IN BRUGES: A LAUGH RIOT!!

Tonight a friend and I went to see "In Bruges" up in Evanston (The Cine arts 755 showing) and, well, I'm pissed off...not at the movie itself. It's a well written well acted story. It's original and ambitious. It's hit and miss in many ways; but it's sincere. It's about ugliness, and the setting (a beautiful Belgian town with a well preserved medieval section) just makes even more stark the ugliness.

First target of my anger: the folks marketing this movie. Anyone who's seen the trailers would think it's a cartoony depiction of murderers. Funny lines; funny funny funny. HERE COMES A SPOILER PEOPLE...nothing about a five year old boy getting his head blown off as he's approaching a confessional. Ho fucking ho ho ho. And if that doesn't move the way you see the movie, let's go to the bloodbath that is the final half hour.

Now number two: all the fat sassy Americans who KEPT LAUGHING AFTER A FIVE YEAR OLD BOY GOT HIS HEAD BLOWN OFF. Yes, the filmmakers kept up with the ironic lines, and the stupidity of the characters. But A FIVE YEAR OLD BOY GOT HIS HEAD BLOWN OFF.
But hey, it's just a movie. Right? Sure I guess; but A FIVE YEAR OLD BOY GOT HIS HEAD BLOWN OFF. Perhaps these people saw the trailer and were so determined to see a comedy, that they could toss off the image of a FIVE YEAR OLD BOY GETTING HIS HEAD BLOWN OFF. More ho ho ho.

Now I know that my experience is different from many Americans. I have seen man's inhumanity toward man up close. I have seen mass graves; bombings; funerals for infants who died in wars; people forced from their homes by their neighbors for no other reason than their choice of catechism So I just can't toss off perfectly portrayed dramatic examples of horrible violence. But I gotta figure that few of the people who kept laughing til the end up there in beautiful upper middle and upper class Evanston, Illinois have seen such violence as they travel from the Whole Foods to the sushi restaurant and then to Borders and the movie theater.

I think every American should know what it's like to fear violent death; maybe they wouldn't be so blithe in the face of it. Maybe then we wouldn't accept it as a fact of life...somebody else's life.

And if not the actual feeling, maybe a little empathy for the fact of it...that while you're up there laughing at this...ahem...comedy, a few short miles to the south, there's an entire half of Chicago where violent death IS a fact of life. You don't have to travel to Baghdad to get that feeling. Head south rich man.

Yes, this movie had some funny lines. But for God's sake people; what would it take to make you say, "OK, this isn't funny anymore." Would the kid have to be raped AND killed?

I will say this...people who HAVE lived through such violence? Maybe they could find the movie funny. But not in some ironic way.

I'm sick of rich Americans; Fuck all y'all.