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June 16, 2005

Escapism

I went and saw the movie 'My Summer of Love' with Brian last night. It was a sweet and poignant story, a tale of two teenage girls and despite their vastly different upbringings befriend each other over one summer. Their friendship quickly escalates into something more intimate, ultimately climaxing in a powerful scene at a river.

In one scene one of the girls reveals to the other that she considered herself a fantasist. She admits to creating worlds and characters and stories in order to spice up her dull and meaningless existence, and in some ways I can identify with her. My life, it feels has always been about acting a part for a certain audience for the sole purpose of impressing them. My personality shifts whenever I'm around these people - I would act coy, cocky, forlorn, egoless, flirtatious, quick-witted - and I would scare myself as another version of me would take over. I'm thinking back on times where I would catch myself posing. Even my sister has commented on how I act in front of certain people. My friends can attest to the fact that I love to adopt different dialectical accents, but that characteristic is usually attributed from alcohol. I'm still figuring out why this is so... is it because I'm using acting as some sort of an escapist defense mechanism? I don't know.

Anyway, I thought the movie was wonderful. The performances by Nathalie Press and Emily Blunt are just amazing. I particularly like Ms. Press because she reminds me of a young Tilda Swinton, my favorite actress. The camerawork in this film is also very interesting: the director was very fond of capturing very tight frames, all too often filling the entire shot with the faces of the girls. Normally I would be annoyed at this kind of moviemaking, but as the two actresses are extremely emotive and photogenic, and given the context of the film I didn't mind it one bit.

Go see this movie.

Posted by Charlie at June 16, 2005 04:23 AM