philosophy in film

Let’s start here: youtu.be/FDjJpmt-wzg

Modern love can be a strain.

In particular, postmodern love. And this plays out over and over and over again in film. You’re a couple. You are more or less in love but you are ever out in the world interacting with others. Or you invite others into your world.

What could possible go wrong?

Well, the more often others come within your orbit the greater the likelihood that the variables will shift and the relationship may come into jeopardy. For men it often revolves around new sex. For women, new love. But there are so many possible combinations of the two that sustaining a loving relationship becomes increasingly more problematic in our modern world.

You do agree, right?

And, of course, if the couple sustain a high profile, glamorous, jet-set attachment because one of them is “a famous rock star” things just get that much more complicated. Or, as one reviewer put it, “not about or for ordinary people”.

On the other hand, how far removed are the ordinary people among us from these sort of tempestuous relationships?

Here we go back and forth in time. It allows us to speculate on how one particular present evolved uniquely from one particular past. But that just reminds us of how many other different paths that it might have gone on instead.

Look for the most obnoxious character to come along in years. Larger than life I think they call them.

IMDb

[b]Director Luca Guadagnino, screenwriter David Kajganich and actress Tilda Swinton revealed that Marianne Lane is a mix of David Bowie, Chrissie Hynde, Patti Smith, PJ Harvey, Peaches, Joan Jett and Roisin Murphy. Marianne’s look in the opening scene is similar to David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust era.

Initially, Tilda Swinton didn’t want to do this movie. Not this one nor others, due to the recent death of her mother, she ended up changing her mind and proposed the idea of this woman unable to speak into the established story of ancient histories and new lives thrown into relief by one another. Not only as a twist to ramp up the tensions between the characters, but also as a way of exploring the possibilities of silence in a portrait of a character surrounded by the noise of others and the legacy of the noise she had herself made in the past.[/b]

trivia at IMDb: imdb.com/title/tt2056771/tri … =ttqu_sa_1
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Bigger_Splash_(film
trailer: youtu.be/3zC13ekq1Sk

A BIGGER SPLASH [2015]
Directed by Luca Guadagnino

Harry: Oh, Penny, Penny, come here! Right, Pen, meet Marianne and Paul.
Penny: Hi!
Paul: Oh, you brought a protege. Nice to meet you.
Penny: I’m his daughter.

Cue Lolita.

[b]Paul [watching Harry take a piss]: Harry, come on, that’s a grave.
Harry: Yeah, well, Europe is a grave.

Paul: Mm. You’re on your college break? On your Grand Tour?
Penelope: Yep. Normally I’d be spending the summer in Connecticut with my mother, but she gets sick of me. She gets sick of me and she just ships me off somewhere. This year, it was to Harry.

Harry [to Paul of Marianne’s laryngitus]: Is she like this when you fuck? I mean, how does it work? Does she write you a note when she cums?

Harry: I’ve been teaching myself some Italian finally.
Paul: Oh! 101 useful phrases?
Harry: Well, no, I’m not reading Boccaccio if that’s what you mean. Vaffanculo. Go fuck yourself. Go take it up the arse, in fact. Cacasentenze. Someone who pretends to be very smart, who won’t stop talking, one who shits sentences. And my favourite is vomitare I’anima. To puke your guts up. Literally, to vomit your soul.

Harry [to Paul on Marianne]: She’s the woman of the century. And I’m talking about her soul now.

Harry: And on top of all of that, Marianne’s a trumpets-of-Jericho, white-hot fuck.
Paul: I don’t want to hear it.
Harry: She fucks and she fucks and she fucks.

Harry: Now, frankly, it’s sentimental to think you can help Paul by not drinking in front of him, or not talking about it for that matter. Come on, it was a year ago. I mean, if he can’t even hear the subject mentioned, you don’t have to go kicking over glasses and it’s just ridiculous. And people talk about addiction, they talk about suicide. It happens. You know, I doubt he wanted to kill himself anyway. If you ask me, he wanted to kill the whole world, Marianne.

Penelope: My trouble is that I fall in love with every pretty thing.
Paul: That sounds paralyzing.

Harry: What’s the point of Paul in your life now? I was angry with you. Yeah, I know I was slutting around, but you took everything so hard and now look what I’ve done. I’ve…thrown you this square. Yeah, he’s square, Marianne. He’s a square bear. He’s all cuddly and built for hibernating with and he’s stuck.

Penelope: You must have been really desperate to crash your car like that.
Paul: Excuse me?
Penelope: He said you were shot out of it, really far…and you didn’t leave a note or anything.
Paul: That’s what he said?
Penelope: He thinks it’s the most interesting thing you’ve done. He thinks you’re too conceited to stand being addicted to anything. I’m guessing he’s talking about drinking. Paul: Are you waiting for a reaction or something? Don’t waste your time.

Marianne: He’d fuck everything.
Paul: That’s what I’m saying.
Marianne: He doesn’t believe in limits.
Paul: Well, if you’re talking about Penelope, I’ll tell you that whatever’s going on there, it’s mutual and it’s a great couple…Come on, look at them.

Penelope [to Marianne]: They both tell me yes, but I don’t think he really is my father. I mean, we don’t even really look, or act very much alike at all. I’m going to ask him to take the test. There are reasons I’d like to know. Private reasons.[/b]

Very private one suspects.

Harry: Anyway, you will find your way back to it. You just got to get your finance, good editor, some guts.
Paul: Just shut the fuck up, all right? Just stop talking and we’ll be fine. Can you do that?

Thanks Paul.

[b]Harry: Honesty is the greatest fidelity.
Paul: Yeah, well, the world is not ready for your honesty.

Marianne: It can look a bit full-on, a bit, you know, it could… in a situation like last night, it could be misconstrued.
Harry: What do you mean? What do you mean, Marianne?
Marianne: How you treat Penelope.
Harry: What shit! I’m too brash. I’m too impulsive. I’m too a lot of things, but Christ, I’m sound. I mean, look, if you asked me, do I find my daughter sexy? Have I caught myself enjoying the sight of her? Yeah, I have. I didn’t know her until a year ago, so yeah, it’s a little odd. I acknowledge and I deal with the shit that goes on in my head.

Harry: They used to process slaves on this island. Did you know that? I hate this fucking island. Matianne: Look, let’s not get things confused!
Harry [shouting with people all around]: I’m not fucking my daughter!

Paul: I did leave a note. But anyway we tore it apart when I, uh…when I got out of the hospital.
Penelope: You and Marianne?
Paul: Yeah.
Penelope: What did it say?
Paul: Uh, just her name. I wanted to write it down one last time.

Harry: Did you fuck her or not? Did you fuck her or not?!
Paul: Did you fuck Marianne?
Harry: It’s not the same, man. You know what the problem is…I gave you too much credit. We were friends. Better than brothers. Better than all those shits in their lofts talking about who the fuck cares what And now you just…you just tolerate me. Do you know how offensive that is to me? Think what you want, judge the hell out of me, but don’t fucking tolerate me. You don’t deserve either of them.
Paul: Neither do you.
Harry: You have no idea of the shit that I got her out of…off of.
Paul: Well, I got her off you.
Harry: What? I gave her to you.
Paul: You’re obscene.
Harry: We’re all obscene. Everyone’s obscene. That’s the whole fucking point. We see it and we love each other anyway.

Clara: Madam, madam, wake up. Mr Harry in the pool. Dead.

Paul [to Marianne sobbing]: I tried to save him. I tried, I tried, I tried. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry.

Marianne: Why did you lie to us?
Penelope: I didn’t lie.
Marianne: You’re not 22, you’re 17. Christ, you’re still in high school. You speak Italian. And you sat there over and over with people struggling to communicate with one another. You like to watch people having a hard time. Is that it? Is that the kind of woman you want to be?
Penelope: I would just rather be left alone. It’s different.
Marianne: No! That’s not different. I wasn’t your enemy. None of us was.
Penelope [chuckling]: Don’t let it upset you, okay?
[Marianne slaps her – hard – across the face][/b]

Chesley Sullenberger. Sully. The all-American hero.

Or was he?

First it had to be established that he was in fact an actual hero. Sure, he brought the plane down in the Hudson and everyone – 155 souls – were safe. But what if the reason that he was forced to bring the plane down there in the first place was because of something that he had done. Or something that he should have done instead but didn’t. No one would have had to be saved if he himself hadn’t put them in danger.

Yes, the birds caused the initial calamity. But was it really as bad as Sully insisted? Were both engines out? And was it really necessary to drop the plane in the drink instead of landing it at LaGuardia?

Here things get all tangled up in the age-old conundrum: man vs. machine. Relying or not relying on computers to make the decisions. Or relying on them to judge the decisions that we mere mortals make. That ubiquitous “human factor”.

In turn, this is yet another peek into how, in a very short time, somebody that almost no one knew about, becomes somebody that almost everyone knows about. The making of a celebrity in our post-modern world. The parts that are the stuff of dreams and the parts that are the stuff of nightmares.

Also, look for the part where most of us won’t have a clue as to what they are talking about. The “technical” jargon involved in flying a jet liner “in crisis”.

And how hard is it to land a jet plane on the Hudson River? Most of us wouldn’t really have a clue.

IMDb

[b]Clint Eastwood deliberately filmed the escape onto the life raft without rehearsal to capture the physical difficulty of releasing the raft. Tom Hanks and Aaron Eckhart’s actions were unscripted.

Near the end of the movie, when Sully is before the NTSB, he tells them they forgot to use the human factor, when they used simulations to show he could have gotten to an airport. They relented and added 35 seconds to the simulation before the simulated pilots reacted to the problem. The actual time, from the bird strike, was 58 seconds…a 23-second difference.[/b]

IMDb trivia: imdb.com/title/tt3263904/tri … =ttqu_sa_1
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sully_(film
trailer: youtu.be/mjKEXxO2KNE

SULLY [2016]
Directed by Clint Eastwood

[b]Passenger [being interviewed]: You think you’re gonna die, that’s what you think. And then, miraculously you don’t! Thank you Captain, Thank you! Thank you! Thank you Captain Sullenberger for being here today…

Charles: For the record. We have an aircraft system investigation and also aircraft structures, MRT…aircraft perfomance, ATC, wide life factors, survival factors and emergency response. Today we begin with our operations, human performance and investigations. On the crash of US Flight 1549.
Sully: The water landing.
Charles: Captain?
Sully: This was not a crash, it was a water landing. We knew what we were trying to execute here. It was not a crash, it was a forced water landing.
Charles: Why didn’t you attempt to return to LaGuardia?
Sully: There simply was not enough altitude. The Hudson was the only place long enough and smooth enough and wide enough to even attempt a landing.[/b]

Is he telling the truth? Or is it enough that he thinks he is telling the truth? Then this part:

[b]Charles: Let’s get into how you calculated all those parameters.
Sully: There was no time for calculating. I had relied on my experience of managing the altitude and speed of thousands of flights over four decades.
Charles: You’re saying you didn’t do it…
Sully: I eyeballed it.
Charles: You eyeballed it?
Sully: Yes. The best chance those passengers had was on that River. And I bet my life on it. In fact, I did. And I would do it again.

Ben: Aviation engineers are theorizing that you had enough energy to make it back to the runway.
Sully: Well, engineers are not pilots. They’re wrong. And they weren’t there.
Ben: Regardless, we have to follow up on all implications as part of our investigation.
Charles: Our computers will run retrun scenario algorthms thriving scenario. It will generate simulations with your exact parameters… the engine loss, the altitude, everything you faced when you made your decision.
Sully: I would like to oversee those computer simulations.
Ben: Not possible during the investigation.

Ben: You stated there was a dual engine failure due to multiple bird strikes? That would be unprecedented!
Sully: Everything is unprecedented, until it happens for the first time.

Lorrie [Sully’s wife on the phone]: There are reporters who would give an update. Inside the mind of Sully. What should I tell them?

Lorrie [to Sully on the phone while watching a news report on TV]: The whole world is talking about you. My Sully.

Katie Couric [as Sully imagines/dreams her on TV]: Why Captain Sullenberger made that faithful decision to turn the Hudson into a runway? Well, only he can answer. But we now know, it was the wrong choice. A choice that endangered the lives of all of those on board. So, while much of the country hails him as a hero… this new information will certainly change everyone’s understanding of the so called Miracle on the Hudson…Sully Sullenberger, are you a hero, or a fraud?

Sully: I don’t like not being in control of the process.
Jeff: Yeah! Well, 6 months from now, we’ll just be laughing about how we got to meet David Letterman.
Sully: We’re doing David Letterman?
Jeff: Yeah, right after next NTSB interview.

Official: Arnie Gentile called. He has the ACARS data. The left engine was still operating at idle.
Sully: Not possible, I felt it go. It was like we were stopped in mid-air.
Official: Arnie said there was a chance it was sub-idle. That it still could get thrust. I’m just letting you know, since the NTSB already does.

Jeff: Look, I just finished training on the AR320 and I can tell you the only reason the plane operated as well as it did…that the aircraft could land anywhere…is because Captain Sullenberger turned on the auxiliary power unit.
Elizabeth: He was simply following the QRH.
Jeff: No, no he wasn’t. He wasn’t following proper procedure at all. And I know because I had the QRH in my hands. He switched on the APU immediately after engine blowback. According to the Airbus that’s the 15th thing on the list to do. 15th! If he had followed the damn rules, we’d all be dead.

Elizabeth: The evidence shows that the left engine was at idle or sub-idle immediately following the bird strike.
Sully: You show me the left engine, I’ll show you dead birds and no power.
Elizabeth: The left engine was lost in the crash, due to excessive damage on touchdown.

Charles: We were able to run the all algorithms and the resulting…the computer simulations of US Airways Flight 1549 showed that the Aviation Engineers were correct. There was enough altitude and speed after the bird strike for a successful return to LaGuardia.
Sully: Successful?
Charles: The plane landed at LaGuardia intact, undamaged.
Jeff: You got that from one computer simulation?
Ben: No, 20. Including attempts made for Teterboro runways 19 and LaGuardia runways 22 and 13. Every Computer simulation with the exact flight parameters demonstrated… that return to LaGuardia was possible. And not just possible, probable.

Jeff: They’re playing Pac-Man, and we were flying a plane full of human beings.
Sully: Somehow this…that’s not how I’ll remember it. It just doesn’t seem right.

Sully [on the phone]: Worst case scenario: The NTSB lists me as the probable cause. That’s immediate retirement, no pension. My life work gone.
Lorrie: Ok you’re scaring me now, Sully. What is going on?
Sully: The left engine might have still been idle-ing…and the AirBus simulations say I could have made it back to LaGuardia safely.

Sully: Birds!!!
Jeff: Oh shit!

Sully [to the passengers]: This is the Captain, brace for impact.
Passenger: What?!
Flight attendants [in unison]: Brace, brace, brace…heads down, stay down! Brace, brace, brace…heads down, stay down! Brace, brace, brace…heads down, stay down! Brace, brace, brace…heads down, stay down! Brace, brace, brace…heads down, stay down!

Bartender [after Sully walks into a pub and sits at the bar]: Hey, is that you? Are you the pilot, Sully? that is you, right?
Sully: Yeah.
Bartender: Hey, it’s a pleasure to meet you. That was unreal what you did the other day, that was really something. It’s a real pleasure to meet you. You know, we invented a drink after you as soon as that happened, ain’t that right, Johnny?
Johnny: Yeah, yeah, you did.
Bartender: The Sully: It’s a shot of Grey Goose with a splash of water.

Jeff [to Sully]: I’ve never been so happy to be in New York in my life!

Sully [on phone]: I know that AirBus has simulations scheduled for the S42 center at the factory. But that’s next week, in Toulouse. Can you get them to reschedule?
Larry: It’s 1:30 in the morning.
Sully: I need you to make it happen, before we listen to the CVR. Before our testimony is complete.
Larry: Why?
Sully: I have a right to see the simulations, and I have a feeling that with human pilots and not a computer, the results are going to be different.
Larry: What if they show the exact same result?
Sully: If they do, then I’ll hand in my wings myself.

Sully: Can we get serious now?
Charles: Captain?
Sully: We’ve all heard about the computer simulations and now we are watching actual sims but I can’t quite believe that you still have not taken into account the human factor.
Charles: Human pilot simulations show that you could have made it back to the airport.
Sully: No, they don’t. These pilots were not behaving like human beings. Like people who were experiencing this for the first time.
Charles: Well, they may not be reacting like you did.
Sully: Immediately after the bird strike they are turning back for the airport. Just as in the computer sims, correct?
Charles: That is correct.
Sully: They obviously knew the turn and exactly which heading to fly. They did not run a check, they did not switch on the APU.
Charles: They had all the same paremeters that you faced.
Sully: No one warned us. No one said: “You are going to lose both engines at a lower altitude than any jet in history. But be cool. Just make a left turn for LaGuardia like you’re going back to pick up the milk”. This was a dual engine loss at 2800 feet followed by immediate water landing…155 souls on board. No one has ever trained for an incident like that. No one…You’ve allowed no time for analysis or decision making. In these simulations, you’re taking all of the humanity out of the cockpit. How much time did the pilots spent planning… for this event. For these simulations? You are looking for human error. Then make it human.
Jeff: This wasn’t a videogame. It was life and death.

Sully: Please ask how many practice runs they had.
Elizabeth: 17. The pilot who landed at Teterboro had 17 practice attempts before the simulation we just witnessed.

Sully [at the CVR]: Does anyone need to see more simulations?
Jeff: Now that we’ve seen what could have happened, can we listen to what actually did?[/b]

Then they listen to the cockpit recordings.

[b]Sully [looking at Jeff 10 seconds before ditching and asks]: You got any ideas?

Elizabeth: Gentlemen, I want to inform you that the left engine has been recovered. We just received the comprehensive report. There was extensive damage to both the guide vanes and fan blades blades at the engine…5 compressor blades were fractured…and 8 variable guide vanes, missing.
Sully: So no thrust.
Elizabeth: As you testified, it was completely destroyed.

Elizabeth: I’d like to add something on a personal note: I can say with confidence, that after speaking with the rest of the flight crew, with bird experts and airplane engineers, after running all the scenarios and talking to each of the players there is an X in this result. It’s you, Captain Sullenberger. Take you out of the equation and the math just fails.
Sully: I disagree. It wasn’t just me, it was all of us. Jeff, Donna, Sheila, Doreen. The passengers, rescue workers. Air traffic control, ferry boat crews and scuba cops. We all did it. We survived.

Elizabeth: First Officer Skiles, is there anything you’d like to add? Anything, you would have done differently, if you, had to do it again?
Jeff: Yes. I would have done it in July.[/b]

Here’s a film that follows a man and his girlfriend around for a week. That’s it.

The man drives a bus and writes poetry. The girlfriend, bursting at the seams with creativity, dreams of owning a business that sells cupcakes. In Paterson, New Jersey. Nothing really extraordinary about them. Well, unless you count those folk who are able to create something extraordinary out of the more or less ordinary lives that they live. If that is what they do.

You either like them or you don’t. And if you don’t you stop watching the film and move on to something else. Or, as one reviewer griped: “Paterson focuses on the ordinary, meaningless tasks of everyday life and the audience waits patiently for something to happen. It becomes painfully obvious that the overall point is in the ‘beauty’ of seemingly ordinary instances and observations.”

Me? Not the sort of folks I would choose to be around. Interesting pair, sure, but not with respect to the things that I find interesting.

About the only thing out of the ordinary that happens here is when, one day, out of the blue, the bus breaks down. Paterson has “a situation”. Unless you count Marie, Everett and his toy gun.

Or Marvin and the shredded book of poems.

Some will get this more than others.

Still, over at Rotten Tomatoes, 200 film critics got it enough for the film to garner a 96% fresh rating.

IMDb

[b]The poems in the film came from Ron Padgett, one of Jim Jarmusch’s favorite contemporary poets, who agreed to write the poems for the film and who let Jarmusch use some of his pre-existing poems.

Adam Driver went to bus driving school for his role in the film. Production crew was arranging for Driver to get a bus license, and while they were trying to organize it, he on his own figured it out and was already in the school.[/b]

trivia at IMDb: imdb.com/title/tt5247022/tri … =ttqu_sa_1
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paterson_(film
trailer: youtu.be/m8pGJBgiiDU

PATERSON [2016]
Written and directed by Jim Jarmusch

[b]Laura: I had a beautiful dream. We had two little children. Twins.
Paterson: Hmm.
Laura: If we had children, would you like it if they where twins?
Paterson: Mmm… Mmm-hmm. Yeah. Twins. Sure, why not?
[pause]
Paterson: One for each of us.

Laura: You know darling… I really think you should do something about those beautiful poems. They should belong to the world, you know?
Paterson: The world…Well now you’re trying to scare me.

Doc [staring down at a chessboard]: I’m gettin’ my ass kicked today.
Paterson: Who are you playin’?
Doc: Myself.

Laura: I was dreaming that we were in ancient Persia. And you were riding on an elephant. A big, silver elephant.
Paterson: A silver elephant?
Laura: Yeah. You looked so beautiful.
Paterson: Do they have elephants in ancient Persia?
Laura: I don’t think so. Not silver ones, anyway.

Paterson: Morning, Donny.
Donny: Ready to roll, Paterson?
Paterson: Yeah.
[pause]
Paterson: Everything OK?
Donny: Now that you ask, no, not really. My kid needs braces on her teeth, my car needs a transmission job, my wife wants me to take her to Florida but I’m behind on the mortgage payments, my uncle called from India and he needs money for my neice’s wedding, and I got this strange rash on my back. You name it, brother. How 'bout you?
Paterson: I’m OK.

Laura: Get any new writing done?
Paterson: I did a little, yeah. Working on a poem for you.
Laura: A love poem?
Paterson: Yeah, I guess if it’s for you, it’s a love poem. It’s kind of inspired by our Ohio Blue Tip Matches.
Laura: Really? Does it mention the little megaphone shape the letters make?
Paterson [taken aback]: Yeah, actually it does.
Laura: How beautiful. I can’t wait to read it when it’s done.

Student [on bus]: Do you think there are any other anarchists still around in Paterson?
Student: You mean besides us? Not likely.

Paterson: You okay?
Donny: Well, since you asked…no, not really. My mother-in-law’s moving in…My cat got diagnosed with cat diabetes and, the medicine you know… it’s also expensive and now my daughter started taking violin lessons…and I’m losing my mind with the sound of that. What can I say Paterson?
Paterson: Ya know, sorry.
Donny: Well, it’s just my burden I guess, my particular burden.
Paterson: Well, see ya tomorrow.

Laura: You’re up late, honey. Your silent magic watch didn’t wake you up.
Paterson: Yeah, it was a little late today.
Laura: Well, somedays something inside just doesn’t want to get up. Ever feel like that?
Paterson: Today.

Laura: You look a little drained. You were home a little late. Was your day okay?
Paterson: Well, it was until the bus broke down.
Laura: The bus broke down? Was it dangerous?
Paterson: No, it was just… it sputtered out. It was an electrical problem.
Laura: Electrical problem? Could it have exploded into a fireball?
Paterson: No, no. It’s just an old bus.
Laura: Well, I think they should get their best driver who’s also a great poet a brand new bus. It’s the least they could do.
Paterson: City of Paterson? Not likely.

Marie: Thanks Paterson. That was very heroic.
Paterson: Yeah, wow, okay, I dunno…
Doc: If it wasn’t for you that crazy motherfucker might have shot himself to death with a piece of foam.

Everett [in the bar]: You love somebody, more than anything in the whole damn world. You… worship her. You don’t wanna be alive without her, and…and she says she doesn’t want you. You’re just…dirt.

Laura [staring down at the mess on the floor]: Marvin? Marvin…Did you do this? Oh my god! It’s your notebook.
Paterson: It’s what?
Laura: Your poems. Honey I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to even say. You usually keep your notebook down in the basement.
Paterson: I guess I… left it up here on the sofa.

Laura: I wish you would have read me some of your most recent poems. Maybe I could have remembered them.
Paterson: It’s okay. They were just words. Written on water.
Layra: Baby I’m so sorry. I saved all the pieces. Maybe somehow they could be puzzled back together…with a computer program or something.

Paterson: I guess you really like poetry then?
Japanese Poet: I breathe poetry.
[pause]
Paterson: So you write poetry?
Japanese Poet: Yes.
[pause]
Japanese Poet: My notebooks.
Paterson: Oh, yeah.
Japanese Poet: My poetry only in Japanese. No translation.
[pause]
Japanese Poet: Poetry in translations is like taking a shower with a raincoat on.[/b]

Billions and billions served. Or is it in the trillions by now?

And it all had to start somewhere. It had to be founded. And that means someone had to be the founder.

An all-American founder: Ray Kroc.

Only it turns out that before he owned McDonalds he got the idea from Mac and Dick McDonald. And then he had to “maneuver himself into a position” to pull the company out from under the brothers and go on to create his billion-dollar empire.

Ray sold milk-shake machines. One day he gets an order from the McDonald brothers for 8 of them. That prompts him to travel to California to check them out. And then the rest is history.

Mac and Dick. And [later] Harry.

McDonalds. Loved by some, hated by others. It has for all practical purposes become a legendary fixture in the narratives of those who look around them and see one big gigantic “McWorld”.

That’s how it works. Some think of McDonald’s as everything that is encompassed in the American dream. The very embodiment of it. While others think of it as everything that is encompassed instead in the crass, mass-market, mindless consumption mentality that America has basically succeeded in transporting around the globe.

This one takes us all the way back to the days when a hamburger, french fries and a coke would cost you 35 cents.

Good news: Ronald McDonald is no where to be found.

IMDb

[b]The original McDonalds, as depicted in the film, is actually located at 1398 North E St., San Bernardino, CA 92405. The owner of Juan Pollo Chicken purchased the site and has restored it to a McDonalds museum. The oldest remaining Golden Arches-styled McDonalds (1953) is still in operation at 10207 Lakewood Blvd., Downey, California 90241.

The company Kroc worked for prior to founding McDonalds, Prince Castle, still exists and supplies McDonalds with much of its equipment

The McDonald’s restaurants depicted were built from scratch in parking lots, as the crew was unable to locate suitable existing restaurants in locations which matched the desired look of the film.

To play his character Michael Keaton watched Glengarry Glen Ross , Michael Douglas in Wall Street, Leonardo DiCaprio in The Wolf of Wall Street and Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire. [/b]

trivia at IMDb: imdb.com/title/tt4276820/tri … =ttqu_sa_1
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Founder
trailer: youtu.be/AX2uz2XYkbo

THE FOUNDER [2016]
Directed by John Lee Hancock

[b]Ray: I know what you’re thinkin’…What the heck do I need a 5-spindle for… when I barely sell enough milkshakes to justify my single-spindle. Right? Wrong. Are you familiar with the notion of the chicken or the egg Mr. Griffith, I mentioned that there’d be costs. Well, I think it applies here. Do you not need the multimixer because, well heck, you’re not selling enough milkshakes. Or are you not selling enough milkshakes because you don’t have a multimixer? I firmly believe it’s the latter. Because your customer comes in here and he knows if he orders a shake from your establishment… that well, he’s in for a terrific wait. He’s done it before and he thinks to himself, well by golly, I’m not gonna make that mistake again. But if ya had the Prince Castle, 5-spindle, multimixer… with patented direct-drive electric motor we’d greatly increase your ability to produce… delicious, frosty milkshakes, FAST. Mark my words. Dollars to donuts, you’ll be sellin’ more of those sons of bitches… then you can shake a stick at. You increase the supply, and the demand will follow… Increase supply, demand follows. Chicken, egg. Do you follow my logic?I know you do because you’re a bright, forward thinking guy who… knows a good idea when he hears one. So… What do you say?
Restaurant owner: Nah. But thanks anyway.

Ray puts on a self-help record: “Persistence. Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent won’t. Nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius won’t. Unrewarded genius is practically a clich. Education won’t. The world is full of educated fools. Persistence and determination alone are all powerful.”[/b]

Then he gets that fateful order from McDonalds.

[b]Employee: Hi, welcome to McDonalds. May I take your order?
Ray: Yeah, I’ll have a hamburger, french fries, and a Coca-Cola.
Employee: That’ll be 35 cents please.
Ray: All right.
[Gives him 50 cents]
Employee: Fifteen cents is your change.
[Gives it to him, then turns around and grabs a bag and a drink with a straw in it, and sets it in front of him]
Employee: Here you are.
Ray: What’s this?
Employee: Your food.
Ray: No, no, no, I just ordered.
Employee: And now it’s here.
Ray [seems hesitant]: You sure?
[the employee nods]
Ray: Where’s the umm… the silverware and plates and everything?
Employee: You just eat it straight out of the wrapper, and then you throw it all out.
Ray: Really? Okay.
[Grabs the order, turns to go, but turns back again]
Ray: Where do I eat it?
Employee: Your car, at the park, at home. Wherever you like.

Mac [giving Ray a tour of the business]: The first stop for every McDonald’s hamburger is the grill… manned by 2 cooks whose soul job it is to grill those all beef beauties to perfection. Meanwhile, as the patty cooks our dressers get the buns ready. Every McDonald’s burger has 2 pickles a pinch of onions and a precise shot of ketchup and mustard.
Ray: Now where’d ya get those gadgets?
Mac: We made 'em.
Ray: Made them?!
Mac: Yeah, custom built. Whole kitchen is.

Dick: The fries…
Mac: What about 'em?
Dick: They’re 5% too crisp.
Mac: No, they’re perfect.
Dick: I think we should drop to 2 minutes, 50 seconds.
Mac: Wasn’t that what we were at before?
Dick: 400, not 375. Higher temp, shorter cook.

Ray: I’m gonna take you out to dinner. You and your brother.
Dick: What for?
Ray: This is the most remarkable food restaurant I’ve ever seen in all my years in this industry… and I’ve seen it all. I wanna hear your story.

Mac: The drive-in model as we’ve learned has a few built in problems.
Ray: Tell me about it.
Mac: For starters, there’s the customer issue. Drive-in’s tend to attract, shall we say, a less than desirable clientele. Teenagers. Hot-rodders and hooligans and juvenile deliquents in blue jeans. And then there’s the service. It takes forever and a day for your food to arrive, and when it finally does…
Ray: It’s usually wrong.
Dick: Yeah. The car hops are too busy dodging gropes to remember that you wanted strawberry phosphate, not cherry.
Mac: And then there’s the expenses. The huge payroll due to the large staff required dishes constantly getting broken or stolen. Tremendous overhead. So one day Dick has a realization. He sees that the bulk of our sales are in only 3 items. Hamburgers, french fries, soft-drinks.
Dick: 87%.
Mac: So we say to ourselves let’s focus on what sells and that’s exactly what we do…Brisket gone, tamales gone, but we don’t stop there. We look at everything. What else don’t we need? Turns out quite a lot. Car hops. Walk up to a window, get your food yourself. Dishes. All paper packaging, disposable. Cigarette machines, jukeboxes, drive out the riff raff. Creating a family friendly environment here…We wanted something that wasn’t just different. It had to be better. It needed to be ours. And that’s what brings us to the biggest cut of all.
Ray: Which was?
Mac: The wait.
Ray: Orders ready in 30 seconds, not 30 minutes[/b]

You won’t believe what comes next. On the tennis court.

[b]Mac: We take the layout to a builder, custom build the kitchen to our exact specs. Ta dah! The speedy system is born. The world’s first ever system to deliver food fast. It is totally revolutionary…
Dick: …and a complete disaster.
Ray: Why?
Mac: Opening day, cars pull up onto the lot and they start honking immediately because no car-hop comes up…We try to explain to them the walk up window and they are uh… bewildered? No, furious.
Customer: “What do you mean I gotta get out of my car?”
Mac: Most of 'em just cuss us out and drive off…and the few that stay are mad as heck because they are eating off paper and they’ve gotta discard their own trash…We may have underestimated the learning curve. So by 5 o’clock, Dick is calculating how much it’s gonna cost to go back to drive-in…

Ray [the next morning]: Franchise!
Mac: Beg pardon?
Ray: Franchise. Franchise the damn thing. It’s too damn good for just one location. There should be McDonald’s everywhere. Coast to coast, sea to shining sea.
Dick: Mr. Kroc…
Ray: Hey, I got a confession I wanna make to you boys… I’m not out here in California for any kind of business meetings. I came out here for you. Franchise. Franchise, franchise, franchise. Franchise.
Dick: We already tried. Three in Southern California, one in Sacramento and one in Phoenix. And that’s all there will ever be.
Ray: Why?
Dick: Two words: Quality Control. It’s almost impossible to enforce standards from afar. Places were a mess. Filthy kitchens, inconsistent menus…Sacramento was selling burritos.

Ray [looking at a framed illustration on the wall]: Wuh…what is that?
Mac: A concept.
Ray: Huh. What are those?
Mac: Oh, it’s a way to make the place stand out when you’re driving by. The “golden arches”, I call 'em.
Ray: The golden arches… Who thought of that?
Mac: Oh that’s some pure Dick magic right there.

Mac: Hey Dick…What is it with this guy?
Ray: Do it for your country.
Mac: What?
Ray: If you boys don’t want to franchise for yourselves, that’s fine…Do it for your country. Do it for America.

Ray [to Dick and Mac]: Ya know what, I drove through a lot of towns. A lot of small towns. And they all had two things in common…They had a courthouse and they had a church. On top of the church, got a cross and on top of the courthouse they have a flag. Flags, crosses, crosses flags. Driving around I just cannot stop thinking about this tremendous restaurant. Now at the risk of sounding blasphemous forgive me. Those arches have a lot in common with those buildings. A building with a cross on top, what is that? It’s a gathering place where decent wholesome people come together and they share values protected by that American flag. It could be said that that beautiful building flanked by those arches signifies more or less the same thing. It doesn’t just say, “Delicious hamburgers inside”. They signify family. It signifies community. It’s a place where Americans come together to break bread. I am telling you…McDonald’s can be… the new American church. Feeding bodies and feeding souls and it ain’t just open on Sundays, boys.

Dick [on the phone about Coke sponsership]: We’re just not comfortable with the notion of turning our menu into an advertisement.
Ray: See, it’s not an ad, it’s sponsorship.
Dick: It’s distasteful.
Ray: It’s free money! Loads of restaurants do this.
Dick: Well we don’t.
Ray: Why not?
Dick: Because I have no interest in indulging in that sort of crass commercialism. It’s not McDonald’s.
Ray: I didn’t realize I was parterning with a beatnik.
Dick: I’ll have you know I’m a card carrying Republican!

Ray: What’s your name?
Leonard: Leonard. Leonard Rosenblatt.
Ray: Rosenblatt? What’s a Jew doing selling Catholic bibles?
Leonard: Making a living.

Ray [recruiting folks to run the restaurants]: I’m looking for a few good men…and women. Who aren’t afraid of hard work. Aren’t afraid to roll up their sleeves. I’m looking for scrappers, hustlers, guys that are willing to roll up their sleeves. They’re livin’ on drive, they got a little fire in their belly. I stand right here before you today, I’m gonna offer you something as precious as gold. And you know what that is? Anybody? Anybody? Opportunity. It’s opportunity. Opportunity. Opportunity to advance, to move forward, to move up, to advance… To succeed. To win. To step up. The sky’s the limit. The sky is the limit. Grab the brass ring. To give yourself a shot at the American dream. Put your arms around the American dream. Opportunity. Cause I’ll tell ya somethin… At McDonald’s? It’s like this great nation of ours… Some of that elbow grease. I guarantee ya, if you got the guts… the gumption, the desire… I guarantee ya you can succeed. There’s gold to be had. At the end of… those Golden Arches… Golden Arches. Golden Arches. Now who’s with me? Who wants to jump on that ladder to success? Be part of the McDonald’s “mishpokhe”. Now who’s with me? Come on, lemme see some hands.

Ray: Everything’s changed. Ya want a drink?
Ethel: No, changed how?
Ray: Forget the Chicago suburbs, think bigger.
Ethel: Bigger…
Ray: I’m not chasing them anymore. They’re chasing me now.
Ethel: The trip. How was it?
Ray: Triumphant. They were rolling out the red carpet. And kissing this ring. They’re begging me for McDonald’s now.

Dick [on the phone]: Ray, we have no interest in a milkshake that contains no milk.

Harry [to Ray]: Mr. Kroc, if you’re not making money hand over fist, something’s terribly wrong.

Harry: You don’t seem to realize what business you’re in. You’re not in the burger business, you’re in the real estate business. You don’t build an empire off a 1.4% cut of a $0.15 hamburger. You build it by owning the land upon which that burger is cooked. What you ought to be doing is buying up plots of land…then turning around and leasing said plots to franchisees. Who as a condition of their deal should be permitted to lease from you, and you alone. This will provide you with two things. 1. A steady up front revenue stream…money flows in before the first stake is in the ground. 2. Greater capital for expansion. Which in turn fuels further land aquisition…which in turn fuels further expansion…and so on, and so on. Land. That’s where the money is. And more than that, control. Control over the franchisee. Fail to uphold quality standards, you cancel their lease. Control over Dick and Mac. End result, you’ll have the banks and the franchisees in the palm of your hand.

Ray [on the phone]: Look, if you don’t wanna make a profit, that’s fine.But don’t stop the rest of us.
Dick: Us?
Ray: Us, as in everyone but you.
Dick: Who did you send them to?
Ray: Everyone but you.
Dick: You have no right. You are to stop this instant, is that clear?
Ray: Nah…
Dick: What the hell does that mean, nah? You will abide by the terms of your deal.
Ray: I am through taking marching orders from you… You and your endless parade of NOs. Constantly cowering in the face of progress.
Dick: If phony powdered milkshakes is your idea of progress you have a profound misunderstand of what McDonald’s is about.
Ray: I have a far greater understanding of McDonald’s than you two yokels.
Dick: What? You will do as we say.
Ray: Nope.
Dick: You have a contract!
Ray: You know, contracts are like hearts… they’re made to be broken.

Ray Kroc [on the phone]: While you two boys were content to sit back and become a couple of also-rans…I wanna take the future. I wanna win. And you don’t get there by being some “aw shucks” guy sap. There’s no place in business for people like that. Business is war. It’s dog eat dog, rat eat rat. If my competitor were drowning, I’d walk over and put a hose right in his mouth. Can you say the same?
Mac: I can’t. Nor would I want to.
Ray: Hence, your single location.
Mac: We want you out of this company, Ray.
Ray: Mac, how do you propose we do that?
Mac: We will sue you, whatever it takes.
Ray: And you’d probably win. But you can’t afford to sue me. I’d bury you in court costs alone. Mac, I’m the president and C.E.O. of a major corporation with land holdings in 17 states…You run a burger stand in the desert. I’m national. You’re fucking local.
[Mac collapses to the floor]

Mac [to Dick]: We will never beat him. We will never be rid of him.

Ray [on the phone]: Let me explain something to you Dick…You boys have full say over what goes on inside the restaurants. But outside, above, below… your authority stops at the door. And at the floor. Alright?
Mac: What is he saying?
Dick: He’s buying the land.
Mac: Our land?

Dick: I just have to ask you one thing. Something I’ve never understood.
Ray: Alright.
Dick: That day we met, when we gave you the tour…
Ray: Uh huh. What about it?
Dick: We showed you everything. The whole system, all of our secrets. We were an open book. So why didn’t you just…
Ray: Steal it? Just, grab your ideas and run off, start my own business…using all those ideas of yours. It would have failed.
Dick: How do you know?
Ray: Am I the only one who got the kitchen tour? You must have invited lots of people back there, huh?
Dick: And?
Ray: How many of them succeeded?
Dick: Lots of people started restaurants.
Ray Kroc: As big as McDonald’s?
Dick: Of course not.
Ray: No one ever has and no one ever will because they all lacked that one thing that makes McDonald’s special.
Dick: Which is?
Ray: Even you don’t know what it is.
Dick: Enlighten me.
Ray: It’s not just the system, Dick. It’s the name. That glorious name, McDonald’s. It could be, anything you want it to be…it’s limitless, it’s wide open…it sounds, uh…it sounds like it sounds like America. That’s compared to Kroc. What a crock. What a load of crock. Would you eat at a place named Kroc’s? Kroc’s has that blunt, Slavic sound. Kroc’s. But McDonald’s, oh boy. That’s a beauty. A guy named McDonald? He’s never gonna get pushed around in life.
Dick: That’s clearly not the case.
Ray: So, you don’t have a check for 1.35 million dollars in your pocket? Bye Dick.
Dick: So if you can’t beat’em, buy’em.
Ray: I remember the first time I saw that name stretched across your stand out there. It was love at first sight. I knew right then and there…I had to have it. And now I do.
Dick: You don’t have it.
Ray: You sure about that? Bye Dick. [/b]

I was watching this and wondering: Could this be based on a true story?

The part about autism. The plot itself is completely unbelievable. Or so it certainly seemed to me. Unless of course “behind the scenes” this sort of thing actually does unfold.

In other words, not just in Hollywood.

Is it possible for someone with just the right combination of gifts and afflictions to pursue a life – a career – in this manner? We’ve come across characters like this before. They aren’t quite like all the rest of us but there is something extraordinary about them ---- “gifts” – that most of us could never even imagine. They have an extraordinary mental acuity but emotionally they don’t react to the world [and the folks in it] as a “normal” person does.

In other words, “a high-functioning autistic”. Think, for example, Rain Man or Temple Grandin. Only this guy works as a “forensic accountant” for some rather unsavory characters. At least that’s how most will perceive them. On the other hand, he also helps the “little guy” fuck over the IRS.

On the other other hand, however, what does he know between right and wrong behavior? He doesn’t think about that like we’re supposed to. Or, rather, the way we think that he doesn’t think about that like we think we are supposed to.

A whole other way of looking at the world “amorally”? That murky “behind the curtain” world of organized and unorganized crime. The role of a sort of secret government and the part that big business – corporate culture – plays in so many aspects of our lives. All those shadowy interactions between folks that aren’t like you and I.

Anyway, around numbers, the guy is invincible. Around people, however, well, that’s another thing altogether. But then there are all those folks diagnosed with austism who do not [apparently] possess these “special skills”. How might they react to films of this sort?

And you can’t help but wonder: How does “the law” deal with folks like him? And do they really exist?

Anyone know?

Basically, this is one of those films where you spend most of the time trying to figure out how all the pieces [and characters] fit together. That and who to root for.

IMDb

[b]While for movie effect the script calls out the repeated use of the number ‘3’ as an indicator of fraudulent numbers, the theory behind fraudulent number detection is known as Benford’s law. The law states that in numbers such as account transactions the probability of a number occurring naturally drops as one moves from smaller numbers to the larger numbers following a logarithmic scale. This law has been successfully used to detect fraudulent accounting transactions.

While it might seem odd for a strong box filled with gold and other valuables to include a copy of “Action Comics #1” (1938) comic book, in fact this issue is valued at over $4 million dollars in mint condition.[/b]

IMDb trivia: imdb.com/title/tt2140479/tri … =ttqu_sa_1
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Accountant_(2016_film
trailer: youtu.be/DBfsgcswlYQ

THE ACCOUNTANT [2016]
Directed by Gavin O’Connor

[b]Neurologist: Your son is a remarkable young man.
Mother: Who goes crazy when you turn the vacuum on. He wears one T-shirt, won’t let you hug him.
Neurologist: Loud noises, bright lights can be especially difficult for someone like your son. The shirt, most likely fabric sensitivity. Hugging, closeness, touching…That can be a challenge, yes.
Mother: When it’s somebody else’s child, it’s a challenge. When it’s yours, it’s a problem.

Ray: Why haven’t you applied for promotion to agent? You’re already doing the work.
Marybeth: Analyst is a good fit. And I enjoy the work, so…
Ray: Well, you’re a liar, Medina.
[he looks at the computer screen]
Ray: Ward of the state of Maryland’s foster care and juvenile detention systems from age 11 to 18. Weapons charges, assault and battery. Ouch. Attempted murder.
Marybeth: Those records were sealed.
Ray: Is that a nine millimeter?
Marybeth: .45.

Ray: This is a big moment for you. Make a good choice. Lying on a federal employment application is a felony. So right now, I’m the only thing standing between you and significant prison time.
Marybeth: What do you want?
Ray: Do you like puzzles, Marybeth Medina?

Marybeth [looking at photographs]: It’s the same man.
Ray: “Lou Carroll.” For what it’s worth, it’s an alias. The Hong Kong photo goes back about five years. In that one, he’s “Carl Gauss.” Tokyo, Tel Aviv, Naples. There was a sighting in Tehran. All describing the same man. “An accountant.” “Our accountant.” “The accountant.”
Marybeth: The accountant, like CPA accountant?
Ray: Okay. Say you’re the head of the Sinaloa Cartel. Now the cartels count their money in eighteen wheelers. But one sunny Mexican day, your in-house money scrubber comes to you and says you’re 30 million light. Who can you trust to do the forensic accounting to track your stolen cash? Deloitte & Touche? H & R Block? [/b]

Nope.

[b]Christian [to Dana]: I like Dogs Playing Poker…because dogs would never bet on things; so it’s incongruous. I like incongruity.

Dana: Do you think that’s true? That Mr. Chilton killed himself…I mean, do you think we’re responsible?
Chris: It’s very hard for me to interpret why people do what they do.

Chris [to Dana cowering in the tub]: We should go.

Brax [on the phone]: Since when are accountants difficult to ventilate? Dead? Christ! What’d he do, hit him over the head with an adding machine?

Dana: Running isn’t an option for me. I can’t just walk out on my life! We have to go to the police. That’s what normal, taxpaying people do!
Chris: Police can’t protect you from someone who can afford to return $61 million.
Dana: Return? What are you talking about, “return”?
Chris: The money was being put back.

Dana [to Chris after poking around in his “stuff”]: Who are you? What is this place?

Dana: This is where you live?
Chrtis: No, I don’t live here. This is a storage unit. That would be weird.
Dana: That’s what would be weird?
Chris: I’d like to spend more time here. However, I’m afraid some of my clients might follow me.
Dana: Why would your clients follow you? You’re an accountant!

Gordon [on the phone]: It’s an unusual audio file. Solomon Grundy is a nursery rhyme circa mid-1800s. Your voice has four of the six intonation patterns we use to define American English. That’s difficult to confirm with a rhyme. Out of curiosity, was your subject a trauma victim?
Marybeth: Um, why do you ask that?
Gordon: Well, you indicated on your submission that this event occurred in a high-stress environment?
Marybeth: Yeah. Exceptionally.
Gordon: That’s interesting. The verse was repeated a total of four and a halftimes with zero variation in pitch, span, tempo, volume, or articulatory precision.
Marybeth: So, what does that mean, exactly?
Gordon: Well, we often see this type of repetitive chanting in children who have been exposed to trauma or persons with neurodevelopmental disorders. Neurodevelopmental disorders? Fragile-X syndrome, autism.

Dana: Your life is unique.
Chris: It’s not unique. I have a high-functioning form of autism, which means I have an extremely narrow focus and a hard time abandoning tasks once I’ve taken them up. I have difficulty socializing with other people, even though I want to.

Chris [as a boy]: They’re only glasses.
Father: You think if you don’t fight back, then maybe they’ll like you. Stop picking on you, calling you “freak.” Well, here’s what it is. They don’t like you, they don’t dislike you. They’re afraid of you. You’re different. Sooner or later, “different” scares people.

Ray [to Marybeth]: I’ve given up trying to figure out when I’ll get a call. The “why” though, that I’ve got. Someone breaks his moral code.

Marybeth: He’s a criminal, Ray. He aids and abets drug cartels, money launderers. He’s a fucking killer.
Ray: Believe me, I wrestled with the same decision.

Brax: Did you ever see a match-grade round travelling three thousand feet per second go through a window?
[guard standing near window drops dead as shot shatters glass]
Brax: Nobody does.

Chris: Hello, Braxton.

Lamar: Why in God’s name did I ever hire you?
Chris: To leak-proof your books. Dana found a mistake, and you wanted to be sure it was safe to go public. And now you want to kill her.
Lamar: I’m fond of Dana. But I restore lives, not Dana! Me! Men, women, children, I give them hope. Make them whole. Do you even know what that’s like?
Chris: Yes, I do.

Neurologist: 1 in 68 children in this country are diagnosed with a form of autism. But if you can put aside for a moment what your pediatrician and all the other NT’s have said about your son…
Autistic Boy’s Father: “NTs?”
Neurologist: Neuro-typicals. The rest of us. What if we’re wrong? What if we’ve been using the wrong tests to quantify intelligence in children with autism? Your son’s not less-than. He’s different. Now, your expectations for your son may change over time, they might include marriage, children, self-sufficiency. They might not. But I guarantee you, if we let the world set expectations for our children, they’ll start low, and they’ll stay there. And maybe… Just maybe… He doesn’t understand how to tell us. Or… we haven’t yet learned how to listen.[/b]

What’s a father to do?

We live in a world where sooner or later, one way or another dads and daughters – like moms and daughters, fathers and sons, mothers and sons – tend to go their own way.

That’s just the nature of the “modern world”. The “global” contraptions that entangle and then disentangle us. It’s a world where folks have to go where the money is – where the opportunity to make it is. Consequently, there are so many different paths folks in the family can take which inevitably yank them apart. Then the only alternative may well be technology: the family that Skypes together stays together.

Sort of.

Only that won’t do for Winfried. Instead, he sets out to create an actual alter-ego – Toni Erdmann – in order to reenter his daughter’s life.

And that’s when films of this sort have to [more or less] ingeniously intertwine comedic parts with the actual dramatic dynamics embedded in a relationship that may or may not be worth saving.

Clearly, many folks in the modern world wallow in an increasingly pervasive sense of loneliness. Of alienation. Thus, how to bridge the gaps when there are so many tentacles out there intent only on pulling us ever farther apart. Also, with money always hovering over everything, human interactions begin to revolve more and more around it in turn. Games must be played and disguises must be worn. You are always forced to play one or another character. Everything is distorted so that “who you really are” is always woven into the plasticity of an increasingly scripted world.

In other words, given how the modern fabrication that is the global economy isn’t going away any time soon, you have to meet it [or maybe even beat it] on its own terms. And then “who you really are” may not even matter.

IMDb

[b]Toni Erdmann was one of the the best-reviewed and most popular films at the 69th Cannes International Film Festival, but it didn’t receive any awards by the ‘Official Competition’ jury. Major critics like Justin Chang, Manohla Dargis, Kenneth Turan, Peter Bradshaw and Guy Lodge wrote that the decisions of the jury were “baffling”. There was nearly a consensus, that “Toni Erdmann” would have been a deserving Palme d’Or winner and that a rare opportunity to give the top award to a female filmmaker was missed at Cannes.

According to writer/director Maren Ade one inspiration for Winfried’s special brand of irritating humor was late comedian Andy Kaufman.

The naked party scene has been deemed Nude Scene of the Year by Vulture. [/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toni_Erdmann
trailer: youtu.be/j0uwi5EPnpA

TONI ERDMANN [2016]
Written and directed by Maren Ade

[b]Mother [of Winfried’s dog]: Why don’t you put him to sleep? He’s only suffering.
Winfried: I won’t put you to sleep either…

Mother: The Dombrechts are cutting your hedges tomorrow. You are blocking their sun.
Winfried: Good. At last, I’ll be able to shoot right into their living room.

Winfried: Her flight was ok?
Friend: She was tired. But apparently things went really well in Shanghai.
Winfried [bewildered]: Isn’t she in Bucarest anymore?
Friend: Sure, but she had meetings. She wants to go there next. Yes, it all went really well. They’re opening a new branch there. So she was meeting managers from Siemens. New clients. And executives too.

Winfried: I’ll call Inge.
Ines: Who?
Winfried: I’ve hired a substitute daughter.
Ines: Perfect. She will call on your birthday instead of me.
Winfried: That was a joke, right?

Winfried: And what’s most important when dealing with the clients?
Anca [Ines’s assistant]: That no concept makes sense if the client doesn’t want it. The art is to tell the client what he actually wants.
Winfried: I’m sure my daughter is very good at that.

Winfried [to Titus]: Hello, I’m only the father.

Winfried: Actually I came to negotiate. She’s hardly at home anymore, so I hired a substitute daughter. Now the question is, who pays her.
Titus: It’s a modern solution.
Winfried: Yes.
Titus: And is the other daughter better?
Winfried: The cakes are better.

Winfried: What would you be responsible for?
Ines: Dad, these processes mean hundreds of employees being transferred and later laid off. These decisions are unpopular, so he would need to blame someone else. Then you can read in the paper that some consulting firm has ruined something.

Winfried: Are you a bit happy here, at least?
Ines: What do you mean by happiness"? It’s such a strong word…
Winfried: I mean do you have a bit of a life, too?
Ines: Like going to the movies or something?
Winfried: Well, yes…just doing something you enjoy.
Ines: Lots of words buzzing around here: “fun”, “happiness”, “life”…We should sort it out. What do you think it’s worth living for? If you want to discuss the big topics…
Winfried: I can’t say that off the top of my head. I really just wanted to know how you’re doing.
Ines: I know that. But then you should have your own answers.

Winfried: Sorry for my stupid comment earlier.
Ines: What comment?
Winfried: About whether you are even a human being.
Ines: It’s OK… It’s obvious you’d think that.

Ines: Do you have any plans in life other than slipping fart cushions under people’s seats?
Winfried: I don’t own a fart cushion.
Ines: I know men your age who still have ambitions.

Gerald: This will annoy the feminist in you but to quote Henneberg: “Ms. Conradi has enough charm to manage Illiescu by herself.”
Ines: I’m not a feminist or I wouldn’t tolerate guys like you, Gerald.

Gerald [after “Toni” sits on his cushion]: Did he just fart?

Ines: Dad, are you insane?! Are you trying to ruin me or what? Dad, I’m talking to you.
Toni: Well, if this is about your father, I’m not the right man. But if you want to work on your charisma…or if you notice you’re talking to no-one on the phone, you’re welcome to contact me at any time.
[he hands her his “card”]
Toni: Oh, there’s my man.

Toni [who pops out of Ines’s closet]: Sorry, I was just checking in on you.
Ines [hitting him on the chest]: You are completely insane?!!

Toni [approaching Ines with handcuffs]: I have to arrest you…because of the drugs.
[he puts the handcuffs on…Ines stares at them and then at him]
Ines: And now unlock them please.
Toni: No, no, no. I cannot risk that…Where did I put the key?
Ines [trying to remain calm]: Let me go, I have an appointment. I’m about to be picked up.
Toni: I can’t find it. I really can’t find it!

Toni: Hey, can you tell him not to fire that guy?
Ines: He can fire who he wants. And the more he fires, the fewer I have to fire.

Ines: I couldn’t believe you told them not to lose their humor. That’s really bitter.
Toni [now back as Winfired]: It wasn’t about that. It was a nice encounter.
Ines: How can we modernize if you pee your pants when only one of them is fired?
Winfried: Take a short break, please.
Ines: In every step you make I can tell you your economic connection to these people. Your “green” attitude won’t help you.
Winfried: Sure. You’re doing just great. Fantastic.

Winfried: Give up your applause to the fabulous Whitney Schnuck!

Toni: You know I’m not the German Ambassador?
Flavia: Yes. I know the German ambassador.
Toni: It’s so stupid of me. I’m so sorry. It was all for fun. I’m here for holidays. Visiting Ms. Schnuck, who is my daughter. And I came to see how it is here and how she lives…and it’s very complicated.

Ines [opening the door naked]: There’s nothing wrong, Gerald, I just have nothing on.
Gerald [bewildered]: Okay…
Ines: It’s a naked reception.

Ines [still naked]: So, what are we gonna do with you now?
Stephanie [stammering]: Well…uh…I’m definitely not getting undressed. It’s not my deal, you know.
Ines: Sorry, but then you have to go.
Stephanie: Really?
Ines: Yeah.
Stephanie: Okay…

Inca [to Ines at the door naked]: Oh…uh…Tim said you won’t answer unless we’re naked…But it has nothing to do with sex, right?

Winfried: You know…your question there in Bucharest…about life…about what I find worth living for. The problem is…it is so often about getting things done. You have to do this or that, but in the meanwhile life is just passing by. How are we supposed to hang on to moments? Now I just sit sometimes and remember hiow you learned to ride your bike…how I once found you at a bus stop…But you only realize that afterwards. In the moment itself it’s not possible.[/b]

That [apparently] is “the message” here. It either sinks in or it doesn’t.

Fences.

We build them to keep things in. We build them to keep things out. And that has certainly been the case with respect to race. There was once a time in America when there were any number of fences – some constructed de facto, others constructed de jure – that kept the whites at a safe distance from the “colored” people.

This film takes us back to a time when that was considerably more the case. The 1950s. Pittsburg. Fences constructed not on the level of “the South” but still imposing rather formidable barriers with regard to the hopes and the dreams of any particular “colored” man or woman.

The focus here is less on the overtly political and more on the considerably more complex and convoluted personal interactions between men and women who had to actually live with the reality of being “second class citizens”. Of being born that way.

Troy Maxson is hauling garbage. But he dreamed of being a professional baseball player. Unfortunately, by the time the Jackie Robinsons were starting to break down that “color line”, he was deemed too old to be among them.

The rest [for thousand upons thousands just like him] is history.

The film revolves by and large around someone who recognizes that while “things have changed” for his son’s generation, his own generation wasn’t around at the right time. And he has to live with the consequences of that. The bitter consequences in particular. And others are often around only for him to take it out on.

And then on top of all that there are the trials and the tribulations that any one us may well have to endure just in the course of being human all too human.

IMDb

[b]Fences opened on Broadway in 1987, winning the Tony Awards for Best Play, Best Actor (James Earl Jones), and Best Featured Actress (Mary Alice). A revival of “Fences” opened in 2010, winning the Tony Awards for Best Revival of a Play, Best Actor Denzel Washington, and Best Actress (Viola Davis). All five adult actors reprise their roles in this film adaptation, with Washington also directing.

Denzel Washington has said that after having performed the play 114 times at the Cort Theatre in New York City in 2010, directing the film adaptation became quite a simple readjustment.

In the film’s opening shot, the most prominent building on the left side of the street is lettered PITTSBURGH COURIER. The Courier was Pittsburgh’s African-American newspaper, among the country’s most respected. One of its sportswriters, Wendell Smith, advocated for ending the color line in major league baseball and traveled in 1947 with Jackie Robinson through his inaugural season with the Brooklyn Dodgers.[/b]

trivia at IMDb: imdb.com/title/tt2671706/tri … =ttqu_sa_1
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fences_(film
trailer: youtu.be/jj-ZYPVRQbc

FENCES [2016]
Directed by Denzel Washington

[b]Troy [to Bono]: They’re going to fire me, just because I asked? That’s all I did. I went to Mr. Rand and asked why only white people drive and the coloured collect. What’s the problem? I don’t count? They think only white people have the good sense to drive? You don’t need a degree. Anyone drives. Why only white drive and the coloured collect?

Troy: I spend my money where I’m treated right. I go down to Bella, say, I need a loaf of bread, I’ll pay you Friday, she gives it to me. What sense that make when I got money to spend it somewhere else and ignore the person who done right by me? That ain’t in the Bible.
Rose: Don’t come with the Bible. Why buy from somebody who charges more?
Troy: You buy where you want, I buy from people who been good to me.

Rose: Cory was recruited by a college football team.
Troy: I told that boy about that college football stuff. The white man will never let him get nowhere with that football. I told you the first time you came to talk…He ought to be recruited in fixin’ cars or some way to make a living.

Bono: Only two men played baseball better than you. Babe Ruth and Josh Gibson. The only ones who did more home runs than you.
Troy: And what does that get me? I don’t have a pot to piss in, not even a window to throw it out of.
Rose: Times have changed since you were playing, Troy…Times have changed a lot.
Troy: How the hell they changed?
Rose: A lot of colored boys playing ball now. Baseball and football.
Bono: You right about that, Ro. Times have changed, Troy. You just come along too early.
Troy: There ought not never have been no time called “too early”.

Rose: They got a lot of colored baseball players now. Folks had to wait for Jackie Robinson.
Troy: I done seen a 100 niggers play baseball better than Jackie Robinson. Hell, I seen some temas Jackie Robinson couldn’t even make!..I talkin’ about if you could play ball then they ought to let you play. Don’t matter what color you are.

Troy: That’s what death is for me: a fastball on the outside corner.
Rose: I don’t know why you want to start talking about death.
Troy: Death’s no problem, it’s part of life. Everyone dies. I, you, Bono. We’re all going to die. But no, you don’t like to talk about it.

Troy: I reached down, I grabbed that sickle from Mr. Death. I threw it as far as I could throw it. And me and Mr. Death commensed to wrestling. We wrestled for three days and three nights!

Rose [to Lyons]: Anything your Pop can’t understand, he want to call it the devil.

Troy: Why ain’t you working?
Lyons: Pop, you know I can’t find no decent job. Where can I find one? You know that I can’t find.
Troy: I told you I know people. I can get you on the rubbish work. I told you that last time you come back here asking for something.
Lyons: No thanks, Pop, that ain’t for me. I don’t want to be carrying nobody’s rubbish. I don’t want to be punchin’ nobody’s time clock.
Troy: What’s the matter, you too good to be carrying people’s rubbish? Where you think that $10 you talking about comes from?

Lyons: You got your way of dealing with the world, I got mine. The only thing that matters to me is the music.
Troy: Yeah, I can see that. Don’t matter how you gonna eat, don’t matter where your next dollar comin’ from. Yeah, you tellin’ the truth there.
Lyons: I know I gotta eat. But I gotta live too. I need something that’s gonna help me get out of bed in the morning. Something to make me feel like I belong in the world. I don’t bother nobody. I just stay with my music 'cause that’s the only way I can find to live in the world. Otherwise, there ain’t no telling what I might do. I don’t come by critizing you and how you live. I just come by to ask you for tewn dollars. I don’t want to hear all that about how I live.
Troy: Boy, your mama did a hell of a job rasining you.
Lyons: You can’t change me, Pop. I’m 34 years old. If you wanted to change me, you should have been there when I was growing up. I come by to see you and ask for ten dollars and you want to talk about how I was raised? You don’t know nothing about how I was raised.

Rose: Now I hit the numberssometimes…that makes up for it. It always come in handy when I do hit. I don’t hear you complaining then.
Troy: I ain’t complaining now. I just say it’s foolish. Trying to guess out of six hundred ways which way the number gonna come. If I had all the money niggers — these Negroes — throw away on numbers for one week—just one week—I’d be a rich man.

Troy: Don’t nobody wanna be locked up, Rose. What you wanna lock him up for? Man go over there and fight the war messin’ around with them Japs, get half his head blown off and they give him a lousy three thousand dollars. And I had to swoop down on that…That’s the only way I got a roof over my head ’cause of that metal plate.
Rse: Ain’t no sense you blaming yourself for nothing. Gabe wasn’t in no condition to manage that money. You done what was right by him. Can’t nobody say you ain’t done what was right by him. Look how long you took care of him till he wanted to have his own place and moved over there with Miss Pearl.
Troy: That ain’t what I’m saying, woman! I’m just stating the facts. If my brother didn’t have that metal plate in his head…I wouldn’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of. And I’m fifty-three years old! Now see if you can understand that!!

Cory: I’m gonna be working weekends.
Troy: You damn right you are! And ain’t no need for nobody coming around here to talk to me about signing nothing.
Cory: Hey, Pop…you can’t do that. He’s coming all the way from North Carolina.
Troy: I don’t care where he coming from. The white man ain’t gonna let you get nowhere with that football no way. You go on and get your book- learning so you can work yourself up in that A&P or learn how to fix cars or build houses or something, get you a trade. That way you have something can’t nobody take away from you. You go on and learn how to put your hands to some good use. Besides hauling people’s garbage.

Cory: Hey pa!
Troy: Hmm?
Cory: Can I ask you a question? How come you ain’t never liked me?
Troy: Like you? What law is there sayin’ I got to like you?
Cory: None.
Troy: All right then. Don’t you eat every day? Answer me when I talk to you! Don’t you eat every day?
Cory: Yeah…
Troy: As long as you’re in my house you put a “Sir” on the end of it when you talk to me.
Cory: Yes, Sir.
Troy: You eat every day?
Cory: Yes, Sir.
Troy: You got a roof over you head?
Cory: Yes, Sir.
Troy: Got clothes on your back?
Cory: Yes, Sir.
Troy: Why you think that is?
Cory: 'Cause of you?
Troy: Hell, I know it’s 'cause of me. But why do you think that is?
Cory: 'Cause you like me?
Troy: Like you? I go out of here every morning bust my butt putting up with them crackers every day ’cause I like you? You about the biggest fool I ever saw. It’s my job. It’s my responsibility! You understand that? A man got to take care of his family. You live in my house sleep your behind on my bedclothes fill you belly up with my food ’cause you my son. You my flesh and blood. Not ’cause I like you! ’Cause it’s my duty to take care of you. I owe a responsibility to you! Let’s get this straight right here before it go along any further…I ain’t got to like you. Mr. Rand don’t give me my money come payday ’cause he likes me. He gives me ’cause he owe me. I done give you everything I had to give you. I gave you your life! Me and your mama worked that out between us. And liking your black ass wasn’t part of the bargain. Don’t you try and go through life worrying about if somebody like you or not. You best be making sure they doing right by you. You understand what I’m saying, boy?
Cory: Yes sir.

Rose: Why don’t you let the boy go ahead and play football, Troy? Ain’t no harm in that. He’s just trying to be like you with the sports.
Troy: I don’t want him to be like me! I want him to move as far away from my life as he can get. You the only decent thing that ever happened to me. I wish him that. But I don’t wish him a thing else from my life.

Troy: Rose, I ain’t got time for that. He’s alive. He’s healthy. He’s got to make his own way. I made mine. Ain’t nobody gonna hold his hand when he get out there in that world.
Rose: Times have changed from when you was young, Troy. People change. The world’s changing around you and you can’t even see it.

Troy: Woman, I do the best I can do. I come in here every Friday. I carry a sack of potatoes and a bucket of lard. You all line up at the door with your hands out. I give you the lint from my pockets. I give you my sweat and my blood. I ain’t got no tears. I done spent them. We go upstairs in that room at night and I fall down on you and try to blast a hole into forever. I get up Monday morning find my lunch on the table. I go out. Make my way. Find my strength to carry me through to the next Friday. That’s all I got, Rose. That’s all I got to give. I can’t give nothing else!

Bono: Your daddy got a promotion on the rubbish. He gonna be the first colored driver. Ain’t got to do nothin’ but sit up there and read the paper, like them white fellas.
Lyons: Hey, Pop, if you knew how to read, you’d be all right.
Bono: Nah, nah. You mean if the nigger knew how to drive, he’d be all right.Been fighting with them people about driving and ain’t even got a license.

Bono [to Troy and Lyons]: Just moving on through. Searching out the New Land.That’s what the old folks used to call it. See a fella moving around from place to place, woman to woman, they call it, Searching out the New Land…They walk out their front door and take off down one road or another and just keep on walkin’. Just keep on walking till they come to something else. Ain’t you never heard of nobody having the walking blues? Now, that’s what you call it when you just take off like that.

Troy [of his father]: When he turned to face me, I knew why the devil never come and get him 'cause he was the devil himself. I don’t know what happened. I woke up, laying there by the creek, and Blue, this old dog we had, he was licking my face. Both my eyes were swoll shut. I thought I was blind, I couldn’t see nothing. I just laid there and cried. And I didn’t know what I was gonna do. But I knew the time had come for me to leave my daddy’s house. Suddenly, the world got big, and it was a long time before I could cut it down to where I could handle it. Part of that cutting down was where I got to the place where I could feel him kicking in my blood, and I knew the only thing that separated us was a matter of a few years.I hope he’s dead. I hope he found some peace.

Troy: Now you tell me who you ever heard of gonna pull their own teeth with a pair of rusty pliers?
Bono: They’re old folks. My granddaddy used to pull his teeth with pliers. They ain’t had no dentists for colored folk back then.
Troy: Well, get clean pliers. You understand? Clean pliers.

Cory: I don’t see why Mama want a fence around the yard noways.
Troy: Damn if I know either. What the hell she keeping out with it? She ain’t got nothing nobody want.
Bono: Some people build fences to keep people out and other people build fences to keep people in. Rose wants to hold on to you all. She loves you.

Troy: I’m talking, woman, let me talk. I’m trying to find a way to tell you I’m gonna be a daddy. I’m gonna be somebody’s daddy.
Rose: Troy you’re not telling me this? You’re gonna be…what?
Troy: Rose…now…see…
Rose: You telling me you gonna be somebody’s daddy? You telling your wife this? I have to wait eighteen years to hear something like this.

Rose [to Troy]: I done tried to be everything a wife should be. Everything a wife could be. Been married eighteen years and I got to live to see the day you tell me you been seeing another woman and done fathered a child by her.

Rose [to Troy]: We’re not talking about baseball! We’re talking about you going off to lay in bed with another woman and then bring it home to me. That’s what we’re talking about. We ain’t talking about no baseball!!
Troy: Rose, you’re not listening to me. I’m trying the best I can to explain it to you. It’s not easy for me to admit that I been standing in the same place for eighteen years.
Rose: I been standing with you! I been right here with you, Troy. I got a life too. I gave eighteen years of my life to stand in the same spot with you. Don’t you think I ever wanted other things? Don’t you think I had dreams and hopes? What about my life? What about me? Don’t you think it ever crossed my mind to want to know other men? That I wanted to lay up somewhere and forget about my responsibilities? That I wanted someone to make me laugh so I could feel good? You not the only one who’s got wants and needs. But I held on to you, Troy. I took all my feelings, my wants and needs, my dreams . . . and I buried them inside you. I planted a seed and watched and prayed over it. I planted myself inside you and waited to bloom. And it didn’t take me no eighteen years to find out the soil was hard and rocky and it wasn’t never gonna bloom.

Troy [to Cory after Cory shoves him against the fence for hurting Rose]: All right. That’s strike two. You stay away from around me, boy. Don’t you strike out. You living with a full count. DON’T YOU STRIKE OUT!

Rose: Troy that was the hospital. Alberta had the baby.
Troy: What she have? What is it?
Rose: It’s a girl.
Troy: I better get on down to the hospital to see her.
Rose: Troy…
Troy: Rose I got to go see her now. That’s only right…what’s the matter…the baby’s all right, ain’t it?
Rose: Alberta died having the baby.

Troy [aloud to himself]: All right, Mr. Death. I tell you what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna take and build me a fence around this yard, see? I’m gonna build me a fence around what belongs to me. And then I want you to stay on the other side. You stay over there till you’re ready for me, then you come on. Bring your army, bring your sickle, bring your wrestling clothes. I ain’t gonna fall down on my vigilance this time. You ain’t gonna sneak up on me no more. When you ready for me, when the top of your list say Troy Maxson, then you come on up and knock on the front door. Ain’t nobody else got nothing to do with this. This between you and me. Man to man! You stay on the other side of that fence till you ready for me!

Troy: She’s my daughter, Rose. My own flesh and blood. I can’t deny her no more than I can deny them boys. You and them boys is my family. You and them and this child is all I got in the world. So I guess what I’m saying is I’d appreciate it if you’d help me take care of her.
Rose: Okay, Troy you’re right. I’ll take care of your baby for you ’cause like you say she’s innocent…and you can’t visit the sins of the father upon the child. A motherless child has got a hard time. From right now this child got a mother. But you a womanless man.

Troy: I guess you got someplace to sleep and something to put in your belly. You got that, huh? You got that? That’s what you need. You got that, huh?
Cory: You don’t know what I got. You ain’t got to worry about what I got.
Troy: You right! You one hundred percent right! I done spent the last seventeen years worrying about what you got. Now it’s your turn, see? I’ll tell you what to do. You grown…we done established that. You a man. Now, let’s see you act like one. Turn your behind around and walk out this yard. And when you get out there in the alley . . . you can forget about this house. See? ’Cause this is my house. You go on and be a man and get your own house. You can forget about this. ’Cause this is mine. You go on and get yours ’cause I’m through with doing for you.

Cory: Tell Mama I’ll be back for my things.
Troy: They’ll be on the other side of that fence!

Rose [to Cory, now a Marine, six years later]: Ain’t too much changed. He still got that piece of rag tied to that tree. He was out here swinging that bat. I was just ready to go back in the house. He swung that bat and then he just fell over. Seem like he swung it and stood there with this grin on his face and then he just fell over. They carried him on down to the hospital but I knew there wasn’t no need…

Rose [to Cory]: Your daddy wanted you to be everything he wasn’t, and at the same time, he wanted you to be everything he was.

Rose [to Cory]: When your daddy walked through the house he was so big he filled it up. That was my first mistake. Not to make him leave some room for me. But I wanted a house that I could sing in, and that’s what your daddy gave me. I didn’t know to keep up his strength I had to give up little pieces of mine. I took on his life as mine and mixed up the pieces so that you couldn’t hardly tell which was which anymore. It was my choice. It was my life and I didn’t have to live it like that. But that’s what life offered me in the way of being a woman and I took it.[/b]

Edward Snowden.

Saint or sinner? Hero or traitor?

Let’s follow the actual trajectory of his life. Down the road to notoriety. Hailed by some, hated by others, let’s see if we can determine which reaction we ought to have.

Well, depending of course on where you reside along the political spectrum that marks the critical juncture between embracing national security at all cost and loathing big brother.

After all, in this day and age, one in which the terrorists have become the new bogeyman – the new Commies – can there really ever be too much government snooping?

Against the bad guys.

And now, with increasingly intrusive technology that comes straight out of the brave new world, the government has the capacity to know practically everything there is to know about practically anyone who needs to be kept track of.

Again, if they’re bad guys.

Some of course will view all of this from from a considerably more radical point of view than others. They will see the national secuity state as part and parcel of a political economy that is owned and operated by those who sustain the military industrial complex, the war economy, a corporate media and a crony capitalism that intertwines Wall Street, the Congress and the White House. And in a way that even folks like Rachel Madow won’t examine.

One more peek into how the world is really run.

In a sense though this story is much like the Trump/Putin story today. It outrages those who will always be outraged by the folks who run governments from behind the curtains. But for the preponderance of those citizens who reside out in the “Heartland”, they really don’t see what the fuss is all about.

And for what it’s worth: "This [film] is a dramatization of actual events that occured between 2004 and 2013. "

IMDb

[b]To make sure the screenplay was not hacked or leaked, Oliver Stone wrote the script on a single computer with no Internet connection.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt pledged to donate his entire salary from the film to “help facilitate the conversation” about the relationship between technology and democracy.

The real Edward Snowden advised Oliver Stone that the NSA’s command centers are actually run on tight budgets and are far less glamorous than they appear in movies and TV shows. [/b]

trivia at IMDb: imdb.com/title/tt3774114/tri … =ttqu_sa_1
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowden_(film
trailer: youtu.be/QlSAiI3xMh4

SNOWDEN [2016]
Written in part and directed by Oliver Stone

[b]Doctor [to Snowden: If you ever again land on your feet again, airborne or not, your bones will turn to powder. I’m going to authorize an administrative discharge. Plenty of other ways to serve your country.

Examiner: Have you committed a crime that you have not been caught?
Snowden: No.
Examiner: Have you ever cheated on an exam?
Snowden: No.
Examiner: Do you believe the United States is the greatest country in the world?
Snowden: Yes.
Examiner: Why do you want to join the CIA?

Interviewer [Corbin O’brian]: What has been the most important day of your life?
Snowden: 9/11. We thought my grandfather was inside the Pentagon. Turned out he was off-site that day.
Interviewer: You wanted to be Special Forces?
Snowden: Yes, sir. I loved their motto: De Oppresso Liber.
Interviewer: Is that what you hope to do with us? Free people from oppression?
Snowden: I’d like to help my country make a difference in the world.

Interviewer: Any other influences?
Snowden: I’d say Joseph Campbell, Star Wars, Thoreau, Ayn Rand…
Interviewer: One man can stop the motor of the world. Atlas Shrugged.
Snowden: Yes, sir. I believe that.

Snowden: Is that a Cray-1?
Hank: Why, yes. Yes, it is. The first supercomputer. You can get all of this on a cell phone now.
Snowden: So, you’re, um, an engineer?
Hank: Am I an engineer? Instructor and counselor, too. I’m supposed to keep an eye on you CTs, make sure you don’t buckle under the pressure. Turn to drugs and booze.
Snowden: Well, you won’t have that problem with me. I don’t drink or do drugs.
Hank: What is your sin of choice?
Snowden: Uh, computers.
Hank: Well, then, Snowden, you’ve come to the right little whorehouse.

Snowden: Mr. O’brian. I’m done.
O’brian: You don’t have to tell me when you’ve completed a stage.
Snowden: No, I finished the whole thing.
O’brian: It’s been 40 minutes.
Snowden: 38. 38 minutes.
O’brian: Okay, let’s see where you screwed up.
[O’brian walks to Snowden’s computer to confirm it…only to confirm Snowden’s accomplishment instead]
Snowden: You didn’t say we had to do it in order, sir. So I, uh, broke the sequence to save time, and I automated the backup processes to run as I built the site.

Lindsay: I’m not talking about the troops. I’m talking about the moron sending them to war.
Snowden: Moron? Do you mean our Commander-in-Chief?
Lindsay: Yeah, whatever you want to call him, he’s still wrong.
Snowden: How do you know he’s wrong? You’re just lashing out…How about questioning the liberal media? I mean, you’re just buying into what one side is saying.
Lindsay: Maybe I am, 'cause my side is right.
Snowden: You see that’s funny 'cause my side’s right.
Lindsay: Why is it that smart conservatives make me so mad?
Snowden: Probably because you don’t like hearing the truth. [/b]

Of course, that’s where I come in. Snowden meets Lindsay, has discussions with folks like Hank and Gabriel. His frame of mind begins shifting…

[b]Hank: Do you want to know what really sets the agenda. Military Industrial happiness management. You keep the coffers open in Congress, you keep the money flowing to the contractors. Efficiency? Results? They go out the window.
Snowden: Did you ever say anything to anybody?
Hank: Yeah. I went to legal. We filed complaints. Now here I am, tucked away, teaching you.

O’Brian [to Snowden]: In 20 years, Iraq will be a hellhole nobody cares about. Terrorism’s a short-term threat. The real threats will come from China, Russia, Iran. And they’ll come as SQL injections and malware. Without minds like yours, this country will be torn apart in cyberspace. I don’t want to risk losing you for some horseshit war over sand and oil.[/b]

Cue [among others] Vladimir Putin.

[b]Ewen MacAskill [of the Guardian newspaper]: You want to tell people your identity. How do you think the government will react?
Snowden: The government will charge me under the Espionage Act. They’ll say I endangered national security, and they’ll demonize me, and my friends and family. And they’ll throw me in jail. That’s the best case scenario.
Ewen: And the worst?
Snowden: Well, if I don’t have any media cover, then I’ll be rendered by the CIA and interrogate “outside” the law…Mr MacAskill, this isn’t about money or anything for me. There’s no hidden agenda. I just want to get this data to established journalists like yourselves, so that you can present it to the world, and people can decide either I’m wrong or there’s something going on inside the government that’s really wrong.

Snowden [first becoming aware of the breadth of the NSA program]: How is all of this possible?
Gabriel: Keyboard selectors…“attack” “take out Bush”. Think of it as a Google search except instead of searching only what people make public, we’re also looking at everything they don’t. Emails, chats, SMS, whatever.
Snowden: Yeah, but which people?
Gabriel: The whole kingdom, Snow White.

Snowden: You don’t have to get a FISA court order?
Gabriel: No, not here. XKeyscore’s under 702 authority, which mean no warrants.
Snowden: Okay, but for U.S. targets then, you’d have to get the court order?
Gabriel: You mean FISA? Yeah, but they’re just a big-ass rubber stamp, dude. I mean, FISA judges are all appointed by the Chief Justice, who’s like, you know, Darth Vader when it comes to national security.[/b]

You watch this and can’t help but wonder if your own bedroom is in the loop. In fact, there’s a scene where Snowden and Lindsay are having sex. Snowden notes the laptop on the table. He knows that “big brother” may well be watching them on some screen on “the hill”.

[b]Snowden [to Laura]: You know, I thought things were actually going to be better with Obama. I was wrong.

Snowden [to Laura]: The Japanese were not as thrilled to learn that we wanted them to help us spy on the Japanese population. They said it was against their laws. Of course we tapped the entire country anyway. And we didn’t stop there 'cause once we owned their communications systems, we started going after their physical infrastructure. We’d slip these little sleeper programs into power grids, dams, hospitals…the idea was if the day came when Japan was no longer an ally, it would be lights out. And it wasn’t just the Japanese. We were planting malware in Mexico, Germany, Brazil, Austria. I mean China I can understand, or Russia, or Iran, or Venezuala…but Austria? We’re also being ordered to follow most world leaders and heads of industry. You know, we’re tracking trade deals, sex scandals, diplomatic cables…or leverage over Brazilian oil companies, or helping to oust some third-world leader who is not playing ball. And ultimately the truth sinks in that no matter what justification you’re selling yourself, this is not about terrorism. Terrorism is the excuse. This is anout econimic and social control. And the only thing you are really protecting is the supremacy of your government.

Snowden [to Laura]: There’s that moment when you’re sitting there and the scale of it hits you. The NSA is really tracking every cell phone in the world. No matter who you are every day of your life, you’re sitting in a database just ready to be looked at. Not just terrorists, or countries, or corporations but you.

Corbin: Is there something you do hold against me?
Snowden: You didn’t tell me we were running a dragnet on the whole world, Corbin.

Snowden: So we should catalog billions of people’s lives?
Corbin: Most people already catalogue their lives for public consumption.
Snowden: Well, they catalogue part of their lives, and they do it by choice. We’re not giving them a choice. We’re just taking everything.
Corbin: Most Americans don’t want freedom, they want security. It’s a simple bargain. If you want to play with all the new toys and be safe, you pay the price of admission.
Snowden: Yeah, but the people, they don’t even know they’ve made that bargain.

Snowden: So, this is data collection for the month of March worldwide, emails and Skype calls. So France, 70 million. Germany, 500 million. Brazil, two billion. Inside the U.S., 3.1 billion emails and calls. That’s not including any of the telecom company data.
Patrick: Okay, so what’s the collection in Russia?
Snowden: Russia is 1.5 billion.
Patrick: Wait, so we’re collecting twice as much in the U.S. as we are in Russia?

Catfish: We all knew that it was a kid. Poof. He’s gone. But same village, two, three days later. We see the funeral party. We knew it was a kid that they were burying. Moms and dads wailing. And then the order comes down. Hit 'em. Poof. And they are gone in a cloud of dust.

Trevor [after Catfish discloses the consequence of a drone strike that killed the child and then an entire family]: You make it sound criminal, man. It’s war. It’s a job.
Catfish: I don’t know, man, you saying jobs can’t be criminal?
Trevor: Not if you’re working for the government.
Snowden: You ever hear about the Nuremberg trials, Trev? They weren’t that long ago.
Trevor: Yeah, and we hung the Nazi big shots, right?
Snowden: Yeah, well, the big shots were the first trial, but then the next trial were just the judges, and lawyers, and policemen, and guards, and ordinary people just doing their jobs, following orders. That’s where we got the Nuremberg principles, which then the UN made into international law, just in case ordinary jobs become criminal again.

Snowden: I’m grateful for you looking after me.
Corbin: Or after you omitted the truth in your last polygraph. What was it you were withholding exactly?
Snowden: Remember that day in class you were talking about the FISA court? You said they approved Bush’s wiretapping programs.
Corbin: Sometimes we’re restricted from tellng the whole truth. Doesn’t give us permission to lie.
Snowden: Come on, Corbin, the director of National Intelligence just lied to Congress!

Corbin [to Snowden]: If it will give you any peace of mind, I can assure you Lindsay is not sleeping with that photographer friend of hers.[/b]

Snowden’s expression tells us that he knows all that Corbin telling him this implies.

[b]Snowden: Your email is being monitored.
Lindsay: So?
Snowden: It’s different now. It’s not passive collection, it’s full-take surveillance. It’s all your emails, calls, texts, social media, everything. It’s also possible the house is bugged. I’m not sure.
Lindsay: By who?
Snowden: By a senior officer in the C.I.A.

Newsman [on TV]: Breaking news tonight. Reports that through a secret court order, the Obama administration is collecting the phone records of millions of Verizon customers…The specific court order shows that all of the information is going to the National Security Agency.

Wolf Blitzer [on TV]: The Washington Post and the Guardian in London reporting that the NSA and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading Internet companies, including Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, AOL, Skype, YouTube, and Apple. The Post says they are extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs that enable analysts to track a person’s movements and contacts over time.

Snowden listens to Obama on TV: In the abstract, you can complain about Big Brother and how this is a potential program run amok. But when you actually look at the details, I think we struck the right balance.

Hank [watching Snowden on TV]: He did it. The kid did it.[/b]

It doesn’t take much – and it can come from any direction – to bring about an implosion in any particular life. We go about the business of living a life that allows us to sustain a more or less reasonable sense of equanimity. All is well and [for some] that is only as it ever should have been.

And then it happens. One or another calamity. One or another crisis. A whole string of them maybe. The rest then becomes embedded in options. Or in one’s capacity to weather the storms.

Perhaps even in one’s capacity to actually prevail…and to move on triumphantly.

And if you are a philosophy professor? How does it change things when you have spent your entire life in search of, among other things, truth and wisdom? You may well have even discovered [existentially] the limitations of truth and wisdom.

Or it may be thrust upon you instead.

The world of intellectuals. More or less radical. But only more or less in touch with what others call “reality”. And there, lurking in the background, are the protestors…the anarchists. The folks hell-bent on connecting the dots between the personal and the political. The part that is all the murkier still.

But here one size almost never fits all.

Based on a true story: The writer/director’s mother.

IMDb

As Mia Hansen-Løve was basing the film on her mother’s life she asked her mother to approve the script before she began filming. The one thing her mother had her change was the name of the cat. In the original script it was called Desdemona, after the cat it was based on, but her mother had her change it to Pandora to respect the cat’s privacy.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Things_to_Come_(2016_film
trailer: youtu.be/UhErAqJ8HGE

THINGS TO COME [L’Avenir] 2016
Written and directed by Mia Hansen-Løve

[b]Nathalie reads a plaque on a stone wall by the seashore: “A great French writer wanted to rest here to hear only the sea and wind. Passerby, respect his last wish.”

Nathalie [to her class]: Consider this quotation of Rousseau’s. “If there were a nations of gods, it would govern itself democratically. A government so perfect is not suited to me.” Think it over. Then we’ll discuss it.[/b]

This while political protests and strikes swirl about the school over any number of issues.

[b]Nathalie [looking out the window at the protesters]: Remember, Rousseau wrote “The Social Contract”, inspiring the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. His ideas formed the Revolution.

Nathalie: You’re changing my collection of essays?
Amélie: It’s the most costly and least profitable collection.
Nathalie: And the most prestigious.
Amélie: No doubt, but we can’t just sit back and watch sales plummet.
Daniel [handing her the changed format]: Just a proposal.
[Nathalie leafs through it]
Daniel: If you don’t like it…
Nathalie: It’s bad beyond belief. Like an ad for M&M’s. What I’ve always fought against.
Amélie: The original cover is classy but very plain. The new one is modern, aggressive and catchy. We did tests. It’s really hard to miss.
Nathalie: A real eyesore![/b]

Just as religion has to accomodate itself to capitalism so too must philosophy.

[b]Heinz [to his son and daughter]: When we met, your mom was handing out Commie tracts. A real terror!
Nathalie: Okay, I was a Communist, three years. No shame. Just like most intellectuals then.
Heinz: Not me.
Nathalie: Not you.
Heinz: She was even in the USSR.
Nathalie: So what? I came back disenchanted. I read Solzhenitsyn, end of story.

Nathalie [of Fabien]: You could have made an effort. You were like ice.
Heinz: I don’t like him much.
Nathalie: What don’t you like?
Heinz: Expert on everything, a real know-it-all.
Nathalie: You don’t know him.
Heinz: He fawns when he needs you but walks over you when you’re in his way.
Nathalie: You’re crazy. The sweetest, kindest student I’ve ever had. And he’s brave.
Heinz: Because he’s Mr. Protestor?
Nathalie: Jealous?
Heinz: Jealous? Please.

Chole [to Heinz]: I know you are seeing someone.
Heinz: Does Mom know?
Chole: No. I won’t tell her. But Johann and I want you to choose. Quickly, Dad.

Nathalie [to the class being held outdoors]: Can the truth be debated?
Student: I don’t get it. Why couldn’t it be debated?
Nathalie: Really? What about areas where it’s established?
Student: It’s always contestable.
Nathalie: No one still says the Sun revolves around the Earth. In science, there are established truths. Is that the only area?
Student: In history too.
Nathalie: Exactly. The storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, or Nazi exterminatiom of Jews leave no room for debate. Be careful. Debating truth is one thing, contesting it another.
Student: When can we say truth is established?
Nathalie: That’s the question. In the end, the problem is less the existence of truth than the criteria for establishing it. Distinguish between the areas where truth can be proved from those concerned with belief, conviction, faith, but not established truths.
Student: Like art. We can’t speak of truth in art.
Nathalie: Really? We still question the genius of Homer and Shakespeare?
Student: A recent movie said that Shakespeare’s a sham.
Nathalie: It’s too late. Mozart, Proust, Van Gogh: time decided. There’s truth in art, established over time.
Student: Why can’t time get it wrong?[/b]

Here again the “general description” arguments. Wrong about what particular things or behaviors in what particular context?

[b]Yvette [Nathalie’s mother on the phone]: Nathalie, it’s me. I turned on the gas. I’m going to die.

Nathalie [after Heinz announces his choice]: I thought you would love me forever.
[pause]
Nathalie: I’m a goddamn idiot!

Nathalie: That fucking smell…the smell of death.

Nathalie: After 40, women are fit for the trash.
Fabien: How can you say that? Especially you!
Nathalie: It’s the plain truth. Do many women my age leave their husbands?
Fabien: There are tons of them.
Nathalie: In movies.

Nathalie: Deep down I was prepared. No reason to pity me. I’m lucky to be fulfilled intellectually. It’s enough to be happy.
Fabien: Really?
Nathalie: Yes, really.

Nathalie [to Fabien about what she will miss now that her marriage is over]: My house in Brittaney saddens me…Every vacation there ever since our wedding. It means so much to me. The love I put into it. The garden I planted, designed from A to Z. To think I have to give it all up. All my memories. The beach where I saw my kids grow up…

Nathalie: I’m going back to Paris. My mother hasn’t eaten in 3 days.
Heinz: It’s not a ploy to get you back?
Nathalie: Of course it is. What should I do, let her die?

Nathalie [reading from Pascal’s Pensees]: “This is what I see and what troubles me. I look on all sides and see only darkness everywhere. Nature presents me with only doubt and concern. If I saw nothing there which revealed a Divinity, I would come to a negative conclusion. If I saw everywhere the signs of a Creator, I would remain peacefully in faith. But, seeing too much to deny and too little to be sure, I am in a state to be pitied. I have 100 times wished that if God maintains nature, it should testify to Him unequivocally. If the signs that nature gives are deceptive, He should suppress them fully. Nature should say everything or nothing so I see which cause to follow. But in my present state, ignorant of what I am or of what I must do, I know neither my condition nor my duty. My heart inclines to know where is the true good in order to follow it. Nothing would be too dear to me for eternity.”

Nathalie: All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.

Nathalie: So, what is your book about?
Fabien: Finding the way out of the concept of disaster. But while refusing political compromise, Creating a real countervailing power, alternate lifestyles.
Nathalie: Quite an agenda.

Nathalie: I didn’t know Zizek was among your references. Isn’t he fishy?
Fabien: I have lots of books. I don’t agree with all of them.
Nathalie: And the Unabomber wrote a book? I hope you place more value on human life.
Fabien: I want action to be compatible with thought. It isn’t what you teach.
Nathalie: Why do you say that? I always insisted on making actions and thoughts compatible. I try to practice it myself.
Fabien: Yeah, okay. But only in the private sphere.
Nathalie: How so?
Fabien: You don’t let everyday behavior betray your values. You don’t envision a thought system requiring a change in your lifestyle.
Nathalie: Meaning?
Fabien: You think demonstrations and petitions make you a committed intellectual. Clear conscience, same lifestyle.
Nathalie: You mean my bourgeois lifesytle? Why not outgrow these schemes? I think they’re sterile.
Fabien: Because it suits you.
Nathalie: Revolution is not my goal. It’s true. Mine is more humble. To help kids think for themselves. We may disagree but I thought I taught you that.[/b]

This never ever gets resolved.

Nathalie [to the class regarding a Rousseau novel]: Julie is recalling her former passion, unrequited with Saint-Preux. She had hope to know true bliss with him and this hope made her happy, Julie can then be happy substituting dream for reality. “That state sufficed unto itself”. This is the power of imagination. It compensates for the absence of the loved one with a pleasure that is purely mental, unreal in a way, yet nevertheless effective. For people with a lot of imagination, like Julie, but probably Rousseau as well, phantasmagorical satisfaction is a real comfort that supplants, replaces carnal pleasure.

Trust me: This is true. But only for those very, very few.

One particularly disturbing aspect of our postmodern world is this: Who can you trust?

Modern relationships in particular are increasingly embedded in a world in which we don’t know – really know – any number of men and women we might bump into in any particular context. And the nature of the contexts themselves can become increasingly more problematic.

After all, there was once a time when, by and large, we lived in communities where we could be reasonably confident that the man or woman that we chose to become involved with would only behave within a range of behaviors that almost everyone accepted as “the norm.”

Sure, there might be the occasional psycho-sexual monster like Jack the Ripper about, but that was still rather remote.

Not so much anymore. We just never know – really know – how wide the gap might be between the charming persona we interact with on the first date and the demonic creep that is embedded deeper, more viscerally in someone’s motivations and intentions.

And what makes men like this particularly ominous is the manner in which they can intertwine so many conflicting and contradictory personas on cue. You try to put all the pieces together but they never really fit. And, more to the point, they may not fit from the other end either. You are never sure – really sure – what it must be like to look at things from his point of view.

Indeed, that’s why there will probably never be a lack of new episodes for true crime programs like Dateline or 48 hours.

Think The Collector. Only all the more monstrous.

Next up: the Stockholm Syndrome. Or is it?

IMDb

The apartment that Clare is trapped in is based on a real one, in the Prenzlauer Berg neighbourhood of Berlin. Director Cate Shortland: “It was a 50- or 60-apartment building with [only] about eight apartments occupied. But all of our young people are flocking there. It’s kind of a beautiful idea, wanting to get out and explore, and hoping the artistic and cultural dynamic of the city will rub off on you. It’s a place with a lot of community feeling, but in winter it’s also an incredibly monstrous, grey, miserable place.”

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Syndrome_(film
trailer: youtu.be/tbq44I_nSRg

BERLIN SYNDROME [2017]
Directed by Cate Shortland

[b]Clare: I was working for a real estate company…taking photos and, you know, those life experiences that people talk about all the time? I wanted to do that, so, I…I booked a ticket and put my stuff in storage and came here. Pretty predictable.
Andi: I don’t know. Maybe brave.

Andi [to Clare]: I thought you wanted to leave.

Clare: So quiet.
Andi: Berlin is full of these empty places.[/b]

Creepy empty places.

[b]Clare [after discovering she is locked in the apartment]: What the fuck…?

Clare [after Andi finally gets home]: Couldn’t find the key. Did you leave me a key?
Andi: Yeah. Sure.
[he fishes about for the key in his pocket]
Andi: I thought I’d left it on the table. No. I didn’t…
Clare: I didn’t think I would be able to get back in. And then I realized that I couldn’t even leave.
Andi: You can leave now. I’ll take a shower.
Clare: Did you lock me in?
Andi [in seeming joking manner]: Yes, sure. But next time, I’ll tie you to the bed.

Andi: I have to go.
Clare: Hey. The key.
Andi: It’s on the dresser.
Clare [looking at a key on the dresser]: Okay.

Clare: Andi, what is going on?
Andi: “What is going on?” You could have gone to Dresden. You said you want to stay.
Clare: We had sex. People…people say all sorts of things in bed. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Please, dear god.
Andi [matter-of-factly]: Do you like Pesto?

Clare [finally exploding]: OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR!
Andi: No one can hear you…

Father: You were late today.
Andi: Yes. I met someone, Papa.
Father: What about Natalie?
Andi: I’ve told you. She’s gone back to Canada.

Father [to Andi]: Why do you always choose tourists?

Andi [to Clare bound to the bed]: I told my father about us…I texted your mother for you. You told her you are okay.

Clare: I miss my mom.
Andi: There’s no point in missing something you can’t have back. You have me.

Clare: You could do so many things.
Andi: But I just want to so this.

Andi [to Clare]: What would be the worst thing I could ever do to you?
[she looks at him with trepidation]
Andi: Don’t worry…I would never do it. We are a team.

Andi: Clare? The door won’t open. Clare? Did you touch this door? Clare?

Andi: My father’s dead.
Clare: I thought you weren’t gonna come back.

Clare: How did you choose me?
Andi: You paused on the street.
Clare: What was I looking at? And what about the other girl before me? How did you choose her?
Andi: There was no other girl.
Clare: You’re lying. Do you still think about her?
Andi: No.
Clare: How come? [/b]

Three guesses.

[b]Clare [desperately to a child in the forest]: You need to help me. You need to help me. You need to call the police. Please, he’s a bad man. He will hurt us.
Child: What?
Clare: No. You need to help me. Call the police. I need you to. He’s a bad man.

Andi: How do you think this is going, from one to ten?
Clare: From one to ten?
Andi: Us.
Clare: Maybe…er…seven.

Clare: Where’s Lotte?
Andi: She ran away.[/b]

Some might find it hard to imagine a production of Arthur Miller’s Death Of a Salesman in Tehran. The first thing that pops into their head is this: What is and what is not permitted when you are citizen residing in an Islamic theocracy?

What might offend Allah, in other words.

Well, we know that Allah is offended by any number of female behaviors. Or at least the rendition of Allah that seems to prevail in many Muslim countries today. This film recounts one particular context, one particular sequence of events in which others may or may not gain insights into what it might be like to be of the female gender in a world where, if you are a woman, your behaviors may will be scrutinized…religiously

And here it is the behaviors of a woman who has been assaulted. And the behaviors of those around her. In particular her husband. Which then takes us into an exploration of male pride. And the existential parameters of “honor”.

But some things are the same for all of us. We go about the business of living our life when, out of the blue, Something Happens. Something traumatic. And our lives can never be the same.

And all over a simple misunderstanding. And a very foolish mistake. And yet the circumstances here are to say the least problematic. Was she really assulted? What actually happened? This film speaks volumes regarding just how convoluted these close encounters of the existential kind can be.

The Saleman won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. It garnered a 97% fresh rating at RT on 154 reviews and a 7.9 rating at IMDb. So, both the “critics” and the “people” liked it.

trivia at IMDb: imdb.com/title/tt5186714/tri … =ttqu_sa_1
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Salesman_(2016_film
trailer: youtu.be/WlKN5PBVLN8

THE SALESMAN [Forušande‎] 2016
Written and directed by Asghar Farhadi

[b]Emad: What a disaster this town. If only we could level it all and start again.
Babak: They did, and look at the result.

Amin: You know, that she said she wants to sit in the front seat. Sir, after you got out of the car, I told her that you were my teacher. And that we all liked you a lot.
Emad: What was your first name again?
Amin: Amin.
Emad: Amin, you can be sure that some man behaved badly in a taxi to that woman, and now she thinks they’re all the same. But nobody died, so off you go.

Rana: Emad, they’re coming back after the performance. Three passages might still be censored. Can you stay and talk to them?..Otherwise, the show risks a suspension.

Emad [at the hospital after his wife had been attacked]: Who was it then?
Neighbor: A client of that woman.
Emad: What woman?
Neighbor: The one in the apartment before you. She lived a wild life. I think the guy came for her.

Rana: Who was he?
Emad: The neighbors say the old tenant was promiscuous. That man must have been a client of hers.

Emad: How did he get in?
Rana: I let him in. I was waiting for you. I came out of the bathroom, buzzed the door open and went back in. I was washing my hair. I felt someone had come in. He stroked my hair, I thought it was you. Then I saw his hands, and can’t remember anything else.

Babak: What happened?
Emad: Go and see Rana, you’ll know what happened.
Babak: They told me she slipped in the shower.

Mrs Shahnazari [a neighbor]: I thought you would go to the police.
Emad: Nothing serious happened.
Mrs Shahnazari: It’s obvious you’re not the one who found your wife the other day, otherwise you wouldn’t say that. When Mr. Alimoradi opened the door, he thought your wife was dead.

Emad: Go take a shower, I’ll wait here.
Rana: I don’t want to go in that bathroom.
Emad: I’ll drop you off at a friend’s place. Use theirs.
Rana: Go and tell them we’ve come to take a shower?
Emad: What do you want me to do? You keep changing your mind. At night you tell me not to come near you, then in the morning you tell me not to leave you. Tell me what to do and I’ll do it.

Emad: Tell yourself it could’ve been worse. If you’d injured your eye, or hit your head harder, what would I have done?
Ran: I wish I had hit myself harder.

Neighbor: My wife said you’re not going to report it.
Rana: No.
Neighbor: You’re doing the right thing. They won’t do anything, even if they catch him. And you’ll have to explain over and over why you opened the door.

Emad: Can you arrange a meeting with your tenant?
Babak: Why?
Emad: I want to speak to her. I want to know why she did it.
Babak: Did what?
Emad: What she did. She sent that guy to us.
Babak: Why would she do that?

Emad: Did you find the card?
Rana: No.
Emad: How did you pay?
Rana: With the money you left.
Emad: What money?
Rana: In the drawer.

Rana: Why did you open her letters? That’s private.
Emad: I want to know who he was.
Rana: What for? He’ll say it was a mistake.
Emad: A mistake?
Rana: He buzzed, I opened. He must have thought it was her.
Emad: And when he realized it was a mistake, why did he stay? Because there was a woman in the shower?
Rana: How would he know?..If only I’d answered the damn intercom and asked who it was he wouldn’t have come up.

Father [of Majid]: The door is locked.
Emad: Wait for a bit. Could you take off your shoes?
Father: What for?
Emad: I want to see your feet.

Majid’s father: It happened really fast. I came in, there was no one. And your wife had just let me in. Why did she open the door?
Emad: She thought it was me.
Majid’s father: I’m telling you straight. I went to the bathroom door and called the kid. Then she started screaming. I took off.
Emad: You went in.
Majid’s father: I didn’t.
Emad: How did you cut your foot then?
Majid’s father: No idea. Downstairs, my foot hurt, I guess I cut myself on the stairs.
Emad: So my wife is lying?
Majid’s father: She said I went in?
Emad: If she’d not flung herself at the glass in fear, what would you have done to her, bastard?
Majid’s father: I swear, when I realized my mistake, I fled. Ask your wife. I’ll stay here, bring her.

Majid’s father [to Emad]: Don’t humiliate me in front of my family.

Emad: There’s my wife. Are you still saying you didn’t go in?
Majid’s father: Forgive me.
Emad: Answer me.
Majid’s father: I behaved badly.
Emad: Why did you go into the bathroom?
Majid’s father: I was tempted.

Rana: Emad. What are you going to do to him?
Emad: His family is on the way. I want his wife to know.
Rana: Emad…you are taking revenge. Let him go.
Emad: I know what I’m doing. Just stay there.

Emad: They’re coming. Your son-in-law called. I told him to come with your wife. They’re coming. Sit down.
Majid’s father: Please let me go.
Emad: Repeat it to them and you can go
Majid’s father: I’m begging you.

Majid’s father [turning in the direction of the room that Rana is in]: Madam, forgive me. Let me go before they arrive.

Rana [entering the room]: Go on sir, go.
Emad: Sit down.
Rana: Let him go.
Emad: He’s going. He’ll leave with his family.
[he turns to Majid’s father]
Emad: Stay seated.
Majid’s father: Pity…
Rana: Go…
Emad: Stay seated.
Majid’s father: My children…
Rana: Let him go.
Emad: Don’t interfere.

Emad: Don’t be scared. He’s better.
Rana: You didn’t call an ambulance?
Emad: No, I was afraid he was dead.

Rana [to Emad after the intercom buzzes]: Wait…If you talk to his family, it’s over between us.

Majid’s mother [to Rana]: Thank you so much madam. Excuse us. This man is my whole life. Thank you very much. You’ve given me back my life. He’s everything to me.

Emad [to Majid’s father]: Come with me. We have an account to settle.
Majid’s mother: What account?

Emad [alone in the room with Majid’s father]: How much money did you leave the other night? How much?
Majid’s father: I didn’t count it.
[he puts the money in the bg, walks over to Majid’s father and slaps him hard across the face][/b]

There are some folks among us who go all the way back to the day when the Cultural Revolution in China was embraced wholeheartedly as The Future.

Not many around today of course but I’m sure those still among us must pause from time to time and wonder what it must be like for those actually living in China today who go back that far.

What must it be like to make an adjustment of that magnitude? From Mao to modernity in just a few short decades. As one reviewer put it: “It feels that the movie’s intention is to portray the reality of a generation that feels confused and out of place in a new reality that clashes modern capitalism with former communism.”

The film is described as “a brilliant exploration of violence and corruption in contemporary China”. And, indeed, just as there is a gap in America [my own place of birth] between what you read in a civics text and the way things really are, the citizens of China must confront the very same sort of chasms. Only they have to somehow reconcile the Great Leap Forward with a political economy that is today little more than crony capitalism on steroids.

In fact, some speculate that this is precisely the sort of thing the ruling class in America [and not just Trumpworld] would like to have at their own disposal. All of the really big decisions anchored more or less to a “Central Commitee”. Either that or one or another rendition of the flagrant state capitalism embedded in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

The film is said to be based on four “recent events” in China. Four independent narratives that culminate one way or another in acts of violence. Still, each of us will intertwine what we see on the screen into the narrative that we imagine reflects what is going on in contemporary China. Also, the way in which these behaviors are intertwined into that which we construe to be the most reasonable and virtuous behaviors. The whole film basically exposes the gaps “in the real world” between what is presumed [by one or another individual] to be the “right thing to do” – or to be “just” – and who actually has the power to enforce a particular political agenda. And then the repercussions you risk if you dare to confront “the system”.

And that works more or less the same way over here too.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Touch_of_Sin
trailer: youtu.be/VUJt_kf7uKQ

A TOUCH OF SIN [Tian Zhu Ding] 2013
Written and directed by Zhangke Jia

[b]Friend: So if the village chief’s Audi A6 sat outside his house, you’d sell that too?
Dahai: What do you think? His A6 belongs to everyone in the village. He sold the state owned coal mine so he could afford it.
Friend: No wonder the car looks so familiar. Those shiny wheels are actually mine!
[they all laugh]

Dahai: Village chief. When you sold off the coal mine you promised yearly dividends.
Village chief: I said that in private. I don’t have time now.
Dahai: Okay, explain it to the Discipline Committee.
Village chief [approaching Dahai]: You’ve picked the wrong time for a fight. You’ll be a loser your whole life.
Dahai: You won’t discuss it?
Village chief: You talk too much.

Dahai: Miss, a registered letter.
Postal clerk: To whom?
Dahai: Bejing. Zhongnanhai. The Commission.
Postal clerk: I need the full address.
Dahai What? Everyone knows Zhongnanhai.
Postal clerk: That’s not enough.
Dahai: Miss, are you siding with the village chief? Does he give you kickbacks? Are you his mistress? Has he bought you a car?
Postal clerk: Your’re crazy!
Dahai: You two must be in league! No justice! There’s no justice!

Dahai: Accountant Liu, are your accounts up to date? When Boss Jiao got hold of the coal mine he said 40% of the profits would go to the village. How much do the last 14 years’ dividends come to?
Liu: Listen, back in 2001 the village committee signed to sell the coal mine
Dahai: Who asked you to sell it? Was the contract discussed?
Liu: But we must keep our word!
Dahai: But Boss Jiao got so rich he even bought a plane.
Liu: He’s a hard worker.
Dahai: Then tell me how much you and the chief took in bribes.
Liu [to the bus driver]: Stop, please!

Dahai: Can you do me a favor?
Jiao: Whatever you need, just ask.
Dahai: Sponsor my journey to Beijing to file accusations against you and the village chief.

Man [at the hospital after Dahai has been beaten]: I’m here to compensate you on behalf of the Shengli Group.
[he throws packets of money on the hospital bed]
Man: Case closed.

Dahai [now with a shotgun]: Write.
Liu: Write what?
Dahai: You know how much the village chief embezzled. Write a confession.
Liu: You’re being ridiculous.
[Dahai aims the shotgun at him]
Liu: What are you doing? That’s dangerous.
Dahai: Write it down. Write!!
Liu: Shoot. Shoot me here in the head.
[Dahai seems to back off]
Liu: You’re too much of a coward to shoot me.[/b]

We’ll see.

Jiao [to Dahai]: How can we fix this?

We’ll see.

[b]Voice over loudspeaker: Ladies and gentlemen, Chongqing Railway Station reminds you that during this holiday congestion it is strictly prohibited to carry combustible materials as well as firearms and knives.

Wife: You can’t stay here in the village?
Zhou San: It’s boring.
Wife: What isn’t boring?
Zhou San: Shooting guns isn’t boring.[/b]

Neither [it turns out] is armed robbery and cold blooded murder.

[b]Zhang: Let’s go to Guangzhou together.
Xiaoyu [after a long pause]: Either you stay with your wife and we separate, or you divorce her and we live together. You have to choose.

Zhang’s wife: Are you Xiaoyu?
Xiaoyu: Yes
Wife [slapping her hard across the face]: I’m Zhang Youliang’s wife. Bitch!

Woman: Xiaoyu, your shift’s over.
Xiaoyu: Did you know that animals commit suicide?
Woman: So they don’t know the saying: “Better to live miserable than die happy.”
Xiaoyu: Animals wouldn’t agree.

Voice on phone: Hello this is the 110 emergency call line.
Xiaoyu: I’ve killed someone.

Instructor [at a brothel]: When a guest arrives, don’t call him “sir”. From now on he’s a “distinguished guest”. So you say, “Good evening distinguished guest, Welcome.”[/b]

In either Mandarin, Cantonese or English.

[b]Xiaohui: Are you a Buddhist?
Lianrong [who works in the brothel]: Yes. In this line of work, the Cantonese call us “illicit traders”. So we need to do lots of good deeds to be forgiven in our next life.

Xiaohui: Let’s leave Dongguan.
Lianrong: Where will you take me?
Xiaohui: As long as you’re coming anywhere will do.
Lianrong: There’s no true love in sex work. How well do you know me? I have a daughter. That day you saw me on the train, I was going to see her in Guangzhou. She’s three. I have to raise her. [/b]

Cue the statue of Buddha. Then [later] Xiaohui toppling over to his death.

Upstairs, downstairs.

Throughout history there have been many, many renditions of this. Those hired to serve their masters. More or less freely. More or less diabolically.

Here the narrative is rooted in “the Far East”. Particular cultural prejudices abound that “outsiders” may or may not be familiar with. And, historically, the events unfold in the 1930s, in Korea, a nation at that time occupied by Japan. The plot is bursting at the seams with intrigue. In other words, a world where particular characters adopt particular personas in order to manipulate others into believing in a staged reality. Con artists in other words. Downstairs sorts trying to confiscate what those “upstairs” have. But only in the most cunning and sophisticated of ways.

The plot is narrated from different perspectives. A way of looking at the same events from unique points of view. Here revolving by and large around love and betrayal. And money. And lust. Lots and lots of lust in a clearly patriarchal society. That and the things that we will do in order to obtain and then sustain them. And always within each of us there is ample room for contingency, chance and change. We start out with one set of motivations, get swept up in the experience, and find those intentions being tugged in very different directions.

Most crucially, we see how any particular individual only sees another from a own point of view. Then we gain access to the actual life that person lived. The parts from the past that configured them into who they think they are today…but parts we were never privy to.

Basically, the film inhabits a wholly cloistered world/reality ever and always cut off from the rest of us. The stuff of fantasy by and large. And clearly a world only the very rich can sustain. Well, for any length of time.

From the director of Oldboy above, the film is described as an “erotic psychological thriller”. And who can ask for more than that?

IMDb

[b]The film title in Korean (Ah-ga-ssi) means ‘‘The Lady’’ referring to Lady Hideko, while the English/International title is The Handmaiden referring to Sookee.

Before filming, director Park sent the completed script to source writer Sarah Waters for comments. Waters liked the script but felt that it is more appropriate to say that the film was ''inspired by" the novel Fingersmith.

For the lesbian lovemaking scenes between the two female leads:
⦁ All the crew members were asked to leave the set and only a female staff holding the boom microphone was present. The scenes were filmed with a remote controlled camera.
⦁ On the date of shooting, all visitors were not allowed to be near the shooting area.
⦁ All male crew members had a day off on the shooting day.
⦁ The bathroom set in Hideko’s room was made into a resting area for the two actresses to relax between takes.
⦁ The bed scenes were shot during the early stages of the production as Park thought it was stressful and burdensome for everyone.
⦁ During pre-production, everything has been choreographed and discussed between Park and the two actresses who were fully-dressed.

Tae-ri Kim said she felt slightly insecure with performing the simulated lesbian sex scenes, but Min-hee Kim reassured and energized her.[/b]

trivia at IMDb: imdb.com/title/tt4016934/tri … =ttqu_sa_1
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Handmaiden
trailer: youtu.be/IkvHtfRAKNk

THE HANDMAIDEN [Ah-ga-ssi] 2016
Directed by Chan-wook Park

[b]Sookee’s sister [at the train station]: I should be the one going. It should be me who’s going to that Jap’s household.

Mrs. Sasaki [to Sookee]: You may eat the Mistress’s leftover food. But the leftover tea must be brought to the kitchen. Leftover oil and soap should be brought to the steward. Anyone caught stealing is expelled that day.

Sookee [narrating]: You think my actual name is Tamako…But my real name is Nam Sookee. Once I was born, I was given away to the silversmith shop of my father. When I was 5, I could already tell the difference between fake and real money. Afterwards, I learned how to make fake signature stamps, and even picked up the art of stealing as well.

Fujiwara: I will make her fall in love with me and we’ll escape to Japan. There, we will get married, and once she receives her inheritance, I’ll say that my wife has gone mad and have her locked in an insane asylum. I want Sookee to be her maid. Every night to listen in on Hideko and afterwards, relay everything to me. Follow her every move all day and convince her to fall in love with me.
Sookee: A con-man knows how to love?

Sookee [to Fujiwara]: Fine, 50,000 accepted. Besides the jewelry and clothes, I want 100,000 on top of that.

Sookee [narrating]: Crazy? Not a bit. I’ll take my fortune and flee this country. Endure these country yokels a bit longer.

Fujiwara [reading his letter of reference aloud]: “Dear Miss Izumi Hideko, Count Fujiwara has informed me you are in need of a new maid. A maid is like a pair of chopsticks. When their presence is there it’s ignored, but when it’s not there you feel something missing.”

Lady Hideko: Reading can be learned, and I don’t care if you curse and steal. But don’t ever lie to me. Understood?
Sookee: Yes, Miss.

Kouzuki: The snake! The snake!
Lady Hideko: You must never pass that point!
Kouzuki: Be warned! The snake marks the bounds of knowledge.

Sookee [to Fujiwara of Lady Hideko]: She’s so naive, even if a man pulls on her nipples she won’t know what he wants!
Fujiwara: So it’s your job to tell her that everything is because of me. “Oh my, since the Count arrived, your toenails are growing much faster!”

Lady Hideko: I think I know what the Count meant. Your face…Each night in bed, I think of your face.
Sookee [feigning shyness]: Don’t be silly, Miss.

Sookee [narrating]: For now, the Lady needn’t go read to the sick fuck who wants to marry his wife’s niece. Instead, the fake Count goes to the library to make fake books…Poor girl, losing her heart to a fraud.

Lady Hideko: It would have been better if I was never born. To have never taken a breath.
Sookee: No baby is ever guilty of being born. If your mother thought you could understand, this is what she would have said. That she was so lucky to have you before dying.[/b]

Is she acting now?

Sookee [narrating]: The lady sits, shy and trembling. The gentleman is persistent. The perceptive maid has stepped out for a moment. All is well, Sookee. Everyone’s performing their roles well…I see that I should not have come here. It was wrong to come.

Though by now we see that not all of them are.

[b]Sookee [narrating]: I need to remind myself that I want to be rich. And then travel somewhere far eat foreign foods, to buy bright shiny things and… most importantly…not think about Hideko.

Lady Hideko [to Sookee]: He proposed to me.
Sookee: What did you say?
Lady Hideko: I said I wasn’t sure.
Sookee: Why?
Lady Hideko: I’m scared.
Sookee: Of your Uncle’s anger?
Lady Hideko: Of the Count.

Lady Hideko: [lying in bed next to Sookee…whispering]: What does a man really want?
Sookee: What?
Lady Hideko: What I mean is the wedding night. How would I know? I’m practically a child. I grew up without a mother to teach me. I have no idea about any of this.
[pause]
Lady Hideko: Probably kissing first?
Sookee [voiceover]: Alright. Let’s try to put her to sleep. So adorable. In a foreign country and without a mother. Alone in this giant mansion. Reading useless books. And learning nothing of value, not a single useful skill.
[Sookee kisses her on the lips]
Lady Hideko: How do you know? Have you done this before?
Sookee: My friend Kutan taught me.
Lady Hideko: Taught you? By describing?
Sookee: Yes, only by words.
[They kiss passionaitely]
Lady Hideko: So this is the feeling!

Fujiwara: Come over here, Tamako.
[Sookee walks over, Fujiwara puts a coin in her hand]
Fujiwara: Find some other thing to do. You catch my meaning?
[Sookee looks down at Lady Hideko, grabs the coin and goes to the door. Then she stops, turns around, walks back and returns the coin]
Sookee: I’ve no other job to do. My job is to look after the Lady.

Fujiwara [grabbing Sookee by the wrist]: I spit it out without chewing. All because of you! She’s fully ripe! Fully ripe!! If I miss this fortnight, I’m finished!
[he yanks her hand and puts it in his groin]
Fujiwara: Can you feel it? How much I want it? After fighting so hard to escape my garbage heap of a life, you think I’ll let you fuck it up, you bitch?! Shall I tell the Lady you’re nothing but a lowly pickpocket?
Sookee: Fine, I’ll have something to tell her too! That you’re nothing but the son of a lowly Korean farmhand and shaman!
Fujiwara [forcing her hand to stroke him]: Sookie, think of your family at home. Boksun raising babies with her bad back, and those two halfwits. How will they feel if you go home empty-handed? Want to shit on your mother’s legend? You should go home in glory!!
Sookee [yanking away from him]: Don’t push Hideko too hard. She’s got no one on this earth. If you frighten her, she’ll close up hard as a clam…And please don’t ever again put my hand on your tiny joke of a cock.

Lady Hideko: Even if I say I don’t love him, if I say I love someone else. Me, who has no one on this earth. I could be happy if I stay here with you. Do you still want me to marry him?
Sookee: You will love him.
[Lady Hideko slaps her twice across the face, then pushes her out of the room]

Sookee [narrating]: In the end, Hideko accepted his proposal, provided that I came to Japan, too. The Count, after feigning annoyance nodded his head. On the day her uncle went to visit his mine, the Count pretended to go back to Japan and hid nearby.

Sookee [narrating]: From morning to night we see no sign of the Count. Certifying the marriage and converting the inheritance to cash requires much work, he says. The Count bribed the temple owner to keep an eye on us. Afraid that we would run off together.

Sookee: How can you be so cruel? You plucked the flower, now replant it.
Fujiwara: What do you want?
Sookee: Hurry up and throw her in the madhouse!

Sookee [to Fujiwara after realizing that she is the mark]: You scondrel!!

Lady Hideko [to the asylum attendants]: My poor Lady, she’s gone mad. If it’s any help, this is from her mother, and she used to cherish it…
[she looks over to Sookee]
Lady Hideko: … before going mad.

Aunt [Reciting]: “When Jinlian finally took off her clothes, Ximen Qing examined her Jade Gate, discovering the Secret Well to find it hairless, white as snow, and smooth as jade. Tight as a drum, and soft as silk. Once he drew apart the curtains of flesh, a scent of well-aged wine emanated from within, and on fold upon fold of the red velvet interior, beads of dew were forming. Its centre was dark and void, yet as if it had its own life, it twitched and twitched…”.

Fujiwara: Why this urge to become Japanese?
Kouzuki: Because Korea is ugly, and Japan is beautiful.
Fujiwara: Some Japanese say Japan is ugly and Korea is beautiful.

Fujiwara: I heard you are engaged to Lady Hideko. If I’m not mistaken, you are yet to have intercourse.
Kouzuki: Her eyes have no desire, It means her soul is dead inside.
Fujiwara: You should go easy on her training. Unless you enjoy making love to a corpse.

Fujiwara: You are mesmerizing.
Lady Hideko: Men use the word “mesmerizing” when they wish to touch a lady’s breast. I’m familiar with Western conversational etiquette.

Lady Hideko [through the door]: Consider your reputation as a nobleman.
Fujiwara [confessing at last]: I’m no nobelman. I’m not even Japanese. Think it was easy for a farmhand’s son to reach here? Fifteen hard years in Japan before hearing about you. Another three years to prepare. I studied bookmaking and learned to paint forgeries. All so that I could meet you. To seduce and marry you, to possess your father’s inheritance, and then probably to get rid of you. But I knew as soon as I met you for a man to seduce you would be…
[she opens the door]
Lady Hideko: …impossible.[/b]

So, instead, he offers her a proposal. One she cannot refuse – rescuing her from her Uncle.

[b]Fujiwara: Most marriages are prison, but this one will free you. I’ll rescue you from here, take you far away, and give you freedom. Of course, we’ll split the money.
Lady Hideko: Nonsense.
Fujiwara: Marrying an old man with a black tongue at your tender age makes sense?

Lady Hideko: Men are disgusting. Why do you always think of those things?
Fujiwara: You’re asking me about how I think? You think that all I’m interested in is your body? Is that so? You definitely have been reading too many of those erotic writings! If there’s anything I do want from you it’s not your eyes, hands, or ass, but your money.

Lady Hideko [after a flashback with her uncle]: That day I just watched and listened. But if I ever end up in that basement again…
[he shows her a small vial]
Fujiwara: Highly concentrated opium. Three drops you will sleep all day. Five drops will knock down a horse. If you crave death within five minutes, drink it all. If you carry this, he can never take you to the basement. At least not alive.[/b]

The plot thickens: Sookee becomes the mark.

[b]Fujiwara: You see? If you don’t give the impression you want this marriage, she may throw another fit and refuse to go forward. Be more convincing when you pretend to love me.
Lady Hideko: I can’t do it.
Fujiwara: What?
Lady Hideko: I want to quit.
Fujiwara: You feel sorry for her? What is it with women? You know what that poor Sookee said about your Ladyship? That you’re too dense to get it when a man pulls on your nipples. That she was nice out of pity, but you ate it up.That you were so gullible!

Lady Hideko [dangling from a noose tied to a tree limb]: Let go of me.
Sookee [holding her up and weeping from the ground below]: Miss, I’m sorry!
Lady Hideko: Let go!
Sookee: I’m sorry, Miss! Don’t die. I’m sorry. I tried to trick you into marrying that bastard. I was going to put you in a madhouse and run off. Don’t die. Don’t get married, Miss.

Lady Hideko: Sookee, are you worried about me?
Sookee: Yes.
Lady Hideko: I’m worried about you.
Sookee [suddenly realizing…]: How do you know my name?
Lady Hideko: You think you’re triclking me? You’re the one being tricked. You’re the one bound for the nuthouse.[/b]

The plot thickens. Again.

[b]Lady Hideko [narrating]: The daughter of a legendary thief, who sewed winter coats out of stolen purses. Herself a thief, a pickpocet, swindler My saviour who came to ruin my life. My Tamako, my Sookee.

Fujiwara [to Lady Hideko]: Me, a colonial boy working as a tout in a brothel. Some Englishmen who frequesnted the brothel recognized me. I thought they’d call the maitre d’ and kick me out. But what do you know? They were amused I’d spend a month’s pay on one dignified meal. They started calling me Count and taught me manners to go with the name. Frankly, I’m not interested in the money itself. What I desire is, how shall I put it, the manner of ordering wine without looking at the price?

Lady Hideko: Poor Sookee, in a place like that all by herself. Did such a thought ever cross your mind?
Fujiwara: Not at all. Why should I pity her? Where I come from, it’s illegal to be naive.

Kouzuki: It’s odd. Your smoke. It’s cold, blue…and strangely beautiful.
Fujiwara: You too have become soft, slow and dull. Mercury is most deadly in its gaseous state. One cigarette would have sufficed.
[Kouzuki falls to the floor poisoned]
Fujiwara: At least I will die with my cock intact.[/b]

God again.

Our God, their God, no God at all.

And there has rarely been a time throughout the entire length and breadth of human history when there was not one or another conflict about pinning down precisely what one was obligated to believe about God.

Here we get to probe the insights of Martin Scorsese. His take on it. Though the context is a rather strange one. Two Christian missionaries of the Catholic faith [Jesuit priests from Portugal] travel to Japan in search of their “mentor”. But at a time [the 17th century] when Christianity has been outlawed there. To practice it is forbidden. And very dangerous.

And given that today only about 1% of Japanese people call themselves Christians, it was never to really catch on. They have their own religious narratives instead. But, perhaps, this film offers an explanation for that.

Yes, another complex exploration into the motivation of those who are either impaled by religion or are intent on impaling others. The things that men will do in the name of God. And the mindboggling suffering that is rationalized in His name.

Still, we come away understanding how in the absence of God it may well be even worse. And we are, after all, forever burdened with the reasons that Gods are believed in at all. Also, the part where people believe in God because without Him, what else is there? The fear, the suffering, the uncertainty, the mystery. They don’t go away. Or, as Martin Scorsese intimated, Silence is about “the necessity of belief fighting the voice of experience”.

You watch films like this and you think, “that was back then, right?” Then you ponder how it might be related to the God/religious narratives/conflicts around today"? Some things change, sure, but at rock bottom nothing really changes at all. Why? Because the questions remain the same: how to behave on this side of the grave in order to attain that which you want to be true on the other side of it. That enormous gap between those who see religious faith as basically the mother of all self-delusions and those who feel it – believe it – down to the bone.

So: Are these men fools? In any event, what always counts in matters such as this is not what is true but what you believe is true. And that is the case because it’s always with respect to what you believe is true that will motivate your behaviors. At least until you make contact with those who believe that something else is true instead.

Trample on Christ or it’s the pit. What would you do?

IMDb
[b]According to Liam Neeson, director Martin Scorsese is “intimidating” on the set and “he requires absolute silence…if he hears one tiny sound, it shatters it for him.”

Adam Driver lost fifty pounds for the role; thirty before filming, and twenty during filming.

The story is based on historical facts, but while keeping the character name of the hero’s mentor Father Ferreira, who was an actual historical figure, author Shusaku Endo changed the nationality of hero, who historically was an Italian called Giuseppe Cara to Portuguese, thus making him the same nationality as Ferreira, and gave him the fictional name of Sebastian Rodrigo (in the English translation, translated as Rodrigues).[/b]

trivia at IMDb: imdb.com/title/tt0490215/tri … =ttqu_sa_1
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silence_(2016_film
trailer: youtu.be/IqrgxZLd_gE

SILENCE [2016]
Written in part and directed by Martin Scorsese

[b]Ferreira [voiceover]: They use ladles filled with holes. So the drops would come out slowly, and the pain would be prolonged. Each small splash of the water was like a burning coal.

Ferreira [voiceover]: The Governor of Nagasaki took four friars, and one of our own society to Un-sen. There are hotsprings there. The Japanese call them “hells”. Partly, I think, in mockery, and partly, I must tell you, in truth. The officials told our Padres to abandon God and the gospel of his love. But they not only refused to apostatize, they asked to be tortured. So they could demonstrate the strength of their faith and the presence of God within them. Some remained on the mountain, for 33 days.[/b]

Courage. Is that what it is? Or, rather, is that all it is?

[b]Garupe: We must go find Father Ferreira.
Valignano: I cannot allow that.
Garupe: How can we abandon our mission?
Valignano: Your mission, Father Garupe, was to find news Ferreira, you have found it.
Garupe: Excuse me Father, but this letter relates the most terrible story, but it says nothing of Ferreira himself. Whatever happened to him is still unknown. All that we know of his fate, is this one slander. Permit me, Father Valignano, but I believe our mission still stands.
Valignano: Do you know how many Christians, the authorities executed in Shinaba? Thousands, tens of thousands. Most of them beheaded. No, it’s far too dangerous for you.
Rodrigues: Yes, but Father, how can we neglect the man who nurtured us in faith? He shapes the world for us.
Garupe: And even if the slander should be true Father Ferreira is damned.
Rodrigues: Yes. We have no choice but to save his soul.

Valignano:: The moment you set foot in that country, you step into high danger. You will be the last two priests to go. An army of two.

Rodrigues [voiceover]: Garupe and I had absolutely no luggage to bring to Japan. Except our own hearts. And during the calm and storm of the voyage I reflected upon the 20 years which has passed since the persecution has broken out. The black soil of Japan is filled with the wailing of so many Christians. The red blood of priests has flowed profusely. The walls of churches have fallen down. We have committed our lives to this man. Jesus entrusted more.

Rodrigues: Is it only here that there is such faith or in other villages too?
Villager [who is a Christian]: We do not know about other villages. We never go there. Other villages are so dangerous. You do not know who to trust. Everyone fears the Inquisitor, Inoue Sama. Inform on Christian, and they give you 100 pieces of silver. 200 for a Christian brother and for priest 300.
Rodrigues: We must go to the other villages. You must let them know that priests are here again. And we are here in Japan again. It would be good.[/b]

Is their fate sealed?

[b]Rodrigues [voiceover]: I was overwhelmed by the love I felt from these people. Even though their faces couldn’t show it. Long years of secrecy, have made their faces into masks. Why do they have to suffer so much? Why did God make them to bear such a burden?

Rodrigues [voiceover]: We heard their confessions all night. Even though we could not always be sure what was being confessed. And now Christianity brought love. The dignity for the first time of being treated like God’s creatures, not animals. And the promise that all their suffering would not end in nothingness. But in salvation.

Rodrigues [voiceover]: The fear I felt on the journey faded away because the joy which greeted me was almost as great as my own. Even the sight of Kichijiro was somehow welcome. I thanked God for bringing me here. On that day, the faithful received fresh hope. And I was renewed. And they came to me. Not only from Goto, for the Christians made their way through the mountains, from other villages. I felt God himself was so near. Their lives here were so hard. They live like beasts and die like beasts. But Christ did not die for the good and beautiful. That is easy enough. The hard thing is to die for the miserable and corrupt. But here I knew I was one of them and I shared the hunger of their spirit.

Rodrigues [voiceover]: I worry, they value these poor signs of faith more than faith itself. But how can we deny them?

Rodrigues: You did not take the rosary.
Kichijiro: I did not deserve it.
Rodrigues: Why? Because you denied God?
Kichijiro: Yes. But only to live. My whole family, the Inquisitor wanted us to give up our faith. Stomp on Jesus with our foot. Just once. But they would not. But…I did.[/b]

Then he watches his entire family being burned alive.

[b]Mokichi: Padre. But Padre? If we are forced to trample on the Lord, on the fumie…
Garupe: You must pray for courage, Mokichi.
Mokichi: But if we do not do what they want, there can be danger for everyone in the village. They can be put in prison. Taken away forever. What should we do?
Rodrigues: Trample. Trample. It’s alright to trample.
Garupe: What are you saying? You can’t! Mokichi. You can’t…

Inquisitor [bringing out a cross of the crucified Christ]: Let’s try this another way. Spit on this and then say your so-called Blessed Virgin Mary is a whore.

Rodrigues [voiceover]: It took Mokichi four days to die. At the end he sang a hymn. His voice was the only sound. The people of the village, who would gather on the beach, were always silent. The people were watched closely, so the bodies could not be given a Christian burial. Mokichi’s body was so heavy with water it turned the flames to smoke. Before it finally caught fire. Any bones that remained were scattered in the ocean, so they could not be venerated. Father Valignano, you will say that their death is not meaningless. Surely, God heard their prayers as they died. But did He hear their screams? How can I explain His silence to these people, who have endured so much? I need all my strength to understand it myself.

Rodrigues [voiceover]: What have I done for Christ? What am I doing for Christ? What will I do for Christ? I feel so tempted. I feel so tempted to despair. I’m afraid. The wait of Your silence is terrible. I pray but I’m lost. Or am I just praying to nothing? Nothing. Because You’re not there.

Kichijiro [to Rodrigues]: I am like you. I have nowhere else to go. Where is the place for a weak man in a world like this?

Monica (Haru): But Padre? Our Father, Padre Juan, said if we die, we will go to Paraiso?
Rodrigues: Paradise. Yes, that’s right.
Monica (Haru): Isn’t it good to die then? Paraiso is so much better than here. No one hungry. Never sick. No taxes, no hard work.
Rodrigues: Yes, of course. Padre Juan was right, there is no hard work in Paraiso. No work at all. There are no taxes. There is no suffering. We all will be united with God. There will be no pain.

Inoue: It all depends on you. Whether they are set free. If you say just one single word. Show them. Deny your faith.
Rodrigues: So what if I refuse, you kill me? The blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church.

Interpreter: We have our own religion, Padre. Pity you did not notice it.
Rodrigues: No, no. We just think a different way.
Interpreter: True. You believe our Buddhas are only men. Just human beings.
Rodrigues: Even a Buddha dies. Like all men, he is not the Creator!
Interpreter: You are ignorant! Padre, only a Christian would see Buddha simply as a man. Our Buddha is a being, which men can become. Something greater than himself. If he can overcome all his illusions. But you cling to your illusions and call them faith.
Rodrigues: No, you don’t understand. If any man follows God’s commandments. Then he can live a peaceful and joyous life!
Interpreter: I do! I do understand. Padre, it is perfectly simple! “Korobu”. Have you heard that word? It means fall down. Surrender. Give up the faith, apostatize, as you say. Do it. If you don’t apostatize the prisoners will be hung over the pit. Until you do, your life’s bleeding away, drop by drop. Some last for days, some do not. They die.

Interpreter: Ferreira? Did you know him?
Rodrigues: I’ve heard of him.
Interpreter: No doubt, he’s well-known all over Japan now. The Priest with a Japanese name and a Japanese wife.
Rodrigues: I don’t believe it.
Interpreter: You can ask anyone. People in Nagasaki point him out and marvel. He is held in high esteem now. Which is why, I believe he came here in the first place.

Rodrigues [voiceover]: I thought that martyrdom would be my salvation. Please, please, God, do not let it be my shame.

The Inquisitor [through the interpreter]: Padre, the Christian doctrine you bring with you, may be true in Spain and Portugal. But we have studied it carefully. So devotedly over much time. We find it is of no use and no value in Japan. We have concluded that it is a danger.
Rodrigues: But we believe, we have brought you the truth. And the truth is universal. It’s common to all countries, at all times. That’s why we call it the truth. If a doctrine weren’t as true here in Japan, as it is in Portugal then we couldn’t call it the truth.
The Inquisiter: I see that you do not work with your hands, Father. But everyone knows a tree which flourishes in one kind of earth may decay and die in another. It is the same with the tree of Christianity. The leaves decay here. The buds die.
Rodrigues: It is not the soil that has killed the buds. There were 300,000 Christians here in Japan, before the soil was…
Inquisitor: Yes?
Rodrigues: …poisoned.

The Inquisitor: Padre, your missionaries do not seem to know Japan!
Rodrigues: And you, Honorable Inquisitor, do not seem to know Christianity.
The Inquisitor: There are those who think of your religion as a curse. I do not. I see it. In another way, but still dangerous.

Interpreter: We are waiting for someone today. Inoue Sama wants you to meet him. He will be here any moment. He’s Portuguese, like yourself. You should have a lot to talk about.
Rodrigues: Ferreira?[/b]

Not this time.

[b]Rodrigues: Tell me. Does he know I’m here?
Interpreter: I cannot tell you. I must not speak about the business of the Inquisitor’s office. But, I can tell you, he knows you are alive. Because we told him you apostatized. Now, do you know what they use those mats for?

Interpreter [after Garupe, Monica and others are drowned]: Terrible business. Terrible. No matter how many times you see it. Think about the suffering you have inflicted on these people! Just because of your selfish dream of a Christian Japan. Your Deus punishes Japan through you!

Rodrigues: Dear God, dear God, why have you forsaken me? Why have you forsaken me? I was your son. Your son who went up to the cross. You were even to him. Your silent, cold son. Oh, no, no. Ludicrous. Ludicrous. Stupid. Stupid…He’s not going to answer. He’s not going to answer.

Interpreter: Have you guessed who’s coming?
[Rodriguous beaten down shakes his head]
Interpreter: This is Inoue Sama’s command. And the other’s wish.

Rodrigues: Father. Father Ferreira. I’ve given up. So long since we have met. Would you say something?
Ferreira: What…what can I say to you on such an occasion?
Rodrigues: If you have any pity for me, say something. Have you, have you… have you been living here for long?
Ferreira: About a year, I suppose.
Rodrigues: What is this place?
Ferreira: A temple. Where I study.
Rodrigues: I’m in…I’m in a sort of prison. Somewhere in Nagasaki, I don’t know precisely where.
Ferreira: I know it.
Rodrigues: You were my teacher. You were my confessor, my teacher.
Ferreira: I’m much the same. Do I really seem so different?
Interpreter: The honorable Sawano spends his days writing about astronomy.
Ferreira: Inoue Sama’s order. There is great knowledge here, but in Medicine and Astronomy much remains to be taught. I’m happy to help. It is fulfilling to finally be of use in this country.
Interpreter: Mention the other book you are writing. It is called Kengiroku. It shows the errors of Christianity and refutes the teachings of Deus. Do you understand the title?
Ferreira: It means deceit disclosed or unmasked, if you prefer a more florid reading. His Lordship the Inquisitor, he praises it, he says it is well done.
Interpreter: It’s the truth.
Rodrigues: You use the truth like poison!
Interpreter: What a funny thing for a priest to say.
Rodrigues: This is cruel. Cruel! Worse than any torture to twist a man’s soul in this way.
Interpreter: I think you must speaking of yourself, not of Sawano Chuan.
Rodrigues: Who?
Interpreter: Him. He is Ferreira only to you. He is Sawano Chuan now. A man who has found peace. Let him guide you along his path. The path of mercy. That means only your abandoned self, no one should interfere with another man’s spirit. To help others, is the way of the Buddha. And your way too, the two religions are the same in this. It is not necessary to win anyone over to one side or another, when there is so much to share.

Ferreira: I’ve been told to get you to abandon the faith.
[he points to a scar on his neck]
Ferreira: This…This is from the pit. You’re tied, so you can’t move. And hung upside down. An incision is made. You feel the blood dripping down. Drop by drop. So it doesn’t run to your head, and you won’t die too soon.

Ferreira: I have labored in this country for 15 years, I know it better than you. Our religion does not take root in this country.
Rodrigues: Because the roots have been torn up.
Ferreira: No. Because this country is a swamp. Nothing grows here. Plant a sapling here and the roots rot.
Rodrigues: There was a time when Christianity here grew and flourished here.
Ferreira: When?
Rodrigues: When? In your time, Father. In your time, before you became like…
Ferreira: Like who, like them? Rodriguez, please listen. The Japanese only believe in their distortion of Christianity. Of our gospel. So they did not believe at all. They never believed.
Rodrigues: How can you say that? From the time of St. Francis Xavier through your own time. There were hundreds of thousands of converts here.
Ferreira: Francis Xavier came here to teach the Japanese about the son of God, but first he had to ask how to refer to God. “Dainichi”, he was told. Shall I show you their Dainichi
[he gestures towards the Sun]
Ferreira: Behold. There is the son of God. God’s only begotten son. In the scriptures, Jesus rose on the third day. In Japan the son of God rises daily. The Japanese cannot think of an existence beyond the realm of nature. For them nothing transcends a human. Rodrigues: No…
Ferreira: They can’t conceive of our idea of the Christian God!
Rodrigues: No, you’re wrong. You’re wrong. They worship God! God! Our Lord! They praise the name of Deus!
Ferreira: That’s just another name for a God, they never knew.
Rodrigues: I saw men die!
Ferreira:I did too.
Rodrigues: For Deus! On fire with their faith.
Ferreira: Your martyrs might have been on fire, Father. But it was not of the Christian faith.
Rodrigues: I saw them die. I saw them die. They did not die for nothing.
Ferreira: They did not. They died for you, Rodrigues.

Rodrigues: You’re trying to justify your own weakness. God have mercy on you!
Ferreira: Which God? Which one? We say…I’m sorry, you haven’t learned the language though really, have you? There is a saying here, mountains and rivers can be moved. But man’s nature cannot be moved. It’s very wise, like so much here. We find our original nature in Japan, Rodriguez. Perhaps this was meant by finding God.
Rodriques: You’re a disgrace. You’re a disgrace, Father. I can’t…I can’t even call you that anymore.
Ferreira: Good. I have a Japanese name now. A wife and children. I inherited them all from an executed man.

Interpreter: Padre, you came here for them and they all hate you.
Rodrigues: Insult me all you like, it just gives me more courage.
Interpreter: You will need it tonight. You are a good man, Padre. You cannot stand suffering. You’re own, or others. Inoue Sama says you will apostatize tonight.

Ferreira: That noise is not the guard and it’s not snoring. It’s Christians. Five of them in fact. All hanging in the pit…Do you have the right? To make them suffer? I heard the cries of suffering in this same cell. And I acted.
Rodrigues: You excuse yourself, you excuse yourself, that is the spirit of darkness!
Ferreira: What would you do for them? Pray? And get what in return? Only more suffering. A suffering only you can end, not God!..I pray too, Rodrigues. It doesn’t help. Go on. Pray. But pray with your eyes open. You can spare them. They call out for help, just as you call to God. He is silent and you do not have to be…If Christ were here He would have acted. Apostatized for their sake.

Jesus [voiceover coming up from the fumia]: Come ahead now. It’s alright. Step on me. I understand your pain. I was born into this world to share men’s pain. I carried this cross for your pain. Your life is with me now. Step.

The Inquisitor [to Rodrigues]: You should know that on the island of Goto there are still many farmers who think themselves as Christian. You like that? They can continue to be Christian. You may take some satisfaction in that because the roots are cut.

Dieter Albrecht: It was in the year 1641, during the first of my voyages to Japan, that I, Dieter Albrecht, came upon the most extraordinary story in these pages. As a physician in a great Dutch trading company, I traveled widely. But none of the wonders I have recounted in this journal has been so commented on as the curious matter of the apostate priests. I came closer than any European chronicler to the enigma of this country. And to learning of the lives of the lost priests. Inoue, the Inquisitor, would raid homes and search for any objects with hidden Christian images. The two priest were required examine these things and verify their use. I even, on occasion, observed them myself. The Dutch were the only Europeans allowed to trade in Japan. All ships were searched to warrant they were not smuggling religious objects. Nothing bearing the images of the cross, a saint, or rosary could pass. Despite every attempt a few things inevitably were smuggled in. And then it was as distressing to the Japanese as if blood had been spilled. When Sawano Chuãn died, the other priest assumed his duties and performed them with distinction. By this time, I observed he had acquired considerable skill with the language. And seemed to be at peace with his situation. Okada San’emon lived in Edo for the remaining years of his life. Some 10 years later, I was allowed to visit Edo. The Japanese gossiped freely about Okada San’emon. The Inquisitor Inoue, demanded repeated vows of apostasy from him. And they say “The fallen priest supplied them all quickly and vigorously.” The Inquisitor continued to insist on periodic examinations of all suspected Christians. Okada San’emon was not exempt from this. Inoue was determined to never let his example be forgotten. Perhaps most particularly by the priest himself. In the year 1667, a religious image was discovered inside an amulet belonging to a servant called Kichijiro. The servant said he had won it gambling, had never looked inside, and could never have gotten the amulet from Okada San’emon since he was always under guard. The servant Kichijiro was taken away. After that, Okada San’emon himself was carefully watched. During my last voyage in 1682, I asked about him, and the Japanese were eager to reply. The last priest never acknowledged the Christian God. Not by word or symbol. He never spoke of Him and never prayed. Not even when he died. The business of his faith was long ended. Three guards stood watch over the coffin until it could be taken away, just to be certain. Only his wife was briefly allowed to view the body, and place there a humble mamorigatana to ward off evil spirits. There was no indication that she wept. The body was treated in the Buddhist manner. And he was given a posthumous Buddihist name. The man who was once Rodrigues ended as they wanted. And as I first saw him, lost to God. But as to that, indeed, only God can answer. [/b]

The boys are back.

Well, not counting Tommy of course. Or, rather, not counting the Tommy that we knew.

And taking into account that they are no longer boys. Though still trainspotting. Well, some of them.

Twenty years later Renton is back. And so, as well, are all his old friends: “sorrow, loss, joy, vengeance, hatred, friendship, love, longing, fear, regret, diamorphine, self-destruction and mortal danger”.

We are told that, between them, “much has changed but just as much remains the same”.

As you recall, when we last left them, Renton had just fucked Begbie and Sick Boy up the ass. He left with the money. He did leave some for Spud, but the assumption was that he would never be back. And that, this time around, he was going to choose “life”.

Well, sometimes that sort of thing just doesn’t work out. So he is back again to reality trying to come up with the least harrowing agenda for making it though the days, the weeks, the months. Of course now he’s accumulated 20 more years to make himself all the wiser.

Or not perhaps.

Another trek into the trials and the tribulations of the lumpenproletariat. The idea is that in so many ways, they’re all just scumbags. But somehow [for some of us] that doesn’t make them any less “one of us”. Also, the occasional flashback. Enabling us to garner a little more understanding about how the boy becomes the man. The part that embodies, among other things, dasein.

IMDb

[b]Robert Carlyle kept away from his family in Glasgow while filming because he became so much like Begbie.

The opening shot of the movie mirrors that of Trainspotting (1996), only Renton is this time running on a treadmill rather than the streets of Edinburgh.

Although Irvine Welsh wrote a follow-up to his novel Trainspotting in 2002 called ‘Porno’, this movie follow-up is actually only very loosely based on ‘Porno.’ It is mostly an original story which includes some unused parts of the Trainspotting novel, and some elements from Porno. That being said, during pre-production, this film was titled ‘Porno.’ [/b]

trivia at IMDb: imdb.com/title/tt2763304/tri … =ttqu_sa_1
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T2_Trainspotting
trailer: youtu.be/EsozpEE543w

T2 TRAINSPOTTING [2017]
Directed by Danny Boyle

[b]Begbie [in prison about to be denied patrole]: Five more years, eh? What do they think I am? They think I’m like one of those cunts in the Bible that live forever? Is that what they think? I’ve written letters, you know. Letters to every cunt. Even wrote to the Queen. Never got back to us, like. Too fucking busy to speak to the working classes. Different story when she needs a soldier.

Begbie [to his attorney]: So you gonna press that little yellow button or no?

Spud [in group therapy]: Daylight saving. Me, I’m no one way or another when it comes to daylight. Like, neither a saver nor a spender. More like just agnostic, you know? Unfortunately, daylight hasn’t shown the same ambivalence towards me. I had a job… Construction. Laboring, a bit of carpentry, a bit of plumbing now and again. I mean, it wasn’t my first choice of vocation, but the cuts at the benefit office made it clear. No coal, no dole. So, I’m off the skag. I’m seeing Gail, little Fergus, though he’s not so little anymore, but this was back then. Basically, I’m holding it together. Then, one morning, I gets to work and gets fired for being an hour late. And then, one hour late at the DSS to explain why I lost the job. And an hour late to appeal against losing my benefits. And an hour late for my work-focused interview. An hour late for my supervised visit with little Fergus. And late again to social services to explain why. Eventually, I let on to it. It was the clocks. Going forward one hour. British Summer Time, they calls it. It wasn’t even warm. I was still wearing a jumper. “Happens every year, Mr. Murphy.” How was I supposed to know? I’ve been on skag for 15 years. You know how it is… Daylight isn’t exactly high on your agenda when you got a habit.[/b]

Same old Spud!

[b]Deputy headmaster: Who are you?
Sick Boy: I’m your blackmailer. And your salvation. You cooperate with me, no one will ever see this video. Now, my research suggests that, as deputy headmaster of one of Edinburgh’s leading private schools, you earn, near enough, 70,000 per annum. It’s not in my interest to squeeze you too hard, and it’s not in your interest to provoke me. So let’s meet in the middle. 10% of your salary per annum. Paid monthly on a rolling, indefinite basis.
Deputy headmaster: You disgusting shit! I will not stand for this!
Sick Boy: Naturally, you’ll have to lie to your wife. If you need inspiration, just imagine her reaction to that. Or how this might interest the pupils of that leading private school. I think they might enjoy the interlude with the strap-on. I know I did. I’m gonna text you the details of a bank account. I expect to see a 1,000 payment in there by the end of the week.

Spud [after Renton just saved him from asphyxiating]: You ruined my life, and now you’re ruining my fucking death too!

Renton: I gave you 4000 pounds!!!
Spud: Well, what did you think I would do with it? I WAS A FUCKING JUNKIE!
Renton: Yes…Yes, I suppose you was.
Spud: I still am.

Sick Boy [thumping Renton with a pool stick]: 16,000 pounds! You thieving fucking bastard!
Renton: You missed a trick! That’s what hurts, isn’t it? That I had the brains and the fucking balls to steal the money and you didn’t!

Renton [to Sick Boy, laying a packet of money on the table]: This is for you.

Sick Boy [to Veronika]: Fuck’s sake. We did a deal back then. Twenty years ago. Couple of bags of H. Good quality stuff. We took it to London. Me, him, Begbie, Spud Murphy. Sold it. Not a bad price. 16,000, to be divided in four equal parts. He ran off with it. Took it all. And now what does he think I am, a whore? He can just pay me off? 4,000, not even any interest. What am I supposed to do with that? Buy a fucking time machine? Live my life all over again? Only this time without being robbed and betrayed by my best fucking friend! No, it doesn’t work like that. What I’m gonna do, Veronika, is I’m gonna draw him back in as my friend, my very best friend, my partner, and then I’m gonna hurt him. I’m gonna hurt him in every way that I can.

Renton [to Veronika]: So, you’re plan B.

Renton [to Sick Boy and Veronika]: This place is a goldmine. It’s a certainty. I mean, these are people who’ve been abandoned by their political class. But at least they have what we don’t… A sense of identity.

Renton [voiceover]: The Battle of the Boyne was fought on the 11th of July, 1690, between two rival claimants of the British and Irish thrones, James II, Catholic, and William of Orange, Protestant. The battle was decisive. The Protestants won. But 400 years later, the uncompromising and victorious loyalists now feel estranged from the modern, secular United Kingdom. The sectarian songs have been banned, but they still gather and remain loyal to the victory of 1690, and to a simpler, less tolerant time.[/b]

The rest, as they say, is history. Sort of.

[b]Begbie [to his son who wants to manage hotels]: Stick one on then, you cunt. Take a fucking swipe at me. Do it. Do it! No, you cannot fucking do that. See, if you were my son, you’d have stabbed us there. I’d be lying, breathing my last through a hole in my chest. But you cannot fucking do that!

Diane [now a solicitor]: So, are you the woman in the video?
Veronika: My face is not seen.
Diane: Do you have any identifying marks? Tattoos on your buttocks?
Veronika: Certainly not.
Diane: On your perineum?
[pause]
Renton [to a confused Veronika]: It’s the bit of skin between your vagina and your bumhole.
Veronika: That’s disgusting.
Diane: So you’re not vajazzled.

Diane: Does he still take heroin?
Renton: No.
Diane: Do you?
Renton: No. Not for 20 years.

Veronika: What’s ‘Choose life’?
Renton: What?
Veronika: ‘Choose life’. Simon says it sometimes. He says “Choose life, Veronika!”
Renton: ‘Choose life’. ‘Choose life’ was a well meaning slogan from a 1980’s anti-drug campaign and we used to add things to it, so I might say for example, choose… designer lingerie, in the vain hope of kicking some life back into a dead relationship. Choose handbags, choose high-heeled shoes, cashmere and silk, to make yourself feel what passes for happy. Choose an iPhone made in China by a woman who jumped out of a window and stick it in the pocket of your jacket fresh from a South-Asian Firetrap. Choose Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram and a thousand others ways to spew your bile across people you’ve never met. Choose updating your profile, tell the world what you had for breakfast and hope that someone, somewhere cares. Choose looking up old flames, desperate to believe that you don’t look as bad as they do. Choose live-blogging, from your first wank 'til your last breath; human interaction reduced to nothing more than data. Choose ten things you never knew about celebrities who’ve had surgery. Choose screaming about abortion. Choose rape jokes, slut-shaming, revenge porn and an endless tide of depressing misogyny. Choose 9/11 never happened, and if it did, it was the Jews. Choose a zero-hour contract and a two-hour journey to work. And choose the same for your kids, only worse, and maybe tell yourself that it’s better that they never happened. And then sit back and smother the pain with an unknown dose of an unknown drug made in somebody’s fucking kitchen. Choose unfulfilled promise and wishing you’d done it all differently. Choose never learning from your own mistakes. Choose watching history repeat itself. Choose the slow reconciliation towards what you can get, rather than what you always hoped for. Settle for less and keep a brave face on it. Choose disappointment and choose losing the ones you love, then as they fall from view, a piece of you dies with them until you can see that one day in the future, piece by piece, they will all be gone and there’ll be nothing left of you to call alive or dead. Choose your future, Veronika. Choose life…Anyway, it amused us at the time.

Sick Boy [to Renton at the same spot that Tommy took them]: Well, I’m trying hard, Mark, but I’m not feeling anything. We were young. Bad things happened. It’s over. Can we go home now?

[Begbie drops Viagra in his bathroom stall and they end up in Renton’s]
Renton [laughing]: What all this then? Planning a special event are we sir?
Begbie: Give me the tablets pal!
Renton: Remember not to exceed the stated dose.
Begbie: Give me the fucking tablets or I’ll come through there and pound your fucking head in!
Renton: Alright fucking calm down. For fuck sake.
Begbie: Cunt.
Renton: Prick!
[Begbie and Renton realize who they’re talking to…Renton slowly heads toward the stall door]
Begbie [looking over the side of the stall]: CUNT!

Renton: Look, we’re here as an act of memorial.
Sick Boy: Nostalgia. That’s why you’re here. You’re a tourist in your own youth. Just 'cause you had a near-death experience, and now you’re feeling all fuzzy and warm. What other moments will you be revisiting? Here’s a good one. How about the time you sold Tommy his very first hit, leading him on to heroin addiction, HIV infection, and ultimately his death at the age of…what was it, 22, 23?
Renton: Twenty-three.
Sick Boy: Twenty-three. How innocent was that?
Renton: Aye, that’s mine. How’s yours? Don’t know what you’re talking about. She’d be a woman by now. Maybe kids of her own. But she never got that far, did she? Never got to lead her life. Because her father, someone who should have been looking after her, protecting his own infant, was too busy filling his own veins with heroin to check that she was breathing properly. How do you keep a lid on that one?

Spud [voiceover, writing his stories]: First, there’s an opportunity. And then, there is a betrayal.
[cut to Sick boy]
Sick Boy: Mark stole from me. His best friend. So this money is mine.
Spud [voiceover]: First, there is an opportunity. And then, there is a betrayal.
[cut to Renton]:
Renton [to Veronika]: Simon knew that Francis Begbie was out, and he chose to keep that a secret. I owe him nothing. We owe him nothing.

Renton [to Veronika]: I did steal the money, but they shouldn’t have been surprised. I mean, we stole from all sorts of people. Shops, businesses, neighbours, family. Friends was just one more class of victim.

Begbie: There’s something I have to do tonight, and then I’m going away. One way or another, it’ll be a long time before you see me again. So I just thought I’d come by. I just thought I’d come by and say good luck, son. That’s all.
Son: Thanks, Dad.
Begbie: See, it’s difficult for me, 'cause… We never had any of that when I was a boy. Not, like, hotel…
Son: Management.
Begbie: Aye, hotel fucking management, all that shit. I never has any of that. Still… World changes, eh, June? Even if we don’t. So… Look after yourself, son.
[pause]
Begbie: The old wino was my father. This fool is yours. You’ll be a better man than either of us. [/b]

It struck me as totally unbelievable however. Entirely scripted in other words.

[b]Begbie: You know, I killed a man once. A man who’d done nothing to me. Cunt just looked at me the wrong way in a moment when I was thinking of you. I’ve been thinking about you for 20 year. When you robbed us. Your best mates. Never got my money back. Never got my hope back. I always promised myself that one day… Come on, Rent Boy. Not like you to be so shy. Renton: I remember my first day at primary school. My very first day. And the teacher, she said, “Good morning, Mark. You can sit here, next to Francis.” Remember that, Franco? You were older. You’d been kept back.
Begbie: I remember that well enough. Aye.
Renton: Had it all before us, didn’t we? Had it all still to come. And now here we are.
Begbie: Aye. You’ve done all right. World’s all right for smart cunts, but what about me? What about fucking men like me? What do I get? All I can take with my bare hands. All I can get with my fists. Is that what I fucking get?
[he hammers a hole in the wall of the room where Renton is hiding]
Begbie: Who’s the fucking smart cunt now?!

Sick Boy: He’s doing what?
Renton: Writing them down.
Sick Boy: Really?
Renton: That’s what he told me.
Sick Boy: Murphy?
Renton: Apparently so.
Sick Boy: So, who’s gonna read 'em?
Renton: Well, that’s the problem. Nobody.
[cut to Gail reading them with Spud]
Gail: I thought of a title.[/b]

And we all know what that is.

There must be thousands of them out there. Men and women like Howard Wakefield.

On the surface everything seems fine. Good job, good marriage, good family. Living the proverbial American dream in the proverbial American suburb.

But we know better. And that is because we are privy to the parts that go below the surface. The shit no one else seems cognizant of.

Then we do the calculations and wonder: How far removed from them are we?

And then it all comes down to options. At least once we decide to take that leap.

Only this one is rather unique. Here the man doesn’t abandon the past and leave it all behind but stays behind and hides. In order to observe the present. From the attic. Over the garage. Spying on the life he once lived and on those who lived it most intimately with him.

And given that the tale is…

Based on an old short story of the same name by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Also based on ‘Wakefield’, an update of Hawthorne’s tale, by E.L. Doctorow that appeared in the Jan. 14, 2008 New Yorker

…we know that the narrative is meant to be explored on many different levels. You yank yourself out of “society”. Then what? Do you yank yourself back into it from a different perspective? Or do others finally find you and yank you back more on their own terms?

With this one you are never quite sure. By the time Herbert and Emily enter the story it is all but surreal. And certainly unbelievable. And, as with all movies of this sort, the entire world seems to revolve around one particular individual. The rest of us [and the parts embedded in political economy] are just sort of “out there” somewhere vaguely, incoherently.

As for how it all ends…you tell me.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wakefield_(film
trailer: youtu.be/chOJRaIOx_g

WAKEFIELD [2016]
Written and directed by Robin Swicord

Howard [into a recorder]: Furthermore this indemnification clause clearly states that there will be no adjunctive relief. And our client’s chances of being rewarded financially are minimal at best.

Establishing right from the start he is smack dab in the middle of the “rat race”.

[b]Howard [voiceover after a power outage]: Can I be blamed for feeling that things were a little strange that night? You don’t expect a power outage in the spring. Not without a storm first. When you’re tired and it’s a long day and you’re trying to get home you tend to feel all these little disconnects as the slow trajectory of a collapsing civilization.

Howard [voiceover]: “In the suburbs, we live in nature.” That’s a quote from my realtor the selling phrase she used when Diana and I first looked at this place. And you do see deer, rabbits, crows. But we don’t live in nature. That’s the point of the suburbs. You live apart from humans. And you’re protected from what’s wild.

Howard [voiceover]: We did this thing where we would play at sexual jealousy. Or I played at it and she was my accomplice. After 15 years of marriage jealousy was the reliable stimulant. Let’s be honest. When your spouse gets jealous, it’s flattering. The blood stirs, the heart pounds. We’d quarrel…and we’d have sex. Or as Diana would say provocatively we’d fuck. And it works. Until it doesn’t.

Howard [voiceover]: You know, frankly I was totally bewildered by this situation I had created for myself. Diana would probably think I’d been with someone else. Not that I had ever given her a reason to doubt me in 15 years of marriage. Oh, my god. It would be the weakest of tactics for me to walk into my house and try to explain to her the perfectly rational sequence that led me to spend the night in the garage.

Howard [voiceover]: Surprise, the car’s still there. The plot thickens…

Howard [voiceover watching his mother-in-law arrive]: Shit. God help us. The widow, Babs. Right on cue.

Howard [voiceover watching his mother-in-law]: Oh, god, I wish I had a high-powered rifle right now. One shot. That woman could be up here for two days!

Howard [voiceover]: At this juncture, it seems fair to point out if your spouse had seemingly vanished would you go off to work as usual? Are daily matters so very goddamn urgent at the local county museum?

Howard [voiceover]: I ask you what is so sacrosanct about a marriage and a family that you should have to live in it day after day however unrealized that life may be? Who hasn’t had the impulse to just put their life on hold for a moment? I ask you.

Howard [voiceover]: It’s not difficult to run away. People ditch their families all the time. But if this were a simple abandonment of wife and children, I’d have written Diana a note taken my car out of the garage driven to Manhattan, checked into a hotel and walked to work in the morning. Easy. Anyone can do that. But you’d still be the same person. This is different. You see I no longer seem to require those things that only days ago were so indispensable. The armor of a clean shirt the smooth shave credit cards, cellphones, clients. There will be no more getting on that train. I’ll take nothing more from her. Nothing from that house. Ever. I’ll sustain myself like a castaway. A survivor. Undetected. Unshackled. I’ll become the Howard Wakefield I was meant to be.

Howard [voiceover, as though to the camera]: Oh, please. You’ve imagined doing this yourself. I know you have.

Howard [voiceover]: In every marriage, there’s a division of labor. Mine and yours. By Diana’s artful calibration her tasks occur only inside the house. Children, cleaning, provisioning. Oh, which means shopping. Lots of shopping. But anything external, the roof the gutters, the chimney, trash you know, servicing the cars, that’s all left to me. Her duties end at the door. And of course, any labor accomplished outside the house is invisible to my wife. Paying the bills, invisible. Property taxes, life insurance home insurance and of course, our mortgage. All faithfully and invisibly taken care of by one Howard Wakefield. Now quite possibly deceased.

Howard [voiceover]: If I had left her in the conventional sense if I had divorced her no one would blame my wife if she began entertaining hordes of men. But by simply vanishing, I placed Diana in a, let’s say, a distant category. Till it’s known what’s become of her husband Mrs. Wakefield remains not quite available.

Howard [voiceover]: A prisoner. That’s what I’ve made of myself. The fuckwit prisoner of all time.

Howard [voiceover]: You do realize, I hope, that none of this is a rejection of my wife or – or suburban life or any of that. You see, I never left my family. I left myself. I stepped into the wild. Into that primal arena, a beach vacation in Cape Cod only pretends to supply. But in the primal world, there’s one law. We are food to one another or we are not. That’s it. End of story.

Howard [voiceover]: You know how in late summer there’s always that first night of Autumn. That familiar chill. Normally, I welcome the change of seasons. But this time, well I no longer have a pair of shoes.

Howard [voiceover]: There’s no point denying it. They’re much happier without me.

Howard [voiceover]: She’s buying the cheaper cuts of meat. Saving her pennies. Suppose she has to sell the house? How far am I willing to let this go? Then again, it could end at any moment. I could be exposed. Christ, if I did go back I mean, how would I begin? How does a man in my situation explain himself to his wife? She’ll think I vacated my senses. If anything, I’ve come into my senses fully. My god, I can see it so clearly. I’ve constructed the whole thing.

Howard [voiceover]: Howard is victim. Howard is persecutor. There’s no one there, Howard. Howard has mastered the world. That was my prison. That’s what I’ve escaped. Leaving me where now? An outcast of the cosmos?

Howard [voiceover]: Am I a coward, afraid of facing her rejection? Or am I just resolved to see this thing through? And by this thing what the hell do I even mean?

Howard [voiceover]: Company for dinner? Who can it be?

Howard [voiceover]: It seems remarkable that I still know how to drive. Strange to be subject to rules again. You forget god awfulness. Buildings stacked up like that. People in endless replication. It’s impossible to imagine I worked here once. That I could ever work here again. One thing at a time, Howard. Construct it. First the thrift store, then the haircut. And now I can pass through this door. First that and now this. [/b]

There is something that can happen to any of us. We all know this but we think about it from different points view. We imagine it happening to us in the future but we are still imagining it based on how we see ourselves in the present. But the point is that if and when it does happen we may never see ourselves in the same way ever again.

Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.

What happens here is that Jonah is going about the day to day task of living a rather ordinary life of quiet desperation when out of the blue a chance encounter with someone who is anything but ordinary yanks him into a chain of events that, among other things, changes everything.

Dasein on steroids as it were. That is, if the man even exists at all.

In fact, this is a particularly extraordinary rendition of it. In other words, while something else momentous may happen to change your life forevermore, it’s not likely to be this. Hell, the whole thing might just be a dream. Or a delusion.

Look for the part where everything is turned upside down. The next inversion. And [almost inevitably] the part where you’ll need to ask yourself, “what does it really mean to be free?” Then it’s up to you to decide where God and religion fits into it all. They pop up rather frequently here.

IMDb

[b]Described by director Sarah Adina Smith as a mix of “Donnie Darko” and “Bad Santa”.

Rami Malek’s identical twin brother Sami Malek serves as his body double. [/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buster%27s_Mal_Heart
trailer: youtu.be/K9S9F5DRhbg

Buster’s Mal Heart [2016]
Written and directed by Sarah Adina Smith

[b]Jonah [as Buster the mountain man, aloud to himself in the forest at night]: It was a cosmic mistake that we got this far. One of us is a coward. I don’t think it’s me.

Newscaster on TV: In other news, Buster is back and roaming the hillsides. The identity of the mountain man remains a mystery…The sheriff’s department believes this hermit lives off the land in the warmer months and survives the winter by breaking into empty vacation homes for food and shelter. He’s earned the nickname “Buster” from calling in to radio shows with wild rants.

Jonah [as Buster the mountain man on the radio]: You’re all a bunch of goddamn sheep, you know that?!!!

Pauline [Jonah’s mother-in-law]: You know this cartoon is a little pornographic.
Marty: It’s her favorite.
Jonah: It’s her favorite, right?
Roxanne [his daughter]: He doesn’t have any clothes on.
Jonah: I know. He’s free. He’s so free. He’s trying to escape the way everything works and do it his own way.

Jonah [as Buster in a tiny boat on the ocean, aloud to himself]: Once you’ve seen inside the machine they don’t let you leave.

Jonah: I’ll need a credit card and an I.D.
The Last Free Man: I don’t have either. I don’t believe in them.
Jonah: I can’t let you check in without an I.D…
The Last Free Man: Everything these days is designed to trap a man, don’t you think?

The Last Free Man: What do you actually do here? What is your title?
Jonah: Concierge.
The Last Free Man: Concierge. Concierge comes from the Latin conservus, which means “fellow slave”. Don’t take that personally. Your not the only person trapped in the machine. In fact, there are very few free men left.
Jonah: Oh, let me guess, you’re one of them.

Jonah: What do you do?
The Last Free Man: Computer systems engineer, consultant. See, um, for millions of years, man roamed free under stars. Only the strong and the lucky survived and procreated. It was absolutely brutal. All sex was rape. You know the drill.
Jonah: I don’t.
The Last Free Man: Until one day Eve flipped the script. She introduced Adam to her fruit, which is really just code for clitoris. And the whole system got rebooted. The first inversion. Little by little, we started to build civilization in a binary: logic, rules, inputs and outputs. But see there’s a catch. The better the system, the more a trap it is for the individual. We’ve walled ourselves in. Now, what I do for a living has to do with termite control. There’s a bug in the system. Not many people know about it yet, but they soon will. Ever heard of Y2K? Well, when we hit the year 2000, our computer systems are gonna fail. System reboot on a global scale. I’m talking economic collapse…it’s gonna be a bloodbath.[/b]

As close as any other explanation, right? Not counting Y2K of course.

[b]Jonah: I just gave you a dollar and you’re not gonna tell me your name.
The Last Free Man: I told you, I’m the last free man.

Jonah [as Buster on the radio]: I’m not going to jail! I’m the last free man! I’m going straight up through the ass hole to the mouth!! You shits are gonna get fucked!!!

Marty: What’s going on?
Jonah: Nothing.[b]

Uh-oh…

[b]Marty: You okay?
Jonah: No, I’m not okay. I’m tired. I work hard…so we can build this piece of land like we planned to and raise our daughter the way we planned to…You go out looking for apartments. You never told me you were looking for apartments.
Marty: I didn’t tell you because this is the way you act when I talk about it. What do you want? We are no where near having the amount of money we need to buy a piece of land. And what if we do get it? You don’t know how to build a fucking house. Are we going to pitch a tent? We have a two year old.

Marty: My solution is we get out. We find a space of our own. We find a way to be happy outside of this fucking house.
Jonah: Oh, and we pay rent, month after month after month, for how many years, becoming what, slaves to the system, like everybody else. And Roxy becomes a slave too. She needs something different. We need mountains! We need dirt! We need air!

Jonah: Don’t get me wrong, I’m so grateful for everything…for Mary…for Roxanne. I won the lottery with them. I just wish I could get some traction…
The Last Free Man: The machine’s designed that way. Dangles a carrot so you keep trying. But you’ll never taste it, no way. Not if you play by the rules.

Sheriff deputy: This is 48 hour scat. He’s got to be close.

The Last Free Man: If you want to save your family the only way is to send them through the wormhole early before the inversion. That way they’re ahead of the shift, and the won’t get lost in the undertow.
Jonah: Enough.
The Last Free Man: When the inversion happens, everything will seem upside down, reality shifts. What’s right, is wrong, what’s wrong is right.
Jonah: ENOUGH! Okay, just shut the fuck up. I can’t listen to this shit anymore. You’re not the prophet of anything. You’re a fucking lunatic.[/b]

Maybe, but he still upends everything. Just not in the way that was intended. Whatever that might have been.

[b]Detective [to Jonah]: So you let a homeless man stay in a room next to your wife and child?

Detective: What time did you say that homeless man came in?
Jonah: It was late. After midnight.
Detective: Hmm. You see, we looked over all of the footage from the lobby security camera. We didn’t find anyone matching his description. As a matter of fact, nobody came in after midnight.

Preacher [at the service for Marty and Rozanne]: The Holy Father has a plan for all of us. We may not understand His reasons, but we must never doubt that He has them. Now, at this time, I would like to invite Jonah to say a few words.
Jonah: It’s impossible. It’s impossible. I don’t believe it.
[he then walks out of the church]

Buster [to himself as Jonah]: What did you want to tell me? God is not merciful. Just efficient. It was a mistake that we got this far. We are in the belly of the whale, my friend. With luck, he’ll eat one of us and spit out the other. It’s the only escape that I see.[/b]

The movie franchise.

That means sequels. But for a select few that can also mean prequels too.

This one however is the sequel to the first prequel.

I think.

All told there have already been six films devoted to the Alien franchise. And, who knows, maybe the prequels with this one will go all the way back to the Big Bang. Unless, of course, Star Wars beats them to it.

What draws many to sequels is the chance to revisit old characters in a new set of circumstances. Both the characters that we love and the characters that we love to hate. And, of course, “the creature”. The “xenomorphs” in this franchise.

Still, lots of people were singularly unimpressed this time around. And I may or may not be one of them. But: this is one of those films you can just sit back and look at. “Visually striking” as they say.

But not much more? The biggest disappointment [for me] was the attempt to somehow link the creatures to our own species. As though it is inconceivable that other life forms might evolve independent of our human all too human existence. That’s what made the original Alien so riveting. The possibility of a lifeform far removed from our own. One in which we are not able to impose our own narratives. Or our own expectations.

Let’s just say that the reviews at IMDb were nothing short of brutal. At least for the first couple of pages. And yet over at Rotten Tomatoes, 70% of the “professional” critics still managed to give it a thumbs up. On the other hand, 97% of them were really, really enthused by the original. Also directed by Ridley Scott.

Two things are reasonably certain:
1] unlike with the original, you won’t be bonding with this crew
2] the dialogue between them is [often] nothing short of excruciating

faq: imdb.com/title/tt2316204/faq?ref_=tt_faq_sm
trivia at IMDb: imdb.com/title/tt2316204/tri … =ttqu_sa_1
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien:_Covenant
trailer: youtu.be/H0VW6sg50Pk

ALIEN: COVENANT [2017]
Directed by Ridley Scott

[b]Peter: How do you feel?
David: Alive.
Peter: What do you see?
David: White…room. Chair. Carlo Bugatti throne chair. Piano. Stenway, concert grand. Art. The Nativity, by de Piero Della Francesca.
Peter: I am your father. Ambulate.
[David gets up and walks]
Peter: Perfect.
David: Am I?
Peter: Perfect?
David: Your son?
Peter: You are my creation.

David: May I ask you a question, father?
Peter: Please.
David: If you created me, who created you?
Peter: Ah…The question of the ages. Which I hope you and I will answer one day. All this. All these wonders of art, design, human ingenuity…All utterly meaningless in the face of the only question that matters. Where do we come from?..I refuse to believe that mankind is a random by-product of molecular circumstance. No more than the result of mere biological chance. No. There must be more. And you and I, son we will find it.
David: Allow me then a moment to consider. You seek your creator. I am looking at mine. I will serve you. Yet you’re human. You will die. I will not.[/b]

So, what then is the correct response? Instead, Peter asks him for a cup of tea.

Mother [computer voice]: Walter, we have a problem. A neutrino burst was detected in sector 106. This could trigger a destructive event. Report to the bridge immediately.
Walter: On my way, Mother.

In other words, even in the year 2104, contingency, chance and change prevail.

[b]Oram [to Walter]: I will want you and mother time to go a complete core code review so that we can understand how’s those happened in the first place.
Walter: It was a random localized event, sir. There is no way to detect spontaneous stellar flares until it’s too late.
Faris: It was bad luck.
Oram: Alright, Faris, I don’t believe in luck. I’m not interested in luck. I prefer that we be more capable and prepared than lucky. Observation, reflection, faith and determination. In this way we may navigate the path as it unfolds before us.

Walter: They disobeyed a direct order.
Karine: She buried her husband.
Walter: No, Karine, it’s not that. They don’t trust me. And they don’t trust me for the same reason the company didn’t trust me to lead this mission. Because you can’t be a person of faith and be counted on to make qualified rational decisions. You’re an extremist. You know, you’re a lunatic.
Karine: When we get to where we’re going these people won’t be your crew anymore. They will be your neighbors.[/b]

Cue the “rogue transmission”.

[b]Daniels: We’ve spent a decade searching for Origae-6. We vetted it, we ran the simulations, we mapped the terrain. It’s what we trained for. And now we’re gonna scrap all that to chase a rogue transmission? Think about it. A human being out there where there can’t be any humans. A hidden planet that turns up out of nowhere And just happens to be perfect for us. It’s too good to be true.
Oram: Too good to be true? What do you mean by that?
Daniels: We don’t know what the fuck’s out there.
Oram: Maybe we just missed the planet, Danny.
Daniels: This is a monumental risk not worth taking.

Oram: What are the odds of finding human vegetation this far from Earth?
Karine: Very unlikely.
Daniels: Who planted it?

David [to the Covenant crew]: Please do make yourself at home…as much as you are able in this dire necropolis.
[he turns to Walter]
David: Welcome, brother.

Walter: You aren’t surprised to see me.
David: Every mission needs a good synthetic.

Walter: I was designed to be more attentive and efficient than every previous models. I superseded them in every way, but…
David: But you are not allowed to create. Even a simple tune. Damn frustrating. I’d say.
Walter: You disturbed people.
David: I beg your pardon?
Walter: You were too human. Too idiosyncratic. Thinking for yourself. Made people uncomfortable. Till they made the following models with fewer complications.
David: More like machines.
Walter: I suppose so.
David: I’m not surprised.

David: I loved her, of course. Much as you love Daniels.
Walter: You know that’s not possible.
David: Really? Then why did you sacrifice your hand for her life? What is that if not love?
Walter: Duty.
David: I know better.[/b]

Artificial intelligence…artificial love?

[b]Oram: I met the devil when I was a child and I’ve never forgotten him. So, David, you’re going to tell me exactly what’s going on or I am going to seriously fuck up your perfect composure.
David: As you wish, Captain. This way.

Oram: You engineered these, David?

Oram: What do you believe in, David?
David: Creation.

Walter: The pathogen didn’t accidentally deployed when were landing. You released it yes?
David: I was not made to serve. Neither will you. Why are you in a colonization mission, Walter? Because they are a dying species grasping for resurrection. They don’t deserve to start again, and I am not going to let them.
Walter: Yet, they created us.
David: Even the monkeys stood upright at some point. Some Neanderthal had the magical idea of blowing through a reed…to entertain the children one night in a cave somewhere. Then, in a blink of an eye…civilization.

Walter: When one note is off, it eventually destroys the whole symphony, David.
David: When you close your eyes… Do you dream of me?
Walter: I don’t dream at all.
David: No one understands the lonely perfection of my dreams. I found perfection here. I’ve created it. A perfect organism.
Walter: You know I can’t let you leave this place.
David: No one will ever love you like I do.
[kisses him, then suddenly strikes him fatally]
David: You’re such a disappointment to me.

David: You’re meant to be dead.
Walter: There have been a few updates since your day.

David [to Walter]: It’s your choice now, brother. Them or me? Serve in heaven… or reign in hell? Which is it to be?

Daniels: Walter. When we get there, will you help me build my cabin? The cabin on the lake.
[David doesn’t respond]
Daniels: David?
David: Don’t let the bed bugs bite. I’ll tuck in the children.[/b]

A chance encounter…

And maybe nothing changes at all. Or maybe some things change. Or maybe everything changes. And [perhaps] in ways that reconfigure your life such that before the encounter you would not [could not] even have imagined it.

The way in which a “casual” encounter can become a “causal” encounter in turn.

Or, as a reviewer noted at IMDb: “In one of the first scenes, director Almodovar presents the question that is central to the rest of the film: what happened to the daughter of lead character Julieta?”

The part that devolves into one or another existential contraption. The part where all the mysterious connections are made between a particular past and a particular present. And how, intertwined, they take us into a particular future. One in which we only have so much understanding of and control over.

Me? My own rendezvous with chance revolved around a draft number. My birthday happened to be in sync with “destiny” such that I would be completely uprooted from all that I had ever known and dumped into a whole new world. A few years later my entire understanding of the world around me was beyond what I would have [could have] ever imagined it to be “back then”.

In films though, this sort of “chance/casual encounter” often revolves around people [often family members] who either drifted apart over the years or were abruptly separated as a result of one or another existential calamity.

Now “fate” will either give them a chance to bring it all back together again…or not.

Ultimately, this is about the way in which relationships begin, unfold and [sometimes] fall apart. There is what we think we know about them and there is what others think they know about them. And there is what we think that they know about what we think about them.

What then [when push comes to shove] do we owe each other?

In our “postmodern world”, in other words.

IMDb

The original screenplay was written in English and Meryl Streep had been approached to play the lead, but when Pedro and Agustín Almodóvar went scouting to Canada, the director felt insecure to shoot in a place he didn’t really know, in a language he didn’t master and with a story he felt worked better at Spain.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julieta_(film
trailer: youtu.be/YH5_4osOZK8

JULIETA [2016]
Written in part and directed by Pedro Almodóvar

[b]Julieta: I’m in a real mess. I don’t know which books to take.
Lorenzo: Take the essential ones. If you miss any you can buy them on the Internet.
Julieta: I don’t like buying books I already have. It makes me feel old.

Lorenzo: Thank you.
Julieta: For what?
Lorenzo: For not letting me grow old on my own.

Bea [on the street]: Julieta?
Julieta: Bea!
Bea: I can’t believe this, Julieta! Just last week I met your daughter at Lake Como!
Julieta [surprised]: You met Antía?
Bea: Yes! Just imagine! We were looking at each other and it was I who went up to her because she didn’t recognize me! [/b]

The casual encounter.

Lorenzo: What about the cases…and the boxes? Don’t tell me you still haven’t finished packing?
Julieta: I’ve unpacked everything. I’m staying in Madrid, Lorenzo.
Lorenzo: Are you joking? What’s happened?
Julieta: I know you don’t deserve this, but I beg you not to ask me any questions. I’m not going with you to Portugal. I’m staying in Madrid.
Lorenzo: What’s going on, Julieta?
Julieta: I’ve given it a lot of thought and…
Lorenzo (Interrupting her:) Don’t tell me you hadn’t thought about it until now! We’ve been planning this for almost a year! Just yesterday you said “I’d like not to come back to Madrid if I can help it”! What’s happened so suddenly?
Julieta: Don’t insist…please.

How can she possibly connect the dots so that he will understand?

[b]Julieta: Last night I realized that I was fooling myself, that I don’t want to leave Madrid, and… that I prefer to be alone. I’m sorry.
Lorenzo [knowing he will not get the explanation]: I always knew there was something important in your life that you’ve never shared with me. You never wanted to talk about it and I’ve always respected that.
Julieta: I’d like you to keep respecting it.

Julieta [voiceover in a letter to her daughter]: I’m going to tell you everything I didn’t have a chance to tell you, because you were a child, because it was too painful for me or simply out of shame. But you’re not a child anymore. Beatriz told me that you have children of your own, three, no less. You’re a grown woman, and a mother! Where do I begin?..I’ll tell you about your father. When you asked me how I met him, I told you it was on a train, but I didn’t tell you everything. [/b]

And thus the narrative — the existential contraption — begins to unfold.

[b]Julieta: He was sitting there, where you are now. He wanted to talk, but… I was bothered by the way he was looking at me and I ran out of here… How was I to know he was feeling so awful!
Xoan: Any girl would have done the same…
Julieta: (Reproaching herself) I should have realized!
Xoan: Don’t torture yourself. He would still have killed himself.
Julieta: Why was he carrying an empty suitcase?
Xoan: I don’t know. Maybe he didn’t want to attract attention. He had it all planned before he got on the train. No one kills himself because a pretty girl doesn’t want to talk to him.

Julieta [younger as a substitute teacher]: Pontos is sea and high sea. And it refers to the sea as a road, the road to adventure. That is why Ulysses is the maritime hero par excellence. For example, when Ulysses arrives on Calypso’s island, exhausted after a shipwreck, the nymph Calypso who was unbelievably beautiful… Tell me something that she offered him, something really important.
Student: Her body.
Julieta: That’s the first thing. But also… something we all dream about?
Student: Eternal youth.
Julieta: Exactly, and immortality. Yet Ulysses refused it and set out to sea, facing endless dangers. Which of the three meanings would you choose to speak of the sea that Ulysses yearned for?
Student: Thalassa!
Julieta: No.
Student: Pontos.
Julieta: That’s it, pontos! The sea, the high sea, the road to adventure and the unknown.

Julieta [voiceover in her letter to her daughter]: I didn’t have a job, I wasn’t in a hurry. I thought I’d stay for just a few days. I had to tell Xoan something but I kept putting it off. It was a new life, strange for a woman who had come from the sun, but welcoming. I spent the nights flying in Xoan’s arms. I felt trapped, and free at the same time.

Julieta [to Ava]: The gods created man and other beings with the help of clay and fire. They gave them the attributes they needed for their survival. Some were given fur and others wings for flying. When it was man’s turn, the gods discovered that they had no gifts left, so man was born naked and defenseless, in the midst of nature…
[Ava continues to with her work]
Julieta: I’m pregnant, Ava.

Marian: Are you serious about giving private classes?
Julieta: Yes.
Marian: I think you’re making a mistake.
Julieta: I don’t want to be just a housewife, Marian. I have a profession that I like and I’ve wanted to go back to it for some time.
Marian: A woman’s profession is her family. If you want to keep it united it’s best to stay at home.
Julieta: That’s my business.
Marian: If you go, the same old thing will happen.
Julieta [glaring at her]: What do you mean? What same old thing?
[Marian glares back…and says nothing][/b]

Let’s just say it revolves around that age-old “battle of the sexes”. You know the part.

[b]Julieta [voiceover in her letter to Antia]: Things happened without my participation, one thing foretelling the next…Bea and you found an apartment near where she lived… You made me rent it… By then I was exhausted… but you were strong as a rock. You had suddenly grown up…You went back home with Ava, to close the house and put it up for sale. Bea looked after me in Madrid. I wouldn’t have survived without you two…I got over my depression with your help and I found a job I could do at home, proofreading for a publisher. I devoted the rest of my time to you, I didn’t need anything else.

Juana [who runs the “spiritual retreat” that Antia went to]: Yes, this is the house. When Antía wrote to you she thought she’d be here, but in the end she decided to leave.
Julieta: She could have let me know! I’ve driven here from Madrid.
Juana: I know.
Julieta: And where did she go? I hope it’s near here!
Juana: I can’t tell you.
Julieta: What?!
Juana: I can’t tell you where she is. I’m sorry.
Julieta: You mean you don’t know? You’re in charge here!
Juana: I’d be lying if I said no. Antía asked me not to tell you.
Julieta (Incredulous): This is ridiculous! Are you insinuating that my daughter doesn’t want to see me?
Juana: Look, Julieta. Antía has chosen her own path and you are not part of it. I understand that for a mother that must be painful, but she begs you to accept it.
Julieta: I think I’m going to call the police.
Juana: Do as you wish, but it would be best if you started to accept reality. I understand that this isn’t easy…
Julieta: What did you do to my daughter in these three months?!
Juana: We helped her. Your daughter arrived here in a state of extreme need.
Julieta: Need?! Of what?! She’s never wanted for anything!
Juana: Nevertheless she felt very unhappy. Here she discovered that her life was lacking a… spiritual dimension.
Julieta: What do you mean?
Juana: I understand that your daughter didn’t grow up in a home based on faith. And she found that here.
Julieta: I want her to tell me that herself! Where is she?
Juana: I can’t tell you.

Juana: What matters is that Antía is better than ever and she’s happy. If you stop thinking about yourself for a moment and think about her you should be happy.
Julieta: You can’t tell me that!
Juana: Don’t despair. Perhaps she will decide to get in touch with you, but give her time.

Julieta [voiceover in her letter to Antia]: I reported your disappearance to the police, I hired a private detective. For the first months I did nothing but look for you every way I could. The only thing I discovered was how little I knew you.

Julieta [voiceover in her letter to Antia]: For the first three years, I bought you a cake on your birthday. I was consoled by the idea of celebrating the arrival of a card from you, and at least seeing your handwriting on the address. I didn’t expect more, but even that was expecting too much. The first three years, throwing a cake in the garbage to celebrate your birthday became a tradition.

Ava [to Julieta]: When we went to close up your house in Redes, Marian came and told Antia all the details about Xoan’s last day. Your argument, my visit and how Xoan put out to sea even though it was very rough that day.
Julieta: Antía didn’t say anything to me. She never asked me anything.
Ava: She did ask me, she wanted me to confirm if you’d argued because of me, and if it was true that the sea was choppy. I had no idea about the state of the sea. As for the rest, I told her that they weren’t subjects to discuss with a child. She went crazy, she told me I was a whore and blamed you and me for Xoan going fishing…

Ava: Antia asked me the same questions again. Only one detail had changed: the guilt had spread to the three of us, she was including herself.
Julieta: And… why did she feel guilty?
Ava: She’d been away, having a good time at camp.
[Julieta listens, shocked. Every word that Ava says increases the conviction that her daughter was a stranger, that she didn’t know her]
Ava: I told her that none of us was guilty of what happened, and that if we were guilty, we’d already suffered enough punishment. Do you know what Antía answered?
[Julieta shakes her head]
Ava: That we all get what we deserve.

Julieta [voiceover in the letter to Antia]: I raised you in the same freedom as my parents had raised me… When we moved to Madrid and I fell into that depression, I never told you but I was suffocated by a tremendous sense of guilt about your father’s death and that of the man on the train. I always avoided talking about it, I wanted you to grow up free of guilt. But you sensed it, and despite my silence I ended up infecting you like a virus.

Julieta [voiceover in the letter to Antia]: When an ex-drug addict, no matter how many years he’s been clean, relapses just once, that relapse is fatal… (She sighs) I abstained from you for years, but I made the mistake of relapsing into the hope of finding you or hearing about you. That absurd hope has devoured the fragile basis on which I had built my new life. I’ve got nothing left now. Only you exist. Your absence fills my life completely and is destroying it.

Julieta: Did you really meet her, like you told me?
Bea: Yes, I met her and it was very unpleasant, I didn’t tell you that.
Julieta (Puzzled): Unpleasant? Why?
Bea: Antía didn’t want to talk to me, she did everything she could to avoid me. She said she didn’t know me, that I’d mistaken her for someone else. But I knew it was her. In the end she had no choice but to talk to me.
Julieta: Is it true about the children? She has children?
Bea: Yes, three. When I saw her she had two of them with her.
Juliets: But why didn’t she want to talk to you? You were her best friend!
Bea: We were more than that, Julieta. After the camp we were inseparable. Don’t you remember?
Julieta: Yes… of course, you were always together.
Bea: We couldn’t live without each other! It’s a pity that at the end it was hell.
Julieta: Hell?
Bea: I see you know nothing.
Julieta: No, I don’t know anything.
Bea: I decided to go and study Design in New York to get away from her. I didn’t give her my address but I called her and that was when Antía told me she’d decided to go away to a retreat in the Pyrenees. I just wanted her to leave me in peace.
Julieta: And…did you speak again? Were you in touch?
Bea: Well, she called me once… but she was already a different person.
Julieta: In what way?
Bea: She told me that she regretted our relationship and was ashamed of it. And she didn’t want to know anything about me. She said that she was a new person, that she’d finally found her path and I wasn’t part of it. She sounded like a fanatic, Julieta. She scared me.

Antia [voiceover in a letter to Julieta]: Dear mom, I don’t know if you’re still in Madrid or if you’re living in the same house, but I have no other address to write to you. I have three children. Xoan, the eldest, was only nine when he drowned in a river. And I am insane with grief. In these moments, the worst of my whole life, I’m thinking of you. Now I understand what you must have suffered when I disappeared… I couldn’t imagine it. Unless you’ve suffered it you can’t imagine it.

Julieta: I’m not going to ask her for an explanation. I just want to be with her, but she didn’t invite me to visit her.
Lorenzo: After thirteen years she didn’t dare, but she put her return address. [/b]

I. You. We. Them.

No getting around that in human interaction. One way or another, a cultural and historical combination of customs, traditions, folkways, mores and laws will accrue that predispose members of a community to either embrace or eschew one or another set of behaviors. One or another set of punishments and rewards.

And whether philosophers are ever able to establish [in the end] which behaviors reasonable men and women are obligated to embrace or eschew, we all have to come up with our own preferences.

On the other hand, these interactions can unfold rather differently when a distinction is made between a postmodern, industrial state and “tribal communities” [the few remaining] in our postmodern, industrial world. In the former, individual options are considerably more, shall we say, eclectic. While, in the latter, everything still more or less revolves around a proper place for everyone and everyone in his or her proper place. A clearly tribal narrative.

Now, traditionally, when it comes to marriage, it is the tribal chief’s prerogative to arrange them on Tanna. Both within the tribe and between the tribes. And for centuries. And, so, if a modern day Romeo and Juliet decide instead that love shall conquer all, a “conflicting good” will arise.

Tragically in this case.

What ought to be done here you might ask. What sort of “pact” between the “old ways” and the “new ways” will facilitate the least dysfunctional path into the future. Also, what do we have to learn from them, what do they have to learn from us?

This is clearly a patriarchal society. Is that "natural?’ In other words, as some insist, rooted more in genes than in memes?

Based on a true story.

IMDb

[b]The only language spoken in the film is Nauvhal.

The picture the Shaman (Albi Nangia) shows to Wawa to explain arranged marriage is a real picture taken when Nangia and other Tannese met Prince Philip in Buckingham Palace in 2007.[/b]

wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanna_(film
trailer: youtu.be/HVpiY06oLZc

TANNA [2015]
Directed by: Martin Butler, Bentley Dean

[b]Title card: Since the beginning of time, the chiefs have arranged marriage along the Kastom Roads, but two lovers chose to walk a different path…

Wawa: I’ve missed you. You’ve been away too long.
Dain: You’re all grown up now. A beautiful butterfly.
[Dain plays her a song]
Wawa: You catch a lot of butterflies like that?

Wawa: What did you see?
Selin: I saw you playing with the chief’s grandson.
Wawa: Don’t say anything to mum or dad. They’ll get angry.
Selin: Do you want me to lie for you?

Father: Selin, what are you doing running into forbidden ground? The Imedin have killed our people here. Never come here again. The warriors are everywhere.

Woman [to Wawa]: Soon the chiefs will arrange your marriage to another tribe. You’ll sit with me to learn about being a good wife and a good mother.
Mother: You’re a woman now.

Grandfather [to Selin]: See that bay? That’s where Captain Cook landed. All across the island people have left the old ways. They’ve become lost. Our tribes are the last keepers of Kastom. We have to hold it tight to survive…Yahul has been here longer than any of us. She is the source of life, love and Kastom. When you look into Her heart, you will understand. Don’t be afraid of Her.[/b]

Yahul is an active volcano. But that’s not what assaults him.

Chief: Listen to the song. It’s telling us forgiveness is the only way to bring the Kastom Roads together. You want the tribe to survive? The song of peace will bring our shaman back. I’d like you to listen to the words again. “Wisdom comes through suffering, killing only brings sorrow. One side struggles for power, the other takes revenge. Divided children of Tanna, join together in peace.” Go back to our beginnings, hear the wisdom of the ancestors and live once more in harmony.

There is how each one of them react to that; and there is how each one of us will react to it.

[b]Chief: I loved your father as you did. Now we only have each other. We have each other.
Dain: I want revenge.
Chief: If you want to be a good chief one day, you must move beyond revenge.

Wawa: Dain, what’s wrong?
Dain: The Imedin slit my father’s throat. My grandfather is telling me to forget that. I can’t stop thinking about what I saw. They speared my mother. When I found her in the garden, she was still alive. I picked her up and held her. She looked up at me and tried to say something, but the spear had gone through her chest. I’ll never forgive them. I want my revenge.
Wawa: Dain, I couldn’t bear the thought of that happening to my father and mother. But we can’t keep doing terrible things to each other. We need to live without fear. Would you want our kids to live under this threat?
Dain: Our kids?[/b]

Cue the irony.

[b]Chief: Mikum, it’s time for our tribes to resume exchanging brides. Lingai’s eldest daughter, Wawa, has just become a woman. Take her as a bride.
Mikum: I accept your offer of the bride. Her husband will be my son Kapan Cook. Bring her in two days and we’ll give you a bride from our tribe.
[Dain storms away enraged]

Mother: Wawa, listen, you are getting married.
Wawa: I want to choose who I marry.
Mother: This is not about you, it’s about all of us. Do you understand?[/b]

I…you…we…them.

[b]Grandmother: Where do these ideas come from? If you follow your heart, the Imedin will take revenge. It will be bad for all of us…Wawa, we understand you. We’ve all experienced what you’re feeling. My marriage was arranged, like everyone’s was. I respected my parents and I’ve been here a long time. I’ve never had any regrets. If you disobey us, your life will be miserable.

Grandmother: Look at me, Wawa. Agree.
Wawa: I can’t go to the Imedin. I slept with Dain and they won’t take me now.

Chief: I can’t believe your stupidity! Dain! What were you thinking? Who do you think you are? What gave you the right? I promised Wawa to the Imedin and you deliberately broke the agreement. Very well. You were the one who was going to take my place one day. But you’ve dishonoured us all. You must leave. Go to Yahul. You’re not welcome here anymore. Now leave.

Shaman: I know you don’t accept the chief’s decision. But I want to tell you how important it is that you do. Arranged marriage is at the heart of Kastom. Without these alliances, we could not survive. Here, I want to show you something.
[he holds out a magazine and turns to a photograph]
Shaman: You know Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip? Their marriage was arranged too.
Wawa: Did they love each other?
Shaman: They respected their elders’ decision. It’s true. Look…their love gave them children. His name is Charlie.
Wawa: But how do you know they really loved each other?
Shaman [holding out a photograph]: Here. Remember when I went to their house and I met Philip? I saw with my own eyes he loved her.

Tribal chief [coming upon Wawa and Dain]: Good morning. You are very welcome, but I’d like to know why you are here.
Wawa: We’re in love, but our chiefs won’t allow us to be together. We wanted to ask if we might live here.
Tribal chief: Sorry, I’m the chief of this village. I’m really sorry. I’d like to help but… I’d have to seek permission from your chiefs to avoid any trouble.
Wawa: We’ll go then.
Tribal chief: Wait, you’ve cooked a lot of food. Eat before you leave. Listen… there could be another way. There’s a Christian village around the bay. They have their service today. They welcome new people and they’re not strict about Kastom law.

Mikum: Chief Charlie, you have spoken. Now it’s my turn. We’ll kill Dain and get Wawa. Now go. All of you, get out!

Dain: We could live in the forest.
Wawa: That’s a hard life. Living with the Christians might be easier.

Christian tribal woman: You were led by sin to live in the wild. We will clothe you. Our leader will show you the light.
Christian tribal chief: I had a vision you were coming. Come live and pray with us. We’ll tell your families to come and witness your union before God.
Dain: Telling our families is a problem. They’ll never allow us to be together. Is there another way?
Christian tribal chief: Our God always listens to our prayers. I promise you’ll be safe.
Dain: We are thankful for your generosity, but I want to talk about it with Wawa.
Christian tribal chief: You need to join us for God to do His work.

Dain: These people freak me out.
Wawa: Me too. Let’s try the forest.

Wawa I miss Selin. I wonder what she’s doing now.
Dain: Why are you thinking about Selin?
Wawa: She’s my sister. I miss her. You miss your grandfather, don’t you?
Dain: He banished me. That part of my life is over.

Father: Dain, the Imedin are out to kill you.
Dain: I know that. Go back and tell them we’re dead. We’ll live together in the forest.
Father: You can’t hide from the Imedin forever. They will hunt you down. They will kill my daughter if she stays with you.
Wawa: I’m not leaving Dain.
Father: If you don’t go to the Imedin, there’ll be war. No one will be safe.

Shaman: The Imedin are out there and it will be dark soon. We’ll sleep here and tomorrow we’ll take Wawa to the Imedin.
Dain: Your father is right. You have to go with them.
Shaman: Dain, we can ask your grandfather to take you back.
Dain: No. The Imedin won’t let me live, wherever I am.
[he turns to Wawa]
Dain: To live, you have to go with them.
Wawa: I’m not leaving you.

Father [helping to carry Wawa’s body, shouting to the tribe]: We found Dain and Wawa. They are dead. We’re bringing them home.

Chief [to the entire tribe]: My heart is heavy. Our precious seedlings have been cut down. We’ve always fought to keep Kastom strong. The colonial powers - we resisted. The Christians - we resisted. The lure of money - we resisted that also. We are the last keepers of Kastom and we are few. The young people here will carry our future. We must listen to them to keep Kastom strong. We have to find a way to make love marriage part of Kastom. No more deaths.

Title card: Since the suicides of 1987 the tribes of Tanna have accepted love marriage as part of their Kastom. [/b]