Corto Maltese: Captain, castaway, pirate

I’ve been on a graphic novel and comic book kick for a while. I’ve also been on a Cormac McCarthy kick. But since I’m not in the mood to plunge deep into the darkness of human depravity right now, I’ve decided to get back in the blogging habit with a series of reviews of the graphic novels and comics I’ve read recently.

I have to start with Corto Maltese: The Ballad of the Salt Sea.

What a fantastic book. The cover art sucked me in with its promise of a South Seas, damsel-in-distress, vagabond, pirate/anti-hero kind of tale. Add in cannibalistic but mostly helpful Polynesians, and that’s exactly what it delivered.

Corto is the invention of Hugo Pratt, an Italian writer and illustrator who wrote the books between 1970 and 1984 while living in France. I’ve so far been able to find Salt Sea and Corto Maltese: The Early Years, in English.

Corto, a sea captain, is the son of a British sailor from Cornwall and a gypsy Andalusian witch and prostitute known as “La Nina de Gibraltar.” Maybe because of his dubious pedigree and the fact he seems to earn his living carrying out sketchy deeds on leaky ships in the South Seas, he is loyal to no flag and seems to base his allegiances on individuals, trusting everyone until they give him a reason not to.

Perhaps his only loyalty is to underdogs – even Corto’s enemies, when they are down, seem to elicit his sympathy and often his help, which he usually comes to regret.

His escapades take place in the early 1900s. In Salt Sea, the story begins when a villainous rival of Corto’s named Rasputin picks up two shipwrecked Dutch cousins, whom he believes might be worth a large ransom.

Soon they encounter Corto, tied to a piece of driftwood and floating in the open ocean, and the adventure begins as he comes on board and tries to decide whose side he is on – another South Seas disrepute, much like himself, or the wealthy castaways, one of whom is a beautiful girl.

Complicating the story is the addition of the Monk, a powerful pirate who controls the region, playing nearby navy ships from the Netherlands, Germany, Japan and America off each other whenever it suits his purposes.

Pratt has a way of capturing the alien experience the two cousins have, and putting the reader in their place, far from home, surrounded by gruff captains and seamen, violent pirates, ruthless or clueless military officers and local natives.

And it’s the natives that he uses most effectively to convey a sense of unease – their tattooed faces and strange, stilted way of talking revealing little about where their loyalties lie.

The artwork is also compelling. Remember, these were drawn between 30 and 40 years ago, so there’s none of the intricate detail and sophisticated artwork and printing techniques we see in today’s comics.

Instead, there’s a simplicity to it that forces the reader to fill in some of the gaps on his own. Pratt’s attention to facial expressions is especially well done. There’s a perfect mix of excitement and fear as Pandora, the girl, says, “I’m curious to see this famous ‘Monk’” – referring to the murderous and mysterious pirate she is about to meet.

It’s a compelling adventure story, especially for anyone who has been to that part of the world, or who grew up fascinated by Herman Melville or Jack London’s South Sea tales of adventure, like I did.

I couldn’t put it down but also forced myself to read it slowly in order to stretch it out – it was that good. I recommend this book.

Peak-bagging in the Lyells and Mt. Forbes in Banff National Park

 

This article was written a few weeks after a mountaineering trip in July 2012.

Sitting here in my apartment on busy Queen Street in downtown Toronto, with traffic whizzing by and bar-goers hooting and hollering outside my window, it’s hard to believe that just weeks ago I was standing on the summit of Mt. Forbes with four other members of the Toronto Section of the Alpine Club of Canada, taking in an incredible vista and feeling as though we were on top of the world.

Which we kind of were. At 3,612 metres, Forbes is the highest peak in Banff National Park, and the successful summit bid was the highlight of the section’s summer mountaineering trip for a number of us.

Fourteen of us joined the trip this year, flying to Calgary, then making our way to Golden, B.C., where we caught a “high clearance vehicle” – a.k.a. a bus -- into the mountains. From Golden we travelled for several hours along  twisty alpine logging roads until we reached our rally point to await the helicopter that would shuttle us into the Lyells region in the high alpine –- a well-kept secret that holds six of the country’s 54 11,000-foot summits.

Once we arrived, we began to separate into two groups. One group would spend the first five nights at the Lyells Hut (2,860m), close to the five mountains that make up the Lyells range. The other group would start at the Mons Hut, slightly lower at 2,370 metres of elevation but closer to the coveted Mt. Forbes -– the highest peak in Banff National Park and the objective that obsessed many of us.

After the first five days, our groups would switch huts, making for a total of 10 days in the mountains, with numerous potential summits for each group to bag.

My group, under the guidance of trip organizer Rob LeBlanc, won the coin toss that determined who would head to the Lyells hut first. Everyone generally felt that the group that stayed at the Mons hut during the second half of their trip would be better acclimatized and would therefore have the best chance at reaching the summit. As it turns out, this was entirely the case -- the major summits were bagged later in the week by both teams, largely due to the weather.

Our group was happy about the result, but as Alex Perel, the leader of the other group pointed out, weather and timing were the unpredictable X-factors that would inevitably determine success or failure on Forbes.

At the muster point we met our experienced, talented, and sometimes helpfully bossy cooks – Monique and Darcie.

Monique immediately took charge, dividing up the teams, gear, and giving us specific instructions on how to manage the helicopter arrivals and drop-offs. There is no arguing with “Mo”, and why would you want to? She holds the keys to feast and famine.

And then we were gone, heading up the valley and into the mountains, climbing hundreds of feet of elevation and looking down on old, fissured, crevasse-riddled glaciers spawning powerful waterfalls. Untouched snowy bowls, massive rock faces -- we were truly in the Rocky Mountains now, and the adventure was underway.

Within minutes the helicopter was circling in on the Lyells hut, a lonely tin box perched awkwardly on the shoulder of Christian peak at 2,860 metres. We had been warned it was “winter up there,” and that was no exaggeration. The temperature was about 15 degrees cooler than it had been on the launch pad, and the chopper landed on snow. We went from shorts and T-shirts below, to post-holing our way in thigh-deep snow as we hauled gear from the chopper to the cabin.

But after months of planning and days of travel, we had finally arrived, and it felt great to be in the mountains, taking in our first far-off views of Forbes as it towered above the other mountains in the distance.

We could only hope that our friends in Alex’s group would get a shot at the summit and as many other peaks as they hoped to climb before we swapped huts.

The next day, our first full day in the mountains, we ate a big breakfast then geared up and headed out. Our plan was to rope-up and hike to a steep snow slope behind the hut to practice self-arrest techniques, crampon skills and glacier travel.

After some sliding around, getting comfortable with our mountaineering axes and crampons, we continued on up Christian peak, following Rob as he kicked steps up a steep slope, then went over-the-top into an area we dubbed “The Sauna” -- a natural half-pipe carved out of the glacier where the temperature went up dramatically. Not only that, but The Sauna was a terrific terrain trap for rockfall and debris. To add to the misery, as a descent route it does not reveal itself as a dead end, as members of Team Eh! would discover to their exhausted chagrin only a few days later. 

Like most of the Lyells, Christian looked a lot easier than it actually was. From a distance you could convince yourself it was a quick 30 minutes up and 20 down, but the scale is different up there. What looks close could be two hours away. What looks far off could require a long day’s hiking.

But we were fresh and eager, and soon we were at the top of our first summit -- and the only summit of the trip that all the members of Team Huh? reached together, at the same time. Christian, or Lyell #5, was a fantastic first objective at 3,390 metres that left us feeling like our group was gelling well and was ready to bag a bunch more summits!

On the way back down, we decided to rappel down the steepest section. Jon Newman and Rafael, however, decided to glissade. We quickly realized, watching Jon gain speed at a frightening rate for a few moments, that the snow masked a layer of ice that made for less than ideal glissading. (A few days later, that snow was mostly melted and the massive sheet of sheer ice was revealed.)

On July 29, our third day in the mountains, Team Huh? had its first alpine start. Waking up at 4 a.m. was painful, but the reward made it well worth it -- the alpenglow created a blue and pink aura that framed the mountains and set the stage for an epic day as we hit the glacier.

We crossed some crevasses and had our first brush with the dangers of glacier travel as we headed toward a massive snowfield that served as a super-highway to the base of the Lyells, which we could see clearly ahead of us, beckoning us onward. This was one of those instances where an estimated hour or so turned into three or four hours of hard slogging, just to get to the base.

But eventually we made it, our two rope teams regrouping at the bottom to make a push for the summit. Though we could see all five Lyells, it was #1, #2 and #3 that were our objectives -- three 11,000 footers in one day! We managed to achieve the first two with no major problems, but things got dicey as we approached Lyell #3. Weather started to move in, and between breaks in the clouds we could see a nasty-looking bergschrund that would need to be negotiated, just below the summit of #3.

Onward! We did it, beating the weather, surpassing the bergschrund (and gaping snow cave we had to carefully climb around -- upon which Rafael Kolodziejczyk executed his first lead!) to reach the summit, and turn around to head home as the weather quickly deteriorated.

Little did we know, the ominous weather approaching would quickly deliver a blast of rain, hail and lightning that would chase us for several hours, making for a miserable and scary trip home.

But once we were all safe in our cozy cabin, and the scotch and boxed wine was being passed around and stories swapped, all agreed it was an epic day, climbing three peaks with elevations of 3,507 metres, 3,514 metres and 3,511 all in one day, and we wouldn’t have traded it for anything.

The next day at the Lyells hut was mostly rained out, though a few of us managed to get on the glacier to practice walking on steep ice in crampons (more later on why that came in handy!), building snow and ice anchors and using ice screws.

Finally, on our last day at the Lyells hut we did some exploring around Lens, a peak of 3,150 metres, but were unable to find a route to the mountain’s well-defended summit by our turnaround time, which was inflexible since this was transfer day to the Mons hut. The same schedule led Team Eh to have a “rest day” on Division Peak, the highlight of which was an attempt to cut down a cornice, in the name of sport.

Finally, after a stressful couple of hours of packing, and some weather-related delays, we heard the far off ‘whoosh whoosh’ of a helicopter approaching, and the transfer was underway –- a rushed ‘hello’ to our friends from Team Eh! as they unloaded, and we were once again in the air, heading towards the elusive Forbes peak that had been taunting us for so long.

Though the huts are only about 500 metres apart in terms of elevation, the difference is immediately noticeable. The Mons hut is warmer, there’s a melt-water creek passing by the cabin and a picturesque turquoise tarn just below the hut. And it’s easier to breathe –- which is good, because we were up for our biggest challenge yet.

The next day, Aug. 2, 2012, Team Huh was caught in a blizzard. We had planned a reconnaissance day, with the goal of walking in the direction of Forbes to suss out whether we could use a rumoured couloir as a sort of back-door shortcut to a ridge that would drop us directly at the base of the northwest face.

We got within sight of the couloir, barely, when a blizzard suddenly socked us in during our lunch break. It was instant whiteout conditions, and we all put our hoods up to wait it out miserably, detached in our own worlds.

That was when Mo, our cook and a true self-described Kootenay mountain girl, busted out her emergency tarp and rigged up a shelter that managed to keep all eight of us out of the snow and in close proximity. She also broke out her collection of jokes, ranging from inappropriate to all-out filthy, which kept us laughing during the storm.

The next day the weather was bad in the morning, so for Team Huh? a Forbes attempt was out of the question. This opened the door to climb Mons, the peak directly between the hut and Forbes. Once again, a deceptively easy-looking climb quickly became a challenging one, complete with patches of bare, exposed ice that required us to “poon up” and get in lots of unexpected practice with the mountaineering axes. Jon even had to cut steps. But once again the entire group reached the summit under bluebird skies, meaning we had another summit (3,083m) to add to the list.

Finally, on our second-to-last day, the weather looked like it was going to be perfect, and we decided to plan a 2 a.m. wake-up call for the five team members making a summit push, with a 3 a.m. start time planned.

At 2 a.m. the sky was filled with stars, and we knew it was now or never. So after a hearty breakfast, the five of us set out on a single rope, first climbing the toe of the Mons glacier in front of our hut which eventually led to the West Glacier, which was the approach that would lead us to our mystery couloir. We had been told “it goes,” but hadn’t gotten close enough to see for ourselves, and others had told us Forbes was only possible with a bivy at the base -- something we weren’t prepared to do, and frankly refused to believe.

Under a full moon with no need for headlamps, walking on a perfectly frozen glacier, we made good time, but still trudged four-and-a-half hours at a brisk “Rob LeBlanc trot” before we could finally get a good look at the so-called short-cut couloir. What we saw was intimidating. Roughly 100 metres high, with bare ice at the bottom, loose scrabbly rock in the middle and another section of terrifyingly steep ice at the top.

We put our crampons on, got our mountaineering axes out and short-roped. And then it was time to go, with Rob leading, placing ice screws wherever he could (which wasn’t all that often).

Instead of a direct line, we had to execute constant switchbacks in order to avoid kicking rocks down on the climbers directly below us. It was a sketchy, intense climb, but there was nowhere to go but up, and the glimpses of daylight at the top of the couloir kept us motivated -- along with ample amounts of sheer terror.

When the group finally crested the ridge we had an easy line to drop down to the base of Forbes, where we took our first break while we tried to chart a path up the exposed, steep face.

Jon Newman had climbed Forbes 15 years earlier, and had taken a route that required a long slog up the face, before finally traversing to the ridge just below the summit. Other members of the Toronto Section on a previous trip had chosen a route that got them onto the north ridge, which they then took to the summit before descending the west ridge.

Rob chose a hybrid route somewhere between the two, switchbacking directly up the northwest face before finally heading to the west ridge just below some exposed rock.

We set out behind him, as he began kicking steps in what was perfect, packable snow for a good portion of the ascent. At a certain point, however, that beautiful snow gave out and we found ourselves traversing on thinly-covered ice with nothing but a couple of ice screws between us and a spectacular drop down the northwest face.

Eventually, our horizontal ice climbing transitioned to vertical climbing, as we tackled a steep portion of bare ice in order to avoid loose, steep rock on the right which led down to a dangerously steep gully.

Finally, after a short but exposed high-altitude free climb on a rock step, we were on the summit ridge -- a steep, snowy slab that took us to the summit of the highest peak in Banff National Park. 

It was awesome. Bluebird day, a great team, an incredible view and nothing left to do but get home safely.

Of course, that turned out to be an epic mission. Instead of following our shortcut couloir, which would have required an impossible rappel, we took the classic North Glacier route home. Unfortunately, that required us to find a way across a raging torrent at the toe of the Mons Glacier, where it met the North Glacier. When Jon came this way a decade-and-a-half ago it was a solid ice bridge, but the glacier had receded significantly and we spent close to two hours in an exhausting search for a route, before we finally found a place where it was possible to cross the river and get onto the glacier for the long -- and slushy -- slog home.

After a 3 a.m. start, we arrived back at the hut at 9:15 p.m., more than 18 hours after setting out, but with our objective accomplished -- and the best surprise of the day, cold beer that Jon and Alexandra Welsh had secretly stashed for just such an occasion.

Beer never tasted so good.

Is 'Hesher' the snake or the mouse? (Directed by Spencer Susser, 2010)

In the film “Hesher” the main character of the same name tells a story about a pet snake he used to have.

Once a week, he explains, he would put a mouse in the terrarium and watch the snake go hunting for dinner.

Then one day he put in a mouse that didn’t want to play along. As the snake moved towards it, Hesher recounts, it reared up on its hind legs and “punched” the snake in the face.

No other mouse had ever done such a thing, and the snake was stunned and didn’t know what to do. When he approached again, the same thing happened and eventually, the snake backed off.

Hesher would add other mice into the tank, but they would all hide behind the original mouse, and eventually, the snake starved to death.

“So who am I?” asks the sweet old grandmother to whom Hesher is telling the tale. “And who is the mouse?”

For most of the film, I found myself asking the same question. Hesher, played by the always awesome Joseph Gordon-Levitt, is a dirty, course, tattooed metalhead who comes into the life of T.J., a young boy trying to make sense of his world.

T.J. and his father Paul, played by Rainn Wilson, are living with his grandmother in the aftermath of the death of T.J.’s mom. Paul can barely get off the couch and the family is falling apart.

T.J. meets Hesher when he smashes a window in a construction site in a fit of rage. Hesher has been squatting in the house, and explodes out of the building in a fit of violence equally as disturbing as T.J.’s.

Their paths quickly part, but not for long. Hesher starts showing up everywhere T.J. goes, and soon moves in with his family, seeming to follow the logic that since T.J. wrecked his living arrangement, he owed him a roof over his head.

Bizarrely, the family is so disjointed that no one really questions their new house guest, who is about 15 years older than T.J., and Hesher soon begins to have an influence on the family.

It’s not necessarily a good influence. Hesher is an aggressive, intimidating animal, and Gordon-Levitt (Third Rock from the Sun, “Brick,” “The Lookout,” “500 Days of Summer) proves once again he able to fully and completely become his characters.

He’s scary. When he calmly looks on as T.J.’s head is being thrown into a urinal by a bully, or when he grabs his nose with hedge-trimmers and squeezes, there are parts that border on disturbing and are tough to watch.

Even the scenes where he is attempting to do good – forcing T.J. to set the bully’s car on fire in an act of revenge, freaking out and making an embarrassing and frightening scene in front of T.J.’s much older crush Nicole (Natalie Portman) in an attempt to drive them together -- he is always raw and uncomfortable.

But is Hesher the snake in the story, or the brave mouse? Decide for yourself. One thing is certain though, his extreme sense of justice, his loyalty and the sheer energy he possesses, somehow breathes life into a dying family and shows them they have something worth living for, despite what they have lost.

Good movie. But choose your viewing companions carefully. This one’s not for everyone.

'Midnight in Paris' a loveletter to a rainy, literary city (Woody Allen, 2011)

I'm embarrassed to admit I've never been to Paris. In fact, the vivid image that comes to mind when I think of that city is the painting "Cafe Terrace at Night" by Vincent van Gogh. That beautiful work, for me, has always captured what Paris must be like on a warm summer night after a few glasses of wine. Cobblestone streets, warm light spilling out of cafe windows, dark skies and bright stars.

This is how I picture that city in my mind, however unrealistic that may be.

The main character in the film “Midnight in Paris” has a similar attitude towards Paris.

Gil Pender (Owen Wilson) and his fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams) have tagged along with her parents on a business trip to the French capital.

Gil, a successful screenwriter in Hollywood, is putting the final touches on a novel about someone who works in a “nostalgia shop” that sells curiosities and memorabilia from the past.

The protagonist in Gil’s book is really an expression of himself. He’s in love with
Paris, especially in the rain, and feels he would have been better suited to living in an earlier time and place – most likely as an expat writer or artist in the 1920s living in Paris.

Inez, entertains his efforts to write a book but makes him promise that when it fails, which she seems certain it will, he’ll go back to screen writing, which seems to offer a prestige and security she enjoys.

From conversations with her wealthy parents, furniture shopping, or the time they spend with Inez's “pseudo intellectual” friends, it quickly becomes clear Gil and his fiancee have little in common.

When trying to describe their commonalities ("not the big things, more the little things"), Gil can only say they both like Indian food. But then realizes, no, they both only like the “naan” bread that comes with Indian food.

That seems to be where the similarities end.

But soon, those issues fade into the background as Gil accidentally discovers a portal that takes him into the past, allowing him to walk through the streets of Paris in the 1920s and to meet people like F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Pablo Picasso. Hemingway’s editor even agrees to read Gil's book.

This is where the film could take a silly, sci-fi turn that would be completely out of place in a Woody Allen film. But somehow it doesn’t become that at all. As someone who has devoured Hemingway, Fitzgerald and read about those fantastic days when Paris was a new frontier for American artists and writers, I was rapt with Allen's subtle portrayal of the era, which somehow does feel like a doorway into a van Gogh painting or a short story by Hemingway.

Not surprisingly, Gil is also enthralled. These are the heroes of his Golden Age, and to sit and drink with them, discuss literature and big ideas, is a dream come true. He even meets a beautiful girl named Adriana (Marion Cotillard), and somehow manages to win her affection despite her attachment to both Hemingway and Picasso.



They seem to be kindred spirits, but an interesting wedge develops when they manage to travel back even further, to the late 1800s, which, as it turns out, is the era Adriana looks back to as her own personal Golden Age.

This provides a valuable lesson to Gil about the futility of looking to the past for an elusive sense of happiness or belonging. But it’s not the true message of the film. That lesson is delivered by Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates), the literary agent or editor who agrees to read his book.

“You have a good voice,” she tells him after reading the book. But, she adds, it’s too dreary and depressing.

An artist’s responsibility is not to sink people into the depths of despair, Stein says, but to provide hope and the promise of something better through their paintings, stories or songs.

This is the key message for Gil, the one that inspires him not only to rewrite his book but also to rewrite the story of his own life (the 2011 version) and pursue the things that truly matter.

Hemingway’s words also help drive home the lesson: "No subject is terrible if the story is true, if the prose is clean and honest, and if it affirms courage and grace under pressure," he says, or preaches, really, in an impassioned rant.

The realization he has with Adriana, along with the wise words from Hemingway and Stein, inspire Gil to live his own live with new courage and hope.

Though we may not all look back with a deep sense of nostalgia for the past as Gil does, there are lessons here for all of us about the value of finding inspiration in our own context – while still being able to appreciate the beauty of Paris in the rain.

Oh yeah, and Carla Bruni is also in this film, playing a tour guide who befriends Gil. And she's great in the role.

'Cave of Forgotten Dreams' a haunting doc (2011, Werner Herzog)

“Cave of Forgotten Dreams” couldn’t have a more accurate title. The new documentary by Werner Herzog takes viewers on a rare tour deep inside a cave in France that, hidden until the mid 1990s, is filled with hundreds of cave paintings dating back 35,000 years.

The paintings include images of wild animals -- many now extinct -- in battle, hunting, fleeing a predator or even sharing an affectionate moment with a mate.

Believed to be the oldest cave paintings in existence, they have an exquisite artistic quality that makes them jump off the cave walls, a canvas that was used to create the impression of depth, shadow and movement by the artists.

Who painted the hundreds of images, why, and what were they trying to express? The film asks all these questions and provides some answers while acknowledging that a full understanding of the ‘why’ will never be achieved.

Herzog seems OK with that, content to accept that the images represent the dreams of a long-gone people. And perhaps only through our own dreams can we glimpse what life may have been like for the artists., he suggests.

The Chauvet cave in France’s Ardeche region was discovered almost by accident by three hikers in 1993. Its entrance had been closed off by a landslide or rockfall millennia earlier, effectively sealing and preserving the artistry within.

Almost immediately the importance of the discovery was realized and the French government quickly restricted access and installed a steel door on the cave.

Other than a handful of scientists and researchers, few people have been allowed access in the 18 years since, which is one of the reasons Herzog’s film is so exciting.

Shooting in 3D (though I watched it on DVD) Herzog and a crew of two others, permitted only to take three cold-frame, battery powered lights and minimal camera gear with them, were allowed four hours of shooting per day for a number of weeks.

There were strict limitations. They were forbidden from stepping off of the aluminum walkway that runs through the cave, meaning the crew was often caught in the shot due to the tight spaces they work working within. Nor could they leave the cave during their four-hour window, or the day’s visit would immediately end because the caretakers wanted to minimize the amount of airflow into the cave.


But those restrictions don’t seem to have had a negative affect on the film. The flashlight beams illuminating the images, the unsteady hand-held lighting and camera work, make the paintings appear as they must have 30,000 years ago, illuminated by torch or firelight, with shadows sharply contrasting against highlights.

The images are powerful and even somewhat disturbing in their realism. Due to their perfect preservation, they appear as though they could have been drawn yesterday. In one instance, black marks show where a torch was scratched against the ceiling. And on the floor below are the fragments of charcoal. Incredible.

One of the anthropologists studying the cave explains that when he was first allowed access, he found himself almost haunted by the experience. He was obsessed with the riveting images while in the cave, then relieved to once again emerge above ground, and would later dream about the drawings at night.

Herzog described a similar experience.

“Dwarfed by these large chambers illuminated by our wandering lights, sometimes we were overwhelmed by a strange irrational sensation as if we were disturbing the Paleolithic people in their work, it felt like eyes upon us. This sensation occurred to some of the scientists and also the discoverers of the cave, it was a relief to resurface again above ground,” he explained in the film’s narration.

The paintings mostly depict animals that were indigenous to the area at the time they were created. Horses, rhinoceroses, wooly mammoths, tigers and leopards all make an appearance.

In one case, the beautiful single-line style illustration of a now extinct species of a female and male lion answered a long-held question about whether the male of that species had a mane. It did not, the painting revealed.

Many of the paintings show animals in action with, with extra legs painted in to show movement, or multiple horns on a rhinoceros, giving the clear impression that the creature is rearing his head in fury.

Another image shows four horses, their heads almost superimposed over each other. They are drawn with such sophistication that they would not be out of place in any gallery today. And fascinatingly, each horse has a slightly different expression and they seem to cover a variety of moods and attitudes.

The narrator points out that one of the horses’ mouth is open, as though he is whinnying.

The artists clearly studied the animals in great depth. Did they do so as hunters, future domesticators, or simply out of an early human fascination? We don’t know and likely never will.


There is only one human image in the cave. In the deepest recesses, a woman’s form is drawn on a stalactite, with her sexual organs over-emphasized to symbolize fertility.

Near the entrance of the cave, an artist painted multiple positive impressions of his own hand – a hand with a slightly crooked little finger. Then, much deeper in the cave, that hand shows up again as a signature, or calling card of sorts, provoking fascination among the researchers desperate for any clues to the identity of the artists.

And deep in the cave there is the track of an 8 year-old boy, and alongside it, the track of a wolf.

“Did a hungry wolf stalk the boy or did they walk together as friends. Or were the tracks made thousands of years apart? We’ll never know,” Herzog says, his words serving as one more reminder that the mysteries of such a deep past will remain so, even amid the discovery of such a direct connection to those who walked on two legs thousands of years ago.

'Win Win' actors breathe life into a simple story (directed by Tom McCarthy, 2011)

First of all, is there any role Paul Giamatti takes on that doesn’t turn to gold? I just have so much respect for the guy, from “Sideways” right up to his recent tear-inducing work in “Barney’s Version” and now, in “Win Win.”

He seems to have a subtle ability to turn ordinary, humdrum roles into fascinating character studies.

In “Win Win,” he plays small-town New Jersey lawyer and wrestling coach Mike Flaherty. Life is OK for Mike, but that’s about it. His marriage is fine, work is mediocre and money is tight. And his wrestling squad, well, it sucks.

That all begins to change with one small act of deception -- one that truly defines the old “when once we practice to deceive” line.

In order to earn some extra money, Mike offers to take on the guardianship of one of his clients, a wealthy man in the early stages of dementia whose only desire is to stay in his home. With no family to help him do that, the state is going to put him in a retirement home, until Mike steps in.

But instead of following through on his promise, Mike pockets the $1,500 monthly stipend and sends old Leo off to the home anyway, because helping him stay in his house was going to be “too much work.”

Mike probably would have gotten away with it, with no one the wiser, except that the grandson Leo never knew he had, Kyle, shows up in town in an attempt to connect with his grandfather while his drug-addict mother is in a treatment program.

Things start to look up for everyone involved. Mike takes Kyle in to live with his family, Kyle quits smoking, goes back to high school and becomes the star of the wrestling team, and Leo begins to connect with his grandson, who despite his troubled past seems to have integrity and a heart of gold.

When Kyle’s mother, with less admirable qualities, shows up, things suddenly get complicated as Mike’s once seemingly insignificant white lie takes on new significance.

Helping to tell the story and round out the cast are Amy Ryan (‘The Wire,” “Gone Baby Gone” as Mike’s wife Jackie and Bobby Cannavale (“The Station Agent”) as Mike’s best friend Terry.

The film is hung largely on the performance of Alex Shaffer, as Kyle. Shaffer, an accomplished wrestler in how own right, won the New Jersey state championship in 2010.

With almost no previous acting experience, he landed the “Win Win” role in a walk-on audition after learning from a friend that the director was looking to cast a real-life wrestler.

Shaffer is perfect as the withdrawn, single-word answer kid who has been mistreated in the past and doesn’t trust easily. We all know someone like this, and Shaffer pulls it off perfectly, grown up and tough in some scenes, vulnerable and childlike in others. Amazing.

But Giamatti drives the film. In his role as Mike he plays an easily relatable, likable character dealing with the everyday struggles that many of us face: Paying the bills, struggling with feelings of mediocrity, dealing with health and stress issues and simply trying to find a way to be happy and fulfilled in life.

The movie opens with a shot of Mike (short, balding, paunchy) jogging along a forested trail in the early morning. As he huffs along, two tall, athletic, spandex-clad runners blast past him like he’s standing still. And this is an analogy for how Mike feels about his life. No matter how hard he works, he’ll always be at the back of the pack.

So when Mike sees an opportunity to get ahead a little, even though it’s somewhat dishonest, he takes it.

Many of us could relate to that, and faced with a similar temptation might even make the same decision. But that doesn't make it right, and the rest of the film is about the results of Mike's decision and how it affects his life and those around him until he is finally willing to admit his wrong, ask for forgiveness, and deal with the consequences, even though they will likely be unpleasant.

A nice surprise at the end of the film is a new song by "The National," called "Think You Can Wait." Solid tune written by the band after watching the film. Check it out here.

'Soul Surfer' a story of faith, family, and one massive shark

I’ve been on a surf movie kick lately. I watched in the past week “North Shore” and “Blue Crush” and then yesterday my wife and I went to see “Soul Surfer” – the new film based on the real-life story of a young Hawaiian surfer, with talent and dreams of going pro, who suffers a massive setback when a 13-foot tiger shark attacks, taking her arm.

The film is based on the life of Bethany Hamilton, who was just 13 when she lost her arm, but through sheer heart and force of will, managed to continue her surfing career.

When we walked into the cinema to find we were two of only a handful of adults – the theatre was a sea of 12-year-old girls – I was immediately worried that this would be a teen girl-power flick with nothing to offer anyone else.

And there was definitely some of that. The entire story hinges on the girl’s faith, strength of will and fighting spirit to come back from a life-altering moment that would have crushed most people.

But there’s something in this story for everyone. For one, the surfing is incredible, right up there with some of the best mainstream surfing films I’ve seen.

And though this story had the potential to be dripping with cheese – “somewhere between cheddar and jalapeno jack,” as one of the characters says, it wasn’t.

The incident itself is played out with the grim horror one would expect, her family’s struggle to deal with the changes in Bethany’s life – and their own – are all handled carefully and realistically, and AnnaSophia Robb does a respectable job in the role.

But at the core of the story is the girl’s faith. Before the incident, during her recovery and as she begins to return to normal life, it’s the leash that keeps her firmly anchored amid the swell.

Her mentor, played by country singer Carrie Underwood, tells her amid a deep moment of doubt, that though she doesn’t understand now why she has been put through such a trial, someday, with broader perspective, she will. And of course, eventually, she does.

This movie takes the best of “Blue Crush” – a story of girl-power and chasing your dreams at all costs, and “North Shore” – a film about taking risks and venturing out of your comfort zone to figure out who you are – and combines them. But it adds in the elements of faith and family and the amazing fact that this is a true story about a girl who never let go of her dreams despite a crippling injury that would have destroyed many other people.

It also includes a last-minute cameo from Turtle, one of the main characters in “North Shore” – which makes it even better.

If you do see this film – and trust me, I realize it’s not for everyone. If you don’t like surfing, if faith stories annoy you and if you’re repulsed rather than moved by a little bit of cheese, you might want to give it a miss.

But if you do, stay for the credits, when documentary footage shows how much of the film mirrored the true events that took place in Hamilton’s life.