Last night I watched the film “Knives Out” and loved it. I’m a fan of the “who done it” genre and this was just that with an extra twist – if anyone is reading this, there will be spoilers ahead. The movie is set up as a typical Agatha Christie style plot with several eccentric characters in a supposed gothic building and a detective who needs to find the truth. However, half way through the killer is revealed and we spend most of the rest of the film wondering if they will get away with it before the big reveal at the end. My main observation was that there is a heavy level of pro immigrants/immigration subtext and also class struggle themes. One of the main protagonists is from Cuba (I found this out on the internet after watching the film – her accent is apparently Cuban) but all the other characters say that she is from differing South American countries, showing their assumption that non-Americans (specifically those from Spanish speaking countries) are interchangeable; the victim leaves his estate to his nurse (the Cuban) as she is the most moral/deserving person he knows whilst his family (all white Americans) are outraged as they feel that the inheritance is their birth right – my parallel here is with White America feeling it has superiority over immigrants by virtue of being born in the country and finally the other non-American character discovers who the real killer is. In terms of the overall entertainment of the film I found that the director, Rian Johnson, created a sense of tension almost entirely throughout the film and he subverted the genre by revealing the “killer” in the first half of the film.
I had spent most of yesterday by myself, with my mum, Nick and Lana getting home around 8pm. I got loads done including reading, writing, learning Polish, stretching and preparing for my new job. However I was annoyed that Dulcie did not feed her dog before leaving and spent another evening out meaning that I had to look after Bonnie by myself again. When she got the dog I was adamant that I did not want to be responsible for looking after it and I’m unhappy that she regularly leaves in the morning without feeding her or taking her for a walk, leaving it all to me.
I’m now at the 150 page mark in The Perils of Perception and am still enjoying it. I knew that you can’t change other people’s minds with facts but this book stresses that whilst we do need to tell people stories to get them to act, we should not forget about the facts. He makes the point with an Aldous Huxley quote (from Proper Studies), “Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.” The most encouraging example he gives is from Sport England and how they ran the This Girl Can campaign – the marketing showed ordinary girls/women participating in sport to show that girls can and do take part in sport. The idea behind the message is that by showing normal women are active in sport it normalises it and makes those not engaged find it more accessible and in turn make them more likely to get involved. The story telling aspect of these women and what they do for sport resonates with the audience and encourages them to participate too. In contrast, this could have been run using statistics that show how far less women were involved in sport compared to men and that women should be more active but the evidence shows this would have little affect.
It’s meant to be one of the hottest days of the year today, getting up to 34 degrees. I’m currently sitting in my room with my fan on full but still feeling pretty sweaty. We leave for Liverpool in the early hours of tomorrow morning and will be driving up there. Hopefully it wont be too hot in the car when we leave as there will be 5 of us, 2 dogs and our luggage which could make for a sticky journey.
I’ve ordered guitar strings for the acoustic guitar which will arrive today and Nick is going to help me restring it. I don’t think I have played the guitar for 5 years or so, so it will be good to get back into it. Maybe I’ll learn how to play Nora Jones behind my head…
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