Thursday 15 February 2007

Thursday

What the hell's happening in Austria? First there was the shocking case of Natascha Kampusch, kept in a cellar for 8 years. Now, a mother has kept her three daughters locked up for 7 years. What is strange and amazing about this is that the girls have become intolerant for light, and they developed their own form of language, somehow 'singing-like'. Apparently they also finish every sentence with the word 'but'. It is cases like these that reveal to us the nature, or lack of it, of humanity. Perhaps only the youngest will recover from the psychological trauma.

The Kampusch case has already generated film interest (with Scarlett Johansson as lead?) and of course it sounds quite similar to Silence of the Lambs as well as John Fowles' The Butterfly Collector. Such incidents are cinematic in their intensity, and in a way we need to see them visualised on screen - for some it acts as a relief, to others as a confrontation. Movies frequently deal with the psychotic, the serial killer. Seeing and hearing them is much more effective than reading about them. On the topic of recent events being made into film, however, I have felt a distinct lack of Iraq war movies. As I mentioned the other day, there were a phenomenal amount of World War II films. Why has this one not generated as many?

2 comments:

Alex Andronov said...

Why?

(Not why do that to the children but why delete?)

It's relevant to the themes of films you might see.

As the saying goes, "today's news is tomorrow's entertainment".

Nick Ollivère said...

Ok, I've kept it, and added a little bit about cinema as you can see. I feel I should make it relevant to film somehow.

However, recently I have felt the need to have somewhere to post 'general thoughts', but am not sure where to put them.

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