Two Films

I've been somewhat stressed this week.  No particular reason, just a general uneasiness compounded by feeling mildly under the weather and various small interruption in the routines and plans; it is probably as much me and whatever is going on in my head as it is caused by any external forces or events.  But still it is there.  I go through fits of frenzied activity, hauling things here and there and as a result I feel like big changes are in the wind, until I look at my lists and realize that nothing of any significance has really been accomplished despite all the energy expended.  Then I kind of slump into a period of rest waiting for the next big flurry of activity.

In one of these early restful periods I curled up on the sofa with G and watched the oneiric film Inception which was fascinating and intelligent.  I suspect I don't know enough about psychology to really "get" everything I should about this film but it was still a rather compelling psychological romp with a rather unethical leading man who can't keep his own issues, his own shadow projections, out of his work and imposes them on others on or with whom he is supposed to be working.  It wasn't until the very end that I realized that the whole thing might possibly be a dream, a dream of a dream, levels of the psyche and the soul trying to get to the root problem.  Perhaps I am seeing more than was there.  

What particularly struck me was the obsessiveness of the score which moved between mild distraction yet with a small undertow of unease to  fear and dread, building tension and creating a sound that would leave this viewer feeling just like she had woken from her own nightmare drenched in sweat.    Particularly memorable was Edith Piaf singing "Je ne regret rien", the pivotal queueing moment, made all the memorable by its repetition and augmentation and the fact that this was a movie revolving around regret.

Another movie I could watch again was Inch'Allah Dimanche, and incredibly powerful and raw film about an immigrant woman and her family trying to adjust to a new world with different expectations while still struggling against traditions and loss of the familiar.  Very moving.  Patchy at times.  It did not always flow, well, as if it is told from memory, from having lived it but not yet understood what was happening.  There were times when characters would start to behave one way, and then turn about and behave in the opposite way.  I think this is also reflective of the struggle.  The ending seemed out of context, perhaps too sudden of a change of heart on the part of the husband, although he too had been conflicted throughout the film, acting in violently opposing ways, as if trying to find a path between new old, expectation, responsibility, desire and fear.  The ending sequence has a magical feel too it, and I suppose I feel it is somewhat allegorical and open to interpretation and introspection. A heart-wrenching and thought-provoking film.