![\"\"](\"http:\/\/mannveille.com\/tim\/blog\/images\/Budapest-anonymous-statue.jpg\")
<\/p>\nHow do you holiday?<\/p>\n
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The possibilities, if you really think about it, are overwhelming. You could visit every village in Yorkshire that has a funny name and interview strangers about nomenclature. You could systematically visit every city in the world with a population greater than one million in alphabetical order, consuming only media in that city that begin with the same letter. You could stage a murder mystery party with friends on the actual Orient Express.<\/p>\n
The problem with any of these ideas is that they only make you (or me at least) feel more strongly that there\u2019s an even better<\/em> idea out there that you\u2019re missing out on. Obviously if you also have children, things\u00a0are further complicated.<\/p>\n So, here\u2019s my generic quite-interesting-holiday generator that feels fairly optimal:<\/p>\n Clare and I love animation, and needed a holiday before Christmas; consultation of festival listing websites like this one<\/a>\u00a0meant we ended up in Budapest in late November 2018, to attend the Anilogue<\/a> animation festival.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re travelling within Europe, I maximally endorse The Man In Seat 61<\/a>, a website by Mark Smith, who uses his extensive rail experience<\/a> and appetite for railway-based research to maintain this incredible resource, covering the best routes in Europe and how to buy tickets. Including getting from London to Budapest via Eurostar and sleeper train:<\/p>\n As a moderately well-travelled UK resident, I am embarrassingly ignorant of Eastern Europe. Visiting Budapest was a great way to start putting that right. Here\u2019s an extremely terse list of the things I found most insightful:<\/p>\n If you\u2019re planning to go, I would recommend the following\u00a0two things slightly off the beaten tourist track.<\/p>\n Everything you would hope it could be: 140+ pinball and other arcade machines from all eras, all playable for free for as long as you want, covered by one very reasonable entrance fee.<\/p>\n Two kilometers of poorly lit and unsupervised tunnels, with an optional detour you can take entirely in pitch blackness; warm, damp, and with some creepy\u00a0mannequins to encounter. You can tell from that if you\u2019ll love it or hate it. Also, surprise cinema screening sub-cave:<\/p>\n We caught four of the feature-length animations shown as part of the festival\u2019s competition:<\/p>\n Dilili in Paris (2018) 1h 35m, trailer<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Director Michel Ocelot\u2019s series of African folk-tale Kirikou<\/em> films saw him graduate from a traditional 2D animation style to a sort of 3D cell-shaded version that surprisingly maintained their idiosyncratic charm. Dilili transposes the action to Paris, maintains the precocious child protagonist, and adds real-world photography to the backgrounds, which some might regard as cheating and others as efficient, but most importantly is aesthetically interesting.<\/p>\n The story requires a certain amount of suspension-of-disbelief as it takes in just about everyone who was anyone in Belle Epoque Paris, and like the best children\u2019s stories gets surprisingly dark at times.\u00a0While I\u2019d\u00a0sooner re-watch a Kirikou, I\u2019m nonetheless extremely interested to see what Ocelot does next.<\/p>\n Seder-Masochism (2018) 1h 18m, not-very-representative trailer<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Nina Paley\u2019s debut feature Sita Sings the Blues<\/em> entwined a personal story of love and loss with the Ramayana as told and discussed by several Indian storytellers, accompanied by some brilliantly-chosen out-of-copyright songs by Annette Hanshaw. The nature of copyright was something Paley studied and wrote about extensively, and that\u2019s at least partly why the film is available for free.<\/p>\n Her long-awaited (by us at least) follow-up Seder-Masochism<\/em> takes a somewhat similar approach by juxtaposing the story of Moses with her childhood experience of the traditional Jewish Seder, as recounted by interviews with her father – again with some extremely well-chosen songs, this time from a range of more recent artists, in a direct challenge to the restrictions of copyright law as it stands.<\/p>\n Overall though the result seemed less successful, assuming quite a lot of knowledge by the viewer, and ending up somewhat unevenly weighted. It doesn\u2019t help that there are ten plagues to get through, each animated with amazingly ridiculous aplomb to a range of surprising music choices.<\/p>\n The film tacitly addresses the fascinating topic of how an ancient history of goddess-worship was supplanted by more patriarchal religions in multiple cultures. The musical format elevates this to a visceral feeling of an ancient and epic tragedy, but begs many more questions \u2013 fortunately there\u2019s a bibliography at the end.<\/p>\n Similarly, the topic of Paley\u2019s own upbringing and relationship with her parents doesn’t dig too deep, and one senses that she is limited by the range of the (now 7-year old) recordings of her father she had available.<\/p>\n If you haven\u2019t already, you should at minimum watch\u00a0This Land is Mine<\/a> to see the kind of effect Paley is so great at creating.<\/p>\n\n
Also: European Train Travel<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/mannveille.com\/tim\/blog\/images\/Budapest-night-train.jpg\")
<\/p>\nBudapest crash course<\/h2>\n
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![\"\"](\"http:\/\/mannveille.com\/tim\/blog\/images\/Budapest-var.jpg\")
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![\"\"](\"http:\/\/mannveille.com\/tim\/blog\/images\/Budapest-stairwells.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThe Flippermuseum \/ Pinball museum<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/mannveille.com\/tim\/blog\/images\/Budapest-Flippermuseum.jpg\")
The Labyrinth<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/mannveille.com\/tim\/blog\/images\/Budapest-labyrinth.jpg\")
<\/p>\nAnilogue Animation Film Festival<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/mannveille.com\/tim\/blog\/images\/Budapest-dilili.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/mannveille.com\/tim\/blog\/images\/Budapest-Seder-masochism.jpg\")
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