You would think there is nothing new to say about love. There may not be. And, when there is nothing new to say, is it possible to really experience evocative moments? Of course it is. The solution is in how one communicates their love (anyone can recall those moments when they’ve uttered the words “I love you” out of duty, or when they’ve been on the receiving end of one of those). Hollywood, for the most part, has only had two ways to talk about love: Through the classical Hollywood days until rather recently, it’s been in sharp, charming dialogue with two characters who are complete opposites growing to like each other. This is still a common treatment, but the arrival of Woody Allen in particular introduced a new kind of dialogue: a cynical (but still quick witted), slightly nostalgic tone.
Filmmakers have merged these two styles to create the modern day romantic comedy. I don’t think it’s necessarily a mystery as to why the current romantic comedy genre is in such a stale position. Filmmakers and screenwriters are witty and informed like never before. They’ve got fresh lines, fresh witticisms. But they are saying nothing new. There is the same undertone behind the overstuffed dialogue. “Blue Valentine”, a longtime passion project from Derek Cianfrance, seems to suggest that the romantic film can flourish in a minimal form. A kind of treatment that rewards the mysteries of relationships, and walks along a continual line with no clear beginning; no clear beginning of the first exciting pangs of love; and no clear beginning of the moments when those pangs become pricks, when the end has it’s beginning. If that’s not a faithful treatment of love, then what is?
“Blue Valentine” despite its somewhat ludicrous ambitions in pre-production (the stars shared a home and were asked to create loving memories of each other before dissolution), is a very minimal film. It has none of the visual flourishes of a romance like neither ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’, nor the excessive analysis of love in a film like ‘Scenes From A Marriage’. It doesn’t abandon all of the traits of romance films however. The stars (Academy Award nominees Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling) are a perfect mix of the beautifully porcelain and the beautifully rugged. There is of course a dramatic storyline: He longs for the simple life, she does not. Thankfully, the characters are much more dimensional than that simple synopsis, and it is truly a representation that would be best seen on the screen, and not read in this review.
As the film jumps back and forth between infatuations to sudden irritation, we know it ultimately will not end well by the final reel. Dean is often a slouch, and Cindy is progressively frigid and ambitious at the cost of all else. A closer look reveals that the two are not as simple as they seem: Dean is estranged from his family and longs to escape into someone, while Cindy has a long history of males who have used her solely for her body or other forms of control. Suddenly the lovers seem more dynamic. Dean’s sentimentality is not so cute, and Cindy’s frigidity is more understandable. It is as if both characters had one version of themselves go out the front door, and the other out the back. But these radically divergent identities merge into one another. Dean and Cindy must cope with the fact that they know much less about one another than previously thought. Once the love ends, behind all the known and unknown motivations each of us carry, it is normal to ask the question: Was it even love?
‘Blue Valentine’ largely remains oblique in its portrayal of dissolution. We are not provided with visions of the meat of the relationship. We don’t know how it happened; we only know that it did. Inerrability is the one force that we constantly fight against. Joan Didion once wrote “We tell ourselves stories in order to live”, and that is the inescapable truth. Works of art provide us with a comfortable narrative, and not even “Blue Valentine” can resist inserting some tired symbolism to help us make an understandable shape. Its ambitions remain admirable however: We cannot help being one step behind in our lives. Things happen before we can comprehend them. We have no choice but to keep going forward.
No comments:
Post a Comment