Journeys for Knowledge

The past week has been a fairly calm one, with just research during the day and relaxing in my room at night. The days have been getting noticeably shorter, to the point where the sun is almost setting by the time I leave lab at 5. Eventually I will be coming home at nighttime, so I will need to invest in bike lights. For the time being though I have been making good progress on my work, and even sat in on conference calls with our collaborators in Texas. As for my back, it has slowly been getting better. By Monday I should be well enough to bike again but otherwise there have been no major issues.

Now that mundane is taken care of, I shall delve into my experience visiting London Friday night for the British Film Institute Film Festival. I had purchased a ticket to view a four hour documentary about UC Berkeley and how they dealt with the budget crisis, but since the viewing was at the same time as my matriculation, I had to quickly transfer my ticket to another movie, namely a Japanese film called “Why Don’t You Play in Hell”.  The film was being shown in Hackney, a region in East London, but since I had taken the day off to rest my back I decided to leave for London a little earlier so I could visit my cousin and his family for dinner.

After a rather hasty goodbye, I took the tube to Liverpool Street Station, which had a rather interesting glass ceiling, as my one photo of the day shows. After finding the correct bus I rushed into the cinema just in time for the opening credits. I was so flustered from trying to make it on time that I forgot that the seats were assigned until a couple came to claim the seat I had hastily sat in. After the film I made my way back to Liverpool Street,and after a couple hours of traveling via bus, train, and taxi, I was home again.

As for the film, the basic premise was how a group of ametuer Japanese filmmakers aspire to create a truly great movie in an era of commericalied and cheap entertainment. Through a series of events I will not spoil, they cross paths with two warring Yakuza (Japanese Mafia) clans and create a truly masterful movie, which involves ample amounts of blood and gore. On the surface, one could compare this to a movie by Quentin Tarintino and leave it at that, but clearly that would be unfair. Though the Yakuza dominate the film, in the end it is the filmmakers that are the true protagonists, and it is their story arc that presents the film’s question of whether motion pictures are simply entertaining movies, or artistic films. On top of that, the film managed to prove hilarious through its clever humor, epic through well choreographed sword fights, disgusting though gory moments, and downright sad as several major characters die unnecessary deaths. Very rarely are all of these aspects contained in one film, and it made for a truly gripping experience. As I left the theater I almost forgot I was in London, both from the escapist entertainment and the thought provoking material. Clearly films and movies are not mutually exclusive, but each should appreciated in their own context.

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