flight and fury
Sep. 24th, 2011 04:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
methrowrockToday was an abject waste of time. As usual. Just the way I like it. Catching up on fall TV premieres, skimming through kpop news, casually booting up a few games of Scramble and Sims Social - it is almost as if I do not have two group projects and six essays to care about! Yes, I counted the number of items on the to-do checklist and that activity stressed me so much that I watched Blue Valentine. Bad choice, because it was a good but incredibly heart-wrenching film. Thus, I am in no mood to start on Deviance readings, because my aorta is bleeding sympathy and sadness for the characters. Such is my life.
To put it simply, Blue Valentine charts the beginning and ending of a couple's relationship, in the vein of films like (500) Days of Summer. The nitty gritty, the dark underbelly, the torrid torrents- they rip it out and lay it bare on the table. I loved how they filmed it. The camera was always hiding unobtrusively behind foliage or beyond glass windows, and it was constantly tracking the characters, allowing audiences an unobstructed and voyeuristic view of Dean and Cindy's life. The colouring was gorgeous as well- drab greys that were juxtaposed against vibrant greenery in the next scene, neon blue lighting that turned a warm orange. There were always other lives and stories intertwined with their own. The car that zoomed past, the neighbour that walked into the frame. It was something familiar, yet distant. The physical distance and space that masked the emotional proximity of how close this story hits home. I liked the blurring that followed the tracking of the characters' movements too. It made the story play out like a home movie, little stories that occur behind the indistinct brick-houses on the cul-de-sac. You see the people walking down the street everyday? It could be them. Or them. I liked how the camera focused on their expressions in the physically confined scenes, although the zoom-ins was of side-profiles. It is in these throwaway expressions that our innermost emotions are articulated. These tiny snatches make the difference when they are added together. Which made it all the more heartbreaking, because as you pieced the fragments along the temporally perforated lines, you began to think how they were doomed from the start. And so, for every joyous moment and romantic gesture in the beginning, it was foreshadowed by the knowledge of their impending splintering. How could something so beautiful and perfect wind up to be the very thing that tore you apart in disgust and revulsion?
The Hollywood fantasy of love at first sight? Pfshaw! That patchwork dream is hacked into shreds of washcloth, designed to wipe tears drained of hope from your face. A heavy weight settled on my heart, as Dean walked away into the shadows, occasionally lit up by the racket of fireworks. He was a cipher from the start to the end, whereas we were able to roughly sketch out Cindy's background. People tend to sympathize with what they do not understand. And Dean, good old Dean, how was it that he could raise another's child as his own? Give up prior hopes and dreams to raise a family? Offer to change unconditionally to salvage things? Okay, maybe it is just me, but my heart broke for him. How can one not root for the dreamy romantic? Especially a relationship that was mismatched in terms of socio-economic class. Because in reality, that is what matters, and we don't want reality in our entertainment. Okay, maybe it is just me again, having been conditioned to expect certain emotions and responses to movies. Either way, I liked Blue Valentine because it told a subtle and frank tale about events that are given less attention. The bursting into flames, and then, the softening cackles of dying fires that sometimes grew strong enough to illuminate blissful tableaux. A homage to the small happy moments that had seemed insignificant because there were so many.
And that is worth living for, ain't it? Despite the despair and disappointment in later days, it was in these moments where one came alive. This reminds me of a link Chan-xiong sent me earlier in the week. Our lives do not revolve around grand moments and gestures. Instead, it is the thread of unspoken actions and visceral reactions that weaves our days. Five years down the road, I will remember walking home in the darkness with two other crackpots, laughing hysterically at how Choobug would act in the workplace. Or sitting in the kopitiam, anxiously waiting for the three others to forget about your answer and move on to another. Or being scared shitless by a horror film shown in lecture and sending squeally-uncool SOSes to weapons of mass distraction. Or being laughed at/laughing at an old friend in lecture for her erratic antics. People may not remember exactly what you did, or what you said, but they will always remember how you made them feel. And yeah, I guess I've been generally happy these past few weeks, thanks to the people around me. Would it sadden me if I lost contact with some of them eventually? Of course, it would. But I would be thankful for the memories, laughs, smiles etched onto my heart&mind upon the recollection of their names and faces. Because you don't need people to be with you all the time to enjoy their company. Because you can't, anyway. What you need is the having-been-there-together, the having-done-things-together, the solid base of common knowledge and experience that will not be easily shaken. On some nights, certain memories will sparkle brighter and engulf you in the heady summerhaze of nostalgia and love-given-then. They appear to be elusive and ephemeral, but really, they are simply undetected, hidden beneath the throbbing of your big and endless heart.
That would be a wonderfully profound way to end the post, but no!!! I am greedy for precise details, so hello, long boring details of days long past. 12th Sept, Mon: Sunig match against SMU. 13th Sept: That was my first attempt at an 8-hours-of-lessons-straight day!!! 2210 tutorial was pretty fun, talking about production of culture and the Banksy film that we watched in lecture. 2212 tutorial was, in contrast, an amorphous tangle of half-remembered concepts. 3101 lecture with the Pingeon was always fun, what with her bouncing in her seat to stay awake and pumping her fist automatically when the prof ended her lecture HAHA. NEVER CHANGE PLZ. :D Braindead by the time it came to 1201 tutorial. Thankfully, it was presentations, so it was an ideal time for stoning. And facebook chatting to different people. It was a week when I used fb messaging intensely, no thanks to a certain long-winded prof. (ok, longwinded is me, hehe.) Met Melins for dinner at Utown, and then, stayed for a bit with her EClique. Always fun to see Marcus and Jeff, even if it were a short while. 14th Sept Wed: 2212 lecture, a bit of studying, and then, training. Thur: going out with me-maw for lunch, The Office marathon after. Dunder Mifflin has grown on me by the end of S2. 16th Sep Fri: 2210 lecture, the aforementioned horror movie screening, which my lecture buddy happened to oversleep for. Sent out SOSes to whomever, but in the end, only Heido Hi replied swiftly enough. HAHA witless idiot in action, screaming in text and such. But it helped! 1201 lecture with Mitch was always funnn. 17th Sep Sat: a very tiring dance class, dinner with sis, more of The Office! And Running Man. Choi Min Soo is hilariousss. 18th Sep Sun: the start of 5 consecutive days of soccer! Training at 5pm. Then watching the Liverpool vs Tottenham match at Wenting's house. 19th Sep Mon: 9am training, which I didn't oversleep for! Haha lunch, when boojae and I were outcasted for our 'immaturity'. What nonsense!! Especially with our incisive questions about the debt crises and Obama's re-election chances. HAHAHA. And her wide-eyed glasses schtick. The good old Kpop days of 06-08. Laughing at laughing. Anything, basically HAHA. Ok, so we have an evolved sense of humour. Off to Utown for some studying. Did 3 readings, but not before falling all over the place and being tormented by constant urges in the pee-inducing room. HAHA. Dinner in Clementi with Chan-xiong, boojae, and profdikool, after which we spent two hours talking, punctuating silences with questions. It was nice, getting to know slivers of what went on in other people's lives. Monday was a nice day, in general. 20th Sep Tue: NTU match which was cancelled, unfortunately. Scramble-ing in the conference room, playing hangman, dinner at YIH, a bit of walking around Clementi. Went home and stressed about academic work. 21st Sep Wed: Training at 9am again! Not many people turned up, so we did soccer tennis, which yielded some laughs, teehee! Lunch at Deck, a bit of studying before GLEE 3D with profdikool, boojae, and Azlin. Which was FUNNNN. I unabashedly declare that I like watching Glee. Singing along to the songs, squealing at Blaine, sighing at Brittana's hotness, laughing at random moments. It was an interesting look at the circuit of culture as well. How Glee is being represented and marketed, the identities and messages that Glee embodies that the audiences internalise, the spin-off cultures, experiences and traits that are associated with being a Gleek. Food for more thought. After the movie, virgin trip into H&M, which turned out to be more like H&Mehhh. 22nd Sep Thur: Lunch with Nellie, Yipei, and Joanne. Match with NTU. 23rd Sep Fri: TODAYYY!!! And that wraps up the recollections. It seems that I am well and truly fucked for the academic arena. But whatever, that'd be for tomorrow!me to worry about. Sleepytime!!!
To put it simply, Blue Valentine charts the beginning and ending of a couple's relationship, in the vein of films like (500) Days of Summer. The nitty gritty, the dark underbelly, the torrid torrents- they rip it out and lay it bare on the table. I loved how they filmed it. The camera was always hiding unobtrusively behind foliage or beyond glass windows, and it was constantly tracking the characters, allowing audiences an unobstructed and voyeuristic view of Dean and Cindy's life. The colouring was gorgeous as well- drab greys that were juxtaposed against vibrant greenery in the next scene, neon blue lighting that turned a warm orange. There were always other lives and stories intertwined with their own. The car that zoomed past, the neighbour that walked into the frame. It was something familiar, yet distant. The physical distance and space that masked the emotional proximity of how close this story hits home. I liked the blurring that followed the tracking of the characters' movements too. It made the story play out like a home movie, little stories that occur behind the indistinct brick-houses on the cul-de-sac. You see the people walking down the street everyday? It could be them. Or them. I liked how the camera focused on their expressions in the physically confined scenes, although the zoom-ins was of side-profiles. It is in these throwaway expressions that our innermost emotions are articulated. These tiny snatches make the difference when they are added together. Which made it all the more heartbreaking, because as you pieced the fragments along the temporally perforated lines, you began to think how they were doomed from the start. And so, for every joyous moment and romantic gesture in the beginning, it was foreshadowed by the knowledge of their impending splintering. How could something so beautiful and perfect wind up to be the very thing that tore you apart in disgust and revulsion?
The Hollywood fantasy of love at first sight? Pfshaw! That patchwork dream is hacked into shreds of washcloth, designed to wipe tears drained of hope from your face. A heavy weight settled on my heart, as Dean walked away into the shadows, occasionally lit up by the racket of fireworks. He was a cipher from the start to the end, whereas we were able to roughly sketch out Cindy's background. People tend to sympathize with what they do not understand. And Dean, good old Dean, how was it that he could raise another's child as his own? Give up prior hopes and dreams to raise a family? Offer to change unconditionally to salvage things? Okay, maybe it is just me, but my heart broke for him. How can one not root for the dreamy romantic? Especially a relationship that was mismatched in terms of socio-economic class. Because in reality, that is what matters, and we don't want reality in our entertainment. Okay, maybe it is just me again, having been conditioned to expect certain emotions and responses to movies. Either way, I liked Blue Valentine because it told a subtle and frank tale about events that are given less attention. The bursting into flames, and then, the softening cackles of dying fires that sometimes grew strong enough to illuminate blissful tableaux. A homage to the small happy moments that had seemed insignificant because there were so many.
And that is worth living for, ain't it? Despite the despair and disappointment in later days, it was in these moments where one came alive. This reminds me of a link Chan-xiong sent me earlier in the week. Our lives do not revolve around grand moments and gestures. Instead, it is the thread of unspoken actions and visceral reactions that weaves our days. Five years down the road, I will remember walking home in the darkness with two other crackpots, laughing hysterically at how Choobug would act in the workplace. Or sitting in the kopitiam, anxiously waiting for the three others to forget about your answer and move on to another. Or being scared shitless by a horror film shown in lecture and sending squeally-uncool SOSes to weapons of mass distraction. Or being laughed at/laughing at an old friend in lecture for her erratic antics. People may not remember exactly what you did, or what you said, but they will always remember how you made them feel. And yeah, I guess I've been generally happy these past few weeks, thanks to the people around me. Would it sadden me if I lost contact with some of them eventually? Of course, it would. But I would be thankful for the memories, laughs, smiles etched onto my heart&mind upon the recollection of their names and faces. Because you don't need people to be with you all the time to enjoy their company. Because you can't, anyway. What you need is the having-been-there-together, the having-done-things-together, the solid base of common knowledge and experience that will not be easily shaken. On some nights, certain memories will sparkle brighter and engulf you in the heady summerhaze of nostalgia and love-given-then. They appear to be elusive and ephemeral, but really, they are simply undetected, hidden beneath the throbbing of your big and endless heart.
That would be a wonderfully profound way to end the post, but no!!! I am greedy for precise details, so hello, long boring details of days long past. 12th Sept, Mon: Sunig match against SMU. 13th Sept: That was my first attempt at an 8-hours-of-lessons-straight day!!! 2210 tutorial was pretty fun, talking about production of culture and the Banksy film that we watched in lecture. 2212 tutorial was, in contrast, an amorphous tangle of half-remembered concepts. 3101 lecture with the Pingeon was always fun, what with her bouncing in her seat to stay awake and pumping her fist automatically when the prof ended her lecture HAHA. NEVER CHANGE PLZ. :D Braindead by the time it came to 1201 tutorial. Thankfully, it was presentations, so it was an ideal time for stoning. And facebook chatting to different people. It was a week when I used fb messaging intensely, no thanks to a certain long-winded prof. (ok, longwinded is me, hehe.) Met Melins for dinner at Utown, and then, stayed for a bit with her EClique. Always fun to see Marcus and Jeff, even if it were a short while. 14th Sept Wed: 2212 lecture, a bit of studying, and then, training. Thur: going out with me-maw for lunch, The Office marathon after. Dunder Mifflin has grown on me by the end of S2. 16th Sep Fri: 2210 lecture, the aforementioned horror movie screening, which my lecture buddy happened to oversleep for. Sent out SOSes to whomever, but in the end, only Heido Hi replied swiftly enough. HAHA witless idiot in action, screaming in text and such. But it helped! 1201 lecture with Mitch was always funnn. 17th Sep Sat: a very tiring dance class, dinner with sis, more of The Office! And Running Man. Choi Min Soo is hilariousss. 18th Sep Sun: the start of 5 consecutive days of soccer! Training at 5pm. Then watching the Liverpool vs Tottenham match at Wenting's house. 19th Sep Mon: 9am training, which I didn't oversleep for! Haha lunch, when boojae and I were outcasted for our 'immaturity'. What nonsense!! Especially with our incisive questions about the debt crises and Obama's re-election chances. HAHAHA. And her wide-eyed glasses schtick. The good old Kpop days of 06-08. Laughing at laughing. Anything, basically HAHA. Ok, so we have an evolved sense of humour. Off to Utown for some studying. Did 3 readings, but not before falling all over the place and being tormented by constant urges in the pee-inducing room. HAHA. Dinner in Clementi with Chan-xiong, boojae, and profdikool, after which we spent two hours talking, punctuating silences with questions. It was nice, getting to know slivers of what went on in other people's lives. Monday was a nice day, in general. 20th Sep Tue: NTU match which was cancelled, unfortunately. Scramble-ing in the conference room, playing hangman, dinner at YIH, a bit of walking around Clementi. Went home and stressed about academic work. 21st Sep Wed: Training at 9am again! Not many people turned up, so we did soccer tennis, which yielded some laughs, teehee! Lunch at Deck, a bit of studying before GLEE 3D with profdikool, boojae, and Azlin. Which was FUNNNN. I unabashedly declare that I like watching Glee. Singing along to the songs, squealing at Blaine, sighing at Brittana's hotness, laughing at random moments. It was an interesting look at the circuit of culture as well. How Glee is being represented and marketed, the identities and messages that Glee embodies that the audiences internalise, the spin-off cultures, experiences and traits that are associated with being a Gleek. Food for more thought. After the movie, virgin trip into H&M, which turned out to be more like H&Mehhh. 22nd Sep Thur: Lunch with Nellie, Yipei, and Joanne. Match with NTU. 23rd Sep Fri: TODAYYY!!! And that wraps up the recollections. It seems that I am well and truly fucked for the academic arena. But whatever, that'd be for tomorrow!me to worry about. Sleepytime!!!
