Sunday, December 10, 2006

Litmus


Yesterday, our day went from super-late brunch on the upper west side to walking around--a bit too full on hot chocolate and organic BLTs, as the wind whipped strands of hair fixing fast to my lip-gloss-mouth (very attractive, I must say)--and then to the front of a movie theater.

It was serendipitous, because we didn’t want to part just yet. It was one of those rare moments when you’re just absolutely the conversation and can’t have it end. It was 4:35 and The Fountain was starting in fifteen minutes. I’ve been dying to see it for a while, but hadn’t been able to go with anyone yet, or really was unsure who I could see it with (after Requiem for a Dream I don’t think I functioned normally for about a week, my boyfriend at the time and I broke up shortly after, and I really didn’t need that to happen to any degree this go around, in a strange neighborhood no less) but figured this might very well be the time and this might very well be the person.

A litmus test. Were we willing to ruin a perfectly good day together with the possibility of walking out of the movie theater, never to look at each other again? Could our time together withstand Darren Aronofsky?

We had to. I had free tickets. It was a sign.

Inside, gold and black soft cell coloring. Rachel Weiz incanting, “Finish it” over and over again. Primate surgery. The lotus position. Lots and lots of the lotus position. Trees and their sexual life fluids.

I thought parts of it were awesome. Others I think I could tell they didn’t have the budget initially projected. Definitely depressing, but not as much as I had imagined.

We left, quiet for a moment, and then continued joking. We walked many blocks to the subway, light and laughing. We poked holed in the plot, not willing to speak about the bigger meanings of our world. It was dark by then, and very cold, and very much winter, and we didn’t want things to end philosophical. I decided I’d think about it on my own time. And so I’m thinking about it now.

And I feel a little funny today…waxing on the sadness of never-ending life, death and love…their purpose and everything after.

5 comments:

Victoria said...

Mmm... I love that feeling. Getting to know someone...

Anonymous said...

Infatuation is the best--who is he? Tell us more!

Anonymous said...

You've mentioned working on a novel. I'm curious - do you have a book deal?

GeminiWisdom said...

I went to see The Fountain, too. I think someone needs to explain it to me. Or not.

Anonymous said...

I have put Fountain easily into my top five which holds at least 30 movies in it.
The movie really is about time, and not time in the linear sense but more in the four dimensional sense. As a force, like gravity.
Everything in that movie happened all at once and seperate , at the same time.
Its about man's struggle to be eternal, about how warped our perception of our universe is. We have eternal life, in the context of the movie this is love, because we are a part of all that is around us.
We are one long death and rebirth. The universe ends, and begins in the same instance.
He finds eternal life, only to die and be absorbed by the tree. Which is planted on top of his wife thus absorbing her, and then all bodies stripped away and reformed as a star, as planetary pieces. As life. As living organisms, who find one another and love, briefly but forever.
Damn you Aronofsky, you jacked me again.

P.S. The score of this film was incredible, check out how they did the star effects, it is awesome