Film: Archipelago
I did have quite low expectations, mainly because I was very unmoved by Unrelated, Joanna Hogg's debut movie (which had a young Tom Hiddleston in it) and the reviews were not too kind.
What was unexpected was, that Edward, the young man Tom Hiddleston played, was a carbon copy of my fiancé no. 2 (they even look and dress alike!) and it brought all those memories forth: awkward dinners with his family (the father was a monarchistic lawyer and right winger and the mother was one of these sweet, pretty women who always look on the verge of tears and paint aquarels-like Edward's mother in the film actually), the older sister, who seemed to be quite high strung. Lots of family drama, nastiness, anxiety, tears, and in between the same awkwardness that dominated Archipelago.
It was a good movie, but not for everyone-I can perfectly see, why so many didn't like it. I have difficulties with it, because I'm not even from that background. If anything, I'd be like Rose, the chef, the family hires-an intruder. I suspect that this film was intended as a glimpse into a typical dysfunctional family, shortly before breaking apart. To me it was also about people from a certain class, a social group I don't belong to, which put quite a distance between me and the characters in the film.
What I liked was everyone's flawless acting-sure, the characters were not likeable, and weren't supposed to be, and it was tempting to feel superior to them-but they were convincing. Often, the film didn't feel scripted and it provided the illusion of authenticity. Again-Tom Hiddleston's acting stood out. I felt, that he paid a lot of attention to details-how autobiographical Edward was for him, I don't know.
For me personally the drama was also at times strangely amusing, because it reminded me of all the little things about fiancé No. 2, which in the end drove me away from him. Afterwards we parted, got together again, met in different countries, tried to become friends, then parted again, and so on (until last year he finally got married) and watching Tom Hiddleston being this person-this aimless, young man-I felt I could have been a lot easier on poor No. 2. He got terribly on my nerves then, and I was quite horrible to him-out of impatience mostly-and because I never understood that he was relying on me for direction, something I couldn't possibly provide in that age.
(On the other side, that's probably the wisdom we should take for all relationships in our lives ... not to be too hard on people and on ourselves?)
It's a typical feature of art house movies not to offer solutions or tie up their plots neatly, referring to the chaos of real life. My younger self would have said, that this film was pointless, but now I take from it, that it was a Momentaufnahme-a very detailed snapshot of a family consisting of individuals, who don't really have anything in common. It might be comparable to those holiday pictures we always take-a number of disjointed, meaningless images, half of them too dark, too blurry, too much exposure, etc., until we stumble over them years later and find that all these faded photographs really tell a story.
Last but not least, it's also sort of a promotion for a vacation house-the house does exist I think, and it's possible to rent it. The place is quite pretty, if a bit lonely, but I'll be sure to bring my own chef ;P