Get back into films

Reminiscent of other ghost stories I’ve seen but still worth it – beautifully shot, spooky, heartbreaking.

The restraint of these two would-be lovers is fascinating to watch, but I’m not sure what purpose it served. They should have been together. Maybe it makes a better movie if they’re not though.

Diversity is everywhere in the natural world:

Sex-changing fish; male seahorses that give birth;
species where inter-sexed bodies are in the majority.
Some animals are promiscuous, and some bond for life. There are over 300 vertibrate species that engage in homosexual behavior.

This film makes the point that we have to respect diversity because it’s natural. It’s nature.

Some cultures do it better than others. Thailand has its ladyboys, or katoeys. They are about 1 in 100 of the male population in Thailand. Thai culture more or less accepts transgendered people. Their tolerance has its roots in Buddhism, its belief in karma and destiny, that everyone has or at some point will be a katoey.

And in Suriname, a South American country, the Creole descendents of African slaves have retained their cultural belief that we are all visited by spirits sent by God to help us through life’s trials. They believe sexuality is shaped by those spirits, so when a woman is visited by a male spirit she will desire other women and when a man is visited by a female spirit he will desire other men. The result is a society where sexuality is fluid and carries no stigma. They believe it’s the quality of the relationship that counts and that feelings don’t come from the individual, but from God.

The documentary discusses a study done in 1996 by psychologists at the University of Georgia. Sixty four male undergrads participated. They identified themselves as heterosexual, reportedly having never had a homosexual fantasy or engaged in any homosexual act. They were divided into two groups based on answers to a questionnaire: those who had homophobic attitudes and those who did not.

Each man was put into a room alone where a homoerotic video was played. Beforehand a sensor was placed around each man’s penis to detect arousal. Of the group with homophobic attitudes, a significant proportion demonstrated significant levels of arousal. In the group with more relaxed sexual attitudes, the overwhelming majority had no sexual arousal.

So the conclusion was that those who are outraged by sexual deviation are often fighting something in themselves. Despite clear evidence to the contrary, almost all the men with homophobic attitudes reported no reaction to the video when asked it if turned them on – denial and self-deception. And that can be dangerous. Because when people’s attitudes about their own sexuality are challenged, the reaction is too often a violent one. The murder rate of transgendered people is the highest of any minority group, about 17 times the national average (in the U.S.).

I loved the little boy Noah in this film, who makes skirts and halter tops out of scarves. A very sweet, softspoken eight-year-old with teddy bears on his bed and who can dance like he should be on stage. He’s growing up in a small farm town in middle America, and his parents are afraid for his safety. I was happy for him that they are loving and accepting of his uniqueness. But they are afraid they will not be able to protect him. The point the film makes is that while nature loves diversity, society for the most part hates it. Oh, hurry up and evolve, everybody!

Earlier in the week I went to the cinema to see Happy-Go-Lucky. I’d read reviews of it saying it’s about a character called Poppy who’s overwhelmingly bubbly, happy and optimistic – and that interested me, because while I very much want to be a happy optimist (and tries, and occasionally, even succeeds), I’m not exactly always a ray of sunshine, and am very prone to misanthropy. I wanted to see what the film had to say about happiness and optimism, and how I would react to Poppy.

(It’s also a Mike Leigh film – I’d heard a lot about him before, but had never seen anything by him. The reviews said that he’s known as a miserablist who makes bleak films, and that Happy-Go-Lucky was a departure from what he usually does.)

I loved Poppy. I loved the film, and when it was over, I wanted to see it again. I don’t feel like that about films very often. As I walked out of the cinema, I realised it had become one of my very favourite films, and I’ll be wanting to go back to it. It’s made an impact on my life.

The film is really just a character study of Poppy. We follow her around, from her spending time with her friends, to her job as a primary school teacher, to flamenco lessons, to her meeting a homeless man late at night, to her going to see her pregnant sister, to her driving lessons with a bitter, angry instructor. I loved it. It was warm, as Poppy was.

Reviews had warned that Poppy’s constant bubbliness and exuberance border on annoying – and I could see why. But I surprised myself by never once finding myself annoyed with her – I kinda wished she would tone down her non-stop, often-misfiring jokes a little, but more for her own sake – and I only loved her more as the film went on, as we got to know her.

I left the cinema feeling better and more hopeful. It made me want to try harder, to have more faith in people. It was inspiring.

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Then I got home, and, happy with the film, looked up more reviews of the film to see what others had said about it. And much of what I read depressed me. Maybe about half to two-thirds of the comments I saw were from people who hated the film. I mean, hated. Loathed. Seemingly with every fibre of their being. It was the worst and most irritating film they had ever seen in their lives. It was irritating, smug, self-conscious, patronising, pretentious. “Anyone who likes this film is, without qualification, a moron.” Many commenters expressed their fervent wish to punch the character Poppy in the face, strangle her, give her “a good slapping”. Etc. “Poppy rather than embodying some idea of genuine happiness, appears to me to be slightly mentally defective.” People apparently walked out on the film.

“Dreadful. The kind of film about which critics pontificate and write twaddle when they’re too afraid of telling a director like Mike Leigh that his film stinks. They’d rather delude themselves into believing they’re watching a piece of subtle art than admit the plainly obvious – that this irritating piece of film-making isn’t funny, isn’t clever, doesn’t “reflect on the state of…blah blah”, and simply sticking a famous director’s name on it doesn’t change a damn thing. People who think this is anything except trash are just trying desperately to pretend they’re somehow smarter than the rest of us.”

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I was just left baffled and disheartened. Of course different people might feel differently about a film. But I could see nothing there to hate. Not with that intensity.

Poppy’s happiness and optimism wasn’t affected. It wasn’t because she was stupid, or naive. She knew what she was doing, knew about, understood and cared about the sadness and pain of the world, of herself and her friends and family and the people around her – and she was determined not to let it shake her faith in people. The word I was thinking throughout the film to describe her was steeliness – though I’ve just looked it up, and it apparently implies a coldness? Which is the opposite of Poppy. As I watched her, I was left to admire how she simply wouldn’t let anything shake her from who she was.

Her character was not flawless, and I don’t think was intended to be: she can be overwhelming with her exuberance and non-stop jokes (and not all of them funny or appropriate). She can be not entirely conscious of the effect of her happiness and bubbliness on others who are more bitter and angry (as she came to realise with her driving instructor). But her happiness isn’t a facade – she isn’t like some people who are happy and hyper all the time because they’re avoiding and refusing to deal with the sadnesses of life – they cannot pause for a second to reflect on any kind of sadness, because their facade would collapse, and it’d overwhelm them. The character of Poppy’s not like that. She’s compassionate, caring, patient, and fully conscious of and sensitive to people’s sadness and hurt – she’s just chosen to be happy and optimistic anyway, because that is how she thinks it’s best to live. The line that struck me the most in the film was from her flatmate Zoe: “You gotta love them, don’t ya. Otherwise you’d kill them.” She was talking about the kids they had to take care of as teachers – but that, at least for me, pretty much applies to people in general.

It makes me very sad sometimes, the gulf I feel is there between me and many people. Many things I like seem to bring out an anger in a lot of people that I cannot understand. Like Josie Long – I hang around a comedy forum sometimes, and the sheer hatred of her – when she’s done nothing apart from being optimistic and soft-hearted and celebrating the things she loved and enjoyed – the hate on that forum for her was much the same as what I quoted above. People wanted to slap her. Why is that? If you don’t agree with someone’s worldview, why can’t you just live and let live? Especially when that worldview is overwhelmingly benevolent and good-natured and kind-hearted? I’m happy that in the film at least, Poppy found many friends who loved her for who she was and understood what she was trying to do.

I’d very much like to recommend this film to anyone – bearing in mind that it seems to polarize people. I forgot to mention that when I went to buy the ticket to see the film, the girl selling the tickets tried to talk me out of it. That’s never happened to me before, and made me laugh, but I thanked her for her recommendations, went in to see it anyway, and am very glad I did. I loved it, and thought that aside from a couple of scenes where I would’ve liked a lighter touch (especially the final scene), I thought it was close to perfect for me. Plus it had a scene in it where Poppy goes on a date, and people who hate the film hate it, but I thought I could only wish I could have a date like that. :)

Here, two comments that reassured me I wasn’t crazy:

“Great to see a study of a person so consciously set on being there for whoever she meets. The irritating surface seemed like a test for us – to see through that to the very steely, utterly consistent and un-judging compassion that she has decided is the way to live in this world.”

“Because I’ve discovered if you are a ‘happy go lucky’, cheery person people try to knock it out of you. Happy? in this day and age of gloom and doom? Not easy. May people like Poppy continue to be trusting and honest and live their lives with joy.”

“And I have a lot of puddings, and in six to eight weeks it can be redeemed. So if you could just give me that much time, I think I can get enough mileage to go with you wherever you want to go if you have to travel for your work. Because I don’t ever want to be anywhere without you. So, could you just let me redeem the mileage?”

I’d been meaning to see this film ever since it came out, but somehow only got round to it today. It’s wonderful. Will definitely have to look up the other Paul Thomas Anderson films.

Adam Sandler is fantastic (almost as good as Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). I always thought he had Barry Egan in him. Wikipedia tells me that Amélie director Jean-Pierre Jeunet wrote the character Amélie specially for Emily Watson (Amélie was originally Emily), and here you can see why. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Luis Guzman are both great as usual. It’s a dream of a love story.

And Jon Brion’s “Here We Go” – what a song.

even if I have to go to the cinema on my own. It sounds like it may be a big turning point in cinematic history (I hope), and I want to witness it.

I used to love films, but for some reason for the past year or two I just haven’t allowed myself the time to really seeks out films to watch. There are many films I taped ages ago and DVDs and videos people have bought me that I haven’t watched.

But I’ve always loved films, and been interested in filmmaking. It may be something I can go into in my thirties, when I have a bit more life experience. I think I may be good at it.

Yesterday I finally watched In the Mood For Love, which I’ve been meaning to watch for years. It was so great. This could be an artist’s date as well, enjoying a film. Watching a really great film is inspiring.