It is still lock down and the idea of being somewhere which is ‘different’ in every dimension seems distinctly appealing. I have been stuck within the British Isles for many months and though this shouldn’t feel exceptional, it is all too easy to become too aware of this and get obsessive or paranoid about the consequences – are we all becoming parochial? Narrow minded? Or perhaps just mildly bored?
I don’t know but I have taken advantage of the resources offered by our endless online entz subscriptions to ‘be elsewhere’. But this was done carefully. I haven’t just watched travel documentaries; nor I have just picked the obvious foreign films. No, I have been spirited away by a deliberate choice of films which were top box office hits in their local market. Sometimes, these make it big and ‘the West’ gets to hear about them, but, as the below makes clear, many don’t as they just aren’t our ‘cup of tea’. So what did I watch?
- The Wedding Party – this was a major hit in Nigeria but wasn’t in our household. It was a bit like a panto: lots of big characters, loud voices, bright shiny clothes, a nice simple and predictable plot (you knew all would end well), but longer and without the pace. As I was abandoned to continue watching on my own, I realised how, in contrast, UK TV could be perceived as super dull. We had recently watched Cormoran Strike – bleak, few smiles and laughs, very slow with long shots of people staring at each other. Maybe that is one way to travel – to think about how what you are familiar with would seem odd to others?
- Wolf Warrior 2 – Time to move East and a box office record buster in China. It was surprisingly violent – in fact, it felt like an endless stream of blood-spurting fights between our tireless hero and his various (also pretty tireless) nemeses. The storyline wasn’t really what you would call ‘deftly plotted’ and there was, in retrospect, very little dialogue, but I did get to have a different way of seeing the world. This was a film in which the Chinese were definitely the Good Guys; everyone else was cowardly and ran away; the Chinese were wise and wealthy; they were investing in Africa and they were building hospitals in Africa. There were some nice stereotypes: Africa – so let there be lions. Oddly, for something so action packed, I have never clock watched so much for a film and breathed a sigh of relief when it was all over.
Perhaps, now I am more content with my oyster – I can dabble with ‘being elsewhere’ but escape back to my own pandemic prison – with greater appreciation for what is here!
