The Bridges of Madison County, 1995

The Bridges of Madison County, 1995
Director: Clint Eastwood
Cast: Clint Eastwood, Meryl Streep, Annie Corley



Stage: TV selection on my home TV, Sunday night

The Bridges in short:The path of Francesca Johnson's future seems destined when an unexpected fork in the road causes her to question everything she had come to expect from life. While her husband and children are away at the Illinois state fair in the summer of 1965, Robert Kincaid happens turn into the Johnson farm and asks Francesca for directions to Roseman Bridge. Francesca later learns that he was in Iowa on assignment from National Geographic magazine. She is reluctant seeing that he's a complete stranger and then she agrees to show him to the bridges and gradually she talks about her life from being a war-bride from Italy which sets the pace for this bittersweet and all-too-brief romance of her life. Through the pain of separation from her secret love and the stark isolation she feels as the details of her life consume her, she writes her thoughts of the four-day love affair which took up three journals..



Preps: A good piece I have seen for several times and I love to see it again and again. Eastwood is my mantra.


Reality:

This is one of the most beautiful and most sad love stories of all times, in my opinion. It's all about making decisions and to follow your true love (or what you would like it to be) or not. Leave your life behind, along with your kids and a husband, or not. Blame the new guy for coming all the time you are with him or make yourself happy. Is it really that you would like to make yourself happy, is another question.

There are several perspectives, from which you can observe this particular piece. One of them is the straightforward one - a guy walks in a semi dead marriage and makes a revelation with Francesca. To himself and to her. And after four days they split and never get over it. The idea in this scenario is that she leaves the love to waltz away not knowing what would happen if it happened at all.

The irony is in the fact that most relationships start off like this, like a rocket and it's later that we figure we were living a bit in the clouds (or a lot in the clouds). And if those two really matched as it seems in the movie, it would work. What if they didn't - little they knew about each other and what it would be like living together.
Still, she was willing to escape for a brief moment and would leave it all behind. I think that up to some point Eastwood would have persuaded her to go with him, if he was a bit more insisting on this.
It's a good way to think about love and a disaster to your heart if you can impersonate yourself inside the story, if you ever loved someone and thought it would be it and yet, let it slip away. Regrets is what we all have for bigger or smaller things, sometimes they seem life important.

This is one of more romantic dramas I have ever seen on screen. A beautiful cast with Streep and Eastwood, making their energies fly away in the clouds and bringing the essence of love we are all seeking to the screen. However, if your momental status of love is a disaster, this movie could enhance the depression you are having. And vice versa.

Beautiful scenery, scenes beyond erotic, so sexually pleasing it is a pleasure to watch it. Dialogues are witty and intelligent. I adore watching the two chat about things.

This is one of the more remarkable ideas Eastwood brings to the table at the first dinner:
"I don't think obsessions have reasons. This is why they are called obsessions."

I adore it, from the beginning to its end. In many ways it makes me cry. And in many others, it makes me dream away.



My personal rate: 8,5 (a good romance, it will make you think about your virtues and things you seek in life and love).

Bridges on IMDB

A dangerous Method, 2011

A dangerous Method, 2011
Director: David Cronenberg
Cast: Keira Knightley, Michael Fassbender, Viggo Mortensen



Stage: Kino Šiška, Liffe


A dangerous method in short: In his latest film, the iconic director David Cronenberg goes back in time to the dawn of of psychoanalysis. A look at the intense relationship between the fathers of psychoanalysis, Jung and Freud, and their patient to whose charms they both succumb.


On the eve of World War One, Zurich and Vienna are the settings for a dark tale of sexual and intellectual discovery. Drawn from true-life events, the film takes a glimpse into the turbulent relationships among fledgling psychiatrist Carl Jung, his mentor Sigmund Freud and Sabina Spielrein – the troubled but beautiful young woman who comes between them. Their personal exploration of sensuality, ambition and deceit drive Jung, Freud and Sabina to challenge and forever change the nature of modern thought.




Preps: Well, apart from relationship Jung/Freud, I don't know much other things about this piece. But I am eager to find out.



Reality: The movie strikes me with its energy which draggs me into this world of Jung and Freud - from its beginning to the end. I am thrilled to see how scientists once exchanged their ideas and how once life was. Writing letters for real, not emails as nowadays. Seeing each other once per a month or even longer. Having a relationship for the sake of a marriage and kids, on the other hand, having mistresses and letting everyone know you are pure and prudent.

Plus, an excellent way to describe the turbulence between two friends, in some cases caused by two dividing paths they chose to take, sometimes driven by Sabina, a deluded woman, excellently played by Knightley. I was excited to see her in an unusual not Hollywood-like piece and she did an excellent job. The mimic she used to depict the illusions and horrors inside her soul is extremely good and it gives me shivers. On the other hand, I am sure she must have done hell of a job just trying to get under the skin of this role. I am surprised how well the three characters interact with each other and the viewer can almost smell the fear and anxiety when they show it, can feel the love when it's on the stage and can most definitely take position in disputes Freud and Jung have between each other. The sexual analysis that Freud is pursuing can be a bit annoying (you cannot explain everything in sexuality, or can you?)

What is real love and is something you have at home (just for the sake ofhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif being there and make you a man to admire, because you are a family man)? Do you take what's on the plate in front of you or do you stay clean in front of yourself? This is one of the dilemmas, depicted in this movie and not solved in favour of the young Sabina. She is betrayed, although deep inside aware that she cannot have more than just a romance. On the other hand, Jung doesn't want to get involved, yet he gets involved and he regrets it on the outside, on the inside he would repeat it in a second, and so he does. The love story is sad, because both parties get wounded and not find a way out to make both or at least one happy. As Trier would said.. no true love unless you suffer greatly.


My personal rate: 9.0 (a splendid piece, filled with documentary facts and things that will make you think about this long after you leave the cinema).


A dangerous method on IMDB