Dragspelsvåld

I några år nu har man som flitig pendeltågsresenär kunnat åka tåg och råka ut för musik på tåget. Bara som en tanke....jag tycker personligen att man borde kunna få spela musik varsomhelst i stan för att liva upp det bittra och tråkiga offentliga rummet som Stockholm har ibland. Vill man stanna till och lyssna eller ge en slant så är det bara att slänga slanten i mynthögen och njuta, eller så kan man gå därifrån om man vill. Men så fort man kliver på ett pendel- eller tunnelbanatåg så finns det ingenstans att ta vägen. Efter att ha slitit på jobbet eller plugget så sätter man sig med en suck av lättnad i sätet och stänger ögonen för att vila de där dyrbara minuterna innan man ska ta sista delsträckan hem, men så fort man kopplar av så kommer någon med ett dragspel och hackar sönder ens förhoppningar att kunna unna sig den där dyrbara vilan. Eller så måste konversationen man har med nån sluta eller bli jäkligt ansträngd. Grrr.

Spela musik får man göra var man vill tycker jag, bara man inte våldför sig på andra med den. Så det så.

A deeper dish served best cold

(WARNING!!! This post reveals plot endings in Kill Bill pt 1 & 2. Those who haven't seen them yet and want to read this post at their own risk...)

On tv a few months ago in Sweden the two parts of Kill Bill were shown in their entirety. As well as reaffirming my opinion that these are two fantastic films I couldn't help thinking a little more about the story of revenge, other movies that show it, and who people are. That's why I just have write why I love these two movies, aside from the fact that they are cooler than hell, and hopefully without glorifying the rivers of bloodshed. You have to admit that Mr. Tarantino could make accounting look like the coolest job in the world.

You have to go almost all the way to the end of the second part to get to the core why Bill decided to bust a cap in The Bride's veiled head on the day of her wedding with her new guy and a baby on the way. In one of the more interesting pop-culture metaphors in the movie-world Bill makes a camparison between the Bride and Superman that suddenly makes every other story of revenge as shallow as the Bush Administration's reasons for shedding blood in Iraq. After shooting The Bride with a truth antidote Bill asks her about her quest to get to Bill and why she decided to leave her position as a world-class assassin to live the quiet life of being a mother and wife in a podunk town in the middle of nowhere.

Herein comes the Superman theory that Mr. Tarantino so eloquently scripted and David Carradine's Bill nailed. In the comic world Superman is the only character to have to have been born with his superpowers (comic book buffs are more than welcome to come with other ideas since I'm not really into comic books to begin with). Spiderman or any other superhero is not born with their superpowers but acquire them somehow after an accident or some incident. But Superman is born with his abilities and has to mask them behind a regular gray suit and thick black glasses to be normal in the real world. Clark Kent is the alias and Superman, or whatever his real name is on his home planet, is the real character. The same goes for The Bride, explains Bill while wielding a piece in his hand. The Bride is a born killer that for some reason masked herself behind a veil and lived as someone else. Based on this theory, Bill wants to know why she left him.

The Bride's answer was that once she found out she would be a mother she would have to leave the business and become someone else. But after she woke up from a bullet-induced coma and thinking she was no longer a mother, that's when she decided to beat a bloody path to Bill's door. Under the effects of the truth syrum she even admits that she enjoyed every dripping minute of it. When the The Bride wonders why Bill did what he did, he responds by saying he's also like her. That's what happens when you piss off a born killer.

After seeing the end of pt. 2 you can compare to other movies that have to with revenge and in that light they end up being flat. Take for example Princess, a Danish animated movie where a priest discovers that his sister, a porn starlet, dies in the throes of the industry and decides to take care of her five-year-old daughter. He then decides to take an equally bloody adenture to get to the man he holds responsible for his sister's death. There's no real explanation of why he does it, he just goes out and whacks people, sometimes even reluctantly with the little girl's help. There's an obvious moral here against the mainstream porn industry, but what about the story behind it? Is he trying to confront inner conflicts between christian values and lust for blood? Was he a killer before he became a priest? You just don't know. At least Bill and The Bride revealed for each other who they really are. Those who have seen other movies of revenge, like Old Boy, are more than welcome to voice their opinions in light of Tarantino's Superman theory.

I think you could almost say the same for real people too...not revenge, but the fact that some people just are who they are, and the things they do and what happens to them depends a lot on what social context they're in (in a way kind of like what I've tried to explain about being chronically single in the first post of this blog.) You are who you are. Which is more than what could be said about other revenge movies.

Not dead yet

Don't give up hope for this blog yet, more random brain droppings and rants are on the way. I won't say they will be delivered in a blazing rapid-fire stream, but at least a little here and there to begin with.

Since this is officially the first post of the year on this blog, let's hope it's the beginning of a good year. In the meantime I'll enjoy everyone else's blogs as always...