Forgive my absence, I've been short on time and desire, but with the approaching of spring I suspect that the reflective bug will bite more frequently.
About a week ago Zach, Scott, Justice and I went to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button at a local dinner cinema. I enjoyed the movie... well, most of it anyway. For one thing, the Scott Joplin tune Bethena (one of only two pieces he wrote in waltz time) makes three appearances during the film. I love that song, and it holds pleasant memories of youth for me as well, because I performed it at a statewide piano competition my senior year of highschool (and didn't even get an honorable mention thankyouverymuch, but I enjoyed it nonetheless).
The movie is picturesque, sweeping, filled with all the joys and sorrows of life. It reminded me of Big Fish, except that in Benjamin Button, the frame story really added very little to the larger tale, whereas in Big Fish the two are woven together so beautifully that you forget that there even is a frame story. In that respect, CCBB was more like The Princess Bride.
I tried, I really tried, to love the movie. I tried not to be critical. I tried not to parse its every subtlety and flaw. I tried, and I failed. Thinking back now I am finally able to put into words what bothered me when I saw it. I can forgive immoral characters. We are imperfect, sinful people, and art should reflect life. What I cannot abide is the portrayal of marriage as a hindrance to love. With the exception of Benjamin's parents, there are two married couples in the movie. Both relationships hint at a cold, loveless, convenient formality. Love, on the other hand, is expressed solely through sex, regardless of marital status and, in many instances, in the face of it, as an escape for Benjamin's two lovers from the confines to which they must restrict themselves out of necessity.
At no point in the film did I find myself feeling the character's pain as I watched them make the right decision, even though it hurt. There seemed to be no effort to even attempt moral action. The guiding star of both protagonists was self-satisfaction disguised as love. Real love involves sacrifice, pain, hardship, and devotion; it is not a beautiful, passing fling. To divorce marriage and love, marriage and sex, is to strip all three of their meaning. And in this the film left me empty, longing with an unsatisfied desire to see a depiction of real love, rather than this empty fraud, sneaking about and following our passions, giving no thought to our duties or spouses, who are merely a convenience to be discarded at will.
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I liked the movie. It was a bit strange, but I adore character development, and that movie had a TON of that.
ReplyDeleteI also try to go to movies to simply enjoy the good parts. Don't you think there were plenty of good moments that don't need to be over-analyzed and simply enjoyed?
There was definitely much that I liked about the movie, and I really did enjoy it. I love the way Queenie takes him in and calls him a child of God. I love little Daisy and how sweet she is. I love the scene at the lake when his father dies, and the closing scene where it sort of sums up the whole of life as the movie told it.
ReplyDeleteI like guns. This movie needed more of them.
ReplyDeleteThe movie should've been condensed into that single scene on the tugboat during WWII. That had _plenty_ of character development, Guns, Explosions, and some tear-jerking drama.
Naked in and naked out with all the other stuff in between. I'd have to say the biggest "failing" of the film, outside of the general selfishness of just about everyone, to me at least, was using Katrina as some excuse to unveil this womans past. Better to have been in some largish plantation like building off the bayou with large rooms and wispy curtains with bright streaming sunlight from sunrise to sunset to mark the passage of time. Cliche? Who cares! More emotion... and I'm all for a good tear jerker. Not enough decent ones out there.
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