a journal of the plague year² [600+]

Returned to Warwick for the first time in 600 days!, most pleasantly reconnecting with my colleagues there and realising some were almost as freshly back to the department as myself. But also noticed a strong difference with France in terms of wearing mask and practicing social distanciation among the students (at the University) and the general population (in the local Tesco or the train to the airport). Which may explain for the persistently high number of contaminations, when compared with neighbouring countries. Despite its high vaccination rate.

Read the second volume of Baru Cormorant, after enjoying so much the first instalment (under the Corsican relentless sun). However, it was such a disappointment, as it seemed written by a completely different author, including the style, with the story being more broken, more difficult to follow, and the characters becoming shallow and uninteresting. This is particularly true of Baru, who sent from a sharp focus on her goal in Traitor, to a purposeless floatsam in Monster. With a highly artificial rescue of her ethics in [warning, spoiler ahead!] killing her lover Tain Hu (and hundreds of others) in the first volume. I currently doubt I will buy the third one… A stormy night kept me awake and as a result help me finish the last hundred pages!

Watched Mute, dubbed a “Netflix disaster” in The Guardian! (and following the appalling Warcraft!). Which postulate of a mute character could have been rewarding, had not the characters be of cardboard consistency. And the plot so transparent most of the scenes had to be shot at night. And the cheap plagiarism of Blade Runner is simply ludicrous. I also watched Bong Joon-Ho’s Okja, a satire about the meat industry producing hippo-like pigs that I found very heavy-handed, especially in its characters.Started cooking bread on a regular basis once again, as weather is turning colder and baking also warms up our drafty kitchen! Now turning to a heavier type of loaf, mixed wheat and rye, and reducing the amount of water to make it last longer. And also made a first attempt at Okonomyaki, this tortilla-like dish made of shredded cabbage and flour that I enjoyed very much in Osaka. The result was pleasant enough but very, very far from the original, maybe due to my using (soba) buckwheat rather than plain flour. Or using regular stock rather than daishi stock.

살인의 추억 [Memories of Murder]

After watching Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite (which I found too farcical and demonstrative a social satire), I was recommended to take a look at his 2003 Memories of Murder. Which is indeed most impressive in his depiction of a serial murderer of young women in a small industrial town in South Korea in the late 1980’s. Most actors in the film are fantastic, bringing complexity to characters that are not particularly congenial. Besides the detective work, which hits one dead end after another, the rendering of the crooked and brutal police force, hitting at suspect until they confess, of the political setting of a military regime violently repressing demonstrations, of the threat of North Korea leading to evacuation exercises and mandatory blackouts, of the massive impact of the industrialisation. The story is bleak, very bleak, obviously [the poster being a pun!] and the photography contributes to it, always filmed under grey skies or at night, in brown fields or drak woods, with the only touch of colour being the red clothes worn by the victims. But what makes the film so captivating is the helplessness and desperation of the detectives, which gradually acknowledge their incapacity to solve the murders and convince the serial killer. (The actual killer on whose murders the film is based got arrested and convinced, based on DNA data, after the film came out.)