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Daily Archives: 03/13/2006

lamenting (whose?) lush love life.

13 Mar

In this city, heartbreaks happen in every ticking of a clock.

Heartbreaks from settling debts of your car.
Heartbreaks from missing your bus to work.
Heartbreaks from watching a crippled beggar crossing a busy road.
Heartbreaks from not being able to say tender words to your loved ones.
Heartbreaks from realizing your foolishness in misguiding another clueless taxi drivers.
Heartbreaks from knowing that this will not be the only heartbreak you likely encounter.

As I sat on a bus from my sibling’s house in a suburban area officially put in a map as a city in another province to the heart of this chaotic city, I couldn’t help thinking while randomly looking at some passengers who drew certain expressive lines in their faces, mostly covered by thick particle of dust. These people have gone through every single painful heartbreak prior to hopping on this fated bus, yet they silently chose to seat themselves in the broken couches, and marched on with their lives.
An old saying of “life goes on” is the only saying they wholeheartedly apply in facing the toughness of their lives, thus another heartbreak of mine is considered a small, if not nothing, feast they can laugh at.

Maybe it is not even a heartbreak when it comes to a matter of hearts, and make that two of hearts.

A heart belongs to me, and another is twinnie’s.

My relationship with twinnie has been going on for a little more than a year by now, and the fact that I am living in the same city with him has opened a new chapter in my life, i.e. I finally embark in a short-distance relationship.
Being spoiled with a long-distance one, the adjustment has never been easy so far, with a few patches here and there that often almost bogged down the relationship itself.

Worse, being infamously, and some despise as notoriously, known with the reputation of twink-hunter who likes to cruise for young boys in many strategic places, at many times the intolerance took its toll upon me, leaving me feeling depressed and repressed, be them sexually or mentally, while I couldn’t bring the matters up to him.

Early diagnostic of my well-being would be easily concluded as that I am not mentally healthy. I am not raising any objections to the idea, while I still arrogantly keep my defense, a hapless one, by saying that: “I’m fine!”.

Right now, I’d like to keep that statement though.

Why?

Because I addictively love him.

Yes, the meandering activity goes on, the words have been off to the dust, the nights have gone to become meaningless passing of time, but sometimes, despite the heartbreaks, your heart inexplicably tells you to believe.

And I believe in him. And me.

Now, now. The heartbreak and its potential comeuppance really lead to having the fingers playing along in writing such a subjective entry, don’t they?

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Posted by on 03/13/2006 in English, Personal

 

Rent.

13 Mar

As the song Seasons of Love literally opens the curtain, revealing lush spotlights highlighting a group of bohemians in New York dealing with their lives against AIDS and other social injustice, we are soon to be taken to a world of (another) disbelief: with such a promising material that makes the Broadway play in which the film is originated from is a hit, why the film goes downhill right after the compelling first 10 minutes?
Worse, having the original cast aboard, with the exception of Rosario Dawson, why the film seems a tad lengthy, and that’s not even compliment?

If we wish to draw the same line with the butchering treatment of The Phantom of the Opera last year, then we directly come to conclusion that it takes a specially gifted director to direct a musical adaptation, or it can also be said that those qualified to bring a stage musical into a big screen are the ones who are deft enough in understanding the complexity of stage, and able to bridge the gap of stage and screen.

In a snapshot, Rob Marshall and Baz Luhrmann fit the above description nicely, and so was Bob Fosse. On the other hand, Joel Schumacher failed to bring the magical quality of the Andrew Lloyd Webber’s sacred opera, and this year, Chris Columbus follows in his step to the same miserable effect.


The problem Rent obviously has is that as a film, it does not give enough space to breathe. Similar to Evita where every single song is belting out one after another in many almost static scenes that may work on stage but definitely not on a big screen, we hardly relate to their yearnings despite desperately compelling performances from the cast. Whereas the concept might work for Umbrellas for Cherbrough, the effectiveness is largely credited to Jacques Demy’s adequateness in creating a pleasant-to-look-at atmosphere imbued in his colorful cinematography, something lacking in Columbus’s film which tends to focus on the slum side of New York.

Not that it bogs down the well-conceived story, but rather, the lack of rich variety in the look of the film is another questionable quality of Columbus who previously gained acclaims in giving birth to Harry Potter series in almost gothic presentation, which works surprisingly well.

Alas, despite the tear-jerker moments derived from the original stage plot, the film might pull a teardrop or two, yet by the time we leave the theater, we will be left with a vague reminiscent that within Seasons of Love, lies a passing train, too fast for us to even notice the train’s passengers, who are more than capable in giving us a ride of a lifetime. Too bad we do not hop on it.

 
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Posted by on 03/13/2006 in English, Film