To say to humanity in general that I understand how you feel is a safe thing to do because there will always be at least a few others who inhabit a similar dimension of experience. To say it to one other human being is always fraught with difficulty unless you are confident about that the similarities of experience, education, outlook and beliefs, significantly outweigh the differences and all the variables which make each set of memories and circumstances different. I begin to believe that I understand how most people feel about getting old in body and mind, about the increasing prospect of the ending of self conscious awareness, but of being aware that the end is happening, particularly if is long drawn out, unpleasant and painful. This is one definition of hell.
One definition of Hell was the subject of what should be the final film in the series of III Internal Affairs III. I faced problems in working out this was so, and only after looking at what the Internet was able to reveal. Hell for me is many things, and one of these does not know, particularly knowing that one will never know
It is sometime since seeing Internal Affairs I, which I saw in theatre, so I only remembered the main theme, two police cadets, one thrown out of the force, or was he, and another staying inside, I think, and one went to work for the bad guys but was really a good guy, and one who was a good guy was really a mole for the bad guys, but which was which? I usually do not have a problem with subtitles because I can relate the words on screen to the characters but I do have a problem when here are many characters and a complex story. What was worse with Internal Affairs III is the constant use of flashback and flash forwards, reprise of the first film, perhaps of the second, which I am not sure if I have seen on TV or DVD.
I also have a problem of differentiation between oriental faces as Orientals have with White Westerns, as we each lack the reference norms and familiarity which instantly reminds I know who you are from no I don't. Mind you I have this problem in general, for if I meet someone out of context, or after long period of time, I not only forget the name, which I can also do with those ongoing familiarity, but I cannot remember the context in which I knew them. This happened at my last haircut. I knew the individual well, in previous times and he knew me, but I have been unable to work out who and when and what, and this bugs me because I have now way of ever finding the answer.
Fortunately there is the internet and Wikipedia which explained that this is the story of one former mole turned cop who tries to whitewash his past and is not sure if a security agent (the internal affairs man) is also a mole who is responsible for the execution of anyone who can give him away. Each tries to learn the secrets of the other. The former's "sense of identity collapses as he begins to lose track of reality, wrestling with his deep guilt." (My school Shakespeare play for GCE English Literature, was "when shall we three meet again," Macbeth). At the end of the film after a bungled suicide attempt this I individual ends his days crippled and catatonic, lost inside his own mind and locked in his own personal hell. Now I understand all about this kind of hell from aspects of my own experience and from what happened to my mother and my aunt. Just as with the concept of the devil, hell can be such a reality that the kind of exaggerated graphic depictions of film, canvas, or book are unnecessary and misleading.
Today was also a day when I returned to Lost, out of sequence I believe, from the last episode viewed, and as with Internal Affairs, the gap has been such that I have lost my connections with the series and the characters, although I caught on other connections and links such as a line of Sawyer, a confidence trickster who went in for long drawn out clever and complicated high stakes enterprises and appears to be seeking severe punishment for his redemption and salvation, when he says in the first episode, " ain't that just like a woman", which I think is a line from a Bob Dylan song. Lost is another form of Hell, although different for each of the individuals. Most it about not being able to put right the sins and the harms, the betrayals and the failures in the lives before coming to the island. There is the additional problem of never knowing if what is happening is real, if it is a prolonged dream or if it is being in limbo or a form of never ending after life, although the number of series and episodes as well as the end are now known. At the end of the four episodes on the disk, there is a miracle. Although the suggestion is that for the individual most affected hell knows that it is not.
Lost is also about the problems of individualists needing to band together to achieve collective survival where it is almost impossible to know who to trust and who not. I also know all about such a state of mind and feeling and that it will leads to paranoia and inactivity, and the loss of self confidence.
There is no right or wrong solution, other than to accept this is the way of the world in general and do and say what you want, knowing what the consequences are likely to be. My evening finished with two programmes about Hell which also focussed on who to trust and who not. The first was a double ration of Spooks, whose return I may have missed before. In the first there was a killer bug within the community which the state pretends is a super bug. I suspect this is what has happened with the recent outbreaks of foot and mouth and the other break out of a disease which threatened to explode across animal specie, our food chain and economy. In this episode it is becomes necessary for our spooks to turn on other friendly spooks using on them techniques which they sue on spooks who are known enemies. One cannot shed ant tears about this, as what is happening in the Soprano's as I watched the penultimate episode and one lot of murderous criminals any redeeming qualities sets out to destroy another "Am I bovvered?"
In the second episode of Spooks, the focus is also on friends behaving just as badly as your enemies, but you forgive them friendly fire casualties because they are your friends, with the sub plot the states within states and the impact of globalization of commerce, finance and brotherhoods on individual states. The only difference between the two series is that in Spooks everyone is trying to do the right and best thing for the rest of the population, their country and its political leaders, but behave like criminal gangs, whereas in the other, the individuals know they are criminals with other criminals out to get them and their and most likely to than the good guys of the state, but they also believe in childhood, and Father Christmas and buying your way out of Hell into Heaven. The Spooks do not, they know they are in Hell and will remain so yet they try and work on according to the standards and beliefs of their childhood beliefs and faiths.
One definition of Hell was the subject of what should be the final film in the series of III Internal Affairs III. I faced problems in working out this was so, and only after looking at what the Internet was able to reveal. Hell for me is many things, and one of these does not know, particularly knowing that one will never know
It is sometime since seeing Internal Affairs I, which I saw in theatre, so I only remembered the main theme, two police cadets, one thrown out of the force, or was he, and another staying inside, I think, and one went to work for the bad guys but was really a good guy, and one who was a good guy was really a mole for the bad guys, but which was which? I usually do not have a problem with subtitles because I can relate the words on screen to the characters but I do have a problem when here are many characters and a complex story. What was worse with Internal Affairs III is the constant use of flashback and flash forwards, reprise of the first film, perhaps of the second, which I am not sure if I have seen on TV or DVD.
I also have a problem of differentiation between oriental faces as Orientals have with White Westerns, as we each lack the reference norms and familiarity which instantly reminds I know who you are from no I don't. Mind you I have this problem in general, for if I meet someone out of context, or after long period of time, I not only forget the name, which I can also do with those ongoing familiarity, but I cannot remember the context in which I knew them. This happened at my last haircut. I knew the individual well, in previous times and he knew me, but I have been unable to work out who and when and what, and this bugs me because I have now way of ever finding the answer.
Fortunately there is the internet and Wikipedia which explained that this is the story of one former mole turned cop who tries to whitewash his past and is not sure if a security agent (the internal affairs man) is also a mole who is responsible for the execution of anyone who can give him away. Each tries to learn the secrets of the other. The former's "sense of identity collapses as he begins to lose track of reality, wrestling with his deep guilt." (My school Shakespeare play for GCE English Literature, was "when shall we three meet again," Macbeth). At the end of the film after a bungled suicide attempt this I individual ends his days crippled and catatonic, lost inside his own mind and locked in his own personal hell. Now I understand all about this kind of hell from aspects of my own experience and from what happened to my mother and my aunt. Just as with the concept of the devil, hell can be such a reality that the kind of exaggerated graphic depictions of film, canvas, or book are unnecessary and misleading.
Today was also a day when I returned to Lost, out of sequence I believe, from the last episode viewed, and as with Internal Affairs, the gap has been such that I have lost my connections with the series and the characters, although I caught on other connections and links such as a line of Sawyer, a confidence trickster who went in for long drawn out clever and complicated high stakes enterprises and appears to be seeking severe punishment for his redemption and salvation, when he says in the first episode, " ain't that just like a woman", which I think is a line from a Bob Dylan song. Lost is another form of Hell, although different for each of the individuals. Most it about not being able to put right the sins and the harms, the betrayals and the failures in the lives before coming to the island. There is the additional problem of never knowing if what is happening is real, if it is a prolonged dream or if it is being in limbo or a form of never ending after life, although the number of series and episodes as well as the end are now known. At the end of the four episodes on the disk, there is a miracle. Although the suggestion is that for the individual most affected hell knows that it is not.
Lost is also about the problems of individualists needing to band together to achieve collective survival where it is almost impossible to know who to trust and who not. I also know all about such a state of mind and feeling and that it will leads to paranoia and inactivity, and the loss of self confidence.
There is no right or wrong solution, other than to accept this is the way of the world in general and do and say what you want, knowing what the consequences are likely to be. My evening finished with two programmes about Hell which also focussed on who to trust and who not. The first was a double ration of Spooks, whose return I may have missed before. In the first there was a killer bug within the community which the state pretends is a super bug. I suspect this is what has happened with the recent outbreaks of foot and mouth and the other break out of a disease which threatened to explode across animal specie, our food chain and economy. In this episode it is becomes necessary for our spooks to turn on other friendly spooks using on them techniques which they sue on spooks who are known enemies. One cannot shed ant tears about this, as what is happening in the Soprano's as I watched the penultimate episode and one lot of murderous criminals any redeeming qualities sets out to destroy another "Am I bovvered?"
In the second episode of Spooks, the focus is also on friends behaving just as badly as your enemies, but you forgive them friendly fire casualties because they are your friends, with the sub plot the states within states and the impact of globalization of commerce, finance and brotherhoods on individual states. The only difference between the two series is that in Spooks everyone is trying to do the right and best thing for the rest of the population, their country and its political leaders, but behave like criminal gangs, whereas in the other, the individuals know they are criminals with other criminals out to get them and their and most likely to than the good guys of the state, but they also believe in childhood, and Father Christmas and buying your way out of Hell into Heaven. The Spooks do not, they know they are in Hell and will remain so yet they try and work on according to the standards and beliefs of their childhood beliefs and faiths.
No comments:
Post a Comment