Quote of the day

[iambiguous]

Why do some folks want to be gangsters? Maybe for all the reasons that other folks don’t want to be. Or for all the reasons that draw more folks still to movies like this. The power. The danger. The rules you get to make up as you go along. Thinking you’re somebody instead of nobody. And right up to the point where somebody else puts a bullet in your head. Your best friend maybe.

And sometimes the money is good. Really good. But then someone [it seems] is always breaking your balls. Or you’re breaking their balls.

Anyway, here’s how Henry Hill put it:

"For us to live any other way was nuts. Uh, to us, those goody-good people who worked shitty jobs for bum paychecks and took the subway to work every day, and worried about their bills, were dead. I mean they were suckers. They had no balls. If we wanted something we just took it. If anyone complained twice they got hit so bad, believe me, they never complained again."

Of course not everybody is crooked. So the possibility of prison is always hanging over your head. And then there was dope. Back then to sell it or not to sell it was batted back and forth like a ping pong ball.


Goodfellas

Henry [narrating]: To me being a gangster meant being a somebody in a neighborhood full of nobodies. They did whatever they wanted.

Subject to the boss's approval of course.

Henry [narrating]: Paulie may have moved slow, but it was only because Paulie didn’t have to move for anybody.

Time to clip him?

Henry [narrating]: All they got from Paulie was protection from other guys looking to rip them off. That’s what it’s all about. That’s what the FBI can never understand - that what Paulie and the organization offer is protection for the kinds of guys who can’t go to the cops. They’re like the police department for wiseguys.

Then this part...

Henry [narrating]: And when the cops assigned a whole army to stop Jimmy, what’d he do? He made 'em partners.

The best kind to have. Judges too, right, Don?

Jimmy: I’m not mad, I’m proud of you. You took your first pinch like a man and you learned two great things in your life.
Henry [as a kid]: What?
Jimmy: Look at me. Never rat on your friends and always keep your mouth shut.

Well, most of the time anyway.

Henry: You’re a pistol, you’re really funny. You’re really funny.
Tommy: What do you mean I’m funny?
Henry: It’s funny, you know. It’s a good story, it’s funny, you’re a funny guy.
[laughs]
Tommy: What do you mean, you mean the way I talk? What?
Henry: It’s just, you know. You’re just funny, it’s… funny, the way you tell the story and everything.
Tommy: [it becomes quiet] Funny how? What’s funny about it?
Anthony: Tommy no, You got it all wrong.
Tommy: Oh, oh, Anthony. He’s a big boy, he knows what he said. What did ya say? Funny how?
Henry: Just…
Tommy: What?
Henry: Just… ya know… you’re funny.
Tommy: You mean, let me understand this cause, ya know maybe it’s me, I’m a little fucked up maybe, but I’m funny how, I mean funny like I’m a clown, I amuse you? I make you laugh, I’m here to fuckin’ amuse you? What do you mean funny, funny how? How am I funny?
Henry: Just… you know, how you tell the story, what?
Tommy: No, no, I don’t know, you said it. How do I know? You said I’m funny. How the fuck am I funny, what the fuck is so funny about me? Tell me, tell me what’s funny!
Henry [long pause]: Get the fuck out of here, Tommy!
Tommy: [everyone laughs] Ya motherfucker! I almost had him, I almost had him. Ya stuttering p**** ya. Frankie, was he shaking? I wonder about you sometimes, Henry. You may fold under questioning.

Next up: Leaving Las Vegas?

[iambiguous]

Goodfellas

Henry [narrating]: Now Sonny’s got Paulie as a partner. Any problems, he goes to Paulie. Trouble with the bill? He can go to Paulie. Trouble with the cops, deliveries, Tommy, he can call Paulie. But now the guy’s gotta come up with Paulie’s money every week, no matter what. Business bad? Fuck you, pay me. Oh, you had a fire? Fuck you, pay me. Place got hit by lightning, huh? Fuck you, pay me.

Next up: the Vig.

Karen [narrating]: I know there are women, like my best friends, who would have gotten out of there the minute their boyfriend gave them a gun to hide. But I didn’t. I got to admit the truth. It turned me on.

The "Bad Boy" syndrome?

Karen [narrating]: After awhile, it got to be all normal. None of it seemed like crime. It was more like Henry was enterprising, and that he and the guys were making a few bucks hustling, while all the other guys were sitting on their asses, waiting for handouts. Our husbands weren’t brain surgeons, they were blue-collar guys. The only way they could make extra money, real extra money, was to go out and cut a few corners.

Next up: running it by Tony Soprano.

Henry [narrating]: For most of the guys, killing got to be accepted. They were routine. Murder was the only way everybody stayed in line. It was the ultimate weapon. You got out of line, you got whacked. Everyone knew the rules. But sometimes, even if people didn’t get out of line, they’d get whacked. Hits just became a habit for some guys. It didn’t take anything to get yourself killed. Guys would get into arguments over nothing and before you knew it, one of them was dead. They were shooting each other all the time.

That works for me.

Henry [narrating]: Shooting people was a normal thing. It was no big deal. But we had a problem with Billy Batts. This was a touchy thing. Tommy had killed a made man. Billy was a part of the Gambino crew and untouchable. Before you could touch a made guy, you had to have a good reason. There had to be a sitdown. And you better get an okay, or you’d be the one who got whacked.

Or, here, banned?

Henry [narrating]: Saturday night was for wives, but Friday night at the Copa was always for the girlfriends.

Want worse? Start with these guys: https://people.com/undercover-female-ag ... ng-8630442

[promethean75]

Henry Q still doesn't get it, does he Biggs?

Dasein, Henry. You and the guy with the shooter problems have to converge on agreement regarding what, for him, is the equivalent of what a Henryist would do... or else u gotta say he's wrong to expect u to be unable, by law, to, say, put a modifier on your shotgun that makes it fully automatic. Holy shit imagine a fully automatic shotgun.

[henry quirk]

Dasein

There's no such thing.

u gotta say he's wrong to expect u to be unable, by law, to, say, put a modifier on your shotgun that makes it fully automatic. Holy shit imagine a fully automatic shotgun.

He is wrong. You can't compensate for evil with evil. The law is for crap.

But: as I say: Go lobby, get laws passed. I'll break those too.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_shotgun

[iambiguous]

Goodfellas

Henry [after Karen threatens to kill him with a gun]: I got enough to worry about getting whacked on the street! I gotta come home for this!!

A "broad", right?

Tommy [after killing Morrie]: I thought he’d never shut the fuck up.

He dug his own grave, let's say.

Henry [narrating]: You know, we always called each other good fellas. Like you said to, uh, somebody, “You’re gonna like this guy. He’s all right. He’s a good fella. He’s one of us.” You understand? We were good fellas. Wiseguys. But Jimmy and I could never be made because we had Irish blood. It didn’t even matter that my mother was Sicilian. To become a member of a crew you’ve got to be one hundred per cent Italian so they can trace all your relatives back to the old country. See, it’s the highest honor they can give you. It means you belong to a family and crew. It means that nobody can fuck around with you. It also means you could fuck around with anybody just as long as they aren’t also a member. It’s like a license to steal. It’s a license to do anything. As far as Jimmy was concerned with Tommy being made, it was like we were all being made. We would now have one of our own as a member.

Next up: the equivalent of that here?

Jimmy: What d’you mean?
Vinnie: Well, you know what I mean. He’s gone, and we couldn’t do nothing about it.
[pause]
Vinnie: That’s it.
Jimmy: What d’you mean? What d’you mean? Uh…
Vinnie: He’s gone. Uh, he’s gone.
[pause]
Vinnie: And that’s it.
Jimmy: [smashing the telephone] Fuck. Can’t fuckin’ believe that, can’t fuckin’…[crying] Fuck it, fuck… the fuck…
[Henry exits diner]
Henry: What happened?
Jimmy: They whacked him. They fuckin’ whacked Tommy.
Henry: Aw, fuck.
[Jimmy kicks phone booth]
Jimmy: Motherfucker!
[pushes over phone booth weeping]

They sure as shit didn't see that coming.

Henry [narrating]: It was revenge for Billy Batts, and a lot of other things. And there was nothing that we could do about it. Batts was a made man, and Tommy wasn’t. And we had to sit still and take it. It was among the Italians. It was real greaseball shit. They even shot Tommy in the face so his mother couldn’t give him an open coffin at the funeral.

Gangsters let's call them.

Henry [just busted for dealing drugs]: For a second I thought I was dead. But, when I heard all the noise, I knew they were cops. Only cops talk that way. If they’d been wiseguys, I wouldn’t have heard a thing. I would’ve been dead.

Not counting John McLain, of course.

[iambiguous]

Ludwig Wittgenstein

A picture held us captive. And we could not get outside it, for it lay in our language and language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably.

Then [also inexorably] all the way to the grave.

When you are philosophizing you have to descend into primeval chaos and feel at home there.

If only theoretically up in the clouds, say.

If you tried to doubt everything you would not get as far as doubting anything. The game of doubting itself presupposes certainty.

Language games. Certainly, let's call them that.

Just improve yourself; that is the only thing you can do to better the world.

Just the good guys of course.

My day passes between logic, whistling, going for walks, and being depressed. I wish to God that I were more intelligent and everything would finally become clear to me - or else that I needn’t live much longer.

What's that make us then?!

The mystical is not how the world is, but that it is.

Or, perhaps, both?

[iambiguous]

Goodfellas

Henry [narrating]: I remember I had this feeling I was going to get killed right outside the jail. I knew Paulie was still pissed at me and he’s such a hothead I was afraid he might have me whacked before he calmed down. And I was also worried about Jimmy. Jimmy knew if Paulie found out he was in the drug deals with me, Paulie would have Jimmy killed even before me. This is the bad time. I didn’t feel safe until I got home.

You know, most times.

Henry [narrating]: Thirty-two hundred bucks Paulie gives me. Thirty-two hundred dollars for a lifetime. It wasn’t even enough to pay for the coffin.

Hey, you're still breathing, aren't you?

Henry [narrating]: If you’re part of a crew, nobody ever tells you that they’re going to kill you, doesn’t happen that way. There weren’t any arguments or curses like in the movies. See, your murderers come with smiles, they come as your friends, the people who’ve cared for you all of your life. And they always seem to come at a time that you’re at your weakest and most in need of their help.

Of course, this is a movie too.

Henry [narrating]: Jimmy had never asked me to whack somebody before - but now he’s asking me to go down to Florida and do a hit with Anthony? That’s when I knew I would never have come back from Florida alive.

Time to get home again?

Henry [narrating]: It was easy for all of us to disappear. My house was in my mother-in-law’s name. My cars were registered to my wife. My social security cards and driver’s licenses were phonies. I’ve never voted. I never paid taxes. My birth certificate and my arrest sheet, that’s all you’d ever have to know I was alive.

"And he still has Hell to look forward to."

Henry [narrating]: See, the hardest thing for me was leaving the life. I still love the life. We were treated like movie stars with muscle. We had it all just for the asking. Anything I wanted was a phone call away. Free cars. The keys to a dozen hideout flats all over the city. I bet twenty, thirty grand over a weekend and then I’d either blow the winnings in a week or go to the sharks to pay back the bookies.

Just out of curiosity, what actually is left of all that?

[Henry leaves the witness stand and speaks directly to the camera]
Henry: Didn’t matter. It didn’t mean anything. When I was broke, I’d go out and rob some more. We ran everything. We paid off cops. We paid off lawyers. We paid off judges. Everybody had their hands out. Everything was for the taking. And now it’s all over.

No remorse, I guess.

Henry [narrating]: And that’s the hardest part. Today everything is different; there’s no action… have to wait around like everyone else. Can’t even get decent food - right after I got here, I ordered some spaghetti with marinara sauce, and I got egg noodles and ketchup. I’m an average nobody…get to live the rest of my life like a schnook.

Well, at least until the schnooks of the world unite.

[iambiguous]

Science

“For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” Carl Sagan

Yeah, I was once foolish enough to believe that myself.

"Life would be tragic if it weren't funny." Stephen Hawking

Actually, from time to time it can be -- must be -- both.

“Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.” Richard P. Feynman

Yo, Satyr! Yo're up!!

“So this is it," said Arthur, "We are going to die."
"Yes," said Ford, "except... no! Wait a minute!" He suddenly lunged across the chamber at something behind Arthur's line of vision. "What's this switch?" he cried.
"What? Where?" cried Arthur, twisting round.
"No, I was only fooling," said Ford, "we are going to die after all.” Douglas Adams

Another fucking smartass!
Though still no match for the ones we have here.

“In my opinion, we don't devote nearly enough scientific research to finding a cure for jerks.” Bill Watterson

He means pinheads of course.

“If you try and take a cat apart to see how it works, the first thing you have on your hands is a non-working cat.” Douglas Adams

Next up: Schrödinger's cat.

[iambiguous]

Professional wrestling. It always reminds me of that line from Hannah and Her Sisters:

Frederick: You see the whole culture…Nazis, deodorant salesman, wrestlers…beauty contests, the talk show…Can you imagine the level of a mind that watches wrestling?

But it’s a world all its own for those who do have a mind to. And folks like the rest of us peek inside it for all sorts of reasons. Some, no doubt, disingenuous.

At the very least it is a very weird cohabitation between gymnastics and soap opera. And the spectacle factor at the small venues – once you leave prime time – is beyond comprehending at times. What these guys will do to just barely survive from paycheck to paycheck is apalling. Fake maybe, but still very, very violent.

Pathetic? Well, that’s a point of view. Like how one feels about aging strippers.

Darren Aronofsky in an interview: “I think people basically roll [wrestling] off saying, ‘Oh, it’s fake,’ and they forget all about it. But what was interesting to me was that whole line between real and fake. What is real? What is fake? The film is very clear that wrestling is staged, but is it fake when you’re a 260-pound guy jumping 10 feet onto a concrete floor? Even if you’re trying to protect yourself and your opponent, damage is happening to you. Then, you meet these guys who’ve been wrestling 10 or 20 years ago, and they’re just riddled with injury. They are true athletes. It’s just they’re almost more like stunt men, so there’s that line of real and fake. The other line of real and fake is ‘The Ram’ doesn’t know what’s real and what’s fake. When he’s in the ring, for him that’s real life, and so that kind of real and fake comments on the whole wrestling thing.” IMDb


The Wrestler

Randy: You know, people who drive the Cadillacs, the ones with the politics—they run the show. It ain’t about ability, Tommy, so you just hang in there.

Let's just say we live in a bought and sold world.

Drug Dealer: Bottle of Anadrol, 250. Bottle of E.Q., 75 bucks. Two bottles of tren, 75 each - a buck 50. Bottle of insulin, 100 bucks. You got four boxes of Sustanon, three amps in a box, 30 on the box - a buck 20. A bottle of DBOL, 100 bucks. For your bitch tits, I got you a bottle of Arimidex, 200 bucks.
Randy: Got any G.H.?
Drug Dealer: I got Chinese and I got Serostim.
Randy: I don’t want any of that Chinese stuff.
Drug Dealer: Need anything else? Painkillers? Vics? Percs?
Randy: No, bro. I’m tapped.
Drug Dealer: Demerol? OxyCotins? You sure? Viagra? Maybe some blow?

Cue Easy Andy?

Necro Butcher: Are you cool with the staples?
Randy: Staples? Does it hurt?
Necro Butcher: Staple gun… Not so bad on the way in, except it’s a little scary, you know - you got this metal thing pressed up against you. Pulling them out though it’s gonna leave some marks, have to deal with a little blood loss.

Tools of the trade let's call them.

Randy: The eighties fucking ruled, man, until that pussy Cobain came and fucked it all up.

One too many concussions no doubt.

Randy: Give this to your son, it’s an authentic Randy “the Ram” action figure. Tell him not to lose it, it’s a $300 collectors item.
Cassidy: Really?
Randy: No.

Any action figures here? I mean theoretically of course.

Randy [to his daughter Stephanie]: You’re my girl. You’re my little girl. And now, I’m an old broken down piece of meat…and I’m alone. And I deserve to be all alone. I just don’t want you to hate me.

Gag me with a spoon?

Cassidy [after Randy puts money on the bar]: What’s this?
Randy: I want a dance.
Cassidy: Stop it.
Randy: What’s the matter? You gonna refuse a paying customer? I want a goddamn dance, sweetheart.
Cassidy: Fuck you!
Randy: Come on, get up there and move your ass. Squeeze your titties together.
Cassidy: Fuck off!!
Randy: Shake your fucking ass and pretend you like me!

I guess she never saw Showgirls.

Randy: In this life you can lose everything you love, everything that loves you. A lot of people told me that I’d never wrestle again, they said “he’s washed up”, “he’s finished” , “he’s a loser”, “he’s all through”. You know what? The only ones gonna tell me when I’m through doing my thing, is you people here. You people here…you people here. You’re my family.

Uh, count me out.

[iambiguous]

The perfect wife. The perfect husband. The perfect domicile in Connecticut.

It’s the stuff out of which Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman was born. Or would be if it wasn’t so...infuriating?

But let’s not forget: It’s not like most folks [either then and there or here and now] sit down while their lives are being shaped and think, “gee, do I want to be like this or somebody else entirely?”

Instead, they live out their lives based on particular historical and cultural narratives. Or do until an experience or a new point of view brings this all into question. Like Cathy walking in on her husband passionaitely kissing another man. And back in 1957 this was a jolt of seismic proportions. As was a white woman befriending a black man. Even in the “liberal” North.

The world is bursting at the seams with folks in possession of small minds. You’ve just got to hope you can steer clear of ones that are also dangerous.


Far From Heaven

Cathy: I suppose I still can’t imagine why you would want an interview with someone like me in the first place.
Mrs. Leacock: Readers of the Weekly Gazette, Mrs. Whitaker, women just like yourself with families and homes to keep up. A good society paper need not be a gossip rag. You are the proud wife of a successful sales executive planning the parties, and posing at her husband’s side on the advertisements. To everyone here in Connecticut, you are Mr. and Mrs. Magnatech.

And to everyone out in the audience?

El [reading the Weekly Gazette article]: “So, does the fabled maxim hold that behind every great man there resides a great lady? In this case, wife, mother and Mrs. Magnatech herself, Cathleen Whitaker proves that it does. A woman as devoted to her family as she is kind to Negroes.”
Cathy: To Negroes? To Negroes? Let me see that. What on Earth is that woman thinking?
El: Cathy? Oh, she’s been liberal ever since she played summer stock at college with all those steamy Jewish boys. Why do you think they used to call her “Red”?
Cathy: Oh, for heaven sakes. Let’s go inside before Joe McCarthy comes driving by.

1957, remember?

Dr. Bowman: Today, the general attitude regarding this sort of behavior is naturally more modern, more scientific than it ever has been before. But for those who do seek treatment, who possess the will and desire to lead a normal life, there still remains only a scant five to thirty percent rate of success for complete heterosexual conversion.

What's it up to [or down to] these days?

Frank: I want to begin treatment. I can’t let this thing destroy my life, my family’s life. I, uh-I know it’s a sickness, because it makes me feel despicable. I promise you, Dr. Bowman, I’m going to beat this thing. I’m gonna break it. So help me God.

Note to Dennis Quaid:
You might want to run this by Randy. And Trump, of course.

Frank: I just want to get this fucking therapy over with!

So he can get back to relapsing.

Cathy: I’m not prejudiced. My husband and I have always believed in equal rights for the Negro and support the N.A.A.C.P.
Raymond: I’m glad to hear that.

Unless, of course, it gets personal.

[iambiguous]

Far From Heaven

Cathy [to Raymond]: Do you think we ever really do see beyond those things…the surface of things?

On the other hand, the surface of things back in 1957...?

Raymond: So, what’s your opinion on modern art?
Cathy: It’s hard to put into words, really. I just know what I care for and what I don’t. Like this…I don’t know how to pronounce it… Mira?
Raymond: Miró.
Cathy: Miró. I don’t know why, but I just adore it. The feeling it gives. I know that sounds terribly vague.
Raymond: No. No, actually, it confirms something I’ve always wondered about modern art. Abstract art.
Cathy: What’s that?
Raymond: That perhaps it’s just picking up where religious art left off, somehow trying to show you divinity. The modern artist just pares it down to the basic elements of shape and color. But when you look at that Miró, you feel it just the same.

Hmm. Maybe?

Elderly woman: Not to say that I’m against integration, mind you. I do believe it’s the Christian thing to do. But I still say what happened in Little Rock could just as easily have happened here in Hartford.
Pary guest: Nonsense.
Elderly woman: Well, why is that?
Party guest: Well, for one thing, there’s no Governor Faubus in Connecticut. But the main reason, there are no Negroes.

Good point?

Frank: Christ, Cathleen, do you even have the slightest idea about what this could mean? Don’t you realize the effect it’s gonna have on me and the reputation I have spent the past eight years trying to build for you and the children and for the company?
Cathy: Yes. I have spoken to Raymond Deagan on occasion. He brought his little girl to Eleanor’s art show. But…But, apparently, even here in Hartford, the idea of a white woman even speaking to a colored man…
Frank: Oh, please! Just save me the Negro rights!

And Stonewall was still some years down the road.

Raymond: I won’t put my daughter through that again. Not now. Not with rocks coming through the windows every night.
Cathy: Oh, Raymond, that’s hateful.
Raymond: Oh, it’s not whites throwin’ them. It’s coloreds.
Cathy: No.
Raymond: Yeah. Seems to be the one place where whites and coloreds are in full harmony.

Of course, that's all coming back around again.

Cathy: That was the day I stopped believing in the wild ardor of things. Perhaps in love, as well. That kind of love. The love in books and films. The love that tells us to abandon our lives and plans, all for one brief touch of Venus. So often we fail at that kind of love. The world just seems too fragile a place for it. And of every other kind, life remains full. Perhaps it’s just we who are too fragile.

That or fractured and fragmented.

[iambiguous]

Phone sex out of the blue. No charge. What’s the catch?

There are so many directions this can go in. It’s like the internet. You strike up an exchange with someone and they could be anyone at all. The Catfish syndrome. You think you are falling in love but who are you falling in love with?

What really counts here is the extent to which you can make any connection with the characters driving the plot. Some will and some won’t.

And all the time you’re wondering: When does the inevitable twist kick in? And, when it does, it’s either what you were expecting or nothing at all what you were expecting.

Then you wonder: How would I react?


Easier With Practice

Josie: So you’re just two brothers in a car, armed with only your talents. The dark, lonely, and endless road stretched out in front of you. No limits, no limitations, just whatever you want, whenever you want?
Davy: Yeah, it’s just like that, only much less exciting.

You wouldn't believe how much less.

Davy [on the phone]: Can you speak up please, I can’t really hear you that well.
Nicole: I can’t. My boyfriend is next door.
Davy: Oh…

Oh, indeed.

Davy [on phone]: Wait. You’re all about sex. Can’t we talk a bit. You know, cuddle.

It does work both ways.

Davy [on phone]: I’m on a book tour.
Nicole: I knew you were an intellectual.
Davy: I hardly think I would consider myself an intellectual. Jerking off in the back of a station wagon in a parking lot in New Mexico.

Better that than...what's coming?

Davy [on phone]: That night that you called me…how’d you know I was going to be there? I mean, what made you call me?
Nicole: I didn’t. I just needed someone to be with. I called a random number. There you were.

Like getting a call out of the blue from Benjamin Button.

Davy [on the phone]: We should meet sometime.
Nicole: Oh, I don’t know.
Davy: Just to see each other.
Nicole: Maybe. But right now there is something just so special about this. I don’t think we should mess with it.

And actually meeting could certainly result in that.

Davy: I haven’t actually met her yet.
Sean: So she could be anyone. She could be an obese middle-aged woman with 500 cats.

Or...

Waitress: What can I get you to drink?
Davy: I’ll have a double whisky on the rocks please.

Better make that a triple. In fact, leave the bottle.

[iambiguous]

Roberto Bolaño

Every hundred feet the world changes.

That will be 30.48 meters for others here.

What twisted people we are. How simple we seem, or at least pretend to be in front of others, and how twisted we are deep down. How paltry we are and how spectacularly we contort ourselves before our own eyes, and the eyes of others...And all for what? To hide what? To make people believe what?

Uh, whatever you can get them to believe?

We never stop reading, although every book comes to an end, just as we never stop living, although death is certain.

What if it is exaclty the same thing?!

...we interpret life at moments of the deepest desperation.

No, really, actually think about that a bit. Then a bit more.

The truth is we never stop being children, terrible children covered in sores and knotty veins and tumors and age spots, but ultimately children, in other words we never stop clinging to life because we are life.

Let's take that down out of the philosophical clouds.

Being alone makes us stronger. That’s the honest truth. But it’s cold comfort, since even if I wanted company no one will come near me anymore.

Either that or it's Stooge Stuff.

[iambiguous]

You go about the business of living your [rather normal] life. Then something happens. A whole new world is opened up to you. Then everything changes.

But here the option exists to ignore it. To go back to square one. To leave the battered and bruised woman alone lying [and maybe dying] in the street. He does. She does. But then she changes her mind.

Why: Her husband is a shit. Her son is a shit. The woman on the road is not.

Here’s the thing though: If you become a part of her world – if you help her – there are all manner of risks and dangers. And “in reality” they are not just scripted away. In reality the thugs who come after you may well prevail.

This is also about the God of Islam and the stuff men do in His name.

What makes this film more intriguing though is how, the more Noémie spins her tale, the more unsympathetic she becomes. Or, more bizarre still, is how it sometimes seems you’re watching a situation comedy. Oh, and a thriller.

This is a very strange film.


Chaos

Paul: Why did you call the cops?
Helene: I didn’t. I went to see the girl in the hospital. I said I was a witness, and the cops questioned me.
Paul: You’re crazy. What do you care about her?

In other words, if I don't care about her, why do you?

Paul: What did you tell the cops? Do you realize what we risk?
Helene: We risk nothing. Nothing at all. I never said that you locked the doors when you saw her and didn’t even help her. I said I was there alone. You needn’t lose any sleep over it.

And, with him, that might have worked.

Helene [on phone to Paul]: If ironing was an excuse to get in touch with me, well, we’re in touch. If you called just because you need someone to do your ironing, all I can say is find some other sucker.

Chaos, remember?

Noémie: Papa.
Father: Yes.
Noémie: Are you marrying me to that man?
Father: Why do you ask?
Noémie [trying to trick him]: If you are, I’m glad. I like him. He’s kind.
Father: I’m pleased. He paid 20,000 francs for you!

She runs away. But her father still had her passport. She’s left to fend for herself in the big city. You can guess what comes next.

Noémie [to Helene]: I spent two months in a room, beaten and raped 8 to 10 times a day. The men started me on heroin. By the end, I was hooked.

God's will?

Noémie [to Helene]: If they know where your family lives, they’ve got you.

And they do.

Noémie [to Helene]: I tried to find someone to help me. I tried SOS Racism to start with. I told my story to this man my father’s age. After two minutes, he told me his job was to fight racism, not help women who disgraced Islam.

Of course, that's still around.

Noémie: I’d love to meet the shits in that car.

If you get her drift.

Noémie: I’m scared.
Helene: It’ll be all right.
Noémie: I can stop everything.
Helene: They didn’t stop when I first saw you. There’s no pardon, no truce with them.

Terrorists, let's call them.

Noémie: Come with me, study, and become someone.
Zora: You’re acting like Dad did with you.
Noémie: Wake up. You want to be a slave? Your brothers already treat you like one; your husband will too. And he will take your kids away. Do you want that? Look at your brothers. Look at the jerks on their bikes. That’s all they want: motorbikes, mobile phones, easy money and obedient women. They play the rebel but it’s all they want. They were supposed to kill me, for family honor, Arab honor, and Islam’s honor. With one shitty motorbike, their honor melts away along with their religion. Think they care how I earned my money? I’ve been forced to be a hooker. Does that mean they’d be nice to me? Like hell! I’d only get hatred and scorn. They turn against society but still treat you like a slave. They don’t mind Dad selling me and trying it again with you. It suits them. This fucking system. They want to use it, not change it.
Zora: You’re full of hate. Anyway, I can’t come with you.
Noémie: Why?
Zora: Because I love them.

No, really, she does.

[iambiguous]

Time

“The strangeness of Time. Not in its passing, which can seem infinite, like a tunnel whose end you can't see, whose beginning you've forgotten, but in the sudden realization that something finite, has passed, and is irretrievable.” Joyce Carol Oates

Of course: another rendition of Milan Kundera's "the unbearable lightness of being".

“I'd had nearly four years of experience looking at these clocks, but their sluggishness never ceased to surprise. If I am ever told that I have one day to live, I will head straight to the hallowed halls of Winter Park High School, where a day has been known to last a thousand years.” John Green

Next up: a day here.

“Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.” Carl Sandburg

Or end it for you?

“It seems to me then as if all the moments of our life occupy the same space, as if future events already existed and were only waiting for us to find our way to them at last, just as when we have accepted an invitation we duly arrive in a certain house at a given time.” W.G. Sebald

Click, of course.

“And that’s when I realize that, at the end, we’d all wish for the same thing. Just a little more time.” Marie Lu

Next up: those who wish for a little less.

“There was only present, and it was infinite. The past and the future were just blinders we wore so that infinity wouldn't drive us mad.” Laini Taylor

Next up: fitting oblivion in there.