today feels absolutely precious: i cannot remember a day this year where i had awoken according to the whim of my deficient body clock & not a mechanical alarm clock that greets & beckons me to face a weary new day at ungodly hours (esp in the past few days where i had forced myself up before 6am to memorise/look through notes for the morning papers ahead bc unprepared as heck)
i think i am back in the mood for some happy indie rock tunes instead of wordless playlists // !!i cannot stop dancing in my chair as i am typing this!!
anyway, was too languid from a late night out (after the last lit paper) yesterday for a coherent post & i have a visceral inclination towards documenting down my thoughts so this shall suffice as an outlet.
celebrated the end of an arduous half-week (& the preceding 3+ weeks in preparation) of term III papers with our traditional lunch/dinner movie date i.e. tfios
(as a sidenote i am not really a fan of john green's books bc i may be generalising but they seem more centered on adolescents falling in all quirky kinds of love which is not really my cup of tea but i am an avid fan of john green the vlogger bc nerdfighteria. just have to mention somewhere that i felt a surge of pride inside yesterday thinking of how madly popular tfios is in sg right now - an infinite mile away from its birthplace in a different continent. also felt really honored that i had been part of the process - albeit passive & one-sided - through watching his vlogs from the time he found out that his book was going to be made into a movie to the times of actual filming & the current reality now - on the big screen - which reminds me: i shall find a day to read tfios after the trend wears off bc personal book-reading policy)
i have queer, ill-forming eyelids today thanks to movie yesterday - the perpetrator for exhausting the water banks stored behind my eyelids. the movie was not particularly sad in a blatant-punch-in-your-face manner; rather, i think it was in a subtle kind of way that utilised the mechanism of empathy that is omnipresent in every human being?
(spoiler alert: if you haven't watched the movie, continue reading at your own risk)
i can only remember two scenes that hit me particularly hard:
the first scene was when hazel was a thirteen year old on the brink of death with water suffocating her lungs: it broke me when her mum whispered to her "it's okay honey, you can let go now." i cannot envisage the immense strength & courage it took for a deeply-attached parental figure to whisper that to a struggling child. the immensity of negating a personal longing out of a pure, unmitigated noble love - & consequently suffering so hard for it - i don't know, i imagined the knife doggedly going through her heart & it went through mine too.
the second scene that was equally sorrowful as the former was when hazel, who had waited a lifetime to meet her prized author, was cast to the ground and trampled over by his words & dishevelment. i cannot, or rather, am too cowardly to try & internalise that brokenness that she had felt (as a fictional character). ideals are something that i hold very close to my heart & seeing her ideals thrown ruthlessly against the wall & subsequently smothered into ashes -esteemed to the heavens in her head & degraded to shambles by the macabre speck of reality before her by a haggard, apathetic drunkard -i have no words to describe that except that it was utterly cruel.
it also kind of reminded me of one of my lit texts - a play rather, that i had read through for my afternoon lit paper the morning before. it reminded me of the last act in lady windermere's fan by oscar wilde - probably because the lines kept chaffing against my heart when i first read them:
lady windermere: we all have ideals in life. at least we all should have. mine is my mother.
mrs erlynne: ideals are dangerous things. realities are better. they wound, but they're better.
lady windermere: if i lost my ideals, i should lose everything.
perhaps this is also the reason why i am so intransigent about them & cannot seem to let them go.
coming back, i felt the movie had a couple of faults too:
1. i really didn't like the "okay?" "okay." motif in the film - maybe it is just me but the recurrent use of it cheapened the novelty, charm & most importantly the intended significance of it. it kind of reminded me of the former unceasing "forever?" "forever." exchanged between the previous couple that they themselves had found repulsive.
2. the make-out scene on the bed - inwardly i was screaming why, why do you mar the purity of the relationship & consequently cheapen your love??? must "making out" be the ultimatum that consummates a relationship???
other than the two perceived flaws mentioned about, i thought the movie was worth the time - albeit a little conventional & predictable.
support john green & crew bc that will make me happy :-)
// also, i realised something else about myself today: i can only venture to put into words ideas & thoughts that i wish to see myself as - often i only internalise & write down half of a whole - bc to do otherwise will compel me to admit the part of me that i don't wish for anyone to see - even myself.//
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