The Frame » romance http://frame.the-frame.com from the pen of Jandy Stone Sun, 07 Mar 2010 23:17:28 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Stardust http://frame.the-frame.com/2007/10/09/stardust/ http://frame.the-frame.com/2007/10/09/stardust/#comments Wed, 10 Oct 2007 03:23:24 +0000 Jandy http://frame.the-frame.com/?p=261 Cute and sweet tale of a shy young Englishman crossing into the neighboring magical world to find a fallen star (Claire Danes) in order to win a girl, a quest complicated by the aging witches who need the star’s blood to regain their youth and the princes who must find a medallion the star has in order to claim the throne. I’m always a fan of colliding-world stories, and one thing I particularly liked about this one was that everyone was on a quest, but for different things, which made it more interesting than if they were all fighting over the same exact thing. They went a little too far on the Robert DeNiro gay pirate bit, though, for my taste. And the final fight became more ludicrous than swashbuckling. But other than that, quite enjoyable.
Above Average

]]> http://frame.the-frame.com/2007/10/09/stardust/feed/ 0 Cashback http://frame.the-frame.com/2007/10/09/cashback/ http://frame.the-frame.com/2007/10/09/cashback/#comments Tue, 09 Oct 2007 17:42:52 +0000 Jandy http://frame.the-frame.com/?p=256 The main character finds it difficult to sleep after his girlfriend leaves him, so he gets a night job at a convenience store to fill up the extra hours. He notes that different people have different ways of passing the time when there’s little to do–his way actually involves stopping the clock, freezing time, which allows him to fantasize, dream, and sketch. And fall in love with one of the other clerks. There are a lot of interesting visuals here, especially when time stops (and no, it’s never really clear whether he can actually stop time, or if it’s sort of a waking dream phenomenon), and it’s a sweetly quirky story, but there’s not very much substance to it.
Average

]]> http://frame.the-frame.com/2007/10/09/cashback/feed/ 0 The Fountain http://frame.the-frame.com/2007/09/14/the-fountain/ http://frame.the-frame.com/2007/09/14/the-fountain/#comments Fri, 14 Sep 2007 19:32:49 +0000 Jandy http://frame.the-frame.com/?p=273 Critics were split on Darren Aronofsky’s latest dreamscape of a film; some liked it, but several thought it was incomprehensible, and thus bad. I’m not sure why “incomprehensible” is always a negative judgment, incidentally, but that’s a different issue, because The Fountain isn’t incomprehensible. It’s about a man whose wife is dying, and he’s working overtime on experimental treatments (he’s a research doctor) to try to find a way to save her. In parallel stories, he’s a conquistador searching for the Fountain of Youth, and a space traveler in a bubble with a single tree. Exactly how connected you take the three stories to be (are they only metaphorically connected, are they intersecting parallel universes, or is the man a time traveler) isn’t ultimately the point–the point is the nature of love. Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz are both great, and the film is totally, mesmerizingly beautiful.
Well Above Average

]]> http://frame.the-frame.com/2007/09/14/the-fountain/feed/ 0 Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam http://frame.the-frame.com/2007/09/14/hum-dil-de-chuke-sanam/ http://frame.the-frame.com/2007/09/14/hum-dil-de-chuke-sanam/#comments Fri, 14 Sep 2007 14:18:53 +0000 Jandy http://frame.the-frame.com/?p=267 You have to synopsize Bollywood films in two parts, because really, they’re all two movies mashed up into one. The first half of Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam concerns Sameer (Salman Khan) coming to visit Nandini’s (Aishwarya Rai) family and the two of them falling in love; unfortunately, Nandini’s father has already arranged for her to marry Vanraj (Ajay Devgan), a man Nandini has hardly met. Unwilling to go against her family’s wishes, she marries Vanraj and Sameer returns to his home in Europe. In the second half, Vanraj realizes that Nandini isn’t going to be happy with him and takes her to Europe to try to find Sameer. I’m going to give away the ending, because it’s the part that conflicts me. After seeing how much Vanraj cares about her (enough to give her up to another man if necessary for her happiness), and how everything he does is for her, she ultimately decides to remain with him even after they locate Sameer. Now, I had made a similar move during the film, and by the end I was rooting for Vanraj, too. Add in my general belief that marriages should stay together, and I was initially very pleased by the outcome. However, when I thought about it more, I became a little bit concerned by the way Nandini phrased her refusal to reunite with Sameer as a duty she owed to Vanraj and her family rather than a true realignment of her love to Vanraj. Now, this is all tied up with Indian culture, too, and I think my discomfort stems from the sense that the film is portraying “if you’re a good Indian girl, you should end up obeying your male superiors because that’s your duty as a woman.” It’s much more complicated than that, because Vanraj really is a better man than Sameer, but I’m not convinced Nandini really recognized that when she made her decision. It’s also complicated by the fact that her marriage with Vanraj was never consummated, so I don’t have quite the moral/ethical commitment to the marriage that I otherwise might. In other words, I think she made the right decision given the individuals in question, but I think she made it for the wrong reason–a reason that reinforces India’s sense of patriarchy in a negative way. As a film experience, it’s not the best Indian film I’ve seen, but I did enjoy it quite a bit.
Above Average

]]> http://frame.the-frame.com/2007/09/14/hum-dil-de-chuke-sanam/feed/ 0 Once http://frame.the-frame.com/2007/09/04/once/ http://frame.the-frame.com/2007/09/04/once/#comments Tue, 04 Sep 2007 17:19:29 +0000 Jandy http://frame.the-frame.com/?p=252 Once is an Irish film about a Dublin man working in his dad’s vacuum repairshop by day but spends his nights performing as a street musician, hoping to eventually record a demo CD. He meets a Czech woman one night, and they become friends–turns out she’s also a musician and they team up to record the demo. It would be common for the film to turn into a romance at this point, but it doesn’t….really….and that’s actually incredibly refreshing. Once doesn’t follow any of the standard moviemaking formulas–there’s too much music, there’s no sex, there’s no great conflict–and yet it works tremendously well. It’s joyful, it’s fresh, it’s bittersweet, it’s perfect.
Superior

]]> http://frame.the-frame.com/2007/09/04/once/feed/ 0 Possession http://frame.the-frame.com/2007/03/25/possession/ http://frame.the-frame.com/2007/03/25/possession/#comments Sun, 25 Mar 2007 22:17:43 +0000 Jandy http://frame.the-frame.com/?p=370 by A.S. Byatt

How long has it been since I had to keep a running list of words to look up? A long time. Yes, Possession is thinking-people’s fiction. The main characters are scholars studying Victorian-era poets (independent of each other), and one of them finds a letter which hints at an as-yet-unknown relationship between a two poets who no-one had ever thought of in the same sentence before. The book follows the two academics as they try to uncover the mystery behind this relationship, as well as delving closer to the Victorian poets through letters, journals, and poetry. In one way, it harks back to classic 19th century writing; in another way, it’s gleefully post-modern in its mixing of different forms and genres, often without warning or explanation. The writing is lush and deep, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. People have been telling me to read Possession for years now. And I’m glad I finally did. It’s a truly wonderful book. Although, an intertextual dictionary might’ve been nice, because the references and allusions are legion (which I love, don’t get me wrong).
Superior

]]> http://frame.the-frame.com/2007/03/25/possession/feed/ 0 The English Patient http://frame.the-frame.com/2007/01/03/the-english-patient/ http://frame.the-frame.com/2007/01/03/the-english-patient/#comments Thu, 04 Jan 2007 00:06:34 +0000 Jandy http://frame.the-frame.com/?p=391 It’s many films in one, which is probably why I enjoyed it. If it had been just the overwrought love story between Ralph Fiennes and Kristen Scott Thomas it would have been nothing special. If it had been just the story of Juliette Binoche nursing a burned-beyond-all-recognition Fiennes it would’ve been dull. If it had been just Binoche and Naveen Andrews in a cross-cultural relationship, awaiting the end of the war, it would’ve been meh. But throw all three of these together, along with gorgeous cinematography (I’ve always been partial the terrible beauty of the desert), an especially effective (and Oscar-winning) turn by Binoche, and the well-structured multiple-flashback narrative, and you’ve suddenly got a very beautiful and affecting film.
Well Above Average

]]> http://frame.the-frame.com/2007/01/03/the-english-patient/feed/ 0