And, indeed, I will ask on my own account here, an idle question: which is better—cheap happiness or exalted sufferings? Well, which is better?---Fyodor Dostoevsky ---Notes from Underground There are certain people of whom it is difficult to say anything which will at once throw them into relief—in other words, describe them graphically in their typical characteristics. These are they who are generally known as “commonplace people,” and this class comprises, of course, the immense majority of mankind. Authors, as a rule, attempt to select and portray types rarely met with in their entirety, but these types are nevertheless more real than real life itself. For instance, when the whole essence of an ordinary person’s nature lies in his perpetual and unchangeable commonplaceness; and when in spite of all his endeavours to do something out of the common, this person ends, eventually, by remaining in his unbroken line of routine—. I think such an individual really does become a type of hi
NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND
Hope
To be human is to be a miracle of evolution conscious of its own miraculousness — a consciousness beautiful and bittersweet, for we have paid for it with a parallel awareness not only of our fundamental improbability but of our staggering fragility, of how physiologically precarious our survival is and how psychologically vulnerable our sanity. To make that awareness bearable, we have evolved a singular faculty that might just be the crowning miracle of our consciousness: hope.--
Erich Fromm
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In Bruges (2008)
"An endlessly surprising, very dark, human comedy, with a plot that cannot be foreseen but only relished. When it's funny, it's hilarious; when it's serious, it's powerful; and either way, it's an endless pleasant surprise."
So it certainly seems. If the movie accomplished nothing else, it inspired in me an urgent desire to visit Bruges. But it accomplished a lot more than that. This film debut by the theater writer and director Martin McDonagh is an endlessly surprising, very dark, human comedy, with a plot that cannot be foreseen but only relished. Every once in a while you find a film like this, that seems to happen as it goes along, driven by the peculiarities of the characters.
Brendan Gleeson, with that noble shambles of a face and the heft of a boxer gone to seed, has the key role as Ken, one of two killers for hire. His traveling companion and unwilling roommate is Ray (Colin Farrell), who successfully whacked a priest in a Dublin confessional but tragically killed a little boy in the process. Before shooting the priest, he confessed to the sin he was about to commit. After accidentally killing the boy, he reads the notes the lad made for his own confession. You don't know whether to laugh or cry.
There he meets two fascinating characters: First he sees the fetching young blond Chloe (Clemence Poesy, who was Fleur Delacour in "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire"). Then he sees Jimmy (Jordan Prentice), a dwarf who figures in a dream sequence. He gets off on a bad footing with both, but eventually they're doing cocaine with a prostitute Jimmy picked up and have become friends, even though Ray keeps calling the dwarf a "midget" and having to be corrected.
Without dreaming of telling you what happens next, I will say it is not only ingenious but almost inevitable the way the screenplay brings all of these destinies together at one place and time. Along the way, there are times of great sadness and poignancy, times of abandon, times of goofiness, and that kind of humor that is really funny because it grows out of character and close observation. Farrell in particular hasn't been this good in a few films, perhaps because this time he's allowed to relax and be Irish. As for Gleeson, if you remember him in "The General," you know that nobody can play a more sympathetic bad guy.
Yes, it's a "thriller," but one where the ending seems determined by character and upbringing rather than plot requirements. Two of the final deaths are, in fact, ethical choices. And the irony inspiring the second one has an undeniable logic, showing that even professional murderers have their feelings.
- Release date: February 8, 2008 (USA)Director: Martin McDonaghBudget: 15 million USDMusic composed by: Carter BurwellScreenplay: Martin McDonagh
- Release date: February 8, 2008 (USA)Director: Martin McDonaghBudget: 15 million USDMusic composed by: Carter BurwellScreenplay: Martin McDonagh
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