The Proposition

Just finished watching 'The Proposition' - Australian film written by the God of Music (in the world according to Mel, anyway!); Nick Cave. I was a little apprehensive about seeing it. I had heard some really bad responses to it. In particular, one scene, relating to a woman being raped. I hesitated in seeing the film based on this one scene.

I have now seen it. My opinion does not waver. Nick is the God of Music. I now have a new respect for the man... he can goddamned write! Great film. Violent and messy... what more can one expect about a film set in a country where the white man settled as convicts... christ, most of the constabulary were convicts for the time period this was written. It was an unpleasant time in Australian history, it was never going to be 'The Titanic'for fuck's sake!!!! :)

To end this... my final thought is; Am I so insensitive that what a normal woman finds disgusting? And I accept as normal? Can I watch such filth and find it the norm? Maybe. Maybe I have stared too long into the abyss, and now it stares long into me. Should I step back from my work and realise that normal people don't see or deal with the things I see. Am I so de-sensitised? The thought makes my blood run cold.

Perhaps my only saving grace is my son. I cried during this film ('The Proposition')because a young boy is sentenced to be tortured, and I saw it from a mother's point of view, and that made it a terrible thing to watch. Maybe there is some redemption for all of us. Still I tread carefully upon the abyss.

Monster

Just watched movie about Serial killer Aileen Wournos... how unusual for me, hey? She had a cruel childhood, and a hard life. That woman took every bit of cruelty that life had thrown at her and displaced it by shooting innocent men (well innocent in some respects, they had picked her up from Hwy's in Daytona and agreed to sleep with her, regardless, men that didn't deserve to die).

She was wrong in what she did, and she deserved to die. Don't get me wrong. But at the same time, how much should one human being have to put up with. She was allegedly raped by family members whilst growing up... and as a child, she felt it was far safer living in the woods and surviving than what it was to go home to sexual abuse. I guess you take it for granted how lucky you are to have a safe, wonderful childhood. I cannot image how such a childhood must cause a deep-seated hatred of life. How bitter it must make you to life in general to have been raped by your grandfather, burnt and permanently scarred as a child. Things that we who live life every day have no idea about.

So, does that excuse a serial killer. No, of course not. But does it make us understand the anger, the bitterness that consumes a person from the time they are a child - I think yes. Does this mean that every young child that has undergone this abuse becomes a serial killer? No.

However, majority of people that have dealt with such horror usually become - mentally ill (mainfesting in obssessive compulsive disorder, eating disorders, sexual offenders) or drug addicts, and very occassionally normal members of society.

However, it was reported that she was the first female serial killer. I beg to differ on that. She certainly was not. There were many before her... and there will be many more after her. She was unique - yes. She took her anger out on the world. A life abused can caused horrific responses. Makes me think. Life is cruel... we all could have been the one borne into the hell-hole she grew up in. By the grace of god, I wasn't. I could, however, be the one borne to be a victim of such a person. You never know what life has waiting around the corner for you... it could be a hitchhiker named Aileen Wournos for all I know.

Now you know why I don't pick up hitch-hikers.