Burton Barr

One of the things that keeps me going here in Phoenix is the public library. I've waxed lyrical in the past about its resources. A couple of weeks ago we, my wife and I, went to the Burton Barr Central Branch[^] for no better reason than we wanted to. Fascinating building! We spent a couple of hours in the bound magazine area, thumbing through 1879 editions of the Atlantic Weekly and reading the 1948 Phoenix directory. According to both the 1948 and 1956 directories there were no Mandersons living in Phoenix!

A stones throw from that branch is the Tram museum. I use the word tram because that's what I'd call the street railroad[^] that used to run here in Phoenix. They closed in 1947 or thereabouts when cities across the world were abandoning trams. Thankfully Melbourne didn't though I do remember watching a street crew in Gamon Street, Seddon, in late 1962, tearing up the tram tracks.

The other day I was doing another search, online, through the Phoenix Public Library DVD collection, looking for more Russian films. I found quite a few that I wanted to see. The first was Father of a Soldier[^]. I'm a little biassed and I don't know why but it seems to me that if you want to see the definitive films depicting World War 2 you can't beat the Russians. Yeah, I know, this film is Georgian, not Russian.

It's a little mixed. There's a scene where the protagonist, an old man who cultivates grapes in civilian life, confronts a soviet tank crew who are destroying a vineyard in enemy territory. Cut to a shot of two german infants. Cut back to soviet soldiers and an argument. Would you kill children of the enemy? Then why kill grapes of the enemy? Are you fascists too? Perhaps the current US administration ought to consider that question!

There's one scene where I stopped, rewound and asked my wife to watch it. Did it remind her of anything she'd seen? Soviet soldiers crossing a snowscape raked by enemy fire. One of them finds a sign buried in the snow; he scrapes the snow off and reveals the letters CCCP (USSR). He calls his comrades back and they raise the sign anew. My wife had the same thought I had; it looked like that famous photo of US Soldiers on Iwo Jima[^] raising the Stars and Stripes.

Toward the end the film moves into pure hollywood but I'll forgive it that; much of the imagery we've seen leading up to the final 15 minutes is pure genius. How many films have you seen where the hero sings to a grapevine?