Word: frenchness
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Roland Besenval is a magician. With a few words and expansive hand gestures, the French archaeologist conjures a magnificent city from the millenniums-old ruins that crown a windswept plateau in Afghanistan's far north. Stabbing a finger in the direction of misshapen hillocks made of eroded mud brick, he describes massive battlements built to repel barbarian raiders from the north. Balkh, as the city was known, would have needed them. More than 1,000 years before Marco Polo visited its ruins, Balkh was renowned throughout the ancient world for its fabulous wealth and advanced culture. It was the birthplace...
...much of the action in the latest James Bond film Quantum of Solace. The Casco's appeal is clear: grand cathedrals, fountain-filled plazas, timeworn cobblestone streets, even a bullet-scarred Presidential palace, which was attacked during the 1989 U.S. invasion. And now its mélange of Spanish, French, neoclassical and Caribbean architecture is being lovingly restored by farsighted investors. (See a special report on James Bond...
...gone from being one of the cheapest neighborhoods in Berlin to one of the most expensive, with rents increasing tenfold. At the weekly Saturday farmers market on Kollwitzplatz Square, a stand offers currywurst (sausage with curry sauce), a local specialty, with 22-karat gold leaf and a side of french fries with truffle mayonnaise. The cafés surrounding the square are crowded with attractive young people sipping macchiatos. And pretty girls in lavender outfits hand out organic apples alongside brochures promoting an "urban village" called Marthashof currently in construction nearby. "Quality of life without compromises," promises the slogan...
...ever taken home two Oscars - the 12-minute The House of Small Cubes (Tsumiki no Ie) also won for Best Animated Short - but both films were in categories never before won by Japanese films. Departures won an upset victory over the Israeli animated documentary Waltz with Bashir and the French entry The Class, the story of a Paris schoolteacher. The last time that a Japanese film was nominated for the category of Foreign Language Film was with The Twilight Samurai in 2003. Samurai, The Legend of Musashi won an honorary foreign language film award in 1955 - but that...
...that it was more than a film for old people and it became a mass phenomenon in Japan." Takita, 53, got his start in adult films but, until now, is probably most remembered as the director of the 1999 film Secret (Himitsu), which was eventually reamde by French director Luc Besson. Takita beamed as he spoke upon receiving the Oscar. "This is a new 'departure' for me. And I will - we will - be back." he said. Perhaps this year is the harbinger of future Hollywood endings for the Japanese film industry...