i got around to finish this movie last night. i absolutely love the fact that it is a simple movie about a simple man trying to overcome a condition plaguing all things alive - humans at least - loneliness.
admit it, we all get the pangs of it - even the most friendly, the married ones, the single ones. whoever.
lars is a simple small town boy who is painfully shy. ryan gosling played the character with endearing sensitivity - it is like he lived a life time of being someone like that. he is in need of human contact but he's too shy for anything of that sort - that he resorted to buying a blow up doll - a love doll - a sex doll. he calls her bianca. he introduced her to his brother and his sister in law and everyone in town as his girlfriend. he sings her love songs. he tells her things a boy tells to his sweetheart. it is as if this doll is an extension of him that was missing all this while - his other half.
the thing that stands about this movie is, despite his obvious delusion, everyone in town takes bianca as seriously as lars does. they know this goes beyond garden variety eccentricity, but they play along with it because this is the way to show him their love for him. if this doll makes him happy, then by all means they want him to know how much they are happy for him. perhaps he has grown up thinking nobody cares - but by the end of the movie - he makes a conscious decision to let go of the doll and face the world - and he could not have been able to do that without the support of everybody - who takes him just as he is.
i don't know where the story was shot, the place is white with snow i can feel how desolate one can be. but i was wrong. the people makes it such a warm place.
it makes me think of how often we quickly close the door on other people due to lack of understanding and prejudice. how easy it is for us to sideline other people because they are different and do not conform to the standard definition of being normal, if there is such a thing. it must be lonely for them, those people who gets sidelined.
i am mostly glad lars gets a happy ending.
i am mostly glad lars gets a happy ending.
It's human nature to judge, and criticize things or people that are different.They tend to looks at differences as flaws not as uniqueness of an individual.
ReplyDeleteit makes me think of how often we quickly close the door on other people due to lack of understanding and prejudice. how easy it is for us to sideline other people because they are different and do not conform to the standard definition of being normal, if there is such a thing. it must be lonely for them, those people who gets sidelined.
ReplyDeleteI was the weird girl who spoke funny Malay (because when nervous I speak English with a British accent), who is outspoken and have unconventional points of view in a co-ed boarding school that is >98% Malay. I have had people shun me because they think I was strange and friends who dropped me because the boys don't like me.
So I understand how easy it is for people to sideline others who are different and try my best not to do the same. However, this may mean that I get bothered by people who wants to call me their BFF when I am content to just be mere acquaintances with them.
Such are the vagaries of life.
Good to know that Lars got a happy ending. Here, he would have just ended up at Tanjung Rambutan Hospital.
:p
naz: aku la tu. still mending my ways.
ReplyDeletesnuze: i guess it happens to everyone kan. i wished i have been more sensitive when to people's needs of simple things like humanity and the need for connection.
Slow and steady wins the race.. :p
ReplyDeletei wished i have been more sensitive when to people's needs of simple things like humanity and the need for connection.
ReplyDeleteThat you even have this thought is a great commendation to you, darling! Many people would never acknowledge that they are insensitive; much less accept the realisation that they are nasty and mean people at heart.
People by nature can be nasty or mean if they choose to. It's the matter of acting it out, or just finding ways to resolve or works around it. Admitting is the first step to improvement, and zue, u do have great qualities in you. Take care beb!
ReplyDeletesnuzy: haha. i guess i know me way too well. other wise it is just as good as lying (to me).
ReplyDeletenaz: i like who i am, despite my being conscious of the mean-ness in me.
ReplyDeleteWell, if you don't like yourself change it, if other people have problem with it. Screw them!!! I am currently practicing that.
ReplyDeletePeople who think they have no meanness in them are lying to themselves, mate. It's just a question of accepting all the facets of your person, loving it, and trying to fix the not-so-good aspects. That is, after all, the true jihad, IMHO.
ReplyDeletethanks for sharing this...sakit kepala w movies on cinema...
ReplyDeleteaiyda: i know..im hard pressed to choose which one to watch the kind of crap they air on screen :P
ReplyDelete