There are huge pros and cons to having a brain like mine. A brain like mine will read that there are 500 confirmed people infected and 17 dead, so that is about, give or take data blanks, 5% mortality rate for this latest plague we're having. SARS was 10 and MERS was about 30. Already my brain is going through the odds of this being the one that finally fucks us. Because everything else is survivable with a good strategy, except viruses. Viruses get you.
A brain like mine is able to seamlessly piece together a narrative no matter which direction I patch it in - I can read/watch/listen from start to finish, bits here bits there, ending first, opening first, 'safe' bits in between ... It is absolutely no difference if I sit in a theatre and get it all in one fell swoop or if I take a year to watch fragments.
A brain like mine is also no longer able to watch the realistic portrayal of grievous bodily harm or death that isn't, strictly speaking, by a car crash or a gunshot or drowning or fistfight or even someone doing someone in with a hatchet or a cleaver. Getting impaled by things, like construction material flying during an automobile collision, I hate it, but I don't care, really. I mean, I really care in the Real-world, I never drive behind a truck carrying construction material or wood logs.
But hanging, slow stabbing, strangulation and being killed by fire, especially in water (oil spills, in case you blinked here for a second), and to a degree being crushed slowly .... No matter how good a film is, I simply cannot watch that. I will skip the whole epic film because of a minute or not even that of having to experience it. Obviously, we are talking about realistic films, not Kill Bill.
So? How do I watch?
It IS an interesting process, I'll admit. And 1917, that is a behemoth of cinematic mastery. I haven't seen a movie that well done since Blade Runner 2049. This probably isn't a coincidence, taking into account both were directed by talented people who are well versed in the business and were able to afford the best cinematographer working today. And both movies latch onto the lead role of a bland young man with a dejected attitude and sad droopy big eyes, washed out from all the shits not given. The fact that 1917 also has that -one shot- thing going for it and it is one of the better portrayals of the shitshows that wars are, all those rotting nameless dead left behind, means little. It's an A+ movie. I just gotsta find a way to see it, leaving bits out which would further damage my fickle brain.
0 comments:
Post a Comment