Page 14
March 18, 2015
C lassifieds /B ids A Vampire to Capture You
REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS
METRO
OXBOW STREAM RESTORATION PROJECT
RFP 2945
Due: April 7, 2015 at 2:00 p.m.
The Natural Areas program of Metro, a metropolitan service dis-
trict organized under the laws of the State of Oregon and the
Metro Charter, located at 600 NE Grand Avenue, Portland, OR
97232-2736, is hereby requesting sealed proposals for the Ox-
bow Stream Restoration project.
Sealed proposals are due no later than 2:00 p.m. April 7, 2015, in
Metro’s business offices at 600 NE Grand Avenue, Portland, OR
97232-2736, Attention: Sharon Stiffler, RFP 2945.
A voluntary pre-proposal conference will be held Wednesday
March 25th, 2015 at 1:00 p.m. at 600 N.E. Grand Avenue, Port-
land, OR 97232.
Metro is seeking proposals from qualified water resource engi-
neering and design firms or teams.
The Sandy River Basin Partners (www.sandyriverpartners.org)
are working to restore habitat for native salmon and steelhead in
the Sandy River Watershed. Metro wishes to hire water resource
engineering and design firm whose staff includes a multidisci-
plinary design team of scientists, geo-morphologists, fish biolo-
gist to plan and design a stream restoration project at Oxbow
Regional Park (Project) on the lower Sandy River near Troutdale,
Oregon.
Solicitation documents can be viewed and downloaded from the
Oregon Procurement Information Network (ORPIN) at http://or-
pin.oregon.gov/open.dll/
Metro may accept or reject any or all bids, in whole or in part, or
waive irregularities not affecting substantial rights if such action
is deemed in the public interest.
Metro extends equal opportunity to all persons and specifically
encourages minority, women-owned and emerging small busi-
nesses to access and participate in this and all Metro projects,
programs and services.
Metro and its contractors will not discriminate against any per-
son(s), employee or applicant for employment based on race, col-
or, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, religion, disability,
political affiliation or marital status. Metro fully complies with
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and related statutes and
regulations in all programs and activities. For more information,
or to obtain a Title VI Complaint Form, see www.oregonmetro.gov.
The City of Portland is seeking applicants for Crime Prevention
Coordinators in the Office of Neighborhood Involvement to design,
implement and manage specialized crime prevention and commu-
nity education programs located in City neighborhoods.
SALARY: $22.82 to $30.61 Hourly
Deadline: 3/30/15
For more job information or to apply, go to
www.portlandoregon.gov/jobs
C ontinued from P age 11
and visually arresting of them
all. Shot in gorgeous black-and-
white and drawing from Iranian
and American/European pop
cultures and from several dif-
ferent eras of cinema and mu-
sic, Amirpour has assembled a
compelling depiction of femi-
nist agency and longing.
The mythical Bad City,
where the film is set, feels
straight out of a graphic novel.
A bleak California-esque town,
its hills seem crowded with a
subdivision of oil wells, and a
ravine on the edge of town is
littered with corpses that ap-
pear to have been simply dis-
carded. We don’t know how
they got there, or why.
It quickly appears that we
are not in California--but
it can’t quite be Iran either.
Though it takes awhile to ori-
ent, the spare dialogue is ut-
tered in Farsi, and there are
plenty of little clues that wom-
en are not in charge. The cam-
era floats through this nether
world, lighting on a handsome
young man, a sort of Persian
James Dean, wearing jeans and
a white T-shirt and driving a
1950s Thunderbird. He is has-
sled by a ruthless, drug-dealing
pimp, to whom James Dean’s
addict father owes money. A
prostitute past her prime walks
the streets for the pimp, and
absorbs his abuse with an air
of melancholy. A rich girl toys
with James Dean, who tends
the garden on her family’s es-
tate. A tattered boy wanders
about, watching and begging
for money.
The film takes its time be-
fore introducing the girl who
walks home alone at night. Ear-
ly clues suggest that the town
trades in danger and depravi-
ty--it is the kind of place where
Training at
2205 N. Lombard
Mon 6:45PM / Thurs 10AM
one could go missing and no
one would look for you. The
slight girl lurks in the shadows
at night, wandering about in a
chador, the dark, floor-length
head covering that Muslim
women sometimes wear. Why
does she seem threatening, this
slight girl in her dark cape,
which we in the West read as a
signal of women’s oppression?
In Muslim culture, at least as
popularly depicted, women are
treated as though both danger-
ous and powerless. They must
be covered because they are
dangerous, yet they may be or-
dered about and controlled. The
girl who lurks in the streets of
this bad city later calls herself
bad--but is she? She is a vam-
pire, and is no doubt the most
dangerous in a cast of danger-
ous characters--but does she
also embody a kind of virtue?
Director Amirpour is less
interested in plot than in what
the girl’s various encounters
convey about her and her sub-
jects. With the pimp the girl
indulges a love of dark eye-
liner and lipstick, and he mis-
takes her as an easy object of
conquest. I noticed I felt most
anxious watching the girl lurk
around the tattered boy, but her
encounter with him ends up
being particularly satisfying. Is
he a good boy? She persists in
asking him this question, and
we shiver at its urgency and
wonder at his response. What
does she mean to do with the
information? By the time she
encounters the drug addict fa-
ther and the prostitute, she has
taken to wandering the streets
on the tattered boy’s aban-
doned skateboard. By then we
know the girl to be fearsome,
but not to everyone.
The girl encounters the Per-
sian James Dean in between
other encounters, and final-
Attend “Free”
Team Training Session
ly takes him home one night
when she finds him wander-
ing, lost, after he has drunk
too much at a costume party.
He is dressed as Dracula, and
he wonders if she is scared of
him. She isn’t--but should he
be scared of her? He doesn’t
appear to be, and one begins
to notice his relative innocence
and its effect on the girl. In
these scenes, the girl appears
wounded, and full of longing.
She says little, leaving you
to wonder what intrigues her
about the young man, whether
she is lonely, whether she finds
her vampire life confining.
Among other things, “A Girl
Walks Home Alone at Night”
is about women’s power. Lim-
ited though their options might
be by social convention and
by the fears and expectations
thrust upon them, all three
women here seem more awake
than any of the men, and to
varying degrees--the vampire
most of all--they act with a
degree of intention, even as-
sorting a sort of power. There
is even a transgender woman
lurking about, not really part
of the film’s thin plot and per-
haps even invisible to others,
but also conveying an appear-
ance full of intention. I think
Amirpour is playing with ideas
about women’s power in a con-
text of oppression.
You can dwell on these ques-
tions, as you watch--or you can
simply enjoy the beauty of her
subjects, in their melancholy
dark world, and savor the film’s
sly humor and its plundering
of Middle Eastern fusion and
underground Iranian rock mu-
sic. Amirpour has assembled
treasures from everything from
Madonna to spaghetti westerns
to David Lynch; these allusions
may be simply playful, or she
may be saying something sly
about themes running through
art in all its forms.
No matter how you choose
to watch, if you surrender to a
mood of appreciation and lan-
guor (a bit like that of the Per-
sian James Dean), Amirpour’s
film, and the girl of its title,
will capture you.
Darleen Ortega is a judge on
the Oregon Court of Appeals
and the first woman of color
to serve in that capacity. Her
movie review column Opinion-
ated Judge appears regularly
in The Portland Observer. Find
her movie blog at opinionated-
judge.blogspot.com.