Happy Canada Day! Now watch some foreign films.
It's Canada Day, today, so I'm home but I'm still nursing my knee. I think I may venture out later and join 
dacro and family for some free concert shenanigans later today. ♥
Every so often, usually while in the throes of raging against the machine, I sometimes realise that I am not alone in the universe (or that my direct universe is really very small).
What I mean to say is that, my life - though all-encompassing for me - means very little in the big scheme of things. During these brief bouts of epiphany, I find myself looking in to the front windows of stranger's homes, and wonder what their lives are like. Are they suffering? Are they happy? Do they have money saved, are they dying of disease?
Also, during this time, I look outside of my country, nay, my entire universe and ask the same things. I'm an educated, middle-classed, caucasian Canadian woman with a very secure support system in every way (family, friends, health, money). Therefore, any other Way Of Life is something I can only *look at* - as if through glass.
In an effort to get a closer look, I often go into these deep funks, watching films, reading books, trying to understand what life is like for people who are NOT me. This time, I managed to see a few films that I must share with you, today, and give you my unedited commentary:
For Neda
(English version)
The film, "For Neda," documents a 27-year-old Iranian music student named Neda Agha-Soltan was shot in the heart last June 20 during a Tehran protest. Fellow demonstrators recorded images of her dying on their cell phones, and she quickly became a symbol for the crushed movement to protest Iran's questionable election results.
"I didn't want these brave people who came out on the streets and risked their lives so courageously to feel that the world had moved on and it's been forgotten," said Antony Thomas, who wrote and produced the documentary.
DJ's thoughts:
This film really brought home to me just how fucking sheltered I am in my country, how the G20 protests and minor riots Canada is occasionally exposed to are penny-ante bullshit compared to what other countries and their people have to deal with on a fucking day-to-day basis, just so they can have the right to question their governments. Every day in Canada, we question and judge every member of every government body in our country, from Band Chiefs to the Governor-General, we do it freely, nauseatingly constantly, in the press, online, in our offices, on the buses, in the goddamned Safeways. We do it without FEAR OF REPERCUSSION. EVER.
idek.
The Queen and I
2008 documentary film about Farah Pahlavi, the Empress of Iran, as done by an Iranian exile, a woman named Nahid Persson Sarvestani, who, as a child, had lived in dire poverty, watching the Shah and the Empress's wedding as if it were a fairy tale. As a result, as a teenager, she joined the Communist faction of Khomeini's revolution that deposed the Shah, sending him and his family volleying from country to country.
Only to have the Ayatollah Khomeini betray their generation, imposing more violent measures than the Shah had, forcing her to flee the country.
DJ's thoughts:
Let's play "I have never", hmm?
I have never: had to share a bedroom or a pair of shoes with more than one person. I have never: had to depose a leader. I have never: had to flee my country under cover of the night. I have never: lost a sibling to war or revolution execution.
Shall I go on? You get the point. I think the filmmaker here really wanted to expose the ousted Empress as an evil (spouse of a) despot, but she found only a woman as far from home as she herself, who had suffered her own tragedies. Neither was really prepared to look at the questions, who was the real enemy? Why did any of that had to happen? This film leaves you wondering.
I remember this happening - seeing the news about the Shah and Khomeini on various TVs in my parent's split level house here in British Columbia, like it was just a TV show.
For me, I guess it was. It was same with the Israeli-Lebanese war in Beirut, which is up next:
Waltz with Bashir
(Hebrew: ואלס עם באשיר - Vals Im Bashir) This is an award-winning 2008 Israeli animated documentary, written and directed by Ari Folman, about his search of his lost memories from the 1982 Lebanon War.
In 1982, Ari Folman was a 19-year-old infantry soldier in the Israel Defense Forces. In 2006, he meets with a friend from his army service period, who tells him of the nightmares connected to his experiences from the Lebanon War. Folman is surprised to find that he does not remember a thing from that period. This film tells the story of his journey to find out why.
DJ's thoughts:
This film was extraordinary, and vivid, and I keep replaying bits of it in my head.
Let me tell you a story: My sister in law used to work for a fellow who had moved here from Israel and set up a business with his brother. Super nice guy, great sense of humour, very easy-going. One day, she was closing up shop (restaurant) and noticed that someone had left a backpack behind, so she picked it up and brought it back to put behind the counter for whomever would come in to retrieve it the next day. She says she will never forget the look of horror on her boss's face. "Get rid of it!" he'd hissed. "Don't leave it inside!" She was all, wtaf?
Evidently, when you are from Israel, you don't touch bags left unattended.
This film is an incredible insight into the mind of an Israeli soldier who witnessed (and took part in!) the horrors in Beirut. And though this film barely touches the extreme hate between these peoples of the middle east, but it's enough to make you really, really *think* about it; the why, the history. And you thought you hated your neighbour.
All three of these movies may or may not have violent images from revolutions and war, and you have been warned. Mind their ratings if you watch, but I can't recommend them enough.
Well, there is something you can watch instead of That Movie That Shall Not Be Named.
This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth here. Mostly because I can't be arsed to get Semagic. :). Comment here, there, or the other place, it's all good.
dacro and family for some free concert shenanigans later today. ♥
Every so often, usually while in the throes of raging against the machine, I sometimes realise that I am not alone in the universe (or that my direct universe is really very small).
What I mean to say is that, my life - though all-encompassing for me - means very little in the big scheme of things. During these brief bouts of epiphany, I find myself looking in to the front windows of stranger's homes, and wonder what their lives are like. Are they suffering? Are they happy? Do they have money saved, are they dying of disease?
Also, during this time, I look outside of my country, nay, my entire universe and ask the same things. I'm an educated, middle-classed, caucasian Canadian woman with a very secure support system in every way (family, friends, health, money). Therefore, any other Way Of Life is something I can only *look at* - as if through glass.
In an effort to get a closer look, I often go into these deep funks, watching films, reading books, trying to understand what life is like for people who are NOT me. This time, I managed to see a few films that I must share with you, today, and give you my unedited commentary:
For Neda
(English version)
The film, "For Neda," documents a 27-year-old Iranian music student named Neda Agha-Soltan was shot in the heart last June 20 during a Tehran protest. Fellow demonstrators recorded images of her dying on their cell phones, and she quickly became a symbol for the crushed movement to protest Iran's questionable election results.
"I didn't want these brave people who came out on the streets and risked their lives so courageously to feel that the world had moved on and it's been forgotten," said Antony Thomas, who wrote and produced the documentary.
DJ's thoughts:
This film really brought home to me just how fucking sheltered I am in my country, how the G20 protests and minor riots Canada is occasionally exposed to are penny-ante bullshit compared to what other countries and their people have to deal with on a fucking day-to-day basis, just so they can have the right to question their governments. Every day in Canada, we question and judge every member of every government body in our country, from Band Chiefs to the Governor-General, we do it freely, nauseatingly constantly, in the press, online, in our offices, on the buses, in the goddamned Safeways. We do it without FEAR OF REPERCUSSION. EVER.
idek.
The Queen and I
2008 documentary film about Farah Pahlavi, the Empress of Iran, as done by an Iranian exile, a woman named Nahid Persson Sarvestani, who, as a child, had lived in dire poverty, watching the Shah and the Empress's wedding as if it were a fairy tale. As a result, as a teenager, she joined the Communist faction of Khomeini's revolution that deposed the Shah, sending him and his family volleying from country to country.
Only to have the Ayatollah Khomeini betray their generation, imposing more violent measures than the Shah had, forcing her to flee the country.
DJ's thoughts:
Let's play "I have never", hmm?
I have never: had to share a bedroom or a pair of shoes with more than one person. I have never: had to depose a leader. I have never: had to flee my country under cover of the night. I have never: lost a sibling to war or revolution execution.
Shall I go on? You get the point. I think the filmmaker here really wanted to expose the ousted Empress as an evil (spouse of a) despot, but she found only a woman as far from home as she herself, who had suffered her own tragedies. Neither was really prepared to look at the questions, who was the real enemy? Why did any of that had to happen? This film leaves you wondering.
I remember this happening - seeing the news about the Shah and Khomeini on various TVs in my parent's split level house here in British Columbia, like it was just a TV show.
For me, I guess it was. It was same with the Israeli-Lebanese war in Beirut, which is up next:
Waltz with Bashir
(Hebrew: ואלס עם באשיר - Vals Im Bashir) This is an award-winning 2008 Israeli animated documentary, written and directed by Ari Folman, about his search of his lost memories from the 1982 Lebanon War.
In 1982, Ari Folman was a 19-year-old infantry soldier in the Israel Defense Forces. In 2006, he meets with a friend from his army service period, who tells him of the nightmares connected to his experiences from the Lebanon War. Folman is surprised to find that he does not remember a thing from that period. This film tells the story of his journey to find out why.
DJ's thoughts:
This film was extraordinary, and vivid, and I keep replaying bits of it in my head.
Let me tell you a story: My sister in law used to work for a fellow who had moved here from Israel and set up a business with his brother. Super nice guy, great sense of humour, very easy-going. One day, she was closing up shop (restaurant) and noticed that someone had left a backpack behind, so she picked it up and brought it back to put behind the counter for whomever would come in to retrieve it the next day. She says she will never forget the look of horror on her boss's face. "Get rid of it!" he'd hissed. "Don't leave it inside!" She was all, wtaf?
Evidently, when you are from Israel, you don't touch bags left unattended.
This film is an incredible insight into the mind of an Israeli soldier who witnessed (and took part in!) the horrors in Beirut. And though this film barely touches the extreme hate between these peoples of the middle east, but it's enough to make you really, really *think* about it; the why, the history. And you thought you hated your neighbour.
All three of these movies may or may not have violent images from revolutions and war, and you have been warned. Mind their ratings if you watch, but I can't recommend them enough.
Well, there is something you can watch instead of That Movie That Shall Not Be Named.
This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth here. Mostly because I can't be arsed to get Semagic. :). Comment here, there, or the other place, it's all good.