Hope and despair

The day started good but somehow ended in a horrible argument. We are still not on speaking terms, and have withdrawn to our respective territories of the house. I chose the upstairs quarters with my ironing and two films and Reinout opted for his computer.  It has made me feel completely down, and to increase my melancholic state of mind, I opted for two films that would guaranteed make me feel even worse. Both were excellent though, the Dead Girl a dark story about the impacts on a community when a young woman turns up murdered, with Brittany Murphy and Toni Collette, and Trade, a story about human trafficking with Kevin Kline among others. Both are shot in what has become lately many directors modus operandi, filming individual characters  seemingly at random, gradually weaving together a narrative which all comes together towards the end. Trade shares some elements of Lilja 4-ever and Maria full of Grace, which are other films in the same genre I would recommend.

I wouldn’t say I feel better having devoured myself in human misery but it does tend to put your own problems in perspective. Second of all it provides some food for thought on many of the less obvious issues that are going on around us. We are so preoccupied with our most immediate needs and concerns that issues that are far away, often bordering on the darkness of human nature gets pushed to the side.

Continuing in the same line of thought I read today I rather disturbing article in a Swedish newspaper, about a woman that had lived in Sweden since 2002 with her children only to be sent back to Bosnia-Herzegovina. The sad part was that her children had been in school for years building up a life in a relative safe environment only to find themselves living in a shack begging for money outside schools and hospitals. As a mother, it’s heart wrenching. I can’t even imagine if that would happen to my family. And yet one has to ask oneself where should the government/local authorities draw the line as it’s impossible to help everyone? Those questions and dilemmas can keep me thinking for hours. But being confronted with a problem to which there is neither solution nor escape is a recipe for despair. And still I keep pondering…

my state of mind