Dear Vicky on P30

And Movie Monday

Aug 04, 2025

Bonjour, y’all!

I hope you had a good weekend!

On Friday, I went to watch Jules et Jim in a theatre. I had a lot of fun. On the way out, a lady declared that the film was “the biggest waste of my time.” Either she’s had the most efficient life in the history of mankind, or she’s not a fan of the film. I can’t really tell.

But I like the film. The opening of the film caught me off guard. The intro to the two main characters Jules and Jim is narrated by a fast narration over the montage. The narration is so fast as if to tell the audience: “Shut up! I’ve got a story to tell.” Thanks to my poor French, I had to rely on the subtitles to keep up. While I struggled with my reading, the montage leaps from scene to scene that are not connected to each other. Stream of consciousness is not the right description, it’s more like you being hit by a box of Polaroid photos and having to figure out the story behind the photos. I have to say it’s a very effective opening, not as the lady would call it “a waste of time.”

This is not a film essay, so I’m not gonna bore you with more of my rambling thoughts about the film. However, it does remind me that when we watch a tragedy unfold in fiction or real life, we’d all like to think that we would know the right thing to do in those situations to steer clear of the impending tragedy, but we’d be wrong. Embrace la Nouvelle vague, and don’t judge!

Back to photos. I dug through my catalogue over the weekend, and found the scans of another roll of the Ferrania P30 shot in Hong Kong. I like this film. It’s a good summer stock. I sincerely hope the company could come back to life.

The photos were some random shots around town.

As you can see, this was after the mask mandate was lifted in Hong Kong, but there’s still that mask shop in the upper left corner. Soon to be out of business I guess. An amber from a strange time.