One of the most beautiful films I've seen this year.
Thursday, December 23, 2004
Leaving for 2046
How many times have I left on that train? Countless times. I see myself as a fellow passenger of Tak. "They say in 2046, nothing changes." Didn't I wish for that once? To be able to travel to a place where everything is constant. It's a thoughtless wish. It's the kind of wish that one should be careful about making because it might come true.
Last Sunday I watched the film by Wong Kar Wai with V. Following the strains of the violin and being led by the hand through nostalgia, I couldn't help feeling my heart lurch. How familiar the scenese were. How heart-wrenching, really. And how rich and luscious the cinematography. The framing was unique, well thought of. Also, just like "The Blind Assasin" how perfectly coincidental for me that the film explored both love and science fiction in an elegant way.
There is a scene where a Chinese girl, the daughter of the hotel owner, keeps repeating phrases in Japanese to an absent lover. It is so poignant. And again, so familiar. At the moment when she could have said "Yes, I will leave with you" she says nothing. But after he leaves, after everything is over, the music rises to a crescendo, she begins practising what she should have said. She breaks down and is not seen for a long time at the small hotel. I bowed my head in pain. How true, how true. Of some women. Of me, especially. I found it both hilarious and a bit saddening to see, in a parallel take on that situation, Tak fall in love with an android who suffered from extremely delayed reaction. But that is how it is for some people. It's the only way to explain what happened, how we felt at the time. How we feel now. Delayed reaction. Maybe that's what it was. Maybe not.
Everything is so poignant on hindsight. But people change, move on, love again. I'm glad that, just like Wong Kar Wai, I can fictionalize all that pain and create something out of it. Art, poetry, film. They all speak of what hurt us the most. What makes us continue to live.
I loved the film. I recommend you watch it. You may not like it as much as I did. But it's definitely provocative, something to debate about, to think about.
Last Sunday I watched the film by Wong Kar Wai with V. Following the strains of the violin and being led by the hand through nostalgia, I couldn't help feeling my heart lurch. How familiar the scenese were. How heart-wrenching, really. And how rich and luscious the cinematography. The framing was unique, well thought of. Also, just like "The Blind Assasin" how perfectly coincidental for me that the film explored both love and science fiction in an elegant way.
There is a scene where a Chinese girl, the daughter of the hotel owner, keeps repeating phrases in Japanese to an absent lover. It is so poignant. And again, so familiar. At the moment when she could have said "Yes, I will leave with you" she says nothing. But after he leaves, after everything is over, the music rises to a crescendo, she begins practising what she should have said. She breaks down and is not seen for a long time at the small hotel. I bowed my head in pain. How true, how true. Of some women. Of me, especially. I found it both hilarious and a bit saddening to see, in a parallel take on that situation, Tak fall in love with an android who suffered from extremely delayed reaction. But that is how it is for some people. It's the only way to explain what happened, how we felt at the time. How we feel now. Delayed reaction. Maybe that's what it was. Maybe not.
Everything is so poignant on hindsight. But people change, move on, love again. I'm glad that, just like Wong Kar Wai, I can fictionalize all that pain and create something out of it. Art, poetry, film. They all speak of what hurt us the most. What makes us continue to live.
I loved the film. I recommend you watch it. You may not like it as much as I did. But it's definitely provocative, something to debate about, to think about.
Wednesday, December 01, 2004
Science Fiction, Sibling Rivalry and 1930's Romance
How fitting to be reading "The Blind Assasin" as I make preparations for a vintage-inspired wedding. And how coincidental that the setting is exactly the 1930's.
I cried (again). Well, I cry easily over fiction. I loved reading "The Blind Assasin." Another reason to enjoy the cold and stormy Monday, which happened to be a holiday. I was also beginning to wonder when I would be able to read again for my own leisure. Well, enough of the background...
In a way, I found the disposition of Iris something I could identify with, being an elder sibling, an elder sister. All the things we do to protect and hurt the one who, at first, adores us and, later, who struggles to wrest our influence from their lives. I found the whole narration charged and intriguing, shifting among news and society article clippings, sections of another novel, sections of a novel within a novel within a novel, and the memoirs of an old woman. I loved the chaos and variety, something for my 21st century multi-tasking and short attention span to feed on. The love story was part 1930's film noir (I could already imagine Gwyneth Paltrow playing the woman in her Art Deco look ala "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow") and partly science fiction narration (which was characteristic of the 1930's and the Art Deco movement). Those were the sections of the book that I found to be highlights because of my affinity with science fiction in general and my love of good old fashioned romance.
It had an interesting post-modernist approach (the novel within a novel within a novel treatment) and was somewhat of a warning to would-be novelists: "Be careful" it reads somewhere in the book. What you write makes its way into the world in a manner that you can never control.
In the end, I could understand why it won the Booker Prize. It is a very engaging novel. On different levels, at that. Enough said: Another book I suggest for your weekend reading (though I have different reading habits... snatching it like snacks before bedtime and devouring over what little time I have during weekends). And now... back to work.
I cried (again). Well, I cry easily over fiction. I loved reading "The Blind Assasin." Another reason to enjoy the cold and stormy Monday, which happened to be a holiday. I was also beginning to wonder when I would be able to read again for my own leisure. Well, enough of the background...
In a way, I found the disposition of Iris something I could identify with, being an elder sibling, an elder sister. All the things we do to protect and hurt the one who, at first, adores us and, later, who struggles to wrest our influence from their lives. I found the whole narration charged and intriguing, shifting among news and society article clippings, sections of another novel, sections of a novel within a novel within a novel, and the memoirs of an old woman. I loved the chaos and variety, something for my 21st century multi-tasking and short attention span to feed on. The love story was part 1930's film noir (I could already imagine Gwyneth Paltrow playing the woman in her Art Deco look ala "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow") and partly science fiction narration (which was characteristic of the 1930's and the Art Deco movement). Those were the sections of the book that I found to be highlights because of my affinity with science fiction in general and my love of good old fashioned romance.
It had an interesting post-modernist approach (the novel within a novel within a novel treatment) and was somewhat of a warning to would-be novelists: "Be careful" it reads somewhere in the book. What you write makes its way into the world in a manner that you can never control.
In the end, I could understand why it won the Booker Prize. It is a very engaging novel. On different levels, at that. Enough said: Another book I suggest for your weekend reading (though I have different reading habits... snatching it like snacks before bedtime and devouring over what little time I have during weekends). And now... back to work.
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