I knew I was spending too much time at home when I started worrying that my older cat was constipated. When you actually keep track of your cat’s trips to the bathroom, you’ve been cooped up way too long. I love my cats, but who do I think they are, Pu-Yi the Last Emperor of China, whose stools were lovingly scrutinized by his courtiers?
Lately I haven’t been inclined to make contact with the outside world. It’s hot, it’s humid, it’s dirty, the people are all worked up over the election, I’m sick of the mall, and there’s nothing to watch. Did the movie distributors get together and agree not to release new movies until election season was over? Did they think that everyone was so caught up in the campaign, they didn’t feel like watching movies? Bad idea. It’s exactly in times like these that we need the movies. Not to escape from depressing reality, but to get a two-hour reprieve. We need to be reminded that there are other things besides politics. Good things, like courage, honor, the indestructible human spirit, or even just fabulous bone structure. Sure, politics is important, but if we hear of nothing but politicians, we will all go nuts and start throwing stones at each other. Recently someone sent me a quote from James Carville, the Clinton spin doctor who married Mary Matalin the Bush Sr. spin doctor (who fondly refers to her husband as Serpenthead). Carville said, “Politics is show business for ugly people.” He should know. As the candidates accuse each other of rigging the elections, and their supporters have people power contests, we must bear in mind that there is a show business for beautiful people.
The only midway interesting movie which opened in the last three weeks was Fifteen Minutes with Robert De Niro and Edward Burns. It was a mess, but I enjoyed it because it tapped into our revulsion for media personalities who air the most warped, irresponsible, dishonest, hypocritical garbage in the guise of “journalism.”
In the absence of big-screen options I watched the three-part made-for-TV version of Frank Herbert’s Dune. Nearly everything I know of politics, economics, and ecology, I learned from that book. The book is an amazing achievement: part political thriller, part messianic epic, part drug allegory. The new TV version written and directed by John Harrison is faithful to the book-some of Herbert’s dialogue was lifted verbatim. A lot of the weird mystical stuff was left out, and the dense, convoluted plot was presented more simply than I would’ve thought possible. That’s the nice way of saying the material was dumbed down. The cast of relative unknowns is okay, although William Hurt does not fit the description of Duke Leto Atreides, Saskia Reeves is not spectacular enough to play Jessica, and the Baron Harkonnen-one of the great grotesques in science-fiction, a real super-villain-was just a fat man who levitated. The special effects were not bad for a TV production, but the all-important sandworms were unconvincing.
If you are a Dune devotee, you may find yourself revising your opinion of the 1985 film version by the brilliant freak, David Lynch. When Dune came out, viewers found it so far-out strange and complicated that they thought it comical. But that’s exactly what Herbert’s novel is: strange, complicated, and way, way out there. Frank Herbert created in obsessive detail a universe completely removed from our experience. David Lynch, who’s probably from another galaxy anyway, is the only filmmaker I can think of who’s weird enough for the assignment. David Lynch could make a movie about Philippine elections.
The other day I pried myself off the furniture and went to visit my favorite bookstore. I’d been reading Graham Greene novels at a time like this, it’s comforting to read of deeply troubled characters living in countries more miserable than ours. Fun places like Liberia, Haiti, and Sierra Leone. I wanted a small variation in the menu.
Among the new arrivals on the shelves was Fixer Chao, a novel by a Fil-American, Han Ong. There was only one copy, and the store wouldn’t sell it to me because someone had reserved it. I had to wait until the three-day reservation period lapsed, and when it did I was there to pounce on the book. Fixer Chao is about a Pinoy hustler who gains access to the houses of the rich and famous by pretending to be a master of feng shui, the ancient Chinese art of creating an environment that will attract good luck. The book is labeled fiction, but if you live in Manila, it sounds almost like a documentary.
