First, I should say this isn't intended as a movie review or a critique. I wouldn't even recommend this period piece with an intriguing plot after it's total comtamination at the end-scene. (Seriously, Hollywood, I don't want to watch other people having sex! When we tell people in real life to "get a room" we extend that to our film watching and are hoping you will close the door...)
This movie made me wonder about the political movements of the world. I wonder just how many plots have been spun by the mind of a woman whispered into the ear of her lover. Greek literature, Shakespeare, in this case, Henry James...was even the dreaded Genghis Khan fulfilling his lover's fantasy of power -- she wanting to share the bed of a god who ruled the world instead of just a general? There are little details of influence we will never know, but it causes me to pause and remember my own influence. What twists and snarls can I weave in the hands of fate under blinking lashes?
The second thing was the art and the body of a woman...in this movie, the three main characters bump into each other at a museum featuring the art of Gustav Klimt -- so much color and nakedness. Last night, in my bacterial infested brain -- thanks cold and flu season! -- three things kept playing around. One, Helean Bonham Carter's (Kate) bony, pointy body curled up in a fetal position on the bed. Two, the rounded edges of a woman in the same pose depicted by Klimt. Three, me...and my thirty pounds.
When I was a girl, even as a young mother, I weighed in at a bony, pointy edged 120-125lbs. It took a huge family and a broken coccyx to slow me down enough. Staring at Kate's thin frame and desperate face, all I could think of was hunger -- the kind that aches in your belly, to the back of your heart, and whittles away at your brain. How can love be offered from a place of desperation? I wonder if that is why painters have told the story with curves...curved shoulders, rounded hips, swollen breasts...fullness, softness, and plentitude...as if the love would never run out. Why is it our culture still spends so much time trying to be "skinny" and not enough time just being at peace with ourselves and our journey anyways?
Yes, cold medicine + odd movie = strange dreams.
This movie made me wonder about the political movements of the world. I wonder just how many plots have been spun by the mind of a woman whispered into the ear of her lover. Greek literature, Shakespeare, in this case, Henry James...was even the dreaded Genghis Khan fulfilling his lover's fantasy of power -- she wanting to share the bed of a god who ruled the world instead of just a general? There are little details of influence we will never know, but it causes me to pause and remember my own influence. What twists and snarls can I weave in the hands of fate under blinking lashes?
The second thing was the art and the body of a woman...in this movie, the three main characters bump into each other at a museum featuring the art of Gustav Klimt -- so much color and nakedness. Last night, in my bacterial infested brain -- thanks cold and flu season! -- three things kept playing around. One, Helean Bonham Carter's (Kate) bony, pointy body curled up in a fetal position on the bed. Two, the rounded edges of a woman in the same pose depicted by Klimt. Three, me...and my thirty pounds.
When I was a girl, even as a young mother, I weighed in at a bony, pointy edged 120-125lbs. It took a huge family and a broken coccyx to slow me down enough. Staring at Kate's thin frame and desperate face, all I could think of was hunger -- the kind that aches in your belly, to the back of your heart, and whittles away at your brain. How can love be offered from a place of desperation? I wonder if that is why painters have told the story with curves...curved shoulders, rounded hips, swollen breasts...fullness, softness, and plentitude...as if the love would never run out. Why is it our culture still spends so much time trying to be "skinny" and not enough time just being at peace with ourselves and our journey anyways?
Yes, cold medicine + odd movie = strange dreams.
Oh, and p.s., I cannot believe that after a full-time working mom dry spell of movie watching THIS is what I broke it with.
ReplyDeleteI love this movie! One of my favs!
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