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Incidentally, on Luc Besson and The Fifth Element
Incidentally, on Luc Besson and The Fifth Element. The space diva Plavalaguna, invented by Besson, who performs the aria of Lucia di Lammermoor in the voice of the Albanian opera singer Inva Mula, owes her otherworldly name to the Croatian seaside resort of Plava Laguna, where Luc Besson spent a
NB! · Coming Up · Cinema · Museums · Paris · Pop Culture
Jean-Paul Gaultier's costumes from Luc Besson's The Fifth Element at the Paris Fashion Museum, in the Expo1997 retrospective, open until 17 July
NB! · The East · Art · Cinema · Museums · Saint Petersburg · Humour
A Kirghiz convict painted by Vasily Perov in 1873 looks exactly like Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow
A Kirghiz convict painted by Vasily Perov in 1873 looks exactly like Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow. Collection of the Russian Museum
The East · Cinema · Society
Guy Ritchie's much-discussed film about an American military operation in Afghanistan, released in Russian cinemas as "The Translator", is in the original still called The Covenant, which means "agreement, compact, testament"
Guy Ritchie's much-discussed film about an American military operation in Afghanistan, released in Russian cinemas as "The Translator", is in the original still called The Covenant, which means "agreement, compact, testament". So the point of the film is not, after all, the mere
Cinema · Monarchies · Mores
Maïwenn's film “Jeanne du Barry” with Johnny Depp as Louis XV
It has been a long time since such a handsome costume drama as Maïwenn's "Jeanne du Barry" came out. Johnny Depp plays Louis XV, and at precisely the age the actor himself is now. His influential 25-year-old favourite, however, is played by the 47-
Cinema · London · Monarchies · People
Crown Prince of Yugoslavia and titular King of Serbia Alexander Karageorgevich to take part in filming a documentary series about his life, provisionally titled “The Crown, the State and the People”
The first scenes of the film were shot back in March, in London, at Claridge's Hotel, where the prince was born in 1945. By the time of the birth of Alexander Karageorgevich, the only son of Peter II, the last King of Yugoslavia, the British prime minister of
Archive · Cinema · Observations · Ethnography
Hungarian wedding dress: a photo from Mezőkövesd, 1925–1930, and one from modern Hungary
A Hungarian girl in national wedding dress. A colour photograph taken in Mezőkövesd in 1925-1930, and a wedding photograph from present-day Hungary. Firstly, it is fantastically beautiful and delightful that this beauty has survived to our own day. Secondly, we have undoubtedly found the reference for the costumes
Archive · Architecture · Cinema · Observations · Paris
Security openings in the walls of the Royal Opera of Versailles at the 1961 Kennedy reception
Watching newsreel footage of the Kennedys' state visit to France in 1961, I noticed some curious openings in the wall of the Royal Opera of Versailles. What are these little squares, scattered across the different tiers of the auditorium, for? They are neither heating nor lighting vents. They are
Cinema · Observations · Paris · People · Saint Petersburg
The actor Sergei Dreiden (Dontsov) has died today. I remember him from two roles: in Kirill Serebrennikov's recent "Petrov's Flu" and in Yury Mamin's good old "Window to Paris"
Though not, in my view, the best known of films, "Window to Paris" is one of the important, truly Russian pictures. Very delicate and funny, tragic, absurd and bitterly truthful. A prim old lady hides a magical secret in her room in a grimy, noisy communal flat: on
NB! · Cinema · Observations · Pop Culture · Humour
I don't know whom I'm gladder to see, Maggie Smith in a blue hat or Joanna Lumley in a white one
Art · Cinema · Humour
Pepelats art object built by Uralkhimmash welders stands on the plant grounds
A pepelats, as is well known, is very rarely adapted for horizontal travel across the surface of a planet. Before us is a classic model of the civilian cylindrical pepelats, built by the welders of the Uralkhimmash plant. The art object stands on the plant's grounds and serves