When you see a film, does it leave you feeling kinda weird? I can't explain it really, but it's as if I dwell on certain aspects of the movie and maybe compare it to my own life. Sometimes I wonder if it can really happen or what I would do if it really happened. I've been doing this for as long as I can remember. I think that's why the feeling freaks me out a bit and I'm searching to find out if other people ever feel this way too.
Like it seems normal for a child to leave the theater after seeing ET wondering if he or she will meet up with ET late one night and maybe to always keep some Reese's Pieces handy just in case. I know I did. I even made sure I had a basket on my bike in the event that I needed to ride my yellow Huffy with the banana seat, up to the sky to escape the FBI.
When I saw Footloose, I swear I began spiking my hair like Wren McCormick's and dancing around our yard and the park on Averill Boulevard to "Let's Hear It For The Boy" blasting on my cheap portable tape player. I told you how I often reenacted the tongue on the pole scene in A Christmas Story in our grammar school yard which was actually the church parking lot. Gotta love Catholic school.Don't worry, I've grown up a lot in that respect. I'm not going to pretend I'm 12 so some rich family can adopt me and then try to seduce the dad like in Orphan or paint my face blue and be all Avatar-esque. However, movies still touch me in this freakishly profound way.
Tonight we saw The Lovely Bones, no I've never read the book. I suck when it comes to reading lately, Remember this post where I confessed this before. Anyway, the entire ride home from the theater, I thought of the movie. I thought about that awful neighbor. I thought about that sweet girl who never got to grow up. I thought about the family she left behind. I thought about the other victims. I thought about what heaven would look like if I believed there was such a glorious place.
I thought about murder victims and how life is so unfair and unkind. I thought so hard, my throat hurt from the lump I developed thinking about horrible men who snatch women and children and leave them dead in fields, woods and ditches. I think that's truly my biggest fear. Let me go any other way but helplessly at the hands of a psycho. Sorry to be such a downer.
Thanks for listening.
Hey Ally. It's part of the power of storytelling to make you feel like that. It happens to me too.
ReplyDeleteMovies are supposed to invoke that type of response in us. At least the good ones are.
ReplyDeleteGood thing you didn't read the book first. You would have had a different reaction. The book is so fantastic that seeing the movie elicited a defensive reaction from me.
That's how you know it was a good movie! And read the book, it was great. Following from Friday Follow!
ReplyDeleteI've read The Lovely Bones and I saw the movie and I think the movie was better so I don't think you missed out on much :)
ReplyDeleteThat same feeling is why I can't see movies that mimic real-life in that kind of way. I love "based on a true story" movies but when it's about evil I just can't handle it. Ugliness is all around us but I don't want to spend money and 2 hours of precious time watching it be reenacted.
ReplyDeleteAnd, on the subject of heaven, well,... this little comment box could never get big enough to talk about such an important topic.
Go watch The Incredibles or something else fun and totally unrealistic! <3
I stay away from the violent, scary movies. Too many times I've had to look away or leave the theater, so now I don't go. I don't need the nightmares afterwards. My family teases me that I only like the "chick flicks." So be it.
ReplyDeleteAlly, I am 100% in agreement with Tina. When you are a storyteller, you have a bright and vivid imagination, so you cant help feeling the way you do.
ReplyDeleteI am affected the same way.
I agree with TS Hendrik... The job of a good movie is to allow us to relate to the characters and to invoke feelings....
ReplyDelete