These two days, thinking film - and the top-rated films on my list are all showing at my local cinema. As usual, I had to check that website specifically. Today, it was looking like Pretty Red Dress, a comic drama about a red dress, and its effects on a family. However.. it's plummeted in ratings! and what was now on top was War Pony, the coming-of-age story of two young Native American boys.
It was on late enough, so the plan was - eat, shop, film. Didn't quite work out that way, as I left a bit later than intended. I headed to eat first, running into the tail-end of some kind of altercation, unusually for the Brunswick Centre! A couple were screaming at a man with two very small kids - now, I don't care what it was about, it's not right to get kids mixed up in that sort of thing. Anyway, security were escorting the couple out as I gingerly passed them to get to GBK. Which wasn't busy - I ordered straight away, and eventually got my food. Again, the chicken was too wide for the bun - again, they cut it in two, piling one bit on top of another, which makes it hard to eat. I ask you.. but anyway, it was tasty, and I was fed.
By the time I finished, it was time to go to the cinema - shopping would have to wait for tomorrow. I haven't renewed my membership - Curzon isn't the closest cinema to my new place, so I probably wouldn't get the value. (Sadly, there are no cinemas so close to my new place, although there are a few within walking distance..) I also got a sauvignon blanc, and some of their delectable chocolate honeycomb bites. Can't say I noticed a massive difference over the membership price. I arrived in the cinema while the ads were on, and settled into my lovely, comfortable pullman seat.
War Pony is an interesting film. We follow the stories of two boys - one late teens perhaps, one early teens - which intersect briefly, but otherwise follow different paths, if similar in ways. The elder lad already has two little boys (to separate women), and is into every wheeler-dealer, money-making scheme going. The younger lad is something of a wannabe version of the elder one, still in school - although gets suspended during the film - getting into alcohol and drugs, and trying to get into girls, although his baby-face is a hindrance.
It's not the most attractive look at Native American culture, although I'm not qualified to say how realistic it is. Plenty of alcohol and drugs, teenage pregnancies, prison.. casual racism, on the part of the guy the elder boy finds himself working for (also from his wife). There are a couple of snatches of Native American music throughout, at some kind of festival - honestly, with everything else that's going on, it's not really relevant to these boys' lives. I did like the running imagery of a bison, meandering down the road, which each of the boys sees at one point or another - spirit guide, perhaps? Not much guidance being provided, if so. Still, interesting for a glimpse into the lives of people from this part of the world. After, of course, it was too late to shop..
Tomorrow, what was coming up was something not even advertised on my film list, tsk - dunno why I didn't notice it on the cinema website before, either. Seven Winters in Tehran tells the true story of a 19-year old girl in Tehran, who killed her would-be rapist, and was in turn sentenced to death herself, and imprisoned for seven years. However, checking over the weekend, it turned out not to be showing that evening - so that's not an option any more! And so I'm back to my original choice, another by Patricio Guzmán - My Imaginary Country describes the activism of women in Chile.
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