
‘Anywhere I Lay My Head’ may not consist of the best songs of Tom Waits but it manages to perpetuate Waits’s spirit in covers. During this tour, which lasts for 45 minutes and includes 11 songs, we sometimes happen to find ourselves in a small room, sometimes in a cemetery, sometimes in the urban streets, sometimes in the middle of a green field. We are having breaks in Melbourne, Adolaide, St. Petersburg, London, Houston throughout this interurban tour.
Although it did not get a bare pass from prestigious magazines such as Rolling Stone and Uncut, you are holding an album in your hands, which was met with honor by so many critics. Leaning on Tom Waits spectacularly and without retreating from her actual profession, that is acting, there is a beautiful actress before us, who becomes a narrator. It is unknown whether the same actress will turn out to be a real singer, but it is a real fact that she proves her acting talents this time before the microphone.

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The Year My Parents Went on Vacation

The Year My Parents Went on Vacation

‘The Year My Parents Went on Vacation’ is the story of the little Mario, who has to leave his parents at a very young age and cherishes all his hopes for the football during their absence. The film takes the unsteady Brazil of 1970s as background to recount a big world from a child’s eyes.

Directed by Cao Hamburger, ‘The Year My Parents Went on Vacation’ (O Ano em Que Meus Pais Saíram de Férias) tells a warm story taking Brazil, which is smashed by the military junta of the 1970s, and the 1970 FIFA World Cup Mexico 70 as the background.
Bia and Daniel, who have been wanted by the police as political criminals decide to go for an exile. Telling their little son Mauro that they are going on vacation, they take him to his grandfather in São Paolo. However, the grandfather is a religious Jew, who does not talk to his son, so they leave Mauro in front of the apartment flat of his grandfather. While his family goes away with their blue Volkswagen Beetle, there is a surprise for Mauro – his grandfather, whom he has not seen since ages, has died just a few minutes ago.

Leaning on the Football
Mauro starts to live alone in his grandfather’s flat in a Jewish quarter, looking forward the day his parents will come back. His father had promised Mauro that they would return until the first match of Brazil in the World Cup. Mauro leans on football, his biggest passion in the world, during his parents’ absence.
His first friend in this new life, the rules of which remains puzzling for him, is an old Jewish man, called Shlomo, the next door of his late grandfather. For Mauro, Shlomo is quite boring because of his over-principled life-style; whereas, for Schlomo, Mauro is too resourceful and independent. However, soon a grandchild and grandfather relationship is about to spring between them.
Meanwhile, Hana appears. This smart young lady will come along with new hopes in his little world. His acquaintance with Irene, the popular girl of the street, is actually the first sexual experience of our little hero. Edgar, the black boyfriend of Irene, is a successful goalkeeper and soon he becomes a hero for Mauro. Ítalo, a militant college boy, is no different from a lost father’s shadow...
The biggest passion of Mauro in life is the love of football, inspired from his father. Football for Mauro, in this stage of his life, is of special importance both as a shelter against the distress he is in, and as symbolic of his parents’ arrival. As World Cup Mexico 70 draws near, Mauro’s excitement accordingly increases everyday.

A Sad Story
‘The Year My Parents Went on Vacation’ tells a turbulent period from the point of view of an innocent child. Although this is a theme very much explored by many films before, the aesthetic and narrative structure of the movie are praiseworthy. The film succeeds in giving us the littlest details about the relationships, tensions between little children and adults, adults and the old, women and men, Jews and Christians without offending the eye of the audience. What is more, it presents a spectacular visual quality and cinematography.
Even though the main tension of the film is Mauro’s reunion with his parents, this tension becomes partially less important in the middle of the film. The sub-tales and characters, the football conversations in particular, manage to enrich the film without rambling it.
‘The Year My Parents Went on Vacation’, which has comedy and drama in patches, but is never trapped in clichés and melodrama; has traces of autobiography. Just like in the film, the director Cao Hamburger’s parents, academics in São Paulo College, were arrested by the soldiers in 1970. In this period, little Cao and his four siblings had to stay with their grandmothers, one of them was Jewish, and the other a Catholic Italian. The most important reason why the film is so real and earnest is maybe the proximity of it to the story of the director...
In June, we are going to take a lively interest in football once again thanks to the 2008 UEFA European Football Championship. If you want to diminish the absence of Brazil in 2008 UEFA European Football Championship or if you are still determined to spend your time on football, you should see ‘The Year My Parents Went on Vacation’. But let me put it straight, you do not need any excuses to see a good film.

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