I finally got around to watching the film version of Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything is Illuminated. I enjoyed the movie OK. I thought that Elijah Wood played Jonathan a little too autistic. I loved Ukrainian singer Eugene Hutz as the Ukrainian guide, Alex. He played the character even better than written. Hutz’s band, Gogol Bordello also contributed several songs to the soundtrack, which were perfect. Like Cirque de Soleil on a week-long vodka bender, the Band Gogol Bordello is lively, fun, a little foreign/cosmopolitan, and has the potential for drunken anarchy. The band takes their name (in part) from Russian author Nikolai Gogol (as did the protagonist in Jhumpa Lahari’s Namesake). The video below is for the song GB song “Start Wearing Purple”. I would not be surprised to learn that after the video was over everyone involved spent a day or two in jail. They remind me of The Pogues in that regard. “Start Wearing Purple” played over the final credits of Illuminated, if I remember correctly (and there is no guarantee of that). I love this song. I’m definitely going to grow a mustache like Eugene’s.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_81l4DXlwM[/youtube]