Movie #25 - Anything for Her

I have a list of prerequisites to be used with any man to whom I am attracted.  (Nearly always, whenever I tell someone this they laugh uproariously.  But when I tell them what the prerequisites are, and why, they agree these are all good points.  Vindicated.)  This list has five items, and not one of them is anything like “Will do anything for me, including breaking the law, breaking me out of prison, or dying”.  But recently, I watched Pour Elle (Anything for Her) and I thought, why not?  Well, a few reasons.  Let’s start with the fact that I could never ask anyone to do any of these things.  But neither did the woman in question.

Anything for Her is the story of a woman wrongfully imprisoned, Lisa (played by Diane Kruger), her husband Julien (Vincent Lindon) and son Oscar (Lancelot Roche).  In prison, with no chance of appeal or release, Lisa is effectively suiciding by not taking medication.  Julien cannot bear to see his wife fading away, and determines to rescue her.  He turns from a mild high school teacher, who looks like your average hot dad, into a brutal thug, who even looks scary.  And all the time I was watching, I was totally on his side.  There are various bits of the bible, and the Book of Common Prayer marriage vows, which indicate a man should love his wife as Christ loved the church - ie, he should die for her (if necessary).  I wonder - frequently, not just from watching this movie - how many people can truly say they would. 

On the other hand, Lisa doesn’t know of his plans until they are underway, mostly because he knows she won’t want to go through with it.  So I’m not sure if he really is being a decent husband or not.  Is allowing your loved one to die, to give up hope, to give up their child, just because they don’t want to cause a fuss, or break the law, any worse than breaking the law and going against their wishes?  Any better? 

Some thoughts, aside from the moral and relationship issues.  The small things can trip you up or save you.  He puts his garbage in a different bin on the morning of the escape - but is seen by the building manager, so the police still find it and all those clues to his plans.  But the escapees pick up hitch-hikers to get to the airport, so are not stopped as they are not a couple with one child.  Julien’s dad finds out what is about to happen, but as he is a man of few words anyway, it is not too hard for him to keep it to himself.  I really feel for the brother, knowing that he is going to lose a member of his family, but can’t do anything about it. 

Children.  They can be so resilient, but also so affected.  Oscar seems to adjust to life without his mum.  But then he starts to shut her out, it becomes just him and his dad.  It takes a long time for him to accept his mother back into his life, back into his circle of family. 

Forensics.  I love watching and reading mysteries.  I’m pretty sure that forensics could have provided some ‘reasonable doubt’ in the mind of a judge or jury in the matter of Lisa’s guilt or innocence.  Blood splatter, and the location of blood on her jacket, would surely indicate that Lisa didn’t murder her boss.  It was so frustrating just watching this, knowing that she was innocent, knowing it was very hard to prove otherwise - and wondering, how would I be in a similar situation?  How far would I be able to go to prove my innocence, and what would I be like if I couldn’t?  And how would those close to me react? 

Today's photo:

My first petunia flower. 

Movie #3

I had actually borrowed Copying Beethoven a couple of times before, and returned it without watching.  I think I even copped a late fine for it on occasion.  Last Tuesday I thought, It's Time.  Friday evening, along with my dad and brother, we watched it.

I'm glad I only paid a dollar.  Yes, Diane Kruger is beautiful.  The music was good - although at times predictable (oh look, he's in a forest - and the Pastoral Symphony is playing!).  After a few hours of grumbling, I realised the point of the movie - that to create, you have to 'build a bridge to the future' which will probably alienate you from everything happening in the Now, because Now is familiar and comfortable.  But if you just do what is familiar and comfortable, you'll stay in the same place.  Now that I've written that, I can see that this is a little like a metaphor for my life right now... Only it was said really badly.

I don't often say a movie was terrible.  I very rarely fast forward through a movie I haven't seen before.  I am actually annoyed that I spent about 100 minutes of my life watching this.  (Playing time is 104 minutes, I watched all the credits for the music, but I don't know how long the fast forward was). 

It could be that a non-musician would love this, Beethoven revealed as a human.  And the contrast of the great composer, who talks of building a bridge to the future with his visceral music to which no-one will listen, smashing the futuristic bridge design.  But: American accents for Viennese, American language jokes (mooning, the Moonlight Sonata... really?!).  So much talk of an angel sent from heaven, and the closest they could really get to a sex scene (a 23-yr-old girl giving a 53-yr-old man a sponge bath) was just...No.  Shudder.  Fast forward.

At the start, the movie is geared towards the premiere of the 9th symphony.  As it was being played I thought, well actually if it's this short that's a mercy.  Except that was only the middle of the movie.  Someone decided to keep going for another 40 minutes and include the Grosse Fugue as well.  As a string player, I loved hearing the Takacs Quartet playing this, but it didn't work well as a plot.  Maybe if it was 2 parts of a series, or if they'd even referenced the quartet before the symphony was performed, but they didn't.  Even the back of the DVD cover ends with the performance of the 9th symphony. 

Meanwhile, the actual performance of the symphony was an epic cringe.  Anna Holtz (Diane Kruger) has been the copyist, at the last minute, and is brought in to help in the conducting.  She crouches in the middle of the violins and conducts so that Beethoven (played by Ed Harris) can mimic her.  Normally, a conductor needs to preempt whatever is about to happen - show an accent a beat early etc.  So if the conductor is taking his cues from someone else, that someone needs to be even further ahead.  She was there, apparently, to show him where the beat would be, but was so engrossed in the music that she lolls around with her eyes closed for most of the time and appears to be behind the beat.  And as Beethoven also closes his eyes, the whole "Let's keep in time" thing seems to be pointless.  The end of the performance was the most effective part of the whole movie though:  the sound was cut except for very muffled thuds and scrapes, ostensibly as Beethoven would have heard the applause at that time.  It is only when someone turns him around to face the audience that he can see they appreciate it, and him.

Phyllida Law has the best line in the whole movie.  She plays Anna's aunt, the Mother Superior of a convent, but she came to Vienna to study with Salieri.  "So you understand", says Anna.  "Oh no, dear.  I never even met Salieri.  They sent me to one of his students.  I was 17.  He was French...".