philosophy in film

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]

There’s just something about an autopsy that spooks me. There I am dead, lying on the slab. Someone is hacking me apart bit by bit. And, who knows, maybe it’s because my death was suspicious. They’ve got to figure out how I actually shuffled off this mortal coil before deciding if that was somebody else’s decision.

All the more mysterious here is the body of a woman that no one seems able to idenify. She was found half-buried at a horrific crime scene. How did she die? Why did she die?

And what must it be like to have a job that brings you into contact with dead bodies day in and day out? Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them. How does that make them different from the rest of us?

And death itself of course. Obviously the circumstances surrounding it can be more or less creepy. But: What to make of the very fact of it? What does it mean to be dead? How we we fit it into the profound mystery that can be life itself?

Which inevitiably brings us to the juncture that many “horror films” explore: the intersection of that said to be natural and that said to be supernatural. When does one become the other? How far are you willing to go in suspending your disbelief? Many prefer that one or another supernatural element be involved in films such as this because this makes it easier to imagine one or another rendition of life after death. Anything other than to be obliterated for all time to come. Still, to the extent that the supernatural is involved and you don’t believe in the supernatural, the less likely you are to be frightened by what you see. Why would you be scared by something you don’t even believe could ever happen?

Then [here] cue the Bible.

Also, there’s the part where the naked dead body is that of a beautiful young white female. Make of that what you will.

IMDb

[b]Stephen King said of the film, The Autopsy Of Jane Doe “Visceral horror to rival Alien and early Cronenberg. Watch it, but not alone.”

The names “John Doe” or “John Roe” for men, “Jane Doe” or “Jane Roe” for women, “Johnny Doe” and “Janie Doe” for children, or just “Doe” non-gender-specifically are used as placeholder names for a party whose true identity is unknown or must be withheld in a legal action, case, or discussion

The director’s favorite scene to film was the scene in the elevator when they discuss the death of the mother. He said “I only placed the camera, and we watched a fantastic performance by Brian Cox and Emile Hirsch”. The scene he was most proud of as a director was the build up to the reveal of the symbols beneath Jane Doe’s skin, as stated at the festival Monsters of Film in Stockholm 2016.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Autopsy_of_Jane_Doe
trailer: youtu.be/mtTAhXuiRTc

AUTOPSY OF JANE DOE [2016]
Directerd by André Øvredal

[b]Cop [on walkie-talkie]: Sheriff, you’ve got to get down here.

Cop [looking down at a half-buried corpse in a basement]: Who’s she?
Sheriff: Well, for now, she’s a Jane Doe. You got something?
Cop: Nothing was stolen. Not a scratch on the outside of the house either. Doesn’t look like someone broke in. To me, it looks like they were trying to break out.

Tommy: Open him up. Now you see here? Down below the occipital. A fracture. That explains the swelling in his brain. Subdural hematoma. That’s what did it. Not the smoke. Everybody has a secret. Some just hide them better than others.
Austin: Some people are better at finding them.
Tommy: You did good.

Emma: Can I see one of the bodies?
Austin: Well, no. No. You cannot see one.
Emma: Why not?
Austin: Because there’s…there’s some things you can’t un-see, okay?

Emma [looking down at a bell attached to a cadaver’s ankle]: What’s that for?
Tommy: To make sure he’s dead. There used to be a time it was hard to tell a comatose person from a dead one, so coroners tied bells to everybody in the morgue. So if they heard a ‘ting’, they knew somebody down there wasn’t quite ready to go.
Emma: So, why do you have one?
Tommy: Well, I’m…I’m a bit of a traditionalist.

Emma: Who shot him?
Tommy: Angle of entry suggests he did it to himself. Until we found strychnine in his system and judging by the progress it made through his bloodstream he was already dead by the time somebody blew his face off.
Emma: Why would anyone do that?
Tommy: You sound like your boyfriend. Leave the “why” to the cops and the shrinks. We’re just here to find cause of death. No more, no less.

Sheldon: Press is gonna need answers on this in the morning and I got nothing. Now they’ll buy a 10-79. I can give them a b and e gone haywire. But what I can’t sell is her.
Tommy: Time frame?
Sheldon: It’s gotta be tonight.
Tommy: Okay.

Tommy: Her wrists and ankles are fractured.
Austin: How do you break your wrists and ankles without any outward signs?
Tommy: Oh, I see it all the time. Simple fractures.
Austin: Simple? Uh-uh. Her joints are shattered.

Tommy: Well, you were right. Her waist doesn’t fit her frame. It’s not congenital.
Austin: Then what is it?
Tommy: Well, if you wear one long enough, a corset…
Austin: Didn’t those go out of style a couple of hundred years ago?

Tommy: The lungs severely blackened.
Austin: Wouldn’t have taken her for a smoker.
Tommy: She could smoke ten packs a day for 30 years wouldn’t explain this.
Austin: But that’s what killed her, right?
Tommy: No, this amount of lung damage though I’d expect the body to be covered in third degree burns. It’s like finding a bullet in the brain but with no gunshot wound.

Tommy: Imagine all this internal trauma was reflected externally. Shattered ankles and wrists fire-burned lungs, scarred organs. What would she look like?
Austin: She’d be mangled.
Tommy: Disfigured beyond recognition but she’s not. I mean, how the hell do you even do this? If you wanna kill someone you shoot them or poison them or drown them. A million easy ways. You don’t go to these lengths unless you wanna make them suffer.

Tommy [looking down at Jane Doe]: What happened to you?

Austin: Someone pulled out her tooth wrapped it in fabric and forced her to swallow it.
Tommy: And the drawing?
Austin: I don’t know. Religious? Possibly, uh, ritualistic?
Tommy: Well, let’s play that one out. Every ritual has its purpose. What MO have we seen so far?
Austin: First they bound her. Then they ripped out her tongue, poisoned her paralyzed her forced her to swallow the cloth. Then, uh, the cuts, the internal mutilation, stabs. Then as if that wasn’t enough, they burned her. Almost like a human sacrifice.

Tommy: You can’t kill someone this way without leaving a trace on the outside. She doesn’t even have a broken nail.
Austin: If we could just find out why she was tortured…
Tommy: Down here, if you can’t see it touch it, it doesn’t matter.

Tommy: Let’s get the fuck out of here.[/b]

Cue the ringing bell.

[b]Austin: It’s her.
Tommy: Oh, no, that’s not possible.
Austin: No, her body those things we found inside, those were impossible. Whatever the hell happened in here we are way past possible. It’s her.

Austin: When we cut into her she tried to stop us each time. It’s like there’s something she doesn’t want us to find.
Tommy: You wanna go back in there?
Austin: If we stay here, we’re dead. If we could just figure out how she died maybe we can figure out how to stop her.

Tommy [looking at a slice of her brain under the microscope]: That explains why we couldn’t find cause of death. She’s still alive.
Austin: Alive? We lit her on fire. We took out her heart.

Sheriff: What the hell happened here?
Cop: What do you want to do with her?
Sheriff: Get her out of here.
Cop: Already got a car waiting. There’s that, uh, funeral home over in Ruxton.
Sheriff: Get her out of my county. Take her over to VCU. Let Ward Lamon deal with her.[/b]

Cue the ringing bell.

Imagine that you commit a crime. But accidently.

Still, tell that to the criminal justice system. The next thing you know your own rendition of the white collar American Dream is in the toilet. You’re just one more prisoner now.

Or, as Bottles puts it: The fact is, we all started out as someone’s little angel. And a place like this forces us to become warriors or victims. Nothing in between can exist here.

Few actually imagine that something like this can happen to them. And, in fact, it almost never does. But there is no denying that something like this is never really out of the question. A series of events [only more or less in your control] starts you tumbling down the hill like that proverbial snowball. And once it gets started there no telling where or how it will end up.

Let’s put it this way. The man we meet before the accident is barely recognizable in the man we meet 10 years later. He’s in there somewhere though. At least that’s what most are hoping. But in prison there’s the “convict code”. You do what you have to do in order to survive. So, welcome to the world of “you’ve got no choice”.

Of course for most of us there’s no telling how accurately this depicts a prison existence. This one being Chino in California. We can easily imagine how it might unfold in this manner. But we don’t really know how likely it is.

And then the part about gangs. And all gangs are is an existential contraption that provide a set of rules [and a hierarchy] that you can anchor “I” to. You become “one of us”. And then it all begins to revolve around dealing with the folks who are “one of them”. And here race is almost always the bottom line.

This is a bleak portrait of just how far things can go in our nihilistic postmodern world. Still, while these folks will be object lessons for some and they will be role models for others.

Look for Jamie and Ghost.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shot_Caller_(film
trailer: youtu.be/QQxjyRr9k2E

SHOT CALLER [2017]
Written and directed by Ric Roman Waugh

Katherine: Honey, the light!!

And then, just like that, everything changes.

[b]Kutcher: You ready to catch some cockroaches?
Detective: Yeah. Bring it.
Kutcher: According to our CI, the Beast is doing an arms deal with this Southern Mexican in the next 48 hours. He’s ordered this guy, Jacob harlon, goes by the street name of Money, to handle things. Harlon hit the streets yesterday.
Detective: This Harlon validated?
Kutcher: No, but our CI says he’s a sleeper.
Detective: The beast? That dude’s been running Cali for the last 15 years… All from the fucking hole, too.

Detective: So, what’s the plan?
Kutcher: Harlon faces strike three. We nail that fucker, get him to flip on the Beast. Simple. Whole power structure comes tumbling down.

Katherine: Okay, so they accepted the house as collateral. So I can bail you out, get you outta there. Okay? What? Did something happen? What?
Jacob: I know this is gonna be hard to take but Steve got them to accept a deal. If I plead no-contest, they’ll agree to two years…
Katherine: No! No, we’re fighting this.
Jacob: If we do, I’m facing seven years.
Katherine: If we win this, you face none.
Jacob: Kate…Honey, I blew a point 0.10. I ran the red. I killed Tom.
Kate: It was an accident. It was an accident.
Jacob: I know.
Kate: I don’t care what Steve says. People don’t go away for accidents!
Jacob: Jennifer and Tina will never see Tom again. I’m responsible. Sixteen months, it’s nothing compared to what they’re going through.[/b]

So, what constitutes justice here?

[b]Jacob: Can’t wait for this cheese steak.
Howie: Used to come here a lot?
Jacob: It’s a short walk from my office.
Howie: Sorry, but I just can’t picture you in a suit. All Gordon Gekko and shit.

Steve: [on a prison phone to Jacob]: Look, man, I know you’re scared. All right? I would be scared. But you need to know this—all violent crimes, from domestic battery to capital murder, get housed together. It means you’ll be with the big boys. And they will test you, whether you like it or not. So you gotta stand up for yourself…because once you’re marked in there it will never end.

White prisoner [to Jacob]: You gonna roll with us or not?

Prison guard [to Jacob in the hole]: You throw any piss or shit I’ll leave you in here for the whole 30, no rec. Leave your dirties by the door.

Bottles: I’m Bottles.
Jacob: Jacob.
Bottles: Yeah, the stock broker from Pasadena. When you come to yard, chow, you take a shit, whatever…you stick to your own race. Why did you fight that Toad?
Jacob: He challenged me first.
Bottles: You gonna go around kicking it off with every buster that calls you out?
Jacob: I’m not looking for trouble, no. But I’m not taking any shit either.

Bottles: The only thing we got in here is our respect. The question is, what you gonna do when you’re out here slumming it with the rest of us? Cause the safety of these numbers comes with a price. There are no free rides here. Everyone puts in work, whether cliqued up or not.
Jacob: I understand.
Bottles: I’m not talking about helping us with our computer skills. You’ll get your fucking hands dirty like the rest of us. Or you can go back to seeing how that lone wolf bullshit works out for you, money man.

Jacob [sliding an envelope across the table in a restaurant]: This is for you. They’re signature cards to your new checking. Have them notarized, then get them back to me. There’s 178 grand in there.
Katherine: I don’t know how you got that money, and I don’t care. You need to keep that. I’m not taking it.
Jacob: No, it’s yours now.
Katherine: I’m not taking your gang money!
Jacob: Just keep it down.
Katherine: Don’t tell me what to do. You don’t get to do that. I don’t hear from you for seven years. Nothing! I mean, how do you even now where I live?

Prisoner: There’s gonna be a balloon in your canteen. You’re responsible for it.
Jacob: What do I do with it?
Ptrisoner: Take it to yard tomorrow.
Jacob: How?
Prisoner: In your fucking ass, man. Make sure you lube-up, too. You don’t want this shit breaking off inside you.

Bottles [to Jacob on the yard]: I know you’re shitting bricks right about now. Trying to rationalize the morality. What will your family think of you? How will they judge you? All of that went through my head, too, when I first broke my cherry. And then I realized none of that matters. The only thing that matters is you getting home to your family in one piece…The fact is we all started out as someone’s little angel. And a place like this forces us to become warriors or victims. Nothing in between can exist here.

Jacob: Some things just don’t go back together again. They just don’t. You, your mom, are on your own trajectory now. I’m on another one.
Joshua: What, just wasting the rest of your life, dad?
Jacob: It doesn’t matter what I do! Your job is to take care of yourself and your mom.
Joshua: Look, I get why you pushed us away. It was to protect us. But, dad, you’ve done your time now. It’s over. Let us help you get back on your feet. Please.
Jacob: You wanna help me?
Joshua: Yeah, I do.
Jacob: Then stay away.

Bottles [to Jacob on the yard]: Iron up.

Judge: Mr. Harlon, with this court finding you guilty of assault by a prisoner with a deadly weapon I’m sentencing you to the middle term of four years. In addition, having been found guilty of committing this crime in association and for the benefit of a gang, I’m sentencing you to an additional five years to run consecutively. Penal code 667.5 requires that you serve a minimum of 85 percent of these terms. Both will run concurrently with your initial sentence.
Jacob [to Katherine]: It’s over. Forget I exist.

Prison official: You’ll be locked down 23/7 in the security housing unit with one hour yard time. Three showers a week. You will not be allowed in the same open area as any other inmate, outside your cellie. And there will be no warning shots. You cliqued up with anyone?
Jacob: No.
Prison official: Why participate in the riot?
Jacob: You know why. You got your rules and we got the gang’s rules. And theirs matter.

Ripper: Redwood, this is Money.
Redwood: Heard how you got down at Chino. So did the Beast.
Jacob: Appreciate it. He still in the hole?
Redwood: Four hundred yards to my six. Less nine years.
Jacob: Little different than the mainline?
Redwood: You could say that. Make no mistake, brother, they design places like this to break men like us.

Kutcher: You know, I can’t put my finger on it, Manny, but there’s more to this harlon guy.
Manny: What you mean, like a power play?
Kutcher: Phil says his wife and his kid show up to his motel, slams the door in their face. I mean, you talking about a guy with a perfect life, all right? A fucking envious life. He’s got not one prior. Can’t even fucking spell the word gangster, man. He gets fucked up on a dui manslaughter, kills his friend. Yeah, a dime will change you for sure, but a guy like that gets out, throws everything away? No.
Manny: Look, all I know is, once a dude gets institutionalized, anything is possible, man.

The Beast: Know who I am?
Jacob: Yes.
The Beast: They sent Redwood to death row after what happened. It took him four months to finally get that screw. Fuck 'em. These cops…they need to understand that we run the show. Some get it. Like Roberts. But the rest think the more they lock us down and isolate us it strips us of our power. They even think we closed the books. We’re a dying breed. They’re dead fucking wrong. We’re just real selective…Who we choose to call our brother. So the question is…are you ready?
Jacob: Yes.
The Beast: What I wanted to here.

Beast [on cell phone]: You know shotgun? He just sent word to me about a heavy shipment of guns a youngster smuggled back from Afghanistan. He wants permission to go to Herman Gomez to offload them for a million five to their cartel connections. And he’s out, too. Just like you’ll be in 30 days. I’ll get word to Herman you’re handling the deal for us. And fuck our usual cut. Shotgun just bought himself a full partner on this.
Jacob: I’ll be on parole though.
The Beast: The fuck’s that got to do with anything? Well, 10 years you think the fucking honor of being one of us ends at the gates? It ends when you’re six feet under. Until then, you will keep earning for your brothers. I understand that before you say another fucking word think of your family in this decision.
Jacob: Excuse me?
The Beast: Did I stutter?

Jacob: How many guns did you tell shotgun you had total?
Howie: Same as I told you!
Jacob: You lie to me again, I’ll blow your fucking head off! How many?
Howie: Two. Two thousand AKs. Shotgun, right before I met you, Shotgun said that if I said anything about the extra guns, he’d green-light me, Money. You gotta believe me.
Jacob: Where are they?
Howie: Shotgun’s dead, isn’t he?

Jacob: I already pleaded guilty to the guns. Let me do my time like a man.
Kutcher: You see, that’s what I don’t get. I’ve been around long enough to know when a con’s making moves simply to survive or when it’s that rare breed that relishes in the power. But that’s not you. Not by a long shot. Why you throwing your whole life away? Look, I don’t know what they’re holding over you but I can offer you something better. Something real. No bluffs, no bs. You give me the Beast and everyone involved and you walk. I mean it. No protective custody, no reduced sentence. Out.

The Beast: I gave you a gift…and you spit in my face. How does it feel to be the walking dead?
Jacob: No different than the last 10 years.
The Beast: We’ll see about that when your old lady and kid are lying in blood and you get to live with knowing you’re the cause.

The Beast: You knew they’d put you back here. That’s why you led the cops to the bust…to get to me. Well played. Let’s get down, wood.

Jacob: We’re gonna get a few things straight here. I’m already doing life without so I could give a shit about additional time. But I’m not sitting on death row waiting to be put down like some animal. So you write it up that he attacked me with the blade first. In return, your arrangement with us stands…including the monthly deposits into your account. Reason I can guarantee these terms is I’m running the show now. Say it.
Corrupt prison guard: You’re running the show.

Kutcher [after Jabob leads him to the last of the AKs]: You gotta be shitting me. I still don’t get this guy. But I fucking like him.

Joshua [in a letter to Jacob]: “Mom told me you’ve gotten life without parole now. I don’t think I’ll ever understand why any of this has happened but I wanted you to know that I’ve accepted reality which is why I will do what you’ve asked me in your letter. I’m moving on with my life, dad. I will learn from your mistakes and I will always be mom’s protector. But most importantly I want you to know that I’ve forgiven you. Your son, Josh.”[/b]

Shakespeare? Nope. It has nothing to do with that Lady MacBeth. On the other hand, the relationships between men and women down through the ages will always revolve around certain commonalities. So, sure, look for them.

Clearly, the manner in which we discuss and debate gender roles in the post-modern world today may or may not, in turn, have much in common with the manner in which they were construed [and then pursued] back in, say, 19th century rural England.

Yes, there are still folks who insist we can brush aside all of the conflicted historical and cultural narratives and get to the one and the only truly correct manner in which rational men and women are obligated to behave.

Of course back then there was as well a particular emphasis placed on class. The lady of the manor was just not permitted to engage “the help” other than by way of ordering them about in the task of sustaining her privileged lifestyle.

And it was unthinkable that a “proper” young lady would concern herself with sex in such a way that it did not revolve entirely around doing her duty in order that heirs could be propagated in order to pass this privileged lifestyle on to the next generation of the high and the mighty.

In other words, this is a subject that has been explored [over and over and over again] in any number of films.

But then this part:

“The interesting thing is how Katherine evolves from victim to culprit. She seems to have learned from her husband how to use and misuse power. The lack of social conscience of which she at first is a victim, becomes a driving force for her own behaviour. Her selfishness and lack of morality is so extreme that, in the end, she betrays innocent servants.” IMDb review.

Yes, she is somewhat of a sociopath. A “disease” as Sebastian puts it.

Then consider the plight of poor Anna. Born a woman. Born black. And then bred to be just one more obsequious servant. And mute too.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Macbeth_(film
trailer: youtu.be/2Z0N8ULhuUA

LADY MACBETH [2016]
Directed by William Oldroyd

Alexander: You ought to keep to the house.
Katherine: But I don’t mind the fresh air.
Alexander: You’ll be more comfortable in the house.
Katherine: I like the fresh air. I like being outside…
Alexander [abruptly]: Take it off. Your nightdress, take it off.

She does…standing naked in the bedroom. But you won’t believe what happens next. At least I didn’t.

[b]Boris: You will wait up for your husband.
Katherine: I am perhaps a little overtired, sir.
Boris: You will wait up, Katherine.
Katherine: I will try, sir.
Boris [to Anna]: Sit with Mrs Lester, see that she doesn’t fall asleep.

Alexander: Stop smiling. Take your nightdress off. Face the wall.
[he unbottons his pants]
Alexander: Face the wall!
(He masturbates]

Boris [to Katherine]: I leave for London this morning. You’ll be on your own for a while. Perhaps you will find that your energy is restored after a little of your own company, and when your husband returns you can resume your duties with more rigour, madam.

Katherine: Anna?
Anna: Ma’am, if I can explain…
Katherine: What was his name? The one that called you a pig, what was his name?
Anna: Sebastian, ma’am.
Katherine: Is he new?
Anna: Yes, ma’am. He’s the new groomsman.

Sebastian: Aren’t you bored, Katherine?
Katherine: You can’t call me that. Get out. Get out!

Father Peter: You must be anticipating the return of your father-in-law, Mrs Lester. And your husband.
Katherine: I must.
Father Peter: It is not good to be without company for too long. The decline in your health…
Katherine: My health?
Father Peter: Your absence from church, madam. No doubt brought on by their absence.
Katherine: No doubt.
Father Peter: Perhaps a little more time spent indoors, Mrs Lester. I understand you’ve been taking the air. Perhaps a little more solitude and reflection will do.

Anna: Mr Lester wouldn’t be happy if he knew what was happening in his absence.
Sebastian: And what’s been happening in his absence, Anna?
Anna: The dogs, sir.
Sebastian: Thank you, Anna. I’ll look into that.

Boris: Do you not think it necessary to keep an account of what happens to my property in this household? All my property. Am I to assume you drank it?
Anna: No, sir.
Boris: And yet you can offer no other explanation.
Anna: No, sir. Get down.
Anna: Sir?
Boris: On your hands and knees. You behave like an animal, and I’ll treat you like an animal.
[Katerine who drank it all with Sebastian sits there and says nothing]

Boris: You are entirely without shame.
Katherine: I have nothing to be ashamed of.
Boris: Do you have any idea of the damage that you’re capable of bringing upon this family? You have failed miserably in all of your marital duties, more specifically, to provide your husband with a legitimate heir.
Katherine: Where is your son? Where is he? He has made that impossible.

Katherine [to Anna]: Run to the village for a doctor.

Katherine [to Sebastian lying on top of her]: He’ll not return for the funeral. He said as much. He won’t come back. He hated his father. He hates me. Perhaps he just won’t come back.

Katherine: She won’t speak. She’s mute.
Sebastian: What if it comes back?
Katherine: It won’t.

Alexander: So…you have become a whore in my absence, Katherine. You think me to be stupid, perhaps. But perhaps you had no idea that your whoring had been noticed. You seem surprised. And surprised that the news of you opening your legs and your cunt for any worthless dog should have reached my ears, but then you opened your legs so very wide, Katherine. And you’ve acted so very shamelessly and so very stupidly. And you’ve begun to smell, Katherine. You’ve gotten so fat and foul-smelling, it was inevitable that the whole county would hear of your behaviour. My father bought you, along with a piece of land not fit enough for a cow to graze upon. I do not like being talked about, madam. I do not like being laughed at. I do not like owning a whore. You will alter your behaviour, madam.
Katherine: And how will I alter my behaviour, sir?
Alexander: You will never see that man again. He will be sent from this house and you will remain here, indoors with your prayer book.[/b]

And then out of the blue: Agnes and Teddy

[b]Katherine: She has papers.
Sebastian: She’s forged them, then. You don’t think that every man and woman in the county with half a brain and an empty pocket isn’t coming up with a similar scheme?
Katherine: She has legitimate papers.
Sebastian: I thought you said he couldn’t fuck you.
Katherine: He couldn’t.
Sebastian: Or wouldn’t.

Sebastian: Get off me.
Katherine: I need to talk to you.
Sebastian: Go back to your house and your little master.
Katherine: Please come inside.
Sebastian: I can’t…If I come inside, then we’re found out. And if we’re found out, then I’ll hang. While that boy’s here, I’m out here. That’s the end of it. Get out!

Maid: Ma’am.
Katherine: What is it?
Maid: I’m sorry, ma’am, but it’s the boy. We can’t find him anywhere.

Agnes: Who are you? How dare you walk into this house and give orders? Get out.
Sebastian: I saved him!
Agnes: Get out!

Sebastian: I will not stay here and be humiliated for the sake of that boy. I will not!
Katherine: Tell me what to do. I will do anything.
Sebastian: It’s too late.
Katherine: What? What do you mean?
Sebastian: I stood in front of him, Katherine. At that waterfall, that…perfect drop. One step behind him. And I…It’s too late.
Katherine: It doesn’t have to be. It doesn’t have to be if you trust me.

Katherine [to Sebastian after smothering Teddy]: It is done.

Doctor: Could you have been asleep longer than you thought? Might someone have taken the opportunity to come in? There were bruises…
Katherine: From the waterfall.
Doctor: They weren’t there before.

Sebastian: We killed the boy.
Detective: I beg your pardon, sir. Who are you?
Sebastian: She killed him. She held a pillow over his face and I held his legs. She killed Alexander Lester. She killed Boris Lester, poisoned him with mushrooms and let him die. She killed that boy. She killed that boy so that we could be together. And I thought I loved her. She suffocated me. She suffocated me and she hounded me. And then she never let me be. She’s a disease.

Detective: Mrs. Lester?
Katherine: He’s lying. Anna…He and Anna did it. For whatever reason of their own.
Sebastian: You bitch. You bitch!
Katherine: Everyone knows that she picks the mushrooms and he follows her to the woods every morning. Perhaps they were found out and threatened with separation. My father-in-law beat him within an inch of his life the day before he died. And that boy…That boy was like a child to me. Anna will say if otherwise. I did nothing.[/b]

Cue Anna…still utterly speechless.

Consider…

Unless you believe in a God that judges you worthy of immortality and salvation, you’ve got only limited options in dealing with the oblivion that seems to be an inherent component of death.

Of course if you’ve got the money, the possibilities increase. For example there’s this option: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryonics

And who hasn’t imagined what it might be like if someone were to have this done, be reanimated off in the distant future, and make the necessary adjustments to a whole new life in a whole new world. What might that be like? How much of who you once were would be in sync with all of the changes that have unfolded over years. And, in this case, the year is 2084.

One of those films that is bursting at the seams with all manner of provocative conjecture. What if this, what if that. A whole new world in which to speculate about right and wrong, good and bad.

Love and lust.

What would you think, feel, do? After all, do you really imagine it will be the same reaction as Marc’s?

Then it all revolves around whether the plot and the characters either enhance the experience for you or encumber it with the sort of miscues that prompt you to imagine how much better it could have been. And the general consensus among the critics is that it could have been better indeed. For example, by scaling back on all those [at times] god-awful flashbacks.

Still, the subject itself is no less fascinating.

As for the science on display here, how realistic is it? You tell me.

IMDb

[b]Oona Chaplin, who plays the character of Naomi, is the granddaughter of legendary actor Charles Chaplin.

The urban legend suggesting Walt Disney was cryopreserved is false; he was cremated and interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realive
trailer: youtu.be/Z9-xnelobwo

REALIVE [2016]
Written and directed by Mateo Gil

[b]Marc [voiceover]: Imagine, you were born… totally aware and conscious of everything around you. Conscious you were coming out of someone else’s body, joint to it by a bloody cord. That you are completely covered in blood. Conscious of the dry air entering your lungs for the first time; the sharp sounds in your ears; the blinding light in your eyes. Conscious that your bones are unbearably soft and your life is so fragile, it could disappear at any moment. That’s what being resurrected is like.

Victor: Good morning, Miss Mansfra. Welcome to Prodigy. Where humanity’s greatest dream is coming true. Are you aware that our team of top international scientists has developed the world’s most advanced regeneration program? We’re the only ones capable of regenerating up to 65 percent of the human organism. Prodigy Health Corporation… The only company in the world that can bring you immortality. Because immortality is only a question of time.

Victor: That’s a scanned map of Lazarus with an accuracy almost to the cell. We use it to study the primary difficulties and to make decisions before the big surgery. Like what proportion of the body can be reanimated and what proportion must be substituted by bionic parts and organs developed in our laboratory.

Marc [voiceover]: Why does time pass so slowly when we’re children? Why does the future seem like a huge endless eternity? Why do we never feel anything that intensely again? Only the pain…

Doctor: Our worst-case prognosis has been confirmed. It’s too late to operate. All that we can do right now is try to slow its spread with treatment. At this point, radiotherapy and co-adjuvant chemotherapy is still the most effective option.
Marc: How long have I got?
Doctor: Based on our experience with this type of tumor, you’ll be able to live, more or less comfortably for about a year.[/b]

Cue the options.

[b]Marc [vocieover]: You can’t imagine all the things that need to be done to dismantle your life. And prepare everything for when you are gone…Telling the people you love. Deciding who not to tell. Managing all the concern you will awaken. Telling your mother. Explaining to her that she’s going to outlive you. Writing your will. Selling your properties. Emptying the house of your personal belongings. Looking at them for the last time. When you get rid of everything you ever were…what’s left?

Naomi [to Marc]: I want to be with you through this. I want to spend the rest of your life with you.

Marc: What do you guys think about cryonization?
Friend: Like Walt Disney, right?
Marc: Walt Disney didn’t have himself cryonized, but yes.
Friend: So what is it?
Friend: Basically, after you die, your body gets put into a capsule with um, liquid nitrogen? Am I right? In hopes that someday, medicine might be able to cure whatever disease you have or just to live longer.

Marc: Let me show you something…this article is seven years old now. They extracted the heart matrix out of a dead rat and inject its stem cells into it. A few days later, the heart started beating. And this is just the beginning. I mean, since then, they’ve even managed to fabricate simple human organs. They’ve even transplanted some of them successfully. There’s a revolution coming. At some point in the not-so-distant future, they’ll be able to manufacture organs specifically created to suit each patient. I mean, imagine, I could just simply replace my pharynx with a new one.

Charles: Look man, the truth is, I still don’t trust it. All the websites I’ve seen look like they belong to a cult or something. There’s no guarantee. Did you know that in 1979, they found the bodies of nine people that have been cryonized? In a cemetery, here in California, thawed, 'cause the company was cutting costs.

Naomi [to Marc]: Why do you think that anybody from the future would want to bring you back to life? Or anybody else for that matter? The world is gonna be totally overpopulated. You’ll be like a man from the 19th century. I mean, what’s the point of that? Unless they wanna use you as guinea pigs for science.[/b]

Then this part:

Charles: Everywhere I look, they say the body needs to be cryonized as soon as possible after you’re declared legally dead.
Marc: So your cells don’t deteriorate.
Charles: But no matter what they did, it would take several hours. Even a day or more to complete the process. The damage will be huge. Not to mention the harm caused by the disease and the treatment before you die.
Martc: Yeah. I’m not doing any more chemo. I already saw my father spend years of his life fighting his disease. Dying little by little. I won’t go through that. And as far as the time between death and cryonization…well, I have a plan to make sure that they get to me quickly and start pumping blood right away.
Charles: How… How will you do that? I mean you would have to know the exact circumstances of your death.
Marc: Yeah. Um, I’m gonna make sure they’re waiting close by and that I’m in good physical shape when the time comes. I gotta die before the disease gets a hold of me.

Bingo: Suicide. That’s the bet. Abandon the present for what may or may not be a future.

[b]Marc [voiceover]: Ladies and gentlemen of the future, it’s time to introduce myself. I’ll use the same words as Dr. West. My name is Marc Jarvis, And I am the first man ever to be resurrected. To summarize, this is what I am. 20 percent remains of vital organs and tissue recovered from my old body. Mainly the brain and the rest of the central nervous system. 65 percent cloned bones muscle, skin, nerve endings, and other organ remains. 10 percent bionic implants to reinforce the muscular, skeletal system and sensory organs. And 5 percent internal technology designed to regulate and monitor the correct functioning of the organism. On top of that, add a system of external connection. A detachable umbilical cord. A nearly constant means of connecting me to my new mechanical mother. Dr. West and his team have had to face innumerable problems since my reanimation. and their respective solutions have been insufferable. More surgery. Organ removal. Induced coma. External control of vital signs. The administering of drugs to prevent adverse reaction. More drugs to ease the effects of those drugs. And so on, and so on, and so on. All this resulting in a terribly fragile organism. Permanently on the edge of collapse. The Laboratory Man. Frankenstein’s monster…But there is another way to look at it. I was going to die. I was going to disappear. Forever. And I’m alive again. I’m alive. I’m alive.

Dr. Gethers: Actually, Marc, there is something you’ve never seen before. Technology’s biggest revolution since computers. We call it MW or Mind Writer. If you connect it to your head, it can extract images and sounds. With concentration and practice, you can record your thoughts. Nowadays, MW is used for everything. This is where the information is recorded. Then later, it is used to substantiate anything that has occurred, or to present reports and projects. Or to simply share experiences and connect with people. Or see what they’re doing behind your back. It’s also used to create art. You were an artist, weren’t you?
Marc: Yes.
Doctor Gethers: Apart from anything else, it would help us to get to know you better. And not only us, very soon, many people will want to know first-hand, how you feel. We want you to have something ready when we present you to society to the media and to our investors.
Marc: The media?
Doctor Gethers: A lot of people have paid good money for your resurrection. It’s important that the world meets you, Marc.[/b]

Of course: the ulterior motives of the reanimaters.

[b]Marc: You got a boyfriend?
Elizabeth: I think our notion of couples is not as defined as it was back in your time.
Marc: What do you mean?
Elizabeth: Well, let’s just say that romantic love has come under a lot more scrutiny. You were truly slaves to it back then. We don’t suppress much of our love anymore.
Marc: So what do you do in your spare time?
Elizabeth: Um, well, since I started working here, not very much, um I’m a big fan of Mind Writer, almost an addict. I watch series, I have dinner with my parents. I meet with my sex group.
Marc: Sex group?
Elizabeth: I’m lucky, it’s very complete. And I’ve got good friends there. I like you. If you want, we can have sex some time. Well, later on, of course. When your body feels strong enough.

Marc [voiceover]: Life. What do we expect from it? Certainly not this fragility. This half speed existence. We definitely don’t expect a medical history full of afflictions and minor defects. A propensity for thrombosis. Numbness in the extremities. Involuntary movements. Loss of equilibrium. Scaling of the skin. Irritation of conjunctive tissue. Respiratory insufficiency. Cardiac insufficiency. Incontinence. Impotence. You don’t expect so many limitations so soon. You never expect this invincible fatigue which eventually becomes like a fog. Covering everything…And if deterioration, fatigue and despair do arrive, you at least expect to keep your memories. What if What if your memories were erased as well? What will become of me now that my memories are fading?

Dr. Serra: I don’t mean to trivialize this, Marc, but nowadays, memory loss is not considered a serious problem. Mind Writer allows us to recover memory with a 100 percent accuracy. In fact, millions of people all over the world lead completely normal lives without actually remembering anything.

Dr. West: Don’t you realize the importance of our achievement? It’s a giant step in the history of medicine. You’re that giant step, Marc. You’d better prepare yourself. You’re gonna be the most famous person on the planet.

Marc [voiceover]: I don’t know if any of you, maybe some of the oldest, have seen any films about Jesus Christ. I remember being struck once by Lazarus’ attitude in the first moments after he was revived by the Messiah. He looked deeply confused. Like he knew he was morally corrupt. As if he hated Jesus for bringing him back to life.

Dr. West: A large part of the success of your reanimation was due to the fact that you interrupted your life while still in very good physical shape. That’s why you were selected.
[he motions towards a room filled with tanks]
Dr. West: There they are. You spent a while here too, you know.
Marc: What will happen to them?
Dr. West: Well, it’s hard to say. Apart from the medical risks involved in each individual case, the time and resources required for reanimation are still quite high. Consider that we’d have to create organs and specific technology for each one of them. Like we did with you. And an enormous team of humans would have to be mobilized.
Marc: Then most of these people will never be reanimated?
Dr. West: Reviving cryonized people are so expensive at the moment that someone would have to have a special interest in them. And be willing to pay for it.[/b]

No getting around that. No matter how far into the future.

[b]Marc [voiceover]: What was it? Where did it come from? The need to constantly be seeking some unknown source of fulfillment. The hunger for experiences in life that always made me wanna be everywhere except where I actually was. Life seemed like it was always just around the corner. Or in some brief moment passed that only remained in memory. Never here. Never now. It was a promise always perceived intuitively.

Elizabeth: What about being straight with him? It might help him. You know, let’s explain to him that his neurons aren’t dying and his memories aren’t being erased for no reason. That we do know the cause. Let’s explain to him that he’s boycotting himself.
Dr. Serra: Elizabeth, even if Marc were able to understand, he wouldn’t be prepared to take control. And the process might even accelerate if you attempted to throw in the towel and give up altogether. That’s not the real issue here. Marc’s decision is what matters. He isn’t here by chance. He chose to stop living so he could have another life. Well, he certainly feels very guilty about Naomi. No wonder. He sacrificed a remarkable woman for an inadequate dream. Marc is an adult who made his own decisions and has to live with the consequences.

Elizabeth [to Marc]: The bosses gave me permission. We can have sex now. But softly. This pill is so you can maintain erection. And this is a desire stimulant. One for each of us. Everybody uses them. I always take them. They increase desire quickly and without side effects.

Marc [voiceover]: Before I died, I thought there was nothing after death. Now, I’m sure…Why do we yearn so desperately for life after death? What is it that we want? Perhaps reward for our grief. Or punishment for our sins. No. What we really expect to find is what we already know. What we once had…and lost. If there was something we would turn it into more of the same. The same chaos and the same beauty. The same reward for the same effort. The same tale by the same idiot.

Dr. West [to a gathering of potential donors]: Don’t worry, we won’t be asking you to take out your wallets. You’ll gladly hand them to us. Because the future of medicine is in our hands. Because immortality… is only a question of time.

Dr. West: Listen, not a single day goes by, not a single moment that I don’t remember those people. I recite their names to myself every morning. At first, I was so tortured by each failed reanimation, that it made me wanna quit the project. I’d prepared my resignation over and over again. But at the same time, each failed attempt brought us closer to our goal. Every time, it made more and more sense to try again. Did you think reanimating you would be the result of some miracle? The suffering of those people became a living hell for me. I couldn’t sleep anymore. I lost my family when they found out about it. But that was the risk I had to take to get as far as we have. To bring you back to life, Marc.

Dr. West: I have done everything I can to treat you and ease your pain, Marc. I can’t give you a better life than the one I already have. And you know what? Maybe that’s the part you can’t take. That the life I gave you isn’t the one you were expecting. You wanted paradise for a few thousand dollars, and I only gave you the life you already have, with all its defects and all its limitations.

Marc [voiceover]: Can a man be alive only in his mind? Live only based on memories?

Marc [voiceover]: Could I live in the past, going over and over it with Mind Writer, filling it in, polishing it, making things up, until it reaches perfection? I don’t know. There’s only one thing I can see clearly now. Life is nothing more than a state of matter, like a gas or a liquid, a form of molecular organization, and there’s nothing transcendent or divine about it. Its only objective is to perpetuate itself through motion, change, adaptation. Life isn’t worried about any species, much less any individual. We’re nothing more than the chunks of mud it uses as a vehicle. Life is what’s scary, not death. That it’s always on the verge of extinction. That it exists wherever it shouldn’t. And the soul, you may ask. What about the soul? Well, maybe the soul is the bit that gets lost when you freeze the meat and then thawed out again.

Marc: All I need is the name of the product and the necessary dosage.
Elizabeth: My job is to assist you in life, not to help you end it.

Marc [after drinking the poison]: Remember. Two calls. Yes. First the cyronics lab and one to 911. And cardiac…cardiac massage. Gently.
Naomi: Right.
Marc: Don’t wake me up again.

Marc [voiceover]: Poor Dr. West. Lazarus wants to return to obscurity. He was right. Just like I wasn’t ready to die, I wasn’t ready to live like this, either. Like most people from my time, I can’t accept anything less than the young, free and sensual world of the advertising Olympus I’d grown accustomed to. The frozen shop window existence. A heaven for skeptics. Therefore, ladies and gentlemen of the future… I hope this will help to clarify my final wish To be nothing again. To disappear. To finally rest in peace. Although, I have a suspicion. It’s possible that you might never see this recording. It’s possible that Prodigy Health Corporation, after investing so much into Project Lazarus, after putting so much time into me, might not permit this failure…[/b]

It’s a comedy, but one packed with just enough “social references” to make it a clear reflection on how bizarre and fucked up our post-modern hashtag world can be.

At least from the perspective of an “unhinged stalker”. And while Igby goes down to find this all out, Ingrid goes west.

Among other things, we discover what it means to be “Instagram-famous” in a world where pop culture, mass consumption and celebrities are now the new Gods. Think Frank Zappa’s “plastic people” on steroids.

Social media it’s called. Loved by some, loathed by others, it’s everywhere. Indeed, it might even be argued [by me for example] that any number of folks right here are hell-bent on turning ILP into just another rendition of it. Philosophy for the chattering masses. A gab fest for folks who [apparently] have nothing better to do.

It really does come down though to how seriously you take it. Some will completely ignore it of course while others will argue that to the extent we do ignore it, it just grows and grows and grows. And that this will certainly come to have ominous political implications. In Trumpworld, for instance.

Which is all basically ignored here. Well, unless you read between the lines.

IMDb

Bill Murray is listed in the Very Special Thanks section of the credits. In the commentary, Aubrey Plaza says that while she and Murray were filming A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III, he gave her his dark blue sweater when she became ill. She wears it in the bank scene and the tropical restaurant scene.

wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingrid_Goes_West
trailer: youtu.be/xP4vD1tWbPU

INGRID GOES WEST [2017]
Written in part and directed by Matt Spicer

[b]Charlotte [voiceover]: Is this real? Hashtag no filter. The couple that yogas together, stays together. Prayer hands emoji. A perfect day for a perfect wedding. Hashtag perfect so glad I married this weirdo. Fluttering heart emoji. Getting the band back together. Hashtag all the line. Yup! That’s how we roll. Princess emoji. And the festivities begin. Twin hearts emoji. Fairy tale wedding. Hashtag about last night. Happy to be sharing this day with all my favorite humans. Hashtag blessed. The couple that yogas together stays together. A perfect day for a perfect wedding. Princess emoji. Yup! That’s how we roll. All my favorite humans. Hashtag blessed. Hashtag all the line. Hashtag about last night. Hashtag perfect. Fairy tale wedding. Hashtag blessed.

Ingrid [in a mental institution]: “Dear Charlotte, I want you to know how sorry I am about what happened. I think having this time apart has been really good for me. I’m learning how to be present… How to live in the moment…”

Ingrid: Do you take cash?
Dan: Are you an escort or something?
Ingrid: No.
Dan [looking into her bag filled with money]: Fuck! Are you a drug dealer?
Ingrid: No.
Dan: Okay, for real what you do? You got a backpack full of money. Suspicious.
Ingrid: Yeah, if you really wanna know, my mom just died and left me a bunch of money.

Waiter: What’s your biggest emotional wound?
Ingrid: What?
Waiter [pointing to a sing on the wall]: It’s our question of the day.
Ingrid: Oh.
Waiter: Mine’s actually my relationship with my dad.
Ingrid: I’m good, thanks.

Ezra: Maybe, you’re confusing her with one of your insta-fans.
Taylor: He’s just giving me shit because I happen to engage with people on social media like the rest of the known universe, and my husband has a chronic case of technophobia. He still uses a flip phone.
Ingrid: No!
Taylor: Yeah.
Exra: Stop. Stop. I just prefer to keep certain parts of my life, private. That’s it. That’s all.

Indrid [to Ezra]: Do you take cash?

Ingrid: Dan’s gonna kill me.
Taylor: Okay, you need to relax, it’s just a scratch. And I bet he won’t even notice it.[/b]

Cut to the “scratch”.

[b]Taylor: I’m sorry, I’m like, talking at you. You probably think I’m awful.
Ingrid: No. You’re perfect.
Taylor: Yeah, perfectly fucked up.
Ingrid: No. You are, by far the coolest, most interesting person I’ve ever met. I’m serious.

Dan: Is there anything else I need to know about Ingrid?
Ingrid: We might have done all of the cocaine that we found in the…

Ingrid: Can we please just start over and pretend it never happened?
Dan: Like a reboot?
Ingrid: Okay! Yes. Like a reboot.

Ingrid: Why do you like Batman so much?
Dan: What’s not to like about Batman?
Ingrid: I’m sorry, it’s just, i don’t understand. He’s just another superhero like spiderman or superman.
Dan: That’s where you are wrong. Batman is the world’s greatest detective. Nothing radioactive bit him. He’s not from another planet. He’s just like you or I. All Batman’s powers come from within him. He had enough will and enough focus to make himself greater than what he was.

Ingrid: Fuck me, Bruce. Fuck me, Bruce.
Dan: Tell me Gotham needs me.
Ingrid: Gotham needs you. Now.

Ingrid: Also, no Batman talk.
Dan What am I supposed to talk about? I don’t know these people.
Ingrid: Something cool, like food or clothes or Joan Didion.

Nicky: My sister says you’re obsessed with Batman.
Dan [awkwardly]: Yea-- yeah.
Nicky: Wow, get the fuck out! Oh, god, why didn’t you tell me? I fucking love Batman!!

Ingrid: You okay?
Ezra: I’m not an artist. I’m a fucking charlatan.
Ingrid: No, you’re not. Your paintings are awesome.
Ezra: You’re my only sale.
Ingrid: But Taylor said they were really popular.
Ezra: She would say that, wouldn’t she? Yeah. Everything’s the best, with her. “Have you been to this new restaurant? It’s the best!” “Have you tried these… These new clothes are the best!” “It’s the best! It’s the best! It’s the best!” It’s not the fucking best. It’s fucking exhausting.
Ingrid: You know what, I actually kind of know what you mean. When we were in Joshua tree, she told me this secret, and she told me not to tell anyone. But I walked in on her telling Harley the same, exact thing earlier.
Ezra: What secret?

Ingrid: Taylor has a plan to buy the house next door to you guys, and turn it into some hotel slash store. And she wants to call it “desert door.”
Ezra: Desert-- desert door?
Ingrid: Yeah. It’s a reference to her favorite book, you know, The Deer Park.
Ezra: The Deer Park is my favorite book. Taylor’s never even read it.

Nicky: You’re fucked. I’m gonna make a deal with you. I’m not gonna give you your phone back. But I’m willing to rent it out to you. For a very small fee.
Infrid: How much?
Nicky: Five thousand a month.

Ingrid ]to some kids in a parking lot]: Excuse me.
Kid: Yeah?
Ingrid: I’ll give one of you 200 bucks if you punch me in the face. I’m serious.

Taylor [on the phone to Ingrid]: Um, this is gonna sound weird, but have you heard from Nicky at all?

Ezra [on the phone]: Nicky told us everything about the phone, the kidnapping. If he hadn’t tried to blackmail you, you’d be in jail right now. You understand?
Ingrid: Ezra, wait.
Ezra: Don’t call here again.

Taylor [phone voice]: Hey. You’ve reached Taylor. Leave a message.
Ingrid: Hey, it’s me, again. Remember me, Ingrid? Ingrid, patron of the arts. Ingrid, with the truck. Ingrid, who saved your fucking dog’s life. The least you can do is pick up your fucking phone, you bitch!!

Ezra [on the phone]: Listen to me, you psycho. If you don’t stop this shit right fucking now I’m calling the fucking cops. Do you understand? It’s three in the fucking morning. Just leave us the fuck alone!!

Ingrid: Why are you acting like that? It’s just me, Ingrid.
Taylor: I’m sorry. Are you…are you actually insane? 'Cause you do know Nicky almost died because of you, right?
Ingrid: I thought we were friends. We had so much fun together.
Taylor: Oh, my god. Ingrid…we were never friends because everything about you is such a fucking lie. You just are some weird freak that found me on instagram. And that’s basically all this has been.
Ingrid: Everything about me is a lie.
Taylor: Okay, well…what?
Ingrid: Everything about you is a fucking lie. It is. Your brother is a drug addict. Your husband is an alcoholic who fucking hates you. And you pretend to be some cool L.A. chick, but you’re full of shit. Ezra told me everything. He told me that when you moved here, you were lame and basic, and you had no friends. You were just like me.

Taylor: You know what, Ingrid, um…I was, uh, actually never like you…because you are a sad and pathetic, and very sick person, and you need professional help.
Nicky: Game over.

Ingrid [making a suicide video]: Hey guys! It’s me, Ingrid. I’ve never done this before, but…I didn’t have anyone else to talk to so I figured, why not. I just wanted to tell you guys that basically everything I’ve posted in the last couple of months is a total lie. I haven’t been living, some like, glamorous life in L.A. I’m just…a loser. I’m pathetic. And I know there’s something wrong with me, but I don’t know how to fix it, and I don’t know how to change. And I just… Don’t think I can change. So maybe I’m just…maybe this is just who I am. And maybe I’m just tired of trying to make people like me. I’m tired of pretending like, someone I’m not. And I’m tired of being alone. And I’m just…just tired of being me so…I just…feel like… If you don’t have anyone to share anything with, then what’d the point of living? Yeah, so I guess I’m just making this video… So you guys can see the real me. At least once.[/b]

Then she swallows the pills.

[b]Dan [to Ingrid recovering in the hispital]: Your little suicide video went viral. Your face is all over the Internet. Look at them. Thousands, and thousands and thousands. You’re an inspiration, babe. You have a hashtag. “Feel better soon”. “Praying for your recovery” “You’re too good to do that to yourself” “I gotta tell you, you’re fucking beautiful” “you’re a hero”.

Ingrid [voiceover]: Hashtag I am Ingrid.[/b]

It again.

And, of course, it comes at night. So, it’s only a matter of imagining whether or not it can come out at night when you’re around.

Can you imagine yourself in a situation more or less like it?

Clearly, to the extent that you can, it becomes all the more frightening. And given the potential for catastrophic world wide epidemics that pop up in the news from time to time — ebola, sars, bird flu etc. – there’s really no telling what is down the pike.

The plot is familiar. A small group of people [a family in this case] are in full-fledge survival mode. Then out of the blue they have company. Outsiders. What to do? Not only do they now have the outbreak to deal with, but must come to terms with any and all of the changes that the new arrivals bring with them. Who to trust? What to believe?

And, of course, this: What is the right thing to do? A whole new world, a whole new perspective on virtue. The age-old dilemma in films of this sort: there’s what you want to do; there’s what you have to do. And then the part in which the reality you construct inside your head may or may not be in sync with whatever is in fact really going on. But, as we all know, our behaviors are invariably predicated on what we think we know is real. So, in the end, it often comes down to being able to demonstrate to others why they should think what you do. In other words, being right may or may not save the day.

So, what’s scariest of all can sometimes be not what you see, but what you don’t see. Or what you can’t see.

Lots of ambiguity here. What’s real? What’s not? Here is one attempt to explain it: youtube.com/watch?v=h1fkRM8D0-A

IMDb

[b]The painting featured in the movie at the beginning is titled “The Triumph of Death”.

The cast and crew of the film signed a non-disclosure agreement that forbids them ever revealing what “comes” at night.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Comes_at_Night
trailer: youtu.be/6YOYHCBQn9g

IT COMES AT NIGHT [2017]
Written and directed by Trey Edward Shults

Sarah: Can you hear me? Dad, can you hear me?
[Bud nods a weary yes]
Sarah: You don’t need to fight it. You can just let it all go. Everything’s okay.
[cue Sarah speaking with a mask on]
Sarah: I love you, dad. I do. I’m so sorry. Oh, god…

Is this “it”?

[b]Paul: He has to be involved…in everything from now on…everything. If he’s not, then we’re doing him a disservice.
Sarah: I don’t care, Paul…he’s 17. He shouldn’t have been there. He shouldn’t have seen that.

Paul: He’s gonna be fine. Everything’s gonna be okay.
Sarah: You don’t honestly believe that? Do you?[/b]

We don’t.

Paul: I just wanna talk. And I want honest answers. If you give me honest answers, then this water yours. Understand? Why’d you break into my house?
Will [tied to a tree]: I promise…I promise you, I… I didn’t think anyone was in it. There’s no lights, and things boarded up. It looked abandoned from the outside.
Paul: What were you looking for?
Will: Water…supplies, anything. My family… I have a family… My wife and our boy in the woods.

And on and on: Trust him? Believe him?

[b]Paul: Do you have any idea what’s going on out there?
Will: No. As soon as people in the city started getting sick, we got out, got as far away as possible. If there’s a grid left, I don’t even know how to be on it.
Paul: So you’re out there driving 80 miles, and you didn’t see anything?
Will: No. We didn’t see anything or anyone.

Will: Look, look at my eyes. I’m telling you the truth. I never would’ve broken in like that if I thought the house was occupied, but I was desperate. I got no hard feelings at you. You did what you had to, you had to protect your family. But if you can spare some water for my family, i can trade for it. Got food.
Paul: How much?
Will: Got plenty to trade for.
Paul: I’m asking how much?
Will: Two goats, six chickens, and some canned food as well.
Paul: Are the animals healthy?
Will: Yes, sir. I promise you, if you need food, I have it. My family is all that matters to me. I know you can understand that. You’re a good person. You’re just trying to protect your family. But don’t let mine die cause of it. Help me, and I can help you.

Sarah: I think if he does have a family out there that we should consider bringing them back here.
Paul: That’s a big jump. Everything he said could be a lie.
Sarah: I know that.
Paul: I know that you want to believe him.
Sarah: Is that wrong?
Paul: We just gotta be smart about it, we can’t be emotional…
Sarah: I’m not being emotional. He knows where we live now. We can’t just let him go. The more people we have here, the better we can defend it. He found us, other people will too. They could bring the animals here. We wouldn’t have to just trade for them. It’s the smartest option.

Paul [to Sarah]: I’m not bringing anyone back here until I know they’re not sick. It took bud less than a day to show signs. I’ll wait there three to be certain. You be strong. Don’t go outside unless you absolutely have to. And if I don’t come back…don’t come looking for me.

Paul: Good people, huh?
Travis: Yes…I like them here.
Paul: Just keep it in perspective, okay? I don’t need to tell you but…you can’t trust anyone but family. As good as they seem. Just don’t forget that, okay?
Travis: Yeah.

Paul: I think Will and I should be the only ones who go outside for a while. We don’t know what made Stanley sick, it coulda been an animal, another person, anything. Travis…you didn’t go inside the room before we got there, correct?
Travis: Positive.
Will: You just opened the door, you didn’t go in?
Travis: I didn’t touch the door.
Paul: What?
Travis: It was already open.
Sarah: The door was open when you got there?
Travis: Yeah.
Sarah: Then who opened the door?

Paul: Travis…come here. I just want you to look me in the eye and tell me that you’re…telling the truth. You didn’t touch the door?
Travis: No.
Paul: Okay, did you touch him? Andrew? Did you touch him?
Travis: Yeah, I mean…yeah. I held his hand and I…and I brought him to his room.
Paul: And you weren’t wearing gloves and mask, right?
Travis: I mean, dad…why would I wear them inside the house?

Paul: What’s going on?
Travis: It’s Andrew. I think he might be sick.
Paul: What? What are you talking about?
Travis: He was crying and I was listening in the attic. They said they need to leave.

Travis: What do you want to do?
Sarah: We don’t have many options.
Travis: What does that mean?
Sarah: If they want to leave, they’re gonna want to take our food and water.
Travis: No, why can’t we give them what’s fair, and take them back to the house they were at. Sarah: Where do you think they’re going if they run out?
Paul: You haven’t seen people when they get desperate.
Travis: They wouldn’t come back here and put us at risk like that.
Sarah: We don’t know that.
Travis: Come on!
Sarah: We don’t know these people. We don’t know if any of what they said is even true. This is the man that tried to break into our house.
Travis: Cause he was trying to get food and water for his family. Dad would’ve done the same thing. I don’t think we could take the chance. I don’t think we can risk it.
Travis: You don’t get it. If they’re sick…then I am too.

Will [pointing a gun at Paul who’s wearing a gas mask]: Why is your mask on? Nobody’s sick here. Take it off. Take the fucking mask off!!

Will: Listen, Paul, I’m sorry, okay? We appreciate everything that you’ve done, but we want to leave. We’re all packed up. I know how you are. But if you go near my wife or my kid, I’ll end your fuckin’ life. Listen…we just want what’s fair. We want enough food and enough water, then we’re gonna go, and you’re never gonna see us again.

Paul: Stop! I said stop!
[Paul shoots and kills Andrew]
Kim: No! My baby! My baby! Nooooo! You killed my baby! You wanna kill me? Kill me!
[Paul shoots and kills Kim]

Sarah [looking down at Travis who is clearly infected]: Oh, Travis. Travis, it’s okay, sweetie. You’re gonna be okay. It’s gonna be okay. It’s gonna be okay…you can go. You can go.[/b]

I love Westword on HBO for it’s philosophy elements.

Imagine…

You are a doctor at a small clinic. One night the door bell rings. You decide not to see who it is. But the next day you find out the woman who rang the bell is found dead. Was she murdered? You feel guilty. You might have saved her life. You are now determined to find out all that you can about this woman.

In other words, something happens and things changes. Do one thing, one set of consequences, do something else and an entirely different set of consequences.

These things happen all the time to us. In contexts more or less dramatic. The dots get connected. But how much understanding of the relationships do we really have; and how much control do we have over them?

And then the question of identity. Who is this young woman? What happened to her? Why was she at the clinic? And then this: Will she be put in a box and buried in a potter’s field…without so much as a name to put on the marker?

We do know that she is an immigrant. And a sex worker.

And here the two worlds collide. The world of the caring and compassionate and civilized doctor and the world of what can only be described as the underbelly of society. And here we bump into any number of scumbags willing to exploit any number of desperate victims. You wonder if, as part of the civilized world yourself, you would go this far.

To make a difference as they say.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unknown_Girl
trailer: youtu.be/4TYCCPYdGTw

THE UNKNOWN GIRL [La Fille Inconnue] 2017
Written and directed by Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne

[b]Jenny [a young doctor]: I want you to learn one thing, just one. Learn to make a good diagnosis. If a patients suffering moves you, you make a bad one.
Julien [an intern]: I couldn’t help it.
Jenny: A good doctor has control over his emotions.

Jenny [after the intern turns in response to the door bell]: Don’t go, we’ve run over by an hour…Someone who comes this late doesn’t care how tired we are.
Julien: Maybe it was urgent.
Jenny: Then they’d have rung twice. Don’t let patients tire you, or you won’t make a proper diagnosis.

Jenny: Was it something serious?
Ben [police detective]: I woman was found dead by the river, near the building site.

Detective [after Jenny watches a video of an obviously frightened young black girl ringing the clinic buzzer and pounding on the door]: Do you recognize her?
Jenny: No…She’s so young.
Detective: What could have made her come back to ring the bell?
Jenny: Maybe the light from the waiting room.
Detective: We thought maybe she had been there before.

Jenny [to Julien]: I felt like you did when the bell rang. I wanted to open the door too…but I don’t know what happened. I stopped you from going just because you wanted to. To get the upper hand.[/b]

Yes, the complexities embedded in consequences.

[b]Doctor Habron [to Jenny]: You couldn’t know, but you should have let her in.

Jenny: I can’t accept the idea they’ll bury her with no name. No one will know it’s her in the ground. If I’d opened the door, she’d be alive, like me.
Doctor Habron: True, but then again you’re not the one who killed her.

Jenny [to Bryan]: Imagine your mother is found dead, far from here, without any ID on her. They’d bury her but couldn’t let anyone know. You’d never know. You’d keep waiting for her to come home…Had you seen that girl before?

Jenny: Trust me. I won’t tell any one.
Bryan: Not my mom or my dad?
Jenny: No one.
Bryan: I saw her. She was sucking off an old man in a camper van.

Mr. Lambert: I have nothing to say to you.
Jenny: Did your son tell you not to talk? I just want to know that girl’s name, nothing else. I swear I won’t tell anyone. I can keep a secret. I’m a doctor. I beg you, Mr. Lambert. I beg you. If you were in the van and she said something that might tell me her name.

Jenny: You can still change your mind. Remember your first day? You said you always dreamed of being a doctor.
Julien: When I saw that kid having his fit, shaking all over…I saw myself when my dad hit me. All I got from him was beatings. I wanted to be a doctor to treat him or to treat myself, I don’t know. Or to be a better doctor than ours who thought I bruised myself playing.

Father of Bryan: Yoy saw Bryan and hasseled him again about that girl. Please stop seeing him and talking to him.
Mother of Byran: His indigestion is back.
Jenny: I met him by chance. I wanted to see his friend.
Father: I told you he had nothing to do with it. We’re changing doctors as well.
Mother: I understand that girl is haunting you. As you said, you feel guilty. But you can’t make our son sick over it.

Jenny: Did you go back to check her?
Bryan’s father: No. I thought that she had just fainted…that she’d wake up.
Jenny: The autopsy says she didn’t die from impact, but from blood lost while unconscious.
Bryan’s father: You mean I let her die? Is that it? Who do you think I am?! Don’t look down at me! I can’t sleep because of that girl. She’s in my head all the time…If you’d opened your door, it would never have happened.
Jenny: She’s in my head all the time too.

Jenny: I won’t tell anyone. But you have to tell the police.
Bryan’s father: No. I can’t. Everyone will know. I’ll lose my job. I’ll go to jail. I’ll lose everything…Why would I ruin my life?
Jenny: Because she’s asking us to.
Bryan’s father: Who?
Jenny: The girl.
Bryan’s father: She doesn’t care. She’s dead.
Jenny: If she was dead, she wouldn’t be in our heads.

Cybercafe cashier [after a long pause]: Before going to the police I wanted to thank you for coming to the cybercafe and showing me the photo…the photo of my sister. Because you came, I felt ashamed and made up my mind. I was afraid my guy would put me back on the streets. He gave me a fake passport so the police wouldn’t know he made Felicie work. She wasn’t 18 yet.
Jenny: Her name was Felicie?
Cybercafe cashier: Yes. Felicie Koumba.[/b]

“Inspired by actual events”.

Then it depends on how far back you go. You can go all the way back to the white Europeans “discovering America” and then, over the course of the centuries, reconfiguring any number of “Native American” communities into reservations.

Then any number of conflicting political narratives will start in on grappling with the consequences of that.

On the other hand, there is always the intersection between this and the actual lives individual men and women go about forging in the course of sustaining themselves from day to day. What parts are embedded historically in the inevitable political baggage and what parts are really only your own damn fault?

And this is basically the party line embedded in the liberal and conservative narratives. Folks are either the victims of society and in need of our assistance or they are refusing to take responsibility for their own lives. Their own choices. Their own behaviors. It always seems to be either one or the other. And hardly ever a complex intertwining of both.

Here though the chararacters are portrayed as “fully developed human beings rather than as stereotypes.” And that does introduce complexity into the plot. And that introduces ambiguity. And then there’s the character embedded in the land itself. The reservation. What might be called the “outback” in other places. And It is far, far removed from what an FBI agent stationed in Las Vegas is used to.

Look for the chaos [and sometimes the utter confusion] entangled in “jurisdiction”.

IMDb

[b]During the course of the shoot, writer-director Taylor Sheridan was visited on set by some Shoshone tribal leaders who astonished him with the revelation that, at that very time, there were 12 unsolved murders of young women on a reservation of about 6,000 people. Due to a 1978 landmark government ruling (Oliphant v. Suquamish), the Supreme Court stripped tribes of the right to arrest and prosecute non-Indians who commit crimes on Indian land. If neither victim nor perpetrator are Indian, a county or state officer must make the arrest. If the perpetrator is non-Indian and the victim an enrolled member, only a federally-certified agent has that right. If the opposite is true, a tribal officer can make the arrest, but the case must still go to federal court. This quagmire creates a jurisdictional nightmare by choking up the legal process on reservations to such a degree, many criminals go unpunished indefinitely for serious crimes.

The quote that concludes the film (“While missing person statistics are compiled for every other demographic, none exist for Native American women.”) isn’t entirely true. There is one more demographic that the FBI has always refused to compile statistics for: missing children. [/b]

trivia at IMDb: imdb.com/title/tt5362988/tri … =ttqu_sa_1
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_River_(film
trailer: youtu.be/zN9PDOoLAfg

WIND RIVER [2017]
Written and directed by Taylor Sheridan

[b]Wilma: Don’t let Casey out of your sight on the Rez, okay?
Cory: Like I said, I’m gonna leave him with your folks while I scout.
Wilma: You know what I mean.
Cory: Yeah, I do. I won’t.

Cory: Put your hand upon his nose. Let him smell you and breath you. Let him know you. He will love you forever. Hey…so what do you think of that, son?
Casey: That was pretty cowboy, huh?
Cory: No, son. That was all Arapahoe.

Cory [to Dan his father in law]: That’s what the tracks say. Momma’s teaching her kits how to hunt. She’s teaching 'em on livestock. Momma just got her whole family killed.

Ben [to Cory of Jane]: See what they sent us?

Cory: She ran until she dropped…here. See the pool of blood where her face hit the snow? Now it gets twenty below here at night. So if you fill your lungs up with that cold air. When you’re running…it could freeze em up. Your lungs fill up with blood, you start coughing it up So…wherever she came from, she ran all the way here. Her lungs burst here. She curled up in that tree line drowned up in her own blood.
Jane: How far do you think someone can run barefoot out here?
Cory: Oh…I don’t know. How to gauge someone’s will to live…especially in these conditions? But I knew that girl. She was a fighter. So no matter how far you think she ran…I can guarantee you she ran farther.

Randy [the M.E.]: This is very prosecutable as a murder. Clearly she wouldn’t have been running through the snow if she hadn’t been attacked, but I can’t list the cause of death as a homicide.
Jane: And I can’t get an FBI team to the reservation unless it’s listed as a homicide. I’m not here to solve this. I’m here to obtain a cause of death and then send a team here that can.
Randy: Look, present the rape, present the assault and I’m sure…
Jane: Those aren’t under the jurisdiction of the FBI. Those fall to the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Jane: I don’t mean to offend you. I’m trying to understand the dynamic here, Mr. Hanson.
Martin [father of the victim]: Why is it that whenever you people try to help us, you always insult us first, huh?

Cory [who had lost his own daughter]: I went to a grief seminar in Casper. You know that? The counselor came up to me after the seminar…sat down next to me. He said something that stuck with me. I don’t know of it’s what he said. Or it’s how he said it. He says, I got some good news and I got some bad news. The bad news is you’re never gonna be the same. You’ll never be whole. Not ever again. You lost your daughter. Nothing’s ever going to replace that. The good news is as soon as you accept that and let yourself suffer you’ll allow yourself to visit her in your mind. You remember all the love that she gave. All the joy she knew. The point is, Martin you can’t steer from the pain. If you do you’ll rob yourself. You’ll rob yourself of every memory of her. Every last one. From the first step to her last smile. You kill 'em all. Just take the pain, Martin. Do you hear me? You take it. It’s the only way to keep her with you.
Martin: I’m just tired, Cory. I’m just so tired of fighting this life.

Jane: Shouldn’t we wait for back up?
Ben: This isn’t the land of waiting for back up. This is the land of you’re on your own.

Chip: She said “was”…what did she mean by was? What Did She Mean By Was. WHAT DID SHE MEAN BY WAS?!!
Cory: She means I found her raped and killed right over there, son.

Jane: The two we have in custody say anything?
Ben: They ain’t the talking kind, Jane. These kids…they expect to go to prison. Hell, I think they look forward to it. You know? Three hots, and a cot, and free cable? Anything is better then being here the way they see it.

Cory: I’m not going to stand here and tell you that life’s fair, 'cause it ain’t. To either of us. But you know, what do we go? This land is all we got left.
Chip: What is this “we” shit…? Only thing native about you is your ex-wife and a daughter you couldn’t protect.

Chip: You think this is who I wanted to be? I get so mad. I want to fight the whole world. You got any idea what’s that feel like.
Cory: I do. I decided to fight the feeling instead. Know why? Cause I figured the world would win.

Cory [to Chip]: You gonna lecture me about protecting people? While you deal the shit that’s killing em? Unlike most people, you had every chance to get the hell out if that’s what you wanted. You got the Army. You got College. Whatever is your choice. Look what you choose. Look what you chose. God damn you.

Cory [to Ben]: We don’t catch wolves looking at where they might be. You look where they’ve been. They’ve been right here.

Cory: That’s a picture of my daughter Emily. She passed three years ago.
Jane: I’m sorry.
Cory: You want to know how, don’t you?
Jane: I do, but…
Cory: Makes two of us.

Jane: Go get him.
Cory: I won’t bring him back. You have to know that.
Jane: I do. Go get him.

Cory: Do you know where we are?
Pete: No.
Cory: Gannet Peak. Highest mountain in Wyoming. On the hottest day in August, still there’s a foot of snow. Today, too cold to snow.

Pete [to Cory]: What the fuck? Where the fuck are my boots?!!

Cory: Hey, I need you to be honest with me, right? You get drunk, get lonely. Then what you get? You did it. Just be man and say it. Say, “I raped her.”
Pete: I raped her. I raped her…yeah!
Cory: Her boyfriend…when he got in your way did you beat him to death?
[Pete nods]
Cory: Look a nod’s not gonna cut it, ok? I need you to say it.
Pete: We beat him. We made him dead.
Cory: Okay. I’m gonna cut you lose. You’re free to go.

Cory: I’m a man of my word. You have told the truth. Let me give you a chance. Let me give you the same chance that she got.
Pete: What chance did she get?
Cory: If you can make it to that highway, you’re free man.
Pete: Where is the highway?
Cory: You know how far that drill camp was from where I found Natalie’s body? 6 miles, bare foot.

Jane: You saved my life.
Cory: No. Jane, you’re a tough woman. You saved your own life.
Jane: We both should be honest. I got lucky.
Cory: Ah. well, luck don’t live out here. Luck lives in the city. Don’t live out here. It lives whether you get hit by a bus or not. Whether your bank is robbed or not. Or someone’s on the damn cell phone when he comes up to a crosswalk. That’s luck. Out here you survive or you surrender. That’s determined by your strength and bare spirit. Wolves don’t kill the unlucky deer. They kill the weak ones. You fought for your life Jane. And now you get to walk away with it.

Cory: What’s with the paint?
Martin: It’s my death face.
Cory: Is that right? How would you know what that is?
Martin: I don’t. Just made it up.

Martin: I heard about what happened. I heard there’s one still missing.
Cory: No. No one’s missing.
Martin: How did he go out?
Cory: With a whimper.[/b]

Nothing new here. Tough guy loses his job. His marriage is shaky. He gets tangled up in the dope business. Something goes wrong. He ends up in prison. The prison is bursting at the seams with enemies. The cohorts of the enemies outside the prison kidnap his wife. He’s then forced to either do their bidding or she dies. Or so it seems.

Just don’t expect much more. It creates a world – a descent into hell – with characters that are larger then life. Caricatures some will call them. But it’s a world so far removed from the routines that most of us experience from day to day, it can’t help but fascinate us. Well, some of us. It’s then only a matter of wondering how far removed it is from “the real thing”.

Anyway, the bottom line in films of this sort generally revolves around your reaction to the tough guy. The so-called “anti-hero”. He either resonates with you or he doesn’t. You’re either plugging for him or you’re not. He either is or is not in possession of a “moral compass”. And, given that it received a 92% fresh rating on 75 reviews at Rotten Tomatoes, he certainly resonated with most of the critics.

As one critic put it: “A grade-A piece of meathead cinema.”

It’s yet another peek into a world that revolves entirely around a set of rules. The rules convey a narrative that swallows whole all the rules that you once abided by in the “free world”. Everything is taken seriously. Do or die. And you are ever and always expected to abide by the convict code. As though it is not even be possible to imagine living any other way. Only here the lone wolf reconfigures all the rules.

In any event, your “identity” outside the walls simply dissolves into that which everyone around expects of you. Only [again] not so much here.

Bottom line: Once they get to Redleaf it is a totally improbable plot. And then in Cell Block 99 it is all but unbelievable. But only if that matters to you.

IMDb

[b]Vince Vaughn put on 15lbs of muscle and trained as a boxer for 3 months prior to walking on set. Vaughn himself stated that this made the fight choreography much easier to learn.

Upon first arriving at the prison, two separate prisoners make reference to a prison in Austria. They are most likely referring to Justice Center Leoben which has been recognized as one of the “nicest” prisons in the world due to its modern and luxurious architecture and furniture.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brawl_in_Cell_Block_99
trailer: youtu.be/7FnAhrJDTqs

BRAWL IN CELL BLOCK 99 [2017]
Written and directed by S. Craig Zahler

[b]James: Bradley? You okay?
Bradley: South of okay, north of cancer.

Bradley: I’m gonna call Gil.
Lauren: You’re gonna be a drug dealer?
Bradley: No. I’m gonna drive packages for a friend.
Lauren: You said you would never work for Gil.
Bradley: So we’re both breaking promises today. I want us in a better home than this shithole. With kids and happy. I’m tired of getting the goddamn skim milk and hoping that luck brings out the cream, 'cause it won’t, not ever.[/b]

There’s a story behind that.

[b]Prostitute: Hey, Johnny rebel.
Bradley: Howdy.
Prostitute: You gonna give me a sample this time?
Bradley: Talk to your boss.
Prostitute: Come on. Let me earn it direct. I promise I can put a great big smile on each of those nuts.
Bradley: No, thanks. They don’t want anyone to see their braces.

Gil: How’d the transaction go?
Bradley: Never a problem with Cuz.
Gil: Yeah, I like that nigger. Or is it… is it “nigga” with an a at the end, when you’re saying it nice?
Bradley: Don’t think someone like you can say that word any way polite.

Bradley: Sounds like he brought amigos.
Gil: Mexicans ain’t comfortable being by themselves. You know how they grow up. Five to a bed. 10 beds per adobe.

Detective: Every once in a while, I see a man in that chair who could just as easily be on this side of the table, a man principled, who had a run of bad luck and just went the wrong way.
Bradley: I’m not gonna talk.

Detective: I know that this is your first offense, but you’re looking at four years, maybe five. Do you know that drug traffickers actually serve those sentences?
Bradley: I’m aware that the system is harder on guys that distribute drugs than it is on men who commit acts of violence against women and children. Do you think that’s fair?
Detective: You ever see a man with meth mouth? Hmm? You ever see the 14-year-old girl who’s addicted…
Bradley: I’m not gonna argue with you, Larry. I’m not gonna give you any info. I know what I did, and I know what the sentence is gonna be. It’s done.

Irving: Next.
Bradley: Bradley Thomas.
Irving: I recall…Well. That’s better. Best to remain civilized, Mr. Thomas. Even in a prison. Enjoy your stay.

Bradley [pounding on the wall]: Seven fucking years!

Bradley: Who are you?
Placid Man: Sit down, Mr. Thomas.
Bradley: Where’s Dr. Pelman?
Placid Man: Remain calm. If you call any attention to us, I will leave. And you will regret my departure for the rest of your life. Nod that you understand.
[Bradley nods]
Placid Man: My employer sends his regards.
Bradley: You work for Eleazar. Why are you here?
Placid Man: Your betrayal cost my employer $3.2 million. I’m here to settle that matter.
[he shows him a cell phone photo of his wife bound and gagged]
Placid Man: There is an abortionist from Korea. He works for my employer. He claims that he can clip the limbs of a fetus yet leave the child in such a condition that it will live to be born. This little operation will only happen if you don’t pay your debt to my employer.
Bradley: How?
Placid Man: There is a prisoner who my employer wants dead. He is serving a life sentence at the Redleaf Detention Center.
Bradley: I’m in the Fridge for seven years. How in the hell am I supposed to choke out some guy over in Redleaf?
Placid Man: Redleaf is maximum security. Show the staff here that you have to be transferred. [/b]

We know where this is going.

[b]Prison guard: Why the hell did you do this?
Bradley: Didn’t like my prison shoes.

Warden: Mr. Thomas. Look at me. The Redleaf Detention Center is classified as a maximum-security facility. But there’s another term I prefer…one that I think will give you a clearer picture. Minimum freedom. If you make trouble, your minimum freedom will get smaller. So small that it becomes microscopic. Do you understand?
Bradley: I do.
Warden: Put a “sir” on that.
Btadley: I do, sir.

Warden [Bradley]: The guards here aren’t like those faggots over there at the Fridge. You can test us if you want to. Prisoners are expensive, and we’re only too happy to help the state balance its budget by deploying some cheap lead.

Warden: Bad news, Mr. Thomas. Our examination room is under renovation. So you’re gonna have to strip out here. Wilson. Give Mr. Thomas a full cavity inspection.

Bradley: Who do they keep in Cell Block 99?
Derrick: Child molesters, rapists, guys with death sentences…psychotics.

Warden [to Bradley]: You just lost your minimum freedom. You’re going to 99.

Warden: I suspect that Amnesty International would frown upon the contents of this room. Cell block 99 is the prison within the prison. You will stay down here until you’re sorted out. Or carried out. Stand him up. For the next month, you’ll wear this. Turn it on. Each time you misbehave, you earn five points. Each point gets you one of these.
[Bradley is zapped with electricity]
Warden: You currently have 25 points. These shall be dispensed to you over the coming week. When you are eating, when you are sleeping, when you are pissing, and when you are shitting.

Lauren: Who’s there?
Placid Man: My employer has asked me to take a few more pictures.
Lauren: Is that him?
Placid Man: That’s the abortionist. He is here to perform a preliminary examination.
Lauren: No. You can’t. You can’t. This a baby girl you’re talking about.
Placid Man: It is lamentable that she didn’t have smarter parents.

Eleazar: Your heroics cost me $3.2 million, as well as my freedom for an undetermined period of time, and because of you, my sister is now a widow. Her husband was Pedro whom you shot in the back.
Bradley: Let my wife go. You and I can settle this however.

Eleazar [to his thugs]: Kill Mr. Thomas and I’ll double your wages.
Bradley: Have them kick in for your funeral.

Eleazar [on the cell phone]: If you do not hear from me in 10 minutes, commence the abortionist. If you have not heard from me within the hour, dismantle the mother and flush her down the toilet.

Bradley: Tell me your code or it’s the other leg.
Eleazar: 7-7-7.

Placid Man: What a mess…

Warden: What’s going on in there?
Bradley: I’m executing Eleazar…They say the head stays alive for a little while after it’s been cut off. I hope so.
Warden: Put your hands on your head and turn around.
Bradley: 78 days. [/b]

Two reactions:

1] would that it could be like this today
2] may it never be like that again

And look at Detroit today. Now that big chunks of the automobile industry [and heavy industry in general] has shifted manufacturing abroad, all the jobs that once afforded working class folks [with high school diplomas] access to unions and the middle class, are gone. And we know what has taken its place.

And yet in other respects things were far worse back then. At least for many in the black communities.

And in particular with respect to the police department. In other words, as bad as some folks think things are now, things were once considerably worse. Or so it certainly seems here.

Then between the protests on the street, the haggling behind the scenes [between the powers that be], the rioting and the looting, the line between the personal and the political gets increasingly blurred. And it is here that films of this sort tend to jump the shark. They can’t decide whether to focus in on the dramatic – historical – events unfolding all around them, or zoom in instead on the “personalities”.

And then, finally, there’s the part that revolves around that which the film depicts and that which actually occurred 50 years ago. It said to be a “dramatization” of the actual historical events. As one reviewer puts it: “I would give this movie a 10 as a propaganda piece, zero as a documentary…”

In other words, there is no way in hell that folks are not going to take out of this film what they first put into it: their own political prejudices.

IMDb

[b]Survivor Julie Hysell was on set throughout most of the shoot. Vietnam vet Robert Greene was still alive, but the producers couldn’t reach him.

Director Kathryn Bigelow was inspired to unearth this event by the Ferguson (MO) riots (Aug. 2014) where a black man was fatally shot by a white police officer.

The raid on the “Blind Pig” was due to pressure and repeated demands from black Baptist ministers, who hated blind pigs for drawing money to liquor and prostitution that should have gone into collection plates. The ministers urged the white mayor, Jerome Cavanaugh, to shut down the illegal clubs.

Once a proud Polish community, Hamtramck is now a Muslim one. The Poles have been replaced with Yemenis and Bangladeshis. Hamtramck now has the first Muslim-majority city council in the U.S.[/b]

trivia at IMDb: imdb.com/title/tt5390504/tri … =ttqu_sa_1
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_(film
trailer: youtu.be/LyAga-jz38Q

DETROIT [2017]
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow

[b]Title card: The Great Migration set in motion before World War I would spur some 6 million African Americans to leave the cotton fields of the South for the lure of factory jobs and civil right in the North. After World War II, white Americans began their own migration to the suburbs, drawing money and jobs aways from increasingly segregated urban neighborhoods. By the 60’s, racial tensions had reached a boiling point. Rebellions erupted in Harlem, Philadelphia, Watts, and Newark. In Detroit, Aftrican Americans were restricted to a few overcrowded neighborhoods, patrolled by a mostly white police force known for its aggression. The promise of equal opportunity for all turned out to be an illusion. Change was inevitable. It was only a matter of how, and when.

Frank [black police detective]: They’re taking them out the front.
White cop: Shit…

White Cop: We had to use the front door.
Frank: Shit!
White Cop: Make it a public display.
Frank: I almost feel bad for them. We gotta get out of here. Quickly.

John Conyers: I know you’re angry. I’m angry, too. This city has problems, especially with the policemen. We have problems. However change doesn’t happen overnight. But change is coming. Let’s work together!
Protester: Nah! Bring Stokely Carmichael down here! We don’t wanna hear from your ass!
Conyers: Look here. This is what I need you to do! I need you to not mess up your own neighborhood. This is your home!
Protester: Yeah, burn it down!
Conyers: Burning it down is not the answer!

Newscaster: Here in Detroit, a city of war where snipers hide on rooftops, the violence continues. US Army paratroopers, National Guardsmen, state and local police are continuing the fight against a handful of snipers. On the city’s west side, a 150-block area is off-limits to everybody. This is no man’s land, an area of destruction and devastation.

Lyndon Johnson: There is no American right to loot stores or to burn buildings or to fire rifles from the rooftops. That is crime. And crime must be dealt with forcefully and swiftly, and certainly under law.

Protest leader [mocking LBJ]: LBJ tell you that, “Violence never accomplishes anything…my fellow Americans.” Don’t you see, the real problem with violence is that we have never been violent. We have been too nonviolent!

Newscaster: 1,100 National Guardsmen have been rushed into as many areas as they can cover, protecting police. Looters carry off thousands of dollars’ worth of goods with a gay sort of leisure. Many negro shop owners put up sign reading “Soul Brother” to avoid damage. But the fire bombers and looters are indiscriminate.

Detective: That guy you shot at didn’t make it home. Ambulance found him bleeding out under a car.
Krauss: Are we sure it’s the same guy?
Detective: He’s the only Virginia Park shooting today. You carry a shotgun, he had shotgun wounds. You wanna play ballistics?
Krauss: Jesus Christ, I’m sorry.
Detective: That’s it?
Krauss: What else?
Detective: You shot him in the back.
Krauss: Right. He was… He was running away from me. Where else do you want me to shoot?
Detective: My point was him being no threat to you.
Krauss: In hindsight, but I’m thinking…why is he running away from me…if all he did was steal some groceries? What if he killed somebody in that grocery store? He’s avoiding the police. What do you assume from that?
Detective: You don’t assume. If he had a weapon in his hand, that’s another story. We don’t shoot for robberies.
Krauss: Detective, you know it’s a war zone out there, right?
Detective: Yeah. 10th had to shut down.
Krauss: They’re destroying the city. We’re facilitating that with the message we send…which is that it’s okay, go ahead, burn down your houses, rob a store. It’s total chaos. And where does that lead us long term, Detective?
Detective: All right, kid. Thank you.
Patrolman: Anytime.
Detective: I’m recommending murder charges. You go back to work, wait to hear from the DA.
Patrolman: Yes, sir.
Detective: And kid…calm down out there.

White national guardsman: It’s good to have some quiet. We were at Black Bottom earlier today. We actually took sniper fire. Had one, right by here.
Melvin [black security guard]: Ain’t no snipers here, man. Just you and me and the people partying in that motel.
National guardsman: How long do you think this is gonna last?
National guardsman: Yeah, how long till these negros people quit? What do you think?
Melvin: How the hell am I supposed to know?

Krauss: What’s the deal with the girls?
Cop: I found them with the big nigger down the end.
Krauss: Same room? You find anything?
Cop: Nothing.

Krauss: I’m just gonna assume you’re all criminals. Because if we’re honest, you probably are. So let’s hear it. Let’s fucking hear it! Pray! Do it loud!

Lee: They’re gonna kill us, man.
Melvin: Why? You gonna be crazy?
Lee: They the ones that’s acting crazy. They lost their mind when they seen a couple white girls in a room with a black man.
Melvin: They’re lookin’ for a sniper, okay?
Lee: But Carl wasn’t no sniper, man.
Melvin: So if a guy goes for your gun, you gonna let him have it because he’s black? Come on!
Lee: A cop has a shotgun like yours, right? You hold that tight with two hands. How you even gonna try to take that?

Sergeant [from Michagan State Police]: What’s going on?
Cop: I gotta tell you, Detroit PD is going nuts in there.
Sergeant: What do you mean?
Cop: Looks like they’re terrorizing suspects, beating and so forth, trying to get a confession.
Sergeant: Well, that’s not correct, they got their civil rights.
Cop: That’s what I’m saying. Don’t look right to me.
Sergeant: All right. Let’s let them have the case. I don’t wanna get involved in any civil rights mix-up, you know? Let’s go.

White cop [to Karen and Julie]: Why you gotta fuck them, huh? What’s wrong with us?

Krauss: We’ve got all the time in the world. We are gonna get to the bottom of this. So think very carefully about how you answer our questions, or you’re gonna end up like your friends in the next room. How long you been pimpin’ out these young girls, huh? Destroying their bodies and minds.
Greene: I just met ‘em. I ain’t pimpin’. I just got back from the war.
Krauss: You’re a veteran?
Greene: Yes, sir.
Krauss: Fuckin’ stupid do you think I am? You wear army green, you try to be a fucking serviceman. We don’t need pimps in the army. Probably drove a fucking supply truck.
Greene: I was airborne.

Krauss: Aren’t you ashamed of yourselves?
Karen: You’re the one checking out my tits.
Krauss: You’re having sex with niggers.
Karen: It’s 1967, asshole. Honestly.
Krauss: It doesn’t bother you? The Afro Sheen in their hair? The way it smells?
Karen: You’re on some trip.
Cop: You think you can come into my city and pimp out a bunch of young girls?
Greene: I said it wasn’t like that.
Krauss: I don’t care if you were in the army. I’ll drown all you pimps in the river until the city’s clean.

Demens: So that’s done.
Krauss: Good. Great job.
Demens: I didn’t think I could do it, but I did it. Boy, I feel funny.
Krauss: Yeah. It’s the right thing. He’ll talk now.
Demens: What do you mean?

Krauss: You shot him, Demens!
Demens: Yeah, I got him.
Krauss: Jesus Christ, Marty. We weren’t actually shooting the other guys. We’re playing with them.
Demens: What do you mean? Playing. Playing what?
Krauss: A game. A game to get them to talk, scare the shit out of 'em. Interrogation tactics. Fuck.

Krauss [to Demens]: Listen to me. Oh, fuck. He grabbed your gun, all right, and you warned him, okay? And you were forced to shoot him, okay? Line of duty. Get your fucking story straight. Oh, fuck. Hey, get your head straight. I’m serious.

Detective: You need to think real hard. You need to answer me.
Melvin: All due respect, I am telling the truth. I’m not lying. I told you what I saw. I saw these kids…the police shot them.
Detective: Melvin. We’re here to help you, okay?
Melvin: Yes, sir.
Detective: Melvin, do you wanna go home?
Melvin: Yeah.
Detective: Can we let him think about it?
Detective: Yeah. You think about it, okay, Melvin?

Krause: Remember what I told you, and this whole thing’s gonna blow over. All right? You did nothing wrong.
Demems: I think I gotta say somethin’.
Krauss: Hey. You made…Demens. Something that took one minute should not define your entire life. You understand? You made a mistake. You say what you need to say, and you move on. That’s how you get out of this thing. All right?
Demens: All right.

Newscaster: During the week of rioting in Detroit, three negros were shot to death in a motel room. Police and the Guardsmen had raided the motel, searching for snipers. Later, witnesses to the shootings said the three negros had been lined up and shot in cold blood by the officers. Today, two police officers were arrested and charged with the murders of two of the negros shot in the motel. The officers, one with two years’ service, the other with four and with no previous misconduct charges, were ordered held without bail. They pleaded not guilty. Their attorney said the arrests were a shame and a pity.

Newscaster: In the Algiers Motel case, both the prosecution and the defense in their opening statements reminded the all-white jury of the racial violence that seared Detroit two summers ago.

Defense lawyer: Have you ever had trouble with the law?
Lee: I’m not on trial here.
Defense lawyer: No need to introduce a new crime, sir. Just the ones already known. Or maybe you can start by telling us, how did the night begin? Party? A few drinks?
Lee: Man, why? Why y’all talking about me at all? Man, y’all see a black man in court and assume I’m the one on trial. Man, they killed my friends, man! They beat us! Lined us up and abused us and y’all doing the same thing! There’s no justice here, man. Go fuck yourself.

Judge: These policemen were owed an obligation. Advising them that they had a right to remain silent, they had a right to counsel, and that anything they said could be used against them in a court of law. I don’t think these defendants, because they’re police officers, have any right to expect anything more from us, but they have a right under the Constitution not to settle for anything less. I therefore rule the statements inadmissible.

Krauss: Wasn’t that just a load of bullshit.
Melvin: You know as well I do, those kids shouldn’t have been killed like that.
Krauss: Yeah. It’s a shame. Should’ve complied with a lawful order, and relinquish their weapons. But you’re a solid guy though. Really.

Judge: Has the jury reached a verdict in this matter, with regard to the charges of murder in the first degree and assault?
Head juror: We have, Your Honor. On the assault, not guilty. As to the murder charges, not guilty.

Title card: The facts around the murders at the Algiers Motel on July 25th, 1967 were never conclusively established in a criminal proceeding. As a result, portions of this film were constructed and dramatized based on recollections of the participants and available documents.[/b]

Come on, does anyone really believe that life on earth is all there is? That life on Earth is literally all the life there has ever been in a universe said to contain millions upon millions of planets.

Now, as a boy I just assumed that this would finally be established in my lifetime. Now I’m considerably less sure.

Instead, like everyone else, I am able only to speculate about it by, among other things, watching films like this.

Still, once we agree there almost certainly are other forms of life “out there”, we can get down to the task at hand: imagining a context.

It’s alive. But then what? What are the actual consequences of having discovered this extraterrestrial life? In other words, will it be more like Close Encounters of the Third Kind, or War of the Worlds?

Although this one is actually more like Alien.

In other words, there’s the part where we find extraterrestrial life and then try to comprehend it in terms of the only thing we know: our own self-serving species narrative. But then [of course] we find out that [one way or another] we’ve got to accommodate ourselves to its narrative. Having no way in which to know for sure [beyond survival] what that is.

Either that or wipe it out.

This one isn’t nearly as good as Alien however. And that revolves basically around the fact [my opinion] that the crew here is rather bland. We really don’t “get into them”. Or really care all that much about them. There are, after all, ensembles in films like this that are better than others. Think, say, the crew from The Abyss.

trivia at IMDb: imdb.com/title/tt5442430/tri … =ttqu_sa_1
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_(2017_film
trailer: youtu.be/jWLE9P1OiC8

LIFE [2017]
Directed by Daniel Espinosa

[b]Miranda [ship quarantine officer in voiceover]: Today the Pilgrim capsule with its valuable Mars soil samples completes its 8 month return from Mars…We’ve been waiting a long time for this sample, and Rory is placing himself at great risk to secure it.

Hugh: Your worry lines are showing.
Miranda: Yeah, well, I get paid by the line.

Hudh: Pilgrim wasn’t just seeing things in Mars’ soil. We’re looking at a large single cell. Inert. Unmistakenly biological. And, like organisms on Earth it has what appears to be nuleus, cytoplasm.

Hugh: I’m gonna try a different atmosphere. Closer to Proterozoic Earth than today’s Mars. Less oxygen, more carbon dioxide. And then, when Sho’s ready, a growth medium.

Hugh [of the organism]: Come on, dance…

Hugh: We’re looking at the first incontrovertible proof of life beyond Earth.

David [to Miranda]: I like the hum up here…

Hugh: Hold on to your helmets. The glucose intake is very rapid. The specimen’s cells have begun to move together en masses as a unit. They’re also sharing electirical activity in what resembles a a growing neural network. Notice I didn’t say “brain”.

Hugh: Here’s what’s fascinating. Unlike most multicelluar organisms, every cell of Calvin’s can perform every somatic function on its own. Every single cell is simultaneously a muscle cell and a nerve cell and a photoreceptive cell.
Miranda: So the creature as a whole is, in a very real sense, all muscle, all brain, all eye.

Miranda: Notice how it is approaching and not moving away.
Hugh: Its curiosity outweighs its fear.

Hugh: You can’t compare Calvin to anthrax.
Rory: I don’t want to be around that thing. I’m not qualified to be around that thing.
Hugh: I understand. I’m just saying you can’t compare Calvin to anthrax.
Rory: Stop…stop calling it fucking “Calvin”. We don’t know what that fucking thing is. You’re in there and you’re playing around with it like it’s your buddy.

Miranda: My job is lines of defense. Imagine the worst thing that could happen, and then the worst after that, and then I…I’ve planned for all of them.
Hugh: I understand that. But risks are taken for reasons. Because of Calvin, we’re gonna learn so much about life. It’s origins, its nature, maybe even its meaning.

Miranda: Rory…I can’t let you out.

Rory: Fuck this. Permission to fucking kill the thing. Commander?
Ekaterina: Kill it.

Miranda: It’s so much bigger…how smart is this thing?

Miranda: Earth is the responsibility. Nothing goes down to the planet. It was stipulated. In writing.
David: What are you talking about? What was stipulated in writing?

David: What other way could it get in?

David: Could it survive that?
Hugh: We don’t know. It’s already gone beyond what any living organism should be able to survive.
Miranda: If it’s between letting it in here or letting it get down there, we let it in here.

Hugh: These creatures could have dominated Mars for hundreds of millions of years. But now we know they hibernate for loss of atmosphere. If we deprive it of air, retreat to Tranquility and seal ourselves off…
Miranda: And vent the rest of the station…
Hugh: Exactly. No life support. No life.

Hugh: It’s just surviving. Life’s very existence requires destruction. Calvin doesn’t hate us. But he has to kill us in order to survive.

Miranda: I know what I feel is not rational, not scientific. I feel hate. I feel pure fucking hate for that thing.

Miranda: David…David, they’re not coming to rescue us.
David: What?
Miranda: Firewall One was the box. And Firewall Two was the lab. And Firewall Three is the station…and if Firewall One or Two fail, they have two choices. They can contain, or they expel. They’re pushing us out into deep space. They cannot risk Calvin reaching Earth. That was my protocal. I insisted from the beginning and the committee agreed.

David [to Miranda]: I belong up here. i don’t want to go back down to eight billion of those motherfuckers.

Miranda [into a recording device]: Mars life forms should be considered hostile. Do not underestimate their intelligence and their adaptive capabilities. Now, we did not learn how to restrain or eliminate it, but if this creature ever reaches Earth, use every available means to destroy it…[/b]

Cue the sequel?

Way back in my own objectivist years, films like this would have been particularly problematic. I had convinced myself that Marxism was the foundation for the New Man. But, in turn, way back then, the sexual revolution was burgeoning. I had come into contact with the arguments of, among others, Wilhelm Reich. And the arguments of those who embraced, among other things, homosexuality.

So I was pulled and tugged. Folks like Fidel Castro were deemed by my own comrades to be champions of the New Man. But then some of his policies in Cuba began to rub me the wrong way. Besides, could folks like Karl and Vladimir and Mao and Fidel really know what’s best in regard to rational or irational sex?

And then the part about intentions. And the roads to Hell that have been paved with the best of them. You can in fact reject things like homosexuality because you honestly and sincerely do believe it is the wrong thing to do. And not just because that is gleaned from the Bible.

In any event, we live in a world where the rigidity rooted in ideological thinking will almost inevitably come into collision with the actual complexity of human interactions. Especially in our post-modern industrial world where, through any number of communications media, we will have access to competing narratives. If nothing else that is what Santa learns from Andres here.

And then [inevitably] this part: miamiherald.com/news/nation- … 98618.html

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_%26_Andres
trailer: youtu.be/f7RYa_PZy3U

Santa and Andres [2016]
Written and directed by Carlos Lechuga

[b]Title card: At the beginning of the Cuban revolutionary process, the government was prepared to remedy any shadow of social scourge staining the achievements of rising socialism. Given these judgments, many religious people, artists and homosexuals were considered the forefathers of communist morality and locked up in camps to be reformed, sometimes imprisoned or taken away from their fundamental freedoms and sentenced to ostracism.

Santa: I am Santa Rodriguez, from the people’s council.
Andres: Yes, yes…and what can I help you with?
Santa: Don’t you know?
Andres: No, not really.
Santa: The Forum For Peace.
Andres: Another one?
Santa: Any problem? Important guests are coming, foreign press, the television.
Andres: So?
Santa: Nothing. I’ll be here.
Andres: And me?
Santa: You too. Over the next three days you won’t go out. I’ll be here accompanying you until the event ends.[/b]

On the other hand, in Nazi Germany he would already have been sent to the gas chamber.

[b]Andres [offering Santa a drink]: It’s bitter. I ran out of sugar.
[Santa shakes her head]
Andres: I’m not going to poison you.
Santa: I don’t want.
Andres: It’s not for you to fall asleep.
Santa: I will not sleep.

Santa: I like reading. But I have not read anything of yours.
Andres: That’s because I stopped writing long ago.
Santa: And what did you write? And why did you stop writing?
Andres: I thought that if you were here it was because you knew.
Santa: What?
Andres: That I wrote a book that the government didn’t like.
Santa: Hmm. A dissident book?
[Andres doesn’t answer. He just stares at her]

Santa: Were you imprisoned?
Andres: Of course.
Santa: How long?
Andres: Eight years.
Santa: Eight?
Andres: Eight years of my life among thieves, rapists, murderers…the scum of this country.

Jesus [to Santa]: He was warned many times. And was told with good manners to stop telling lies. We tried to point him in the right direction, but nothing. He didn’t want to be helped. It is necessary to look after this man, otherwise he will go there to start telling lies again.

Santa: I know the mute isn’t your nephew…I’ll have to report what I think happened.
Andres: Isn’t it possible that after your visit I got all worked up and tried to kill myself?
Santa: People like you don’t kill themselves.
Andres: People like me?

Andres: This has nothing to do with politics. This is my personal life, so let’s leave it there.
Santa: If you don’t want me to report it, you will have to tell me more.
Andres: Yesterday when the mute saw you, he got very angry.
Santa: Why?
Andres: Because he thought I had told you that he was a queer.

Andres [to Santa shaking her hand]: You saved my life. Thanks.

Santa [looking at a photograph]: Do you miss them?
Andres: I think about them a lot.
Santa: About Eddy?
Andres: Where did you get that from?
Santa: He was your boyfriend, right?
Andres: No.
Santa: You don’t speak to each other anymore?
Andres: I don’t speak with worms.

Andres [to Santa]: There are a lot of talented people in this photograph. Maybe the most talented of my generation.

Santa: Without all the mystery tell me what really happened? Why did you become a counterrevolutionary?
[Andres just shakes his head]
Santa: And this book you wrote, why didn’t you try to publish it here?
Andres: Of course I tried. What do you think? If this is going to be an interogation I’d prefer to do it at the police station.

Santa: You should be removed from the black list.
Andres: Well, I should never have been included. That’s why all my friends who didn’t kill themselves left this country. But as I stayed I am still in the sight of all those mediocre people of the watch. After passing thousands of inspections, they bite my books down to pulp. You didn’t let me work. That’s what happened to me. You hate artists. The real ones. You can’t stand them.
Santa: That’s not what I was told.
Andres: Well you should open your eyes a bit more…Because of people like you…
Santa: Like me?
Andres: Yes, like you. My life was fucked![/b]

Still, suppose his writings had been in support of, say, fascism?

[b]Santa: Have you ever been with a woman?
Andres: No.
Santa: Maybe you would like it.
Andres: Girl…I have an aversion to the female sexual organ. To me a pussy is like a scab on my armpit.

Jesus: Yesterday the district Chief of Police caught Andres’ mute stealing from an old faggot from Havana. He thought that if he cooperated his sentence would be reduced and started to write and tell all he knew.
Santa: What?
Andres: It seems the artist has written a new book. A biographic book of lies about the Revolution.
Santa: No, that is not true. It is a lie told by the mute to avoid trouble.

Jesus: Where’s the book?
Andres: What book?
Jesus: Don’t play the fool. Where’s the book?
[Andres says nothing]
Jesus: Someone told you we were coming. You got ready for us.
Andres: Comrade Jesus I have not written to years…not a single word.

Jesus: Comrades, this one will not cooperate. Let’s make it clear for him that no one messes with the Revolution.[/b]

Cue the Cuban national anthem. Then cue the totalitarian eggs.

[b]Andres [on phone]: May I speak to Tirso please. From Andres. Tirso? This is Andres. Listen…I’m ready.

Santa: Andres…don’t go.
Andres: Give me my book.[/b]

Sure, women can be superheroes. And women can be spies. And though being drop dead gorgeous is not the only qualification, it certainly appears to be a vital one. On the other hand, aren’t most of their male countparts drop dead gorgeous too? Ruggedly handsome as it were.

But this is Hollywood. And the box office there has always revolved around the bold, beautiful ones. On the other hand, this all unfolds during the Cold War. So surely it is more the anomaly.

Or is all of that entirely irrelevant in this particular rendition? After all, it’s a spy thriller. And here what counts far more is being or not being drawn into a rousing adventure. Then it’s just a matter of probing the extent to which that adventure takes us behind the scenes in exposing the way the spy vs spy world really works. It does. In spades. Instead of terrorists however it’s what’s left of the Commies. As the Berlin Wall is about to come to crashing down. Here of course everyone seems to have their own rendition of the Deep State. Even in what really amounts to a cartoon character world.

But the tricky part is in being on the cusp of history. The new is not quite here and the old is still very much around. I’m sure however that the same sort of cynical duplicities unfold in the “war on terror” as well.

It’s the sort of fantasy that some men imagine feminists crave: a woman tough enough to [almost] be a man. Jane Bond as it were.

Or maybe it is all just a remake of Mission Impossible.

With lesbians.

trivia at IMDb: imdb.com/title/tt2406566/tri … =ttqu_sa_1
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_Blonde
trailer: youtu.be/yIUube1pSC0

ATOMIC BLONDE [2017]
Directed by David Leitch

[b]News clip of Ronald Reagan: East and West do not mistrust each other because we’re armed. We’re armed because we mistrust each other. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

Title Card: In November 1989, after 28 years, the Berlin Wall came down and the Cold War ended. This is not that story.

Jimmy: How did you find me?
Bakhtin: Maybe you’re not as good at this spy shit as you think.
Jimmy: It was Satchel, wasn’t it? Satchel gave me up. I always thought, if I got tagged, it would be by the best. But you’re not the best, are you, Bakhtin? You’re the biggest fucking cunt in the KGB.
Bakhtin (chuckling): Sticks and stones, Jimmy.[/b]

Welcome to spy vs. spy vs. spy vs. spy vs. spy in the cold war.

[b]David: Now, where’s that fucking list?
Spyglass: I gave the microfilm to Gascoigne last night.
David: James didn’t show up.
Spyglass: I did my part. I gave him the list. You have to get me and my family across. It’s not safe for us anymore here. The Russians are onto me.
David: No list, no deal.
Spyglass: I risked everything.
David: No list, no deal. You listen to me, Spyglass. Without that list, why shouldn’t I take you outside and shoot you in the fucking head?
Spyglass: You are going to kill a Stasi officer?
David: One that’s about to defect to the West? Yeah.

Eric: Percival has gone somewhat native.
C: Gone fucking feral.
Eric: Berlin is the Wild West. If that bloody wall comes crashing down, we don’t want to be under it. If the Russians get that list, we’re all buggered sideways.
Eric [to Lorraine]: You’re Elizabeth Lloyd. A Cambridge-educated lawyer sent by James Gascoigne’s family to retrieve the body and effects of their recently deceased son. Your mission is to connect with Percival and do whatever it takes to get that list home.
C: And remember, Lorraine, this is highly sensitive. Trust no one.

Lorraine [to the camera]: You know those movies where the picture just starts to slow down and melt? Then catch fire? Well, that’s Berlin.

Lorraine: What do you know about this woman who’s been following me since Tempelhof?
David: I’d say that you’re an attractive woman and you should do the math.

Lorraine [to Eric and Emmett and the crowd behind the mirror]: So no, I wasn’t just looking for the list in Gascoigne’s apartment.

Lorraine: Percival was the only one who knew I was going to Gascoigne’s apartment. And if I knew he was going to call the police, I would have worn a different outfit.
Eric: Different outfit?

David: Look, we’re all exposed by that list. And saving the world is cool and all that, but my main objective is staying alive. I’ve been head of Berlin Station for ten years. You’ve got to know that I’m the only man in this town that can help you get that list.
Lorraine: Yes, I’ve read your file. I’ve also read your dog file. So let’s cut the crap, shall we? This whole hungover, show-up-late, don’t-know-which-way-is-up act, I’m not buying it. I trust you about as far as I can throw you.
David: “It’s a double pleasure to deceive the deceiver.”
Lorraine: Niccolo Machiavelli. It was on your shelf.
David: Oh, my God, I think I fucking love you.
Lorriane: That’s too bad.

Delphine: Will you come? Maybe?
Lorraine: You’re relentless.
Delphine: Oui. David Hasselhoff’s in town.
Lorriane: Lucky us.
Delphine: Berlin is truly doomed.

Eric: So you made contact with the French operative?
Lorraine: Obviously.

Emmett [to Lorraine looking over the Berlin Wall into East Berlin]: That’s quite a view. 70 miles of barbed wire, 310 guard towers, 65 anti-vehicle trenches, 40,000 Soviet-trained, heavily armed frontier troops. All that, and 5,000 GDR citizens still had the brass balls to escape.

Emmett: Last night, you met a woman. Delphine Lasalle is out of her depth. Given the climate, I’d hate to see an executive order come down the line that falls in her disinterest.
Lorraine: Her “disinterest”? What do you mean, her disinterest?
Emmett: Don’t insult my intelligence, Lorraine. You know exactly what I fucking mean…Hope you get a snapshot.

David: He’s hardly the most trustworthy person I ever met. Or the fucking brightest.
Lorraine: Wait. You said you hadn’t met him.
David: I lied.

Lorraine: Percival’s trying to set me up.
Delphine: Are you surprised?
Lorraine: Not really. These relationships aren’t real. They’re just a means to an end.
Delphine: When you tell the truth, you look different. Your eyes change.
Lorraine: Thanks for the warning.

Spyglass: I realize I may not be as valuable to some people and…some people may even want me dead, but what choice do I have?
Lorraine: You’re no good to me dead. And I’ve never lost a package.
Spyglass: I know.

David [amidst a sea of umbrellas]: This was never part of the plan.
Lorraine: It was part of mine.

Lorraine [to Spyglass]: Fasten your seat belt.

Lorraine [to Eric]: You sent me into a fucking hornet’s nest. I was made by the KGB from the moment my feet touched the ground. Maybe even before. But then you knew that, didn’t you? You had your doubts about Percival, and you used me to shake him down.

David [to Emmett]: You know, a beautiful Italian girl once said to me, “David, you can’t unfuck what’s been fucked.” Women are always getting in the way of progress, aren’t they?

Delphine [on the phone]: Don’t underestimate me, Percival.
David: Oh, Lasalle, listen to me very carefully. You have no idea who you’re dealing with.
Delphine: You set me up. You…
David [sighing]: Come on, now. This is the game.
Delphine: I know your secrets, David, and I can play this game better than you think.

David [to the camera]: There’s only one question left to ask. Who won? And what was the fucking game anyway? To win, first you have to know whose side you’re on. In our line of work, that’s right up there with black holes or “to be or not to be.” You fight the good fight, and then one day you wake up and you realize that all you were was Satan’s little helper…Ironic. The news will tell them there will be no more secrets. But you and I, we both know that’s not true. The world is run on secrets.

Lorraine: You went to the KGB to take me out. You were too fucking scared to do it yourself.
David: Too smart, more like.

Lorraine: Are you going to lie till the very end?
David: Truth and lies. People like us don’t know the difference.
Lorraine: No, we know the difference, David. We choose to ignore it. Isn’t that right, Comrade Satchel?
David: So that’s how you’ll make it work.
Lorraine: “It’s a double pleasure to deceive the deceiver.”
David: Well played…

C: We’re choosing to bury this one, Broughton. Your mission never took place. This conversation never happened. I’m putting you on leave, effective immediately. We’ll start the next decade well rested.
Lorraine: C? What should I wear…for my tea with the Queen?

Lorraine: [to Bremovych as he dies]: Did you really think I was going to give you that list?.. Before you die, I want you to get this through that thick, primitive skull. I never worked for you. You worked for me…Every false intel I gave you, a rip in the iron curtain. Every piece of intel you gave me, a bullet in my fucking gun. I want my life back.

Emmett: : Let’s go home.
Lorraine: That sounds good. Let’s go home.
Emmett: “Cocksucker”? Really?
Lorraine: I’m glad it was convincing.[/b]

He’s got issues. Serious psychological issues. But serious psychological issues can, for all practical purposes, mean anything. Also, how do you hold someone with serious psychological issues responsible for what they do? How do you reason with them? How do you separate the part about nature from the part about nurture?

And how serious? As in, for example, dangerous…life threatening?

Then you get to this part: What’s it all mean? Only here as one reviewer put it, “it’s one of those movies that you need to think about and even by thinking about it you may still not be able to understand it.”

Let’s just say that, as with so many things relating to complex psychological interactions between and among complex human beings, it’s all open to interpretation. And [apparently] it helps to have a familiarity with Ancient Greek mythology. Iphigenia and Agamemnon in particular.

Or, as another reviewer put it:

This primitive drama involves a heart surgeon Steven Murphy and his ophthalmologist wife Anna. That is, the elemental force erupts in the seat of modern science, rationalism, humanity. The professional curers are profoundly afflicted. Their reason is helpless, irrelevant, once the old pagan gods have been stirred to ire.

I liked this film in particular because it revolves around a subject that I am rather obsessed with myself: moral ambiguity in a [presumably] No God world: birthmoviesdeath.com/2017/10/29/ … acred-deer

Only here it is all intertwined in a world in which “the Gods” are ever hovering up there or out there somewhere.

Be sure to click on the special feature: An Impossible Conundrum

And let’s not forget that this from the director of The Lobster above.

IMDb

[b]Heart surgery scenes in the film are real. They were filmed during an operation on a real patient who was undergoing quadruple bypass surgery which Colin Farrell attended.

The film’s title comes from the ending of the tragedy Iphigenia in Aulis by Euripides.

When Steven is at the school for the parent teacher conference, the principal tells him that Kim wrote a paper on Iphigenia for which she got an A, and that was read aloud to the class. Iphigenia, in Greek mythology, is the daughter of Agamemnon. She who was to be sacrificed for the sins of her father.[/b]

trivia at IMDb: imdb.com/title/tt5715874/tri … =ttqu_sa_1
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Killi … acred_Deer
trailer: youtu.be/CQFdGfwChtw

THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER [2017]
Written in part and directed by Yorgos Lanthimos

[b]Steven [speaking to an audience]: A full 40 years have passed since the German cardiologist Andreas Gruentzig performed the first coronary angioplasty, on September 16th, 1977. Today, that first patient is still alive and well. Doctor Gruentzig, however, had an unfortunate accident and met with an untimely end. In short, he is one of those rare cases where we can say, the operation was a success, but unfortunately the doctor didn’t make it.

Bob: Have you got hair under your arms yet?
Martin: Yes.
Kim: I just got my first period.

Martin [to Kim]: I’d prefer if it was just the two of us. I get nervous around dogs in case they get into a fight with another dog. The idea of separating dogs fighting scares me.

Anna [Martin’s mother to Steven]: Can I take a closer look at your hands?

Anna: Don’t worry, he’s definitely asleep. There’s nothing to be afraid of. In any case, he wants this as much as I do.
Steven: I have to go.
Anna: I’m sorry if I made you feel awkward, I didn’t mean to. But I won’t let you leave until you’ve tried my tart.

Martin: My chest, it hurts. My heart. I’m worried.
Steven: There’s no need for you to be worried.
Martin: I’m worried because it’s hereditary.
Steve: You’re too young to be worried.
Martin: That’s what you said about my father. He didn’t smoke. He ate a very healthy diet. He went swimming almost every day. He should have come out of that surgery alive, but he died.[/b]

We can see where this is going.

[b]Martin [to Steven]: Okay, you do have more hair than I do but not three times more. Me and my mom thought it would be nice if you came by for dinner tonight. We could watch the rest of the movie. Does eight sound good for you?

Martin: Can I tell you a secret? But don’t tell her I told you. I think she, I think she likes you. I mean, she’s attracted to you. But she says that’s not true, but it is, I’m sure. And, to be honest, I think you’re perfect for each other. You’d make a great couple. She’s got a great body. You’ve seen it for yourself. She lost weight and she has a really great figure.
Steven: Your mother is very beautiful, but the idea that she and I could ever be together is ludicrous. Let me remind you, I’m a married man. And I love my wife very much and my kids, and that we are very happy together.[/b]

Too little, too late.

[b]Matthew [a colleague]: I forgot to tell you, I saw that boy yesterday. Your daughter’s schoolmate.
Steven: Martin?
Matthew: Yes, right, Martin. Couldn’t remember his name. He was hanging around your car. It looked like he was waiting for you. I tried to say hello but he pretended not to see me.
Steven: That’s impossible. Can’t have been him.
Matthew: I could be wrong but it looked a lot like him.

Kim: Dad, do you know who I saw today?
Steven: Who, darling?
Kim: Martin.
Steven: Martin who?
Kim: Martin, that boy who came over here the other day. The son of your ex-patient. He brought me back from choir practice on his friend’s motorcycle. He’s really funny. I laughed so hard my ribs hurt.

Steven: Robert, do you have any idea what time it is? Get up and get dressed.
Bob: I can’t get up.
Steven: You have 10 minutes to get washed, dressed and eat your breakfast. I’m not going to drive you to school and neither is your mother.
Bob: I can’t get up.
Steven: Bob, get up and get dressed and stop messing around.
Bob: Dad. My legs. They’re numb. I can’t move them. I can’t stand up.

Martin [whispering in Steven’s ear]: Come to the cafeteria upstairs. Come whenever you can.
Steven: I don’t think I’ll have time today, as you might imagine. We’ll talk some other time. Martin: No, today, to the cafeteria. Just for 10 minutes, don’t stand me up like the last time.

Martin: I won’t keep you much longer, even though you have been devoting less and less time to me lately. I wanted to say one more thing, I’m really sorry about Bob.
Steven: It’s nothing serious.
Martin: No, it is. That critical moment we both knew would come some day? Here it is. That time is now. You know what I mean.
Steven: No, I don’t. Listen, Martin, I don’t have time for this.
Martin: Okay, I’m gonna explain this very quickly so that I don’t hold you up. Yes, it’s exactly what you think. Just like you killed a member of my family, now you’ve gotta kill a member of your family to balance things out, understand? I can’t tell you who to kill, of course. That’s for you to decide, but if you don’t do it, they will all get sick and die. Bob will die, Kim will die, your wife will die. They will all get sick and die. One, paralysis of the limbs. Two, refusal of food to the point of starvation. Three, bleeding from the eyes, four, death. One, two, three, four. Don’t worry, you won’t get sick. You just gotta stay calm, that’s all. There, I said it, as quickly as I could. I hope I haven’t kept you too long. One more thing. I’ll be very quick. You only have a few days to decide who to kill. Once stage three kicks in…You remember what stage three is? It’s bleeding from the eyes, that’s stage three. Once the bleeding happens, it’s only a matter of hours before they die. Okay, there, I have nothing more to say. Unless you’ve, unless you’ve any questions?

Steven: Anna, if Bob was near-sighted, or had a cataract or glaucoma then your opinion really would be valuable. But, thankfully, Bob’s eyesight is perfect. And I can honestly say that if he ever needed glasses you’d be the first person I’d consult. But right now the boy can’t eat and he’s paralyzed in both legs, so, I’m sorry, I’m not remotely interested in your medical opinion.

Steven: I’ll tell you a secret, something I’ve never told you before. Then you’ll tell me one. And whoever tells the best secret wins, okay? When I was your age I’d only just started masturbating. And I’d only just started ejaculating. Only a little, barely a drop. I was worried that I had some kind of a problem because at school I’d heard all sorts of stories. Then one day, when my father had had a lot to drink and my brothers were out and he was sleeping in the bedroom, I crept inside, put my hand on his penis and started stroking it until he ejaculated. The sheets were covered in sperm. I got scared and ran out. I’ve never told anyone that before. Now it’s your turn to tell me a secret.

Steven: Bob, if all this is just an act, you should know that if you tell me now, I won’t punish you. And neither will your mother. We won’t be angry with you either.
Bob: It’s not an act.
Steven: But if it is an act and you don’t stop this stupid joke right now, your punishment won’t just be no TV for two months. I will take my electric razor and I will shave your head and make you eat your hair. I mean it, I will literally make you eat your hair. I’m not kidding.
Bob: It’s not an act.

Steven [pounding on the door]: I know you’re in there! Open the door or I will smash it down! Martin! Open the door or I will smash it down and I will fuck you and your mother just the way you wanted! If anything happens to my kids or my wife, you’ll die in prison! Do you know that? You’ll die in prison!

Anna: Had you been drinking when you operated on his father?
Steven: Only a little. That had nothing to do with the outcome. A surgeon never kills a patient. An anesthesiologist can kill a patient but a surgeon never can.

Kim: Don’t be scared, Mom. Don’t get hysterical. It’s not that tragic. Sometimes your body hurts from not moving and you can’t sleep. That’s all. The important thing is to make sure that everything you need is within reach. That’s all. You’ll see. You won’t be able to move either. But you’ll get used to it.

Anna: If my husband made a mistake, if out of negligence or, I don’t know what, he caused this tragic thing to happen, I don’t understand why I should have to pay the price. Why my children should have to pay the price.
Martin: You know, not long after my dad died, someone told me that I eat spaghetti the exact same way he did. They said what an extraordinary impression this fact had made on them. Look at the boy, look how he eats spaghetti. Exactly the same way his father did. He sticks his fork in. He twirls it around, around, around, around, around. Then he sticks it in his mouth. At that time, I thought I was the only one who ate spaghetti that way. Me and my dad. Later, of course, I found out that everyone eats spaghetti the exact same way. Exact same way, exact same way. This made me very upset. Very upset. Maybe even, um, more upset than when they told me he was dead. My dad. I don’t know if what is happening is fair, but it’s the only thing I can think of that’s close to justice.

Anna [giving him a hand job]: Had Steven been drinking?
Matthew: Yes.
Anna: Can it be considered his mistake?
Matthew: Yes. It wasn’t mine, that’s for sure. You know an anesthesiologist is never to blame for the bad outcome of an operation. The surgeon is always responsible.

Steven: This meat is delicious. You were right, after all. The children are much better here. I was even thinking I might take them to the beach house, for a few days. A little fresh air and a change of scenery might do us all good. Do you know what I’ve been craving? Mashed potato. Why don’t you make some tomorrow?
Anna: You have beautiful hands. I never noticed before. Everyone’s been telling me lately what beautiful hands you have and now I can see for myself, nice and clean. But so what if they’re beautiful? They’re lifeless. Sometimes Steven, you’re just an incompetent man who goes on and on saying stupid things like, “Let’s do a scan. Let’s do an ultrasound. Let’s wear brown socks. Let’s make mashed potatoes. Let’s go to the beach house.”
Steven: Excuse me?
Anna: Our two children are dying in the other room, but yes, I can make you mashed potatoes tomorrow.
Steven: Please don’t talk to me that way.
Anna: If you don’t like it, why don’t you go and live with Martin’s mother? I’ll bet she’ll talk to you better.
Steven: You wanted the kids to come home and they came home. What else you want me to do?
Anna: Something to put an end to all of this. That’s what I want. Can you do that? You do realize Steven, we’re in this situation because of you.
Steven: So what do you suggest? Tell me. Oh wait, I know. I’ve got it. There’s a way we can put a stop to all of this. All we need to do is find the tooth of a baby crocodile, the blood of a pigeon and the pubes of a virgin. And then we just have to burn them all before sunset. Let me see, do we have any spare teeth lying around? Let me see, do we have any spare teeth lying around? Teeth, pubes? Nope, nothin’ here. There’s nothing in here either. Let me see, nothing here. Pubes, teeth? Nothing in this box either. Where are they? I’m sure they were here earlier, I put them here myself. Who’s been moving things around? It’s unbelievable. I don’t suppose you’ve got any pubes I can have, by any chance? Oh, I forgot, you don’t have any left. We don’t have any of the things we need.

Steven [to Anna motioning to Martin, beaten up and tied to a chair in the basement]: You remember Martin, don’t you? He came by for a play-date. I told him the kids were feeling a little unwell and he’ll have to stay here until they get better.

Steven: Do you think your mother is proud of you, Martin? Do you think she is happy that her beloved son is a murderer?

Martin: Don’t you understand that you’re wasting time? And you don’t have much time left.
Steven: I said stop talking.
Martin: Steven, it’s gonna be better once it’s done. Start over, clean slate. Don’t you get it? Sometimes I think you’re naive but you can’t be naive. You’re a man of science, you can’t be an idiot. But, if I’d only just met you, I would seriously question your depth of judgment.
[Steven punches him in the face]
Martin: I just want, want to show you an example, that’s all. Just one little example to show you what I mean.

Steven [pointing a rifle at Martin]: Now, Martin, you’ll know what it’s like to die. What it’s like when your head cracks open and your brains blow out.
Anna: Don’t shoot him.
Martin: And then? Shoot me, then what? Answer.
Steven: I’ll bury you in the yard! And you’ll rot, that’s what.
Martin: You won’t be able to explain it. You won’t understand how it could have happened. You’ll say, “But I only killed one person. How come four people are dead? I only shot one.” So if you’re gonna dig a hole in the yard, better make it a big one.[/b]

Now things really get surreal. Cue Euripides.

[b]Kim: Bob, something terrible happened yesterday. I lost the MP player that Martin gave me. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’ve lost two MP players in the last 10 days. So I’d like to ask you a favor. Can I have your MP player when you’re dead?

School principal: The boy’s very good at math and physics. Kim, on the other hand, apart from her natural aptitude for music, is very good at literature and history, areas in which Bob lags behind. She wrote a brilliant essay on the tragedy of Iphigenia which she read out in class. She received an A plus.
Steven: What about their behavior in class?
Principal: They’re both a little restless, I’d say. Equally so. I mean, I’ve had the occasional complaint from their teachers about some minor misdemeanors but they’ve never been rude to any of the staff. In any case, if they had ever acted out, we would have told you about it.
Steven: Do you especially like one of them more than the other? If you had to choose between them, which would say is the best?
Principal: That’s a difficult question. I’m not sure I can give you an answer. I don’t know. I don’t know what to tell you.

Martin: Anna, if you’re gonna do something, you’d better be fast. The boy is about to die.

Anna [to Steven]: I believe the most logical thing, no matter how harsh this may sound, is to kill a child. Because we can have another child. I still can and you can. And if you can’t, we can try IVF, but I’m sure we can.

Kim [to her parents]: I’m sorry for what I did tonight. I don’t know what I was thinking. I was only thinking about myself and no one else. That was wrong of me. I was frightened. I shouldn’t have been. Let me be the one who atones for your sins, Dad. Kill me right here in front of your eyes so that you can be sure that I die, in case some fate spares me at the last moment. Kill me right here in front of you and leave me with the ultimate joy of saving my own mother and beloved brother from certain death. Mom, tell him. Dad, please. I would do anything for you. I would even die for you and here’s my chance to prove it.

Anna: I let him go.
Steven: What are you talking about?
Anna: He’s not downstairs. I let him go.
Steven: Why would you do that? Why did you let him go? Answer me!
Anna: Are you a complete idiot? It’s not gonna make any difference, Steven. It’s not gonna solve anything, we both know that.

Kim: Do your legs hurt, Mom, do they feel numb? Does your back hurt, has it started yet?

Kim: Dad! Quick. Bob’s dying! Dad! Bob’s dying!!

Steven: Bob’s eyes are bleeding. Come to the living room.
Anna: Now?
Steven: Yes. Now.
Anna: Steven, where are the children?
Steven: They’re already there.
Anna: I think I’m gonna wear that black dress that you like.
Steven: Wear whatever you want. Just hurry.[/b]

How many of us are likely to make reference to Mom as “Mother!” What does Mom have to do to warrant an exclamation mark?

Does your mom?

Then the main characters: Mother. Him. Man. Woman. And all the other characters fare no better.

Let’s call it, say, a hyper-postmodern production.

In other words, somehow all of this is to be related to whatever you think it might mean as a reflection on the characters that you have become in your own postmodern production. You can’t really not understand it however or you miss the point. Whatever that is. Even if you don’t isolate yourself from the world in a…sanctuary?

On the other hand, if you have managed to sequester yourself [and I certainly have] what happens when the embodiment of all that is “other” intrudes? Things will either change or they won’t. And who really is to say for the better or the worse. As one reviewer put it, “Aronofsky juggles many concepts and critiques about life itself. Motherhood, paranoia, fame, claustrophobia, selfishness, lust, rage, war, peace, religion, gender, history. Mother! is whatever you want it to be and more.”

For me though it’s mostly about those who have – for any number of reasons – created a truly unique world apart from others. A world [call it a sanctuary if you will] that is now threatened by them.

For one thing, they have absolutely no understanding of your world. And now they are putting cracks in it. Great big cracks. Cracks that are quite simply out of this world.

One of these films: “The film received both boos and a standing ovation during its premiere at the Venice Film Festival.”

IMDb

[b]I imagine people may ask why the film has such a dark vision. Hubert Selby Jr., the author of Requiem for a Dream (2000), taught me that through staring into the darkest parts of ourselves is where we find the light. “Mother!” begins as a chamber story about a marriage. At the center is a woman who is asked to give and give and give until she can give nothing more. Eventually, the chamber story can’t contain the pressure boiling inside. It becomes something else which is hard to explain or describe. I can’t fully pinpoint where this film all came from. Some came from the headlines we face every second of every day, some came from the endless buzzing of notifications on our smartphones, some came from living through the blackout of Hurricane Sandy in downtown Manhattan, some came from my heart, some from my gut. Collectively it’s a recipe I won’t ever be able to reproduce, but I do know this serving is best drunk as a single dose in a shot glass. Knock it back. Salute!"

Jennifer Lawrence met with Darren Aronofsky to hear his ideas before there was a script. After she read the script, she said she was so shaken by it that she threw it across the room.

Michelle Pfeiffer admitted not understanding the script the first time she read it, describing it as “esoteric.” However, the actress committed to the project after becoming excited by the character she would be playing.

Jennifer Lawrence got so much into her character that during the climactic scenes, she started hyperventilating and even cracked a rib. [/b]

trivia at IMDb: imdb.com/title/tt5109784/tr … =ttqu_sa_1
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother!
trailer: youtu.be/yZG20KXAwn4

MOTHER! [2017]
Written and directed by Darren Aronofsky

[b]Mother: Baby?

Him: Perfect. You didn’t need to do all of this.
Mother: I wanted to. You’ve been working so hard.
Him [sarcastically]: Yeah, right.

Mother: And what brings you to us?
Man: Well they told me I could find a room here.
Him: He thought we were a bed and breakfast.

Mother: We don’t know him.
Him: He’s a doctor.
Mother: He’s a stranger. We’re just going to let him sleep in our house?
Him: You want me to ask him to leave?

Him [holding a crystal]: When I was younger, I lost everything in a fire.
Man: I’m sorry.
Him: It’s hard to imagine what that means. Losing everything. Your memories, your work, even your dirty toothbrush. I didn’t even know if I could ever create again. Until, I found this in the ashes. Isn’t that remarkable? It gave me the strength to start again. And then I met her…

Mother: What happened last night?
Him: I couldn’t sleep. I got so excited.
Mother: From what?
Him: His stories. I love the man’s mind. It is so inspiring speaking with someone who really appreciates the work.
Mother: I love your work.
Him [matter of factly]: Of course you do, I know that.

Woman: You have kids?
Him: Not yet. But we want them.
Mother [looking at Him with shock? alarm?]: Really?
Woman: Well what are you waiting for? Why not finish breakfast and get to it…
Mother: Well, I want to finish the house. And he’s working on a new piece…

Woman: Why don’t you want kids?
Mother: Excuse me?
Woman: I saw how you reacted earlier. I know what’s it’s like when you’re just starting out and you think you have all the time in the world. But you know, you’re not going to be so young forever. Have kids. Then you’ll be creating something together, that’s what keeps a marriage going. This…the house…is all just setting.
[she note Mother’s reaction]
Woman: Oh, you do want them…Is it him?

Woman [holding up a pair of Mother’s boring panties]: So that’s the problem.
Mother: What?
Woman: You’re going to have to try harder than that. Believe me, when they get older, you gotta keep it interesting.
Mother: He’s not that old.
Woman: How’s it going in that department?
Mother: I don’t feel comfortable talking about that stuff.
Woman: I’m just trying to help. I mean, look at you. If he’s not all over you, it’s either because of his age, or…
Mother: Or what?
Woman: You know what, forget it. It’s none of my business.
Mother: No. It’s okay. Say what you were going to say.
Woman: No, seriously. Obviously he still loves you.

Mother: He has one of those pictures of you in his luggage.
Him: What were you doing in their luggage?
Mother: That’s not the point. He didn’t just “stumble” on us. He’s a crazy fan.
Him: I know.
Mother: Excuse me?
Him: That’s what he told me on our walk. He’s dying. That’s why he came here. He wanted to meet me before he’s gone.

Son: Oh, hey. Hey, who’re you?
Mother: Who are you? What are you doing here?
Son: What are any of us doing here, right? Where’s my mother?

Mother: What happened at the hospital?
Him: I was holding the boy’s hand when he died. [/b]

Cue the invasion. Dozens of them. Hordes of them!

[b]Him [with his hand on the Man’s shoulder]: How can one begin to understand your pain? The sacrifice of a parent? All those years of worry. Years in days. Days in hours. Hours in seconds. But in each second, an infinite amount of love. And now, suddenly it seems there is nothing to love. Just a vast and silent darkness. But fear not, from inside it, there’s a voice crying out to be heard, loud and strong. Just listen…Do you hear that? Do you hear that? That is the sound of life, that is the sound of humanity. That is your son’s voice. His cry of love. His love for you.

Mother: I can’t imagine how…
Woman: No. You can’t imagine what it feels like if you don’t have a child. You give and you give and you give and it’s just never enough.
Mother: I understand.
Woman [lashing out]: Do you? Why don’t you at least put on something decent?

Mother: All these people.
Him: I know. They’re just letting off steam.
Mother: They’re painting our house!

Mother: Get OUT! GET OUT! All of you!!
Him: What happened?
Mother: THEY WON’T LISTEN!!!

Him: You don’t need to…
Mother: Do what? Clean up their mess?
Him: We did a good thing. They needed a place to celebrate life. They needed us tonight. Mother: What about what I needed? A boy died here today! I mopped up his blood. And you abandoned me.
Him: No. I didn’t abandon you. They just lost a son, they lost two sons. I was helping them. This is not about us, it’s about them.
Mother: No, it’s not about them, it’s about you. It’s always about you and your work. You think that’s gonna help you write? Nothing does. I re-built this entire house, wall to wall, you haven’t written a word!!
Him: All I’m trying to do is bring life into this house. Open the door to new people. New ideas. You think you can’t breathe? I’m the one who’s suffocating here. While you pretend that nothing is wrong. “Everything will be all right.” “Everything will be good.” “You’ll be fine.” You know what? Life doesn’t always work out the way you want it to.
Mother: You’re right. Mine certainly didn’t.
Him: Excuse me?
Mother: You talk about wanting kids, but you can’t even fuck me.

Mother: What are you doing?
Him: I’m writing. Last night. Those people, their pain. Their love behind the pain. And then, you. Us. And now [pointing to her belly]…Life. It’s come to me. I know what to say, I have to find the words. That’s all.
Mother: Amazing. I don’t want to interrupt, I’ll just get started on the apocalypse. [/b]

Again: Cue the hordes!! Only this it seems like thousands of them.

[b]Mother: What are you doing? Who are they?
Him: I don’t know.
Mother: What do they want?
Him: I don’t know. They’ve come here to see me!

Him: They love my book. They understand all of it, but it effects every one in a different way. It is remarkable. Come, they want to meet you. Come.
Mother: No. I don’t want to. I don’t want to. Come inside.
Him: But they’ve come from so far…
Mother: Look at me! I’m about to have our baby. Why is that not enough for you?

Mother: Hey! Sir!
Drunkard: I’m just going to lay down for a bit. I don’t feel so good.
Mother: No, no. You cannot lie down here.
Drunkard: Why? Are you staying in here?
Mother: I live here. This is my house.
Drunkard [laughing to himself]: “My house”. “My house”. The poet says it’s everyone’s house!

Mother: They’re ruining everything.
Him: Those are just things. They can be replaced. Don’t worry.

Penitent: It’s him, the poet! He hasn’t forsaken us after all! We need money! We need to eat! Please!

Mother: What are they doing?
Him: They’re just waiting.
Mother: Waiting for what?
Him: I don’t know.

Mother: Make them go. Please. Please make them.
Him [reluctantly]: Okay, okay.

Mother: Are they leaving?
Him: What? No, they just want to see him.
Mother: No. Make. Them. Go!
Him: I can’t.
Mother [pleading]: Yes you can. They adore you. They would listen to you.
[he doesn’t respond]
Mother: Why won’t you!?
Him [finally being honest]: I don’t want them to go.

Him: He’s beautiful. Let me hold him.
Mother: No.
Him: Let me hold him.
[Mother shakes her head]
Him: Let me hold my baby.
Mother: No.
Him [more insistently]: Let me hold him.
Mother: NO!
Him: I’m his father.
Mother: I’m his MOTHER!

Mother [hysterically]: Where’s my baby?!
Zealot: He’s not dead. A voice still cries out to be heard, loud and strong. Listen… Can you hear that?
[she pushes past him. On the altar, lies the remnants of her child. Meat has been picked from the child’s bones]
Zealot: Do you hear that? That’s the sound of life, the sound of humanity. His cry of love. His love for you.

Mother: They killed my baby. You killed him. You killed him.
Him: I am so sorry. They just wanted to see him, they just wanted to touch him, and then they… It’s horrible. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…But we can’t let him die for nothing. We can’t. Maybe what happened can change everything, everyone.
Mother: What are you talking about?
Him: We have to find a way to forgive them.
Mother: They butchered our son!
Him: I know. I know.
Mother: You’re insane!
Him: Listen to them. They are so sorry. They are truly sorry. Please have faith in me. We need to forgive them. We need to forgive them. We need to forgive them.

Mother [at everyone]: Murderers! [to Him] Murderer! It’s time to get the fuck out of my house!!!

Him: I love you.
Mother: You never loved me. You just loved how much I loved you. I gave you everything! You gave it all away.[/b]

Cue Hell itself.

[b]Mother: What are you?
Him: Me? I am I. You? You were home.
Mother: Where are you taking me?
Him: The beginning. It won’t hurt much longer.
Mother: What hurts me the most is that I wasn’t enough.
Him: It’s not your fault. Nothing is ever enough. I couldn’t create if it was. And I have to. That’s what I do. That’s what I am. And now I must try it all again.
Mother: No. Just let me go.
Him: I need one last thing.
Mother: I have nothing left to give.
Him: Your love. It’s still there, isn’t it?
Mother: Go ahead. Take it.

New Woman: Baby?[/b]

Now at the age of 87, Alejandro Jodorowsky has written and directed another fim. I have already included on this thread such titles as The Dance Of Reality, Sante Sangre, The Holy Mountain, and El Topo.

On the other hand, "[t]his is the second of the five memoirs Alejandro Jodorowsky plans to shoot, the first one being The Dance of Reality.

More to come apparently.

His films are often described as both “dramas” and “fantacies”. In other words, you are able to recognize the world that we live in…but sometimes just barely. It is as though he is relating to us the life that he has lived from a first person subjunctive point of view. Here he wants to connect the dots between the here and the now [whatever that means to him] and the there and the then [however he remembers it]. How the past configures the present, and how the present reconfigures the past into a new rendition of the present.

So, what seems surreally true more or less than what is truly surreal.

He returns to his youth. He tries to convey the experiences, the forces, the epiphanies that allowed him to “free himself from the limits of his youth.” And, really, how many of us can say the same? It is as though some are destined to be artists, but not all are destined to be bold enough to break the molds [and the barriers] that “society” and “family” impose on each new generation.

Still, you are never quite sure if this film is an homage to that, or a mockery of that. You in this case meaning me.

All of us are forced to create a narrative between the world around us and, in the course of actually living our lives out in one particular world, the thoughts and the feelings that come into existence “in our heads”. How to make sense of it? How to attach “meaning” to it. And what to do when we bump into others who do not seem to have made the same connections.

What really is true in the end?

If nothing else prepare yourself for a visual feast.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endless_Poetry
trailer: youtu.be/suyruCTA2I4

ENDLESS POETRY [Poesía Sin Fin] 2016
Written and directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky

[b]Father [to Alejandro as a boy]: Look, these lousy folk look harmless, but they’re thieves. Point if you see them stealing.

Father: Garcia Lorca! He speaks of love, but he is a faggot! Like all poets, all painters, all dancers, all actors! If you read this filth, you’ll end up like him!

Drunk [to Alejandro as a boy] : Don’t worry, young man. A naked virgin will illuminate your path with a blazing butterfly.

Alejandro [to himself as a boy]: That drunk, whom wine had made a prohet, pulled me out of the abyss with a single sentence.[/b]

Cue the typewriter

[b]Alejandro: Poetry, you shall illuminate my life like a blazing butterfly!

Father [to Alejandro after an earthquake]: See, it was nothing. Let’s count the money.

Alejandro: Family! Fucking family! You shits!!

Ricardo: Alejandro, your rebellious act was worthy of a poet. Without saying a word, you said it all…I’ll take you to the Cerecada sisters.

Ricardo: This is where my friends live, Carmen abbd Veronica Cerecada. I’ve never seen their parents. I don’t know if they’re orphans or millionaires. All I know is that they love art above all things.

Ricardo: I want to live without a mask. But I’m Naum’s son. I have to be an architect, get married, have two children.
Carmen: Dare, Ricardo!
Ricardo: He’d die. The scandal would kill him.
Carmen: Take off your mask. Be bold. Be bold!

Alejandro [aloud to himself after Ricardo kisses him]: I felt noithing! I’m not a faggot! I told you so, Papa![/b]

What to make of that?

[b]Carmen [to all of the artists]: The miracle we call chance has sent us this poet. Alejandro Jodorowsky. Let us welcome him!

Sella [the poetess]: You people are nothing!

Alejandro: Yes, I’m following you.
Stella: Open your eyes.
Alejandro: They say you write poems. I do too. May I read yours?
Stella: You’re only interested in my poems? Not my ass or breasts?

Stella: Wait. Tell me, what is poetry to you?
Alejandro: It’s the luminius excrement of a toad that’s swallowed a firefly.
Stella: My dear little friend, I’m too big a firefly for your mouth.
Alejandro: I don’t need to swallow you. You are my soul.[/b]

Get it? No? Fortunately, that doesn’t matter.

[b]Stella: Shit! My kingdom for a beer!

Alejandro [looking up at Ricardo hanging from a streetlight]: Ricardo!
Stella: What? Did you know him?
Alejandro: He was my cousin.
Stella: What a thought, to commit suicide in front of the University of Chile!
Alejandro: He didn’t want to become an archetect.
Stella: “Like a bird, like the enthralls of a tree, you reached the end of a quest, defeated and doomed for having silenced the soul you concealed.”

Stella: Alejandro, there is nothing you can do for him.
Alejandro: But there is something I need to do for myself. Stella, I don’t know who I am anymore. I’ve turned into a mirror that only reflects your image. I no longer want to live in the chaos you create!

Alejandro: I beg you, let me recover. Give me a few days of solitude.
Stella [backing away from him]: We’ll meet at Cafe Iris at midnight sharp in forty days time.

Veronica: Eat, Alejandro. You’ve been shut away for forty days, making puppets without setting foot outside. Why?
Alejandro: I feel empty. I sculpt faces because I’ve lost mine. I haven’t found myself. Perhaps tonight at midnight I’ll become the mirror of that awful woman again.

Alejandro [to his collection of humanity]: If daily life seems like hell, if it can be summed up in two words, “permanent impermanence” we must listen to the Bible: “There is nothing better for man than to eat, drink, and have his soul rejoice!”[/b]

You know, given that daily life really can seem like a hell.

[b]Enrique “If life is nothing but madness…”
Alejandro: Who is the poet behind a mirror?"
Veronica: He’s Enrique Lihn.
Enrique: “Such is my poetry: sighted darkness/I am but my own absence/behind a broken mirror”

Alejandro: Even poetry written on the floor. This wonderful work will all be lost.
Enrique: Everything will vanish. Our souls will disappear. It doesn’t matter. Dreams vanish too, and little by little we dissolve. Poetry, like the shadow of a flying eagle, leaves no trace on land. A poem reaches perfection when it burns.

Alejandro [to himself as a young man]: I am the man you will be. You are the man I was. You devoted yourself to poetry and I do not regret it.
Alejandro [as a yound man]: What will I achieve?
Alejandro: You will learn to die in happiness.
Alejandro [as a young man]: I am afraid to die.
Alejandro: You’re afraid of living.
Alejandro [as a young man]: I’m afraid of disappointing others.
Alejandro: You are not guilty of living as you do. You’d be guilty if you lived as others want you to live.
Alejandro [as a young man]: What is the meaning of life?
Alejandro: Life! The brain asks questions, the heart gives the answers. Life does not have meaning, you must live it. Live! Live! Live![/b]

Meaning what exactly? Though point taken. But then just when you thought things could not possibly become more surreal…

[b]Alejandro: Wake up poet.
Enrique: Better to be asleep than awake. Better to be dead. Better to not have been born.
Alejandro: Enough, Enrique! You’re destroying yourself. We won’t let you kill yourself.
Enrique: Nothingness is everything. You’re wasting your time.
Alejandro: Life is everything. It isn’t you suffering. It’s the image you’ve made of yourself. You’re a poet! Perceive reality differently.

Father: The house burned down. Your home. The furniture, clothes, beds!
Alejandro: My writing and books?
Father: Your writing and books? I don’t give a fuck about them! How can you ask such a stupid thing? The money burned!

Alejandro [staring at himself in a mirror]: And you? Who are you? What is the purpose of your existence? Why are you alive?
His reflection: I have never been alive. I was born dead. Another dead man among the dead.
Alejandro [after walking away from the mirror]: Another dead man among the dead. I will grow old, die, rot. Nothingness will swallow my memory, my words, my consciousness. Everything that is mine in the dark depths of oblivion. These streets will disappear too. My friends, the city, the planet! The Moon, the Sun, the stars! The entire universe. Damned reflection. What do I do with this anguish you’ve injected in me?!

Alejandro [to himself as a young man…and to the camera]: Old age is not a humliiation. You detach yourself from everything. From sex, from fortune, from fame. You detach yourself from yourself. You turn into a butterfly…a radiant butterfly. A being of pure light.[/b]

Trust me: Not all of us.

Nicanor: As you can see, your favorite poet is now a maths teacher in this engineering school. What brings you here?
Alejandro: Well, since I’ve distanced myself from my father, I’d like your advice. I want to devote my body and soul to poetry.
Nicanor: Are you mad?! Nobody pays for books any more, even less for poetry. What you have to do is study, get a degree, and work as a teacher, like me. Don’t burn your bridges.
Alejandro: A butterfly mustn’t turn into flies. Nor poets into teachers.
Nicanor: I’m a teacher and have turned into a fly. The world is what it is, you won’t change it.
Alejandro: I can’t change the world, but I can start to change it.
Nicanor: Really? How?
Alejandro: By changing myself. I will burn my bridges, Mr. Parra. Adios.

Cue Ibanez and the fascists. Later, Allende and Pinochet.

[b]Father: Not saying goodbye to your father? Your friend Veronica told me you were leaving Chile with empty pockets, and that I need to help you. But I cannot and will not finance such a stupid decision. You don’t speak a word of French! What will you live on? Your little poems? Come back to the shop. I need a helper.
Aleandro: What you need is a slave! You’re not a father! You never hugged me or spoke affectionaitely.
Father: Men don’t touch each other, or say sweet things to one another.
Alejandro: When I vomited bitter tears, begging for a bit of affection, a bit of attention, you let me cry for hours.
Father: I comfort no one. You’ve become such a faggot!
Aleandro [enraged]: I’m not a faggot. I’m not like you. I have the heart of a poet. A heart capable of loving the entire world!
Father: Listen to me. You’ll starve in the gutter!
Alejandro: You’ll die surrounded by knickers and stockings stained with the blood of the workers!

Father: I didn’t know. I always had good intentions. Don’t leave without shaking my hand.
[Alejandro shakes his hand…then Alexandro of the present intervenes]
Alejandro [beckoning them to hug]: No. Like this.
[He looks to Alejandro as a young man]
Alejandro: You went to France and never saw him again. When he died you didn’t shed a tear. But beneath your indifference your heart was saying, "Father, by giving me nothing, you gave me everything. By not loving me you taught me love is absolutely necessary. By denying God you taught me to value life.
Alejandro [of the present]: I forgive you father. You gave him the strength to bear this world, in which poetry no longer exists. Recognize your father. Remove his mask.[/b]