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Ah, jesus, this movie wrecked me. Somewhere in the middle of the Peter Rabbit scene I started to cry, and it took me a moment to figure out why I was reacting so strongly, which is that my dad used to read to me as a kid from his old Beatrix Potter collection. The moment where she looks up at the empty chair, I was ruined. There's something about language as a force of connection, I guess. Vivian spends most of the film using language to push people away and isolate herself, building a wall of ironical commentary that gradually falls apart. She's spent her life teaching one of the most difficult poets, who spent his career puzzling over the great mystical paradox, and then gets gently talked into her death by the simplistic but comforting The Runaway Bunny, which her professor states is "a little allegory of the soul, wherever it hides, God will find it." It's a reading that can be broadened to comfort in general. Vivian states at one point that "hard things are what I like best", and everything is a challenge, but you can't win like that in the end. You have to let the angels in. edit: also, Vivian and her professor both reminded me a lot of my own English professor, which was a little startling at first. I liked her so much I took all of her classes because she was so open about the things we read. I suddenly really hope she's doing okay. edit 2: I was at the store and I suddenly thought of the last few moments and got choked up, gently caress this movie. Magic Hate Ball fucked around with this message at 08:10 on Jul 19, 2014 |
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Jul 18, 2014 05:12
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It's also interesting to consider it from a point of view of women in academia, all the preconceived notions people have about "smart women" as being cold, tough, or hard to get one up on, not to mention the sexism they still face. There's also a lot that ties in very neatly to her having ovarian cancer. I almost think of Autumn Sonata, of Bergman's original idea that the daughter would "birth" the mother - having ignored them, or at least not used them, all her life, Vivian loses the parts of her that give life, and not only that, but dies as a result (and in the arms of the only mother figure we see - both parental figures are tied directly to language).
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Jul 21, 2014 06:44
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