mjj (flemmings) wrote,
mjj
flemmings

Happy afternoon

So for my birthday I walked down to Bakka and bought me a book. Bakka is now on Harbord, a walkable distance when sidewalks aren't covered in snow. They are, but I have the Mighty Boots of Traction, and walked anyway, and then walked back up to Bloor and had brunch at Thai Basil, which alas deserves its reputation and packed houses, because the cold rolls are delicious and the chicken skewers not merely delicious but huge, and that counts as dinner. But they gave me the wrong cheque and then forgot about me, so that by the time I was out of there I was five minutes late for the start of Uncle Boonmee who can recall his past lives. I don't think I missed anything: evidently one sits looking at that dark jungle and lost cow for a very long time. Nor are you told who the young guy Tong is who comes with Aunt Jen nor why he's suddenly a Buddhist monk at the end. It may have been in the Thai; what gets lost in subtitles is what made me start learning Japanese.

Then I came home and googled the film to find out why it counts as one of 2010's outstanding films. Am still not sure, though I gather there's an artistic tour de force involved for those familiar with Thai cinema. I've met slower films, for sure-- always at the Toronto Film Festival except for some lamentable costume eps of my youth-- and they bored me more rigid than this. Not that Boonmee bored me exactly-- different places, different mindsets, and umm there *is* a guy dying here, so something does happen. But the major fascination was looking to see where a western director would have inserted stuff that Weerasethakul leaves out. Nobody is trapped in the cave they go into. The guys in fatigues do not commit atrocities. The princess is not pulled underwater to drown. I don't watch much western cinema but its ethos has made me chary of watching anything.

And then next door invited me for drinks and my bro gave me a Rupert the Bear annual as a gift. I love Rupert the Bear. I'm sure he's problematic still-- though not as problematic as fifty years ago-- but I love his little cozy England anyway.
Tags: film, rl_11
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