XXY

Title : XXY (2007)

Director : Lucia Puenzo

Cast : Inez Efron, Ricardo Darin, Valeria Bertucelli,Martin Piroyanski

 

I already got this DVD since quite sumtimes, and only last week got to see it. This movie won 17 awards and got 11 nominations on several film festivals.

nah, last week, i saw two movies in a row, one of it is “XXY”.

Alex, is a 15 years old troubled girl living in a city by the sea in Uruguay. They live in the remote area to hide Alex. She have a “medical condition” which is embarassing for her parents. The movie subject is uncomfortable. tells story about people with multiple gender and how they cope with daily life. Alex, in this case raise as a girl, but closer to her adolescent day, she becomes more masculine.

Her parent invite family friend to stay over. This family friend consist of a surgeon Father, a delicate mother and a boy at Alex age. Alex’s parent intended to decide whether they will make Alex a girl or a boy permanently.

He’s a girl. She’s a boy.

Adolescence is a roller coaster ride, and for a hermaphrodite things could get even scarier.

I love this movie. Lucia Puenzo dare to take this subject and make it a beautiful learning for all of us. It reminds me of Sofia Coppola and her “Virgin Suicides”.

This movie is a well written, acted, directed and filmed drama.

The Time Traveller’s Wife

The Time Traveller’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

 

 

 

 

This morning i opened my Friendster’s profile intended to edit my profile on Fave books section. I Wrote down my very own “Life Changing Books”, as soon as i put “The Time Traveller’s Wife” in it, i realised i haven’t write any review yet on this book, what a shame.

Here it goes.

The prologue is unforgetable, the momen i read those first pages i knew it was a great book.

CLARE: It’s hard being left behind. I wait for Henry, not knowing where he is, wondering if he’s okay. It’s hard to be the one who stays. I keep myself busy. Time goes faster that way.

I go to sleep alone, and wake up alone. I take walks. I work until I’m tired. I watch the wind play with the trash that’s been under the snow all winter. Everything seems simple until you think about it. Why is love intensified by absence?

 

Henry: All my pleasures are homey ones: armchair splendor, the sedate excitements of domesticity. All I ask for are humble delights. A mystery novel in bed, the smell of Clare’s long red-gold hair damp from washing, a postcard from a friend on vacation, cream dispersing into coffee, the softness of the skin under Clare’s breasts, the symmetry of grocery bags sitting on the kitchen counter waiting to be unpacked. I love meandering through the stacks at the library after the patrons have gone home, lightly touching the spines of the books. These are the things that can pierce me with longing when I am displaced from them by Time’s whim.

And Clare, always Clare. Clare in the morning, sleepy and crumple-faced. Clare with her arms plunging into the papermaking vat, pulling up the mold and shaking it so, and so, to meld the fibers. Clare reading, with her hair hanging over the back of the chair, massaging balm into her cracked red hands before bed. Clare’s low voice is in my ear often.

I hate to be where she is not, when she is not. And yet, I am always going, and she cannot follow.

This -partly romance, partly science fiction-novel is warm, witty, passionate, sensual, simply imagine yourself in a rollercoaster. A ride thru time and life that deeply moving. I have to fought tears several times, soppy i know. Altho the story jumped forward and backward you won’t get lost. It takes no effort for all it’s twisting timeline crossing. From time to time, Henry and Clare always found each other, try to live their life to the fullest at the moment while waiting for Henry to unavoidly jump to another timeline. An abnormal gene caused it.

This book shows you that Love, is not easy cos when it’s easy it’s just a forgetable fling.

 

aaaannndd…the Movie is coming! oo yea, i really wanna do the Chandler dance when i found out about it. Rachel McAdams will play Claire Abshire and Eric Bana as Henry de Tamble. I saw in IMDB that the movie will be released on Dec 25th 2008 in USA, hhh…just wondering when will it hit theatres in Indo.

Lolita

Title       : Lolita

Author   : Vladimir Nabokov

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Above is the cover of the first edition published by Olympia Press Paris in 1955. It’s been years i’ve been wanting to read this masterpiece, for it’s been titled as one of the three most influenting novel in 20th century and TIME 100 Best English-languange Novels from 1923-2005.

So last week was the time, and i must say, there’s a part of me changed after reading this book, the same feeling i had when i read “The History of Love” by Nicole Krauss.

The center of the story is Prof. Humbert whose obsessed to a 12 years old girl, Dolores Haze. His obsession with young girls is a result of his lost of his childhood sweetheart, Annabel Leigh whose died from Typhus. Annabel Leigh, i believe, is named after “Annabel Lee” a famous poem by Edgar Allan Poe which is happens to be one of my fav poem. that’s why i instantly recognized the similarity. Part of their young love seems to borrowed from the poem.

Humbert rent a room in Dolores house (later refer as, Lolita) to get close to his muse and later marry her mother to fulfil his wild fantasy to the teenager.

after Charlotte Haze died in an accident, Humbert takes Lolita moves from state to state and bribes her for his sexual needs. Lolita, alone and frightened has no choice but to accept HUmbert into her life on his terms.

We read the story from Humbert point of view, as if it is his personal journal. altho what happen in it is an obsession of a pedophile, you won’t find explicit description about the sexual activities.

HUmbert, who is supposedly disgusting sumhow i found his character as sad, loner, and in eternal pain which makes me love him for some reason. as always, i love a villain with a lot of side that writer share with reader. It makes bad person a human, and we found ourself in some of their minors. well, not the pedophile of course…..

Where can i find the Movie? please, really want to see it. desperately…. The novel was filmed twice, on 1962 and on 1997. Based on my browsing, the 1962 version is more to it. it Granted Sue Lyon Golden Globe Award (as Lolita)  as the Most Promising New Comer and Vladimir Nabokov nominated for Oscar on best screenplay adaptation.

The Wednesday Letters

Title      : The Wednesday Letters

Author  : Jason F. Wright

 

“The Wednesday Letters” is one of two my-last-week book. Yay! cheers for me, i’m back on track, reading two books in a week.

However, i must admit that i’m shallow by picking up this book from bookshelves in Gramedia Grand Indonesia, based on it’s oh-so-cute cover and a little noteable note that it was a New York Times Best Sellers. yea, i’m weak and easily believe New York Times picks.

The cover is very unique, shaped as an envelopes with replica of stamp on behind and on the last page there’s a white envelope contained pages of handwrited letters. I skipped reading it, saving the best for last.

“The Wednesday Letters” tells a story of three siblings, re-united on their parents funeral, trying to catch up and forgive each other. later they found thousands of Wednesday Letters their father wrote to their mom from their wedding day to the last day of their life. The letters reveal not only the warm and pure love but also a disastrous secret that may destroy the family bond. It’s a story about family value, love, forgiveness and honor. Jason F. Wright wanted to convince us that love and magic does exist.

As for me, the story is beautiful and entertaining but just not “wow” that i would include it to my very own “Unforgetable books” list. But definitely, it’s a must read book.