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What was a negative emotion you felt on Feb 22?

Fear is what I felt when it happened. Being at the back of a high storey building I was worried about it collapsing, the ceiling panel falling beside me, and realising there is only one way out through the shop because the emergency exit out of Adventure Centre was blocked.

Then fear for my partner, who works on the 2nd level of a building on Hereford St. He was not in NZ for the Sept quake, so was worried for him as this was his first experience.

I remember seeing the Cathedral coming down with each shake and watching as injured people were pulled from the rubble. I didnt know this at the time, but I was told some those people were dead.

What about a positive emotion on that day, or over the course of the following week?

Relief when my partner found me in the Square, having him there to hold me through each aftershock.

We then walked from the City centre to Harewood through Liquefaction, listening to the Radio updates thinking how lucky we were to have survived such an ordeal. It wasn’t until a few hours / days later that everyone realised how damaging and fatal the quake was.

For me, I lost my job, but a good thing came from that – I found a better job. I am lucky my house is not majorly damaged.

Dave was kind enough to let me cross-post a few words from his blog. The full entry is here; his words below are about getting home at the end of the day.

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I sat down at the computer and the full extent of what had happened hit me, the checking in of people being OK and telling friends that you were fine. Then bed, snatched grasps of sleep between aftershocks. The booze and the sleeping pills looking tempting as hell, but you want to make sure you’ve got all your faculties about you if you need them.

Emotionally it was a frantic day. The initial panic of the quake, followed up by a sense of relief. Then the unease as you hear what happened, about the destruction and deaths. Then there’s the panic as you haven’t heard from people, the relief as people start checking in, and then as you get home to find power is back on you take a break, because you know that tomorrow is going to throw some challenges at you you never thought you’d face.

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I was meant to be in High Street around the time of the quake to tutor a Japanese student but ended up changing my plans at the last minute to travel to Hanmer to see a friend from overseas. So I wasn’t in the thick of it as such, instead felt the quake while I was driving around Amberley somewhere.

What was a negative emotion you felt on Feb 22?

I felt a mixture of shock and fear. My friend and I arrived in Hanmer at her family’s bach and got told by her parents (who happened to be there for time out) that there’d been a major earthquake in Christchurch. I also felt extremely worried when I finally managed to speak to my mum, dad and sister on the phone. In the aftermath, I felt scared and confused due to various things, most notably lack of running water, electricity, the presence of the army and police, continual aftershocks, liquefaction in the flat I was living in and the constant sounds of sirens and news helicopters.

What about a positive emotion on that day, or over the course of the following week?

The only positive emotion on that day was gratitude for the fact that I’d changed my tutoring plans at the last minute and may have missed the unthinkable (although, who knows?) and that my friend’s parents let me stay the night at their bach as it was meant to be a day trip only. During the course of the week afterwards, I felt touched at the amount of caring and attention shown towards the people of Christchurch.

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What was a negative emotion you felt during Feb 22?

I had a feeling straight away that Christchurch was doomed.

I was in Caxton Press, Victoria St. I tried to drive home to Brighton and it was chaos. We left in June and live in Melbourne.

Thinking about it, the sense of doom maybe crept up on me in the next week. You could see it was bad on people’s faces. We all knew.

What was a positive emotion you felt during Feb 22?

Just when all family was together.

Yuko was pretty much always the level-headed one at work, always calm and with quick wits. This may be partly a result of her Aikido training, in which she has earned a black belt. Still, the earthquake had a powerful effect.

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Well, almost a year from the day, I still clearly remember what happened to me at that moment. Even though a lot of memories and my emotions after the event are now slowly fading away in my mind, or at least not really strongly impacted on me, I still can’t forget the moment.

What was a negative emotion you felt on Feb 22, and is there a specific experience/moment you associate with that?

Fear. nothing else. Fear Fear and Fear.

When the first big aftershock hit, I was at home, just finishing hanging up washing inside my flat. I was crouching to hang small stuff on the lowest line on a clothes rack. Then I grabbed a basket and noticed that I couldn’t stand up. ??? why? I think I had a completely blank moment for at least a couple of seconds. Sounds like a short moment but it wasn’t. It was a long moment to realize that a massive EQ was hitting us. And like a flashback, I suddenly heard myself screaming like hell. Also I heard massive mixed noises from things smashed, house rumbling , kids also screaming from a nearby school…

I had no courage to get out of my flat – or more to say, I had no idea what to do. I was panicked a bit because I couldn’t get out from a french door which we normally use as the entry, because the door was locked. My partner Kerry always locks the door after him when he goes out for work. And that morning, I was supposed to go to a friend of mine and help his business. But I had a funny headache in the morning so I canceled the plan and slept in. So the door was still locked and I had no idea where I left my key.

I noticed that I could get out from the laundry door behind the kitchen. Rushed to the kitchen and was shocked at the mess EQ made. Smashed glass and dishes everywhere, oil on the floor, the mess blocked me from getting to the laundry door because I was in bare feet. I rushed back to get a pair of shoes and another shock hit.

I rushed out to the street and saw neighbors also out, some crying, some looking absent-minded. I saw the dog next door also out in the street as the fence fell down and he wasn’t leashed. I saw dust and smoke from the direction of city and also Sumner. Neighbors talked with each other and tried to comfort each other. Still hearing massive screams from school at every aftershock hit.

Kerry managed to come back from work (His work is just two or three minutes’ drive from home) in a lady’s car. He said he couldn’t drive through the bridge because of a massive crack and the height difference between the street and the bridge, so he left his car and walked across the bridge. The lady, who knows Kerry, spotted him and offered him a ride.

Kerry quickly shot off with my car to check his mum who lives nearby and bring her to our home. She was so shaky. We tried to call to friends and family to see if they were safe. Thanks we still have old Telecom phone!! While we really struggle to find information on what was happening from radio, slowly info came from friends and family who are living in the west side of town or out of town with text messages. Kerry’s Telecom was still working. My Vodafone was crapped out.

Couldn’t believe what they were telling us; there sounds to be some casualty, the cathedral seemed to have collapsed, CTV building collapsed and burning by fire… no water, no power everywhere…….

Night was coming and we had to prepare while still in shock. I had an emergency pack prepared before September EQ and also built up more food and equipment after the September, so had no worry to spend a couple of days or more without water and power. However, I didn’t prepare myself when I suffered a disaster. Fear everywhere in my mind, constant aftershock expanding the worry.

Still, I made a straight face for Kerry’s mum and tried to comfort her as she had an angina condition triggered by September EQ and I wouldn’t like to have the same situation. She looked OK and said she was. But at 1AM at night, she suddenly said ‘I need to go to hospital’. Called 111 and asked for an ambulance, fearing we had no quick service or no quick treatment available for her. After an hour wait, a massive army ambulance arrived and took her to hospital. The driver was from out of Christchurch and didn’t know the quickest way to get a hospital. No GPS in the army truck. Kerry and the driver took a Christchurch map out and guessed which way was safe and quick to get to a hospital. He told us they took mum to St George’s Hospital.

We called to St George’s next moring and found she wasn’t there. They suggested that she might be in St Margaret Hospital. Gave them a call and also found no record of her. The reception suggested Christchurch City Hospital. Bingo!! she was in her old ward, the same room when she was in September….

Sorry for the long story. But what I want to say is the emotion while I had these events unfolding in front of me, if you ask me what the negative emotion I experienced was: fear, nothing else. Always fear about when the next big aftershock will hit, maybe this moment? maybe a minute later? maybe while I was preparing tea for us and friends who didn’t have a BBQ and didn’t have any food? Fear can’t be controlled. it’s seeping into my mind. Still does actually.

What about a positive emotion on that day, or over the course of the following week?

Positive emotion is appreciation. I appreciated Kerry was safe, Mum was safe, his whole family and friends were safe.
Neighbors were safe, not many injuries around us, some neighbors who had a well in their garden opened the gate and offered free water, made sure everyone was safe and OK with each other…… suddenly a close-knit community built up…. I was living on this street for around three years but didn’t know much about my neighbors. That was quite a warm feeling, getting to know them.

I also appreciated that help arrived so quickly and efficiently. The initial help arrived so quickly, I felt. That gave us some power to get through the though time, I believe.

I don’t know if what I wrote is help for you. I just wanted to write, maybe, just before the memorial day come.

One thing I notice is that in many of the blog posts and news reports about Christchurch since that day, very little context is provided or needed. Virtually every New Zealander knows about the earthquake and its aftermath in incredible detail. We’ve read, seen and, for about ten percent of us, experienced the disaster over and over again, with fresh perspectives adding new layers of clarity every day. It’s for this reason that sentences like the first one in this post are practically redundant. Everyone knows.

It’s for this reason also that I questioned putting anything on my blog to mark the first anniversary of the biggest #eqnz. What could I add to the stack of reports that hasn’t already been said? I used to live in Christchurch, for five years; I watched in horror from my house in India as the TV reports rolled in, scouring Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other previously unseen corners of the Internet for new information, especially about the welfare of people I knew. But does the world need my detailed perspective, too?

I contacted some people who were in Christchurch that day, as well as spoke to others who had strong ties to Christchurch but were elsewhere on February 22. A few indicated that they had things to say. I figure that while the world (or New Zealand) may not need more words about the earthquake, some people affected by it might value a space for self-expression.

So, that’s what my blog is today and for the next few days. I’ve asked some just to write about a negative and a positive emotion linked to the earthquake and the days that followed; others have come up with something different. (If you’re reading this and want to contribute something, get in touch via Twitter or Facebook.)

I hope everyone who suffered through the big earthquake a year ago, and who continues to suffer through aftershocks and trauma, is able to mark the occasion on their own terms. Kia kaha.

Justine (Kirsten Dunst), a hollow spectator on her own wedding night, searching for sensation, peers through her brother-in-law’s telescope at a hot air balloon. It is white, decorated with messages of good will from the wedding guests. They watch and cheer around her and her husband, a man who loves her but cannot make her happy, despite his desperation to do so.

But through the lens, Justine cannot make out the messages on the balloon. As it drifts away into the night, high above immaculate grounds, all she can see is the fire burning at its base. The fact that the fire sustains the wellwishers’ intentions for a long and happy marriage is irrelevant; to Justine, the fire has a clear purpose and meaning, where the fabric and ink do not. However, even the fire drifts further and further from her with each passing moment.

She turns away from the telescope and dutifully smiles to her husband. The night goes on without respite for her emptiness.

Later, she will welcome and embrace the fire and help others to do the same. The scene will play out with the same inevitability she has felt for so long, possibly years. In that moment, she will find – not happiness, not even contentedness. She will find acceptance.

Read more about ‘Melancholia’ at IMDb and in Roger Ebert’s review.

I thought there was nobody at home at first but then I heard voices from the other end of the house. They carried me to 4′s room where she was on her mother Rach’s lap, recovering from a tantrum. 4 searched my face for a reason to restart her yelling. I smiled.

“I’m going to do some exercise,” I announced cheerfully.

“Okay,” said Rach, who was kind enough to not laugh at me. 4 continued her deep breathing, staring straight ahead.

I went downstairs and changed into my running gear. My shoes and shorts still bore the clean chemical odour of the stores I bought them from. I realised I’d become another one of those people with new exercise clothes – the guy you see run past your house once or twice, huffing and puffing and looking out of place, then never again.

Back upstairs I went. 4 was in the living room now, setting up a megasketcher write-and-wipe pad, toy cash register and a bag of plastic food. I heard Rach in the kitchen, preparing real food for dinner later.

“Barns can you play café?”

I hesitated.

“You only have to play two games!”

“Well, [4], I was actually going to go for a run…”

Enormous pout. Bottom lip protruding at least two centimetres out from face. On the cusp of tears.

“…but why don’t you tell me how you play café?”

Bottom lip put away. She launched immediately into an explanation of the rules. No smile or indication of relief. It was just a ruse, a tactic to force me into staying! But it was too late: now I was stuck playing café. Might as well enjoy it.

I thought of 8, who might not want to miss out. “Where’s your sister?” I asked as 4 finished setting things up.

“She doesn’t want to play,” she said. I wondered whether 8 had even been asked. Ah well. Forget it and move on.

I played customer first, and I made myself the most difficult customer possible. I demanded things that weren’t on the menu. I condescended to the waitress. I sent food back and asked to see the manager. 4 loved all of this, of course – and, being 4, she gave plenty of my condescension right back to me, often with a raucous laugh.

Then it was my turn to go behind the counter. 4 was a much easier customer than I had been. I inserted into the transaction a ‘telephone call’ to the ‘kitchen’, who I thought had messed up the order but had in fact gotten everything just right. 4 giggled as I flinched at the abuse supposedly coming down the phone at me.

“Did you get in trouble?” she asked, still grinning.

“No, no,” I said. “Just a misunderstanding.”

At this point, 8 came into the room and saw that we were playing café. Being 8, she immediately saw ten potential rearrangements that would make everything much better and, as she went to move things around, suggested a handful of new rules. It seems there can never be too many rules; indeed, coming up with more rules often appears to be more entertaining than playing the game itself.

I broke character for a moment. “Hang on, [8]. Let us finish our business. Then I’m going to go for a run, and you two can play.”

“OK,” she said. She hovered impatiently around us as 4 paid the bill with my credit card. I said, “Thank you, come again.”

I left them to their ever-increasing list of rules and headed out for my run.

The park near our new house is small, an oval of about 200 metres’ circumference with a playground alongside it at one end. I planned to run around it until I got tired; having seen people running before, including my previously quite unfit brother, I didn’t see how difficult it could be.

The first lap was fine, bringing a welcome raised heartbeat. By halfway through the second, I was gasping loudly. I retreated into a corner to stretch and catch my breath.

As I tested my muscle flexibility and endured the exquisite pain of a good stretch, I understood that this was not going to be easy. Four years of sedentary lifestyle and two years of smoking meant that I couldn’t get fit again just like that.

Surely I could do a few more laps though. Come, let’s try again.

Round I went. My legs felt less like jelly but my lungs heaved with strain. After twice more round the park, I had to stop again and stretch – though stretching was just an excuse to stop running and rest (for God’s sake).

I thought back to how those regular futsal games when I was 22 were no big deal. I hadn’t exercised properly for four years before taking that up, either. But the difference between 18 –> 22 and 22 –> 26 is tangible. Ed and Rach pointed this out later: I’d hit that mysterious mid-twenties slump when things just don’t work quite the way they used to anymore. Every effort is more of an effort.

So, one last effort. One more lap and then run home. I did so, loudly gasping the whole way. After I got back home, I remembered Mr Cunningham’s words in third form PE – if you stay on your feet, you recover much faster – and so resisted the urge to collapse onto the bed. Instead, I showered and grabbed a beer, still a little breathless.

I went upstairs. No distant voices this time; the living room was transformed and filled with the activity of two young girls.

“The café’s still open,” said 8 cheerfully. 4 looked at me and smiled widely. I smiled back.

“Am I allowed to bring in beer from outside?” I asked.

“Yup,” replied 8.

“Excellent,” I said, and sat down on the sofa (aka Table 7).

I don’t know if I would’ve done this a few years ago. I was far too wrapped up in myself to give much to others. (I still have a long way to go, of course.)

As my calf muscles ached through a long and joyous café experience, now with two excitable wait staff rather than one, it seemed that my body had become less patient over the years; my temperament, meanwhile, had gone the opposite way. Perhaps this is a result of paying close attention to becoming more patient with other people, animals and objects, and paying little heed to the slow atrophy of my body.

The benefits of mindfulness seem obvious. Now, to continue the never-ending process of restoring balance. Right after another beer.

Peter Roebuck © Cricinfo

Former Somerset cricket captain and respected cricket writer Peter Roebuck has died aged 55 in Cape Town. He was covering Australia’s tour of South Africa. Ian Fuge, managing editor for sport at the Sydney Morning Herald, a paper for which Roebuck was a regular columnist, said “Peter was a wonderful writer who was the bard of summer for cricket-loving Australians. He was also an extraordinary bloke who will be sorely missed.” [source]

For me personally, Roebuck’s death signifies the passing of a writing hero. I grew up reading the sports section every morning before school, hoping that if I wouldn’t some day realise my dream of being an All Black or a Black Cap, I could at least write about them for a living. Of all the sports writers I’ve discovered through those years and into adulthood, Roebuck’s byline is the one that will ensure I read the piece. He seemed such a naturally gifted writer, one who could’ve written about any subject he chose but found himself most entranced by cricket. He wrote honestly, never afraid to confront the darker aspects of ‘the gentleman’s game’, One could be certain that nothing less than the highest quality would be attached to his name.

Now that he’s gone, I am of course discovering that his exceptionally high standards were a hallmark of his career with Somerset, as well. From this citation for his being recognised as one of Wisden’s Cricketers of the Year in 1988:

Roebuck in action for Somerset © Getty Images

His current vice-captain, Victor Marks, a friend of many years, said, He seems to thrive on contest, competition and conflict. He rises to the occasion, is very much alive and always reacts in a positive way. He has improved dramatically over the past few years, with the security of his position and the captaincy. He puts a great deal more energy into his job than most people could. Somerset’s coach, Peter Robinson, recalled many hours spent with the bowling machine, ironing out technical faults which he, Roebuck, had found.

Roebuck also contributed routinely insightful columns to Cricinfo. Fellow cricket writer Suresh Menon wrote of his work:

Roebuck’s short commentaries distill a lifetime of experience through history and anecdote. There is a purity in the form that is at once attractive and challenging. Of all cricket writers, Roebuck is the least imitated because he is the most difficult to imitate.

I suspect millions of cricket fans over the coming days will be scouring Cricinfo and the web for information about Roebuck and, like me, discovering things they might never have looked up had he not died so devastatingly young. As much as anything else, this could be a commentary on the incredible value offered by his columns: I never sought to know more of the man to whom such a distinctive, essential voice belonged. His ever-articulate words were enough to form a deep impression – of decent character, of high quality and of deep understanding.

May Peter Roebuck rest in peace, and all his fans continued to inspired by his words for decades after he’s gone.

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Here’s an excerpt from what turned out to be his final column, about the Australians’ performance in an utterly bizarre first test. It is a technically minded piece, not the best representative of his work, which tends to be wide in scope and lofty in ambition. But notice the economy of language with which he makes his points:

Apart from technical flaws, the collapses raised even more fundamental issues. How long can Shane Watson continue as a front-line bowler and opening batsman? History provides few instances of a cricketer able to sustain both workloads. The time is ripe to put him in the middle order.

[...]

Brad Haddin also needs to rethink his batting. His reckless shot was a droppable offence and confirmed his confidence is in his boots. He, too, has a single match to turn around his fortunes. A new broom sweeps clean.

Ironically Johnson, a bowler, is the most likely player to be dropped. However the team for the first Test against New Zealand has become harder to predict. Mind you, a lot can happen in a week. It just did.

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UPDATE: I’ve been reading a lot of Roebuck today. Here’s an excerpt from one of his 116 columns for Cricinfo entitled ‘Stuck in the middle’:

As a breed, batsmen are haunted by the prospect of failure. It hardens them, tightens them, sometimes exhausts them. A centre-forward unable to score can still chase and create. A tryless winger can tackle and support. A batsman must score runs: it is as simple and stark as that. No words can protect the player from this truth. His existence depends on his productivity. Arthur Miller could have written a play about it. Every time he goes to the crease, a batsman confronts doom.

[more]

Also, the cause of Roebuck’s death has not yet been announced, so conspiracy theories will surely follow – especially in light of reports that he seen talking with police and ‘in an agitated state’ on the same night. Whatever is written in the coming days, and regardless of what actually happened, I hope everyone can remember that we would do better to mourn a fine writer than play pseudo-detective. I’m sure Roebuck would agree. After all, he wrote in 2007 of his disgust at the hackery that followed Bob Woolmer’s death:

But let us not allow one man to carry the can. Although it was reasonable to accept the experts’ initial verdict that Woolmer had been strangled, too many of us were too easily prepared to believe that Pakistani players or at any rate supporters were the culprits. In our own way we were as guilty as those involved in the burning of the witches in Salem or the rounding up of supposed American communists in the 1950′s.

[...] At such times we must be thankful for due process, that a man may be condemned only by fact and not prejudice.

The opening sequence of ‘Drive’ had me thinking all my expectations about the film were correct. The Chromatics’ ‘Tick Of The Clock’ kicked things off, setting the tone with its confident, sinister, minimalist rhythm, with a telephone conversation laying out the terms of the agreement and a splendid pan across a barren room out onto the street lights below. A helicopter shot showed Los Angeles at night from above, sources of yellow light illuminating the city like controlled balls of flame, establishing LA as a character like Michael Mann’s ‘Collateral’ did. The initial getaway job played out like a scene from ‘Driver’, a ten-year-old PlayStation game: all rough atmosphere, near collisions and police radio sounds. The whole film was going to follow in the same vein: a dimly lit, pulsating thrill ride through city streets and bad deals.

What I hadn’t picked was that ‘Drive’, and the nameless hero played by Ryan Gosling, would instead be cut from the same poncho cloth as the great Westerns. Throughout this opening sequence, and for much of the film, he is as silent and imposing as Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name; he even chews on a toothpick with the same brooding intensity. In the film’s bare-bones plot (which is little more than an accessory on which to hang a combination of allegories, images and music), Gosling’s driver appears from nowhere, changes everybody’s lives forever and then rides off into the sunset. There are good guys and bad guys, in that the bad guys must do bad and the good guys must try to do good.

Refn’s camera is almost fetishistic in its appraisal of Gosling. He is allowed to leave his chiselled features virtually motionless in many scenes, simply present and immaculate for our appreciation. He’s shot from low angles when driving or doing violence, the skills he has honed well enough to be his vocation, and from high angles when sharing scenes with Carey Mulligan, the woman who steals his heart. In place of a poncho, he has a distinctive jacket that he continues wearing even when it is covered with blood. These stylistic choices establish the driver as a hero, which is the chief purpose of the film (which, again, reminds me of Westerns more than any other genre).

This is what makes the central element of an extremely effective soundtrack – indeed, the film would not be nearly as interesting without it – so interesting. College’s ‘A Real Hero’ plays twice during the film, once during the sweet ‘getting to know you’ scenes between Gosling, Mulligan and Mulligan’s son, and then again at the film’s conclusion. The lyrics, over an unforgettable synth motif, repeat over and over:

A real human being
And a real hero

Gosling is certainly a clear hero, a classic Good Guy of few words driven to do the right thing to the right people and the wrong thing to the wrong people. Virtually the moment he sets eyes on Mulligan, one gets a sense he will protect her to the death – which he does, to all intents and purposes. Though a getaway driver, aiding criminals on a regular basis, his rule of only giving them five minutes of his time gives him a moral footing above that of his employers; he simply drives, until confronted with circumstances that force him to either flee or kill the ones who wish to kill him and the other Good Guys first. Being a hero, he faces his responsibility. He kills.

But Gosling’s driver is not a real human being. He’s a character in a film, as starkly as any character I can remember in recent memory. It’s because he is such an obvious, perfectly troubled, archetypal hero that he is not a real human being. A trick of a film called ‘Drive’ is that it leaves you wanting to believe its central character’s purpose was to drive, that cars gave him meaning and purpose, but they are merely a tool he uses on his heroic path. As are a hammer, the heel of his boot and a very sharp knife. The most human moments he has are those shared with Mulligan and her son, but these exist only to deepen his mythical status as a hero.

Indeed, Mulligan is the only truly human figure in the film. The mobsters, chiefly those played by Albert Brooks and Ron Perlman, are also archetypal Bad Guys or antagonists; they serve their own evil ends, gaining from others’ misfortune and eliminating anyone who gets in their way. Mulligan’s son, too, is unrealistic, a child with little purpose of his own other than to be offered a father figure in Gosling. Mulligan, however, lives and breathes every second of her performance as if it were true. She flirts awkwardly with Gosling and feels shame when he finds she’s kind of been leading him on. Her face demonstrates all the emotion of a young, conflicted woman.

One scene makes the contrast between the two characters and their respective world absolutely clear. As Gosling apologises for his involvement in an act that has changed Mulligan’s life, she slaps him – and immediately shrinks, looking down at the ground, scarcely able to contain her anger but dreadfully ashamed to have expressed it with violence. A stranger intrudes, and after Mulligan and Gosling reconnect with a time-stopping kiss – a bridge between their two worlds – Gosling brutally murders the stranger in front of her. She recoils in horror. As far as I can remember, they do not see each other again; Mulligan’s path leads to a continued life in the real world, while Gosling’s leads to heroic duty and death.

But he doesn’t die – at least, not that we get to see. Like Eastwood’s The Man With No Name, or – even more so – like Charles Bronson’s Harmonica in ‘Once Upon A Time In The West’, he ensures the heroine’s survival and then disappears. His function is almost machine-like, reminiscent also of the T-1000 in ‘Terminator 2: Judgment Day’. (You get the point. Film hero. Not human being.)

I guess this makes Nicolas Winding Refn’s ‘Drive’ a strange kind of character study – not of a believable person, but of a film archetype most notable in Westerns. It certainly isn’t the all-driving, slow-moving actioner I was expecting – and it is much better for it. It’s growing in my estimations with each passing hour since I left the cinema, when I usually tend to revise down my opinion after getting past the initial adrenaline rush of seeing a film on the big screen.

Two things to note before you go in:

1) With a film so caught up in genre concerns as this, the suspension of disbelief is essential, as is a willingness to forget whatever importance you place on plotting. The plot of ‘Drive’ is a framework for the exploration of genre ideas; in fact, there’s enough in there that I wouldn’t be surprised if other viewers read the film along different genre lines than I did.

2) The few scenes of violence in this film are completely visceral and brutal, mostly carried out with analogue implements to make it that much more tactile. You will likely flinch. Just remember: it’s only a movie.