Tragedy and laughs

I like Martin McDonagh, i like him a lot. I liked 'in bruges' and i am convinced i am going to like 'the pillowman' when I get round to reading him. In my previous post about 'in bruges' i concentrated in the fact that the movie was a tragicomedy, in the manner of Shakespearian 'tempest' or 'twelfth night'. Such an interesting genre, tragicomedies are, and a very risky one at that. The issue with them, is that the atmosphere they build can be spoilt very easily. In the same way, Almodovar threatened to spoil his dark, sombre, tragic atmosphere, in 'Broken embraces', with his last scene (but didn't), tragicomedies are constantly walking the same thin line.

'The beauty queen on Leenane' runs the same risk: Martin McDonagh's first play, is a deep and profound tragedy of human inadequacy, laced with darkly funny one-liners. The issue is that the fact that this IS a tragedy has to remain clear to the audience throughout, or at least it needs to be prevalent after the tragic storyline starts to unravel. When i read the play, it was clear to me that this was a tragedy and the humour was just there to undermine but ultimately underline the tragedy of it all. When we saw the play on friday however, the audience made up of well-dressed mature women seemed to fall for the comedy rather than the tragedy part of the play. The result? A really uncomfortable two hours where I would hear the audience audibly laughing at every hint of humour, entirely disregarding the drama that was unfolding in front of their eyes. It almost felt as if they were desperate to see only the funny bits of the play, exactly because the dark parts were too dark and too tragic.

Talk about art being poignant...

Love and loss

I was looking through old pictures yesterday and although I knew what to expect, I was still a bit taken aback. It is terrifying when you revisit your old life, via all these snapshots of the past. You see yourself smiling in the arms of men you don't even recognize anymore, you see clothes you forgot existed, people whose names you have forgotten. You see your collection of exes, exes of exes and exes of friends. And when I say exes, I don't just mean boyfriends: ex-friends, ex-flatmates, ex-important people who are important no more. I saw my millions of haircuts, my drunk self in birthday parties form what seems to be the previous century. I saw myself in houses I didn't even remember existed.

And all this makes me think about loss: it's so much a part of our lives yet every time it happens, every time we lose someone, we act as if it is the most outrageous thing in the world. It is painful, yes, but outrageous or rare, no! It happens all the time. People feature prominently in our lives for some time, they are the centre of our world and then they disappear.

Sometimes, they even disappear without leaving a trace - as if they never existed. Odd but true.

Self reflection

The blog is two years old today. If it was a child, it would be walking, talking and be ready for some potty training.
Like a child, I love it and I am glad I have it, but sometimes I get bored with it and it constrains me.

Two years ago, I wrote my 'hallow world' and decided to bring my thoughts and lame literary attempts to the blogosphere. I am happy I did, because there is something deeply satisfying in thinking that someone you don't know, might read your stuff and connect to it and feel the same affinity you feel when you read bloggers you like. In short, there is something deeply satisfying in feeling a certain connection with strangers. I don't know what it is, but it's there.

We're all in this together, I guess.

Broken but mended

Almodovar is on top form. Again. I have to say I didn't like Bad education very much, if at all. And Volver was good, (the final scene with the mother accepting her fate as a 'ghost' forever hiding, going from one house to another in her village still haunts me) but there was something missing, I thought. I often call the thing that is missing: emotional involvement. I always say that I regard something as good art iff it moves me emotionally. A lot of people have criticized me for this (pseudo)definition but I think it's a great barometer, actually it's the only barometer. If something moves me-it's art, if not-it's crap. (Life doesn't move me, just like a movie, life doesn't move me.) I don't care if something is aesthetically perfect, well-thought, interesting, all this is good but not good enough. In needs to move me, I need to cry, be moved, think about life in different ways, I need to be affected.

So, when I saw the trailer of broken embraces, I though, good here we go again, Almodovar is going technically perfect with no emotion... And he's cashing in on Penelope's sex appeal. Again. (After the close-ups at her cleavage in Volver).

But I went to see the movie, because he is Almodovar after all, and I am his biggest fan (with Youkali of course). And I am so glad I did, so glad indeed. Because Broken Embraces is such a good movie. It's emotional, melodramatic, noir-ish, surprising, funny, all at the same time.

But most of it's all that AND technically perfect. I read somewhere that after the Amante Menguante movie within Habla con Ella, Almodovar became obsessed with the movie within a movie trick. He tried to replicate it in Mala Educacion, but failed miserably (perhaps because he should just accept the fact that he cannot have a successful movie without women) but here he masters it entirely. The final scene of BE, a scene replicated from Women on the verge of nervous breakdown, is genius. Although a funny scene might very well break up the dramatic ending, in some weird ironic way it supports it. And everything falls into place, Almodovar is in top form, Penelope is stunning, Broken embraces is perfect and the world is safe again.

Alone

It's odd when you're alone after you've not been used to it for a while. Initially it feels odd, I walk around the house bumping on the furniture, not knowing what to do. Surfing on the net endlessly, as if I was not allowed before, like a child that eats a lot of sweets when mummy is not around. I don't talk on the phone, I sit and think, I do my nails, I make coffees for myself. It's funny because I'm an only child and I thought I had the capacity to cherish my loneliness forever. When I was a kid, I was always going around with a little bag with some toys, so that I felt safe that if I found myself alone at some point, I would have something to do. When I grew up a bit I would always go around somewhere with a book, even if I accompanied my parents to a place I knew would be other people, I always took my book with me 'because you never know'.

Now, I'm never alone. And I am losing my touch as a loner. As I said, I don't know what to do with myself.



Kate Moss dances like a stripper for the homonymous White Stripes video. I think I shall refrain from such carry ons and just sit down and write my paper. Much as I am bored and akin to procrastination.

An ode to infidelity

Listening to La Roux's exceptional song (and Skream's exceptional drum&bass remix) I realized that I hadn't fully understood what the song was about, since I was mishearing the lyrics... Take a look at an extract from this inspired song:

We can fight our desires, but when we start making fires
We get ever so hot, whether we like it or not

They say we can love who we trust - but what is love without lust?
Two hearts with accurate devotions and what are feelings without emotions?

I'm going in for the kill, I'm doing it for a thrill
Oh I'm hoping you'll understand, and not let go of my hand...

In the refrain, I thought she was saying 'and now let go of my hand' but I was wrong.

Thinking about the song I think it is the desperate plead of a person to another to let them be free. In the excellent line 'they say we love who we trust - but what is love without lust?', I think La Roux gives a fatal blow to boring, convenient, sexually dead relationships. She says, love is cool and all, but sex and lust are underrated. And I agree, people seem to be happy to disregard sex as unimportant, but as a friend once said, whatever a couple fights about during the day, they can deal with it in the evening when they go to bed. If they don't sleep together though, or if when they sleep together, they don't like it, then they can solve nothing, I think. So, long live lust (and who cares about trust?)!

The defining moment

What are the defining moments of our lives?

Is it when you submit your PhD, holding it in your hands, giving it away to some administrative officer, and getting congratulations in return, and a receipt?

Is it when you sign for your first job, going up to a funny looking HR department, 'signing your life away' and finally feeling like a normal adult?

Is it when you present a good paper at a conference and feel the respect of your peers?

Is it when you teach and you make your students understand something, something they wouldn't have understood otherwise and you look at their eyes and see crystal and sincere interest?

Or perhaps it's not it, not it at all. Perhaps defining moments are of a different sort alltogether.

Is it when you meet friends you haven't seen in a while and just sit there and be comfortable and be reminded how wonderful people can be?

Is it when you go to concert and feel elated by the music, you feel like waves crashing in your heart, filling it with happiness and emotion?

Is it when you hear of an amazing song, and just sit there and marvel in the beauty of the simplicity of pop ("they say we love the ones we trust, but what is love without lust?" -la roux)?

Or is it when you look into someone's eyes and know you love them and they love you back? Is it this moment that you feel that the heart is the only organ in your body working? Is it when you feel this absolute acceptance, serenity and excitement, all at the same time?

Perhaps the questions is wrong alltogether, perhaps there are no defining moments, or at least not just one anyway. Perhaps a bit a of everything defines us, each in a different way.