Civil War produced by A24.

 Civil War produced by A24.

To my surprise and delight, the film was totally different from the cleverly crafted trailer I have seen earlier, the effect of which I suspect was intentional. While the teaser appeared like another rollercoaster thriller of previously trodden paths, the work I saw before me in a movie theatre in Tokyo was a fresh, thought-provoking take at a theme people might have long started to think is run-of-the-mill.

The cinematography was stunningly beautiful and inspiring. My favorite scenes are the car trip through the burning forest at night and the terrifying scene in the field with the uncredited appearance of Jesse Plemons, who stole the show all the same.

From the beginning to the controversial ending, the film's statement seemed to be that nothing is sacred. While the more lucky among us breathe in the comfort zones of civilization, the reality of the world is that many people are suffering in chaos, right now, as I write this. There is no moat of presumed privileged society for people, even those in such a superb nation as the United States of America.

I am a great fan of A24, ever since I saw Lady Bird in 2017. It is reassuring that my trusted brand in the film industry took this creative approach to what is often treated as a mundane subject resting on the assumption of bipartisanship in the traditional media. Here's to the spirit of film-making and journalism.

The Vegetarian by Han Kang

The Vegetarian by Han Kang is a work of precision and structure. Although the novel deals with emotionally charged difficulties of contemporary human existence, the storyline follows a tightly-knit sequence which almost has the impression of the inevitable.

Han Kang is a great story-teller, and The Vegetarian is a page-turner, in the literarily heavy-weight sense. The co-existence of literature of the highest caliber and the ability to attract a wide range of readers with the basic urge to read on reminds one of Dostoevsky.

The Vegetarian is a great work dealing with generic human truths, and commonly-found difficulties of the present day. The fact that the novel deals with problems of gender, abuse, social norms, and existential risks could have well turned out to be yet another example of politically correct treatise, but the result is far from so. The novel is full of pleasant surprises out of the norm.

The almost beautifully savage intellect of Han Kang has made this work the true fruit of labour of love, which hangs from a tree of life in a wild orchard where other masterpieces coming from this Korean novelists thrive half-cultivated and half-native, with yet more surprises to be uncovered.