The other night, my best friend Karl dragged me to
a movie. Well, I use the word ‘movie’ loosely in the sense that it was shown in
a cinema, it was projected up on a screen, and there were people in it.
But in every other respect, it was like being beaten
to death with a soft pillow, because nothing
happened in this movie. This is a sample scene:
INTERIOR OF A
TRAIN. IT’S ZOOMING THROUGH THE FRENCH COUNTRYSIDE. CUT TO INTERIOR. A YOUNG WOMAN IN HER 30s
SITS BY THE WINDOW. SHE STARES OUT. THE MAN SITTING OPPOSITE HER LOOKS AT HER.
THE CAMERA CUTS BACK TO THE WOMAN. SHE IS STILL STARING OUT THE WINDOW. THEN,
BACK TO THE MAN. THE CAMERA ZOOMS IN FOR A CLOSE UP OF HIS FACE. HE HAS NO
EMOTION. THEN BACK TO THE WOMAN.
Nobody said a
word. And that was pretty much it for five minutes. I know it was five minutes
because I peeked at my watch at the beginning of the scene and after what felt
like an hour of the camera cutting back and forth, I looked again and saw that
only five minutes had passed.
Anyway, eventually, the scene cut to
the interior of a car. The woman from the train was driving, and the man was
sitting next to her staring out the window. Nobody said anything for what felt
like hours. Eventually, the woman spoke up and this is the entire dialogue.
Woman: I want a
divorce.
Man: (Silent.)
WOMAN KEEPS
DRIVING.
That was basically the entire movie.
From beginning to end. I’m so bored even typing all this out. The ending was
the woman stepping out of her house and then slowly walking down the driveway,
out onto the street and then down a long row of houses.
As the cinema lights went up, I
turned to Karl. “What the hell was that?”
His eyes were shining. “That was amazing! So incredibly moving! I want to
see it again!”
In a classic case of life imitating
art, I didn’t speak to him and walked away. My boredom had slowly simmered into
rage. But even my rage felt bored.
It didn’t help that Saffy and Amanda
had gone to watch ‘Prometheus’ in 3D. When I got home, they were on the couch
squealing and nattering on about blood and gore, exploding spaceships, and eight-foot
tall albino aliens.
“What about that abortion scene?”
Amanda said.
Saffy’s bosom inflated in actual 3D.
“Oh my God, how scary was that? And that bit where that alien ripped off the
robot’s head?”
“Oh my God, I know! I so want to see
it again!”
Saffy turned to me. “How was your
movie, Jason?”
I said I’d just lost two hours of my
life. “It was so incredibly boring! Nothing happened! Literally! People just
sat in a train, in a car, in a lounge room, in a café, and they didn’t talk to
each other. Or they stared into space. Or they stared at someone who stared
into space!”
“I hate art-house movies!” Amanda sniffed. “They try to be so
meaningful and special. Don’t waste my time or my money!”
Saffy said that if she was going to
spend her hard-earned salary on a movie, it had better have big budget special
effects, lots of explosions, ear-crunching noise and enormous amounts of blood.
“If I wanted to see dysfunctional families being boring and not speaking to
each other, I would just look at my own life. No need to spend ten bucks on that,” she said firmly.
Amanda says that art-house movies
should rename themselves as boring-ass movies.
I said Karl had loved the movie and
that he wanted to see it again.
“He would,” Saffy puffed. “That’s what happens when you marry that
hideous woman, Marsha. You become lobotomized!”
“What’s the point of going to a movie if you’re
just going to be reminded about how boring your own life is?” Amanda added.
“Unless it’s got lots of gratuitous nudity and sex
scenes involving Michael Fassbender!” Saffy said.
“Oooh, good point! He’s hot! He’s the new Ryan
Gosling!”
“Oh God, can you imagine if Ryan Gosling had been
in ‘Shame’?”
Amanda moaned. “It’ll be like ‘Sophie’s Choice’!”
Later that week, the girls took me to ‘Prometheus’.
I don’t think I blinked the entire movie. And when it ended, all I could say
was, “That was amazing!”
Saffy sighed. “I can’t help but wonder how much
better that movie would have been if Michael Fassbender had been naked in it!”
“Oscar winning
idea, Saf,” Amanda said.
1 comment:
What's the arthouse film that you're referring to I'M DYING TO KNOW :p
Post a Comment