Pain like this seems inseparable from perfection

Allow me first off to clarify that today's titular quotation does not refer to any sort of physical injury I've sustained or personal trauma I've encountered since last I wrote. The line comes from L. M. Montgomery's Anne's House of Dreams and the feeling of pain is meant to be connected to an intense sensation experienced upon seeing something very beautiful; also referred to by Anne as "the queer ache." This juxtaposition in feelings is something extremely enjoyable for me in literature and film. It lends a satisfying tension to the work and often composes that illusive feeling of being moved by what you read or watch.

Something similar to this feeling exists in the film I watched last night: Carlos Saura's "Don Giovanni." You may already be familiar with this title as the famous opera. The film gives a sort of fictionalized background as to said opera's creation by composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and lyricist Lorenzo Da Ponte. If you've read my review of "Il Deserto Rosso" (here), you can easily imagine how a colourful, vibrant, period film like this would stand in stark contrast. For the overarching effect of a large, brilliant spectacle, you could likely find similarities in films such as "The Phantom of the Opera" (I'm thinking of the 2004 Gerard Butler version). However, I was impressed by a few unique production choices made in "Don Giovanni" that did an excellent job of echoing the feeling of watching a live onstage performance.

Blocking (placement of characters within the space) was done to a tee and a couple of times further accentuated through the use of tableau. If you're up on your classic films, I think you could compare this tableau and posed crowd effect to the race scene in "My Fair Lady." The other effect that I found very interesting was the use of screens. Occasionally, a printed screen would be used as the backdrop, both in rooms and outdoor settings. They were clearly artificial, but gave a strong feeling of watching a play within a play (or, to be more accurate, an opera within a film). Once, the audience's attention was even specifically drawn to the artificiality of the backgrounds as a character remarked that he was looking after the books in an illustrious library; all of the walls in the library, including the shelves as well as the books upon them, were nothing but hanging backdrops. Screens were used again to achieve extremely smooth transitions between scenes. The scene you were watching would seem to take place in a solid building, then the lights would dim, while other lights on the opposite side of the wall would raise revealing the wall to have been only a screen the whole time. The camera would film the newly illuminated figures on the other side of the screen through the transparent backdrop until switching camera angles to bring the back room into the forefront.

Now for a little of something else I promised you in my last post. I've really been trying hard to take good care of my skin lately. My blog deals a lot with many different areas, but beauty products are definitely one of my interests. In that vein, we most often come across blogs focusing on skincare for the face alone. I can tell you what sort of products I do use on my face if you're interested, but today's review will actually be dealing with body products instead. The Body Shop has had a summer sale on (it still is on online, I'm not sure about in-store) so I swung by and picked up a couple of items. One of these is their body scrub in "Mango," which did not disappoint in terms of providing a scent true to its name. This scrub smells so fantastic you'll have to stop yourself from grabbing a spoon and just shovelling the contents into your mouth. Honestly, it does smell THAT good. Besides the scent, this product has been working really well for me so far. It's quite a thick texture, but I find that you can work it in decently well, even on dry skin. It claims to be for very dry skin, which is great because it doesn't leave your skin feeling super worn out, but rather soft and moisturized instead.

I wish you guys could smell this stuff! UH-mazing.

To seal in the feeling of goodness the scrub leaves on my skin, I then lather on Lubriderm's Advanced Therapy Lotion. I've only been using these products for a little while, but my skin feels amazing, and it smells pretty good too!!

Oops! I didn't realize how blurry this was!

-C

Another look in the mirror

Today's title refers to the most recent film I've seen: "Snow White and the Huntsman." After seeing it the other night, I'd like to share a few of my thoughts with you. To keep things organized, I've decided to list them and give a (relatively) short explanation under each one. Feel free to debate and add your opinion!

Doesn't look like much of a castle-stormer to me!

1. Kristen Stewart as Snow White: I know that this casting choice presented a major obstacle for many movie-goers. Between the "Oh please, that emotionless Twilight girl?" and the "Who do they think will find HER prettier than Charlize Theron," there was a fair amount of negativity surrounding Stewart's position as the title character. I myself am not a huge fan of Twilight. I mildly appreciate the movies, but to be honest, it's because of the filming style and excellect, excellent scores and soundtracks. However, I feel like Stewart really turned it out for this film. She was a whole new model for Snow White, and although she didn't exactly take my breath away with her sheer talent, she did display much more feeling than in the Twilight series. She brought a tougher modern vibe to the film (à la her role as Joan Jett in "The Runaways"), which certainly helped make it more believable for me when she later donned a suit of armour, stormed a castle, and helped to battle the Evil Queen's army.
2.  The inclusion of Christianity:When Kristen Stewart's Snow White began her fervent recitation of the Lord's Prayer in her opening scene in the tower, it threw me for a minute. Before I go any further, I just want to make it clear that I mean no offense to anyone's religious beliefs, I'm simply examining this topic as an interesting film interpretation. As a scene, I think it completely makes sense that Snow White would be praying for herself and/or her deceased parents. It shows a demonstration of faith, devotion, and mild mannered kindness, several of which qualities we would expect from a heroine. However, many of such traditional fairy tales (the most popular version of Snow White comes from the German Brothers Grimm) are markedly pagan, for example in the practice of dark magic and witchcraft. I feel that it might not quite have made sense to superimpose Christianity over such an old and oft-told tale of which it had never previously been an element. The film also appeared to contridict itself as after setting Snow White up as a Christian, they introduced the magical white deer with tree branches for antlers. The awe displayed before this apparently never-before-seen animal struck me as though the deer must be intended to be, on some level, godlike. So, either "Snow White and the Huntsman" is breaking new ground by attempting to reconcile or consolidate paganism and Christianity, or the audience is meant to view the deer as a kind of rare manifestation of God for the purpose of blessing the Christian heroine on her journey. The second option does clearly recall for me the literary tradition of the Christian epic (see Paradise Lost or  The Faerie Queene), but I think you could make a case for either.
3. What was missing: As much as I can appreciate "Snow White and the Huntsman" as a "main movie theatre attraction for summer 2012", I can't help but also compare it to the Snow White story I know and love. I am not getting into the Brothers Grimm here; I can respect them as authors, but I've never found any of their works particularly warm and fuzzy or well suited to the modern, unharassed, mentally stable child. This comparison is based off of straight up Disney. First of all, Kristen Stewart's Snow White was frequently strong willed with an occasional splash of badass, which totally worked for her own edgy persona. However, it also made me long for the good old Snow White. You know, tying her hair back in a bow, singing into the wishing well, giggling with the forest critters, the whole bit. Snow White is the uber-femme when it comes to heroines. I'm all for her growing a bit of a backbone, but moments when Stewart's character did this seemed a little patchy and inconsistent. I'm just saying, if you're going to be a proto-feminist, don't only go halfway. If you're not up to this, fill in those spaces with some classic Snow White gentleness and kind-hearted behaviour; unless you're giving us something we really need (a hardcore feminist Snow White might have been fun, right?), please don't reinvent the wheel.
• Also, why didn't they show the apple after she bit it in that dramatic winter-wonderland-turned-seedy-seduction scene? This is not as big of a deal as Snow White needing to figure out where she stands as a model of femininity, but I remember (again, we're talking Disney here) the apple roling out of that poor girl's hand as the most shocking and tragic moment of the movie. I wasn't thrilled when Stewart's poisoned apple turned into the facsimile of a woodland dust bunny when it could have instead been cast away by her with the last ounce of her strength before she died. Seriously.
• Finally, I found it strange that no one really inquired as to how Snow White came back from the dead. It's obvious to us (plus we were expecting it) that it was the huntsman's kiss of true love that broke the spell (I found this so-called affection came cross very weakly in the film, but I won't get into that), but in the film, he doesn't seem to ever become aware of this. William knows he couldn't bring her back, the huntsman was drunk and in despair when he kissed her (not to mention that he didn't stick around to watch the magic trick, or the "prestige"[term appropriated from the film of the same name]), and Snow White just woke up alone in a huge chamber so there's no way SHE knew what was going on. The moment sort of lost its romantic potential for me and the huntsman continued to seem like more of a guardian/big brother figure to our heroine because he was distanced from it.

Back with a vengence?

Well, that went on for considerably longer than I thought it would! If you've read it all, please let me know what you think. I really love seeing your opinions!

-C 

Unscrewing the stars

From a movie about death and destruction in space, to one centring around an undying Italian love, I've made a bit of a jump in terms of my film choices over the past 24 hours. Surprisingly, or maybe not since it does sound a bit fluffy, the quotation I've adapted for my title comes from the latter of the two. It's actually from a rather romantic speech in the film "La Tigre e la Neve" (or "The Tiger and the Snow" in English). Since I'm studying Italian, I've been trying to give myself some sort of practice over the summer, and I find that film and music are two of the easiest and most accessible ways to do that. 


I had mixed hopes for this particular film; I knew that it was written and directed by (and also starred) Roberto Benigni, whom you may know from the extremely moving WWII film "La Vita è Bella." However, after bringing the DVD home from the library (yes, I am that cool that I rent foreign films from the public library), I read a few reviews of the film online (something I maybe should have done as a peremptory measure) and to put it simply, none of them were positive. "Oh well," I thought, "Italian is Italian, and I need the practice." Boy, am I glad I gave this one a chance. To me, the film was everything a film should be. It was topical without smacking you over the head with irate humanitarian insistence. It was touching without giving you that nearly sick-to-your-stomach feeling a glossy Hollywood rom-com might leave you with. Finally, it was funny. That classic Benigni humour had a wonderful way of tying together the other two big characteristics. His role as Attilio de Giovanni had that sort of quirky sweetness so typical of his characters, but so fresh and genuine that it just dazzles you.


Since I'm hoping this positive review leaves us all in a good place ("spiritually, ecumenically, grammatically". . . who can resist quoting Captain Jack Sparrow?), I thought I would tack a FOTD onto this post. So, this is what my face looked like on the way to see Prometheus last night. If only I had looked so calm and happy throughout, but I rather doubt that! I feel like, for the next little while at least, I'm going to stick in the much more comfortable realm of Italian romance and dream of "unscrewing the stars" rather than travelling to them and being viciously destroyed by aliens. On that note, ciao i miei amici!

Face: MAC select SPF 15 foundation in NW15; Sonia Kashuk beautifying blush in "Flamingo"

Lips: C.O. Bigelow mentha lip tint in "Magent Mint"

Eyes: three shades from the E.L.F. everyday basics palette (sparkly white, peach, matte brown); Lancôme hypôse drama mascara in "Black"

-C
P.S. The font size and spacing on this post seem to have shown up funny after I published it. Hopefully it doesn't bother anyone too much!