So, at last year’s London Film Festival, I went to see some experimental short films and Transcalar Investment Vehicles was one of them, but unfortunately the version of the film they had at the festival wasn’t the correct final version. Anyway, the LFF peeps said they’d show the right one at a later date and that there would be free tickets for the people who had turned up for this showing.
The rescheduled showing of Transcalar Investment Vehicles was last week. I… don’t know if the right version of the film conveyed Koob-Sassen’s ideas more effectively than the wrong version but then I guess experimental cinema isn’t something that I’m particularly into or have a lot of experience watching. I’m more of a regular narrative film viewer, I guess. Saying that, I did enjoy the experience and I think that sticking around for the Q & A afterwards was really worthwhile, not least because people who actually “get” this style of film were making interesting comments and asking questions and maybe the discussion part of the evening was more enjoyable than the actual film? It’s hard to tell.
MY POINT, THOUGH (I have one, I swear), is that in the film there is a financier character, whose scheme is to channel investment made in fossil and nuclear energy industries into some kind of north African solar panel development in the wake of oil tanker and nuclear plant disasters. We meet the financier mostly while he’s explaining what this scheme involves to an American political speechwriter (played awesomely by Chipo Chung who I hadn’t really heard of before seeing this but I really enjoyed her performance*). In the course of the post-film discussion, Koob-Sassen talked about how the financier in this story was a “heroic financier” – something I hadn’t considered at all. I mean, at the moment, when you think about anyone involved in the financial services industry, they are pretty much always coloured as the bad guys – thanks to all the economic problems of the last few years. Then in the course of his discussion with the speechwriter, you kind of get the idea that the stuff he’s talking about is a bit out there and has the potential to be very bad – based on the reaction expressions of the speechwriter (who of course has to spin the topic to her audience in a favourable way later). The financier seems to have a grasp of and solutions for things on a large-scale but at the same time, seems kind of unaware of the effects of his solutions on smaller, person-to-person levels.
If I understood the finance stuff better, maybe I would see how the financier is heroic better too.
ON THE OTHER HAND, it got me thinking about the various hero and villain stories that make up nearly all the superhero films, comics and TV shows that I seem to be watching non-stop at the moment. The thing that often comes up is the idea that the villain is the hero of his own story. From the POV of the villain in the story, he is the hero. MOSTLY it makes me think about Ward from Agents of SHIELD. Ward is a TERRIBLE person. TERRIBLE. Yet he continues to act like nothing he is doing is wrong (he’s been murdering and betraying people ALL OVER THE SHOP).
And then that makes me think about the character of Skye and, totally unrelated to the stuff I’ve been talking about so far, how the character is mixed race (Chinese & White) and how AWESOME this is because I’ve pretty much seen…. no one like me on TV. I suppose Keanu Reeves in 47 Ronin SORT OF counts if you grasp at straws a bit. SKYE. FOREVER AWESOME.
* Looking on IMDB it turns out that she has been in like… all the things ever that I loved. She was Chantho in Doctor Who. She was the voice of the ship, Icarus, in one of my FAVOURITE FILMS EVER – Sunshine.
Mirrored from half girl, half robot.
