philosophy in film

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.
.

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 l 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.
.

Most of us have mutiple personalities. They’re called personas and we use them discriminately in our interactions with others.

But then there are those alleged to actually have multiple personalities. Different folks with very different personalities floating around inside their head. But more or less on their own.

A clinical condition in other words.

Still, 23 separate personalities?! And how the hell exactly is something like that actually confirmed?

In other words, is it real? Well, here’s one take on it: psychologytoday.com/blog/sa … r-metaphor

Me? I’m just not sure. For one thing, to the best of my knowledge, regarding my own personas, I call the shots. Well, whatever that means with “I” being the embodiment of dasein.

As one reviewer put it, “Split, isn’t scary, it’s tense.” More to the point, you can only imagine trying to put yourself in this situation. You are dealing with a “frame of mind” that cannot be reasoned with. Not only that, but if the condition turns out to be legit, you can’t really even blame him for, among other things, making your life a living hell. And then, as this same reviewer noted, “…last but not the least, is the traditional ‘Shyamalan Twist’. Trust me, this time your minds will be blown when you come to the conclusion.”

Maybe.

Then there’s the murkier part that’s seems determined to suggest some “supernatural” element in all this. That way the sky is the limit as to where the plot can go. Your reaction to the film will depend in large part on what you believe or do not believe about “multiple-personalities” disorders.

Then there is Casey’s back story. The one with her Uncle. Another kind of beast entirely.

So, is this actually based on a true story?

Sort of: the13thfloor.tv/2017/01/23/s … uis-vivet/

Trust me though: the most riveting film – television miniseries – to go to in order to explore all of this is still Sybil. By far in my opinion.

Look for the link to Unbreakable.

And Nietzsche?

trivia at IMDb: imdb.com/title/tt4972582/tri … =ttqu_sa_1
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_(2016_American_film
trailer: youtu.be/84TouqfIsiI

SPLIT [2016]
Written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan

[b]Marcia: Pardon me sir, I think you have the wrong car.

Claire: What the hell is going on? What are we doing here? What happened to my dad?
Casey: He’s out there.
Claire: Do you know what happened to my dad?

Kevin [one of the personalities, pointing to Casey]: I choose you first. It will only be a minute.
Claire [to Casey]: Pee on yourself. Pee on yourself.

Clair: Are you okay.
Casey: He wanted me to dance.

Claire: We just cried and screamed and we didn’t hurt him because we were afraid to get him upset. God, that’s victim shit. Jesus! We should fight him. We should drop a crazy-ass bomb on him.

Casey: I’ll let you know when I hear something that makes sense. We don’t even know what this is yet.

Dr. Fletcher: Well, we look at people who’ve been shattered and different as less than. What if…what if they’re more than us?

Casey: There’s a lady outside.

Patricia [one of his personalities to the girls]: Don’t worry. I’ll talk to him. He listens to me. He’s not well. He knows what you’re here for. He’s not allowed to touch you. He knows that.

Dr. Fletcher [to a colleague]: They are what they believe they are. The brain has learned to defend itself.
Colleague: You speak of them like they’re supernaturally gifted. Like they have powers or something. Karen, these are patients.
Dtr. Fletcher: They have been through trauma. And perhaps now they are capable of something we’re not. We have brain scans now. DID patients have changed their body chemistry with their thoughts.[/b]

So, have they?

[b]Dennis: Patricia has reminded me that I was sent to get you for a reason. That you are sacred food. And I promise not to bother you again.
Casey: Maybe he has a dog or something.
Claire: You think he’s gonna feed us to his dogs?

Hedwig: My name’s Hedwig. I have red socks. He’s on the move.
Casey: What?
Hedwig: He…is…on…the…mooove.
Casey: Who?
Hedwig: Someone’s coming for you, and you’re not gonna like it. You guys make noises in your sleep.
Casey: Tell us.
Hedwig: I’m not supposed to say; but, he’s done awful things to people and he’ll do awful things to you. I have blue socks, too.
Marcia: We’re his food?
[Hedwig shrugs]
Casey: How old are you?
Hedwig: Nine.
Casey: So you’re not the guy that took us?
Hedwig [scoffing]: No.
Casey: You’re… not the lady?
Hedwig: What are you, blind?
Casey: You don’t know how they think?
Hedwig: N-no, they don’t… they don’t tell me much. I just ate a hot dog.

Marcia: We heard something. We didn’t understand it, but now we do. Do you know what we heard?
Hedwig: What did you hear?
Marcia: Come here. I’ll whisper it to you.

Casey: He said something. He said something about making the room safe. This is all new drywall. What was unsafe?

Dr. Fletcher [on Skype]: One identity in an individual with Dissociative Identity Disorder can have high cholesterol. One. There have been cases where one identity is allergic to bee stings. The others are not.
Interviewer: Are there moments where two identities can coexist at the same time?
Dr. Fletcher: There are times when two identities can take the “light” or “the spot” or consciousness at the same time. This happened with a student that I was working with. And her left and right hand were taking notes in different hand-writings about separate things at the same time. The differences in the identities can be dramatic. As much as the difference between you and me and every person in that auditorium. The identities have different IQ’s. They have different physical strengths. One personality is a Russian weightlifter and can lift three times his body weight. Their ability to hyper-focus and have different experiences is astounding. Have these individuals, through their suffering, unlocked the potential of the brain? Is this the ultimate doorway to all things we call unknown? Is this where our sense of the supernatural comes from? It’s about depth.[/b]

Again: How much of this is actually true of DID patients

[b]Dr. Fletcher: The authors of Hooters play on our incessant need for fat and man’s incessant need to be in the proximity of augmented breasts. It’s like if Henry V ran a fast food franchise!

Dennis: The Beast, he’s coming for you. All three of you, you’re gonna be kept separate. You’ve got…You’ve got a crumb on your shirt.

Hedwig [after awkwardly kissing Casey]: You might be pregnant now.

Dr. Fletcher: This story of The Beast. One thing, Dennis, that may comfort you if you are confused is that you’ve met the other alters. You’re all in a room in chairs, right?
Dennis: Yeah.
Dr. Fletcher: But you never met The Beast. Because he doesn’t reside with the rest of you. Because he resides in the train yard, as the story goes, because Kevin’s dad left on a train. But the fact is, you and Patricia have never met The Beast. Have you?
Dennis: No.
Dr. Fletcher: That’s because he’s not an alter. He’s not the 24th identity. He’s a fantasy.

Dennis: You wrote about a woman in Germany who’d been blind for 10 years. And then, it was discovered that she had DID. Then three of her identities developed sight. And you speculated that her optical nerves regenerated because of her beliefs.
Dr. Fletcher: What are you trying to say?
Dennis: There are things, Dr. Fletcher, that all of us would find hard to believe.
Dr. Fletcher: Are you trying to tell me there’s a 24th identity?
Dennis: You protect the broken. When you said that you thought this situation was extraordinary, I knew you can maybe understand.
Dr. Fletcher: Understand what?
Dennis: The Beast is real. He’s just emerged.

Dennis [to Dr. Fletcher]: The Beast is a sentient creature who represents the highest form of humans’ evolution. He believes the time of ordinary humanity is over. I hope this makes you feel calm. You will be in the presence of something greater. I was gonna ask for your last shirt, but I won’t. Because tonight is a sacred night. It’s almost over.
Dr. Fletcher: What does that mean? I don’t understand. He can’t be real. There must be limits to what a human being can become.

Claire [looking up at Dr. Fletcher]: Are you real?

Kevin [speaking in video recording]: The Horde keeps obsessing about the ones who haven’t suffered. I don’t know where they’re going with this, but it scares me.

Caire [to The Beast]: Kevin Wendell Crumb. Kevin Wendell Crumb. Kevin Wendell Crumb! Kevin Wendell Crumb! Kevin Wendell Crumb!

Kevin [to Claire]: There’s a shotgun I bought. It’s in the bottom cabinet, hidden behind things. The shells are in my uniform closet out in the service hall. Kill me.

The Beast [beckoning from the darkness]: We are glorious! We will no longer be afraid. Only through pain can you achieve your greatness! The impure are the untouched, the unburned, the unslain. Those who have not been torn have no value in themselves and no place in this world! They are asleep!!

The Beast [looking at the scars on Csey’s belly]: You are different from the rest. Your heart is pure! Rejoice! The broken are the more evolved. Rejoice.

Police officer [to Casey]: Your uncle’s here. You ready to go?

Newswoman [on TV]: The suspected murderer Kevin Crumb suffers from the controversial psychological disorder DID. The rumors coming out of the scene are almost unbelievable. There are conflicting stories if the suspect is alive or dead after sustaining two point-blank gunshots. Reports even indicate one of his personalities is an amalgam of the various animals in the Philadelphia Zoo where he worked. The press is already referring to the alleged attacker by a dark name leaked by a source close to the case. Because of his many personalities, he is being called…The Horde.[/b]

Cue Bruce Willis. And Mr. Glass.

Imagine Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner? as a sci-fi horror comedy flick. Of course, for many, racism itself will always be construed as a horror story. For some, the horror story. But there are any number of contexts in which that can play out.

On the other hand, in America, given its history, race almost always hovers over eveything. One way or another it is going to be staring you down. What to say, what to do…here and now? there and then?

But this?!

We’re all gonna be judged. But there is never a one size fits all reaction. What may be “politically correct” for some is anything but for others. So, for many, it’s like walking on pins and needles. Or navigating a minefield. In other words, though America goes through periods of optimism when it is thought that race will [at last] sink farther and farther into the nasty past, it comes roaring back as virulent as ever. Trumpworld being just the latest incarnation. And then the even more convoluted reaction to race from the “liberals”. Or, as one reviewer suggested: “Get Out is a stinging criticism of the white liberalism that carries itself as empathetic towards blacks, but that empathy only extends as far as white control. Peele isn’t taking aim at Neo- Nazis and other whites who would angrily shout the n-word. They’re a lost cause. Instead, he’s looking at those who profess their lack of racism, but only do so if they can maintain their dominance over black people in the most insidious manner possible.”

Okay, but this?!

Then the part about hypnotism. What to take seriously and what not to. What to take literally and what to only imagine metaphorically as a commentary on human interactions in a world where race [among other things] revolves around choosing behaviors only more or less thought through. Or only more or less your own.

Unless of course I’ve got it all wrong.

Look for the Sunken Place.

IMDb

[b]On the Rotten Tomatoes Top 100 Horror Movies list, extraordinarily, Get Out (2017) is ranked at the top due to the largest amount of positive film reviews and the film’s growing prestige.

Regarding the meaning of The Sunken Place, creator/director Jordan Peele said, “The Sunken Place means we’re marginalized. No matter how hard we scream, the system silences us.”

Daniel Kaluuya was given the lead role on the spot after nailing his audition. Jordan Peele said Kaluuya did about five takes of a key scene, in which his character needs to cry, and each was so perfect that the single tear came down at the exact same time for each take.

At a Vanity Fair screening of the film writer/director Jordan Peele explained that he wrote the screenplay during the first term of President Barack Obama, when racism was believed to be a thing of the past. He thought there wouldn’t be much interest for his movie in such an optimistic climate, so he wrote it mainly for himself. But with the increasing discussion regarding violence against African-Americans and the coming of the Black Lives Matter movement in later years, he knew the time was right to make the movie.

Movie critic Armond White is the only known professional movie critic that gave this film a negative review, thus lowering its excellent Rotten Tomatoes rating from 100 percent to 99 percent. He claimed that it was produced for a liberal agenda and referred to it as a “get whitey” film.[/b]

trivia at IMDb: imdb.com/title/tt5052448/tri … =ttqu_sa_1
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_Out_(film
trailer: youtu.be/DzfpyUB60YY

GET OUT [2017]
Written and directed by Jordan Peele

[b]Chris: Do they know…do they know I’m black?
Rose: No. Should they?
Chris: It seems like something you might want to mention.
Rose: "Mom and Dad, my uh, my black boyfriend will be coming up this weekend and I just don’t want you to be shocked because he’s a black man. "
Chris: You said I was the first black guy you ever dated?
Rose: Yeah, so what?
Chris: Yeah, so this is uncharted territory for them. You know I don’t want to be chased off the lawn with a shotgun.
Rose: You’re not going to. First of all, my dad would have voted for Obama a third time if he could have…they are not racist.

Dean [poining to a photograph]: Here, you’re going to love this. My Dad’s claim to fame. He was beat by Jesse Owens in the qualifying round for the Berlin Olympics in 1936. Those were the ones where …Owens won in front of Hitler. Yes, what a moment, what a moment. I mean, Hitler’s up there with all his perfect Aryan race bullshit. This black dude comes along and proves him wrong in front of the entire whole world. Amazing.
Chris: Not great for your dad, though.
Dean: Yeah. He almost got over it.

Dean: I know what you’re thinking.
Chris: What?
Dean: Come on, I get it. White family, black servants. It’s a total cliche.
Chris: I wasn’t going to take it there.
Dean: Well you didn’t have to, believe me. Now, we hired Georgina and Walter to help care for my parents. When they died I just couldn’t bare to let them go.

Rose: Oh God, the party.
Chris: How bad can that be?
Rose: They’re so white. Like so white.

Missy: Want to know how it works?
Chris: You dangle a pocket watch in front of people’s faces? Is that it?
Missy: You watch a lot of TV.

Missy: How do you feel now?
Chris: I can’t move.
Missy: You can’t move.
Chris: Why can’t I move?
Missy: You’re paralyzed. Just Like that day when you did nothing. You did nothing. Now…sink into the floor.
Chris: Wait, wait, wait.
Missy: Sink. Now you’re in the Sunken Place.

Chris: They working you good out here, huh?
Walter: Nothing I don’t want to be doing.
Chris: I didn’t get to meet you yet, up close. I’m Chris.
Walter: I know who you are. She is lovely isn’t she?
Chris: Rose? Yes, she is.
Walter: One of a kind. Top of the line. A real doggone keeper.
Chris: Right.
Walter: I’m sorry about last night. My exercise. I did not mean to scare you. And did it work?
Chris: Did What work?
Walter: You were in Mrs Armitage’s office for quite some time.

Chris: I think your mom hypnotized me last night.
Rose: What? When?
Chris: I went out for, I went out for some air last night and I run into her and I can barely remember any of it but now the thought of a cigarette makes me want to throw up.
Rose: Oh my God.

Jim: [to Chris]: Fair skin has been in favor for the past what, couple of hundreds of years… But now the pendulum has swung back. Black is in fashion.

Chris: What the fuck?
Jim: Ignorance.
Chris: Who?
Jim: All of them. They mean well, but they have no idea what real people go through.

Chris: Shit ain’t fait, man.
Jim: Oh, you got that right. Shit ain’t fair.

Chris: I got hypnotized last night.
Rod: Nigga, get the fuck outta there!

Chris [on the phone, after telling Rod Missy hypnotized him]: I know she caught me off guard, right? But it’s cool because…I’m cured. It worked!
Rod: Bruh, how you not scared of this, man? Look, they could have made you do all types of stupid shit. They have you fuckin’ barking like a dog, flying around like you a fuckin’ pigeon looking ridiculous. Or… I don’t know if you noticed, white people love making people sex slaves and shit.
Chris: Yeah, I’m pretty sure they are not a kinky sex family, dawg.

Hiroki: Do you find that being African-American more advantage or disadvantage in the modern world?
Chris: A tough one. Yeah, I don’t know, man.
[he beckons to Andre]
Chris: They were asking me about the African American experience. Maybe you can take this one.
Andre: I find that the African-American experience for me has been for the most part very good. Although I find it idifficult to go into detail because I haven’t had much desire to leave the house in a while.

Rod [on the phone with Chris talking about Andre]: : Sex slave! Oh, shit! Chris, you gotta get the fuck outta there, man! You in some Eyes Wide Shut situation. Leave, motherfucker!

Dean: What is your purpose, Chris?
Chris: What?
Dean: In life. What is your purpose?
Chris: Right now it’s finding those keys.
Jeremy: Fire.
Dean: It is a reflection of our own mortality. We are born, we breathe and then we die. Even the sun will die someday. But we are divine. We are the gods trapped in cocoons.

Rose [to Chris]: You were one of my favorites…[/b]

Then things really get weird…

[b]Roman [on a television screen to Chris bound to a chair]: Is there anything more beautiful than a sunrise? I am Roman Armitage and if you’re watching this, you’re probably wondering what’s going on. There’s no need to worry. Let’s take a walk. You have been chosen because of the physical advantages you enjoyed your entire lifetime. With your natural gifts and our determination we could both be part of something greater. Something perfect. The Coagula procedure is a man-made miracle. Our order has been developing it for many, many years … and it wasn’t until recently it was perfected by my own flesh and blood. My family and I are honored to offer it as a service to members of our group. Don’t waste your strength. Don’t try to fight it. You can’t stop the inevitable. And who knows? Maybe one day you will enjoy being members of the family. Behold. The Coagula.

Rod [to Detective Latoya and two other detectives]: Then he sent me some weird pictures. I’m like, “Ah man, that’s Andre Hayworth.” This dude’s been missing for 6 months, right? So I do all my research, you know, 'cause as a TSA agent…I-I go do my…my detective work, right? And I start putting pieces together. And see, this is what I came up with. They’re probably abducting black people, brainwashing them and making them slaves…or sex slaves. Not just regular slaves, but sex slaves and shit. See? I don’t know if it’s the hypnosis that’s making 'em slaves or what not, but all I know is they already got two brothas we know and there could be a whole bunch of brothas they got already. What’s the next move?

Detective Latoya [to Rod]: Oh, white girls, they get you every time.

Rod [on the phone]: So last time I talked to Chris, he told me your mama hypnotized him.
Rose: Rod, just stop. I know why you’re calling.
Rod: Why is that?
Rose: It’s kind of obvious, don’t you think? What? That there is something between us.

Roman [on the television screen to Chris still bound to the chair]: Hey, Chris. How’s it going, buddy? You can answer, there is an intercom in the room.
Chris: Where is Rose?
Roman: Oh, You dirty dog. You’re one of the lucky ones, trust me. Jeremy’s wrangling method sounds much less pleasant. I’m supposed to answer any outstanding questions or concerns you may have so far. Apparently our common understanding of the process has a positive impact on the success rate of the procedure. You could give a shit, right? Okay, just let me just tell you what it is? Phase one was the hypnotism. That’s how they sedate you. Phase two is this. Mental preparation. It is basically a psychological pre-op.
Chris: Pre-op?
Roman: For stage three. Transplantation.

Chris: Why us? Why black people?
Roman [chuckling]: Who knows? People want to change. Some people want to be stronger … faster … cooler. Black is in fashion. But please don’t lump me in with that, you know I could give a shit what color you are. No, what I want is deeper. I want your eyes, man. I want those things you see through.
Chris: This is crazy.
Roman: Okay, I’m done.

Dean: Jeremy…?

Rose [to Walter]: Get 'em grandpa…

Rod: I mean, I told you not to go in that house.
Chris: How you find me?
Rod: I’m T.S…motherfuckin’…A. We handle shit. That’s what we do. Consider this situation fuckin’ handled.[/b]

Relationships.

Tragedies can make or break them.

Depending in part on how far along the relationship is when the tragedy occurs. In some instances, it can even strengthen them. But one size will never fit all the different sets of circumstances that might come into play.

Here the man is somewhat of an oafish brute. He participates [with relish] in what might be seen as the human equivalent of cock-fighting. He stumbles through life “emotionally handicapped” and those around him often suffer the consequence. Though from his frame of mind, “he means well”. The woman is nothing at all like that but she suffers a terrible accident and loses both of her legs. So both are challenged but in different ways.

It’s how life works. You go about the business of being yourself when out of the blue something happens. Everything changes. Then you are either up to the task of handling it or you are not. It’s just that some will find themselves up to the task only by recognizing the need to reconfigure themselves from the inside out. Then it’s only a matter of recognizing how self-conscious you become about the changes. And how others then react to that. And, legless or not, there’s still that pervasive gap between love and lust.

And then the part that will rile many animal rights folks. The controversy surrounding the captivity of orca whales. Using them to “entertain the masses”. The irony here in particular revolving around this:

Marion Cotillard is an environmental activist and unabashed animal lover and has been a spokeswoman for Greenpeace. The idea of a movie where whales are kept captive in tanks for the amusement of the public was against everything she stood for.

As “conflicting goods” go, this one can rouse emotions to fever pitch. But it’s largely in the background this time around.

And then the special effects. Today, if the character has lost both legs, that’s how we see her. No need to imagine what that might be like. You can actually see it what it is like in scene after scene. We know she’s just acting like someone who lost her legs. But up on the screen, she has no legs. At least not from the knees down.

And just as someone physically whole might wonder which would be worse, being blind or being deaf, so too here you find yourself wondering whether being legless or armless is the greater burden. Or the greatest challenge.

Look for the remnants of the class struggle.

IMDb

[b]The title “Rust and Bone” refers to the taste of blood in the mouth when, upon a blow to the face, the lips are crushed against the teeth.

The film received a ten-minute standing ovation at the end of its screening at the 65th Cannes Film Festival.

Cate Blanchett wrote an op-ed for Variety praising Marion Cotillard’s performance in the film, describing it as “simply astonishing” and said that “Marion has created a character of nobility and candour, seamlessly melding herself into a world we could not have known without her”.

Within minutes of her arrival for the first day of rehearsal at the Marineland in Antibes, in the South of France, Marion Cotillard was required to watch the whales perform for a crowd. “I was jet-lagged and sensitive,” she recalls. A female trainer assigned to work with her on her character asked what she thought. “I didn’t want to be disrespectful, but I said, ‘I’m sorry, but I have to be honest - I hate this situation. I hate to see animals doing clown things. I think it’s horrible’”, she remembered. [/b]

trivia at IMDb: imdb.com/title/tt2053425/tri … =ttqu_sa_1
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rust_and_Bone
trailer: youtu.be/Jg7skcyYolU

RUST AND BONE [De Rouille et D’os] 2012
Written in part and directed by Jacques Audiard

[b]Anna [Ali’s sister]: She remembered his passport!
Ali: She didn’t remember anything. It was already in there. She forgot about it, that’s all. When they went to Amsterdam, they’d use the kid to smuggle dope…
Anna: You got to be kidding!
Ali: That’s what she told me.

Ali: You don’t dress like that just to dance.
Stéphanie: How am I dressed?
Ali: I don’t know… Look!
Stéphanie: Yeah? So what?
Ali: You’re dressed like… a whore.
Stéphanie: Excuse me?
Ali: Are you dressed like that?
Stéphanie: That’s enough.
Ali: It’s no surprise that the guys…
Stéphanie: Shut up.

Ali: Is that you in the photos with the orcas?
Stéphanie: Yes.
Ali: Is it your job?
Stéphanie: Yes.
Ali: I’d never have imagined!
Stéphanie: Why? Can’t a whore train orcas?

Stéphanie [crawling on the floor in the hospital]: My legs! What did you do with my legs?!!

Stéphanie [on phone]: Ali?
Ali: Yeah, it’s me. Who’s this?
Stéphanie: Stéphanie. Remember me? We met at the Annex. The fight, the ice.
Ali: Yeah, Stéphanie. I remember. How are you doing?
Stéphanie: Did you hear what happened?
Ali: Yeah, I saw it on T.V.
Stéphanie: So, how do you think I’m doing?

Technician: Two casts for two prosthetic devices. To get you walking. After the sockets, we’ll choose the knees. Hydralic, pneumatic, electronic.
Stéphanie: Electronic knees?
Technician: You don’t have to think. It positions itself.
Stéphanie: Do the feet move?
Technician: No they don’t. They’re carbon blades. Flexible, but don’t move.
Stéphanie: So, I’d walk like a robot?
Technician: No, just fine. There are feet, not covered by insurance, that can give you heels 1 to 2 inches high.

Stéphanie [after Ali brings a toy truck into the van]: What’s this?
Ali: It’s for my son.
Stéphanie: You have a son?

Stéphanie: Are you seeing anyone? A girlfriend?
Ali: No.
Stéphanie: You have no one?
Ali: They’re not girlfriends.
Stéphanie: What are they? Quick fucks? A lot of them? You mind talking about it.
Ali: I couldn’t care less.

Ali: And you?
Stéphanie: Before? I was with Simon.
Ali: Is that all?
Stéphanie: There were others, but not that many. I was very…I like being watched. I liked turning them on. I liked getting them worked up…But then I’d get bored.
Ali: And now?
Stéphanie: Nothing.
Ali: No more desire?
Stéphanie: I never said that. Sure, I feel desire…Let’s change the subject.

Ali: Do you want to fuck?
Stéphanie: Huh?
Ali: You want to know if it still works? So, let’s fuck!
Stéphanie: Just like that?
Ali: Yeah!
Stéphanie: I don’t know if I can do it just like that.
Ali: When you feel like it, tell me.

Stéphanie: Do you mind if we don’t kiss?
Ali: No problem…breasts okay?

Stéphanie: And your night?
Ali: Normal.
Stéphanie: You think it’s right talking like this? I asked you how it went with the girl and you answer “normal”.
Ali: What should I say?
Stéphanie: Nothing. Normal to pick up a bimbo when you’re with me. What would you say if I did it?
Ali: Nothing.
Stéphanie: Really?
Ali: You’re being a pain. What’s the problem?
Stéphanie: What am I to you? A friend? A pal? A buddy like Faoud and all the others. You fuck your buddies?..If we continue we have to do it right. Let’s show some manners…some consideration. You’ve always been considerate of me. Is that a plan? We continue, but not like animals.

Anna: All the shit he left. His message said Strasbourg. God knows if he’s still there. He never called you?
Stéphanie: No.
Anna: Did you try the gym?
Stéphanie: They have no idea.
Anna: I’d give you a number if I had it, even after all the crap he did. You believe me?
Stéphanie: Yes, I believe you.
Anna: Imagine! He left his kid. It all means jack shit to him.
Stéphanie: You don’t know him.
Anna: I don’t know him? What did you expect?
Stéphanie: I don’t know. Not this.

Ali [on the phone]: How are you doing?
Stéphanie: At this moment? In life? Or in general?
Ali: I wanted to say that…
Stéphanie: I’m not asking for anything. I’m hanging up. I’ll call you to ask about Sam. Give him a kiss?
Ali: Don’t hang up! Don’t hang up!
Stéphanie: I won’t hang up.
Ali: For three hours… he was in a coma. For three hours, he was dead. I was scared of losing him…Don’t leave me!..Don’t leave me.
Stéphanie: I won’t leave you.
Ali [weeping]: I love you.

Ali [voiceover]: Twenty-seven bones in a human hand. Certain monkeys have more. Gorillas, 32. Five in each thumb. A man has 27. You break a hand, you break a leg…after a while calcium joins it back together. It may even end up stronger than before. But break a bone in your hand and you’ll see it never heals. You’ll remember it at each fight, with every punch. You’ll be careful. But one day he pain will come back. Like needles. Like broken glass. [/b]

Treasure!

Who doesn’t like the sound of that?

And who would pass up the chance to actually find some?

With it you have access to all the things that treasure can buy. And that doesn’t change just because you happen to reside in Romania. Especially in today’s world. There’s just no getting around the fact that for some many most of us, money [another word for treasure] is increasingly the center of the universe.

Still, your own individual reactions to it will always be predicated on 1] your situation and 2] your options.

For example, how badly do you need the money? Here one neighbor needs it “desparately”. The bank is after his home.

On the other hand, when they actually do find the treasure, it’s not exactly what anyone had imagined it would be.

In part the film revolves around the gap between the drama that builds as they get closer and closer to the treasure. And then when they actually find it we’re stuptified by what it turns out to be. Or, rather, some will be. But that is the whole point others will note. You’ll either get the gist of the satire here or you won’t.

Now, right from the start we are informed that this is a “comedy caper”. But it’s one of those comedies in which, by the end of film, it dawns on you that not once have you actually laughed out loud. Or even chuckled. As one critic put it, “if the humor were any drier, it would be dust.”

A whimsical glimpse into just how absurd the “human condition” can be.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Treasure_(2015_film
trailer: youtu.be/ot_EibshNo0

THE TREASURE [Comoara ] 2015
Writen and directed by Corneliu Porumboiu

[b]Adrian [neighbor]: I need to borrow some money.
Costi: How much?
Adrian: 800 euros. I can repay it in a month, maybe two.
Costi: I don’t have it…I’m struggling myself now.
Neighbor: I’m desparate. The bank’s going to repossess my house.

Adrian: I had a publishing house. It went bankrupt. It was going really well. Then the financial crisis hit, and it all went to hell.
Costi: A survey I read said that only 2% of Romanians read more than one book a year.

Adrian: There is a legend in my grandfather’s village. They say my great-great grandfather buried his treasure before the Communists came. I want to hire a metal detector guy to see if there is anything there. If you pay, I’ll give you half of whatever we find.

Wife: Where will you get 800 euros?
Costi: I have 300 in my account. If I don’t pay the bills this month, that’s another 200.

Metal detector company official: You know if you find old coins, you need to report them to the police.
Costi: Really?
Company official: Yes. They need to be inspected, and if they’re considered part of the national heritage, they remain state property. It’s no joke. You must report it. If the police catch you, they will send you to prison.
Costi: What if it isn’t coins.
Company official: It doesn’t matter. It could be crockery. You must report it. The police will send someone from the nearest museum to inspect what you find. If they consider it part of the national heritage they give you 30% of the total value.
Costi: And if it’s not of historical value?
Company official: They give it all back. But anything before WWII has historical value.[/b]

Cue Cornell:

[b]Cornell [to Costi]: I can come with you. It’ll only be 400 euros, plus money for diesel…Don’t worry about the police if you’re with me. I’ll scan the place, mark where something might be, and leave. We don’t know each other. If you find something, it’s your business.

Costi: The company said that if we find something, we need to report it to the police. And the state gives us 30% of its value.
Adrian: No, if we find anything, then we get in the car, drive to Bucharest and sell the gold to the gypsies. They melt it down, and nobody will know it used to be coins.
Costi: If we don’t report it, I’m not coming.

Wife: The Revolution of 1848 was started by the sons of rich landlords, who’d studied abroad and wanted to change Romania. If our neighbor is from one of those families, there’s a good chance there will be treasure.

Adrian: How far down can it see?
Cornell: 30 meters.
Adrian: 30 meters down? At 30 meters we should find something.
Cornell: Nails at least.
Adrian: At 30 meters, we’ll reach the Roman Empire!

Cornell: It’s there![/b]

He says this after every foot they dig.

[b]Costi: I told you he’s got money problems. They’re repossessing his house.
Cornell: We’ve all got problems. You’ve got problems. I’ve got problems. A man makes his own problems. They don’t descend down from Heaven…I’m going. If I stay, I’ll punch him.

Lica: What are these?
Adrian: They’re Mercedes share certificates.

Costi: They don’t count as national heritage.
Cop: I don’t know. We’ll see.
Costi: They definately don’t. Heritage artifacts must be connected to Romanian culture, connected to the country, to Romania.

Lica: They’re from 1969.
Costi: Where does it say that?
Lica: There, “issued in 1969”.
Adrian: Impossible.

Costi: Who could have buried them?
Adrian: The Communists?
Costi: How could the Communists have shares in Mercedes?

Adrian [using the calculator]: 78 shares X $15,075 a share = $1,I75, 850 euros.
Costi: That much?
Adrian: Yeah. Divided by 3.
Costi: Why 3?
Adrian: I’ll need to give some to my mother and brother. Listen, if he comes to you, tell him I just gave you 10 shares.
Costi: Why?
Adrian: He wouldn’t want to give you half of it.
Costi: Why didn’t he go look for it himself?
Adrian: Just say that and forget about it.
Costi: What could he do?
Adrian: He could sue us. The land’s in my mother’s name. They could accuse us of theft.[/b]