Over the moon – with WOMEN!!!

💀!!! There may be spoilers.


This year’s cinema season already started out so promising with “Late Night”, then there was nothing for some time until Emma Thompson reported back – mostly as a writer, this time. Of course she was one of the reasons for me to go and see “Last Christmas” – probably the only one! – but it turned out to be a good reason. The film is phenomenal – not just enjoyable because of so much of Christmas and so much of London. (THAT, actually, was the other reason! Though I am very reluctant about Christmas, and, though I enjoyed and remembered having been in London at Christmas this one time was quite enough for me, I never seem to get enough of both of them on the screen!) Actually, the film is really about rather tough (family!) issues – and, worst for me: the person that the female protagonist has come to rely upon to safe her life suddenly dies in a traffic accident. (I realized how much I count on people who matter not to die before I do!) But I recovered from the shock because I just loved it how the film, every time when I thought: okay, now we are back in Disney!, just thwarted my expectations and smashed me back onto the ground of reality. My favourite is this: The mother of a family of ex-Yugoslavian immigrants (Emma Thompson!) watching breakfast TV about Brexit and getting seriously upset. “They’ll throw us all out” she whimpers when her daughter shows up – who has just got a bit better herself and takes her mother out to the market to distract her from her destructive thoughts. Here we see the mother and daughter getting on for once, and finally the daughter explains patiently to her parent that she lives here and that nobody can throw her out. The mother nods and sniffs, and finally appears to feel a bit better, and then suddenly blurts out: “I blame the Polish!” Isn’t that brilliant! I rather like Emma Thompson and assume that she is terribly clever, so I automatically held her responsible for the writing. So, 👍👍👍 for Emma Thompson – (though I must say that I am really, really glad to have so many things to do that I enjoy that I don’t NEED to help other people …. 😉)

(And this is the slot for my 

 

BRRR👅👅👅 EXIT 😖 column:

The film brought me back to the issue about BREXIT that is the most difficult to swallow for the rest of Europe. I already mentioned that the British – or, maybe, more specifically: the English (and the Welsh)! – don’t think that the rest of Europe is THAT great. Rather they’d feel that it is dragging GREAT Britain down to its own standards, and they’d like to be “great” again. And I even understand - and sympathize with - this point of view because I rather like people who have a good opinion of themselves. Just because they actually might think that they have to live up to it and BEHAVE BETTER! I think that the proverbial British politeness is a correlative of this self-esteem because people think they owe it to THEMSELVES to be polite. They wouldn’t want to stoop to the general level – which is easy for Germans because we are raised in the conviction that we are shit anyway. So: what does it matter if we use our elbows? I don’t like this attitude at all, but there is definitely a downside to thinking that being English makes you better than the rest – of Great Britain and, even more so, the world. Even if it is not without cause. (“No dogs, no Irish” might have been possible in Bavaria at the time (when there were still “FREMDENzimmer” = rooms for FOREIGNERS = Non-Bavarians of all kinds) but not anywhere else in Germany!) Seeing this film, I became more sensitive of the fact that there might be a serious problem – for the OTHER people!)

After “Late Night” and “Last Christmas” I really thought that it couldn’t get any better - until the next day when I saw “My Zoe”. The film literally left me speechless ( - which might be a good thing, for a change … 😉 ) But of course it is impossible for me to hold my tongue, so I’ll just say this: Only after I had seen about three quarters of the film, I noticed that there was no soundtrack. I am not sure that there was no music during the whole film, but I think there actually wasn’t. It is something I usually notice because watching films without music can become boring or uncomfortable very quickly, even when it is a good film,  just because, I suppose, music fills these “cavities” that are left empty about what I MIGHT think, or feel, or see … but there just weren’t any “mights”! There was so much so very new and exact to think, to feel, to anticipate, and to notice about people, and relationships … (and about actors, of course!) There wasn’t a SECOND of being bored! And I just love this about reading: when I get this feeling as if my head opened, and my chest cavity, because all of this is just too small to contain so much, and my smile just seems to get too big for my face, and prejudices just peeling off me because they don’t matter … Getting home after that I couldn’t go to bed, and I actually NEEDED a drink. (I must add that I wouldn’t really recommend this film to anyone I know because of the tough subject matter!) Actually I had bought a quarter of champagne because I had coupons from my new supermarket, and that felt about right.

It is a pity to isolate issues from this film because this is exactly the point of the film, I think: that “we” CANNOT do this. Every case is special, every human relationship is special – most special and most inexplicable: parents and children. Of course we usually tend to rationalize, make drawers to “file” even this kind of issues … But of course I remembered to have seen this documentary about people trying to find a living cell from a mammoth frozen in permafrost soil to clone it. And thinking: Wouldn’t that be great …? But then I realized for the first time that the Chinese are already doing it on a big scale, cloning their pet dogs for rich people all over the world – which is how they actually FINANCE their research on gene sequencing and cloning! Insane money has to come from SOMEWHERE … And I became disgusted mainly because of the waste, and nobody caring about the surrogate mothers. I bet they just cut them up and get the puppies out and throw them away – and people wanting their lap dog cloned just look the other way or don’t care the least bit. Good thing, I thought, that this will NEVER be an issue for humans, at least not on a big scale because the person we’d want to clone would then be a baby …! I cannot believe now that the thought of parents wanting to clone their dead children didn’t even occur to me. Thanks, Julie Delpy, for making me aware of it! (Where I am concerned, I don’t really see this as “science fiction” any longer …) And, of course: THANK YOU for this incredible film!!!

(I know I’ll have to file her now – though I still don’t like her as an actress, not after having enjoyed watching her from “Before Sunrise” until just “Before Midnight”, and not even after aching for her in “My Zoe” … I don’t know why. Can’t have to do anything with her acting which was amazing. Probably a woman thing. Every woman has this kind of women they just don’t like … and in my case that might be most kinds??? So, of course, male actors have a much easier job convincing me … Of course I know that! The actual point of seeing “My Zoe” was to see Richard Armitage who was extremely convincing – and thoroughly surprised me, as I expected him to. And of course I was disproportionately pleased to finally see him in a substantial role in this kind of film – realizing that this is where I believe he should be. (That was what the champagne ultimately was about!) And on the stage, of course! Made it really difficult not to look forward to seeing him in the theatre in February … Maybe I’ll do it and spoil myself, just for a day or two?!)