Monday 8 October 2001

Pic of the day: These women don't just sit around waiting for The Man to show up and be heroic. That's certainly a positive trait.

Romantic tragedy

Now, I'm not talking about my life. I've watched "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", the movie. Actually I rented the DVD. I wouldn't have minded going to the cinema to watch this one, with the usual company, but the timing was wrong. It is, usually, for that kind of thing. So I watched it alone on my computer.

I do not know enough about Chinese culture to have the faintest idea about the name. There were neither tigers nor dragons in the movie, only people, mostly doing martial arts stuff but also some love.

***

In these times, it was kinda nice to see two people who love one another and don't make out. The tentative protagonists of the film were a male and a female who were both expert fencers and all round martial artists, complete with slightly superhuman powers, but not much. When you see those leap scenes, yes they are miraculous, but within the almost mythical context of the movie they seem almost believable. (There's a lot of matrix-style leaping. Very beautiful.)

Anyway, these people are not just superhuman martial artists; they seem to be ethically superior too. Despite years and years of working together and loving each other all the time, they never do anything about it, because of their code of honor. Well, I can certainly understand that. But it made me think.

I still don't really understand romantic love. It can't possibly be very common. If one person loves another, what are the chances that the other should love the first one too? It does not seem very likely. I can rather imagine one person loving another, and the other just accepting it. But that two people should actually love each other, that seems to me at least as supernatural as those 50-feet jumps.

And when they actually do love each other, and then don't talk about it until it's too late anyway ... well, it's either even more supernatural, or really really stupid I guess. And I can't make up my mind which. Which is just too bad, since I would not be surprised if I had done the same myself, if I ever found myself in such a situation.

***

Anyway, the movie was technically quite good, never really boring. Not that I bothered to see it twice. I don't need to. But the ending was very much not Hollywood. I may not have understood the message, but to me it seemed like a certified tragedy.

But human love always has to end, right? Even if it is till death do them part ... or did it?