Shane's Domain

(Alert: Spoilers)

I went and saw this film yesterday with some friends on a whim and nostalgia for the local culture of Cambridge. The film selected was the buzz-worthy “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo”.

The film opens with a complete Bond opening rip-off gone gothic (ironic with who the star is). It is a very odd opening storyline of a slander suit against a journalist (Daniel Craig) and it takes almost an hour for it to weave into another storyline taking place. I’ve seen some grand exposition in my day, however this was unprecedentedly long.

The separate storyline involving the “girl with the dragon tattoo” could not be more explicit. It lacks nuance in introducing the character. While she goes through hell and back, exhibiting her internal torment and then showing that she can dish it like she takes it, her character does not warrant title-worthy intrigue. It seems that her voice pattern in concert with her mannerisms seem to shift radically in order just to not allow her to be pegged as predictable. This comes across as a superficial solution to a way to reconcile the complexities of a character in a book translated on screen.

The way the film was superficially described to me, to lure me, was it is a detective drama where the girl is a ‘super detective’ of some kind. While her photographic memory, disguises and ingenuity exhibited this to a degree – her social awkwardness, sociopathy and penchant for vengeance overtake this as it drifts into a cult romance film between Bond & bondage girl.

The European setting is highly believable and immerses you seamlessly. This is one of the redeeming features of the things depicted.

The story-arc of the escape for this journalist with legal troubles, away from his family, seems almost unduly ignored and lacks much consequence.

There is some violence and some graphic sexual assault that was for pure shock value purely to push it to an 18A rating. The whole film seemed to bask in moral ambiguity. While I appreciated some of the respect to modernity in regards to sexual orientation and gender roles that it was paid – I still imagine that the older generation seeing this film for curiosity’s sake will purge it out of their memories.

With graphic rape, household pet carcass and a generally un-relatable protagonist… It certainly could make for a favourite for the proud fringe society. Personally, I walk the line of groups where I feel welcome anywhere and with whoever, thus find myself strangely comfortable seeing this movie whilst a deep sense of pity or concern for those who live in a mentally restricted life where they are shocked and appalled by a sense of dignified duty to a dead sense of decency in the world.

This film is not for the weak of stomach, innocent of mind or for those seeking comfort viewing. This film is thought-provoking, but not for the mystery being depicted or the characters themselves, but rather for the context and connections made. This whole thing stems from a very widely available book and, apparently, shallowly discussed in a preparatory way by the media for the viewing audience soon to see it in theatres.

With two books left in this series and a great deal of hype surrounding it, there is hopefully some sense of resolution to come for my reservations about this potential Oscar-worthy film….

For my personal taste, it did some justice to burying history’s superficial pleasantness and giving a naked, raw and open viewing of several storylines with interesting connections – it receives a 7.

I wonder how many Oscar nods it will get and what sort of buzz or discussion it will provoke. If you feel like walking on the wild side this holiday break or early in the New Year…

Between convention, model parliament and exams, I have been solidly booked up until this mini-Christmas break. This break has been good to a) see people I missed b) escape my routine c) regroup and reorient myself back-on-track.

January will be a crazy month. I hope it all goes well.

Sorry I don’t blog so often anymore. No funny pictures have popped up really.

1 exam left on Thursday and then I will work on you more. I apologize tumblr. I still care.

The Harper Government has received its fair share of criticism. In the last election, it was deemed a “regime”. In a recent article in the Winnipeg Press, Harper was said to be most similar in style of ruling to Russia’s Putin. In “Harperland”, Lawrence Martin’s book, he was said to be a “control-freak”, a “micromanager” and a devious strategist who has been plotting since 1993 to reform Canada into his own right-wing vision of society. In this regard, some have bastardized Trudeau’s vision and said it was imposed in the same fashion.

Some historians have said it takes up to thirty years to attain clarity on history of a time period. In this way, political scientists are beginning to pass judgment on the Chrétien years saying that it depended solely on the split right-of-center opposition. This seems to suggest that, without this, there would have a center-right government due to the craving for an alternative under the Liberals.

To me, this seems impossible to argue. The inherent assumptions of centrist government is not that they seek to split the difference between the left and the right and go with a watered down compromise option that somehow seeks to antagonize all other political parties. A centrist government will naturally agree with one party some of the time and other times it will agree with another party. This means that, as a leftist or a right-winger, one is to always find a semblance of one’s views expressed. One cannot always be frustrated if someone seeks to agree with you half the time. Hating the center is a new phenomenon by bitter people with vague evidence and a deep sense of partisanship for one of the prevailing current parties.

Back to my second paragraph’s point, some would be quick to say that Harper relies on a split left and that the NDP/ Liberals should merge. At this time, this seems very problematic as per the long history of both parties; the center-right element of the Liberal party and, unlike reform and PCs, the NDP did not form as a reaction to the Liberal Party. This, as I have previously mentioned, is not favourable to either party and currently with the regionalization of the NDP into urban, rural, north, Hamilton, Quebec and environmentalist BC… The party has nothing in common within caucus and they all seem to be vying for attention. The great unifier is gone and without Jack’s united Canada, they are left with disarray that would indeed be as ungovernable as Russia.

Harper has been made to be the sole villain of all, however, he continues to squeak out election after election. It is clear lately that the media dislikes him, some of his caucus (or ex-caucus if we go to Bay Street) do not like him and all moderate and left Canadians place him comparable to ‘El Diablo’. This fostering of the image of a pariah Prime Minister is common and like with all the others, Prime Ministers often leave when they are least popular. Mulroney, Martin and many before them did not bow out on high notes of their career.

We, the enemies of Harper, are not his true worry. He is getting on in years and discussions in his party will begin of ‘who will replace Steve?’ These are the greatest assets of the enemies of Harper. His own party is our greatest asset. When you have a party of devious snakes willing to stand up and defend duplicity publicly…. Imagine what they think behind closed doors. There is no point making Harper out to be the threat. He knows where the threat lies & we need to begin to talk more of his party as much as we wish to push up our alternatives. If we assume, as Rick Mercer argues, that it is logical to “close the house” because it is pointless due to the unelected men in the PMO really controlling the strings, then we must begin to assume that it only matters who changes the man at the top. Let’s get ahead of where the puck is going and begin to plan for what comes next. Canadians have made their choice that they are comfortable with a robot leader, however, we must wonder what Canadians will think of the next Conservative government and how it has to brand itself differently than the last. Harper will soon be pushed out like he sought to push Manning and then Day out of the way. Karma is upon him and we should sit back and enjoy the ride. We have four years of murmurs and from the looks of it… his backbenchers have already turned to the bottle it’s so bad in the party… I do not worry one bit that in 2015, the quality of leadership in both the NDP and Conservatives will not be ‘comparably’ better to that of the Liberal leader and instead the Bloc will re-emerge, the Liberals will regain opposition and the Conservative minority will be so badly led that a late decade Liberal return is very feasible… Now, we wait.