Clint Eastwood works with a slow hand.
His films have grace and beauty and at 80 he has directed a really nice film. Any other director would have made this film 40 minutes faster and let the subtleties slide. Instead three stories work like a concerto and converge in maybe the only flaw in the film- the easy co incidence. Watching it I began to marvel how one really feels the people when the film has this pace- like life where relationships need the time width to soak in.
The film is really very western in its take on death. Here in India we take afterlife as a given and its almost incomprehensible to me how Western thought with a single lifetime works. I mean that not as a judgement but as a failure to have that worldview. But in the film death hits all the character hard and it seems afterlife gives solace. All that contacting the dead brings a continuing connect. Isn't that beautiful to know that nothing really dies in love ;)
Slow movies work. They are not as easy to forget as the paced up fare so popular today. Wish the new generation of directors remember this.
Hope I remember it when i make films.
You are right, "Nothing really dies in Love." However being a mere mortal, one can't help but miss the physical expressions of Love; the gentle look, the sweet smile, the soft touch....
ReplyDeleteThere's a beautiful poem, "Nothing Loved is Ever Lost" by Anomynous.
The last stanza,
"And think of them as living
in the hearts of those they touched
for nothing loved is ever lost
and they were loved so much."
Thanks for sharing the poem! I do believe that Love lives on and on...
ReplyDeleteI totally agree...brings to mind the lyrics of an old Hindi song, "Pyaar amar hai duniya mein, pyaar kabhi nahi martah hai, moaht badan ko aati hai, ruu ka jalwa rehta hai, janam janam ka saath hai...
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