From The Canopy BLOG

Friday (a rather useless day)

Fridge got defrosted today. Hooray, I can get quicker access to my icecream
I couldn't finish my essay today. So im off to the study centre to feel like im making progress
New year resolutions. None + last years lame ones
Strategy for monday. None

K.M.N (Fri 5th Jan)

posted by Swooshbaby @ 9:02 AM 0 comments

Elephant Man (1980, Director: David Lynch, Starring: Anthony Hopkins, John Hurt)

See also: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080678/

Based on the true story of Joseph Merrick (played by John Hurt), a 19th-century Englishman afflicted with a disfiguring congenital disease. With the help of kindly Dr. Frederick Treves (played by Anthony Hopkins), Merrick attempts to regain the dignity he lost after years spent as a side-show freak.

Favourite line: Whilst cornered in a public toilet by pushy onlookers, John Merrick exclaims:

“I am not an animal! I am a human being! I...am...a man!”

This film will pierce any viewer in the sternum and test the soul. There is a psychological shock and a deep human sadness that one experiences getting to know the one known as the “Elephant Man”. He was labelled a “freak” and thus the movie was a depiction of attitudes to physically and mentally handicapped people of the Victorian times. It was also an exploration into the hidden mind of a tormented soul. The cinematography brilliantly places a mystery behind the man John Merrick until the full extent of his disfigurement is revealed and later on his grasp of Biblical spirituality.

Despite the taunting, torture and loneliness there is a remarkable ability of the character to display care and forgiveness of others. As Dr. Treves seemed to declare aloud, who really is the monster? How easily are vulnerable people are exploited for personal gain! Perhaps it is a reflection of how even today some business, religious, society and government leaders go unpunished. We who are stuck in our perfectionist lives require great courage to reach out to these vulnerable, curious people whose ugliness after all is merely skin deep.

Incidentally, the real John Merrick never suffered from Elephantiasis as was previously claimed. It took almost a century for doctors to figure out that he suffered from Proteus syndrome. See the definition from http://rarediseases.about.com/cs/proteussyndrome/a/031301.htm:

Named for the Greek god who could change his shape, this rare hereditary disorder is characterized by multiple lesions of the lymph nodes (lipolymphohemangiomas), overgrowth of one side of the body (hemihypertrophy), an abnormally large head (macrocephaly), partial gigantism of the feet, and darkened spots or moles (nevi) on the skin. Merrick's appearance, and especially his skeleton, carry all the hallmarks of the disorder, although apparently an extremely severe case. His head was so large that the hat he wore measured three feet in circumference.

In the end, according to http://rarediseases.about.com/cs/proteussyndrome/a/031301.htm:

More than anything, Joseph Merrick wanted to be like other people. He often wished he could lie down and sleep, but because of the size and weight of his head he had to sleep sitting up. One morning in 1890 he was found lying down in bed on his back, dead. The weight of his head had crushed his windpipe, and he suffocated. He was 28 years old.

K.M.N.

posted by Swooshbaby @ 1:25 PM 0 comments

In The Year Of The Pig

Having watched a brilliantly edited documentary "In The Year Of The Pig"(1968), I realised how poorly educated and short-sighted we still are. It was about the events and background leading to the official start of the Vietnam War in 1968. People realise that they are colonise once they are become empowered to see how their country is being run by the ruling administration. The French realised that they could not keep a grip on a country that was awakening to a new nationalism inspired by the other struggles in Asia and Africa, and by exposure to ideologies such as Marxism and Confucianism. Outside influences soon enough polarised the north, with the Vietcong, a Chinese supported movement with a nationalistic emphasis on power to the village folk. It was headed by the enigmatic and fearless leader, Ho-Chi Minh. The south was still tainted with a puppet administration that soon became more American than French.

Even though a treaty was signed in 1954, with a demarcation of the 17th parallel between North and South Vietnam, there were repeated breaches with border skirmishes involving the colonial army degenerating into a full war with the elections of the South being annulled by the people and an assassination of Diem, the puppet of the south, and his corrupt administration. The US's initial involvement was to supply arms, goods, technology and advice to the colonised South and as became evident at this stage in the Cold War, to supply anti-communist propaganda. In what Ho-Chi Minh described as the downward spiral of American policy, there reached the situation in 1968 where there was indeed US troops committed to Vietnam for peacekeeping purposes. This was Kennedy's policy, which was flouted by the Johnson administration. The Vietcong advancement in Saigon and continuous resistance brought about a new kind of war, that of which we are familiar with, bombing military targets. In this case it was in dense rainforests and the targets were surrounded by numerous villages. Innocent civilians died as a result thus fuelling more ambushes and the US had no choice but throw their full military might into the proceedings to save face. The interesting thing is despite the voices of reason from the political think-tanks and religious institutions in the US and Europe, the US military went ahead with the napalm bombing, the village ambushes and demolishing of structures in an effort to quash the Vietcong, well hidden and organised in dense foliage. Tainted with racism, hypocrisy and dehumanisation it brought a new dimension to warfare: live media coverage. The events of 1968 bare the trademarks of the Iraq situation.

Once again the US administration have us believe that there is a singular enemy when the reality is that the real enemy is the failure to protect its own interests and the people it has claimed to liberate. Already nothing has been learnt from Vietnam as the costs have sky rocketed and the daily fatalities are a norm. The opposition to the occupation is even more complex and has loose connections to the Palestine crisis. Regional instability as a result of a unilateral action makes eventualities harder to assess. Who knows how the long the slog to a democratic Iraq transition will take. There is no people leader in Iraq at the moment, no singular symbol of hope. Either the US/UK cop out and submit to the will of the UN and admit that their judgement was flawed and their intentions atrocious or else 2004 shall indeed be the Year of the Rat.

K.M.N. (2004)

Labels: The Year of the Pig

posted by Swooshbaby @ 1:15 PM 0 comments

YELEEN

I watched a beautiful, powerful Malian movie about a shamanic rivalry between father and son, with the imagination and mystic like the Lord of Rings with a more realistic ancient West African setting. It is superbly filmed with amazing backdrops of the fertile yet sun-beaten outer fringes of the Sahara that is the land of the Bambara, now Mali. It is slow but it brings out the emotions and tensions at moments. The son, together with his mother, was cast away by a proud, unforgiving father (I haven't quite figured out the real reason why...maybe they broke an ancient protocol!). The son inherited his father’s wizardry and became his arch rival without knowing it. They each held two holy relics, which like "the force" in Star Wars, could be used for good or for evil. This story showed no good or no evil, just two shades of light. In his quest to seek the truth, the son helped a rival tribe defeat another and cured the chief's youngest wife’s inability to reproduce (and in the process deflowered her!). A combination of sheer innocence and impressive courage and fortitude earned him respect and made the adventure that bit more troublesome. The father was all vengeful, threatening to floor every village he passed if they dared protect his son from his wrath! With the aid of a magic pole, wielded with burden by two seemingly possessed servants, he was lead like a magnet to the fateful showdown with his son. Sounds like the kind of stuff The Good, The Bad and The Ugly are made of! There is a fantastic scene where village elders congregate and a holy site of the...people and exchange riddles and tales with amazing wit, and with repeated interludes of songs.

Made in 1987, I'm surprised they haven't made movies like this ever since! The story may have an animist flavour and hence would not be terribly inspiring to a very Christian/Muslim continent, but we should look beyond the literal and celebrate the colour and wonder of good old African storytelling. The rate at which these stories and folklore are getting printed is not fast enough to capture the fast declining tales past down by word of mouth from our ancestors. In the name of the good book we should be encouraging wisdom and wealth of knowledge rather than shunning it to suit our prejudices. We lose our identity by turning a blind eye to the need of reforming education to teach about the traditional ways in a less pretentious (complying with a rigid, quota fulfilling syllabus) and all inspiring manner. I remember back in the days, when it would be shameful for a city kid like me to even dream of playing some Kikuyu folk tunes. I like my RnB and HipHop and it’s not practical to turn back time and pretend to be authentic in this fast paced globalising world. Why don't we just embrace and celebrate the difference and not be ashamed of our ignorance, be it of the modern world or of our traditional values. As an independent 2nd generation, we hold the linchpin to adding the African legacy to the front pages of history books. Let's make a bright impact on the silver screen!

K.M.N.(2004)

Labels: YELEEN

posted by Swooshbaby @ 1:11 PM 0 comments