"Life Of Oharu" Revisited

xcrp't from "You Know Yourself 2.0" Uma o'Gil


I remember the time Sean and I met. It was at the IFI, at some... dreary retrospective of a Japanese director -Mizubishi or some name like that-, some high faluting function sponsored by RTE and the "quality broadsheet" (hee hee) The Indo. As it happened, I was less than overwhelmed by "The Life Of (Wretched Woman's Name)" and so was Sean. Give me strength: what a drag that yoke was.

To start with, we're talking black and white filum here. Yes. That put me right in the mood. But I gave it a chance I did, I suspended judgement... Only the suspension didn't last long. The filum went like this. So there's this woman, right? Otaku or something, and she's sacrificing herself in the name of some... quaint aul' code of honour that has already made a right bollix of her godforsaken existence -her main squeeze having been offed in the very first five minutes like- but she's determined to get all martyrical and saintly, something brutal. "Suffering in the name of".
And there is me. Fidget fidget fidget, scratch nose, suck sweet, and I'm thinking (in-between checking for messages): I can't be having that! Can't be going along with this maso charade! This is what I'd say to her:
"Woh-oh, calm your jets here missy, you cannot be serious! Why so po-faced? Why take that aggro, ya bleedin cabbage? Why you give in to that sad bunch of windup merchants when you can see they're as mean as a fiddler's bitch the whole lot o'them! You've got it all arse about face love! Don't let that sorry lot grind you down sister, get yourself a bottle of cop on and tell 'em to stick it up their (untranslatable)!"
That'd be her told. Right and proper.

Joking aside, I'm watching this, I'm watching this poor woman being taken to the cleaners, and I'm thinking: Why on earth does she give up on happiness, why is she taking it lying down -literally, ha ha!- and asking for more? ...Is this what Japan's about? Sacrifice?? Auld Uhuru's got it all wrong! When all she has to do is turn around and go:
"Well feck this for a game of soldiers! Yous can all take your edicts and stuff'em up your pipe! I've had just about enough of this nonsense -am off to Tokyo or New York, either will do! Tool and die, fear and trembling, the have and the have-nots -Yer must be havin’ a larf if you think I'm gonna put up with any more of that crap! Class division is for eighth grades doing maths! I ain't buying no more! So yous think yourselves clever eh, killing me one and only true fella? -Well yous can go hang yourselves for all I care now! Go take a jump! I'm gonna get me good kimono and that's the last yous'll see of me, up up and away! Game over! Let 'em eat lotus leaves, this lady here ain't for turning! It's sayonara from me and Philadelphia here we come! Yee-haw!! "

...But maybe I wasn't in the right mood. Maybe I didn't "get it".

Anyway, neither did Sean. More fidgety than a bag of kittens attacked by fleas, your man was clearly struggling to repress his yawns at ten paces. By the look of him, totally gagging for an espresso he was -and as he was, so was I. (No wonder there: studies have shown that as light goes down, darkness sends a signal to the back of your brain, and activates the production of some sleep molecule thingy... (zerotonin, I believe it's called). The brain is fooled, and interprets the situation as an order to go to sleep. You add black-and-white and subtitles to the equation -you're good as gone.) Yawn on one side of the theatre, yawn on the other, it's funny how yawning spreads faster than chocolate milk on a carpet. (Other scientific aside: Scientists have also recently discovered that yawning spreads to dogs. They conducted this experiment where researchers were told to yawn while looking at their pets and... surprise surprise! The dogs soon followed suit as they took to imitating their masters. Research money well spent, says I.) Anyway our eyes met as we both started squinting towards the door. Ten seconds later we didn't need to squint no more.
So this is how we met, sharing in our probably shameful sense of incomprehension and sympathising over a cupofcoffee. I actually remember telling Sean
"We should probably be ashamed of displaying such cultural ignorance"
-"Should we feck!" was his reply.


(tobecontinued)