The NPS couldn't have chosen a better moment to broadcast the Argentinian movie La Antena (the aerial) than after the news of Geert Wilders (Dutch' politician) brought to court for his criticism of the Islam. Where The Netherlands once was a country where freedom of speech was one of our highest values times seems to be changing. Especially his comparison of the Quran and the book Mein Kampf was taken as an offense for the muslim society in The Netherlands. The claim that Wilders spreads hate and is guilty of discrimination is far overrated though. Opinions should be spoken out even if they are not so sharming, they can become a ground for debate. I hate to see our once open society to become like this. Do people really think that limiting the freedom of expression will lead to a more harmonious society?
Luckily Denmark gave better response to the rumours concerning their cartoonist.

Reflexive, allegorical and poetic, La Antena is a dizzyingly dense piece of cinema, thriving on paradox, and always matching its medium to its message. Though I do not consider `La Antena'  as a master piece, it is definitely worth watching (I rate it 6.6/10). And luckily it leaves us with some beautiful statements.

"They have taken our voices but we still have words"

review of the film

After reading Blindness (De stad der Blinden) of José Saramago I definitely wanted to read more from this Nobel Prize winning author. I started in his book Het Schijnbestaan (Eng: The Cave, Orig: A Caverna) but haven't finished it yet. Blindness is one of my favourite books, however The Double seemed to be quite different.

Wondering about the name of the book 'De man in duplo' or 'The Man duplicated' instead of 'De dubbelganger' or 'The double'. However the Dutch name is more near to the original name and the meaning is also slightly different. The story is about a history teacher that finds someone exactly identical to himself in a B movie that he was watching. Saramago describes the thoughts of the history teacher and chooses a worst case scenerio, which is usually of most interest. The book is interesting because of its perspective, the way of telling, the considerations of the main character. However after reading the book, with an original ending, I hadn't got the impression that I read something really unique, something that leaves an impression. Also I thought the book hadn't got much progression in it, especially in the first half of it. However it was an interesting read, but it won't be one of my favourites. Those are still Blindness and "Nooit meer slapen" (Eng: Beyond Sleep) of W.F. Hermans. Also the book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer, that I am currently reading seems to be very good .