Movie Time!

Okay then so here we go now. Today's post will will include the movie Kino Lika and Hobo With a Shotgun.

Once long ago I read an article by a man named Nick Hornby who was lamenting that he wanted to vary his reading materials more, that he wanted his books to encompass a galaxy of variety. Well I think I've managed to do this with this week because you can't get more diffrent than Kino Lika and Hobo With a Shotgun. I mean one is from Coatia and the other is from Canada. Enough of that though lets talk movies.

Kino Lika, which is called The Lika Cinema on IMDB is one of those movies that has the unfortunate distinction of having "that" scene. That scene is that one fucked up moment that takes people for a loop and forever after when they talk about the movie it will be in terms of that moment. Gummo has the bathtub scene. Vistor Q has its lactation. Happiness has the pedophile. Irreversable has its horrible rape scene that can actually cause physical illness. Now there is Kino Lika which has an unatractive girl trying to have sex with a pig and the pig turning her down. These moments excist in these movies for varying reasons. The reasons for their inclusion is as varied as the movies they are included in. Unfortunatly, many viewers are overwhelmed by these moments and they they end up forgetting that there is whole rest of a movie around. This is especially true in Kino Lika because the pig scene which is heart wrenchingly sad is not nearly the most important part of the movie.

The movie itself is a bit of a challange. It is about a small town of farmers who are suffering through a horrible drought. The people are poor and things look awefully bleak for everyone who is a main charecter. However, for everyone who isn't a main charecter life is actually pretty good and they are all able to relax and have fun. As a result I am not really sure what to do with the movie internally. With the exception of the kid who acidently kills his mother in a farming acident most of the people's problems are their own. The fat girl doesn't nearly have to be as unattractive as she is. I mean she really really tries to to be unatractive. The miserly farmer's problems are one of personal pride and he actually learns his lession over the course of the movie and becomes a better person. It is a rough road though for him.

So is the movie is just a bunch of misery porn? I don't think so. It isn't so much that the non main charecters are careless but rather that they've all learned to relax or something or other. I think the biggest lession of the movie is that the poor lack the means to properly deal with trauma. Or to put it better. The people in this movie have a hard time dealing with Trauma. Part of the problem is that the people are poor but they aren't destitute. This is similar to my current living condition. They live close to failure and when something upsets the careful balance of thier lives it is catastrophic. Catastrophic enough to become a main character for a movie about misery and pain.

This movie doesn't excist in a vaccum and it shares a lot themeaticlly with Gummo. Most of the main charecters in gummo lost someone important in the tornado mentioned at the onset of the movie. Grief is tough to deal with in ideal condtions. The way people live in both these movies is far less than ideal. I liked Kino Lika alot. It shows the way people live in a place I know nothing about and I found it fascinating.

Anyway I have to go do gaming times so Hobo With a Shotgun will have to wait.