Earlier today The Ankler‘s Jeff Sneider announced that one of the gloomiest and dreariest flicks in the history of cinema — Mark Romanek, Alex Garland and Kazuo Ishiguro‘s Never Let Me Go (’10) — is being relaunched as an FX series under the guidance of DNA Films & TV”s Andrew Macdonald and Allon Reich. What a perfectly dreadful idea. I’m in instant mourning.
August 2010 HE commentary: It’s not a very well-kept secret that Never Let Me Go deals with a grim-fate dynamic — an oppressive, locked-down situation in which “a long and happy life” isn’t in the cards for the main characters, who have been raised to be organ donors for the rich.
There’s a famous saying about how “the clarity of mind that comes to a man standing on the gallows is wonderful.” As in face facts, sharpen your mind, prioritize.
I’ve always been one, however, to take it a step further and not just prioritize and all that, but to first and foremost revel and rejoice in the immediacy of the symphony of life.
Death is something to be accepted, okay, but primarily fought and strategized against, frequently laughed at, lampooned and pooh-poohed, acknowledged but simultaneously “ignored” (in a manner of speaking), dismissed, despised and raged against (in Dylan Thomas‘s words) right to the end.
There is only life, only the continuance, only the fuel and the fire…only the next step, the next breath, the next meal, the next sip of water, the next hill to climb, the next perfect pair of courdoruy pants, the next adventure, the next hypnotizing woman, the next splash of salt spray in your face, the next staircase to run down two or three steps at a time, the next rental car and the next winding road to concentrate on and carefully negotiate, etc.
