Mantilla in the Movies: Columbiana

Apparently a character (the grandma) in the new (and violent) action flick, Columbiana, regularly wears a mantilla to mass.

Review by the Catholic News Service below.

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Columbiana

By John Mulderig
Catholic News Service

NEW YORK (CNS) -- Two things to note about Cataleya, the central character in the over-the-top action flick "Colombiana" (TriStar/Stage 6): As a trained assassin, she's very good at killing people; as played by Zoe Saldana, she's even better at looking good while she does it.

Lest you miss the latter point, Cataleya conveniently dons a skintight black leotard to carry out one of her elaborate trademark hits.

What's a nice girl like her doing in the death-for-dollars racket? Well, way back in 1992, as early scenes show us, young Bogota-born Cataleya (Amandla Stenberg) witnessed the fatal outcome of a tiff between her parents and her father's employer, a Colombian drug lord named Don Luis (Beto Benites).

Making her way to the States, the orphaned Cataleya found shelter with her gangster uncle Emilio (Cliff Curtis), a thug with a heart of gold -- if only for his kith and kin.

Already out for revenge against Don Luis and his chief minion Marco (Jordi Molla), the traumatized tot demanded that Tio Emilio immediately teach her how to introduce folks to the Big Sleep. With avuncular wisdom, however, he insisted that she graduate from grammar school first.

Flash forward to the current millennium and we find Cataleya executing contracts for Emilio while still pursuing her dreams of vengeance. But an FBI agent named Ross (Lennie James), though remarkably slow on the uptake, is at least lukewarm on her trail, while her heretofore anonymous romance with increasingly nosy artist Danny (Michael Vartan) also threatens to thwart her plans.

Pure pulp, director Olivier Megaton's shoot'em-up expends ammo at a "Scarface" pace, yet generally demurs from showing the gory consequences of its gun battles, or of its heroine's more creative rub-outs, such as that involving a shark tank.

Catholic viewers may be wryly amused by the fact that Emilio is portrayed as attending Sunday Mass on a regular basis, accompanied by his elderly mother (Ofelia Medina), who still wears a mantilla to church. Like many a mafia don on screen and -- who knows? -- perhaps off it as well, he seems not to have noticed that Gospel values and a life of violent crime are just a tad incongruous.

Maybe he missed that Sunday.

The film contains constant, largely bloodless, action violence, a vengeance theme, brief nongraphic premarital sexual activity, a few uses of profanity, at least one instance of rough language and frequent crude or crass terms. The Catholic News Service classification is L -- limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 -- parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

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Mulderig is on the staff of Catholic News Service.


SOURCE 

Veils at Versailles

Veils at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London

The Mantilla in Vogue Italia

More confirmation that the mantilla is having a high fashion moment. 

Article below. 

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Steven Meisel's record breaking number of Vogue Italia covers!

3 April 2011 at 12:00 Steven Meisel Italian Vogue Franca Sozzani

Source: http://www.graziadaily.co.uk/fashion/archive/2011/04/13/steven-meisels-record-breaking-number-of-vogue-italia-covers.htm

American Vogue might be the biggest and heaviest, French Vogue (under Carine Roitfeld, at least) the raunchiest, but Vogue Italia has always had a firm reputation for being the most creative, and even weird. Tis in the Italian one that you will see the slimmest, fizziest haired, raccoon-eyed models dragging on cigarettes or decked out in full Catholic funeral attire complete with a black lace mantilla. How fabulouso, door-link! Its outspoken editor in chief, the diminutive, Rapunzel-haired firebrand, Franca Sozzani, let fans into a secret about the mag this week.

It turns out, Steven Meisel has shot every single Vogue Italia cover since 1988, which is 325 in total. Crikey! So Franca, just per che do you like Steven M so blimmin’ much, eh? Because ‘I needed to have a consistent, recognizable look to every cover. My idea was that even if you took the word “Italia” off, you know what Vogue Italia is. Many magazines don’t seem to have a connection between one cover and the next, and it becomes hard to tell them apart. Especially today — images can be printed in such a high quality, but that also flattens them out, in a way. There’s a similar problem in fashion. Everyone can buy clothes — the most accessible clothes are not of the best quality, but unless you look at the label, you don’t know who it’s by. It’s this kind of oversaturation that makes me believe we are on the brink of another huge change’ apparently.

Huh. Well, that kinda, explains it. It must be either that or he has some terrible blackmail evidence about Franca. Although we LOVE the idea of a long running narrative using each cover as a chapter in the visual story; like a posh version of Deirdre’s casebook! Now, THAT would be cool.

Composer James MacMillian comments on a "tsunami of mantillas" in Amsterdam

Article below. 

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Source: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/jmacmillan/100052574/an-extraordinary-form-mass-in-amsterdam-–-much-more-inspiring-than-the-usual-trendy-rubbish/

An Extraordinary Form Mass in Amsterdam – much more inspiring than the usual trendy rubbish

James MacMillan 

I was in Amsterdam last week, conducting at the Concertgebouw. I found out that the FSSP (Priestly Fraternity of St Peter) have a thriving parish there, in the Sint-Agneskerk. I went along on Sunday for their beautiful Extraordinary Form liturgy. The Dutch church is a wasteland/joke/disaster area because of 30 years of liberalism. Basically there are no Catholics left here! Or so it seems sometimes, thanks to the usual rubbish. Thankfully there are some younger, faithful Catholics willing to swim against the tide.

I’m still a bit of a novice when it comes to the EF – Sunday’s was my third – but I am struck each time by just how devotional the atmosphere is, even on entering the church. Everything seems focused on the tabernacle. There is a palpable presence of God, which tends to be missing from a lot of churches now, which feel more like Glasgow Central station than a house of prayer.

In the FSSP’s Amsterdam church there was a veritable tsunami of mantillas on display! There is a liberal argument in Holland which is opposing the government’s crackdown on Islamic women wearing the hijab/niqab/burka. Those same liberals who would have a fit if they saw a mantilla in a Catholic church, no doubt!

I certainly got the impression that the people present on Sunday were being helped enormously in their faith, much of which has been swept away in Holland. Many ethnic/immigrant faces in evidence. It reminded me of the Newman Beatification Mass at Cofton Park. Compared to this, the anti-Pope demonstrations in London looked terribly white and middle-class. Just like most opponents of Rome, outside and inside the Church.

“Ah, but we can’t go back to the past,” we hear the usual ageing handwringers cry. But the past is the past, and has no bearing any more on the new impetus to sort out the liturgy. Latin Mass can be in the EF and the Novus Ordo – that’s the beauty of Latin, and that’s why the Devil (let alone the Tabletistas) hates it!

“Oh but where is the active participation in the Latin Mass?” cry the liberal killjoys. But lay involvement is clearly possible to the fullest extent in the EF or Latin Novus Ordo. In the three EF liturgies I have attended in the last year, the assembly sang much, much more than one ever sees or hears in a Glasgow “Mass-for-Daily-Record-Man” or its depressing equivalent up and down the country. Everything from the Asperges Me, through the Kyrie, Sanctus and all the Dominus vobiscum/et cum spiritu tuos – sung by EVERYBODY. There is no point in using the past, pre-Vatican II practice as a weapon against the inevitable. None of the young Catholics now committed to good liturgy have any idea what the old curmudgeons are going on about when they moan about the bad old days. Their bad memories are irrelevant and have no bearing at all on the push for improvements. And these improvements will have a bearing on both forms the Mass, especially the English vernacular, I’m sure.

Even the readings – chanted in Latin – were understood by everyone, because we had the translations in Dutch and English in our bulletins. I have never felt so participatory. These “readings” were heightened and holier because they were sung, and in an elevated tongue. The whole experience was sublime – ie, the way it should be every week in the Novus Ordo, and will be again once the Reform of the Reform has been won. Much better this than the usual lackadaisical mumbling and stumbling that we usually get, with all the right-on social/political messages thrown in for good measure. The only bit of the Mass I didn’t understand on Sunday was the homily, in the vernacular – Dutch.