Friday, July 07, 2006

The Great New Wonderful (London style) – 伦敦恐怖事物一年之后













One year after the July 7th attacks on the London transit system and Londoners are coming to terms with how this has come to affect us. I think this film, just released in the US, The Great New Wonderful, about New Yorkers living a year on after 9/11, will doubtless capture some of our feelings in London right now.

I can’t claim that the London bombs were life changing for me, nor can I profess that they had no influence on me at all. On July 6th last year, I was looking at a flat in Aldgate East and contemplating about how nice it would be to rent there. I would have been able to commute everyday from a chic, cosmopolitan part of East London to work everyday using the Underground. The next day a bomb exploded under that station and that scared the idea of commuting right out of me. I ended up moving 50 yards across the road instead and sticking to the daily 30 minute walk from humble and rather dingy Old Kent Road.

Millions of people walked home on the afternoon of the 7th July, when they would otherwise have taken the bus or the tube home separately. Two of my colleagues got to know each other, walking home across the river that day, and have been dating each other since then. They are a good match for each other. I guess traumatic times help to gel relationships together where you would have never expected them to come at all. Stories of great courage and endearing friendships are now famous (for e.g. look at Rachel North).

Only one of my friends was caught up at Kings Cross underground that morning. She was on the train just behind the one that exploded. She was trapped and locked in the sweltering tube for a long enough time to see the injured being evacuated out from in front of her, covered in black soot and bloodied. After suffering from initial shock and dehydration, she quickly recovered and has been mostly fine since then (from what I can tell).

“Life changing” is not a well known phrase in a nation that invented the conservative stiff upper lip and the quiet English Gentlemen in bowler hats. Afterall, London has had its fair share of terror attacks over the years. But it is interesting to see how big events that shake the world, reverberate down to the common man’s level to shape our own lives and choices we make.

I can’t imagine the change that has swept through the lives of those who were directly affected by last year’s attacks. As The Great New Wonderful aptly suggests, sometimes we need to get completely lost in order to find ourselves again and get somewhere in life. Let’s hope the survivors can find something good out of all this darkness they have endured.

THE GREAT NEW WONDERFUL


Kill Bill Music - 杀死比尔

Two films that inspired Quentine Tarantino to do his dirty work of Kill Bill Vols.1&2 (and the accompanying theme music), starring Meiko Kaji, who also sang the theme songs. This is the original Japanese Film Noire:

Femail Convict 702 feat. Meiko Kaji singing Urami Bushi (Grudge Song):