Thursday, 4 March 2010

le dernier métro






"It takes two to love, as it takes two to hate. And I will keep loving you, in spite of yourself.
My heart beats faster when I think of you. Nothing else matters."


Marion Steiner (The Last Metro)
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35 comments:

  1. Owen4 March 2010 at 04:58

    Ne nous dis pas que tu étais à Paris ce dernier temps ?!?! Est-ce possible ? Non, je n'y crois pas... sinon j'aurais bougé ciel et terre pour même cinq petites minutes dans un café juste pour dire bonjour... pourtant, cette photo, on dirait le métro... est-ce que ce parfum que j'ai senti l'autre jour, c'était le passage d'un pont flottant reveur ??? Non, ce n'est pas possible... ou si ??? Ah, profond mystère, où se trouve la vérité ??? Où se trouvait Roxana lors de cette absence ??? Mystère, et boule de... ne nous dis pas, les mystères qui restent mysterieux sont mieux comme ça...
    :-)

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  2. Anonymous4 March 2010 at 14:45

    nice photo. Very seventies-ish. I hate the distance between the seats in the Paris metro. the stations are very dingy, don't you think, r? The most amazing system I've seen was in Tashkent.

    Khair...


    orr?

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  3. Roxana4 March 2010 at 15:02

    heeey i can't hide anything from you guys, the first picture i post and you already guess, amazing - but then, this says nothing about my photography skills and everything about Paris, its unique-ness -

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  4. Roxana4 March 2010 at 15:17

    mon cher Owen, je suis tout aussi désolée que toi, j’étais quelques jours à Paris mais c’est exactement la période où tu voyageais, toi aussi – et puis une grande partie du temps j’ai été très occupée, participant à un seminaire à Fontenay-sous-Bois. mais la bonne nouvelle est que je vais retourner bientôt, de nouveau pour quelques jours seulement, mais je te le dirais d’avance pour qu’on ne se rate plus. c’est promis ! moi aussi j’aimerais connaître le vrai visage du Magic Lantern Show :-), même si ce n’est que pour 5 minutes au Café de Flore...
    je t’embrasse très fort...

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  5. Emese4 March 2010 at 15:25

    :)

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  6. Roxana4 March 2010 at 15:27

    b, welcome back! yes, that distance between the seats - why does it bother you, how big can you be? :-P

    just teasing you... it's indeed very small and crowdy, but it can also offer such unforgettable scenes: the car was fully packed, yet a very beautiful young woman, black curled hair, deep black eyes, was standing next to me and knitting a white sweater with half-a-meter long wooden knitting sticks, totally absorbed in her job, quiet, serene, even dreamy, as if she had been comfortably seated in her bed with a cup of tea next to her. of course people had to move around to make room for her, she didn't even notice what happened around her. the white thread followed the length of her body until the floor, where it disappeared into her bag, like an impossible secret.
    i wish i could have photographed her... but i will never forget this image, so surreal and wonderful...

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  7. Roxana4 March 2010 at 15:29

    dear, dear Emese

    :-)

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  8. Anonymous4 March 2010 at 15:34

    "how big can you be? "

    err...let's not go there!:-)

    [alas, those cinnamon rolls are catching up on me though!]

    but yes, the fleeting gaze. there's something about big cities where the smallest gesture means everything, until it means nothing.

    can't wait to see more.

    take care,

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  9. Prospero4 March 2010 at 16:30

    dearest mockingbird,

    as i watch this metro platform, i can't help thinking that stopping time, as one invariably does with a photograph, often unleashed a deep sense of longing. Longing for something that continually eludes our grasp.

    As i look at the photographs of Marc Riboud, i sense the same thing. The young boy/man whose face is obscured by the barrel of a gun ... does he not long secretly, inexorably for peace? Does he not dream to nullify the beastly ghost in the machine? Yet sometimes it has little to do with the subject. It is the photographer's mind that in on display. The power stems from a naked and somehow translucent vessel that the photographer fills and offers the viewer as a visceral token of his/her mind.

    Music, like a photograph, can express this longing. It is regretful that words can not adequately express what music and photography do so well. And so, what is poetry? The language of music with words.

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  10. Prospero4 March 2010 at 16:35

    Paris! Who would have thunk it?

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  11. jeff4 March 2010 at 19:55

    L'amour la haine...
    Le jour la nuit...
    le clair l'obscur...
    Se cacher la nuit dans la pénombre...
    aimer deux hommes : un dans la lumière...
    un dans le sombre...

    Bises Roxana...:)

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  12. James Owens4 March 2010 at 20:04

    I love this. You capture so well the absence of waiting -- this moment which is not really a now in which one is present to the day, but a suspension between then and then, and the long, echoing hollowness of the corridor, filled with fleeting thoughts of the future, or of the past,. You have such a fine sense of choosing the angle, the moment, the gesture or stillness, that unfolds the whole narrative -- and all is deepened by this quote that aches at the heart --- it is perfect…..

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  13. g sutton breiding4 March 2010 at 20:50

    all i could think of was isabel adjani in the film POSSESSION....
    cannot imagine why..............

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  14. Marion McCready5 March 2010 at 02:26

    I love the story you tell in your comment above, I can see it in my head.
    Welcome back, I'm excited about the pictures you'll bring to us.

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  15. Plum'5 March 2010 at 06:32

    Paris...mais ce n'est qu'à 1h55 de TGV de chez moi Roxana !
    Aaaah, le métro parisien, des scènes insolites et improbables, surtout tard le soir ou très tôt le matin, le premier métro de 5h30 avec les employés encore engourdis par le sommeil qui ne les a pas encore totalement quittés. Ou encore les amoureux qui se tiennent pelotés l'un contre l'autre et n'arrivent pas à se séparer, se sentent seuls au monde, les yeux cernés par une nuit sans sommeil mais brillants d'un éclat si particulier...
    Bises Roxana,
    à bientôt...
    TmLG se réveille parfois la nuit également...;-)

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  16. iosif bogdan5 March 2010 at 19:15

    deosebita! cromatica+++!

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  17. Anonymous6 March 2010 at 01:47

    Hi, I am from Australia.

    As an antidote to all of these dark ruminations please check out:

    www.aboutadidam.org/readings/art_is_love/index.html

    www.daplastique.com

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  18. Anonymous6 March 2010 at 02:43

    So glad being "in time", just before the train will arrive, able to speak, to share, one, two thoughts, about the weather, the time, that I nearly burned the food in the oven yesterday, that time is the fire which makes me feel like burning alive, glad to spend these moments with you - if only I would have dared the invitation of the empty seat, if only I would have dared to tell that I did look at the fingers, that I do agree, live feels like cuting them too short - not knowing where to begin, which word to choose, you went inside, away.

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  19. swiss7 March 2010 at 19:40

    i don't need to comment. call it synchronicity! ; )

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  20. Ffflaneur7 March 2010 at 20:41

    une ville à même d'héberger beaucoup de tes femmes imaginées ...

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  21. clo7 March 2010 at 21:24

    coucou Roxana....
    j'ai raté l'envol de ton départ, le printemps de ton retour...mais ouf je n'ai pas raté le dernier métro...on ne peut pas décemment tout rater :o)...donc je vais essayer de te laisser un commentaire du mieux qu'il pourra etre...pardonnes moi...je ne suis pas très présente ..un peu a droite a gauche...mais toujours en vitesse...pas beaucoup de temps pour vous rejoindre dans notre monde de rêves ,de couleurs, de sensations, d'échanges, de créativité interactive:o)...
    pas même le temps de courir derrière la vie pour en éterniser quelques instants...
    oui je sais je me justifie...mais je ne voulais pas que tu penses que je t'avais oublié...comment le pourrai-je...:o)
    je t'embrasse ...

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  22. Roxana8 March 2010 at 12:56

    Prospero

    (will our discussion about still and moving images, music and words ever end? no, this is the most improbable of all improbable things)

    for me, photographs _always_ unleash this deep sense of longing - it's not just that time is made still, it's also something about the altered gaze, a different way of perceiving the world. somehow the mystery is brought back in, right into the core of things - the sense of revelation.

    yet i have to ask: is it not the very "weakness" of words, their continuous revealing and obscuring of the sense, their ah so slippery ways that make them so uniquely rich?

    (what kind of naked and transparent vessel is this Bridge, what kind of mind is here on display, where can i hide then, can i at all)

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  23. Roxana8 March 2010 at 12:59

    Jeff,
    tu as tout dit, tu viens d'ecrire toute une histoire pour cette photo, et elle est maintenant vraie, plus vraie que la "realite"...

    je t'embrasse...
    (et je pense encore a tes amandiers!)

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  24. Roxana8 March 2010 at 13:05

    James, you told me once something about the empty spaces in my pictures, and i hadn't been aware of that - it struck me then and i've kept wondering if it is true. it seems it is :-) but how else... it's not that i doubted you, but it was so new to me, so surprising, that discovery, i had to think about it all over again, to understand what it means for me and the way i relate to the world. because i don't _think_ when i take pictures.

    ah, and the suspension, yes. so true about the Klage-welt as well...

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  25. Roxana8 March 2010 at 13:06

    sutton, i don't know that film, but i will look for it...
    thank you -

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  26. Roxana8 March 2010 at 13:07

    so nice of you to say so, Sorlil - me too, very glad to be here again :-)

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  27. Roxana8 March 2010 at 13:11

    tu habites ou, K'line?

    je dois sourire quand je lis tes mots, c'est vraiment ca, le metro a Paris, qui peut resister a son charme? et peut-etre il y aura plus de photos la-dessus, qui sait, le Pont est toujours imprevisible :-)

    bisous, chere K'line, et a tres bientot... ici ou chez toi, quand tu te reveilles la nuit et nous peints des paysages irreels :-)

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  28. Roxana8 March 2010 at 13:20

    i.b., multumesc!

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  29. Roxana8 March 2010 at 13:21

    anonymous from Australia, thank you for the links! i have always been intrigued by people walking around and offering cures and miracle antidotes, just like this :-)

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  30. Roxana8 March 2010 at 13:23

    Robert!!!

    "not knowing where to begin, which word to choose, you went inside, away" - yet words or beginnings were not so important that moment, just being there and continuing - going inside, away, it is only for coming back, closer than ever...

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  31. Roxana8 March 2010 at 13:23

    swiss :-)

    i love this so! synchronicity!

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  32. Roxana8 March 2010 at 13:25

    fff - oui.
    et quelles decouvertes, quelles histoires et quels souvenirs... ou commence l'acte d'imaginer, ou finit celui de voir - je ne sais pas, je ne le sais plus.

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  33. Roxana8 March 2010 at 14:47

    ma chere Clo, surtout pas de soucis! tu n'as rien "rate", tout est ici sur le pont, ou la vie coule en dehors du temps, on peut retourner quand on veut et le moment n'est jamais "perdu"... c'est ca la magie des images - et aussi le charme des blogs, n'est-ce pas?

    moi-aussi je m'absente quand le rythme de la vie "reelle" me suffoque. donc ne t'inquiete pas, je suis heureuse de te retrouver, n'importe quand, n'importe comment.

    j'espere que tu vas bien et te souhaite une semaine avec un peu plus de repos et de calme...

    je t'embrasse de tout coeur.

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  34. James Owens10 March 2010 at 16:32

    You remember? Of course, you do. The empty spaces in your photographs are like the silences in the conversation of old friends who don’t need to fill all the air with talk, who have become brave enough to allow quietness to take shape between them sometimes, a quiet where all the past, all the unsaid, all the unsayable, floats on the surface of an understood gaze. I mean that it is not a sterile emptiness in your photos, but creative, a memory of the moment just before creation, the emptiness from which all things tremble into being. This has a lot to do -- you will understand better than I do -- with the fact that you are almost Japanese. No one could love Japanese art and culture without first having a love for silence and empty space….

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  35. Roxana11 March 2010 at 10:30

    James, all you say here is... i almost can't dare believe you are talking about my pictures. it's like a dream.

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