So the extra days on the bank holiday weekend over Easter were a perfect time to catch up on a few films that we'd been meaning to get round to watching.
Hotel Rwanda
Mystic River
Pleasantville
All good pictures, with things to say in the spiritaul conversation between films and faith, especially the former two (am still processing Pleasantville since we only watched it last night) - both being films about personal identity in relation to community, past experiences shaping the present, and the thin line of redemption/ revenge.
Mystic River especially intrigues me - as M said as the credits rolled, "what does the ending mean?". I think it's a film where many, many things go unsaid (Jimmy and Katie, Dave and Celeste, Sean and his wife, and more) and thus the two incidents at the end of the film where people are forced to "say it, admit it, tell me" are even more petinent to the characterisation and plot. But why the title, Mystic River? What has the river got to do with the story, why is it so integral that the film is NAMED after it? We see countless shots of it with the bridge in the background, and also of the sky. Maybe it's because it hides, it knows, it cleans, it divides, it unites, but it's also unknowable and misunderstood. An Easter film indeed.
Update: Oh and for David, I promised an update to the film list for my profile - the ones previously mentioned and 7even, Shakespeare in Love, City of God, Crash, Amelie, Oh Brother, Fargo, Babette's Feast, The Deer Hunter, Evita, Mary Poppins, History of Violence, and anything with Sean Penn...
2 comments:
I haven't seen Mystic River but you make a good point about its title.
I can't recall a trainspotting scene in Trainspotting, although there is a scene in a train station in the book and the play.
And there aren't many magnolias in, um, Magnolia.
They should take their cue from the magnificently named 1991 film "Night of the Day of the Dawn of the Son of the Bride of the Return of the Revenge of the Terror of the Attack of the Evil, Mutant, Alien, Flesh Eating, Hellbound, Zombified Living Dead Part 2: In Shocking 2-D". It does what it says on the tin, which is good enough for me.
ooo, give over!
But really - Why Trainspotting? Why Magnolia?
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