Recently a reader of my blog posted to me this message regarding my review of the excellent film "Rabbit Hole" that left me thinking. First for those who don't know and this is a spoiler for those who have not seen the movie. The movie deals with the grievance period of a couple eight months after their 4 year old son is struck dead by car and how one can't find anyway out of the grief and the other feels that they need to move on in order to live. This is what my reader said about the review and of the movie.
"I have a lot of artistic curiosity about this movie and want to see it, but I know that I'll never watch it. Ever since I became a mom I have absolutely no stomach for this sort of thing, no matter how well-done it may be. I appreciated reading your review, though!"
It got me to think about how we let our emotions and our fears attract us or even pull us away from certain subject matters because we feel they're to grim for us to watch and we don't want to go there. However, I know a lot of people who won't see movies where children are hurt but they're the first in line when someone whips out a hacksaw and chops up a teenager. As if a child is looked on as the holy light, usually I see children more in the Rhoda Penmark vein. Does anyone remember Rhoda? She is a character from a movie called the "The Bad Seed." She get's good grades, competes in spelling bees, dresses in frilly dresses, is polite, and even has pig tails however you get her mad and hell, she'll cut you down!! No, she'll actually kill you as she does to a child who beats her in a spelling bee and a nice old drunk handyman she set's him on fire. She's the 50's child that is in the win at all costs mode that we almost teach them today. In that movie we can watch Rhoda commit her sins and some would cheer on "spoiler alert" her death at the end of the film (sadly at the end of the play she lives) but if Rhoda was played for reality people would not be able to deal with her death.
When I was growing up my mother had three films she would not let me watch. "The Exorcist" because it was about the devil, "Midnight Cowboy" because, well I cause because it was about gay hustling and she didn't want me to pick up any tips, and "The Color Purple". I know your thinking "The Color Purple" where does that fall into those other films she said that she felt it was too depressing and that she didn't want me to see it. Needless to say I disobeyed her on all three movies and watched them all and experienced for a fifteen year old mind artistic levels that I wasn't getting with the movies that my brothers and sisters were picking out on movie night.
On the other side and as quick as my brother and sisters will argue I won't give Rambo 7 a chance in hell of watching but that's because that is a copy of a copy of copy of a genre movie that was decent the first time out.
I'm of the mind set that we live life every single day of our life's but we miss it all the time. When we watch something regardless if its a film, play, musical, television program, or hearing a song that can catch the emotions that we might have missed the first time. I generally find myself drawn to something to do with the human condition because it can help me learn something of myself or of that person who I might not have had any interest in getting to know in the first place.
StevenD
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