I'd like to get the ball rolling by saying a warm thank you to Richard and the British Council, who were kind enough to invite me to a dinner this past Saturday night. If you haven't eaten at Kai in the City on Majoribanks Street, then I suggest you make a booking asap. Mind you, if you're adverse to singing for your supper, in Māori, then don't. Or maybe just hum. Worked for me. And in Māori language week it's all very timely.
Anyhow, it was an interesting evening. And the food was great, if you've never tried muttonbird, now's your chance. I mostly mention this dinner though because of the company. The do was on account of a number of directors of films being in town for the Wellington Film Fest, and they provided very interesting discussions of the situation of conscious people in the US, what with the whole 'BRING ON THE ARMAGEDDON' thing Dubya seems to have underway. The situation of these film makers segues well into another recent event here in Wellington, Craftwork.
So what's the connection I hear you ask. Well, what I enjoyed about Craftwork is the way it indicates that there are people left in the world who value the ability to create, to craft. All too often people are all to happy to just kind of buy things of the shelf, take them out of wrappers, or order other people to build something for them. It's a kind of shopping mall, convenience laziness that seems to be overtaking our society. I like to think of it as a real and dangerous artistic torpor.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not seeking to judge people who aren't 'crafty'. Rather, I want to indicate to indicate that attempting to craft is an important part of understanding the skill that artisans bring to the items you would otherwise blindly purchase. I was speaking to Costa Botes about this and agreed when he stated that there's something of a crisis of expectations among audiences these days. Film-makers put on grander and grander displays to take audiences on journeys, but audiences are never fully satisfied. Combine this with the issue of force-feeding of entertainment by movie factories like LA and you have real issues of 'dead' films. Films that are flat and soulless. Pirates of the Caribbean 2 for example. What a freaking schtinker.
I reckon that part of the issue is that people have become such passive consumers. Here's an example. Anyone can grown their own tomatoes. It's easy. The hassle is that by the time your tomatoes are ripe the ones in the shop are $1 per kg, which makes it seem like those tomatoes aren't worthwhile. But what you can't buy for a dollar is the experience of sitting in your yard and smelling those tomatoes ripen. You can't buy picking a tomato off a vine and eating it on a warm summer afternoon. Until you've done that, you'll never know what a tomato really is.
And all the things we consume are like that.
Now I'm not suggesting that everyone take up learning how to build TVs. There are some jobs that have to be given over to manufacturing. It's more that I think that there's no reflection in our lives any more. Even the cheesy TV do-it-yourselfers deserve respect because they're willing to get in and get their hands dirty. They understand what it is to create something.
All this stuff that I've been thinking about over the past few years was really brought into focus by Steven Bognar, who was deeply respectful of the work done by Oncology doctors, and for good reason, his own daughter survived a brush with cancer when she was very young. Steven stated his admiration for the people who work to save the lives of others, and was kind of self-effacing about his own contribution to humanity. A film.
I wasn't having any of that shit though. When it all boils down to it you can't compare the contribution of doctors, who are trained to perform certain tasks, and the act of giving life to an entirely new 'thing'. Again, I have the utmost respect for the medical profession. But the process involved in bringing forth new and worthwhile things, things made with the time and effort of a person just like you and I, deserves as much respect. Whether that thing be a pair of babies booties, a button, an album, or a film, it is a contribution to the ongoing culture that underpins us all.
Oh, unless it's porn. Which is another kettle of fish all together.
But it's good to know that while some American elites and their xenophobic allies are levelling big parts of the Middle East that there are real people doing good things you and I can relate to. Now go see a film, go on.