Wednesday, January 22, 2003
"To look life in the face, to know it for what it is, to love it for what it is: 'Tis the right of every human being."--- Virginia Woolf, as spoken in The Hours
For most people, movies are a pleasant distraction, two hours of escape from the drudgery of life, two hours spent somewhere you hadn't even imagined before walking into the theater. And then there are those of us with slight (undiagnosed) fantasy/reality relationship problems. There are those of us who take the characters with us in our heads, to live there for days or weeks. We welcome them, we serve them tea, relate our problems to them, quote them in our journals.
The Hours is a movie that I have yet to escape from. A moment hasn't passed since I left the theater that I didn't feel that I was acting based on the motivations I picked up in the film. (If you're struggling with unreleased spontaneity problems, it might be best to skip this film and carry on with your normal, predictable life.) Love, life, death, the hours, the moment. All of these things are laid before you on the screen, and you can't help but wonder how it was that you were living your life before you entered the theater, before you saw these events take place on the screen. But one thing was obvious for me from very early on. The world wouldn't look the same when I left. And it didn't.
Clarissa who was waiting for her happiness to find her, sacrificing for the happiness of others, Laura who sought her own happiness to protect her very existence, and Virginia, the catalyst for it all, who could never truly elude her demons... If you take anything from this entry, which is more an emotional musing than a review, let it be that you owe it to yourself to see this movie, to find what it has for you.
"That's what people do, Richard. They stay alive for each other."
--- Clarissa Vaughn, The Hours
Goodbye Granny Mitchell. Your fiery, sassy spirit will be missed here, but I'm sure those around you, wherever you may be now, will enjoy it just as much as we did.
Heather at 3:51 PM
