storytelling

getupgrrl -- I've mentioned her weblog before -- is one of those women you wish you had as a neighbor. She's funny and insightful and smart and kind, except when she's truly provoked by people who are stupid and mean, in which case she cuts right to the bone, no apologies or evasion. I have had, I probably will always have, a serious grrlcrush on getupgrrl.

She's had another loss, and as usual its in these awful situations that her writing (always excellent) takes on the characteristics of an aria. This paragraph:

What I wanted from this journey - what I still want, even now - is for it to have meaning, some kind of value.  I want it to make me a better human being.  I don't believe that "things happen for a reason," that there's a specific, mystical purpose underlying every random accident and heartbreak.  But I do believe that heartbreak can be infused with purpose, that we can choose to give it meaning.  On my better days, I think that's what it means to be alive - to create a coherent arc of meaning out of the seemingly disparate, and occasionally tragic, events of our lives.

from a post about Raymond Carver, loss, hope and a lot of other things made me stop everything I was doing and just sit and think for a while. I don't think I could have ever verbalized this thought of hers, ever in this lifetime, although it captures a very deeply held belief of my own.

By the way, Joshua is also back in town. This is a typical post and it also gave me a lot to think about.

Posted by at 3:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)

So I haven't posted any reviews for a long time. Things have been complicated, and my thoughts about other people's books and movies, etc, have not been well organized. But I wanted to write a few words here about a movie I just saw on DVD. This isn't a review of the movie, per se; it's more an observation about the intersection of history and storytelling.

First, I don't really want to get into a big discussion of M. Night Shyamalan's work. I will say, just as a statement, that I think he's struggling uphill, the way anybody will who first has a huge hit and then has to try to match that again and again. My own take on his films: I liked Unbreakable best for its quirkiness and dark colors and what I considered a far more interesting underlying conflict than The Sixth Sense; The Sixth Sense next; then The Village; last (and least) Signs. So if you haven't seen The Village but want to, and don't want any surprises spoiled, don't read any further.

I watched this movie twice on DVD in the last few days, and a lot of ideas went through my head. Most of them are not things M. Night Shyamalan would be happy about. For example: somebody with a PhD in American history who teaches as The University of Pennsylvania (the main character, but you don't know that to start with: you see him as an elementary school teacher) is bound to have a far more sophisticated and less romanticized view of the 1800s than M. Night Shyamalan does, and so the whole premise of the movie fails.

To be more specific: if such a professor, traumatized by the violence of modern life, wanted to get away and start fresh, he'd know too much about the way things really were to try to create this perfect world of a circa-1890 village in the middle of a huge, private wildlife preserve.

Because of course, that's the twist. They aren't in the past at all, but in a pseudo-Amish type present, except nobody in the younger generation KNOWS that. The elders know, because they chose to start the Village, and they've spent the last thirty years trying to keep the youngsters from going out and exploring the wider world. To protect them from violence. Of course, violence sometimes comes from within, and they learn that the hard way.

The other kinds of questions that went through my mind were along this line: look at those shoes, do they have a cobbler? and, If they can't go into the woods, how are they heating all those buildings through a Pennsylvania winter? Where does the firewood come from? and: Crikey, the brute labor necessary to keep this community in food and clothes and shelter without ANY trade with the outside world -- these people look way too relaxed and merry. Where did they get the cotton for those dresses, because they sure aren't growing it in that climate. Where are the flax fields? Who makes rope when they need it? Where are all the spinning wheels and looms? What about the mills for corn and for cutting lumber? Do they make ink, and use quills? Where's the blacksmithy? Who supplies glass when one of the windows in the greenhouse breaks? Wait, what did they sweeten that wedding cake with? Honey?

All of these questions led me to figure out the twist (that they aren't in the year 1897, really) very quickly. Especially as the timing was just off. By 1897 photography was pretty wide spread, and it's almost impossible to imagine an eastern village so isolated that nobody would come looking for the people in it, sooner or later. Maybe -- maybe I could have bought all this if the year had been 1700, when huge portions of the country were far less overrun with European types -- but even then it would have been hard.

Now see, because I had such trouble with the historical aspects of this movie, I couldn't really appreciate the story, and there were things to appreciate. Joachim Phoenix -- he really is an excellent actor -- did an incredible job with one of the main characters. The love story, which wasn't much of the plot but important, was gently told and really beautiful. I really cared about some of the characters, but there just wasn't enough of most of them to pull me in.

I wish I could turn off my mind when I see a movie like this, but that seems to be beyond me.

Posted by at 2:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)