philosophy in film

Things just don’t add up in their life so the first thing some folks think of is money. That’ll do it. And it does just enough times to keep them going in the same direction. But then they want [or need] more – a lot more – of it. And usually in order to get it the wrong people show up on the path. This is just a reminder of how sometimes they’re not the right wrong people.

Mom replacing Doris: contingency, chance and change. And point of view given that Doris’s death would be no less a tragedy for others.

And what are brothers for if not to take down with you.

Oh, and If you want the best for your kid you should try to figure out first if you can afford it.

And all Hank needed this time was $130. It wasn’t like he was addicted to heroin. That’s Andy.

It speaks volumes about movies today that a film this good [and highly acclaimed] barely recoups what it cost to make it.

IMDb

Title taken from the Irish toast: “May you have food and raiment, a soft pillow for your head; may you be 40 years in heaven, before the devil knows you’re dead.”

Or here:

“May you be in Heaven half an hour before the Devil knows you’re dead”

In the DVD’s Director’s commentary, Sidney Lumet says the nude scene between Gina and Hank was shot, Ethan Hawke wanted to make Marisa Tomei, feel more comfortable, and insisted on being nude as well. He further insisted that every male crew member strip naked while filming the scene to accommodate Tomei.

Okay, but was the nudity necessary at all?

BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU’RE DEAD
Directed by Sidney Lumet

[b]Andy: Everything is wonderful. Everything is wonderful.
Gina: Mmm-hmm.

Hank: You’re a prick.
Andy: I always was.

Andy: Well, you need money. So do I. Let’s solve it.

Andy: Do you need money?
Hank: Of course, I need money. But this is…This is serious crime, Andy. I’m not a serious crime kind of a guy.

Hank: So, what’s the place?
Andy: No, not another word till you commit.

Gina [to Hank, her husband Andy’s brother]: We have a really good time in bed. I don’t ask for anything.
Hank: I love you. I want more.
Gina: So does Oliver Twist. Now, can I help you to seconds? Or do you really, really, really have to get back to work?

Hank: I’m in.

Andy: We don’t want Tiffany’s. We want a Mom and Pop operation, in a busy place, on a Saturday when the week’s takes go in the safe. We both worked there. We know the safe combinations. We know the burglar alarm signals. We know where everything is. I figure, between the week’s take, the jewelry and the cases, the vault, there’s a $500,000 haul. I figure probably six. The old dumb old lady that works there, she’s alone till noon. She’s not going to be a problem.
Hank: Andy…
Andy: Yeah?
Hank: That’s mom and dad’s store.
Andy: That’s what I said. A Mom and Pop operation.

Andy [handing him a wad of cash]: That’s $2,000. It’s an advance. See what just that much does for you. And, imagine the rest.

Hank [after Bobby switches from folk music on the radio to heavy metal]: What the fuck is this?
Bobby: You can listen to that faggoty shit all the way home. Right now, I got to get into character.

Hank [on the phone]: Oh, my god. It just came apart, Andy.

Andy: The thing about real estate accounting is that you can, you can, add down the page or across the page and everything works out. Everyday, everything adds up. The, the total is always the sum of its parts. It’s, uh, clean. It’s clear. Neat, absolute. But my life, it, uh, it doesn’t add up. It, uh… Nothing connects to anything else. It’s, uh… I’m not, I’m not the sum of my parts. All my parts don’t add up to one… to one me, I guess.
Justin: Get a shrink or a wife.
Andy: Uh, I got a wife.
Justin: Get a shrink

Andy: Was it me, honey?
Gina: What difference does it make? It’s another strikeout.

Gina: Well, like you said, just blame it on Rio.

Hank: You know, I thought I was going to be able to work it out, but… But I couldn’t get the money together, you know.
Daughter: All my friends think I’m going to be there, what am I going to tell them?
Hank: You know, I mean, there’s going to be other field trips.
Daughter: Not to The Lion King, there won’t. Look, Dad, if you weren’t going to pay for it, you should have just said so and saved me the humiliation of having to tell all my friends that you’re a loser.

Andy [on phone]: I know you’re there. Pick up the phone. Pick up the phone! PICK UP THE FUCKING PHONE, YOU FUCKING FAGGOT!

Dex: I’m going to be straight with you, Chico. Bobby was a piece of shit. I know it, you know it. That’s not the point. The point is that piece of shit was the father of my sister’s child. And he was paying the bills. And now he’s dead. And I’m thinking, who’s going to pay all these bills?
Hank: I’m so sorry.
Dex: Sorry ain’t going to pay the bills, Chico.

Dex: Ten grand, done. It’s 10 grand. I consider us even.
Hank: No…
Dex: My sister wants me to kill you. Or I could call the cops. But I don’t like cops. And the cops ain’t going to pay my sister’s bills.

Hank [on phone]: Hello?
Andy: It’s me.
Hank: Andy, Jesus! Fuck, man, we got problems.

Andy: My mom’s dying.
Justin: Bummer. Next time, make an appointment.

Andy [to Hank]: How am I going to fix it so that your shit doesn’t fall on my shoes?

Gina: You never tell me anything that’s going on anymore.
Andy: I don’t understand.
Gina: Neither do I. What was that in the car yesterday? I could help.
Andy: I don’t need any help.
Gina [exasperated]: Do you realize that I’ve been having an affair?
Andy: What’s that supposed to mean?
Gina: Means I’ve been fucking another guy. Every Thursday, me and your brother, Hank. We get together and we fuck. Not only that, he loves me. And he still finds me attractive. All the time. Not just on vacation. Not just in Rio.

William: You always hated my guts, you called me a crook, but you didn’t know shit about how the world works, or what some people will do for money. [hands him Andy’s business card] I guess, now you know, Charlie. The world is an evil place, Charlie. Some of us make money off of that, and others get destroyed. He walked in here, he looks a little bit like you, Charlie. He walked in here and I almost knew him, right off the bat.

Andy: We’re in trouble. The worst trouble imaginable. You’re aware of that, right? So, why don’t we try and fix it? There’s almost no choice, but you’re gonna have to follow my lead. No questions, no hesitations.
Hank: I’ve done that before, all right, and that’s how come I’m standing here, with my life going down the fucking toilet.
Andy: Fuck you, fuck you, I’ll do it alone. You can sit here and wait till you go to jail and take it up the ass for the rest of your fucking life.

Dex: You don’t look happy. Mind if I call you “Groucho”?
Andy: No, I don’t mind.

Hank: No, no more, you kill her, you’re gonna have to kill me.
Andy [turning the gun on him]: Not such a bad idea. You know, in fact, it’s a pretty good one.

Andy: You know I know.
Hank: What do you know?
Andy: I know.
Hank [realizing what he knows]: I’m sorry. I fucked it all up. Just do it. Do it. Go ahead. Come on. You’d be doing me a favor.[/b]

Out of the blue the father shows up after a 12 year absense. But it doesn’t take nearly that long to sense something very, very ominous is about to unfold. Still, some sons are more desparate for a father than others.

The way he walks around with the hatchet. And Ivan with the knife.

And the difference between having balls and being stupid.

This is a film about what we don’t know. We imagine all sorts of scenarios. The behavior of the father is strange. Why did he leave. Why did he return. The phone calls. The island. The box he digs up. The increasing tension with the sons.

What a great fucking film.

Included with the dvd is an hour long documentary about the making of the film. But I chose not to watch it. I didn’t want the narrative of someone else. Even the filmaker. I preferred the mystery. The way in which it captures a life that can never be fully understood as anything other than a point of view.

IMDb

[b]Andrey Zvyagintsev says the four main characters of the film represent the four elements: “Earth is Mother, water is Father… the elder brother, Andrei, is air and Ivan is fire. But if you think it’s all different, it is.”

When pre-production was starting, director Andrey Zvyagintsev told producer Dmitriy Lesnevskiy there was no point in making the film if they couldn’t find two boys who were ‘actors of genius’. Zvyagintsev had two assistants who helped him look for actors, one in St. Petersburg and one in Moscow. Zvyagintsev visited both cities. He found Vladimir Garin in St. Petersburg and Ivan Dobronravov in Moscow, picking them from over 600 contenders.

Andrei was supposed to die in the original script. The actor who played him, Vladimir Garin, died on 25 June 2003, shortly after the shooting of the movie was completed, in a lake not far from the one where the movie was shot. The news of his death was postponed until much later after the movie’s premiere and subsequent success in the Venice Film Festival.[/b]

trailer:
youtu.be/qNR4ER9tC6A

THE RETURN [Vozvrashchenie] 2003
Directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev

[b][boy jumps in the water, then floats up]
Zavodila: Jump as we agreed! Who climbs down the ladder is a cowardly pig.
[swims to the shore]
Boy on Tower: Go on, Vityok. You’re next.

Ivan: Mom, where’d he come from?
Mom: He just came.

Father: Ivan.
Ivan: What?
Father: What, papa.
Ivan: What?
Father: What, papa. Why don’t you say that?
Ivan: What, papa?
Father: Ashamed of calling your father, papa?
Ivan: No.
Father: Don’t lie to me. Call me papa, like a son should, got it?
Ivan: Yes, papa.

Ivan: Who is he calling on the phone?
Andrei: How should I know.

Father [to Andrei]: That won’t happen again, will it?

Father: Ivan, your plate better be clean in 2 minutes.
Ivan: I’m not hungry.
Father [looks at his watch]: Starting right now…You’ve got 30 seconds lefts.

Ivan: I’ll wait in the car.
[He gets up to leave the restaurant but his father grabs his arm]
Father: You’ll sit down and eat your bread and soup, got it?
Ivan: Yes.
Father: Yes, papa.
Ivan [gruffly]: Yes.

Father: Take your stuff. Here’s enough money for two tickets home.
Andrei: Why, papa?
Father: I’ve got important business.
Andrei: But you promised.
Father: Next time.
Ivan: You mean in another 12 years?

Ivan: What did he say about fish? Where could that have happened?
Andrei: I don’t know. In the north, maybe.
Ivan: Did you see how quiet he went when you asked where?..He’s just lying.

Ivan: You believe his every word, but who is he? He could be a gangster. He could slit our throats out here in the forest.

Ivan: Why did you come back? You don’t need us. We were fine without you. We were fine with Mom and Gran. Why did you come back? What do you need us for?
Father: Your mother asked me to be with you.
Ivan: Mom asked! Mom! What about you?
Father: I want to be with you too.
Ivan: Why? So you can put us down?
Father: Get changed.

Andrei: Papa, what is this? Where are we? What are we doing here?
Father: Nothing…here. We’re gonna cross over to an island.

Andrei: How ya doing, Squirt?
Ivan: If he touches me again, I kill him.

Andrei [to Ivan]: What if he finds the knife gone?

Ivan: If you don’t go away, I’ll jump. I’ll jump!

Andrei [to Ivan]: He’s dead.

Ivan: Look…
[shows a photo to Andrei]
Andrei: Hide it.
[Ivan puts the photo back][/b]

The plight of the working man. Praise Allah.

It’s the same all over. You are the boss or you are not. Then the bosses figure out a way to make sure this is all in line with whatever God happens to be worshipped and adored.

On the other hand, if you’ve got a scooter, you’ve got a cab. In Tehran.

And, God willing, it won’t break down.

Talk about traversing two different worlds with just one point of view.

IMDb

When an ostrich-rancher focuses on replacing his daughter’s hearing aid, which breaks right before crucial exams, everything changes for a struggling rural family in Iran. Karim motorbikes into a world alien to him - incredibly hectic Tehran, where sudden opportunities for independence, thrill and challenge him. But his honor and honesty, plus traditional authority over his inventive clan, are tested, as he stumbles among vast cultural and economic gaps between his village nestled in the desert, and a throbbing international metropolis.

trailer:
youtu.be/JNgYEsKdCTI

THE SONG OF SPARROWS [Avaze Gonjeshk-Ha] 2008
Written and directed by Majid Majidi

I thought at first The Hunger Games was a remake of this film. It’s not:

newyorker.com/online/blogs/c … oyale.html

I was also reminded of the classic scene from Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. Not that either.

The premise seems absurd but what do I know about a frame of mind able to invent it. Think of it as a metaphor for whatever seems the least irrational. I see it as a cinematic reflection on helpessnees in the face of those you loathe. You do what they say because the alternative is something more terrible still. I suspect that any number of us have fantacized about a world such as this. Men, by and large. Just look at what goes on in video games.

And what happens when the world is turned upside down and all that you used to believe is of little practical value if you wish to survive? It’s cutthroat capitalism taken to the extreme.

They all have collars around their necks. The game last 3 days. If there is not a winner [a lone survivor] the collars are activiated and they all die. They are pitted against those they love no less than those they don’t. You make alliances but in the end only one can survive. Or, if they are clever enough, 2.

But this can only be understood in part from the perspective of the Japanese culture. And the extent to which it is attentuated in the modern world.

IMDb

[b]The magazine containing bomb-making instructions that is used by Shinji Mimura and his gang is titled “Hara Hara Tokei” (“The Ticking Clock”). This magazine is a real bomb-making magazine published by an anti-Japanese-Government activist group called Higashi Ajia Hannichi Buso Sensen (East Asia Anti-Japanese Armed Front) from the 1970s.

Contrary to popular belief, this film was never banned in the United States.

Many members of the Japanese Parliament tried to get the novel banned, but to no avail. When the film was released, they attempted to ban it also. Both efforts resulted in the novel and film becoming even more successful as people bought the book and went to the movie to see what the fuss was all about.

The film, as the book before it did, symbolises the transition from education to the cut-throat employment market in Japan. It is also a nightmare vision of a world dominated by adults with nothing but contempt for children, and the horrors, tragedies and emotions of childhood.[/b]

Trailer:
youtu.be/Y-T7yPJVvXw

BATTLE ROYALE
Directed by Kinji Fukasaku

[b]Reporter: This year Zentsuji Middle School number 4’s Class E was chosen from among 43,000 Ninth grade classes. This year’s game, said to be more blistering than the last - - Oh look there! There she is! The winner’s a girl! Surviving a fierce battle that raged two days, seven hours, and 43 minutes - the winner is a girl! Look, she’s smiling! Smiling! The girl definitely just smiled!

Shuya: My mom left when I weas in the 4th grade, and on the first day of the 7th grade, my father hung himself.

Kitano [teacher]: So today’s lesson is, you kill each other off till there’s only one left. Nothing’s against the rules.

Motobuchi: If I survive, can I go home?
Kitano: Yes, but only if everyone else is dead.

Mimura: How were we chosen?
Kitano: By random selection.

Kitano: Life is a game. So fight for survival and see if you’re worth it.

Niida [horrified upon shooting Yoshio Akamatsu with crossbow]: Oh, it’s for real!

Sakura: I know one thing. I’ll never play this game.
[she then jumps to her death]

Nanahara: Go wherever you like. You’re a murderer yourself. They were my friends. This is crazy. How can you all kill each other so easily?
Kawada: There’s one way out of this game. Commit suicide, both of you. Here. Now. If you can’t do that then don’t trust anyone and just run.

Mitsuko: What’s wrong with killing? Everyone’s got their reasons.

Kitano [in periodic announcements]: Here’s your list of friends in the order they died.

Chigusa: Shouldn’t you be worried about your life, instead of that useless micropenis of yours?

Kitano [on the phone with his daughter]: Hello?
Shiori: Hello, mister.
Kitano: Oh, Shiori?
Shiori: Mom’s feeling bad again.
Kitano: I’m on a business trip. I can’t get home 'til tomorrow.
Shiori: Don’t bother coming home. I’m hanging up.
Kitano: Huh…
Shiori: Mister, don’t breathe. Your breath even stinks over the phone.

Kotohiki [in despair]: What am I supposed to do now?
Mitsuko [emerging from the shadows]: You die with him.

Mitsuko: You just have to fight for yourself; no one’s going to save you. That’s just life, right?

Kitano [ on phone with his daughter] Hello?.. Shiori?.. Listen, I won’t be coming home again… Listen, if you hate someone, you take the consequences…Irresponsible? Who the hell asked you?
[shoots phone]

Shuya: You know a lot about medicine.
Kawada: Well, my father was a doctor.
[a few minutes later, Shougo serves Noriko and Shuya food]
Nakagawa: Wow! This is pretty good!
Kawada: It should be. My father was a chef.
[later, After escaping the island]
Shuya: You even know how to drive a boat?
Kawada: I should know, my father was a fisherman.

Shuya: No matter how far, run for all you’re worth. RUN.[/b]

If the Matrix has been mentioned in this thread, I’ll repeat, The Matrix.

I don’t know of another movie that even remotely influences a mainstream auidence in a more philosophical way. Granted, action gets the thinkers through the door, and any leason to be learned will go the way of the 1984 novel, but an attempt was made.

As dystopias go this isn’t far beyond imagining one day. Besides, after the Holocaust, what could be? Children can be indoctrinated to believe practically anything is reality. And when some of the pieces don’t fit they simply rationalize it.

In Hailsham all the girls are pretty and all the boys are handsome. And, without exception, white. They are being bred for their organs, you see. Why take any chances.

And how many folks deep down inside don’t wish they had whatever they need donated donated on demand. As for those doing the donating [and then the “completions”] you devise the applicable narrative. This “reality” is now woven into social fabric. It’s just understood to be the way things are.

Death by the book. Death by completion.

Still, given the way we approach organ donation in my own culture, isn’t it just another kind of dystopia. All that religious bullshit again wrecking lives.

But what is the point of “souls” when it was only organs that were taken. And surely that did not include brains.

And the parts left out: the people who receive the donations and efforts made to revolt against them. It’s just the way it is.

wiki

[b]Director Mark Romanek has said that, as in the film, everyone has to uncover their relationship to our own mortality; we have two options: either go against it, or try to figure out a way around it

Keira Knightley feels that the film’s story is alarming, but has said that the film is “more about humanity’s ability to look the other way”. “You know in fact that if your morals can go out the window if you think you can survive in a certain way, whatever your morals may be”.[/b]

wiki article in full:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_Let_Me_Go_(2010_film

trailer:
youtu.be/sXiRZhDEo8A

NEVER LET ME GO
Directed by Mark Romanek

[b]Kathy [voiceover]: My name is Kathy H. I’m 28 years old. I’ve been a Carer for 9 years. And I’m good at my job. My patients always do better than expected and hardly ever classified as agitated, even if they’re about to make a donation. I’m not trying to boast, but I feel a great sense of pride in what we do. Carers and Donors have achieved so much. That said, we aren’t machines. In the end it wears you down. I suppose that’s why I now spend most of my time not looking forwards, but looking back. To the Cottages and Hailsham and what happened to us there. Me. Tommy. And Ruth.

Miss Lucy: None of you will go to America. None of you will work in supermarkets. None of you will do anything, except live the life that has already been set out for you. You will become adults, but only briefly. Before you are old, before you are even middle aged, you will start to donate your vital organs. And sometime around your third or fourth donation, your short life will be completed. You have to know who you are, and what you are. It’s the only way to lead decent lives.

Ruth: They never, ever model us on people like that woman. We all know it, we just never say it. We are modeled on trash. Junkies, prostitutes, winos, tramps. Convicts, maybe, as long as they’re not psychos. If you want to look for Possibles, you want to do it properly. Look in the gutter.

Kathy: It had never occurred to me that our lives, so closely interwoven, could unravel with such speed. If I’d known, maybe I’d have kept tighter hold of them. And not let unseen tides pull us apart.

Nurse: Is that someone you know?
Kathy: Yeah. Actually, we grew up together.
Nurse: Oh.
Kathy: How is she?
Nurse: …Were you close?
Kathy: We haven’t seen each other now for almost ten years.
Nurse: Well, Ruth isn’t as strong as we would hope, at this stage.
Kathy: She’s done two donations?
Nurse: She has.
Kathy: …You think she’ll complete on the third?
Nurse: I think she wants to complete. And, as you know, when they want to complete, they usually do.

Ruth: I expect I look a bit broken, Kath. It’s okay. I don’t think I’d want to survive my third donation, anyway. You hear things, don’t you?
Kathy: What kinds of things?
Ruth: Oh, you know. How, maybe after the fourth donation, even if you’ve technically completed, you’re still conscious in some sort of way. And then you find out that there are more donations, plenty of them. There are just no more recovery centers. No more Carers. Just watching and waiting. Till they switch you off. I don’t think I fancy that.

Emily: You have to underswtand, Hailsham was the last place to consider the ethics of donation. We used your art to show what you were capable of. To show that donor children are all but human. But we were providing an answer to a question no one was asking. If you ask people to return to darkness, the days of lung cancer, breast cancer, motor neurone disease, they’ll simply say no.

Madame: There are no deferrals. And there never have been.
Emily: We didn’t have The Gallery in order to look into your souls. We had The Gallery to see if you had souls at all.

Madame: You poor creatures. I wish I could help you.

Kathy [voiceover]: I’ve been given my notice now. My first donation is in a month’s time. I come here and imagine that this is the spot where everything I’ve lost since my childhood is washed out. I tell myself, if that were true, and I waited long enough then a tiny figure would appear on the horizon across the field and gradually get larger until I’d see it was Tommy. He’d wave. And maybe call. I don’t know if the fantasy go beyond that, I can’t let it. I remind myself I was lucky to have had any time with him at all. What I’m not sure about, is if our lives have been so different from the lives of the people we save. We all complete. Maybe none of us really understand what we’ve lived through, or feel we’ve had enough time.[/b]

This film is inspired by true events. So these things actually do happen.

It basically depicts [historically] the manner in which one’s identity revolves around dasein. Who you come to think you are is profoundly rooted in the manner in which your life unfolds existentially. The lives of the sisters here were once virtually identical. Then their father dies and they are sent tumbling down two very, very different paths. Suddenly how they view themselves and the world around them come from entirely different frames of reference.

“I” then is always – either more or less – a fabrication; a narrative reconstructed “out in a particular world” evolving over time. And yours and mine are no different.

Here though they are reared in Europe at a time when the Nazis come to power. In this context therefore one’s identity can literally become a matter of life and death.

As children we become absorbed in the world around us. Then it is a matter of either discovering this or not. And for those of us who do deciding what can then be known as “true for all of us”?

IMDb

1920s Germany. Two Sisters aged six years, no sooner see their remaining parent buried when they are torn apart. Lotte goes to live with her upper middle class Dutch aunt in Holland, Anna to work as a farm hand on her German uncle’s rural farm.

You can see where this is going. But can you really grasp its implications regarding identity?

trailer:
youtu.be/n79afIDgagk

TWIN SISTERS [De Tweeling] (2002)
Directed by Ben Sombogaart

[b]Relative: You can have the sick one. Just the sick one. Final offer.
Ferdinand: It’s a disgrace. Twins belong together.
Relative: Be quiet, Ferdinand. We’ll go along with it. Everyone will get something.

Jetje: Dinand? We have to decide now. Do we send Lotte’s letter to Anna?
Dinand: And then? She’ll want to go there when she is better. And then they’ll keep her.
Jetje: I can’t bear to see it.
Dinand: They’re barbarians, Jetje. Stupid farmers. Stupid, Catholic farmers. Do you want her to grow up there? She has to forget Anna.

Lotte: It’s cruel. All those letters. My sister. How could you do something so terrible?..All that time she was waiting for a letter from me! Who would do such a thing? Why? Explain that to me!
Danand: We saved you from a bunch of illiterate barbarians.
Lotte: Why didn’t you save her then?
Danand: You were sick. And if you had visited Anna, they would have kept you there. Your life wouldn’t have been so nice.
Lotte: I would still have my sister!
Danand: Yes, you would now both be marching behind Mr. Hitler, waving flags.

Lotte: Does she still live there? With the barbarians?
Jetje: Why?
Lotte: Because I am going to her.

Anna: I’m the delicate, retarded girl you’re looking for. I could read and write when I was six years old. My uncle kept me home to work for him for free. He allowed his wife to terrorize me, he beat me up. And no-one… No-one ever came to check whether what he’d written was true.

Lotte [showing Anna a picture of her boyfriend]: What’s the matter?
Anna: Oh, nothing. He’s handsome.
Lotte: What was it?
Anna: For a moment I thought he was a Jew.

Lotte: She’s an anti-Semite.
David: Don’t be silly. Just because she thought I was a Jew? You want to know something? I am a Jew. I look like three Jews put together. So bring your sister over.
Lotte: I won’t have anything to do with that whole German thing.

Anna [reading Lotte’s letter]: “Considering the circumstances I think it’s better if you don’t come here. Your country is at war. Better not.”
Woman: Anna, we’re going. Are you coming? Something wrong with your sister?
Anna: I have no sister.

Anna: Why does she say that? ‘Better not.’ Better for whom?
Martin: Who said that?
Anna: Lotte. My sister. First I had to come, and now I can’t. Why not, all of a sudden? What have I done wrong? I only want to go to her.

Lotte: Buchenwald? Buchenwald, Buchenwald…What is there, Buchenwald?
Danand: A sort of work camp, for young men.

David’s mother [to Lotte]: Strange how things go, isn’t it? If you hadn’t forgotten your bag…

David’s mother: Auschwitz. Now it’s Auschwitz.

David’s brother: Gas?
Danand: Yes, gas.
David’s brother: What kind of sick idea is that?
Danand: It was in the paper. I’m not making it up.
Lotte: What was in the paper?
Danand: Something about shower rooms where the enemy prisoners, it said, were driven in naked and gassed.
Lotte: Naked?
Danand: And that the capacity of the chambers has been raised from two hundred to a thousand people per day.
Lotte: Of course that isn’t true.

Husband: Start a fight, curse her, hit her, I don’t know…but do something. This is terrible. You have to talk to her. Get over it. She can’t help it. And you don’t know anything about her. They’re not all Nazis. Talk to her. You’ll find out. She’s family, Lotte. She’s your twin sister, for God’s sake.

Lotte [seeing the picture of Anna with her SS husband, then the picture of David]: Get out! Get out of my house, Nazi! Nazi!! You killed him. You and that man… [to husband] Do you want an SS whore in your home? [to Anna]: Get out! Get out of my life! I never want to see you again! You’re not my sister any more!!

Anna [now very old]: If I’d had TB instead of you, the roles would have been reversed.
Lotte: The question is: Would I have made the same choices?
Anna: Of course. You wouldn’t have known any better, just like me.
Lotte: I would never have married an SS officer.
Anna: I didn’t fall in love with an SS officer…but with Martin, the best man in the whole world.
Lotte: I would never have fallen in love with a murderer.
Anna: Martin was no murderer.
Lotte: Don’t be so naive. You just told me so yourself. Poland, Russia…An SS officer who was there at the time, took part in clean-ups. Don’t tell me he didn’t kill anybody.
Anna: Of course he took part, because he had to. But I know for certain that he hated war. He was a good man.
Lotte: SS men were murderers out of conviction.
Anna: There are all sorts of people, aren’t there? Same in the SS.
Lotte: That way, you can understand any murderer if you study him hard enough. That’s very dangerous, Anna.

Anna: You don’t have to forgive me for anything. I’m not asking for forgiveness. I haven’t done anything wrong. I’ve always tried to do the right thing and you’re treating me like a monster. I didn’t kill David.
Lotte: Oh stop it, Anna. You and I live in two different worlds. They can never ever meet.[/b]

But then somehow they do. Way, way too late though.

Another culture. Another time. But some things never change. The working class it seems is one of them. Men, another. And booze of course. Praise God.

At times a volatile [and brutal] combination. This is the story of an exceptional [but hopelessly conservative] woman who beat the odds. Though barely at times.

To be very good at something you love and that others will pay for. That’s the ticket.

But how many countless lives have wasted away under the yoke of religious scruples. Either from the fear of damnation or in slavishly acting out one’s moral duty.

trailer:
youtu.be/G2xCNxapDik

EVERLASTING MOMENTS [Maria Larssons Eviga Ogonblick] 2008
Directed by Jan Troell

[b]Maja [narrating]: A week before Mother met Father, she won a camera in a lottery. Father thought the camera should be his, as he’d bought the ticket. Mother said if he wanted to share it, he’d have to marry her. So they got married.

Sigge: Going out just as I get home?
Maria: Where else would we get money?
Sigge: I don’t want you cleaning for capitalist swine, you hear?
Maria: Where have you learned words like that?
Sigge: “Words like that”? It’s what I mean.

Sigge: Lower it, for God’s sake.
Worker: We’re on strike, for God’s sake.

Sigge: Well, Maria, your old man’s going to be home all day now. We’re on strike. We’re going to show those bosses what we’re worth.
Maria: What we’re worth?
Sigge: Quite right.
Maria: What are we worth…with no money?

Maja [narrating]: Father wasn’t one for politics. But bringing a shipload of British strikebreakers to do his work was more than he could take.

Sebastian: Not everyone is endowed with the gift of seeing.

Sigge: How’s your confirmation coming along, Maja? Going well? Do you know the Commandments?
Maja: Every one of them, Father. Including this one: “Thou shalt not commit adultry”.

Maja: All you care about’s your pictures. And that Pedersen man.
[Maria slaps her]
Maria: I’m sorry. Maja…
Maja: And father just chases other women.

Maja [narrating]: Father found it hard to forgive Englund for hanging himself. Not because he’d have to pay for the funeral, but because he had lost his best friend.
Sigge [holding Englund’s body]: Bloody Englund. Bloody Kropotkin.

Sigge: Was that rabbit all you could find to cuckold me with?
Maria: You’re hardly particular yourself.
SIgge: That camera’s going to go.
Maria: You’re not to touch it.
Sigge: Oh, yes, I bloody am. Get it, now!
Maria: You’re not taking that camera!
Sigge [holding an iron over his head]: I’m going to kill you.
Maria: Do it! Put an end to everything!
Sigge: Behind my back!
Maria: Go on, do it!..You and your floozies.
[He slams the iron into the wall]
Maria: What a coward you are!

Maria: I jumped off the table to get rid of the baby.
Friend: What on earth!
Maria: Sigge forced himself on me. I didn’t want to have that baby! My Erik. I tried to get rid of him. It’s my fault he got polio.

Maja [narrating]: Why Mother stayed with Father I’ve always found a mystery. Perhaps it was love.[/b]

Or perhaps it was coming face to face with raising 7 kids on her own.

How the hell do these guys think this stuff up? Screwball comedy they call it. And if you can throw in a few digs at our corporate culture, why the hell not.

Or is this really a remake of A Christmas Carol?

On the other hand:

An interviewer proposed that the characters represent Capitalism versus Labour economics. Joel Coen replied: “Maybe the characters do embody those grand themes you mentioned, but that question is independent of whether or not we’re interested in them – and we’re not.” wiki

Clint Eastwood as Sidney J. Mussburger? Believe it or not, that’s who was first offered the part. And he would have taken it if not for “scheduling conflicts”.

This film is a gem. Not counting the last 15 minutes, it’s very, very funny. And, as with Raising Arizona, just plain strange. But only me and a handful of others seemed to think so. Consider:

Budget: $30,000,000 (estimated)
Gross: $2,869,369 (USA)

That is a bomb. Fuck you, America?

But then The Big Lebowski pretty much suffered the same fate.

IMDb

The death of Waring Hudsucker was inspired by a real-life incident. On February 3, 1975, Eli Black, the CEO of the United Fruit Company, smashed an office window with his briefcase and jumped to his death from the 44th floor of the Pan Am Building in New York City.

trailer
youtu.be/dBa8p0NFwM8

THE HUDSUCKER PROXY
Written and directed by the Coen Brothers

[b]Clock keeper [narrating]: There’s a few lost souls floating around out there. Now, if y’all ain’t from the city we got something here called "the rat race. " Got a way of chewing folks up so that they don’t want no celebrating…don’t want no cheering up. Don’t care nothing about no New Year’s. Out of hope out of rope…out of time. This here is Norville Barnes. That office he’s stepping out of is the office of the president of Hudsucker Industries. That’s his office. How’d he get so high? And why’s he feeling so low? Is he really going to do it? Is Norville really going to jelly up the sidewalk? Well, the future…that’s something you can never tell about. But the past …that’s another story.

Mussburger [picking up the late Waring Hudsucker’s freshly-lit cigar]: It’s a pity to waste a whole Montecristo.

Mail Room Orienter [spoken at about 200 words a minute]: You punch in at 8:30 every morning, except you punch in at 7:30 following a business holiday, unless it’s a Monday, then you punch in at 8 o’clock. Punch in late and they dock you. Incoming articles get a voucher, outgoing articles provide a voucher. Move any article without a voucher and they dock you. Letter size a green voucher, oversize a yellow voucher, parcel size a maroon voucher. Wrong color voucher and they dock you! 6787049A/6. That is your employee number. It will not be repeated! Without your employee number you cannot get your paycheck. Inter-office mail is code 37, intra-office mail 37-3, outside mail is 3-37. Code it wrong and they dock you! This has been your orientation. Is there anything you do not understand, is there anything you understand only partially? If you have not been fully oriented, you must file a complaint with personnel. File a faulty complaint and they dock you!

Norville: What do you do if the envelope is too big for the slot?
Ancient Sorter: Well, if you fold 'em, they fire you. I usually throw 'em out.

Mail Room Boss [to Norville]: You! Yeah, you, Barnes! You don’t look busy. Think you can handle a blue letter?

Mussburger: Sure, sure.

Buzz: Hi! My name’s Buzz, I got the fuzz, I make the elevator do what she does. What’s your pleasure?
Norville: Fourty-four.
Buzz: Forty-four, the top-brass floor. Say, buddy…what takes 50 years to get to the top floor and 30 seconds to get down? Waring Hudsucker! You get it, buddy? Who’s the most liquid businessman on the street? Waring Hudsucker. When is the sidewalk fully dressed? When it’s wearing Hudsucker! You get it?

Newspaper headline: IMBECILE HEADS HUDSUCKER

Norville [showing Amy a picture of a circle]: Now let me ask you a question: Would an imbecile come up with this?

Norville: You know, for kids.

Mussburger [to Norville]: Let me shepherd you through some of the introductions here. Try not to talk too much. Some of our biggest stockholders are…Scratch that. Say whatever you like.

Stockholder [to Norville]: What’s this I hear about you being an imbecile?!

[Norville Barnes introduces the “extruded plastic dingus” to the board members]
Board Member 1: What if you tire before it’s done?
Board Member 2: Does it have rules?
Board Member 3: Can more than one play?
Board Member 4: What makes you think it’s a game?
Board Member 3: Is it a game?
Board Member 5: Will it break?
Board Member 6: It better break eventually!
Board Member 2: Is there an object?
Board Member 1: What if you tire before it’s done?
Board Member 5: Does it come with batteries?
Board Member 4: We could charge extra for them.
Board Member 7: Is it safe for toddlers?
Board Member 3: How can you tell when you’re finished?
Board Member 2: How do you make it stop?
Board Member 6: Is that a boy’s model?
Board Member 3: Can a parent assemble it?
Board Member 5: Is there a larger model for the obese?
Board Member 1: What if you tire before it’s done?
Board Member 8: What the hell is it?

Marketing: We’ll call it The Flying Doughnut! -The Dancing Dingus! -The Belly-Go-Round. The Swingerina! The Wacky Circumference! Uncle Midriff! -We need something short! -Sharp! Snappy! -With a little jazz! -The Shazzammeter! -The Hipster! -The Daddy-O! -The Hoopsucker. -The Hudswinger. -The Hoopsucker! -The Hudswinger! -The Hoopsucker! -The Hudswinger!

Newscaster: What scientific principle explains the motion of this wheel of wonder?
Scientist: The dingus is quite simple, really. It operates on the same principles that keep the earth spinning around the sun and that keeps you from flying off the earth into the cold reaches of space where you would die like a miserable Schwein.

Amy [to Norville]: I used to think you were a swell guy. Well, to be honest, I thought you were an imbecile. But then I figured out you WERE a swell guy… A little slow, maybe, but a swell guy. Well, maybe you’re not so slow, but you’re not so swell either. And it looks like you’re an imbecile after all!

Amy [to Norville]: Shut up! After all, you haven’t talked to me for a week and now I’m going to say my piece. Look, I’ve never been dumped by a fellow before, and that hurts. But what really hurts is watching you uproot your soul, chasing after money and ease of the respect of a board who wouldn’t give you the time of day if you, if you, if you…
Norville: Worked in a watch factory?
Amy: Shut up! Exactly![/b]

Is football really like this? Probably. It is big business. It drains the players dry and then discards them. And it’s all about the bucks. Either way it is an utterly contemptable pursuit. It epitomizes our culture in so many despicable ways I wouldn’t know where to begin. Unless, of course, I’m wrong.

And then there is the crony, phoney capitalism behind it. Plenty of that here too. Back again to Chinatown.

trailer:
youtu.be/7SvYYPHyuAI

AGAINST ALL ODDS
Directed by Taylor Hackford

[b]Sully: Well football’s changed quite a bit since I was a player.
County Supervisor: Right. I guess that run of injuries kind of hurt you guys last season.
Sully: Yeah, we had a lousy bench last year. We had to play alot of ballplayers that were injured, that shouldn’t have played.
Ben: Well, that’s part of the job. You say you never played injured?
Sully: Yeah, but I was dumb. I just don’t like the idea of my boys hurt permanently.
Ben: You can see why they call him “mother”.
Sully: Yeah, well, I don’t know anything about being a supervisor and I sure as hell don’t know anything about being a lawyer. 'Course if I was a lawyer, I wouldn’t know shit about football, would I?

Terry: I could smell what they were thinking. I give them any trouble, they cut me.
Sully: Terry, they’d cut you anyway. They’re rebuilding. More profit, less talent. You cost too much, my friend.

Terry: Mrs Wyler is Caxton’s biggest client, isn’t she?
Edie: Oh, yes. In fact, he’s doing business for her right now.
Terry: Oh, yeah? For the Outlaws?
Edie: No, Mrs. Wyler’s real business is real estate. Mr. Caxton wants a zoning varience on Mrs. Wyler’s canyon so she can build houses there. His guest of honor could vote against it. Trust me, he won’t now.

Jake: Look, I was a bit of an asshole. I got crazy and I popped her a few times. She came after me with a knife. She just missed my balls.
Terry: Was she going for them?
Jake: Don’t they all.

Terry: The daughter of an owner living with a bookie.

Jake: You know what it feels like to be one of Mrs Wyler’s possessions don’t you Terry?

Ben: I think just a few members of the team would have been enough. Having the Outlaws here full force is kinda crowding it.
Mrs. Wyler: Well, I have to get some use out of them. I don’t like football.
Ben: Shh…Shh…Shh.

Jessie: Should I be afraid of you?
Terry: I don’t know.

Terry: Is that what you’re doing down here, hiding?
Jessie: Yep. From you, right?

Terry: You know something, I came down here for the hell of it. Only trouble is, now that I’m here I find myself in the middle of something I have absolutely no feeling for.
Jessie: Well, you’re not doing this for free. You’re getting paid, and paid well, aren’t you?

Terry: I figure fuck em. Fuck you too, lady.

Jessie: I want to know why I should believe you won’t tell Jake where I am.
Terry: Hey, look, there are probably people who care what you believe. I don’t see 'em in the room.

Terry: I have a broken shoulder. Both my knees are shot. There are guys crippling themselves right now so that you can act like a 13 year old runaway from some mansion in Bel Air. I could really give a shit what you believe.

Terry [at a Mayan ruin]: The games they had here must have been incredible. Look at this. They even wore face masks and shoulder pads.
Jessie: The games were a little more serious than the ones you played. They’d play for days, and the losing team would get their heads chopped off. The guys who bet on the games would wager themselves and even their children. And if they lost, they were slaves.

Terry: I love you. You’ve become everything I’m about! Don’t you understand?
Jessie: Can’t anyone love me without it being like life or death to them?!
Terry: You know, most people are afraid they’re never going to be loved like that.

Terry: Let’s go to the sweat house.

Sully [just before he dies]: What are we doing down here?

Jessie: I think about you.
Terry: I think about you too lady. Let’s leave it at that.

Terry: You came back to this fuck.

Terry: Is this guy the show or what?

Jake: Sully kept me up on injuries that might affect upcoming games. And Kirsch let me know what players weren’t going to have their contracts renewed.
Terry: It’s a shitty business.
Jake: It’s a shitty world.

Jake: What the hell made you think you could handle Jessie? I bet you used to bring her home flowers.
Terry: No, you don’t have to do that when you’re living in the jungle. You just take her outside and show her what tree you’re going to do it under. Hell, we had lots of trees.

Ben: I get things done in this town. And the people I work for like your mother have no interest in how that happens, just that I do it. She wants Wyler canyon developed but she can’t get through to everybody with campaign contributions so I have to go into business with some very strange people.

Mrs. Wyler: Specifically, I’d like to acknowledge three public officials without whose generous support we wouldn’t be here. Supervisor Ed Phillips. Councilman Leonard Weinberg. And the heading of the commision, Bob Soames.

Terry [to Ben]: This town really does belong to people like you.[/b]

Solitude and the abyss. The existential hero and the hitman. What you take out of this is what you put into it: dasein. Me, I see a man pursued not by gangsters or the police but by death. Just like the rest of us. But with a very different narrative. One that, for example, does not allow those he kills the right to pursue their own.

But what does it mean to pass judgment on a behavior able to be rationalized? His moral perspective revolves around what suits him. If it’s something that facilitates the life he has chosen to live then it is justified. As long as he is willing to accept the consequences of those who dispute that.

IMDb

According to Rui Nogueira (author of the book “Melville on Melville” published in 1976), the caged bird shown as Jef Costello’s pet in “Le Samourai” was the only casualty of the fire that destroyed Melville’s studio in 1967.

And that bird plays a crucial role in the film. Twice.

wiki

In an interview with Rui Nogueira, Melville indicated that he had shot an alternate version of Jef’s death scene. In the alternative ending, which is actually the original version as Melville had written in the script, Costello meets his death with a picture-perfect grin à la Delon. The scene was changed to its current form when Melville angrily discovered that Delon had already used a smiling death scene in another of his films. Still images of the smiling death exist.

That’s too bad because the smile would have been the perfect segue to what comes next.

trailer:
youtu.be/M951q0dyucI

LE SAMOURAI [1967]
Written and directed by Jean-Pierre Melville

[b]Titlecard: There is no greater solitude than that of the samurai…unless it is that of the tiger in the jungle, perhaps. Bushido [Book of the Samurai]

Bar Owner: Who are you?
Jef: Doesn’t matter.
Bar Owner: What do you want?
Jef: To kill you.
[shoots him]

Rey’s associate: He’s a lone wolf.
Rey: He’s a wounded wolf; now there will be a trail. He must be disposed of quickly.

Jef: Why say you did not recognize me?
Valérie: Why kill Marty?
Jef: I was to be paid.
Valérie: What had he done to you?
Jef: Not a thing. I didn’t know him. I met him for the first and last time 24 hours ago.
Valérie: What sort of man are you?

Jef [to Valerie]: You didn’t identify me for one of two reasons. Either you enjoyed playing with the police or you were told not to recognize me.

Superintendant [to Jane]: I don’t like forcing the pace to extract confessions or get information. I’m very liberal, a great believer in the liberty of the individual… in people’s right to live as they choose. Provided that the way of life they choose harms no one else… and is contrary to neither law and order nor public decency.

Superintendant [to Jane]: Have you ever thought how close girls like you are to being prostitutes?

Jane: If I understand you right, I’ll have no problems if I perjure myself. If I insist on telling the truth, then I can expect trouble. Am I right?
Superintendant: Not quite. Because the truth isn’t what you say, it’s what I say… despite the methods I am obliged to employ to get at it.

Gunman: Nothing to say?
Jef: Not to a man with a gun on me.
Gunman: Is that a principle?
Jef: A habit.

[Jef pulls a gun on Valerie, she just looks disappointed]
Valérie: Why Jeff?
Jef: I’ve been paid to.

Detective [to Valerie]: If we hadn’t been here, you would be dead.
Superintendent [holding Jef’s gun, the bullets removed by Jef]: Wrong.[/b]

Crash. The sound of racial stereotypes colliding in Los Angeles. And most other places too.

The point being that prejudice is ubiquitous. The most common hardly ever dressed up in a hood or plastered with swastikas. And it goes all the way up the chain of command. And it’s by no means whites versus everybody else. It permeates the entire human race. And that’s before we get to things like gender, age, disabilty, sexual orientation, ethnicity etc.

As a white male, I only know what I’ve seen in all these years. And this film merely scratches the surface. Why? Because you need to go deep down into the working class if you want to see real stereotyping. In action, for example.

IMDb

[b]Annie Proulx, author of Brokeback Mountain, wrote a strong polemic against this one in the British newspaper “The Guardian”, venting her disgust and disappointment that her film was beaten by Paul Haggis’ at the Oscars, one of the Academy’s more controversial decisions in years.

The story of Officer John Ryan and his father comes from a piece of hate mail Paul Haggis received while he was working as a writer in the TV series Family Law.

Two Koreans were intentionally cast as the “Chinese” couple to underscore the fact that most non-Asians cannot or don’t care to differentiate between the various Asian nationalities and instead choose to refer to all of them (Chinese, Korean, Thai, Japanese, etc.) as “Chinese”, like the characters in the movie do.[/b]

CRASH [2004]
Written and directed by Paul Haggis

[b]Graham: It’s the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We’re always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something. You don’t think that’s true?
Ria: Graham, I think we got rear-ended. I think we spun around twice. And somewhere in there, one of us lost our frame of reference. And I’m gonna go look for it.

Motorcycle Cop: Calm down, ma’am.
Kim Lee: I am calm.
Motorcycle Cop: I need to see your registration and insurance.
Kim Lee: Why? Not my fault! It’s her fault! She do this!
Ria [approaching]: My fault?
Motorcycle Cop: Ma’am, you really need to wait in your vehicle.
Kim Lee: Stop in the middle of street! Mexicans! No know how to drive! She blake too fast!
Ria: I “blake” too fast? I “blake” too fast? I’m sorry, you no see my “blake lights”?
Motorcycle Cop [to Ria]: Ma’am…
Ria [to Kim Lee]: See, I stop when I see long line of cars stop in front of me. Maybe you see over steering wheel, you “blake” too.
Motorcycle Cop [to Ria]: Ma’am…
Ria: Officer, can you please write down in your report how shocked I am to be hit by an Asian driver?

Gun Store Owner [to Farhad]: Yo, Osama! Plan a jihad on your own time. What do you want?
Farhad: Are you making insult at me?
Gun Store Owner: Am I making insult “at” you? Is that the closest you can come to English?
Farhad: Yes, I speak English! I am American citizen.
Gun Store Owner: Oh, God, here we go again.
Farhad: I have right like you. I have right to buy gun.
Gun Store Owner: Not in my store, you don’t! Andy, get him out of here now!
Dorri [to Farhad]: Go, wait in the car.
Farhad [to Gun Store Owner]: You are ignorant man!
Gun Store Owner: I’m ignorant. You’re liberating my country, and I’m flying 747s into your mud huts and incinerating your friends? Get the fuck out of my store!

Anthony: Look around! You couldn’t find a whiter, safer or better lit part of this city. But this white woman sees two black guys, who look like UCLA students, strolling down the sidewalk and her reaction is blind fear. I mean, look at us! Are we dressed like gang-bangers? Huh? No. Do we look threatening? No. Fact, if anybody should be scared around here, it’s us: We’re the only two black faces surrounded by a sea of over-caffeinated white people, patrolled by the triggerhappy LAPD. So you tell me, why aren’t we scared?
Peter: Because we have guns?
Anthony: You could be right.

Jean: I would like the locks changed again in the morning. And you know what, you might mention that next time we’d appreciate it if they didn’t send a gang member…
Rick: A gang member?
Jean: Yes, yes.
Rick: What do you mean? That kid in there?
Jean: Yes. The guy in there with the shaved head, the pants around his ass, the prison tattoos.
Rick: Those are not prison tattoos.
Jean [Interrupting]: Oh really? And he’s not gonna go sell our key to one of his gang banger friends the moment he is out our door?

Rick: Fuck! Why do these guys have to be black? I mean, why? No matter how we spin this thing, I’m either gonna lose the black vote or I’m gonna lose the law and order vote!
Karen: You know, I think you’re worrying too much. You have a lot of support in the black community.
Rick: All right. If we can’t duck this thing, we’re gonna have to neutralize it. What we need is a picture of me pinning a medal on a black man. Bruce? The firefighter - the one that saved the camp or something - Northridge… what’s his name?
Bruce: He’s Iraqi.
Rick: He’s Iraqi? Well, he looks black.
Bruce: He’s dark-skinned, sir, but he’s Iraqi, his name’s Saddam Hassif.
Rick: Saddam? His name’s Saddam? Oh, that’s real good, Bruce. Yeah, I’m gonna pin a medal on an Iraqi named Saddam. Give yourself a raise, will you?

Ryan [on phone]: I wanna talk to your supervisor…
Shaniqua: I am my supervisor!
Ryan: Yeah, what’s your name?
Shaniqua: Shaniqua Johnson.
Ryan: Shaniqua. Big fucking surprise that is!

Christine: [to Cameron] Fuck you, Cameron!
[to Ryan]
Christine: And you, keep your filthy fuckin’ hands off me! Ow! You fucking pig!
Cameron: Christine, just stop taking.
Ryan [to Christine]: That’s quite a mouth you have.
[to Cameron]
Ryan: Course, you know that.
Christine: Fuck you! That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? You thought you saw a white woman blowing a black man, and that just drove your little cracker ass crazy!
Cameron: Christine, shut your fuckin’ mouth!
Ryan: I’d listen to your husband, Ma’am. Put your legs open. Now, do you have any guns or knives or anything I might get stuck with?

Christine: What I need is a husband who will not just stand there while I am being molested!
Cameron: They were cops for God sakes! They had guns! Maybe I should’ve let them arrest your ass. Sooner or later you gotta find out what it is really like to be black.
Christine: Fuck you, man. Like you know. The closest you ever came to being black, Cameron, was watching The Cosby Show.
Cameron: At least I wasn’t watching it with the rest of the equestrian team.
Christine: You’re right, Cameron. I got a lot to learn 'cause I haven’t quite learned how to shuck and jive. Let me hear it again. Thank you, mister policeman. You sure is mighty kind to us poor black folk. You be sure to let me know next time you wanna finger-fuck my wife.
Cameron: How the fuck do you say something like that to me? You know, fuck you!
Christine: That’s good. A little anger. It’s a bit late, but it’s nice to see!

Anthony: You wanna listen to music of the oppressor, you go right ahead, man.
Peter: How in the lunacy of your mind is hip-hop music of the oppressor?
Anthony: Listen to it man. Nigga this, Nigga that. You think white people go around callin’ each other “honky” all day, man? “Hey, honky, how’s business?” “Going great, cracker, we’re diversifying!”

Anthony: You have absolutely no idea where hip-hop music comes from, do you? See, back in the 60’s we had smart, articulate black men. Like Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver, Fred Hampton. These brothers were speaking out, and people were listening! Then the FBI said, “No, we can’t have that. I know, let’s give the niggers this music by a bunch of mumbling idiots and sooner or later, they’ll all copy it, and nobody will be able to understand a fucking word they say. End of problem.”

[thump]
Anthony: What the fuck was that, dawg?
[Peter gets out and looks under the truck]
Peter: Holy shit!
Anthony: What?
Peter: Man, we done ran over a Chinaman.
Anthony: You’re sayin’ there’s a Chinaman under this truck?
Peter: What part don’t you understand? There’s a Chinaman stuck underneath the fucking truck!

Lucien: You watch the Discovery Channel?
Anthony: Not a lot.
Peter: They got some good shit on that channel.
Lucien: Every night there is a show with somebody shining a little blue light and finding tiny specks of blood splattered on carpets and walls and ceiling fans, bathroom fixtures and special-edition plastic Burger King tray cups. The next thing they show is some stupid redneck in handcuffs who looks absolutely stunned that this is happening to him. Sometimes the redneck is actually WATCHING the Discovery Channel when they break in to arrest him. And he still can’t figure out how on earth they could’ve caught him!
[pauses]
Lucien: Psst. Do I look like I wanna be on the Discovery Channel?
Anthony: No.
Lucien: Then get the fuck outta my shop.

Anthony [while Peter takes his St. Christopher out of the stolen Lincoln Navigator]: Oh yeah, make sure you get that. Without him, things could’ve gone really fucking wrong tonight.

Graham [on the phone]: Mom, I can’t talk to you right now, okay? I’m having sex with a white woman.
[hangs up]
Graham: OK, where were we?
Ria: I was white, and you were about to jerk off in the shower.

Ria: You want a lesson? I’ll give you a lesson. How 'bout a geography lesson? My father’s from Puerto Rico. My mother’s from El Salvador. Neither one of those is Mexico.
Graham: Ah. Well then I guess the big mystery is, who gathered all those remarkably different cultures together and taught them all how to park their cars on their lawns?

Anthony: Only reason black people steal from their own is 'cause they terrified of white people.
Peter: Oh, man, please.
Anthony: Think about it. Sherman Oaks. Burbank. Santa Monica. All scary-ass places for a brother to find himself. Drop Mo Phat at a Starbucks in Toluca Lake, that nigger will run like a rabbit soon as somebody say “decaf latte.”

Fred: Cam, you got a second?
Cameron: Yeah, Fred, I just wanna grab some coffee.
Fred: Yeah. Listen. I think we need another take, buddy.
Cameron: That looked pretty terrific, man.
Fred: This is gonna sound strange, but is Jamal seeing a speech coach or something?
Cameron: What do you mean?
Fred: Have you noticed, uh… this is weird for a white guy to say, but have you noticed he’s talking a lot less black lately?
Cameron: No, I haven’t noticed that.
Fred: Really? Like in this scene, he was supposed to say, “Don’t be talkin’ 'bout that.” And he changed it to, “Don’t talk to me about that.”
Cameron: Wait a minute. You think because of that, the audience won’t recognize him as being a black man? Come on!
Fred: Is there a problem, Cam?
Cameron: Excuse me?
Fred: Is there a problem, Cam?
Cameron: No, we don’t have a problem.
Fred: I mean, 'cause all I’m saying is it’s not his character. Eddie’s supposed to be the smart one, not Jamal, right? You’re the expert here. But to me, it rings false.
Cameron: We’re gonna do it one more time.
Fred: Thanks, buddy.

Ryan: You know what I can’t do? I can’t look at you without thinking about the five or six more qualified white men who didn’t get your job.
Shaniqua: It’s time for you to go.
Ryan: I’m saying this 'cause I’m hoping that I’m wrong about you. I’m hoping that someone like yourself, someone who may have been given a helping hand, might have a little compassion for someone in a similar situation.
Shaniqua: Carol, I need security in my office!
Ryan: You don’t like me, that’s fine. I’m a prick. My father doesn’t deserve to suffer like this. He was a janitor. He struggled his whole life. Saved enough to start his own company. Twenty-three employees, all of them black. Paid 'em equal wages when no one else was doing that. For years he worked side by side with those men, sweeping and carrying garbage. Then the city council decides to give minority-owned companies preference in city contracts. And overnight, my father loses everything. His business, his home, his wife. Everything! Not once does he blame your people. I’m not asking you to help me. I’m asking that you do this small thing for a man who lost everything so people like yourself could reap the benefits. And do you know what it’s gonna cost you? Nothing. Just a flick of your pen.
Shaniqua: Your father sounds like a good man. And if he’d come in here today, I probably would’ve approved this request. But he didn’t come in. You did. And for his sake, it’s a real shame. [to security] Get him the hell outta my office.

Ryan: Wait till you’ve been on the job a few more years.
Hanson: Yeah.
Ryan grabbing his arm]: Look at me, look at me. Wait till you’ve been doin’ it a little longer. You think you know who you are, hmm? You have no idea.

Flanagan: Fucking black people, huh?
Graham: What did you just say?
Flanagan: I mean, I know all the sociological reasons why, per capita eight times more black men are incarcerated than white men… Schools are a disgrace, lack of opportunity, bias in the judicial system, all that stuff… But still… but still, it’s… it’s gotta get to you, I mean, on a gut level, as a black man. They just can’t keep their hands out of the cookie jar. Of course, you and I know that’s not the truth. But that’s the way it always plays, doesn’t it? And assholes like Lewis keep feeding the flames. It’s gotta get to you.

Flanagan: Actually, we were thinking of you until we saw that. It’s your brothers file. Twenty something years old and already three felonys. Three Strikes Law, the kid’s going away for life for stealing a car. Christ, that’s a shitty law. There’s a warrant in there. But still, he had every opportunity you had. Fucking black people, huh?
Graham: So, uh… all I need to do to make this disappear is to frame a potentially innocent man.
Flanagan: What are you? The fucking Defender of All Things White? We’re talking about a white that shot three black men and you’re arguing with me, that maybe we’re not being “fair” to him? You know, what? Maybe you’re right. Maybe you’re right. Maybe Lewis did provoke this. Maybe he got exactly what was coming to him. Or, maybe, stoned or not, being a black man in the valley was enough to get him killed. There was no one there to see who shot first, so there is no way way to know. Which means, we could get this wrong. Maybe that’s what happened with your brother. Maybe we got it wrong. Maybe Lewis isn’t the only one who deserves the benefit of the doubt. You’re the one closest to all this. You need to tell us. What does your gut tell you?[/b]

Conklin is going down.

[b]Cameron [to Anthony]: Look at me. You embarrass me. You embarrass yourself.

Lara: He doesn’t have it!
Elizabeth: [confused] He doesn’t have what?
Lara: I have it. He doesn’t have the impenetrable cloak!

Lucien: I’ll take the van.
Anthony: They’re chained to the van.
Lucien: So I’ll take them too.
Anthony: You wanna buy these Chinamen?
Lucien: Don’t be ignorant. They’re Thai or Cambodian. Entirely different kind of chinks.
Anthony: What the hell are you gonna do with 'em?
Lucien: Sell 'em. What you think? I’ll give you $500 apiece, and you can keep the van.

Graham: Mom, I promise. I promise. I’ll find whoever killed him.
Graham’s Mother: Oh, I already know who killed him. You did. I asked you to find your brother, but you were too busy for us. We weren’t much good to you anymore, were we? You got things to do. You go ahead. I’ll sign the papers.

Jean: Do you want to hear something funny?
Maria: What’s that Mrs. Jean?
Jean: You’re the best friend I’ve got.

Anthony: Everybody out, man. You’re free to go. All right, come on. Come on now! This is America. Time is money. Chop, chop! Come on, y’all. Come on. That’s $40. Buy everybody chop suey. You understand? Dopey fucking Chinaman.

Shaniqua [after her car is hit from behind]: Ahh! Oh, my God. What the hell is wrong with you people? Uh-uh! Don’t talk to me unless you speak American![/b]

The DVD cover says it all. An ominous young man [a boy, really…Sweat Pea in the film] with a gun. He is blown up to gigantic proportions. He trods upon the city of Naples menacing everything in sight.

This is the scariest of worlds for most of us. One in which those who “run the place” are basically thugs making up the rules as they go along. And only up to a point is “the law” able to intervene. That is, the parts not already bought and paid for by the mobsters.

The only good thing is that most of the violence is internal. Different factions [clans] vying for power or control over one or another “enterprise”. But if they bump into you and you are not in one of the clans it is almost always best to reconfigure your own plans to be more in line with their plans.

And then there are all the ethnic factions.

And the “initiation”. Let’s just say it leaves a mark.

There is absolutely no attempt to glamourize or to romanticism the amoral thuggery that goes on here. There is not even really a code to abide by. And no matter how much you steel yourself for the violence, time after time it just jumps right off the screen at you. It’s, uh, jolting.

And, of course, this is a world populated almost entirely by men.

trailer:
youtu.be/hky53gXyjX0

IMDb

[b]Gomorra intertwines five stories of individuals whose lives are touched by the Camorra. One story revolves around Don Ciro, an aging money runner who comes between two feuding clan factions. Another storyline focuses on Totò, a 13-year old delivery boy who is accepted into the Camorra. The story of Roberto revolves around his coming to grips with the Camorra’s toxic waste management. In the fourth story, fashion designer Pasquale crosses the Camorra. In another storyline, two knucklehead gangster wannabees, Marco and Ciro, also come up against the Camorra.

Roberto Saviano got death threats from the Camorra for exposing their activities in the novel and movie, and is now permanently under police protection.

Director Matteo Garrone lived for two months in the infamous Neapolitan quarter Scampia before making the movie.

Gomorra is a play on words, refering to both the biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and the Camorra, a high-crime, mafia-type organization that works out of the city of Naples, Italy.[/b]

The Camorra at wiki:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camorra

GOMORRAH [Gomorra] 2008
Directed by Matteo Garrone

[b]Sweet Pea [to Marcos]: You really looked like Scarface. You were good.

Giovanni [to Sweet Pea and Marcos]: I can’t be looking bad because of two snot-nosed kids. Next time I hear anything about you I’ll blow your heads off. If and when I decide you two are any good then you come work for me.

Marcos [stealing a cache of hidden weapons]: That bearded bum. Let him try to blow my head off now.

Pasquale [to Maria]: Where was I? China? They were all bowing to me. “Master”. They called me “master”.

Woman: Ciro, help me understand. I talked with my son this morning. He said, “Mom. pack my bag, I leaving. I’m joining the secessionists.”
Ciro: What did you say?
Woman: His mind is made up. He said, “We’ve got the strength and the numbers. We’ll win the war. The others are losers.”
Ciro: What war? A handful of idiots making war on us. You have to stop him. We’re on the right side.
Woman: Have you seen what is happening? There are killings everyday.

Toto: When will we see each other again?
Simon: When you change sides.
Toto: Want to stay loyal, go ahead. You go your way and I go mine. But we can still have a pizza together with friends.
Simon: I’m telling you again: Friends turn into enemies.
Toto: We’ve known each other a long time. Why go with them?
Simon: Once we were brothers. Now we are enemies. If you don’t change sides, we might kill you. Or you might kill us. Because we’re at war. People are dying everyday.
Toto: You could have stayed with us.
Simon: What for? I’m better off on the other side.
[They kiss goodbye][/b]

These kids are about 12 years old. Both already initiated.

[b]Giovanni: Zio Vittorio, they can’t be acting like big shots on my turf. I’ve warned them more than once. I can’t treat them like kids anymore. They have to die. That’s all.

Giovanni: Toto, are you with us or against us?
Toto: I’ll see what I can do.
Giovanni: No “I’ll see.” You’re either with us or against us. One or the other. And if you are against us you’re not leavin’ here. We can’t trust you.[/b]

Maria [his friend] is dead.

[b]Ciro: You’ve known me for years. You know everything I’ve done. I’ve brought people their money, including your family. I did it because I was ordered to. War isn’t for me.
Mobster: But you’re in the middle of it, you know that.
Ciro: Yes.
Mobster: Well then?
Ciro: You tell me.
Mobster: Tell you what? Why’d you come here? To talk about what?
Ciro: I want to save myself.
Mobster: You’ll have to buy your life. I won’t just give it to you.

Ciro: What I did for them, I’ll do for you.
Mobster: No, we don’t need money-carriers. We have to score, kill people, and we need money. You’ve wasting your time. You’re more dead than alive.
Ciro: We were all brothers before.
Mobster: I don’t want to hear it! That was before! Then your friends started fucking around. Our relatives were good people and then BOOM! BOOM! They killed them. So don’t come asking to join our side. We have to score, kill, and we need money. Otherwise you die, because you’re in this war too. You bring the money and I kill the people.
Ciro [trapped]: I understand.

Father: All these people have been saved by you and me.
Roberto: I’ve seen how you help them. You save a worker in Mestre and kill a family in Mondragone.
Father: That’s how it works. I didn’t make the rules. We solve problems created by others. I didn’t create chromium and asbestos. I didn’t dig up the mountains. That’s how it works.
Roberto: That’s how it works? Well, I won’t work that way.
[he turns and walks down the road]
Father: Go make pizzas then. You’re different.

Titlecard: In Europe the Camorra has killed more people than any other criminal organization. 4,000 deaths in the last 30 years. One every three days. Scampia is the largest open-air drug market in the world. Daily sales per clan run about 500,000 euros. If clan managed toxic waste were piled up, it would reach 47,900 feet. Mount Everest is only 29,000 feet high. Cancer rates have increased 20% in the poisoned areas. Profits from illegal activities are reinvested in legal activities worldwide. The Camorra has invested in the reconstructed of the Twin Towers.[/b]

Gasp!

More fucking Nazis. And two more brave people doing what they can to resist them. And what else can we do but to ask ourselves: Would we do it?

Divided we fall or every man for himself? It always comes down to a particular context understood from a particular frame of mind.

But we are still forced to judge what others say and do as though this were not the case at all. What else is there? We are forced to choose.

And the characters here are not even close to the real horrors of the Holocaust. But always: Everyone is just one “wrong” choice away from it.

Here’s the thing: They are hiding a Jew in their house while, from time to time, hosting a Nazi sympathizer.

Based on a true story.

trailer:
youtu.be/XAYjBHUIS7A

DIVIDED WE FALL [Musíme Si Pomáhat] 2000
Written and directed by Jan Hrebejk

Man: Mr. Wiener, what are you doing here?
David: I need help.
Man: If somebody sees you, they’ll execute the whole street.
David: I don’t have a choice. I have to hide.
Man: Good God, get out of here. We have children.
[the man sees a German soldier]
Man: Jew! A Jew is here! A Jew is here! Help!

The wrong, the cowardly thing to do? And if it was your children facing execution?

[b]Josef: Before the war many people had these secret rooms made. They suspected what was to come.

Josef: …but mainly you have to be quiet.

Josef: But what about him?
Marie: What? Do you want to send him away?
Josef: Come on. Want. Don’t want. Does it depend on what I want? Could I have imagined I’d be left out of this? We watched from the window and told ourselves the war was just passing by. Today it’s after us.

Marie: You want to turn him in? You want to report him?
Josef: Oh, please, really, Marie.
Marie: You decided for him, for you, for me and for everyone on this street.
Josef: And are you blaming me or what?
Marie: No, I’m not blaming you. It’s just good we have no children.[/b]

Then comes the pig problem.

[b]Horst: Get rid of everything. Properly. People are pigs. You might be turned in and what could I do about it? To be safe, skin a rabbit to be able to show the bones.

David: Kaje, my sister could have saved herself. At least for a while. After arriving at the camp, she was offered to be a kapo, provided she’d be hard enough. She was given a club and told to beat our parents to death. I could see my mother and father kneeling there, begging her to do it.

Horst: Marie, there’s be no danger from me even if you had a buffalo in the closet.

Horst: You voluntarily live in a tomb.
Marie: We all do.

Josef: This is just great. The whole city can see me walking around with Nazis. Collabortor! I took a job at their office and know you want to leave!!

Josep: There’s only one thing to do.
Marie: What?
Josef: You’ve got to get pregnant as fast as possible. Otherwise, we go to the gallows. Our only hope is David.[/b]

This is how bizarre life can get. Then things really get strange as irony upon irony piles up.

Allies Captain: Where’s that Jew of yours?

In some respects this is just a run of the mill “thriller”. Every 20 minutes or so another shark is jumped. But the subject it tackles is medical ethics. And I thought it did so very effectively. It really shows the difference between morality “up there” and morality that actually concerns you personally. And regarding something truly important – even vital – in your life.

It’s like the pro-life, anti-abortionist couple who suddenly find themselves with an unwanted pregnancy at the worst possible time in their lives. Some will go in one direction, some in another; but there is no longer any doubt that the issue is “just academic”.

Kant always seems so much more persusive when there is little at stake “out in the world”.

Admittedly, there’s no way I’d go along with this either. But existentially it would truly be an agonizing predicament for many. And I’m not paralyzed.

And then there are the “mole people”. Do they really exist down there? Seem to:

straightdope.com/columns/rea … -york-city

IMDb

In the movie, security for the illegal medical experiments is provided by two supposed police officers named Hare and Burke. In reality, William Hare and William Burke were two men in the business of supplying human cadavers to medical schools in 1820s Edinburgh - until it was learned that the ones they hadn’t stolen from graveyards, they had murdered themselves.

trailer:
youtu.be/V-KEeWtHg3k

EXTREME MEASURES [1996]
Directed by Michael Apted

[b]Det. Stone: Any time you need me, give me a call. It’s Stone, as in Sharon.

Dr. Trammel: You made a moral choice and not a medical one. I guess I’m kind of surprised, that’s all.
Dr. Luthan: On my right I see a cop with pictures of his kids in his wallet, and on my left some guy who’s taken out a gun on a city bus! I had ten seconds to make a choice. I had to make it. I hope I made the right one. I hope I did the right thing.

Dr. Luthan: Obviously, I’m having trouble understanding why it’s so easy for all of you to believe I just threw my life away which was going quite well. Why I suddenly out of the blue, took up drugs and threw it all away. It’s hard to grasp why that’s easier for you to believe than that someone in this hospital set me up to stop me asking about a patient whose body disappeared into thin fucking air.

Dr. Luthan [as Half-Mole stops at the top of a staircase, deep underground]: Is it down there? Well I’m not paying you until I get there.
Half-Mole [after a long pause and speaking for the first time]: I don’t go down there.
Dr. Luthan: How do I know you’re telling the truth?
Half-Mole: You’re still alive.

Mole-Woman: What are they doing to all these people?
Dr. Luthan: What do you mean, “all these people”? Claude and Teddy?
Mole-Woman: And the others.
Dr. Luthan: What others?
Mole-Man: Gramercy. That’s where we all go.
Dr. Luthan: What are you talking about?
Mole-Man: He knows! And this motherfucker’s in on it.

Dr. Luthan: Jesus…That’s why they do the lab tests.
Mole Woman: Who’s ‘they’?
Dr. Luthan [not appearing to hear]: That’s why they do the lab tests. Someone’s using healthy subjects.
Mole Leader: Why us?
Dr. Luthan: They think you won’t be missed.

Dr. Luthan: Jesus Christ. They’re playing with healthy spines!

Doctor: My name is Dr. Mingus. You’re in the Acute Care Ward at Riverside Hospital. You were found five days ago by the boat basin in Central Park. You’d been shot. You lost a great deal of blood. You’ve been in a coma until today. I have some tough news, Guy. Listen to me very carefully. Can you do that? You sustained a serious blow to your upper back. There was a severe cervical fracture of the sixth vertebra. Somehow we’re not quite sure your spinal cord was cut. At the moment, you’re paralyzed from the neck down. We did everything we could. I’m terribly sorry. Guy, listen to me. This is not the end of your life. Not by any means. I know it’s hard to accept, but you’ll learn to do things that you wouldn’t believe possible right now. You’re going to have a different life, that’s for sure but it can still be a great life and a fulfilling life, believe me. Whenever you feel ready, you can meet with our counseling people. We have an amazing program here.
Dr. Luthan [completely stunned and devastated]: Please…leave me alone.[/b]

But it’s all a set up…

[b]Dr. Myrick: Guy. It’s Dr. Myrick. I came over as soon as I heard. Dr. Mingus was a student of mine. I’ve seen your chart. It’s a terrible thing. I’d like to try to help.
Dr. Luthan: If you want to help me…let me die.

Dr. Myrick: What if there was hope?
Dr. Luthan: There isn’t.
Dr. Myrick: But what if there was hope? What would it be worth to be able to walk again, to be able to feed yourself? To go back to your old life? To be a doctor. What would you endure?
Dr. Luthan: What are you talking about?
Dr. Myrick: I’m asking you a question. What would that be worth?
Dr. Luthan: I can’t live like this.
Dr. Myrick: With proper care you can live 20 years like this. What would you do? What would you risk to change that?
Dr. Luthan: I have a C6 break in my cord.
Dr. Myrick: What if I told you there was a chance you could be healed? That there was a procedure that offered you a good chance that you might walk again? What would you do to make that happen?
Dr. Luthan: Anything.
Dr. Myrick: Anything? You’d better think about that.
[Dr. Myrick turn and walks away]
Dr. Luthan: What do you mean? What do you mean? Wait! Dr. Myrick?

Dr. Trammel: Quiet. We have to be quiet. You’re not paralyzed. It’s an epidural drip. I turned it off. You’re not at Riverside Hospital. This is Triphase. You’re not paralyzed.

Dr. Luthan: How can you be part of this?
Dr. Trammel: For my brother. He is paralyzed. I was driving the car when he was hurt. Because I was drunk.

Dr. Myrick [over loud speaker]: Guy, you have to understand. We never wanted you involved. All the way along, we tried to get you to walk away. I’m not a murderer. I didn’t know what to do with you. It was terrible to put you through it, but I had to do it. I had to make it real. You had to feel it to understand what it is we’re trying to do. And it is real.

Dr. Myrick [over loud speaker]: I can grow nerves. I can grow nerves and control their patterns. Thirty hours before he came to you, Claude Minkins had his spine surgically severed at the fourth vertebra. Teddy Dolson lived for 12 days. I can show you their charts. Complete neural regeneration. I can grow nerves. But I needed human subjects. That’s the awful truth. Growth factors only code to species. To do the work, you need human subjects. And most of them will die. These men they’re not victims. These men are heroes. Because of them millions of people will walk again. You see them every night. They’re lost or cold or stoned or worse. They have nothing. No future. No family. Nothing. But here, with us here they’re performing miracles.[/b]

See, a rationalization. That they aren’t permitted to give their consent is just further rationalized: If they really understood our humanitarian motives they would go along.

Dr. Myrick: I’m 68 years old. I don’t have much time. Three years with a rat to get to a dog? And after five years, if I’m lucky, maybe I can work on a chimp? We have to move faster than that. I’m doing medicine no one’s ever dreamed of. This is baseline neural chemistry, Guy.
Dr. Luthan: You’re killing people.
Dr. Myrick: People die everyday. And for what? For nothing. Plane crash. Train wreck. Bosnia. Pick your tragedy. Sniper in a restaurant, 15 dead. News at 11. What do we do? What do you do? You change the channel. You move on to the next patient. You take care of the ones you think you can save. Good doctors do the correct thing. Great doctors have the guts to do the right thing. Your father had those guts. So do you. Two patients on either side. One, a gold-shield cop the other, a maniac that pulled a gun on a bus. Who do you work on first? You knew. You knew. If you could cure cancer by killing one person, wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t that be brave? One person and cancer’s gone tomorrow? When you thought you were paralyzed what would you have done to be able to walk again? “Anything.” You said it yourself. Anything. You were like that for 24 hours. Helen [his daughter next to him in a wheelchair] hasn’t walked for 12 years. I can cure her. And everyone like her. The door’s open. You can go out there and put a stop to everything and it’ll be over. Or we can go upstairs and change medicine forever. It’s your call.
Helen: Guy…
Dr. Luthan: Maybe you’re right. Those men upstairs, maybe there isn’t much point to their lives. Maybe they are doing a great thing for the world. Maybe they are heroes. But they didn’t choose to be. You didn’t choose your wife or your granddaughter to experiment on. You didn’t ask for volunteers. You chose for them. And you can’t do that. Because you’re a doctor. And you took an oath. And you’re not God. So I don’t care. I don’t care if you can do what you say you can. I don’t care if you find a cure for every disease on the planet! You tortured and murdered those men upstairs, and that makes you a disgrace to your profession! And I hope you go to jail for the rest of your life. [to Helen]. I’m sorry.

See? Conflicting goods. They are both right. They are both wrong. It just depends on what you assume is true.
Or it can all be reduced down to this: What’s right for me is what’s right period.

Unless, of course, as the objectivists do, you take the argument back “up there”.

In a nutshell:

The film follows the story of a vengeful man who embarks on a murderous rampage when the only person that seems to understand him is taken from him. wiki

Nobody does this stuff better than the South Koreans. Well, maybe the Japanese.

It’s basically a remake of A man on Fire.

In other words, a violent gangster film. And if you hate violent gangster films you will loathe this one. Me, if the anti-hero is appealing and it involves righteous revenge…I make allowances. And it’s got a great big heart as soon as you see So-mi and Cha Tae-sik interacting [same as with Creasy and Pita].

Child abuse on an epic scale.

These things really do happen and it reflects a world that always fascinates me: one where morality has almost nothing whatsoever to do with objectivity. Not that I condone it of course. I simply acknowledge that sometimes there is really no effective way of getting around it. And broaching the arguments of philosophers here is nothing short of surreal.

Besides, if this isn’t the most adorable little girl in the world…

So, you’re goddamned right: I’ll be backing whatever the hell he chooses to do to those who would harm her.

Plus: You have to wonder sometimes if mindless mayhem [or the potential for it] isn’t built right into the genetic code of men.

trailer:
youtu.be/38rPoGSr19U

THE MAN FROM NOWHERE [Ajeossi] 2010
Written and directed by Jeong-beom Lee

[b]So-mi: Are you really a gangster? They say you are hiding because you did something bad. And Mom warned me that you are a child molester. Why?
Cha Tae-sik: Do you think I’m a bad guy, too?
So-mi [thinks about it]: Well, you do look like the prison type.

Hyo-jeong [So-mi’s heroin addict mother]: I’m warning you. Stop luring my kid in there. If you touch her, I’ll kill you. You can go screw married women, but don’t mess with kids. If you do, I’ll rip your balls off. If you’re that desparate then ask me out. You’re easy on the eyes.

So-mi: My nickname is “garbage”. My Aunt told me, Mom kicked a garbage can when she got pregnant with me. It’s been garbage ever since.

Crime boss: 160 million Chinese do weed, 26 million do meth and 11 million do herioin. It’s a goldmine. The UN says so!

Storekeeper [to Tae-Sik Cha]: Kids will learn from their mistakes. Parenting isn’t just giving birth. She’s always by herself. Bring her around more often, like the other dads. It’s on me.

So-mi [with tears in her eyes]: Mister? I embarrass you too, right? That’s why you ignored me. It’s okay. My teacher and all the kids do that, too. Mom said that if I get lost, I should forget our address and phone number. She gets drunk and says we should die. Even that pig called me a bum. You’re meaner. But I don’t hate you. Because if I do, I won’t have anyone I like. Thinking about it hurts me here. So I won’t hate you.[/b]

What breaks your heart is that you know there are tens of thousands of kids like her out in the real world. Reminds you of Todd from Parenthood:

"You know, Mrs. Buckman, you need a license to buy a dog, to drive a car - hell, you even need a license to catch a fish. But they’ll let any butt-reaming asshole be a father." Or, here, a mother

[b]Cop [of Cha Tae-sik]: This is one complicated motherfucker. The lock code on him is 011. Guess who? Military intelligence. A lock on a civilian file, that’s a first.

Cha Tae-Sik: You live only for tomorrow.
Man-seok: What?
Cha Tae-Sik: The ones that live for tomorrow, get fucked by the ones living for today.
Man-seok: What are you babbling about?
Cha Tae-Sik: I only live for today. And I will show you just how fucked up that can be.

Cha Tae-Sik: When the kids dies, you took out their organs. Sent the liver to one district, the eyes to another. And the heart to Seoul. Those young children…wandering the earth even after death. Did that ever cross your mind.
Jong-seok [smirking]: What about you? You ever wonder how much they’re worth. Even their parents don’t want them anymore. It’s a win-win situation.[/b]

Men who do this to children should be made to suffer grieously in prison. Day after day after day. Let the other bastards know that they can expect the same fate. See if that doesn’t slow it down some. So, what’s that make me? You decide.

Detective: I got a name. Oh Sang-man, a surgeon. Served three and a half for drug use. Known as “500”. His goal is to cut open 500 bodies.

So-mi is on the operating table right now.

[b]Cha Tae-Sik: How many cavities do you have?

So-mi: Mister…Mister. Did you come to save me? You came to save me, right?
Cha Tae-Sik: Stay there. You’ll get blood on you.

Cha Tae-Sik [to detectives]: Could I ask you a favor?

Cha Tae-Sik [to So-mi]: Just once…Let me hug you just once. Let me hug you, just once.
So-mi: Mister. Are you crying?[/b]

Within five minutes you know that Yukio and Aiko are not Ozzie and Harriet. But what they do turn out to be is not what you are thinking either. Not even close.

The film is based [loosely] on a true story. This one:
japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20010322a3.html

The scene in the “church” alone is mindboggling.

Most will tend to focus their attention on Nobuyuki. He is the one who comes closest to an everyman. It’s easier to wonder what the hell you would do if you were in his place. This guy tumbled into the Twilight Zone by way of Saw. You keep wondering: Will he become one of them? Or one of their victums? It’s a fucking nightmare.

Are they crazy? If so, does that make them more or less scary? Just pray to god you never come across someone like them.

This film is both absolutely grotesque and absolutely mesmerizing. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.

IMDb

The movie was “inspired by true events” known as the “Saitama serial murders of dog lovers”; the convicted killers in the real-life case are Gen Sekine (b. January 2, 1942) and his ex-wife Hiroko Kazama (b. February 19, 1957).

wiki

Film Business Asia gave Cold Fish a 8 out of 10 rating praising the actor Denden who without his “tour-de-force performance…Cold Fish may never have worked.” The review went on to state that “Though there’s considerable gore on display, it’s largely cartoonish. Cold Fish is not so much a blood-and-guts horror movie, more a danse macabre about social breakdown.”

trailer:
youtu.be/HmQPIBNPFBE

Note: Some explicit dialogue.

COLD FISH [Tsumetai Nettaigyo] 2010
Written and directed by Shion Sono

[b]Yukio: Mitsko-chan, I like your honesty. I, too, hated both school and my parents.

Yukio: Now listen good. We all die one day, right? We usually depart one day, without warning. Unfortunately, we all die, right? Nobody knows when the day will come. That’s what they say, but there are some people who do know! I’m one of them. I know how long a man lives, and when he dies. I also know where he dies, Who arranges that? I do!
Nobuyuki [watching Yoshida choke to death]: Mr. Yoshida…
Yukio: Pay no attention to him. He’ll calm down soon. No need to panic. We all die one day without exception. He’ll die today, that’s all! There’s nothing you can do…You love stars, don’t you? And the planetarium? What a joke! You think the earth is a smooth, blue sphere? I think the earth is just a chunk of rocks. Jagged, ugly rocks! That’s all there is! No planet is smooth and nice. That doesn’t exist! Look at him. Do you want to be like him? How was Mitsuka? I hope she’ll stay okay. Finally he’s gone. I hate superfical guys like him! Are you a man of substance? Look. If you try to defy me, that’s what you get. To kill someone makes you on edge at first. But after the first few, you’ll get used to it. This is my 58th. I could get hanged for it. But, you know I’m a perfectionist. I’ll never get caught.
Aiko [to Nobuyuki after Yukio leaves]: It’s best to just go along with it.[/b]

This is without much doubt one of the most goddamn bizarre scenes I have ever seen in a movie. You have to watch it 3 times though. Once focusing on Yukio, once on Aiko, once on Nobuyuki.

Yukio [to Nobuyuki after he and his wife have carved up Mr. Yoshida]: Eat some sushi! The smell? You’ll soon get used to it.

But I repeat myself: This is without much doubt one of the most goddamn bizarre scenes I have ever seen in a movie.
Then the enormous gap between Nobuyuki’s abject horror and the jocular, matter-of-fact manner in which Yukio and Aiko playfully react to the whole sanguineous spectacle.

[b]Yukio: The body’s invisible now. Nobody will know. I always win in the end.

Nobuyuki [to Taeko]: Let’s go to the planetarium…

Woman’s voice over the loud speaker at the planetarium: Please enjoy the winter sky. Our blue planet, Earth, was born 4.6 billion years ago. [Nobuyuki closes his eyes] And 4.6 billion years from now, it is said that the earth will end its life…

Taeko: I remember…This is where we had our first date. I was really shy at the time. I’d never known someone who loved stars. I realized then that you were a romantic. I was kind of exicited…and happy.
Nobuyuki [reaching for her hand]: I love you.

Detective [to Nobuyuki]: Please don’t tell Mr. Maruta we approached you. If he found out that the police had spoken to you, you’d probably become another missing person.

Yukio: First you chop the body into small pieces. As small as you can. Bite size. Always no larger than chicken nuggets.
Nobuyuki [gagging]: Yes.
Yukio: Next, separate bones from meat. It’s important!
Nobuyuki: Yes.
Aiko: Look, it’s his penis.
Yukio: I’ll take care of it. [grabs the penis] Shit. She put a pearl on his dick, damn it. Show-off!

Yukio [holding up Tsu-Tsui’s severed head]: Shamoto, look!
[Nobuyuki turns away gasping…Yukio and Aiko burst into laughter]

Yukio: Mitsuko-chan made a decision to leave home for your sake, you understand? So that you can make up with your wife. So that you could fuck your wife without her around. Your wife has a nice body too. She is a screamer. A cute mole on her back.
[Nobuyuki grabs him by the throat]
Yukio: That’s good. It’s about time you got mad.
[Nobuyuki punches him in the face]
Yukio [massaging his jaw and grinning]: It’s the story of your sad life. Because of you, your wife weeps. Because of you, your daughter became a criminal. But you have done nothing about it! Me, I’m different. Sure, I kill people, but I take care of myself. Look back at your sorry life and tell me you have ever dealt with a problem on your own. Have you? Well, have you?

Yukio: Come on, put your hatred in your fist. Hit me!
[Nobuyuki falls to the ground screaming in anguish, crying, wimpering. He’s completely broken]
Yukio: Hey. Hey, Samoto, are we in this together? Answer me!
Nobuyuki [practically catatonic]: Yes.
Yukio: Good. Get up then and fuck Aiko!
Nobuyuki: I can’t.
[Yukio shoves him on top of his wife who is laughing]
Yukio: We’re in this together. So do it now!
[Aiko starts taking off his pants while Yukio holds him]
Aiko: He’s getting hard.
Yukio: Aiko lead him in…All right, is he in?
[Yukio pushes and pulls him in and out of Aiko]
Yukio [letting go of Nobuyuki who is now, uh, on his own]: Shamoto, you’re doing fine. You’re doing good. Aiko, how do you feel? Samoto, keep going, keep going! Harder! Harder! That’s good! Atta boy!
[Out of the blue Nobuyuki takes a ball point pen and stabs both Yukio and Aiko in the neck][/b]

Another simply surreal scene as Nobuyuki continues to stab Yukio and Aiko looks back and starts to giggle with blood coming out of her neck. Then she bursts into gales of laughter.

Nobuyuki [at the “church”]: Get him out.
Aiko: Okay.
Nobuyuki [holding out a butcher knife]: Aiko, finish him off.
[Aiko ignores the knife. She grabs a television set and pummels a barely breathing Yukio over and over and over again]
Nobuyuki: Good. Take his body to the bath.
[Aiko drags it across the floor screeching like a banshee]
Nobuyuki: Make him invisible like the others. I’m the new Murata from today. And you’re my woman now.

This, to answer the question above: He becomes one of them. And what a fucking transformation!

Nobuyuki [to Taeko]: Prepare the meal.
[She hesitates, barely recognizing her husband…Nobuyuki picks up a kitchen chair]
Nobuyuki: PREPARE THE MEAL!!!

Planetarium man is now a million miles a way.

Nobuyuki: By the way, Taeko I know what you did. I know you fucked Murata.
[the tension in the air is explosive]
Nobuyuki [slapping her across the face]: YOU FUCKED HIM! YOU WHORE!
[he pins her to the ground]
Nobuyuki: Go ahead, say what you really think!
Taeko [struggling]: Our marriage is the pits! A big mistake! I hate your daughter’s guts! I hate our sorry life! I want my life back! Give it back to me!!

Then another absolutely mindboggling scene

Nobuyuki: I’m going to rape you.
Mitsuko: What the hell are you doing?
[Nobuyuki punches his daughter in the face and knocks her out]

Then back to the “church”. I won’t even attempt to describe what happens there between him and Aiko. You simply have to see it to believe it. It’s stuptifying. I’m, well, speechless.

[b][Nobuyuki stabs and kills his wife. He approaches Mitsuko with the big butcher knife]
Nobuyuki: Mitsuko, you can take care of yourself, right? You want to live on your own.
[he jabs her with the knife]
Nobuyuki: Does it hurt?
[he jabs her again]
Mitsuko: You’re hurting me !
Nobuyuki: It hurts?
[he jabs her again’
Nobuyuki: Do you want to live?
Mitsuko: I do, I do want to live!
Nobuyuki: Okay, you want to live.
[jabs her again]
Mitsuko: I don’t like pain!
Nobuyuki: Mitsuko, let me kill you!..LIFE IS PAIN!! Living your life hurts.
[he then takes the knife and slits his own throat]

Mitsuko [hovering hesitantly over his body]: Now you’re dead you fuckhead![/b]

Nobuyuki’s dead vacant eyes stare out into the void. Then a final shot of the blue Earth against the expanse of an endless universe.

duplicate post

With Tartan Asia Extreme films you take your chances. Some are just gorefests with various supernatural elements I tend to avoid. But others are far more sophisticated. This is one of those. Sure, there are the usual way-over-the-top action scenes. But interspersed between them is some great dialogue and an actual story that is built around actual characters. Though, admitedly, rather far-fetched at times.

And even though some will see “the twist” coming, the important thing is this: Dae-su Oh doesn’t.

And there will be those who think: What’s all the fuss?! In fact, they’ll boastfully endorse this sort of behavior! Which is to say that what one person will commit suicide regarding another will joyfully celebrate. Dasein.

It’s the not knowing that consumes him. Who did this to me? What is the reason?

The part about hypnosis. Different people have different opinions. Is it real? And, if so, what can or cannot be done with it?

IMDb

[b]Four live octopodes were eaten for the scene with Dae-su in the sushi bar, a scene which provoked some controversy abroad. Eating live octopus in Korea is commonplace although it is usually sliced first. When the film won the Grand Prix at Cannes, the director thanked the octopodes along with the cast and crew. Min-sik Choi is a Buddhist and had to pray after eating the octopuses.

The line on the painting of Dae Su’s cell reads “Laugh and the world laughs with you. Weep and you weep alone.” These are the first lines of Ella Wheeler Wilcox’s famous poem, “Solitude”.[/b]

wiki

[b]Film critic Roger Ebert has claimed that Oldboy is a “powerful film not because of what it depicts, but because of the depths of the human heart which it strips bare”.

An American remake is planned for release in 2013, which will be directed by Spike Lee.[/b]

trailer:
youtu.be/YLn1y9v6yno

OLDBOY [Oldeuboi] 2003
Directed by Chan-wook Park

[b]Dae-su Oh: Sir, sir Wait come here Come talk to me. I won’t tell you to let me go. Just tell me why I’m here, okay? I should know the reason at least. Shit, I’ve been locked up here for two months already. Sir, wait, come here. Sir, wait. What is this place? Sir, just tell me how long I have to stay in here. Just tell me that, huh? Sir! Fuck you! Come here, you asshole! Son of a bitch! I saw your face, asshole! You’re dead if I get out! Come here, asshole!!

Dae-su Oh [voiceover]: If they had told me it was going to be fifteen years, would it have been easier to endure? Or harder?

Dae-su Oh [voiceover]: When the melody turns on, gas comes out. When the gas comes out, I fall asleep. I found out later it’s the same Valium gas the Russians used on those Chechen terrorists.

Dae-su Oh [voiceover]: If you stand aimlessly at a phone booth on a rainy day, and meet a man whose face is hidden by a violet umbrella, my advice is that you make friends with a TV.

Dae-su Oh [voiceover]: The TV is both a clock and a calendar. It’s your school, your home, your church, your friend…
[Dae-su masturbates to a pop star onscreen]
Dae-su Oh: … and your lover. But my lover’s song is too short.

Dae-su Oh [voiceover after receiving three chopsticks with his prison rations]: All I could think about in that moment was the guy in the next room was eating with only one chopstick.

Dae-su Oh [voiceover]: 9 years…10 years…11 years…12 years…13 years…14 years

Dae-su Oh [voiceover]: The most important thing is what floor I’m on. What if I pierce through the wall and it’s the 52nd floor? But even if I fall to my death I’m still getting out.

Thug: You dickshit!
Dae-su Oh [voiceover]: Dickshit. New word. Never heard of it. The TV doesn’t teach you curse words.

Dae-su Oh [voiceover]: Can 10 years’ worth of imaginary training be put to use?
[he beats up all the thugs]
Dae-su Oh [voiceover]: Apparently, it can.

Dae-su Oh [voiceover]: She looks familiar…

Dae-su Oh [on phone]: Why did you imprison me?
Woo-jin Lee: Who do you think I am?
Dae-su Oh: Yoo Heungsam?
Woo-jin Lee: Wrong
Dae-su Oh: Did Lee Soyoung hire you?
Woo-jin Lee: No, wrong again.
Dae-su Oh: Lee Jongyong? Kang Changsuk? Hwang Jooyeun? Kim Nasung? Park Ji woo? Im Dukyoon? Lee Jaepyung? Kuk Suran?
Who the hell are you?!
Woo-jin Lee: Me? I’m a sort of scholar. And my major is you. A scholar studying Dae-su Oh; an expert on Dae-su Oh.

Woo-jin Lee: Who I am isn’t important. Why, however, is important. Remember this: “Be it a rock or a grain of sand, in water they sink as the same.”

Dae-su Oh [about to use a clawhammer to yank out Mr. Park’s teeth]: I am going to avenge 15 years in prison. Each one I yank out will make you age for one year. Ready to talk?

Dae-su Oh [after a very bloody beating]: Anyone here with an AB blood type, raise your hand.

Dae-su Oh [voiceover]: I’ve now become a monster. When my vengeance is over, can I return as the old Dae-su?

Woo-jin Lee: First, “who?”. Then, “why?”. If you figure it out come see me anytime. I’ll raise your score. You have until July 5th. Oh no, only five days left. Too short? Chin up. If you succeed I’ll kill myself and not Mi-do. That’s right, Mi-do. I’m going to kill every woman you love until you die.

Woo-jin Lee: You really are the very monster I created, aren’t you? But you won’t find out the “why” of this if you kill me. Fifteen years of being curious would go to waste. What a dilemma: Revenge or truth?[/b]

Just as in The Vanishing, right? It’s the not knowing that tears you apart.

[b]Dae-su Oh: Revenge is good for your soul. But after you have had your revenge the pain will find you again.

Mr. Park [handing Dae-Su a business card while sporting a big gold-toothed grin]: This dentist is very good.

Mr. Park: You see, they say that people shrivel up from fear because of what they imagine. So, don’t imagine anything and you’ll become brave as hell.

Mi-do: So, do you trust me now, you bastard!

Dae-su Oh: You need not worry about the future. Just imagine nothing.

Dae-su Oh [holding up a sign in electronics store]: I’VE BEEN BUGGED. PLEASE FIND IT.[/b]

They do.

[b]Dae-su Oh: What was she like?
No Joo-hwan: Her? She was a total slut. On the outside she acted like a prude but she was a filthy whore on the inside. A total slut.
Woo-jin Lee [on telephone with Dae-su after stabbing No Joo-hwan to death]: Dae-su…My sister was no slut.

Mi-do [looking around the inside of Dae-su’s “cell”]: You stayed in this place for fifteen years?
Dae-su Oh: Yeah, but after the first ten years it felt like home.

Mi-do: You get locked up for 15 years just for saying that?
Dae-su Oh: Whether it be it a grain of sand or rock in water they sink as the same. That’s what Lee Woojin believes.
Mi-do: So, what is the significance of July 5th?
Dae-su Oh: That’s the day Lee Soo-ah died.

Mi-do: What should I pray for?
Dae-su Oh: “Dear Lord, next time let me meet a younger man.”

Woo-jin Lee: Your tongue got my sister pregnant! It wasn’t Woo-jin Lee’s dick; it was Dae-su Oh’s tongue![/b]

The irony embedded in the denouement then becomes crystal clear.

[b]Woo-jin Lee: Your gravest mistake wasn’t failing to find the answer. You can’t find the right answer if you ask the wrong questions. It’s not “Why did Woo-jin imprison me?” It’s “Why did he release me?”

Mi-do: Dae Su. In front of me is some kind of box. Mr. Park is telling me to open it. It’s the same violet box…
Dae-su Oh [shouting frantically]: No! No Mi-do don’t. Don’t open it no matter what!

Dae-su Oh [on his knees, pleading with Woo-jin Lee]: Please. Don’t tell Mido. What has she done wrong? You know it was all my fault…I have committed an unforgivable sin against your sister. And I also…I did you wrong. Please leave Mido alone…If by any chance Mido finds out the truth, you son of a bitch, I’ll tear you limb from limb! And your remains will never be found. Why? Because I’m going to swallow every last bit of it![/b]

Then back to begging, groveling at Woo-jin’s feet:

Dae-su Oh: I’ll do anything I beg you. Woo-jin, if you want me to be a dog, I will! I’m Woo-jin’s dog from now on! I’m your puppy! Woof Woof Woof Woof. Look, I’m wagging my tail I’m a dog. I’ll guard the house. I’ll be your slave dog. The box…Just leave it closed.

Then he takes a pair of scissors and cuts off his own tongue—for starting the rumor that led to Soo-ah’s death.

Woo-jin Lee [to Mr. Park on the phone]: The box…Leave it closed.

I wasn’t a teenage girl living in the 1970’s so what do I know. But I once attempted suicide and [over and over again] I have been aound folks who make you want to. So I do know a little about that frame of mind.

And sure: God is smack dab in the middle of the repression. Him and exurbia.

Is this another…Heathers? No, it’s not even remotely a caricature of “teen suicide”. No Martha Dumptrucks here. But in being more down to earth it’s still in a tug of war [at times] between real and surreal.

There really are parents like this. Lots and lots of them. Down in the Bible Belt I’m sure. Or in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. And ask yourself this: Would you be the same today if you had been raised in a home like them?

trailer:
youtu.be/uZ6cvgIGfH4

THE VIRGIN SUICIDES
Written and directed by Sofia Coppola

[b]Narrator: Cecilia was the first to go.

Doctor: What are you doing here, honey? You’re not even old enough to know how bad life gets.
Cecilia: Obviously, Doctor, you’ve never been a 13-year-old girl.

Narrator: Everyone dates the demise of our neighbourhood from the suicides of the Lisbon girls. People saw their clairvoyance in the wiped-out elms, the harsh sunlight…and the continuing decline of our auto industry.

Narrator: No one could understand how Mrs. Lisbon and Mr. Lisbon, our math teacher, could produce such beautiful creatures.

Narrator: We felt the imprisonment of being a girl, the way it made your mind dreamy…so you ended up knowing what colours went together. We knew the girls were really women in disguise, that they understood love, and even death, and that our job was merely to create the noise that seemed to fascinate them. We knew that they knew everything about us. And that we couldn’t fathom them at all.[/b]

They know everything about teenage boys because there are really only 3 things to know: 1] Sex 2] Sex and 3] Sex.

[b]TV Reporter: Psychologists agree that adolescence today is much more fraught by pressures and complexities than in years past. More and more doctors say this frustration can lead to acts of violence whose reality the adolescent cannot separate from its intended drama.

Rannie: I baked a pie full of rat poison. I thought I could eat it, you know, without being suspicious. My nana, who is 86…
[starts to break down sobbing]
Rannie: …she really likes sweets. She had three pieces.

Narrator: Quickly thereafter green pamphlets were distributed. They told us there were 80 suicides a day in America – 30,000 a year – and alerted us to danger signals we couldn’t help but look for. Were the Lisbon girls’ pupils dilated? Had they lost interest in school activities, in sports and hobbies? Had they withdrawn from their peers?

Narrator: It made no difference which pattern of their dream dresses the girls chose. Mrs Lisbon added an inch to the bust line and two to the waist and hems. And the dresses came out as four identical sacks.

Narrator: Given Lux’s failure to make curfew everyone expected a crackdown, but few anticipated it would be so drastic. The girls were taken out of school, and Mrs. Lisbon turned the house into a maximum-security prison.

Narrator: This was about the time we began to see Lux making love on the roof with random boys and men.

Principal Woodhouse: Your daughters haven’t been in school for over two weeks.
Mr. Lisbon: Have you checked out back?

Narrator: We would never be sure of the sequence of events. Most likely Bonnie had hung herself while we were waiting in the living room…dreaming of highways. Mary put her head in the oven shortly thereafter. Therese, stuffed with sleeping pills, was gone by the time we got there. Lux was the last to go, sitting in a car in the garage filled with gas exhaust.

Mrs. Lisbon [voiceover]: None of my daughters lacked for any love. There was plenty of love in our house. I never understood why…[/b]

Really, she didn’t. They almost never do.

[b]Narrator: In the end we had pieces of the puzzle, but no matter how we put them together, gaps remained. Oddly shaped emptiness mapped by what surrounded them, like countries we couldn’t name. What lingered after them was not life, but the most trivial list of mundane facts. A clock ticking on the wall, a room dim at noon, the outrageousness of a human being thinking only of herself.

Narrator: We began the impossible process of trying to forget them. Our parents seemed better able to do this, returning to their tennis foursomes and cocktail cruises as though they’d seen this all before. It was full-fledged summer again, over a year since Cecilia had slit her wrists, preading the poison in the air. A spill at the plant increased the phosphates in the lake and produced a scum of algae so thick that the swamp smell filled the air, infiltrating the genteel mansions. Debutantes cried over the misfortune of coming out in a season everyone would remember for its bad smell. The O’Conners, however, came up with the ingenious solution of making the theme of their daughter Alice’s debutante party “Asphyxiation”.

Narrator: So much has been said about the girls over the years. But we have never found an answer. It didn’t matter in the end how old they had been, or that they were girls but only that we had loved them and that they hadn’t heard us calling…still do not hear us calling them from out of those rooms where they went to be alone for all time; and where we will never find the pieces to put them back together.[/b]