#MyThoughtsOn The Tree Of Life

The Tree Of Life is a touching movie that tries none less than raising the great questions of life: why we live, what is the purpose of us and what is our place in the universe. I would probably fail to grasp the deep meanings of the film so don't even try: I just like to highlight some key messages the story gave to me.

The most obvious to notice are the references to Christian teachings: the opening quote from the Bible (Job 38: 4,7: Where were you when I laid the foundations of the Earth?….When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?) sets the mood and all through the movie we have no doubt that it would keep the religious perspective. But not in a usual way: the obvious religious characters of institutional religion fail to explain the questions raised. It is easy to see in the convo when one son dies in the family and a Christian priest tries to comfort the mother for her loss by saying:

FATHER HAYNES 

He is in God's hands, now. 

MRS O'BRIEN 

He was in God's hands the whole time, wasn't he?

Just as another churchgoer's words of 'You still have two sons' seem unsuccessful in easing the pain of the mother. I often experienced similar religious advice failing the same way, too. Spiritual journey of ours is so intimate that it is hard to understand by an outside viewer and though they may have kind purposes in comforting with the Word, it often feels cliche to me... and reductive. Sometimes it would be better not to say anything, just be there for the other. I think Church could get closer to people if instead of telling them what to do would start to be there for them and show them how to do.

The second thing I noticed was that the director surely likes structures: unusual structured buildings captured in different angles, golden ratio as church interior and unusal cuts all suggest that we see the story through somebody's eye who surely believes everything is structured and in order. Far from postmodern, every scene of the film has a meaning and they are all part of the big picture. This idea resonates with my views again: I also believe the same and often get mesmerized by the structural beauty of a building or a sunflower.

Getting deeper and deeper in the movie, the father and mother figure became two fighting forces - nature and grace. As the mother put it:

MRS O'BRIEN [voice over]
The nuns taught us* there were two ways through life - the way of nature and the way of grace. You have to choose which one you'll follow.

Nature and Grace are the possible ways to choose from, one option is embodied by the father and the other by the mother. I let you choose which one is which:

MRS O'BRIEN [voice over]
Grace doesn't try to please itself. Accepts being slighted, forgotten, disliked. Accepts insults and injuries.

[...] 

MRS O'BRIEN [voice over]
Nature only wants to please itself. Get others to please it too. Likes to lord it over them. To have its own way. It finds reasons to be unhappy when all the world is shining around it. And love is smiling through all things.

Here's the casting: the father figure represents the way of Nature and the mother figure promotes Grace, so we are the children who have to choose from the two ways. I am not sure whether the film suggests you should choose grace over nature, it is a question the film leaves open, I guess. Anway, I like the idea to put that eternal question into a metaphoric surrounding of a family. While watching, I myself often got reminded how my mother really represented grace by her unconditional love towards me and often thought about my father too who kept pushing me into being stronger.

It is not what happens to the characters that is important but what happens inside the viewer. The long animations capturing the genesis of life helped me slow down and think about my role in the universe. Much more like that, I travelled a thousand miles through this movie keeping this in mind:

MRS O'BRIEN [voice over]
The nuns taught us* that no one who loves the way of grace ever comes to a bad end.

__________________
* If these nuns taught Mrs O'Brien so much wisdom, I think I'll have no problem with my children attending Catholic school :) - that's for those having doubts that current change in Hungarian education policy is malevolent.

Blue Valentine and blind trust

I think there is shortage in quality romantic films that make you think about love. Blue Valentine is an exception for sure. It is not about how you can find love but what it feels like when you are losing it. And as we tend to appreciate things when they are gone, this film is up for teaching you a hard but important lesson of love and life, that is: it does not always turn out the way we have wanted to.

This film won't give you the comforting illusion that when you do things right, you'll get what you deserve, no. It rather serves as an exclamation mark for every brave adventurer who still have the courage to love - I mean real love - to have and to hold, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do you part.

I believe the intention of the filmmakers with this exclamation mark was not to scare everyone but to emphasise the importance of being careful, sober and cautiously aware when love knocks on your frontdoor. As not being a lovechild, I've learnt this lesson long ago - this film was an effective revision, though.

See some lines that sum up the message:

CINDY

What did it feel like when you fell in love? 

GRAMMA

Oh... oh dear, I don't think I found it

CINDY

Even with grandpa?

GRAMMA 

Maybe a little, in the beginning. He didn't really have any regard for me as a person. You gotta be careful with that. You gotta be careful with the person you fall in love is worth it... to you.

CINDY

I never want to be like my parents. I know they must've loved each other at one time right? To just get it all out of the way before they had me. How do you trust your feelings when they can just disappear like that?

GRAMMA 

I think the only way you can find out is to have the feeling. You're a good person. You have the right to say I do trust. I do trust myself.

If not for the message, watch it for Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling delivering excellent acting. Or for the several symbolic scenes all worthy to talk about but I skip them all to keep the focus on the most important one:
Trust? You can never surely trust in your feelings, especially when it comes to love. You have to be careful and brave at the same time: careful to choose and brave to dare to go trust blind with your choice.

And be humble in accepting the ending, happy or not.

New theme for the blog

I did a minor facelift for this blog. Although the previous style was much more stylish for me (remember the wooden background with twitter-blue short notecards for every blogpost), but this one is much more practical:

•  It can be viewed via mobile as well
• I can connect comments to G+ posts
• I can mention G+ users like +Tímea Szögedi and +Judit Keresztes 
• and I am easier to get in touch with the G+ follow button on the right.

Let's hope all this parcticality will encourage me to write more.
Stay in touch, folks.

#MyThoughtsOn Trouble with the Curve

Today I watched Trouble with the Curve. I chose this movie because I always liked baseball-related stories – I think that a game that is so strongly attached to American Culture can only be fascinating.

Trouble with the Curve proved me right: this film is about old and new, about the old times when baseball was the king, when it was considered sport and art at the same time, when it was more about the spirit, less about the money, when not computer statistics decided upon talent but highly devoted eyes of an expert.

Our baseball-fanatic devoted eye (Gus Luden played by Clint Eastwood) is about to lose his sight and his scouting contract in the same period of his life (dark clouds, innit?). What could only help is family – that Gus also lacks of. Actually he has a pretty successful daughter (Mickey, played by Amy Adams) but their relationship is somewhat cold. Gus lost his wife when his daughter was only six. Soon after this, Gus decided to leave his daughter and let her uncle raise her up instead of him.

Well, this family part of the story is what I like the most: the film suggests that family is such a bond that cannot be cut off, even when your family got messy because of a tragic death of a loved one or when you work thousand miles apart. When trouble comes, you can cling to family and not just by bowing down at your wife’s tomb and quoting Johnny Cash’s You Are My Sunshine, but a long-time no-see daughter can just as well turn up to clean the mess in your eyes and get back you on track.

At one point of the film, you realise that actually it is not losing the eye sight that is the problem: a long-damaged father-daughter relationship needs to be mended, scars need to be healed. The emphasis is on this string of the story so much that you even forget to keep your fingers crossed for Mickey and Johnny (which is fine, this touch makes the film different).

Although I have got to admit I enjoy their dialogue maybe too much in the part when Mickey (the daughter) enters the pub and Johnny (played by Justin Suit-and-Tie Timberlake) asks for a date. The Dad is there, giving Johnny some backwind:

JOHNNY: You can buy me a drink if you want [...]
MICKEY: I don’t feel so right, right now.
GUS: Get out.
MICKEY: What?
GUS: Go. What did you do? Go out. Meet some people. Have some fun, you hang around here.
MICKEY: Thank you, I meet plenty of people.
GUS: You are single, aren’t you?
MICKEY: Yes, I am still single, very single.
JOHNNY: Maybe you are emotionally unavailable.
MICKEY: Emotionally unavailable? Who are you, Dr Phil?
JOHNNY: Hey, that is quality television!
MICKEY: And by the way, if I am emotionally unavailable, [turning to Johnny] which I’m not, thank you very much, [turning back to her father] it would be because of you.
GUS: Just go with him, Jesus Christ.
JOHNNY: We’re gotta get a camera crew following you guys around. The Kardashians are nothing with the two of you. Poor Bruce.
GUS: Come on, just the two of you – get out.

Finally they do get out and that is when Johnny turns out to be pretty similar to Mickey’s dad: a baseball fanatic who lost his job (was a baseball player) because of a body-disfunction (his left arm got injured) – this is what makes his presence legitimate in the story.

His restart is a message to Gus. Johnny became a scouter after his retirement from his baseball career. When thinking about signing a young prospect, Johnny gets the advice from Gus that the young player might perform well  now, but he has got trouble with the curve - so his hand is hurt and could not handle the pressure of being a professional player (Alanis Morrisette would at this point wonder if it is ironic or not).

I am not going to tell you if Gus was right, but I hint that the script is full of these kinds of symbolic meanings. In the beginning of the film, the company thought they needed a new blood in scouting and in the end they get their new blood, but in a different way they have expected. Mickey’s mobile phone that is always in her hands get dropped into trash at the end – this also holds a message , just as the last lines of Gus saying he may try to do things differently (Mickey’s answer hit it, too “You already did”).



So, my instincts did not fail when I chose this movie. Before watching it, I had no idea what trouble with the curve would mean. But after seeing it, I find that I have quite a few experiences, too, with having some trouble with certain curves. I don’t know much about baseball, but I know I have a keen interest in topics film-makers attach to it: family, traditional values and thinking, old and new emerging, true talent and spirit – good stuff we can all learn about. And these are the kind of stories I like.