Adaptation

It's been a long time since my last post, but I decided not to give up this blog altogether. Since I last posted, there was Halloween, and Thanksgiving, and Christmas, and Valentine's Day and 1st and 8th of March which are celebrated in Romania as the arrival of spring and women's day. It seems like winter's back though, so much so for the arrival of spring.

Anyhow, this is not a lame post about what I haven't written, but rather about what I have done lately, most of which has to do with film. The other day, I went to a screening of Carlos Saura's latest movie, Io, Don Giovanni. The film was ok, his speech was short and then he vanished. He didn't take any questions. I was a little disappointed, after all I was dying to meet him and talk to him after the movie. He left right after the movie started though. Ah well..

I have been watching my all time faves again: Requiem for a Dream, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. And then I discovered Being John Malkovich. And Adaptation. Boy, is the latter brilliant. I was captivated right from the opening credits by the self talk that one can hear in the background. It sounded pretty much like anyone else's self talk. And mine sometimes. The protagonist, Charlie Kaufman, is a man who clearly lives in his head a lot. He is shy and self conscious and brings himself down all the time. Nonetheless, he is the talented screen player who wrote the script for Being JM. What I like best about this movie? How real it seems and how it tries to avoid cliches in a very Don Quixote-sque manner. Of course it doesn't manage to do so all the way, but neither does Don Quixote. The scenes that I liked best were the ones about the pollination of flowers; and his sexual fantasy with the author of the book he's trying to adapt, Susan Orlean. The latter goes like this. He can't sleep or write, he's lying in bed and looks at Susan's picture on the back of the book. And then he dreams they are making love. It's a cliche, but I like this metaphor of creation: book and screen play coming together. However, unlike the pollination of flowers, this scene is cut off by his self talk. The human brain yet again interfering with creation. Instead of doing what we are supposed to do and let the world recreate and renovate itself, like nature does, the human brain interferes with this process, generally with disastrous results.

I didn't like the ending, but overall Meryl Streep and Nicholas Cage contribute to a wonderful performance. I loved one of the quotes from the book The Orchid Thief, which I am of course going to buy and read now, mentioned in the film. "There are too many people and ideas, too many directions to go. I am starting to believe that the reason why it is so important to care passionately about something is that it whittles the world down to a more manageable size." How true! One can't take on the whole universe. But then how does one find something one cares passionately about?