Room with a View (1985)
Sometimes you need to have a view before you can appreciate life. Some people don’t need a view because they are essentially inward-looking. Denholm Elliott’s character captures, better than I’ve seen before, that terrible land between having a thought and saying it.
When he offers the ladies his rooms, he does so because he can’t appreciate any part of life that looks out instead of in.
It’s kind of amusing that men can’t enjoy a room with a view.
It’s even funnier that being able to see things for what they are, is unusual. The film encapsulates the theme of not believing what you can see and observe. It’s about lying – to oneself and to others – but not necessarily with any great intent. That’s why the subtitles carry such irony, because if they’re explaining what we’re about to see, and what we then see is different, then it’s funny in a serious-kind-of-way.
By the end, the director, the screenplay, and the film has so beaten us around the head with their view, that we accept the fact, that any room with a view is one-dimensional, and that if we’re going to pick a partner – for life – our stance has to be two-dimensional.
Sad fact – life is three-dimensional.
published mother! review
I published the mother! review last night, but tonight I went on to my other (infrequently updated) blogger site, which comes with my google account 100greatestfilms@gmail. com which I noticed the search-engines are turning up more often than my own website. I re-read it and made some minor adjustments. It’s not very well-expressed at all. I want to spend time on it and tinker with the structure and make it read better than it does. But, I’m not going to get things done in 52 weeks if I keep getting side-tracked by watching too many other films. I’ve got be more self-controlled and not let my desire to watch more of a director’s work take over.
Tonight I went to the library and returned two Truffaut films I didn’t get time to watch: Fahrenheit 451 (1966) and Bed and Board (1970). It killed me to do it, but they’re arguably minor films, although I would argue another minor film, The Story of Adèle H. (1975), is very much a major film. I borrowed Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972) and Nosferatu (1979): both by Werner Herzog (Aguirre appearing on a good number of the BFI’s 2012 Lists). I set myself the task of knocking off Aguirre tonight.
