Global Movie
Had a great time watching The Vertical Ray of the Sun with Rayne, Neva, and Harald yesterday. Since Harald’s in the Netherlands, Rayne’s in Michigan and Neva and I are in the Pacific Northwest, we did a little dance about what time we could all watch simultaneously. Turned out to be 10 am for me, which on Sunday is the middle of the night, especially since we’d walked down to the Latona Tavern and heard a couple of real good blues musicians the night before. I woke up at about 9:45, shook the beer bubbles out of my brain and started the espresso machine.
Double macchiato at my side, I hooked up with the others in an IM chatroom, slammed my Netflix-supplied copy of the film in my laptop’s dvd drive and .. ACK! Apparently when I blew out my operating system last summer, I neglected to reinstall dvd software when I rebuilt the machine. I was mildly surprised that it had been that long since I’d watched a movie on my laptop, but I guess I’ve been using my plane trips to blog and to read. I riffled through my Dell box of tricks, found the dvd software and installed it. Of course, the installation required a reboot at the end, so I had to say my goodbyes to the chatroom and wait for the leisurely win2k restart. I felt a flush of power at having the ability to annoy people in three time zones and two continents.
Back on line, 5 minutes late, we revved up our drives and pressed “play”, following Rayne’s Indy-like start. I had my laptop desktop arranged so that the movie played in a full-sized rectangle at the top, and the IM chat window scrolling in the space left at the bottom. It was fun to be able to gab during the film, but, because it was subtitled and fairly convoluted, I at least had to focus most of my attention on the movie.
Vertical was just gorgeous visually. At the end, we had to compare notes to be sure that we’d accounted for all the plot threads and had them populated with the right characters. Some of the Rotten Tomatoes reviewers complain about being unsatisfied with a perceived lack of resolution in the plot, and I could be dragged down that road if we hadn’t had our discussion while the details were still fresh. Also, I too often err in applying literary standards to movies. In retrospect, I am very satisfied with the window provided on these lives over the course of a month in which little, barely perceptible tectonic shifts were happening in their lives.
I saw another movie last weekend, Lost In Translation, that would have suffered by applying purely literary standards. In similar fashion, we observe two people getting through a week in which tiny fissures are opening in their lives. The china’s rattling on the shelves just a little, but doesn’t seem in danger of falling just yet - by itself, anyway.
The ‘relationship’ between Bill Murray and Scarlett Johannson, incubated in the hermetic environment of hotel residents without the time or means to meaningfully interact with their surroundings, was so believable despite their differing stations in life. And, cinematically, each time it appeared that their relationship might take on romantic/sexual significance, there would be an uncompromisingly frank shot (’cruel’ to someone who might be turning 54 on Tuesday) of Bill Murray that completely disabused you of that possibility.
And the problems that each was having in his marriage were not posed in trite and stereotypical terms - they were just those issues of people talking and not listening, the kind of things that you know eventually get resolved if people are brave enough to countenance what they portend and care enough to adjust to nullify them.
Bill Murray stars, but don’t go expecting Ghostbusters or Caddyshack.
I was stone cold sober for both viewings, and it’s refreshing to be able to remember details and evaluate. Might have to make it a tradition, unless I know going in that a buzz is required to fully appreciate a film.
