What time is High Snot?
Sometime in my late 20's, I sprung a leak.
Never really been sure what caused it - a fissure lurking somewhere in the dark blown open by a particularly violent sneeze would be my guess.
Regardless of what caused it, the only permanent damage seems to be that I leak profusely during movies which up until the explosion, would have been dismissed as cack-handed sentimentality. Embarrassingly enough now, I can be found sobbing my heart out to daytime mince like Channel 5 movies called things like Please Don't Take My Children Away From Me! Usually by the time they get to the courtroom scenes I have floated away on a tide of snot and tears and have had to call the Coastguard.
The effects of this undignified sobbing are either embarrassment (I'm in a public place where people know me), total shame (I'm in a public place where people know me and my weeping isn't quite loud enough to drown out the bloody Elton John soundtrack....thank you very much, Baz Luhrmann) or total submission, as in the case of CINEMA PARADISO.
Now, CINEMA PARADISO is a movie every lover of movies should see because it is director Giuseppe's celluloid love letter to all things cinematic - the building, the staff, the machinery, the experience, the life-altering impact that great cinema and memory can have. A glorious movie.
I went to see it with a boyfriend who is nowadays presumably off making other women's lives more complicated than necessary, but at the time it was my turn. He and I were in the back row of an auditorium full of nice old ladies. Now, you and I both know there's no such things as nice old ladies. Any shopping trip to Safeway on Pension Day will back me up on this. They are all either spies or witches or super-sentient zeppelins or mad. Some of them are nice, too, but it's a combination thing.
The movie starts. I love the movie. I am also about to give somethinig away about it which you should absolutely not read if you haven't seen the film yet. Go now, immediately, and see the movie.
Seen it?
Ok, now read on.
I hadn't quite realised what effect the movie was having on me until the boy returns as a man and joins the crowd to watch the destruction of the building. All I could see was my beloved Toledo in ruins. That started it. Then when he takes the reel of film from the can and plays it, and sees all the moments censored from his young life, one after the other unfolding on screen. That did it. Oh man, that did it. I started crying. And not the kind of crying where one tear escapes and you can pretend that you merely stuck a fork in your eye and have recovered, thank you, no...this was the kind of crying that heeds no man. Unless it is your boyfriend who proceeds to hand you tissue, after tissue, after tissue.
During the emotional scenes, that was nice of him. During the end credits, that was good of him. As 200 nice old ladies filed past us, that was patient of him. As the cleaning staff came in and did a smashing job, that was tolerant of him. I couldn't stop. Something in me had gone - I was completely heart-broken. It may sound ridiculous to you (and 200 nice old ladies, one projectionist, two cleaners, three cafe staff and a taxi driver) but I just couldn't help it.
I cried until we got outside (after the 20 minutes it took me to recover) when I just stood there all snivelly and pathetic. Being a nice man (sometimes) he took me out for some of the best Chinese food I'd ever eaten, and very sensibly didn't talk about the film.
I haven't watched it again since, not because I don't want to, but I'm not sure if it would lessen the impact it initially had on me if it did the same the second time or, even worse, had no effect on me at all.
Still, the boyfriend was particularly wary at future screenings of delicate films and always came armed with hankies, but there was no repeat performance.
Still, it is a very beautiful and special movie, which you should watch. Though maybe not with me.
Never really been sure what caused it - a fissure lurking somewhere in the dark blown open by a particularly violent sneeze would be my guess.
Regardless of what caused it, the only permanent damage seems to be that I leak profusely during movies which up until the explosion, would have been dismissed as cack-handed sentimentality. Embarrassingly enough now, I can be found sobbing my heart out to daytime mince like Channel 5 movies called things like Please Don't Take My Children Away From Me! Usually by the time they get to the courtroom scenes I have floated away on a tide of snot and tears and have had to call the Coastguard.
The effects of this undignified sobbing are either embarrassment (I'm in a public place where people know me), total shame (I'm in a public place where people know me and my weeping isn't quite loud enough to drown out the bloody Elton John soundtrack....thank you very much, Baz Luhrmann) or total submission, as in the case of CINEMA PARADISO.
Now, CINEMA PARADISO is a movie every lover of movies should see because it is director Giuseppe's celluloid love letter to all things cinematic - the building, the staff, the machinery, the experience, the life-altering impact that great cinema and memory can have. A glorious movie.
I went to see it with a boyfriend who is nowadays presumably off making other women's lives more complicated than necessary, but at the time it was my turn. He and I were in the back row of an auditorium full of nice old ladies. Now, you and I both know there's no such things as nice old ladies. Any shopping trip to Safeway on Pension Day will back me up on this. They are all either spies or witches or super-sentient zeppelins or mad. Some of them are nice, too, but it's a combination thing.
The movie starts. I love the movie. I am also about to give somethinig away about it which you should absolutely not read if you haven't seen the film yet. Go now, immediately, and see the movie.
Seen it?
Ok, now read on.
I hadn't quite realised what effect the movie was having on me until the boy returns as a man and joins the crowd to watch the destruction of the building. All I could see was my beloved Toledo in ruins. That started it. Then when he takes the reel of film from the can and plays it, and sees all the moments censored from his young life, one after the other unfolding on screen. That did it. Oh man, that did it. I started crying. And not the kind of crying where one tear escapes and you can pretend that you merely stuck a fork in your eye and have recovered, thank you, no...this was the kind of crying that heeds no man. Unless it is your boyfriend who proceeds to hand you tissue, after tissue, after tissue.
During the emotional scenes, that was nice of him. During the end credits, that was good of him. As 200 nice old ladies filed past us, that was patient of him. As the cleaning staff came in and did a smashing job, that was tolerant of him. I couldn't stop. Something in me had gone - I was completely heart-broken. It may sound ridiculous to you (and 200 nice old ladies, one projectionist, two cleaners, three cafe staff and a taxi driver) but I just couldn't help it.
I cried until we got outside (after the 20 minutes it took me to recover) when I just stood there all snivelly and pathetic. Being a nice man (sometimes) he took me out for some of the best Chinese food I'd ever eaten, and very sensibly didn't talk about the film.
I haven't watched it again since, not because I don't want to, but I'm not sure if it would lessen the impact it initially had on me if it did the same the second time or, even worse, had no effect on me at all.
Still, the boyfriend was particularly wary at future screenings of delicate films and always came armed with hankies, but there was no repeat performance.
Still, it is a very beautiful and special movie, which you should watch. Though maybe not with me.
posted by Adele at 2:04 PM
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