Jan 12 2009
Synchronicity and “Snow Cake”: just how much terrorism do you expect from 12 square metres of lino?
We watched “Snow Cake” on TV on Saturday night - a drama focussed on the bond between a high-functioning autistic woman (played by Sigourney Weaver) and a man (Alan Rickman) who visits to explain about her daughter’s death in a road accident. The film was well-observed and had far fewer gaffes or puddles of melodramatic slurry than one would expect. As one Signourey Weaver’s neighbours proclaimed so memorably, “I know all about autism - I saw that film …”
I doing was pretty well, anticipating most of Sigourney’s lines, but then I do have the advantage (at least in this case) of being diagnosed with “high-functioning autistic spectrum disorder / Asperger Syndrome” so, extra points all round.
On Sunday, I opened LoveFilm envelope to find … “Snow Cake”, which my wife had ordered some months back for some insight (for me) into autistic behaviour. I was in two minds whether to watch it again and again and again - you get the picture - but wiser counsel prevailed, as well as finding “Breakfast on Pluto” - a heart-warming tale of an foundling Irish transgender lad’s colourful adventures in the quest to find his mother who had him years before left for London - in the other envelope. This was a real quirky film in the style cornered by Neil Jordan: loss, heartbreak, desire to belong and for roots in an incomprehensible world just beyond reach due to the effects of actions of others, often so bizarre and deeply rooted that they are accepted as normal. Rang quite a few bells in mine own mind.
Today’s adventures with officialdom passed off with only minor inconvenience in comparison with that suffered by the main protagonists in these movies: HMRC (the tax office) are still processing my tax details and so will have to wait some time as they have only just got through to June 2008’s mailbags and trying to get vinyl flooring ordered online was stymied by stock control issues and various bits of legislation designed to counter credit card fraud and funding of international terrorism; with neither of which I am involved, as I assured the assistant in B&Q; to no avail. Through some considered thought and action, however, the problem was resolved.
All I need now do is to apply for a job sorting the post for the Inland Revenue’s new manifestation and the world will nearly be put to rights.
Do they want the envelopes sorted by colour or by size, I wonder?
