philosophy in film

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941

More dead to bring out. Only this time there is a rookie on the team. Tom. The veteran [Jimmy] has been around the block so many times he knows all the tricks of the trade. The things some have to do in order to handle the endless cascade of calamities.

Jimmy though is cool as a cucumber. And Tom will eventually find out why. Then he has to decide if he wants to be cool as a cucumber too. How does Jimmy stay cool as a cumcumber? Take a wild guess.

Now this assumes you are actually sensitive to the suffering of others. Remember Tom from Bringing Out the Dead? If you’re like this you don’t really agonize much at all. In fact, you kind of revel in it. It’s like being on one big joyride.

BOTD was the midnight shift in the urban junge. Here it’s always broad daylight in wide open sunny LA. But people are people when these guys are called. Just not in such dire straits. But the neighborhoods they service are both rather declasse.

Of course what you’re thinking is this: is this really what most paramedics go through? I mean it can’t be right?

Oh yeah: The problem with kicking dope is that it doesn’t make life stop coming at you. Then it’s only a matter of where each of us draws the line. But some folks got more strapped to their back than others.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_Vessels
trailer: youtu.be/sM_AvQBOd_o

BROKEN VESSELS [1998]
Directed by Scott Ziehl

[b]Tom [voiceover]: Jimmy was big on rules. His rules.

…

Jimmy: You tagged him. But he ain’t dead.

…

Jimmy [to Tom]: You are going to see shit on this job that the average person just doesn’t see.

…

Jimmy: I like coke…you like coke? Yeah, things go better with coke.

…

Tom [voiceover]: I knew I could have gotten off the train before it started. There were warning signs all over the track. But how do you pass up something like that? Jimmy was the coolest conductor you could have asked for.

…

Tom [voiceover]: Of course living with Jimmy was a lot different from living with Bob.

…

Jimmy [to Tom]: I see how it’s gonna be now. Some things are okay, some things aren’t okay. Gotta run things by you first, see if it passes your little code of fucking ethics. Fuck you.

…

Tom: It was wrong, Jimmy, it was wrong!
Jimmy: What?
Tom: Look, two hours ago we pulled this guy through and now you are stealing VCRs from Jed Clampett and his wife?!

…

Jimmy: You’re pathetic, Tom. You make me sick. How much you make an hour? Minimum fucking wage. We save people’s lives. We are the difference between life and death. Some guy flipping burgers makes more money than you. So cowboy up. And thank me for letting you be a part of Jimmy’s little tipping service.[/b]

Is this true? Paramedics in Los Angeles circa the 1990s made minimum wage? Of course these guys seemed to work for a “private ambulance service”. But what do I know.

[b]Gramps [to Tom]: When people talk about living, this ain’t what they’re talking about.

…

Tom [voiceover]: I’d be lying if I said the only reason I didn’t want Jimmy shooting is that he would end up like gramps. I know there is a part of me that wants to know how it would feel. And most of the time it was that part that was running things.

…

Tom: We’re the devil, we’re the devil, we’re evil, we’re evil, we’re evil, god, we’re evil!
Jimmy: Yeah, we’re the devil. Shut up!

…

Tom [to Elizabeth]: You ever do something…something that you can’t fix…something you can’t bring back to the way it was?

…

Jed: Suzy, what did I tell you about lighters?![/b]

942 
 Catherin Deneavueve took things to literally, and on that account she became too sensitive? Maybe.

Or maybe it was bad luck that she happened to live in an apartment manged by Polanski who became a tenant in a building very much resembing a knife in the water, much much later on. It was too late for poor Catherine, maybe kind of forshadowing or even prophetic for in incubus to inclict and incite a rose mary baby: and certainly sharon tate’s baby was not meant for a slash job either. Sensitivity at times, is a curse followed by some kind of possession. Funny how things seem to follow progressive chains of dehumanization. Maybe that’s is what happened to Tyrannus: he excommunicted himself through is own rite of redemption. I do not thins he will be successful, he may need a real ritual, an excorcism.
But excorcism doesn’t mean deportation, rather an importation of angelic beings.

943

Some films [some say] are meant to be watched high. And this is surely one of them. Unfortunately, I don’t have access to LSD or pot or Hash or pills anymore. That’s one of drawbacks of cutting yourself off from the world. But the film in itself is a kind of trip. Floating over the sometmes surreal, sometimes dreary, sometimes appalling lives of all the folks below. And it all unfolds in, around and over Tokyo’s “nasty underbelly”.

This is from the director of I Stand Alone and Irreversible above. So you know you won’t be bored. And, perhaps, even startled from time to time.

Oscar is another “youth” who has managed to disconnect himself from the sort of responsibilites that 99% of us are not able to. Or never had any intention to. He is all about what dope makes him feel. But dopeworld comes with strings attached. And it is almost always just a matter of time before your life gets all tangled up in them.

If nothing else, the audio visual experience [often distorted] is out of this world. But the part you think about is the relationship between the the past and the present, the traumatic and the routine. And the relationship between options and money. Oscar sells dope. Linda sells sex.

But politics, class, the state? They are just sort of out there somewhere floating in the background. Nothing new there right?

This is one of those films that make you ask, “why do people take these drugs?”. And it is one of those films that shows you why. It’s always dark here. The only light is artificial. From time to time the shot of a building festooned with a big neon sign: SEX MONEY POWER.

IMDb

[b]Most of the dialogue was improvised by the cast.

The film is shot in subjective camera, entirely from the point of view of the main character. For Enter the Void, Noé uses a subjective camera in the same manner. The main character Oscar is seen just once while the character is alive (in a mirror.) [/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enter_the_Void
trailer: youtu.be/_tG_b5zaT9Y

ENTER THE VOID [2009]
Written in part and directed by Gaspar Noé

[b]Oscar: Check out this book Alex gave me. It’s like, the, uh, Tibetan bible. The Tibetan Book of the Dead.
Linda: Alex the junkie?
Oscar: It’s about what happens after you die.
Linda: So you’re gonna become a Buddhist on me, huh? You know they’re all the same. The fucking Catholics, the Jews…Just a bunch of sects out to get their hands on your money. Is Alex going to make you a junkie or is he going to make you a fucking Buddhist?

…

Alex: You should finish reading The Book of the Dead. That would be a lot better than that dope you take.
Oscar: That book is still confusing to me. How would you explain it?
Alex: Um…it’s a bit hard to explain so, basically, when you die your spirit leaves your body… actually at first you can see all your life, like reflected in a magic mirror. Then you start floating like a ghost, you can see anything happening around you, you can hear everything but you can’t communicate. Then you see lights, lights of all different colours, these lights are the doors that pull you into other planes of existence, but most people actually like this world so much, that they don’t want to be taken away, so the whole thing turns into a bad trip, and the only way out is to get reincarnated. [/b]

Obviously.

[b]Victor [to Oscar]: I’m sorry…I’m sorry.

…

Oscar [shot, crumpling to the floor in a filthy club bathroom…betrayed by Victor]: They shot me…I can’t die now…they shot me…did they kill me?..I don’t want to die like this…not right now…I have a sister…Linda…they’re gonna test my blood…they’ll find me positive…they’re gonna put me in prison…it’s the police, isn’t it?..they’ll rape me…I can’t feel my arms…this isn’t happening…I’m just tripping…I’m tripping, that’s all…it’s the DMT…no, I’m still alive…I’m dying…am I dead?..none of this is real…what will happen to her?..Linda, my little sister…please, please help me…I need your help…I don’t want to die…I don’t want to die like this…I don’t want to die…

…

Alex [to Oscar]: You know, the good thing about LSD, if you can manage to overcome your fears, you can take the hallucinations wherever you want.

…

Alex: It’s funny, you know. DMT only last six minutes, but it really seems like eternity. It’s the same chemical that your brain releases when you die. It’s like, um, dying would be the ultimate trip.

…

Linda: You promise me you’ll never leave me?
Oscar: Of course.
Linda: We’ll die together.
Oscar: We’ll never die.

…

Linda: Don’t you ever want to find a real job?
Oscar [who is a drug dealer]: Fuck no. Everyone who has a job is just a slave.

…

Oscar: What did that guy want with you in the nightclub?
Linda: He offered me a job.
Oscar: Doing what?[/b]

Let’s just say this is not what most folks would call a “real job” either.

[b]Victor: Have you slept with my mother?
Oscar: What sare you talking about?
Victor: Have you fucked my mom?
[long pause]
Oscar: Yeah.

…

Linda [on phone]: Those assholes. First they said he had a gun. Now they won’t even do an autopsy!

…

Linda [emptying Oscar’s ashes into the sink]: This thing is not my brother.[/b]

944

In which we are asked to consider: What do we owe to the people who brought us into this world?

On the one hand, we never asked them to. On the other hand, they did their best to raise us. Or maybe not. There are so many goddamn ways in which these relationships can actually play themselves out in the real world. Only a fool would try to pass judgments here. But then the world is filled with those. And it’s not like we can always avoid it.

Kaisa has a father. But he is a “pile of shite”. And also a rather pathetic alcoholic. But her mother assigns her the task of bringing him back to Aberdeen. She needs to see him. Why? Because she is dying and there is something between them that must be settled. The rest is basically the road trip that father and daughter, uh, share. He’s a bit of a monster. But, in her own squallid way, she is just as screwed up as he is. For her it’s dope and the part she plays in the rat race.

And up to a point I’ve been here myself. I had a very close relationship with my own daughter. And all the way through high school. Then she went to college. Oberlin. She changed. I stayed the same. Except for the parts that got worse. And now today we are far, far removed.

Then it’s only a matter of how to make the narrative end.

One look at dad in the bar though and you know what’s coming down the road for both of them. I wonder how long he practiced it in the mirror.

Look for Cersei Lannister. Here to die for.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberdeen_(film
trailer: youtu.be/f82q3VWEUz8

ABERDEEN [2000]
Written in part and directed by Hans Petter Moland

[b]Kaisa: Mom said you wanted to come back for new treatment…said you had a new belief in life.
Tomas: I haven’t spoken to her…I haven’t talked to her in years. She’d be better off dead for all I care. She called me a couple of weeks ago. The first time in years. She asked me to marry her.
Kaisa: Excuse me, she proposed?
Tomas: Yep.

…

Kaisa [on the phone with her mom]: Where are you? I called you at home but no one asnwered.
Helen: I’m at the hospital.
Kaisa: No way. No way will he do that fucking treatement.
Helen: No, I’m in the hospital. I’ve got cancer, Kaisa. It’s pretty bad.

…

Kaisa: Fine, call security. Fucking Bitch, d’ya know that?
[puts middle finger up at her]
Airline Stewardess: Is that supposed to be a threat?
Kaisa: Err, no, no. It’s an index finger you dimwit, but that…
[shows a fist]
Kaisa: … that’s a fist. But not for hitting…for fist-fucking tight arsed pussies like your good self!

…

Dad: I don’t understand what has become of you. You might not remember but you used to be very sweet…Now you behave like the most predatory man. It’s unnatural.
Kaisa: Oh shut the fuck up!

…

Kaisa [after dad throws up on her]: Do you know how much this fucking suit cost?!

…

Kaisa: I lost my virginity while you were out there on that rig reading all that great literature of yours.
Dad: Well I’ve got a bad conscience about a lot of things, but that’s not one of them.
Kaisa: I was just a kid. That’s not what being a kid is about.
Dad: So what did I do wrong?
Kaisa: You got all night?
Dad: I was out there for two weeks, I was home for two weeks. What should I have done?! WHAT THE FUCK SHOULD I HAVE DONE?!!![/b]

“Normal things,” she says.

[b]Dad: If there’s one nail on the road, you’ll find it.

…

Kaisa: What’s happened to you?
Dad [after a pause]: I’m outdated. It’s unfashionable to have a mind of your own.

…

Tomas: You can’t leave her like that!
Clyde: Thomas. Grow up man. You’re in charge now.

…

Kaisa [to Tomas]: Why can’t you always be like this?

…

Tomas: I’m…I’m probably not your father. Your biological father.
[Kaisa is considering it]
Kaisa: Well…we’ll just have to take a gene test.

…

Tomas: I told Kaisa…I told her about my not being her father.
Helen: 15 years ago. 15 years ago in a fight and you have to remember now?
Tomas: I thought you were planning to tell her.
Helen: It was just shit then in the fight.
Tomas: What?
Helen: It was just something I said…I wanted to hurt you, that’s all.
Tomas: Well, you did.[/b]

See how these things work?

[b]Kaisa [to an empty room…her mother had died]: I never wanted a family or children. The risk was too great. Probably end up with a daughter like me. I didn’t think I could love anyone. But now I’m not sure.

…

Kaisa [to Tomas]: You’re off the hook. There’s no need for you to do time for me.[/b]

945

Even the crooks [the professionals] have fallen on lean times. The last thing they need then are more crooks [the amateurs] making things even worse. But there you go. Time to call Dillion. Or, if Dillion isn’t available, Jackie.

The conceit here [if that’s what you want to call it] is that in some respects there really isn’t a whole lot of difference between the economy that is run by crooks and the economy that is run by crony capitalists. What the capitalists do may be legal [wink, wink] but it is no less a stacked deck for the folks they have to trample on in order to secure their bottom line. Money is money is money here. And the golden rule is always the same: them that have the gold make the rules.

Then it just comes down to hiring the folks you need to enforce them. Of course the crony capitalists on Wall Street, in the White House and on Capital Hill don’t often employ folks like Jackie. And the suckers struggling to survive from paycheck to paycheck don’t often get blown away. But the pain they [and their loved ones] endure can at times seem no less excruciating.

This film confirms once again what the Sopranos made abundantly clears: That, unlike the folks running the crony capitalist scams, these guys ain’t too smart. In fact you might say they are some of the crudest dumb bastards you are ever likely to come upon.

With obvious exceptions.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_Them_Softly
trailer youtu.be/tDyaNnrgdp4

KILLING THEM SOFTLY [2012]
Written and directed by Andrew Dominik

Bush on the TV [while Frankie and Russell are robbing the mob’s poker game]: This is an extraordinary period for America’s economy. Over the past few weeks, many Americans have felt anxiety about their finances and their future. I understand their worries and frustration…We’re in the midst of a serious financial crisis and the federal government is responding with decisive action…I know many Americans have questions tonight. How did we reach this point in our economy? How would the solution I propose work? And what does this mean for your financial future? These are good questions and they deserve good answers.

Right.

[b]Driver: They told me when they heard Dillon wasn’t available that I was supposed to talk to the fella he sent. Is that you?
Jackie: I don’t see nobody else here to meet you. Do you?

…

Jackie: Who’s running things?
Driver [chuckling]: You have no idea. No decision makers. I gotta take em by the hand and I gotta walk em slowly through it like they’re retarded children.
Jackie: What is it, a committee?
Driver: Total corporate mentality.
Jackie: For Christ sakes. This country is fucked, I’m telling you. There’s a plague coming.

…

Man on talk radio: The use of financial force. That is Mr. Paulson’s plan, former head of Goldman Sachs. We should not be rolled by our Wall Street exec who is masquerading as Secretary of the Treasury.
Man on talk radio: So does this remind us of anything? Like the rush into Iraq on election eve a number of years ago?

…

Jackie: Now, aside from The Squirrel, we got the kids. Two kids. One of them’s the motor-mouth; drove to Florida with Kenny, Kenny Gill. Our Kenny, the guy he knows works for Dillon. Starts bragging about how he’s a big-time operator that just knocked over this guy’s game for 100K.
Driver [chuckles]: You serious?
Jackie: I don’t know what it is with these guys; they can’t keep their mouths shut about nothin’. And Kenny - Kenny’s just as dumb. The way I found out was, this guy’s investing his money in a couple ounces of smack. Once Kenny comes in with him, Kenny comes to me and wants to know what I think about that. I guess these guys, they just want to go to jail. Probably feel at home there.

…

Jackie: You ever kill anyone?
Driver: No.
Jackie: It can get touchy-feely.
Driver: Touchy-feely?
Jackie: Emotional, not fun, a lot of fuss. They cry. They plead. They beg. They piss themselves. They call for their mothers. It gets embarrassing. I like to kill them softly, from a distance. Not close enough for feelings. Don’t like feelings. Don’t want to think about them.

…

Obama [on the TV]: At the end of the day there’s no real seaparation between Wall Street and Main Street. There’s only the road we are all traveling on as Americans. We’ll rise and fall as one nation, as one people.

…

Jackie [to Frankie]: It’s not so much what you’ve been doing but what others think you’ve been doing.

…

Obama [on TV]: …it’s the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disable and not disabled…
Jackie [to the driver in a bar]: Ah, yes, we’re all the same. We’re all equal.
Obam [on TV]: …we have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of red states and blue states…
Jackie: Next he’ll be telling us we’re a community, we’re one people.

…

Obama (on TV): …to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth, that, out of many, we are one…
Driver: You hear that line? Line’s for you.
Jackie: Don’t make me laugh. One people. It’s a myth created by Thomas Jefferson.
Driver: Oh, so now you’re going to have a go at Jefferson, huh?
Jackie: My friend, Thomas Jefferson is an American saint because he wrote the words ‘All men are created equal’, words he clearly didn’t believe since he allowed his own children to live in slavery. He’s a rich white snob who’s sick of paying taxes to the Brits. So, yeah, he writes some lovely words and aroused the rabble and they went and died for those words while he sat back and drank his wine and fucked his slave girl. This guy wants to tell me we’re living in a community? Don’t make me laugh. I’m living in America, and in America you’re on your own. America’s not a country. It’s just a business. Now fuckin’ pay me.[/b]

946

When gangters get into ripping each other off their discussions about ethics can get particularly surreal. So when Johnny fixes a fight, expecting it to go off three to one, he really gets pissed off when other crooks start mucking around with the scam and the odds begin to…depreciate.

And the thing about gangsters is this: when they disagree about the, uh, ethics of a particular transaction they don’t just get banned from future exchanges [like, you know, we do here] but tend to settle these things more aggressively. Guns get pulled out and folks end up dead.

But fuck 'em, right? That’s just less gangsters we have around. Only there are always new ones to take their place. Plus there’s the collateral damage. Civilians, in other words.

Things get especially convoluted here because, well, for some of these characters the only way they understand the world is through stereotypes. Some are Jews, some are Irish, some are Italians. Then this gets all tangled up in hierarchy and politics and corruption. And family. And gambling. And grifters. In other words, you are never not watching your back…looking over your shoulder…because someone misunderstood [intentionally or otherwise] what the other guy says or does. Or even thinks.

It’s a very precarious…dangerous…world to fuck up in. And even if you don’t.

IMDb

[b]Writers Joel Coen and Ethan Coen suffered writer’s block while writing Miller’s Crossing (1990). They took a three week break and wrote Barton Fink (1991) a film about a writer with writer’s block.

‘Yegg’ is a US slang term, with three main meanings - safe-cracker, itinerant burglar, or thug. The last is the most likely meaning used in the context of this film. ‘Twist’ is a slang term for a girl or woman, often used derogatorily. ‘Schmatte’ is a Yiddish word for an old rag and was also used colloquially as a label for things of poor quality or anything worthless. Caspar’s use is derogatory, labeling Bernie worthless both as a man and as a Jew.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller’s_Crossing
trailer: youtu.be/hkJIcFMN_pc

MILLER’S CROSSING [1990]
Written and directed by the Coen brothers.

[b]Johnny: I’m talkin’ about friendship. I’m talkin’ about character. I’m talkin’ about – hell, Leo, I ain’t embarrassed to use the word – I’m talkin’ about ethics.

…

Johnny: So, back we go to these questions–friendship, character, ethics. So, it’s clear what I’m saying?
Leo: As mud.
Johnny: It’s gettin’ so a businessman can’t expect no return from a fixed fight. Now, if you can’t trust a fix, what can you trust? For a good return, you gotta go bettin’ on chance - and then you’re back with anarchy, right back in the jungle. That’s why ethics is important-- what separates us from the animals, the beasts of burden, the beasts of prey. Ethics.

…

Leo: So you wanna kill Bernie…
Eddie: For starters.

…

Leo: Johnny? You’re exactly as big as I let you be and no bigger, and don’t forget it, ever.

…

Tom: Think about what protecting Bernie gets us. Think about what offending Caspar loses us.
Leo: Oh, come on, Tommy. You know I don’t like to think.
Tom: Yeah. Well, think about whether you should start.

…

Tad: Wake up, Tommy.
Tom: I am awake.
Tad: Your eyes are shut.
Tom: Who you gonna believe?

…

Tom: Where’s me hat?
Tad: You bet it, mug. Good thing the game broke up before you bet your trousers.

…

Leo: Hello, Tommy. You know O’Doole and the mayor?
Tom: I oughta. Voted for him six times last May.
The mayor: And that ain’t the record, either.

…

Verna: Leo’s got the right idea. I like him, he’s honest and he’s got a heart.
Tom: Then it’s true what they say. Opposites attract.
Verna: Do me a favor. Mind your own business.
Tom: This is my business. Intimidating helpless women is my job.
Verna: Then go find one, and intimidate her.

…

[repeated line]
Tom: Nobody knows anybody. Not that well.

…

Tom: Rug Daniels is dead.
Verna: Gee, that’s tough.
Tom: Don’t get hysterical. I’ve had enough excitement for one night without a dame going all weepy on me.
Verna: I barely knew the gentleman.
Tom: Rug? A bit of a shakedown artist, not above the occasional grift. Bet you’d understand that. All in all, not a bad guy, if looks, brains and personality don’t count.

…

Verna: Maybe that’s why I like you, Tom. I never knew anybody that made being a son of a bitch such a point of pride.

…

Tom: Listen to me, Leo. Last night made you look vulnerable. You don’t hold elected office in this town. You run it because people think you run it. Once they stop thinking it, you stop running it.

…

Bernie: Tommy, you can’t do this! You don’t bump guys! You’re not like those animals back there. It’s not right, Tom! They can’t make us do this. It’s the wrong situation, they can’t make us different people than we are. We’re not muscle, Tom. I… I… I… never killed anybody. I used a little information for a chisel, that’s all. It’s my nature, Tom! I… I… I… can’t help it, somebody gives me an angle, I play it. I don’t deserve to die for that. Do you think I do?
[Tom doesn’t answer, he just keeps walking]
Bernie: I’m… I’m… I’m just a grifter, Tom. I’m… I’m… I’m… I’m… I’m an nobody! But I’ll tell you what, I never crossed a friend, Tom. I never killed anybody, I never crossed a friend, nor you, I’ll bet. We’re not like those animals! This is not us! Th… th… this is some hop dream! It’s a dream, Tommy! I’m praying to you! I can’t die! I can’t die out here in the woods, like a dumb animal! In the woods, LIKE A DUMB ANIMAL! Like a dumb animal! I can’t… I can’t… I CAN’T DIE OUT HERE IN THE WOODS!.. like a dumb animal. I can’t… die!
[Bernie falls to his knees, praying]
Bernie: I’m praying to you! Look in your heart! I’m praying to you! Look in your heart! I’m praying to you! Look in your heart! I’m praying to you! Look in your heart…
[Tom slowly aims his gun at Bernie]
Bernie: I’m praying to you! Look in your heart. I’m praying to you… look in your heart… look in your heart! You can’t kill me… look in your heart.

…

Johnny: The Dane doesn’t like you, but he wouldn’t cross me. We go back.
Tom: Of course there’s always that wild card when, uh, love is involved.

…

Eddie: Where’s Leo?
Hitman: If I tell you, how do I know you won’t kill me?
Eddie: Because if you told me and I killed you and you were lying I wouldn’t get to kill you then. Where’s Leo?
Hitman: He’s moving around. He’s getting his mob together tomorrow night. Whisky Nick’s.
Eddie: You sure?
Hitman: Check it. It’s gold.
Eddie: You know what, yegg? I believe you.
[shoots him]

…

Tom: You can’t hijack me, Tic-tac, we’re on the same side now. Or didn’t you get that far in school?

…

Eddie: How’d you get the fat lip?
Tom: Old war wound. Acts up around morons.
Eddie: Very smart. What were you doing at the club, talking things over with Leo?
Tom: Don’t think so hard, Eddie. You might sprain something.
Eddie: You are so goddamn smart. Except you ain’t.

…

Eddie: Well, we’ll go out to Miller’s Crossing… and we’ll see who’s smart.
[at Miller’s crossing]
Eddie: You understand if we don’t find a stiff out here, we leave a fresh one.

…

Johnny: If the Dane’s saying we should double-cross you…You double-cross once, where’s it all end? An interesting ethical question.

…

Tom [on the phone with Bernie]: If you want me to keep my mouth shut, it’s gonna cost you some dough. I figure a thousand bucks is reasonable, so I want two.

…

Bernie: Tommy…Tommy! Look in your heart…Look in your heart!
[Tom shoots him]
Tom: What heart?[/b]

947

In prison there are convicts who spend their days in “administrative segregation”. They are locked up in their cell for 23 hours with one hour alotted for exercise and/or a shower. Which means they are basically deprived of all contact with others of their own species. Some actually prefer it that way though. I know I would.

Most however become a part of what is called the “general population”. They get to intermingle with others [of their own bedraggled ilk] for so many hours a day. But that means dealing with folks that, on any given day, might be good or bad or ugly.

Things become especially problematic for a rich kid dumped into GP on a dope charge. He’ll need a “mentor”. Then he’ll have to decide if having one makes things more or less problematic. But the real scumbags here [as far as I am concerned] are the folks on the outside who continue to pass laws that make the possession or the sale of marijuana an actual criminal offense. Unlike, say, the possession or the sale of cigarettes and booze. Far, far more dangerous to all the rest of us.

And there is one thing for sure about most American prisons. If you are not an animal when you go in you will almost surely be one by the time you get out. And it’s a world bursting at the seams with absurd rules. But it is the rules the convicts impose [on each other] that will make or break most of them. Over and over again they find themselves in a situation where they don’t really want to do something that they don’t dare not do. They cover their buddy’s back no matter what. Even if they are this close to getting out. So Earl’s parole [after 18 yerars in prison] goes flying out the window for helping someone do something stupid that he tried to talk him out of—something that flushed the kid’s own early release date straight down the toilet. The fucking “convict’s code” they call it. So many wasted lives.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Factory
trailer: youtu.be/zSEsnpVmbFA

ANIMAL FACTORY [2000]
Directed by Steve Buscemi

948

Imagine hypothetically three Christian missionaries set out to save the souls of three different native tribes. The first one is successful. The folks in the first tribe accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior and are baptized in the faith. The second is not successful. The folks in the second tribe refuse to accept Christ as their personal savior and instead continue to embrace their own god…their own religion. The third missionary is not even able to find the tribe he was sent out to save.

Now imagine one member of each tribe dying on the same day a week later. What will be the fate of their souls? Will the man from the first tribe ascend to Heaven having embraced the Christian faith? Will the man from the second tribe burn in Hell for having rejected the Christian faith? And what of the man from the third tribe—he will have died never having even been made aware of the Christian faith. Where does his soul end up?

So, when you think about it like this you recognize just how absurd the work of missionaries really are. Or I do.

Here we are back in the 1630s though and the “blackrobes” are bent on pursuing souls with a vengance. And the “savages” were everywhere back then. Though not nearly as vanquished as they are today. And modern science was just getting started. So it was easier to imagine folks falling back on religion for all the answers.

One can only try to imagine there is a God looking down at all of this calamity: “And it was good”?

IMDb

[b]It took over four years to find financing for the film. No American studio was interested in doing it because it was about religion, so eventually the finance was drummed up from European and Canadian sources. Even with Oscar nominee Bruce Beresford expressing a desire to be at the helm, the Canadian investors were still very hard to convince. Until Beresford’s film Driving Miss Daisy (1989) scooped the 1989 Oscar for Best Film. The success of “Dances with Wolves” was also instrumental in helping the film to get made.

The ferocity of the torture scenes prompted accusations of racism from Native Americans. However, Brian Moore, who had done extensive research on the subject, had actually toned down the documented violence for both his book and his screenplay.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Robe_(film
trailer: youtu.be/hVfMsZMiSzY

BLACK ROBE [1991]
Directed by Bruce Beresford

[b]Champlain [to Father Bourque]: God should have made me a Jesuit. You have answers for everything.

…

Frenchman 1: Look at him, dressed like a savage chieftain. We’re not colonizing the Indians; they’re colonizing us.
Frenchman 2: Not me they’re not. I’m not becoming one of those wild woodsmen. In one more year, I’m going back to France.
Father Laforgue: Are you? Are any of us? If the winter doesn’t kill us, the Indians might. If they don’t, it could be the English. So keep your faith, and may death find you with God in mind.

…

Old Priest: [indicating his scars] The savages did this to me.
Father Laforgue: The indians? Why?
Old Priest: They are uncivilized, just as the English or Germans were before we came to them. I will be returning next month.
Father Laforgue: To New France?
Old Priest: The savages live in outer darkness. We must convert them. What more glorious task than that? What more glorious task!

…

Chomina [watching Laforgue write in his diary]: Blackrobe, what you do?
Father Laforgue: I am making words.
Chomina: Making words? You not speak.
Father Laforgue: I will show you. Tell me something.
Chomina: Tell what?
Father Laforgue: Something I do not know.
Chomina: My woman’s mother die in snow last winter.
[Laforgue writes it down and shows the book to Daniel]
Daniel: It says Chomina’s woman’s mother died in snow last winter.
Father Laforgue: I have still other, greater things I can teach you.
[later]
Ougebmat [to Chomina]: He is a demon!

…

Annuka: Is the Blackrobe a demon? He must be. Blackrobes never have sex with women.
Daniel: It’s a promise they make to their God.
Annuka: Why make a promise like that?
Daniel: Strange, isn’t it?

…

Daniel: Father, life is not so simple for the rest of us. I’m not a Jesuit.
Father Laforgue: You said you wanted to serve God.
Daniel: Yes, Father, but I…
Father Laforgue: I’m afraid of this country. The Devil rules here. He controls the hearts and minds of these poor people.
Daniel: But they are true Christians. They live for each other. They forgive things we would never forgive.
Father Laforgue: The Devil makes them resist the truth of our teachings.
Daniel: Why should they believe them? They have an afterworld of their own.
Father Laforgue: They have no concept of one.
Daniel: Annuka has told me they believe that in the forest at night the dead can see. The souls of men hunt the souls of animals.
Father Laforgue: Is that what she told you? It is childish, Daniel.
Daniel: Is it harder to believe in than Paradise where we all sit on clouds and look at God?

…

Chomina: Tomorrow do not cry out.
Daniel: If we do cry out, will they stop torturing us?
Chomina: No, they will not stop. But if you cry out when you die, they will have your spirit.

…

Father Laforgue: When I die, Chomina, I will go to paradise. Let me baptise you so I may take you with me.
Chomina: Why would I go to your paradise? Are my people there? My woman? My boy? There’s only blackrobes.

…

Father Laforgue: Lord, I beg you, show your mercy to these savage people, who will never look upon your face in Paradise.

…

Annuka: A dream is real. It must be obeyed.
Father Laforgue: We will do as she asks. What can we say to people who think that dreams are the real world; this one an illusion.
Daniel: Maybe they are right.

…

Father Jerome: Our only hope is that some believe that baptism will cure their fever. If they ask for baptism, we must have a great public ceremony at once.
Father Laforgue: Father Jerome, shouldn’t we - I mean, mustn’t they understand our faith before accepting it?
Father Jerome: Understand? But they are in danger of death, and we are offering them a place in Paradise.

…

Huron Man: The Blackrobes want us to give up the dream. To have only one wife. To stop killing our enemies. If we obey them, we will no longer be Hurons. And soon our enemies will know our weakness and wipe us from the earth.[/b]

Bingo:

Title card: Fifteen years later, the Hurons, having accepted Christianity, were routed and killed by their enemies, the Iroquois. The Jesuit mission to the Hurons was abandoned and the Jesuits returned to Quebec.

949

One of those films that is often described as an “epic”. And not just because it is four and one half hours long. Instead it sweeps across space and time to reveal many [ultimately] complex [mysterious] things about human interaction. Though set at a particular historical and cultural juncture there are enough elements here to transcend the implications of that. Dasein will always be a convoluted admixture of “I” and “we” evolving over one particular time rather than another. We all share this much in common. But we will never be able to take out of it more than we put into it: our own peculiar reaction derived from the junctures we have ourselves [individually] evolved from.

It is a narrative that can only be more fully grasped through the narratives of others. A particular class populated by particular gender norms derived from a particular God. There is simply no way [realistically] to appreciate what we see unfolding here because we did not live back then among the gentry.

In part, it recalls an era when to “be in love” was a whole different animal from what we are used to today. A world John Fowles captured perfectly in The Magus:

We lay on the ground and kissed. Perhaps you smile. That we only lay on the ground and kissed. You young people can lend your bodies now, play with them, give them as we could not. But remember that you have paid a price: that of a world rich in mystery and delicate emotion. It is not only species of animal that die out. But whole species of feeling. And if you are wise you will never pity the past for what it did not know. But pity yourself for what it did.

But this is no more a narrative than our own. And some things will never change when men and women become entangled in all of the other human-all-too-human contretempts we are ever fabricating and refabricating. After all, we didn’t invent the games that people play, did we?

Also, honor is everywhere here. But they were certainly no closer then than we are today in establishing what either is or is not the honorable thing to do. Only that another offends you if they behave in such a way that how you perceive your own honor has been affronted. Duels were common among a certain sort of refined people. Silly spectacles to be sure. But certainly not to them. For behind it all lay…God. Or certainly so for some.

It is a world that in so many ways is utterly preposterous to me. But no more so than my own would be utterly preposterous to them. We all do what we can to make sense of so many some things that can only be related to as and through a narrative—a story we tell ourselves about our place “out in the world”. But a story ever embedded in the stories we have been told by others. We all become only more or less self-conscious of how our identity is shaped and molded by these [at times] perplexing forces. Just contrast the characters here with the two main protagonists from Dangerous Liasons.

Well, before they learned their, uh, lesson.

Manuel: “What to us are but the things of life, are enormous tragedies to the nobility.”

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysteries_of_Lisbon
trailer: youtu.be/0dcLWLqrPf0

MYSTERIES OF LISBON [Mistérios de Lisboa] 2010
Directed by Raoul Ruiz

950

Kafka.

951

Just what we need: Another reminder of the gap between what we once dreamed our life would be and how it actually turned out instead. And smack dab in the middle of suburia no less. And this is the 1950s. That’s when it first began to dawn on some folks that the American Dream might not be all that it’s cracked up to be.

So, was it as painful for you as it was for me? You know, being trapped in all this?

But we do live in a world where somebody has got to do all the shit details. And there are a hell of a lot more jobs like that than the kind you can actually be fulfilled doing. So we need the actors who are fulfilled to play the characters who are not so we can at least imagine things being different in our own lives vicariously.

Of course most of us just sort of stumble into this frame of mind. Or it creeps up on us over the years. Our only recourse then is to find distractions that take us away from it. Here they are still relatively young [and white and beautiful]. They still have actual options available to them. But here’s the catch says Frank: Everything you’re saying makes sense…if I had a definite talent, if I were a writer or an artist.

Or some other marketable skill. A skill in other words you can both market and be fulfilled pursuing.

What is particularly surreal here though is the role the children play. Two of them. With a third on the way before being aborted. They will always be crucial [for most] in determining what options there are but here they just sort of float about in the background somewhere.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_Road_(film
trailer: youtu.be/qADM67ZgYxM

REVOLUTIONARY ROAD [2008]
Directed by Sam Mendes

[b]Frank: So, what do you do?
April: I’m studying to be an actress. You?
Frank: I’m a longshoreman.
April: No, I mean, really.
Frank: I mean really, too. Although starting next Monday I’m doing something a little more glamorous.
April: What’s that?
Frank: Night cashier at a cafeteria.

…

Frank [to April]: It strikes me that there’s a considerable amount of bullshit going on here. And there’s just a few things that I’d like to clear up. All right? Number one, it’s not my fault that the play was lousy. Okay? Number two, it sure as hell isn’t my fault that you didn’t turn out to be an actress, and the sooner you get over that little piece of soap opera, the better off we’re both going to be. Number three, I don’t happen to fit the role of dumb, insensitive suburban husband. You’ve been trying to lay that crap on me ever since we moved out here. And I’m damned if I’ll wear it!

…

Frank: Sweetheart, it’s just not very realistic, is all.
April: No, Frank. This is what’s unrealistic. It’s unrealistic for a man with a fine mind to go on working year after year at a job he can’t stand, coming home to a place he can’t stand, to a wife who’s equally unable to stand the same things. Do you want to know the worst part? Our whole existence here is based on this great premise that we’re special and superior to the whole thing. But we’re not. We’re just like everyone else. Look at us. We’ve bought into the same ridiculous delusion.

…

Frank: I work in the office. Actually, it’s…Well, it’s sort of a stupid job, really. There’s nothing interesting about it at all.
John: What do you do it for then?..I know, I know, it’s none of my business. And besides, I know the answer. You want to play house, you got to have a job. You want to play very nice house, very sweet house, then you’ve got to have a job you don’t like. Anyone comes along and says, “What do you do it for?” He’s probably on a four-hour pass from the state funny farm.

…

Frank: Maybe we are running to Paris. We’re running from the hopeless emptiness of the whole life here, right?
John: Hopeless emptiness? Now you’ve said it. Plenty of people are onto the emptiness, but it takes real guts to see the hopelessness. Wow.

…

April: If being crazy means living life as if it matters, then I don’t mind being completely insane.

…

April: …supposing you’re right. You make all this money and we have this interesting life here. Won’t you still be wasting your life toiling away at a job you find ridiculous?

…

April: You don’t want to go now, do you?
Frank: Come on, April. Of course, I do.
April: No, you don’t. Because you’ve never tried at anything. And if you don’t try at anything, you can’t fail.
Frank: What the hell do you mean I don’t try? I support you, don’t I? I pay for this house. I work 10 hours a day at a job I can’t stand.
April: You don’t have to.
Frank: Bullshit! Look, I’m not happy about it. But I have the backbone not to run away from my responsibilities.
April: It takes backbone to lead the life you want, Frank.

…

April: Tell me the truth, Frank, remember that? We used to live by it. And you know what’s so good about the truth? Everyone knows what it is however long they’ve lived without it. No one forgets the truth, Frank, they just get better at lying.

…

Frank: April, you just said our daughter was a mistake. How do I know you didn’t try to get rid of her, or Michael for that matter?
April: No.
Frank: How do I know you didn’t try to flush our entire fucking family down the toilet?
April: No, that’s not true. Of course I didn’t.
Frank: But how do I know, April? A normal woman, a normal sane mother doesn’t buy a piece of rubber tubing to give herself an abortion so she can live out some kind of a goddamn fantasy!

…

April: Frank knows what he wants, he found his place, he’s just fine. Married, two kids, it should be enough. It is for him. And he’s right; we were never special or destined for anything at all…I saw a whole other future. I can’t stop seeing it. Can’t leave…can’t stay.

…

Frank: Suppose we just say that people anywhere aren’t very well advised to have babies unless they can afford them.
John: Okay. Okay, it’s a question of money. Money’s a good reason. But it’s hardly ever the real reason. What’s the real reason? Wife talk you out of it or what? Little woman decide she isn’t quite ready to quit playing house? No, no, that’s not it. I can tell. She looks too tough and adequate as hell. Okay, then. It must’ve been you. What happened? What happened, Frank? You get cold feet? You decide you’re better off here after all? You figure it’s more comfy here in the old hopeless emptiness after all, huh? Oh, wow, that did it. Look at his face. What’s the matter, Wheeler? Am I getting warm? You know something? I wouldn’t be surprised if he knocked her up on purpose just so he could spend the rest of his life hiding behind a maternity dress. That way he’d never have to find out what he’s really made of!

…

John: Big man you got there, April. Big family man. I feel sorry for you. Still, maybe you deserve each other. I mean, the way you look right now, I’m beginning to feel sorry for him, too. You must give him a pretty bad time if making babies is the only way he can prove he’s got a pair of balls.

…

Frank: Do you know what the definition of insanity is? It’s the inability to relate to another human being. It’s the inability to love.
April: So now I’m crazy because I don’t love you, right? Is that the point?
Frank: No! Wrong! You’re not crazy, and you do love me. That’s the point, April.
April: But I don’t. I hate you. You were just some boy who made me laugh at a party once, and now I loathe the sight of you. In fact, if you come any closer, if you touch me or anything, I think I’ll scream.
Frank: Frank: Oh, come on, stop this April.
[He touches her for an instant and she screams at the top of her lungs before walking away. He chases after her]
Frank: Fuck you, April! Fuck you and all your hateful, goddamn -
[He breaks a chair against a wall]
April: What are you going to do now? Are you going to hit me? To show me how much you love me?
Frank: Don’t worry, I can’t be bothered! You’re not worth the trouble it would take to hit you! You’re not worth the powder it would take to blow you up. You are an empty, empty, hollow shell of a woman. I mean, what the hell are you doing in my house if you hate me so much? Why the hell are you married to me? What the hell are you doing carrying my child? I mean, why didn’t you just get rid of it when you had the chance? Because listen to me, listen to me, I got news for you - I wish to God that you had![/b]

952

I can only imagine what it must be like to view this film with a sophisticated understanding of Russian history. Well, up to the onset of the Russian revolution anyway. As it is I just let the camera take me back to whatever it is prepared to suggest that encompassed. It’s all from an obscure point of view anyway.

Here is how it is described at IMDb:

An unseen man regains consciousness, not knowing who or where he is. No one seems to be able to see him, except the mysterious man dressed in black. He eventually learns through their discussions that this man is a 19th century French aristocrat, who he coins the “European”. This turn of events is unusual as the unseen man has a knowledge of the present day. The two quickly learn that they are in the Winter Palace of the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, the European who has a comprehensive knowledge of Russian history to his time. As the two travel through the palace and its grounds, they interact with people from various eras of Russian history, either through events that have happened at the palace or through the viewing of artifacts housed in the museum. Ultimately, the unseen man’s desired journey is to move forward, with or without his European companion.

Actually, I could not possibly care less about such things. But it is truly a feast for the eyes. Sometimes I will it watch 2 or 3 times in a row.

IMDb

[b]Shot in a single take. The first three attempts were cut short by technical difficulties, but the fourth was successful.

Because the Hermitage museum had to be shut down, the production had only one day to shoot the film.

Over 4,500 people participated in the making of the film, both in front of and behind the scenes. This included extras, seamstresses, grips, orchestras and the Hermitage staff.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Ark
trailer: youtu.be/J–TDEHizVA

RUSSIAN ARK [Russkiy Kovcheg] 2002
Directed by Aleksandr Sokurov

953

You line 'em up I’ll knock them down. =;

954

Go figure. Here’s a heavy metal band that formed in 1978. It had a ton of potential. It’s a band that influenced other metal bands that went on to fame and fortune. But Anvil achieved neither one. Instead it sunk down into obscurity. Then this documentary comes out and the reaction [critical acclaim for instance] actually catapults them back into the spotlight. Next thing you know they are the opening act for groups like AC/DC and Saxon.

Plus they’re big in Japan.

I guess you might call it the Canadian equivalent of the American Dream.

Heavy Metal? Never much cared for it. Still don’t. I only bought the DVD because I thought it was another mockumentary. You know, like This is Spinal Tap. I mean, the band’s drummer’s name is Robb Reiner!

But this is a real band. And they are playing real music. If you want to call it that.

Metal music [I always presumed] was about “the show”—the show put on for American Youth. Boys. Kids. Pop culture at its most bathethic. This film is basically an attempt to understand why Anvil never made it big and [like all the other “hit” heavy metal bands] become pathetic too.

Sorry, it’s just a personal bias of mine. Like my reaction to country music.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anvil!_The_Story_of_Anvil
trailer: youtu.be/FF4H8lB2Y_o

ANVIL: THE STORY OF ANVIL [2008]
Directed by Sacha Gervasi

955

Seen it, there was only one rockumentary worth watching and that was Spinal Tap. #-o

956

Man pushes cart pushes man.

Sisyphus takes to the streets of New York City. Very early each and every morning he lumbers in the dark in and out of traffic from point A to point B. Pushing his food and beverage cart. Then at the end of the day he lumbers back with it. The whole point being just to do it…to subsist. The catch here is that once in another world we was a rock star. Literally, a rock star. He was “the Bono of Lahore”. But not anymore.

Why? How did he manage to tumble down so far? Politics? Religion? The war? Some personal calamity? We don’t know. Not for sure. We can only know these factors have played havoc with so many others from that part of the world. And we know that he has a son. And we know that forces byond his control keep him from seeing his son. And we know there are people who hold him responsible for the death of the boy’s mother. His wife.

But now to most [including many of his customers] he may as well be the invisible man.

And yet we also know this: that there are worse [a lot worse] jobs to be doing. And lives to be living. It’s just that nagging gap between his potential back then and his actual options now. But this is America. So it is not completely out of the question this might all change. Just not necessarily for the better.

Less a slice of life than one that is fast becoming crumbs.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_Push_Cart
trailer: youtu.be/kYGZwU11TV4

MAN PUSH CART [2005]
Written and directed by Ramin Bahrani

[b]Molly: Noel told me about your wife. How you had to leave your homeland.
Ahmad: Noel doesn’t know anything.
Molly: How can you say that. I think that what you did was beautiful. You gave up your dreams and your home for the woman you love. It’s great.
Ahmad [after a long pause]: My wife is dead. She died over a year ago. I’m just a Pakistani guy, you know, selling coffee and doughnuts. That’s it.

…

Vet: This is New York City. It’s the law, Ahmad. You can’t bury it in the city. You have to put it in a plastic bag. Tie it up and put it in another plastic bag. And then toss it in the garbage.

…

Ahmad: Did you see my cart?
Noori: Your cart?
Ahmad: I think my cart was stolen. I walked away for just a minute…and it was gone.
Noori: Ahmad, did you get insurance like I told you?
Ahmad: I couldn’t! I didn’t have money! Can you put it back on your insurance?
Noori: No, this is not like in Pakistan. This is America. Here you have to get things done in the right way.[/b]

Well, if you can afford to.

957

People do very strange things. Things in other words that, never in a million years, would you ever consider doing yourself. Why do they do them? Well, you can only begin by asking yourself, “how did they become who they think they are while I became who I think I am instead?”

And you know where I’d be going with that.

Jae-yeong is a prostitute. She looks to be all of 13 years old. So there are plenty of “clients”. Not only that but her best friend Yeo-jin [who looks to be about 15] is her pimp. What could possibly go wrong?

And yet it seems to explore prostitution as a far more ambiguous transaction. Jae-yeong appears to enjoy the encounters. She infuses the exchanges with more than just sex. The clients have names and jobs and personalities. Yeo-jin on the other hand – perhaps out of guilt that she’s not the one doing it – is basically repulsed by the fact that this is the only way they can get the money they need. In other words, it’s more complex then many would want it to be portrayed. Again, in part, because Jae-yeong looks like just “a kid”.

Or maybe because it appears that they love each other. There is a romantic, sexual relationahip between them. Or so it seems. What is particularly strange is how we learn absolutely nothing at all about Jae-yeong. With Yeo-jin we come to know her father. And we know her mother is dead. But Jae-yeong’s enigmatic behavior is just…there.

Why does she jump? What was she thinking? And why does her friend react to her death as she does? What sort of penance is that? What was she thinking?

The director was raised as a Catholic in a nation [Soth Korea] where Catholicism reflects about 10% of the population. Somehow the “lesson” here revolves around his own understanding of the relationship between morality and sin and guilt and…redemption? This is simply not how I think about these things myself.

Then Yeo-jin’s father finds out…and we have a whole other film. We go from the “samaritan girl” to “vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord.”

On the other hand, the ending is clearly ambiguous. Something about the need for all parents to [eventually] let go of their children. To allow them to fend for themselves out in what can be a cruel world.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samaritan_Girl
trailer: youtu.be/o8Y-xdHDfOE

SAMARITAN GIRL [Samaria] 2004
Written and directed by Ki-duk Kim

[b]Jae-yeong: There was a prostitute in India named Vasumitra.
Yeo-jin: Vasumitra. What a pretty name.
Jae-yeong: But they say that after men slept with her, they all became faithful Buddhists.
Yeo-jin: How so?
Jae-yeong: Since she’s a prostitute, by having sex I guess. Very happy sex.
Yeo-jin: Doing that turns them into Buddhists?
Jae-yeong: Maybe it aroused some deep maternal love. You see, men are like babies when they have sex.

…

Jae-yeong: I’m not dirty.
Yeo-lin: It’s filthy. You don’t know where those guys have been. I’m sorry I pulled you into this. Let’s stop. I’m scared it will scar me forever.
Jae-yeong: It’s not like we’re committing murder. It’s not that hard on me. I have a lot of fun. And we need the money to get to Europe. Let’s wait a bit more.
Yeo-jin: You seem like you’re enjoying it.
[Jae-yeong smiles]

…

Yeo-jin: What’s with you?!
Jae-yeong: What’s wrong with him buying us dinner?
Yeo-jin: You wanna eat with him after he used you?
Jae-yeong: Used me how?
Yeo-jin: They’re all filthy bastards!
Jae-yeong: Don’t say that. I’m the one who was with him. He’s such a good guy. He’s a musician. He even sang for me. Think all we do is have sex?

…

Yeo-jin [to her dying friend]: Jae-yeong, stop smiling. There is nothing to smile at. Stop smiling now! Stop smiling![/b]

She was smiling when she jumped too. Why? What is being conveyed by Kim here?

Client: I feel like I’m ten years younger. The hell with morals. Isn’t this happiness?
Yeo-jin: Was it also like this with Jae-yeong?
Client: It feels exactly the same. The ame for both of your smiles.
Yeo-jin: Jae-yeong is dead. She jumped out of that window, and her head cracked open.
Client [startled] Really?

Then she gives him his money back. Why, he asks, shouldn’t I be giving you money? Because I don’t need it anymore, she replies. Then he becomes like the Buddhist. Just as Jae-yeong predicted. Same with all the others.

Yeo-jin’s “client”: Why are you blocking me in? Move your car now.
Yeong-ki [Yeo-jin’s father, who is also a police detective]: How about a punch for every lie we make. I’ll ask first. Where were you just now?
Client: Why do I have to answer that to you?
Yeong-ki: One scond, two seconds…
Client: I was at a motel with a girl, so what?
Yeong-ki: How old was the girl? One second, two second…
[client says nothing]
Yeong-ki [louder]: Who old was the girl?! One second, two seconds…
[slaps client in the face]
Client: What thr hell are you doing?!
Yeong-ki: How old was the girl?
[he slaps him again…and again]
Client: Who the hell are you?!
Yeong-ki [slapping him]: Who do you think I am? Who do you think I am?!
[slaps him again]
Yeong-ki: Get the hell out of here. Before I kill you.

And he is just getting started.

958

Have you seen The Isle?

If not, you definitely should.

–

I watched Flight of the Red Balloon a few nights ago and it’s one of the most beautiful films I’ve seen, …also lots of gorgeous women.

959

Nope, not yet. But it’s on my list of “DVDs to purchase when I can get it for $10 or less”.

960

Tom Ripley. Yep, that Tom Ripley. The talented one. Only situated now in the world as it was back in 1960. But still no less cunning and duplicitous. There’s nothing he will not stoop to in order to secure his own advantage. Nothing.

After all, why, as a result of the fortuity that is birth should one guy have access to millions while another so much less fortunate in that regard has to struggle to make ends meet month in and month out. How moral can that be? For example, in the grand scheme of things? And Phillipe did fuck Tom out of $5,000 dollars. Back then a small fortune. Besides, he sometimes treats him like shit. Like a pet dog. Or a servant.

Some things are just much easier to rationalize than others.

He even makes it all into a game of sorts. He all but lays out his plan to kill Philippe and assume his identity. Philippe plays along. Right up to the point where Tom sticks a knife in his chest.

But now he has to pull off the rest of it: his voice, signature, passport etc… And some folks are not as easily fooled as others. For example, Freddy.

Unfortunately, the filmmakers had to fake the ending.

IMDb

Author Patricia Highsmith, on whose novel “Plein soleil” was based, expressed satisfaction with the film, which she called “very beautiful to the eye and interesting for the intellect,” and with Alain Delon’s performance as Tom Ripley. She was, however, disappointed with the film’s ending, calling it “a terrible concession to so-called public morality.”

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Noon
trailer: youtu.be/IZ3Yr58P1UM

PURPLE NOON [Plein Soleil] 1960
Written and directed René Clément