#frederic amat

BAZA Frederic Amat

Frederic Amat - Diptych of the Water

Papers de l'India // Frederic Amat // 2000

Image Source: movetocambodia.com As an occasional expat myself, I have roamed the expat communities in China and Southeast Asia. My powers of observation were shot. I invariably mingled with Westerners and eyed locals with wary self-control. Abroad, I neither offended nor assimilated. You could say I floated, as the osmosis of cultures collapsed my hard boundaries yet swelled my day-to-day into a fragile bubble. Luckily, my expat days would last up to a few months. Rumor has it that some foreign correspondents are never heard of again with the same name. Me, I go back to being Roman Magnus the American citizen any moment my boss gives me a marching order to decamp. Image Source: phnompenhpost.com Now, in my sedentary days as a tailor, I tend to welcome friends and their traveler’s tales back. They travel with ease, encouraged by opportunities in emergent economies. Psychologically, they are thrilling studies. I identify them in Frederic Amat’s The Funny Life of Expats in Cambodia, despite their different assignments. And I feel the same for my former self, especially since I’ve spent some months in Cambodia after a rather stultifying false nostalgia for Catherine Deneuve’s Vietnam. I was the banana shake-sipping denizen of a developing world’s coffee shop, harangued by two-wheelers’ traffic and bullied by the unique syntax of the local language. My friends then --- some are still there, writing novels or perfecting the local cuisine --- are bendier caricatures of Mr. Amat’s poking humor --- the “sponges” and the “rejects” as he classified. They’ve come to love and be puzzled by their adopted countries with the odd mix of patriotism for their home countries.   Image Source: travels.kilroy.eu All expats laughingly concede to cultural shocks at some point. Mr. Amat could have beaten himself up with his own expat taxonomy, seeing he’s also one. Being a sport about their funny lives --- that’s pretty much what tropical brainwash and humid loneliness can push expats to be. There’s no other way to adjust. A San Francisco expat? Welcome to the world of Roman Magnus and his peripatetic friends.

Jordi Cadena filmó el documental BELMONTE a partir del espectáculo de Gelabert-Azzopardi, captando toda su fuerza y expresión a través de una dirección sensible y precisa. Muy pronto tendremos la edición en dvd de este documental de Jordi Cadena.