As you may already know, the WTF news of the week is the traffic jam in China’s Heibei Province, which has been going on for about ten days now and may last a month.
Tom Vanderbuilt, author of “Traffic”, makes a parallel to the Godard’s black comedy movie “Weekend“, inspired by a Cortazar novel, in which an epic traffic jam gradually turns into a depiction of the collapse of today’s (or, better say: 60’s) consumer society. You can read the whole Cortazar short novel (La autopista del Sur) in Spanish.
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Vanderbuilt also makes an interesting list of his favourite films about traffic jams, which includes a Tati and a Murnau movie, along with Rain Man and Midnight Cowboy.
In the Chinese case, we hear typical stories: One truck driver complained that vendors were selling instant noodles for “four times the original price while I wait in the congestion”, which remind me of Lagos in Nigeria and the explosion of urban life around jammed motorways.
Rem Koolhaas recently published some documents and a documentary on the african city, an excerpt of which you can already see on YouTube.
Via: Kottke.
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