"stars... and sausages!"
Jun. 14th, 2008 01:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
methrowrockIt has been a long time coming. Watching a good film, I mean. It brings back memories. I miss those empty and free days of December when I could bum around all day and not feel any guilt. When I could stay up all night, watching films on tudou in the dark- for fear of my mom waking up- or on the portable DVD player, nestled within the comfort of duvets and pillows. When I could lie on the bed, drift off to sleep before waking up for food and before dozing off again. When my sole reason of existence was to chillax. (Funky word huh, chillax. It conjures up the image right home.) 懐かしいな。 It was a good run. Anyway, the film that made me feel this way: the wonderfully droll and moving Breakfast on Pluto.
First of all, the summary. In the 1970s, a foundling lad, Patrick "Kitten" Braden, comes of age by leaving his Irish town for London, in part to look for his mother and in part because his trans-gender nature is beyond the town's understanding. It doesn't sound like much to be sure but oh, Cillian Murphy was brilliant as Paddy. It's no understatement. He managed to imbue Kitten with such tenderness, whimsicality, flamboyancy and toughness that all you could do was to root for him. Yet you didn't pity Paddy- you smiled at his wistful absurdity; understood his incomprehension of "Oh serious, serious, serious!", "in over your head" and "way out of your league"; you ached for him when his attempts at love goes awry and oh, you felt what he felt and more. He was simply compelling to watch, with his big blue tragic eyes and full quivering lips.
I loved his personality as well. Paddy was flashy, bold and loud, with a swish of fabric and dazzle of sequins on his standard-issue grey school sweater. I admire people like that, people who don't give a flying fuck about what others think about them and just lead their lives unaffected by their opinions. The courage he possessed to be who he was- for lack of a better description, a flaming transexual- despite society's pressure on him to conform and oh the flippancy and nonchalance he displayed. Nobody, save a few true friends, understood him. The rest abhorred him, they are repulsed by his frank, unapologising take and way of life. He shrugged it all off, though it must have hurt underneath his breezy gestures and lopsided smiles. It's always the cryingontheinside characters that gain your sympathy, ain't it. All he really wants is unconditional love. That, and a place to belong. Some where, some place, some people who would accept him just the way he is. Cliched, yes, most definitely, but that doesn't mean it is untrue. Everyone wants to be loved. Nobody wants to picked on, bullied, hurt, rejected, abused, neglected, reprimanded, killed (nearly for Paddy, if not for his Chanel No. 5 spray) like Paddy had been. "I knew you were only joking about the roses. And the sweeties. But it was nice while it lasted." Doesn't that kill you or what? Love, he thought he had found true love once. But after that one tragic time, no more, no thank you. He always ended up being cheated, being left behind, being manipulated, being abandoned. Lady Luck certainly hated him. He had been persecuted his whole life as well, just because he is being himself and living his own life. An especially poignant scene was the one where Father confessed to him and apologised for all the neglect he imposed due to his own selfishness and vanity. It was a parallel of an earlier scene where Paddy went into confession and agitated the Father with questions about his mother. Paddy, the one who always 'sins' by being too liberal, too ostentatious, too showy, was, all along, the one being sinned against. He was the victim, yet because of his appearances and behaviour, he's portrayed as the morally bankrupt one. Irony irony. That's the part that kills me about Paddy. He's just an oddball trying to find his place in the world, like everyone else, in his own carefree, worryfree, freedom-full ways. I'm wreaking havoc with my punctuation and grammar gah.
Yet, Breakfast On Pluto wasn't a sad film. Nah, far from it. The landscapes were colourful, vibrant, with bright bounces of colour, no thanks to the period it is set in- the 60s and 70s. It capers around in a whirlwind of blinding pastels and hues, in tune with a jaunty retro soundtrack. And Paddy never fails to liven things up or keep things light with his eternal optimism. There were softer smudges as well. The unending search for the Phantom Lady, which yielded some nice scenes of whiproundthecorner and flashroundthebends (if you understand me here, I applaud you <3). And the pretty elfin wonderland, like a separate, untouched, unpolluted fairytale in a madcap fairytale trying to find its happilyeverafter in the harsh realities of the brutal world- of revolutions, abuse and terrorism. And it (he) eventually did, settled, roots deep in the warm earth next to his sensible best friend, where he'll probably continue life as colourfully but less giddily.
True, the movie was a little long and there were a few redundant scenes, but while it lasted, it was a wild scamper for love, identity and a home, filled with bursts of romance, imagination and camp along the way, a perfect antithesis to the drab, narrow-minded, conservative society then. Kitten held in all together admirably. Would I ever meet someone like that, I wonder? I'm not interesting enough, perhaps. Flights of fancies, have you all flown away already?
And the other thing about the Phantom Lady was, Bert, she realized, in the city that never sleeps...
What did she realize, Kitten?
That all the songs she'd listened to, all the love songs, that they were only songs.
What's wrong with that?
Nothing, if you don't believe in them. But she did, you see. She believed in enchanted evenings, and she believed that a small cloud passed overhead and cried down on a flower bed, and she even believed there was breakfast to be had...
Where?
On Pluto. The mysterious, icy wastes of Pluto.
Beautiful, isn't it.
Phew, haven't written about movies for a long long time. Too long actually. Knocked Up and Kungfu Panda sure as hell weren't worth the trouble, however entertaining they might be. It's time to raid my sister's closet for more DVDs now. Goodbye. And I'm most probably going to fail CTs gaaaah.
First of all, the summary. In the 1970s, a foundling lad, Patrick "Kitten" Braden, comes of age by leaving his Irish town for London, in part to look for his mother and in part because his trans-gender nature is beyond the town's understanding. It doesn't sound like much to be sure but oh, Cillian Murphy was brilliant as Paddy. It's no understatement. He managed to imbue Kitten with such tenderness, whimsicality, flamboyancy and toughness that all you could do was to root for him. Yet you didn't pity Paddy- you smiled at his wistful absurdity; understood his incomprehension of "Oh serious, serious, serious!", "in over your head" and "way out of your league"; you ached for him when his attempts at love goes awry and oh, you felt what he felt and more. He was simply compelling to watch, with his big blue tragic eyes and full quivering lips.
I loved his personality as well. Paddy was flashy, bold and loud, with a swish of fabric and dazzle of sequins on his standard-issue grey school sweater. I admire people like that, people who don't give a flying fuck about what others think about them and just lead their lives unaffected by their opinions. The courage he possessed to be who he was- for lack of a better description, a flaming transexual- despite society's pressure on him to conform and oh the flippancy and nonchalance he displayed. Nobody, save a few true friends, understood him. The rest abhorred him, they are repulsed by his frank, unapologising take and way of life. He shrugged it all off, though it must have hurt underneath his breezy gestures and lopsided smiles. It's always the cryingontheinside characters that gain your sympathy, ain't it. All he really wants is unconditional love. That, and a place to belong. Some where, some place, some people who would accept him just the way he is. Cliched, yes, most definitely, but that doesn't mean it is untrue. Everyone wants to be loved. Nobody wants to picked on, bullied, hurt, rejected, abused, neglected, reprimanded, killed (nearly for Paddy, if not for his Chanel No. 5 spray) like Paddy had been. "I knew you were only joking about the roses. And the sweeties. But it was nice while it lasted." Doesn't that kill you or what? Love, he thought he had found true love once. But after that one tragic time, no more, no thank you. He always ended up being cheated, being left behind, being manipulated, being abandoned. Lady Luck certainly hated him. He had been persecuted his whole life as well, just because he is being himself and living his own life. An especially poignant scene was the one where Father confessed to him and apologised for all the neglect he imposed due to his own selfishness and vanity. It was a parallel of an earlier scene where Paddy went into confession and agitated the Father with questions about his mother. Paddy, the one who always 'sins' by being too liberal, too ostentatious, too showy, was, all along, the one being sinned against. He was the victim, yet because of his appearances and behaviour, he's portrayed as the morally bankrupt one. Irony irony. That's the part that kills me about Paddy. He's just an oddball trying to find his place in the world, like everyone else, in his own carefree, worryfree, freedom-full ways. I'm wreaking havoc with my punctuation and grammar gah.
Yet, Breakfast On Pluto wasn't a sad film. Nah, far from it. The landscapes were colourful, vibrant, with bright bounces of colour, no thanks to the period it is set in- the 60s and 70s. It capers around in a whirlwind of blinding pastels and hues, in tune with a jaunty retro soundtrack. And Paddy never fails to liven things up or keep things light with his eternal optimism. There were softer smudges as well. The unending search for the Phantom Lady, which yielded some nice scenes of whiproundthecorner and flashroundthebends (if you understand me here, I applaud you <3). And the pretty elfin wonderland, like a separate, untouched, unpolluted fairytale in a madcap fairytale trying to find its happilyeverafter in the harsh realities of the brutal world- of revolutions, abuse and terrorism. And it (he) eventually did, settled, roots deep in the warm earth next to his sensible best friend, where he'll probably continue life as colourfully but less giddily.
True, the movie was a little long and there were a few redundant scenes, but while it lasted, it was a wild scamper for love, identity and a home, filled with bursts of romance, imagination and camp along the way, a perfect antithesis to the drab, narrow-minded, conservative society then. Kitten held in all together admirably. Would I ever meet someone like that, I wonder? I'm not interesting enough, perhaps. Flights of fancies, have you all flown away already?
And the other thing about the Phantom Lady was, Bert, she realized, in the city that never sleeps...
What did she realize, Kitten?
That all the songs she'd listened to, all the love songs, that they were only songs.
What's wrong with that?
Nothing, if you don't believe in them. But she did, you see. She believed in enchanted evenings, and she believed that a small cloud passed overhead and cried down on a flower bed, and she even believed there was breakfast to be had...
Where?
On Pluto. The mysterious, icy wastes of Pluto.
Beautiful, isn't it.
Phew, haven't written about movies for a long long time. Too long actually. Knocked Up and Kungfu Panda sure as hell weren't worth the trouble, however entertaining they might be. It's time to raid my sister's closet for more DVDs now. Goodbye. And I'm most probably going to fail CTs gaaaah.
