A dangerous method - Jung vs Freud

I think this is a very ambitious film - not sure if it tries to represent the historical professional conflict between the two great psychodynamic thinkers of our time. It is quite diffficult to simplify and contrast their subtle yet distinctive variants of the new form of talking therapy for seriously mental ill people. The film starts in a very confronting way - most people will never have seen full mania and would prefer not to - despite the fact that Keira Knightley has finally found the perfect role in which she can overact to her heart's desire. So the contrasts continue through geography (lakeside Swizerland vs urban Vienna) age and religion. But the male egos are brought together through their relationships with the Russian Sabina Spielrein and this is all palyed out against a visually spectacular array of early 1900's fashion and music. There is also the pervading debate about the importance of sexuality which is expressed at both the level of a simplified theoretical debate and the lived experience of total exploration... I am encouraged to read more to find out about the lives of these great men - but I am also relieved to recognise the limitatons of their respective theories...

Carnage - a domestic play in a movie

It is not often that you can enjoy 80 mins of conversation between 4 people in one apartment - but this time Roman Polanski converts what was a play into a challenging movie. The opening scene of gang warfare along the river in what turns out to be Brooklyn is quite significant - even though you don't realise it at the time. Both parents meet to discuss their sons' behaviour and their discussions represent a panacea of life, opinions, personality and philosophy. At first Jodie Foster and her bathroom salesman husband (John Reilly) seems to be the most politically correct and rational person in the room. In contrast, Kate Winslett plays a very ditzy and superficial investment banker, married to an immoral lawyer working for corrupt pharma (Christopher Waltz). Despite several attempts at exiting, Kate and her husband are drawn back several times - I admit wishing they would just get in the lift and just get out of there! But I seemed to accept the continuing conversation and I was carried along by the changing dynamics and the emergence of the 'real' or underlying personalities... It became clear that Kate was resigned to her workaholic and emotionally ignorant husband's consistent phone chattering - and it was not surprising that he became infantile when she drowned his phone in the flower vase! But it was disappointing to see Jodie's neuroticism emerge beside her husband's repressed bullying gang leader's behaviour. And so I guess the underlying question of whether we ever really 'know' anyone remains...

a frozen pier

Sunday's adventure was to discover the Herringsdorf Seebruecke(Pier). We approached it from the beach - walking along the sand and them amongst the frozen waves. There were lots of people walking on the waves with us and even a few walking under the pier itself...

When we walked up the stairs and out along the pier, we could see a whole new and different perspective. After several convolutions of fractured ice, the sea flattened out into a giant jigsaw - made up of different sized pancakes... I had read about pancake ice forming in the antarctic - the first stage of a sea freezing - large generally circular pancakes form and as they move around and bump into each other, their edges thicken.

I enjoyed the mosaic jigsaw of thousands of pancakes of different sizes, shapes and textures as far as the eye could see. I also was perplexed as to why the sea birds decided to stay on certain pancakes and how some ducks and seagulls had even found a tiny swimming pool on top of the ice.

thermal swimming in the snow

We planned a second wellness weekend break by the sea in winter - this time in Usedom - the most north-easterly beach in Germany. We decided on the Strandhotel Herringsdorf because it had an outdoor thermal swimming pool, as well as the usual gym and sauna combination. I was so impressed by the 30' warm and salty pool, fed directly from a thermal spring - you could feel the small inlets along the bottom. The pool was surrounded by snow and ice and although you only had to step outside directly into the pool, it was quite a shock, and then there was a definite warm reward for diving under the water! And the interesting and quirky feature of this pool was a type of skylight in the bottom of the pool, letting light into the gym below - it offered some interesting perspectives of people swimming above...

Frozen waves

Having seen a frozen harbour, I realised that there was a big chance that the sea itself might be frozen... Even knowing this, I was totally shocked as we walked up the last sand dune - it was all TOTALLY white as far as the eye could see - the sand was completely covered again - and there were lines of irregularities in the ice that I quickly realised must represent the waves... I had to go closer to join the other people walking out all over the sea.

It was totally surreal - the sun was shining in an azure blue sky, the temperature was around -10' so it was crisply cold and calm, almost without a wind. There were people cross country skiing on the beach, others walking along the beach just like normal and lots were playing in amongst the frozen waves. Getting out there was challenging for me - the ice started in what would have been the wet sand, even higher than the waves - then there was a litle ridge at what would have been the line of the last breaking wavelets.

Once over that, the ice flattened out - lucky there had been recent snowfall, so the snow made it possible to walk over the crunchy ice.There were a few small ridges of what must have been small waves breaking and then out about 10m from the beach there was an amazing line of cracked slabs of ice loaded up on top of each other. It was so random - and almost artistic - in the different shapes and orientations.

But I was still preplexed at the force that must have broken ice almost 15cm thick into giant slabs and then deposited them on top of each other like this - I would have loved to have seen this in real time... And so of course all the grown up boys out there were picking up the biggest pieces of ice that they could and throwing it down onto the ice - most of the time it did not even break!

But Markus did find one little hole in the ice, smashed his large slab of ice into it and the ice broke, to reveal the water underneath it all... We were having so much fun it was hard to go back in - just like a great swim in the moving waves...

Peenemuende - the contrasts

We first visited the north eastern German beach resort of Usedom in July 2009. It was great to come back to the Strandkorbe on the wide beaches and one day we decided to cycle the length of the peninsula. We caught the train north to Peenemuende harbour where I saw my first U-boat submarine. It was a very flat harbour with water views for almost 270'.

Almost 2 1/2 years later, we decided on a spontaneous winter visit. We decided to go back to Peenemuende to check out the harbour. It had been cold for several weeks, so I knew there would be some bits of ice.... but nothing prepared me for the expanse of solid ice.

A completely white river mouth and harbour and everything suspended, waiting for the return of the water...

classic wild food at the Jagdhaus Heiligendamm

It is such a treat to be able to walk along the snowy tracks through the forest to a genuine local restaurant. Sometimes it is nice to have a more relaxed alternative to the luxury hotel restaurant. We were not the only hotel guests there - the Jagdhaus Heiligendamm has a definite appeal for great food within a country house atmosphere. Pastel green walls and chairs contrasted against dark wood window frames and tables... and the menu did not disappoint. Markus started with a deer and trout carpaccio with vanilla tomatoes and wasabi sorbet, while I investigated the Rapunzel salad, made with smoked duck breast with pine kernels and potato vinaigrette. A new taste for me - the smoked duck breast was a beautiful pink colour and had a texture very similar to a soft ham. For the main course Markus ate a leg of young deer and I enjoyed a saltimbocca of pheasant. Having personally made veal saltimbocca in Poggialto several weeks ago, I really enjoyed the constant of proscuitto and sage, this time with pheasant breast. I also loved the unique combination of vegies - small cubes of zucchini with pear and garlic. So a wonderful culinary experience with some new tastes, textures and combinations, and then a short walk back to the snowy beach - following the sound of the waves and illuminated by moonlight...

impressed by The Descendants

It still feels like a luxury to sit down to a movie that I know absolutely nothing about. Somehow I completely missed the fact that it has been nominated for 4 Oscars; best picture, actor, screenplay and director! But this time, I am totally in accordance with these nominations and really hope that some are actually achieved. This film challenged my intellect and emotions while providing visual and auditory entertainment. Classic scenes of Hawaiian beaches, coupled by a superb assortment of Hawaiian shirts and matching cool outfits and haircuts are complemented by what seems to be local folk music. And then of course Clooney is so enjoyable to watch - and this time his acting is truly engaging... As a workaholic lawyer he has ignored his wife and family - but is jolted back when his wife is comatose after a waterskiing accident - he makes the classic promise that he will change his ways - but alas - too late. So instead he has to pick up the pieces of his life and work with them as best he can - and I think he does this brilliantly. His younger daughter Scottie is very precocius and the elder daughter Alex is doing drugs and drinking out of control at a private boarding school when he picks her up. But of course this challenge brings out their best! However there are some classic scenes - when he tells Alex that her mum is dying and minutes later she tells him that her mother was having an affair. So George demonstrates how he manages his ego in his search for and confrontation with the married lover, assisted by his daughter...and of course there is a little twist in the tale that makes the story believable... and underneath is the contrast between a woman who has made an advanced directive to turn off the life support with Alex's boyfriend who is homorously concrete...

snow on sea

It had snowed in Berlin on Thursday, I was flying in on Friday - so when there was an option to drive to the coast, I jumped at it... Could there really be snow on the sand all the way down to the water? I was keen to go back to one of our former summer holiday destinations; the island of Rugen, Usedom, or even Zingst? But when I was promised a surprise to somewhere new, for both of us, I was very excited.

The bonus that I realised later was that it would be a wellness retreat at a truly luxury hotel. The Grand Hotel at Heiligendamm represents a wealth of history and tradition. It was opened as the first German seaside spa in 1793 by Franz Frederich 1, the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg and has seen significant aristocratic and political activities since then; most recently the 33rd summit of G8 leaders met there in 2007 and I remember seeing aerial shots of the gorgeous white buildings along the vast beach.

So we approached the resort from the sea and I was so impressed to see the usual sand dune grass against a snowy backdrop - there really was snow covering the sand all the way to the water's edge. Given there are no real tides in the Baltic Sea, it was claer that the gentle waves took away the first layer of snow, but I was surprised to see the icicles covering the line of wooden posts heading out to sea, and around the base of the long piers.

After a walk around the neighbouring Kuehlungsborn, we checked in to a suite larger than my apartment in Oxford, with sea views all the way around to the roman style Kurhouse. There was a little exploration of all that we could enjoy before we headed down to the wellness suite. We started in the superbly modern gym, followed with a swim in a large 20m indoor pool and culminating in a stunning sauna complete with salt and honey... It was all so impressive that we had to use it all again before our luxurious sunday morning brunch.