Perhaps it’s just my expectations about how much a small pot/takeaway cup of tea should cost that is out of step with current realities – Te Papa charges $3.80, so maybe $4 at Embassy isn’t as out-of-line as I thought. But how can it only be 20c more than a coffee, which requires all that faff? It certainly makes me appreciate the work kitchen more.
Film #57: Death Row: Portrait of Joseph Garcia & George Rivas
One of the interesting differences between this film and the others in the series is that one of the people interviewed seemed remorseful, even though he was still making excuses for himself. The situation that he describes is a bit ridiculous – Texas apparently counts each seperate person in the store as a separate robbery, and anyone who is moved once they’re taken hostage counts as a kidnapping charge. So for a single robbery (with a firearm, but no injuries), George Rivas was charged with 18 consecutive life sentences, meaning that he would be elegible for parole in 270 years. While I’m not sure that he understood how much trauma there is for people who are robbed, this does seem out of proportion to the offence. He claimed that it was this lack of hope that led him to organize a prison break with a group of inmates that he felt were similar.
Unfortunately, they followed this escape with a string of robberies, and shot a policeman to death in the aftermath of robbing a sporting-goods store. This was the crime that Rivas and his accomplices were on death row for. Rivas seemed resigned to his fate – he had been given additional life sentences for every person tied up in the course of his escape, and thought that the fact that he had embarassed state authorities meant that a pardon was impossible.
The other prisoner, Joseph Garcia, seemed unable to understand that you can’t claim “self defence” if you’ve had to chase after the other person to stab them to death, even if they’ve beaten you up and stolen your car keys. But he wasn’t on death row for that; he was there for being in the store, tying people up when the policeman was shot. He didn’t seem to be a nice, responsible citizen; but this doesn’t seem like a case where the punishment fits the crime, either.
Take-home message – avoid Texas as well as Memphis.
Film #58: Karen Blixen – Behind Her Mask
I felt a bit adrift in this film, like the film-maker expected me to know many things that I didn’t know, and have various beliefs that I neither had nor fully understood. I gathered from the film that Blixen was a big deal in literature, but I had no idea why, nor what sort of things she wrote about (Out of Africa & Babette’s Feast being two that I had heard of, though I wouldn’t be able to tell you anything about them beyond what’s on her Wikipedia page). There was a strong sense of both cult and occult, with various figures acting as spiritual advisors, along with the virulent antipathy that seems to spring up between self-styled adepts. It felt like there might be material here for an interesting game – Esoterrorists, perhaps, though the first one I thought of was Nephilim. I think the theatre might have been a bit too warm, as I found myself drifting off a bit.
If I were going to use it as source material, or if I read up about Karen Blixen and got interested, then I might watch it again – though there’s little connection between her wikipedia entry and the person depicted in the film. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it to someone coming in cold.
(There were interesting things happening between the interviewer and subject, who were father and son; but I’m not sure that’s a good enough reason to see the film.)
Film #59: 5 Broken Cameras
Another take on the Israeli colonization of the Occupied Territories, this time by one of the villagers whose lands have been annexed by the Israeli army. There is lots of non-violent protest (though there seems to be a lot of thrown rocks, particularly against vehicles), and there are a number of times when they show that there are different standards for settlers from Palestinians – the settlers can put down prefabs and claim land, while the Palestinian prefabs get trucked away. The courts even ruled that the confiscation and construction was illegal… but it continued anyway, and settlers moved in. The five cameras refer to cameras destroyed while documenting the occupation – Israelis seem to like to shoot them.
Where are all these settlers coming from, anyway? It’s not like they’re building suburban housing – it’s all fairly intensive, medium-rise apartments. And what are all these people doing once they’re out there? I didn’t see any evidence of industry – are they just hunkering down, trying to normalize the land confiscation by sitting in their rooms and selling each other services? And who is paying for all this construction?
While Israelis who live in the Occupied Territories are allowed to vote in Israeli elections, I can’t see how the situation will be resolved; unless the global recession dries up the money supporting the settlers (since I very much doubt that they’re profitable). But it should be noted that this film was edited together with the help of an experienced Israeli film-maker, and funded in part by various Israeli film funding institutions. That he is still willing to work with Israelis is, I think, a good sign.
Film #60: Lore
Set while the Allies tanks are carving Germany into administrative chunks, a group of children of a mid-level Nazi official must travel through the countryside and across the new borders, to get to their grandmother’s house.
There’s a good sense of danger, and we get the feeling that Lore slowly grows to suspect that her comfortable certainties might be wrong. The adults, on the other hand, are in full-on denial mode, claiming that the pictures of the concentration camps must be actors, or the same pit of bodies photographed from different angles, complaining about having to look at these pictures in order to get food.
I’m not sure that saying I “enjoyed” it is quite right, but I did think that it was a good film.
Film #61: Stopped On Track
Continuing my depressing German movie streak was this film about a father diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour who has two or three months to live. He has a son who’s something like eight, and a daughter in her early teens; everyone reacts realistically, with the kids being sulky when they’re pulled away from a treat by the father’s illness, and the wife finding it hard to cope with a progressively less capable husband. I thought it was good.
An inevitable consequence of watching this kind of film is thinking about how you’d handle it if it happened to you. Personally, I find the idea of your mental powers degrading much scarier than just dying; and it makes me realise that it’s probably harder to be the one who isn’t dying, since you’re meant to hold things together, and have to deal with the aftermath of things as well. I’d like to think I’d deal with it gracefully, but on the whole, I think I’d prefer not to find out.
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