The Bloody Chamber

I happened to walk through a book fair a few weeks ago on my way to something else and felt compelled to purchase something considering I had interrupted an enthralled group of people listening to an angry man with dreadlocks talk about how capitalism has ruined culture in this society. One of the books that caught my eye was the The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter.

It is an anthology of short stories which mostly originate from traditional fables and western fairytales. Carter has used well-known stories and created new stories from them in which I believe she explores more modern concepts. I also find that her writing has a feminist angle to it. I saw this mostly with her re-telling of the 'bluebeard' story entitltled 'the bloody chamber'. This story has more of the same qualities of Clarissa Pinkola Estes' analysis in 'Women Who Run with Wolves' than the classic story.

I also enjoyed her three wolf stories which go from a morbid re-telling of Red-riding Hood to highly sexualised version that explores the budding sexuality of the Red Riding Hood character and then one where the reader is not completely sure who exactly the wolf is.

For me, the most interesting two stories are the two different retellings of the 'Beauty and the Beast' story. The first gives a more classical view of the story while showing the more human side of 'Beauty'. Yet 'The Tiger's Bride' provides a different format to this classic story by inverting the roles of transformation.


All in all it was an interesting anthology of stories. Carter is very talented with description and prose and the stories in this collection were very compelling.

True Reality

I am a reality TV fanatic! I am saying this without sarcasm, irony or anything else the higher brow members of society use to slap some form of commentary on this evolution in television. I seriously love them all, The Kardashians, The Braxtons, The Real Housewives!

The reason why I am now unashamed to mention this is because I had an epiphany last night which made me realise that reality TV is actually the cleverest, most realistic commentary on the society in which we live.

Critics of reality TV go on and on about how fake it is. Ofcourse its fake! It's meant to be because quite honestly as a human race we can't handle the truth! Think about those home videos your parents took while you were growing up. All those birthdays, school sports days, concerts, talent shows. Theres not even any point recording these things because no one watches them afterwards! It's not entertainment, the sound quality is bad, the picture is grainy and too dark or too bright, much of what people are saying is inaudible, there are many, many awkward silences.

Reality TV is the alternative to that. You want to see people's spotless mansions, not their filthy carpets which were last cleaned in 1982. You want good lighting, makeup, fashionable clothing. You want to be able to hear everything people are saying, so that you can follow the storyline. Instead of those amateur family videos you want to be able to view someone else's family, friend, relationship dramas that echoe your own, except theres are in HD format.

We're living in a society that is constantly plugged in to many if not all forms of media and craves constant entertainment. The amount of films, documentaries, series made every year is not even enough to satisfy that. Reality TV is a hybrid form of media, it combines the need for people to see their world reflected on screen, to connect with people they feel are real while also providing pure entertainment, interesting storylines, dramatic climaxes etc.

People often view the watching of reality TV to be a voyeuristic past-time, a fulfillment of perverse desire to look into people's lives. However I argue that reality TV is exactly the opposite of this. In fact I believe that reality TV is deliberately removed from true reality. Think how much cheaper and easier it would be if people just chased normal people with hand-held cameras but the high production values of reality TV suggest that there is a deliberate distance inposed so as not to appear voyeuristic. Think how the Kardashians drift off to sleep with a full face of make-up and perfectly coifed hair. We do not want to see them drool, or notice their eye crispies!

 Honestly I think the producers of relaity TV are geniuses! To be able to create storylines around mundane issues, to direct untrained actors and cleverly balance their material between home video and all-stops-out, flash sitcom or drama series is very daring and very admirable.

Beasts of the Southern Wild

I hadn't heard all that much about this film before I watched it, the other day. I hadn't even seen the trailer, however I did read one synopsis of the film that described it as a more intelligent Waterworld. When Waterworld was released in 1995 it was given the title of being the most expensive production ever made. It's returns at the box office didnt match the amount spent to make it and the reviews told a decidedly more tragic tale. 'Beasts of the Southern Wild', on the otherhand, used a budget of 1.2 million dollars to produce a far more profound, far more aware film. Without a bevy of special effects the film is able to create a far more ominous warning about the state of our planet.

I see this film as succeeding in doing what many other films have sought to do yet failed. In Avatar we get the allegory of a race of people who live in harmony with nature while the humans plunder and purge their planet of natural resources. Apart from the obvious laughable point of their main natural resource being named 'unobtainium', the allegory was too far from home. The film was too sentimental and sickeningly preachy, despite the fact that this extremely big budget production could not seriously have been all that green.

'Beasts of the Southern Wild' differs in that it focuses on one community, one family, one child and one story. Hush Puppy is a young girl living in a fictional community in Louisiana, USA called The Bathtub. The time is not clear but this world is so closely related to ours that it could be ten years from now, maybe two, maybe even now. This community lives cut off from the 'civilised' world of factories, supermarkets, highways. They live in excess when there is plenty, they live frugally when nature is not giving much. They all live with the awareness that the polar ice caps are melting, meaning the tide will rise and eventually swallow up their community and everything they know and love. The film centres not only around this realisation but also around the relationship between Hush Puppy and her father, Wink, who is dying of an unnamed illness. Wink tries to get Hush Puppy ready for when he's not around and she will have to fend for herself. In this we see the most primal of relationships between parent and child. The fight for survival, that occurs in nature.

The film, itself is beautiful. I haven't been so moved by a film in a long time. The cast of non-actors fill the screen with raw emotion and the music aids the mood and tone of the film at every turn. By far the best thing about the film is the sweet, defiant and strong narration by Hush Puppie. Seeing this world through a child's eyes gives incredible insight into an issue that too often goes over people's heads. What I enjoy about this film is that while it does give us a view of where our planet is headed, it's not self-righteous nor preachy about it. But tells us that we have lost touch with our purpose as a planet, we've lost touch with our role in the functioing of the world in which we live.

My top 5 most disturbing movies of all time.

I recently saw a list, online, of someone's top ten most disturbing films. Albeit I hadn't seen most of them but it made me want to check them out. So I decided to think up a list of movies that were the most disturbing to me. Sometimes a movie doesnt neccessarily have to be a horror in order to disturb you. I think it has more to do with how it upsets your mind or rather how it upsets how you view the natural balance of things to be...

1. The Unseeable(2006):
I watched this 2006 Thai horror at the Durban Film Festival and eventhough I was in a cinema full to capacity, I felt like running out. It's one of those films that builds up fear gradually but when you reach the climax you're too scared to contain yourself! At this point to Asian horror craze was just starting of. I think the reason why people were so transfixed by this film as well as other films that came out of the japanese, thai and korean film insustry is because of a cultural difference between the East and West that allows for spirits and unknown entities to be ever present, they need not be explained away nor do they exclusively haunt old, dilapidated mansions. Rather they attach themselves to people, they can exist in the newest of apartments, they utilise the newest of technologies. In the case of The Unseeable, a ghost could really be anyone and often the most unlikely character.

2. The Asian horror craze brings me to my next movie on the list...The Ring(2002)
I don't mean the Japanese version but rather the 2002, English Gore Verbinski version.
I actually have watched the Japanese Hideo Nakata version and read the origin novels by Koji Suzuki. While the novels did freak me out a little, the movie that really scared me was the english version. I think its down to the talent of the director that he created such a moody and surreal landscape in which to set this film.  A lot of remakes of asian horrors came after this, like The Grudge and Shutter, in my opinion they failed by trying to make the english version a doppelganger of the asian one. In the japanese version of the film the protaganist already transforms from a crusty male journalist, to a young single mother. the English version retains that as well as changing the setting from Japan to Seattle, USA. As well as these changes there are also changes in terms of the mythology around the haunting of the videotape. I like the aspect of investigation in the english version and quite honestly the ghost is just scarier.

3. The Human Centipede (2010):
There was a lot of hype around this movie and when I finally watched it many things disappointed me. The quality of the acting was substandard, the dialogue was so badly written I think you could hear better dialogue in a soft porn movie. And the actual story is very two dimensional and extremely implausible. However when you finally get to the scene where the three tourists are finally attached and they wake up as almost, but not quite one entity, you are so repulsed and so...disturbed that its difficult to continue watching. This movie is not going to win any awards for being a movie but the very idea it poses is enough to make your skin crawl.

4. The Elephant Man(1980):
Ok, this is not a horror movie and its actually very tragic, and thought-provoking. But let me give a little bit of context as to the first time I watched this movie. I was only 10 years old and my dad thought it would be a good idea for me to watch this classic film. He warned me not to play the rented VHS before he got home but I didnt listen. Therefore my first contact with the screen verson f John Merrick was as a monstrous, and alien being that filled my 10 year old self with dread and revulsion. However maybe that was the type of insight I needed, imagine how children during the 19th century would have reacted to the real-life figure on which the film is based, Joseph Merrick.
I also think that as a child you're so conditioned to disney happy-endings and toned down emotions that when you see something truly sad and unfair, completely unlike what you thought the reality of life was then you will be disturbed.

5. The Hills Have Eyes (2006):
I watched this for the first time at a very isolated chalet in the Limpopo province, conincidentally there was a hill, there was also very bad TV reception, so we ended up watching this on a laptop. The whole mutant community thing freaked me out but more than that the rape, the breast-feeding scene, the canibalism! this was just an all round terrifying and disturbing film. I think Alexander Aja is a really talented director, because eventhough this is a remake its proabably become more famous than the original Wes Craven film. I also watched Piranha 3D recently and was really impressed by Aja's ability to eccentuate B-grade to a level of being so bad that it becomes good.

Concept vs Quality

Recently I've been thinking a lot about the restaurant business, mainly because it's my dream to one day open up my own restaurant.
I've realised that in South Africa specifically our restaurant culture is extremely so, more so than anywhere else I've been.

Firstly I think it's a huge problem that in SA people are willing to buy into concepts rather than quality. Two nights ago I went to Dukes in Greenside. Luckily we had a reservation because usually you'd have to queue for hours sometimes to discover that the kitchen has closed before you get a table. Its uber popular, its super trendy. The concept is gourmet burgers, with the best ingredients, the most outrageous yet delicious combinations. I've been there once before, when Dukes first opened and I was thoroughly disappointed then. Granted I wasnt eating red meat at the time so could only choose from the chicken and vegetarian options so i decided to give them another try. I don;t understand how people rave about the taste and quality of Dukes burgers when my burger was extremely over-cooked and dry, the bun was stale and falling apart, the wedges were undercooked! The only thing I can think of is that people are paying for the concept rather than the quality. I've seen it with lots of other places too! You should not be serving up a concept day after day on monogrammed crockery if you can't deliver on actual taste. I actually prefer my neighbourhood Chinese restaurant with a tiny sushi conveyor belt and a card machine that never works because even if it doesnt look like much the quality of the food is awesome and the service is good.

Which brings me to my next point about service. In south Africa instead of rewarding good service we tip out of guilt. Sure, being a waiter is not the best job in the world, but it is a job and we should be trying our best at any job that we do. We live in a society that's meant to reward hard work yet we look down on waiters and patronise them by tipping even when their work isn't up to scratch. A Greek/Finnish friend of mine was shocked that in SA waiters demand tips even when they forget orders and the kitchen is late with your food. Yet we all feel a sense of extreme guilt if we don't. We say " Ag shame I wonder how he's even getting home so late after his shift" or " Awww man she probably has three kids to feed just give her a good tip". don't get me wrong we should be empathetic and sympathetic but if we're rewarding bad service can we really then complain that service isn't good? And staff should not take it personally either. If you've got a bad tip its not some rich brat with a vendetta against you but rather someone telling you that they werent happy with your service and you need to do better next time.

Two things you've just got to do alone.

I'm the kind of person who shares my personal life with the world, which is the main reason why I even have a blog. Apart from that I'm known as the 'overshare' person, with all my friends. So whenever I have the slightist difficulty in life or have even a single crazy thought in my mind it spews forth from my mouth to anyone, family, friends, neighbours, co-workers, cashiers at Pick and Pay...
But I was thinking that there really are two major events in your life that, while you may want support, you cannot have it and really need to go through it alone.
The first one being your learners or drivers test. When I was in university I still hadn't totally ironed out my theory but I had a premonition that it wouldnt be good to go in a big, noisy group to the testing centre to write our learners. I opted to do it in secret, over the holidays so that none of my friends would know either way, much like a secret nose job. However all my other friends decided to make a day of it. Well the inevitable happened, everyone passed except for one and it was super awkward, super weird and no one could celebrate because they all felt so bad for the one that didnt make it. I chose right because as it turned out I failed my learners twice! My embarrassment was no less than my friends because literally five minutes before I got the  failed result of my first learners test my mom, while trying to console me over the phone said 'Don't worry Varu, any idiot can get their learners'

The other thing that one should never ever, under any circumstances do with a group of friends, no matter how scary it can be, is go for an STD or AIDs test. I can think of multiple ways in which this could go so horribly wrong. For that matter you should probably not even tell your friends that you're going for an STD test because then everyone's on the edge of their seat till the end of the week, when you get your results back. And i personally would much rather avoid awkward phonecalls that start with "So....?". On a side note, a friend of mine recently went to get tested for HPV, which she told us all about. So in this case I was the one making the awkward phonecall to find out if everything was alright. She said that the doctor said that if she had HPV he would call her on Thursday, if he didnt call then she didnt have anything. Surely this should not be standard practice! I mean wouldnt you want a stamped and signed certificate of you not having an STD. I dont believe anything until its on paper. I mean for all the anxiety and not to mention physical discomfort that you have to go through to get tested, I think I would want an STD graduation and get a diploma for having a clean bill of health. A phonecall is just not sufficient.

Coming Soon...but not soon in enough

 There's a number of movies that I'm really excited to see this year. For me the highlight of my year seemed to mainly be fulfilled by Prometheus but I've just realised that there are some really awesome movies coming out later this year.

1. Most importantly is 'Life of Pi'. This novel is my absolute most favourite novel of all time. It was original and beautifully written. So when I heard that they were making a film version I was very sceptical. However after watching the trailer and also knowing that its in the very capable hands of Ang Lee I'm very excited. My one gripe with the trailer is that the trailer does look very fantasy based and it seems like a family movie and while i do think that it still could be considered a family movie  know that if the film stays true to the story the end is going to be devestating. The themes of survival in desperate situation could be too advanced for youger viewers contrary to the look and feel of the trailer and the fact that it was filmed in 3D.

2. The Bourne Legacy is one of the most highly anticipated action movies of the year. Mainly because people want to size up Jeremy Renner in comparison to Matt Damon. I think he's going top be really good bearing in mind that this is a Bourne movie but not part of the Damon Bourne franchise. It also has Edward Norton as the villain, a role he was born to play in my opinion.

3. On the subject of action Im also really keen to see Total Recall. This remake sees Colin Farrell replacing Arnold Schwarzenegger. Im mostly just interested to see why Total Recall needed a remake especially one with Kate Beckinsale in it (can you say redundant?)

4. The Great and Powerful Oz looks visually impressive and I hope it does well at the box office just so that Sam Raimi can give the studios a figurative 'up yours' after the Amazing Spiderman. James Franco will be uber cool, as always, as the wizard and I think its a really cool idea, after all these years to film the actual first Oz novel as opposed to the more famous second installment with Dorothy and the yellow brick road. I also like that Raimi has stuck to the black and white in Kansas style transforming to vibrant colour in Oz that was seen in the first film.