I watched two movies that fit together quite nicely, and both really spoke to me: The Butterfly Effect (strongly advocated by my brother or I never would have gone there) and Rabbit Hole directed by John Cameron Mitchell of my favourite film of all time: Hedwig and the Angry Inch.
There's a part in Rabbit Hole where Kidman is given a comic book created by the guy who killed her kid, and I was so afraid her husband would destroy it. I didn't care nearly as much about the kid as I did about that piece of artwork. Make a copy dammit!! He worked so hard on that. These people are not to be trusted - they're too angry and broken to be rational! Get it out of that house! Spoiler alert: the comic book was safe.
Okay, real spoiler alerts from here on in:
The Butterfly Effect is about a guy who blacks out from time to time, and realizes that he can go back to these blackout sections of time to alter the future. But what he discovers is that no matter what he does, it never makes the future perfect. He can get close, but there's always someone damaged or suffering. He decides it's best if it's him. An honourable gesture, and it all works out in the end, I guess, except he and his girl aren't together - and she was pretty happy with him.
But the take-home message is that it will never be perfect. There will always be some suffering. Deal with it. And we can never really be in control of it all. Even if you can go back to the past to save the world, you can't know how your actions there will affect everyone. Marty McFly's parents got sporty. Who knew?
Rabbit Hole is about a couple who lost their child to a car accident - hit by a teenage driver right in front of their house. The teen writes a comic book about parallel universes. After Kidman rails against the God-lovers who thinks children die because God needs more angels, her mom (Dianne Wiest - I wish she was my mom) tells her everyone needs a form of comfort. Something. For some people it's God. Give them a break already.
Kidman reads more about this parallel universe stuff, and it's clear she gets some comfort from the idea that it's possible there's a different version of her, and her family, somewhere else, and in that version they're all happy and safe. This is just the sad version here. That really helps her cope with it all. (It reminds me a lot of the Chaos episode of Community.)
Neither of those work for me, but I feel really good when I walk about outside and look at the trees and the moon. It's the same moon that you see too. It hangs out there for the whole world to see. It's constant - more or less. Nature reminds me of how small and insignificant I really am - but I mean that in the best possible way. My problems are petty little blips in the grand scheme of things. Nothing compares with eternity. And I'm part of this eternity - this galaxy. I'm larger than it all. And smaller too.
And that's okay.
There's a part in Rabbit Hole where Kidman is given a comic book created by the guy who killed her kid, and I was so afraid her husband would destroy it. I didn't care nearly as much about the kid as I did about that piece of artwork. Make a copy dammit!! He worked so hard on that. These people are not to be trusted - they're too angry and broken to be rational! Get it out of that house! Spoiler alert: the comic book was safe.
Okay, real spoiler alerts from here on in:
The Butterfly Effect is about a guy who blacks out from time to time, and realizes that he can go back to these blackout sections of time to alter the future. But what he discovers is that no matter what he does, it never makes the future perfect. He can get close, but there's always someone damaged or suffering. He decides it's best if it's him. An honourable gesture, and it all works out in the end, I guess, except he and his girl aren't together - and she was pretty happy with him.
But the take-home message is that it will never be perfect. There will always be some suffering. Deal with it. And we can never really be in control of it all. Even if you can go back to the past to save the world, you can't know how your actions there will affect everyone. Marty McFly's parents got sporty. Who knew?
Rabbit Hole is about a couple who lost their child to a car accident - hit by a teenage driver right in front of their house. The teen writes a comic book about parallel universes. After Kidman rails against the God-lovers who thinks children die because God needs more angels, her mom (Dianne Wiest - I wish she was my mom) tells her everyone needs a form of comfort. Something. For some people it's God. Give them a break already.
Kidman reads more about this parallel universe stuff, and it's clear she gets some comfort from the idea that it's possible there's a different version of her, and her family, somewhere else, and in that version they're all happy and safe. This is just the sad version here. That really helps her cope with it all. (It reminds me a lot of the Chaos episode of Community.)
Neither of those work for me, but I feel really good when I walk about outside and look at the trees and the moon. It's the same moon that you see too. It hangs out there for the whole world to see. It's constant - more or less. Nature reminds me of how small and insignificant I really am - but I mean that in the best possible way. My problems are petty little blips in the grand scheme of things. Nothing compares with eternity. And I'm part of this eternity - this galaxy. I'm larger than it all. And smaller too.
And that's okay.
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