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January 28, 2005
vera drake
Went to see it tonight. Came out of the cinema feeling awestruck and physically affected by it all. I know some people will be critical of what they will see as sentimental aspects (the music, Vera's way of talking) but a) they're wrong, and b) they're wrong. I'm surprised people have seen it as so definitely 'taking sides'. It seems to me that there's a real honesty about the complexity of being a human in all of the characters. Ohna pointed out that, while Vera is 'helping out' the women she treats, she doesn't really connect with them any more than with the guy she keeps making a 'nice cup of tea' for. She comes in, boils the water, does the job, and moves on. And you feel the humanity in the characters who have to do the bad stuff to Vera as much as in the people doing 'good' things. Even the snobby one has some humanity and ability to compromise. The only one you don't have much sympathy for is the black market friend. Except that she is female and it is largely about a deeply sexist society. It reminded me of Zola doing his experiments to observe what happens to characters in particular social situations.
But the most amazing thing was just to see film-makers managing to get every single detail of every image and action so absolutely right. Why bother going to see films with actors in them when you can have films with actual people in them? I haven't seen Million Dollar Baby or The Aviator but I find it deeply weird that they could even be being considered for an oscar in the year that this film came out (except that that kind of weirdness is completely predictable in Oscarland, of course).
Note for pragmatics class: best moment was the Christmas chocolate box. (Note to myself: must also remember 'minced meat' and 'good morning, Mrs. Hooper' from Desperate Housewives). You can see I'm about to switch back into teaching mode now that (most of) the assessment boards are out of the way.
B-)
Posted by Billy at January 28, 2005 1:09 AM
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