04:06pm, Wednesday 19 Jun 2002
Song of the Day: Jeff Buckley - Lover, you should have come over
(Long post from my hand-written journal attached....)
Why then O brawling love
O loving hate
O anything of nothing first create?
Heavy likeness
Serious vanity
Misshapen chaos of well seeming forms?
Aye me… sad hours seem long.
"Introduction to Romeo" - Romeo & Juliet Soundtrack Vol 2
As mentioned yesterday, I have developed a bit of an addiction to DVDs on Ebay. Last night my special copy of Romeo & Juliet (Special Edition - made post Moulin Rouge) arrived from the US. I sat down and watched the whole movie with the directors commentary turned on for what must have been the 26 or 27th time.
Unknowingly.. I did the regression thing again. I remember when I saw this movie last, several years ago. I had a tiny crisis of sorts.. I mean, Shakespeare wrote this beautiful, complicated story about characters which would never be that intense in real life.. and yet, somehow we believe it. I found it hard to come away from the movie once the story had been told.
When I saw this movie, I wanted so badly to believe that that sort of intensity, that love could exist, and did exist for these fictional characters. But does that kind of love exist? Maybe that kind of love is naïve love - it can only eventuate in that brief, magical time between adolescence and adulthood. Before we learn to distrust the world and those who would hurt us. Before you lose that innocence.
The music is really my focus in this movie. It elicits the most amazing response in me. I get goosebumps, shivers and I am overwhelmed by this incredibly sad feeling of loss, all at the same time. It serves to remind me that that kind of love is not real, or if it ever was, the innocence required to fulfil that desire has long since vanished from me. Which brings me to my next point.. say that that kind of love IS possible and CAN be achieved… were the fictional characters of Romeo and Juliet more fortunate in death than I'll ever be in life?
We're all looking for someone or something. Sometimes we don't know what we're looking for, its just a feeling that life is not complete, that there is more to be had and done, that there is something more out there. But what if there's nothing? What if (as Melvin Udall has asked) this is as good as it gets?
Is the mystery and meaning of life kept from our knowledge because the sheer blandness of it all would destroy our spirit, thus the human race? If you knew that the happiest moment you ever remembered was probably the pinnacle of your entire life? You may have the same or similar moments of happiness in future, but that was pretty much the extent of it?
Is happiness and the promise of something better to come God's way of bribing us into continuing as a race? Payment for procreation and survival?
Is happiness a self fulfilling prophecy? If you believe life is wonderful, is it?
Watching this movie again, several years later, makes me rethink my philosophies on love and happiness. I'm further along emotionally than I was when I saw it a few years ago - but not much. No doubt certain US-based ex boyfriends will gloat over that, I'm sure.
So I let myself get swept away. The movie has made me feel mad, desolate, suicidal, empathetic, sad and lonely - feelings which remind me that I am alive. While this may seem obvious, when your day revolves around the 9 to 5, sometimes you need a reminder. This reminder is the movie's greatest triumph.
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