Let It Be

片名：無米樂 Let It Be
導演：顏蘭權和莊益增
發行單位：公共電視發行日期：不明 (2004上映)
長度：上及下110分鐘
語言：中文發音(台語)及中文字幕

此電影以農曆的重要節日為記號來紀錄後壁鄉農民吃苦耐劳的生活。導演自夏至一直拍到隔年的夏至，此期間內電影是透過訪問農民、歷史資料、拍農民所憂喜交集的日常生活等方式紀錄鄉村文化、農業的沒落。紀錄片的開幕便是崑濱伯在唱戰後演歌的歌曲，這也許指出日文歌在民間的流行，代替了台灣本地的民謠的重要性，同時露出台灣農民的歷史經驗。除了演歌歌曲以外，鄉村的活動現在只剩下幾種：廟宇的祭儀、拉二胡、講黃色笑話；農民記憶中的那些戲院、繁華已經不見蹤影。在電影中民間信仰的源流很明顯的被彰顯出來，便是黃崑濱所說的跟老天爺打賭。黃氏拜拜的對象包括道教、民間信仰之神如三官大帝、玉皇大帝以及佛教之佛如釋迦牟尼、觀世音菩薩，並非劃分三者的歧異處。似乎民間信仰是這些注定做農的人對他們的辛苦勤勞命運的一種解釋、擬人化，同時是他們的道德的基本體制。電影中的採訪讓農民有一個機會反省之前政府政策對土地的影響，譬如陳誠所著作的375減租政策。

紀錄片過度長，分上下部，不過內容差不多。在紀錄片中農民似乎一直感受到鏡頭的存在，這些對紀錄片員工說的話，在鏡頭前的緊張、尷尬導演好像是故意讓觀眾看到，這樣觀眾感受得到紀錄片形式所偽造出的「現實」。因為2005年這部很紅所以我同學大部分看過，甚至有些去過後壁鄉跟崑濱伯拍照。後來聽說崑濱伯的米得了獎，因為有名而米變貴。

Rating: 3/5

No Impact Man: The Documentary (2009)

This unpretentious documentary is about a family who tries out a novel experiment to go one year without any environmental impact.  They gradually phase out all disposable items so that they produce no garbage.  They stop using carbon-powered transportation, so they only ride bikes to work.  Then they stop using electricity.  This forces them to go outside and stop being cooped up inside watching reality TV.  A company donated them a solar panel so that they could still use their computer to update the blog.  They made radical changes like not using plastic disposable diapers, doing laundry in the bathtub, composting all of their food scraps, etc. but they seemed to grow accustomed over time.  Some things didn't work well like the pot-in-a-pot (Nigerian refrigeration), but overall it seems even the biggest skeptic, the wife, seemed to turn a new leaf before the experiment ended.  She seemed to no longer be pre-diabetic because of the organic, plant-based local foods diet from the Farmer's Market, she weened herself off her caffeine addiction, and she even got over her reality TV obsession.  It's a simple documentary that lets you witness how an average American family living in NYC copes with the trials and tribulations of living with minimal environmental impact on the world.

It was rather surprising the backlash they received from environmentalists, who claimed he was only doing it for fame and fortune.  Even if that were true, I don't see why that should set people off.  He's doing something good for the environment and if he wants to make a living while doing it, it shouldn't affect others.  Also, he seemed very earnest in his belief in reducing a negative carbon footprint.  His wife, who was an admittedly addictive consumer (who spent nearly $1,000 on Chloe boots right before the project) resisted him most of the way so it wasn't an easy task.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009)

 I just watched this gripping albeit disturbing crime thriller/mystery (also known as "Män Som Hatar Kvinnor" or "Millennium: Part 1: Men Who Hate Women") based on the Swedish novel by Stieg Larsson.  I went in knowing nothing about the plot except that it was based on a bestselling book and that's usually how I like to watch movies.  This movie completely caught me off guard with the no-holds-barred graphic detail of sexual abuse, violence, and brutality.  I definitely cringed and winced at more than one scene.  Even though Lisbeth practiced un-PC vigilante vengeance, I felt it was poetic justice and even savored the sweet vindication when she meted out her own form of retribution.

I thought it was interesting that the author, Larsson, writes about these misogynistic characters due to one seminal instance in his life — he witnessed the gang rape of a young girl when he was 15.  He did not go to the aid of the victim and felt guilty ever since.  The rape victim was named Lisbeth, the same as the heroine in his tales.

In the movie, the main protagonist is played by Noomi Rapace, and she does a fantastic job in portraying the emotionally damaged and scarred character of Lisabeth Salander.  The detective is played by the famous Swedish actor, Michael Nyqvist.  I'm looking forward to watching the sequel to this movie, "The Girl Who Played with Fire."  

《石頭夢》 胡台麗 2004

片名：石頭夢

導演：胡台麗

發行日期：不明（2004上映）

片長：79分

字幕：英文、中文

這部電影從一個巧遇而出發，便是導演在花蓮碰到1965年紀錄片《劉必稼》的主要人物劉必稼本人，以他拍完陳耀圻導演的紀錄片後生活的酸甜苦辣為本紀錄片的重點。紀錄片亦探索花蓮老兵開墾者對本地文化習俗的影響。在此的「本地」指最近解脫日本殖民的台灣原住民、閩南人、客家人，電影抓拍這些不同文化跟大陸老兵所接觸過的文化的相互齟齬、互相夾雜。不同身分的人參加多種民間信仰、文化活動，譬如說身為老兵的妻子、Puyuma族跟日本人的混血兒雖

然沒有閩南血統，但是同時參加閩南民間信仰的儀式、原住民的部落的節日；身為原住民的阿美族的巫婆因為病人的丈夫為老兵而用外省人的「木魚」來驅魔。這些跨逾文化境界的民間人物也許指出台灣本／外省的二元性的解構，便是說文化、民俗所帶來的身分不在於血統，而在於地理位置、生活經驗。

胡台麗在此片中似乎欲破壞紀錄片的操演式化，例如她看到兒子在他「叔叔」面前講話不自在、似乎在敷衍長輩，所以她換了方式。她這樣換不是瞞著觀眾的，而是露出作紀錄片的過程所碰到的問題。紀錄片裡面充滿多種民間習俗、信仰儀式，不過它跑開一般的文化上的標誌。電影品質佳，內容豐富而令人感動。很推薦：4/5

相關資料：

http://www.stonedream.ioe.sinica.edu.tw

〈周鄭交質〉 《春秋左傳》隱公三年

鄭武公，莊公，為平王卿士，王貳于虢，鄭伯怨王，王曰，無之，故周鄭交質，王子狐為質於鄭，鄭公子忽為質於周，王崩，周人將畀虢公政，四月，鄭祭足帥師取溫之麥，秋，又取成周之禾，周鄭交惡，君子曰，信不由中，質無益也，明恕而行，要之以禮，雖無有質，誰能間之，苟有明信，澗，谿，沼，沚，之毛，蘋，蘩，薀，藻，之菜，筐，筥，錡，釜，之，器，潢汙，行潦，之水，可薦於鬼神，可羞於王公，而況君子結二國之信，行之以禮，又焉用質，風有采繁，采蘋，雅有行葦，泂酌，昭忠信也。

Chinese Text Project

這學期我要俢一門古典詩文及習作課程。這是先修課程所以也不是我特別想去修的。我之前在師大的國語中心修過兩個學期的文言文，當時是看《文言文入門》和《古文觀止》兩本。國語中心的那位老師和現在這門課的老師一直強調要背誦，就算不懂也要背誦。我大概可以了解這種思維，你會背誦文言文的話，你的文筆就會改善。國語中心的老師也鼓勵我們寫自己的意見、看法，不過有時候我覺得她把我們負面的評論視為「不夠了解台灣、中國」、把我們正面的評論視為「很了解台灣、中國」。所以我想以這個網誌所提供的空間來發表自己的看法，也就是亂講一通自己的解讀等等。

我要先承認我對中國歷史的了解不是很深刻，不過看這段文的時候我有順便查維基百科大概地了解本文的背景：周平王就是當時的皇帝，不過因為權力很弱所以他需要依賴封臣才可以當下去。周平王原本依賴的國君是鄭國國君。他想把政權分一半給虢國國君時候，鄭王生氣了，可是周平王否認有這件事情，所以周平王跟鄭國國君就交換了人質。周平王死掉之後，周國就分政權給虢國國君，鄭因此開始攻擊周國。接下來本文就引用一些詩詞句來說要信任別人的話、信任自己的身分而行。

那為什麼要信任別人的身分呢？如果要說公司與客戶，說不通，客戶一沒錢公司就不客氣了。總統上任之前就已經被大家討厭了。大家應該相信總統跟我們一樣就是一個人，為了自己而活著的而並非是一個偉大的救國的英雄。在現代的社會中已經沒有皇帝、國君的體制，那所要侍奉的對象是誰？當時為什麼鄭國國君要侍奉周平王？也許忠誠於國君、皇帝對現代人就是最難了解的一個概念。周平王想要害我，分政權給西虢公，那我要順著他的制令幹嘛？為了一個比我個人還偉大的目標嗎？問題是沒有比「我自己」更偉大的目標。周國？中國？皇帝？未來？這些大敘述不就是幻想的嗎？周平王以自己的生存為重要目標，鄭國國君亦一樣，那怎麼要責怪他呢？倘若這段文的意義在於守信用此部分，我想也是跟我生活經驗相異的。我信任大家都是自我為中心。我也覺得這種生活方式對別人來說是壓力比較少，你永遠可以知道一個人的動機出自他們自己的意思，而不會覺得你在勉強別人。那軍人並非為了國家犧牲生命，而是因為他們為了薪資、工作機會而願意打賭他們的生命。守信用就是因為了自尊而守的，我們想要保持對自己的尊敬而不是為了守信用而守的。台灣人很愛說西方人就是最自私的、自我為中心，不過我想這一點東西都差不多。交質在本文沒有意義，不過好像就是現代社會的基礎。

Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear;
Robes and furr'd gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold,
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks;
Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw does pierce it.(李爾王)

I really feel like things clicked into place at some point,Or maybe its the fact that me and Alison really got on.Or maybe its that i realised that it is true; No-one's really there fighting for you in the last garrison.
No-one except yourself that is, no-one except you.
You are the one who's got your back 'til the last deed's done.
Scott can't have my back til the absolute end,
'cause hes got to look out for what over his horizon.
He's gotta to make sure he's not lonely, not broke.
It's enough to worry about keeping his own head above.

(英國樂團The Streets, 歌名: Empty Cans)

Carriers (2009)

This flick is in the category of "horror" but would probably be better labeled as a drama.  It starts out like a coming-of-age tale of carefree, young friends out on the open road up to no good, but the tone changes sharply as they encounter an unexpected blockade in the road.  A man has blocked both lanes of the street with his large SUV and is standing in the middle of the road holding a wrench.  All the passengers in the car tense up and immediately roll up the windows.  The man identifies himself as a father who just needs some petrol.  Then, we catch a glimpse of the little girl in the back seat wearing a medical face mask with dark splotches of fresh blood.

I won't spoil any more of the film, but suffice it to say it's not a conventional "horror"film.  This group of twenty-somethings have to make hard decisions; for in their world, following your conscience can mean signing your own obituary.

In one telling scene, they've nearly run out of gas and they see a sedan coming up.  Brian as usual decides to take an aggressive stance by barreling head-on towards the car and then immediately slamming on the breaks while turning rapidly so that they stop obliquely to the car but still blocking it's path entirely.  The more sedate and intelligent brother, Danny, tells Brian to let him handle the diplomacy.  The women are noticeably frightened and tell him to back away.  There is an ichthys symbol hanging prominently from the rearview mirror.  "Ivy league," as Brian likes to call his brother (because he got accepted to Yale before it closed due to obvious reasons), played on this to garner sympathy.  He said he hoped as "fellow Christians" they would find it in their hearts to spare some oil.  When that didn't work he lied and said that his wife in the car was pregnant and they only wanted to get somewhere cool where she could deliver in the shade.  This is when his riled up, uncouth brother comes out with guns a blazin', literally; however, it didn't exactly turn out as planned because that female Christian passenger was also armed.

Certain groups reacted to the pandemic differently.  Many holed up with trusted comrades while arming themselves to the teeth against strangers that were possibly infected.  Others, despairing their current situation decided to lash out at the marginalized, minority factions of society.  In one vivid scene, a group of men armed with shotguns chases down a lone victim and shoots him dead.  Our small band of protagonists are unwitting witnesses to the gruesome crime.  The next morning they are reminded of the night's grim shooting.  The group looks out from their windows at the grisly sight in silence.  The perpetrators had taken the corpse of their dead victim and tied him to a high post with rope.  They hung a large placard around his neck that read:  "Chinks brought it."

I liked witnessing the how the characters reacted when their personal moral convictions and close relationships were pitted against pragmatic expediency and their survival instincts.  This small band of friends started out with a simple plan to survive the pandemic by merely waiting for the rest of the world's infected population to die off, since this would mean the demise of the disease as well, yet following strict protocol isn't so easy when human emotions are also involved.  

I give it 4 out of 5 stars.

《崖上風景》(The Cliffside) 創劇團 Genesis Ensemble

I saw the Friday night performance of this modern play, as part of the "Taipei Fringe Festival" (臺北藝穗節) on the 11th September 2010. I didn't know exactly what to expect, as I hadn't seen any of the advertisements or the blurb, as my friend bought my ticket and I said yes on the spur of the moment. I've been to several of the experimental or amateur theatre performances in Taipei, often without knowing the titles in advance, with very mixed results. I remember sitting through a very low tech play about aliens that was possibly the worst play I've ever seen. Another play contrasted traditional opera performance with modern life, a lot of which was incomprehensible; Yet another was a well directed but weak plotted play set to the music of Chen Qizhen (陳綺貞).

The most interesting was when I turned up for "Human Condition III" (人間條件III) and despite not anticipating that the whole thing would be in Taiwanese, I was really moved by the performance (albeit this was not experimental).

I arrived in the theatre which was near the Huashan Creative Park (華山), due to the limits of this space, the different scenes of the play were all incorporated on to one stage, one behind the other as you viewed from the audience perspective. There was a projector used also to incorporate video into the performance. On arrival at the theatre I started to worry. There was a white kid in a wheelchair flashing up on screen with a Chinese explanation next to it that was too small to read from my seat in the back row. It was a play inspired by real life events my friend told me, and briefly whispered something about a broken neck before the play crawled into action. This led me to conclude that the plot would be about the heroic life of a young disabled child, which didn't appeal to me, in that I don't have much capability for pity at the best of times, especially when used as a blatant sentimental appeal to the heart strings.

The story turned out to be slightly different from what I had expected. It dealt with how the true story of a white foreigner and his Japanese wife jumped from a cliff to "join" their son after his death affected a pregnant Taiwanese woman and her husband who subsequently miscarry.

The couple were not very believable in their affection for each other, and there were too many glasses of water offered by the husband to the wife (My friend felt compelled to draw a cartoon satirizing this compulsion to solve any dispute with a glass of water). Towards the end, after the miscarriage there was a moment when I started to believe the couple, during quite a graphic argument, but the stage design left me an unfortunate view of the back stage staff chatting idly backstage while all this drama was going on. There was also some sort of Taiwanese broadcast going on just outside the theatre which lent a comic edge to the "tense" silences between the couple.

To summarize, the play was an immature approach to the topic matter, which was emphasized in one of the questions in the questionnaire they gave out at the play:

"Do you think this play was brave in its topic matter?"

I didn't think the play was brave. I remember a drama assignment in class when I was 15, requiring each student to come up with a monologue. The topic of every single girl in our class (suggesting a severe lack of imagination) was abortion or miscarriage, the melodrama of the topic matter was boring. A different maybe even a humorous approach to the topic matter would have been more refreshing, but no, it was 90 minutes, of humourless, interminable (well I did say 90 minutes but interminable in experiential time) discussion between a couple, who I didn't even particularly feel inclined to like.

Miscarriages and abortions are common, and many people in my circle have dealt with them, I felt the emphasis on the drama of the situation was very un-Taiwanese, in the way that Wu Nianzhen describes Taiwaneseness in his advertisements: deliberate burying or shame linked to showing emotion. He describes this with the following example. A dad goes in late at night to look at his child, taking pleasure in the sight of his sleeping child, and we hear his wife's voice asking him where he's gone, and he replies gruffly "便所啦！" (The toilet). Not that I can dictate what is or is not Taiwanese, but this play lacked any flicker of ethnic consciousness, and could equally have come from the melodramatic imaginings of any 15 year old girl.

One of my friends told me a story recently which I thought would be an interesting companion to this review. She's had two abortions, on her second abortion she asked the doctor to give her the foetus afterwards so that she could bury it with a small ceremony. She put it in the refrigerator and forgot about it for a month until it surfaced in an argument with her mum when her mum challenged her saying "You think I don't know what's in that jar in the fridge?". Obviously abortion is different from miscarriage, but the story was told in a very light hearted tone, that interested me a lot more than the "hard hitting" excess of drama festering throughout the hour and a half and 7 glasses of water.

Play Rating: 2/5 (Aliens was 1)

Taipei Fringe

Formosa Betrayed 《被出賣的台灣》

If we consider this movie just as a thriller, than it was an epic fail. While there is a bit of suspense, there is no real action to speak of, or plot resolution. The characters are pretty flat, the motives are not always clear, etc. On the other hand, this is a movie motivated by history and politics. Only someone who has an interest in Chinese and Taiwanese politics and history can enjoy it. It's actually a pretty good introductory film for a foreign who has no understanding of the subject. The writer/producer is a Taiwanese American, Will Tiao, and probably one of his biggest mistakes with this movie was casting himself in it; he's a pretty shitty actor. (Side note: Will Tiao is from Manhattan, Kansas which is where KSU is, which is KU's (my university) rival, but he went to Michigan, Tufts, and Columbia University. For a while he was involved in US politics working for Bill Clinton and George Bush).

The basic plot is your typical FBI/Cowboy movie. An American Professor (originally Taiwanese and from the get-go presumably DPP) is murdered in Chicago. Initial reports suspect that it was the work of gangsters, they are followed and escape back to Taiwan. The actor, James Van Der Beek (from Dawson's Creek!), plays an FBI agent and is sent to Taiwan, knowing practically nothing, as an observer, but we all know Americans don't sit back and observe, we like to take charge. So James waves his FBI badge left and right like a douche bag as if it was recognized by the Taiwanese government. Basically there is a connection between the murder and the KMT. The plot is pretty predictable.

The true value of this movie is as an introductory piece to Taiwanese Martial Law, US/Taiwan/China relations, and gangs in Taiwan. I actually thought this movie was going to be about Taiwanese Independence, and while that is a small part of it, it really focuses on martial law in Taiwan. There was also an accusation of Taiwan aiding Nicarguan Contras in exchange for US weapons, I have never heard of that before and can't really find anything to confirm it. It ends by saying that what the KMT was really concerned with was independence supporters, and not so much communist invasion (it takes place in the 80s). Other than that, it does not introduce anything that the three of us have probably heard of or read. There is also a lot of anti-communist rhetoric thrown around the American side, presenting it as a binary issue Nationalist vs. Communist, but what I think the producer wants to say is that the real issue is KMT vs. Independence supporters, and the anti-communist stuff is international rhetoric to get US support (since most Americans didn't/don't know the local issues so if it is reduced to communism than the KMT will get some US support). What this movie creates is the initiation of an international dialog of what happened under KMT rule in Taiwan. I think most people, except the most die-hard KMTers, would not treat the material in this film as controversial (the message, yes, but not the facts they are trying to represent). But overall it is still a pretty mediocre film so I give it a 3/5.

Edit: I forgot to say that this is an American movie from an American perspective. It's about Taiwan, but it is definitely not a Taiwanese film. Are there any Taiwanese films that talk about these political issues?

Angels in America

This 6 hour mini series got me hooked and interested in the lives of the characters, only to end with a very 1990s (in a bad way) "intellectual" conversation about politics that undermined the whole sincerity of the dialogue and acting of the entire series, followed by an extremely pretentious (almost Gerry Springer style) concluding resolution, this is the aforesaid atrocity:



The film deals with the lives of several gay men from a variety of different backgrounds who coincidentally or otherwise end up playing a role in each other's lives. One guy leaves his partner when he finds out his partner has AIDS, because he can't face the reality of the situation. He goes on to meet a Mormon who is wrestling with gay demons while coping with the mental illness of his wife, and an evil lawyer comes to terms with dying and the ghosts of his past. The series is carried with a comic poignancy, and the ramblings of Lewis's rationalization are undermined by the emotion and bizarreness of reality throughout the film, this is what almost makes the end so disappointing, as the resolution of the film brings everyone down to Lewis's level of nonsense logic and a need to comment on the wider world to avoid the truth of personal chaos.

The Mormon's mother, played by Meryl Streep was portrayed with a lot of sensitivity and there were some excellent lines in the film that really were food for thought. It's just a pity that the series was shunted to an end, in what was too obviously a result of an attempt to transplant the end of the play on to the screen.

My favourite scenes in the movie both involve the Mormon characters, funnily enough. The first scene is when the Mormon wife talks to a museum manequin about change:

Harper: In your experience of the world. How do people change?

Mormon Mother: Well it has something to do with God so it's not very nice. God splits the skin with a jagged thumbnail from throat to belly and then plunges a huge filthy hand in, he grabs hold of your bloody tubes and they slip to evade his grasp but he squeezes hard, he insists, he pulls and pulls till all your innards are yanked out and the pain! We can't even talk about that. And then he stuffs them back, dirty, tangled and torn. It's up to you to do the stitching.

Harper: And then get up. And walk around.

Mormon Mother: Just mangled guts pretending.

The second is a scene on the beach from (8.20 to the end)



I thought the whole thing looked great, and the concept was a good one, but the ending really annoyed me for some reason, and made me think that the whole thing was more corny than my mood had suggested it was before.

3.5/5

"I Killed My Mother (J'ai Tué Ma Mère)" by Xavier Dolan

 (photo taken from the website:  http://www.eyeweekly.com/article/70749)

This French-Canadian film received quite a bit of accolades at the Cannes Film Festival, but I honestly have mixed feelings about it.  I nearly turned it off right from the start but then I decided to keep on watching since I was still in the middle of my repast — and I'm glad I kept on watching because it got better after the exposition.

The parts that irked me the most were the shouting matches between Hubert (played by director Xavier Dolan) and his mother, usually instigated over seemingly inane and miniscule trivialities.  I couldn't help empathizing with his mother; however, I tried to remind myself that the protagonist is playing a teenager (only 16 years of age) in the midst of tumultuous hormonal upheavals — in addition to harboring his sexual orientation from his dear old mum.  Later on, you can see that the Hubert's mother isn't a saint either and is also prone to explosive anger.  This feud continues on and off throughout the movie, countervailed with scenes of sweet tête à tête with his homosexual lover, Antonin, lending an overall bittersweet, melancholic mood to the movie.

The movie's saving graces are certain scenes of sheer cinematographic beauty coupled with an ethereal soundtrack.  Here's an example:



I also loved the scene where Antonin and Hubert decorate Antonin's mother's office with a Jackson Pollack-inspired "dripping" technique; this painting process then devolves into lovemaking.  I thought the slow-motion shots of the paint being splattered and overlaid set to French-Canadian music were beautiful.

I also really liked the ending, which takes place at a bucolic cottage in the countryside.  There isn't a concrete resolution to the plot but it still lends a satisfactory denouement and conclusion to an otherwise raucous exposition and rising action.

Also while the movie is technically gay-themed, the romantic relationship plays second fiddle to the main relationship between Hubert and his mother.  (So heterosexual viewers can rest assured that this isn't another clichéd, gay-themed movie that just continues the Brokeback model of two repressed male lovers seeking to express their unrequited love.) The love scenes are kept subdued and tasteful and manage to keep the movie light amidst all of the teenage angst.  Antonin's liberal family provides a perfect antithetical juxtaposition to the tense situation at Hubert's home.  The movie also touches on the social bias in society against single-mothers raising kids and if this might explain the dysfunctionality of the familial relationship.  I think one rather amusing scene answers this query quite clearly, where the mother thoroughly wrings out the boarding school's chauvinistic headmaster.

The movie is said to be semi-autobiographical and while the homosexual element is not shoved in the audience's face, it's clearly a crucial part of the film.  The writer/director/actor, Xavier Dolan, talks about his orientation in an interview. (He also refers to the scene in the movie — where Hubert is beat up at boarding school for being gay — as being based in reality.):

"Sicko" (2007): An Indictment of the U.S. Healthcare System

Contrary to popular (American) belief, we do not have the world's premier healthcare service.  While many specialties and procedures are renowned for in the U.S., the vast majority of Americans receive sub-par medical care.  In fact, 100,000 patients die from medical malpractice every year in America and the U.S. is ranked 37th by the W.H.O. for healthcare, right above Slovenia.

While, I normally skirt around polemics like Michael Moore, the looming, controversial issue of healthcare reform in the states, my grandmother's ailing health, and my recent interest in health care issues (I'm currently reading Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Weston Price, MS., D.D.S., F.A.G.D. and and Surviving Your Doctors: Why the Medical System Is Dangerous to Your Health and How to Get through It Alive by Richard S. Klein, M.D.) made it impossible for me to ignore this seminal documentary.  So many of my peers had seen it and discussed it that I felt I had to give it a viewing before judging it or its creator.

A lot of the documentary was old pat for me as I've known of the ills of private HMOs, but the darker aspects of it — like its inception by Kaiser and Nixon was new for me.  It was news to me that Hillary Rodham Clinton had attempted to implement universal health care in the states during the Clinton regime but failed due to the financial and political clout of HMOs (and is now the 2nd highest recipient of HMO contributions).  Also, it was shocking to find out how people in other socialized countries like Cuba, Canada, England, and France have much lower infant mortality rates and much longer life spans than Americans.  In fact, the poorest English person still has on average a higher life span than the wealthiest American.  "A baby born in El Salvador has a better chance of surviving than a baby born in Detroit." These facts are disturbing to say the least.  (For those inherently skeptical of statistics coming from a Michael Moore film, here's a website just for you.)

I liked the amusing albeit sobering anecdotes in the beginning from normal Americans.  One man had accidentally sawed off the tips of his middle and ring fingers in a construction accident.  He wasn't insured so they gave him a choice:  $60,000 to reattach the middle finger or $12,000 to reattach the ring finger.  He was a romantic, so he chose the ring finger and now leaves his stubby middle finger for use in lame magic tricks for kids.

It was quite sad to be reminded of how we as a nation are treating the 9/11 volunteer aid workers.  As we all know now in hindsight, inadequate protection from the toxic airborne fumes at ground zero has led to debilitating upper respiratory problems for these unfortunate American heroes.  However, they are not getting the medical care they deserve because they were volunteers and not officially working for the state.  In the documentary, in a rather bombastic fashion, they got the medical care they needed instead in communist Cuba, free of charge — after a failed attempt to get medical care from U.S. doctors at Guantanamo Bay.

I'm shocked that this movie was made in 2007, but it is so relevant even to this very day and people like me who have only heard about it in the past year.  In England, they had National Health Services, since 1948, after the war, when the country was in shambles.  So what excuse does the United States, have now not to have universal healthcare in the 21st century under the tutelage of Barack Obama?

I would suggest every American on the fence about healthcare reform to watch this film.  For me, learning about other nations' systems was the most enlightening portion of the documentary.  Some of my favorite scenes concerning this aspect, are not even included in the documentary, they're in the DVD's Special Features section (I particularly enjoyed watching these videos).:

"What if you worked for GE in France?"

(I couldn't find the full video posted on YouTube, so just rent the DVD because it's quite amusing and all the footage that is in the special features makes it well worth the rent!  In case you were wondering, the laundry bit was an inside joke because in France the government provides a free nanny that cooks and does laundry for new mothers).

"This Country Beats France."

(I'm particularly impressed by harnessing sewage for renewable energy and by the government hiring a philosopher to gauge the most ethical usage of funds for the long-term.)

There's also a very good video called "Uniquely American" in the special features.  Where a lady, who had already recovered from cancer, wasn't insured but needed a biopsy.  In proactive, American fashion, she collects the money from the community through fundraising to pay for the test but finds that in the quagmire of US healthcare, things aren't so simple.

There's also an amazing (extended) interview with Che Guevera's daughter (Aleida Guevara) about the Cuban health care system.  (This can be found in the "Interview Gallery" section.)

If you like topics concerning philosophy, I also highly recommend listening to the interview with Tony Benn (also found in the "Interview Gallery" section).