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Monthly Archives: April 2008
Sunset
Slowly the west reaches for clothes of new colors
which it passes to a row of ancient trees.
You look, and soon these two worlds both leave you
one part climbs toward heaven, one sinks to earth.
leaving you, not really belonging to either,
not so hopelessly dark as that house that is silent,
not so unswervingly given to the eternal as that thing
that turns to a star each night and climbs–
leaving you (it is impossible to untangle the threads)
your own life, timid and standing high and growing,
so that, sometimes blocked in, sometimes reaching out,
one moment your life is a stone in you, and the next, a star.
Rainer Maria Rilke
Talking About Love Is…
…like dancing about architecture
I probably should not be writing about another, more so an old, movie, not a lot of people know about.
But there’s something about this little treasure of a film that merits mention even 10 years after its limited release. Playing by Heart, originally titled Dancing About Architecture, is a movie I’ve long been wanting to see ever since I have become an X-Files fan. Gillian Anderson’s in it, yes, joining an impressive list of big-name stars – Angelina Jolie, Ryan Philippe, Sean Connery, Gena Rowlands, Dennis Quaid, Madeleine Stowe, Ellen Burstyn, Jay Mohr, Anthony Edwards, and John Stewart.
Its premise is simple – finding, losing, and holding on to love. Eleven seemingly unrelated characters deal with relationship problems, among which an elderly couple who began arguing about an affair that could’ve happened 25 years ago; an adulterous affair brought about by souring marriages; a socially awkward workaholic who thinks dating is “calculated artificiality ,” after marrying a man who turned out to be gay; and two Gen-X clubbers who amazingly have vocabularies of literature majors.
Angelina Jolie shines in this film, when she was a relative unknown. I don’t know if John Stewart has starred in any other movie but he was surprisingly good, and charming, as Gillian Anderson’s suitor here. Here’s one conversation involving Gillian’s character, one that I’ve had several times in my own life:
Friend: You’re a wonderful person. You should have someone in your life. That’s all I’m saying.
Meredith: I can still be a wonderful person and not have anybody in my life. Look, I’m just not interested in a relationship right now.
Friend: You are such a liar.
Meredith: I am such a liar.
I guess that says it all. But if I can quote one line that represents what the entire film is saying, it will be one from the elders:
…the wonderful thing about falling in love is that you learn everything about that person, and so quickly; and if it’s true love, then you start to see yourself through their eyes…and it brings out the best in you…and it’s almost as if you’re falling in love with yourself.
Music Is Everywhere
There’s this movie I’ve heard of once but quickly forgotten until I read about it again from The Fencesitter. It just came back to me while watching the opening credits that I knew there’s a movie that stars Freddie Highmore, Keri Russel, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, and Robin Williams.
August Rush is about an orphan who’s looking for his birth parents. He claims to be hearing them through the wind; through music. He leaves the adoption home he’s been staying on for the last 11 years and set on a journey to find the very people who gave him the music . Unknown to him, both his parents don’t know he is alive. Upon his arrival to New York, the city where he was created on the one night that should’ve lasted forever, it soon became apparent that Evan/August is a child prodigy. Untrained and unexperienced, writing and playing music came to him naturally. Which wouldn’t be such a mystery if the people who discovered him knew that his mother was a cellist who came from a line of classical musicians and his father was a rock musician. Nobody believes him when he say he’s following the music to find them. Why would they? They don’t have his gift.
Maybe not everyone will like this movie. It requires forgetting a certain level of maturity. It requires believing in a fantasy. Schmaltzy as the plot is, every music lover will find something to relate to. Even cry about. I loved it because I’m naturally sentimental – I believe in love at first sight and that people can feel they belong together even if they don’t really know each other; even if they don’t end up together just yet, they will find each other in the end. I believe in that kind of magic just as I believe I will someday write music. Fantastic as it may sound, watching this movie reminded me of those things. You know when they say something “has a heart”? Well, this film took mine as well.
Evan/August loves music more than he loves food. The movie clearly shows just how much it does, too. Watch it for the uber talented cast. Watch it for the music.
Something for the Lovelorn
A mighty pain to love it is
And ’tis a pain that pain to miss
But of all the pains, the greatest pain
It is to love but love in vain-Abraham Cowley-
I don’t know how many people can relate to those simple verses. A million perhaps? A billion?
Not that I’m feeling particularly enamored with anyone or anything.
Actually, what happened was this: We’re moving to another, significantly downgraded, office space (cue violent reaction). I was arranging my stuff when i saw a post-it scribbled with these lines. It’s probably from a year or two ago.
I don’t know what made me write it down back then, but I find these lines simple and direct to the point. Also, it rhymes. I’m keeping it here for archiving.
Over the Rainbow
When all the clouds, darken up the skyway
There’s a rainbow highway to be found
Leading from your window pane
To place, behind the sun
Just a step beyond the rain?
Two of my most favorite songs of all time talk about the same thing – rainbows. The first, with the introductory lyrics quoted above, is Over the Rainbow, which was created for the film The Wizard of Oz. The other one is Rainbow Connection, which I’ll probably discuss some other time.
There’s this certain version of the first song that is widely popular – that by the late Hawaiian singer Israel Kamakawiwo’ole. His was a pretty laid-back take on the song, which incidentally was featured as a medley with another one of my favorites, What a Wonderful World. It’s a very pleasant version to listen to, but, to me at least, making it sound upbeat sort of diminishes the thought and the heart of the song.
When Dorothy sang the lines, “Somewhere over the rainbow; bluebirds fly; birds fly over the rainbow; why then, oh why can’t I?”, she was looking toward the horizon – both dreamy and sad – hoping for some better place than the depression-era farmland she was currently living in. She fears for her dog, Toto, and wonders what the evil neighbor will do; she worries for her Aunt Em and Uncle Henry, who are both getting old.
There’s something about the slow-paced melody that envelopes the duality of desperation and hope, the wide-eyed innocence amidst uncertainty, that Dorothy felt, and that I, in more than ways than one, has come to relate to. That’s why Judy Garland’s will always be the most definitive version of that song for me. A close second would be Eva Cassidy’s.
Call it a tendency towards overemotionality, but there’s no way I can see those lines taken lightly and/or stylized. But that’s just me. I’m sure others will feel differently.
I have uploaded a few song versions in my other blog.
Colors of the Wind
Spring and summer
Every other day
Blue wind gets so sad.
Blowin’ through the thick corn
Through the bales of hay
Through the open books on the grass…Spring and summer
Sure, when it’s autumn
Wind always wants to
Creep up and haunt you -Whistling, it’s got you
With its heartache, and its sorrow
Winter wind sings and it cries . . .Blue Wind, Spring Awakening
I don’t know what all the colors are. It might take me a lifetime to figure it all out. And even if I won’t get to, blue wind has given me enough perspective to know that it’s alright.
An acquaintance asked me recently if I’d be interested to see a fortune teller. I plainly said no – I like the not knowing part; I like the mystery. The truth is, I’d get freaked out even if I won’t be inclined to believe. I may be alone in this but I think that life is beautiful exactly because you can’t understand it. The element of surprise keeps us on our toes; it keeps the blood flowing through our veins; it’s what tickles our brains. We anticipate; we hope; we dream to prosper.
Maybe blue wind does tend to blow in the direction of those who try to dig a little deeper in the mystery – those who can’t live through two-dimensionality. Because, in the end, all our questions are the same. The difference lies on how we accept our answers.