I write tonight on a theme I will no doubt return to again. I think I see things differently to others. About movies I mean. I'm not alone in how I see them, of course. Its about personal satisfaction. Its about the plot and how it interconnects. And most of all its about the ending; about how the constructs of a story support a conclusion.
Imagine a messy bundle of multicoloured string. Not a neat 'fresh from the haberdashery' ball of string, but a tangle of threads in an apparent random arrangement. From a few feet away, the bundle has many different colours. You can make out one or two ends, yet you look for more ends, since there are many different colours: red, white, black, orange, yellow, brown and purple. The threads touch at points, suggesting connection. After observing it for almost two hours, you can see that it is indeed one piece of string, painted many different colours and made to look like many threads woven together.
Your attention is now taken by something behind you. Another ball of thread. This has one end visible and so you hold it. This is neater and better packed together. It seems deliberately entwined. As you unravel the thread, new ones emerge. Sometimes they just appear, at other times the unravelling thread reveals the new end. After two hours, you reach the last bundle. At the end, the threads are fused together with a giant blob of wax. The connection is vague. Rather than seeing the ends of the string your vision is obscured by a blob of wax.
Some people might like the messy bundle of string. They may enjoy the many colours and the patterns their jumbling has caused. Others may enjoy the journey of unravelling, of seeing new patterns or new threads. They may enjoy looking at a pattern and seeing where those lines have been drawn from. For me, a bundle of threads of different colours is something substantial if the different colours are real different threads, rather than colours painted on a line. otherwise you enjoy an illusion. And for me, to simultaneously trace different intersecting threads yet not see the final weave, obscured with a clumsy, shapeless blob is to fall short of a promise.
A new word: unresolution. It refers to movies that have a thread they cannot weave to a point, or to films that pretend to have much complexity but are masks of simplicity. Unresolution is where the plot fails to deliver what it promises.
Perhaps you are a person who likes this kind of unresolution. I see it as a weak device. This is not to say that there have to be happy endings, nor does everything have to have an ending, since life continues, and movies represent but a small part of that continuity. However, I am saying that a movie should be what it pretends to be. It is rarely important to know where the threads came from. Usually these are revealed early on or they are somewhat inconsequential. What may matter more is where they go and how they end?
My disappointment is not really with the movie. After all it is a construct. It has been designed. My dissatisfaction is with the constructor, the designer. They have placed the threads together, not randomly, but deliberately. And it is they who control what is promised and what is delivered. They who are unable to deliver what throughout the movie they promise: a solution to their own puzzle. Like a child who throws a ball on a roof where no-one can get it - and for what? It proves nothing apart from their ability to throw a ball. Or like an ill-tempered man who tips the chess table before the game is concluded. Some may look on in amusement. However, the amusement is with the man not the main spectacle. Those who came for the game are left somewhat cheated.
Tonight I saw a movie which had elements of complexity, detail and plot. And then, when you expected a twist, the twist was that there was none. When you expected an equally complex resolution to the problem, a primitive and shallow one was offered.
Many movies, perhaps all, have as their central theme a problem in need of solving. How well the movie does that will determine its unresolution. If it does it poorly, it can be said to be unresolved.
Perhaps this demands a sequel. Who knows, I may even introduce a prequel after my sequels have run dry.
I wonder about the thread of my life. Are things apparent and not real? Is there illusion and facade? What of the interconnectedness? What of its design and designer? Will my threads end in a blob of wax or do the threads weave nicely together? Will someone cut them all before i have the chance to see them woven as one?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Can art or that which claims to be art ever exceed the beauty of reality? Aren't they mere representations or interpretations attempted by human minds and human hands while real life, with all its complexities, resolutions, and seeming "unresolutions," the ultimate Creator's handiwork?
I don't doubt that there are crappy movies with crappy endings made by crappy scriptwriters and directors. But I don't think all movies have to have neat resolutions. Sometimes, the blob of wax that overwhelms or overshadows the pseudo-complexity that was being intricately woven is enough to bring irony to the story. Sometimes the silliness of it all is the only point that the storyteller is trying to convey.
And here I promote the value of critics. If you find a critic you mostly align with in terms of taste, then you can leave the job of screening and filtering movies to him. That way, you can save yourself the heartache of having $18 and 2 hours of your life spent on...uhm... crap. :)
Have you noticed how critics dont actually criticise movies anymore? They publicise and glorify. I'm sure their invitation is in the mail.
Post a Comment