I've been feeling lousy all weekend. Partly as a result of getting rather drunk on Friday, chatting, flirting and film watching till 0500, and getting to sleep when everyone else was waking up.
The movie was V for Vendetta, a somewhat surreal story of a bloodless revolution against a future dictatorship in Britain. On the face of it, it's a feelgood, radical-left flick about how all the great ideas of Justice and Goodness can, embodied in one enigmatic hero, move a nation and turn it's oppressors against each other.
Here's the recipe:
* Two parts Phantom of the Opera - a scarred antihero in a mask loved by a strong and beautiful girl.
* One part October - the people rise up against a bunch of utter bastards who they really, really should never have tolerated in the first place.
* One part any science fiction film where government scientists experiment on civilians in death camps.
* One part drama where a serial killer kills all those who made him what he is, one by one and in person, after years of planning.
* One pinch of any Lynda Laplante series where a lone technological genius hacks every system perfectly and untracably.
* One pinch of Radcliffe Hall.
* One part Fatherland - an improbably principled detective unearths the truth about his own government
* Two parts Batman Begins - an urbane but lonely and damaged man with improbable martial arts skills and near indestructibility saves a city. By blowing bits of it up.
* A dash of The X-Files.
So, something of a Melange. Or do I mean Collage? Or is it Homage, Montage or Bricolage? Anyway, all quite enjoyable, though it leaves a few small questions unanswered.
Things like: How exactly do the population (all dressed as Guy Fawkes) bring down the government, what do they replace it with, what precisely inspires them to do it, and why does the army become complicit at the last moment?
Oh, and how do various people we've seen killed turn out to be alive at the end?
I'm part time for the next two weeks - teaching in the afternoons, so hopefully there'll be time to do and think about things that aren't work related.
I'll also probably have a private student - a young Czech fellow known to all as "George". Language acquisition often hits a plateau when (a) general communication gets to the stage of being easy but not fluent, and (b) everyone you work with is a non-native speaker at the same level. George wants to get out of that rut.
Other blogs have polls, so here's mine. What do you think I should do with my free time over the next fortnight? Should I:
(1) Write some songs as quickly as possible, record them as quickly as possible, maybe put together some accompanying video images drawn from random snippets of TV as quickly as possible, and publish the results. Quite rapidly.
(2) Intensively go through David Harvey's online course on Marx's Capital, reading the book as required.
(3) Start an exercise regime to become somewhat less overweight and tired-all-the-time.
(4) Other (please specify)
You decide, and let me know.
Go to the beach. You can swim for exercise. Tan if your pale. And people watch. Who knows maybe find someone to throw you up against a wall..
ReplyDeleteI'd go for a mixture of 1 and 3. That way you'll end up with some funky, hip-with-the-groove-scene Bricolage musicey thing (I love the word 'Bricolage' btw), and you'll be fit! What more could a chap want!
ReplyDeleteOh, I'm slightly perturbed. When you say 'I'll also probably have a private student' ... umm ... what does the word 'have' mean? ;)
I hated V for Vendetta.
what does the word 'have' mean? :)
ReplyDeleteI'll let you know what it means when we come together.
Get shagged up against a brick wall when it isn't raining.
ReplyDelete