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watched ‘Lars and the Real Girl” last night with a.b
it was really good i must say. i had an initial interest in it from the
first time i saw the trailer. it was everything i expected, i suppose; but
it was not only ‘…and more.’ it was kind of one of those left step, right
jab kind of things where the movie is not really what you expect it to be
about at all.
from the very start of the movie it seems like its going to be more complex,
but they abate your expectations through the entire movie so anyone lookinng
for some silly laughs can have the cheap throw away ones. but the movie
really brings along with it a lot more.
seeing a character on screen relearn to cope with being shuttered iside of
himself is much more confrontational than the standard fare. he walks
backwards through a regressive delusion to reach a starting point fairly
early on. from there, you watch him build strong, earnest connections with
the community around him.
at one point the movie seems like its going to be heavy-handed on a moral
like live and let live or a what a struggle to be different. although that
premise appears to have a setup in the beginning, that moral has nothing to
do with this movie which i think opens it up to a lot of people beyond just
those of us who are immediately absorbed empathetically by Lars.
the movie really does a fine job showing the ways we interact in
relationships, romantic and otherwise; real and unreal. the movie doesnt
indulge too much in the underpinnings of the delusion, yet provides enough
information to watch how Lars develops the parts of himself that were
outwardly cloistered.
i think a lot of people can identify with Lars, if not to begin with
certainly by the end. for me this movie harkens to my dreams and nightmares.
typically i am unable to speak in them. immediately i can summon the entire
self-awareness of trying to scream in fear, hurt, happiness and being
paralyzed whether in my throat alone or my entire body. it is an
uncomfortable feeling that i think had a lot to do with the building up of
the character in the movie for me. recently the question of do we all have
demons chasing us was posed, even if we dont i think its a good idea to make
up “Real” ones just so that we can scream at them and engage our most primal
totemisms and fetishism. (mfg)