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soundtracks of your lifeArchive for movies
God is a Woman
There are things in life that can only be explained by country songs, and even better, with country music based movies. That’s true, but when I saw “That thing called Love” I was too young to understand that it really was about love. And not only that, but about the struggle of loving yourself first and being able to be proud of what you are, and then to be loved by others. It’s about blaming it on your heart, but most of all, about coming for yourself.
A group of young amateur singers want to make their way in the country music industry, and by doing that, they find out what they’re made of. So when Samantha Mathis stands up and sings ” And I thank God, for making it come true ,makes me think maybe God’s a woman too”, I finally understand what it was all about. And I hope that one day I’ll stand up in front of everyone and will say that I came for myself.
As a non-believer, and a feminist, the idea of God being a woman makes a strange sense inside me, as I know what the wish is about but I haven’t seen it come true yet.
talk to me
During the last two weeks, I’ve seen two movies with Paz Vega. One, “Sex and Lucía”, is about a waitress who falls in love with a writer after reading his first book, and convinces him to stay with her and learn how to love her. The other, Pedro Almodovar’s masterpiece, “Talk to Her”, in which she plays Amparo, the main character of the silent movie inside the movie that wakes up the sexual instincts of a virgin man who has dedicated his life to take care of the woman he loves.
In the silent movie, “Amante Menguante”, Amparo is a scientist who makes her boyfriend shrink until he’s so small that he’s able to get inside her and stay forever there, as a metaphor of the whole movie: it’s the ultimate attempt of getting inside the woman’s brain, and live there in order to communicate. In order to stop feeling lonely. In the case of Lucía, the story is a bit different. There, the lack of words make her relationship break, and her boyfriend become a stranger in front of her eyes. And only words will save them. The words that are written through a story that can be read until the middle, and from there change the way and start again. Even when they’re not written for her, but in a virtual reality in which he has found his dark past. So it’s his past, and his virtual and anonymous existence, that will make her undertstand him and what happened to them.
Communication is not only about words, even when most of the times is a good start. It’s about getting in the brain of the other even when it seems to be asleep, even when we don’t have faith of being heard. Because as shown in the silent movie, it ends up being a matter of being squashed or getting inside. And even when being squashed by Paz Vega doesn’t sound that bad, nothing is as good as making her smile for real.
chic flicks and bad love
Yesterday I had a conversation about chic flicks, with two chics. In different ways, we were all up for chic flicks. Even when we were enthusiastic about different issues of the the chic flicks, and for a while, even me I had denied the category of chic flick on some so-called-classics, we agreed that well, chic flicks are. And we are for them.
I do have another background though, the world of telenovelas. Growing up watching Doña Beija, won’t give you a rational idea of love and a sober taste in movies. Even when you may love the Cabinet of Dr Caligari, you’re still thinking that the zombie is hot. So that’s why when they tell you about “Foreign Films”, you don’t think about the slow Chinese movies where nothing happens…(except for their souls getting wiser). You think about Buñuel’s “Belle de Jour”, and Catherine Deneuve playing housewife and prostitute and living her darkest fantasies.
Having chic flicks as role models can be really harmful for someone’s romantic life, as you might expect some asshole to change and become prince charming, like Ben in “How To Loose a Guy in 10 days”. And of course, we dream about singing “You’re so Vain” to at least someone we’ve met in our life. If Carly Simon did it, why can’t we? Well, even if we do, in real life, people never change. I know because I don’t change myself. I sometimes behave and sometimes don’t, but that’s not the same. But having telenovelas as a role model can be even worse. Of course, the majority of them show”poor-girl-falls-for-rich-guy-they-are-together-after-drama”, but some of them, like Doña Beija, just show how terrible life can be and how society can destroy someones life. Dona Beija, after being kidnapped and forced to become a courtesan, returns to her hometown just to find rejection and envy. What’s her reaction? “If the world has made a courtesan of me, I’ll make the world a whorehouse”. That’s the same thing that we read in Jacqueline Sussan’s “The Valley of the Dolls”, where three girls are corrupted and destroyed by fame, ambition, and bad love. Bad sex can turn you into a bitter, frustrated person, but bad love can kill you, and that is what we learn there. The perfect housewife can become a junkie, and not a feminist idol like it’s shown in the movie, probably in a hollywood attempt of trying to give an, if not happy, encouraging ending to the story.
Chic flicks can either blind you or show you the light. When you see Meg Ryan meeting Tom Hanks in Seattle, just say no. When you see Meg Ryan anywhere, just say no. But if you see Anna Karenina dying because of guilt, open your eyes. When you see Doña Beija being isolated in her own town, beware. When you see Catherine dying of bad love, run away, because Heathcliff may still be around.
internet charisma
When I met Severus, I didn’t think of any definition, or tag that I could use for her. Only that she was smart, pretty and sweet. And after 3 years, I still think that. Even when I’ve never seen her. Because she has an internet charisma that goes beyond the average. She has social skills-internet social skills- that make her look, in front of my eyes, like a celebrity.
She made the first step by posting in my blog. “Trailer of Life Aquatic”. As I love Wes Anderson, I replied. And when I saw the movie, it was her with whom I wanted to make a comment about it. The movie, actually, sucked. It was a big disappointment. But I still wanted to hear her opinion. Even when I knew little and nothing about her.
When people have internet charisma, you find yourself wanting to know more about them and wanting them to know what you’re up to. I look at her pictures-she’s actually a very good photographer- but when I started looking at them I had already given her the credit of being an authority. Some people are natural born leaders, and in virtual life, that happens too. If a natural born leader knows how to manage a group according to their common interests, in virtual life, a person with internet charisma will know how to read you with the little information that you give. You can get hundreds of posts, but only the ones that come from the charismatic people will stay. Why? Because they could read what you wanted to say. The same time that I got her trailer, I received a lot of comments of other people that had no interest for me whatsoever. That came from people who didn’t know how to interpret the signs that I was showing.
Being able to do this is a skill, just like speaking well in front of audiences is another one. I’m not good speaking on the phone, and maybe Severus isn’t either. I never spoke with her on the phone, so I have no idea. having this charisma in this technological society is far away from the creepiness that used to be attached by it. People are no longer considered to be stalkers, or repressed real-life beings. They manage to show to the world what they want to say and also to create a net that will support them. They use the tools they have to communicate in their just made language, taking this charisma from their personal lives to the business they’re into.
And I love Severus. And I know when her birthday is. And I can feel her energy through her status updates, even she writes in Swedish sometimes. That’s how charismatic she can be…
The Graduates
While reading the last “Vanity Fair”, I learned that the making of “The Graduate” wasn’t as easy as its success, but an odyssey of faith and spirit instead. The book had been a failure, the director was still unknown, and the topic, a scandal. It had been described as the bad version of “The Catcher in the Rye”, because of the similarities between the main characters: two young boys who come from a privileged part of society, but have decided to be outsiders.
When Mike Nichols had to decide on the cast of the movie, he picked the unknown Dustin Hoffman, for his ethnic look. It had to be someone who could understand how is to be in both sides. How is to be the son of a wealthy family, and still be a reject. Hoffman, a Jewish young man who had isolated himself from Hollywood and had gone to the Jewish New York instead, was to become he symbol of the mainstream outsiders. The ones who are inside the privileged part of society, but are still aliens. So in this suburban life, in a world where the word future (or plastics, in this case) is the key, he goes on defying universal taboos such as sleeping with a mother and marrying the daughter.
We’re all graduates at some point of our life. We’re all Benjamin Braddok, in the blue pool, floating on our future without knowing what we’ll do after having finished this traditional ritual of graduating. We’re all Mrs Robinson, every time we fear that it’s too late for us, that our life has been taken from as and we’re doomed. And finally, we’re all Elaine Robinson too. When we, having being whatever we’ve been in life, are able to run away in a yellow bus dressed up as a bride, with the one who woke us up, just because we finally had the guts to. Whatever or whoever we did or were. Even if we were the prettiest girl in the neighbourhood.
the devil’s haircut
I saw three “dancing-movies” in the last week. “Footloose”, “Flashdance”, and “Haisrpray”. After that I felt the urge to dance like crazy and also to cut my hair.
They all have something in common; Kevin Bacon, Jennifer Beals and Ricki Lake make their way to freedom, and fight against their destinies. He won’t let the town rule his life. She won’t let her lack of studies stop her from learning. And the last one, won’t let her chubbiness be an obstacle to become a dancer. Now, “Footloose” and “Hairspray” have more in common: they both show the power of the people, the media, and how dancing or any way of expression can fight repression and social injustices. And even when the heroes of these two have much more social conscience, the also show much more vanity than the humble and explosive Alex Owens. They behave like leaders even before they become leaders. Tracy is a role model despite her shallowness, and Ren is a revolutionary who just came to town.
I always thought that being a revolutionary was more important than being a fighter in your own life, but now that I see the contrast between Alex and the other dancing characters, I have my doubts. I see her wet curly hair shaking as she moves like a maniac on the dancefloor. And I see Ren wearing a suit ready to go to the ball. And Tracy smiling at the cameras. I give them credit for fighting the law, but those characters still have so much to struggle for themselves. And then I see Alex again, fighting her own demons and winning.
I see my long, dry, burnt hair, now heavy on my head, and it just reminds me of Tracy’s, or even worse, Divine’s. I need my head to feel light, free, so I can shake it while I dance like Alex Owens in my own way to freedom. The freedom you get when, tired after dancing for a long time, you realise that this time, you didn’t miss it.
the boogie man
For not being a believer, I wake up too often thinking that there is a ghost in the room. Well, who wouldn’t feel that in an old cottage where the room is decorated with tons of pictures of ancestors, frozen in Saarland in the XIX Century. And after watching “Pan’s Laberynth”, what am I supposed to dream?
Like Kate Hudson in “The Skeleton Key”, I just repeat my mantra “I don’t believe in this, I don’t believe in this…” before I go to sleep. The result: I had a dream about a haircut. No ghosts, no skeleton keys, no animal skulls. Just me, with Amelie’s haircut, looking like a doll and smiling at everyone.”I love my haircut” I said in my dream, and my ex boyfriend just looked at me and said she looks beautiful, doesn’t she? and I thought that I looked 12 and he was a pervert.
My sister said that this was some Freudian typical manifestation of a dream, meaning, the haircut was related to change, and probably sex. But the truth is, I already had my hair short in real life, and a bang, so it wouldn’t be any change. In the dream, I just wanted to get rid of my split ends. I just wanted to get rid of the nightmares that I was going to have before I repeated my magic mantra. The haircut was some way to escape from the fear that I felt before falling asleep. Not the fear of growing up, the fear of finding a job, of managing to have a relationship that lasted more than 2 months. Not the fear of being alone all the time, of living by myself in a foreign country, where I can hardly make myself understood.
It was just the fear of darkness.
Maybe I should have a haircut after all. And with my new doll face, face the real world , the one with the other fears.
Happy Mondays
When I smile, the world spins faster,I know, and I love it. In theory I could get thousands of ponies just by smiling, and the war would stop if I smiled. It never happened that way, but I never tried to get a pony or to stop the war. I just let those things happen the way they have to be cos I’m too busy making myself smile every time I don’t miss and I don’t eat meat, and I don’t buy a product that has been tested on animals.
I’m happy for small things and it takes so little to make me happy, that people actually get upset with me. They think I don’t care, and that I just don’t feel anything about it, but if they just enjoyed those moments of happiness with me they would be happier too, and that would make me even happier, Because, like Almodovar’s Agrado, I was born to make people happy.
And to make myself sad, too. So it’s true, when they tell me I look sad, I probably am, cos I think I might die, and people hate me for thinking I may die, but if they saw how happy and thankful I am when I feel healthy and my body breathes through pranayama they would feel happy too and that would make me feel happier as well. So when you drop me in the red light I feel sad, because the red light will turn green and I’ll have to run before that, and time will be my master and I never wanted any master in my life, that’s why I ran away. And time is my master and you leave and I feel sad because I can’t say good-bye. When I want to say good—bye, I never say it. I just run away, or pretend that I’m dead for you. But when I don’t want to say good-bye and I have to, I feel like my heart turns into a light shade of grey and I mourn. Until a ray of light hits my face and brings another freckle to my cheeks; then I’m happy again and my heart gets bigger, like a balloon. And I’m not Margo Tenenbaum anymore, nor Mia Wallace, nor Penny Lane. I am Orlando, and I am on Earth and I am in outer space, I’m being born and I’m dying.
I am still looking for that house that smells like flowers, old wood, and some Laura Ashley room spray. It smells like all that, and it smells like me too. And I think of all the houses of all the lovers I have all over the world, and I don’t find that smell anywhere. Not even my house smells like that and I wonder where my smell is or if I have a smell in the first place.
Maybe I don’t, but so far, I have a smile. And this smile is real, like the Cheshire Cat’s smile, and my sisters ask me to smile and I smile because when I do, I make them happy. And that makes my smile get bigger and bigger and bigger. So big that my cheeks and all the freckles on it that came with all those sunbeams stand for themselves and introduce me like the best hosts I ever saw in my life and I smile at them in my own smile.
the devil’s kitchen
For being a yoga lover, vegetarian and animal supporter, I’m pretty tolerant when it comes to fake plastic trees. When I saw Las Vegas, I didn’t cry. I just thought it was amazing how people found the real thing by faking it. For me, it wasn’t a problem. And on the other hand, I enjoyed the casinos, the lights and the great amount of shopping and funny kitsch things going on everywhere. But when it came to food, then I realised we had a bit of a problem here.
Food is the only thing I need it to be real. When I realised that I was hungry looking at the ice cream Baby Firefly was licking after some gore killing, I realised my body was begging for food. If you can actually get hungry while watching any Rob Zombie movie, it means that your body is trying to say something. “Go Cannibal”!, my tummy was screaming at me. At my vegetarian stomach.
I’ve never been a believer, but now I believe. I can see Otis looking at me and telling me he’s the devil. I can see the guy at the hamburger store asking me if I want to add some fries. And I believe so much that I pray for my green heaven.
