The thorny question of Immigration and Hackney cabs

I was thinking yesterday about immigration. I’d been shopping with my boyfriend and his sister who’d come up for the weekend to visit and take advantage of the sale in the Bullring. For various reasons I’d gone out wearing totally inappropriate footwear and ended up abandoning the two of them in Topshop and taking a Taxi home, a rare extravagance for me.

I’m at University in Birmingham, a town which has recently been the scene of some terrible race riots. Now I’ve always know I was in favour of multi-culturalism and I think the melting pot of different cultures that is modern Britain is a great thing, but getting into the Taxi made me think of an aspect of this debate I’d never considered before. I would much rather get into a taxi alone with a Muslim than a white man. When I was checking out the various Taxi drivers standing by their cabs waiting for customers, I was relieved to see the first man in the queue was an older middle aged, cheerful Middle Eastern man, whose car was bedecked in ornaments decorated with Arabic writing and sayings of the prophet. I was far more confident of my safety with anyone who followed the teachings of the Qur’an than with the skin-headed Daily Mail and Sun reading white guys you so often get driving cabs. And I was right to put my trust in this guy. He was cheerful, chatty, got me home quickly (and explained which route he was taking and why so I knew where we were going) and when it came to paying him, he rounded my fare down, rather than up.

It was something I’d never considered before, but now I come to analyse it I really do believe this is one aspect of the widespread migration from Muslim countries which is of enormous benefit to young women, ‘specially those who like to go out and get drunk and then come home alone and unprotected. But now I’m left with a dilemma – how do I ask a Taxi company about the religion of their drivers without sounding like a mental racist? It’s something I’m going to have to ponder. Along with where my driver was hiding the bale of hay – legally Hackney Carriages still have to carry one.

Mentally Ill people aren't always cuddly

Whew. Last night was exciting. But not in a good way. In a previous post I explained about my boyfriend having two different personalities, which is fine. But they're also a third who doesn't often come out, because the others keep him squashed down out of sight.
It's really hard to deal with something like that - to know that even though he sounds like, looks like the man you love, it's someone else. And someone not very nice. In many way I think that's the scariest thing about nights like last night - the fact that it's a virtual stranger in the body of the man I love.
It's something that people who havn't had to deal with a mentally ill person just can't understand. I know a lot of people would just see either someone dangerous, or someone using a poor excuse to treat me badly.
It's difficult to describe how I know that it isn't my boyfriend(s) - I sure anyone who has to deal with MPD or DPD will tell you that when it's someone you know well, you just know. And there's no doubt in my mind that it is a different person, even though medical opinion is against me. He moves differently acts differently. He even has a different sense of humour!
It's reallt hard - im fact it's the hardest thing I've ever had to deal with - being afraid of someone I love. Being genuinely in fear fro my life.

Kamikaze girls

Before I watched Kamikaze girls I had never heard of director Tetsuya Nakashima, or of the two stars, Kyoko Fukada and Anna Tsuchiya. I don’t much like teen films and I don’t like Shoujo manga (it’s based loosely on a manga of the same name by Novala Takemoto). So why you may ask did I sit down to watch this film? Truthfully, I liked the art of the DVD sleeve! I am however very glad I did because ‘Kamikaze girls’ is undoubtedly one of the best films I have seen for several years. It made me laugh almost non-stop, it made me cry, it made me really want to move to small town Japan and buy a scooter.

The plot follows shallow, self-obsessed Momoko (played by pop-singer Kyoko Fukada), who doesn’t want friends because then she would have less time to buy clothes. Her life consists of fantasising about living in Rococo era France, tricking her father into giving her clothes money and buying clothes from her favourite brand ‘Baby the stars shine bright’. But when her failed gangster of a father is run out of town by the mob for selling counterfeit Versace clothing, her life changes forever. They move to the countryside where Momoko becomes carer to her one-eyed ex-prize fighting grandmother.

Desperate for cash to buy clothes, Momoko decides to try and sell some of her father’s merchandise. She places an advert in the local paper, and into her life walks Ichigo (Anna Tsuchiya), violent member of a local ‘yanki’ girl-biker gang. Ichigo soon gets attached to Momoko, despite Momoko’s insistence that she doesn’t want or need a friend. It isn’t until Ichigo is in real danger that Momoko acknowledges her feelings. Along the way they meet some weird and wonderful characters notably ‘Unicorn’ Ryugi (so called because of his unbelievably long quiff) and the enthusiastic, but socially inept Isobe, head-designer for Baby the stars shine bright (who Momoko refers to as God).

The characters are a triumph, believable and rounded in a way that is rare in manga adaptations. For all that she’s shallow and self-centred, Momoko comes up with some wonderful insights “When you spoke to him you looked beautiful. Isn’t that what love is?” and Tsuchiya makes the character of Ichigo wonderfully human and vulnerable.

This film doesn’t do anything radical – there’s no groundbreaking techniques, or new plot ideas, but it is charming and touching in a way few teen films manage to be. So move over the mean girls, the Kamikaze girls are in town!

Four stars

New places, new people

My boyfriend and I have both just started University. We are at different Uni's but in the same city, which is really nice. We still don't get too see each other as much as we'd like but at east he's not in Edinborough.

So far he seems to be coping really well. He's not very good with new places and people, but he's made some friends and managed to get to all his meetings, so that's a good start. However his halucionations are getting worse because of the stress, and so are the voices he hears.

It's really hard for me, because I really want to help him and be there for him but at the same time I know he's got to learn to cope by himself, and he wouldn't want everyone in his halls to know about his problems.

Finding the right balance is really difficult, made even harder by the fact that I've got a lot of problems at the moment as well. We're leaning on each other, which I suppose is what a strong relationship is all about.

My First Review - The Three Extremes

Winner of Best film at Taiwan’s golden horse film festival

I have never been a huge fan of horror. In fact, to be totally honest I am a complete wimp, especially when it comes to gore. So it was with some trepidation that I sat down to watch the three extremes, a box set of three short films by Asia’s masters of horror, Fruit Chan (Hong Kong), Park Chan-Wook (Korea) and Takashi Miike (Japan).

The first of these films in the set is an abridged version of Fruit Chan’s hit film Dumplings. Unlike the other two films, this is far from a conventional horror. There is no monster, no out and out villain, just an ordinary woman, trying to save her failing marriage and keep her fading youth. And this is what makes the film special, and why it is, in many ways, the most disturbing of the three.
The story follows middle-aged housewife Mrs Lee, whose rich husband has lost interest in her, and whose television acting career has ended. Desperate to reclaim her lost youth she visits the irrepressible Aunt Mei (a perfectly pitched performance by Chinese actress Bai Ling), known to be an expert on the more distasteful side of Chinese medicine. She goes there in hope of tasting Aunt Mei’s infamous dumplings, said to be the ultimate cure for aging. I won’t spoil it by telling you what goes into the dumplings, but I think it is enough to say that I nearly turned off the film when she ate the first one, and I only had a faint suspicion of the contents.
Fruit Chan most definitely cements his reputation as a great director with this film. The casting is spot on, the performances pitch perfect and the camera work is achingly beautiful (but with Australian master cinematographer Christopher Doyle behind the camera this was to be expected). The soundtrack of traditional Chinese lullabies adds the final touch to the beautiful, haunting, terrifying world he creates. Never is this more evident than in the final scene, which will stand out for years to come as one of the most disturbing scenes ever created.

Park-Chan Wook’s segment, Cut, is the most traditional of the three films. It documents the terrifying ordeal of a director who finds himself and his wife kidnapped by an insane extra who, jealous of the fact that the director is handsome, rich, successful, happy and worst of all, a genuinely nice person, sets up a test to prove that goodness is nothing more than a lack of need to do evil. The disturbing thing about this film is that it is genuinely, laugh out loud funny. The ridiculous, over the top acting of the extra, and the dance routines really are funny. But at the same time, you know you’re laughing at the suffering of innocent people. However the sudden change of pace towards the end feels almost as though we’re watching a different, much more conventional, film.

Director Park Chan-Wook has achieved critical acclaim in recent years for his dark thrillers such as Old Boy and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, but only glimmers of this greatness show through here. However it is enough. The film is well made, with a good script and the beautiful cinematography that has become associated in recent years with oriental film making.

The last film was the one I was most dreading, and interestingly the film I most enjoyed. Box is the offering of notorious Japanese director Takashi Miike. Miike has earned a reputation for extreme violence with films like Audition and Ichi the killer. However he puts this aside in favour of a bleak, disjointed, dream-like segment.
It tells the story of haunted writer Kyoko, who used to be a contortionist in the circus, and who is haunted by the terrible accident which killed her twin sister and for which she was partly responsible. The locations are exquisite, from the writer’s bare flat, to the circus tent, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. The solitary tree, alone in the snowy landscape harks back to earlier Japanese films, when images of the beauty of nature for beauty’s sake were common.
From any other director the plot twist at the end would be corny, but Miike handles it with a delicacy that is quite unexpected. The final image of Kyoko and Shoto will stay with you long after the film has ended.
While it lacks the gruesome beauty of Dumplings, or the dark humour of Cut, Box is in many ways the best film. Its disturbing exploration of the nature of privacy and nightmares handled with such delicate care that you are swept along by it. You find yourself entering the mind of Kyoko. You share her jealousy of her 10 year old sister’s relationship with the ring master, her horror when she realises what she has done, and most of all her fear.

Three unusual films, presented in an unusual way, but despite being so different, the trilogy does not jar, but flows elegantly from one film to the next. Well worth seeing even if you don’t enjoy horror.

Five Stars

Living with MPD

My boyfriend and I have been together two and a half years now. After about 4 months I convinced him to go to th doctors, who refered him to a psychologist. A few months later he was diagosed with hypnogogic halucinations and schitzophrenia. A few months later (with some prompting from me) he was also diagnosed with MPD (Multiple Personality Disorder).

The way his version works is that he is really two people. There isn't a dominant personality and then other secondary ones. The two of them are equal and work together. We named them after characters in a favourite anime of ours - Agito and Akito. He thinks that Akito (who's very sweet and gentle) was the original and created Agito (strong and not easily upset but can be a bit overly agressive) as a sort of safety net against school bullies and other stresses. Akito as lovely but he can't cope with any kind of stress (arguements, me being ill, people being upset - even characters in films) and he's astonishingly pink and fluffy but totally adorable. Agito is the brave one who copes with all the day to day things that Akito can't cope with. He works very hard and is totally devoted to his twin? (I'm never shure how they're related to one another) however he's not especially good with people as he has a tendancy to over-react and be a bit agressive. But he's a sweetheart really and has a lot of friends.

I have no idea how many people there are across the world dealing with people like Kagito, and coping with things most people can't imagine. But hopefully one of two of them will read this blog and realise they're not alone.

Film Studies AS

There's been a lot of bad press recently for all the media studies subjects. I took 5 complette A levels including communications studies and Flim Studies (the others were General Studies - compolsory at my college - theology and politics) and I have to tell you they are my no means cop-out subjects. To all those who are considering taking film studies, ignor your parents - it is a real subject. But be warned it is not easy or low on work. Especially in the second year, it's hard work and hard going. You'll be swamped in coursework and nver let anyone tell you that writing 1000 words on just the use of colour ion the first 10 mins of 'All About my Mother' is easy.

On the other hand apart from coursework it is usually fairly homework free. You do get to spend a lot of time watching films (but just like english lit, however much you liked it the first time, you'll be heartily sick of it by the 20th run through) and you'll see a lot of films you probably wouldn't have watched otherwise.

With a good teacher and decent resources, it should be an exciting, interesting, challenging and fun subject and i'd heartily recomend it to all of you who are interested.

By the way, I'm not being paid to advertise the subject, I just love it. And I got an A in my FS A level.