ifeelbetter (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ifeelbetter) wrote2011-03-02 01:29 am
ifeelbetter) wrote2011-03-02 01:29 am
I cried a river over you
So I am in this trend of incredibly soul-crushingly sad films. It started with the NTLive production of King Lear....then Another Year....then, yesterday, Blue Valentine. Guys, this was supposed to be my Spring Break. I've been told people find Spring Breaks to be fun and whimsical....this has not been the case for me.
Have you guys seen Another Year? It's a Mike Leigh film...if you didn't just feel an echo of heartbreak from the words "Mike Leigh film," then methinks you have not had sufficient experience with his particular brand of cinematography. Seriously, though, this film is .... actually, I don't have a adjective. I can just say this: it broke my heart. It's a rite of passage to sit through, no doubt, but it's so very worth it. And if Mary doesn't break your heart, I'm not entirely sure you had a heart to break. And she sneaks up on you too. At the beginning, she's just a sort of pale shadow of people you know. "Ha!" you say to yourself, "I've seen such-and-such do that." Then it continues and suddenly she's tearing into you, un-mooring pieces of you that you thought were rock solid. There's no denying her, in the end.
The film is so incredibly simple too: everything is in the title. It's just another year, one of many, and seemingly mundane and unimportant. And it can be that to the central couple, a bastion of miraculous happiness. The film keeps returning to them, to their garden and their kitchen, and then Mary or Ken or Ronny remind us of the misery that meets so many people and how foreign such a perfect home can seem...
It was strange to see Blue Valentine so hard upon the heels of Another Year. Both films deal with the precariousness of happiness, both wonder whether the pursuit of happiness is worth the failure it often brings. What was particularly striking in seeing them side by side was that Another Year seems to insist that what little happiness is available is only to be found in the bonds between people and Blue Valentine seems to condemn looking for your happiness anywhere but in yourself. Perhaps it's a cultural thing? I hesitate to even pose the theory because it feels like an excuse more than an explanation.
I have, of course, been solemn and a tad melancholy since this onslaught of sad films began. I didn't intend it originally. It just sort of happened that Blue Valentine showed up at the same time as Another Year at local indie arthouse cinemas.
It does mean the couple of friends who I shanghaied into watching Another Year and King Lear resolutely refused to join me for Blue Valentine and have sworn an oath to always check the summaries of films I suggest before agreeing to anything in the future.
On top of all this, I just finished reading Hard Times. I ration my Dickens out carefully....the day I finish the last one will be a truly sad day for me. I love my Dickens. So it was sad to tick another one off the list anyway but....DON'T KEEP READING IF YOU WANT AN UNSPOILED PLOT WHEN YOU READ THE BOOK EVENTUALLY WHICH YOU OBVIOUSLY SHOULD DO....there's a killer couple of chapters near the end of the third book. And. Yeah. I'm a Victorianist, right, so I'm no stranger to crying into my books. (God, when I read Ruth the first time I was actually in a cafe and I had to run to a bathroom for a good cry.) So. Book 3, Chapter 6. Be warned. And keep your tissues nearby.
MY POINT. I HAVE A POINT. My point is that I need cheering up. GUESS WHO I LOOKED TO FOR HAPPINESS?
Have you guys seen Another Year? It's a Mike Leigh film...if you didn't just feel an echo of heartbreak from the words "Mike Leigh film," then methinks you have not had sufficient experience with his particular brand of cinematography. Seriously, though, this film is .... actually, I don't have a adjective. I can just say this: it broke my heart. It's a rite of passage to sit through, no doubt, but it's so very worth it. And if Mary doesn't break your heart, I'm not entirely sure you had a heart to break. And she sneaks up on you too. At the beginning, she's just a sort of pale shadow of people you know. "Ha!" you say to yourself, "I've seen such-and-such do that." Then it continues and suddenly she's tearing into you, un-mooring pieces of you that you thought were rock solid. There's no denying her, in the end.
The film is so incredibly simple too: everything is in the title. It's just another year, one of many, and seemingly mundane and unimportant. And it can be that to the central couple, a bastion of miraculous happiness. The film keeps returning to them, to their garden and their kitchen, and then Mary or Ken or Ronny remind us of the misery that meets so many people and how foreign such a perfect home can seem...
It was strange to see Blue Valentine so hard upon the heels of Another Year. Both films deal with the precariousness of happiness, both wonder whether the pursuit of happiness is worth the failure it often brings. What was particularly striking in seeing them side by side was that Another Year seems to insist that what little happiness is available is only to be found in the bonds between people and Blue Valentine seems to condemn looking for your happiness anywhere but in yourself. Perhaps it's a cultural thing? I hesitate to even pose the theory because it feels like an excuse more than an explanation.
I have, of course, been solemn and a tad melancholy since this onslaught of sad films began. I didn't intend it originally. It just sort of happened that Blue Valentine showed up at the same time as Another Year at local indie arthouse cinemas.
It does mean the couple of friends who I shanghaied into watching Another Year and King Lear resolutely refused to join me for Blue Valentine and have sworn an oath to always check the summaries of films I suggest before agreeing to anything in the future.
On top of all this, I just finished reading Hard Times. I ration my Dickens out carefully....the day I finish the last one will be a truly sad day for me. I love my Dickens. So it was sad to tick another one off the list anyway but....DON'T KEEP READING IF YOU WANT AN UNSPOILED PLOT WHEN YOU READ THE BOOK EVENTUALLY WHICH YOU OBVIOUSLY SHOULD DO....there's a killer couple of chapters near the end of the third book. And. Yeah. I'm a Victorianist, right, so I'm no stranger to crying into my books. (God, when I read Ruth the first time I was actually in a cafe and I had to run to a bathroom for a good cry.) So. Book 3, Chapter 6. Be warned. And keep your tissues nearby.
MY POINT. I HAVE A POINT. My point is that I need cheering up. GUESS WHO I LOOKED TO FOR HAPPINESS?