We are warned at the beginning of (500) Days of Summer (Mark Webb, 2009), “this is not a love story”. In world where relationship lines are increasingly blurred, gender roles are shifting, more marriages end in divorce than happiness, and the media increasingly infiltrates our lives, one has to question, has love lost its meaning? And can you say ‘I love you’ with a greeting card?
So many formulaic rom-coms are released each year that churn out fantasy love stories on the variation of boy meets girl who, after a few bumps in the road and quirky adventures, realise they are meant to be together and (assumedly) live happily ever after (or at the least movie ends before the real issues begin). Hollywood has been doing this since Katherine Hepburn made cracks about Cary Grant’s dinosaur bones in Bringing Up Baby (Howard Hawks, 1938). Though we are under no illusions that Days of Summer is one of those films, you can be forgiven for still hoping for that cliched happy ending. By resisting this, the film captures a certain modern cynicism.
The movies and consumer culture infiltrate the characters’ lives. Instead of discussing their relationship, Summer insists on going to the movies. In his deepest moments of sorrow Tom pictures himself as characters in French New Wave films he watching (and who hasn’t done that?!) On their first date, Tom and Summer ironically play house in an Ikea store, the embodiment of pre-fabricated, assembly-line domestic bliss. Except it is exposed as a fabrication – nothing works. Just like Tom is kidding himself about the future of his and Summer’s relationship.
Although Tom’s speech when he realises he is part of the very system that propagates the unreasonable expectations of love that he has fallen victim, is less than subtle, it demonstrates the disillusionment of a generation that thrives on the same mass media culture that they want to rebel against.
Summer embodies a contemporary cynicism towards love and finding ‘the one’. She says she wants something “casual”, that she doesn’t believe in love. She is also pragmatic. When asked what happened to her previous boyfriends, she simply says “life happened”. So is it ironic that she is the one who ends up married? Perhaps, but this does not necessarily mean she has found true love or ‘the on’e. In fact Summer’s motives remain elusive. As Tom says “you just do what you want, don’t you”.
It is refreshing to see a role reversal where the woman has all the power and is active in setting the plot into motion. While he is too tongue-tied to even ask his dream girl out, she makes out with him in the copy room. She waits in his bed naked while he composes himself in the bathroom. It is made explicit when Summer compares them to Sid and Nancy and clarifies “I’m Sid”. This demonstrates how men are increasingly feminised by contemporary society, where their traditional roles as dominant hunter are being undermined.
This film is also about what we project onto people, the feelings and connections that may or may not be there. What evidence does Tom have that him and Summer are meant to be? Because she likes the same music as him and happened to work in the same office?
Sometimes you feel like we are only being shown what Tom wants to remember, or what fits into his fantasy. At one stage Summer points out that they are always fighting but the film only shows one scene where they argue. Like so many of us he blocks out those moments he doesn’t want to remember: her crying at the end of The Graduate and not sharing with him why; moving her hand away when he goes to hold it. The things that don’t fit in with the fantasy are blocked out.
The role of the narrator is important, giving the feeling of fantasy and storytelling. Sometimes you are not sure whether what you are seeing on screen matches the narration or whether to believe the only identification point offered – Tom’s. The action in the film often undermines the romanticism of the narration. The narrator tells us “the next four words changed everything” but when Summer says “I haven’t told anyone”, it does not seem that significant.
The structure of the film encapsulates the way we reflect back on relationships. Time is not linear. Memories interact with each other and spark new memories. And only once you have reached the end of something can you truly understanding everything that has come before.
And at the end of the day, the best you can hope for is that you will learn something from the experience. It helps Tom get out the rut he is in career-wise and pursue what he’s always wanted to do. (The film would have been more satisfying for me if he’d got his dream job at the end). Sometimes it might not work out the way you hoped with someone but they might have changed your life for the better in some other way.
The ending is a little flat and tries to play it both ways. For those who want to believe in the Hollywood happy ending, ‘fate’ brings Tom a new girl who could be the love of his life (conveniently named Autumn). For those who want to remain cynical, it echoes with hollowness, simply providing another person for Tom to project his unreasonable expectations onto.
As for me, I was left remembering the last scene between Tom and Summer and the message that there are some people you will never understand and you just have to let it go.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Monday, February 2, 2009
Woody in Barcelona
Vicky Cristina Barcelona (Woody Allen 2008) is one of those charming ‘slice of life films’ where the consequences of their actions may not have lasting repercussions but the characters are changed by their unique experiences. Normality is rocked but equilibrium is restored at the end. (Significantly these films often occur as part of an overseas holiday or being taken out of everyday life, Sophia Coppola’s Lost In Translation (2003) being just one example).
Some may be thankful that Woody has moved away from the narcissitic desire to star in all his films while playing out all his psychoanalytic anxiety and neuroses. In this film he turns to the lives of two American girls, taking some time out in Barcelona, with very difficult ideas of love. Like all Woody Allen films, Vicky Cristina Barcelona has plenty of psychoanalytic fodder. For Woody fans, never fear, the neuroses are still there (particularly in the character of Vicky and her overanalytical diatribes, arguably a sign of repression).
The performances are charming, the dialogue is witty, and the Latin ‘love amour’ of Juan Antonio and Maria Elena is full of fire (irrational, emotional and flaming – just as a hot-blooded passion should be!). Barcelona, as the title suggests, is a character in itself and this please all those virtual tourists in the audience. Javier Bardem manages to avoid stereotypes playing the seductive Latin lover and despite the initial urge to dislike him, you can’t help being drawn into his world just like Cristina and Vicky are. Afterall, it looks so scrumptious, why wouldn’t you be?
When the narrator speaks you expect to hear Woody’s voice because you know it is him behind the scenes driving this narrative. Nevertheless that awareness of watching a contrived piece of art creates an important layer to the film. The narrator’s voice is well used, not only to keep the story moving but it creates an alienation to remind you this is just a story at the moments when you are tempted to become too engaged.
I like to think of the two female leads in terms of Kristeva’s melancholic. The melancholic is one who gets pleasure out of his secret heart of woe, out of being deprived of the fulfillment of his desires. To put it crudely, the melancholic gets off on loss. In particular this resonates in the character of Cristina who, as the narrator informs us “knows what she doesn’t want but is not sure what she is looking for”.
The melancholic links back to Kristeva’s foreigner. Cristina is literally the tourist in a foreign place but she also gives off the free-spirit sense of belonging nowhere, bathing in the absence that comes with failed love affairs, never learning Spanish so she can’t understand the conversations between Juan and his ex wife, having some unknown desire that can never be fulfilled, and perhaps delighting in her own melancholy. Interestingly she is opposite to Maria Elena in looks (blonde vs brown, American vs Spanish) and countenance (quiet vs fiery).
On the other hand, Vicky who knows exactly what she wants but throughout the film is forced to question her ideals. Through this and more explicitly the threesome that develops in Cristina’s life, the film questions the concept of heterosexual monogamy. Vicky’s fiancee is a tiresome bore, obsessed with material possessions - you can’t understand why she would want to spend the rest of her life with him. His potentially romantic gesture of marrying in Spain (to of course be reinforced by a properly elaborate wedding with all their family and friend in New York) instead seems contrived. It’s great to see Vicky, the pragmatic one, being tempted to throw her sensibilities aside.
But this film is also about people repeating the same destructive patterns (how Freudian!). All the characters are guilty of this. Cristina leaves what she has seemingly always wanted for no apparent reason (though arguably this cannot be sustainable in the real world so has to end) but in the context of her character it is plausible. Vicky resist the seductions of true passion in favour of her rational approach to “love”, doomed to middle class ennui. Juan Antonio can not helped being sucked back into the destructive patterns of his relationship with Maria Elena (perhaps hoping this time it will bring them happiness). And of course there’s peripheral character of Judy who tries to live vicariously through Vicky, only see her own pattern replayed.
And at end you cannot help wondering if people are afraid to let themselves be happy. Or perhaps this film just appeals to the melancholic in all of us!
Some may be thankful that Woody has moved away from the narcissitic desire to star in all his films while playing out all his psychoanalytic anxiety and neuroses. In this film he turns to the lives of two American girls, taking some time out in Barcelona, with very difficult ideas of love. Like all Woody Allen films, Vicky Cristina Barcelona has plenty of psychoanalytic fodder. For Woody fans, never fear, the neuroses are still there (particularly in the character of Vicky and her overanalytical diatribes, arguably a sign of repression).
The performances are charming, the dialogue is witty, and the Latin ‘love amour’ of Juan Antonio and Maria Elena is full of fire (irrational, emotional and flaming – just as a hot-blooded passion should be!). Barcelona, as the title suggests, is a character in itself and this please all those virtual tourists in the audience. Javier Bardem manages to avoid stereotypes playing the seductive Latin lover and despite the initial urge to dislike him, you can’t help being drawn into his world just like Cristina and Vicky are. Afterall, it looks so scrumptious, why wouldn’t you be?
When the narrator speaks you expect to hear Woody’s voice because you know it is him behind the scenes driving this narrative. Nevertheless that awareness of watching a contrived piece of art creates an important layer to the film. The narrator’s voice is well used, not only to keep the story moving but it creates an alienation to remind you this is just a story at the moments when you are tempted to become too engaged.
I like to think of the two female leads in terms of Kristeva’s melancholic. The melancholic is one who gets pleasure out of his secret heart of woe, out of being deprived of the fulfillment of his desires. To put it crudely, the melancholic gets off on loss. In particular this resonates in the character of Cristina who, as the narrator informs us “knows what she doesn’t want but is not sure what she is looking for”.
The melancholic links back to Kristeva’s foreigner. Cristina is literally the tourist in a foreign place but she also gives off the free-spirit sense of belonging nowhere, bathing in the absence that comes with failed love affairs, never learning Spanish so she can’t understand the conversations between Juan and his ex wife, having some unknown desire that can never be fulfilled, and perhaps delighting in her own melancholy. Interestingly she is opposite to Maria Elena in looks (blonde vs brown, American vs Spanish) and countenance (quiet vs fiery).
On the other hand, Vicky who knows exactly what she wants but throughout the film is forced to question her ideals. Through this and more explicitly the threesome that develops in Cristina’s life, the film questions the concept of heterosexual monogamy. Vicky’s fiancee is a tiresome bore, obsessed with material possessions - you can’t understand why she would want to spend the rest of her life with him. His potentially romantic gesture of marrying in Spain (to of course be reinforced by a properly elaborate wedding with all their family and friend in New York) instead seems contrived. It’s great to see Vicky, the pragmatic one, being tempted to throw her sensibilities aside.
But this film is also about people repeating the same destructive patterns (how Freudian!). All the characters are guilty of this. Cristina leaves what she has seemingly always wanted for no apparent reason (though arguably this cannot be sustainable in the real world so has to end) but in the context of her character it is plausible. Vicky resist the seductions of true passion in favour of her rational approach to “love”, doomed to middle class ennui. Juan Antonio can not helped being sucked back into the destructive patterns of his relationship with Maria Elena (perhaps hoping this time it will bring them happiness). And of course there’s peripheral character of Judy who tries to live vicariously through Vicky, only see her own pattern replayed.
And at end you cannot help wondering if people are afraid to let themselves be happy. Or perhaps this film just appeals to the melancholic in all of us!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)