Death And So Forth

It does seem to be the case that my workplace is closing. There was a meeting the other week, billed as an opportunity for staff to give their 'feedback'. I don't know what kind of feedback they were expecting from those staff members who are going to lose their jobs – constructive criticism with a positive spin? Or how about a torrent of bile? That was more like it, but it was clearly not what they were prepared for. The guy in charge was very defensive (an onlooker noted his 'clenched buttocks') and was heard to mutter, on a couple of occasions: 'I'm damned if I do and I'm damned if I don't.' But don't they explain all that when you become part of 'the Management'? That you are now inescapably one of the damned?

In the wake of all this morale is low. Lorraine has taken to pinging herself with a rubber band every time she is tempted to voice a negative thought. There was a lot of pinging going on on Friday. I was worried about leaving her to take a half-day, lest this progress into self-harming – or even Opus Dei-style self-flagellation. However, I went, even though it meant missing Chris Evans discussing his varicose veins on the Jeremy Vine show.

I was going to see an exhibition about death. The reaction I got when I explained this was: 'Oh'. Even my explaining that it was free didn't seem to help. But it was a lot of fun, especially if you like to see pictures of skulls and skeletons and Death performing cunnilingus on Saint Theresa. And who doesn't? To personify death is to triumph over it in a way. It's a hollow victory, but one that may at least bring a sardonic smile to the face. There was certainly nothing depressing in the exhibition (A Portrait Of Death at the Wellcome Collection) – or at least nothing as depressing as even the thought of Chris Evans' varicose veins.

Then I went to the Turkish Film Festival at the ICA. Reha Erdem's Jin is about a 17-year old female Kurdish guerilla and her travails in the wilderness. In between being shot at and sexually assaulted, Jin makes friends with the local wildlife, some of which are CGI. I felt that this looked odd in such a realistic film, which in these scenes did seem to be veering towards the sentimental: you almost expect an animated bluebird to perch on her shoulder. But I gleaned from the Q and A afterwards (it was just about the only thing I gleaned) that there is meant to be a 'fairy tale' element to the film, so maybe I missed that.

It wasn't the only thing I missed. I didn't know why I should be remotely surprised by this, but there were a lot of Turkish people at the Turkish film festival, many of them, in the Q and A, freely speaking Turkish, without subtitles: the director followed suit. Maybe it's something about the language but it seems to take five times longer to ask a question in Turkish than in English – a lot of the Turkish questions sounded more like answers. There was a translator, but he was a bit offhand, possibly feeling that anybody who had attended this without going to the trouble of learning Turkish or being born in Turkey was showing a lamentable lack of commitment.

Which may be true, since as I was watching the film I was aware of the kind of reactions you get from an uncommitted arthouse audience – laughing at things they wouldn't even think of laughing at in a Hollywood movie, and tsk-tsk-ing at the sight of a dead donkey covered in flies. Unforgivably, the man next to me arrived five minutes into the film and then proceeded to spend most of it looking at his phone. His elbows were invading my space too. Well, OK then – one of his elbows. It would have been weird if it were both.

I was asked to mark the film out of ten at the end. I gave it seven. Just hold the CGI next time please, Reha. I'd rather see a person unconvincingly dressed as a bear than a CGI bear. And no, I haven't seen Life Of Pi.