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elle-69
Reviews
La bottega dell'orefice (1988)
Need for Stories Like "The Jeweller"
It has been quite a culture shock, in only 50 years, so many of our basics - including our feelings about marriage - turned about and pointed in the other direction entirely!
This film endeavors to address it all and it does - in a helpful, sensitive and entertaining fashion.
Not long ago, Marriage was assumed to be the natural and most desirable path for any decent person. Then came the population explosions, and upgrading of human rights/responsibilities in all directions and social experiments running rampant, with human guinea pigs for the project.
Changing approaches to marriage has been one of these experiments. The human experience sources partly in the wonder of the special relationship of TWO - but today, people do exactly as the young couple in the story - they express doubt - they ask "why ?"
And that is the thing: not all that long ago no one would wonder about marriage - it was half the foundation of adult life. To question marriage would be a horrifying prospect. And today it is much more than a questioning - it is often a casting off of marriage - this new reality - and those coming of age are even happy with this sad idea !
The Jeweler's Shop is not perfect. Criticize the film for "missing it" in places but films like this and NEEDED and more of them.
Technically, the story is an allegory or even a parable of sorts, since it has a moral and lesson for us, and many of its mechanics are simplified to empower the moral.
And yet it was written so it could be simply enjoyed for its story without the moral message coming on too heavily. And we were entertained. Nice.
Would I have watched this film if it had not been written by Pope John Paul II in his theater arts days? I don't know.
But, it was lovely! Thank you...Dzien cuje!
The Last Sign (2005)
Right on the mark for me - 'the last sign'
Widowed, too young, I must say that "The Last Sign" was not all that far-fetched, for what really happens, 'when'.
According to the experts, the paranormal is 'normal' in the case of sudden death, violent death or not, especially if the grieving 'other' is young.
The normal self-system rebels against death, in general, because the message of youth is life.
As a result, hallucinations, at least, and wild dreams are normal, for a bit, till the mind of the grief-stricken has a moment to recover from the shock.
If the grief-stricken person has a path to the paranormal, the hallucinations are quite real apparitions, visions and perceptions. Such are meant to be used as tools to help/resolve, and often are. hallucinations are merely nature's 'buffers' for the shock and usually go their way, soon enough. Our heroine was right to get help when it went on, though.
That is the key to normal/crazy in it: its duration and intensity. Mine stopped in a few weeks, and I actually tried to conjure them back up, a bit, for the comfort they brought, however zany.
Our heroine does the same: confront and win, though the details differ.
MY idea. not death's, not madness' ...MY idea. Baby steps to regaining integrity of the personhood, and a great strong new life. Had my art to the White House last year, so I guess it worked.
I was fortunate in that I had little conflict or guilt...my relationship with my late husband and that of our children was great. But I did not want someone new, for a much longer time, than girlfriends whose marriage had been difficult or unhappy.
Oddly enough, that our heroine needed to trash the past and make new happiness was in her favor.
New men in my life left fast, at first, unable to understand that I needed 'continuum' - not 'trash it and find new'. My late husband and the lives we made as a family were a thing to celebrate and remember happily and so build new happiness and grand new love. I won some great alone time, with my view, at the time, but am glad of it now.
One way or another, and unique to each person, the idea is to survive, to heal to resolve, and to get on with the miracle of life INTACT.
I especially liked this particular film's career-choice for the widow and the deceased, similar to ours, in real life.
Sci/tech minds can be stubborn at dealing with such scenarios, but great at being able to pick it up, focus and purposefully follow it out !
I just felt that the film deserved my true note of praise. And a chance to jot a note that might help a reader.
Thanks to all who made and screened 'The Last Sign'
elle