the bongobundos

The Donkey Files

It is advised that the following documentary be viewed at ones own risk. Offsides&Bongobundos Productions declines any if at all responsibility for whatever harm that could result from the viewing of the aforementioned documentary. In fact, we wholeheartedly recommend you not to watch it. If you do watch it though -against our plea- do notice that whatever your moral, religious or historical stance it will be satirized within the film, and if not explicitly, you can consider it to be satirized, implicitly.

It is just a pity that the rushy script and the limited possibilities of both, the MovieMaker Digital -at digitalfilms.com- and my imagination -at sunrise, CE Time-, do not allow for a better representation of the original Donkey Chat Files, aka The Donkey Brief, aka A Persian Conspiracy, From Zoroaster to Jesus' Dark Years, aka El Viejo, el Burrito y los Reyes Magos.

Not having any answer yet from the BBC Feature & Documentary Release Team, here you have the featured presentation of The Donkey Files (the extended, revised and polished version of which we expect to present somewhat sooner or later).

Stupidity Theory

It was about time that I brought here the Stupidity Theory of Carlo Maria Cipolla. And no matter how interesting you may find this comment, do not miss the opportunity to read his incredibly funny and very revealing book "Allegro ma non troppo" (Happy but not by too much).

Here you have Cipolla's five fundamental laws of stupidity:

1. Always and inevitably each of us underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.

For Cipolla there is a fixed proportion of stupid individuals in any given population (be this a nation or any other group, as the American Association of Medical Doctors, a European Studies Class at SDSU or the Spanish Blogger Community: the percentage of stupid individuals is a constant, and always superior to the expected).

2. The probability that a given person is stupid is independent of any other characteristic possessed by that person.

This law adds up to the unpredictability of individual stupidity, for there is no clue with which to anticipate this trait.

3. A person is stupid if they cause damage to another person or group of people without experiencing personal gain, or even worse, causing damage to themselves in the process.

Here Cipolla comes up with a division of human behavior according to the check and balances of personal and social gain, classifying people in four different basic groups depending on the gains and losses that their actions produce, either to themselves or to others. With this, if the actions of someone produce personal gains while damaging others, this person would be defined as a Pillager. The further classification of Intelligent (personal gains and gains to others), Naive (personal losses and gains to others) and Stupid (personal losses and losses to others) are then easily understood.

4. Non-stupid people always underestimate the harmful potential of stupid people; they constantly forget that at any time anywhere, and in any circumstance, dealing with or associating themselves with stupid individuals invariably constitutes a costly error.

The main danger of stupid people is that while one can somehow predict the actions of a Pillager (he would always seek a personal benefit), one cannot predict in any way the actions of a Stupid guy, for he will be provoking damage to others for no reason and even if his action produces a damage to himself, and even more, no matter if the personal damage he is causing upon himself is greater than the damage he is provoking to others. As such, the underestimation of the harmful potential of stupid people, and specially the harmful potential of associating with stupid people, is a very dangerous one, for we will be suffering a damage for no imaginable reason.

And so, even though there is no clue whatsoever with which to anticipate the stupidity of anyone (no title, social status or physical trait can be used to anticipate whether anyone will be stupid), it is only their actions that can tell who is stupid, beyond reasonable doubt. And as the law implicitly states, this recognition must never be underestimated.

5. A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person there is.

A fundamental law that, even following from the precedent, can never be overestimated.

For a German translation of Cipolla's book: Amazon.com

Santiago's Memory

Santiago Carrillo is a nice old communist, actually retired from the political arena, who is known, among other feats, for being one of the very few who did not move from his seat the day lieutenant Tejero entered the Parliament, gun in hand, some-when back in the eighties.

That coup d'état was a failure, allowing the young Spanish democracy to keep evolving, if not stronger, at least... well, whatever, but definitely not stronger. Among the many other actions that could exemplify the growing political radicalization in Spain -and thus our growing democratic weaknesses-, the right winged opposition (which represents almost half of our population) is carrying on a campaign of accusations that end with the explicit theory of the left winged government conspiring to commit the 11-M Madrid bombings.

In a recent interview good old Carrillo comments on how much the actual right winged politicians resemble those of the thirties, prior to the civil war. And the truth is that we do not need to consider those similarities to perceive how the tension of our political dichotomy is spreading ever more violently through the population.

While the left winged in power keep jumping from topic to topic without any apparently clear direction -or so it seems-, the direction of the right winged opposition is way too clear; their lack of measure and absolute disrespect for the government are just side effects of their basic truth, this is, that only strength is to be respected. And coherently enough they intend to bring "law and order, through force if necessary"... an almost cool motto that cannot hide its resemblance with that of old and new dictators of any sign.

There are calls and different signs that hint at our democracy as a headless governance, or worse, as a monster of too many heads. And while the communists dream with a Republic of Everland, the King some others dream with looks more like a Dictator than as the Majesty that should head us all. I wonder if there is still hope beyond political parties and out dated ideologies; I wonder when will we be ready to get beyond the restraints of law and order so as to search, socially and individually, for justice, not just as a concept but as a personal action. But before the utopia of a common sense anarchy of sorts, the coherence of some civil movements can still play the role that democratic political parties seem to be underestimating; the role of leading for the people instead of just leading, or instead of leading for lies, chimeras or for a trademark.

Santiago Carrillo is a nice old communist who speaks to me at night and makes me wonder...

Offside(s)

"They won't let you in", said Jafar Panahi to his daughter when she asked to accompany him to a soccer game in Tehran. And they didn't let her in, as expected, though she managed to sneak in the stadium and enjoyed the game sitting side by side with her father. "Girls have their own ways", was the girl's answer when her father asked how.

This anecdote was the starting point for the movie Offside, or at least this is what Jafar Panahi said last Wednesday, when presenting his film in the 44th International Film Festival in Gijón, speaking in such a melodic Persian that Amir would have felt proud of him.

Offside is delightfully fresh, maybe even too fresh, too hopeful; one almost tends to believe things are not so terribly twisted in Iran after all. But of course one cannot be so naive so as to not read between lines.

Even though the movie tries to discuss the reasons why girls should or should not be allowed in soccer stadiums in Iran, there is an absolute -amazing- absence of religion all over; just a shy show of a girl covering herself up with a chador before the old father of a friend of hers and the picture of a sinister captain, bearded and dressed in a black suit, remind us that Iran is in fact a religious regime.

But beyond political or even filmic considerations what impressed me above all in the movie was the tender portray Panahi makes of, how to say this, the Iranian way of being, or their education; as the beyond-the-line respect that boys show to girls, almost fearful; or the very peculiar mixture of deference and disdain of youngsters towards their elder; or the Iranian almost romantic sensibility.

I also identified some characteristics that I have always thought as Arabic, or Mediterranean (but please correct me as much as you please), like the noisy and disorganized fights and discussions, the very joy of argumentation, or even that Tehrani accent of some of the girls which, to me, sounded very much like Egyptian Arab.

No matter what, it was like being with Alex and Amir once again for a little while, and I really enjoyed that. And the film is very good anyway -it won't be no surprise if it gets the prize!

Just an addenda for route-mappers: girls are taking on the fight of social change in Iran; in this, boys are far behind (and I'm not talking about centimeters...).

--------------

LAST NEWS: PREMIO PRINCIPADO DE ASTURIAS (INTERNATIONAL JURY) FOR BEST FEATURE FILM GOES TO...

“Sehnsucht (Longing)”, a German love story that I didn't get to watch, by Valeska Grisebach (well, if it does not go to Iran, it is fair enough that it goes to Germany).

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE: YOUNG JURY PRIZE FOR BEST FEATURE FILM GOES TO...

"Offside"!!!! Oléee!!! (this jury is formed by fifty locals of ages ranging from 18 to 35 years old).

BUT THERE IS STILL MORE:

- THE PRIZE FOR BEST DIRECTOR WAS SHARED BY Mahamat Saleh Haroun for "Daratt" (a fucking beautiful piece of hard to swallow art) AND Maziar Miri for "Be Ahestegi... (Gradually)" (shame on me I couldn't see this one nor Bahman Ghobadi's "Half Moon").

- PRIZE FOR BEST ACTRESS WAS SHARED BY... the girls of "Offside"! (Shima Mobarak-Shahi, Shayesteh Irani, Ayda Sadeqi, Golnaz Farmani and Mahnat Zabihi)

Well, there were some other prizes as well (by the way, the US also got their part, receiving quite a few prizes for "Shortbus", by Jody Asnes); you can check them all out here.

Well, all in all, the Iranian presence in the festival was definitely not unnoticed...