Thursday, October 20, 2011

Don't we all need a "respite from death"?

                                                     Midnight in Paris   
BRILLIANT! I really enjoyed watching this film. It confirms my idea again: Woody Allen is a great director, I also liked Match point very much, although I didn't like those depressive, erotico-neurotic films he starred in.
But let's come back to this great film. It has a wonderful idea and the whole plot is like a well-written book, it is like a vivid discovery of one's inner sensitivity, ability to dream and lust for love and passion and romantism.
I had the same feeling tonight as that year, that evening when I finished James Joyce's Ulysses.I could only understand it's a masterpiece, because it was something I hadn't read before, it was a universe, a sum of powerful feelings I had never experienced until that moment, most important, it was an intelligent and "strange" way of understanding LIFE and our role into this world. Two facts popped into my mind tonight: this Joycean flavor of Allen's film and the postmodernist view of the plot; the remembrance of the past, the need of re-living another era as a refuge from this "speed life",the need of the homo technologicus to feel, love and most of all be a part of his own cultural environment. The message I could take out was also related to the "cultural role" Paris somehow has established throughout centuries , the destiny of an artist in the modern world, choosing between an unimportant but wealthy script-writing job (in Gil's case) and the writing skills and passion that sets the real value of a writer timelessly.
The script is the one that facinated me most. There are so many lines that made me smile,think and really feel the magic of Paris(as a landmark not as a destination) -wondering the streets to enrich your soul with the magic sap of love and life people like Dali or Hemingway had the chance to,walking in the rain, feel the past and present together, lose your rationality and become a "poet" in your own life... all that made me enjoy the film even more.
"You'll never write well if you fear of dying"..." Have you ever made love to a truely great woman?"And when you make love you feel true and beautiful passion and in that moment you lose your fear of death?"...
"I believe that love that is true and real creates a respite from death"...
I don't know if it is just me, but I liked these words ...they talk about courage, the courage to live our lives and cherish every second , never let go...I would gladly recommend this film to nowadays teenagers, just because this film can give them a bit of confidence maybe, make them want to live and never try comiting suicide as easily as they do.And it's not just the film, is the idea of using books and these great artists as our respite from death, as our treasure that transcends these times, that makes us part of humanity-not part of a bunch of two-leg walking creatures, but creative and rational human beings.
The funny thing is I don't like Paris (the Eiffel Tower in particular), but I have to admit I saw some artistic pictures of Paris, such sparkling combinations of old and new features of universal art, a totally fresh and intriguing version of Paris, the one worth seeing and acknowledge.But for me Paris is a metaphore of Life in this film: the deeper you go, the more you understand, the less prejudice you start with, the better chance you have to get closer to the essence of things.
P.S. This film is an appetizer for culture...like that we should think of it, at least...

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