'We're paratroopers...we're supposed to be surrounded.'

at every stage of the process, every email you receive, every document you print out, every contract you sign, it comes to you how real everything is, how it's almost time to pack your bags and leave the life you've grown accustomed to, the joy you've at last found, for something ostensibly 'better'.

so i immerse myself in other, more comfortable things. i can't help but feel it's an escapism worthy of M. John Harrison's most biting criticism.

Band of Brothers, among other things, features an interesting approach to narrative; deadpan, unnervingly sincere--the cinematic storytelling equivalent of hyperrealism...until, that is, the rather ordinary ep 7, aptly titled The Breaking Point. there's something disingenuous about the ep, the jarring insertion of standard hollywood movie elements: the rather superfluous plot-threading voice-over; the action movie heroism; the rote morality of 'just desserts'. after the quiet, brilliantly realized Crossroads and Bastogne, that the comparatively commercial approach works at all is a testament to the story being told; the real life heroes being paid tribute. that there appear to be some metafictional undertones to the ep, a subtle comment on the nature and uses of 'stories' in the 'hyperreality' of a world at war, is a bonus.

of course, Band of Brothers isn't about any of that, meant neither for the pretentious parsing and nitpicking of a hack, nor the escapism of a pathetically untalented grunt hedging at the inevitable arrival of the future; there is, however, an unmistakable romanticism to it all that, at this point in my life, i can't help but find unnervingly appealing.