Water Lilies

[DMt.]

It's usual, in UK culture anyway, to dismiss schoolgirl [and boy] crushes with a supercilious, kid's-stuff attitude that denies any validity or reality to them. Perhaps because for so many of us this time is painful and embarrassing...? Both of these films [FA & NdP} are unusual in allowing the kids the dignity of their feelings.

[Ian]

Yes, it's a very patronising attitude, isn't it? And a fairly nonsensical one too, given that at the same time its usually admitted that they are some of the most crucial years of a person's life.

But then, that's fairly typical of "mainstream culture" in general, I find.

[DMt.]

Lust makes the world go pear-shaped.

[snaps]

Ian almost wrote ..

Love makes the World go round. @ Dave

[DMt.]

I gather that love is the driving force of the entire Universe, O Snappia, anterior even to light. But more and more I'm seeing Water Lilies in terms of rather distorted power relations, those destroyers of love; it's become a moral tale for me now, a warning about obsession and desire.

Floriane admits Marie into her glamorous world, but she exacts a price for it at each stage; check the way she gives Marie the prize ribbon to wear in the coach, and the necklace thing in the changing-room, both are followed by a major concession on Marie's part. There's one of your mirror-moments, with a vengeance.

But Marie is also very strong, in her quiet, intense way, strong enough to move in on the alpha female's shower, just like the boy did, with her body language clearly saying "I like you, and I know you like me", and to get away with it, too; and strong enough to reject Floriane's distorted power relations, to refuse to be her patsy or cover for her assignations.

The real tragedy for me is that Floriane loves her own beauty, her power over people, more than she loves the people themselves. That is not good power relations, that's some horrible collective script about 'beautiful' [read: 'conventionally attractive'] girls.

Marie is far more beautiful to me than Floriane, even though some of her images in the film are actually quite strange, even grotesque, in her emotional nakedness. Was it Poe who said that extreme beauty always contains an element of strangeness?

In my world, the closing scene says this; friendship is also love, and perhaps the better part of it.

[katka]

Dave really nice analysis. Totally read my thoughts, but I would not write so good, because some rather special words I could not in English adequately enough to use so that you can understand me. Or I would slapped one over second and gave it a different meaning than it has.

[DMt.]

Thank you Kat, and as for language, I would say you do far better than I would in your shoes. Stay out of your own way and just say what you mean.

[katka]

Actually it was already said all. Only I must say that something of both these stories ( Fucking Amal and Water lilies ) I have a also of experience but it have about all. I don't mean those which is about love between two girls, a few are different but has the same impact. Separation from society. Being different, if though in a slightly different sense than it is here. Immigration to a new group of children and find new friends again. Or want to be close to someone because you like by him, but also do not want to have a sense of it that you are some ''glued'' or a dependent for him so you had some of the complex of inferiority, subordination or God forbid that your neighborhood or concerned friend began to think that on him too much you depends, but in fact behind it is nothing, just a desire to be seen and heard.

[DMt.]

Acceptance is huge. We can get by if there's only one person in the whole world who understands and accepts us, but without that blessing it's much harder...

[DMt.]

Another Cannes report, charming

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x21nmp_la-naissance-des-pieuvres-jt-18-05_shortfilms?ralg=meta2-only#from=playrelon-1

[fish]

Lovely clip.
Lovely smile too.

[Ian]

Aww.

[DMt.]

So...I just [finally] got around to watching my new DVD...and I'll tell you what, I don't ever want to watch a crappy YouTube version ever again. The stuff I missed! Talk about goosebumps!

I was a bit bothered that, after watching it so many times there, it would be an anticlimax* - but couldn't have been more wrong. I was riveted for the whole thing, and am now four times as smitten with l'Acquart than before. What a performance! They were all great, but Pauline was just stunning. I felt every little nuance, and there were lots of them, that YT's horrible laggy streaming had obscured. It looked beautiful, too, the whole thing.

Tomorrow, after I sign on at the dole and go to see my boys, I'm visiting my friend Matthieu, for dinner with him, his gorgeous wife Laura and their new baby; I'm going to take it along and lend it to them, maybe even watch it with them if they feel like. I think it might be nice for Matt especially, to watch a movie in his native language.

It'll be almost like having a social life again!




*Q. Why is Christmas always an anticlimax?
A. Because all your aunties come.

[fish]

...It'll be almost like having a social life again!...

Sorry, you're using a term about which I know nothing.

It's far better on a big screen and in hd than on Youtube, that's for sure.
Have a great night out.

[Ian]

Social life?

Is that even English you're speaking there?