Friday 1 December 2006
It's the wrong kind of place to be thinking of you
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This is something that should ideally be saved for Musical Monday, but I love the song too much to wait. 9 Crimes, by Damien Rice, is perhaps the most ridiculously-heartbreaking song I have heard in a long time -- beating even Mr Rice's own Cheers Darling.
Leonard Cohen should cover the song, just for added sadness.
It seems quite fitting that I'm also currently reading Nick Hornby's A Long Way Down. Luckily for me I'm reasonably emotionally robust at the moment. And there's no sharp objects near me at work.
Work? What's to say? Yelled at by some arsehole today whose claim wasn't even going to be validated, just because he wanted a new phone and we didn't get the claim form he faxed us. I was close to losing my temper with him, which is unusual. I'm a pretty even-tempered kind of person, but I have a darkness that scares even myself so I try not to let myself go.
I managed to find my wallet this morning, in the stupid bloody car. If it hadn't been light last night I might have been able to find it then, but moving the seats in the dark hadn't helped. This morning, I moved the passenger seat forwards and there was my wallet. Good that it's not lost, bad that I didn't find it before I cancelled all my cards.
I was discussing films over lunch today. The pretty girl sat next to me and I were expressing our love for Natural Born Killers and True Romance, and most of the rest of Tarantino's work (directed or not, as the case is with those two). The conversation moved onto the film The Basketball Diaries. This one guy hailed it as DiCaprio's best role, but although I haven't seen ...Diaries I said I felt The Departed was probably his best. I then brought up The Motorcycle Diaries -- because it had a similar title -- and asked my coworker, who was still banging on about DiCaprio, if he'd seen it.
He laughed, like I had told a joke, and in your fucking annoying boy-way said why would he want to see that? "It's about two blokes and a motorbike, innit?" I told him, actually it's an autobiographical account of the revolutionary Che Guevara's travels around South America. Not the same thing. He still didn't see the appeal. I mentioned it was in Spanish, and that was even funnier to him, it seemed.
What really topped it off for him and this other guy was when I mentioned I liked watching Spanish films -- my favourite being el Mariarchi. It was apparently uproariously funny that I don't speak Spanish. I pointed out the films are subtitled, and if I could give an award for the most stupid comment ever made, this guy would be high in the running.
"What's the point of that?" He said "You might as well just read a book."
I pause here to let that statement sink in.
Is anyone really so dense that they can't tell the difference between a subtitled film, and reading a book? As someone who had clearly never watched a film in a language other than English, I attempted to explain to him that -- believe it or not -- films made in other countries can have very different styles to American or English films. Spanish films are stylistically different to French films, Japanese films are different to Chinese films. I'm hardly a connoisseur of world cinema, and I can't say I have ever really ventured much of the beaten path of the mainstream, but it's clear enough to me. And besides any of that, I said, I love how Spanish sounds...
This weekend I have the house to myself again -- just me and the cat. Giving me time to fire off some job applications for work in journalism, and some speculative letters to work in PR. It's funny to me how I'm trying to play both sides -- my respective letters to each saying that I have experience of both sides of the coin, and now know where my heart belongs. And just to make things confusing, I'm thinking of looking work in a zoo. And looking to move to Canada.
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The only thing I hate about foreign films is that if you look away for a mintue to blow your nose or pick your bum, you might miss something crucial in the conversation.
ReplyDeleteMaybe that only happens to me.
I just wrote you a long and rambling comment, and blogger went all stupid on me. I hate blogger right now.
ReplyDeleteIn short, I like the Mexico Trilogy, but I hate it for the fact that characters are played by different people. Lack of continuity drives me crazy. Also, I like the Motorcycle Diaries. And with foreign films, you don't have to read every single subtitle because the acting should be conveying most of what you need to know.
And you should move to Canada.
I don't understand why people don't see the appeal of a foreign subtitled films - it's like saying you only want to eat mcdonalds for your whole life. I agree with you that stylistically they're all very different - depending on the culture they come from. I'm not a fan of those that have been dubbed over though. You miss so much if the film has been dubbed with english (especially if you understand some of a certain language or culture) - you miss all those funny nuances that the script on the bottom of the screen doesn't do justice through the english translation.
ReplyDeleteGorgeous song :) Leonard Cohen can make any song sound sad - this song doesn't need any more of it ;)
Steph: I think bum-picking as a cause of missing important parts of a foreign film is a common complaint ;)
ReplyDeleteJamie: I'd hate to see what the comment blogger ate was like, since your revised version made a very good point. Not sure about Canada though, there's a case being made for Oz.
M: While I don't necessarily agree that all non-foreign films are the film equivalent of eating McDonalds, I see what you're saying and I really don't understand these people either. But there's a lot about people I don't understand.
...well I was more eluding to the fact that usually people who won't watch foreign films are the same people who won't watch an indie film, a dendy one, a doco either. You know the people I'm talking about - not really that ALL non-foreigns are trashy.
ReplyDeleteThe Departed ruled. Have you, by chance, seen "The Prestige"...? It was really good, and I thought it would be just OK. I just hated the explanation part at the end, but the audience needed it.
ReplyDeleteCreme Fraiche is right - I saw the Prestige on Friday night and it was 100% better than I was expecting. It was brilliant, actually.
ReplyDeletehehe that co-worker of yours - oh my god. Maybe you should tell him a fart joke, something tells me that might be his level. Like reading a book - oh my god!
M: I'll let you off then -- and thanks for the Dendy link, it makes sense now.
ReplyDeleteCrème fraîche: I've not seen that film -- I've heard *of* it, but I don't think it's been released here yet.
Madameboffin: Something tells me you're right, and my coworker has probably never read a book to know what one is like. I'm hardly an intellectual myself, but just the same...