20 Apr Boxing Helena (1993)

Children

Oh what a problem adult children are.

What do you do with children who become people? I’m thinking here are of children of friends who you admire and respect in some way, who are worth living and being with. Who enrich your life so you want to engage in their worlds and projects, or maybe just drift in an interwoven conversation. Who have children with none of these qualities, who seem to have even been singed by the bright light of a heated parent.

What do you do? There they are in your house, with an entrée of shared ideas inherited from deep adventures they know about, may have even been on as bystanders? Now they have access of sorts to your heart and an invitation to suck your energy. When we invite talented filmmakers into our dreams, its hard to shut out their kids.

Sometimes they deliver. And sometimes not. Sofia Coppola is a dope, a bad filmmaker made to look good by the rich underwriting of her dad who provides the industry’s very best. What you see as an artful suspended empty centre in her work is an empty centre surrounded by skills that make her vacuity look deliberate. Compare that to her brother Roman who eschewed Daddy’s acolytes and has something interesting to say. One loss, one gain.

Now we have another kiddo of a brilliant mind. I know few people who don’t appreciate Lynch, who haven’t collaborated with him in opening news ways to see and new facets of reality to open. And his daughter seems as blunt as he is sharp. Perhaps if he interceded he could have prevented this embarrassment and have us celebrate Jessie like we do Sophie.

But it is probably better this way. We know to close the door.

It is a promising thing, the idea, at least to judge from the hundreds of good treatments we have of it. A man desires a woman so thoroughly that he bends reality, and catches us up in his obsessions. Along the way, her being becomes packaged as simply a few delicious body parts to be worshiped in the service of supporting the newly created world. Plus the notion of healing by breaking. (He’s a doctor.)

In fact it is just the sort of thing David would eat for breakfast, his table leavings annotating seven levels beyond.

And you can see that she knows a few things, probably overheard: the girl must be redhead. Her cage should be a throne/altar. The house should be something evocative of movie fantasy. The plot device that ruins the kidnapping plot is a pomegranate, with its succulent cells, each distinct. There’s an inexplicable video of a key scene, where she finally hypnotises our victim. She’s exhibiting herself in a fountain.

But these bits aren’t leveraged. “La Belle Noiseuse“ (the long version) may be one place to go as an alternative, but there are hundreds others, even that I have seen in the past couple years — and comment on here.

Oh child, I won’t be in today.

Posted in 2006

Ted’s Evaluation — 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

IMDB