Hi there Funky Fruit-ers - thought I'd give another random book and movie recommendation until we get our act together with the next official book review.
Book Recommendation: Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins. Yes, I know I recommended her first book, The Hunger Games, in my last post but this is so worth it. I don't always like the sequel as much as the first book but this sequel was amazing. I dare you to put it down - I couldn't, and read the whole thing in one sitting. Warning: it's not the last book so I'm wanting to know how it ends and I have no closure :)
Movie Recommendation: Lars and the Real Girl. I just saw it this weekend w/ my hubby (via Netflix, my favorite thing ever) and we both LOVED this movie. Ryan Gosling can act like Peyton Manning can throw a football - he's awesome. I thought it would be a quirky, fun little film but it was so much more than that. It was a wonderful story of healing and human connection. Warning: my hubby and I are both psychologists which may have impacted how fascinated we were with the psychological elements of the story (we've both worked with delusional disorder), but I think that everyone can relate to the grief issues addressed. It's an uplifting, heart-warming way to spend your evening!
Yesterday the leaves here gave up for good, streaming down, hailing down; at times I thought that I was seeing snow. It was the end of the autumnal show. I felt deep melancholy.
Late in the day, Bill and I watched "Lars and the Real Girl," a story about a lonesome man who is pained by touch and who nonetheless longs for a woman. And so he brings a beautiful, contemplative-seeming sex doll into his life and (consequently) into his community—all of them treating this silent creature with such care and making room, always, for the man (Ryan Gosling) to step forward, out of delusion and sadness and into life.
I was so deeply moved by this movie—by its oddness, its kindness, its determined, quiet vision. Moved by the artists who would make such a film and the producers who would let them. It brought the film "Waitress" to mind, and also "Once," a movie about a busker and an immigrant who make music during one Dublin week. I can hardly think of "Once" without welling up with tears. Without knowing, for sure, that this is the sort of legacy I'd like to leave—one story, one single story that gets every note right.
Why is it so hard to capture human kindness—on the page, on the screen? To do it as well as Lars and Once and Waitress? These movies stand out because they are the rare exception, because they dare to be compassionate and odd at the same time, compassionate, perhaps, because they are odd.
As an artist, I know what I would like to achieve. As a person, I know how far I must travel still to get there.
Beth -
I have just made notes of the films you mentioned, thanks! Yes, this is what I’m always, always, always looking out for - in films, in reading, writing....in life.... the magic story that dares “to be compassionate and odd at the same time, compassionate, perhaps, because they are odd.” Did you see Geoffrey Rush in the film “Shine” (about the pianist David Helfgott)? Two other films with the same compassion and oddness are As in Heaven (Swedish, foreign film Oscar nominee, 2005) and Italian for Beginners (Danish). These are subtitled of course, so if you can take all that reading, you are in for a treat. The Spanish film maker Pedro Almodovar also composes odd, compassionate stories (though very different from the Scandinavians!). All about My Mother is such a film, but all his films have this sense of real humanity. As for “The Red Balloon” your mentioned on November 4, I found the complete version at Google Video:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8080999735593908602
Loved it!
“As an artist, I know what I would like to achieve.”
Yes, I agree, it is so vital to have that singular focus, to know in what direction to move.
“As a person, I know how far I must travel still to get there.” Perhaps what you/we try to achieve has already happened. For is this not what real humanity is all about - that we are here, already arrived, while still, at the same time, moving......?
Once again I am reminded of the T.S. Eliot poem:
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Wishing you the best on your journey!
The book that most recently got me with being "compassionate and odd" (I really like that) is The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman. Some of the characters in the book really surprised me.
I'll have to look for the films you recommended. I probably wouldn't have thought to look for "Lars and the Real Girl" if not for your description.
oh my goodness, Grete. Are you forever full of gifts? Now I can watch The Red Balloon again! I did see Shine (and it is powerful) and All About My Mother, too. These other too, As in Heaven, Italian for Beginners, sound so worthy, and we will Netflix them here. There are so many movies that have touched me deeply—years later, I remember the mood better than the title, I fear.
I have not ceased, this morning, from exploration. I have had my novelistic breakthrough. Will it be enough for an editor to fall in love? One can never know. But now I know where I am headed.
At last.
Now, Alkelda: I must get this book, The Graveyard Book. You have such taste and if you say it is strong and right, I believe you!
Ditto what Alkelda said. I never would have checked it out without your post.
I loved the movie Lars and the Real Girl. I cried during it.
I cried and cried during Lars. You have to settle in, trust it, let the first fifteen minutes go by. And then you will be amazed.
I was just talking with my father about this very thing. The book that comes to mind for me on this subject is THE PLEASURE OF MY COMPANY by Steve Martin. In my opinion, this book is Mr. Martin's writing at its most deft and human kindness at its most poignant. And, like human kindness itself, it is often unexpected.