During dinner, I watched a bit of the BBC documentary on Vietnam, as I've finished the ambulance series and I'm also up to date on the Welsh police.
Moving on to the evening's main feature, I chose Babycall, in which Noomi Rapace is a victim of domestic abuse who buys a baby monitor because she's worried about her young son sleeping in a separate bedroom in the apartment block in which they've been rehoused. This is in Norwegian, which makes a change from the Swedish and Danish that characterises much of my viewing of late, but it certainly doesn't disappoint in the unutterable bleakness department. Everything goes wrong for everyone right from the start, bad things happen to good people in worse ways than you expected, and there's nothing even remotely resembling a happy ending. Top stuff
To follow on from this Nordic delight I tried Endorphine, a Québécois film about a thirteen-year-old girl who witnesses the murder of her mother, and is further shown at ages 25 and 60 in scenes relating to it, with flashbacks and flashforwards and all that stuff. The scenario of the mother being murdered is treated not as the opportunity for a thriller or horror flick like any sensible culture would, but as the preamble to a philosophical discourse on the nature of time, memory, and reality, with the storyline being all jumbled up in an attempt to seem clever.
This was the most ridiculous mishmash of pseudo-philosophical garbage it's been my privilege to witness in a long time, and if Jacques Derrida thought he'd managed to sully the good name of French philosophy beyond redemption, all I can say is budge up Jackie, there's a new poseur in town. After the damn thing had ground to a halt I went back and read the two or three sentence summary on iTunes, and I actually learned more about what I'd just seen from that than I had from watching it. Frankly, I've had more coherent and well-developed insights into the nature of time and related metaphysical concepts while staring blankly out of the window on a long train journey, and you probably have too.
No stars, would not recommend
Current temperature: 38.2°C in the ear nearest the fire, 38.0°C in the other. The other seems to be consistently slightly lower, though. Anyway, still just under actual fever pitch
Goodnight all
Moving on to the evening's main feature, I chose Babycall, in which Noomi Rapace is a victim of domestic abuse who buys a baby monitor because she's worried about her young son sleeping in a separate bedroom in the apartment block in which they've been rehoused. This is in Norwegian, which makes a change from the Swedish and Danish that characterises much of my viewing of late, but it certainly doesn't disappoint in the unutterable bleakness department. Everything goes wrong for everyone right from the start, bad things happen to good people in worse ways than you expected, and there's nothing even remotely resembling a happy ending. Top stuff
To follow on from this Nordic delight I tried Endorphine, a Québécois film about a thirteen-year-old girl who witnesses the murder of her mother, and is further shown at ages 25 and 60 in scenes relating to it, with flashbacks and flashforwards and all that stuff. The scenario of the mother being murdered is treated not as the opportunity for a thriller or horror flick like any sensible culture would, but as the preamble to a philosophical discourse on the nature of time, memory, and reality, with the storyline being all jumbled up in an attempt to seem clever.
This was the most ridiculous mishmash of pseudo-philosophical garbage it's been my privilege to witness in a long time, and if Jacques Derrida thought he'd managed to sully the good name of French philosophy beyond redemption, all I can say is budge up Jackie, there's a new poseur in town. After the damn thing had ground to a halt I went back and read the two or three sentence summary on iTunes, and I actually learned more about what I'd just seen from that than I had from watching it. Frankly, I've had more coherent and well-developed insights into the nature of time and related metaphysical concepts while staring blankly out of the window on a long train journey, and you probably have too.
No stars, would not recommend
Current temperature: 38.2°C in the ear nearest the fire, 38.0°C in the other. The other seems to be consistently slightly lower, though. Anyway, still just under actual fever pitch
Goodnight all
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