LJ Idol Week 1 - Saying Goodbye

[monkeysugarmama]

When the phone rang, I was busy. Well, not really busy, I was just reading on the couch, but in my freshly-graduated mind, I was too busy to be disturbed. I’d just started a new job. After a day of straightening shelves and chasing kids around the children’s section of the library, all I wanted to do was relax with my book, drink a glass of cheap

Comments

[monkeysugarmama]

You're one of those folks who wants a movie to end with some kind of resolution, I guess? (I am teasing you because I am that way too.)

I am sorry you felt like I was turning horror into melodrama. I ended it where I did for a few reasons.

First, I felt like that was the most powerful place to stop to express our theme of "Saying Goodbye."

Second, the story was meant to express my realization of that old cliche that you never know if this is the last time you are saying goodbye to someone. I felt like my mother would always be around, so I wasn't appreciating what I had, only to suddenly discover she might be gone forever.

And finally, I don't know if you were a spectator last season, but one of the critiques I got most frequently was that my stories got a little looong. So, I figured, since there are 180 entres this week, I might edit myself and save folks some reading time!

My goal was absolutely not to trivialize one of the darkest days our country has ever seen by turning it into a soap opera and I am really sorry if it felt that way to you.

[theafaye]

I wouldn't say that you trivialised it - it is a very powerful story and absolutely sums up the sorts of emotions that people went through on that day. More that leaving it open ended like that makes the MOST powerful response what happened next???? Rather than, as you so aptly put it, never knowing which goodbye will be your last. It makes the greatest focus on did she survive rather than everything else and I think that's a shame because you have such a hard hitting story. You totally have my vote for it, I just personally feel that it would have been better answering that question so that people could focus on the message rather than the ending - after all, how many people's comment has been 'is she alive?'

As for movies ending with resolutions, it actually depends. My favourite playwright of all time is Harold Pinter and he's hardly known for his coherent stories - for me, good characterisation is preferable to a logically concluded story and I hate Hollywood schmaltz. But it has to be done well and in the right way - my husband and I both hated "No Country for Old Men" because there were just too many unanswered questions left too loose to be able to satisfactorily resolve them yourself. "Lost In Translation" is the only film we've ever walked out on, we thought it was that bad - I think that's mainly because neither of us could empathise with the main characters and without that, the film has little else to appeal.

I don't think I'd have minded *as* much if the next round of LJI was going to be "continue the story you wrote for the last entry" - but it would still have the feel of a magazine serialisation for me.

[monkeysugarmama]

Too funny as far as next week's topic, lol!

Well, my plan was to come back to it and finish the story anyway, which I did this morning, so now no one else has to wait!

As for movies, I haven't seen No Country, but I do recall not being as enthralled with Lost in Translation as the rest of the world. I did find the karaoke scene amusing but the rest just kind of left me flat.

When you said No Country For Old Men for a second I thought Brokeback Mountain which I didn't see until this spring. Now *that* movie was one of the best I have seen in forever.

[theafaye]

I read the follow up comment - glad to hear it. I suspected that might be the case, but you just never know - so many people lost someone or knew someone who did.

Haven't seen Brokeback Mountain. On my "to watch" list but it's not really the sort of thing my husband would be interested in, so I have to time renting it for when I'm able to watch it and not impact on him. Early labour is possibly a good time...

I think the karaoke scene was about when Lost in Translation started to lose us and we walked not long after that. IIRC, we just kept waiting for something to happen and nothing did. I'm sure that was the point of the movie, but it just didn't appeal to us - if nothing's going to happen, make darned sure your characters are a heck of a lot more interesting than they were. I think the only bit I enjoyed was the translator during the ad filming clearly editing what they were being told. But that had a lot more to do with Bill Murray's deadpan delivery than anything else.