A special soldier for National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day (USA)

“They sent me out by plane to a boarding school. But I ran away. There's a war on. I can't cram some stupid stuff when it's a war.”

– Ivan

A twelve-year old boy works as a scout for the Soviet army. His age and size make him an inoffensive figure in the war-scarred landscape. But inside, he's brooding for revenge.

 

 

On the International Day of Democracy, the word “democracy” is spoken.

“Stop shooting! Stop democracy!”

– Person Nr. 1

The Gestapo arrives to liquidate the inmates of a mental hospital. Then Windisch, plainclothes Nazi, brings them a letter: there's a special commando hiding amidst the 583 patients. Interrogating them slowly pushes Windisch among them.

On September 1, also known as Knowledge Day (День знаний) in Russia, an enthusiastic schoolboy draws a little man on the classroom wall, and causes a whole lot of trouble.

 

Someone in poolside vacation clothing*

“I am Cuba. Why are you running away? You came here to have fun? Go ahead, have fun! Is this a happy picture? Don't avert your eyes. Look! I am Cuba. For you, I am the casino, the bar, the hotels. But the hands of these children and old people, are also me.”

– the voice of Cuba

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for July is, for unknown reasons, mostly not date-related and follows some sort of vacation narrative.

A mode of transportation to get me to my ideal vacation destination*. And yes, I would travel to an island by transcontinental locomotive

“What I sought in 'Pacific' was not the imitation of the sounds of the locomotive, but the translation of a visual impression and a physical enjoyment through a musical construction. It starts from objective contemplation: the quiet breathing of the engine at rest, the effort of starting, then the progressive increase in speed, to arrive at the lyrical state, the pathos of the 300-ton train, launched in the middle of the night at 120 km/h.”

– Arthur Honegger, Dissonances. Revue musicale indépendante (1925) (via)

Hinted on in Abel Gance's La Roue (1923), composer Arthur Honegger's Пасифик 231 follows the narrative of a stream train ploughing through the night. The conductor's gestures mirror the fireman's and slowly, the machine comes to live. The music becomes abstract, machine-like, in its rendition of pistons and valves. Using double exposure and Soviet montage theory, music and movement become one. The Futurists, if not opposed to the Soviets that is, would have had a field day with this outing.

 

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for July is, for unknown reasons, mostly not date-related and follows some sort of vacation narrative.

A [favourite] animated character for Donald Duck Day (USA)

“In the evenings, the little Hedgehog went to the Bear Cub to count stars. They would sit on the log and sip tea, gazing at the starry sky. It hung on the roof, just behind the chimney. To the right of the chimney were the Bear Cub's stars and the stars to the left were the Hedgehog's”

– opening lines

On his way to visit his friend Bear Cub, Hedgehog finds himself in a dense mistbank. Strange sounds, and even stranger creatures, omit from it. And all he wanted was have strawberry jam and tea with his friend.