philosophy in film

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]

Sleight of hand.

Sleight of mind.

Sleight being, “the use of dexterity or cunning, especially so as to deceive.”

And, if you are a magician plying your trade “out on the mean streets”, you might need to combine both in order merely to survive.

Bo is on his own. Mom and Dad are gone. And he has a young sister to raise. And, since being a street magician doesn’t pay all the bills, he finds it necessary to go considerably outside the law in order to survive. Maybe even thrive.

But selling dope is fraught with all manner of unintended consequences. And, before too long, he finds himself in way over his head. One truly fucked up thing leads to another. Now the number one gangster has kidnapped his sister. And he needs all the sleight he can muster to get her back.

Dope and dollars. As long as the two are intertwined there will always be folks on both sides of the consequences. Unintended or otherwise.

The thing about Bo though is that while you’re rooting for him, you also recognize that he can be a very unlikeable piece of shit.

As for the magic, well, you tell me: real or entirely scripted? And then the part about how far some magicians will go in order to create a mind-boggling “effect”. And, finally, the part where the dope narrative reconfigures into a science fiction yarn. If that’s the right way to describe it.

Others no doubt will describe it as the part where they “jump the shark”. The part that gets simply preposterous.

IMDb

The playing cards used in the film are Black Fontaines by Zach Mueller.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleight
trailer: youtu.be/ORL1d7GWoBc

SLEIGHT [2016]
Written in part and directed by J.D. Dillard

Holly: What about you?
Bo: Well, my dad passed a while back, and my mom passed last year, so it’s just me and my little sister, Tina, the love of my life. She’s such a smart kid, you know. I just wish I can move her into a neighborhood with a better school. Surround her with better people. She’s gonna be something big. I know it.

Cue the dope narrative:

[b]Bo [after Packy gives him a gun]: What’s going on?
Angelo: Found out where this Maurice guy lives. Homie moves into our backyard and starts selling coke like I don’t exist. I mean, we’re gonna pay him a little visit. Talk to him about etiquette. Let’s go.

Angelo: Maurice. You and I, we could be friends. We really could. And if you don’t like me, we could at least be co-workers. And we both know you don’t always have to like your co-workers. So, your options. You can go back to wherever the fuck you came from, or you can get comfortable, stay right here, sell my shit, and kick me 30%. Think about it. Let me know.[/b]

Segue to the look on Bo’s face.

[b]Bo: I never thought it’d get dangerous.
Georgi: You guys never done something like this before?
Bo: A stick-up? No. Hell no. And that’s what I liked about Angelo. I mean, he didn’t seem like the gangbanger. Just a cool guy who’d help me make money off kids who wanted to party. I don’t know, this is turning into something I would’ve never signed up for. And I thought this whole thing would be temporary. I mean, a year flashes by and I’m still a drug dealer. I need to get out of this, Georgi. Now.

Angelo: His hand or yours, Bo.

Bo: Selling all this, I could pay Angelo his cut and still walk away with $15,000. That’s enough money to get out.
Georgi: Even if you sell all this, you really think Angelo’s gonna let you leave?
Bo: I don’t know. I hope.
Georgi: I know it’s not my place to say this, but there’s no one else here to say it to you. I don’t want you to do this. It’s too dangerous.
Bo: I’m sorry. It’s already done.

Holly: What is that?
Bo: What?
Holly: That thing in your arm?
Bo: Oh, uh… It’s part of an effect.
Holly: But what is it? It looks kind of infected.
Bo: It’s not that bad.
Holly: Bo, for a magic trick? Why would you do that to yourself?

Holly: Did he tell you how he did the trick?
Bo: It wasn’t a trick. It was real. I mean, for a year, this guy stabbed a knife through his hand. Each time, he cut a little deeper, let the scar tissue grow. Then do it again. After a while, he had stabbed a clean hole straight through. And because of the scar tissue, there was no blood. So, when he performed, he just covered his hands with a little bit of latex and it’d look like brand-new skin. That’s the effect. I mean, it’s so obvious, but you wouldn’t think anyone would go that far.
Holly: Yeah, he cut a freakin’ hole in his hand. I mean, is all that worth it just for a trick? I mean, can’t you do tricks that don’t hurt you?
Bo: Anyone can learn a trick, but doing something no one else is willing to do makes you a magician. I can do something no one else can.

Angelo [to Bo with a gun to his face]: You know what? I want my kilo’s full value back without you taking a cut. Obviously. Another 15 since you doubled my product. And let’s throw one more 15k on top of that for asshole tax. So, if you’re following me, that’s 45k, and I want it by midnight next Sunday. Now get the fuck out of my house.

Holly [looking at Bo’s bruised face]: What happened?
Bo: Hey. I messed up, okay? I messed up bad.

Tina [to Bo]: Is something bad going to happen to us?

Mr. Granger: Bo. Building an electromagnet in a shoebox is one thing, but in your arm?

Bo [to Mr. Granger]: The negative is fed to my thumb and the positive to the rest of the fingers. The board is programed to read all the different inputs. It gives me a little bit of control over pitch, yaw and roll. But I need more power. I mean, the lithium-ions last a while, but their output, it’s just…I need more output.[/b]

A woman may or may not be mysterious.

But in most films if the woman is mysterious she is almost certainly going to be beautiful in turn. And this film is no exception.

It reaches the point where most of us can’t even imagine a film like this where the woman is mysterious and [instead] is singularly unattractive.

Then you begin to wonder about the part where the genes segue into the memes. Is this reaction “natural”? Or [instead] is it derived more from a “sexist” historical narrative imposed upon us by a “patriarchal” culture?

Here though the beautiful mysterious woman may also be a beautiful mysterious murderer. And the first thing our protagonist Philip aims to do when she returns is to strangle her: “Whatever it cost my cousin in pain and suffering before he died I will return with full measure upon the woman that caused it.” That is until he is “stunned to discover a woman not only beautiful but elegant, intelligent and sensitive.” Will he perhaps fall in love with her?

And this was “back then”. Long before the advent of one or another rendition of “feminism”. An attempt to imagine the “plight” [and the options] of women in a world very much different from our own.

That is, not counting the part really very much the same.

It’s one of those mysteries in which we are never entirely sure if she did it or not. But what counts is not whether she did it but whether or not others think that she did.

Look for the part about class. If you can find it.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Cousin … (2017_film
trailer: youtu.be/vVaPJxe0Qxs

IMDb

The white horse Rachel Weisz rides in the film had been trained for the TV series Game of Thrones (2011) and was taught to ‘play dead’ when its rider tugged hard on the left rein. Being unaware of this, at one point Rachel got partially trapped under the horse’s left flank for a brief period after it rolled over onto its left side.

MY COUSIN RACHEL [2017]
Directed by Roger Michell

[b]Philip [voiceover]: Did she? Didn’t she? Who was to blame? He was my cousin. But I loved him like a father.

Philip [voiceover]: They say a boy needs as mother. But the only women allowed in the house were the dogs.

Louise: She must be extremely charming for Ambrose to have noticed her.
Philip: What do you mean?
Louise: Oh, I’ve never heard of him admiring a woman before.
Kendall: She’s right. Your cousin never had much need for women.
Philip: Why should he? He had me.

Philip [reading aloud a letter from Ambrose]: “I have written to you several times, but she watches me like a hawk and there is no one that I can trust to take my letters to the mail. She is away from the house today. That’s why I am able to write this. For weeks I’ve been ill, feers, terrible headaches. I am sick at the sight of the sun.”

Louise [noticing a message penned on the envelope flap]: “She has done for me at last. Rachel, my torment. For god’s sake, come quickly.”

Philip: How did he die?
Rainaldi: It was a tumor. In the head. The doctors are in no doubt it affected his brain.
Philip: How?
Rainaldi: Shouting. Violence. Terrible distrust.[/b]

We know where this takes us.

[b]Philip: I believe nothing of what you have told me. I believe that had I been here, my cousin would still be alive. And whatever it cost my cousin in pain and suffering before he died I will return with full measure upon the woman that caused it.

Kendall: It’s the same will I drew up ten years ago. No provision to be made for a wife.
Philip: Are you sure?
Kendall: Quite sure…and there’s no mention anywhere of a claim on the part of Mrs. Ashley.
Philip: I’m amazed.
Kendall: Why?
Philip: We know perfectly well she drove him to his death.
Kendall: We know nothing of the sort. If that’s the way you are going to talk about your cousin’s widow, I prefer not to listen.

Philip: Surely you don’t believe all this nonesense about the tumor?
Kendall: Here is the death certificate and an account of the post mortem. And what possible motive could she have with nothing to gain from his death? So yes, why wouldn’t I believe?

Louise: What are you going to do with her?
Philip: Confront her. Of course she will try to bluster her way out of it…I want justice for Ambrose.

Philip: Where the devil are the dogs?!
Seecomb: I think they followed her up the stairs.

Rachel: How pernickety you are.
Philip: I thought you lot worried about things like that
Rachel: You lot?
Philip: Women.
Rachel: Only when they have nothing else to worry about.

Rachel [to Philip of Ambrose]: All of this was his passion…so I made it my passion too.

Rachel [at the dinner table]: Who would like to join me in drinking this delicious port wine. Unless of course the men wish to retire to the next room while we smoke our pipes.

Philip: The Vicar finds you feminine. “Extremely feminine” were his exact words.
Rachel: I wonder in what way?
Philip: I suppose in a way that’s different to Mrs. Pascoe.
Rachel: Mmm. And how would you define the difference…our femininity? Mrs. Pascoe’s and mine.
Philip: God knows. All I know is I like looking at you…and I don’t like looking at Mrs. Pascoe.

Kendall: What shall we give her?
Philip: Think of a number that is fair and reasonable…then double it.

Louise: The Pascoe girls are far too busy remarking on something else.
Philip: What?
Louise: How easy it must be for a woman like your cousin Rachel to twist you around her little finger.

Rachel: You made him write this!
Philip: What…did you…I did nothing of the sort.
Rachel: If you had set out to humiliate me, Philip, you really couldn’t have got off to a better start!
Philip: Why?
Rachel: Why?! Because now it looks as if I came begging to you!
Philip: But you haven’t. You didn’t.
Rachel: Can’t you let me be a person in my own right? A woman who is making her way in the world as she wishes to.[/b]

Beautifully played? She accepts the allowance. And agrees to stay.

[b]Rachel: Why should women suffer in childbirth? Is it simply their destiny to do so?
Philip: Never thought about it.
Rachel: No, of course you haven’t. You know nothing about women.

Kendall [to Philip]: I’ve had some news from the bank. Some rather disturbing news, in fact…Your cousin is already severely overdrawn on her account. I can only think she’s been sending money out of the country.

Kendall: I’ve been doing a little asking around. Did you know that the duel in which her first husband died was fought over one of her lovers?
Philip [scoffing]: I don’t believe that.
Kendall: They were notorious. Both him and her, for unbridled extravagance, and apparently limitless…appetite.

Kendall: Does she have any knowledge of this?
Philip: None whatsoever.
Kendall: And you’re quite determined on this course?
Philip: Quite.
Kendall: You’re completely infatuated with your cousin are you not?
Philip: I’m just doing what I believe is right.
Kendall: You realize that you could lose everything?
Philip: I’m willing to take that risk.

Rachel [to Philip]: Had I known I was coming into a fortune, I would have given you a considerably larger pearl.

Servant: Mistresses compliments.
Philip: What is it?
Servant: Twig soup…Special brew she says. Birthday brew. She says you’ve got to drink the lot.

Philip: Didn’t you enjoy it?
Rachel: Well, didn’t you?
Philip: You know I did.
Rachel: I wanted you to enjoy it. I wanted to thank you.
Philip: For what?
Rachel: For what? For everything. For being so kind to me. For the jewels. What did you…did you…did you think that you had bought me?

Philip: You know nothing about her?
Lousie: Or is it you who know nothing?

Philip: I thought she said yes but in fact she meant no.
Louise: Was this before or after she read the document?
Philip: Before. She read it the morning after.
Louise: And wasted no time in driving over to see us.
Philip: She said she didn’t fully understand it.
Louise: Well she understood it pretty damn well by the time she left.

Philip: How long was I out?
Servant: Five days.

Philip: Are you leaving me?
[Rachel says nothing]
Philip: You should have left me to die.
Rachel [abruptly]: Don’t. Soon none of this will seem quite so bad. You belong here. In a little while you’ll be strong again and everything will be just as it was before I came. You are at the beginning of everything. A boy. How can I live with a boy? However lovely. A glorious puppy, wandering around, mireable and wet-nosed, looking for its mother.[/b]

She nailed him.

[b]Philip: Why is Rainaldi here?
Rachel: Because I asked him.

Rachel [with a tray of tea cups to Louise]: Oh, no, not that one, it’s for Philip.
[she walks over to Philip]
Rachel: Here.
Philip: No, thank you.
Rachel: Oh, but this is a special batch. I’ve made it double strength.
Philip: Well, then you drink it for me.

Philip [to Rachel who is about to go riding]: You might try the cliff path.

Louise: The jewelry. She’s giving it back.
Philip: Keep looking.
Louise: I don’t know what we’re looking for.
Philip: Keep looking![/b]

Some will argue that they don’t make bastards [or sons of bitches] quite like they do down South. Good Ole Boys. Rednecks. Poor white trash. Bubbas.

Of course that’s just a personal prejudice. Though, sure, maybe not.

In particular however when the folks who have to weave in and out of their lives are from “the wrong side of the tracks”. Lives that are often bursting at the seams with “tough choices”. Sometimes then it’s not a matter of winning or losing but of losing more mercifully.

And when you’re struggling to raise an “illegitimate” child in the midst of all this, it just ups the ante all that much more.

In other words, this ain’t the only kind of bastard in the film.

Still, some bastards of the first kind are considerably more sons of bitches than others. For example when it revolves around the abuse of children. Still, even here, expect your reaction to be embedded in the particular frame of mind you bring to the film. Or, as one reviewer put it, “…it is not a movie with pat answers and predictable solutions, but manages to show the complexities involved in each situation. There are no cardboard characters either, as in real life not everyone is totally good or evil, though their actions may dip into either category from time to time.”

But there will always be folks who watch films like this and figure, fuck it, they aren’t worth caring about anyway. But even if you hold tight to these prejudices regarding the adults, how the hell can you inflict them on the children as well.

Though some no doubt will.

IMDb

[b]Ron Eldard spent a lot of time playing sports with Jena Malone so they would both feel comfortable performing the scenes in which he is physically abusing her. He claimed that in no scene did inappropriate contact with Malone take place, and that for scenes in which he appears to grab her by the throat, he is actually only holding her by his fingertips. Eldard was adamant that the graphic depiction of sexual abuse and rape was a necessity for the film.

Originally produced for Turner Network Television, the network ultimately rejected it due to scenes of sexual abuse. It was subsequently picked up by the Showtime channel.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastard_o … lina_(film
trailer: youtu.be/za1Ys7Fcrcg

BASTARD OUT OF CAROLINA [1996]
Directed by Anjelica Huston

[b]Bone [narrating]: “People pay for what they do, and still more for what they allow themselves to become. And they pay for it simply; by the lives they lead.” James Baldwin.

Bone [narrating]: The day I was born started off bad and only got worse. I guess I was lucky I got born at all.

Bone [narrating]: I got the nickname Bone from Uncle Earle. He took one look at me and said, “She ain’t no bigger than a knucklebone.” Neither aunt Ruth nor Granny could write very clearly and they hadn’t bothered to discuss how Anne would be spelled. So it wound up three different ways on the form. As for the name of the father, Granny refused to speak it after she’d run him out of town for messing with her daughter. Aunt Ruth had never been sure of his last name anyway. They tried to get away with just scribbling something down… but if the hospital didn’t mind how a baby’s middle name was spelled… they were definite about having a father’s last name. Granny gave one, Ruth gave another, the clerk got mad… and there I was, certified a bastard by the state of South Carolina.[/b]

That particular demographic in other words.

[b]Granny: Ruth Anne’s all right, but Mattie Raylene would’ve been better. ‘Course nobody bothered to ask me.
Anney: Nobody bothered to ask you? Nobody bothered to ask me. It’s my baby.
Granny: That’s your own damn fault for sleepin’ three whole days.
Anney: I had a concussion, Mama!

Anney [talking to Bone as a baby]: I don’t care what they say, Bone. I won’t have anybody call you trash. That stamp on your birth certificate, it’s one they already got for me. No good. Lazy. Shiftless. I work my ass off over other people’s peanuts… and they look at me like I’m a rock on the ground. No matter how hard I try, I still can’t get away from it. One soft-talking, black-eyed man fixed that. He set a mark on me. And set a mark on you. Don’t you worry, Bone. You’ve got me now, and I’ve got you. We’ll stick together, the two of us.

Ruth [to Anney after Lyle dies]: Nothing else will ever hit you this hard. Now you look like a Boatwright, now you’ve got the look. You’re as old as you’re ever going get, girl. This is the way you’ll look till the day you die.

Bone [now a young girl]: Granny, something’s burning! Something big.

Granny: There’s something wrong with that boy, Anney. He’s always looking at me out of the sides of his eyes, like some old junkyard dog trying to steal a bone. And you’re the bone he wants.
Anney: So? What’s wrong with that? You want me to spend the rest of my life working my ass off until I dry up and can’t even imagine marrying again?
Granny: Earle says he’s got a temper on him.
Anney: Earle’s one to talk. Besides, do you know a man who doesn’t have a temper?

Anney: What do you think, honey? Think I’m doing the right thing?
Bone: I don’t know.
Anney: I think I am. I hope I am. Sometimes I just get so tired, you know. Sometimes I just want somebody strong to stand by me. Stay with me.
Bone: I’ll stay with you.
Anney: I know you will, Bone.

Reese: Why can’t we go, Bone? Why can’t we?
Bone: 'Cause it ain’t for children.

Anney [after Earle stops the truck]: What are you doing, Earle?
Earle: Giving you a chance to change your mind.
Anney: Hellfire, Earle, I’m not going to change my mind. I’ve got a man who loves me.
Earle: He loves you alright… Like a gambler loves a fast racehorse, or a desperate man loves whiskey.
Anney: You’re just jealous.
Earle: Maybe I am.

Glen: Doctor says it’s gonna be a while, but she’s doin’ just fine. I know she’s worried. She thinks if it’s a girl I ain’t gonna love it. It’ll still be our baby. Even if she did have a girl, we’ll just have another soon enough. I’ll have my son. Anney and I will have our little baby boy. I know it. I just know it. Come here.
[he puts Bone on his lap]
Glen: Your Mama’s going be alright. And I love you Bone. I know you don’t believe me, but I do. We’re going to be happy. Real happy. Everything’s going to be alright.
[all this time he is using Bone to masturbate]
Glen: Get in the back, Bone. Go on, go to sleep.

Glen [to Bone, weeping, after Anney miscarries]: Your Mama’s going to be alright. But she won’t have no more babies. My baby’s dead. My boy. My boy…

Bone [narrating]: Moving gave me sense of time passing and everything sliding…as if nothing could be held onto anyway. It made me feel, ghostly unreal, unimportant. Like a box that goes missing, turns up but you realize you never needed anything in it anyway.

Anney [after Glen grips Bone on the arm]: Oh, Jesus, Glen. You don’t know your own strength.
Glen: I guess I don’t. But Bone knows I’d never mean to hurt her. Bone knows I love her. Hell, Anney, I love all of you. You know that.
Bone [narrating]: No, he never meant to hurt me. Not really, I told myself. But more and more those hands seemed to move before he could think. My dreams were full of long fingers, hands that reached around door frames, crept over the edge of the mattress, fear in me like a river, like the ice dark blue of his eyes.

Anney: Soda crackers and ketchup! You’re so casual about finding another job, but I feed my girls that garbage while you sit on your ass all day, smoking and telling lies.
Glen: I was out looking for a job all day.
Anney: How many? How many people did you see?
Glen [hesitantly]: A lot.
Anney: Not my kids. I was never gonna have my girls know what it was like. I was never gonna have them go hungry or cold or scared. Never, you hear me? Never!

Anney [to Bone after Glen had beaten her]: What did you do, honey? What did you do to make him so mad?

Glen [to Anney]: I never meant to beat her that bad. I swear I didn’t. I would never. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, baby.

Reese: You made him mad, Bone. You better be careful.

Bone [narrating]: Glen always found something I’d done, something I had to be told. Something he just had to do because he loved me so much. I lived in a world of shame. I hid my bruises as if they were evidence of crimes I had committed. I didn’t tell Mama. I couldn’t tell Mama.

Anney: Something’s wrong with her, Glen.
Glen: She’s just accident-prone. She’s always getting into something. Falling out of trees, falling off the porch. Lucky she’s such a hard-headed brat.
Anney: Maybe I ought to get her some vitamins, or something.

Doctor: How’d she break her coccyx?
Anney: Her what?
Doctor: Her tailbone, lady! Her ass! What you been hitting’ this child with, or maybe you just been throwin’ her up against the damn wall!
Anney: What are you sayin’? What are you sayin’?
Doctor [to Bone]: Do you wanna talk about it, honey? How 'bout we ask your mama to leave, and then, maybe you can tell me what happened, okay?
Anney: Let me have my girl!
Doctor: This child’s been beaten! This child’s been beaten, and I’m gonna call the authorities!

Bone [narrating]: We stayed at Aunt Alma’s until I got better but Daddy Glen said he couldn’t live without Mama’s love. She made him swear he would never lay a hand on me again.

Ruth: Has he ever touched you, honey? Has he ever messed with you? Down here, honey. Has he ever hurt you down here?
Bone [shaking her head]: No
Ruth: Are you sure?
Bone: Yes.

Bone: Auntie, do you believe in god?
Ruth: I sure as hell do.
Bone: Good, because I’ll be a gospel singer someday.
Ruth: All right, then. Carry on, little Bone. Turn up that radio.

Dee Dee: You don’t know what it’s like, Bone, getting out on your own, then being dragged back home. You wait a few years, get yourself a sweetheart, a job that pays your own money, stuff you like to do that your mama says is silly or sinful. Just about everything I like in this world is silly or sinful. But then, mama, I don’t care. I got my car and I got my own plans, and as soon as that car is paid for you can bet your ass I’ll be gone again. Next time the devil himself ain’t gonna be able to drag me back.

Glen [belt in hand as Bone pulls up her dress]: Don’t you say a word. Don’t you dare.

Raylene: Earle, get in here! Bring Wade and Travis with you!
Earle: What’s the matter, Raylene? Raylene, what the hell are you screaming about?
Raylene [showing them how badly beaten Bone is]: Look at this, look at her.

Anney [watching the men beat Glen]: He loves Bone. He loves her. He does. He loves us all, Mama!

Raylene: I did run off to the carnival alright, but not for no man. I never wanted to marry nobody. I like my life the way it is, little girl. Looks like you’ll make yours out of pride, stubbornness, and too much anger. Better think hard, Ruth Anne, about what you want and who you’re mad at. Better think real hard.

Grey: I’ve been thinking.
Bone: 'Bout what?
Grey: Remember when you were telling me and Garvey about the living dead? Remember?
[Bone nods]
Grey: Well…I been thinking maybe our daddies are the living dead. I been thinking maybe they just take turns.
Bone: Maybe.

Anney: I wouldn’t ask you to come home unless I knew you’d be safe, Bone. I promise you.
[Bone shakes her head]
Anney: What? What are you saying?
Bone: I won’t go. I’ll stay at Raylene’s. I think she’s glad to keep me. I’ll stay somewhere. But once you go back to Daddy Glen, I can’t go with you.

Bone [narrating]: Mama didn’t try to stop me when I walked away. She just watched me go. At Raylene’s the days were a gift, long and warm. The nights, quiet and cool. I slept dreamlessly and woke up at peace.

Glen: I talked to Anney, you know, and she’s comin’ back. She promised. She said she just needs a little time, time to make it up to you. She loves you more than I can understand. You know what your mama told me? She’s not coming home till you come home too. You’re gonna have to tell her it’s alright. You’re gonna have to tell her that we’ll be together, again.
Bone: No. I don’t wanna live with you no more. I told mama she can go back. I told her she could. But I can’t. I won’t.
Glen: You won’t? You won’t live with me no more? You are still a child! You don’t say what you do! I’m your daddy! I say you what to do!
Bone: No.
Glen: I want you to try to be reasonable, girl. I want you to tell your mama, I want you to stop all this nonsense, before you make me really mad.
Bone: I’d rather die than go back living with you!

Glen: Anney is going to come back to me. I know it. She just needs a little time, I understand that with everything that’s happened. But if she wasn’t coming back to me, I would kill you. You know that. I would break your neck.
[then he kisses her hard on the lips…then he rapes her]

Glen [to Anney after she rescues Bone]: Don’t go, I can’t live without you! Kill me! Please, baby! Kill me! Kill me! Kill me!

Raylene: Bone, I know you don’t understand this. I barely understand, myself. No woman should have to choose between a baby and her lover. Between her child and her husband. We all do terrible things to the ones we love sometimes and it eats us up, but we do them, just the same. You want to know about your Mom, I know. I can’t explain that to you. I can’t. I don’t know where she’s gone. None of us do, but I know she loves you. Don’t doubt that. And she’ll never forgive herself.
Bone: I hate her.
Raylene: You’ll forgive her.
Bone: I hate her.

Anney: Bone, I never wanted you to get hurt. I never thought it would go the way it did. I never thought Glen would hurt you like that. And I just loved him. You know that? I just loved him so much. I couldn’t see him that way. I couldn’t believe. I couldn’t imagine. You don’t know how much I love you, honey.

Bone [narrating] Who had mama been? What had she wanted to be or do before I was born? Once I was born her hopes turned, and I climbed up her life like a flower reaching for the sun. Her life had folded into mine. Who would I be when I was 15, 20, 30? Would I be as strong as she had been? As hungry for love? As desperate, determined and ashamed? I wasn’t old but I was already who I was gonna be. Someone like her, like my mama, a Boatwright, a bastard, a bastard out of Carolina.[/b]

Whether “the supernatural” exists or not there are places able to evoke the sort of dread of it that consumes you – an overwhelming sense that whatever might be behind it all bespeaks a horror that seems ably to encapsulate whatever it is that encompasses “the human condition”.

In particular, this can often be conveyed more intimately when embedded in a “little village” somewhere. And here it takes the form of “a mysterious sickness” spreading among the population. Often intertwined in one or another religious narrative. Or “folk religion” as some call it.

For example, the Black Plague way back then. Thought of as natural or supernatural, it seemed to embody a world in which something really, really awful was ever and always just around the corner, ready to pounce.

One or another demon. Or, perhaps, one or another stranger. Or infidel.

And, maybe this time, it will pounce on you.

Where things get tricky though is when a plot like this unfolds in the “modern world”. Both the demons and the Gods have to contend with a frame of mind that has been “contaminated” over the centuries by an understanding of the world that is considerably more “twenty-first century”. In other words, even the smallest of villages are now connected to narratives that would have been almost unthinkable 500 years ago. Here it is modern day South Korea.

On the other hand, if you don’t believe in the existence of folk-religion “demons/ghosts”, you can always go elsewhere to explain all the evil in the world. Of course many people will believe in them just because, even if they bring great suffering, they are somehow “proof” of the existence of a world beyond this one.

As for what it all “means” [especially the ending], here are a few takes on it:

movies.stackexchange.com/questi … iling-2016
movies.stackexchange.com/questi … a-hong-jin
youtu.be/aiJHaxIyfLQ

IMDb

[b]For his ceremony scene, actor Jung-min Hwang filmed for 15 minutes without break. It was one long-take scene.

According to director Hong-jin Na, this movie was made on the base of folk religions in Korea and Nepal, and the Catholic faiths.

Hwan-hee Kim who played Hyo-jin (Jong-goo’s daughter) practiced modern dance for 6 months to perform scenes of her being possessed by the devil. [/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wailing_(film
trailer: youtu.be/43uAputjI4k

THE WAILING [Gok-seong] 2016
Written and directed by Hong-jin Na

[b]Title card: “They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. He said to them, Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghoist does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”
[Luke 24: 37-39]

Sergeant Jong-gu: What’s wrong with him?
Cop: He doesn’t smell of alcohol and he’s not talking. I think he ate some wild mushrooms. They say he just suddenly got like that…

Cop [to Jong-gu looking at a bizarre crime scene]: What kind of twisted fuck is he?

Jong-gu: Listen you dumb ass, they did the autopsy, ran all kinds of tests, they were talking about how he probably ate some bad mushrooms…You know those mushrooms that make you go crazy…They found large quantities of it in his blood sample, it was at his house, dried up and untouched…
Detective: Sergeant, do you really believe that?
Jong-gu: The tests results are in!
Detective: Sergeant, have you ever tried those kinds of mushrooms as a kid? Mushrooms don’t do that to people, you saw the condition he was in! You think mushrooms did that?!?

Jong-gu: Seong Bok…That woman…The one from the burned house we just came from, I knew I saw her somewhere before! That woman from last night, standing naked at the window! When the lights went out! That’s her!

Villager [to Jung-gu]: It is my opinion all these people dying in the village, it has something to do with him. He is not a human…[/b]

Cue the Japanese “stranger”.

[b]Village: Look. Over there.
Detective: Isn’t that a deer?
Jong-gu: So, you weren’t making this up.
Detective: What in God’s name is happening?

Jong-gu: Why are you acting like this…? Get yourself together!
Detective [barely above a whisper]: It’s not just one or two people… He takes pictures of them before they turn into…And he takes pictures of them when they die…He goes back to photograph them…
Jong-gu: What the fuck are you babbling about?!? You’re not making any sense!
Detective: He is the one responsible. He’s the criminal.
Jong-gu: That is enough! We’ll talk later! What exactly did you see…? What did you see!
[he shows him Hyo-jin’s trainer]

Jong-gu: Did you lose a trainer…?
Hyo-jin: No…
Jong-gu [showing her the shoe]: So what is this…?
Hyo-jin: It’s not mine…
Jong-gu: This isn’t your handwriting?
Hyo-jin: I said it’s not mine…
Jong-gu: You know there is a Japanese person that lives around here, right? Answer me! You know him, right? You met with him, right? Answer me now!..Your father is a cop. I’ll know if you’re lying. You met him, right?
[Hyo-jin nods]
Jong-gu: Tell me! Everything! Where did you meet him? What did you guys do?
Hyo-jin: Why should I tell you…?
Jong-gu: This is important!
Hyo-jin: Why is it important? What is so important…? Tell me, what is it so important…? What? What! IS THAT REALLY SO IMPORTANT!

Hyo-jin: What are you doing?
Jong-gu: I thought you were asleep.
Hyo-jin: What the hell? Yanking up your daughter’s skirt in the middle of the night?
[Jong-gu just gapes at her]
Hyo-jin: Speak up, will you. Tell me, asshole!
[Jong-gu continues to gape at her, not recognizing her as his daughter]
Hyo-jin: Tell me, you fucking shithead!! FUCK YOU!!
[she starts to scream uncontrolably]

Wife [to Jong-gu]: I spoke to the shaman. He said we have a ghost in our house. It looks it has taken over Hyo-jin. We could all die if we don’t do anything.

Jong-gu: What did you come here for:
The stranger [through Yang Yi-sam’s translation]: To travel.
Jong-gu: Tell him I’ll throw him in jail unless he tells me the truth.
The stranger [through Yang Yi-sam’s translation]: Even if I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.
Jong-gu [to Yang Yi-sam]: You tell him everything I say, word for word]
[he turns to the stranger]
Jong-gu: You fucking prick! You loose-assed, dog fucking son of a whore! What kind of tourist hangs pictures of dead people on his wall?!..I want you to stop what you are doing and leave this village quietly. If you don’t leave, you’ll die.

Il-gwang [to Jong-gu]: Who was it? Who did you disturb?
Jong-gu: A Japanese man.
Il-gwang: I knew it. That was no man. That was a ghost.

Il-Gwang [to Jong-gu]: Listen. What I’m doing tomprrrow, it’s no ordinary ritual, I’ll be casting a death-hex. It’s incredibly dangerous. So you can’t do anything that would taint it. No intercourse. Watch what you eat and drink. Otherwise the spell will back-fire.

Il-Gwang: Even among other demons, he’s a master of evil.
Jong-Gu: If that’s true, why did it have to be…
Il-Gwang: …your daughter? What sin did that young girl ever commit?
Jong-Gu: Yes.
Il-Gwang: If you go fishing, do you know what you’ll catch?
Jong-Gu: No.
Il-Gwang: He’s just fishing. Not even he knows what he’ll catch. He just threw out the bait, and your daughter took it.

Il-Gwang: The rat fell into the trap.

Moo-myeong [to Il-Gwang]: What are you doing here? Get out.

Il-Gwang [on the phone]: I misread the divination. It’s not him.
Jong-gu: What do you mean?
Il-Gwang: I cast the hex on the wrong ghost. I saw a woman in front of your house. I made a grave mistake. A terrible, terrible mustake. It’s not the Japanese man. That woman is the evil spirit.
Jong-gu: Who was the Japanese man?
Il-Gwang: He was trying to kill that woman in order to save people from her. That Japanese man…he’s a shaman, like me.
Jong-gu: Was the woman wearing white? Was she a young woman?

Jong-gu: Where is my daughter? Where is my daughter?
Moo-myeong: About this tall? Hyo-Jin?
Jong-gu: Yes.
Moo-myeong: She’s possessed by an evil spirit. The old woman tells me the Jap is a ghost. He’s trying to suck her blood dry.
Jong-gu: Shut the fuck up! Answer me, bitch? Where is Hyo-jin?
Moo-myeong: Have you seen the Jap?
Jong-gu: Whare is my daughter?!
Moo-myeong: At your home, where else?
Jong-gu: She’s not there.
Moo-myeong: She is. She just got back. Don’t go back now or she’ll die. If you go now, your whole family will perish.

Moo-myeong: You’ve seen the demon. At the house of the hanged woman.
[Jong-gu has a flashback]
Jong-gu: It was a dream.
Moo-myeong: It was not a dream.

Jong-gu: What are you, a woman or a ghost? I need to know.
Moo-myeong: Just believe and your family will be saved.
Jong-gu: WHAT ARE YOU?!!!
Moo-myeong [after a long pause]: Someone trying to save your daughter. A woman.

Jong-gu [after a shot of Hyo-jin arriving home]: When will the demon come?
Moo-myeong: It’s already there.

Yang Yi-sam: I want to ask you something. What are you…?
The Japanese stranger: What do you think my true form is?
Yang Yi-sam: The Devil. You are the devil…Aren’t you going to say anything?
Japanese stranger: You’ve already said it. I’m the Devil.

Jong-gu [on the phone]: I’m with the woman now.
Il-Gwang: You mustn’t let her tempt you. Never. Whatever she tells you, you must go to your daughter now.

Moo-myeong: Is that your shaman on the phone?
[Jong-gu nods]
Moo-myeong: Don’t believe what he tells you. They’re in on it together.

Japanese stranger: Isn’t that right? You’re already certain I’m the devil. That’s why you came here carrying that sickle. My words, whatever I say won’t change your mind.

Jong-gu: Why in God’s name is he doing this?
Moo-myeong: Because her father has sinned.
Jong-gu: What sin? What sin did I commit?
Moo-myeong: Her father suspected another. He tried to kill him, and finally succeeded.
Jong-gu: But my daughter…my daughter got sick first! How can that be?!!

Jong-gu [dying, flashing back to happier times with his daughter]: It’ okay. My baby. You know Daddy’s a policeman. I’ll take care of everything. Daddy will.[/b]

Most of us go about the business of living our lives from day to day and they revolve almost entirely around our own personal relationships with others. In other words, these relationships are hardly ever connected to anything that might be seen as “bigger than both of us”.

Karen Silkwood for example. Only Karen worked in a nuclear facility. The Kerr-Magee plant in Oklahoma. And the plant was engaging in “dangerous practices”. And she got wind of them. More to the point she decided to “get involved” and do something about it.

And they – “they” – killed her for it.

Or, rather, so many believe.

Capitalism at its rawest. After all, when the bottom line is the bottom line anyone who threatens it is fair game. It’s only a matter of how far they will go. And whether they get caught. And not every narrative of this sort has a happy ending. Like, for example, Erin Brockovich’s.

This was back when films of this sort [think China Syndrome] were coming out exposing one or another scandal and/or calamity in the nuclear energy field. And look where we are now. Still gassing up. And coming closer and closer to dealing with the consequences of “the greenhouse effect”.

Of course the tricky thing about “doing the right thing” in situations like this is that those who are doing the wrong thing are the ones providing all the jobs. So, if you go after them, you risk making all those jobs disappear. And that can end up pissing off a lot more people than the folks wearing the white hats. Or, as Gilda puts it, “Karen, I LIKE MY JOB!”

IMDb

[b]The scene where Karen sets off the radiation alarms actually happened. Her level of contamination was forty times the safe limit.

The one scene that was particularly difficult for Meryl Streep, was the one in which Karen flashes her breast to her co-workers while on the job. It was a scene that was “very awkward,” she said, “because I’m always so sensitive about women doing nude scenes. It’s a personal gripe. I did it because, in context, I thought she probably would do something like that. It made sense. But it’s still a completely bizarre and horrible thing to do in front of a crew.”

Movie posters for the film featured a preamble that read: “On November 13, 1974, Karen Silkwood, an employee of a nuclear facility, left to meet with a reporter from the New York Times. She never got there”.

When Karen Silkwood’s real-life boyfriend at the time, Drew Stephens, saw the film, he was very moved. “It was magic,” he told People magazine. “It makes a human being out of Karen instead of a myth.” [/b]

trvia at IMDb imdb.com/title/tt0086312/tri … =ttqu_sa_1
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silkwood
trailer: youtu.be/iNyrSR5JGh8

SILKWOOD [1983]
Directed by Mike Nichols

[b]White hat: Come on in, trainees. This brown powder you see here is mixed plutonium and uranium oxide. And these trained technicians are fabricating it into fuel pellets. Karen, could you explain the procedures in this glove box?
Karen: Yeah. what we’re doing is we’re blending and mixing the plutonium and uranium oxide into correct ratios. And then we sift it for impurities. And then it’s fed into the slugging press which makes the pellets.

Trainee: What about radiation effects from all this material?
White hat: We’ve all seen a poor guy suffering the effects of sunburn. Radiation is like that. It’s the kind of thing that can’t hurt you…unless you’re careless with it.

Man: There’s nothing they can do. Where they going to park a contaminated truck? It’ll stay that way twenty-five thousand years.
Drew: They can put it in space. Hell, put it in orbit. Put it on the moon.
Karen: What’s going on?
Drew: They cooked a truck. There was a leak in one of the barrels.

New man [after hearing a siren wail]: What the hell was that?!
Morgan: It’s a test.
New man: How do you know?
[the PA announces “This is a test. This is only a test.” ]
Man: They always say that. You know some poor son of a bitch got his ass fried.
Karen: What I don’t get is how we have all these tests but never go through the drill. If this was a real airborne contamination we’re supposed to get out of here.
Man: We can’t do the drill. It might stop production for ten minutes.
Karen: If it had been the real thing, they’d shut down the plant…and I could have had the whole weekend.

Karen: You were supposed to work my shift yesterday!
Gilda: Karen, they shut down.
Karen: Say what?
Gilda: There was a contamination in our section.
Karen: When?
Gilda: Right after you left. Karen, I’m not saying this to upset you…but you ought to know they’re saying that you did it.
Karen: I did it?
Gilda: They knew you wanted the weekend off.

Quincy [head of the union to Karen]: The company has got to blame somebody for the contamination…otherwise, it’s their fault.

Dolly: Thelma’s cooked.
Karen: Huh?
Dolly: I said Thelma is cooked.

Drew: Thelma only got 24 DPMs.
Karen: Is that bad?
Drew: It’s not super bad. Are you just waking up to this? You think we’re working with puffed wheat over there?
Karen: I’m just asking a question.
Drew: If you’re really worried about cancer, stop smoking.

Karen: Thelma, did they give you a nasal smear?
[Thelma shakes her head]
Karen: You make them give you a nasal smear. They’re supposed to. Make Hurley give you one. And make him tell you the count! And make sure he’s telling you the truth because there’s a lot of liars around here.

Drew: I wish I could take care of you better.
Karen: I remember in high school my mama saying to me…“Now, what’d you want to go and sign up for that science class for? There’s no girls in that science class. Why don’t you take Home Ec? That’s the way to meet the nice boys.” I said, “Mama, there ain’t no boys in Home Ec. Boys are in the science class.” She hated when I said, ‘Ain’t.’

Karen: This says all that stuff about acceptable levels it’s all bullshit.
Dolly: What is?
Karen: Well, it says here… “Plutonium gives you cancer.” Says it flat out.
Dolly: Where’d you get that?
Karen: It came in all that union stuff from Washington. You got one. Everybody got one. Dolly: Hurley works there. Think he’d work there if he was going to get cancer?
Karen: Listen to this…“genetic damage.”
Dolly: Meaning what?
Karen: Meaning it goes on down into your kids. It says here…“Gross physical and mental defects.”
Dolly: I already got them.

Karen: What are you doing to the negative?
Winston: Sometimes when you take a picture you get these white spots in there so we make them go away.
Karen: Doesn’t somebody have to look at them to make sure they’re OK?
Winston: Me.
Karen: Yeah, but I mean…
Winston: You mean what?
Karen: How do you…How do you know if they’re just spots? They could be defects in the weld.
Winston: No, no, no. I’ve already checked the weld. I’m just putting beauty marks on them.

Quincy: What this means is, if we lose this certification election there ain’t going to be any union at this plant. Nobody standing up for us against Kerr McGee which I read in the newspapers is gonna take in $1.5 billion this year. And which, as you all know takes about as much time thinking about our problems as grease takes to go through a goose.[/b]

He needs volunteers.

[b]Karen: You could be on the committee.
Drew: What committee?
Karen: Negotiating committee.
Drew: You?
Karen: Yeah. On the union negotiating committee.
Drew: Karen, let me give you a hint. Don’t flash 'em.
Karen: It turns you on.
Drew: Yeah, but I’m not management.
Karen: I’m as smart as Hurley is.
Drew: Just as tactful. You don’t just stand toe to toe with someone call him a motherfucker, and get anywhere.
Karen: I’ll keep it in mind.

Karen: Drew, do you… Do you feel different about me since I got cooked?
Drew: What do you mean?
Karen: You know.
Drew: Well…I still want to fuck you. But I sure as hell don’t want to fuck Thelma anymore.

Angela: Karen, you ever been downtown? There are two big streets. One’s called Kerr, and one’s called McGee. And that’s how I see it. They own the state, they own everybody in this state and they own practically everybody I work on.

Angela: Drew, I can always tell when a dead person I beautify worked for Kerr McGee because they all look like they died before they died.

Karen: There’s one more thing. I work in metallography. In X-rays. And sometimes we… Quite frankly, we have negatives altered. The negatives of the welds in the fuel rods. They take a weld and cross section it. Then they photograph it, and there’s a defect. Then they just touch it up.
Max: Touch it up?
Karen: With a Pentel pen. Right on the negatives. They fill in the white spots.
Max: You’re talking about X-rays of fuel rods?
Karen: The fuel rods they’re sending up to that…We’re sending up to that breeder reactor… they’re testing in Hanford.
Max: Do you know what that means?
Karen: I know they shouldn’t do it.
Max: In an ordinary nuclear plant you can have meltdowns, poisonous gas, and dead people. That’s nothing compared to what can go wrong with a breeder. You put defective fuel rods in a breeder reactor for all we know, the whole state could be wiped out. Can you get documentation of that.
Karen: I guess so.
Max: If you could get documentation, that would be very important. We’ll set you up with a reporter from the “New York Times”…get the company up against the wall on negotiations. But you’d have to have documentation.
Karen: I don’t know about putting names in the newspaper.
Max: Names aren’t the point. The point is that if you’re right they could kill off two million people. There’s a moral imperative involved here.[/b]

The clock starts ticking.

[b]Drew: People are going to lose jobs, Karen.
Karen: Well, some of them ought to. There’s a moral imperative here.

Drew: I quit.
Karen: You what?
Drew: This afternoon. Gave my notice.
Karen: Why didn’t you tell me?
Drew: I don’t know. I just didn’t tell you.
Karen: Why’d you quit?
Drew: I just don’t give a shit.
Karen: You don’t give a shit if everybody in the plant is being poisoned?
Drew [to himself after Karen as gone back into the house]: Don’t give me a problem I can’t solve.

Doctor [at union meeting]: In the coal mines years ago they used to put canaries in the tunnels. If the canaries dropped dead they knew there was a gas leak. But it’s a brand-new industry…so you’re the canaries. The trouble is, you’re not going to drop dead right away. It might take ten years. Twenty. We don’t know. Here’s what we know…Plutonium causes cancer. Anybody tells you we don’t know how much plutonium causes cancer, they’re lying. What we don’t know is how little plutonium causes cancer. The government says that the maximum permissible body burden for your lifetime is 40 nanocuries. Let me tell you how much that is. That is a tiny dot on a piece of paper. We say that’s too much. We say that it takes less than that to kill you. We don’t say it’s twice too much or three times too much. We think that that is 115,000 times too much. A pollen-sized grain of plutonium injected in mice causes cancer. When you inhale it, and it lodges in your lungs you’re married to cancer.

Winston: How come why didn’t we hear any of this before? And we didn’t see any of you guys until they decided to vote the union out or not? If you’re so worried about us where the hell were you in the beginning?
Paul: What we’re saying is you need someone looking out for your health and safety. The company says they’re taking care of you. Do you believe that?
Winston: Yeah. I believe that.
Paul: You do?
Winston: Then you’re the only guy in that room that still does.
Winston: Well, let me tell you something else then. It doesn’t matter whether you work in plutonium or dog food because they ain’t gonna give you a thing, there’s nowhere left to go! You close this plant down and then what? You’re gonna be up in Washington, but we’re gonna be down here outta work! Your cancer’s a maybe, that’s all it is, a maybe…

Karen: What if somebody rapes me because you lost your key?
Dolly: Who’s going to rape you that you ain’t already fucked?

Karen: Mr. Hurley, did you tell an employee in wet processing that it was against union rules to give blood?
Hurley: I don’t recall saying that, no.
Karen: Good. Because I just called the bloodmobile and they can come over on Tuesday.

Karen: You think Angela left on account of me? Let me tell you something, girl. Drew left on account of you and Angela.
Dolly: If you believe that, you’re crazier than people say. You took about as good care of Drew as you took of your kids.

Karen [snooping through the files]: Morgan! You scared me.
Morgan: Meant to.
Karen: I’m doing something good.
Morgan: I know what you’re doing…and you’re the wrong person to be doing it. It’s dangerous. That’s all I’m saying.

Hurley: Come on, Karen. Concentrate.
Karen: How did that plutonium get in my house?
Hirley: Did you put it there?
Karen: Did I what? Are you crazy? You think I put…You think I’d contaminate myself?
Hurley: I think you’d do anything to hurt this company.

Karen: Somebody spiked my urine sample container.
Hurley: Who?
Karen: How do I know who? Anybody could have done it. You leave it sitting there by the punch-in at the plant! Anybody could’ve dropped a little plutonium in there. There’s a lot of people at the plant hate me.
Hurely: The whole house is hot. How did it get hot?
Karen: I spilled it! I told you, man!
Doctor: That doesn’t explain the readings we’re getting on your nasal smear. 45,000 DPM. Karen: What?!
Doctor: 45,000 DPM.
Karen: Oh, my Jesus. I’m internally contaminated. That’s what you mean.
Hurley: We don’t know what it means.

Hurley: We can help you with a place to stay. We can help you with money.
Karen: But first I have to sign something, right? You want me to sign a statement saying I did all this.
Hurley: Just in your own words what happened.
Karen: OK. In my own words? I’m contaminated. I’m dying.

Drew: What the hell happened?
Karen: They’re killing me. They’re trying to kill me. They want me to stop what I’m doing. They contaminated me, you know that? I’m internally contaminated now.
Drew: Now, listen to me. We’re going to go to Los Alamos on Thursday and we’ll get a full body count from some doctors who know what they’re doing.

Doctor: All right, Mr. Stephens and Miss Pelliker you both check out well below permissible body limits. You were exposed to Miss Silkwood and the house but you show minimum detectable activity now. Miss Silkwood. We have detected americium in both lungs and both sides of your chest. Americium is produced when plutonium disintegrates. And extrapolating from your americium level we estimate you have an internal contamination of six nanocuries of plutonium. The maximum permissible body burden for occupational exposure is 40 nanocuries. As you can see, you are well under that level. Karen: I’m under it.

Drew: You don’t owe the union anything.
Karen: Let’s not fight.
Drew: You don’t owe the New York Times anything.
Karen: Let’s not have a fight now. OK?
Drew: OK. We can always have a fight later.

Title card: The precise circumstances of Karen’s death are unknown. It is also not known whether she had any documented with her. None were found. An autopsy revealed a high level of the tranquilizer Methaqualone and some alcohol in her bloodstream. Oklahoma police ruled her death a single car accident. A year later the plant shut down.[/b]

You’re a kid. And after you have noted that 3 + 3 = 6, the first grade teacher asks you what 135 times 57 is. Almost immediately you answer: “7,695…the square root is 87.7 and change.”

You’re gifted. Or, rather, you are a bona fide math “prodigy”. In other words, really, really gifted.

The plot is rather familiar. Frank, while recognizing his niece is gifted, is determined to keep her in public school. Why? So that she can become a “normal” child. But Mary’s grandmother is equally determined to yank her out of the ordinary school environment and put her into an extraordinary school environment instead.

So, mother is pitted against son for custody of this very special little girl.

Meanwhile, “it emerges that Mary’s mother, Diane, had been a promising mathematician, dedicated to the Navier–Stokes problem (one of the unsolved Millennium Prize Problems) before taking her own life when Mary was six months old.”

My own daughter was gifted. She attended both Friends School and the Baltimore School For the Arts. But she was not a “prodigy”.

So, what’s the difference?

I’ll tell you one thing though, it is all but impossible for someone who is not a prodigy to understand what it must be like to possess the mind of someone who is. Why is their brain that way while your own brain is not? The part about genes and memes. Or genes vs. memes.

Then there is this part: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Prize_Problems
The part that will almost certainly be way, way, way, over your head.

IMDb

The Navier-Stokes problem mentioned in the movie is indeed one of the seven Millennium Prize problems in mathematics. Clay Mathematics Institute offered a US $1,000,000 prize to the first person providing a solution for a specific statement of the problem.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gifted_(film
trailer: youtu.be/tI01wBXGHUs

Gifted [2017]
Directed by Marc Webb

[b]Frank: Fred’s gonna be fine, no more argument, okay? We’ve discussed this ad nauseam.
Mary: What’s an nauseam?
Frank: You don’t know? Looks like someone needs school.

Frank [as Mary is about to board the school bus]: This is gonna be fun. You’re gonna meet kids today you can borrow money from the rest of your life.

Frank [to Roberta]: She has not friend her age. No social skills. She doesn’t know how to be a kid. Two nights ago she told me that even if Germany bails up the euro, there could still be worldwide depression.

Principal: Good morning, first graders.
Class: Good morning, Mrs. Davis.
Principal: Are you ready for a great year?
Class: Yes!
[Mary raises her hand]
Bonnie: Yes, Mary?
Mary: She’s the boss?
Bonnie: Mrs. Davis is our principal, okay.
Mary: Ok, now I want you to get on your phone and call Frank and tell him to get me out of here!

Bonnie: I think your daughter…I think Mary might be gifted…Today in math, she answered some really…
Frank: No, that’s…It’s not gifted…It’s Trachtenberg. Jakow Trachtenberg.
Bonnie: I’m sorry?
Frank: Spent seven years in a concentration camp. Developed the system to rapidly solve problems. It’s the Trachtenberg method.
Bonnie: But she is… I mean… She’s seven though.
Frank: I learned it when I was eight. Do I look gifted to you? It kinda went out of vogue since the invention of the calculator. But… I can still win a drink at the bar using it.

Frank: I realize, putting a girl like Mary in Oaks Academy for Gifted Education … You know, 99 times out of a 100, that’s is what you do. It’s the Oaks. It’s great school. I looked into it. This family has a history with those schools. And I think the last thing that little girl needs is reinforcement that she’s different. Trust me, she knows, so I think Mary…I think she’s gotta be here. Today’s bad ending, you can’t hit people. But a 12 year old bullies a 7 year old and she stands up? Do you know how important that is to me that she did that? You know how proud I am of her? Aren’t you?
Principal: Mr. Edgar, your daughter shattered a young boy’s…
Frank: I know. You can’t hit people. That will be made very clear to her. I get that. But Miss Davis, if we separate our leaders… if we segregate them from people like you and me…you get congressmen.

Principal: Keeping Mary here is a mistake. We’ll never be able to raise this child to the level of scholarship she deserves.
Frank: Well…dumb her down to a decent human being. Everybody wins.

Mary [as they pull up to the house]: There’s a lady standing in front of our door.
Frank: Who is it?
Mary: How should I know? I’m seven.
Frank [looking at the woman]: That would be your grandmother.
Mary: Holy shit!

Evelyn [grandmother]: Frank, please listen to reason. At some point, are you gonna get to conclusion… or someone in authority are going to spell it out for you that the child best interest is all that matters…She’s not normal. And threating her such is negligence on a grand scale. I know your heart’s in the right place on this. But you are denying the girl her potential. I can provide for her. I can enrich her life.
Frank: Come on, Evelyn. You’re gonna take that girl, you are gonna bury her in tutors…then you’ll loan her out to some think tank where she could talk non-trivial zeros with a bunch of old Russian guys for the rest of her life.
Evelyn: And you’d bury her under a rock. Look, I didn’t expect you to understand the price you have to pay for greatness.
Frank: I do. That’s why I have Mary in the first place.

Mary: Is there a God?
Frank: I don’t know.
Mary: Just tell me.
Frank: I would if I could. But I don’t know. Neither does anybody else.
Mary: Roberta knows.
Frank: No. Roberta has faith… And that’s the great thing to have. But faith’s about what you think, feel. Not what you know.
Mary: What about Jesus?
Frank: Love that guy. Do what he says.
Mary: But, is he God?
Frank: I don’t know. I have an opinion. But that’s my opinion and I could be wrong. So why would I screw up yours? Use your head. But don’t be afraid to believe in things either.
Mary: Huh. There was a guy on TV who said there was no God.
Frank: The only difference between the atheists on TV and Roberta is, Roberta loves you. She trying to help. Tell you what though. One way or another we all end up back together in the end. That’s what you’re asking, right?
Mary: Yep.
Frank: Okay. Find something else to worry about, will ya?
Mary: All right.[/b]

In other words, not even being a prodigy is of much use here.

[b]Roberta [to Frank]: I told you something like this would happen. Now look where we are. And I’m supposed to believe you know what you’re doing. You couldn’t even find a white lawyer…There’s nothing you can say that’s make me fell good because I have no say in any of this, Frank. I’m not a blood relative, I’m not a legal guardian. I’m nothing. Just the lady who lives next door, whose opinion means nothing, whose feelings means nothing. Would I like to have Mary tonight? I’d like to have Mary every night.

[b]Mary: So what’s this problem I’m supposed to look at?
Evelyn: I don’t know.
Mary: So, it’s like a problem mom worked on?
Evelyn: Your mother didn’t work on problems. She worked on just one problem.
Mary: Just one? Her entire life?
Evelyn: Most of it.

Evelyn [before plaques on a wall]: Look. These are Millennium Prize problems. Seven great and meaningful problems. Some mathematicians have worked their entire lives to prove them.
Mary: Who’s the dude with the beard?
Evelyn: That’s not a dude. That’s Grigori Perelman. He proved Poincare conjecture. The only one of the seven proved. This…This is your mother’s problem. Navier- Stokes.
Mary: No picture. She didn’t solve it?
Evelyn: No. She was close. She would have won Fields Medal and probably shared the Nobel, considering what would meant for physics.
Mary: Maybe I’ll have my picture up here someday.
[Evelyn grips her]
Evelyn: If you really desire it you can have your picture there, darling. I can help you. It takes focus and hard work, but if you succeed…your name will live forever.

Evelyn: I should never have agreed to this. Did he really expect you to just walk in and be able to dissect some random massive problem?
Mary: Not much to dissect, if you ask me.
Evelyn [startled]: Why? Why do you say that?
Mary: It was wrong.
Evelyn: What?
Mary: Well…for starters, he forgot the negative sign on the exponent. It went downhill from there. The problem was unsolvable. Maybe this school isn’t as great as you think it is.

Shankland: Mary, you knew that the problem was incorrect, why didn’t you say anything?
Mary: Frank says I’m not supposed to correct older people. Nobody likes a smart-ass.

Mary [to Pat the shrink]: Frank is a good person. He wanted me before I was smart.

Evelyn [to Frank’s lawyer in court]: Diane was not like regular people. She was extraordinary. And extraordinary people come with singular issues and needs. You have no idea of capability she possessed. One in a billion. And you would say: “Fine, let’s throw that away, so the boy who cuts our yard can make a sexual conquest.” Well maybe before you make that decision, you stand in my shoes. I had responsibilities, which are beyond the mother-daughter relationship. The greatest discoveries, which have proved life on this planet have come from minds rarer than radium. Without them, we’d still be crawling in mud.[/b]

So, does she have a point or not?

[b]Greg [Frank’s lawyer]: I’ll do whatever you want me to do. But, if we leave this up to that judge, Nickols…he’s a old school, Frank. Does he like your mother? No. Does he like her income? Does he like her health plan? Does he like her home? You better believe it. I’ve been in his courtroom. A hundred times. And if it’s a coin toss…Look at me. If it’s a coin toss that old boy is going to side with the money.

Evelyn: I’ve been thinking a lot about the word called “compromise”. On one hand, good challenging school…on the other…foster people. They can watch sitcoms with her. Take her to Olive Garden. Teach her to say “irregardless.” The only saving grace is, I suppose, that she is better off than she was. Goodbye, Frank.

Frank: Diane instructed me very clearly… that I was only to publish it postmortem.
Evelyn: She died six years ago.
Frank: It wasn’t her death she was talking about.

Mary: What is this book?
Frank [who was once a professor of philosophy]: “Discourse on Method.” Rene Descartes.
Mary: What’s it about?
Frank: Existence.
Mary: Existence?
Frank: Yup. “I think, therefore I am”.
Mary: Well, of course you are. That’s obvious…[/b]

The ghost as plot device.

And why not? In more ways than one “modern love” is just a fantasy. The gap between the way in which the “culture” portrays [idealizes] it and the actual nuts and bolts embedded in, among other things, divorce statistics, domestic abuse and custody battles.

Most of us seem to agree that “love is the answer”. On the other hand, this may well reflect the mother of all “general descriptions”. After all, between one man or woman and his or her partner, there are any number of thin lines between love and, among other things, hate.

But: Here we seem meant to imagine one of the exceptions. This is true love. And unless you have been one of the exceptions yourself, you may well not “get it” at all. There are scenes here [especially in the beginning] that are drawn out for what seem like an eternity. And only those who have lost someone in the same manner in which M. and C. lose each other will be able to endure the “slow pace” of it all.

They will get it.

From my perspective, “love” is just another existential contraption in which the part about genes and the part about memes coagulate into one or another historical or cultural rendition of any particular relationship.

And then the part where we die and are able to return…observing the world going about the business of doing without us. A way to imagine what that might be like. A way to imagine that one way or another there is “life after death”. And what is a ghost if not proof of that.

And then this part: youtu.be/Tjoku0zdFfc

In other words, because we die, love means nothing. And, because we die, love means everything.

As for “explaining” the ending, here’s the writer/director’s take on it:
youtu.be/gSU26_KN6g8
slashfilm.com/a-ghost-story- … id-lowery/

trivia at IMDb: imdb.com/title/tt6265828/tri … =ttqu_sa_1
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Ghost_Story
trailer: youtu.be/c_3NMtxeyfk

A GHOST STORY [2017]
Written and directed by David Lowery

[b]M: When I was little and we used to move all the time, I’d write these notes and I would fold them up really small. And I would hide them.
C: What’d they say?
M: They’re just things I wanted to remember so that if I ever wanted to go back, there’d be a piece of me there waiting.

Houseguest [while C as a ghost looks on]: Money’s just money. You gotta take that out of the equation. Now what?
Houseguest: Well, that’s what I was saying. It’s not just…
Houseguest: No, no, you can find a reason. And I wanna find out what happens, too! So, no money. What have you got left? You’ve got…other people. You got Clara, you’ve got time. Time’s a big one. But you’ve got about as much as anyone else, give or take. What about God? Maybe you’ve got God. Do you?
Houseguest: What? Have God? No.
Houseguest: Okay. Well, here’s how I break it down. A writer writes a novel. A songwriter writes a song. A symphonist writes a symphony…which is maybe the best example because all the best ones were written for God. So, tell me what happens if Beethoven’s writing his Ninth Symphony and suddenly he wakes up one day and realizes that God doesn’t exist. So, suddenly all of these notes and chords and harmonies that were intended to, you know, supersede the flesh, you realize, “Oh, that’s just physics.” So Beethoven says, “Shoot, God doesn’t exist, so I guess I’m writing this for other people. It’s just nuts and bolts now”…But let’s leave love out of this and let’s wrap this all up under the blanket of someone thinking, “This is something that they’ll remember me for.” And they did. And we do. And sure enough, we do what we can to endure. We build our legacy piece by piece, and maybe the whole world will remember you, or maybe just a couple of people, but you do what you can to make sure you’re still around after you’re gone.

Houseguest: But this is where things start breaking down, because your kids…Your kids are gonna die. Yours too. Yours too. Hey, just sayin’. They’re all gonna die, and their kids will die, and so on, and so on. And then there’s gonna be one big-one big tectonic shift. Yosemite will blow and the western plates will shift, and the oceans will rise, the mountains will fall, and 90 percent of humanity will be gone. One fell swoop. This is just science. Whoever’s left will go to higher ground and social order will fall away, and we will revert to scavengers and hunters and gatherers, but maybe there’s someone… someone who one day hums a melody…Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. And it gives everyone a little bit of hope…Mankind’s on the verge of being wiped out, but it keeps going a little bit longer because someone hears someone else hum a melody in a cave and the physics of it in their ear make them feel something other than fear or hunger or hate, and mankind carries on and civilization gets back on track. And now you’re thinking you’re gonna finish that book. But it won’t last. 'Cause by and by, the planet’s gonna die. In a few billion years the sun will become a red giant and it’ll, uh, eventually swallow Earth whole. This is a fact…Now, maybe by that point, we’ll have set up shop on some completely different planet. Good for us. Maybe we’ve figured out a way of carrying with us all these things that matter. They’ve got a photocopy of the Mona Lisa out there, someone sees it, mixes a little bit of alien dirt with some spit, paints something new, the whole thing keeps going. But even that doesn’t matter. Because even if some form of mankind carries some recording of Beethoven’s “Ninth Symphony” all the way into the future, the future’s gonna hit a brick wall. The universe will keep expanding, and it’ll eventually take all matter with it…Everything you’ve ever strived for, everything that you and some stranger on the other side of the planet share with some future stranger on some entirely different planet without even knowing it, everything that ever made you feel big or stand up tall, it’ll all go. Every atom in this dimension will be pulled apart by force and then all these shredded particles will contract again…and…the universe is gonna suck itself back into a speck too small for any of us to see.[/b]

In other words, how do we fit the love that we were seeing up on the screen between C. and M. [or your own love] into that? Then cue the scene where a bulldozer utterly destroys the vacant house that C. and M, once shared their love in.

M: What is it you like about this house so much?
C: Seriously? History?
M: What does that mean?
C: Honey, we’ve got history.
M: Not as much as you think. This isn’t how it’s supposed to work. We’re supposed to make decisions together. Don’t you understand that?
C: Yes.
M: So why am I the only one making them?
C: Because I don’t want what you want.
M: 'Cause you want to stay here?
C: Mm-hmm.
M: Why?

“A new pair of best friends have their bond tested by their parents’ battle over a dress shop lease.”

That’s what this film is about.

So, now it is up to each one of us [in our own way] to determine 1] what else it is all about and 2] what it is really all about.

But, as often as not, that is the way a family can be. It’s not just you and everyone else but you and them and everyone else. And if they don’t get along with someone, you may well have to come up with a way to work around that if you do get along with them. The permutations here are endless. Sometimes it’s the parents, sometimes it’s the kids, and sometimes it’s a combination of both. After all, in today’s world the postmodern family can come in all shapes and sizes. And with considerably more options available to them than the families of old. And that’s before we get to the extended family, the community, the culture and the historical period.

What is this particular feud about? Money. Jake’s parents own Tony’s parents’ store. A new lease has been drawn up. More money for Brian and Kathy. Less money for Leonor. Then things get complicated. Then things get contentious.

Then the kids get sucked into it. Then the kids “take an oath of silence against their parents in protest”.

This film is basically all about deciding “what is fair”. What is the right thing to do given the conflicting points of view here?

Look for “the miracle of friendship”.

IMDb

The play in which Brian appears was supposed to be Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit. When the filmmakers failed to clear the rights, it was changed to Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Men_(2016_film
trailer: youtu.be/Dk9-5M-PerQ

LITTLE MEN [2016]
Written in part and directed by Ira Sachs

[b]Jake: I’d like to play the game, but I can’t. It’s my grandfather’s funeral.
Tony: Yeah, I know. I never know what to say in these situations.
Jake: I think you’re supposed to say, “I’m sorry for your loss.”
Tony: That’s it. Sorry for your loss.
Jake: Oh, that’s okay.

Tony: My dream is to go to LaGuardia High School for Performing Arts. You heard of that school? Well, you know, Nicki Minaj went there…Al Pacino, but he flunked out, so…
Jake: Yeah, I think my dad applied there.
Tony: Oh, really? Well, it’s my dream school.

Jake: Is Hernan your mom’s boyfriend?
Tony: That’s disgusting, no! He’s a friend from Chile. My parents are married. They just don’t live together.
Jake: I don’t understand.
Tony: Me neither.

Kathy: The truth is that the neighborhood is changing and that’s a very old-fashioned store.
Dinner guest: She did complain to me that business is not so good.
Brian: Well, of course she’s gonna say that. The contract’s up. My guy told me that a similar space like that in this area could get…five thousand.
Kathy: Yeah, that’s on the low end.
Dinner guest: What’s the number now?
Kathy: Eleven hundred.
Guest: For eight years? Never an increase?
Brian [looking over at Tony]: Maybe we can talk about this a little later.

Brian: My father left everything in order, the taxes and all of that. The only thing still pending is the store, which needs a lease.
Leonor: You know, your father never thought much about contracts. And he was very happy to have me here. Max thought my store gave glamour to the neighborhood, and he was proud to be associated.
Brian: Well, the neighborhood’s changing. I’m sure you’ve noticed the rents have gone up a lot in the last couple of years.
Leonor: Yeah, I noticed, and so did Max. But it was his desire that I stay here.
Brian: Well, we don’t want you to go away. My sister has worked up a new lease. We think it’s very fair.[/b]

Fair. Now that is a tricky word.

[b]Leonor [to Brian]: I have an idea of what you and your sister have in mind. I’ll just give this lease to my lawyer.

Tony: Hey, I’m not talking to my mother anymore.
Jake: Why not?
Tony: She said you can’t come over.
Jake: Why doesn’t she want me over?
Tony: I don’t know. I don’t think your dad wants me around anymore either. He may be too chicken to tell you, but I can tell.
Jake: Why are they so mad at us?
Tony: Our parents are involved in a business matter, and it’s getting ugly, so they’re taking it out on us.
Jake: You’re right, my dad was very cold to you. I won’t talk to my parents, then, either.
Tony: Really?
Jake: Really. Not unless they apologize.

Kathy: I know you think we’re the rich people coming into this neighborhood, but the truth is Brian hasn’t made any money in years. I’ve been supporting our family with my hard work.
Leonor: That’s not my problem.
Kathy: I know it’s not. What I want to tell you is that we will give you time, but we need this money. We need the shop to cover its rent. Not an unfair thing to ask of a tenant.

Kathy: I think that we should start the eviction process right away.
Brian: I don’t wanna have to do that.
Kathy: It takes a while, you know.
Brian: I just don’t want this to get ugly. The boys are best friends now.

Brian: She doesn’t acknowledge the lease, she doesn’t try and negotiate, she has no plans on leaving. Now she’s actually hiring new people.
Kathy: I told you this was not gonna be easy.
Brian: Audrey wants to start an eviction process. She’s got a lawyer ready to go already.
Kathy: Good. So it’s decided.
Brian: Is it?
Kathy: Who’s gonna tell Jake?

Brian: Did you understand why Nina says she’s the seagull?
Kathy [after the boys still refuse to speak]: Jake, it’s your father’s opening night.
Brian [angrily]: You two ever think about anybody other than yourselves? Huh? Say something, Jake! Say something! One of the hardest things to realize when you’re a child is that your parents are people too, you understand that? They care about things. They make mistakes. But they try to do what they think is the right thing to do. Does any of what I’m saying make any sense to you?!

Leonor: The day your father died, he came by in the morning. And I asked him to buy me a pack of cigarettes. And I never saw him again. He cared about me, Brian. Can you believe that? Every day we’d talk and share things. Have you ever had a friend like that? Someone you can tell anything?

Brian: I hope that you can understand that what’s happening is nothing personal.
Leonor: I can’t pay three times what I paid to your father. It’s not possible. I can’t survive. I thought you were in a new big play.
Brian: I am in a new play, but it’s not big, and it’s not a lot of money. It’s just the way that it is, Leonor. I’m fortunate that my father left me a house in Brooklyn.
Leonor: He wanted me to stay here. He told me so.

Brian: What do you want me to say, Leonor? I have a family. We have bills, too.
Leonor: Do you know why your father didn’t come to your son’s birthday, the last one?
Brian: He had the flu.
Leonor: Maybe that’s what he told you. The truth is he was embarrassed that everything in your house was paid for by your wife. He thought you should be more of a man.
Brian [after a long pause]: Well he’s not around anymore…is he?
Leonor [sarcastically walking away]: He’s certainly not.

Hernán: Unfortunately, it’s a clause that’s common in any commercial contract.
Leonor: What am I going to do? I can’t afford this.
Hernán: I’m sorry Leo.
Leonor: Where do they get this number?
Hernán: It’s a penalty. It’s a penalty for overstaying. That’s why it’s in the contract.
Leonor: And there’s nothing we can do?
Hernán: I’ve done everything I can. There’s nothing to do. You have one week. One week to leave the premises.

Jake: Mom, Tony told me Leonor’s being evacuated from the store!
Kathy": It’s not “evacuated,” it’s “evicted.”
Jake: How could you do that? How could you do that to them?
Brian: It’s a terrible situation.
Jake: The rent is too expensive! She can’t afford it, Mom. So Dad just needs to give her a discount or something so she can.

Brian: Jake, you’re gonna meet a lot of really talented people in your life, and they’re not all gonna be suited to be artists. They’re not all gonna have the brains to know when to insist and when to… to stop. When to push themselves and when to just relax. Most of them won’t all have that balance.
Jake: And how do I know if I have the balance?

Brian: Do you know if Tony’s still applying?
Jake: I don’t know, I don’t know what he’s doing.
Brian: Well, I wish I had handled that differently, son.
Jake: What do you mean?
Brian: Just Tony and his mom. I wish I had told you earlier what was going on.
Jake: Would it have changed anything?
Brian: No. Probably not. [/b]

Just one more job.

You wish you could make that clear. For whatever reason and for whatever the circumstances might be, this is your last job. One more and you’re out. Forever and ever. No ifs ands or buts. The final fucking heist.

But: Only if Doc says so.

So, what could possibly go wrong? Or, in a “caper comedy” does that even matter?

Baby. That’s what they call him. He’s the driver. He’s got a past. And somehow that particular past managed to reconfigure into this particular present. Same with the other characters. Let’s call it the “embodiment of dasein”. The whole point being to bring them all together in this “action packed” spectacle.

Now, Baby does commit crimes. But is he a criminal? One thing for sure: he’s not a thug. You like him right from the start. And you’re rooting for him to get out of “the business” and live happily ever after. And [eventually] he does. If only as scripted.

One of those classic films that some will love and some will hate: imdb.com/title/tt3890160/reviews?start=0

On the other hand, the “professionoal” critics gave it a whopping 93% fresh rating on 296 reviews at Rotten Tomatoes.

Life is a soundtrack.

IMDb

[b]The Mike Myers masks actually were supposed to be the masks of Michael Myers from the Halloween series but the producers were unable to obtain legal permission. Edgar Wright then reached out to the comedian Mike Myers about using masks of his likeness instead, who thought the scene was funny and gave his blessing.

The tracking shot in the beginning of the movie where Baby gets coffee took 28 takes. The 21st take is the one used in the movie.

In almost every scene where no music is playing, you can hear a slight ringing in the background (the sound of Baby’s tinnitus).[/b]

trivia at IMDb: imdb.com/title/tt3890160/tri … =ttqu_sa_1
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_Driver
trailer: youtu.be/z2z857RSfhk

BABY DRIVER [2017]
Written and directed by Edgar Wright

[b]Griff: What’s his deal?
Doc: Baby? Full cut, same as everyone.
Griff: No, Doc, I mean is he, uh, retarded?
Doc: “Retarded” means slow. Was he slow?
Griff: No.
Doc: Then he don’t sound that retarded to me.

Buddy: You know why they call him Baby, right? Still waiting on his first words.

Griff: So, you’re a mute, Baby? Is that what it is? God. Are you a mute?
Baby: No.

Griff [to the team]: Okay, folks, if you don’t see me again, it’s because I’m dead.

Baby: One more job and I’m done.
Doc: “One more job” and we’re straight.

Baby: Your tattoo says ‘hat’?
JD: Yeah, it used to say ‘hate’. But to increase my chances of employment I had the E removed.
Baby: How’s that working out for you?
JD: Who doesn’t like hats?

Eddie [complaining about his mask]: I said Michael Myers!
JD: This is Mike Myers.
Bats: It should be the “Halloween” mask.
JD: This is a Halloween mask!
Bats: No, the killer dude from “Halloween”! [/b]

Trust me: It’s funnier up on the screen.

[b]Bats [to Baby]: In this business, the moment you catch feelings is the moment you catch a bullet.

Waiter: You’re all good. A gentleman picked this up already.
Baby: A gentleman?
[camera shifts to Doc]
Debora: Who is that?
Baby: It’s my old boss.

Doc: You don’t look happy to see me. Why? I said we were straight, but did you think we were done? That that was it?
Baby: Uh, I guess I did.
Doc: Well, I could give you the good news and the bad news, except there is no bad news. The good news is you’re about to make a lot of money. And the good news is you’re about to make a lot of money.

Doc: Now, I don’t think I need to give you the speech about what happens when you say no, how I could break your legs and kill everyone you love, because you already know that, don’t you?
Baby: Yeah.
Doc: So, what’s it gonna be, behind the wheel or in a wheelchair?
Baby: The first one.

Samm [Doc’s nephew]: No bandit glass, one armed guard, 10 cameras, eight registers, two open, 11 customers and four employees.
Baby: Thank you.

Bats [to Baby and Buddy]: Had a buddy once walk away from a job. You know why? Because something was playing on the radio he didn’t like. We about to go in, he won’t get out the fucking car. Why? ‘Cause knock, knock, knockin’ on heaven’s door is playing on the Fm. He called it a hex song. That, end of the road by Boyz ii men, hotel California by the eagles. He called 'em all hex songs.

Bats [to Buddy and Darling]: Look, here’s the deal. You rob to support a drug habit. I do drugs to support a robbery habit.

Doc [to the team]: Bananas. “Bananas” is a code word. Whenever a deal is done with one of my clients, they call me on the phone and they say the word “bananas,” and then they hang up. I did not hear the word “bananas” tonight. So you tell me who died.[/b]

All of them, right?

[b]Buddy: What did you do, Baby? What the fuck did you do?!
Baby: I moved.

Joseph: I don’t want your dirty money!
Baby: I know, I know, but I can’t leave you here!

Debora [to Baby]: Your buddy’s here.

Deboras [to Baby]: Not a chauffeur. Noted.

Doc: Go. I’ll deal with the cops.
Baby: That’s not the cops.

Buddy: You did good, kid. But you took something away from me that I love. You know I got to do the same. I really wish you could hear her scream. Guess you’ll just have to watch.

Debora [voiceover in a letter to Baby, now in prison]: Hey Baby, you know it’s funny even though I heard it so many times in the court case I still can’t get used to the fact that your real name is Miles. It’s a cool name though. I can think of a lot of great Miles songs, but we still have to get through all those baby songs first. I can’t wait till the day it’s just us, music, and the road. See you later Baby, all my love. Deborah. [/b]

Imagine this…

You are an ex-cop. An ex-cop because you were once involved in investigating a murder that ended your career. You botched the investigation. You were shamed and humiliated. And it is a particularly egregious experience because you are brought up in a culture where shame and humiliation are especially hard to bear.

So, you’ve lost your job and your self-respect. You’ve become an alcoholic and a “security guard”

But now, years later, out of the blue, the same identical murder occurs again. A body has been chopped up and the limbs begin to show up across the whole province in various coal plants.

Cue both the anti-hero and the femme-fatale. Him, he may or may not be someone to root for. Her, she may or may not be involved in the crimes.

One reviewer describes it as “an intriguing combination of neo-noir and Chinese realism”. And another as a movie “that has a pace more similar to an art-house film than a crime-thriller.”

A truly grim, cold, frozen, dark rendition of the “human condition”. But one that unfolds in a country [and in a culture] with its own at times “inscrutable” idiosyncrasies. Still, the common denominator applicable to countries and cultures around the globe is how a set of circumstances can be set into motion based on what at the time seems to be “no big thing”: a damaged leather jacket. The human-all-too-human rendition of the “butterfly effect.” Only with two chopped up corpses. Besides, as one reviewer put it, “the plot takes a back seat to atmosphere as the audience is immersed in a bleak, nihilistic vision of modern China.”

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Coal,_Thin_Ice
trailer: youtu.be/P7iwTGvpdus

BLACK COAL, THIN ICE [Bai Ri Yan Huo] 2014
Written and directed by Yi’nan Diao

[b]Coal worker: I heard they found body parts in another coal stack.
Coal worker: It can’t just be one body.
Coal worker: Hey, did they find the head?
Coal worker: Yeah, but that doesn’t mean they can identify it.
Coal worker: I heard it was a naked woman and the security guards found a breast at the coal depot.

Boss [to Zhang]: Since you transferred to our security team, you’ve been hung over every day. You think being shot in the line of duty merits special treatment?

Detective [showing Wang and Zhang photos of severed limbs]: These are photos from the recent murder and the 2001 case. Both victims were romantically linked to this woman.

Detective: Someone’s leaving.
Wang: It’s her.

Wang; Hey, Zhang…remember that coal scale operator?
Zhang: Liang Zhijun?
Wang: That’s his wife. Wu Zhizhen, the laundry shop clerk. So, counting Liang Zhijun, she’s connected to the murders.
Zhang: Seems that way.
Wang: Every man she is with ends up dead.

Wu: Quit following me.
Zhang: Next time let’s go skating outdoors.
Wu: What?
Zhang: Ice-skating.
[Wu seems wary, says nothing]
Zhang: Actually, I don’t know how to skate.
Wu: No matter. I’ll teach you.

Wang: I should have never let you in the car that day. This is no way to get sober. Steer clear of her.
Zhang: Who says I want to get sober? I’m just looking for something to do…so that my life is not a total loss.
Wang: What…you think anyone ever wins at life?

Man [from a distance]: Where do you think you’re going?! You haven’t returned your skates!

Voice [over a PA system]: Paging Comrade Liang Zhlin. Please come to ther broadcast booth. Someone is looking for you. Paging Comrade Liang Zhlin.

Zhang: You know today I saw a man dumping body parts from a bridge over a railway juntion…parts of my friend and fellow officer are probably scattered all over the country by now. It reminded me of an unsolved case…body parts turning up in coal stacks all over the province, on the same day. Remember that…in 1999.
[Wu says nothing]
Zhang: But who could cover that much ground on a single day? You know what I think?
[Wu says nothing]
Zhang: It had to be the coal scale operator. Every truck passed through that weighing station that day. It was the only point they all had in commpon. If he loaded the body parts on trucks during the night shift, by they next morning they would be all over the province…or burned to ashes in furnaces. Wasn’t your husband Liang Zhlin a coal scale operator?
Wu [weeping]: In 1999, he accidently killed someone during his first robbery. He decided to fake his own death, using the victim’s corpse as his stand in. That way you’d never find him. He managed to fool all of you, but then he could never reappear.

Wu [to Zhang]: He’s been hiding all these years, spying on everything I do. It’s like living with a dead man. I wanted to escape him, but I couldn’t. He killed every man who ever loved me. Who could I tell? He’d kill me if I talked.

Wu [in a ferris wheel to Zhang]: There is no performance.
Zhang [pointing towards the Daylight Fireworks Club]: Look over there…What do you see?
Wu: the Daylight Fireworks Club.
Zhang: I want you to take the innitative, and tell me the whole truth. Better me than the police.

Wu: I’ve got to go open the shop. Want to meet again tonight?
Zhang: Yeah, sure. The same place?

Wu [in police car]: I killed him.
Detective: How?
Wu [weeping]: I couldn’t afford to replace his coat. So he made me go to a hotel with him. It wasn’t just once.
Detective: Was Liang Zhijun involved?
Wu: No. He sacrificed everything for me, became a living dead man. But I betrayed him.

Detective: Did you help to chop up the body?
Wu: No.
Detective: Do you know where he dumped it?
Wu: No.[/b]

The movie begins with a girl being kidnapped. A car pulls up and the driver asks her for directions. Out of the blue she is grabbed by a man and forced into the car. The car drives away. We don’t know who the girl is, who took her or what happened to her.

Then the film switches to the present. To Emelie [posing as Anna] being driven by the father to the home where she will be babysitting his three children.

We know that there is a connection between these two events. But we really know nothing for sure.

One thing though: Those of us who have had traumatic experiences in the past take that into the future. We see people behaving as they do here and now but [often] we have no idea about the parts there and then. We can only imagine Emelie’s own trajectory.

And then there’s the part about freedom. Freedom within the family dynamic. On the one hand the parents are always there constraining what the kids can do. Here though the new babysitter comes along and the sky is the limit. Practically nothing is taboo. Thus the kids come to learn all about that [at times] deeply problematic line between order and chaos. Or, perhaps, between “civilization” and the “law of the jungle”?

Aside from the ending, it’s a pretty good film. On the other hand, the very last scene is, well, intriguingly unexpected.

IMDb

Emelie’s middle name is Medea. Medea was a Greek heroine who killed her own children.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emelie_(film
trailer: youtu.be/XZoLut2Ti0U

EMELIE [2015]
Directed by Michael Thelin

Dan: Yeah, well, our kids, they tend to be more energetic. They’re good kids, great kids. They’re just…And then there’s…then there’s our oldest. He’s 11, he just started middle school. The stones are dropping. You know what I mean?
Emelie [as Anna]: It’s okay, I can handle an 11 year old.
Dan: Yeah, Maggie said you were quite the…child herder. You got a Facebook page and everything.
Anna: Did you see my page?

Fortunately for her he didn’t.

[b]Dan: Alright, listen up, you three. Anna here is in charge, okay? You be good and do what she says. Capiche?

Anna: Hey, guys. What if I told you that you don’t have to be a boy, or a girl, or a human, or really anything? You can be whatever you wanted. And all you had to do was pretend. Because pretending is this super power we all have. When we pretend, we can be anyone we want to be. When you get really good at it people won’t even know you’re pretending anymore.

Anna [taking Jacob’s comic book]: Lemur-boy? You ever read Death Vice?
Jacob: No. Mom and Dad say it’s too violent.
Anna: Well, your parents aren’t here right now, are they?

Joyce: I never feel great leaving them with someone we don’t know.
Dan: I thought Anna seemed like a very nice girl.
Joyce: Yeah, I noticed.
Dan: The kids are gonna be fine, okay? Jan Abbott said that Anna is great with her girls and we both know that they’re nightmares.

Sally: Were those Mommy’s good pillows?
Anna: Now this is pretending. Not some out-of-a-bag get-up your mom bought you.
Sally: He ruined Mommy’s good pillows!
Anna: Sometimes it’s okay to destroy things for fun.

Sally: Anna, we’re not allowed to play with this stuff.
Jacob: Well, Sal…Mom and Dad aren’t here, are they?
Anna: That’s right.

Christopher: Yeah, let’s play a different game.
Anna: Alright. How about hide & seek?
Jacob: No, no, I’m not playing. I’m not…I’m not playing. I don’t want to play.
Anna: Come on, Jake. Don’t you want to find me?

Anna [sitting on the toilet with her pants pulled down]: You found me. Jake? Jacob? Hey. Hey, will you find me a new tampon?
Jacob [who is 11]: A what?
Anna: I have my period. You know what that is, right?

Jacob [on a walkie-talkie]: Howie…
Howie: Yo.
Jacob: I think I just saw my first China hole.

Christopher: You’re the best babysitter.
Anna: Hey, what’s your favorite color?
Christopher: Black
Anna: Black? That’s my favorite color, too.

Jacob: Hey, Anna, wanna help me feed my python?

Jacob [after the python kills Sally’s hamster]: I’m sorry, Sal.
Anna: Don’t be sorry. Everyone dies at some point.

Anna: Kids, movie time.
Christopher: Come on. It’s movie time!
Jacob: What are we watching?[/b]

Cue Christopher:

[b]Christopher: Daddy’s naked!

Howie’s mom [on the walkie-talkie]: Go to bed, Jacob.
Jacob: Mrs. Parker, there’s something wrong with the new babysitter.

Anna [reading a bedtime “story” to Christopher]: And then one day mama bear made a mistake and her cubbie died. This made mama bear very sad. She missed her cubbie so much that her mind cracked. It didn’t break, it didn’t break. It just cracked.

Christopher: What happens next?
Anna: I don’t know. What do you think should happen?
Christopher: I want mama bear to find a new cubbie so that she can smile like that again.
Anna: She’s trying.

Jacob: Sal, what are you doing? Get into your pj’s.
Sally: It’s Daddy’s gun. The babysitter left it out.

Anna [texting on the phone]: “I found my cubby”.

Anna [to Jacob pointing the gun at her]: Who’s Emelie?

Anna [to Jacob]: Are you gonna shoot me? Shoot me. Shoot me!

Sally [to Christopher who now has the gun]: It’s not a toy, Christopher!
Anna: Hey, give me the gun.
Sally: No escape from Chase Hunter.
Anna: Give Mommy the gun…I knew it was you.

Sally: Is that Maggie at the door?
Anna: Yeah. And you like Maggie. You wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to her, right?

Christopher [to Maggie]: Pythons prefer live prey.

Anna: Drink.
Jacob: Why is the juice dark blue?
Anna: It’s gonna give you good dreams. So drink.

Anna [to a drugged Christopher]: Time to go little Cubby.

Anna: I told you what would happen if you misbehaved.
Jacob: Where’s my sister?
Anna: I have her, but she’s not the one I want. Where is my little cubbie?
Jacob: He’s not your cubbie! He’s not your fucking cubbie! He’s my brother!
Anna: Do you want your sister to end up like your friend? Backyard. Five minutes. I’ll trade you Sally for Christopher.[/b]

There are generally two kinds of survivalists. The first lives in a society that is still largely intact and he/she chooses to live apart from it. There is always the option to return. The second however is embedded in one or another post-apocalyptic hellhole of a world. There’s no going back. There’s just survival itself.

The first wants nothing to do with others, the second may see others as a threat to their survival, but a part of them yearns for human companionship. Sexually and otherwise.

And, when survival itself is at stake, it’s dog eat dog. There’s only knowing what you have to do in order to survive. That is simply the reality.

Genes? Memes? Nature? Nurture? Whatever. The whole point is waking up the next morning.

Or, if there is to be any moral order at all to be had here, it can only be derived from a belief in God.

Still, it is one thing to survive when, for seven years, your whole world revolved entirely around yourself. But now, two more of your kind have come on board. And that changes everything. Might may well still prevail, but things can get considerably more complicated when other points of view come into play. He has something they want, but they have something he wants.

One of those films in which it seems the entire universe tumbles down to just a few human beings trying to interact in the least dysfunctional manner. You can’t help but to ask yourself: What would I do?

IMDb

There is no dialog until 17:05 in the movie.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Survivalist_(film
trailer: youtu.be/gsNfw-336Ok

THE SURVIVALIST [2015]
Written and directed by Stephen Fingleton

[b]Kathryn: My name is Kathryn. And this is my daughter Milja. Would you be able to spare some of your crop? We can offer something in exchange. We have legumes, rusticas, strong varieties. These could boost your yield.

Kathryn: Surely you can spare something. There’s more than enough.
Survivalist: That’s what they all thought.

Kathryn: How long have you been here?
Survivalist: Seven years.
Kathryn: Always alone?
Survivalist: I used to live with my brother. He’s dead.

Kathryn: I need to ask you something. Don’t come inside her.

Milja: It’s to shave you…

Milja: Do you have a toilet?
Survivalist: By the heaps. Use your nose.

Kathryn: Do you like her? Would you like to keep seing her?
Survivalist: The farm is small for a reason.
Kathryn: But we still found it. We could clear more land. More hands to manage it.
Survivalist: I’ve managed so far.
Kathryn: You’ve been lucky.
Survivalist: It wasn’t luck. Pack your things. Now.

Kathryn: He keeps the shells in his front trouser pocket.
Milja: I can reach them from the bed.
Kathryn: Will you have time to load the gun?
Milja: I’ll take it outside. By the time he reaches the door, I’ll be ready.
Kathryn: Try not to use both shells.

Survivalist: Where’s Milja?

Kathryn: Gone, is he?
Milja: Gone
Kathryn: Better this way than through the stomach.

Milja: You think he has a chance?
Kathryn: Well, no matter now.
Milja: He’s useful.
Kathryn: A third mouth. On a farm fit for one.
Milja: No harm in trying, then?
Kathryn: You’re getting sentimental.
Milja: You’re getting older. He was the one that found me.

Milja: How did your brother die?
Survivalist: He was careless.

Kathryn: How many are there?
Suvivalist: Six.
Kathryn: We have two shells and one bullet.
Milja: Enough for us.

Survivalist [watching Kathryn put berries in a trap]: Why are you wasting berries?
Kathryn: Some meat…with the protein we might make it.
Survivalist: The only thing I’ve caught in that walked on two legs.

Kathryn: There’s food enough for two. You could shave him tomorrow.
Milja: Not like that.
Kathryn: You have to do it. For both of us.

Kathryn: We’re leaving.
Milja: I’m not. It’s too late. You know it’s too late.
Survivalist: Did she poison us?
Kathryn: No…just me.

Kathryn [to Survivalist]: Don’t. Don’t waste the shell. Have you got your knife? I need you to do it.

Survivalist [to Milja]: Me and my brother used to raid camps. Stealing supplies. We would get in, get in before anybody knew we were there. One time, my brother saw this girl…he should’ve left her. But he couldn’t control himself. She screamed, we managed to get outside. They chased us. They were going to get the both of us. I did what I had to do.

Survivalist: Augustus. My brother’s name was Augustus.

Milja: What happens now?
Survivalist camp guard: They’ll be taking a vote. Shouldn’t be long. When are you due?
Milja: Six months, I think.
Guard: Do you know what’ll you call it?
Milja: If it’s a boy…[/b]

Hiroshima mon Amour

Survivalists do not look at concepts, they only understand pictures.

Mon Amour Hiroshima’s focal scene is about this crazy girl narrative of how, that admirable, idealistic young German soldier, her lover gets shot. She is using the bombing of Hiroshima as a bacground, for how can she help it.

She was young impressionistic, she was romantic not willin* to or able to survive to allow all the weight to allow to take on the wektscmertz of the world, after all, in her eyes the beauty of the world is as if dependent on her progeny, her fate, her destiny, her only way to see herself, in the most beautiful of all human beings, enslaving her into the eternal embrace of her being.

Nothing else matters.

The film was an afterthought, a codafix, hope someone understands.
.