Saturday, October 16, 2004
Idle thumbs make for idle thoughts?
Film feste movie tonight was good, but disturbed me nonetheless.
I think it was Danish, but set in what felt like a very American climate somehow. Perhaps it was the way the female lead kept putting on her discman and playing slow-rock/pop ballad thingies.
The story started with a couple being lovey dovey to the extent of the hairs on my arms standing on end, then just when it seemed that it couldn't get any sweeter, as the bloke was kissy-kissing his wife goodbye and stepping out of their car -- a car came out of nowhere and decapitated the bloke. Okay, it didn't quite (bugger it!) but instead put him in ITU for 24 hours (I was amused to note the lack of C-spine protection... sorry, job hazard...) and then in a regular ward after that, with a fractured spine, and a crushed back. In essence, he'd had a Christopher Reeves done to him.
Naturally, like any other caveman, he turns angsty guilt ridden hero and drives away his girlfriend in his grief. Enter the knight in shining armour figure, a caring, compassionate doctor who empathises with her a great deal, and offers her his shoulder to cry, and cry, and cry on.
Complicate storyline by introducing the doctors wife, who funnily enough was the person who ran down Christopher Reeves deux, and her teenaged daughter, and her two baby sons.
Complicate storyline even more by having doctor empathise the clothes off Reeves Deux's beautiful girlfriend, and shall we say getting into more than her mind, for good measure.
Now we have a storyline as complicated, guilt-ridden and true-to-life as can be.
Employ various lies on Doctor's part to make you feel that he is a complete cad. Doctor naturally falls for twentysomething girlfriend hook line and sinksher (haha) since, well, he's completely enamoured by her (can't hurt that she looks really good with her clothes off), doctor's daughter suspects, wife finds out, blah blah. Big family breakup, Doctor shags girlfriend some more, Reeve's has a change of heart and wants girlfriend back, Girlfriend dumps Doctor for Reeve's, doctor bunks over at best friend's house (another doctor, who has been telling him to plug the girl all he can but not get caught, giggle giggle ougha ougha - to borrow a mannerism from a certain model...) Reeves becomes intolerable yet empathic, breaks up with girlfriend again, but mutually and gently this time (like real), and Doctor has meaningful moments with girlfriend, film ends.
I've bastardised it a fair bit, but it was all very well acted, from the doctor and the girlfriend, down to his wife and kiddies - they made you feel their pain, and boy was there a lot of angst in there.
I guess that's part of what made me uncomfortable with it.
It was too close to home. The Doctor, empathising... just a little... beyond that imaginary line we all draw in our heads whenever it comes to patient-doctor (or in this case patient's rellies-doctor) relationships. Into whosoever's house thou entereth, first do no wives. Or perhaps entereth not their girlfriends. Ha.
The truth is we've all done it. Or rather, we've all had the lines blur on us at some point, whether professionally, or in slightly less formal settings - semi-professionally. All of us doctors - and many of you non-doctors as well. How often have you had someone cry on your shoulder, and how often have you felt tempted to reach out and touch that person's face, wipe away their tears, hold them close for a while... and had that funny twist in your gut as you realise how vulnerable, yet attractive this fragile, tearful, grieving girl is? (Maybe it's my fault for hanging out with rather attractive girls. laughs.) How easy it would be to cross that line...
And how often have you pulled yourself back from that line? It just wouldn't seem... right. It would be unethical. To me, anyhow.
Relationships founded on emotions as weak as pain alone... always fizzle and flounder. I think. And I'd far rather start a relationship in joy, with two people discovering and enjoying each other's companies from the outset. It seems only logical to me that that would be the starting point to something wonderful. I'd rather build my house on rock, than on broken glass.
I couldn't help but feel... a chill, almost, watching the Doctor fall haplessly into the throes of lust/true love with the woman half his age. I don't think this was quite what the movie was trying to get at, but it's a personal fear of mine - drifting into a comfortable, pleasant marriage, cruising along a little more, and then meeting the love of you life. Freezeframe, complete with the zziip! sound that invariably accompanies this cinematic device on all B grade comedies, and overlay the words - What Now? (or What Next? or if you are really perverted, unlike someone as chaste and pristine as myself, Where Next and What Position?) Everytime this happens, for some reason The GodFather's words echo through my mind : "Love the person you marry, don't marry the person you love" and I burn inside against the foolishness of that statement. It fails to take into consideration that there are different kinds of love, and the more potent of the two, the heady, romantic, spine-tingling variety - deny it as much as you will - tends to subvert and bypass logic and common sense, and result in Rather Convoluted Scenarios. Nothing actually has to even happen... the seed of doubt, once planted, begins to grow insiduously...
Another reason the film captured my attention, yet contributed to my sense of disquiet was that every so often, during rather intense moments of - always grief - the scene would switch and become grainy, and depict a soppysweet hollywood romantic moment, usually involving forgiveness or love, two people reaching out and... touching. Smiling. -- and then the camera would cut back to real-time and show two people, stony faced, just being awkward and... ordinary. Everyday.
I came up with two possibilities, the first and most obvious that these were the thoughts going through their heads - this was what one, or both of them really wanted to happen... as opposed to what was really happening. These were the movie moments we all idly wonder about, but never quite make the move to transform into reality. I guess, for the cynic, these were just moments of wishful thinking.
And part of the reason that made me... slightly pensive... was because it's been a very, very long time for me, since I've experienced real-life movie moments, and they seem so... dead and gone now. They seemed to die with my severence of all ties with an old, old friend I once had.
The other possibility (less likely of the two) was that maybe these events were happening, somewhere out there... in another universe. Where things were a little different. Where either the rules of biology were different, or a slightly different chain of circumstances had transpired.
And it made me wonder whatever happened to me, maybe even... to us... in another lifetime; in another reality.
Idle thoughts make... um. Idle. Whatchamacallitthingummygiggies. I used to know that one.
V. asked me after the show if I'd cried, and seemed surprised when I shook my head. I stopped, a long time ago.
It's like Terry Pratchett puts it... sometimes you go so far in one directon you come out the other side.
******
Hours and hours of pool (of the table variety) afterwards, I have now regained my form of old, and can confidently say that I am a mediocre pool player who would get his ass kicked by any one of the teenaged ahlians at the other tables... but at least I can pretend once in a while that my spectacular flukes were intentional. Laughs.
Although the show-stopping shot that ended the night was surprisingly intentional, insofar as the intent went. I was surprised to see it turn into reality. Laughs. Maybe that shows how rarely my... gut desires have been answered of late.
I think it was Danish, but set in what felt like a very American climate somehow. Perhaps it was the way the female lead kept putting on her discman and playing slow-rock/pop ballad thingies.
The story started with a couple being lovey dovey to the extent of the hairs on my arms standing on end, then just when it seemed that it couldn't get any sweeter, as the bloke was kissy-kissing his wife goodbye and stepping out of their car -- a car came out of nowhere and decapitated the bloke. Okay, it didn't quite (bugger it!) but instead put him in ITU for 24 hours (I was amused to note the lack of C-spine protection... sorry, job hazard...) and then in a regular ward after that, with a fractured spine, and a crushed back. In essence, he'd had a Christopher Reeves done to him.
Naturally, like any other caveman, he turns angsty guilt ridden hero and drives away his girlfriend in his grief. Enter the knight in shining armour figure, a caring, compassionate doctor who empathises with her a great deal, and offers her his shoulder to cry, and cry, and cry on.
Complicate storyline by introducing the doctors wife, who funnily enough was the person who ran down Christopher Reeves deux, and her teenaged daughter, and her two baby sons.
Complicate storyline even more by having doctor empathise the clothes off Reeves Deux's beautiful girlfriend, and shall we say getting into more than her mind, for good measure.
Now we have a storyline as complicated, guilt-ridden and true-to-life as can be.
Employ various lies on Doctor's part to make you feel that he is a complete cad. Doctor naturally falls for twentysomething girlfriend hook line and sinksher (haha) since, well, he's completely enamoured by her (can't hurt that she looks really good with her clothes off), doctor's daughter suspects, wife finds out, blah blah. Big family breakup, Doctor shags girlfriend some more, Reeve's has a change of heart and wants girlfriend back, Girlfriend dumps Doctor for Reeve's, doctor bunks over at best friend's house (another doctor, who has been telling him to plug the girl all he can but not get caught, giggle giggle ougha ougha - to borrow a mannerism from a certain model...) Reeves becomes intolerable yet empathic, breaks up with girlfriend again, but mutually and gently this time (like real), and Doctor has meaningful moments with girlfriend, film ends.
I've bastardised it a fair bit, but it was all very well acted, from the doctor and the girlfriend, down to his wife and kiddies - they made you feel their pain, and boy was there a lot of angst in there.
I guess that's part of what made me uncomfortable with it.
It was too close to home. The Doctor, empathising... just a little... beyond that imaginary line we all draw in our heads whenever it comes to patient-doctor (or in this case patient's rellies-doctor) relationships. Into whosoever's house thou entereth, first do no wives. Or perhaps entereth not their girlfriends. Ha.
The truth is we've all done it. Or rather, we've all had the lines blur on us at some point, whether professionally, or in slightly less formal settings - semi-professionally. All of us doctors - and many of you non-doctors as well. How often have you had someone cry on your shoulder, and how often have you felt tempted to reach out and touch that person's face, wipe away their tears, hold them close for a while... and had that funny twist in your gut as you realise how vulnerable, yet attractive this fragile, tearful, grieving girl is? (Maybe it's my fault for hanging out with rather attractive girls. laughs.) How easy it would be to cross that line...
And how often have you pulled yourself back from that line? It just wouldn't seem... right. It would be unethical. To me, anyhow.
Relationships founded on emotions as weak as pain alone... always fizzle and flounder. I think. And I'd far rather start a relationship in joy, with two people discovering and enjoying each other's companies from the outset. It seems only logical to me that that would be the starting point to something wonderful. I'd rather build my house on rock, than on broken glass.
I couldn't help but feel... a chill, almost, watching the Doctor fall haplessly into the throes of lust/true love with the woman half his age. I don't think this was quite what the movie was trying to get at, but it's a personal fear of mine - drifting into a comfortable, pleasant marriage, cruising along a little more, and then meeting the love of you life. Freezeframe, complete with the zziip! sound that invariably accompanies this cinematic device on all B grade comedies, and overlay the words - What Now? (or What Next? or if you are really perverted, unlike someone as chaste and pristine as myself, Where Next and What Position?) Everytime this happens, for some reason The GodFather's words echo through my mind : "Love the person you marry, don't marry the person you love" and I burn inside against the foolishness of that statement. It fails to take into consideration that there are different kinds of love, and the more potent of the two, the heady, romantic, spine-tingling variety - deny it as much as you will - tends to subvert and bypass logic and common sense, and result in Rather Convoluted Scenarios. Nothing actually has to even happen... the seed of doubt, once planted, begins to grow insiduously...
Another reason the film captured my attention, yet contributed to my sense of disquiet was that every so often, during rather intense moments of - always grief - the scene would switch and become grainy, and depict a soppysweet hollywood romantic moment, usually involving forgiveness or love, two people reaching out and... touching. Smiling. -- and then the camera would cut back to real-time and show two people, stony faced, just being awkward and... ordinary. Everyday.
I came up with two possibilities, the first and most obvious that these were the thoughts going through their heads - this was what one, or both of them really wanted to happen... as opposed to what was really happening. These were the movie moments we all idly wonder about, but never quite make the move to transform into reality. I guess, for the cynic, these were just moments of wishful thinking.
And part of the reason that made me... slightly pensive... was because it's been a very, very long time for me, since I've experienced real-life movie moments, and they seem so... dead and gone now. They seemed to die with my severence of all ties with an old, old friend I once had.
The other possibility (less likely of the two) was that maybe these events were happening, somewhere out there... in another universe. Where things were a little different. Where either the rules of biology were different, or a slightly different chain of circumstances had transpired.
And it made me wonder whatever happened to me, maybe even... to us... in another lifetime; in another reality.
Idle thoughts make... um. Idle. Whatchamacallitthingummygiggies. I used to know that one.
V. asked me after the show if I'd cried, and seemed surprised when I shook my head. I stopped, a long time ago.
It's like Terry Pratchett puts it... sometimes you go so far in one directon you come out the other side.
******
Hours and hours of pool (of the table variety) afterwards, I have now regained my form of old, and can confidently say that I am a mediocre pool player who would get his ass kicked by any one of the teenaged ahlians at the other tables... but at least I can pretend once in a while that my spectacular flukes were intentional. Laughs.
Although the show-stopping shot that ended the night was surprisingly intentional, insofar as the intent went. I was surprised to see it turn into reality. Laughs. Maybe that shows how rarely my... gut desires have been answered of late.
