"Love is not a victory march it's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah." The aching intonation with which Jeff Buckley sings that line in his cover of "Hallelujah" was the first thing that reverberated through my head after watching the movie Blue Valentine. The eerie stillness. The bittersweet. Love. It's a testament to the fact that love of the deepest nature can be as painful as it is pleasure. Rarely is the totality of this aspect of our most powerful relationships accurately captured and so completely conveyed in art…in a way that makes your bones creek. It's also true that the stories we all know about love gone awry are replete with the familiar themes of the scorned woman and/or the wayward man. The woman who's man no longer loves her or maybe never did. We hardly ever discuss the opposite. Rarely has there been a movie that is able to arrest so well both the scene and the sentiment of a man sunken to his knees, grabbing at sand as the tide comes in. But the truth is while that's a refreshing plot point in Blue Valentine, that's not what makes it a good movie. In fact Blue Valentine isn't a good movie..it's haunting. It captures the deterioration of a relationship so well, the sorrow in each syllable of the word "goodbye", it's scary and it hurts. In a good way of course.
I avoided watching Blue Valentine for some time because I assumed that the name implied it would be a wildly depressing movie that's been made before. "Oh, a movie about two people who fall in love and it doesn't work out," I thought. I figured that not only had I seen that movie a thousand times, but that the buzz surrounding Blue Valentine indicated that it took extra effort to be depressing thus allowing it to qualify as being good. In retrospect I was aiming in the right direction but I missed the mark. Due to the entire movie focusing in on one couple and examining their relationship from beginning to end through a series of chronological vignettes, it properly understands and underscores the fact that often love doesn't end, it unravels. Is it a depressing movie about two people for whom it doesn't work out? Yes. But as man trying to explain to someone how and why the love of his life left him might say: I don't know how to explain it but it's more than that…
Post Script: All of the music in Blue Valentine is provided by Grizzly Bear, who's 2009 album Veckitimest was one of the best of the decade in my humble opinion. When I heard the first song at the beginning of the movie I likely became immediately biased in the films favor. That said, I still think it's a good movie on its own merits.
No comments:
Post a Comment