Marginalia #56: In Watermelon Sugar, Saloum, Squid

It’s a postmodern, post-apocalyptic sci-fi hippie commune novel. It’s poetic, strange, and easy to read if you’re familiar with Brautigan. I’ve read most of the books now, but I want to check out the poems soon. His poem “A Boat” features a werewolf and is one I always return to.

Saloum is a French/Senegalese co-production and a kind of mash-up of Three Musketeers and Three Kings, with a dash of The Good, Bad, and the Ugly thrown in. The cast is almost 100% African actors. The soundtrack mixes African and European sounds, with some heavy nods to Morricone. The leads are a group of mercenaries trying to get out of a military-ruled area. They end up in a bizarre resort as they plan their escape. 

Saloum features African religion and folklore. It’s part action movie and part horror movie, with fantastic acting. For me, it was as exciting as some of the recent music coming out of Africa, which fuses various unexpected genres like death metal or electronics with traditional music. It had something to say about complex political and social situations, but in a way I hadn’t seen before.

The supernatural element here does feature some CGI that is either going to work or not for the viewer. I didn’t care for it, but everything else in the movie was a lot of fun. The idea for the creatures was interesting, but I’m undecided on the overall effect. 

I got up on Sunday, and the kids requested one of their old favorites: pancakes. While I worked on breakfast, I decided to check out Cowards by Squid. To say I was pleasantly surprised is an understatement. While many songs have moments and guitar tones and playing that could be called post-rock (and any other subgenres I’ve probably never heard of), I was really into this record’s song structures and arrangements. Strings, horns, harpsichords, 8-bit, etc. At least one song sounded like they performed part of Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint in the middle of it.