My Sweet Movie Weekend
So as I promised, here are my musings over the movie dessert I had last weekend.
On Saturday I had a Japanese love story Tada, kimi wo aishiteru with some apricot pastries :)
thanks to katrine_nicole
And on Sunday it was a late night with a British independent movie How To Be and several Milka chocolate bars :))
yeah, PLEASE don't ask me what got me into watching this one!
Saturday was a Japanese day for me :) I usually try not to lose the possibilities of learning something new and exploring different genres, Japanese cinema this time.
From what I read in katrine_nicole's review, I knew this was going to be a sad story. Really sad one. So I mentally prepared myself for crying my eyes out.
The unlikely love of two students. He, a photography lover, she, an ugly duckling, fragile, naive and with a biggest heart in the world. He just fails to see her as a woman, and she can make him, knowing that his love belongs elsewhere. Still they are best friends because they just cannot go on without each other.
They have their secret place, a forest where they can put all the masks aside and be who they are, just two souls speaking the same language.
I totally agree that these movies are better served subbed. I grew very suspicious about the whole translation thing actually. I wish I knew Japanese, of course, but better subs than nothing :)
What really amazed me here is that the acting was so much like in the anime! All the expressions, the gestures, the dialogues... I could easily picture all this being an animation! I sometimes even caught myself thinking 'oh and this is where a large drop appears by his head!' :)
On a more serious note, it really touched me, this story. I doubt that it can leave anybody indifferent. It may be naive, silly at times, sentimental or whatever, but isn't life like this? I mean, when I watched it, I really thought of one girl I know, a Japanese Lang and Lit graduate, who is a splitting image of Sizuru!
A little girl, so different from the others, and not afraid to be different. Because she knows that changing the smallest thing will simply destroy her, make her average, just like everybody else. A girl who can dream, who can see a world smiling in her face even though she's suffering. And yet she keeps dreaming, dreaming to become a part of that world, to be a beautiful woman just like many others.
I didn't think it could surprise me but it did. The final twists of the story left me speechless. The would-be love that simply wasn't meant to be.
I said that I'm really fond of being able to feel the rhythm of the story, to breathe with it. Well, the feeling was there. I was breathing with this wistful cantilena and its last chords fading into the quiet goodbye.
***
Deciding to lift up my spirits for the working week, my Sunday made me steal all the chocolate I had at home and pile it in my bed with a DVD of How To Be ready.
Now this, this is a completely different cup of tea :))
In a nutshell, Art is a twenty-something and he never seems to get anything right in his life. He wants to be a musician but doesn't have enough self-confidence to do it. In fact, he doesn't have enough confidence to do anything at all. So he gets himself a shrink from Canada who comes to live with him and his parents, watching every Art's step and telling him what to do.
Funny yet? XD Guess not. What can be funny in a "fellow in distress" story? I thought it was going to be as crazy as any other independent film, I mean stream-of-consciousness-ish and absolutely incoherent. But! What I didn't know is that I'm going to laugh so hard it actually hurt! :)
Once again I felt this inexplicable love for the British accent. And the music. And actually in a way the acting reminded me of Sex and the City: the nonchalant small talk, the scruffy look of the characters, the showing-how-life-really-is-cause-it's-not-pretty.
The tragicomic events that take place, they do not leave a bitter after-taste. You just carry on watching this world through the eyes of this funny, pathetic, terribly insecure kid who step by step finds the way to his place in life.
The movie is inspiring, yeah, I'd say. The kid finally gets his way. Let it be only a small grain on the shore, an appreciation of his music by a handful of close friends and family, but it does mean much.
Psst, Robert, you do sing so much better in Twilight! XD Can't compare though, different genres. However, music is music, love it either way :))
When I finished watching the movie, I was dancing on my bed (which is rather dangerous, lol!). Just couldn't stop. It must have been the endorphins kicking in. Anyway, thank you, Milka and How To Be, for a fantastic evening :)
On Saturday I had a Japanese love story Tada, kimi wo aishiteru with some apricot pastries :)
thanks to katrine_nicole
And on Sunday it was a late night with a British independent movie How To Be and several Milka chocolate bars :))
yeah, PLEASE don't ask me what got me into watching this one!
Saturday was a Japanese day for me :) I usually try not to lose the possibilities of learning something new and exploring different genres, Japanese cinema this time.
From what I read in katrine_nicole's review, I knew this was going to be a sad story. Really sad one. So I mentally prepared myself for crying my eyes out.
The unlikely love of two students. He, a photography lover, she, an ugly duckling, fragile, naive and with a biggest heart in the world. He just fails to see her as a woman, and she can make him, knowing that his love belongs elsewhere. Still they are best friends because they just cannot go on without each other.
They have their secret place, a forest where they can put all the masks aside and be who they are, just two souls speaking the same language.
I totally agree that these movies are better served subbed. I grew very suspicious about the whole translation thing actually. I wish I knew Japanese, of course, but better subs than nothing :)
What really amazed me here is that the acting was so much like in the anime! All the expressions, the gestures, the dialogues... I could easily picture all this being an animation! I sometimes even caught myself thinking 'oh and this is where a large drop appears by his head!' :)
On a more serious note, it really touched me, this story. I doubt that it can leave anybody indifferent. It may be naive, silly at times, sentimental or whatever, but isn't life like this? I mean, when I watched it, I really thought of one girl I know, a Japanese Lang and Lit graduate, who is a splitting image of Sizuru!
A little girl, so different from the others, and not afraid to be different. Because she knows that changing the smallest thing will simply destroy her, make her average, just like everybody else. A girl who can dream, who can see a world smiling in her face even though she's suffering. And yet she keeps dreaming, dreaming to become a part of that world, to be a beautiful woman just like many others.
I didn't think it could surprise me but it did. The final twists of the story left me speechless. The would-be love that simply wasn't meant to be.
I said that I'm really fond of being able to feel the rhythm of the story, to breathe with it. Well, the feeling was there. I was breathing with this wistful cantilena and its last chords fading into the quiet goodbye.
***
Deciding to lift up my spirits for the working week, my Sunday made me steal all the chocolate I had at home and pile it in my bed with a DVD of How To Be ready.
Now this, this is a completely different cup of tea :))
In a nutshell, Art is a twenty-something and he never seems to get anything right in his life. He wants to be a musician but doesn't have enough self-confidence to do it. In fact, he doesn't have enough confidence to do anything at all. So he gets himself a shrink from Canada who comes to live with him and his parents, watching every Art's step and telling him what to do.
Funny yet? XD Guess not. What can be funny in a "fellow in distress" story? I thought it was going to be as crazy as any other independent film, I mean stream-of-consciousness-ish and absolutely incoherent. But! What I didn't know is that I'm going to laugh so hard it actually hurt! :)
Once again I felt this inexplicable love for the British accent. And the music. And actually in a way the acting reminded me of Sex and the City: the nonchalant small talk, the scruffy look of the characters, the showing-how-life-really-is-cause-it's-not-pretty.
The tragicomic events that take place, they do not leave a bitter after-taste. You just carry on watching this world through the eyes of this funny, pathetic, terribly insecure kid who step by step finds the way to his place in life.
The movie is inspiring, yeah, I'd say. The kid finally gets his way. Let it be only a small grain on the shore, an appreciation of his music by a handful of close friends and family, but it does mean much.
Psst, Robert, you do sing so much better in Twilight! XD Can't compare though, different genres. However, music is music, love it either way :))
When I finished watching the movie, I was dancing on my bed (which is rather dangerous, lol!). Just couldn't stop. It must have been the endorphins kicking in. Anyway, thank you, Milka and How To Be, for a fantastic evening :)