Someone at a coffee shop or café*

 

There's not much next to the railroad tracks. A group of young men spend their summer days there, waiting for the train bringing tourists to the Adriatic coast. Suddenly, the place comes to life with waiters frantically unfolding parasols. And there's a pretty blonde, she stays, and brings her newspaper stand along. The men place a bet…

 

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

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 passport or ID*

 

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

Luggage, a trunk, or a suitcase*

“My job allows me to read about strange incidents, but what I see here is often even stranger. And the strangest thing of all happened one day after midday prayer.”

– Madbouli, newspaper salesman

Among the hustle and bustle of Cairo's travellers, there are those making a living. The pitiful Qenawi (Youssef Chahine) peddles newspapers, unioniser Abu-Sri moves said travellers' luggage, and Hannumah (Hind Rostom), all hips and bosom and Abu-Sri's, sells cold drinks. Qenawi wants her.

 

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

A film with people at, or taking place in, a hotel*

“Mr. Hulot is off for a week by the sea. Take a seat behind his camera, and you can spend it with him. Don't look for a plot, for a holiday is meant purely for fun, and if you look for it, you will find more fun in ordinary life than in fiction.”

– opening lines

Located in the real-world Hôtel de la Plage in Saint-Marc-sur-Mer, Mr Hulot lovingly bumbles his way into your heart.

 

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

(People at) an airport*

 

It's foggy at Flughafen Berlin-Tempelhof, the Allies' airbridge to the West, and all the planes into and out of West Berlin are grounded. In any other metropolis this could mean taking a train, enjoy the city's nightlife or maybe just a bed for the night. In post-Wall bureaucracy-happy West Berlin, this means endless waits with strangers. And so, with nowhere to go, a Polish jazz band mingles with British spouses, a lonely South African farmer, a model and her beau.

 

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

Traveling to my vacation destination, a map or globe*

“It appears obvious that the territory is the sum of all the maps, the result of an infinite addition. Or a contrary, the territory is what is left when we remove all the sets of lines, drawings, traces and colors which are covering it. Its existence becomes doubtful.”

– H., via

A man, H., joins two others playing jeu de l'oie (Game of the Goose), a board game associated with labyrinths and pilgrimage. While the three play, the game opens up maps and new roads to explore.

 

Following my own Bales' rules, I cannot pick a title twice. See Zig-Zag as an avatar of Raúl Ruiz's O Território [The Territory] from 1981.

 

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

A movie set in the USA for Independence Day (USA)

“This film tells a story of rebels (played by real rats) and cops (played by real cats). After a long domination by cats, the rats escape from prison (this is their rebellion) and find refuge in Canada. There, they feed on organic produce from a garden where the grass hasn’t been sprayed with DDT.”

– Jonas Mekas, via

French-Canadian patriot Joyce Wieland tells a fable of freedom.

 

Coincidentally, the Canadian city of Trois-Rivières, scene of the final battle of the American Revolutionary War, also celebrates an Independence Day on the fourth of July.

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.

My ideal vacation spot, country, city, town, or resort*

 

An island, in this case Capri (granted I've never been there), off-season, in a space and time lost in the mists. It'll occasionally rain and it's cold enough to dress up.

 

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