philosophy in film

A “fictionalized” true story.

The fucking Nazis. And here is another slice of them. And how many times do I tell myself, “Never Again”. But not in the way one is supposed to.

There are things we are watching here we have no real understanding of at all. After all, even those who were participating were often on a need to know basis. There are those who know [and manufacture] the big picture and those who do not. And we [like them] are never, ever sure of the part that politics is playing. Or the “personal” stuff.

Really, with so much at stake: WHO CAN YOU TRUST?!

Orders countermanding additional orders as agendas [in conflict] are played out. And everyone basically on the same side. Or so they will tell you. And the “beautiful and mysterious woman”—the femme fatale? Yeah, she’s in this too.

Then there is war with and without a family. With and without children.

But sometimes war has nothing to do with that.

IMDb

[b]Based on actual events that occurred in Denmark during World War II.

The movie is named from the nicknames of the two main characters. Flammen refers to the colour of Bent Faurschou-Hviid’s copper red hair, after a failed attempt to dye it blond. Citron (Danish for Lemon) got his nickname because, while working for the Citroën motor-car company in Copenhagen, he sabotaged German cars and trucks.[/b]

trailer:
youtu.be/qJnfNAEwQ8U

FLAME AND CITRON [Flammen & Citronen] 2008
Written and directed by Ole Christian Madsen

[b]Flame [after shooting a man dead]: You often asked me why. Why? One good reason. The Schalburg Corps. Danes in German uniforms. Traitors. They are…vermin.

…

Flame [voiceover]: Who else would celebrate 3 killings in a place swarming with Germans?

…

Flame [voiceover]: Karl Heinz Hoffman. Head of Gestapo. He’s the one hounding us. Make no mistake. He’s the biggest mass murderer Denmark has ever seen. But you already knew that.

…

Flame: I need to know how you know my name.
Ketty: Someone must have let it slip.
Flame: Yes, but the question is who.
Ketty: Don’t worry. We’re on the same side.
Flame: We are? Is it Winther?
Ketty: Don’t ask me about that or anything else. Don’t come here again. It’s the last thing I need.

…

Flame: I forgot that we are not killing people, but Nazis.

…

Gilbert: A partisan. A soldier without a front. Are you a good soldier? Are you prepared to pay the price?
Flame: What price?
Gilbert: What do you think? Your life. You see, there can only be three reasons for fighting in a war. Firstly, career opportunity. It’s widespread but does not produce good soldiers. You have a fear of dying and only think of peace. Secondly, ideology. Love of the mother country. That is much more intriguing, but the dreamer breaks down. He doesn’t have the strength. He’s shallow. The frivolous and presumptuous nature of youth. Unless he’s passionate. Fanatical, if you will. That makes for a good soldier.
Flame: And thirdly?
Gilbert: Hatred of your enemy. Hate seduces you into doing things you never thought yourself capable of. Unless the hatred is caused by a personal neurosis.
Flame: What are you saying?
Gilbert: The neurotic is intelligent and he has doubts. If he is beterayed his hatred fades and doubt sets in. War does nothing for the neurotic. The gentle, loving father is not to be found in war. Your cause, Christensen, is legitimate. Now you must become a good soldier.[/b]

Flame puts the gun to his head. But, instead of shooting him, he turns and walks away. He’s played. Or is he?

[b]Resistance leader: Three days ago, the Gestapo retaliated for the attacks on German officiers. Stopped a streetcar and threw 8 grenades at the 29 passengers. You can imagine the consequences.

…

Flame: We can bring it to Japan. When we’re done with the Germans. We can go to Japan with the Americans.
Citron: Flame and Citron in Japan?

…

Flame [voiceover]: Where were you? Where were you when the uprising started? Where were you on June 26th when Copenhagen resisited? At long last, people had had enough. At long last, they’re doing something. It’s getting close. Real war…But we’re just waiting.

…

Ketty [to Flame]: Hoffman just named you the No. 1 enemy of Germany. He raised the reward to 20,000 and you break into my room?

…

Ketty: But why kill at all?
Flame: What else can you do? My father sent me to Germany in 1940 to train as a waiter and a chef. The hotel manager was a Nazi. The chef was a Nazi. Several of the waiters were Nazis. I served Nazis everyday. One of the girls at the hotel was Jewish, but no one knew. Then the chef found out about it. He turned her in. She was beaten to a pulp. I don’t want that to happen here. Sabotage makes no difference. The only thing you can do is eliminate them. One by one. Down to the last one.
Ketty: Was the Jewish woman your girlfriend?

…

Winther: I found the informer. Unfortanately it’s one of us. Mrs. Ketty Selmar Sjoberg. She is to be liqudated immediately.
Flame: You’re mistaken. I know her.
Citron: Then why hasn’t she informed on Bent [Flame]? Why inform on Carl and Brains, when Bent will get her 20,000?
Winther: You should ask Bent about that.[/b]

No, you should ask Winther. Or maybe not.

[b]Flame: Does Winther work for the Gestapo?
Ketty: No, he just erases his own tracks.

…

Flame: He was right. Winther has disappeared. He ran for it. We’ve been shooting innocent people. We’ve shot innocent…
Citron: Shut the hell up! Shut up. I sure as hell didn’t kill innocent people. I shot a German officier, and a German officier is not innocent. You come and tell me he was in the resistance. Are you stupid? Winther! What did you expect? That’s rich people for you! In a nutshell, they are greedy and full of shit. You should have shot her when you had the chance.
Flame: What are you saying?
Citron: She’s fucking with your brain. A girl knows your real name, you fuck her and “bam!” she’s an oracle.

…

Flame: Why didn’t I see it? He’s in Stockholm and we are being hounded by the Gestapo. Is that justice?
Citron: There is no just or unjust any longer. There is only war. From now on we choose our own targets and go after them. Hoffman.
Flame: Yes.

…

Hoffman: Tell me, Flame, do you really think you make a difference with all that shooting? Don’t you realize you’re just a tool for someone with less pure motives?

…

Spex: The incident with Mrs. Selmer was a mistake and has been explained. A simple misunderstanding.
Citron [slamming his glass to the table]: A misunderstanding…I’m sorry. A misunderstanding? And in a minute when I shoot you, it’s just a “mistake”. Can we agree on that?

…

Citron: The little boy is dead. He kept looking at me. I held him in my arms, and he kept looking at me. I could tell that he wanted to say something but he wasn’t able to.

…

Hoffman [handing Ketty an envelope]: The money order for the 20,000 kroner reward. You can cash it tomorrow. We also found a letter at his place. It’s for you.
[Hoffman leaves and Ketty opens the letter]
We hear the voice of Flame: “Do you remember when they arrived? Do you remember April 9th? I think you do. Everybody does. I’ve been thinking and thinking. No matter what they say, I don’t believe it was you. You’re not like that. Where do we go after this? When it’s all over. I don’t know. Can we ever go back? Can we ever go forward? Perhaps. Perhaps not. At this moment there is only The Flame.”[/b]

The rotten bitch?

[b]Titlecard: After the liberation, Flame and Citron received a grand funeral. In the days following the service, their coffins stood side by side. In 1951, Citron was awarded the U.S. Medal of Freedom. It was accepted by Citron’s mother. Flame received the same distinction.

After Flame died, Ketty Selmer moved to Stockholm. She then settled down in Majorca, where she died in the mid-nineties. She never spoke of Flame.[/b]

Here’s more on Ketty Selmer from an interview with the director by Diane Sippl at kinocaviar.com

DS: Who was Ketty, really? A fashion photographer? A courier for the Resistance? A double agent?
OCM: Ketty, who betrays Flame in the end, had affairs with the Gestapo, with Winther, with other Resistance fighters, as well as with women (she was bi-sexual). She operated as a Russian spy at the same time. She was brought up very poor in Copenhagen and became a “dancer” — in those days it was the term used for “stripper” — at the age of eighteen. She was a very active sexual woman.
DS: Is Ketty a classical femme fatale?
OCM: We dug up Ketty Selmer when we researched the film. She’d been there — people knew of her — but they didn’t suspect her at all. They had no idea of who she was. And she acted as she did toward Flame, I think, because she was under pressure. She was afraid of dying, because she was “between chairs,” as we say. She was way out of her league.

A good movie is one where you really, really don’t know for sure what the hell is going to happening next. Especially in a context this potentially volatile.

Still: Is every working class family in England exactly the same? Well, if all you know about them comes from what you see in the cinema then, yeah, I guess they are.

And, in describing them, dysfunctional is right at the top of the list. And then impoverished. They seem to go together. It’s all their own fault though. Any conservative can explain why.

But everything is really about the gaps between the exteriors some show the world and the interiors that are considerably more vulnerable. People live this way. I once lived this way. And if you never have, what the fuck can you really know about it?

There’s hope though: Hip Hop. Dancing. Being an “artist”. And how hopeless is that? For most of course. And the audition turns out be for “dancers” of an entirely different sort anyway.

IMDb

[b]Katie Jarvis, who plays Mia, had never acted before this film. A casting director spotted her having a fight with her boyfriend at a train station and offered her the role.

The film was shot chronologically, and the actors were shown only the part of the script they would be filming the following week - none of them knew what would happen to their characters later in the film.[/b]

wiki

The film currently holds a 90% “certified fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 132 reviews. The New Yorker’s David Denby writes, “Fish Tank may begin as a patch of lower-class chaos, but it turns into a commanding, emotionally satisfying movie, comparable to such youth-in-trouble classics as The 400 Blows”.

Trailer:
youtu.be/gg1yMOdjyp0

FISH TANK [2009]
Written and directed by Andrea Arnold

[b]Mia [shouting to Keeley’s father]: Can you give Keeley a message for me? Tell her I think her old man’s a cunt!

…

Connor [mother’s boyfriend, to Mia]: You dance like a black…It’s a compliment.

…

Tyler [little sister]: Whatcha doin?
Mia: Mind your own fuck face.
Tyler: If I’m a fuck face, you’re a cunt face.[/b]

That kinda working class family.

[b]Tyler [to Connor leaving the house]: I like you. So I’ll kill you last.

…

Tyler [after her mother throws her out of the kitchen]: BITCH!!
Mia: I’ve got the ChildLine’s number if you need it.
Tyler: YOU’RE A BITCH YOURSELF!![/b]

Tyler’s about 5 years old.

[b]Joanne [Mia’s mother, to Connor]: She’s never had a boyfriend.
Mia: I just fucked him upstairs actually.
Joanne: Oh, that’s nice.

…

Joanne [throwing an envelope at Mia]: It’s about your new school. You get to stay there. You can fuck as many ASBO boys as you like there.

…

Mia: I ain’t going.
Connor: That place might teach you some manners.
Mia: It’s nothing to do with you, is it?
Connor: You need sortin’ out you do.
Mia: So you keep saying. But you’re nothin’ to me, so why should I listen?

…

Connor [to Mia]: You all love your booze in this family, don’t you?

…

Tyler: Connor’s gone.[/b]

And there’s a reason for this. Yeah, that one.

[b]Mia: Where’s your horse?
Billy: She was sick. Had to shoot her.
Mia [looks down at lock. Sits down. Cries]: Oh.
Billy: She was 16. It was her time.
Mia: [crying, looks up] Oh, right.

…

Tyler: Why do you need so much stuff?
Mia [packing]: Just in case.
Tyler: What about the referral unit?
Mia: You can have my place.
Tyler: I don’t want it. They’re full of spastics and idiots.

…

Mia: I’m leaving then.
Joanne [dancing]: This is one of your CDs.
Mia: Yeah. It’s Nas.
Joanne: Yeah, it’s great.
Mia: You can keep it.
Joanne: Well, go on then. Fuck off.

…

Tyler [burying her face in Mia’s abdomen] I hate you!
Mia [tenderly]: I hate you, too.

…

Tyler [to Mia in a car heading for Wales]: Bye, you skank! Don’t forget to text me. Say hello to the whales![/b]

Music from Nas over the closing credits:
youtu.be/c_1-DSzBDwc

The gist:

Ten years ago, after being accused of a hideous murder of a mother and her twin daughters, Sean Veil became paranoid, filming himself twenty-four hours a day to have an alibi if necessary.

A very strange film to look at. An even stranger one to wrap your head around. You can imagine someone possibly being reduced to this. But you have a much harder time imagining yourself.

It’s a thicket of half-truths and lies. And less than coherent at times. Put your thinking cap away and just tumble down into the fog.

It is less a “psychological thriller” [as it is described] than a psychopathological thriller. A truly dystopian “ambiance” pervades. But probably the kind of world killers like this inhabit. Unless of course they are far more “ordinary” then we would ever care to admit.

It is also a commentary on our tabloid culture. Everything is grist for the entertainment mill. Crime in particular. Individuals become merely characters to be played…parts to be molded and manipulated into whatever “drama” sells the most merchandise.

One thing for sure: No one would ever believe this is based on a true story.

It isn’t, is it?

IMDb

Lee Evans actually shaved his head and eyebrows for the film, despite being warned that his eyebrows may not grow back again.

Lee Evans. He’s a standup comedian by trade. He played Tucker in There’s Something About Mary. This is a, uh, somewhat different character.

trailer:
youtu.be/NbyAuFPKmls

FREEZE FRAME
Written and directed by John Simpson

[b]Sean [voiceover]: 24 hours in a day. 1,440 separate minutes in which someone could meet their end at the hands of someone who may or may not look like me. 86,400 seconds in which someone could breathe their last. That’s time to be accounted for. All 31,536,000 seconds of life or death each and every year.

…

Sean [voiceover]: Things to remember: 1] Paranoia is a malfunction of the ability to reason. I can reason. Therefore I am not paranoid. 2] the principle characteristics of the paranoid personality are delusions, hostility, suspicions. I am not deluded. I am not suspicious. I may be hostile but that is only because they really are out to get me.

…

Sean [voiceover]: 9 years, 11 months, 28 days and 1553 murders since. 975 of which were unsolved. How many more are they trying to pin on me?

…

Sean [to Saul at book signing]: I have a question! How does an innocent man get justice in this country?! How does he get his reputation back?! His sanity?!

…

Sean [to reporter]: I don’t give interviews. Not without editorial control. Words can be distorted, twisted, reeditied. Things can be made to seem more than what they are.

…

Sean [voiceover]: Things to remember. 3] It’s everywhere. All around me. The threat. I feel it. You never lose it. They make sure of that.

…

Sean [voiceover]: If I could, I’d live here. Set up home right on this spot to be surveilled 24 hours a day. My whereabouts always known as fact. Verifiable, indisputable facts. That would be sheer heaven.

…

Sean [voiceover]: Things to remember: 4] The first law of forensics. Lockhart’s Theory. Every contact leaves a trace. I leave nothing anywhere that they can trace back to me.

…

Sean [voiceover]: Things to unlearn. 1] CCTV is now to be avoided. It won’t be easy. Seeking out cameras is now encoded in my DNA. Like a cop to corruption, like detective Emeric to a payoff.

…

Emeric: The question is Sean how come your tapes don’t match her tapes?

…

Detective Mountjoy: You seem kind of relaxed, if you don’t mind me saying. For a man who’s about to spend the next 30 years sucking unwashed dick.
Sean: You seem kinda jealous, if you don’t mind me saying.

…

Katie [straddling him]: How long do you think you can hold out, Sean? Come on, let it go. You know you want to.

…

Sean [voiceover]: Things to remeber: 5] Never have sex without a condom. Ever. Once they get a hold of your sperm, you’re fucked.

…

Katie: Don’t worry, Sean, this is one part of your life that won’t be going on tape.

…

Sean [voiceover]: Things to remember: 6] Never stop filming yourself. Ever. Off camera is off guard.[/b]

One more thing to remember: Make sure the web-cam is working!

Jeffery is right: It’s a strange world. But, come on, how many of us ever find it this strange? More to the point though is that we know it can be. It’s out there. And the more it’s depicted in films like this the more it is likely to spread. A paradox?

We never really know just how close we are to Frank. Maybe he lives next door. Or maybe you’re Frank. One of them. I’ve bumped into some strange folks right here in ILP’s la la land. And, of course, they’ve bumped into me.

And then there is Dorothy. Is she a creature of Frank or did she come into that world predisposed to move it along. And who would have thought that Isabella Rossellini was as spooky as Dennis Hopper. In “real life”. At least back then.

Basically, I think it is all just a metaphor for the mystery of existence itself. Why things happen in one way and not in another. And what lies below the surface of any particular understanding of it. The stuff underground. The stuff “civilization” is just a veneer covering up. Lots of films like that, of course. But this one is especially effective in juxtaposing them.

In one ear and out another.

IMDb

[b]Several of the actors who were considered for the role of Frank found the character too repulsive and intense. Dennis Hopper, by contrast, is reported to have exclaimed, “I’ve got to play Frank. Because I am Frank!”

Isabella Rossellini actually was naked under her velvet robe when she did the “ritualistic rape scene”, a fact that her partner Dennis Hopper was not aware of, until the cameras started rolling and his co-actor opened her legs for him to kneel between. This scene was the very first time the two of them ever worked together.

In interviews, David Lynch has told of how Dorothy’s nude scene was inspired by a childhood memory of his, when he and his brother, going home from school, came across a dazed naked woman walking down the street. Lynch has said that it made him cry and left a profound impression on him.

The bugs seen writhing and fighting at the beginning of the film symbolize the dark and violent world that lies just barely beneath the veneer of simple small-town life, as typified by the immaculate green lawn. A product of small-town upbringing himself, Lynch often explores the darker side of what is often stereotypically seen as the simple, decent life of rural comunities.[/b]

Blue Velvet at wiki:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Velvet_(film

BLUE VELVET
Written and directed by David Lynch

[b]Radio announcer: It’s a sunny, woodsy day in Lumberton, so get those chainsaws out. This is the mighty W.O.O.D., the musical voice of Lumberton. At the sound of the falling tree, it’s 9:30. There’s a whole lotta wood waitin’ out there, so let’s get goin’.

…

Jeffrey: I found an ear.
Detective Williams (matter of factly): You did? A human ear?
Jeffrey: Yeah. I’ve got it here in this bag. I thought I should bring it to you.
Detective Williams [looking in the bag]: That’s a human ear all right.

…

[repeated line]
Jeffrey: It’s a strange world.

…

Jeffrey: There are opportunities in life for gaining knowledge and experience. Sometimes, in some cases, it’s necessary to take a risk. I got to thinking. I’ll bet a person could learn a lot by getting into that woman’s apartment. You know, sneak in and hide and observe.

…

Sandy: I don’t know if you’re a detective or a pervert.

…

Dorothy: What’s your name?
Jeffrey: Jeffrey
Dorothy: Jeffrey what?
Jeffrey: Jeffrey Nothing.

…

[repeated line]
Frank: DON’T YOU FUCKING LOOK AT ME!

…

Frank: You’re stay alive, baby. Do it for Van Gogh.

…

Dorothy [to Jeffrey]: Hit me! Hit me! Hit me!

…

Jeffrey: Frank…is a very sick and dangerous man.

…

Sandy [after Jeffrey tells her about Dorothy, Don, her son and Frank]: It is a strange world.
Jeffrey [fiercely]: Why are there people like Frank?! Why is there so much trouble in this world?!
Sandy: I don’t know. I had a dream. In fact, it was on the night I met you. In the dream, there was our world, and the world was dark because there weren’t any robins and the robins represented love. And for the longest time, there was this darkness. And all of a sudden, thousands of robins were set free and they flew down and brought this blinding light of love. And it seemed that love would make any difference, and it did. So, I guess it means that there is trouble until the robins come.

…

Dorothy [to Jeffrey]: I looked for you in my closet tonight.

…

Jeffrey: See that clock on the wall? In five minutes you are not going to believe what I’ve told you. Number one…

…

Sandy: You’re not going back to her apartment, are you?
Jeffrey: Yeah.
Sandy [very concerned]: Jeffrey, why?
Jeffrey: I’m seeing something that was always hidden. I’m involved in a mystery. I’m in the middle of a mystery and it’s all secret.

…

Dorothy: I have your disease inside of me.

…

Dorothy: You think I’m crazy don’t you?
[pauses]
Dorothy: I want you to stay. Don’t hate me.
Jeffrey: I sure don’t hate you.
Dorothy: I’m not crazy.
[pauses]
Dorothy: I know the difference between right and wrong!
Jeffrey: That’s good.
Dorothy: You’re my special friend.
[walks toward Jeffrey, a knowing smile on her face]
Dorothy: I still have you inside of me!

…

Frank: Hey you wanna go for a ride?
Jeffrey: No thanks.
Frank: No thanks? What does that mean?
Jeffrey: I don’t wanna go.
Frank: Go where?
Jeffrey: For a ride.
Frank: A ride! Hell that’s a good idea!

…

Raymond: He’s a pussy, Frank!
Frank: Yeah, but he’s our pussy.

…

Frank: What kind of beer do you like?
Jeffrey: Heineken.
Frank [shouting]: Heineken?! Fuck that shit! Pabst Blue Ribbon!

…

Dorothy [to Jeffrey]: I love you! Love me! [To Sandy] He put his disease in me!
Jeffrey: Sandy, please…
Sandy: Jeffrey, what is going on here?
Jeffrey: I’ll tell you…
Dorothy: He put his disease in me.

…

Sandy: Where is my dream…?[/b]

You know, the robins. And, sure enough, at the end, they do show up.

I grew up in a dysfunctional family myself. Nothing like this though. This one is more fucked up than the folks in Fish Tank. And it’s not even from England. But what’s England got on working class families from the deep South?

Here of course the rich are even more fucked up than the lower middle class. And it takes an unemployed football coach from South Carolina [who, if nothing else, is colorful] to nudge them in a more satisfying direction.

And then there is The Incident. Some families have one and some don’t. Or some have a series of less traumatic events. One of this magnitude though can put whole future in the crosshairs. There is before and there is after. Period. End of story. And nothing is ever quite the same. But the movie unfortunately barely scratches the surface here.

To wit: The movie vs. the book:

[b]wiki

While the film was a box office hit and raised Streisand’s reputation as a director, its numerous changes from the original novel upset some Conroy purists. Conroy and Johnston eliminated most of the novel’s flashback scenes. They describe Tom Wingo’s relationship with his siblings in great detail. In the novel, these flashbacks form the main plot and take up more of the novel than the romance between Streisand’s character, Dr. Lowenstein, and Tom Wingo. The removal of the flashbacks makes the relationship between Wingo and Lowenstein the central story in the film, whereas in the novel, it is not. Another character in the novel - the second Wingo brother, Luke, who appears only in flashbacks onscreen - is vitally important to the novel, and his death is a major plot point. In fact, the title of the book derives from a poem written by Savannah about Luke and his struggle against the government after the seizure of Colleton. In the film, “The Prince of Tides” is the title of a book of poetry written by Savannah and dedicated to Tom. Luke only appears intermittently, and only as a child, and his death is only vaguely described.

IMDb

Those who have both seen the movie and read the book say that the novel is much richer in detail, as well as more disturbing, than in the movie. Savannah’s story, as well as the tiger’s role, were larger in the novel. Luke, who is the real ‘Prince of Tides’ in the book, was almost entirely left out of the movie and the bonds between the three children were played down, while Tom’s love affair with Susan was made the central theme. The killing of the three escaped prisoners also was handled differently in the book, such that Tom killed one and the tiger killed the other two. Several viewers have commented that there were so many stories in the 600-page book that at least 4-6 different films could be shot and never repeat the same information.[/b]

This is very, very true. While I liked the movie [and Conroy helped to write the screenplay] the novel is much, much better. This has Hollywood written all over it. But watch the film and then read the novel. The novel becomes all that much more satisfying.

Look for George Carlin.

THE PRINCE OF TIDES
Directed by Barbara Streisand

[b]Tom [narrating]: There are families who live out their entire lives without a single thing of interest happening to them. I’ve always envied those families.

…

Tom [narrating]: I suppose Henry Wingo would have been a pretty good father - if he hadn’t been such a violent man.

…

Tom [narrating]: From my mother I inherited a love of language and an appreciation of nature. She could turn a walk around the island into a voyage of purest discovery. As a child, I thought she was the most extraordinary woman on earth. I wasn’t the first son to be wrong about his mother.

…

Tom [narrating]: I don’t know when my parents began their war against each other - but I do know the only prisoners they took were their children.

…

Tom: Now girls, have I ever told you the facts of life?
Jennifer: Oh, not this again.
Tom: Stay away from boys 'cause they are all disgusting, self-indulgent beasts that pee on bushes and pick their noses.

…

Sally: I just don’t know how you feel about me anymore.
Tom: Don’t take it personally. I don’t know how I feel about anything anymore.
Sally: God, you’re pathetic.

…

Tom [narrating]: It was only my sister who could force me to come to this God-awful city. This city that roars down on you. She loved it all. The muggers, the winos…the bag ladies, the wall-to-wall noise. She loved it because it had nothing to do with our childhood. Luke and I hated it for exactly the same reason.

…

Tom: I’m sick of my sister’s attraction to razor blades - and I’m sick of shrinks who can’t do a fucking thing to help her!

…

Tom: What the hell is going on here? Why is she strapped down?
Susan: Her team felt she had to be restrained…
Tom: Why? She has enough drugs to anesthetize a whale!
Susan: Her team decides…
Tom: Quit calling them her team! Sounds like she’s trying out for the Giants.
Susan: What should I call them?
Tom: Let’s be creative. Let’s call them assholes.
Susan: Let me tell you something about those assholes. I’m grateful because they saved your sister’s life.
Tom: Well, I don’t like to see her strapped down!
Susan: I don’t care what you like. She’s still a threat to herself. There’s no point to this unless we keep Savannah alive. And I don’t care if it takes drugs or voodoo or reading tarot cards…I want her alive.

…

Tom: It’s the Southern Way; when things get too painful, we either avoid them or we laugh.
Susan: When do you cry the Southern Way?
Tom: [laughing] We don’t.

…

Tom: My mother should have raised cobras, not children!

…

Tom [narrating]: By the second week, I’d developed the New York willies. The guilt that every out-of-towner feels if he’s not improving his mind every goddamn second. I made a list of things I should do. Museums, plays. See three foreign films all at the same time.

…

Susan: So you feel your mother betrayed you?
Tom: I was talking about my wife!
Susan: Oh…

…

Eddie: How’s Savannah? When can I see her?
Tom: I don’t know, Eddie. It’s like talking to a fern.
Eddie: Well, I’m glad she’s improving.

…

Tom: You know, it’s an art form to hate New York properly.
Bernard: No, it’s not. It’s a cliché.

…

Tom: What if I’d done the same to your son?
Susan: It’s not the same thing!
Tom: I’ll make him a Presbyterian quarterback!
Susan: It’s quite different. My son didn’t try to kill himself.
Tom: Give him time, Lowenstein. Give him time!

…

Tom [to Susan]: Mother got the island in the divorce settlement. She immediately sold it to the government for a lot of money. They wanted to put up a power plant. Luke went crazy. He made some threats. The government laughed. He blew up a construction site. They quit laughing. He went on waging his own private war. Hurt some people. Savannah and I tried to stop him, but the government stopped him first. Shot him in the head.

…

Susan: How did you deal with his death?
Tom: I shut down like a broken motor.
Susan: And according to the Southern way, still no tears.
Tom [laughing]: Oh, I cry sometimes, Lowenstein. I cry at weddings, at the Olympics. I’m real big at the national anthem.
Susan: But not over Luke?
Tom: What the hell for? It wouldn’t bring him back.
Susan: No. But it might bring you back.

…

[Luke blows the TV to hell with shotgun]
Luke [to Henry]: TV’s broken you son of a bitch. Now you can watch your kids blow out their candles.

…

Tom: How about Luke? Do you ever think about Luke? Does he ever cross your mind?
Lila: Who taught you to be so cruel?
Tom: You did, Mama, you did.

…

Susan: How old was Savannah when this happened?
Tom: Thirteen.
Susan: What were you doing while this was going on?
Tom: I don’t know.
Susan: You don’t know? Maybe you ran for help?
Tom: I don’t know. I don’t know.
Susan: Why do you think you didn’t?
Tom: I don’t know. Just because.
Susan: That’s a child’s answer, Tom.

…

Susan: You said before that three men came in. What happened to the third man?

…

Tom: What was happening to me was unimaginable. I didn’t know it could happen to a boy.

…

Tom: Luke, two. Mama, one. While I did nothing.

…

Bernard: My father hates you, Coach Wingo.
Tom: Yeah, but he loves you.

…

Herbert: That Stradivarius is worth over a million dollars!
Tom: Well, if I drop it, it won’t be worth shit.
Susan: Don’t do it, Tom.
Tom: Apologize to your wife, Herbert.
Herbert: You’re bluffing.
Tom: I may be, but its a powerful bluff, isn’t it, asshole?
[Tom throws the fiddle high in the air over the penthouse balcony]
Herbert [screaming]: I’m sorry, Susan!
[Tom catches fiddle]
Tom: Sincerity becomes you, Herbie. Now apologize to me for your unforgivable breach of etiquette at the dinner table tonight, you possum-bred cocksucker.
Herbert: I’m very sorry, Tom.[/b]

Being people we get into binds. Predicaments. And sometimes the circumstances are very complex. And we can only see them from a point of view. Over here, over there. It’s the same. And the law sometimes barely scratches the surface in coming to grips with it. But it is all we really have in the best of all possible worlds. All we can do is struggle to make it more “just” in a world of conflicting assessments regarding what that means.

Rooted in the middle class rooted in the big city, A Separation is able to move far enough away from the struggle over class and religion to explore a family’s dynamics with greater depth. In other words, with a greater degree of ambiguity. The heart and soul of a modern day dasein. Only here within the context of sharia law. But:

wiki

After the 1979 overthrow of the Pahlavi Dynasty by the Islamic Revolution, the system was greatly changed. The legal code is now based on Shi’a Islamic law or sharia, although many aspects of civil law have been retained, and it is integrated into a civil law legal system.

Iran is not Saudi Arabia. And Tehran is not inhabited by hicks from the sticks. But religion is still an important factor in gender relationships. Only with more leeways and loopholes.

As for the poor and working class, God apparently still prefers for them to wait for their just rewards. You have to die first. This seems to be rather universal.

And then there are the god-awful indignities of being old.

IMDb

Iran’s official submission for the Foreign Language Film category of the 84th Academy Awards (2012).

What does that tell us about the content then? And it won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film over here. What does that tell us? A peculiar hybrid it seems.

A Separation at wiki:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Separation

trailer:
youtu.be/B2Sswx_vrWk

A SEPARATION [Jodaeiye Nader az Simin] 2011
Written and directed by Asghar Farhadi

[b]Simin: Does he even realize you are his son?
Nader: I know he is my father!

…

Simin: He can have everything, I just want my daughter.
Nader: Our daughter is attached to me. She doesn’t even want to go with you.
Simin: She doesn’t know better.

…

Judge: You can’t file for divorce over every little problem.
Simin: A little problem? My problem is not little. It is my daughter.
Judge: It is his daughter, too. He has rights, too. My finding is that your problem is a small problem.

…

Caretaker [calling the equivilant of a religion hotline]: Hello. I have a religious question. I am working in a house. There is an old man I am taking care of. I wanted to ask…Parden me, but he has wet his pants. I wanted to know if I change him, will it count as a sin?..No one is here. He is 70 or 80 years old and he is senile…The urgency is that the poor guy has been sitting like this for half and hour.[/b]

It’s okay. This time.

[b]Termeh: If you hadn’t left, Dad wouldn’t be in jail.
Simin: You’re dad’s not in jail because of me. He hit a pregnant woman.
Termeh: She came 'cause you left.

…

Nader: I told Mrs. Kalani they are coming to investigate. To beware.
Termeh: Beware of what?
Nader: Beware of…That they are coming to investigate. Is that not okay?
Termeh: If she is to tell the truth, why should she beware?

…

Nader: I went there cause I have a sense of humanity.
Hodjat: Where was your sense of humanity when you were hitting her ?

…

Termeh: Did you lie?
Nader: What?
Termeh: Did you lie?
Nader: About what?
Termeh: When you said you didn’t know she was pregnant.
Nader: Why?
Termeh: You said you didn’t hear Ms. Qahraei and Razieh speaking.
Nader: Yes.
Termeh: Then how did you know that Ms. Qahraei gave her the number? Didn’t she say it at the same time?[/b]

Uh, oh.

[b]Termeh: If you knew she was pregnant, why did you hit her?
Nader: Look, I did know she was pregnant, but in that moment I didn’t. I had forgotten. This matter was not on my mind at all.
Termeh: Well…well go tell these exact things to the interogator.
Nader: My dear, the Law doesn’t understand such things, It says either you knew or you didn’t.

…

Termeh: Didn’t you say it’s not serious?
Nader: It got serious.

…

Nader [to Termeh]: If you think I’m guilty, go get your mom. We’ll call them and go pay them.[/b]

A narrative is a narrative is a narrative. The fact that it comes from aboriginals doesn’t change that. It’s a way for people living in a particular community to make sense of a particular world from a particular point of view. And because we are all people in ways that overlap we can take from the story things we find useful or meaningful. Sometimes we see ourselves here and sometimes we don’t.

Of course this narrative doesn’t have a whole lot of science behind it. Especially the part about “back at the beginning” when we are all little fishes in the waterhole.

But the most important point is always this: If you believe something is true then you act as though you believe it is true. And those who come into contact with you have no choice but to react accordingly. The rest [hopefully] is moderation, negociation and compromise.

Or else there is conflict.

wiki

De Heer rejected claims he is a white director making an indigenous story: “People talk about, what is a white director doing making an indigenous story? They’re telling the story, largely, and I’m the mechanism by which they can.”

trailer:
youtu.be/9Vzf9BAVGZc

TEN CANOES
Directed by Rolf de Heer, Peter Djigirr
Written by Rolf de Heer

[b]The storyteller: Once upon a time, far far away [gales of laughter]…Nah, not like that. I’m only joking. But I am going to tell you a story. It’s not your story. It’s my story. A story like you’ve never seen before.

…

The group: [all walking in a line]
Canoeist: Everyone stop!
[all stop and turn]
The Storyteller: That one is Djigirr. Djigirr talk too much, but maybe he heard something.
Canoeist: I refuse to walk at the end. Someone ahead keeps farting.
The group: [laughter] Not me. Not me.
Canoeist: It’s you again. You’re always so silent. Silent but deadly. Admit it.
Canoeist: Alright, it’s me.
Canoeist: You’re rotten inside.
Canoeist: I’m rotten inside.
Canoeist: You get to the end of line.

…

The storyteller: The men are cutting the bark off of trees to make canoes. And they talk about women, like always.

…

The storyteller: Then one day there was this stranger…He had the smell of someone very dangerous.

…

Canoeist [pointing to the stranger]: See how his prick is covered?
Canoeist: Maybe it’s a small one.
Canoeist: Never trust a man with a small prick.

…

Canoeist [looking down at a dead man he had just speared]: It’s the wrong stranger.

…

Canoeist: What if they come looking for us?
Canoeist: Deny everything.[/b]

They do but it doesn’t work.

Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, and Pride. The seven deadly sins in order of severity. Most of us have committed them, of course. If not in that particular order. And with a greater or a lesser degree of malice aforethought. But then that’s what rationalizations are for. To explain it away.

Or how about these: Chastity, Temperance, Charity, Diligence, Patience, Kindness, and Humility. The seven cardinal virtues. Aside from the first, no doubt, we’ve all been down these roads too.

Another religious nut doing God’s will. Just considerably more inventive this time. Oh, and also “independently wealthy”.

The thing about Detective Somerset is this: he has earned his cynicism. It’s not just a jaded, nihilistic “philosophy of life” rooted in the intellectual equivalent of ennui or existential angst. He has seen the worst life can dish out. But how far is that from all the other things life can be?

IMDb

[b]An interesting coincidence is that Se7en portrays religion in a pejorative light, and in private life, Brad Pitt openly admits his disdain for religion of any kind.

The ending narration of Somerset quoting Ernest Hemingway was an added compromise that neither David Fincher or Morgan Freeman particularly cared for. The decision came from New Line after poor test screenings regarding the dark ending.[/b]

SEVEN [SE7EN]
Directed by David Fincher

[b]Somerset: Did the kid see it?
Taylor: What?
Somerset: The kid.
Taylor: What the fuck sort of question is that? You know, we’re all going to be really glad when we get rid of you, Somerset. It’s always these questions with you. “Did the kid see it?” Who gives a fuck? He’s dead, his wife killed him. Anything else has nothing to do with us.

…

Somerset: I meant to ask you something before, when we spoke on the phone: Why here?
Mills: I don’t follow.
Somerset: Why all the effort to get transferred? It’s the first question that popped into my head.
Mills: I guess the same reasons as you. The same reasons you had before you decided to quit, yeah?
Somerset: Y… You just met me.
Mills: Maybe I’m not understanding the question.
Somerset: Very simple. You actually fought to get re-assigned here. I’ve just never seen it done that way before.

…

Police Officer: Nothing’s been touched. Everything’s like I found it.
Somerset: What time was death established?
Police Officer: Like I said, I didn’t touch anything… but he’s had his face in a plate of spaghetti for about forty five minutes now.
Mills: Wait a minute, no one bothers with vital signs?
Police Officer: Did I stutter? This guy ain’t breathing unless he’s breathing spaghetti sauce.
Mills: So that’s how it’s done around here.
Police Officer: I beg your pardon, Detective, but this guy’s been sitting in pile in his own piss and shit, if he wasn’t dead, he would have stood up by now.

…

Taxi driver: Where you headed?
Somerset: Far away from here.

…

Mills: Fuckin’ Dante… poetry-writing faggot! Piece of shit, motherfucker!

…

Somerset: In any major city, minding your own business is a science. First thing they teach women in rape prevention is that you should never cry “help.” Always scream “fire,” because people don’t answer to “help”. You holler “fire” they come running.

…

Mills: He’s fuckin’ with us!
[Mills bends over a desk]
Mills: See this? This is us.

…

Mills: Honestly, have you ever seen anything like this?
Somerset: No.

…

SWAT Team cop [preparing to break down a door]: SWAT goes before dicks.
Somerset: They love this.

…

Mills: Has he tried to speak or communicate in any way?
Dr. Beardsley: Even if his brain were not mush, which it is, he chewed off his own tongue long ago.
Somerset: Uh…Doc, is there absolutely no chance that he might survive?
Dr. Beardsley: Detective, he’d die of shock right now if you were to shine a flashlight in his eyes. He’s experienced about as much pain and suffering as anyone I’ve encountered, give or take…and he still has hell to look forward to.

…

Mills: He’s a nut bag. Just because the guy has a library card doesn’t make him Yoda.
Somerset [with the lightbulb going on over his head]: How much money have you got?

…

Somerset: For a long time, the F.B.I.'s been hooked into the library system, keeping accurate records. They monitor reading habits. Not every book, but certain ones are flagged. Books about… let’s say, how to build a nuclear bomb, or maybe Mein Kampf. Whoever takes out a flagged book has their library records fed to the F.B.I. from then on.
Mills: You got to be kidding. How is this legal?
Somerset: Legal…illegal. These terms don’t apply. They can’t use the information directly, but it’s a useful guide. It might sound silly, but you can’t get a library card without i.d. and a current phone bill.

…

Somerset [Reading from one of John Doe’s journals]: “What sick, ridiculous, puppets we are, and what a gross, little stage we dance on. What fun we have, dancing and fucking, not a care in the world. Not knowing that we are nothing. We are not what was intended. On the subway today, a man came up to me to start a conversation. He made small talk, a lonely man talking about the weather and other things. I tried to be pleasant and accommodating, but my head hurt from his banality. I almost didn’t notice it had happened, but I suddenly threw up all over him. He was not pleased, and I couldn’t stop laughing.”

…

Crazed Man in Massage Parlour: GET THIS THING OFF OF ME! GET THIS THING OFF OF ME!

…

Mills: You didn’t see anyone with a package, a knapsack, something under their arm?
Massage parlor employee: Everybody that comes in here has a package under their arms. Some guys are carrying suitcases full of stuff.

…

Mills: Do you like what you do for a living? These things you see?
Massage parlor employee: No, I don’t. But that’s life.

…

Somerset: This isn’t going to have a happy ending. If we catch John Doe and he turns out to be the devil, I mean if he’s Satan himself, that might live up to our expectations, but he’s not the devil. He’s just a man.

…

Somerset: People don’t want a hero, they want to eat cheeseburgers, play the lotto and watch television.
Somerset: I just don’t think I can continue to live in a place that embraces and nurtures apathy as if it was virtue.
Mills: You’re no different. You’re no better.
Somerset: I didn’t say I was different or better. I’m not. Hell, I sympathize; I sympathize completely. Apathy is the solution. I mean, it’s easier to lose yourself in drugs than it is to cope with life. It’s easier to steal what you want than it is to earn it. It’s easier to beat a child than it is to raise it. Hell, love costs: it takes effort and work.

…

Mills: We are talking about people who are mentally ill, we are talking about people who are fucking crazies.
Somerset: No. No, we’re not. We’re talking about everyday life here. You can’t afford to be this naive.

…

Mills: I don’t think you’re quitting because you believe these things you say. I don’t. I think you want to believe them, because you’re quitting. And you want me to agree with you, and you want me to say, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’re right. It’s all fucked up. It’s a fucking mess. We should all go live in a fucking log cabin.” But I won’t. I don’t agree with you. I do not. I can’t.[/b]

We’ll see about that.

[b]Detective: He cut off her nose…
Somerset: …to spite her face.

…

Somerset: If John Doe’s head splits open and a UFO should fly out, I want you to have expected it.

…

John Doe: Wanting people to listen, you can’t just tap them on the shoulder anymore. You have to hit them with a sledgehammer, and then you’ll notice you’ve got their strict attention.

…

Mills: I’ve been trying to figure something in my head, and maybe you can help me out, yeah? When a person is insane, as you clearly are, do you know that you’re insane? Maybe you’re just sitting around, reading “Guns and Ammo”, masturbating in your own feces, do you just stop and go, “Wow! It is amazing how fucking crazy I really am!”? Yeah. Do you guys do that?

…

Mills: Wait, I thought all you did was kill innocent people.
John Doe: Innocent? Is that supposed to be funny? An obese man…a disgusting man who could barely stand up; a man who if you saw him on the street, you’d point him out to your friends so that they could join you in mocking him; a man, who if you saw him while you were eating, you wouldn’t be able to finish your meal. After him, I picked the lawyer and I know you both must have been secretly thanking me for that one. This is a man who dedicated his life to making money by lying with every breath that he could muster to keeping murderers and rapists on the streets!
Mills: Murderers?
John Doe: A woman…
Mills: Murderers, John, like yourself?
John Doe: [interrupts] A woman…so ugly on the inside she couldn’t bear to go on living if she couldn’t be beautiful on the outside. A drug dealer, a drug dealing pederast, actually! And let’s not forget the disease-spreading whore! Only in a world this shitty could you even try to say these were innocent people and keep a straight face. But that’s the point. We see a deadly sin on every street corner, in every home, and we tolerate it. We tolerate it because it’s common, it’s trivial. We tolerate it morning, noon, and night. Well, not anymore. I’m setting the example. What I’ve done is going to be puzzled over and studied and followed…forever.

…

Mills: I seem to remember us knocking on your door.
John Doe: Oh, that’s right. And I seem to remember breaking your face. You’re only alive because I didn’t kill you.

…

John Doe: Don’t ask me to pity those people. I don’t mourn them any more than I do the thousands that died at Sodom and Gomorrah.
Somerset: Is that to say, John, that what you were doing was God’s good work?
John Doe: The Lord works in mysterious ways.

…

[Somerset looks at an object in the road]
Mills: What do you got?
Somerset: Dead dog.
John Doe: I didn’t do that

…

Mills: What was in the box? What was in the box?

…

John Doe: She begged for her life…
Somerset: Shut up!
John Doe: She begged for her life and…
Somerset: Shut up!
John Doe: She begged for her life and the life of the baby inside her.
[Somerset punches him]
John Doe: Oh… he didn’t know.

…

Somerset: David. If you kill him, he will win.

…

Somerset: Ernest Hemingway once wrote, “The world is a fine place and worth fighting for.” I agree with the second part.[/b]

I like prison movies. I don’t know why. And no, actually, I’ve never done time inside one.

Of course when the movie revolves around escaping from prison you are drawn mostly to how ingenius the plan is. And the sympathy you feel for those trying to get out. The best in this regard being [in my view] Escape From Alcatraz*. If for no other reason it actually happened. This one didn’t. The end in fact is particularly problematic: What the hell really did happen? And what was happening instead only inside his head? Shades of The Usual Suspects. Or, uh, Dallas?

So, taking all that into account, I think you’ll find The Escapist [cliches and all] is well done—but only if the twist at the end doesn’t end up pissing you off.

Aside from that, is this a realistic portrayal of how prison life is in a London Penitentiary? You tell me. It is one brutal thugfest. Remember Oz?

*Other good ones: Stalag 17, Papillon, Midnight Express, The Shawshank Redemption, The Great Escape.

IMDb

Director Rupert Wyatt said he based the plot on the Ambrose Bierce short story, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”. This is the book the lead character Frank Perry is shown reading and shows Rizza near the end of the film.

Look for Damian Lewis. He plays the terrorist here too.

trailer
youtu.be/FkiMZ5LXJJY

THE ESCAPIST
Written and directed by Rupert Wyatt

[b][The prisoners are racing – and betting on – ants]
Prisoner [pointing to an ant]: There’s a handicap! This one is missing a leg!

…

Prisoner: CATWALK!![/b]

New meat in other words. New holes.

[b]Perry: Stare at something else.

…

Drake: No chance. I’m a thief, not a magician.

…

Brodie: What about tools?
Perry: The Lord provides.

…

Perry [to Brodie]: Oh, one more thing. Just make sure you don’t get murdered tonight.

…

Perry: We’ve got options with Tony.
Drake: Yeah, I prefer the option that murders him.

…

Batista: If Tony knows, then Tony knows. He’s the devil on your back now. But if you want to trade, I give a trade. Ket’s a dangerous drug, but deadly when poisoned…you got me? If it looks, smells and tastes like Ket, Pssshoo!..who will know?
Perry: No one touches Tony. Rizza…
Batista: Rizza? Who is going to tell Rizza? Junkies die every day.

…

Perry: And Lacey, what happens to him now? He won’t be in the hole for long. Rizza will make sure of that. We’ll leave him for Rizza.
Drake: Which weighs more Frank, a ton of bricks or a ton of feathers?

…

Rizza: You know the one thing you’ve got going for you, Frank? You’re too old to die young.

…

Rizza: Where is he?
Perry: You know something? I’m free now. Like my little girl.

…

Perry [to Rizza]: You’re still living. But less and less. Inside, you own this place. You run things. You’re the king. But look around you, what do you see? It’s all pretend. It’s all made up. You own nothing. Nothing except cells, bars, and a rusty metal staircase. You’ll never live because outside you don’t exist. No one will remember you, no one.[/b]

The beautiful heiress and the handsome help. That’s original.

An adult atoning for something they did as a child is always going to be problematic. That what they did bore grievious consequences doesn’t make it any less so. And sometimes makes it all the more unbearable still.

The difficulty inherent in filming a novel such as this is there is no way to capture all that is necessary to understand about why these two people fell in love. Here she’s gorgeous and he’s gorgeous. There’s passionaite sex. But aside from that you know practically nothing about them as individuals. What makes them worth falling in love with? I never read the novel so maybe it is not there either. But it is definitely not here.

But it is a beautiful film to watch.

Oh yeah, and interspersed between the love and the loss they share is the Second World War. As though all the other folks don’t have their own loves and losses. The casualties in the hospitals, for example. The war seems to exist only as an obstacle separating them.

And what the hell kind of soldiers are these two? They seem to just wander about as they please.

ATONEMENT
Directed by Joe Wright

[b][Robbie has just broken a vase belonging to Cecilia’s family]
Cecilia: You idiot… You realize that’s probably the most valuable thing we own?
Robbie: Not anymore it isn’t.

…

What she was supposed to read:

“… you’d be forgiven for thinking me mad the way I acted this afternoon.The truth is, I feel rather lightheaded and foolish in your presence, Cee, and I don’t think I can blame the heat. Will you forgive me? Robbie.”

What she got instead:

“In my dreams I kiss your cunt, your sweet wet cunt. In my thoughts I make love to you all day long. Robbie.”

…

Briony, aged 13: Lola, can I tell you something? Something really terrible?
Lola: Yes please.
Briony, aged 13: What’s the worst word you can possibly imagine?

…

Lola: What’s Cecilia going to do?
Briony: I don’t know.
Lola: You ought to call the police.
Briony: Do you think so?
Lola: He said he thought about it ‘all day long.’ All you need do is show them the letter.

…

Cecilia: What was in the version I was meant to read?
Robbie: Don’t know…it was more formal, and less…
Cecilia: Anatomical?
Robbie: Yes.

…

Nettle: Come on, then. How come a toff like you, talks French and everything, ends up a private?
Robbie: Not eligible for officer training if you join direct from prison.
Nettle: You’re pulling my tit.
Robbie: No, I’m not: they gave me a choice, stay in prison or join the army. And, for the record, the last thing I am is a toff.

…

Cecilia [voiceover in letter to Robbie]: Briony found my address somehow and sent a letter. The first surprise was she didn’t go up to Cambridge. She’s doing nurse’s training at my old hospital. I think she may be doing this as some kind of penance. She says she’s beginning to get the full grasp of what she did and what it meant.

…

Nettle: No one speaks the fucking lingo out here. You can’t say ‘pass the biscuit’ or ‘where’s me hand grenade?’, they just shrug. Cause they hate us too. I mean, that’s the point. We fight in France and the French fucking hate us. Make me Home Secretary and I’ll sort this out in a fucking minute. We got India and Africa, right? Jerry can have France and Belgium and whatever else they want. Who’s fucking ever been to Poland? It’s all about room, empire. They want more empire, give 'em this shithole, we keep ours and it’s Bob’s your uncle and Fanny’s your fucking aunt! Think about it.

…

Robbie [voiceover]: Dearest Cecelia, the story can resume. The one I had been planning on that evening walk. I can become again the man who once walked across a Surrey park at dusk in my best suit, swaggering on the promise of life; the man who, with the clarity of passion, made love to you in the library. The story can resume.

…

Fiona: What’s it about?
Briony: It’s just…it’s about a young girl, a young and foolish girl, who sees something from her nursery window which she doesn’t understand, but she thinks she does…

…

Briony: What I did was terrible, I don’t expect you to forgive me.
Cecilia: Don’t worry, I won’t.

…

Robbie: What is she doing here?
Cecelia: She came to speak to me.
Robbie: Oh, yes? What about?
Briony: The terrible thing I did.
Robbie: I’ll be quite honest with you. I’m torn between breaking your neck here and throwing you down the stairs.

…

Robbie: Do you think I assaulted your cousin?
Briony: No.
Robbie: Did you think it then?
Briony: Yes, yes and no. I wasn’t certain.
Robbie: And what’s made you so certain now?
Briony: Growing up
Robbie: Growing up?
Briony: I was 13.
Robbie: And now you are 18. How old do you have to be before you know the difference between right and wrong? Do you have to be eighteen before you can own up to a lie? There are soldiers of eighteen old enough to be left to die on the side of the road! Did you know that?
Briony: Yes.
Robbie: Five years ago you didn’t care about telling the truth. You and all your family, you just assumed that for all my education, I was still little better than a servant, still not to be trusted. Thanks to you, they were able to close ranks and throw me to the fucking wolves.

…

Older Briony: You’ve read the book, you’ll understand why. I got first-hand accounts of all the events I didn’t personally witness, conditions in prison, the evacuation of Dunkirk, everything. But the effect of all this honesty was rather…pitiless, you see. I couldn’t any longer imagine what purpose would be served by it.
Interviewer: By what? By honesty?
Older Briony: Or reality. Because, in fact, I was too much of a coward to go and see my sister in June, 1940. I never made that journey to Balham. So the scene in which I confess to them is invented, imagined.And, in fact, could never have happened…because Robbie Turner died of septicaemia at Bray Dunes on the first of June 1940, the last day of the evacuation. And I was never able to put things right with my sister Cecilia…because she was killed on the 15th of October, 1940 by the bomb that destroyed the gas and water mains above Balham tube station.

…

Older Briony: So, my sister and Robbie were never able to have the time together they both so longed for… and deserved. Which ever since I’ve…ever since I’ve always felt I prevented. But what sense of hope or satisfaction could a reader derive from an ending like that? So in the book, I wanted to give Robbie and Cecilia what they lost out on in life. I’d like to think this isn’t weakness or…evasion…but a final act of kindness. I gave them their happiness.[/b]

But it’s not quite the same, is is?

The beautiful weather girl torn between two womanizing cads. So: Will she choose the one with considerable more substance? The one who is rich but not idle? Oh, and a renowned intellectual.

But the other is even more fabulously wealthy. And prettier than she is. But with a bigger flaw still: being borderline crazy.

So she picks the right one but it turns out he is addicted to all the pretty young things.

And then it is back to the other one. But that’s murder.

trailer:
youtu.be/pj5PaLxpwgA

A GIRL CUT IN TWO [La fille Coupée en Deux] 2007
Written and directed by Claude Chabrol

[b]Marie [Gabrielle’s mother]: He’s a high liver…
Gabrielle: Meaning he loves women?
Marie: He loves his wife. One of his best works is dedicated to her.

…

Gabrielle: My mother works in this bookstore.
Charles: So, you were brought up on books?
Gabrielle: Yes. That’s why I make it a point of honor never to open one.

…

Gabrielle: “A bon mot is worth a bad book.”
Charles: Jules Renard. Don’t tell me you also have the quotation disease?

…

Gabrielle: What do you do for a living?
Paul: I live.
Gabrielle: So, you live on your private income.
Paul: More or less.
Gabrielle: More than less?
Paul: Does that bother you?
Gabrielle: No, it’s rather nice. As long as you don’t feel useless.

…

Friend: He do that often?
Charles: Sexuality is one of the great mysteries of humanity.

…

Charles: I come here to work when I can’t bear the silence of the countryside.
Gabrielle: You think I’m stupid?[/b]

She knows what we know: It’s his love shack.

[b]Gabrielle: I must have seemed clumsy to you.
Charles: I’ll teach you.
Gabrielle: I get the feeling I’m not the first one you’ve brought here.
Charles: You could be the last.

…

Gabrielle: Meet you here later?
Charles: What do you mean?
Gabrielle: Not tonight?
Charles: Whoa little girl. You’re going too fast. I’m not a free man. I’ve been married for 25 years.
Gabrielle: So what?
Charles: I’m nearly 30 years older than you.
Gabrielle: So? Does that bother you?..What’s up?
Charles: “I dare undertake all and achieve all.”
Gabrielle: At a loss for words, Pops? You need to quote?
Charles: Trust me, Gabrielle. It’s for your own good.
Gabrielle [tossing the book he bought her at him]: Here, take you’re filth back. You know what? You make me sick.[/b]

And out she goes. This is a masterful scene. She absolutely thumps him! Utterly turns the tables!

Paul: I’m used to getting what I want, Honey, so don’t fight it.
Gabrielle: Not used to getting turned down are you, buster?

Only his handler intervening stops him from, well, strangling her.

[b]Marie: Then he won’t leave his wife.
Gabrielle: He will. But not just yet. He doesn’t want to hurt her.
Marie: How noble of him.

…

Geneviève [Paul’s mother]: When did you see Monsignor Godeau?
Gabrielle: Monsignor who?
Geneviève: Paul, explain.
Paul: Monsignor Godeau. He’s officiating at our wedding. We have to see him about preparations.
Gabrielle: What preparations?
Geneviève: My God, you’d think she’s never set foot in a church.
Paul: Mother!
Gabrielle: I’m off. Paul, darling, please remind your mother my name is Gabrielle.[/b]

It’s one of those gentry things. You marry into the entire famiy. And always on their terms.

[b]Geneviève [after Gabrielle leaves]: Paul, you are making a terrible mistake.
Paul: Certainly not the last one.

…

Charles: You really going to marry that guy? Do you realize he’s completely unstable?
Gabrielle: And you are the picture of stability? You’re a bastard Charles, a real bastard.
Charles: Let’s forget everything and start again.
Gabrielle: Yeah, right. The same old stuff. Steamy afternoons in your flat. Or whenever it suits you. And those twisted games among friends. How’d you put it? To see if I was really liberated. That’s how you want to start over? Is that how you love me? Well, I’m all grown up now thanks to you. “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.” Who said that?

…

Gabrielle: Look, it’s simple. Leave your wife, and I swear I won’t marry Paul Gaudens.

…

Gabrielle: It’s all over between us. Just help me forget him.
Paul: If you’d really forgotten him you wouldn’t need my help.[/b]

He’s got her there.

[b]Paul [to the guests after shooting Charles]: I, Paul Gaudens, I killed the beast. I killed the monster who corrupted my wife.

…

Gabrielle: I think I’ll tell the truth about Charles.
Capucine: It’ll only be your own truth.
Gabrielle: It’s the only one I know.

…

Geneviève: You’ve come for the money?
Gabrielle: I was at the prison. Paul won’t see me.
Geneviève: Surprised?
Gabrielle: I testified. His sentence was reduced. It’s a strange show of thanks.
Geneviève: You only told the truth. It’s time to grow up, child. You’ll get a letter from Paul tomorrow asking for a divorce. Believe me, you’re not about to get a cent out of us. You’re dismissed.[/b]

And then the final scene. You won’t believe it either: A girl cut in two.

Don’t think too much watching it. It has to look like what we are meant to think it is more than actually be that thing. A sort of extended fantasy in which the id and the libido fill in the parts that logic tries [in vain] to make more coherent.

If you don’t see pieces of youself in the movie then watch it again. And then watch again and again until you do spot them. Or, if nothing else, the film may well create them.

There’s no getting around the repitlian brain. Aside from repression. And we know where that leads: straight back to this.

IMDb

[b]As a young man, De Palma, at his mother’s urging, actually followed his father and used recording equipment to try and catch him with another woman. That incident inspired this film.

In the Angie Dickinson shower scene, a body double is used. When the film first came out the producers encouraged the then 48 year old Dickinson to claim the body was hers. However, it soon came out that it was actually Victoria Johnson (although initially it was suggested that it was de Palma’s wife Nancy Allen).[/b]

That’s important to know, I guess.

wiki

The film was the target of some backlash from the gay and transgender communities, who felt that its portrayal of transgender people was misguided and transphobic. In addition, De Palma was accused of being misogynistic by feminist groups.

transgenders in film:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgende … television

DRESSED TO KILL
Written and directed by Brian De Palma

[b]Typed on a Manhattan Department of Health notice sent to Warren Lockman—the man Kate has just slept with: YOU HAVE CONTRACTED A VENEREAL DISEASE

…

Voice of Bobbi on Elliott’s answering machine: “This is Bobbi. You won’t see me anymore, so I thought I’d have a little session with your machine. Oh Doctor, I’m so unhappy. I’m a woman trapped inside a man’s body–and you’re not helping me to get out! So I got a new shrink, Levy’s his name, he’s gonna sign the papers so I can get my operation. Oh…I borrowed your razor…and–well, you’ll read all about it. Some blonde bitch saw me, but I’ll get her.”

…

Detective: We got no leads, except a witness out there. Maybe she should take a look at all your patients that were around that morning. And that way I can be absolutely sure that my, uh, weirdo isn’t your, uh, person suffering from “emotional dysfunction and problems of mal-adaption”.

…

Liz: Thank god, straight fucks are still in style!

…

Liz: She must be his last appointment.

…

Elliott: Do you ever have sex that’s not paid for?
Liz: Is that a proposal?
Elliott: No, it’s what we psychologists call a question.

…

Liz: Do you want to fuck me?
Elliott: Oh, yes.
Liz: Then why don’t you?
Elliott: Because I’m a doctor and…
Liz: Fucked a lot of doctors.
Elliott: …and I’m married.
Liz: Fucked a lot of them, too.

…

Liz: So, what’s going to happen to Elliott?[/b]

Something terrible happens. And then everything changes. Iñárritu just takes us inside this particular web and shows us how the individual threads became intertwined. In other words, the things they have no knowledge of and the things they have no control over. The rest are the narratives they come up with to explain it.

The rich and the poor alike. If you don’t count options. But even wealth is meaningless in some contexts. And certainly love is.
But, come on, love is obviously more than a bitch.

Look for Ritchie in the hole. Certainly one of the strangest plot twists you are ever likely to see.

And El Chivo and his beloved dogs. A truly heartbreaking irony.

Amores Perros?

IMDb

The literal translation is Dogs Many Loves. “Amores” is translated from Spanish to English literally as “many loves” or figuratively as “goodness” or “sweetness”. “Perros” means “dogs” but has been translated as “wretchedness” or “misery”. Put together, “amores perros” translates as something like “that which is good and desirable in life” and “that which is miserable.” Posters for the movie often pose the question, ¿Qué es el amor? (What is love?), followed by the film title, “amores perros,” as a play on an answer, “amor es perros,” meaning “love is wretched” or “love’s a bitch”.

IMDb

Unlike most films, a disclaimer stating that no animals were harmed in the making of the movie comes at the beginning instead of being buried in the credits.

Define harmed.

wiki

Amores Perros is the first movie in Iñárritu’s trilogy of death, and was followed by 21 Grams and Babel. It is a triptych; an anthology film, sometimes referred to as the “Mexican Pulp Fiction”, containing three distinct stories which are connected by a car accident in Mexico City. Each of the three tales is also a reflection on the cruelty of humans toward animals and each other, showing how they may live dark or even hideous lives.

trailer:
youtu.be/XToRtfQbeHg

AMORES PERROS
Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu

[b]Jarocho: You have two choices. Pay me, or pay me.

…

Octavio [to Ramiro]: Being tough don’t make you smart.

…

Susana: Don’t wake him.
Ramiro: Why not?
Susana: It was hard to get him to sleep.
Ramiro: I never see him, do I, Baldy?
Susana: He’s been puking all day. He’s sick. Selfish bastard!
Ramiro: Shut the fuck up. I gave you the Walkman!

…

Octavio: Hey, fatso, I need you to do me a big favor.

…

Octavio [to Susana]: Don’t worry about Ramiro. He won’t fuck with us anymore, I’m sure.

…

Mother: Do you know what happened to your brother? He didn’t come home last night.
Octavio: No idea.
Mother: You don’t know? He got beat up bad.
Octavio: He must have pissed off a customer.
Mother: They threatened to kill him.
Octavio: God knows what he’s up to.
Mother: He left with the baby and Susana.
Octavio: Where to?
Mother: I don’t know where. Or if they’ll be back.[/b]

He heads straight for the “bank”.

[b]Octavio: Goddamn it! Motherfucker! And that bitch!

…

Valeria: Ritchie went into the hole.
Daniel: He’ll come out.
Valeria: It was 5 hours ago. I hear noises but he won’t come out.

…

Valeria: The rats ate Richie.
Daniel: Rats don’t eat dogs. They would get bitten.
Valeria: But there are thousands of them.
Daniel: We could put out some rat poison.
Valeria: But Ritchie would eat it.
Daniel: We could send a cat down there.
Valeria: A cat would fight with Ritchie.
Daniel [exploding]: SO WHAT THE FUCK DO WE DO?!![/b]

Then…

[b]Daniel: Everything will be fine.
Valeria: You’re not in my position. Look at my leg, it’ll be covered with scars.
Danieal: Plastic surgery has come a long way. You’ll hardly see any scars…
Valeria [exploding as Daniel caresses her leg]: DON’T FUCKING TOUCH ME!!

…

Daniel: Do you want some take-out…or to rent a movie?
Valeria: I’m not in the mood. I feel lousy.
Daniel: You’re going to be fine.
Valeria: Goddamn it! Is that all you can say?[/b]

Each and every day she becomes less and less beautiful…

[b]Valeria: Daniel…It’s Richie! He’s whining, listen. Listen, it’s him! Get him out.
Daniel: How?
Valeria: Tear up the floor or something!
Daniel: I can’t tear it up. I don’t have the money to fix it…
Valeria: Money doesn’t matter!
Daniel: It does right now.
Valeria: Get him out!
Daniel: He can get himself out!
Valeria: You faggot! You’ve always been selfish!
Daniel: I gave up everything for you!
Valeria: Yeah, your bitchy wife and your stupid daughters!
Daniel: Shut up or I’ll hit you!
Valeria: You piece of shit!
Daniel: Go fuck yourself! You and that stupid dog!
Valeria: You fucking asshole, drop dead! Drop dead, fucker! Fucker! Fucker!

…

Daniel: I’ll be back around two.
Valeria: If you never come back it’s okay too.

…

Man: Who is this friend? Is he a cop too?
Cop: No, he was locked up for 20 years.
Gustavo: What for?
Leonardo: He was a guerrilla.
Gustavo: Like the Zapatistas?
Leonardo: That’s right, only he was a real son of a bitch. He planted a bomb in a mall, kidnapped a banker, killed cops. He had an army after him, the White Brigade. You know who got him? Man: Who?
Leonardo: Me!

…

Susana [to Octavio]: You and your plans. You know what my grandmother used to say? If you want to make God laugh…tell Him your plans.

…

Susana [to Octavio]: Ramiro. The baby’s name will be Ramiro.

…

Luis: Is this kidnapping or robbery?
El Chivo: It could be the last day of your life.

…

El Chivo: Abel! Abel!

…

El Chivo [to Maru in phone message]: When I saw you last you were only two. Since then, not a day passes that I don’t think of you. The afternoon I went away I held you very tight. I took you in my arms. I begged forgiveness for what I was going to do. At the time, I thought there were more important things than being with you and your mom. I wanted to set the world right, and then share it with you. I failed, as you can see. I wound up in jail. Your mother and I agreed she would tell you I’d died. That was my idea, not hers. I swore to her I’d never try to see you again but I couldn’t do it. I was dying, I was as dead as I could be. I’ll be back to find you once I have the courage to look you in the eyes. I love you, my little girl.[/b]

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.