"Here's to the tears you knew you'd cry..."
Hey Kids,
I started this entry days and days ago, and got distracted over here, so here I am back to finish it.
Have you seen "Perfume: The Story of a Murderer"?
If any of you answered in the negative, please venture out and locate it, by whatever means you have at your disposal. It is a fantastic film. Until you HAVE seen it, don't venture behind this cut, because although I will try not to spoil it too much with my personal emotional and intellectual reactions to it, I may still over-reveal for those of you who prefer a purer experience of film.
Perfume Response
The idea of morality, of artistic freedom, of control, spun through my head after I saw this film. How much freedom do artists get in creating something beautiful, something perfect, something moving, is it worth sacrifices to make something that can move so many so much? One might say it's not about morality, it's not about ethics, it's about power. It doesn't matter if what he did is right or wrong, because he was untouchable. But he didn't exactly end well, did he? Is there then perhaps a higher power engineering his punishment, so that even if the perfume was more powerful than man, it was not more powerful than right? Then there's the issue of curse. Would he have been separated from connection with other people regardless of his behaviour? And if one is separated from society's pleasures and benefits, can one be expected to live within its laws and guidelines? And like Frankenstein's monster, we can ask of him whether it was pre-ordained destiny or experience that made him act as he did. Did his lack of odour, and phenomenal sense of smell, innate in him, lead to his evil acts, or was it his abandonment by his mother? The deaths of each of those he encountered along the way imply that some negative energy passed with him on his travels, but the world he lived in was hardly a safe one.
And what of the meaning of life? Do we have purpose? Is single-mindedness truly a meaningless coincidence? There was nothing he wished for our chased from his birth more than the perfect scent. Should he abandon his quest when he encounters perfection simply because there is no way to do it safely, to do it without sacrificing lives? Of course it's easy to crush the argument that "the end justifies the means" in most cases, and of course the question becomes "what of the purposes of those whose lives have been sacrificed? Can purpose be weighed, and if so, how does one do that without predicting the future?" Some would argue this is God's place, that if there is a higher power, it is that higher power that will judge the relative importance of purposes. It is difficult to include morality in this, however, as if there is truly an omnipotent higher power, even negative actions are a part of a higher plan, impossible to understand by those who play a part in it, but can one accept that and still take responsibility for one's own actions? I suppose consequence is what responsibility forces us to accept, but that brings us back to power, with enough power gained from immoral actions, one can often avoid the consequences of those actions.
Is this perhaps a story of success, then. He reached his goal of preserving scents and creating a perfect perfume, and used it, as he wished to, to win the love of the masses, and then, realisations aside, he had no purpose, he had no goal, and therefore ended his days.
In any case, a lot to think about.
EDIT: I realised this entry was unclear due to the cuts. This next bit is just some personal stuff I've been thinking about a lot lately. Feel free to ignore it, or read it, as your interest guides you.
Suffering
Throughout our lives, we encounter a lot of pain. I look back at the pains I went through in my childhood, and I have come to terms with them. I have taken in my past as a part of myself, and I see the ways I have been made who I am by what has happened to me. Sometimes people tell me about the pains that they have suffered. People I care for very deeply, people I love. It is these pasts that I have trouble taking in. I hope desperately that my listening helps, that my ears can ease pain. For the most part, I am not weighed down by others' stresses and miseries, but there are some things that are heavy in a way that they are hard to lift, that it is difficult to leave them behind. Some things that we are desperate to fix, to take away, to repair, that we wish we could take away, erase, or go back in time and prevent. Even the chance to hold people and tell them that everything will be alright, even if they don't need it any more, would be comforting, would mean everything. But then I feel sad, pathetic. I realise that I am asking to hold because I require comfort, and I am asking someone who truly suffered to comfort me because I cannot handle hearing about their suffering. It is MY weakness that is at issue. I think of myself as strong, but there are stories, there are words, there is pain in the lives of my friends, that I cannot stomach, that I cannot accept. I wish there was more I could do, I wish I could truly give all of the love that I feel. I wish that I wasn't so far away from everyone I'm so close to. A lot of people I know have had recent and past pains that I have offered to shoulder, and I would never change that. I want more than anything to listen and to be there and to care. I want more than anything to be needed, to be helpful. And maybe it is simply a sign of my desperation for attention, but it is not meaningless to me.
Until next time,
I'm Ktwilight.
I started this entry days and days ago, and got distracted over here, so here I am back to finish it.
Have you seen "Perfume: The Story of a Murderer"?
If any of you answered in the negative, please venture out and locate it, by whatever means you have at your disposal. It is a fantastic film. Until you HAVE seen it, don't venture behind this cut, because although I will try not to spoil it too much with my personal emotional and intellectual reactions to it, I may still over-reveal for those of you who prefer a purer experience of film.
Perfume Response
The idea of morality, of artistic freedom, of control, spun through my head after I saw this film. How much freedom do artists get in creating something beautiful, something perfect, something moving, is it worth sacrifices to make something that can move so many so much? One might say it's not about morality, it's not about ethics, it's about power. It doesn't matter if what he did is right or wrong, because he was untouchable. But he didn't exactly end well, did he? Is there then perhaps a higher power engineering his punishment, so that even if the perfume was more powerful than man, it was not more powerful than right? Then there's the issue of curse. Would he have been separated from connection with other people regardless of his behaviour? And if one is separated from society's pleasures and benefits, can one be expected to live within its laws and guidelines? And like Frankenstein's monster, we can ask of him whether it was pre-ordained destiny or experience that made him act as he did. Did his lack of odour, and phenomenal sense of smell, innate in him, lead to his evil acts, or was it his abandonment by his mother? The deaths of each of those he encountered along the way imply that some negative energy passed with him on his travels, but the world he lived in was hardly a safe one.
And what of the meaning of life? Do we have purpose? Is single-mindedness truly a meaningless coincidence? There was nothing he wished for our chased from his birth more than the perfect scent. Should he abandon his quest when he encounters perfection simply because there is no way to do it safely, to do it without sacrificing lives? Of course it's easy to crush the argument that "the end justifies the means" in most cases, and of course the question becomes "what of the purposes of those whose lives have been sacrificed? Can purpose be weighed, and if so, how does one do that without predicting the future?" Some would argue this is God's place, that if there is a higher power, it is that higher power that will judge the relative importance of purposes. It is difficult to include morality in this, however, as if there is truly an omnipotent higher power, even negative actions are a part of a higher plan, impossible to understand by those who play a part in it, but can one accept that and still take responsibility for one's own actions? I suppose consequence is what responsibility forces us to accept, but that brings us back to power, with enough power gained from immoral actions, one can often avoid the consequences of those actions.
Is this perhaps a story of success, then. He reached his goal of preserving scents and creating a perfect perfume, and used it, as he wished to, to win the love of the masses, and then, realisations aside, he had no purpose, he had no goal, and therefore ended his days.
In any case, a lot to think about.
EDIT: I realised this entry was unclear due to the cuts. This next bit is just some personal stuff I've been thinking about a lot lately. Feel free to ignore it, or read it, as your interest guides you.
Suffering
Throughout our lives, we encounter a lot of pain. I look back at the pains I went through in my childhood, and I have come to terms with them. I have taken in my past as a part of myself, and I see the ways I have been made who I am by what has happened to me. Sometimes people tell me about the pains that they have suffered. People I care for very deeply, people I love. It is these pasts that I have trouble taking in. I hope desperately that my listening helps, that my ears can ease pain. For the most part, I am not weighed down by others' stresses and miseries, but there are some things that are heavy in a way that they are hard to lift, that it is difficult to leave them behind. Some things that we are desperate to fix, to take away, to repair, that we wish we could take away, erase, or go back in time and prevent. Even the chance to hold people and tell them that everything will be alright, even if they don't need it any more, would be comforting, would mean everything. But then I feel sad, pathetic. I realise that I am asking to hold because I require comfort, and I am asking someone who truly suffered to comfort me because I cannot handle hearing about their suffering. It is MY weakness that is at issue. I think of myself as strong, but there are stories, there are words, there is pain in the lives of my friends, that I cannot stomach, that I cannot accept. I wish there was more I could do, I wish I could truly give all of the love that I feel. I wish that I wasn't so far away from everyone I'm so close to. A lot of people I know have had recent and past pains that I have offered to shoulder, and I would never change that. I want more than anything to listen and to be there and to care. I want more than anything to be needed, to be helpful. And maybe it is simply a sign of my desperation for attention, but it is not meaningless to me.
Until next time,
I'm Ktwilight.