meditative. saw family life in film this morning which had me hostile right from the start. not because it’s upsetting, i like upsetting movies. no matter how many i see, the good ones still get to me and i appreciate that. getting all twisted about for different reasons is a nice change. but this one (about a relatively normal teenage girl in britain’s suburban 60s with disgusting narrow parents who whirlpools into insanity) irritated me, which is not the same thing. in a lot of ways it’s like girl, interrupted. both are based on true stories, both involve young women whose mental maladjustment is a result of their environment, specifically a stifling family life, in that age when the gap between parents and offspring was at its widest (or so the media tells us.)
this was so heavyhanded though. it’s easy to put all the blame on society. but the girl had a responsibility to herself not to do everything she was told, to make friendships, to find some kind of creative outlet — small things that could improve her state tremendously. her own passivity it seems does her in as much as her dull parents do. they turn her into a victim; she lets them.
very unsympathetic of me. blah. it’s sort of a blah day. i looked outside at what i thought was sky. a moment later i realized i was staring across an alley at a white brick wall nearly indistinguishable from what it hits its head on.
last nite the some of us opera-bound folks stopped for a traditional danish meal in nyhavn. first herring i’ve had here. it was delicious. carmen itself though — set in spain, sung in french, subtitled on the little screen in danish — was enjoyable but didn’t make an impression on me. maybe it would have had i understood more, or maybe i’m just unused to opera.
not reading up on the show first was a mistake. over intermission, a few of us scrambled to read the synopsis in the program and try to figure out who you were supposed to feel for while some others explained. ‘she’s a slut,’ said mel helpfully. ‘really?’ i said. ‘this whole time i thought she was just being friendly.’ katie shared with me that the sopranos and the basses are usually the bad guys. why should that be, d’you suppose?
luckily the end is very direct. i love you don’t leave me/ i don’t love you anymore i love him, ad nauseum, is pretty universal stuff.