Director: Feng Xiaogang

Cast: Fan Xu, Jingchu Zhang, Chen Li

Genre: Art House/International/Drama

“When told only one child could be saved, my mother said, ‘Save my son.’ These words keep ringing inside my ears. Dad, it’s not that I don’t remember. It’s just that I can never forget.”

from Aftershock

“He who has gone, so we but cherish his memory, abides with us, more potent, nay, more present than the living man.”

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Getting to “Forgive Me”

Most tearjerkers set you up by making you fall in love with the characters and then leading you by degrees into a spectacular tragedy. Aftershock manages to make you cry within the first 20 minutes.

How? By introducing themes so profound and universal and depicting them with such cinematographic sensitivity that our attachment to the characters and their plight is fast-tracked. (read entire review)

Film review: The Illusionist ——– “The sadness of Tatischeff and his essential solitude are so beautifully couched in exquisite portrayals of the essential sweetness of life.”

One of these experiments was the libertarian rearing of children. After all children had rights too and who were we to judge what was best for them? We had seen how how own stifling upbringings had crushed us and stifled our creativity, and we knew that if we just gave our kids free reign they would always do what was right for themselves and build a beautiful new world.

Wrong. You simply can’t give children the sense that they can do as they like. We’ve been there. We know.

Which brings us to the system of corporations that runs our economy. This is far more unwieldy than a child because it’s not even human, in spite of having a very clear and aggressive— and potentially malevolent— agenda. So why would we tell this system to do as it likes? Why do people still believe the virulent propaganda that tells us that salvation lies in privatisation and a free market?

I think we’ve learned our lesson. We flubbed; the checks and balances once imposed on the financial system to protect democracy should never have been removed. The expertise is there to put them back, only smarter and stronger this time around. So let’s get busy.