Reading harold_maude's journal

I just finished watching Kill Bill and Kill Bill 2.
I'm not sure how many times I've seen them before, but each
time I've seen one or both of them, I have, as with all movies
that become the stock and trade of my favorite movies, walked
away with something different, each time.

This time was no different.

I thought about the story, the characters in the story.
Them being symbolic types for different people I have either met,known or have wanted to be like, for real.

Since I seem to spend more time in the phsychology department of life than any place else, I really don't find it out of the
ordinary that this view would finally get here.

After watching both of them in order, in one night, I couldn't get them out of my head. I kept seeing scene after scene of the different meetings, the bits of explaintion dropped into our laps, like bread crumbs to lead you
all the way though the story.
A good juicy story line.
Lots of blood everywhere, but done with style and class.
With purpose in other words.

The story unfolds, we get to meet the sojourner
and the meter of justice
and the sinners who are deserving to die
.
We get to listen and watch mini stories unfold and see why things are the way they are in the world according to Beatrix Kiddo. Bits of inferance here and there leave the story even after two installments, open ended enough that if Quinten Terrento decited to make a prequal and a sequal to the whole thing, he definately could.
But I can't see that happening, and in actuallity I wouldn't want that.
The story has just enough of the complete story so that you undestand why everything happens, that it's all you need.
If you want any more from this story you have to think about it and look for what you want from it.
But it's a good juicy story and it has lots of stuff to show you.

I guess that's because it's very japanese honor centered in so many ways.

But back to Beatrix Kiddo. I didn't look at the credits to see if that's how the name is spelled, because at this point, I'm not worried about spelling things correctly.
Individual language expressions is something I want to address but not here just now.

So, once again, back to Beatrix. She is the story teller.
She is the one who dies first,and ironicly the only one who surivies death to come back and as a result, completely stop a group of very highly specialized killers.
We get to see life from her perspective, and the drive that comes with the want for revenge, or from a very old view that mankind has opperated in until actually very reciently with the invention of the judge and jury and judicial and legal system
which is good to a point, but has become bogged down and over crowed with pointless activity.

I think it might be of better benefit if everyone on the planet were allowed the freedom to deal with people that offend them, themselves. They would take revenge or justice how ever you view it themselves with the understanding that they take all the risks, including the very real possiblity of loosing their lives in the process.
No interfearance or societal demand for justice.
Just acceptance of it.

Think about it for a minuet. Put yourself in place of Beatrix for a minuet here. She doesn't go to the justice system to get justice, she goes and takes care of it herself.
She assumes all risks, including the knowledge that if she fails, she dies.

Her ablity to keep her emotions and her purpose seperate allows
her to do what she came to do and nothing more.
The conversation between the second person on the list of death
shows that it's simply unfinished business and nothing more.

Beatrix responds to the question of wanting things to be even by saying basicly this statement of purpose:
"If I was going make things even then I would kill your daughter and your husband and you, that would make things square."

My appoligies for not remembering the names of the people, I have a hard time with remembering names.

The first person on the list, we get to hear the story of how she came to be someone who is feared and respected.
Her path to power begins with her witnessing the assination of her parents.
The immage of her mothers blood dripping like rain from the matress on to the little girls face,is so powerful, it implies the cry of the innocent for justice to the only one who understands what has been lost and is willing without hesitation to answer justice.
Something the legal system tries but so often fails to accomplish.
She, the little girl, is very much like Beatrix in the beginning.
And when she exacts revenge for the death of her parents, there is a sense of "YES!!!" that we feel for her.
She is a hero for all children who suffer and are wounded by someone bigger than them.

We watch with admeration as she takes control of the mountian.
She has earned our respect.
But she becomes the enemy when Beatrix and her daughter become the vicims.
But as we find out, at the end of the first movie, that her daughter is still alive, but Beatrix doesn't get to find that out until almost the very end of the second movie, a surprise that she must not let over take her.
She keeps her focus and purpose.
The japanese phillosophy that in order to exact revenge you must feel no compassion, no mercy, just taking a life for a life.
There can be nothing to dissuade you. Other wise your honor will not be regained.
Something like that.

Beatrix has to go through an army to get to the one.
But the death battle between the two women is in a setting that is beautiful and peaceful.
How ironic that it should be a garden where the snow is falling.
It's so quiet, and the white of the snow speaks of pure intent, and innocence.
The spattering of blood, a breaking of innocence.
Both women set out on the path of revenge, but we only see one end result at this point.
A life that started with revenge and became something deep and dark in it's nature.
We see the other life, Beatrixs' at the beginning of the path of revenge.
For her that is all there is.
Her life before she gets pregenant, is about taking life.
She learns how to be an efficant killer.

The knowledge that she is now carring another life within her
makes her change course so that the innocence with in her will be protected from seeing and being a part of the dark world of death by assination that she has spent so much of her life apart of.

The half japanese half american woman who is the first on the death list of Beatrix is a symbol or archialtype of intent changing course and taking on a new persona.
I've wondered over the last few days if this character continued
to see her self as a bringer of justice, the hand of justice metering out revenge for other people.

The the third person on the list is someone very likable at the beginning.
Easy. Laid back. Not at war with the notion of hiding at what is comming.
We find out about somethings that are in place as his story unfolds.
We find out along the line, that he is the brother of Bill who is the primary and ultimate target for justice and revenge.

We find out that he is not so charming and gentle and willing to just lay down and take what's comming to him.
We find out that he understands that he must do his best to kill Beatrix if he is going to keep living.
There is no way around it. We see the acceptance and the willingness not to run.
We see his strength and his ablity.
We also see his greed at work as well.

We see him attempt to kill Beatrix a second time by burring her alive.
We understand the intent to cause further harm and pain in this process.
The we get introduced to a teacher by the name of Pi Mae, I think that's how you spell his name.
A very cruel teacher.
A very nessisary teacher for the training of fine tuned assins.

We see the whole story. The discipline and shapping of Beatrix into a warrior.
We understand her pain. We see her war with her body to not listen to the pain and exaustion and brutailty that she faces to learn the ways of the samari.

This makes her as she takes up the path of revenge, the most deadly person on the face of the planet.
We watch as she proves that she is the warrior hero of the story.
She faces death again and again and prevails.

I found it elouquint that her symbol of the black mamba is brought in by the fourth person on the list to kill Bill's brother.
The mixture of money, information and the black mamba offers a view of truth about greed and self servatude, and the end result.
The fourth on the list of death is probably the person who I wanted to die the most.
The chacter is played by Darrly Hananna.
One of my favorite actresses. She plays in this movie someone I want to hate.
Someone who I am glad ends up blind and alone with a deadly snake.
We hear the hate pour out of her in shreeking rage.
We have come to understand that she hates Beatrix because she is in love with Bill.
He owns her. Lock stock and barrel.
She wants to be Beatrix, she wants Bill to feel about her the way he feels about Beatrix.
And the only way to get there from her perspective is to kill Beatrix and make her suffer durring the process.
She, infact would probably have tried to kill Beatrix if this story never existed the way it does.

That's what we learn as the movies unfold.

The we see the meeting between Bill and Beatrix.
And we hear the reasons that everything in the story took place at all.
Unfinished business.
At this point, there is no room for mercy, no place for compassion or love.
Even that has not stopped for Beatrix. Her love of Bill.
And her hate for what he did to her.
The fact that he is her daughter's father doesn't keep her from completing her journey.
We see at the end, that it's done in her heart and soul and mind.
The whole life of taking life is done.
That her world now is making a life for her self and her daughter.
That's where the story ends in the movie.

Over the last few days it has been going through my head in big bold immages.
And I have come to realize that I want to be like Beatrix.
I want to be strong and focused. I want to be just in what I do.
I want to move like she moves too. I want to be able to move like the wind and never need anyone to take care of things for me.
I want to be at peace with being all I need to take care of me.
That is something that has been a driving force and war for me over the last 7 years now.
I think maybe that that's why I want to be like her.

She has not come to make things even.

You are the best immatation of you that exists

This post was edited by harold_maude on Apr 19, 2008.