2007 Movies

1. The Name of the Rose: Adopted from Umberto Eco's novel. Had planned to read the book after finishing "My Name is Red" - many had remarked the similarities between the two. Gave up because the thickness of the book, and my lack of interest in the middle-age.

Like the French director Jean-Jacques Annaud's rendering of the book - Eco says the book is his baby, the movie is Annaud's baby. But there has to be some connections between the two. Sean Connery and Christoph Slate were both good - one wise and cool and takes pride in his intellectual superiority, the other innocent and passionate and still has not been disillusioned with carnal pleasure and earthly love. Again, the plot doesn't interest me much - who killed whom, doesn't really matter.

Annaud loves the mid-age. He talks about the mid-age as if it were a beautiful woman he is in love with.

2. Italian for Beginners: Danish movie, a group of “losers” trying to make it in the cold and turbulent world – they went to the warm Italian sunshine in the end. Heartwarming and hopeful yet not deceptive.

3. In the Bedroom: It was not “In” the Bedroom as you might think. A young boy fell in love with a married woman and was killed by the jealous husband. The parents have to face the reality – living though the rest of their lives with the loss of the only son, and facing the man who had killed him. And making choices as to what to do with him.

Sissy Spacek is not a bad-looking woman. But she always wears messy hair and that makes her look like a gypsy. Always weary and sad.

4. The Girl in the Café: OK movie. A British civil servant meets a girl in the Café and took her to a G8 summit in Iceland. Turns out she was passionate about the issues of poverty and children and spoke out as such. She turned the world upside down and they (kinda) fell in love too. Neigh. Too naïve.

5. DDL in two movies:
a. The Ballad of Jack & Rose: As all Ballads, this one is poetic and melancholic – the clash of idealism and reality, the breaking of dreams and hopes and passion, dealing with life’s disappointments – that is, when he woke up one day and realized that he had been fighting a losing war against an enemy which either doesn’t exist, or totally different from what he had imagined.

b. My Left Foot: This movie earned DDL his Oscar. It was indeed brilliant. The best part: it’s so uplifting, yet not preaching. Christy Brown had birth defect and the only limp he could move was his left foot. So there were some memorable scenes when he used his left foot: crawling downstairs to open the door to get the neighbors to save his mother; wrote the word “Mother” on the floor and made his father so proud he brought him to the Pub to show off; kicked the football with his left foot and scored since the opponents did not think he could kick; and of course, eventually, he used his left foot to write and type.

A person with physical disability yet with an even stronger urge to express, because so much of him is trapped in his body. The little boy who played the younger Christy was brilliant as well: there was so much pain and despair in their eyes, they have to express themselves somehow, and to communicate with people around them and after them.

So there is art, there is literature. He painted and he wrote, and hence we heard about his story, and feel connected with him.

Remember watched a Japanese movie 典子 many years ago. The girl had no arms. She played herself in the movie. I watched it with physical discomfort, even disgust – she was rather overweight and a defect body is just a horror to watch. DDL played well – everything is there, except in a twisted form; a twisted face is actually more expressive.

The only part that made me uneasy (which usually proves to be the artist’s failure to convince/deceive me ) was at the end, when DDL persuaded the nurse to marry him. The romantic scene is simply not romantic, and it forces me to look at him in a sexual way, therefore makes me look directly at his physical defect. And it makes me nauseous. Sorry.

Is this a typical Irish family? A distant and bully father, hardworking yet very crude, a mother who is constantly pregnant – I was trying so hard to count the number of children in the house – and endlessly loving and patient. She played great: a natural good mother, not a hero, as some less artist might try to “sublimate”. She won an Oscar for this role too.

First time I was able to look at a malformed man, I was pregnant. And my thought went to his mother: I was sure, his mother loved him just like any mother would love her son, maybe even more.